Why would a country that showed itself so courageous in confronting Mubarak’s repression now be content to sacrifice its hard won gains, and accept a regime that has gone far further?
The key to combating extremism is prevention. But what are the conditions that lead youth to become radicalised?
The peasantry is still missing from the discourse of the protest movement. As important as political and security sector reform are, the protest movement must include rural Egypt if it is to reach critical mass.
Abuses are systemic despite regime attempts to portray them as 'isolated'. People have much to fear from the police and their sense of impunity but they are not taking it quietly.
Young people's experience of revolution has not evaporated, or been eradicated by oppression. Start building a new revolutionary wave that will not fall prey to the 'Islamic vs. secular' division.
The Muslim Brotherhood, secular activists and even regime supporters have decided to shield themselves from reality, focusing on a discourse that provides them with a protective layer from the grim conditions engulfing them.
The revolutionary calls were necessary; they united otherwise mutually hostile groups, politicised the apolitical and neutralised the anti-political. But it was not exactly a rupture nor a total break with the past.
Tunisia’s foreign friends would do well to remember that in 2011 there was a revolution in, not of the system. The current state of stasis is not a good omen for the future.
Jack Shenker's The Egyptians: A Radical Story is a must read for anyone who wants to understand how and why Egypt's revolution happened – and why it continues.
On the fifth anniversary of Egypt’s uprising: a range of opinions in articles and tweets, first and foremost from the people of Egypt.
A message to the revolutionaries of Egypt: you can no longer recognise your pre-2011 self.
It is still too soon to judge the outcomes of such a profound and wide-ranging global upheaval. عربي
