Chapter Setting the Stage

“Revolution Youth” is a term that has emerged in the last four years in Egypt

acquiring a lot of popularity both in the media and in scholarly studies. After the

downfall of Mubarak, the two most organized and established entities, namely the

military and the Muslim Brotherhood, were able to direct the political scene while

youth, who ignited the revolution, were pushed to the margins. The activism of the

revolutionary forces could not translate into political power that would lead to the

realization of the goals of the revolution. A plethora of youth-inspired organizations,

movements and initiatives emerged over the past four years to occupy the public space

and carve an independent path for pushing towards “bread, freedom and social justice,”

the main slogans that the revolution raised. However, these efforts were faced with

tremendous obstacles and setbacks.

With the newly acclaimed public space the revolution liberated, some youth

formed new political parties or joined recently established ones, while others remained

as pressure groups preferring to affect the political scene without being part of the

official political game. Other groups of youth acted through different affiliations such

as students’ movements and soccer fans associations, like the “Ultras.” At different

stages throughout the transitional period, various attempts at unification and

collaborating efforts appeared through the creation of youth coalitions and

revolutionary fronts. The fact remains that the majority of the youth participants in the

revolution stayed ‘unorganized’ and the revolution remained disempowered.

Occasionally mobilized by the more organized revolutionary groups, these youth

remain the vital force of the revolution that is able to tip the balance of power at any

given point.

From all the revolution’s scenes, two are contrasting and most revealing:

January 25, 2011 and July 26, 2013. In a way, these two scenes display the extent of

change that has happened in two years. January 25, 2011 represents the youth’s power,

innovation and ability to mobilize. The scene of Tahrir, filled with tens of thousands of

people at night, epitomized the struggles of social movements for freedom, democracy

and human rights over a decade preceding 2011. That day is also symbolic in that it

attested to the power of social media and the ability of the educated urban middle class

youth to reach out to larger segments of the society and ignite the first flames of the

uprising. In terms of power balance, the youth who were backed by the people had the

upper hand. For the first time, they were on the offensive while the regime was on the

defensive. They got to decide collectively their demands and actively push for them. It

was a scene of youth empowerment, people’s power, hope for the future and a break of

the fear barriers.

July 26, 2013 on the other hand, is the exemplification of the complete opposite.

That is the day General Abel Fattah al-Sisi asked the people to take to the streets to

‘give him a mandate’ to fight ‘terrorism’. A statement understood by many at the time

as a code for a permission to kill the opposition, namely the Muslim Brotherhood, and

violently disperse the Raba`a and Nahda sit-ins. The youth and revolutionary forces had

great suspicion and reservation against Sisi’s request. However, their voices were

marginalized. The scene in Tahrir and elsewhere that day represented the antithesis of

everything January 25, 2011 stood for: the nation is severely divided and polarized; the

masses moved by fear instead of hope for the future; the revolutionaries on the defensive

being called traitors and Muslim Brotherhood’s sympathizers for their opposition of the

rallies. The same people who once demonstrated for freedom and justice were now

blinded by fear and hate, bent on annihilating the opposition. The youth who were once

active in orchestrating the scene were pushed aside and had little influence in directing

the events on the ground. It was the coronation of the counter-revolution’s victory.

These two scenes raise the question of what has changed between those two

dates? What made the “Revolutionary Youth” lose their leverage and their ability to

affect the political scene? Why were they successful in mobilizing the people during the

18 days of the revolution but lost them to the old regime only two years later? Why

weren’t the youth movements able to organize effectively to compete with the Muslim

Brotherhood and the military? How did they shift from being main actors to

marginalized ones over the course of such a short period? These questions represent

several aspects that this study will cover.

1.2 Research Question and Study Objectives

This study aims to answer the question of why and how the youth revolutionary

movements as a whole transformed from being major actors in January 25, 2011 to

being marginal players post June 30, 2013. This is based on the observation that youth

played an essential role in organizing and orchestrating the

Egyptian Revolution on January 25 and over the 18 days until the downfall of Mubarak.

Almost four years into the revolution, these same youth figures and movements are

faced with marginalization at best and defaming, persecution and imprisonment at

worst. Their political power has greatly declined and their ability to affect the political

scene is almost non-existent. Comparing those two historical moments is not the

objective of the study, however. What this research is interested in is uncovering the

reasons for the failure of the youth to assert themselves as integral and effective actors

on the political scene to effect the changes they so ardently advocated.

The study’s second objective is to understand the dynamics of social movements

in post-revolutionary contexts. What sort of limitations does their form of organization

pose on their effectiveness? How do their ideologies and the way they frame their

demands affect the desired outcomes? What sort of strategies and tactics are most

efficient and best suited to both their function as social movements and the nature of

the political period? What sort of transformations occur to them in the process of

shifting from revolutionary to political movements? This objective relates to the larger

framework of social movements and its findings can be used to understand similar cases

in other countries in the Middle East.

Informed by a large body of literature on social movement theories, I will focus

on resources and especially organization, political process and framing as the major

explanatory factors to answer the main question and the subsequent ones. This thesis

argues that a) the youth’s organizational dilemma; b) their reliance on protest as the

exclusive tool to practice politics; c) and their failure to develop a discourse to attend

to people’s socio-economic needs are the reasons for their marginal role in the post-

revolution period. An overarching theme that runs throughout the thesis is the

relationship between the youthful and the revolutionary. By understanding social

movements as expressions of youth political engagement, this study aims to highlight

the characteristics and implications the “youthful” nature of the revolution has on the

ongoing struggle.

1.3. Chapter Outline

This research consists of four chapters in addition to a conclusion. The first

chapter explains the objectives of the study and the research question. It situates the

issue of youth and revolution in its larger context through a review of the literature. It

also presents a conceptual framework giving a brief overview of the three main social

movements theories that the study applies: Resource Mobilization Theory, Political

Opportunity Structure and Framing. The conceptual framework also identifies and

problematizes the concepts of youth, “Revolutionary Youth” and “youthful revolution”

which will be utilized throughout the thesis. Finally, the chapter lays out the

methodology used as well as the challenges and limits of the study.

The second chapter explores the youth’s utilization of the different kinds of

resources available to them. Most importantly, it examines the modes of organization

in the post-Mubarak era. Using Resource Mobilization Theory, the chapter analyzes the

effect of the Egyptian revolution’s “leaderless-ness” on the organizational models the

different social movements adopted and the effect it had on their ability to mobilize and

gain popularity. In addition to organization and human resources represented by

leadership, moral, cultural and material resources are also examined.

Chapter three is interested in the political context affecting the youth’s activism.

More specifically, it looks at the institutional structures which facilitate or constrain the

youth’s realization of their goals. Applying Political Opportunity Structure, this chapter

identifies the opportunities the nature of the closed political system and the state’s

capacity for repression presented. While structures of the political system imposed

restrictions on youth’s access to formal politics, it provided them an opportunity for

mobilization. However, opportunities need to be perceived and recognized to be

considered opportunities.

In chapter four, the cultural context is examined to understand its effect on the

frames the youth used to appeal to the people. Based on the Framing approach, the focus

on agency is important to complement the previous chapter on institutional structures.

The chapter identifies the frames the youth used for identifying the problem, proposing

solutions and calling the people to action. It discusses the reasons for the failure of many

of those frames to reach out to the people. Moreover, I will assess counter-framing and

frame contests which the youth have been engaged since January 25th and the

similarities and differences between their framing by the different post-Mubarak

regimes.

Finally, the conclusion argues for the importance of using a three dimensional

approach in studying youth movements. It highlights the thesis contribution to the

literature on youth movements and reveals the necessity for more specific studies

exploring the relationship between the youth and the revolutionary process.

1.4 Literature Review

1.4.1 Social Movements in Egypt

This study draws on a large literature on social movements and particularly youth

movements in Egypt and the Middle East. When applied to the Middle East,

Social Movement Theory (SMT) has most popularly been used to study modern

Islamic movements (e.g. Berna 2008; Donker 2013; Kayhan 2009; Munson 2001;

Shahin 1997, Wiktorowicz 2004; Zahedani 1997). More recently, it has also been used

to study workers movements in the region (Abdallah 2012; Beinin 2012; ElMahdi

2009). Since the January 25 Revolution, the role of youth as social movements acquired

more prominence and became the focus of study of many scholars from various angles

(Abdallah 2013; Cole 2014; Hoffman and Jamal 2012; Shehata 2012). A number of

social scientists observe the emergence of a new form of social movements in the region

(Abdelrahman 2013; Ezbawy 2012; Herrera 2014). Maha Abdelrahman considers the

nature of activism and revolutionary process in Egypt and observes the characteristics

of the New Social Movements (NSMs), arguing that the lack of sustainable new

organizational structures is one of the great challenges for real revolutionary change in

post-Mubarak Egypt. In her work “In Praise of Organization:

Egypt between Activism and Revolution”, Abdelrahman makes the argument that the

very features of these movements, once credited for the success of the revolution, now

pose serious challenges for the post-Mubarak transformation.

Examining the literature on youth movements in Egypt, three main features

become apparent. First, most of the major studies explore social movements in the

decade preceding the Egyptian Revolution leading up to January 25th (Abdelrahman

2014; El-Mahdi & Marfleet 2009; Beinin & Vairel 2013). They focus on the element of

continuity and argue that the roots of the revolution go deeper than what appears on the

surface. The revolution in their opinion was the culmination of a decade of civil

society’s activism in the form of pro-change movements, youth movements, workers

movements, and pro-democracy movements. Without the increasing pressure and

struggles of all those actors since the early 2000s, the revolution wouldn’t have been

possible. Maha Abdelrahman best expresses that argument by the very title of her book

Egypt's Long Revolution: Protest Movements and Uprisings. Moreover, she postulates

that the characteristics of these new social movements and their form of political

mobilization have helped shape the political process since the fall of Mubarak. Rabab

El-Mahdi refers to what is known in the literature as “cycles of protest”, observing the

array of different but complementary activities of pro-change groups before the

revolution. El-Mahdi utilizes the framework of social movements to analyze the rise of

pro-democracy movements preceding the 2005 referendum in Egypt; however, she goes

beyond the limitations of Opportunity Structure Model3 and argues for looking closely

at the “cycles of contentions that preceded it and energized it through shared personnel

and leadership … communities of protest … collectively learned tactics, and through

creation of space for overcoming ideological divisions”.

Joel Beinin and Frederick Vairel agree with El-Mahdi in critiquing traditional

Social Movement Theory. They argue that traditional Political Opportunity Structures

(POS) understanding of contexts is narrow, fixed and objectivist. Contexts are never

equivalent and the wide discrepancies among authors on the list of variables that

represent “opportunities” testify to the limited explanatory claim of the model. 5 Beinin

and Vairel observe that the same overly structural undertones are also present in the use

of collective frames and mobilizing paradigm where these frameworks are regarded as

pre-existing rather than dynamic processes constantly created and developed by leaders

and followers in a dialectical way. Going beyond the traditional understanding of SMT,

the authors redefine, modify and utilize with more nuances analytical concepts and tools

such as ‘informal networks’. The authors focus on three axes: contexts, networks and

contentious practices to answer the classical questions of the contribution studying

social movements in the Middle East and North Africa can bring to mainstream social

theory and also how these new insights enhance our understanding of the region.

Those studies’ story of social -and especially youth- movements in Egypt is

essentially one of success coroneted by the removal of Mubarak. Bearing in mind the

different approaches and arguments, the analysis is centered on the sources of

contention and the reasons for the emergence of protest movements. In the case of

Egypt, it stops at the significant moment of the January 25th Revolution eruption and

the transition of power to SCAF. The social and historical context they provide is

invaluable in understanding the later developments of those movements.

Second, the researchers who went beyond the analysis of the roots of youth

activism were preoccupied with the 18 days of Tahrir protest (Ezbawy 2012; Shahin

2012; Shehata 2012) Once again, the story projected is one of triumph that examines

the process of brining down an authoritarian regime. The questions asked have to do

with the reasons for their success in mobilization and organization and the dynamics of

contentious politics in a revolutionary context. Many of these studies, although

descriptive in nature, add important documentation to the literature and draw an

elaborate portrait of the movements participating in the January 25th protests that could

be used for further in-depth analysis.

For example, Yusery Ezbawy’s analysis concentrates on the elements of

organization and cooperation and how central they were in planning and carrying out

the revolution. He surveys the role of youth social movements in instigating the January

25th Revolution and shows the connections between them. Using actor network theory,

Ezbawy explains how the absence of a revolutionary leadership was dealt with by the

youth through forming new connections (networks) by a series of joint actions

(demonstrations). Tackling another aspect of social movement theory, Ezbawy

demonstrates how through choosing underdeveloped urban areas as starting points for

demonstrations on January 25th, youth movements were putting relative depravity

concept into action.8

Dina Shehata traces youth activism since the beginning and 2000s and provides

a useful account on the role of youth movements in January 25th. More

importantly, she identifies five characteristics unique to those movements: they act

outside of parties and traditional organizations, they take place off-university campus,

they are non or trans-ideological, and they make extensive use of information

technology. Shehata’s account is informative and helps situate youth movements in their

historical context; however, further studies are needed to examine the development of

these characteristics in the post-Mubarak era and the extent of change and appropriation

that occurred to them.

Third, there is a disproportionate focus on the role of Facebook and social media

in instigating the Revolution and youth movement activities in the literature. Many

studies on youth and revolutionary movements in the Middle East accord social media

the primary role, giving the impression that the youth were able to change the regime

essentially through the use of technology. They highlight the role of the Internet in the

success of the revolution, the formation of new collective identity and call by

consequence to further utilization of social media (Baron 2012; Bliuc 2013; Eltantawy

& Wiest 2011). Some go as far as arguing that digital activism in Egypt since the 1990s

and blogging in particular (in combination with protest movements and the press) are

the root cause of the 2011 uprising (e.g. Faris 2012). However, many authors also

engage the topic more skeptically and point to the limitations of using social media as

the overarching framework of analysis (e.g. Sayed 2012; ElMahdi 2011). Others, taking

a moderate position direct attention to often less-studied aspects such as the difference

between tactical and strategic uses of social media (e.g. Gerbaudo 2012).

Focusing almost exclusively on the Facebook page ‘We are All Khaled Said’,

Linda Herrera traces its origins, and follows through the different phases of the page’s

developments as events unfold. However, Herrera asks larger questions on whether the

balance of power could be shifted by the youth movements’ use of technology for

organization, expression, mobilization and discussion. Herrera explores how the virtual

world can transform into battle sites where the youth movements’ mastering of

technological tools is faced by increasingly efficient ways of monitoring, containing

and cooptation by more powerful entities using the same tools. The author seems to

conclude, however, that pro-democracy youth movements that are oriented towards

fighting corrupt and autocratic regimes remain at an advantage in the digital age.

Luis Fernando Baron tries to critically engage the debate on the “Facebook

Revolution” by prefacing that a careful consideration of youth organizations and

networks as well as larger history of social and protest movements in Egypt is necessary

to put things in context. Nevertheless, he makes the case that Informational and

Communication Technologies (ICTs) was not only essential in the formation of the

largest youth movement, April 6th, but it was also instrumental in “reporting, framing,

and discussing sociopolitical mobilization in Egypt” as well as calling for action,

organization and conduction of protests. Furthermore, ICTs represented a space for

youth political engagement and identification providing them with alternative arenas of

political debate and action. An analysis shared by Nahed Eltantawy and Julie B. Wiest

who explore the use of social media by youth movement during 2011 Revolution to

reconsider the parameters of the Resource Mobilization Theory. They argue that social

media should be incorporated as an integral resource for mobilization and organization

in modern social movements.12

Aouragh and Alexander (2011) attempt to offer an understanding of the

dialectical relationship between the online and offline political activity. They hold that

the two cannot have meaning or be understood in isolation from one another. However,

they make the salient argument that Twitter and Facebook, commonly referred to as

social networks, are in fact not social networks but social tools; the people are the social

network. In contradiction to Baron who perceived social media as having a decisive role

in the creation, sustainability and development of April 6th Youth Movement and

increasing the “size, speed and reach of activism” at large, Aouragh and Alexander

consider social media only as a medium that provided alternative mechanism to spread

the message.

