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Two months into the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings, ''[[The Economist]]'' magazine in a leader article spoke about a new generation of young people, idealists, "inspired by democracy" made revolutions. Those revolutions, the article stated, "are going the right way, with a hopeful new mood prevailing and free elections in the offing".<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.economist.com/leaders/2011/03/31/islam-and-the-arab-revolutions|title=Islam and the Arab revolutions|date=31 March 2011|magazine=The Economist|access-date=16 April 2019}}</ref> For those on the streets of Egypt the predominant slogan was "bread, freedom and social justice".<ref>{{cite web|url=http://mediterraneanaffairs.com/bread-freedom-and-social-justice|title=Bread, freedom and social justice|publisher=Mediterranean Affairs|date=5 February 2015|access-date=16 April 2019}}</ref>
Some observers, however, have questioned the revolutionary nature of the 'Arab Spring'. A social theorist specialising in social movements and social change in the Middle East, [[Asef Bayat]], has provided an analysis based on his decades-long of research as "a participant-observer" (his own words). In his appraisal of the Arab revolutions, Bayat discerns a remarkable difference between these revolutions and the revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s in countries like Yemen, [[Nicaragua]] and Iran. The Arab revolutions, argues Bayat, "lacked any associated intellectual anchor" and the predominant voices, "secular and Islamists alike, took free market, property relations, and neoliberal rationality for granted" and uncritically.<ref name="Bayat">{{
[[Wael Ghonim]], an Internet activist who would later gain an international fame, acknowledged that what he had intended by founding a Facebook page was a "simple reaction to the events in Tunisia" and that "there was no master plans or strategies" a priori.<ref>{{cite book|title=''Revolution 2.0: The Power of the People is Greater than People in Power''|last=Ghonim|first=Wael|date=2012|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, New York|language=en-US|pages=204–205}}</ref> That the objective was reform to be achieved through peaceful means and not revolution was explicitly put forward by [[April 6 Movement]], one of the leading forces of the Egyptian uprising, in their statements. It called for "coalition and co-operation between all factions and national forces to reach the reform and the peaceful change of the conditions of Egypt".<ref>{{cite web|url=https://shabab6april.wordpress.com/about/shabab-6-april-youth-movement-about-us-in-english|title=about us (see reply in comments)|year=2011|publisher=shabab6april.wordpress.com|access-date=7 April 2019}}</ref> "Even in Tahrir Square with so many people and the rising level of demands," recalls an activist in the movement, "we were very surprised by the people wanting the downfall of the regime; and not a single one us had expected this."<ref>{{cite book|title=''Thawra 25 January: Qira'a Awwaliyya wa Ru'ya Mustaqbaliyya (January 25 Revolution: An Initial Interpretation and Future Prospect)''|last=Hashem Rabi'|first=Amr|date=2011|publisher=Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, Cairo|language=ar|page=429}}</ref> In comparing the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria, researcher Housam Darwisheh concludes: "The Egyptian uprising, in neither dismantling the ancien regime nor creating new institutional mechanisms to lead the transition, permitted the so-called 'deep state' to reassert itself while the deepening polarization led many non-Islamists to side with the military against the MB [the Muslim Brotherhood]."<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://ir.ide.go.jp/index.php?action=pages_view_main&active_action=repository_action_common_download&item_id=37719&item_no=1&attribute_id=22&file_no=1&page_id=39&block_id=158|last=Darwisheh|first=Housam|date=2014|title=Trajectories and Outcomes: Comparing Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria|journal=IDE Discussion Paper|volume=456|publisher=Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization|access-date=8 April 2019|page=10}}</ref>
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