Egypt's revolution has radically changed the image of the country's young people, previously seen as largely apolitical, says Gihan Shahine It never occurred to Ingy, a 20-year-old student of architecture at the private Misr International University (MIU), that one day she would enthusiastically engage in a demonstration and cry anti-regime slogans at the top of her voice before the 25 January Revolution broke out. Like many of the protesters who took part in the revolution, Ingy is well-educated and hails from a well-off family. She does not suffer from the kind of economic problems that affect that 40 per cent of the population living on less than $2 a day. A student of architecture with skills in English and computer science, Injy expects to have a good career in the future, and her situation is a far cry from that of other young people who can stay unemployed for years. "For me, the revolution was not personally motivated," Injy explains. "It was all about Egypt. We wanted a better future for our country. I wanted to live in a country that was free of corruption and bribery. I wanted the country to have a better image abroad. I wanted to feel Egyptian." Injy is not alone. What perhaps distinguishes the 25 January Revolution from the riots that erupted in 1977 in protest against the decision by the then president Anwar El-Sadat to increase the price of subsidised bread, for example, is the fact that this time the country's poor were not in the vanguard of the revolt. Instead, Egyptians of all classes, ages, religions and affiliations joined the protests, with thousands of better-off professionals and university students at their helm. The same well-educated middle and upper-middle-class youngsters, typically seen lounging on summer beaches only a few months ago, were the ones who spearheaded this revolution in pursuit of freedom and democracy. People of all ages, even children, were seen breaking the barrier of fear and speaking out loudly against a ruler who had kept the lid on the freedom of expression for 30 years. These people challenged police and resisted the attacks by thugs sent by the regime to scatter the demonstrators, swearing that they would not go back home until they had liberated their country. "We always wanted to change the reality, but this time the barrier of fear was broken," Injy commented. "To our surprise, we found the utopia we had always dreamed of in Tahrir Square." Egypt's young people also stunned the world with their persistence, ability to organise, and care to keep the streets clean. Not a single case of sexual harassment occurred despite the unprecedented mingling of men and women, many of whom spent nights on end in the streets together. There was little crime among the demonstrators, and there was no space for drugs or sectarian rifts in Tahrir Square. People were busy fighting for liberty -- not just for their country, but also for their souls. They were fighting against all the negative attitudes that repression and despair have created over recent decades. Muslims and Christians defended each other fraternally, and young men stepped in to protect female co-protesters against attacks by thugs or the police. Everybody competed to donate food, medicine and blankets for the protesters, and the latter were happy to give up their share of food for others who may not have had enough. Away from the protests, young men in every neighbourhood nationwide left their homes in order to direct the traffic, braving cold nights to protect their neighbours against potential looters and thugs. People of all ages, including young children, can now be seen engaged in clean-up campaigns in Tahrir Square and in neighbourhoods across the country. Fliers on the metro system in Cairo and on public transport call for a new era to begin in the country, one free of harassment, drugs or theft. Does all this represent a sudden change, or have we just underestimated the true capabilities of our young people? University professor and political activist Yehia Qazzaz would simply put it this way: "people act in a public-spirited way when they feel their dignity is at stake." People now feel they are regaining their pride and rebuilding their self-confidence. "For the first time in many years," Qazzaz told the Weekly, "Egyptian people feel they own their country and control their futures after suffering long years of repression." "Repression kills creativity and nobility," he added. "Today, you can hear all Egyptians chanting slogans like 'lift your head up high, you're Egyptian,' 'we'll get married and we'll have kids,' and 'everyone who loves Egypt, come and rebuild Egypt.'" According to novelist Ahdaf Soueif, the revolution has caused a new positive attitude on the part of the people. "I have friends on anti-depressants who have forgotten to take their pills over the last 20 days and have now thrown them away," Soueif wrote in an article on the BBC website. Today, it seems, there is no space for depression or despair, as was the case just a few weeks ago. "Such is the effect of the Egyptian revolution." Young people have long been largely the victims of such despair, having been often marginalised by society. "The older generation monopolised leading positions in the workplace, while talented youngsters remained marginalised with no platform for their views," Qazzaz explained. Many young people shunned politics, feeling that the state was not run for their benefit. Young activists lost confidence in the established elite that dominated the political scene. "Young people had little confidence in the opposition parties and movements like Kifaya and others, because they found that these were run by an older generation of activists who did not necessarily keep their promises." Putting little stock in the political elite, the new generation of activists decided to find a platform of their own, forming loosely connected youth groups in favour of reform. These groups had different agendas and no specific ideology. Whereas some sought employment rights, others pressed for human rights and sought greater intellectual freedom. "The groups had different ideologies, ranging from left to right, but they were all united in their aim to express their own views and not to submit to the hegemony of the older generation," Qazzaz said. "Some of them used to meet in cafes before the Internet offered a wider platform and a way of uniting these groups in their efforts to change reality." The emergence of Mohamed El-Baradei, the Nobel Prize- winning former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as a leading figure in the opposition to the regime