ABSTRACT

This dissertation is a study of the role the youths played in the movement for political change in Egypt. In Egypt the youths experienced high unemployment and exorbitant food prices fed mass-level discontent; yet the regimes benefited from positive economic growth in 2010, had plenty of money to pay their police personnel and soldiers, and felt no shortage of patronage to hand out to top civilian and security officials. All these worked together to stir up things that upset the youths in Egypt. The study is significant in that it contributes to our understanding of the role of the youth in pushing for regime change within the context of certain domestic and international factors, and also provides explanations of the linkage between the youth-led revolution and the present state of things in the politics of Egypt. In other words, it explains the domestic and external factors that predisposed the Egyptian State to the youth uprising and examines the outcome of the youth uprising in Egypt. Data was gathered from secondary sources and supported by interviews conducted with some staff of the Egyptian High Commission in Abuja, Nigeria. The thematic analysis was undertaken within the framework of the theory of Marx‟s historical materialism to establish the chain of events leading to (i.e. predisposing factors) the role of the youths and from (i.e. outcomes) the role of the youths in the Egyptian uprising, within a historical and economic context, thereby giving explanations for the 2011 protest, especially why it happened at that time and the extent of its impact on the politics of Egypt. The findings of the study show that the youth uprising was justifiable and partly explicable by the scourge of domestic factors for many decades, and for which the Egyptian Government was indicted, including unemployment, emergency (brutal) law and poverty. This uprising was reinforced by some external factors such as the influence of social media on and foreign contacts made by the savvy youths, the United States‟ military aid, the world economic crisis and ripple effect of the Tunisian Revolution. Secondly, the youths had acquired some collective characteristics that were advantageous to their cause, at least to the extent they succeeded in the revolution, such as readiness and capability to mobilise the society, efficient use of social media tools, training acquired in view of the revolution, and a clear definition of their cause and the demands that must be met in that regard. This led to the collapse of the regime, which created a political vacuum for political contest among competing interests in Egypt‟s political landscape. Lastly, events took an unfavourable turn for the youths after the collapse of the regime, because the Egyptian military – which was virtually unaffected by the changing circumstances largely due to its relative independence as an institution within the Egyptian state – not only took over power and control of the transition process, but also the youths (completely excluded from the transition process) have now become an integral part of the political polarisation in the country, such that the youthful leaders were found to represent a losing majority in the face of an organised and more powerful minority elites. The study concludes that, given the domestic and international context that prevailed then in Egypt, the youths‟ role in the movement for political change in Egypt succeeded only to the extent that the youthful leaders could envision and prepare for, thereby unconsciously leaving events afterwards in the hands of whichever interests or groups that would have the capacity to take charge of the political machinery of the country. That is why the ultimate goal of the revolution was truncated from the point that the youths ceased to be responsible for the unfolding events for advancing their revolutionary objectives.

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