Egypt: the chaos of revolution

No one said it would be easy.

I obviously didn't take the picture above...I snagged it from an online report of events in Egypt.  And what a mess...

I've written a book, a novel, about this eventuality.  Still in manuscript form, I never expected my harsh predictions would really play out in such a horrible way on the streets of Egypt.  But my guess wasn't much of a leap.

Most revolutions devolve into chaos.  Indeed, only rarely do they not.  America is one rare example of a mostly peaceful transition into democracy after we beat our foreign overlord.  Few of us study the horrible domestic instability that hit our shores after we "won" the war.  Luckily, we had great leaders and a guiding philosophy that worked - for whatever reason.

My heart goes out to those in Cairo.  Mosques and churches are being burned.  People are being shot.  I'd guess food is harder to come by, people are missing work and school and utilities are increasingly spotty (even in a country used to being run by a dictator or the army).

What will happen?  My guess, is that unless the right leader emerges the situation will continue to spiral further into chaos, as per Syria and Algeria (the latter 20 years ago).  And that's the basic premise of Escape.  Who knows whether the book or real life will prove more optimistic.