To those who are cheering the uprisings unfolding in Tunisia and Egypt, be cautious in your celebrations. Many cheering may be suffering from short term amnesia. How many supporters of these popular revolts condemned Wikileaks? Wikileaks is reportedly the oxygen that fed the fire from the spark of the self-immolation of Tunisian street vendor Mohsen Bouterfif. Other cheerleaders may be suffering from longer term amnesia. The theocracy of Iran began as the popular uprising against the American-supported dictatorship of the Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The revolt in Egypt could yet turn away from the secular and towards the Islamic, as occurred in Iran in 1979. (Tunisia seems a safer case.)
In addition to being careful what we wish for, we should try to remember what it was we wished for and what we wished against.
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