People Dancing

Posted by Chad Orzel on February 4, 2011
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I’ve been watching the Al Jazeera English livestream off and on this week to keep up with events in Egypt. At some point, SteelyKid came in while I had it on, saw shots of the cheering crowds from Tuesday, and said “People dancing!”

Sometime on Wednesday, she marched over to me, and demanded to watch a video. I asked what she wanted, and she said “People dancing!” At that point, though, the live video was of people throwing Molotov cocktails off a hotel roof onto protesters below. I didn’t think that was really appropriate toddler fare, so I showed her this instead:

Three-ish years later, that still gets me.

Despite some scary moments over the last couple of days, the pictures from Cairo right now are pretty positive, which is impressive and inspiring. I’m amazed at the people who have spent days in that square, defending themselves from rocks, bombs, and bullets. Every time it’s looked like things were headed to an awful conclusion, they’ve bounced back.

I hope they get what they want, without further bloodshed. I hope the final images from this episode are more heartwarming than anything in the clip above. In the meantime, if you need something that’s guaranteed to make you feel better about your fellow humans there’s always “people dancing.”

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Comments

  1. #1 Michael Nielsen
    February 4, 2011

    Quite aside from the video – which is wonderful – Ethan Zuckerman wrote a terrific blog piece about it:

    http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2008/07/03/a-goofy-dance-a-sweet-lullaby/

  2. #2 Eric Lund
    February 4, 2011

    At that point, though, the live video was of people throwing Molotov cocktails off a hotel roof onto protesters below. I didn’t think that was really appropriate toddler fare

    My parents would have agreed with you. I wasn’t allowed to watch TV news until my younger sister was about four. The first news item I remember involved Walter Cronkite referring to the newly reunified nation of Vietnam, which could have been no earlier than May 1975 (it might have been June or July). News is often unpleasant, especially with TV’s “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality.

    I hope there will soon be more dancing in the streets in Cairo (and in Sana’a, site of the still frame that comes up in the video–there have been anti-government protests there, too).