Something many important streets in cairo come off round abouts and it is difficult to avoid the central square. It is central to the citys travel pattern. So having it occupied was a hassle for drivers. The square was designed and built way back in the miamidade middle of the 19th century by the then ruler. He studied the ruler and the reconfigeration of paris as a modern city. I had a lot of egyptian student friends. He hung out today, made films together and talked about the future. When in january of 2011 thousands and thousands of young people, a lot of them students, came to the square and they actually occupied it and brought tents and stayed the night and some didnt leave. They started putting up placards saying please resign, president , we need a shower. When they did that, i recognized that as the sons and daughters of the people i went to school with. I followed the arab world for 30 years so i felt an ifinity to them. I was interested in what they had to say because their slogans were different than the early 70s, say. The time of revolution romanticism. But these young people were talking about personal dignity, Transparent Elections. I could be wrong but i dont think Transparent Elections was the major talking point of most people in the arab world in the early 70s. A lot of people wanted a great leader at that time. These young people at that time seemed relatively uninterested unload in having a leader. My own teacher when he saw this thing breakout in cairo flew back and went to the square where the young people were and being a sociologist he said take me to your leader and they looked at him funny. It wasnt that kind of movement with a leader. To this day, people cant quite tell how things got done because food showed up and water showed up and things were arranged and it seemed to be networked. They prevailed in cities and ultimately went to the capital and paralyzed the government. This is what happened throughout 2011 and really until next year in egypt it was done again. So many young people came out into the streets in central places that they made it impossible for ordinary life to go on. Shops couldnt function well and people were not making any money and the tourist stopped coming and basically these young people blackmailed the countys elites. Their message was we are not going home until that guy is gone. And the rest of the elite said no at first. We depend on that guy and like him and the elite started thinking how well do we like that guy . They sent him on a plane and sent him to exile. Initially he was thinking he would go to paris but then and then the president of france was initially amendable and then someone whispered in his year that there is the order of 800,000 french that may not be happy about this arrangement. And then he was flying dutch and had no place to go and calls were made around that where could they park him and well there is one reliable place you can always send the told dictators to. So he is now in saudi arabia. It was colonized by the french and british and that wasnt present. I grew up partially in france and we new a french woman that was a family friend and years ago i was talking to her and she was kind of conservative and i complained about how the algerians were treated after france took it in 1830 and was proceeded to leave in 1962. And he said we built them railroads and churches for them. So i think they are as grateful for those things as she seems to think they should be. It was no fun being under their rein. And then they were destroyed and their economies were bad and convincing the people we should spend resources on the foreign call l iolony wasnt very succe. So they became independent and they had a stronger man in the role and they were of the mod n modernization sort. It is controversial if the regimes today in the way of things like education or industrialization or were not interested in promoting those things. But the arab world as it came into the mid20th century was illiterate and rural. There was little in the way of infrastructure and industry and most people couldnt read and right and most lived in villages. These leaders frankly looked to the east block for a model of how you do stateled industrialization. They nationalized things and made state cement companies. They built enormous numbers of schools and universities. They transformed the region and per capita income went up and people moved to cities and then the soviet union fell. And that model of having the government be 50 maybe of the economy and direct everything fell apart and there was pressure on the rulers to prioreratize. Some of the companies were not very efficient and didnt make things the market wanted to buy. They would call up and say how would you like a steel mill. There was enormous corruption and they blocked everybody else economically and politically. You could not run for office unless they wanted you to run for office. You could win very easily. You could easily be jailed for complaining about the situation. The corruption was so bad in these regimes that economist think it took between 13 points a year off Economic Growth. If egypt grew 3 more a year than they did there might not have been such a big economic crunch and you had all of these young people coming up and the population of egypt doubled between 1980present. Imagine how many they added a whole now egypt of young people. And they didnt add a whole new egypt worth of jobs or economic or political opportunities. So these young people look at the regimes and sees them as a road block that has to be removed if they are going to amount something. It wasnt just the dictator and his picture everywhere and police patting you down. They started making arrangements for their sons to take over after them. So a lot of the disdatain was getting rid of the president s and making sure their sons didnt become president s for life. The one place that was implemented actually was syria. But in egypt and else where all had plans to pass on the family firm. So the young people exploded in range at this prospect. And i have to say what did they really accomplish . I think they accomplished a lot more than is credited to them. It is early days to make