The nomination followed weeks of barbs over the extent of parliament’s power, between the party and Egypt’s ruling generals, known as the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF).

Leading members of the Freedom and Justice Party, or FJP, said last week they would press the military to be more transparent in its financial dealings. The extent of the military’s business interests is largely unknown.

But analysts say it ranges from tourist resorts to processed food to the manufacture of weapons and household appliances. They say the military makes a windfall on everything from bottled water and olive oil to computer chips and cotton underwear.

“The army must be made aware that there was a revolution, and that things have to and will change,” said Karim Radwan, a member of the FJP’s executive committee in Cairo. “The army must go back to its normal role as defender of the nation, and it should not have this kind of economic control. It should not be a state within a state.”

Crafted over the years to keep Egypt’s swollen ranks both buoyant and loyal, the army’s far-reaching economic empire accounts for between 5 and 40 percent of the country’s economy. It is kept largely secret and is closely guarded by the officers and generals who benefit from its profits.

In a rare admission to the existence of such holdings, SCAF’s chief financial officer, Maj. Gen. Mahmoud Nasr, recently told Egyptian news outlet Ahram Online that “the armed forces will fight to defend” their projects.

“We have been building them for 33 years,” he said. “And we won’t give them to anyone else to destroy.”

Ahmed Al Nahhas, a long-time Brotherhood activist and member of the FJP’s executive committee in Alexandria, said a parliamentary committee has already been formed to investigate and negotiate oversight of the army’s budget and earnings.

“SCAF does not want to be questioned. They are accustomed to the old way of doing things,” Al Nahhas told GlobalPost. “But there will be a new constitution and there must be greater transparency in the army’s dealings. If the Egyptian people accepted the situation before, they will tolerate it no longer. Everything should be made public.”

The army’s defenders say the military maintains small investments through the Ministry of Military Production, related mostly to the military’s need to provide food, equipment and entertainment for its rank-and-file. They say the businesses are largely in the interest of self-sufficiency.

“They have investments in clubs and hotels for army personnel, but nobody puts this money in their own pockets,” said retired Maj. Gen. Mohamed Kadry Said, now a military analyst at Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. “The foreign media deals with this assumption that the army has some great, big secret piggy bank that is not subject to taxation or to questioning, which is just not true.”

But other analysts paint a decidedly different picture. They say a powerful military — with special privileges, state subsidies and tax exemptions — has morphed itself into a transnational conglomerate with stakes in industries worldwide, including US companies and with a near-monopoly on access to capital.

In December, the military loaned Egypt’s government $1 billion to boost its tumbling foreign currency reserves, offering a window into the size of its financial prowess.

“Egypt’s army is self-sufficient in the way that Chase Bank is self-sufficient, or Apple or Exxon-Mobil is self-sufficient,” said Joshua Stacher, professor of Egyptian politics at Ohio State University and author the report, “Egypt’s Generals and Transnational Capital,” published by the Middle East Research and Information Project earlier this year.

“The whole discourse that the army are purveyors of state capitalism, it’s not accurate,” Stacher said. “The military is incredibly neoliberal. But they control access to capital; they are the gatekeepers of capital. And this is what makes them extremely powerful.”

Gamal Mubarak, the son of ousted President Hosni Mubarak who sat at the center of the former regime’s economic liberalization project, privatized sectors that ran perilously close to the army’s own assets, creating tension between a government that was more tolerated by the army than supported by it.

In the end, the army sided with protesters during the uprising last year. Now Gamal and his capitalist cronies are almost all on trial for profiteering. As a result, the army has now eliminated most of its economic competitors, Stacher said.

With those tensions between Gamal and the army as a precedent, the FJP faces an uphill battle in bringing the army’s earnings under civilian control, particularly as political friction between the two intensifies.

“Change won’t come easily to Egypt. We have been ruled by the army since 1952,” FJP’s Radwan said. “But in order for us to become a real civil state, all things must change. The parliament insists the budget be made public.”

Stacher says the Brotherhood just isn’t strong enough to take on the military’s economic reach. It’s more likely, he said, that the army would placate the movement by bringing them into the fray.

“The military has such incredible access to potential patronage, it can co-opt the Brotherhood,” Stacher said. “If you want to be as realist as possible, they don’t have the money or the weaponry to compete. The Brotherhood can shut up and take the benefits.”

