CAIRO — The sea of people pulsated with energy, galvanized by the words of Wael Ghonim, the young Google executive who got the Mubarak treatment — 12-day disappearance, blindfolding, interrogation — before a tweet that will one day be etched in some granite memorial: "Freedom is a bless that deserves fighting for it."
So begins Wael Ghonim's Egypt, this morning's fantastic NY Times column by Roger Cohen. Read it.
Let me repeat myself. Read Cohen. Also, read Nicholas Kristof, in Obama and Egypt’s Future. These are two journalists who know Egypt.
But I want to focus on Cohen, in part because he is lesser to known to Americans (Kristof does have 2 Pulitzers), but also because people should remember this - he is a Jew writing about Arab Muslims who trust him.
Consider, for example, the words Cohen received from Ahmed el-Shamy, a Pfizer executive who is 54:
"Our youth makes fear history," he said.
Or consider a sign Cohen saw among the demonstrators:
"Tahrir Square — closed for constitutional changes."
Cohen has seen repressive regimes before. He wrote cogently about the tragedy of Bosnia, especially of the people of Sarajevo, in one of the most powerful columns I have ever read (about which I wrote in I am so tempted to violate copyright - and that title might be applicable to many of his columns). He seems to have an understanding of the process of change when it occurs. He seems able to make sense for us here in America of what is happening in regimes about which we have little understanding.
For example, consider these words:
Everything I hear suggests the army will not fire on its own people. Mubarak does not dare order them to shoot for fear of the response. Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, his defense minister, has strong views on this subject. He expressed them to a senior Western diplomat during the Tunisian uprising: The army exists to defend the nation, not a regime.
If the army won’t shoot, the protesters won’t disperse, leaving the stand-off: Until he goes, they remain.
And Cohen can provide parallels that increase our understanding that others might be afraid to make, as he does here:
The days of a dictatorship that won’t — or can’t — use brutality in crisis are probably numbered. Compare the events of 1989: Berlin and Tiananmen. It’s time for Mubarak to take a Nile cruise; he’ll be the only client. Then Ghonim can declare liberated Egypt open for business.
We sometimes have trouble grasping how important the younger generations are in Arab nations: their populations heavily tilt much younger than ours. It is the younger people - who are more "wired" and who desperately seek opportunity that provides a crucial element in the impetus for changes that we have been seeing - in Tunisia as well as in Egypt. We saw some of it as well in the unsuccessful movement in Persian Iran.
The aforementione Pfizer executive recognizes the meaning of the youth in what has happened:
"My generation grew to think we can accept anything," El-Shamy said. "But the youth, they refresh us, remind us of dignity, fairness, freedom."
His 21 year old son Omar, a university student, chimed in as well:
"Maybe Mubarak thought he’s controlled things," Omar said. "But lies don’t last."
Cohen writes of the law professors at Cairo University now insisting upon Egypt becoming a nation of laws. He suggests America's interests might best be served by supporting the young people, changing Egypt into "a participatory society that would return Egypt to its pivotal place in the Arab world and give the young hope."
I thought about those words as I read, and then thought about the young people with whom I am every school day, with whom I will again be in less than 3 hours. I remembered how important that single word was in inspiring so many to work for Obama in 2007-2008, four simple letters, HOPE. I know what is happening in Egypt is affecting my students - a number of them went outside the bounds of a recent assignment because they felt impelled to wriote about what is happening there, and there were specific references to the young people.
As I considered this I wondered how much hope we still are offering them. My commitment to teaching is an act of faith, of a hope for them, that I can help them make a difference in the messed-up world we are leaving them. Messed up, debt ridden, riven by bitter politics, often dominated by selfishness and fear. Somehow many of them persist, remain optimistic that they can make a difference.
That provides for me another reason that US policy should be encouraging as rapid a transition as possible. Kristof argues that our fear about the Muslim Brotherhood is very much overstated, that recent opinion polls suggest they would draw only around 15% of the votes. Perhaps our State Department and White House should read that data. Cohen tells us that Mubarak has zero credibility in the idea of him transitioning the nation to full democracy.
You should read both Kristof and Cohen today. I appreciate both.
I especially appreciate Cohen, so let me offer my wish now,
Peace
... and then close as he closes, for perhaps his words can also give us hope:
I walked out of the square between two tanks. The gap between them was two feet wide. You had to crouch and squirm. Women went through with little kids. Behind us were thousands of people. One surge and we would all have been crushed. I thought: If we can pass unscathed through the eye of this needle, Egypt can tread the narrow path to better days. The tragedy of Mubarak is that he underestimated his own people.