Egypt is turning my world upside down.
Suddenly, the Earth’s center of mass has shifted, and I am suffering the most acute vertigo of my adult life.
I am trying diligently to be an informed person, to understand the world around me, yet the harder I try, the more I realize how difficult the endeavor is.
The more I learn, the more questions I have.
How could our government fund this dictatorial regime?
Why don’t we emphatically encourage this inspiring mobilization of public will with the same democratic zeal we do when we regurgitate the cultural mythology and rhetoric we associate with our own revolution?
I’ve scoured newspapers. I’ve read articles on my phone. I’ve watched political analysts compare their opinions of what is best for the people of Egypt. Yet I can’t help but feel even more confused and troubled than I was before.
For example, in my attempt to overcome my ignorance, I’ve found our own politicians do little to illuminate to me what the hell is going on. They don’t even help me understand what we are or are not doing in midst of this political turmoil. They make bombastic statements that dance deftly around the most relevant details. How is that productive? How is that responsible? These people — these people whose salary we pay — speak in this fantastic dialect of nonsense. For what? For why? It’s infuriating!
Furthermore, there are so many details to the Egyptian revolution that raise so many questions about the biases I’ve learned.
As one of countless examples, the Egyptian revolution is making me reevaluate my perspective of the people we colloquially refer to as “hackers.”
It has always seemed to me we culturally despise hackers. They disrupt the ebb and flow of our economic system. However, when the Egyptian government deactivated primary communication media, it was hackers who helped disseminate information about the revolution beyond Egyptian borders and thereby place Mubarak under the scrutiny of the international community.
So, is my bias of hackers founded in reality or warped by the agenda of our own government? Who is really fighting for liberty?
My answer?
I don’t know.
That is precisely what so deeply troubles me. How is it that in the information age, it can be so tremendously difficult to evaluate veracity — to determine who is full of shit?
Of all the realities I’ve struggled to accept, the one that smothers me most is that our government knew how oppressive Mubarak was and did nothing. America, the “land of the free and the home of the brave,” did nothing.
When I accepted this, I wondered why. Luckily, I was able to find an answer to that question.
We did nothing, because it served our agenda. We needed a foothold in the Arab world, and Mubarak was more than happy to offer that to us in return for military funding.
Granted, I’m aware the explanation is undoubtedly more multifaceted than that, however, that is one of the more relevant facets.
What disenchants me further is thinking of the millions of Arab people who have suffered at the hands of the oppressive dictatorial regimes that we’ve either established or supported; people who have been institutionally deprived of basic human rights, wrongfully imprisoned, mercilessly tortured, or viciously murdered.
Then I think about the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and as much as I abhor the actions of those men, I can’t help but wonder, what makes us any different? Why is it when underfunded, politically-desperate regimes kill the civilians of industrialized nations, it’s terrorism, if when over-funded industrialized governments kill the civilians of third world nations, it’s war? What is the distinction?
Once again, I don’t know how to answer these questions.
All I can say is I saw a video online of an Egyptian police van mowing down civilian protestors as though they were blades of grass. I heard the screams of victims and horrified observers.
Shortly thereafter, I read President Barack Obama publicly emphasized the lesson to be learned from Egypt is political change can be made without violence.
It makes me think of “America” and of the last line of a Bruce Springsteen song I heard as a child while riding in the back my parents’ minivan.
“Is a dream a lie that don’t come true, or is it something worse?”
