Envisioning a New Egypt

“An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Let’s ask Ahmed Harara about that. Ahmed Harara is the young Egyptian who lost one eye in the violence around Cairo’s Tahrir Square this January 29. A rubber bullet is really as good as a metal slug where the destruction of soft tissue is involved. Ahmed, along with the scores of other stalwart and inspired Egyptians who filled the central square of Cairo with a new and rousing cry for freedom, found the deposing of the Tyrant Mubarak ample recompense for the patch he wore over his left eye socket.

It’s now ten months later. During those intervening months, Tahrir Square resumed the steady flow of traffic in a whirling dervish of a dance around its curves. Hawkers along the curbs sold mementoes—flags and tee shirts, posters and scarves – commemorating the ouster of Mubarak on January 25. Now, Ahmed, along with tens of thousands of stalwart and inspired Egyptians, has returned to Tahrir Square. On November 19 Ahmed was there to protest the military government which took hold of the reins of power this winter. This gathering, too, has cost Ahmed dearly. He now wears two patches. Ahmed Harara is blind.

A friend of mine in Cairo, an idealistic young man who would probably take issue with that adjective, thinking himself a firm realist, is also back on the Square. He writes, “Cairo is the only place where the young are not afraid to die but are still afraid to tell their parents they’re heading over to Tahrir Square.”

Here in the US, it’s so easy to be scornful of what the Egyptians are trying to accomplish. “Did they actually think that the military would voluntarily relinquish power?” my learned friends, safely tenured, write on Facebook.

No. They did not. But they dared to hope that the incredible pulses of the Arab Spring might coalesce into a current so strong that only the lightest of flowers and the purest of intentions would float on its forward historic waves. And hope, more than knowledge, is what carries a revolution to conclusion.

The Egyptians are doing a mighty endeavor. Conciliatory gestures and charades are being repulsed by the demonstrators. The Islamic Brotherhood along with the military government is scratching its covered heads.

Whether or not the demonstrators

in Tahrir Square win, they are fighting the good fight. And having given both their eyes, they are still facing tanks and rifles with cobblestones.

ADDENDUM: Several days later, as protests continue and public support for protests builds, the host of the popular evening talk show had the following to say, “They want us to believe that our eyes do not see what they see, that even when they see they don’t see, and that if they indeed see, it means nothing?’ ”