Using Framing, one of social movements paradigms, Manaf Bashir analyzes

the portrayal of online activism by youth movements. Taking the case study of April 6th

Youth Movement, he concludes that the movement’s leaders and participants’

performance of the three social movements framing tasks (i.e. diagnostic, prognostic,

and motivational frames) were similar. The significance of this study lies in offering

possibilities for a better understanding of diverse frames used by leaders and

participants of youth movements especially as the latter are gaining more agency.

The focus on the online aspect particularly the use of technology and social

media in social movement mobilization and development and also in the formation of

ideas and identities is definitely important. However, that analysis ignores other

important aspects and neglects the fact that those who have no access to the Internet are

the majority in the country. Also drawing a direct causal relationship between Facebook

and the Egyptian Revolution is reductionist if not overly naïve. In Herrera’s words

“Facebook is no more responsible for Egypt’s revolution than Gutenberg’s printing

press with movable type was responsible for the Protestant Reformation in the fifteenth

century”. Similarly, the role of the Internet and online media in shaping and shifting the

political consciousness of this generation is worthy of consideration but is at many times

exaggerated.

It is worth mentioning that the Arabic literature by and large, in contradiction to

my expectations, proved to be of secondary use. This could be due to the fact that the

majority of prominent Egyptian scholars in political science and sociology opt to write

in English. In any case, many of the academic studies in Arabic I examined were in

great part descriptive and at many times lacked an argument. Others were too absorbed

in details while the majority were of a journalistic nature providing a lot of valid ideas

but often lacking clear theoretical frameworks. Exceptions to this, which turned out to

be useful, include Arab Forum for Alternatives studies, in particular

George Fahmi’s paper “Youth Movements Post January 25th”, Omar Khalaf’s “Youth

Political Participation after the Revolution” and the collective work “Untraditional

Patterns of Youth Political Participation Before, During and After the Revolution”.

As can be noticed from this brief literature overview, youth movements in Egypt

have been studied extensively from various perspectives. There is need to extend the

research in terms of timeframe to cover Mohamed Morsi and Abdel Fattah al-Sisi

presidencies which are often missing from the analyses. It is also timely that research

goes beyond the utopic experience of Tahrir and pose new questions with regard to the

role of youth movements in post-revolutionary/ transitional periods, the transition from

the revolutionary to the political and the changes occurring to the

movements in the process in terms of structures, ideas, strategies and tactics.

Doug McAdam, Sidney Tarrow, and Charles Tilly’s chapter on contentious

politics, of which social movement is the most studied form, summarizes the major

debates, approaches, and theories regarding social movements. Written in 2009 based

on and referencing the famous trio’s work over the three preceding decades, that chapter

does a remarkable job contextualizing the different concepts related to contentious

politics, social movements processes, dynamics, and problematiques. The authors

survey the development of the field since the 1960s when studying contentious politics

first became popular among American and later on European scholars. In their survey,

the three sociologists highlight the three main trends within social movement theory:

Political Process Model, Resource Mobilization, and

Framing reflecting the structural, rational and constructivist approaches respectively.

This will be explained in more details in the theoretical framework.

1.4.2 Significance of the study

This thesis will add to the literature in a number of ways. First, it builds on the

already established work on social movements before the Egyptian Revolution to

present the journey of the youth post-the revolution. It will fill a gap in the literature

concerning the relationship between the youthful and the revolutionary.

Second, it will assess the applicability and usefulness of the use of models such

as SMT and NSMs to understand and analyze youth movements in Egypt. Using social

movements theory to study the youth in post-revolution Egypt, this study posits new

horizons for developing the theory to suit revolutionary situations and suggests

prospects for including different factors of analysis specific to each case.

Third, the mapping of youth's political activity across the four years since the

revolution is an endeavor that has not been exhaustively taken before. This research will

present a valuable addition in presenting a comprehensive overview both in terms of

scope of actors and the timeframe covered to help future researchers studying the

Egyptian youth.

Fourth, this study, using youth as a category of social analysis, strikes a balance

between acknowledging the differences between the youth groups and not dealing with

them as one homogeneous group and at the same time observing the common

characteristics and patterns. My research allows for a flexible application of social

movement theory that takes into action the nature of the political and cultural context

in Egypt. I acknowledge the useful tools and concepts the theory offers in analysis yet

I make sure they serve the purpose of direction not determination.

1.5 Conceptual Framework

1.5.1 Social Movement Theories

This research utilizes social movements theory as the main framework of

analysis. In this section I will go briefly over the definition of social movement and the

main theoretical tenants I will depend on. Specific variables of analysis will be

discussed in each chapter more elaborately. Social movements is a term widely used to

cover “most or all of the overlap between contention and collective action.” It falls

under the more general field of contentious politics, which has acquired prominence

since the 1990s. The hallmark of contentious politics is common people’s ability to exert

power by disruptive means setting in motion important political and social changes.

Contentious politics happens when “ordinary people – often in alliance with more

influential citizens and with changes in the public mood – join forces in confrontation

with the elites, authorities and opponents”.

Social movements is one form of contentious politics (perhaps the most studied),

however, it has certain characteristics that differentiate it from other forms of contention

such as civil wars. At the core of social movement is contentious collective action.

Collective action becomes contentious when it is used by people with no consistent

access to representative institutions who act on behalf of new or unaccepted claims

behaving in a way that essentially challenges their opponents (usually the state).

According to Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow, there are three defining features to

social movements: 1) “sustained campaigns of claim making”, and 2) “an array of

public performances”. These include public meetings and statements, demonstrations,

rallies, letter writing, press releases and lobbying. 3) And finally

“repeated public display of worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment” (WUNC).

This is done through wearing certain colors, chanting slogans, carrying signs, among

others.20 Donatella Della Porta, and Mario Diani identify four features for social

movements: 1) They have informal interactions networks “between a plurality of

individuals, groups and organizations”, which can range between being loosely

organized and dispersed to being highly organized; 2) collective identity which is

displayed through having common beliefs and solidarity; 3) “collective action focusing

on conflict”, 4) finally, protest is used by social movements as a form of action. The

combination of these four factors results in forming social movements.

After half of a century of theorizing social movements, three approaches have

consolidated their presence in the field. None can be used independently to explain

social movements. In this study, I build on previous scholars’ efforts to synthesize and

combine elements from each theoretical approach to study youth movements in Egypt.

The first strand of theories reflecting a rational choice model can be grouped under the

Resource Mobilization Theory, which focuses on motivations that encourage or

discourage popular mobilization and collective action. Appearing in the

1960s, this perspective essentially developed from the field of economics. The

American economist Mancur Olson is one pioneer of this approach whose work on

collective action focused on the reasons people de-mobilize rather than mobilize. Olson

argues that individuals based on rational choice may very well avoid taking action when

they perceive others as doing so on their behalf. This puzzle known as the free rider

dilemma was later specified by Mark Lichback as “the rebel’s dilemma”. It became the

subject of study by social movements scholars ever since. John McCarthey and Mayer

Zald introduced a theory that focuses on professional movement organizations in

response to Olson. Emphasizing the leadership aspect and shifting away from the effect

of grievances on collective action, the theory posits that the success of social

movements depends on their ability to make use of resources through organizational

means. These resources are not limited to material ones but include human, moral,

socio-organizational and cultural resources.

Based on the fact that social movements do not operate in a vacuum, a second

approach concerned with exogenous factors and the context within which social

movements act developed. Political Opportunity Structure reflects the structural

paradigm perceiving collective action as both a response and an influence on

institutional politics. Based on several scholars’ conceptions of dimensions of political

opportunity, four factors relating to the environment affect the movement’s ability to

mobilize can be summarized: 1) openness/closeness of the regime 2) stability of

political alignments 3) presence/absence of elite allies 4) the state’s capacity for

repression. Similarly, there is no agreement among scholars regarding the variables that

constitute “opportunities” to explain the effects of the same context on different

movements. In his comparative article, Marco Giugni presents four kinds of

opportunities that deserve special attention: discursive opportunities, specific

opportunities, perceived opportunities and the shift from conditions to mechanisms. The

political process model contrary to what the name suggests does not provide specific

mechanisms to study the process of contention. Each scholar presents a different set of

variables. It has to be used with other elements of social theory to be able to connect

different aspects of the model to one another.

The third major paradigm is constructivism reflected in Framing Process and

drawing on older collective behavior approach and culture analysis. Framing refers to

the social movement’s construction of meaning by creating an “interpretative scheme”

that simplifies the world and assign meaning (frame) to itself, events and opponents to

mobilize supporters. David Snow, Donatella Della Porta, and Robert Benford are among

the pioneers of that theory. With its focus on the construction of meaning and the role

of ideas in sustaining a movement and its chances of success, framing processes theory

completes the triangle for understanding social movements.

1.5.2 The Definition of Youth

Youth is often defined in biological terms comprising different age ranges

according to the entity issuing the definition. For example, in Egypt the Central Agency

for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS) defines the youth as those between

the ages of 18-29 while the UN defines them as those between 15-24. The African Youth

Charter, on the other hand, defines youth as anyone between the ages 15-35. Although

these are all valid definitions of the youth, none of them is exclusively used in this

research 36 . Instead of focusing solely on the age-based definitions, I deal with youth as

a social construct that provides more room for understanding the dynamics that exceeds

the boundaries of age and delve into the realm of ideas, habitus, and expressions.

Indeed, there is an important biological aspect that could not be overlooked; however,

the concept is more comprehensive and lucid to be restricted in fixed ages. Asef Bayat

goes as far as arguing that young people are not by default “youth”. Rather, they become

youth as a social category that is turning into social actors. This is based on his argument

that youth is mainly a modern and urban social construct owing to the mass education,

mass media and urban public spaces. In Egypt, a phenomenon such as ‘marriage

waithood’ imposes on many youth an “extension of their youth” as their transition to

adulthood by marriage is postponed.39

In Egypt, those between the ages 18-29 according to CAPMAS’s most recent

statistics, constitutes around twenty millions Egyptians, half of whom are under the

poverty line.40 This latter part of the information is essential because in talking about

the revolutionary youth, analysts and commentators often overlook the fact that half of

them are hardly if ever represented in political movements and parties. The Egyptian

youth had ample reasons to participate in the revolution. As previously mentioned,

Egypt is a very young country with 24 as the median age, meaning that half the

population is under 24. Politically and economically, the youth suffered from exclusion.

Additionally, the youth carried the brunt of unemployment. According to

CAPMAS 70.8% of the unemployed in Egypt are youth under the age of 29. Moreover,

with regard to the level of education, 84.5% of the unemployed held high school and

college degrees. Youth have the highest stakes in democratic transition as they have the

future ahead of them and a life to look forward to. With high level of education and

exposure, the youth’s expectations increased and consequently their frustrations with

the realities in Egypt.

1.5.3 “Revolutionary Youth”

The term “Revolutionary Youth” is a complex term that has no single definition.

Over the past four years, it has been used and misused in different contexts for various

intentions by different actors. While some believe there is no such thing as

“Revolutionary Youth” and that this is simply a media creation that perceived in the

“Facebook urban middle class educated youth” a presentable model for a peaceful and

civilized revolution; others believe there is no escape from the fact there existed a solid

core of youth activists whose role has been essential for the revolution and by sharing

certain characteristics can be considered a social category.

In this research I examine those youth who took part in the planning of the

revolution, actively participated in it and remained politically or civically engaged

throughout the post- Mubarak period. Shabab Al-Thawra, literally translated to “the

youth of the revolution”, presents a more accurate depiction of the concept than

“Revolutionary Youth”, which confers a revolutionary quality that may be contested.

However, since the term “Revolutionary Youth” is commonly used in the media and

scholarly studies, I will use it in this research to maintain consistency. At many times, I

simply use the term “youth” for the sake of simplicity.

Many studies on the topic in Egypt deal with the youth as one homogenous

group that act with the same mindset. They tend to focus on the role the youth played

in organizing the revolution, often romanticizing it and falling into a lot of

generalizations. In this research, I try to deal with revolutionary youth as a social group

sharing many common features and aspirations for the future while acknowledging their

different articulations of their demands and visions for the country. While it is important

to note the role the youth have played in the revolution, it is equally important not to

fall into the traps of oversimplification and idealizing of the notion. In my analysis, I

deal with Revolutionary Youth as a social movement that encompasses many Social

Movement Organizations (SMOs). Put differently, Revolutionary Youth is considered

the social umbrella advocating for change. Entities such as Revolution Youth Coalition,

6th of April, Revolutionary Socialists, We are All Khaled Said, and others are considered

different SMOs –“formal organizations that take the collective pursuit of social change

as a primary goal”. This allows for a two-level analysis that avoids getting consumed

in specificities or over generalizing.

1.5.4 Youthful Revolution

The role of youth in revolutions is not something new or unique to the Egyptian

case. Historically, in revolutions, youth often were the majority of participants for

reasons having to do with physical ability and having fewer responsibilities. So why is

it then that the Egyptian Revolution has been called a

“youth revolution” before the “popular revolution” narrative became mainstream? The

issue is not just one of numbers. The mere large participation of youth does not make

the Egyptian revolution a youth revolution. Instead of defining a movement according

to the age of its participants and the identity of its actors at large, scholars like Asef

Bayat advocate that it is the nature of demands and the causes adopted by the movement

which define its nature. The fact that the youth were at the core of the revolution as

youth gave the struggle a generational dimension that could not be overlooked. While

“youth” refers to an age range, “youthful” refers to the attributes and features associated

with that phase of being young. Age is an important factor but the choices and demands

informed by that age are equally important. As one activist noted: “It is a generational

struggle but on the level of ideas as well and not only age”. It is a struggle between the

old and the new, the conventional and the innovative, the past and the future. To be

revolutionary even if one did not belong to the youth age range meant to be youthful on

some level.

“Youthfulness” has been a quality painting the Egyptian Revolution, the actors

and the discourse involved. Even the traditional players had to engage with the youth

discourse and adapt their rhetoric and tools to keep up with the changing developments

and look “younger”.47 The youthful character of the revolution imposed itself as an

authentic part of the political equation that had to be contended with. The effects of the

Egyptian Revolution on social media are beyond the scope of this study but it is one

manifestation of how the youth were able to establish new ways of communication and

practicing journalism as realities in the Egyptian context. In brief, the purpose of this

section was to argue for the importance of including youth and youthfulness as useful

factors in analyzing revolutionary activities.

1.6 Methodology

1.6.1 Interviews

This research takes a qualitative socio-political approach using a variety of

primary and secondary sources to analyze the demise of youth as political actors.

Depending on interviews, I conducted 14 in-depth semi-structured interviews with

members from a variety of youth movements as well as many other informal discussions

and conversations . I do not claim nor do I aim to present a representative sample of

the youth. This study is by no way intended to be an ethnography; rather, the interviews

are used as additional primary sources to substantiate the arguments made. I am aware

of the inherent bias in my research towards the urban educated middle class youth being

more accessible and within my circle of acquaintances. However, the aim of those

interviews is to show the diversity of political background and action among some of

the youth who acquired leadership positions in their movements over the past four years

since the revolution and came to be known as “Revolutionary Youth”.

Although it is impossible and probably counterproductive in a study with such

scope to cover all youth movements, initiatives, groups and entities, I tried to be as

diverse as possible by interviewing youth from the most active and effective youth

social movements, political parties as well as independent activists. This included

current and former youth members from: April 6 Movement Masr Al-Qawiya, AlTayyar

Al-Masry, Al-Dostour, Revolution Youth Coalition, Revolutionary Socialists,

Revolution Path Front (Thowar), and unaffiliated youth.

At each phase of the transitional period, certain youth entities arose on the

political scene and acquired prominence. For example, during the SCAF's time, the

Revolution Youth Coalition was the first attempt at youth unification and creating a

unified front and for a year and a half it was regarded by some as the representative of

the revolution. During Sisi's rule many new groups appeared such as Revolution Path

Front. These two groups as examples of youth’s unification endeavors as well as other

actors will be referred to throughout the analysis whenever appropriate.

