After Tunisia, Is Egypt Next? - Eric Trager - International - The Atlantic

There can be a time for freedom. It comes unexpectedly, like a sudden sea storm.


"The developments in Tunisia are like an earthquake. Arab rulers will try to loosen up their regimes by giving some freedom, providing jobs and education and other things. Then they will try to become repressive again." Mohammed al-Qahtani, a Saudi opposition activist based in Riyadh

“What is this for? To change Zine al-Abidine? Hasn't he told you he would step down after three years? Be patient for three years and your son stays alive." Muammar Gaddafi, a lonely voice in support of the vile Tunisian government. Violence and unrest have been reported in Libya.

"What happened in Tunisia is a model. It shows that can we can do it."-Amir Salah, a researcher at the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies

“I think we may be seeing an opening in the Arab world, economically at least. Many in the government circles are racing around, trying to fix this. There is definitely a fear in the air. Especially since many of Tunisia’s neighbors are worse off. Egypt is in many ways worse than Tunisia, at least economically speaking.”-Magdy Sobhy, an economist at the Egyptian state-funded Al-Ahram Center think tank.

"Great meanwhile is the moment, when tidings of freedom reach us; when the long enthralled soul, from amid its chains and squalid stagnancy, arises, were it still only in blindness and bewilderment, and swears by Him that made it, that it will be free! Free? Understand that well, it is the deep commandment, dimmer or clearer, of our whole being, to be free. Freedom is the one purport, wisely aimed at, or unwisely, of all man's struggles, toilings and sufferings, on this Earth."-Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution

George Frederick Watts, Portrait of Thomas Carlyle

Mohamed Bouazizi, whose self-immolation has led to the fall of the corrupt Tunisian government. 

Self-immolations across north Africa follow suicide in Tunisia | World news | The Guardian

The human spirit, in the end, will not bear repression. Those who desire to shackle their fellows will fail in the end. Religion, Dictatorship, and Militarism all will fail.

To do such work as pleases me,
Near woodland pools and under trees, 
You'll get no work at all; for I
Would rather live this life and die
A beggar or a thief, than be
A working slave with no days free.

William H. Davies, No Master, 1910

Reform of the Arab world will come from the people. It must come from its own people, from their own despair and their own disenchantment and their own will.