Hall Of Mirrors

The world is like a room of mirrors. You look at an old person and you are reminded that you too will be old some day. You look at a baby and you know that you too were once young.

So it is with nations. They look at themselves in these mirrors which essentially reflect the times of a single observer; or, as Jorge Luis Borges would put it, a “garden of forking paths”.

The history of nations is always the same. All are birthed in blood. It’s just that each one, at any given moment, exists in its own time. This gives the illusion that each one is different.

Egypt is in the grip of revolution. There are good people on both sides - people with vision. It’s the chaos that kills - and even more so: indifference. It’s a time when nihilism prospers, when opportunists make their move, when things can go either way. It’s the reason NFL games are so popular with American viewers, that sense of not knowing; that sense of wishing, praying, wanting so desperately to see what happens and to be on the right side after the dust has settled. It’s been declared a crime to affect the outcome from outside betting parlors. Unless, of course, the outcome you're hoping for is chaos itself - chaos without end; containment - as it now appears to be.

Obama has nothing to add after having set the wheels (of fire) in motion. He is presenting us with a poignant historical spectacle. And yet, we are not amused. Chaos simply isn’t our cup of tea. We reject it in ourselves as we reject it in others. If chaos is Obama’s objective, he must go there alone.
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Perhaps historians were wrong. Perhaps Clinton wasn't the first black president after all. Perhaps it was Jimmy Carter who presided over the first Middle Eastern domino to fall. How long before Obama appears on our TV screens wearing a sweater?

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