Happy Independence Day! (From my 4th of July newsletter) As I watched the events unfolding in Egypt the past few days, it struck me how every day citizens will put their lives on the line to achieve the not-so-simple definition of “independence.” When I traveled to Cairo again this past February with a team from George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management, the optimism of the previous year had evaporated. On my first day of teaching communication strategies to the 60 participants at the American University of Cairo (five attendees from each and every party), the most powerful question was: “Are Democracies always this chaotic?” My answer? “Why, yes, they are -- because elections wouldn’t exist if we all agreed on everything." (Or are forced to agree – see China, Belarus and other regimes.) I reminded them that democracies are a lot like making sausage: they’re messy and we don’t want to know what goes in it (definitely no pork in Egypt!), but at the end of the day, it’s the tastiest thing ever. But freedom is rarely easy – and in a country where unemployment is the norm, corruption is rampant, clean water is hard to find and tourism has collapsed – millions of protesters had had enough of heavy-handed “justice” instead of “independence.” As Americans, we must thank our lucky stars that ballots, not bullets, now decide our elections. No matter how much we disagree on most everything here in the U.S., we’ve fully embraced that “democracy sausage.” Back in 2010, I was selected by the Pentagon to participate in its Joint Civilian Orientation Conference (JCOC), where I spent a week with other leaders visiting bases in San Diego (Navy), Alaska (Army, Coast Guard & Air Force) and Camp Pendleton (Marines.) Our trip’s Coast Guard liaison (and future Graduate School of Political Management graduate) Ryan White posted this thought on Facebook today: "The 4th of July is a day you can thank a handful of politicians who put their lives on the line when they signed a document." Politicians, rebels, revolutionaries, patriots, citizens: all words with not-so-simple definitions. I wish all of you a day of celebrations – and hope for nations such as Egypt who yearn for our freedoms. Best, Nancy P.S. Erma Bombeck (from my hometown of Dayton, Ohio) said this about America: “You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.”
Posted on: Thu, 04 Jul 2013 21:24:12 +0000
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