Gen Z & the Revolution| Why I chose the state

No one’s position toward major events remains fixed—least of all toward 25 January, which reshaped religion, politics and society in Egypt as we know it today. Someone who lived it as a child, watched its turns as a teenager and came of age in the order it produced cannot, by nature, see it the same way over time.

I write this to relieve the unease surrounding the January Revolution, given my moral and political support for the current regime—not to romanticize it or claim it achieved historic glory. In my view, despite all the praise of its supporters, it yielded only one real gain.

As a teenager, I was active on Twitter, enthralled by the icons of struggle who revered the revolution and its revolutionaries. I consistently admired four figures—Mohamed ElBaradei, Alaa Al-Aswany, Khaled Ali and Belal Fadl. I respected them publicly, sometimes even sanctified their opinions and mirrored their positions.

My stance on everything that followed—the events that shaped the revolution’s identity and course—was built on their views. My position toward the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the Muslim Brotherhood and each political turning point flowed largely from their assessments. “X” was wrong because freedom of belief and expression came first, while “Y” was obstructionist because it exploited religion for political ends.

At the time, still forming my worldview, I knew nothing of right and left, Islamists and liberals. I believed everyone sought the same goal: a democratic state and peaceful transfer of power. There was only one obstacle—whoever became the official face of the state.

When the country stabilized, I absorbed what I thought was the defining lesson of my generation: “Anyone can become anything.” I chose individual survival. I withdrew from public affairs and stopped developing my political thinking, convinced that change begins and ends with the self. I merely collected fragments that affirmed my moral reflex—total support for the revolution, total condemnation of its enemies.

Later, I secured a training opportunity at the Egyptian branch of one of the world’s largest companies in my field, integrated circuit design. On the first day, the branch director told us he had “given up on the American dream and returned to Egypt to found this company amid the rosy dreams that followed Jan. 25—if that date means anything to you.”

I was the only one who replied, “Yes—during the era of dreams.” It was an instinctive answer. I never imagined it would one day sum up my view of the revolution.

Al-Aqsa Flood in October 2023—like it did for many—pulled me back to public affairs and forced me to reconsider what the revolution had achieved. I found only one gain: it exposed the Islamist current. And exposure here is not a condemnation. It clarified matters.

January began as a political moment demanding economic security for all social classes and a democratic climate allowing everyone—qualified or not—to choose those who represent them and manage national resources and foreign conflicts. It called for justice for all.

But its course shifted.

Ironically, January became a social uprising against the Islamist current across broad segments of society. I mean the Islamist current in its cultural and ideological sense—not merely partisan political Islam. In simplified terms, it is a current that believes its convictions should replace others’ beliefs—and judge and govern them.

The revolution marked the beginning of their decline. Yet their final chapter has not been written. This current has repeatedly re-rooted itself in the dreams and fears of its adherents and in the social networks that sustain it. My personal prophecy is this: “This state has not yet truly encountered the Islamists.”

First, because in its last convulsion this current may grow more extreme and more desperate. The events of Al-Aqsa Flood reinforced a perception that the “modern state” offers us—people of the Global South and the Middle East—little beyond killing, embodied in the actions of Israel and the United States. In that framing, rejecting it can appear the more righteous path.

After the flood, the modern nation-state itself came under renewed scrutiny in our region. The argument for not aiding Gaza—that it lies outside our state’s borders—revived discussion of the ummah as an alternative political imagination. This debate extended beyond Islamist circles into wider segments of society.

Second, because the counterforce—the revolutionary current—has yet to grasp that the individual alone is no longer an effective political actor. There is no unifying structure that consolidates individual efforts—at least not in our context. I refer, of course, to the institutional frameworks present in Western states.

A quasi-state is better than none

Why do I support the current regime’s stance toward January? Because I prefer a half-state to no state at all. I prefer a clear, even difficult trajectory—one that might lead us out of the “quasi-state” we inhabit—rather than an ambiguous path with no visible end.

And why do I still support January? Because liberation from the Islamist current required a collective rupture of that magnitude. It opened the public sphere to everyone. More importantly, it allowed Islamists themselves to speak freely, exposing themselves. The vessel overflowed. What lay within it—convictions that were often exclusionary and confrontational—spilled into public view.

This deeply personal position first took shape during the 2012 presidential election: a contest between a system not yet dead and another that sought to reenact the death of our forebears—because its only consolation lay in our death as well, and in the same manner.