Egypt – May You Avoid the Mistakes of the Past
“A revolution is as natural a growth as an oak. It comes out of the past. Its foundations are laid far back [Wendell Phillips].”
“Revolutions go not backward [Ralph Waldo Emerson].”
“Revolutions are the locomotives of history [Karl Marx].”
A glance at three of the greatest revolutions in our history:
The English Revolution
“Corrupt autocratic king is overthrown and executed, there’s a civil war. Democratic(ish) parliament is created, bickers in factions, dissolves into a farce. A military dictator seizes power and creates totalitarian(esque) state.”
The French Revolution
“A corrupt autocratic king is overthrown and executed. There’s a civil war. A democratic(ish) council is created, splits into murderous factions and ends in anarchy. A military dictator seizes power and creates totalitarian(esque) state.”
The Russian Revolution
“An autocratic Tsar is overthrown and executed. There’s a civil war, an democratic(ish) regime is created, which is impotent and counter coup occurs. A dictator backed by his own paramilitary seizes power and creates totalitarian(esque) state.”
And now The Nile Revolution…
Congratulations then Egypt on your largest celebrations since the Pharaohs and without much of the worst of the 3 Great Revolutions!
Congratulations again that the whole drama was 18 days young and again on the casualties – so low!
Congratulations on the intelligent form and dynamics of your movement!
Congratulations to your Army too on the way they cooled the volcano and are shepherding the nation to free elections next September!
And praise after all to Mubarak also for a patient subtle retreat!
Egypt, we do remember the early 1950s, when your older military stars were loyal to the monarchy, while the younger ones backed the revolution.
One of those young officers was Gamal Abd-u Nasser.
Yet Nasser’s Egypts was soon a police state backed by the military. And that was what was inherited by Anwar Sadat, and again from him by air force jet bomber Hosni Mubarak.
And Great Egypt so a prayer too: May not this recent history repeat itself! May not the evils that accompanied the 3 Great Revolutions accompany yours! May this revolution prove not just a transfer of power but a correction of abuses! May it truly lighten the burden of tyranny and not just shift it to another shoulder! May it not just shatter the authority of one for another! May it not just be “revolution = an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment (The Devil’s Dictionary)!” May it not be that you have been trading the devil you knew for a devil you have yet to meet! May it not ultimately prove a mere change of your purchased Lords by their Overlords away! May it not be that “The revolution, like Saturn, devours its children!”
Great Egypt: Live Long and Truly Be Great!
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