Egypt's uprising
No one knows how the Egyptian drama will play out. But it has so far
confirmed the extraordinary power that can be exerted by ordinary people
when they are organized, determined and peaceful.
No one knows how the Egyptian drama will play out. But it has so far
confirmed the extraordinary power that can be exerted by ordinary people
when they are organized, determined and peaceful.
It always feels a bit odd to me to pray for justice in the world--better to work for
justice and to pray for the courage and wherewithal to keep at it. Of
course, I know that my power to effect change is relatively small, and I
believe that God's is infinite. So I pray for justice, even though mere
words seem too easy even as I'm saying them.
Every significant act of protest has its iconic image: the barricades in Paris in the 1960s, the Berlin Wall in the ’80s, the roadside war-protest camps leading to George W. Bush’s Texas home in recent years. Today, two images from Egypt linger in my mind.
One is a woman my mother's age placing a very
determined kiss on a
young soldier's cheek. (My teenage daughter noted that he doesn't look
thrilled.)
In an interview with Oxford professor Michael Willis
about Tunisia, Radio Free Europe correspondent Hossein Aryan noted that "there
has not been a religious dimension to the unrest" in the Middle East. This is
quickly becoming the conventional wisdom.