Carroll: A new world dawns digitally
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.
The words are by Yeats, from "Easter, 1916" - a poem written about his Ireland.
And here is the powerful opening of James Carroll's piece on Egypt A new world dawns digitally:
‘CHANGED, changed utterly.’’ W.B. Yeats’ great phrase applies to Egypt, and the Arab world broadly, even as events there continue to unfold. How deeply into the structures of politics the transformation goes, even abstracting from particular outcomes in Egypt, won’t soon be clear. As revolutions always show, the return of fierce repression remains a lively possibility, as much in Tunis as in Cairo. Whether, how, and when democratic liberalism can build on the ruins of despotism will also be indefinitely at issue. "A terrible beauty is born,’’ Yeats concluded about his revolution in Dublin. A like balance in the Middle East is still being struck.
Please keep reading
