By Jeff Wright
The day before our In the Footsteps tour group boarded flights to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, Egyptian youth were boarding buses to gather in Cairo. Protesters were planning – once again – to confront the oppressive government of President Hosni Mubarak. Along our way every day, tour participants watched the events unfolding just south of us, praying that the popular uprising might not end in violence and defeat.
The uprising, led in large part by young adults hungering for a political, social and economic freedom their parents had not known, produced extraordinary and unexpected fruit.
Just two hours ago, after thirty years of rule, Mubarak threw in the towel. In spite of brutal intervention by Mubarak’s goons, demonstrators remained remarkably peaceful. The protest was eventually joined by judges, members of the poverty-ridden working class, physicians in their white coats and, finally, many Egyptian soldiers. Gathered as one – their chant was “We are all Egyptians” – Muslims, Christians and others joined hands and hearts and nonviolently overthrew a brutally oppressive regime.
It bears repeating. A brutally repressive regime, which for thirty years had shaped the lives of nearly eighty million people, was toppled without raising a fist or firing a gun.
No one knows what will come next. We hope for the best.
But once exposed, what the Apostle Paul calls “the powers and principalities” (Romans 6:12) do not go quietly. As worshippers in the synagogue in Capernaum witnessed, they resist by way of a violent shaking and loud shrieks (Mark 1:21-27).
So we watch and pray. Some of us will act. We will become more informed about our nation’s overt and covert support of the Mubarak regime. We’ll explore the difficult and complex realities of living in a country that has taken on the responsibility of policing much of the world. We’ll speak up. There are no easy answers.
But as hundreds of thousands of Egyptians have shown the world — gathered across what many have seen as insurmountable spiritual and social divides – the way forward is fueled by faith, hope and love.
As you seek to make sense of life in the Middle East, I suggest that you add the following to your list of sources. Both are well-informed and offer commentary beyond the mainstream narratives.
- Robert Fisk is journalist who has lived much of his life in the Middle East (www.independent.co.uk/opinion);
- James Wall, former editor of Christian Century magazine, continues to monitor the situation between Palestinians and Israelis (http://wallwritings.wordpress.com).
Jeff Wright is one of the pastors at Heart of the Rockies Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Fort Collins, CO. He and his wife Janet have served as short-term Board of Global Ministries mission volunteers to Palestine (www.globalministries.org).
Read more posts from the In the Footsteps tour at the Ancient Stones, Living Stones blog here.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In