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| Stencils like these of the protestors who were killed were all around the Tahrir Square area |
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| Faces of the Arab Spring near Tahrir Square |
The West's misunderstanding of Islam and Arab culture keeps hitting me. I need a better understanding of what people were fighting for in Tahrir Square and elsewhere. With a history of kings, pharaohs and dictators and from the perspective of people I have spoken to here, it's not clear to me that the majority wants to actively participate in governing and instead many mostly want to be able to live their lives safely with enough prosperity to take care of their families. They are not looking for "Democracy" like we believe in in the West. And frankly, with the rise of Trump in America, I don't even feel we are qualified to understand what Americans want so I certainly don't think we can lecture Egyptians about what they should want.
What I hope for Egypt is that things stabilize and tourists come back while they also diversify their economy a bit more to not be so dependent on tourists. I hope Sisi really is a leader who is listening to everyone and guiding the country through tough important necessary change. Egyptians understand that change takes time. They have almost 5000 years of history to look back on.
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