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Egypt, the People

Democracy is not just the Statue of Liberty,
nor our own Constitution.
Democracy is France, and England.
It is a Parliament, and a Storting, and a Town Hall.

Democracy is Egypt today;
Egypt, with 7,000 years of history;
with Pharoahs, and Caesars, and Despots.
Today, democracy is the people of Egypt,
and we do not know what it shall look like.
We do not know whether the people will have a secular society,
or a Coptic Christian/Muslim state, or something we have not imagined.

We do not know whether democracy will succeed in Egypt,
or whether the military will do what Mubarak did,
and prop up an old General to suck the nation dry.

If democracy succeeds in Egypt,
the Egyptian people will decide what Egypt will be,
and we, here, in another democracy, may or may not like it,
but it is their nation, and they have tasted what it is
to decide for themselves, and it is a sweet taste..

We have the oldest democracy in the world,
and we know--or should know--as well as anyone
that democracy is not easy, nor always wise.
Sometimes it is, as it is now, here, a muddled mess,
but few of us would trade our own modified form of democracy
for anything else we can imagine.

We, the People, wish Egypt, the People, well!
.

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