The Mummy has awakened, rising from its long slumber.
The Mummy is the old order, the order of oppression, the order of tyranny, the order which has pervaded the known world since the history of man.
Who is the Mummy in post-Mubarak Egypt?
Is it Hosni Mubarak himself, the recently-deposed Egyptian President, now being detained as he struggles with illness? Why do the Egyptian people want to invest their efforts in trying a wicked man, when they still do not have stable rule in the country to supervise a just trial.
The Mummy, is it populist statism which first reared its fearful, dessicated head during the French Revolution? Vengeful populism, then as well as now, demands the blood of bad men. Like a fervent cult, statist populism adheres to the belief that deposing the evil is not enough to eradicate it once and for all. How will the raging masses define "bad"? Who will be next? Will they demand the life of Mubarak's next of kin, friends, allies? At what point will the blood of the common blood be shed instead of spared?
Will political blood lust turn a nation of protesters into terrible miscreants who will devour each other, only to be overpowered by another strongman who provides order, but regards neither God nor man in his rule?
Is the Mummy military dictatorship, currently armed with the undeserved praise and confidence of the people? By this one may describe the Egyptian Army, the one force in Egypt which the people respected. They have the power, and if power corrupts, as it has every ruling coalition whether democratic or autocratic, it is little surprise to see the army firing on those whom it has sworn to protect.
The only way to slay the menacing Mummy is . . .to unwind the forces which have for too long bound up the populace in false notions of liberty.
Freedom is more than protest. It is commitment to ideals which enhance the truth and dignity of each person: responsibility with risk, respect as well as rights. It is breaking free from the natural (base) compunction to wreak revenge on former foes. Freedom demands extending to all, friend and enemy alike, right recognition of human rights; rights which are not created by the state nor preeminent in a religion or culture.
Natural rights, older still than the Mummy of old-order oppression, cannot prevail if bandaged in resentment and violence, or misplaced trust in corruption institutions
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