This one is hot. Put on your asbestos gloves before you post. It's too important to shoot from the hip, or to mouth the bumper-sticker mentality of choice.

There have been bloody riots in Cairo, Egypt. I knew that Christians there were demonstrating.

This forum is a priceless source of unvarnished opinion. So, in my ignorance, I turn to my fellows again:

What is behind this? What does it mean.

This is a straightforward request for your best thoughts. Don't throw bombs. Throw ideas. We'll all profit thereby.

---

"Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright that God may love thee. Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless, and do no wrong". (Knight's Oath, Kingdom of Heaven)

One of the benefits of a dictatorship is that the leader can repress ethnic tensions with the kind of brutality that democracies are unable to muster. Dictators prefer to suppress racism WITHIN their borders because ALL the people within those borders are meant to be subservient to that dictator. He may give preferential treatment to one or another, but unless he's going to wipe out a particular group he'll assume that their continued existence under his thumb is better than ethnic violence, which can be taken as a sign of that dictator's weakness. See Yugoslavia for a prime example of how that works, but also Somalia as a more recent case.

When dictators are ousted, however, people are free to express their racist views, and ethnic tensions that would remain suppressed come out. In Egypt's case, there's a deep and abiding conflict between the Copt minority and the Muslim majority, with the Muslims I'm sorry to say on the aggressive side of the equation. It's been going on for quite a long time, really. Every once in a while, a Copt will be killed by some group or another. It's been happening for a long time, but under Mubarak the scale of the conflict was suppressed.

The question becomes, will the international community be able to do anything to stop the violence? When Mubarak was being deposed Muslims and Christians worked together in Egypt... but now that he's gone they remember that they hate each other--just less than they hated Mubarak.

So, we're going to see some pretty nasty stuff in Egypt for a few years until somebody figures out some sort of way to balance the equation. Hopefully that won't be so long that we end up with too many dead.

What is behind this? Disenchanted people who are struggling with freedom and liberty, and oppression and tyranny. Further confounded by uncompromising differences in opinion especially pertaining to social, political and religious values and beliefs.

What does it mean? Chaos and disorder. I suppose growing pains until they mature and learn to overcome animosity, hatred and fear. Or maybe until someone else steps in with draconian measures and sequesters disagreement, which would leave them where they were before. The choice is theirs, regardless of whether they see it that way or not.

But then again, that's just my opinion.

---

Forgiving is Love, Love is For Giving.

[quote]
"with its own, often conflicting, agenda" is almost euphemistic -I daresay. I am afraid you are quite right, though.

That's what the Western countries Arab spring into democracy brought.The change "From frying pan to fire". The Islamist are taking over in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere. Religious clash is sad indeed, and riot against the Coptic Christians is not what the world want.