I just read Jim Wallis's statement on the recent events in Egypt, especially the resignation of longtime President Mubarak. I can't agree more with Jim. I quote here just one paragraph of his excellent column, which I read on the Huffington Post. Wallis writes to the Egyptian people:
'You have changed the world. And what you have done has just begun. But now that you have won the hearts of the world, and signaled what your generation intends to do about democracy, the voices of the establishments, in both your country and mine, wish you would declare victory, go home and let them work out the details of "transition." Please don't do that. The leadership of both our countries have preferred "stability" to "democracy" for a very long time, and they do whatever is necessary to protect the former, even at the cost of the latter. To let them manage how democracy will come to Egypt is to risk it not coming at all, or only on their terms.'
President Obama's statement was much shorter, and I guess I understand why he didn't call us to task as did Jim Wallis -- he is an astute politician, and he knows that such a statement from him would draw much ire from many quarters. Still, as even yet something of an idealist, I wish he could have said something like that.
What I find most encouraging about the situation in Egypt is that this revolution has been largely nonviolent. And what both President Obama and Jim Wallis had to say was that this is just the beginning of a process for the nation of Egypt, which will certainly bring with it some hard times. Freedom, it seems, is never easy. We in the U.S.A., though we pride ourselves on our freedom, and we do indeed have more freedom that many of the peoples of the world, still have a long way to go before all our citizens are truly free. Until all are treated equally before the law, we are not truly free. We've made progress on some fronts, but we're not there yet -- and on some other fronts it seems to me that we've regressed.
Still, this is a day of celebration for the people of Egypt, and for us as we support them in their quest for democracy. It is my fervent prayer that their example will also spur on the U.S.A. to renew our own quest for democracy. In so many ways we seem to have put democracy on the shelf as we have championed capitalism instead. May God have mercy on all God's people.
