Cairo

AS we approach the first anniversary of Egypt’s revolution, renewed protests are polarizing Egyptian public opinion in a manner not seen since the initial occupation of Tahrir Square.

Those who support the interim rulers, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, argue that the young protesters who have returned to the square are, at best, impatient and greedy. Or, worse, the activists are cast as traitors and anarchists — not the young idealists of January 2011 who drove a tyrant from power, but a new breed of saboteurs, some of whom even answer to unnamed foreign entities seeking to destabilize Egypt. After all, this argument goes, Hosni Mubarak and his cronies are being tried for their crimes or at least have lost their jobs. And free parliamentary elections are under way in response to the central demands of the 2011 revolutionaries.

But a poisonous political culture has survived the revolution, and largely defines the approach of Egypt’s interim rulers. To be sure, last year the military council’s promises of a better future undercut what was once a pervading Egyptian cynicism toward all things political. But the country remains hamstrung by a debilitating political inertia at the institutional level, and that is an invitation for cynicism to revive. Many Egyptians already are saying that the interim council has embraced the time-honored political strategy of disavowing responsibility for Egypt’s woes, as it ducks the blame for blood that continues to spill while it is in charge.

Those who have continued to protest in Tahrir Square are diverse: there are the core revolutionary leaders who first spurred their countrymen into action; mercurial “Ultras” whose former passion for soccer scores has morphed into a newfound political zeal; Coptic Christians who refuse to accept the military’s hands-off approach in the face of renewed sectarian tensions, and Egyptian women who find in the new government the same institutionalized misogyny that brought them to the square 11 months ago.