More signs of turbulence abroad

In notes for remarks I might make at the Celebration of Wendy's life, I've commented on our good fortune -- our luck -- to live when we did, and where. We evaded unscathed all the terrible turmoil in the world in our lifetimes, my lifetime: world war and regional and localized wars too numerous to keep accounts, genocides, massacres, violence all around. Now suddenly the Eastern Mediterranean region is in flames. Last month a relatively bloodless revolution deposed a dictator in Tunisia, giving restless, discontented multitudes in Jordan, Egypt, Yemen the signal that what was possible in Tunisia might be possible elsewhere in the region. But the TV images coming out of Cairo today look neither gentle nor bloodless; it looks like a spontaneous uprising of disenfranchised multitudes, and it's almost certainly too widespread, too spontaneous to be suppressed by police or military forces, some of whom seem to have joined the uprising. It's too soon to see how this will turn out but it looks likely that soon there will be a major regime change in Egypt. Across the Islamic world from Morocco to Pakistan there might soon be unrest, uprisings; in some countries it's all that Islamic fundamentalists need as a springboard to power, especially in countries were there is no credible alternative. The consequences are pretty certain to impinge on life here in North America. Wendy and I have been lucky, we've lived where and when these turbulent. restless, usually violent epochal changes in society have spared us. I hope our children and all others in their age group are as lucky, but the signs, along with other changes in the world, notably climate change and increasingly precarious food security, are ominous.