Heba Habib contributed reporting from Cairo.

In many ways, the huge demonstrations of early 2011 that took place in Tahrir Square and led to the toppling of President Hosni Mubarak inspired Egypt’s gay community to join the call for a new, more democratic nation.

But now more than a year into the revolution, Egypt’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community has stepped back out of the public eye and retreated into the shadows once again.

Their high hopes for a more open, accepting society have been put on hold as the ruling military continues its firm grip on power and socially liberal revolutionaries have largely failed to secure positions in the legislature.

On a recent reporting trip to Egypt in the days surrounding the anniversary of the “January 25 Revolution,” Tahrir’s central location in Cairo made it a rendezvous point for many of my interviews. And here I met Taher Lamey, a doctor and member of the LGBT community who volunteered in the tented field hospitals of Tahrir helping victims of attacks by Egyptian security forces.

Tall, with light eyes and a broad smile, Lamey led me several blocks away to the Ministry of Information known locally as “Maspero,” where protest marches have been held to challenge what Taher calls “lies” and “twists of the truth” by the government.

Along the way, Taher pulled me by the hand, making sure I was not lost as crowds jostled us, some curious, some angry that a foreign journalist was here. A few of us had already been attacked and I would often overhear conversations suggesting I was a CIA agent or a spy for the Israeli Mossad. Taher said such violence rises up out of nowhere, and, as he put it, “it looks suspiciously like somebody presses a button and the thugs appear.”

At one of the demonstrations at Maspero, the military killed 27 Coptic Christian protesters in October.

Copts are a religious minority in Egypt, making up less than 10 percent of the population, and how the religious minority is treated is a kind of litmus test for how other minority communities in Egypt, such as the LGBT community, might be treated.

Taher is not so hopeful, saying, “We’re still a long way from establishing any kinds of rights for gays and lesbians … If anything, we’re going back.”

This was not Taher’s first impression. In the heady days following the toppling of Mubarak, he said he had high hopes for the revolution. He said, “The best of the country is involved in this. But they won’t win. If these people were in charge you would expect a lot from this country. International connections, democracy, social justice, social welfare.”

And, he believes, LGBT rights.

“I’m sure also that would have definitely been better because they’d have been liberals, ” he explained.

But in a country whose newly elected parliament is controlled by a two Islamist parties that control more than two-thirds of the seats, that possibility, he added, is “a long way off.”

Taher sighed and said he’s thankful he also holds a Dutch passport.

“I could leave. I have a fear of what happens next. I think we will be the next Iran,” he says.

The fear of Egypt becoming an Islamic state runs deep in the country’s LGBT community, and indeed in some corners of Egypt’s wider, secular minority that was so active in the revolution.

“There was a joy and openness after the first days of the revolution,” said Azza Sultan, a Sudanese lesbian living in Egypt, and a member of Bedayaa Organization for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex (LGBTQI) of the Nile Valley, operating in Egypt and Sudan. “But most of them returned again to hide.”

A number of gay men and lesbian women say the rise of Islamist political parties — particularly the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and the Salafi al-Nour Party — could further marginalize the gay community and cause the issue of gay rights to once again fall completely off the political agenda amid the turbulence and paranoia of a country in transition.

“Many believed that the collapse of the previous political system will open doors for them to live without stigma or discrimination,” Azza said. “I was very optimistic and very positive but now especially that it has been a year and none of the revolution demands have been met, I started to worry.”

Azza said the Muslim Brotherhood wants to impose Sharia law on Egypt, a double bind for all women and most pointedly for lesbians.

“It is very difficult for them to take any decision in their lives, or to move towards independence.” she said referring to all women.

And, she added, “If it is that hard for heterosexual women it is definitely harder for a lesbian one.”

Still, Azza said, “There is a glimmer of hope that the future will be better than the past.”

Muslim Brotherhood leaders have become hesitant to speak directly about LGBT issues in recent months along with the rest of Egyptian society. But Mohammed Badie, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, made his views on LGBT issues clear last year. According to an article in Africa Online, he said, “The West has allowed gay marriage under the pretext of democracy, which we will never allow in Egypt. And we will not allow under the pretext of national unity that a Muslim woman would get married to a Christian man which violates the Islamic law.”

