Up with me

At this point, most Americans are at least somewhat aware of the Egyptian uprising that has occurred over the past few weeks. That’s not to say that everyone understands it, though, and it seems that many might still be confused as to exactly what’s going on and who precipitated the situation. The political pundits don’t help clear anything up either, especially not when they persist with their claims that members of the Muslim Brotherhood are the chief orchestrators of the movement.

That’s pretty hard to believe, seeing as the entire membership of the Muslim Brotherhood makes up less than 1 percent of the population of Egypt. They also failed to support the revolution on its birthday, January 25th, and thereby severely undermined their own credibility in the early stages of the uprising. And when they led prayers in Tahrir Square last week, they were joined by no more than 5 to 10 percent of the protestors on hand. If all of this seems underwhelming for the alleged instigators of the Egyptian revolution, it’s because it is underwhelming, and because they are not actually the instigators of the Egyptian revolution.

Thomas L. Friedman, a journalist for The New York Times and an expert on the Middle East, gets at as much in an op-ed this week. He cites the lack of religious slogans and demonstrations as indication of the revolution’s true origins, which have little to do with Islam. Instead, they have a lot more to do with, as Dina Shehata of the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies told him, “young people rebelling against a regime that has stifled all channels for their upward mobility”. Friedman argues that the nation’s poor educational system, in conjunction with its lack of civil liberties, has created such an oppressive collapse in quality of life that young people have finally had enough. It’s also not hard to see how this became a sorer subject today than it might have in the past, as the globalization of both media and online capabilities must have gone a long way toward alerting the Egyptian youth as to the relative direness of their situation.

But Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel laureate and the unofficial leader of the opposition, holds that these injustices represent even more than that, and that they are largely responsible for the retardation of a number of Arab nations. “The Arab world today … ‘is now a collection of failed states who add nothing to humanity or science’ because ‘people were taught not to think or to act, and were consistently given an inferior education.’” He predicts that the revolution will be the first step to change, should it actually succeed in bringing about democracy in Egypt.

The Egyptian revolution, unlike the 1979 Iranian uprising to which it is so often compared, is not one of religion or politics; it is instead the restless struggling of youth dissatisfied with acquiescence to mediocrity. It is the unprompted offing of a lifestyle characterized by the absence of ideas and progress. It is the utter rejection of a way of life devoid of intellectual pursuits and self-actualization, and it is taking place halfway around the world, put into action by a people who are tired of having nothing. It has little to do with the state and even less to do with God, but it has everything to do with the individual and his freedom to devote his life to work and education. It seems that the young people of Egypt, at least, are finally tired of taking backseats in their lives as students and intellectuals and have taken agency over their nation in order to amend. The only question that’s left to ask is one that relates to the inspiration for the movement itself, and whether or not it really takes an oppressive Arab dictatorship to necessitate such a reform.

Thomas L. Friedman ends his column on the Egyptian youth with a strong statement as to their motivation: “They are asking for the keys to their own future.... They are not inspired by ‘down with’ America or Israel. They are inspired by... “Up with me.’” It is a good lesson, “up with me,” and one that deserves to be kept in mind.

Chris Bassil is a Trinity junior. His column runs every Friday.