Libya, Egypt, and living in the midst of events of Worldwide Historical Signifcance

Photo courtesy of Hussein Malla/Associated Press

The protests, battles, and bloodshed in Libya continue today. Muammar Qaddafi continues to promise unlimited amounts of terror in his quest to maintain control over the country. I found watching his speech today, and Mubarak's speech two weeks ago, to be exceptionally moving. There is a certain unknowable quality to the great and terrible moments of history, and I have always wondered just how much the people witnessing those moments truly understand what is happening. (I speak here of those who are simply observers, like me, not those who experience it firsthand who have both greater immediate concerns and a deep, innate, knowledge of the importance of their actions.)

In the late 80s I remember watching the fall of the Berlin wall, the uprisings in Poland, and finally the bloodless coup in the Soviet Union, I was very interested and politically minded, but I was young. The world changed in a significant way then, but it was impossible for me to understand how. It infused me though with a sense of the grandeur and melancholy of history, that we as humans always have to fight to be recognized as human. This major series of events is changing the world around us, in some places things will be worse in others better, but we can recognize the singular notion that it is critically important to stand in solidarity with those who fight to be recognized.

I also understand that the people fighting and dying in the streets do not have the luxury to take this "grand historical" view, and I will state here, unequivocally, my own sympathies and ideals are with those people. The hand wringing about how the people's goverments that might form may be "anti-american" or "muslim theocracies" I find ridiculous to the point of insult, yes those are possible outcomes, and yes those outcomes may result in some time of increased oppression, or oppression of a different sort for the people. But the action of people to stand up and enact change is the great redeeming quality of human history.

Some of these moments are indelible, some seem passing, almost trivial, as they happen; but it remains remarkable to me every time I take the time to note that the history of humanity is going on around us. And that leads to hopes:
Hopes that these protests can lead not only to new rulers for the people who fought so hard, but for better ones.
Hopes that the violence and hatred that still overcomes the better parts of the nature of each of us can be alleviated, that dictators might step down, that soldiers might refuse to fight, that crowds will not lose their humanity and attack those who walk among them.

And I hope that this would spread to the other great issues that eat at our souls:

That every person is infused with dignity and must be respected, that the body's of women are no ones political tools, that a person's gender identity and understanding is only her/his business, and that any attempt on my part to determine who someone else should love or marry or have children with is akin to the exact kind of dehumanization that will destroy the world if we let it.

We must see that we all love, we all hurt, we all cause pain, we all destroy, and we all can create.