This kind of populist political rhetoric directed against gays might be the reason a sense of caution now pervades Cairo that was absent in the revolution’s early days. Some activists who had been vocal on LGBT rights would not meet for interviews. It seemed that a window was perhaps closing on the immediate openness about LGBT issues in the early days of the revolution now overwhelmed by general chaos in the country.

But Taha Ryad, a 30-year-old English language teacher, remains defiantly open about his sexuality.

“I’m out and I don’t give a shit,” he says. The interview took place on a boathouse in the middle of the Nile at a going away party for a gay American leaving Cairo. About 30 gay men were at the party, a mix of Egyptians and expats.

When Taha first told me to meet him here on the boathouse, it immediately called to mind the plight of the so-called “Cairo 52,” a group of gay Egyptian men arrested in 2001 on the Queen Nile boat and subjected to imprisonment and torture during a wave of anti-gay repression under Mubarak. The crackdown was viewed within the gay community as a possible attempt by the Mubarak regime to appease Islamists who were already becoming a politically formidable force in Egypt. Now that Mubarak’s regime has been ousted, there are questions about whether the newly empowered religious parties will once again crack down on the gay community. Coming from a devout Muslim family, Taha says he understands people of faith, even those who would be seen as Islamic fundamentalists.

“I used to pray and read the Quran,” he says, waving his hands in the air, as if erasing it all. “Being honest with yourself is the thing that liberates you,” he adds.

But Taha said he was worried about an oppressive Saudi-style government coming into power in Egypt now that religious parties have taken the majority of seats in Egypt’s Parliament after the January elections.

“Once they [the Muslim Brotherhood] started and became a public party, there was very strong language about the immorality we see on the street should be stopped,” Taha says.

He looked around the room at the drinking guests.

“Alcohol, of course, was a big no-no.”

“They all say, we’re pro-human rights, we’re pro-women’s rights,” but Taha does not believe it. With Islamists in power, he says, “I don’t think that LGBT people will be in a different position. There’s no silver lining. It’s all downhill.”

The rapid changes in the post-election environment are reinforced by a press officer at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo with whom I had hoped to discuss the announcement by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that LGBT issues will become a major part of diplomatic policy. Mark Caudill wrote by email, “Concerning LGBT issues, I’m afraid I have little of value to contribute. It’s an important topic competing with other important topics which, at the moment, are more urgent.”

This would be made clear when at least 16 American NGO workers were detained in Cairo this February, accused of operating illegally and “spreading anarchy” in Egypt.

*****

One activist agrees to speak as long as his full name is not used. T. describes himself as a human rights activist concerned with minority, sexuality and bodily rights, along with LGBT rights. He did not want to confuse his LGBT work with his paid human rights job, saying his boss does know he is gay and that he does such work on a volunteer basis.

We meet in Groppi, a famous art deco French café, now a sad, largely empty shadow of its former self. T. says he broke relations with his family, who became upset with his human rights work. “After the revolution, in May or April (2011), I was more active in the scene.” He used his home as a safe space, leading to “rumors about men and women coming over to the house at various hours and times.” He now lives with roommates in the center of the city.

T. says rather than religious groups, he is more afraid of people who claim to be secular centrists preferring the status quo they knew under Mubarak and use religion when they want to. “The middle class in Egypt is more extremist than Salafists. The Queen Boat happened in a secular regime. This was grounded by the support to the case of the sensitive and religious middle class.”

“I am not scared, ‘the Islamists are coming, the Islamists are coming,’” he says, mocking those who are worried about any potential religious revival. “We have been living with them. Our society has been conservative for years,” he says, “a male-dominated monster.”

At the same time, T. is also aware as a human rights activist how much the religious movement suffered under Mubarak. “They were jailed and tortured,” he says of the Muslim Brotherhood. “It’s a denial to say we woke up now and Islamists are these things. My main enemy will still be the army. I can have a fight with the Muslim Brotherhood, but I can’t have a fight with the army.”

Scholar Hassan El Menyawi, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at New York University, has pointed out that the Mubarak regime successfully played the Muslim Brotherhood and the LGBT community against one another for years, noting in a 2006 essay: “While the Muslim Brotherhood is against homosexuality and therefore has little interest in forming an alliance with gay men, the group should be cognizant that its own antagonism toward gays is being used to the advantage of the Mubarak regime.”

