Exercising Freedom as an Act of Resistance

Don’t know if you all have been keeping tabs on the protests in Egypt. This Wednesday, January 25, marked the one year start of the revolution that overthrew the country's president and his corrupt regime. Last year, the protesters marched with the slogan, “Down with, down with, Hosni Mubarek.” This week, they repeated a similar cadence but voiced a different demand, “Down with, down with military governance.”  Hundreds of thousands of marchers descended on Tahrir Square, in Cairo, a surprising majority women, who, just weeks before, had been beaten, violated and shamed by the current government’s army. They were back in an unprecedented display, demanding their voices be heard.  The women of the Middle East are my present metaphor for freedom beyond the physical, beyond what can be desecrated and even destroyed. When I watch the Egyptian people, I recognize their North Stars as "freedom", I see them Chart their Courses through their acts of protest and I acknowledge their Arrivals—all in spite of the atrocities they experience, for there is a more enduring Inner Constellation lighting the way. 

Joan of Arc (January’s Freedom Series Heroine) accessed this Inner Constellation as did all individuals highlighted in the Freedom Series posts. How might we be inspired this week to access a state of inner freedom in spite of outside limitations? Sometimes to protest, as the people of the Middle East so bravely do, is the equivalent of carrying a torch of hope. I think of the sonnet by Emma Lazarus (1849-1887), engraved on the Statue of Liberty:

"Liberty" by uploathe at DeviantArt.com

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles....
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"