Understand what we ask for

Heady days in the Middle East, to be sure. Popular protests turned to popular uprisings in Egypt and ousted the country’s autocrat of three decades. But, much Western hope may have turned to concern when the Armed Forces Supreme Council announced a constitutional panel, led by an Islamist judge with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. The temporary ruling council gave the panel just 10 days in which to offer a new constitution, which has led many analysts to believe that a long-term secular state is going to be difficult to maintain.

In London’s online version of The Telegraph, Richard Spencer wrote, “the make-up of the new committee, and the fact it has been given just 10 days to come up with a new constitution, has dashed hopes that it will remove Article 2, which makes Islam the state religion and says Shariah is the main source of law.”

One would have to be living in a cave the last 30 years to not understand that Shariah law is not conducive to a free, politically diverse state that sees evangelical Christians equally with Jews or Muslims.

With public protests taking place still in Egypt and in several other Middle East nations and the protesters’ demands not fulfilled, there exists a growing place for someone or some system to step into place to capitalize on the proclivity for uprising, independent of national borders.

As alarmist as this may sound, I think there could be a case made that these events in Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, and Iran are foundational to an evolutionary change among millions of people to adopt a propensity to accept a universal rule or structural system.

How long will people tolerate oppression? One can only guess. However, when this kind of disenfranchisement becomes as widespread as it appears to be in the Middle East, it increases the opportunity for a single system to offer change for these people and unify them in a way that we’ve seen only on rare occasion during the last century.

I’m not advocating for oppressive regimes, believe me. I am asking a question that I hope helps us all understand how easy it would be for a single system to unify people of different nationalities and faiths by promise of relieving their oppression and promising to give them a voice.

I can also see how this system, once in place, would make a peace accord with Israel. When this happens, we will know the future course of events with great precision.