TURMOIL IN EGYPT

Yes, this week “turmoil” is the word yet again, and this time in the human political sphere; eighteen days of revolution in Egypt, a nation as populous as Germany and the most significant Arab nation in the Middle East. The “dethronement” of a dictator has been the result.

The two most extraordinary features of this revolution have been first, that it was effected by a leaderless people’s movement, and, second, that it took place with virtually no violence. The only violence to be seen was the response of the protestors to Mubarak’s attempt to keep power using violence through thugs, and when that attempt was defeated the protest continued peacefully. And it was certainly not a revolutionary “coup” by the army; neither did the army use force.

However, the fact that the country has not degenerated into political chaos is entirely due to this “third estate” (or perhaps we should say this “first estate”!), namely the army. The army, respected by the people, but being watched nervously, has filled a very dangerous power vacuum and is effectively ruling. It has a crucial stabilizing role.

The question now is, can a fundamentally authoritarian institution, the army, led by aged and senior leaders really find its way to establishing a people’s democratic rule of the kind being demanded by a much younger and freer generation. It will have to give birth to something alien to its own nature and culture. A second question is whether the behavioral restraints, courtesies and non violent toleration which actually make a democracy work are sufficiently implanted in Egyptian society. What will happen, for example, when the ardent Islamism of the “Brotherhood” comes face to face with those opting for secularism or even simply wanting tolerant recognition? Repression, not toleration, has been the culture for the last 30 years. A massive culture change (the most difficult of all changes) is demanded. A third question is where is the new political leadership for such a venture? There is very little evidence of it at the moment.
So the next phase is going to be as momentous (and probably much more difficult) than the first phase just completed.

A huge amount hangs on the outcome, and not just for Egypt. It is a vast challenge to the whole Arab world, where the prevailing political structures are of the despotic and oppressive Mubarak kind that has just been overthrown. Egypt is the pace maker here. Already the rulers of Saudi Arabia are nervous and other despots are beginning to bribe their people! Will this lead to new freedoms in the Middle East, or will it collapse back into a black hole of some worse tyranny? As the events have demonstrated the U.S. and the West are at a complete loss to know what quite to do!

The critical thing to do is to pray, not simply that God will bring these nations into new freedoms, but more particularly that these events will promote the spread of the gospel more widely and deeply throughout the Middle East. Christians have taken a terrible battering in Iran and Iraq in the last decade, and life has been anything but easy for them in Egypt, Saudi and all other countries in the Middle East. They very much need our prayer.



Bob

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