“I should discover once again the secret of great communications
and of great combustions...”
                                            - Aimé Césaire

My daughter wants to show me how her new video game works. In it you create your own characters from an endless array of colors, costumes and accessories. You can also create your own world in which your creation can frolic around. You can choose the amount of troubles or obstacles your creation will face. My daughter’s world is beautiful, and her creation runs, swims and even flies freely in it.

When we turn off the game we see images of the massive protests in Egypt. My daughter and I both watch, entranced by the swarms of people. I can see her face questioning the screen. I wait for her to ask, and she does. What’s going on there? She asks genuinely concerned. The news cameras alternate between aerial shots of the protests and ground shots of screaming faces, of fists rising angrily in the air. When she was smaller I would have disregarded her questions or I would have given her a shallow answer and change the channel to Nickelodeon, but she is thirteen now.

How do I explain to her that what’s happening in Egypt, as well as other parts of the Middle East, is actually good, in the same way wildfires are beneficial to forests? How do I explain to her the sense of urgency, the desperation that makes millions of people take to the streets and put themselves in harm’s way to have their voices heard? She and I have lived mostly sheltered lives, taking for granted the very liberties the Egyptians are fighting for.

“Baby, I wish I could tell you that worlds are created as easily and peacefully as in your game, but in real life and through history, a better world many times has to be shaped with patience and pain, and passion. You can only hope that from all that love and all that fire, something beautiful will turn out.”

I tell my daughter as she listens attentively. She gazes back at the TV, “Mom, do you mind if I turn the game back on?” she asks. I don’t know what to say anymore.

Read Her Bio and More Essays by
Axis of Logic Columnist, Joanne Namerow