The People Shall not be Denied

What a long day and night where those that passed on our long-suffering Arab world, only for morning to break. What joy mixed with fear and sorrow for all those who died, what new, unfamiliar hope was born out of purifying fire, the people shall not be denied! Listen to your people, thus I say to all dictators. Be kind, be fair, rise above your hurt pride and go into voluntary exile, thus I say to you all. The Arab people shall not be denied any more.

If Lebanon's clairvoiant-general, Mr. Hayek, told us through his annual new year's television appearance that the Hero of October, President Husni Mubarak, would loose his grip on power, I would have said nonesense! But God is all powerful and truely merciful, his mercy is great, finally freedom for the people of the Nile.

My one wish as I watched the events of last night unfold was for the people to push their way into where the original copy of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty is kept and burn in on live television. But then I thought, why the show, the treaty and its enforcers have fallen in the eyes of their own people. No need to say any more.

'What next?' I hear the media cry: 'who will fill the void?' As if Egypt lacks leaders. I say now is not the time to focus on who will take the helm, but on what that person whoever he/she is will do with power. The army has control, as it always did, they may rule for a while, organize free elections and let the people choose.

To my brothers and sisters in Egypt I leave you with the words of a great poet:

A Nation's Strength
by Ralph Waldo Emerson

What makes a nation's pillars high
And it's foundations strong?
What makes it mighty to defy
The foes that round it throng?
It is not gold. Its kingdoms grand
Go down in battle shock;
Its shafts are laid on sinking sand,
Not on abiding rock.
Is it the sword? Ask the red dust
Of empires passed away;
The blood has turned their stones to rust,
Their glory to decay.
And is it pride? Ah, that bright crown
Has seemed to nations sweet;
But God has struck its luster down
In ashes at his feet.
Not gold but only men can make
A people great and strong;
Men who for truth and honor's sake
Stand fast and suffer long.
Brave men who work while others sleep,
Who dare while others fly...
They build a nation's pillars deep
And lift them to the sky.

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