Amidst the chaos that has marked the last couple weeks in Egypt comes a photo like this, Egyptian Christians forming a human shield to protect praying Muslims.
(via GOOD)
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Why are people protesting in Egypt?
I’ve been watching CNN and checking Drudge the last few days and what I’ve noticed is that amidst all of the footage and on-scene reports, no one was talking about the cause of the situation. Maybe I missed the segments that covered the background but all I saw was that people want Mubarek out of power. There is a lot of discussion about what is happening but very little about why.
Thankfully a professor from Colgate University who specializes in modern Egypt has given some helpful background. Here are the main points but you should take a few minutes to read the entire post.
- They want a real democracy.
- The prevalence of torture by police who are protected by the Emergency Law.
- Government and bureaucratic corruption.
- Government and bureaucratic inefficiency.
- Massive disparity between rich and poor.
HT: Abraham Piper
[Edit: Just saw this NY Times article on the emerging role of religion in the protests.]