The interviews were conducted over the summer and fall of 2014. As I have

been fairly active myself within different circles of activists and kept close ties with

different initiatives and movements since January 25 Revolution, I believe this provided

an element of trust, making my job smoother and more productive. Some of the youth

I interviewed had to leave the country in fear for their safety. In that case,

Skype interviews were used.

1.6.2 Other Primary and Secondary Sources

Given the youthful nature of the topic, a lot of useful material could be found in

informal websites and blogs, I did my best to cite all sources whenever possible. Since

all youth movements have constantly up to date Facebook pages, this constituted a

major primary source I referred to for specific statements and articulation of positions.

In addition, being a native Arabic speaker allowed me to follow official and local

independent newspapers for data and a variety of views. This is in addition to scholarly

articles and books, especially for the theoretical framework.

1.6.3 Challenges and Opportunities

There are a number of challenges in a study of this sort. First, the events in Egypt

are still unfolding and the political scene is pretty much fluid and in constant flux.

Although the study is time bound, the ongoing events affect the analysis of the past

period and necessitates continuous development of approach to set things in

perspective. Attempting to engage a topic so contemporary feels like constantly trying

to shoot a moving target. Nevertheless, the timeliness of the topic adds more value to

the study and can help direct future research.

Second, being part of the youth myself and being engaged and greatly invested

in the topic is something that cannot be overlooked. In fact, an essential component to

the thesis is the personal motivation behind it. However, being aware of my inherit bias,

I am able to recognize the shortcomings of my own analysis and turn this challenge into

an opportunity for a more in touch with the ground study. In fact, more studies are

needed from young activists/scholars who could add to the theoretical discussions an

insider perspective as well as a passionate and critical self-evaluation.

Third, many of the concepts employed throughout the thesis are of arbitrary and

controversial nature. The definition and conception of youth itself the main concept of

this research is a task that could merit a study on its own. The same could be said about

the revolutionary. Nevertheless, it is by engaging with these concepts that a better and

more nuanced understandings could be developed. This challenge may actually be an

opportunity for suggesting new conceptions for understanding taken-for-granted

categories.

Chapter 2: In search of Organization

"Those who want liberty must organize as effectively as those who want tyranny."

Iyad al-Baghdadi, an Arab activist

2.1 Introduction

Using John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald’s comprehensive definition of

social movements as “a set of preferences for social change within a population”,

revolutionary youth in Egypt constitute a social movement. By revolutionary youth I

mean those youth who took part in the preparation and implementation of the

demonstrations on January 25th and continued to believe and strive for the ideals of the

revolution . But because those youth are diverse and have different interpretations of

what “bread, freedom and social justice” mean in action, it is indispensible to study

another closely related concept – social movement organizations (SMOs). SMOs are

“named” groups that seek to realize the social change goals of the social movement

using various tactics and strategies. The distinction between these two concepts SM

and SMOs is important to avoid generalizations, or even romanticization of the youth

potential and at the same to allow for the possibility of understanding and assessing

their activities realistically. In other words, what this thesis seeks to achieve is a

balanced analysis that acknowledges the youth’s heterogeneity while observing the

common features they exhibit and the similar challenges they face as one group sharing

the same formative experiences.

This thesis starts with the premise that revolutionary movement cannot be

adequately understood without taking into account the generational aspect.

Understanding revolutionary movements essentially as manifestations of youth

activities, this chapter delves into the first factor in analyzing youth’s demising role

from the forefront to the margins – resources.

2.2 Resource Mobilization Theory

Resource Mobilization Theory (RMT) is one approach in Social Movement

Theory (SMT) focusing on the importance of resources in the development and success

of social movements. The theory posits that the available form of resources shapes the

movement’s development and that the ability to utilize it determines the movement’s

success. Because of the basic premise of RMT, many studies utilize resources as a

primary factor in understanding the emergence, development and success of a social

movement or social movement organization but without specifically referencing the

approach. This is due to the fact that the main concepts and principles of the theory have

been so mainstreamed and internalized in the literature that they have become “taken

for granted”53. However, a careful application of the theory can provide useful insights

into the processes of social movements.

Influenced by economics, social theorists, for a long time, have dealt with

resources as being mainly financial or material ones. Others critiqued the model for

considering ‘everything a resource’. 54 Understanding the nature of resources is

essential before determining their use-value to social movements and the extent to

the local level the 2005 presidential elections and the 2010 parliamentary elections are two other

events. For more details see Strauss and Howe, Generations. 1991.

Bob Edwards and Melinda Kane (2014). Resource Mobilization and Social and Political Movements.

In Hein-Anton van der Heijden and Edwards Elgar (eds.). The Handbook of Political Citizenship and

Social Movements. Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA. 205-233. 208.

Bob Edwards and John D. McCarthy (2007). Resources and Social Movement Mobilization. In David

A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule, and Hanspeter Kriesi (eds.).The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements.

116- 151.

which access to them could be controlled. In this chapter, I follow a fivefold typology

developed by Edwards and McCarthy’s, consisting of human, socialorganizational,

moral, cultural, and material resources to analyze Egyptian youth’s resource

mobilization experience over the past four years.

Human resources constitute a tangible category comprising labor, experience

and skills. For the expertise and skills of the members to be of added value they have to

fit the movement or organization’s needs. Leadership is an important component

included in this category as it combines more than one human resource. The effect of

leadership could be tremendous on the movement or the organization determining its

success or failure. In the light of the leaderless-ness of the Egyptian Revolution with its

ensuing consequences, human resources will be given special attention in analysis.

The second type of resources is social-organizational resources. This category

includes intentional social organization created specifically to advance the goals of the

movement as well as appropriable organizations created as nonmovements with actors

using them to access other types of resources. Social organizational resources take three

general forms: infrastructures, social networks, and organizations. Access to these

resources obviously varies with infrastructures being nonproprietary social resources.

The two other resources will be carefully analyzed further on to explain the youth’s

inability to penetrate state organizations.

Legitimacy is the most studied form of moral resources. However, moral

resources also include the support and sympathy of the people and celebrity figures.

These forms of resources tend to develop outside the social movement or organization

and are conferred by an external actor. Therefore, they can be considered less

accessible and more proprietary than other resources. This could be observed in youth

political parties created after the presidential elections in Egypt such as Masr AlQawiya,

Al-Dostour and Al-Tayyar Al-Sha`abi, which sought to make use of the celebrity figures

Abdelmoneim Aboul Fotouh, Mohamed AlBaradei, and Hamdeen Sabahi respectively

to gain legitimacy.

The way Edwards and McCarthy define cultural resources, as cultural products

that include specialized knowledge and conceptual tools, emphasizes their relative and

context-specific quality. Among the cultural resources according to them is “tacit

knowledge about how to accomplish specific tasks like enacting a protest event, holding

a news conference, running a meeting, forming an organization, initiating a festival, or

surfing the web.” These resources are not universal.

Finally, material resources are the most tangible and analytically studied

resources. They combine physical and financial capital most notably money. Money is

definitely important for the sustainability of social movements and organizations, Youth

movements in Egypt have proved successful in bringing down Mubarak’s regime with

very few monetary resources available. However, the same could not be said about the

youth partisan experience, which failed to a great extent because of lack of funds.

It is worth noting that the mere presence of these resources does not

automatically make them available to potential social actors. For resources to be useful,

they have to be both present in a specific socio-historical context and to be accessible

to those actors. Resources also vary spatially and geographically with crucial resources

concentrating more at the core than at the periphery. This leads theorists to expect

mobilization to correlate more strongly with the availability of resources rather than

with the geographic distribution of grievances or injustices. This could be observed in

the Egyptian revolution where mobilization did not occur mainly in Upper Egypt

although it suffered more significantly from injustice and marginalization and instead

took place in urban Cairo and the Delta.

There are various mechanisms to access these resources. Four main mechanisms

are essential: Aggregation, self-production, appropriation and patronage. Aggregation

refers to the ways an SMO harnesses the resources by converting resources held by

individuals to collective resources that could be utilized by the organization. This could

include aggregating monetary resources held by others through the form of donations

or aggregating moral resources by producing and publicizing lists of endorsements by

public figures, for example. Self-production is the second mechanism by which

movements can secure resources. As the name indicates, it is an essential mechanism to

generate resources for any movement as it depends on its own members in producing

them. Appropriation concerns the ways a movement can make use of previously

aggregated resources by other organizations. It is important to note once more that these

sources need not to be material. It could also refer to the cooptation of discourse, social

networks or moral authority.61 Finally, patronage is the gaining of access to resources

through a “sponsoring” organization or person. Its most common form is financial

patronage whereby an organization specialized in patronage (e.g. foundation grant)

would provide an SMO with necessary money for their activities. In Egypt, youth

movements used a combination of those mechanisms to acquire resources relying

primarily on aggregation and selfproduction. Monetary patronage relationships proved

to be the most difficult to secure, as youth’s goals were often at odd with the successive

regimes following Mubarak while local NGOs support was modest given their limit

capacity.

This chapter will apply the five types of resources on revolution youth with

focus on human resources and social-organizational resources. Other resources will also

be examined briefly. The main part of the chapter, interested in the question of

organization, will explore the youth’s organizational dilemma to understand its effect

on the mobilization of the other resources and provide one explanation of why some

youth movements were more successful in developing sustainable and effective

organizations than others. It also explains why the youth as a whole were unable to

organize effectively.

In this regard, this chapter studies organizational structure and leadership not

only as resources themselves but more importantly it considers them the lens through

which the utilization of other resources can be analyzed. This is in accordance with a

large body of literature interested in the creation and characteristics of SMOs using

resources in combination with the two other analytical tools: frames and political

opportunity.

2.3 Human Resources

2.3.1 Leadership

Leadership is one of the most studied forms of human resources for it combines

a number of human resources such as skills and experience. It is also important because

it directly affects the mobilization of other resources. One of the most significant

features of the Egyptian revolution is that it was a leaderless one, at least in the

traditional sense. ‘The multitude’ to use political philosophers Michael Hardt and

Antonio Negri’s expression, was able to organize itself without a center. Social media

tools were expressions of that new organizational structure that enabled autonomous

forms of getting together. Many argue, and perhaps rightly so, that the revolution did

not succeed, despite having a leader, but in fact because it didn’t have a leader. Having

no leader meant the movement could not be co-opted or pre-empted. The regime could

not target its leaders by killing, imprisonment or striking a deal. The Egyptian

Revolution had no proclaimed leaders, nor a clear organizational structure. It was a fluid

body that posed an unprecedented threat the regime did not know how to handle.

Hierarchical structures such as governments are most familiar confronting structures of

the same nature. Leaderless networks of actions, developed in response to the inefficient

over hierarchical traditional political structures, constituted a new challenge they

simply had no tools to manage.

This leaderless-ness, however, could not sustain for a long time once Mubarak

was deposed. The first dilemma it posed in the Egyptian context is the issue of

representation. Who gets to represent the youth or the revolution for that matter?

When Mubarak fell on February 11, 2011, both the SCAF and the Muslim Brotherhood

drew on their large organizational skills and structures, while the revolutionary youth

began to create numerous coalitions and revolutionary networks with the attempt of

representing the millions of youth who protested against Mubarak and negotiate on their

behalf. The phase between the fall of Mubarak and the election of the first civilian

President Mohammed Morsi in 2012 saw the proliferation of coalitions, movements,

initiatives and campaigns. The first coalition to be created was the Revolution Youth

Coalition (RYC). Shortly after its creation, a state of chaos emerged and dozens of

coalitions were founded. As a result, April 6th left the coalition in April 2011 and began

engaging with other coalitions in accordance with the new reality; it no longer has any

links with the Revolution Youth Coalition.

Throughout the first transitional period (February 2011 – June 2012), the media

played a significant role in presenting some youth as “representative” of the revolution.

While some of those youth, such as Wael Ghonim, repeatedly rejected being labeled a

leader or hailed as a hero, others were seduced by media lights and fame started acting

accordingly. This led to inciting jealousy between youth leaders in their own

organizations. Increasing internal disputes in the RYC centering on issues of

representation, management and strategies led the coalition to announce its

disbandment in July 2012 following the election of President Mohammed Morsi.

The lack of leadership stemmed from a structural reason that has to do with the

fact that the youth who ignited the revolution did not belong to one social group with a

coherent structure or ideological orientation. No ‘revolutionary vanguard’ took charge

because no one was actually prepared for a revolution. The second reason is a more

philosophical one. Some analysts observe that since its onset the revolution was

resistant to all representations attempts. There was an inherent antagonism against the

idea of control and leadership. Realizing their power for the first time, the masses opted

for self-representation while the regime on the other hand sought to “create a head for

the revolution” so it can negotiate with. This revolution had no head, but that doesn’t

mean it had no mind as El-Raggal rightly pointed. The ‘new multitude’ in

Egypt appeared in objection to the failure of political parties and traditional

organizations to effect change and win its battle against the regime. Instead of dealing

in terms of leaderless-ness, perhaps what the Egyptian Revolution experience presented

was a ‘leaderful’ model where by their spontaneous participation, everyone got to be a

leader.

In conclusion, leadership is regarded in RMT as an important resource because

of its great use in harnessing other types of resources. The Egyptian revolution proved

that leaderless-ness could have its great advantages in protest settings while the

transitional period has proved that the absence of representation leads to possible loss

of victories achieved. With the collapse of the nascent democratic path and the

ineffectiveness of political parties post June 30th, some are arguing that those

circumstances necessitate concentrating efforts on building leaderless network-based

groups once again to resist the current regime. Leaders in this context could become a

liability rather than a resource as they could be easily targeted thus limiting the

effectiveness of the movements. However, the question of representation still persists

and remains unresolved. Leaderless movements could be effective in bringing about

positive outcomes up to a certain point but once the regime collapses, those entities

ready with leaders and organized structures will be the ones assuming the center stage

to fill out the power vacuum while leaderless movements will remain in the opposition

seat, at best.

2.3.2. Experience

The problem with the revolution is that “we participated in the revolution

without knowing what a revolution is” Ahmed Abdel Gawad, an ex Muslim

Brotherhood member and the former Secretary General of Masr Al-Qawiya confirmed.

What Abdel Gawad is referring to is an essential factor in understanding the

organizational failure of the youth to mobilize support in the post-Mubarak era. The

revolutionaries became revolutionaries after the revolution. They had no prior ideas on

what to do once the regime has fell. Living for 30 years under Mubarak rule, they never

entertained the thought that there could come the day where the regime would collapse

and they would be asked to present alternatives. Here the generational dimension is

important to put things in context. The youth, in contrast to other actors, did not have

an organizational legacy they could build on. All of sudden their status as protestors

was changed to that of revolutionaries without knowing what that

exactly entails.

One factor that should be analyzed is the youth’s organizational experience (or

lack therefore). The organizational deficiency noticed in youth groups emerging in the

post-Mubarak era can be explained in part by their organizational experience, which led

many of them to engage in fluid informal and network-based types of organization.

Youth engaging in politics in post-Mubarak era came from three main organizational

experiences: the first group had no prior political organizational training and their

experience did not exceed civil-society activities basically focused on charity and

development. The second group’s experience was one of protest. This culminated in the

2000s decade with many unaffiliated youth becoming more engaged in blogging and in

protest. The third group includes those who came from closed and highly structured

organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood. Their experience with the lack of

transparency and internal democracy in the MB made them resistant to hierarchical

structures.71 The organizational choices of those three groups can be clearly observed

in the post Mubarak scene. The first group was dispersed among the different initiatives

and informal networks created throughout the revolution. Groups such as the

Revolutionary Socialists continued their protest strategy not only because of their

previous experience under Mubarak rule but simply because it was the only weapon

they knew how to use. The ex-Muslim Brotherhood members tried to establish

decentralized models to evade the shortcomings they suffered from in the

MB model. The experience of establishing the two parties Al-Tayyar Al-Masry and

Masr Al-Qawiya are cases in point.

