kinetic history

What I just heard about Egypt, a reporter on the street level repeating what he had heard in the celebration:  the people simply want their basic freedoms.  He quoted a person saying, “We want our own  America.”  (I wish I’d heard that myself.)  The people are dancing in the streets.  How long can people yell and sing at the top of their lungs, because as I write this, I have been listening to them for almost an hour!  When I heard that Mubarak had stepped down, I thought, this is their fourth of July, a day they will talk about for the next hundreds of years. And I was filled with joy.

But I’m afraid I don’t really understand what’s happening there.  All I know I hear through the media, so I don’t know whose interpretation of the events is meaningful.  Myself? I strongly suspect that the military allowed all of this—because I’m pretty sure they could have ended the protest abruptly and violently if the outgoing president had ordered it, or if the military had simply taken action.  I am very relieved that the president stepped down without coup.  This is all very hopeful stuff.

There are always powers waiting in the shadows.  There are always people who raise the alarm about that.  And there are always people who consider an alarm nothing but paranoia.  Again, all of this plays out on a global stage, and feel very small and kind of stupid about it all.

What I  hope comes of this is that the people will realize that they do have power, that they can step up and curtail the power of bully governments – if they hold together. That people all over the world see this and take heart, and take their fates in their own hands, peacefully and with strength, rejecting men who would take control of their lives by coercion and force.  In terms of religion, I do not believe there is any true religion where there governments of any kind can compel the practice of it.  So the Islam that will come out of this may be stronger and more in the heart than influenced by fear and force.

But what happens next will, I’m thinking, be a precursor to history, predicting a future that can change the lives of every person on every part of the planet.  Certainly, events triggered by the choices of religious extremists have already slammed into the way we have to live some of the once mundane parts of our lives.   I hope, I pray that there will be a real free election now, that the people will understand the responsibility that power has just handed them—that Egypt will not now fall into far uglier hands than those they have knocked away.

A few days ago, I heard a person who has been called a radical imam say that the hope of his brotherhood is to have the entire world living under sharia law so that women “will have the freedom to wear the berka.”  Every woman. Everywhere.  He made the statement very simply, with a supremely reasonable look on his face.  It chilled me.  How prevalent is this kind of intention?  How can we in the West know? For so many of us, our only brush with Islam has been 9/11 and the hair-raising tales that sell the news.

So, we wait to see.  We wait to see what happens.  Some things were said by Iran in the last hour that are anything but peaceful and civilized.  The hole in the ozone that people have stressed over for decades is nothing next to the great open hole now opened by people who have lately dreamed of freedom.  How will they fill it?

I want to add to what I read this morning.  A good friend of ours who teaches Arabic and has spent a lot of time in the middle east wrote this:

Greetings from Qatar, friends and family! I’ve got just a few minutes before I get on a plane. Got to share something of this day with you.

What a day! An amazing day. Two months ago no one was close to dreaming that the Arab world’s largest nation would stand up to its dictator. And educated youth who dared to dream led the way! They’ve inspired so many people here in the Arab world. Plenty of challenges ahead, no doubt about it, but exciting stuff.

I hope you won’t buy the boogeyman stuff that some are trying to sell (and I mean SELL–the fear-mongering does indeed sell papers, agendas…). Mubarak’s been peddling that line quite successfully to Washington for 30 yrs.. Is Islamist extremism a concern? Sure, just as Neo-nazis in Germany are. But hardline Islamists are definitely on the fringe–and they’ve lost ground in the past 15 years (unlike Neo-nazis in Germany). People have seen their fruits and are wary. Your ordinary Egyptian is about as interested in an Iran-style theocracy as your ordinary Latter-day Saint wants to see Mitt Romney elected and force everyone to get baptized and carry a temple recommend.

Please don’t confuse conservative Muslims who distrust what the West is selling and thinks that living by Islamic Law is better with a Wahabi jihadist. You can think of how our own faith tradition all too often gets lumped with wackos.

You should see the elation here for Egyptians. The HOPE for a better world. People are sick and tired of oppressive regimes. If you’re not, I invite you to celebrate with these good folks who’ve shown great strength, vision. Read some of their blogs. And pray for them. They’re going to need a lot of help. Just as our own nation and others did as they matured.

The people of Egypt have spoken and chosen freedom. What a day!

All the best!

Kirk

So maybe I’ll stop watching the news now.