"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."

While being confined in Birmingham City Jail in Alabama, Martin Luther King wrote a letter to the state’s clergymen who were accusing him of his beliefs and movement to be “unwise and untimely”. He stated answered their criticism stating that “freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed”. He believed that equal rights were never going to be given so he had to fight for them. If he didn’t stand up for himself and others equality wouldn’t be achieved. King’s idea of fighting for one’s beliefs can be applied to “Antigone” by Sophocles and currently the Egyptian Revolution.

In “Antigone” Creon rules as a tyrant who enacts a law forbidding any citizen of Thebes to touch the dead body of his nephew Polynices, which is lying in a public street. Antigone, Polynices’ sister, refuses to follow this law and choses to follow her beliefs instead of Creon’s law. She knows Creon won’t lift the law for anyone so she has to help him herself. She is aware of the consequence of her actions and admits to Creon that she was the one who buried her brother. When accepting the punishment for breaking the law is death she says “if I am to die before my time I consider that a gain” because she knows she stood up for what was right. Antigone believed that Creon would never voluntarily let Polynices be buried so she had to follow her morals.

In January 2011 citizens all over Egypt were inspired by the successful revolution in Tunisia and began to rebel. They disagreed with the country’s poverty, increasing unemployment, corrupt government activities, and the autocratic rule of President Hosni Mubarak. Egypt tried to control the rebelling by blocking social media outlets but it only enraged citizens more and brought worldwide attention. Major cities held protests and not soon after the president announced that he would resign from his presidency. Egypt’s citizens proved that their government wouldn’t voluntarily give them the change they wanted so they had to work for it themselves.