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Down but Not Out: Youth and Revolution in Egypt and Beyond
Egyptian
youths shout slogans against the country’s ruling military council
during a demonstration in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Nov. 30, 2011
(AP photo by Bela Szandelszky).
By Thanassis Cambanis
Young people and youthful energy propelled the Arab uprisings that began in 2010. And while the cohesion and impact of vaguely defined “youth” movements have been overstated, they remain the most important potential source of change—the Arab world’s best hope. The small vanguard that drove the original uprisings is growing more organized and more ideologically sophisticated even as, for the time being, it has lost political ground.
Egypt has always set regional trends in political thought. Its Tahrir Square uprising raised expectations for democratic transitions throughout the region, although the other Arab revolts brought wildly divergent results, especially for youth. Today the military appears to have won in Egypt, but the long-term outcome of the struggle there between revolutionary and reactionary forces is still in question; how it unfolds will be a bellwether for the Arab world.
Youth Is a State of Mind
Basem Kamel makes an unlikely revolutionary youth activist. I first met him four years ago, inside the small tent erected by the Revolutionary Youth Coalition to house its big-tent deliberations in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. He seemed decidedly middle-aged and established: balding, evenly shaved despite his sleep-deprived gaze, slightly stooped, his scruffy protest clothes accented with a knotted orange scarf. He was 41, father to three children, proprietor of an architecture firm. “Youth is a state of mind,” he laughed when I arched my eyebrows at his age. . . . READ THE RESThttp://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/14682/down-but-not-out-youth-and-revolution-in-egypt-and-beyond?utm_source=Weekly+Headlines&utm_campaign=306943f1e2-free-to-weekly-012715&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6e36cc98fd-306943f1e2-62711729
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