Generation Revolution
Subtitle: on the front line between tradition and change in the Middle East
By: Rachel Aspden
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 262
ISBN-13: 9781590518557; 9781590518564
Subjects: Youth; Social conditions; Revolutions; Political activity; History
Description: In 2003, Rachel Aspden arrived in Egypt as a 23-year-old trainee journalist. She found a country on the brink of change. The two-thirds of Egypt's 80 million citizens under the age of 30 were stifled, broken, and frustrated, caught between a dictatorship that had nothing to offer them and their autocratic parents' generation, and left clinging to tradition and obedience by a lifetime of fear. In January 2011, the young people's patience ran out. They thought the revolution that followed would change everything for them. But as violence escalated, the economy collapsed and as the united front against Mubarak shattered into sectarianism, many found themselves wavering, hesitant to discard the old ways. Following the stories of four young Egyptians-- Amr the atheist software engineer, Amal the village girl who defied her family and her entire community, Ayman the one-time religious extremist and Ruqayah the would-be teenage martyr-- Generation Revolution unravels the complex forces shaping the lives of young people caught between tradition and modernity, and what their stories mean for the future of the Middle East.
Notes: "First published in Great Britain by Harvill Secker in 2016"--Title page verso.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 255-262).
Table of contents: title: Amal and Nayera : women in a man's world; title: Amr : kicking against a secret state; title: Ayman and Mazen : seekers on the path to paradise; title: The eighteen days : the Revolution begins; title: Ayman, Mazen, and Abu el-Hassan : the battle for Egypt's soul; title: Ruqayah and Sara : the general's return; title: Amr, Amal, and Mazen : survival lessons.