If there’s one thing in the news that can really surprise us, it’s a big story that’s not about America.
We tend to view global events as acts in our own national pageant, with the rest of the world taking up supporting roles. We know various countries by their places in our story — sidekick, villain or damsel in distress.
This is especially true of the Middle East, a place so often cast as America’s foil.
But for the last two weeks, Tahrir Square has been the stage for a great global drama, with hardly an American actor to be seen.
We’ve tried our best to steal the show back. Early on, we cast the protests as another social networking expo. In this version of the story, Egyptian protesters were supporting characters of American technology, as websites like Twitter and Facebook freed their country.
But when the government killed Internet service, protests swelled in size. So there went that theory.
American journalists like Anderson Cooper raced to Egypt, hurling themselves into the violence with predictable results. Western news outlets seethed with righteous indignation as reporters — reporters! — were attacked in Cairo.
In a press conference, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned these attacks in “the strongest terms,” while we watched daring, breathless broadcasts from “undisclosed locations.”
But try as they might, our correspondents were dwarfed by the spectacle of revolution.
And so, for lack of a better story, we’re back to watching the Egyptians fight for food, for safety and for justice.
We seem to like Egyptian President Honsi Mubarak. Egyptians, apparently, do not. But that doesn’t put us in the middle of their conflict. It puts us in the audience.
Egyptians want a better standard of living — things like affordable food, political freedom and a representative government. And they’ve set out to get these things themselves.
It should be humbling to see ordinary people grabbing freedom. Too often, we treat it as a gift only America can give.
President Barack Obama has done all he should. He’s expressed support for the people, which should always be our stance, but tempered calls for Mubarak to stand down immediately. Caution is a perfectly presidential response, hesitant optimism the safe message.
And for the rest of us, there’s not much to do but sit back and watch things unfold.
As I follow the movement, I can’t help thinking about Iran, where the 2009 presidential elections drew out crowds similar to these. Those protests weren’t about us either; like today’s Egyptians, the Iranian people came out to take power that should always have been theirs.
One remarkable book about those protests is called “Death to the Dictator!” by Afsaneh Moqadam. Tailored nicely to the American attention span, it’s a riveting, 150-page narrative of the “Green Revolution.”
While we wait for its Egyptian sequel, “Death to the Dictator!” gives a pretty good idea of the ground view in Cairo. I keep picturing its pseudonymous main character, Mohsen, climbing on tanks in Tahrir Square.
Check it out, and keep following the drama of Egypt. We can learn a great deal from these people.
Reach John at john.a.gaylord@asu.edu
