by Joshua J. McElwee
The mass of protesters in Egypt are making one demand that everyone in the media seems to be picking up: President Hosni Mubarak must resign.
But what happens if -- or when -- Mubarak steps down? What's the larger vision for the future?
An op-ed written for yesterday's New York Times by a member of the Muslim Brotherhood -- Egypt's outlawed opposition party -- seems to set forward that vision. And it looks oddly Catholic.
From the op-ed:
In Egypt, religion continues to be an important part of our culture and heritage. Moving forward, we envision the establishment of a democratic, civil state that draws on universal measures of freedom and justice, which are central Islamic values. We embrace democracy not as a foreign concept that must be reconciled with tradition, but as a set of principles and objectives that are inherently compatible with and reinforce Islamic tenets.
It's hard to discern what the goals of the movement are from one statement, but the idea of integrating religious principles into public life seems to be something the Vatican would be pretty familiar with.
What does that say about what the kind of order the protesters are envisioning?
