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| Along the Way 2-4-11 |
 Driving down the drag strip known as Drayton Street earlier this week I spied a bicyclist pedaling the kind of bike I had as a teenager, big balloon tires and one speed. I admired his pluck but wondered about his selection of a roadway, Drayton Street being the last route I’d choose for a bike trip. Adding to his peril the man was juggling and displaying from his handlebars an oversized signboard with a hand lettered message. Pulling along side of him and tossing a quick glance in his direction revealed the face of a young man perhaps of Middle Eastern background with a sign that read Down With Mubarak! For a second our eyes made contact and I shouted a supportive word to him. Was he an Egyptian far from home who wanted to join his countrymen in Tahrir Square? Did he have cousins among the protestors? Would he have been throwing rocks in Cairo or Alexandria? Had he come to the United States because of the advantages that are unthinkable along the Nile? You and I have read the stories and watched the stunning news this week in Yemen, Jordan, Algeria, Libya and Egypt. In each of these nations ordinary citizens, men and women, young and old, rich and poor have surged into the streets demanding that greedy, blind, authoritarian, dictatorial governments pay attention to school teachers, doctors, shopkeepers and civil servants. These days must feel strange for those Americans who have viewed all Muslims through the lens of fundamentalist terrorists. Suddenly we learn that these Islamic citizens yearn for the same things you and I want: jobs, opportunities, dignity; we identify with their plight and cheer for their success. To see Tahrir Square filled to the brim with tens of thousands of Egyptians on their knees in prayer was a stirring sight, reminding one of the Biblical story of another oppressed people in Egypt who pled with a recalcitrant Pharaoh for release. Tahrir Square now joins Tiananmen Square as a place name giving testimony to the unbreakable human spirit. Lasting change in Egypt will be far more complicated than removing an aging out-of-touch dictator, but what is taking place across the northern rim of Africa and the Middle East has the potential to change the geopolitics of our world. The times are fraught with opportunity and peril for average citizens of the Middle East and Africa and by extension for our own nation. These thoughts are dedicated to people of every faith who yearn for freedom, whether demonstrating on the world’s biggest stages or riding bicycles down Drayton Street. Creede Hinshaw |
