Cairo, today

Probably anybody who’s interested at all is fully up to date on developments in Egypt — Mubarak may be out tonight, and there’s talk of a quiet, behind the scenes military coup sympathetic to the will of the people.  It’s very gratifying that this popular uprising was not extinguished like the one in Iran.  But, of course, it does raise the issue of what comes next, and here perhaps is where our real fretting begins.  We hope for the best for the Egyptian people, whose courage this last week especially has seemed almost superhuman.  And this kind of thing is certainly consistent with Frye’s vision of revolution informed by primary concern.  We can, occasionally, do what needs to be done in the name of the things that are otherwise least likely to be named.  But, as Frye wryly notes in The Double Vision, “Hope springs eternal, unfortunately it usually springs prematurely.”  Vigilance matters now.  From this point on, merely hoping won’t make it so.

(Photo from The Hindu)