"Framing Structures to Rally the World"

Last night I went to the Arab Revolts discussion panel. More and more I'm thinking that this might be some of the most significant uprisings of our generation, but that's an unprofessional opinion. Different perspectives were offered, including the role of social media in the revolts, the role of nonviolence, religious influences and why revolts haven't spread to other African Nations.
Jamie Schillinger, a religion professor here at St. Olaf, gave a talk that I thought strongly connected with what we were discussing in class on Wednesday. We came up with lists of what we would tell budding democracies to do in order to make their new government thrive. One thing that kept coming up, at least in our small amcon group, was the necessity of a tradition of Democracy. This is something that these North African countries lacked, Schillinger asserted. That's one of the reasons why democracy may not be the answer in Egypt. Egyptians come from a far different tradition than we do. Historically, religions are much more closely tied to the government there. To westerners, this is scary. Religion has merely influenced-but been theoretically separate from- the state. To say the American attitude of religion would be accepted in North Africa would be "naive." This however, is no excuse to be unsympathetic. It just means that this should not be a place where Americans fly into save the day. Perhaps assist, maybe only advise. But this is a case best left to be solved by Egyptians and other natives. They just lack the necessary experience, and in a sense, so do we.