ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses the relationship between the historical moment of the 2011 uprising and the revolutionary youth, and namely the impact of the activists’ collective interpretation of the eighteen days of mass protest and occupation of Cairo’s Tahrir Square on the social movement. The continuous occupation of Tahrir Square by hundreds of thousands of protesters, in which the square became an autonomous and self-sufficient city-within-a-city, saw a reconfiguration of social and political relations that was collectively interpreted by the activists as the revolutionary ideal. For them, revolution came to be defined as the transformation of state–society relations based on: the value of social justice; equal citizenship and tolerance of the Other; and the transfer of political power to the people. Perceiving themselves as the guardians of the revolution, a prefigurative practice of revolutionary action came to inform the social movement: for the activists, revolution was not simply an objective to be achieved but is also a distinct way of acting and of being. This prefigurative practice influenced the movement’s organizational and strategic development, including the establishment of the movement’s coalition and organizational formalization, and the strategic positioning of the revolutionary youth as a distinct actor within the Egyptian political arena.
