Egyptian social media users took to Twitter on Monday using the Arabic hashtag “25 January means to me” to express their wildly opposing views on the uprising that took place over three years ago.
The hashtag, currently trending in Egypt with over 21,000 tweets, was sparked by a controversial statement from Farid El-Deeb, defence lawyer of former president Hosni Mubarak, who said during a court session on Saturday that the uprising which led to Mubarak’s ouster was an American conspiracy.
Mubarak and former interior minister Habib El-Adly are currently on trial for their role in killing protesters during the 2011 uprising.
El-Deeb’s comments prompted social media users to create the hashtag to express what the uprising means to them.
Continuing with the conspiracy pattern, @nevinegindy said 25 January represents “an epidemic that spread in the Arab world to execute a conspiracy to divide the Arab world and destroy our armies”.
While @Alyaa_S_Â said “I once thought it was a revolution, and was one of its strongest supporters, but I found out it was a conspiracy against my country and its army and the dirtiest people came from behind it”.
Some social media users still supported the idea of a revolution, but cited reasons why they believe it went wrong.
For @alaakhater7, the uprising was a “people’s revolution, made unsuccessful by the army”.
@yasmIiIiInaa said the uprising was “the greatest thing that happened to us, but it had opportunists who changed its direction”.
Meanwhile, @gamo_mg said the uprising “reminds me of my naivety, I went down [to the streets] with a dream, I found people who don’t represent me speaking in my name, their demands are not mine, their talk is not my talk”.
Some expressed their dissatisfaction with the uprising, like @dodo7oras who used the hashtag to say that “the company I worked for went bankrupt, we [felt] uprooted afterwards. It was a nasty revolution …”
To @zozoyayha12, the uprising represents “absolutely nothing, [things] were way better before the revolution than now.”
Others, however, remained hopeful, either praising 25 January or saying that one day its demands would be fulfilled.
Safa Saleh, @safa_ss on Twitter, said the uprising is “the only source of pride in our generation that we can tell our grandchildren later … there was once a revolution.”
While @_joe4u said the uprising was the “best 18 days in Egypt’s ancient and modern history”.
@mohamedbodo2 was hopeful, saying it was the “best thing this country did, although some people distort it, but our dream is yet to be fulfilled”.
Meanwhile, @osamaabdallah60 said “the arrest and humiliation of Mubarak, his sons and [ex-interior minister] El-Adly equals 1,000 revolutions.”
@ebn_mustafa74 said January 2011 was “the greatest revolution in history. One day it will be fulfilled and the martyrs’ rights [will] be restored so they can rest in their graves”.