El Menyawi fled Egypt after being tortured by the Mubarak regime for his own activism on LGBT issues.

And as for the future?

“We as LGBT people are waiting to have a huge fight. What bothers me is we don’t have a community. We are not united. We are only scattered groups,” T. says.

While alliances between LGBT activists and Islamists might seem unlikely, various alliances among different groups are certainly forming. Mostafa Fathi is a journalist and Editor in Chief of Horytna.net radio, an internet radio station whose name means ‘Our Freedom’ in Arabic. Though not gay himself, Mostafa is a vocal proponent of LGBT rights, and author of the book, “In the World of Boys,” about a man who comes to realize he is gay. It is thought to be the country’s first book where the main character is gay and unashamed.

Mostafa offers a rare measure of optimism.

“Many Facebook friends say they are gay now, something they might not have done before the revolution,” he tells me.

Opening Facebook, he takes me to a page called Gay in Egypt, which he says was behind a planned June 1, 2011 march to Tahrir, called “The Egyptian Day for Homosexuality.” The march was cancelled.

“A lot of gays said it is not the right time. Let’s make it in one year, or in two years,” Mostafa says, disagreeing. “I feel it’s very important at this time in Egypt to talk about the issue, homosexuality. This is the right time. I know many people are uneducated, but now is the time.”

The sheer number of demonstrators — as well as their insistence that celebrations of the so-called revolution be rejected — seemed to suggest Egypt’s young firebrand dissidents have a groundswell of support in their bid to fell the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF), a coterie of unelected generals that seized power after Mubarak’s resignation.

But how well the revolutionaries can galvanize the thousands that turned out for the anniversary, which is a national public holiday and now wrought with symbolism, to help forge a sustained resistance to an increasingly repressive SCAF, is still unclear.

On Thursday morning, several thousand, some camped-out in tents, remained in Tahrir. A handful of leftist groups, including April 6, the Revolutionary Youth Coalition and the Kefaya (Enough) movement, declared an opened-ended Tahrir sit-in until the army cedes control.

The army-led democratic transition has so far been plagued by military trials of civilians, severe crackdowns on protesters and an uptick in sectarian violence — a more volatile version of Mubarak rule.

“The army repressed us and provoked us to demand our rights,” Joanna said.“We want a guarantee they will transfer power to civilians.”

The number of people, however, has dwindled to just a fraction of Wednesday’s demonstration, and traffic moved freely through the square.

Activists were calling for another mass demonstration after Friday prayers, a traditional day of protest that organizers hope will help maintain the anti-government momentum.

“I was never interested in politics. But when I saw the military attacking the woman in the blue bra, I realized we are living under tyranny,” said 25-year-old Amra Ahmed, an IT specialist marching from the impoverished Sayeda Zeinab neighborhood to Tahrir Square. “And this isn’t acceptable. This has to end.”

But support for prolonged protests has declined in many quarters as the Egyptian economy stagnates and the instability pushes millions even closer to the poverty line.

While the activists see their demonstrations as a noble effort to extract concessions from an oppressive regime, they also run the risk of alienating fellow Egyptians.

“The revolutionaries have not gotten beyond the stage of protests in the squares,” said Joshua Stacher, professor of Egyptian and Middle East politics at Ohio State University.

For many who want to see an end to SCAF rule but also to the unrest, the alternative lies with the Muslim Brotherhood. The movement’s Freedom and Justice Party, which now holds a majority in the newly-elected parliament, says civil legislation is the best way to usher the generals from power.

“I’m afraid for the country, it’s not going in the right direction,” said Hoda, an elderly woman also from Sayeda Zeinab. She did not want to give her last name.“I just want the parliament to do its job, and for a good president to take over and fix all of this.”

Despite the general harmony of Tahrir on Wednesday, the deep political divisions were not far from the surface.

As the sun set over the square, groups of young boys broke away from the crowds and began smashing rocks as they taunted police in riot gear defending the ministry of interior nearby.

There were no reports of violence between protesters and security forces overnight, but local shopkeepers were weary and unimpressed.

“These boys, they are the sons of dogs,” said one store owner.

The Brotherhood, which did not initially support the revolution that began a year ago, reaped its benefits, capturing nearly half the seats in the new parliament, which was seated this week, and vaulting its top leaders into positions of power.

