Fascinating to follow, too long in coming, a light that the wind threatens to blow out.
Like those of Tiananmen Square, a demonstration is poised on a knife edge of destiny. The movement can either take off in a chain reaction or falter and fail, with the light of dissent forever extinguished. It is so risky to go out on a limb that way, staking your life and future on success or failure.
Has the undercurrent reached critical mass? Will it flame up and burn out its fuel and die, leaving nothing but darkness?
Demonstrations against a powerful state unafraid of world opinion are so dangerous.
We on the outside can only watch.
What happens will affect us, in small ways. We are not the titans seen silhouetted by the flames, dancing in the ire, arms and voices raised. Those with the real stake in the outcome, those gambling their lives out there, are like the heroes of books and movies. Do they see themselves that way, as characters in a drama of real life and death?
Armchair pundits from safe homes and offices a world away warn about the outcomes of successful revolution. And sure, when an American ally is overthrown, it is unlikely that any successor government will be as friendly toward us. But that is in the nature of freedom. Freedom means the freedom to choose, and to choose to be our enemy. If we act to alter that, then we are acting to limit or to control freedom, which is a contradiction in terms, a contradiction of our own history.
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