And Jimmy Carter said, not a single one.
I find it impossible to not be slightly inspired by the sights and sounds of hundreds of thousands of people holding their own in Cairo. I find it inspiring that the Egyptian government’s decision to shut down the Internet not only failed to diminish the number of protesters but actually increased them, quite significantly in fact. I find it very inspiring when doctors and lawyers and other suited professionals walk off the job and join their fellow Egyptians on the streets and in the squares. I find it inspiring when powerful people are forced to yield to sheer volume.
In spite of the inspiration, I know almost nothing about Egypt, and I have many questions. What’s it like to live and work in Cairo? What’s it like to be a woman there? How’s the job market? What percentage of income, typically, goes to rent? Do Egyptians have nationalized healthcare? What are the gay bars like in Alexandria? What about the pyramids? Is the air noticeably cooler when you’re in the shadow of one of them? Are there reality television shows in Egypt? Are there bike lanes in downtown Cairo?
My biggest question is painfully obvious: If the alliance between Egypt and the U.S. are so strategic, so strong, did the U.S. not see this coming? With all our “intelligence” scattered around the world, did we not have an inkling that close to a million people were about to gather in a public square and make it clear as crystal that soaring speeches and redundant rhetoric are no longer applicable? Wasn’t this all on Facebook? Or was this uprising similar to our financial crisis, in that just happened on its own accord? Daily, if not hourly, I mourn the loss of wonder, the loss of a sense of magic about the world. There is too much data, too much documentation, and even though much of it is wrong, there is too much information. But man, when it comes to money and international relations, mystery abounds.
Even though the news has been pretty much all Egypt all the time for the last three weeks, I have heard precious little about the people of Cairo. That’s because the sole focus of coverage thus far has been how the demonstrations will impact us, how we should look after “our interests” and what President Obama should say and do (the title “president” has not been preceded during this event by the term “U.S.,” which I find alarming). The big guns come on one show after another and explain, with absolute confidence, what this or that means, what the president of Egypt (now resigned) is thinking, what will happen next.
On Sunday morning, in Portland, Oregon, I overheard a conversation that reminded me of how I’d reacted to the coverage of the protests in Egypt. Two guys were sitting in front of me – both in their mid-fifties, I’d guess, both white – discussing it. “What’s so amazing to me,” one began, in a musical voice, “is how peaceful it was. Imagine overthrowing the president without having to resort to violence!” Yes, I thought, imagine. While I didn’t necessarily dismiss what the man said as untrue, I still had questions: I wanted to ask the man how he knew that there had been no violence, I wanted to ask where he gets his news, but I didn’t. It was Sunday morning, after all.
