Tens of thousands of Egyptians rallied in Tahir Square in Cairo to show how Islamists and liberal groups were united in wanting change, but the overwhelmingly Islamic tone of chants and banners exposed differences between the two sides.Mohamed Abd El-Ghany/Reuters
It's been five years since Egypt experienced its "glorious" revolution of Jan. 25. And after five years of turmoil, a new constitution, a couple of elections and a military coup, Egypt is just about where it was when the whole thing started. If anything, conditions in the country are worse than they were at the start of 2011.
That's not to say that things were good back then.
If the self-immolation of a young Tunisian fruit seller in December, 2010, triggered the uprising and overthrow of that country's dictatorial president, the beating death in June, 2010, of a young Egyptian computer programmer at the hands of police was the spark that ignited Egyptians' revolt.
Cellphone pictures of Khaled Saeed's battered head circulated widely on the Internet. They showed his deformed face with a fractured skull, dislocated jaw, broken nose and signs of trauma.
Mr. Saeed's treatment came to symbolize much of what had gone wrong in Egypt under President Hosni Mubarak – even the secular middle class was fair game for out-of-control police forces.
A Facebook group called "We are all Khaled Saeed" was created and membership soared. While scattered protests in memory of Mr. Saeed took place through the end of 2010, the Facebook page called for Egyptians to protest en masse on Jan. 25, 2011; chosen because it was National Police Day, a day on which the nation was supposed to honour its valiant police.
The holiday originally commemorated the 1952 killing of some 50 police officers by British forces in Ismailia, an event that led to the overthrow of the Egyptian monarchy. On that day in 2011, protesters in Alexandria, Cairo, Ismailia and across the country held up pictures of Mr. Saeed's corpse and called for a similar revolution.
It happened remarkably quickly. By the end of that week in January, young protesters had captured and held Cairo's Tahrir (meaning Liberation) Square, as well as seizing international attention.
Despite determined efforts by riot police and internal security forces to put down the rebellion, the protesters, soon joined by hardened members of the Muslim Brotherhood, gave no ground.
When the army refused to carry out the order from President Mubarak to use live ammunition against the demonstrators – army chief Mohamed Tantawi personally visited the protesters in Tahrir Square and assured them they would not be fired on – that spelled the end for Mr. Mubarak. He resigned and fled to his beach house in Sharm el-Sheik.
That is when the young liberals who had led the popular uprising made a crucial mistake – they went home. Though there were soon to be elections to a parliament that would set a new, more democratic stage, most activists returned to their classes, their startups and Internet cafés, and left the politics to others.
Those others included the already well-organized Muslim Brotherhood, and the less politically active Salafists. The two religious movements swept the parliamentary vote, and then the presidential election in 2012, when Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi narrowly defeated a former Mubarak cabinet minister.
That is when the Brotherhood made its big mistake – they governed with little regard for the democratic freedoms that had brought them to office. Media were muzzled, critics threatened, an Islamist constitution passed and the President ruled by decree. Tourism was non-existent, investment was down and the majority of Egyptians sought the return to order of military rule.
The army stepped in after a year of Morsi rule and army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi won election as president in a landslide.
These days, under President el-Sisi, the Muslim Brotherhood is outlawed, thousands of political activists are in jail, media are controlled and protests are mostly barred. But tourism still is hurting and investors still are wary because, now, violence from militant Islamists such as Islamic State is up and the government's only means of combatting this is by a greater crackdown.
It makes people long for the good old days of Hosni Mubarak.