was also a strong encouragement for the young people's groups. "For the younger generation, El-Baradei was an inspiring figure," Qazzaz said. A highly respected figure who was pressing for an end to an autocratic regime, El-Baradei was as important for the young people as the earlier Tunisian revolt that succeeded in ousting former Tunisian president Zein Al-Abidine bin Ali after 23 years of autocratic rule. The idea of a Day of Rage to be held on 25 January, originally marking Egypt's Police Day, was the brainchild of loosely related young people's groups on Facebook, all of whom had joined to protest police brutality in the death of Khaled Said. Said was a young Internet aficionado who had been beaten to death in June at the hands of plainclothes policemen in Alexandria, the incident giving rise to a Facebook campaign against police brutality. However, the revolution itself started when crowds of tens of thousands of people in Cairo and Alexandria were joined by millions more across the country. According to Qazzaz, what was unique about the revolution was the way in which it was unexpectedly able to mobilise mass support, turning into a veritable tsunami of protesters of different ages and social and religious backgrounds. Many protests had erupted in different parts of the country over the past years, but only a few hundred or thousands of demonstrators had ever joined in. Why did the 25 January protests turn into a massive uprising this time around? For Qazzaz, it is a matter of credibility. "For the first time, Egyptians felt that this was a revolt by the people and not by a political group or by an elite looking for personal gain. There was no specific figure behind the mass of the demonstrators, and it was precisely this that gave them credibility. The young protesters were not after position or prestige. Instead, they honestly wanted to free the country, to live in a better world, and to have a better future," he says. This strong drive for change probably developed over many years, and many would probably agree with the British magazine The Economist's view that during Mubarak's rule "Egyptians changed, as did the world they live in." According to a journalist writing in the magazine during the revolution, Egyptians "do speak more freely now, but not only because Mubarak's regime has belatedly allowed the airing of more critical views. New technologies have also made it impossible for states such as Egypt to retain the information monopolies they once enjoyed." There is a consensus among observers that the information technology revolution has been able to break the state of siege that autocratic states have long been able to inflict on their people. Certainly, the Egyptian state's clamp-down on the media collapsed in the face of the revolution. In the past, says sociologist Samir Naim, "the younger generation used to get information from parents, or other state- controlled sources of information like the state media, school teachers, and sometimes sheikhs at mosques." As a result of the information technology revolution, however, this monopoly has been broken. "Today, our kids have broken the fetters of the typical sources of information and surfed into a different world, where they are able to exchange views with young people the world over and get acquainted with success stories from different countries." Some of the young demonstrators who sparked the revolution had reportedly studied the history of movements elsewhere that had ousted autocratic regimes. But until the 25 January revolution erupted, "we, the older generation, were fooled into thinking that we still had the upper hand over the minds of young people. That turned out to be a false belief," Naim said. While the young people who participated in the revolution did not in general suffer from poverty or in some cases unemployment, "they had delved into a utopian cyber-world, what is sometimes termed virtual reality, which they wanted to see realised here in this one. That virtual reality was a world where people enjoyed freedom and social equality, and it was this that the young people wanted to see realised in the real world." As a result, the desire for reform swiftly turned into a giant lurking in young groups of Facebook users and inciting the first sparks of revolution. "The authorities underestimated the power of these groups, thinking of them as little more than spoilt kids belonging to the well-off strata of society," Naim said. "The miracle happened when the masses, suffering from what we might call 'real reality' in the shape of poverty, social injustice, unemployment and political repression, joined the demonstrations, the whole nation then rising up in protest against the regime." Naim was from the well-off segment of society that took to the streets with the masses during the demonstrations. For Naim, the 25 January Revolution was about a desire for dignity rather than poverty. "It hurts me as an Egyptian to see fellow citizens begging on the streets or scrounging for food," Naim said. "We can't have pride in ourselves as a nation while half the people live below the poverty line." Under Mubarak's rule, inflation rates rose to high levels, further impoverishing the population and squeezing the middle strata of society. Unemployment was rife and low wages left many in despair, sparking a flood of protests over recent years. However, other factors contributed to the revolution beside economic ones, at least according to The Economist. "Even to a people inured to politics as a farcical pageant, the blatant fakery of the parliamentary elections held in November and December, which virtually shut out any opposition players, seemed a lurid insult and added to the injury of Mubarak's apparent plan to foist upon them [the Egyptians] his son Gamal as their next ruler," it wrote. Stories of corruption involving "not just rich businessmen but also the institutions of Mubarak's state" also made many young people shun the ballot boxes and politics in general. They saw "Egypt's state-managed version of politics as a waste of time" and "often complained that they do not feel they own their country, as if it is someone else's private estate." After the events of the past two weeks or so, Naim comments, "I have found all those on the street to be very politically oriented, even though most of them were not members of any political group or party. They have vowed to change the reality and there is no going back on that." As more and more people now engage in the clean-up campaigns, Qazzaz also sees a nation "removing the dust from its face and getting ready for a long honeymoon."
