Speaking of
serendipity, I was getting ready to write about this episode of The World
Tomorrow when I happened to run across an interesting sentence in Flight, a novel by Sherman Alexie. It’s spoken by Justice, an evil boy genius
who befriends Zits, the book’s juvenile delinquent, first-person narrator. Justice says, when speaking to his new best
buddy, “Remember, revolution is not about spontaneous combustion. The true revolutionary must set himself
aflame.”
What
Justice said reminded me of Julian Assange’s conversation with these Occupy
activists. Of course, I couldn’t help
noticing how often they kept referring to “the Arab Spring.” Living in one of the countries where this “flowering”
is taking place, I felt like I wanted to comment on Justice’s quote, the London
conversation, and Egypt’s current situation.
What
happened last year in Egypt felt like spontaneous combustion, especially since
it all transpired so quickly. When the
flames finally died down, the ashes of an old political arrangement could be
seen in many different places.
Today’s
Egypt is definitely aflame. In fact, I
would say that the country is inflamed.
It’s swollen and fevered. Now,
instead of ashes, we have, once again, a white-hot heat.
Last year,
when Mubarak stepped down, I felt energized and enthusiastic. I wanted to contribute to the making of a new
Egypt. This year, I find that I’m very
tired. The strain of the current
uncertainty of things is exhausting.
When I talk with others about Egyptian politics today, I’m reluctant to
give my opinion. I don’t know who is
right and who is wrong and which way the country should go. In short, I feel befuddled and paralyzed.
It occurs
to me that revolutions are very romantic in their early stages. Later on, there is a great potential for
tragedy.
Three times
this past spring semester, the bus I was on in morning, the one taking me to
work at the university, came to a stop on the highway. That’s because the road, up ahead, was being
blocked by a mob of angry, young men, some of whom were throwing stones and
generally causing mayhem. The second
time this happened I was sitting next to a visiting professor from
Chicago. I turned to her and said, “It sometimes
feels like Egypt is becoming unhinged.”
“How long
have you been here?” she asked.
“Nearly four
years.”
“Well, I’ve
been here only one, but I generally get that sense too.”
In the days
that followed, I have repeatedly asked myself these questions. Were these youths doing a good thing (or not)
in expressing themselves this way? What,
specifically, were their grievances? What
are people to do when they feel powerless and frustrated? What is their best course of action?
I wish I
knew the answer to these questions.