a judgment about where all of this is going but it is the case that president s for life have become more than a anything else a real election. In egypt there is two twoyear forms for the president. So this isnt going to be a president for life. I was in egypt in march and saw the president on television and he was saying we understand you dont get to be president of egypt unless the people vote for you. It used to be the president was the one chosen by the previous one in talk with the general. And while that kind of thing happened with occ there had to be public acclimation for it to work. And i think it was probably somewhat genuine in this case. So in tunesia you had an important set of transitions where you had a parliamentary election that was an assembly that was going to write a constitution. There was a lot of wrangling between the religious right and the more secular and leftist forces. But they were in coalition with each other and made compromises and voted for the constitution. Among the issues in the constitution that the young people watched like a hawk and mobilized around were womens rights. They said woman and men have co complimentory rights and everybody understood what that meant. So the young people aligned and came back on the street and there has been another civil revolution and they demand equal rights for women, that the constitution guarantee workers rights, and freedom of conscious was another because the religious right wanted to put curves on that. And they got everything they demanded. They also demanded the elected government step down and allow a technocratic government to be formed to oversee other elections so there was no thumb on the till. It all worked. The new constitution specified that men and women have equal rights, there is no institution in charge of internet censorship and that was a country that specialized in cyber police in the old days. So this is a remarkable story. And of course it is a country of 11 million. It is small and not big on the worlds radar perhaps but you cannot say that the youth who came out in 20102011 didnt accomplish anything. They accomplished an enormous amount. And in yemen as well there has been a relatively healthy transition. They are going to have elections early next year and, you know, there is a pushback in egypt but the generation i argue hasnt gone any place. It maybe the 60somethings are powerful and control institutions and have a lot of health and dont like the changes that were demanded and they pushed back in some instances fairly successfully for the moment. But the 20something have an advantage over the 60somethings. In the long run, it is today 20somethings that will be in control and we cannot no of course what they will do when they get in control. But i mentioned the story in the book the czech and the springs happened and there was a playright that got on a pirate Radio Station play write and was talking about the ships approaching and he was arrested. In that system, if you stood up to the authorities and lost you were a nonperson. So he wasnt allowed to put on his plays. He had to work in a brewery for a while. And then by the early 90s he was president of the czech republic. So we should not think just because these young people they are prominent people to helped make the egyptian revolution and the current Egyptian Government has put them in jail. Soto and i dont think we have heard the last of them. It is a remarkable journey. I tell the story in this journey over the past decade and a half or so but coming almost right up to the present. I think i didnt want to do a quickie book in 2011. I went to being a historian and having perspective and thought well of in my profession. And so even to write something after three years is oaudacious. The first generation was elected into office in 20112012 and a raft of books said this is the islamic winter. Not the arab springs. Lets talk about the people who made the changes. Lets talk about this generation. What are they like and who are they and what have they done. Let me read a little from the book about an internet activist of the early 00s. He setup an internet Discussion Group and magazine which was very lively and was very much disliked by the dictatorship. And he ran this for some years and then his Internet Police finally tracked him down at 5 p. M. On june 4th, 2002 six plane closed police man raided the cafe he worked and took him to his apartment and took his personal computer and files. He was subjected to brutal interrogation. Three times in the course of the questions he was strung up by his wrist so his feet barely touched the ground. During the third round of suspension he gave up the password of this site and allowed authorities to take it down temporarily. He was tried to blinding speed and sentenced on july 10th to one year in prison for spreading false news and another year ask a half for the fraudulent use of communication because he secretly used the equipment at the cafe he worked at. Soon after his arrest, sophy, his girlfriend, gained access and reinstated to articles. The internet was often cut off. Every time it was necessary to create a new account using the name of friends and neighbors. He suffered in prison. There were 120 inmates in a big hall with just one bath room and hardly any water. He launched a Hunger Strike for his release, ended it and started another. The conditions of the prison, the bad food, lack of water, and crowded cells along with this Hunger Strikes deeply damaged his health. This caused a breach with his father. The poor man never understood and never accepted what he had done. He could not reconcile himself having his son defy the police and getting arrested and not excusing it. He died while he was in prison. On the morning of the funeral, her mother came to the room and cried out he had been given permission to come home and play respect to the father. The family hurried to the house of the deceased father. Day had barely broken and when we arrived at my aunts street there was a dozen buses full of police, a camera truck, etc. We went into the house and he was shackled at his wrist and feet like a convict on death row. Because of the arrest, the majority