Sweep Of History

I had an overwhelming desire to have been strolling through Cairo last night with a pretty Egyptian lass as my guide. Didn't happen, so a few armchair comments:

1. As an admittedly lay observer, I was struck by the strength of Egypt's basic social fabric. Egyptians as a whole seem highly educated, informed, and tech-savvy. Combine this with an apparently innate or at least newfound national resilience, determination and unity, and you've got potent potential for the future. One wonders what the country could have achieved during the last three decades without the yoke of oppression and parasitic, institutionalized corruption. Might this underlying national potential -- not concerns about longstanding peace treaties or the Muslim Brotherhood -- really be what's got some people worried?

2. Obama nailed it yesterday when he made comparisons to Gandhi and MLK. This was peaceful protest's finest hour, and it will stand in human history as an example of what's possible through nonviolence. It made our own self-styled revolutionaries -- with their moronic exhortations to "reload" and "aim" and their references to Second Amendment remedies -- look like hysterical dilettantes.

3. I was amazed by the Egyptian military as an institution. Silly sideshows like the Oath Keepers aside, is this type of moderation and restraint during a crisis part of our own national character? There is important though imperfect precedent: Kent State, Anacostia Flats in 1932, Waco. Somehow, even with the combustible mix of national rage and a dominant military, Egyptians managed to do better. Let's hope we don't get the chance to find out if we've learned anything from them.