The displays of masculine assertiveness by the football ultras in Egypt and their strongly gendered form of youth activism points to the need to look beyond clichés about unspecified notions of revolutionary youth. Initially opposed to state authorities, are the ultras refashioning themselves as new political players?

An everyday story of life in Egypt.

The politics of neglect which has long governed Cairo's expansive informal spaces looks set to remain well into the post-Mubarak era.

Last week I asked twenty Egyptian men, all in their mid to late twenties, from a range of lower to upper class backgrounds about the women listed above and three out of twenty knew who they were.

It is ironic that street vendors have spent more time in the square than any protestor ever has. Omar comes out staggeringly alive in his death. A spectrum of colours is added to his socially-perceived black and white life. We are teleported into another world of how the other (majority) Egypt lives.

The Shari’a is largely irrelevant to most important issues of policy and administration in the economy and in government. Its historical and symbolic locus is on family and sexuality: patriarchal rights, segregation of the sexes, enforced female modesty.

Why has the Obama administration been reluctant to intervene directly in the raging Syrian conflict, or even to arm the rebels? Why did the US president refuse to take ownership of the NATO mission in Libya, failing to engage in Tunisia and Egypt? What makes sense of Obama’s strategy towards the greater Middle East?