Revolution’s end

CAIRO — On a late evening in early March, down a side street off downtown Cairo, Egypt’s revolution is kept alight by a single bare incandescent bulb dangling from an extension cord. Despite being one of the main forces behind the popular overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, Egypt’s April 6 Youth Movement has yet to line up an office to call its own. So on this night, the eve of another protest in Tahrir Square, the young revolutionaries are meeting on the top floor of a gutted, condemned Cairene villa, shrouded in plastic builders tarp.

After having helped draw hundreds of thousands of Egyptians to the streets in January and February to rout the leadership of the Arab world’s most populous country, Egypt’s youth activists are coming under tremendous pressure to leave the streets. Older activists tell them it is time to grow up and join political parties, while the Egyptian public warns them that they are harming the country’s economic recovery. And the Army, which was previously regarded by many Egyptians as the savior of their revolution, now is accused of employing brutal beatings to force Egypt’s youth to abandon their protests in Tahrir Square.

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