News outlets have been churning out obituaries for Egypt’s former dictator, Hosni Mubarak, to add to their annual, debilitating “state of Egypt” roundups marking the anniversary of his ouster in 2011. But there are still a number of glaring silences when we talk about Egypt today. One concerns the changing relationship between Egypt and the United States, and its profound impact upon the Egyptian people. The importance of that relationship should not be underestimated: since the 1979 Camp David Accords, Egypt has received over $70 billion from the United States, leaving it second only to Israel as a recipient of US aid.

In his 2016 book The Egyptians, Jack Shenker argued that the people of Egypt had shown the world what a frontline struggle for democracy looks like during their revolution. Egypt’s protesters wanted something more substantial than mere elections when they rose up against Mubarak in 2011. Egyptians dreamed about a different political future and posed some fundamental questions about the true nature of democracy, its implications for daily life, and the obligations of the state. After a brief opening, the country’s generals responded to this hopeful dissent with a repressive clampdown, jailing record numbers of people. The repression targeted non-conformists and suspected political organizers, from Islamists to liberals and left-wingers.

The uprising of 2011 led to an existential crisis for the Egyptian state. Daily life for the average citizen in Mubarak’s Egypt was slow, grinding, and violent. The uprising ended his regime and started to chip away at the state’s routine hierarchies, institutions, and practices. The old relationship with the United States could no longer hold up because the state apparatus was fraying, and a new political order had to be constructed. Mubarak had outlasted four American presidents. The relationship sat on cruise control for years, even when there were disagreements between the two states.