Egypt is Free!!!
Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the great island of Nantucket! Great to be with you on this Saturday morning, the twelfth day of February, 2011, and with the dawning of a new and cold day here on the little sand bar created by the Last Great Ice Age 11,500 years ago, a new day has also dawned on the ancient country of Egypt, a country with over 8,000 years of history in it’s own right, a country that has been ruled by Pharaoh’s, Kings and strongmen for countless generations, and yet, yesterday, after 18 days of popular revolution by the PEOPLE, the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak fell and the people wept with JOY. WE, the world at large, have never witnessed a Revolution quite like this one–sparked in Tunisia, a little over two months ago, with a street merchant being slapped in the face, followed by the symbolism of a single man setting himself on fire. The remarkable fashion in which this PEACEFUL revolution unfolded is stunning, for it took no guns, no bullets, no lives, save the lives of the martyrs who gave their life for a cause that can be summed up in one word–FREEDOM! For over thirty years the people of Egypt, many young and poor, yet educated and tech savvy, have lived under the auspices of fear and violence promulgated via the brutal dictatorship of Mubarak, many daring not attempt to upset the secret police that have kept the masses under tight control for these past three decades, imprisoning many, torturing more, while keeping an ever watchful eye on any dissidents or ‘agitators’, who may have caused them trouble in the past or might have caused them trouble in the future–all while many in the country live on less than two dollars a day. The faces of the protesters last night said it all. Tahrir Square erupted in a frenzy of JOY, LOVE and PEACE after the announcement was made that this hated man, President Mubarak, would not return to Cairo again, after he had fled earlier in the day for a resort to the south, and that he had, indeed, stepped down from his hold on the Egyptian people forever. As the news of this sank in– whereas 24 hours ago it had been dashed away by the image of that same man vowing to hold on to power–the mood in the square, filled with hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of people, could be bottled and sold as pure, unadulterated bliss, accompanied by that uncontainable JOY, as Muslims, Christians, soldiers, men, women, children, young people, merchants, doctors, lawyers and perhaps the spirits themselves hugged, kissed and danced in the streets until the wee hours of the night, waving their Egyptian flags proudly, as well they should, and shooting off fireworks as they all chanted, “Egypt is free, Egypt is free, Egypt is FREE! As a man holding his little girl said so profoundly yesterday, as he held her tight in his arms trying to hold back tears and a smile that could light up the whole of the earth, “This day will be remembered forever, my little girl will read about this in books when she grows up.” Another man put it wonderfully when he said, “We all said to each other, there will be no blood, as we all chanted PEACE, PEACE, PEACE!” How can this remarkable event be put into words–other than there has been a tectonic shift, a shift of consciousness–where the world, perhaps by being more connected to their fellow human beings around the globe, has witnessed and felt, perhaps for the first time, a real revolution, from the bottom up, comprised not of lead bullets, or lead by politicians, but orchestrated by the WILL of the people, where the use of violence was NOT an option–other than the few days where they needed to defend themselves from the mindless thuggery, symbolic of the previous administration’s tactics–rather, it’s WILL employed the SPIRIT of the People’s persistence and the fierce urgency of NOW, embracing the hopes and dreams of the FUTURE and, if need be, die trying. What the world witnessed yesterday and is comprehending today, is a milestone in our human history, for we know now that REVOLUTION can occur peaceably, without the needless, endless call to arms, that acts only as an accelerate, a catalyst, towards the destructive and useless action of violence. Never before in my life have I seen such tears of joy stream down every face I saw on the television screen in a country that seems so far away, and yet, is not really, for do we not ALL, as members of the human race, feel a great sense of relief for our suppressed brothers and sisters in that far away land? Do we not feel a real kinship to their cause and their plight? We, as a nation, have only been around for 236 years, not a long time in the grand scheme of things, when you put it in geological perspective, or from the perspective of human civilization at large, for the people that we see on our television screens are descendants of a people that have been around for over 8000 years, and this event marks the first time this generation will see it’s children not suffer under the same fate as they did. The United States of America, a nation that has been around for so little “time”, should not presume to know all of the answers to what comes next, for this week end, should be set aside for celebration. Like our forefathers before us, who suffered under brutal dictatorship themselves and fought the oppression with their lives at stake to create a more perfect union, a democratic “idea”, whose concepts have now reached the river Nile and have taken root in the hearts and minds of the Egyptian people…somehow, somewhere, Mr. Thomas Jefferson is smiling down upon us right now, yes, like our forefathers before us, these common, yet very uncommon Egyptian people deserve the same credit as men like Jefferson, Adams and Franklin, for they passed the 18 day test that will go down as one of the greatest achievements in the name of Freedom ever witnessed by the whole of mankind living on planet earth. My continued prayers to the people of Egypt, that your triumph over tyranny may gain ever more footing and that you reach, especially the young people of that great nation, rise and meet your potential, bringing peace, stability and grace to your lives and the lives of everyone you touch. Have a nice week end everybody! PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M