2.3.3. Expertise

In addition to experience, political expertise is another resource the youth

lacked. Here the experience of the Revolution Youth Coalition merits some analysis. As

aforementioned, being the first attempt at youth unification, the RYC was established

in February 2011 during the January 25th uprising. By the election of a new president in

July 2012, the RYC announced it has fulfilled its duty for that phase and consequently

its disbandment . In a rare practice in Egyptian politics, the coalition published on its

Facebook page an account of its accomplishments and shortcomings over the period of

a year and a half. The coalition apologized to the revolution youth and to the people for

what seemed at times as monopolizing talking about the revolution. Furthermore, it

admitted that in fear of penetration it closed down shop and was not successful in

reaching out to wider revolutionary forces calling it “an unjustifiable and serious

mistake.” Some considered the RYC’s real problem is that they were not qualified for

the responsibility entrusted upon them.

Ahmed Adel, who was close to the RYC experience, was quickly to acknowledge that

but he also pointed out that to be fair this is a problem of the youth in general. They

were subjected to a process of “intellectual bulldozing” over the years. Only a minority

had the skills and capabilities to lead. Expecting that much of the youth, especially at a

moment when no one was prepared at would be asking too much of them.

The youth tried to capitalize on their technical expertise through the use of

online media as a platform for direct democracy. The RYC often used its 220+

thousands of fans Facebook page in asking people to take part in naming the weekly

Friday million-man marches, a hallmark of that period. The famous “We are all Khaled

Said” page, the largest revolutionary Facebook page with more than 4 million fans often

conducted polls during the first transitional period and Morsi’s presidency to include

the voices of the youth to direct political action. This technical expertise was a resource

that gave the youth advantage over other political actors who were forced to enter the

Facebook world to adapt to the new realties of the political scene. As the reliance on

social media became a feature of all political activities in the postMubarak period, Della

Porta and Mosca make the argument that the use of internetbased communication can

be considered a new type of resource utilized by “resource poor” social movements for

it presents means for mass communication which was not possible before due to

financial, spacial or temporal limitations. Interestingly, this technical know-how, gave

the youth activists access to more resources by allowing them to exchange experiences

with activists around the world.

2.4 Social-Organizational Resources

Youth’s inherent skepticism if not outright opposition to vertical modes of

organization, stemming from decades of suffering under authoritarian rule, has

governed much of their organizational experience eventually leading to their

fragmentation. The inability of the youth to develop an organizational model that would

maintain flexibility and mass democracy and at the same time provide structure and

tools of effective mobilization was one of the biggest setbacks to maintaining political

clout.

Essential to understanding the revolutionaries’ models of organization is

capturing their conception of power which drives their strategy and choices. According

to Bill Moyer there are two conceptions of power: elite power and people power. In the

elite power model, the belief is that the elite at the top of the power triangle that control

the society through the government and the market are what matters. All efforts are

geared toward those power holders in an attempt to persuade or force them to change

or implement policies. The people power model on the other hand places emphasis on

the masses believing it is there that true power lies. Obviously, the revolutionary

movement is built on the people power model. Wael

Ghonim, the Google marketing executive and one of the leading icons of the Egyptian

Revolution, explicitly makes this case by the very title of his book documenting his

experience with the Egyptian Revolution. The book’s title is Revolution 2.0: The Power

of the People is Greater than People in Power. By 2.0 Ghonim is referring to the digital

quality of the revolution likening it to Wikipedia where everyone contributes content

but no one knows the name of the contributors. This gives the people enormous

advantage facing “people in power”. The power of the collective when centered around

one goal can defeat the regime in power no matter how strong, Ghonim contends

throughout his book.

Many of the revolutionary youth did not seek to assume “power” because they

believed power to be in the hands of the people in the first place. Instead, they sought

to empower people to be able to create their own alternatives and exert pressure on the

regime to succumb to their demands. In my extended interview with him, Hany El-

Gamal eloquently expressed that view using almost holy terms: “The revolution is like

a religion and the revolutionary is like a prophet; his role is to give direction and his

message is to convince people with change... the revolution succeeds when the largest

number of people subscribe to the agenda of change and not when you change the

government because your role as a revolutionary is to spread the ideals and not assume

power yourself”. On the topic of organization El-Gamal was clear that an organization

is a means and not an end. The change comes from the people. They need “someone to

hold the torch” but the organization is never a replacement for the people. “And that’s

the difference between ‘us’ and the Muslim brotherhood”, ElGamal concluded.

Beyond leaderless-ness, ‘horizontalism’ and rhizomes are two other concepts

that attempt to capture the new informal mode of organization manifested in the

Egyptian Uprising. In his article, John Chalcraft uses ‘horizontalism’ to refer to an array

of features observed in the Egyptian Revolution - leaderless protests, decentralized

networks, deliberative rather than representative democracy, the absence of top-down

command, the emphasis on consensus and the rejection of dogma and political ideology.

Rhizomes is a concept introduced by Deleuze and Guattari in different contexts.

With the eruption of the Egyptian Revolution many activists and intellectuals found the

concept suitable to explain horizontal modes of organization. Understanding rhizomes

as plants with roots, Aly El-Raggal explains that new youth movements are linked

together underground through strong roots that intertwine and spread horizontally.”

There is no way to break down a rhizomatic structure because once you cut one part; it

grows up in a different part. It simply has no beginning, no middle and no end. “It is

always a middle, always in process”. This Key feature of a rhizome of not having a

single reference point is exactly what enabled it to defeat the Mubarak regime, which

only knew how to fight against tree structures with clear chain of command.

This organizational model relying on spontaneous mobilization and horizontal

networks of communication proved so effective in challenging entrenched authoritarian

rule and seemingly making success in the matter of couple of weeks by toppling

Mubarak. This success narrative was a popularly held one in 2011 especially as the

Tahrir model proved so inspiring that it spread across the world to Spain, Greece and as

far as the US manifested in the global Occupy Movement. However, with the unfolding

events of the transitional phase in Egypt over the past three years, more scholars are

reassessing the limits and roles of horizontal movements. What appeared at first a new

way of conducting politics is increasingly proving difficult to assert itself. There is an

increasing realization that tools successful for bringing down a system are not

necessarily suited for setting up a new one.

Developing from a protest movement to a political one with an organizational

structure that allows flexibility and sustainability is the challenge that faced all youth

movements whether they existed before the revolution or not. Maha Abdelrahman

points out that this dilemma is not unique to Egypt: it was highlighted in different

contexts where the survival of revolutionary process requires the formation of

institutions that provides alternative to the existing or collapsed regime, while at the

same time the control of those institutions end up “freezing its dialectic in a totalitarian

bureaucratic monolith”

The revolution is not finished but it transforms from one form to the other. It has

to move to the institutions; if not, then to the political opposition. If it achieves neither

then it fails. The establishment of political parties and the transition from the revolution

to politics was necessary but it had to be done based on revolutionary

ideals.

When the youth realized they needed to become part of the formal political

structure in order to be effective some of them started creating or joining newly created

parties but with much confusion and lack of vision. Political parties are by definition

excluded from social movements, as they do not fall within the category of contentious

politics since they represent official form of political engagement within the formal

boundaries. However, in the post-revolution Egyptian context political parties act very

much as social movements. In terms of tactics, they use protest, campaigns and exhibit

features of SMOs. All the major parties were created after the election of the first

parliament in 2012 and never entered any sort of elections since their inauguration.

Moreover, given the dynamic revolutionary circumstances, it is very common to find

many members of political parties who are also members of other revolutionary groups

with often overlapping roles. It is also common to find youth acting in different

capacities and keeping distance and closeness according to the events on the ground. In

post-revolution Egypt, political parties are seen by many youth not as means to compete

over power, as is the classic goal of political parties. Rather, they regard them as yet

another tool in the ongoing struggle by which they can help push for the goals of the

revolution.

2.5 Moral Resources

Legitimacy

Legitimacy is an indispensible resource for any movement. The more legitimate

the public perceives the movement’s members and demands, the more the movement

has success chances for realizing its goals. Legitimacy, as many scholars note can be

derived from a number of sources and take different forms. Revolutionary youth sought

to secure legitimacy through aggregating it from celebrities and public figures.

Acknowledging that young age is often a delegitimizing factor in a culture that accords

age a great respect, the youth depended on figures already enjoying people’s credibility

to win legitimacy. Many instances could be cited to demonstrate that. For example, the

two parties predominately formed of youth Masr Al-Qawiya and Al-Dostour rely on

two well-known political figures as heads of the parties. This helped increasing the

legitimacy they enjoyed, however, as both figures became increasingly condemned, it

can noticed how a source of legitimation becomes a liability transforming into a

deligitimation factor instead. The youth also tried to secure legitimacy through self-

production. By presenting few young candidates in the first parliamentary elections and

frequently presenting young spokespersons in the media, youth movements endeavored

to gain legitimacy to its members and consequently demands.

2.6 Material Resources

Money

Money is the most fungible resource, meaning that it could be transformed into

other types of resources as the need arises. Movements with large amounts of fungible

resources have more flexibility in choosing their strategies and tactics as opposed to

those movements whose resources are context-dependent. This could be seen in the case

of youth’s lack of financial means in Egypt. Having little money meant that the youth’s

political options were limited. To engage in the formal political process through the

creation of a party a lot of money is needed. Ahmed Abdel Gawad, considered the lack

of sustainable funding for Masr Al-Qawiya one of the biggest challenges the party is

facing. In my interview with him, he noted that the dependence on businessmen is not

reliable and often involves direction of policies which the party could not accept. This

was the case with Al-Adl party for example and that is why it could not continue, he

concluded. Abdel Gawad’s concern is consistent with the literature drawing attention to

the risks attached to monetary patronage. He continued: “that is why we rely on

members but it is still difficult. When the party was first launched we had 75 offices,

now we only have 20-30.” The fungibility of money, however, has its limitations. Often

it cannot secure moral resources, specifically legitimacy.

2.7 Cultural Resources

Finally, cultural resources being so pervasive and taken for granted,

sometimes could not be realized as resources. As explained above, cultural resources

are all the array of symbols, values and beliefs available to use in a specific culture to

facilitate the actions of daily life. The cultural element was clear since the “Friday of

Rage” where mosques were used as meeting points for demonstrations. Moreover, the

use of old patriotic Egyptian songs, for example, appealed to a wide variety of people

and was another way to capitalize on the shared cultural resources. The youth attempted

to make use of the cultural resources in form but in terms of content, many of their

beliefs and ideals contradicted the culture in which they operated making their task

more challenging. This is discussed in detail in chapter four. In brief, from all resources,

cultural resources provide a great asset for utilization that does not require except the

attentiveness to the culture and the skill of rhetoric adaptation to speak to the people in

their own language.

2.8 Conclusion

As Hannah Arendt puts it, “[r]evolutions, as a rule, are not made but happen”.

They are not the result of revolutionary plots but they are the outcome of disintegration

of power at a certain moment. This could not be more true for the Egyptian Revolution.

It took everyone, including those who “organized” it by surprise. As soon as people

took to the streets in massive numbers on January 25th, the uprising took a life of its

own with every participant becoming a leader of himself. No public figure could present

himself as representing the masses and no single organization could claim responsibility

for the uprising. But, the “leaderless-ness” of the Egyptian Revolution as much as it

was a major factor for its success constituted a great obstacle for the development of

the revolutionary movement post Mubarak’s fall. The lack of political ideology, pre-

existing structured organization and central

leadership, all important resources to sustain a social movement led some to believe the

revolution was one without revolutionaries or as others put it “a revolution on the form

of revolution itself”. This proved to have great consequences on the course of the

unfolding of events and the prospects of youth’s secure of other important resources

which are greatly dependent on the form of organization and kind of leadership.

It would be mistaken to talk about the ‘youth’ as one coherent group. Different

youth groups took diverse tracks since the downfall of Mubarak; however they share

certain characteristics by virtue of sharing the same age range and consequently

earlylife experiences. Revolutionary organization has taken several shapes since the

beginning of the uprising reflecting the youthful nature of the participants, their

organizational (in)experience and their ideological trends. The absence of clear vision,

political experience and unified leadership led the youth to “move to the streets and

remain stuck in the streets” in the role of protestors. The question of organization

remains to be asked by many: have networks have proven their failure as modes of

organization and if so whether the solution is to resort to traditional modes of vertical

organization if indeed any change is to occur? When can the shift be made to formal

forms of organization and when can it prove effective?

Chapter 3: Political Context

“An opportunity not perceived is not an opportunity at all”

William Gamason and David Meyer

3.1 Introduction

In the previous chapter, I used Resource Mobilization Theory to understand the

relative success and failure of the youth in organizing and consequently mobilizing.

RMT is important in explaining how resources rather than grievances can provide

impetus for action. However, focusing primarily on the movement “itself”, the theory

risks ignoring the context in which the movement is operating and consequently its

ability to access and utilize available resources. Resources can be used to answer the

question of why movements emerge or succeed in a particular area and not another but

it cannot explain why movements fail despite having access to the same resources.

Holding context constant and dealing with resources as the only explanatory factor

would lead to a partial understanding, at best. Therefore, an additional approach that

goes beyond the confinement of social movement is necessary.

In this chapter I turn to the world surrounding youth movements to examine its

impact on their activities. Using Political Opportunity structure (POS) to complement

RMT, this chapter examines the effect of political context on the development and

outcome of youth revolutionary movements since the downfall of Mubarak.

Acknowledging that social movements do not choose their tools, goals and tactics in a

vacuum, I demonstrate in this chapter how the closure of the political regime and its

capacity and propensity for repression has affected the kinds of claims and tools the

youth engaged in response. Finally, the concept of “missed opportunities” will also be

applied to identify situations conducive to mobilization that were not used effectively.

3.2 Political Process Approach

Political Process Approach is based on the premise that political context is

essential in shaping social movements’ development, responses and effectiveness.

Interested in emphasizing the link between activists and institutional politics, state

action acquires primary importance in analysis as not only does it affect the size of

mobilization but also its location and the form it takes. Political Process model posits

that the activities and creativity of social movements can only be analyzed and

understood by examining the political context and “the rules of the game in which those

choices were made”. In other words, agency cannot be understood in isolation of

structure.

At the core of the Political Process Approach is Political Opportunity Structure.

Broadly defined, opportunities can be considered “options for collective action, with

chances and risks attached to them which depend on factors outside the mobilizing

group.” There is no agreement among scholars on the factors of the political context

that constitutes political opportunity. The variables studied are so diverse that they

include: state capacity for repression, public policy changes, the organizations of

previous challengers, the activities of countermovement opponents, the perception of

political opportunity by activists, the openness and ideological positions of political

parties and the constraints on state policy by international alliances, to name a few. This

broad conceptualization of opportunities reminds us of the conceptualization of

resources except that it extends to include almost everything outside the social

movement. Because of the inclusiveness of the concept, different scholars have

emphasized different aspects of opportunity depending on the movements they study

and the questions they ask.

In this chapter, I build on McAdam’s synthesis of four factors that constitute

political opportunity; two relating to the state: access to political system and

diminishing state repression and two relating to the elites: division within the elite and

the presence of elite allies. Moreover, I utilize the concept of perceived opportunities,

believing that opportunities need to be recognized before they can be seized. Similar to

the idea that the mere presence of resources is not enough for mobilization if actors

have no access to them, the mere “presence” of opportunities is useless if they are not

perceived. [A]n opportunity not recognized is not an

opportunity at all.”

The extent to which social actors are aware of changes in the political context

and the existence of an opportunity deserves more attention. “[E]ven if opportunities

are objective, external to the actor, what explains the action is the actor’s desire together

with ‘his beliefs about the opportunities’” . Here two contrasting conceptions arise. The

first one views activists as rational actors who monitor the state and the society to know

which claims to make and how. In that regard, they plan for their actions strategically

in accordance with the realities of their situation. The second view, doubts the

intentionality of activists regarding them as always “trying to mobilize and are usually

unsuccessful”. In this view, opportunities are considered as simply environmental

conditions allowing protest rather than signals that should be picked up upon. In the

Egyptian context, the second conception seems to apply more adequately. This was

confirmed to me throughout my interviews by a commonly repeated sentence -- “we

had no strategy.” However, it is important to note that it is possible inside every SMO

to have the two types of actors – those passionate activists who constantly endeavor to

mobilize regardless of limitations and the more experienced ones who seek to adjust

rhetoric, tactics and focus to suit the changing political circumstances.

