Article snippet: The first time I met Esraa, we sat in a coffee shop in downtown Cairo. It’s a part of the city that feels as if it reverberates with the fading chants of revolution. Years earlier, when the Arab Spring erupted on these streets, clouds of tear gas hovered in the air. People, many of them young and hopeful, stood up against oppression. I remember it clearly because I am an Egyptian who was there covering it as a journalist. I saw voters go to the ballot box, replacing President Hosni Mubarak, who had ruled unchallenged for nearly 30 years, with Mohamed Morsi, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood. And I saw the election change very little. Gradually, the crowds of protesters thinned. The bullhorns fell silent. And the country slipped back into the grip of another authoritarian government. Today, the same streets are eerily quiet. Esraa mostly whispered when she told me her story. A young woman who was tired of living under the thumb of the government, she risked her life by openly rebelling against Egypt’s conservative mores. I have returned to Egypt for at least six reporting trips since 2011. Never was I looking for a story related to the revolution. But every time I landed, I noticed a pronounced change in the mind-sets of the generation whose political consciousness was shaped by the Arab Spring and influenced by social media, where these young people engaged with the world. On the heels of the revolution, a palpable social transformation had begun and co... Link to the full article to read more