Museums and Tanks

Now and Then

The Egyptian Museum is a national treasure, a journey through 5000 years of history, a vast warehouse of artifacts from ancient times. It's Egypt evocative. The Egypt we dream about.

This is why in the midst of the chaos of protest on Cairo's city streets, citizens formed a human chain around the Museum to prevent looting and damage to the building and its fantastic collections from the tombs of the pharoahs.

Where we stood on the main side of the rose-colored Museum, coming out of our Hostel; where we contemplated the best way to get to the other side of the busy street; where we stood to take photos, now there are tanks. It is such an unreal juxtaposition.

Jud and I consider ourselves lucky to have been there in more tranquil times. But even then, I realized the tranquility was more mirage than reality, more a patina on deep discontent than a reflection of people's true state of mind.

Ideas were stirring. I felt it on my tour to the Pyramids and especially to the Valley of the Kings and Queens, and Hasheptut's tomb. Those soft sarcastic voices, the jokes, the feigned laughter, have now become shouts of outrage and protest. The widespread discontent underlying Mubarak's Egypt, a pseudo "stability" that underpins the US's support, at $1.5 billion a year, of a dictator, has erupted into the streets. The genie is out of the bottle. Let's hope someone like ElBaradei will carry the day.

If contemporary Egyptians honor their past, they will protect it, use it as a foundation to build a brighter future for new generations. They will coalesce around an inclusive democratic regime of many voices, find common ground to work toward common goals, whatever their differences. Then the U.S. can put its money where it's principles are, and reverse a foreign policy that has caused widespread hunger, poverty and devastation. Then the need for tanks in the streets of Cairo will also be a thing of the past.