After having defined what aspects of the political context affect youth

movements in Egypt the most, it is equally important to define how they affect those

movements. As scholars of POS disagree on the variables, they also differ on their

relationship to outcomes. Scholars typically examined the effect of exogenous factors

on the movement in five main areas: the ability to mobilize, the types of tactics and

strategies used, the impact on institutional politics, the kind of claims it can advance,

and finally the alliances it can cultivate. Obviously, different elements of political

opportunity would work differently for these distinct dependent variables. Following

McAdam’s advice on the importance of being “explicit about which dependent variable

we are seeking to explain and which dimensions of political opportunity are germane

to that explanation”, I restrict my inquiry to the first two factors.

The concept of open and closed structures is essential to POS. Open systems

often have a limited capacity to act, while closed systems have larger capacity for

action. The degree of (objective or perceived) openness or closure of a regime

determines the response of social movements and whether their strategies become

assimilative or confrontational. Complementary to openness and closure (input

structures) is the distinction between strong and weak states (output capacity). The

strength of a state in this model is measured by the state’s ability to act independently

and effectively implement the policies. Following this model developed by Herbert P

Kitschelt, strong and closed systems such as the one in Egypt encourages social

movements to use confrontational strategies.

Finally, one major limitation of the political process approach or the opportunity

structure model is that it was mainly developed and applied in western democracies.

The conceptualization of the model is based on the study of four western countries: the

USA, France, Germany and Sweden. Little efforts have been directed in testing the

model and how it functions in authoritarian or nondemocratic contexts. This chapter

will contribute to the existing literature by observing how the major concepts of the

approach can be applied and understood in the Egyptian context over three different

post-revolution regimes.

3.3 Institutional Structures

In the last section I presented a general overview of the Political Process

Approach in order to give an idea about the main tenants of the model that will be used

in this chapter. In this section, I start to define more specifically the first set of elements

that constitute the institutional structures and apply them in the Egyptian Context. These

elements are a modified version of Doug McAdam’s synthesis of political opportunity

structures. As aforementioned, McAdam observed that scholars’ conceptions of relevant

dimensions of the political structure greatly overlapped. Therefore, he attempted to

combine the most important structural opportunities in a consensual fourfold typology

that consists of: “1) the relative openness or closure of the institutionalized political

system 2) the stability or instability of that broad set of elite alignments that typically

undergird a polity 3) the presence or absence of elite allies 4) the state’s capacity and

propensity for repression.”

In the case of Egypt, I argue that from the institutional structures, state

repression has had the greatest effect on the prospects of youth mobilization and on the

types of strategies and tactics they employed. In my analysis, I only focus on the two

elements relating to the state as constitute the “structural” components of the political

opportunity. Elites on the other hand, can be more adequately conceived as part of the

configuration of powers, which is more dynamic and not strictly structural. Moreover,

the possibility of cultivating elite alliances and benefiting from elite divisions was

already discussed under moral resources in chapter two and will also be tackled from a

different angle in the next chapter on framing. Although it could be argued that the

state’s capacity and propensity for repression is closely related to the degree of openness

or closure of a regime, I agree with McAdam in dealing with them as two separate

variables as they affect different aspects of the youth movement. The combination of

these two institutional opportunities along with the cultural opportunities discussed next

chapter help explain the youth’s resort to protest and their failure to access or impact

institutional politics and realize the goals of the revolution.

3.3.1 State propensity and capacity for repression

The relationship between repression and protest has been the subject of many

debates between scholars. Conceptualizing state’s repression, two kinds of repression

need to be distinguished: institutional and situational. The effect of the two kinds of

repression is different for mobilization. Situational repression refers to the sporadic

coercive response to events or populations. This includes police intervention using

repression in an ad-hoc manner. Institutional repression on the other hand, is systematic

and constant targeting of groups, organizations or populations denying them access to

formal institutions in visible ways. In the case of Egypt, the following cases of state

repression represent institutional repression where the state consciously and constantly

targeted youth groups with the aim of silencing their calls for change and reinforce the

structures of authoritarianism.

One of the main reasons for the eruption of the Egyptian Revolution was the

increased state repression manifested most evidently in police brutality. This was

reflected in the youth’s symbolic choice of January 25 Police Day for demonstrations.

In facing state’s brutality, the revolutionaries chose peacefulness as a conscious and

strategic weapon. This did not mean that limited violence was not used in selfdefense.

The Egyptian state’s capacity to repress was dealt a great blow on January 28 by the

popular burning down of police stations. However, with the military’s intervention on

the same day, repression was restored at the hands of the military police and army forces

who engaged in repeated clashes with the youth throughout 2011 and 2012.

The first display of state repression came as early as March 9, 2011 when the

military police violently destroyed tent camps remaining from the sit-in in Tahrir Square

and forcibly took the demonstrators inside the Egyptian Museum where they were

subjected to brutal beating and torture. Later around 200 youth of those arrested were

sent to nine military prisons where they faced military trials – a practice that has become

a hallmark of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF)’s rule over the

following 18 months. In just six months after the military taking to the streets on January

28, 2011 more than 12,000 civilians were brought before military courts for a wide

range of crimes. This number exceeded the total number of all military trials conducted

over the 30-year Hosni Mubarak rule. Although not all the cases were of political nature,

the regime used military courts as a weapon to terrorize the youth and limit their

mobilization efforts. For example, Asmaa Mahfouz, a co-founder of 6 April youth

Movement and an iconic figure of the Egyptian Revolution was arrested and referred to

a military trial in August 2011 over a tweet for inciting violence. Charges were later

dropped and Mahfouz was of jail; however the regime’s message was clear. No criticism

of SCAF would be allowed.

On the same day, March 9, 2011 female protestors were subjected to ‘virginity

tests’ by the military police and threatened with prostitution charges. This was the first

in a series of actions undertaken by the regime by way of humiliation and breaking the

moral of the revolutionaries. Violence against female protestors and protestors in

general only increased in intensity, visibility and frequency over the following months

with revolutionaries being killed, injured and arrested every month. In the period

between February 2011 and June 2012 when SCAF was in control more than 350 people

were killed in social and political protests and while in detention. Moreover, more than

12,000 were injured according to the figures of the ministry of health. Other sources

raise the figure up to 16,000.

Tahrir became the site of constant struggle for control between the protestors

and the military. Whenever protestors attempted to occupy the square, violent

repression was the regime’s only response. In April 2011 the military dispersed by force

a sit-in in Tahrir that consisted of tens of thousands including a dozen officers who

joined the revolution demanding a radical change of the Mubarak regime. The same

violent dispersal of protestors was repeated by the military in August, on the first day

of Ramadan to clear up the sit-in that has taken place for a month. However, state’s

brutality was not confined to Tahrir. Many violent episodes took place in 2011 around

the Israeli Embassy in May, outside Balloon’s Theatre in June and in Maspero

neighborhood in front of the Public TV building in October. In all of these clashes, the

state’s security forces used disproportionate power resulting in the killing and the arrest

of hundreds of protestors, mostly young people. What started as undercover state

repression that the population did not want to believe, took more visible and brutal

forms culminating in the tragic beating and stripping of a female protestor in the vicinity

of Tahrir Square in December 2011. The clashes of Mohamed Mahmoud and the sit-in

Cabinet constituted a turning point in the state’s use of repression as for the first times

state’s brutality in dealing with protestors was blatantly visually documented. The

picture of the dragged female protestor made it to the newspapers front pages and had

great effects on the youth who regarded it as the epitome of the state’s disregard to any

human rights values.

During President Mohamed Morsi’s rule, both the state’s capacity and

propensity for repression were significantly reduced. The non-cooperation of state

institutions including the police with Morsi reduced the regime’s capacity to use

violence to repress the youth opposition. Instead the repression had more of a situational

nature rather than an institutional one. The clashes turned to be between civilians –

Muslim brotherhood opponents and proponents with the security forces often taking a

neutral stance. Examples include Al-Itihadeyya clashes and AlMokattam incident. The

major exception to that was the Port Said incident when the

police fired against the protestors following death penalty sentencing in the case of Port

Said massacre. Following clashes in Port Said and other cities resulted in the killing of

tens of people and the declaration of a partial emergency state. In terms of targeting

youth activists, several youth figures such as Alaa Abdel Fattah, Ahmed

Douma and others were summoned on charges of inciting against the Muslim

Brotherhood. Although these cases were dropped after the ouster of Morsi, the

crackdown on activists increased the animosity between the revolutionary youth and

the Muslim Brotherhood. The repression during Morsi’s rule was in most cases

situational, however the institutional element cannot be ignored. The youth who

organized in opposition of Morsi, despite having voted for him in the second round like

April 6 Movement and activists like Alaa Abdel Fattah, were a clear target for the

Muslim Brotherhood regime. The systematic crackdown on opposition was less

effective than the SCAF’s for reasons that have to do with capacity rather than

political will.

With the ouster of Mohammed Morsi on July 3, 2013 state repression was

reinstituted in the most brutal way taking a whole new level. The Rabaa massacre

ushered the state’s new policy of dealing with the opposition. As the new regime sought

to entrench itself, political repression expanded beyond the Muslim Brotherhood and

Islamists to the revolutionary youth. A new law incriminating protest was issued

specifically to target activists. Major youth figures were put in jail along with more than

40 thousands political detainees. But repression is not only confined to the physical

sense. What is most remarkable about the use of repression under Sisi is that it created

a setting in which civil society practices “self-repression”. The clearest case is the

private owned media which allied itself with the regime and

actively engaged in repressing opponents to the military rule. Through defaming

campaigns and spreading conspiracy theories about the January 25 Revolution and its

youth activists, the media was able to propagate fear and hatred and increase

polarization in the society while not “physically” engaging in repression.

Effects of Repression

As much as repression had direct effect on the youth in terms of casualties, it

also provided an opportunity to discredit the regime. Being part of a peaceful revolution,

the youth made use of repression to gain the sympathy of the people and embarrass the

regime. An activist told me “the intelligence is to drag your opponent (the state) to use

excessive force while you maintain your peacefulness in order to gain the public’s

support and sympathy” when asked about whether the youth were successful in doing

so, he answered that it happened naturally, but if it was planned the results would have

been much better. The caveat for this scenario to happen is strong media coverage and

documentation. This could be seen most clearly in Mohamed Mahmoud and the cabinet

clashes. Although these were not the first time for full-fledged clashes to take place

between protestors and the military police as I have shown in the previous section, they

were the first to receive extensive media coverage. Here the element of framing, which

will be discussed at length in the next chapter, overlaps in the analysis. However, what

I am interested in here is the youth’s use of state repression as a political opportunity to

raise their demands. In Mohamed Mahmoud, what started as an act of solidarity with

the families of the martyrs of the revolution’s sit in, turned into a second revolutionary

wave due to the police’s use of lethal force. The regime’s targeting of eyes specifically

in those clashes arose the sympathy of the people with revolutionaries. As the events

gained more momentum, the SCAF was forced to speed up the schedule for power

transfer and accept the resignation of Essam Sharaf, the first prime minister after the

revolution. While this was a partially victory for the demonstrators, the choice of Kamal

Al-Ganzouri confirmed that the SCAF was not sincere in responding to the youth’s

demands who called for a civil presidential council. The youth tried to utilize the

political opportunity the events created and the regime fostered, however, for reasons

having to do with configuration of actors and framing, they were not successful in

making the best out of it.

The second effect of repression is linked to the strategies and tactics the youth

employed during the transitional period. With clashes occurring on a monthly basis, the

revolutionary youth were always put in a defense, reactionary position instead of a

position of action. Hatem Tallima, a member of the Revolutionary Socialists’ political

bureau, admits that a big mistake the revolutionaries fell into during the SCAF’s and

Morsi’s rule was that they remained in the activists role taking up any and every possible

confrontation with the state. “There were a lot of battles that we were dragged into that

pushed us away from (formal) politics and forced us to remain in the streets”, Tallima

reiterated. Tallima also believe that one of the Revolutionary Socialists’ mistakes was

not to join the Revolution Youth Coalition to help establish a political front for the

revolution. State’s repression made it easier for the youth to practice what they knew

best – protest. Instead of working on political alternatives, the youth found in repression

the occasion to assume the role of victimization or the never-ending revolutionary.

Being engaged in constant clashes and choosing the wrong battles prevented the

revolutionary youth of developing long-term strategies. It is remarkable observing

youth’s activity over the different regimes to note that their response to the state’s use

of repression was through the use of the same tactics. In the words of one youth activist

“the youth were all the time playing but without scoring any goals.”

Consistent with the literature suggesting that repression could serve as a

precursor for mobilization, repression gave opportunities for the youth to organize. This

organization, however, was mostly in the form of campaigns that tackled specific issues.

The extensive use of military trials gave rise to the creation of one of the most active

youth groups – No to Military Trials. By having an outspoken co-founder Mona Seif,

the movement was able to use military trials as an opportunity to question military rule.

Similarly, Mohamed Mahmoud and the cabinet clashes provided an opportunity for the

emergence of “Kazeboon” (Liars) movement to combat the perceived lies of the SCAF

and showcase their crimes in videos in different neighborhoods in Egypt. Although

these campaigns were able to achieve relative success compared to their declared goals

and scope of action, no sustainable organizations were created to plan more strategically

for realizing the larger goals of the revolution. The campaigns were able to make media

appearance and force the issues of military trials, eyes targeting and other forms of

military repression in the public discourse, but the revolutionaries did not succeed in

building upon this momentum to develop an all-inclusive political discourse beyond the

momentary reactions.

3.3.2 Access to Political System

After discussing the effect of repression, the second element in the political

environment that affects youth movements is the degree of openness or closure of the

political regime. The two factors that define the extent of openness or closure of a

regime are centralization and separation of power. Starting with the first factor, the

greater the centralization of a system, the more difficult it is for outside actors to gain

formal access and the harder it is for the regime to act. Decentralized states provide

multiple access points and decision-making by virtue of having multiple state actors.

Secondly, the degree of separation of power between the three branches of the

government (Judiciary, legislative and executive) and inside each branch determines the

degree of formal access. The greater the separation of powers the greater the degree of

formal access and the more limited the capacity of the state is to act.

Applying this to Egypt, Egypt is clearly a case of a highly centralized regime. It

is an executive form of centralization that revolves around the figure of the president.

The executive is autonomous from the state, and the state is autonomous from society.

Therefore, when Mubarak was removed he could easily be replaced by the SCAF as a

head of state. This executive centralization where the president solely makes the

decisions, favors the authoritarian regime’s ability to adapt to challenges. It also allows

it to keep tight control on who can penetrate the system. Local councils provide one

opportunity to effect the system and push for more decentralization. It is worth

mentioning that all attempts at reforming local councils law after the revolution were

faced by great obstacles from the regime. The law governing local administration dating

back to 1979 gives the president the right to directly appoint governors and restrict the

local councils’ role to a monitoring rather than an executive one. According to Tariq

Ismail, an activist working on local empowerment, one of the biggest missed

opportunities for the youth was using the revolution’s fervor to push for the dissolving

of the pre-revolution local councils. According to Tariq, if the youth had put

municipalities as a priority and local

elections were held in 2011, the youth could have had an access point to the regime by

which they could have changed from below. Mina George, a former member of Strong

Egypt Party shares the same view. “We had a golden opportunity in 2011 to occupy the

state’s institutions through the municipalities… imagine if we had 54,000 youth

members working directly with the people all over Egypt”. The Revolution Youth

Coalition and other pro-change movements did call for disbanding local councils in the

wake of the revolution. In June 2011 the administrative court ordered the dissolving of

all local councils. The ruling was never put into execution and no local elections were

ever held since that date.

With regard to the legislature, the electoral system provides a larger or lesser

degree of system access depending on its degree of proportionality. Majoritarian or

plurality systems provide less access for emerging political actors than proportional

systems. In Egypt, after the revolution, the SCAF amended the electoral law to

introduce a parallel voting system. In the first parliamentary elections after the

revolution in 2011, two thirds of the seats were elected by party proportional

representation while the remaining third were elected by a form of bloc voting.

