The Egyptian Revolution of 25 January. Instead of repeating a chronicle of events with which everybody already is familiar or offering an analysis of the revolution, which others more competent than I will have made, I have chosen to walk on ground that no one, as far as I know, has dared tread. This is a 'spiritual' reading of the Egyptian Revolution.
Some 200m from Tahrir Square in Cairo, a man runs forward from a flood of protesters to charge towards a police battalion. Dressed in black, they block the width of Rameses Avenue.
It is an absurd confrontation. On one side, a man with empty hands; on the other side, a well organised force equipped with batons, helmets, visors, and shields. On one side, moral force; on the other side, brute force. It would have been an unequal combat.
I can still see the young man, like a lion, throw himself against the wall of shields, face tensed, eyes flashing lightning, his heart steeled with fierce resolve. I could not ask myself from which side came force and power: from the side of the unarmed man, or from the side of the over-armed police.
The answer was clear. The man with empty hands was stronger than the battalion ranged against him. In this struggle between brute force and moral force, the latter won, and won easily.
The same story was repeated two days later on the Kasr-el-Nil bridge. There an armoured vehicle was forced to stop when confronted by a youth who stood in the middle of the bridge and defied the vehicle as it advanced inexorably towards him.
This youth was not alone. Behind him, a river of protesters was advancing with equal determination against armoured cars and police drawn up for combat. Amazingly it was not the crowd that retreated, but the police, disconcerted and disarmed by this fierce resolution.
In these two snapshots lie the key to this revolution and a summary of it. I realised, as did the world, that set in the face of armed force, there is a force of another order, infinitely more powerful and deep, the force of the spirit.
This same message was delivered in the biblical story of David and Goliath. The result of combat between the weakling who carried a simple slingshot and stone, and the giant Goliath armed with his armour and sword, was never in doubt. But it was the boy who won.
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