of the family didnt come to express sympathy to my house. The house was empty but now full. One of the police man walked over the corpse of my uncle who was on the floor. I remember it well because my father wanted to kill him. He shouted dont you have any shame walking on a dead person. He was sitting on the floor near his father and weeping. The whole family was in tears. It was horrible and we were disgusted to see the cops everywhere like that. But at the time we were happy he would be able to a tend his fathers funeral. It wasnt to be. They just gave him half an hour. He didnt have the right to go to the burial. After getting out he had a massive heart attack, almost certainly because of the conditions of the imprisonment. This death date in march is now a national holiday. Thank you. I will open it there for questions. Do i see any changes in saudi arabia . Well, like a lot of places i am discussing is very young. The median age of the arab world is 24 and that is 340 million. I think the United States in my generation was done to 28. That is when we made the trouble. They are younger. And saudi arabia is maybe younger than some of the others. So certainly there are a lot of young people in saudi arabia with new ideas and they are not able to express them very well. It is a repressive society and there is a contraint on activism. It is also however a very wealthy society. It is among the Worlds Largest petroleum exporter. People are boasting the United States is producing more petroleum than saudi arabia but that is not important because we use all of it and import more. They only use a little and explore the rest so they are getting a lot of money in the bank and we are not. So that wealth allows the government to bribe people. So sense the revolutions of 2011, the saudi arabia state has increased the perks you get for bogue a citizen. They have free health care, free education, low interest on housing. It is good to be a Saudi Arabian in some ways. And kuwait as well which is an oil imerate in the gulf. They gave each person 2500 in 2011 to keep them quite. You could get a nice home theater system so he was saying you could have a revolution or you could have a home theater. So far the the people went for the home theater and other perks and quited down. Whether they are only quite on the service and bubbling underneath we dont know. And if you asked is egypt on the verge of the explosion they would have said no. I have been in egypt and knew it was but it wasnt common wisdom. Things could thank a lot in sod saudi arabia. Are the radical isis Group Young People . The question is are the radical people from isis young people. They felt that the Islamic State was from their aspiration. Hint these groups would grab desert lake areas with the relatively low population. So they loom large in the consciousness with a 370 million arabs and roughly over onethird of them that is not where most peoples heads are at. And democrats or liberals or a very substantial person are. But they are deeply polarized. It could be the radical fundamentalist react that theres such a small minority of this generation that goes to hell in a handbasket or liberal with the western sense. Added may be rooted in the same discontent and so forth. Also competing ideologies and visions. In the big countries and the more liberal leftist satan to predominate. The outcomes seem to be on that side of things. I like your analogy. What this generation and sense to have a consciousness. Is what interested me in this project to have that kind of consciousness as a use for a generation. Thinking about things in english but then in arabic were called the use rabil. And they think of themselves as a generation in to say they speak for our generation. And this was a fluke because those running against the Muslim Brotherhood as a man of global regime even if that were true from 2012 in egypt . And so the Muslim Brotherhood data and. And then to come into conflict. So one of the supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood had to run away from the regime. In the two exchanged correspondence. Already mobilizing against the president of egypt . In his father wrote back to say his suffered years and then wrote back for the 30 years. But this is something in my experience here you have a family whose one father is the cleric and the other son is a liberal theyre going at it. I have to tell you this and so forth only 9 of egyptians thought 2011 was the purpose of making the Islamic State. I guess the parents are a socialist of some sort. And then to support the workers. And then with that industrial sector. And then decided to strike. And then they do not allow it to occur. But everything was recorded on the internet by the young people. So theyre not very excited looking forward to the islamic purposes. It was attempted april 6th 2008 and that was one of the major ones. But Muslim Brotherhood members from 2006 and seven but many of them ran in that way and older people did not like the outbreak. So they ended up with the movement gravitating to the left. So in that Youth Movement there were the organizations the predominance was so enabling not that they would go to the mosque and pray but organized in a way of the brotherhood. This is what attracted me to study the movement because that is interesting as a development. Unlikely it is happening with iraq but to go add of the way in unusual places with iraq and afghanistan but from cairo or tunis that does not look like the middle east. With very religious societies look like they are organized around islam but not so much. Is that fairly consistent . There fairly well educated by not doing much with it where with the arabs during and it is as much in the forefront with that a static. What is happening in that respect . With the activist old dictatorship it sucked all the air out of the feminism. The lives of the dictators and light of everybody else in society they would sponsor bills in parliament and they were important to help the upper middleclass women. With some of those legislative measures. So my colleague has written about this. That 84 yearold are the ones who deliver on womens rights. This works with the number of ways be