Although this could be regarded as a larger degree of openness from the previous system

under Mubarak in which bloc voting was exclusively used, the system still contained

many constraints for youth’s effective engagement with the elections. In addition to the

one third of the seats elected by bloc voting in two-seats constituencies, more

importantly, the 50 percent quota for laborers and farmers was retained. This

significantly reduced the chances of youth (mostly urban) from the same electoral

district to run for the parliament. There are of course many reasons for the modest

results of the youth in the elections, some of which were already outlined

in chapter two under material resources. This section is only interested in demonstrating

the structural elements of the political context pertaining to the youth’s ability to access

the political system. Returning to the parliamentary constraints, just one day before his

departure, President Adly Mansour issued a new controversial electoral law which

stipulates that nearly 80 percent of the future parliament’s seats will be elected by

individual candidacy system. Moreover, either political parties or individual candidates

can fill the remaining seats. This law is clearly an attempt to restore Mubarak’s pre-

revolution parliament setting. With less proportionality, the electoral system does not

provide an opportunity for the youth to run for parliament. It is a confirmation of the

closure of the political system.

In terms of separation of powers, the second defining element in the degree of

openness of a regime, there is a great overlap between the different branches of

government in Egypt. During the SCAF’s rule, until the election of a parliament the

SCAF retained executive and legislative powers, which gave it autonomy in setting the

rules of the game. Although the nascent parliament after its election was not under

SCAF’s total control, the judiciary remained to be politicized. Under President

Mohamed Morsi’s rule the overlap between authorities continued to persist though with

many internal difficulties. With the ouster of Morsi and the dissolving of the parliament

the executive and legislative powers were once again grouped in the hands of one person

first President Adly Mansour then President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. The politicization of

the judiciary as best demonstrated by the mass death sentences issued in April and June

2014 is a clear example of the effect of the executive on the judiciary. In systems where

there is no clear demarcation line between the different branches of government, the

target of mobilization cannot be clearly defined as no

demands can be made of specific branches of the government. In other words, the youth

could not appeal to courts or exert pressure on the (inexistent) parliament to effect

policy change by the executive.

The case of Egypt is in accordance with the body of literature arguing that

constricted institutional opportunities offer possibilities for extrainstitutional

mobilization to happen. Although a closed system such as that of Egypt prevents the

youth from accessing formal institutions and thus being part of the regime, it allowed

them to organize in other forms outside of the system to effect change by different

means. This could be seen in the multitude of youth coalitions and organizations that

formed as pressure and protest groups. Some youth argue that because of these

institutional constraints, youth never had a real chance of engaging formally with the

regime. Instead, they hold that they should have prolonged the first transitional period

and utilized this time to “dismantle the structures of repression”. According to youth

activist Mohamed Shams, the regime with this centralized structure does not allow for

any kind of penetration. “Egypt is not a country of political parties,” he was definite to

conclude. Although he admitted that informal politics have to be institutionalized at

some point, the idea is in the timing for him and engaging in negotiations from a position

of strength to secure a gradual access to the system. Having no access to the system

whether in terms of effect or actually being part of it discouraged the development of

alternative political programs by the youth. Seeing that there are no political openings

in the system reinforced the primacy of informal politics as means to advocate for

change.

To sum up this section, state’s repression and closed structure prevented the

youth from accessing the political system and engaging formally with political

institutions. However, these constricted and constraining settings presented different

kinds of opportunities for extrainstitutional mobilization. When properly utilized, these

opportunities were able to achieve relative degrees of success such as the case of

Mohamed Mahmoud clashes which forced the SCAF to announce a date for the

presidential elections and a schedule for the transition of power to a civilian entity.

However, the youth missed several opportunities to capitalize on the state’s use of

repression to their benefit. They also were not able to change the rules of the game to

guarantee formal access to the system. Instead of actively seeking to engage with

people’s issues on a local level through the municipalities, the youth were stuck in street

politics using protest the only tool they knew how to use. Eventually, this led to

demonstrations losing people’s sympathy and their effectiveness on the regime. Since

the downfall of Mubarak, Egypt witnessed three regimes, nevertheless, the Egyptian

revolution, let alone the youth, never ruled in any of them.

3.4. Conclusion

This chapter attempted to show the effect of the political context on the youth’s

choices of strategies and tactics and their impact on their environment by on the

institutional level. While the closed and strong nature of the political system in Egypt

combined with the state’s capacity and willingness to use repression had a constraining

effect on the possibilities of youth’s success and increased the difficulties for youth

mobilization in the formal arena, it opened way for extrainstitutional mobilization. The

youth’s overuse of protest exhausted their ability to perceive political opportunities to

engage with the regime on their own terms.

Chapter 4: Framing and Counter-framing

4.1 Introduction

After discussing the resources and political context in which the youth operated

after the downfall of Mubarak, I turn to the discussion of the cultural environment which

shaped their collective action. One of the most used culturist approaches is the framing

perspective. Focusing on agency and interpretation, this chapter will show how the

youth framed themselves and their demands to the public. Divided into three parts, the

first section of the chapter deals with the ways the youth framed the issues in Egypt and

the demands of the revolution, the solutions they proposed and the kind of rhetoric they

used to motivate their adherents and mobilize the people. I then turn to examine the

extent to which the way they presented their cause resonated with the people and how

credible they were perceived. Finally, in the last section I analyze the different framing

processes that took place simultaneously. I give special attention to how the regime and

the media used counter-framing to undermine the legitimacy of the youth’s actions. By

understanding the power of ideas, symbols and rhetoric, this chapter will cover the third

dimension of this study allowing a fuller understanding of the reasons behind the

marginalized role of the youth in the political scene.

4.2. Framing Approach

Framing approach to social movements is focused on examining the connections

between culture producers, culture consumers and the cultural object itself. As Rhys

Williams explains: “the analytic core of the approach is the socially and culturally

available array of symbols and meanings from which movements can draw”. Scholars,

as always, have different conceptualizations of the core ideas of the framing

perspective. Robert D. Benford and David A. Snow are two pioneer scholars who

sought to articulate and synthesize the main tenets of the approach in manageable

categories. Their contribution to the cultural approach, and particularly framing in

social movements is essential to the study of the interaction of meaning and action in

social movements.

In this section, I primarily depend on their extensive research to present an

overview of the framing approach that covers three main aspects. The first one deals

with the core-framing tasks, the second looks at the issue of resonance and its crucial

importance for framing, and finally the third part explores the different framing

processes the activists use to create and develop their frames. By understanding the

combination of these three dimensions, we could have a better idea of how movements

develop their frames of action, why some frames work better than others, and how the

cultural environment can facilitate or constrain the adoption and propagation of certain

frames. After establishing the theoretical framework, I will apply these elements to the

case of revolutionary youth in Egypt.

Every movement has three core-framing tasks that are indispensible. The first is

diagnostic framing. This frame refers to the way social actors identify the problem at

hand and its source. It also includes the identification of who to blame and who to hold

accountable and responsible for the problem. However, agreeing on the nature of the

problem does not necessarily translate into an agreement on the causes for the

problem.125 This could sometimes leads to disagreements within the SMOs belonging

to the same movement. In Egypt for example, injustice, a common frame in social

movements, was commonly used; however beyond the agreement against Mubarak

different youth movements had different views on who or what specifically is to blame

for injustice. These variations with regard to the attributional component of the

diagnostic framing are reflected in the second core framing task - prognostic framing.

After defining the problem and its main cause, prognostic framing is concerned

with articulation of a proposed solution or a plan to fix the problem. It simply attempts

to answer “the Leninesque question of what is to be done.” Usually, there is a

correspondence between the diagnostic and the prognostic framings, meaning that the

way a group identifies the issue implies the kind of strategies it will employ to remedy

that issue. Here is where SMOs differ one more time. While, it is easier to agree on the

diagnosis of the problem, the solutions offered vary according to the ideological and

organizational background of the participants. It is expected that prognostic frames also

deal with the efficacy of the solutions proposed by their adversaries and refute them.

This is known as counter-framing. It is important to note that The way in which

opposition frames the youth’s movement greatly influences how the activists frame their

activities, often putting them on the defensive whole they try to respond. This can be

clearly applied to the youth during the past four years.

The third and final core-framing task is the motivational frame which provides

the rationale for mobilization through the “construction of appropriate vocabularies of

motive”. Developing the agency component of collective action frames is entailed in

attending to that task. By socially constructing vocabularies, activists equip the

adherents to the movement with persuasive accounts to engage in collective action.

As actors assert motives, their vocabularies become part of the daily discourse and

consequently part of the movement’s culture. In Egypt, youth used three general

vocabularies of motive that will be discussed thoroughly in the analysis section –

martyrs’ rights, dignity, protection of the revolution.

For frames to be successful, they need to resonate with the people. Resonance

is the function of two factors: “credibility of the proffered frame and its relative

salience.”129 The credibility of the frame in turn is composed of three elements:

empirical credibility, the credibility of the claimsmakers, and frame consistency.

Starting with the first element, empirical credibility is the apparent fit between the

framings and the events in the world. In other words, it is the extent to which the claims

can be verified using empirical evidence. However, some scholars hold that “empirical”

credibility is in fact relative as evidence always exists, but it is up to the people to

interpret it in the way that appeals to them. Based on that, movements may find

difficulties appealing to a larger audience as the empirical credibility of their frames can

be determined only by a small cadre of adherents. The second element is the credibility

of the claimsmakers. It is hypothesized that the more experienced and authoritative the

claim articulator is, the more resonance his ideas and claims have. Factors such as

knowledge, status, expertise, and often age as, the case of Egypt demonstrates, are

important in establishing this perceived credibility. In Egypt, the revolutionary youth

realized this early on and engaged in a process of “credentializing” by which they tried

to capitalize on the credentials of the public figures who supported their demands for

change. As discussed previously using RMT, this is one of the moral resources they

attempted to use in order to gain legitimacy.

Finally, the third element affecting credibility is the consistency of the frame. What is

meant by that is the degree to which the elements of the frame are perceived to be

congruent. Inconsistency can refer to the contradictions among the ideas being

advocated and it can also signal the disparity in the ideas, beliefs and actions of

movements? When there are fewer contradictions, the frame will resonate more with

people and will be a stronger mobilization force. Those three elements constitute the

credibility factor of the frame which affects its resonance with the target of

mobilization.

The second factor which affects the resonance of the frame is its salience or how

important it is perceived. Salience has three dimensions: “centrality, experiential

commensurability and narrative fidelity” also known as cultural resonance. As the name

implies, centrality refers to how fundamental the claims and ideas of the social actors

are to the lives of their target audience. It follows naturally, that the more essential the

concepts and the beliefs of the movement are to the people, the higher the chances the

frame has in successfully mobilizing them. Second, experiential commensurability has

to do with the everyday personal experience of the people. When framings are too

abstract and distant from the lived daily experience of the people, it is more difficult for

frames to have resonance with the people and consequently they have lesser chances of

mobilizing them. Finally, many scholars believe narrative fidelity, which is also known

as cultural resonance, has the greatest effect on the salience of a frame. This factor refers

to the degree to which the ideas and beliefs that the activists advocate are in line with

traditional culture of the people. Myths, domain assumptions, and inherent ideology (as

opposed to derived ideology) are all expressions of public cultural narrations that affect

the saliency and, by consequence, the resonance of the movement’s ideas. As Williams

concludes: “[m]ovement discourse, ideologies, and actions must be culturally resonant

– coherent within some shared cultural repertoire – if they hope to strike bystander

publics as legitimate, or neutralize oppositional positions by elites and

countermovements”.

Turning to the third part of this section, activists do not develop and elaborate

on frames only using the three aforementioned core-framing tasks, but also through

three interrelated processes known as framing processes: discursive, strategic and

contested. Discursive processes concern the discussions, written communications, and

talks that occur in the context of movements activities. Strategic processes are “framing

processes that are deliberative, utilitarian, and goal directed” . Put differently, these are

the calculated efforts by the activists of a movement to link their interests and frames

to those of their target audience. The third set of interrelated processes is contested

processes. Frames are not created in isolation of other factors. More importantly,

activists are faced by challengers who are also engaged in the politics of significations.

Counterframing by the antagonists, bystanders and the media has been the greatest

challenge for the revolutionary youth. Counterframing includes attempts "to rebut,

undermine, or neutralize a person's or group's myths, versions of reality, or interpretive

framework". 134 The activists in turn resort to oppositional frames to try and repel,

curtail, contain, or reverse the negative and damaging effect to their movement’s

previous claims. These episodes are known as frame contests. It is important to note

that these contests often take place in complex multi-organizational arenas. Here the

role of media and elites cannot be overlooked as they greatly affect the extent of

resonance of framing/counterframing. Social movements are often at a disadvantage in

these situations as generally they do not control the media; they do not choose the stories

that get covered, or how the media will present their claims.

4.3 Core-frame Tasks

4.3.1 Diagnostic Frame

As mentioned before, the purpose of a diagnostic frame for a movement is to

identify the problem and its root causes. The January 25 Revolution made it clear that

the problem lied in Mubarak’s authoritarian regime. In the call for demonstrations on

January 28th the event created by We are All Khaled Said was titled “a day of rage

against corruption, injustice, unemployment and torture”. In the description the

organizers also added absence of freedom. Authoritarianism and the injustice associated

with it could be identified as diagnostic frames for the uprising. Corruption, police

brutality, social injustice, repression, illiteracy, ignorance, curtailment of freedoms,

poverty, humiliation of human dignity can be considered byproducts of the main ailment

of authoritarianism. The revolutionaries directly laid the responsibility upon Mubarak

who resided over the country’s rule for more than 30 years. The diagnosis was clear and

simple.

Disagreements in articulating the problem started to arise after the ouster of

Mubarak and the taking over of the SCAF. The youth realized that the problem is bigger

than Mubarak and that structures of authoritarianism run deeper into the system than

they initially thought. A minority of the revolutionaries believed from the on start that

military dictatorship is the root cause of problems. Given their clear ideological

inclinations, Revolutionary Socialists were consistent in diagnosing the problem. It has

always been the regime’s monopoly of power and wealth. The socioeconomic aspect of

repression manifested in the lack of social justice, and violations of workers’ rights are

at the core of their analysis of the issue. Two days after the ouster of Mubarak, the

Revolutionary Socialists issued a statement entitled “The People Still Want the

Downfall of the Regime” in which they called for the continuation of demonstrations

and expressing little trust in the army who they accused of attempting to violently clear

Tahrir Square. Most of the youth, beyond their superficial identification of the issues

with the Egyptian state, did not possess nor develop serious intellectual treatise that

comprehensively identified the core issue. With the passing of time and the

development of events, the revolutionaries’ articulation of the problem became more

nuanced. Concepts that were previously confined to academic scholarship such as the

deep state, the military security complex, the Generals State and networks of corruption

entered into the revolutionary daily lexicon adding more depth to their understanding

of the fundamental issues with the system.

Several months into Mohamed Morsi’s presidency, religious authoritarianism

replaced military authoritarianism as the overarching diagnostic frame. For many of the

youth, however, it was less an issue of “religious” than it was an issue of

“authoritarianism”. One activist elaborated:

Our problem is not with the military or the Muslim Brotherhood, our real

problem is with the idea that you could have one group controlling the country

and excluding everyone else. At the time of SCAF it was the generals, during

Morsi’s time it was his trusted brothers. Any organization, interest group, or

social class that seeks to monopolize the system and exclude or repress the rest

will be opposed. That’s why I opposed Mubarak, SCAF, Morsi and now

Sisi.

There is no comparison between the authoritarianism of the SCAF and that of Morsi in

terms of extent and level. It would be more accurate to point to the elements of exclusion

and alliance with the old state in propagating the authoritarianism frame. According to

Mohamed Abbas, an ex-Muslim Brotherhood member and a youth activist leader, the

Muslim Brotherhood’s “stupidity” in dealing with state’s institutions is what gave rise

to the development of the youth’s frame. He affirmed: They [The Muslim Brotherhood]

made all the wrong choices… they went back on the promises they made in Fairmont

agreement … they made an alliance with the old regime against the revolutionaries

hoping to fix the regime from the inside… they are the ones in power, how else would

they expect the youth to characterize their actions?

