Down and out in Cairo, part two, a new day DID come

Yes, I realize my site is a city/urban blog.  But from time to time I just cannot resist commenting on the events of the world.  And after all, as I said before, Cairo IS a city, and a very mysterious, vast, and beautiful one in a shabby, dusty, ancient way.  And Tahrir Square is the center of that magnificient city and in a sense, the center of the world for the last 3 weeks.  

   I could use a cliche, and I think I will.  Today we are ALL Egyptians.  They won!  The people won.  They won their freedom in a bloodless revolution that reminds me of when Ghandi staged his peaceful revolution in India that ended the British Raj.  Yes people died.  People were hurt and wounded.  But not by the army of the 'empire' coming down upon them, but by the dictator's secret police and thugs snipping and running down with camels and running over with trucks.. drive by hit and run artists.  But that wasn't enough to still the nobel hordes, the peaceful youth who came with signs that read, 'game over'.  So we are all Egyptians, all people who value freedom.  Freedom of expression, freedom of internet, and writting and blogging and music.  The people who value and love democracy won the day.  And the old men harkening back to Stalin, Saddam and the purveyors of repression found themselves simply out of touch.  Left behind by the tide of progress.  How can a dictator maintain control in the old ways when anyone can publish anything, text anyone, call on a phone they hold in their hands?  

   Information is the coin of the realm.  Information is the key to sucess.  To inovation.  To revoluton.  They cannot supress it anymore.  Its a new age.  A new energy.  It cannot be stopped with fear.  Fear is over when the truth of 'you have nothing to fear but fear itself' becomes a glaring reality.  A revolution started with technology and youthful energy actually won the day.  It won the day without guns and killing and war and robespierre's guillotine.  

   Watching those moments, those hours and days in Tahrir Square amazed me and sent shivers of pride for humanity coursing through my body.  There was no burning of the American flag, no jihadist retoric, no bombs.  There were muslims guarding christians holding mass and christians guarding muslims holding daily prayers.  There were young people singing songs and families taking their children out to witness history.  And all they wanted was freedom.  How elegant.  

   And this democracy was not imposed on them at the end of a gun or by bombs.  It emerged on its own volition when the time was ripe.  Like a bulb in the ground will send its shoots to seek the sun when the time is right.   Democracy grows within a people because its a normal thing, a natural thing.  But it can lay dorment for centuries, and will not arise before its time.  But as surely as seeds planted the year before, when the time is right, it WILL sprout.  Not forced, but by its own natural unfolding.  And like the seed sending its shoot through solid rock, just as irresistable.  

   I don't claim to speculate what may and will happen now.  I don't know.  But I want to believe that this force, this irresistable urge to be free will take hold and won't be hijacked by agents of a past era.  I want to believe that there is no turning back.  As the Google executive Wael Ghonim, the man who started it all with a facebook page said, 'you can kidnap us, shoot us, kill us, but you can't stop us.  Its too late'.  He knew.  Because information is the coin of the realm.  

   I wish them the most luck, the most sucess.  And like Egypt was in an ancient time, the light of the world, I hope and trust it can shine a new light on the Arab world that there is a middle way.  That you don't need to chose between dictatorship on the one hand, and jihad on the other.  A dictator overthrown in a bloodless, almost bloodless, revolution.  Who knew it was possible?