"More than 16,000 people will demonstrate [in Cairo, Editor's note] on # jan25, join us!"

On January 15, 2011, a young Egyptian woman posted this message via her Twitter account @ alya1989262 without knowing that it would go down in the history of Egypt. 

According to the tech news site Techcrunch, this was the first tweet to mention the hashtag (keyword) # jan25, which has become one of the symbols of the Egyptian uprising that led to the fall of the regime of "raïs" Hosni Mubarak. on February 11, 2011.

This hashtag "can even be considered as the equivalent for the Egyptian revolution of what the storming of the Bastille was for the French revolution", even judged at the time, Charlie Beckett, then director of the communication department at the London School of Economics, interviewed by France 24.

Ten years after this revolution which had aroused great hopes for justice and equality, many Egyptian Internet users resurrected the hashtag # jan25, to gossip the popular movement.

But also to express their disarray in a country ruled by the authoritarian regime of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, whose policy of repression against demonstrators and opponents is tirelessly denounced by human rights NGOs.

"We deserve better"

The majority of messages and testimonies pay homage to the victims of the revolution, and deal with the illusions lost around an unfinished revolution, after the removal by the army in 2013 of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi - the first to emerge from free elections.

I had promised myself not to get too emotional or cheesy about the 10-year anniversary, but in all honesty its quite difficult to pretend that I'm not hurt by the idea of ​​what was possible & what could have been.

We deserve better.

# Jan25

- Farah Saafan (@FarahSaafan) January 24, 2021

"I promised myself that I wouldn't be too emotional or honeyed about the 10 year anniversary, but in all honesty it's pretty hard to pretend that I wasn't sorry for what was possible. and what could have been. We deserve better. # Jan25 ", said Farah Saafan, a journalist based in Cairo.

"Despite all the pain and every heartbreaking event that has happened, I will always be grateful for what I have experienced during these days. I have never experienced something so pure and so beautiful again. of all my life. # Jan25 # Forever in our hearts, "tweeted engineer Rowan Abd el-Meguid.

Despite all the pain and every single heartbreaking thing that happened, I will forever be grateful for what I have lived during these days.

I never encountered anything that pure and that beautiful again in my life.

# Jan25 #ForeverInOurHearts pic.twitter.com/gYdIUBnIHN

- Rowan Abd El Meguid (@RowanAhmed) January 25, 2021

"They said we could dream, we made a revolution, they murdered it (...), and they haunt us to murder the dream with which it all began", writes the poet Saba Hamzah.

"They seem to be very afraid of ghosts"

Despite the bitterness, revolutionary ideals remain however very present in the minds of the Tahrir generation, named after the famous Cairo square, epicenter of the revolution. 

A generation proud to have overcome its fears, and which seems to have hope for the future, even as spaces for free expression are increasingly rare in the country.

The arrest, Sunday, January 24, of cartoonist Ashraf Hamdi testifies to this: he had made an animated film in tribute to the martyrs of the revolution ...

However, many Internet users do not give up on their dreams of 2011. "The revolution is in our hearts, our actions, our relationships and our consciences. Peace to the souls of our martyrs, to our loved ones in prison, and to our dream, tweeted Amira Abdelhamid. I know we can continue because our dreams are still living. "

كل سنة واحنا طيبين ومكملين ولو على المستوى الشخصي وفي دوايرنا الصغيرة بس.

الثورة في قلبنا وأفعالنا وعلاقاتنا وإدراكنا.

سلام لأرواح شهدائنا وللحبايب في السجون وعلى الحلم اللي شايلنا في الدنيا دي أنا عارفة اننا قادهين نكمنال على الحلم اللي شايلنا في الدنيا دي أنا عارفة اننا قادهين نكمنال على الحلم اللي شايلنا في الدنيا دي أنا عارفة اننا قادهين نكمنال عيناة

# ٢٥_يناير # Jan25

- Amira Abdelhamid (@AAAbdelhamid) January 25, 2021

The revolution “has failed, but no one can say that it has not moved the tectonic plates of Egyptian life, says Egyptian blogger The Big Pharaoh, whose Twitter account has more than 72,600 subscribers.

These movements may still have repercussions in the near or distant future.

Blessed are those who have left us, and their memory # 25Jan # Jan25 ".

"We wrote history and we continue to fight for a fairer Egypt, underlines the Egyptian journalist Mourad Kamel. We continue to grow, watch us progress and watch us take our freedom, little by little and day after day . May our martyrs rest in peace ".

For his part, the revolutionary blogger Zeinobia still dreams, in a publication that mixes both hope and pessimism, of a "better Egypt", the one wanted by the demonstrators in Cairo. 

“They say the # Jan25 revolution is dead and we are ghosts, but they seem to be very scared of ghosts. Ghosts are vengeful but we are not dead yet,” he wrote.

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