Arguably the most powerful man in the Muslim Brotherhood is Khairat Al-Shater, a multimillionaire tycoon whose financial interests extend into electronics, manufacturing and retail. A strong advocate of privatization, Al-Shater is one of a cadre of Muslim Brotherhood businessmen who helped finance the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party’s impressive electoral victory this winter and is now crafting the FJP’s economic agenda.

At Al-Shater’s luxury furniture outlet Istakbal, a new couch costs about 6,000 Egyptian pounds, about $1,000 in U.S. currency. In a country where 40 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day, Istakbal’s clientele is largely limited to Egypt’s upper classes.

Although the Brothers do draw significant support from Egypt’s poor and working class, “the Brotherhood is a firmly upper-middle-class organization in its leadership,” says Shadi Hamid, a leading Muslim Brotherhood expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

Not surprisingly, these well-to-do Egyptians are eager to safeguard their economic position in the post-Mubarak Egypt.  Despite rising economic inequality and poverty, the Brotherhood does not back radical changes in Egypt’s economy.

The FJP’s  economic platform is a tame document, rife with promises to root out corruption and tweak Egypt’s tax and subsidies systems, with occasional allusions to an unspecific commitment to “social justice.” The platform praises the mechanisms of the free market and promises that the party will work for “balanced, sustainable and comprehensive economic development.” It is a program that any European conservative party could get behind.

Over the last few months the Brothers have been publicizing their economic conservatism to international investors and financial institutions.

“The Brothers see this as a major source of its appeal among Western audiences,” Hamid explains. “Most people think the Brothers would be aligned with a leftist interventionist approach to the economy. But after taking a second look, most investors find themselves pleasantly surprised when they find out otherwise.”

Speaking to Reuters in November, Hassan Malek, a textile mogul and Brotherhood financier, emphasized that the Brothers “want to attract as much foreign investment as possible … and this needs a big role for the private sector.” Just last week, Malek was tapped by the Brotherhood to head up the newly formed “Egyptian Business and Investment Association,” a coalition of leading Brotherhood businessmen working to promote private investment.

For his part, Al-Shater has been personally courting select investors and reassuring them in private that the Brothers have no radical plans for the economy.

Over the last few months the Egyptian investment bank EFG-Hermes organized sit-downs between Al-Shater and 14 major investment managers from Europe, the United States and Africa. Al-Shater used the opportunity to reassure investors that the new government shares their goals.

“I believe the meeting dismissed some investors’ concerns about an extreme economic policy,” said Wael Ziada, an official with EFG.

The Brotherhood wants continuity. Al-Shater’s relationship with EFG-Hermes has raised some eyebrows, since the investment bank was partially owned by deposed President Hosni Mubarak’s son Gamal.  But the businessmen in the Brotherhood do not seem concerned by this connection, and they are not at all hasty to jettison the Mubaraks’ economic legacy.

Malek has even gone so far as to praise the economic policies of the Mubarak regime. “We can benefit from previous economic decisions. There have been correct ones in the past … Rachid Mohamed Rachid [Mubarak’s minister of trade] understood very well how to attract foreign investment.”

What Malek failed to mention is that Rachid fled to Dubai after the ouster of Mubarak and has since been convicted in absentia of squandering public funds and embezzlement.

Rachid worked to privatize Egyptian industries, reduce taxes and subsidies, and defang unions. This economic model, adopted at the urging of the IMF and international financial institutions, delivered strong economic growth — nearly 6 percent a year from 2004 to 2009 — but also generated inequality. The gains were concentrated in the hands of Egypt’s economic elite, while millions of working-class Egyptians saw their wages stagnate, as rising food prices pushed many to the brink.

This pressure inaugurated a wave of strikes, which were a key component in the uprising that toppled the Mubarak regime last spring.  Since Mubarak’s ouster, however, the Brotherhood has taken a hostile line against trade unions. When a wave of strikes rocked Egypt last September, the Brothers sided with business interests and the ruling military junta against the unions.

“The Brothers have been against wildcat strikes and all significant labor actions,” says Zeinab Abdul-Magd, an Egyptian academic and leftists activist. “The Brothers just don’t relate to workers.”

