The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. is a strong Western influence on the nonviolent movement. Wright has heard no mention of that shining moment when another literate generation in the 1960s had their say.
Other heroes have followed, including Khaled Said, an Egyptian teenager beaten to death by government forces who, like Bouazizi's killers in January, also asked him for money and were refused.
"We are all Khaled Said," has become a rallying cry of these young revolutionaries.
Eighteen days after the June 12 slaughter of Said, Hosni Mubarak was ousted.
Unlike the program of the fonding fathers, religion plays an important role in this movement and in the projected governments despite a survey of Tunisians revealing that 54 percent of them favor a secular government. The attributes of Islam that the youth find indispensable include its culture--80 percent of those polled agreed. Twenty-five percent said that their religion offered solutions, and fully 90 percent said that Islam guarantees them freedom and democracy.
Change comes about slowly. The road ahead is rocky, said Wright. Witness Russia's "semicommunist" government or South Africa's deplorable economic straits--both in the wake of their dramatic triumphs in the 1990s.
Alliance with the United States and/or other Western powers is not on the rebels' agenda, with our orientation still counter-terrorist and our generous financial support of the Egyptian military--would more funds donated to the youth ever reach them? There is, in addition, US support of oil-rich, Wahhabi Saudi Arabia, birthplace of bin Laden's hostility against Western values and culture. He objected to our military presence in Egypt, so un-Muslim in its behavior and mores.
The young rebels don't want the benevolent (?) U.S. occupation that has so afflicted Iraq and Afghanistan most recently. They want to figure out their own way--should a constitution precede or follow their ascendence when it happens? Judging from the Iranian precedent, where indecision among the rebels led to a takeover by the extremist clerics, the youth have decided on the priority of a constitution.
On the question of Israel's fate amid the sweeping changes in progress, Wright said that the issue has not yet been formally addressed by the youth. No platform has yet emerged from their struggles. There are anti-Israel raps, but sometimes joined by Israelis and performed in their nightclubs.
For Wright, the answer to the question of the Jewish State's destiny within the revolution is involvement. Israelis should enter the transition and support it, she said. How can they not support budding democracies, as the only established democracy in the Middle East so far (though in the hands of the right wing at this point in time)?
The revolution has spread to Somalia, where youth are uniting to oppose the corrupt government, such as it is, as well as the piracy that so blights their country's public image in the world.
There are large Muslim populations in Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and Indonesia, and the number in Australia is growing, Wright told us.
Most striking was her encounter with one of the youths, among whom she has circulated so much in recent months. She asked him how he felt about the events in progress. He said that he was worried, not afraid, and that he and his comrades have two key advantages over the opposition: both power and the wisdom and knowledge regarding what to do with them.
Photo courtesy of U.S.I.P.
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