Egypt - Updated

Some of you may be wondering why I haven't posted anything about the events in Egypt.  The reason is simple.  I don't have any clear idea what is going on there.

People are rioting in the streets demanding a change of government.  This is an undeniable fact.  The people are desirous of ridding themselves of the dictator who has ruled them for the last 30 years and replacing both him and the governmental system that he presided over with one of their own choosing.  This is also an undeniable fact.

In the most basic and simplistic definition of the word democracy this is a democratic revolution.

However we must ask ourselves if the people of Egypt are (either knowingly or unknowingly) choosing to give themselves greater liberty or less.

Because, you see, democracy is desirable and valuable only if it is a means to securing liberty.  The people of Iran were given a choice by their new government after the Shah had fled to vote on whether they wanted him to return and rule over them or whether they wanted to be ruled over by Ayatollah Khomeini.  They rejected the tyrant whose lash they had felt for the past decades in favor of a new religious ruler they hoped would make their lives better.

They made a horrible tragic mistake.  Iran went from the frying pan into the blast furnace and the people of that unfortunate nation have been suffering the consequences of their poor choice ever since.

Over three quarters of the Egyptian people say they favor living under sharia law (Islamic religious law).  If Egyptians express that desire in free elections they will have one man - one vote - one time as a mullah takes the throne of the pharaohs and declares that since Allah has been put in charge of the nation there is no need to ever have another election.

Is this what is going to happen in Egypt?  I don't know and neither does anyone else except God.  So when things like this happen I tend to keep my eyes rather than my mouth open.

All in all I suspect the best advice came from the Lord Jesus:  "And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh." (Luke 21:28)

UPDATE

Drudge is now reporting this:

CAIRO – Egypt's Hosni Mubarak resigned as president and handed control to the military on Friday after 29 years in power, bowing to a historic 18-day wave of pro-democracy demonstrations by hundreds of thousands. "The people ousted the president," chanted a crowd of tens of thousands outside his presidential palace in Cairo.

Several hundred thousand protesters massed in Cairo's central Tahrir Square exploded into joy, waving Egyptian flags, and car horns and celebratory shots in the air were heard around the city of 18 million in joy after Vice President Omar Suleiman made the announcement on national TV just after nightfall.

Mubarak had sought to cling to power, handing some of his authorities to Suleiman while keeping his title. But an explosion of protests Friday rejecting the move appeared to have pushed the military into forcing him out completely. Hundreds of thousands marched throughout the day in cities across the country as soliders stood by, besieging his palace in Cairo and Alexandria and the state TV building. A governor of a southern province was forced to flee to safety in the face of protests there.

The military in Egypt is said to be largely secular and was probably the only hope of keeping the nation out of the hands of the Islamists so in that sense this is probably a good thing.

Probably.

It still pays to remember what Jesus said.