The Brothers do run a number of impressive charity organizations for Egypt’s poor, and during holidays the Brotherhood offers subsidized meat to the poor. The Brotherhood’s candidates won big in last month’s parliamentary elections preaching social justice and promising relief to Egypt’s increasingly impoverished population.

But when it comes to specific policy proposals that could help Egypt’s millions of families who struggle to afford food, the Brothers employ what Shadi Hamid at Brookings calls “strategic ambiguity.”

“Their approach is to be everything to everyone all at once,” but in reality, Hamid says the leaders of the Brotherhood are “not in touch with the shockingly high levels of poverty on the grass-roots level.”

With Egypt facing a looming financial crisis — with rising unemployment and diminishing currency reserves — the real priorities of the Brotherhood will be tested.  Despite Islam’s prohibition on interest, the leaders of the FJP have already met with representatives of the IMF who are offering over  $3 billion in loans to ease Egypt’s financial burden.

It will be weeks before the new parliament takes any concrete steps to reform Egypt’s economy. But George Ishak, the co-founder of the Free Egyptian Party, a moderate liberal party that only managed to win one seat in the parliament, expressed skepticism that the Muslim Brotherhood would break with the past. “There’s a danger they will continue with the Mubarak policies.”

When asked what he would do differently Ishak responded, “I think we need to focus not just on growth, but instead think about the quality of growth … we need to think about redistribution.”

But that’s not what the Muslim Brotherhood is thinking about.

Most young people I spoke with  said the revolution has generally been positive for them, but all agreed that improvements have been slow to occur, from stalled police reform to the military’s continued grip on power. But nearly all also agreed that it had altered the way Egyptians think. Young people here no longer see themselves as pawns of the system. They feel connected to the future of their country, even as they disagree significantly on where Egypt is today and where it should go.

A political awakening

Millions of Egyptians young and old cast ballots in parliamentary elections spanning the last couple of months, and observers praised the relatively free and fair vote. It was the first time many youths had directly participated in the political process, having grown up with rigged elections under Mubarak.

“I voted for a sheikh,” said Baha Saama, 21, a salesman at a souvenir shop who voted for the first time. “It was a beautiful thing.”

Many have not just voted but have become politically active over the past year.

Saleh Fekry, 25, has watched his life transform in a matter of months. Fekry had for years been politically apathetic, but the revolution whet his appetite for activism. He attended demonstrations, joined Twitter and started to frequent socialist and liberal circles. In November, police beat and briefly detained him during clashes with protesters.

“I was almost dead before the revolution,” said Fekry, who studied to become a chemical engineer but who now works as a safety officer at a German oil and gas company.  “It’s like opening a door and light comes through.”

Muhammad Elgeba, 27, took his political engagement a bit further, running for parliament in his native Damietta, in the Nile Delta region. A member of the Muslim Brotherhood for 12 years, Elgeba broke with the Brotherhood in May feeling that youth reformists did not have a strong enough voice in the organization.

After helping form a new political party, the Egyptian Current, Elgeba decided to run for parliament on the list of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party; while he did not become a part of the Brotherhood again, he says he still agrees with the movement’s ideology. But 10 days before the elections in November, he pulled out because of the new bloodshed he witnessed in Tahrir Square. If he had stayed in the race, he most likely would have become a member of parliament.

He remains happier than ever, though. He’s currently trying to form a youth movement that harnesses the strategy and way of thinking he witnessed during his days in Tahrir last year. He hopes the army relinquishes power soon, but he says his movement remains open to those with demands across the political spectrum.

“The youth, they are the factor that will help achieve this,” he said.

Demands unfulfilled

Many  told me they were largely disappointed with the pace of progress. Thousands of civilians languish in military prisons, substantive police reform has yet to materialize, and the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) has repeatedly extended its rule despite promises to step down.

“I thought that the revolution would take care of all these things,” Fekry said. “I was very, very naive.”

Ramy Saad, a 28-year-old who sells Egyptian products online, said that when the Mubarak regime was still in power a plainclothes policeman once stopped him as he walked home from work near Cairo’s famed Khan al-Khalili market. The policeman led him to the local precinct and kept him there for two hours as he checked his identification card for seemingly no reason. Such intimidation occurred at random under Mubarak, when police and army officers ruled the streets, Saad said.

Now, the harassment is less, “but I’m worried because it’s the same people,” he said. Still, Saad believes the revolution was “definitely” positive for Egypt. He happily participated in parliamentary elections — he voted for the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party — but has become disenchanted by political bickering.

