“Civilian rule! — Ignored! — Counterrevolutionaries! — Ignored!”

Arrested on the square last March, Mr. Essam posted pictures online of the heavy gashes and bruises he said had been inflicted by soldiers who detained him.

He tweaks protest anthems that targeted the Mubarak government to denounce the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. “We have not realized any of our demands, and all of our dreams are gone,” he said.

On the economic front, Egypt’s most important sources of income remain steady, with tourism the notable exception. The other pillars of the economy — gas and oil sales; Suez Canal revenues and remittances from workers abroad — are either stable or growing, according to Central Bank figures.

But those sources of income have accomplished little more than propping up an ailing economy. Over all, economic activity came to a standstill for months, with growth expected to tumble to under 2 percent this year from a robust 7 percent in 2010. Official unemployment rates rose to at least 12 percent from 9 percent. Foreign investment is negligible.

The revolutionary tumult hit tourism hardest. Nearly 15 million tourists visited Egypt in 2010, a record, but numbers were off by 42 percent through September of this year, said Amr Elezabi, the chairman of the Egyptian Tourism Authority, with about $3 billion lost. Whenever the numbers of tourists begin to edge up, they inevitably collapse again after periodic riots.

Desperate to reverse the trend, the tourism authority even test-marketed the uprising. “People were happy for us about what happened, but they said, ‘Don’t talk to us about the revolution,’ ” Mr. Elezabi said. “You cannot sell Egypt through Tahrir Square.”