When the Tunisian people started their uprising using social media against Bin Ali and forced him to step down, most observers could see that this was not just another protest by the Arab street highlighting the deteriorating socio-economic conditions and unemployment among the youth. The Tunisian uprising was a popular cry for freedom and dignity that could soon engulf the entire region, including the largest Arab nation in the region: Egypt. The ruling elite and the government-controlled national media in Egypt affirmed that Egypt was not Tunisia. Indeed, Egypt is not Tunisia. In the 30 years of the quasi-military dictatorship, Hosni Mubarak’s regime had given the people a Faustian choice– stability through the regime or the threat of the Muslim Brotherhood. The government had ensured that the Egyptian society was divided along class and religious lines. The public space was colonized by the regime. The public sphere and civil society were shuttered by Amn Al-dawla (state security police) and the balatagis (thugs) on the streets. The purpose of this paper is to understand and explain the emergence of a public sphere and the articulation of a new Egyptian identity. We argue that the Egyptian revolution, catalyzed by the social media, was possible because the young men and women succeeded in reclaiming the public space from the apparatuses of the post-colonial state (Amn Al-dawla and balatagis). There was a contest between the protesters and the regime over the meaning of Egyptian identity and what it means to be an Egyptian . The protesters were able to redefine the Egyptian public sphere and redraw its contour. Through a semiotic and discourse analysis of the repertoires of protest, the symbols, the slogans and the images at Tahrir Square and on social media sites, we hope to show how the youth-led massive social mobilization redefined and reconstructed the civil society and the Egyptian national political community (identity).