Wednesday, February 9, 2011

They want a voice

I have been busy with personal issues the last few days: we have moved to our new home, and we love it.  Lots of work, but a happy change in our lives.

Egypt continues on with both sides trying to wear the other side down.  The old order thinks it can last it out with the protesters eventually running out of enthusiasm.  But, the forces of freedom seem to have been unleashed, and it looks to me like the protests are persisting and continue to expand, now escalating into strikes, including at the Suez canal.  Without revenues from the Suez canal and from tourism, which is way down now, the government might not be able to sustain itself.

I am encouraged that the revolution stands a pretty good chance of not being taken over by the Islamist extremists.  The government that follows the fall of Mubarak is almost certain to be more Muslim than the existing one, but I think that the young people who are rising up will be able to resist a new form of repression and tyranny that a radical Islamist regime would try to impose.

What the Egyptian people really seem to want is a voice, to be free to speak, and an opportunity to create a life for themselves and their children.  When the oppressed can smell a better future, the forces of freedom can become irresistible.  

I place my bet on the forces of revolution in Egypt, and I put my hopes on those same forces rejecting the potential tyrannies of fundamentalist Islamist extremists.