Spring of Freedom

The winter seems unending. It’s a relief to come to the end of February because in this part of the world February is the longest month. Too long staring at icicles dripping, dripping, and time seemingly still, dreary days unchanging. But that’s not true. Everything changes and there’s a beautiful pattern in each season, each day, each time. The long ice bars can be turned into ropes and candies, if one wants to. And sometimes they can be gripped for support, some kind of support before the slipping.

snow-covered car outside my house

All the same my eyes are on Spring. Spring to dawn on me and on the Middle East and North Africa. I’m liking the Revolution, everything does change. You have to love the People; they cannot be deceived and lied to for too long. A time comes to be free, to take up freedom and walk the streets in search of fresh air and liberation. The fire engulfing North Africa is very welcome because it’s time, and it’s meant to remove the dictators. You can’t stop a revolution once it starts. The downside is that lives perish. Many innocent lives. It’s memory’s role to commemorate them. Who would have known at a time like this Egypt, Tunisia and Libya would be crying Free! The dictators had established themselves so deep you’d think they were immovable. There’s a popular joke on Hosni Mubarak when he fell gravely ill and the people gathered outside his house waiting for news. His personal adviser, summoning strength asked him, ‘Don’t you think it’s time to say farewell to the people?’ And Mubarak responded, ‘Where are the people going?’

The poem Ozymandias sums up the current story. I can’t think of a fitting image for North Africa than Ozymandias. Ah, long live the people, long live the Spring of freedom.

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveler from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear: “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.