Regardless of whether the youth perceived Morsi as a dictator who sought to empower

his own group or a weak and naïve leader who could not be up to the revolutionaries’

expectations, he remained to be blamed by the youth. The demands of the revolution

remained the same.

4.3.2 Prognostic Frame

The main criticism directed to the youth or those who advocate change in

general is that they do not have an alternative to present. For the youth, the prognosis

was straightforward: freedom is the solution to tyranny; democracy is the solution to

authoritarianism; social justice is the solution to poverty; the respect of human dignity

is the solution to torture and state-inflicted humiliation. Beyond these generic values,

the youth never developed a political program to demonstrate what these ideals actually

mean in real life and how they could be applied. One major reason for that is that the

youth do not form a united class, despite sharing many commonalities. With many youth

organizations refusing the constraints of political ideology or even the formal

engagement in politics, their solutions remained to be in the realm of pressuring the

regime for more changes.

Youth activists realize that shortcoming, but only a few of them have engaged

in thoughtful attempts to rise above the daily battles and develop a long-term vision and

strategy. One of these youth attempts is by Iyad El-Baghdadi, an online Arab activist.

Writing a few days before the downfall of Mubarak, El-Baghdadi asked a question

everyone was too preoccupied in the events to contemplate: “A constitution must be

preceded by a statement or a manifesto. Do we have one?” Recognizing that the Arab

Spring was not ideologically tinted, El-Baghdadi repeatedly stipulated that if the youth

wanted to replace the tyrants they needed to develop a manifesto. As early as December

2011 he predicted and rightly so, that if the youth do not present an alternative, the old

guard will be back to fill in the gap. El-Baghdadi decided to take on the task of

articulating his version of “Islamic libertarianism” in a book by the title The Arab Spring

Manifesto. His attempt is one of the very few, if not the first by youth activists and

intellectuals, to develop an alternative vision. More efforts representing the diverse

backgrounds of the youth are needed in that direction.

In terms of strategies and tactics employed to respond to the problems identified

in the diagnostic frame, protest arose as the corrective measure used by the youth to

push for the revolution’s goals. While the regime practiced politics, issuing laws,

arresting protestors, putting civilians on military trials, and forming cabinets, the

youth’s proposed solution was the same: demonstrations. This form of “street politics”,

although more effective earlier in 2011 than later on, reflected the prognostic deficiency

of the youth. In terms of momentary actions, there were many “solutions” presented by

the revolutionaries at different stages to solve the issue of military being in power. For

example, prior to Mubarak’s ouster, the revolutionary socialists advocated the

development of popular committees to popular councils that elect higher councils to

eventually represent the revolution. The Revolution Youth Coalition called for the

creation of a presidential council that involves one military figure in addition to two

civilians. This proposed solution was developed to a full civilian presidential council

and became the demand of many revolutionaries during 2011. The naivety in believing

that the military council would willingly hand over power to an unelected civilian

council, along with the many internal disagreements on who represents the people and

the inexistent mechanism to choose the figures, led the term to become a joke among

activists in the following years.

4.3.3 Motivational Frame

Vocabularies of motive provide the activists in a movement with reasons to

identify with the goals of the movement and engage in action. They are created through

the course of interaction among actors and are usually invoked when the participant’s

action is put into question.139 The youth in Egypt employed a variety of rhetoric to

appeal to the people at large and motivate the members of their groups. It is noticeable

that the language used generally appealed to emotions and not reason. This proved

effective most of the time in mobilizing the people and especially the youth who are

carried away easily by enthusiasm. Egyptians, an emotional people, as they are often

referred to, proved to respond more positively to calls that address their

feelings. Evident in the naming of the first Friday “The Friday of Rage”, emotions

varying from anger to fear passing by pride continued to play a significant role in

mobilizing people by different parties. In determining the vocabularies of motive used

by youth, I applied a combination of methods. First, I examined the names given to

more than 65 Friday demonstrations during the SCAF’s and Morsi’s rule. Second, I

conducted an extensive survey of the Facebook pages of Revolution Youth Coalition,

We are All Khaled Said, 6th of April Movement and Revolutionary Socialists

particularly looking at their created events. I also consulted statements calling for action

on the pages of youth and youth dominated parties such as Masr Al-Qawiya, Al-Tayyar

Al-Masry and Al-Dostour. Finally, I depended on personal interviews with youth

activists who completed the picture with their lived experiences and backgrounds. Next

are the three kinds of vocabularies of action the youth utilized in their framing to provide

motivational impetus for collection action – Martyrs’ rights, dignity, protection of the

revolution.

Martyrs’ Rights

One very common motif used by the revolutionary youth to provide rational for

their actions is the defense of martyrs’ rights. During the 18 days of the revolution until

the ouster of Mubarak, 846 protestors were killed by the police and security forces.

While calls for bread, social justice, freedom and human dignity were the demands

during the 18 days, after Mubarak’s overthrow the retribution for martyrs was added to

the list of demands and also became a motivating factor in itself to call for action. This

is manifested in the famous slogan “Either we get their rights or we die as they [the

martyrs] did”. On April 8, 2011 the million-man demonstration was named “purification

and judgment”. The most famous slogan that day was “Retribution, retribution. They

shot our brothers with bullets”. It is remarkable that these slogans continued to live on

and be used consistently for mobilization throughout the time of SCAF, Morsi and Sisi.

The dedication of events for the sole purpose of demanding retribution to the martyrs

also was a feature common to all three periods. Martyr’s blood is not for sale, Martyrs’

rights Friday, Martyrs’ memorial Friday, Maspero’s Martyrs’ Friday, the Martyr’s dream

Friday, Justice

(Retribution) Friday are but some of the examples of demonstrations organized during

2011 and 2012. In 2013 and 2014 under Adly Mansour and Sisi respectively, the

motivational frame for youth changed from martyrs to prisoners. This, however, is

beyond the scope of this short survey.

Although this rhetoric proved convincing and motivating enough to some people

to engage in demonstrations, the over-use and sometimes abuse of the martyrs’ blood

by political forces, led people at times to lose sympathy and regard the issue of

secondary importance. Some youth admitted to me that the cause of the martyrs is a just

one; however, their cause is an offshoot of the initial problem. “They [the consecutive

regimes in power] succeeded in distracting us from our real demands. What we should

have invested more in was to work on realizing the dreams the martyrs died for”, one

activist confided to me. Hence the slogan was sometimes modified in demonstrations

to be “We will get their rights and we will realize their dream.” The symbolism of

martyrs, however, continued to have a great appeal to the youth, based on their feelings

of guilt, loyalty, and the desire for retribution.

Dignity

Another motivational frame the youth used is the appeal to dignity. Daily humiliation,

especially at the hands of the police was one of the main reasons for the January 25

uprising. One of the main slogans of the revolution was the call for human dignity

which was crushed under Mubarak’s 30 year rule. Dignity was at the root of the

demonstrations to the extent that some dubbed the Egyptian Revolution a “dignity

revolution.” The brutal use of force by the military and security forces during SCAF’s

time provided a momentum for youth movements to appeal once more to that feeling.

Abuses against female protestors in particular were highlighted to harness the

sympathy of the people. Following the cabinet clashes in December 2011 when

female protestors were stripped and dragged in the street, a million-man

demonstration, bearing the title “Free Women of Egypt”, was called. The slogan

which dominated the day was “Down, down with military rule; Egypt’s girls are a red

line”. Two weeks later, the weekly demonstration was called “Friday of Pride and

Dignity” in which demonstrators demanded an end to military rule, holding the

military accountable for the mismanagement of the transitional phase.

Protection of the Revolution

This frame, in contrast, to the first two frames is primarily addressed to those

who believe in the revolution in the first place. It does not seek to convince or mobilize

bystanders, rather it attempts to persuade its adherents of the urgency and importance

of their participation. The youth repeatedly depicted the revolution as endangered to

incite their fellow members and the wider public who believe in the importance of the

revolution. For a generation who has lived its entire life under Mubarak’s repression,

the revolution represented the biggest achievement worthy of defending. The

revolution, embodying the hope of the youth for a better future, was an abstract symbol

that could express all their demands. Appealing to save the revolution meant saving

freedoms, fighting corruption, opposing repression and guaranteeing no return to the

old regime. The frame of protection or defense works in a number of ways. First, it

highlights the element of agency, reminding the people of their collective power but

also appealing to the sense of individual responsibility “it is your duty to defend the

revolution.” Second, it instills an element of urgency. By invoking the rhetoric of

“danger”, “protection”, “defense” activists created an urge to take part in the

demonstrations as it is something that cannot wait.

4.4 Resonance

After defining the three main core-framing tasks and how the youth dealt with

them, I will now examine how resonant these frames were with the people. Resonance,

as previously explained, has two main components: credibility and salience. In the next

few pages, I will analyze these two elements in order to understand the reasons behind

some frames used by the youth being more successful in yielding public support than

others. In particular, The issue of cultural resonance, also known as narrative fidelity, is

especially difficult for youth to address and is more difficult to change than other

components. As such, I will give it special attention.

4.4.1 Credibility

Credibility is an issue the revolutionary youth struggled with on various levels.

In Egypt, age is an important factor in conferring credibility. Since credibility is often

related to knowledge, experience and expertise, the older you were, the wiser, more

knowledgeable, and, by consequence, more respectable you were perceived. The youth

were often perceived as inexperienced enthusiasts who do not possess enough

legitimacy to be taken seriously. Popularity is another contributing factor to credibility.

Public figures are generally seen more credible just by the fact of being known to the

people. Understanding this culture, the youth tried to get around this by a

“credentializing” process in which they sought the support of “credible” persons in the

eyes of the community so they could be taken seriously. The first instance where this

was clearly manifested was the campaign leading up to the March 2011 referendum.

The youth who were in favor of a “no” vote campaigned for their choice by creating a

video in which youth figures, as well as well-known politicians, businessmen,

professors, actors, singers, and writers all appeared justifying a no vote.

In terms of empirical credibility, the youth were successful in creating all sorts

of documentation for their claims. Social media provided them a platform through

which they could publish videos, pictures and statistics supporting their claims. The

issue, however, was one of outreach to the people. Since the youth did not control the

media and had little financial means to create a news outlet that represented their cause,

these empirical evidences were not displayed to the people. Using innovative ways, the

youth developed the idea of “Kazeboon”, a campaign using a portable projector and

videos of SCAF’s human rights violations and contradictory statements to display in

public squares. As one activist put it, “If people cannot watch us on TV, we will go to

them in the streets and let them watch the truth for themselves.”

Finally, frame consistency is also essential in acquiring credibility in the eyes of

the people. Here the youth’s demands proved to be consistent. The problem, however,

was in the perceived inconsistency between the ideals being advocated and the methods

used. For example, the youth called for democracy and free elections but when

parliamentary elections were held, only a few ran for office. In the presidential

elections, disagreements between revolutionary youth led them to support different

candidates representing the revolution camp who all failed to make it to the second

round. Generally, youth’s reluctance to participate in formal politics was perceived as

inconsistent with their calls for change. In conclusion, for claims to be accepted by a

people, those three elements of credibility need to be present. Revolutionary youth

scored poorly on all three, This cost them the credibility they dearly sought.

4.4.2 Salience

All throughout the four years, the youth were consistently dragged into political

battles that did not concern the majority of the people. Instead of focusing on economic

and social demands of the revolution that were the main reason average laypeople

joined reason for the joining of laymen, the revolutionary youth engaged in elitist

contestations that the people could not relate to. This could be seen in the infamous

debate of the “Constitution First” or “Elections First” which drained the youth for

months. Following the constitutional amendments referendum in March 2011, political

forces were divided into two groups with the liberal opposition, the majority of the

youth and nascent political parties calling for drafting the constitution before holding

parliamentary elections, while the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamists were in favor of

early elections. Eventually, the SCAF decided to hold parliamentary elections in

November and December 2011 before writing the constitution. The debate, however,

resurfaced in 2012 with the political forces arguing once more whether presidential

elections this time should take place first or the drafting of the constitution.

Interestingly, many of the youth represented in movements such as April 6 Movement

and Masrena and political parties such as Al-Adl and Al-Tayyar AlMasry switched

roles, this time advocating “President First” and vehemently opposing writing a

constitution under military rule. The first Friday million-man demonstration in February

2012 was held under the same title “President First”. Moreover, We are All Khaled Said

Page in conjunction with other youth movements, launched a campaign titled “No

constitution under Military Rule”. This seeming contradiction could be explained by

the fact that the youth hoped the presidential elections could result in a revolutionary

president, while in the case of the parliamentary elections, it was widely predicted that

the Muslim Brotherhood would gain the plurality, if not the majority, of the seats and

thus control the constitution drafting process.

The debate, which garnered media attention and the focus of political forces,

lacked the saliency aspect for resonance, making it distant from the people. For the

majority of the people, the two options seemed equally insignificant. Centrality, the first

factor composing salience, was completely absent. Some youth tried to break that

dichotomy and redirect the public discourse to discuss people’s real issues. In the midst

of that heated debate, Mohamed Abo-elgheit, a young 22-year blogger and student at

the time wrote a blog titled “The Poor First, You Bastards!” in which he tried to

highlight the role of the poor in the revolution. Publishing pictures and stories of poor

martyrs for the first time in a challenge to the entrenched narrative, his post got a lot of

attention in the media and in the cyber world spreading to pages all over Facebook and

Twitter. Abo-elgheit’s attempt to break away from the existing elitist frame and create

an alternative discourse yielded a degree of success. For example, following his post,

We are All Khaled Said Page dedicated a lot of space to the discussion of poverty and

analyzing the issues Abo-elgheit’s raised in his note. However, by and large, the youth

were still stuck into the political elites debates carefully and deliberately designed by

the SCAF and could not impose their own agenda.

On the level of experiential commensurability, which is the second component

of salience, the youth also failed to make the link to people’s lives. The issues youth

advocated or opposed remained too abstract to the people who did not understand their

relevance to their daily lives. An issue like the militarization of the state, which was a

central feature in the youth’s discourse especially during the SCAF’s time, was never

broken down into tangible effect on people’s lives. Given the low literacy rate, the

youth’s rhetoric came across as too elitist and complicated for the masses to understand

and interact with. Some youth parties attempted to bridge this gap by simplifying the

concepts and drawing direct relationship between them and the people. For example,

during the debate preceding the voting on the 2012 constitution, Masr Al-Qawiya Party

youth launched a campaign that tried to take every objection to the constitution and turn

it into a real life example. However, these attempts remained limited and got swapped

away in the midst of the mega debates.

The “Elections First” or “Constitution First” debate is one example of an issue

that lacked salience. Another would be the debate surrounding the “civility” of the state.

Especially during the Muslim Brotherhood rule, the elites engaged in a parochial debate

concerning the nature of the state. After the “battle of ballots” in March 2011, a

destructive identity-based polarization increasingly found its way into the political

environment. The youth were not immune. The more the youth and political elites

engaged in these debates, the more the people became disenchanted by the revolution

and its prospects for affecting their lives. Almost all the youth activists I interviewed

admitted they engaged in the wrong battles and expressed remorse for not giving

precedence for economic and social demands that touch people’s lives. On the local

level, some groups were able to realize small victories, but on the national discourse

level, the frames remained every much determined by the major political actors. Hany

El Gamal, a founding member of Al-Dostour party told me, “We were for so long

drained in the battle of titles. We need to make the move now to the battle of content.”

But even the Revolutionary Socialists who adopt economic and social justice as their

primary frame of action used rhetoric that was difficult for the people to understand.

The movement’s discourse, as a member of its political bureau declared to me, reflected

the ideological rigidity and the professional background of the majority of the members.

The discussion was relevant, especially for workers, but the language was simply too

distant from the laypeople. In conclusion, the types of issues and how relevant they are

to the people are important but so are the motivational frames and vocabularies of action

used.

4.4.3 Cultural Resonance

The last factor determining people’s interaction with the demands is narrative

fidelity or cultural resonance. Culture has a great effect on which frames can propagate.