In the months since the initial uprising last January and February, young liberals have become increasingly exasperated with and surprised at their dwindling support among the general population. Islamists won more than two-thirds of seats in the parliamentary elections, and the military has increasingly portrayed the protesters in a negative light.

The ruling military council has continued many of the practices of the old regime, earning the ire of many young people.

“We had confidence in the military council,” said Akram Samy, 23, a diplomatic reporter for the independent newspaper Youm7. He said that while the SCAF has moved forward with two main demands of the protesters — holding elections and putting Mubarak on trial — Egyptians have yet to achieve the dignity and justice they long for. Young Egyptians sometimes compare their country to Tunisia, where post-revolutionary change has moved much more rapidly.

Meanwhile, the press in Egypt has not become any freer, Samy said. While new media outlets have proliferated, the same red lines still exist, albeit slightly shifted: Instead of limits on directly criticizing Mubarak, journalists now largely stop short of directly attacking the military council.

In the end, Samy is glad the revolution took place. “I think Egypt has improved and is better,” he said.

Economic woes

Many young Egyptians say they did not expect the political instability in their country to cause Egypt’s economy to crash, with foreign investment and tourism drying up, wages dropping and unemployment on the rise.

That’s particularly true for young people working at the famous Khan el-Khalili market, hawking everything from silver and gold to plastic pyramids and papyrus.

Saama, the souvenir salesman who voted for the first time, stood in his shop on Monday watching one or two tourists trickle by every couple of minutes. Before the revolution, he sold upward of $35 of products a day. Now, he’s lucky if one or two people spend a few dollars at his stall, a tough reality for the 21-year-old from the working-class neighborhood of Gamalia.

Large hookah pipes and colorful trinkets adorned Ahmed Adel’s shop just up the street. Adel, 32, went to nursing school but became a full-time souvenir salesman before the revolution to support his young children. Now, fewer foreign visitors have led him to work as a nurse on the side to make ends meet.

“I wish it had never happened,” he said of the revolution.

Hostel owner Dina Abouelsoud, 36, disagreed. Normally, she’s overbooked this time of year; now, her hostel is at 10 or 20 percent capacity. But Dina is happy the revolution occurred. Like others, the upheaval lifted her from political apathy and thrust her to the forefront of political organizing; she focuses on making sure young women are represented in the liberal activists’ decision-making process.

“The main thing is just to empower women’s political life and life” in general, she said. She abhors recent political developments and believes the Egyptian people have been tricked into supporting an illegitimate parliament, which held its first session on Monday.

The Christian factor

Coptic Christians are perhaps one of the most visible constituencies who have suffered after Mubarak’s downfall. While many were glad to see Mubarak go, some young Christians have become disenchanted by prominent incidents of sectarian strife and the Islamists’ overwhelming electoral victory.

“I’m not a political person,” said Rasha Fayez, a 25-year-old Coptic Christian from the working-class neighborhood of Shubra. But she wishes Mubarak was still in power. “He was Muslim, but he was a political man” who maintained strong foreign policy and kept Egypt peaceful domestically.

Now, Fayez worries that an Islamist will become president and force Islamic law on all Egyptians, maybe even making all women cover their hair with a headscarf.

George Kalliny, a 23-year-old Coptic Christian, thinks most Christians agree with Fayez, although he believes that over time governing the country will force the Muslim Brotherhood and the ultraconservative Salafists to moderate their views. In the end, he said, liberals like himself will gain more power.

The revolution continues

“Until we find a generation that is not scared to fight for their rights,” the revolution will not realize its goals, said Shayma Kamel, 31, an artist. Sitting among her mixed-media collages at Cairo’s Mashrabia Gallery only minutes from Tahrir Square, Kamel said she was glad the revolution occurred but insisted the fight against corruption and oppression still had decades to go. Before the revolution, Kamel’s art dealt primarily with women’s issues, but her current exhibition derides the relationships politicians have with their people.

“We should keep pushing,” she said.

Saad, the online merchant, said, “Right now, the revolution is not complete. We’re only at 10 percent … or maybe less.”

Fekry, the liberal activist, said he has learned from months of political back-and-forth that revolutions take time. “You always have to take a step back to jump ahead.”