All over the US, many people sat around a bountiful table last Thursday, giving thanks with family and friends for the many blessings we enjoy. In my position as Multicultural Liaison, I am blessed to meet people from all over the world and hear stories, both wonderful and heartbreaking, about their lives in their home countries. The stories about war, oppression, and struggle always make me thankful to call the United States home. Though they may not have gotten everything perfectly right, our founding fathers sure knew what they were doing when they established our democracy, complete with its checks and balances. And though we constantly struggle toward that "more perfect union," I can't think of any other country in which the people are so free to participate in that civic process. Today, my thoughts turn to Egypt and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as citizens in both countries head to the polls for respectively historic votes. 

Who can forget Egypt's inspiring revolution last February? Since then, the Egyptian people have often been in the news for their continued perseverance in their united quest for democracy. Today, people will head to the polls to begin electing new members of Parliament. Egyptian citizens abroad already cast their absentee ballots at embassies across the globe.  Voter turn-out on absentee ballots was estimated at 70%!

A Presidential election is taking  place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) today. This vote marks only the second time in the country's history that all citizens are allowed to make their choice at the polls. The previous democratic-style election took place in 2006, three years after the "official" end of a long civil war, at which time current incumbent candidate Joseph Kabila was elected President. Today, horrific violence continues in the eastern part of the country. Many residents have fled and been relocated to other countries through the international United Nations High Commission on Refugees program which is dedicated to resettling victims of systemic violence and oppression. Kentucky Refugee Ministries (KRM), one of the many US-based partner agencies that receives refugees, has welcomed many Congolese refugees to Lexington since 1998. I have had the pleasure of meeting many people from Congo through the library tours I host for KRM cultural orientation classes and also through my English Conversation Group. Although the outlook appears bleak for positive results in the DRC election, many displaced Congolese citizens are hoping for a sign that change will soon come and that they may one day be able to return home. 

Liberation Square: Inside the Egyptian Revolution and the Rebirth of a Nation

Author: Ashraf Khalil

Publisher: St. Martin's Press (2012)

Binding: Hardcover, 336 pages