Success of the narratives and actions are determined by whether they conform or

contradict entrenched ideals and traditions in society. Youth’s beliefs and attitudes

contradicted the cultural tradition of the Egyptian people in two distinct ways – respect

and stability. First, respect of the military institution is part of the popular culture since

the 1952 Revolution. The military was generally seen before the revolution as a

professional and disciplined organization that was not corrupt as the police was.

Moreover, mandatory conscription meant that it is likely that everyone in the people

had a close relative or friend serving at the army at some point. This reinforced the

feeling that the army is part of the people. Finally, the legacy of the

1973 war, especially for the older generation added a hallow of respect and sacredness

to the military who was perceived as the only army who achieved victory for the Arabs

against Israel. For all of those reasons, the infamous slogan “Down, down with Military

Rule” which the youth developed and continued to use over 2011 until mid 2012 was

met with popular indignation. The youth repeatedly attempted to differentiate between

the SCAF, which Mubarak had appointed, and the army as a patriotic institution, by

declaring “The army is ours but the council [of Armed Forces] is not.” However, the

media and the SCAF consistently made sure to blur the differences in order to rid the

revolutionaries of any support they may get from the people. The swelling incidents of

army soldiers using torture and lethal force against protestors over the transitional

period led some youth to reconsider their previous assessment of the army being “ours”.

The unprecedented confrontation with army soldiers made the revolutionaries

convinced they are not that different from the police forces they for long considered an

antagonist. Naturally, the media picked this and used it to discredit the revolutionaries.

The increasing information made available on the “Officers Republic” made the youth

realize the issue transcends SCAF to include the entire political and economic

institutional militarization of the country. For the people to see fault with this fact, the

revolutionary youth had to engage in a multi-level struggle.

Respect for the elderly is a second cultural convention the youth’s framing of

their demands contradicted. In the Egyptian culture, age begets respect. In spite of all

of Mubarak’s crimes, when he was strongly attacked by the youth following his arrest,

some called for “considering him like your father”. The youth’s often challenge and

sometimes disrespect for authority figures led them to be perceived as

“undisciplined” and hampered the resonance of their demands with the older generation.

Similarly, respect of public morals is considered of high importance in Egyptian

culture. It is interesting that the revolutionaries’ use of symbolic violence in language

has been more harshly condemned by the people than state’s practice of physical

violence. A famous example is the heated media interjection between novelist Alaa Al

Aswany and then Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik in the month following Mubarak’s

ouster. The older generation’s reaction to the episode centered around the condemnation

of Al Aswany’s insult to Shafik and the disrespectful attitude he displayed towards his

patriotic role as an army officer. The public’s dismay at “disrespectful” attitude extend

to the youth’s use of swear words and obscenity in their online interactions. Youth

activists such as Alaa Abdel Fattah declared more than once that their use of

symbolic/verbal violence was intentional and is meant to hurt the image of the powerful

who commit actual violence against the powerless. Claiming a higher ground, however,

The regime’s rhetoric, in its depicting youth as morally decrepit, resonated with the

people more than the youth’s.

Finally, the Egyptian culture is one that favors stability. It could be argued that

any society prefers the status quo, but in Egypt, the compulsion for stability over

Egyptian history led to the entrenchment of a culture of submission and

nonconfrontation. Phrases such as emshi gamb el heit, meaning mind your own business

became the unofficial motto of the Mubarak years. For the youth to call for the rising

up against tyranny and risking your life was in total conflict with the conventional

wisdom. These cultural traditions attest to the fact that the battle in Egypt is primarily

demarcated along generational lines. This also raises the question of whether the

revolution was indeed a popular revolution or essentially a youth revolution which the

people, under the impression they shared the same goals as the youth, joined.

4.5 Framing Processes

Framing processes are important in understanding how frames develop and

interact; however, a full analysis of framing processes is beyond the scope of this study

and is not feasible in a chapter of this length. The two sets of discursive and strategic

processes were indirectly touched upon throughout the first half of the chapter. In this

final section, I would like to focus on contested processes and more specifically counter-

framing in the context of Egypt. The outcome of frame contests between youth activists

and their adversaries, as I will demonstrate, played a decisive role in the degree of

acceptance of the youth’s demands by the public.

Frame contests

The target of any framing activity is to reach out to the largest number of

possible adherents in order to mobilize them. However, the success or failure of

collective action frames is not merely a function of its content. Frames advocated by

social movements are subject to intense contestations that involve the movement’s

activists, the state as well as countermovements. Official frames developed by the state

and propagated by the media to combat the social movement have a great impact on the

success prospects of the collective frames mobilized by the social movement. In this

section, I discuss how the Egyptian regime characterized January 25th and framed the

youth who ignited it and their demands throughout the different time periods. For the

SCAF period, I examine the Facebook communiqués the SCAF issued during its first

year of ruling. I also refer to press conferences and speeches by General Hussein

Tantawy and other members of the military council whenever appropriate. For Morsi

and Sisi’s presidencies, I mainly rely on the coverage of their speeches and televised

interviews. In addition to official frames, media frames, which in the case of Egypt

greatly overlap with the official narrative, will also be analyzed.

The framing of the youth by their adversaries took different shapes over the past

four years. At first they were hailed as “the pure youth of January 25” but as soon as

clashes intensified with the SCAF, they started to be framed both by the media and the

regime as “troublemakers” and “thugs”. During Morsi’s time, they were framed as

“immoral” and “irreligious”. Finally, during Sisi’s time they were framed as

“traitors”, “foreign funded”, and in some cases “Muslim Brotherhood sympathizers”.

In all three phases, two parallel frames existed simultaneously. There was always an

attempt to differentiate between the “real or true revolutionary youth” and the disruptive

youth who “misuse democracy” and engage in vandalism of public property or

disruption of the political process. The SCAF’s discourse mirrors the official narrative

favorably viewing January 25th while delegitimizing all demonstrations that followed

it. In its first communiqué, SCAF called the revolution a uniting and peaceful one that

has impressed the world. In communiqué no 51, the council called the revolution “one

of the greatest revolutions of this time.” SCAF addressed the “pure youth of January

25th” who are patriotic and aware of the responsibility entrusted to SCAF as per

communiqué 24, while warning against the “misguided” youth who Only seek to cause

strife and raise disputes between the army and the people. The official frame, for the

most part, remained one that talked

positively about the youth in the attempt to integrate them into the system, while

charactering the protesting youth a disruptive minority.

Similarly, in their multiple statements and speeches, Morsi and Sisi appealed to

the youth. Speaking at a ceremony in Cairo University, Sisi addressed the youth by

saying: “"I want Egypt's youth to be by my side.” He added, “I love Egypt's youth and

consider them my children.” In different speeches, he called for youth’s participation

in the upcoming parliamentary elections trying to frame them as part of the solution.

However, the counter-framing continued for the politically active youth and more

importantly measurements on the ground spoke louder.

The counterframing of the youth used by the regime and the media appealed to

the people’s desire for stability. By depicting the youth as elements who are causing

disruption, obstructing the democratic path, and leading to the worsening of the

economic situation, the regime created an easy enemy for the people. Instead, of

addressing and changing policies, the problem was framed as one caused by the

uncooperative youth who are insistent on disrupting the system. While the factor of

stability remained present in the counter-framing throughout the three different regimes,

the discourse took different forms. Before Morsi’s victory in the second round of the

presidential elections, the youth were seen as an essential part of the political landscape.

In Fairmont agreement Morsi gave the revolutionary youth many promises with regard

to inclusion of all parties into power. During Morsi’s presidency, and as identity-based

polarization intensified, the pro-Muslim Brotherhood media undermined the youth’s

religiosity and morality to discredit them.

Appealing to religious and moral sentiments, the personal conduct and beliefs of

activists were often brought into question and used to delegitimize their demands.

During Sisi’s time, the regime whose legitimacy rested on its ouster of the Muslim

Brotherhood, appealed to the sense of fear. Making use of the “newly discovered”

nationalist and patriotic feelings, the youth were conveniently portrayed in the media as

foreign-funded traitors engaged in a grand conspiracy against Egypt. Sympathizing with

the Muslim Brotherhood became a general accusation to anyone who actively opposed

the regime.

A key point in all of these counter-framing endeavors is the role of the media.

The target audiences of these counter-frames are bystanders who are open to changing

their views and taking sides. One major challenge the youth faced in constructing their

oppositional frames is having access to the media. During the SCAF’s rule, activists

had better “standing” in the media, meaning they had a voice rather than mere coverage

of their mentioning in the news. While the media allowed some youth voices to appear,

they carefully chose those whose narrative does not greatly contradict that of the regime.

Standing, however, is not automatically granted by the media. In order to gain standing,

the youth had to contend with other political officials and journalists. While officials

can have access to the media forum when they wish, the youth have to earn their

standing by actions that draw media attention e.g. demonstrations, new campaign etc.

These actions in themselves affect the message they wish to convey to the people and

sometimes affirmatively confirming the regime’s counter-frames. In other words,

having mere access to the media does not translate into the ability to oppose the regime’s

counter-framing. Another issue with the media that featured prominently is the internal

rivalries between the youth inside each SMO. Those whose actions create the standing

often found that their preferred frame is poorly represented by those who became the

media designated spokespersons. These internal movement contests can become the

subject of media’s coverage, distracting the public from the real issues and contributing

to the counterframing. This could be seen for example in the case of 6th of April

movement and its eventual splitting into two movements. In brief, the youth’s

inadequacy in developing effective strategies to deal with the media led to the

corroboration of the official counter-frames. Relying primarily on social media to

oppose these frames, the youth essentially were absorbed into monologues and could

not reach out to the wider bystanders who were not already engaged but heavily

influenced by official media.

4.6 Conclusion

Framing is an active verb to signify that the construction and development of

frames are a dynamic and never ending process. In this chapter, I tried to reveal the

major frames the youth used in identifying the problem with the regime and proposing

a solution and alternatives. I also identified the three vocabularies of motives they used

to mobilize support: rights of the martyrs, dignity and pride, and protection of the

revolution. As I demonstrated, these frames found little resonance due to the absence of

credibility and salience of the demands. The role of the dominant culture in determining

the extent to which these frames resonated was also highlighted. Finally, the chapter

ended by examining the frames contests the youth engaged in with the regime

particularly the effect of the media on the prospects for challenging counter-frames.

Conclusion

This research started with a personal quest to find answers for the ever-evasive

question of “what went wrong” with the Egyptian Revolution. Being an

activist/researcher myself made the issue so poignant. In this research, I used a threefold

theoretical framework to look at the apparent failure of the youth to maintain a position

for themselves in the political scene and realize the goals of the Egyptian Revolution.

The analysis leaned more towards analyzing the early phase of the transitional period

being the most formative in the youth’s revolutionary experience. The purpose of this

thesis was not to analyze or assess the current moment as much as it was an attempt at

understanding the processes which led to present consequences. Thoroughly examining

the three phases of the post-Mubarak transition would necessitate three separate theses.

Investigating a topic so dynamic proved to be a strenuous task. The ever-changing

situations and positions not only affected the analysis of current events but also altered

and nuanced the understanding and perceptions of previous stances and events.

In this thesis, I prefaced with the argument that in order to understand the

Egyptian Revolution and its development, it is indispensible to analyze the youth

element as an integral part of the study. Looking at the revolutionary youth as a social

movement, this research utilized three main theoretical approaches to study their

activities: Resource Mobilization Theory, Political Opportunity Structure and Framing.

In chapter two, I looked specifically at leadership and organization as two

problematic issues the youth had to deal with. The leaderlessness of the Egyptian

Revolution caused by the fact that no single coherent group could claim responsibility

for it imprinted much of the political realities during the period following Mubarak’s

ouster. As for organization, two interrelated issues capture the youth’s organizational

dilemma. The first one is the official vs. unofficial political organization dichotomy –

the choice of whether to formally engage the political process in the form of political

parties or remain as pressure groups affecting the system using street mobilization.

Related to this issue is the choice between hierarchical structures of organization and

network models. The chapter also examined the issues the youth faced with other kinds

of resources such as moral, cultural and material resources.

In the following chapter, I tried to analyze the effects of the political context on

the youth’s development from revolutionary to political movements. Youth are often

criticized for their unwillingness to join formal politics and resort to street politics

manifesting in protests. In that chapter, I demonstrated how the nature of the political

system in Egypt, being a closed and strong system restricted the youth’s opportunity to

join the political process on equal terms and led them to use confrontational strategies.

The state’s use of repression had a direct effect in the same direction. The more the state

used repression, the more the youth got engaged in side battles that distracted them from

developing long-term strategies. These institutional structures must not, however,

overshadow the element of agency. As many activists admitted in my interviews with

them, the revolutionary youth had the option of turning these institutional obstacles into

opportunities for other forms of political engagement. The main problem is that youth

either focused too much on the institutional structures, trying to penetrate the system or

they disbelieved in the prospects of accessing the system and found in protest and

informal organizations the tool to affect the regime from outside. Both strategies,

however, overlooked an important factor – the people. As one youth activist put it: “we

were so consumed with reaching out to power, instead of reaching out to the people. We

ended up losing both.” This is not a call for forsaking formal politics or politics

altogether for that matter. Instead, it is a suggestion for practicing politics by other

means. Some youths realized that the institutional obstacles curtail any chances for their

penetration into the system and became convinced that the any solution would have to

be geared toward the empowerment of people as its top priority.

In chapter four I attempted to analyze the problems with the youth’s rhetoric and

presentation of themselves and their ideas. A summary of these issues can be identified

in four points. First, one major reason for the failure of the youth to present a convincing

discourse to the people is the vagueness of their diagnostic and prognostic frames.

While the former, arguably was better conceived of, the latter is where the youth’s main

problem lied. The youth did not form alternatives on the intellectual or the practical

levels for reasons discussed thoroughly in the chapter. The end result is that they

presented the old regime with a golden opportunity to step in to fill the void they created

by the ouster of Mubarak and then Morsi. Second, the motivational frames the youth

used remained “activist-oriented”. After a while, martyrs’ rights and protection of the

revolution were not strong enough reasons for the laypeople to join mobilization. The

distortion of the revolution in the media succeeded in leading the people to perceive the

revolution and even the martyrs as the reasons for the deteriorating economic conditions

and political instability. People were unable to make the connection between the

demands of the revolutionaries and their own lives. Furthermore, the absence of any

political alternative made demonstrations seem like ways of letting out frustration more

than effecting policy change. Dignity is an important motivational factor but the

increasingly worsening economic pressures and instability in people’s daily lives

following the revolution led some of them to believe that forgoing some of their rights

for the sake of the country’s political advancement is an acceptable price. Additionally,

the brainwashing effect of the media led people to disbelieve the credibility of many

human rights violations happening to the revolutionaries or worse, perceiving it as

necessary. Third, the political battles the youth, as well as other political parties were

focused on were of marginal importance to the people, lacking all aspects of resonance.

This was reaffirmed by the use of elitist rhetoric in expressing and discussing those

demands. In short, once more the absence of the appeal to the people on their own terms

was a major setback to the youth. It could be argued however that these ailments

plagued all political actors and not specifically the youth. This could be correct to a

certain degree, however, what the youth lacked in terms of rhetoric compared to other

actors such as the Muslim Brotherhood for example is cultural resonance. The youth’s

demands by definition were in contradiction with many tenets in Egyptian culture;

nevertheless, they directed little efforts toward tailoring the message to the people who

found the youth’s rhetoric or characterization of the issues offensive.

Finally, this study is one more effort at understanding of how the youth ended

up where they are now. Rather than being prescriptive, the findings of this research

serve the purpose of better comprehending the reasons for the youth’s failure in order

to draw lessons for the future. While this thesis was an attempt at diagnosis, more efforts

are needed to transform these findings into practical solutions. My hope is that this work

and similar ones open more opportunities for discussion. It is timely for the youth who

have actively participated in the revolution to engage in an extensive and thorough re-

evaluation of their revolutionary experience. As for scholars, it is equally an opportunity

to revisit some of the theoretical assumptions regarding the relationship between youth,

revolutions, and political transition.

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