Changing Socio-Cultural Norms by Hanya Kotb

Globalisation is a phenomenon that’s been sparking conversations around dinner tables and coffee cups for a long time, beginning with the Silk Road as early as 200 BC and solidified through the times of industrialisation and colonisation. However, one would argue that the form shaping today’s Egypt is what scholars call contemporary hyper-globalisation; a post-1990s occurrence powered by the speedy development of the internet (read: a digital revolution), Western media dominance, migration, and a neoliberal world order.

This facilitated trade and investment, global employment, the migration of ideas, cultural exchange, and a much faster spread of communication between borders. The life that we have today and the norms we live by would have never been realised if not for globalisation, and yet most of us are oblivious to this reality. Those who could left the country in pursuit of higher wages and better living standards, but that did not stop their kids from booking one-way tickets back to the Heart of the Arab World. 

This cycle of movement and influence has undeniably shaped Egypt’s social fabric in unexpected ways. To understand how this came to be, one must also consider the legacy left behind by imperial control.

Colonisation has, without a doubt, robbed Egypt of much of its wealth and oppressed its natives; however, it would be quite dense to say that it has not provided opportunities for the generations that came after. Those that were born into international schools of high prestige, the ones where they learned Français and the correct way to pronounce “scone”—prepping them for the new trend of getting a university degree abroad.

Combine the diasporic returnees with the educated elites, and you will have created the Egyptian society we have come to see today: old money silhouettes, Parmigiano Reggiano instead of Roumy, and Montessori ideals that were unfamiliar to a traditional Egyptian mother who had bifunctional flip-flops.

Adding yet another layer to that is the whispers coming through iPhones and flat-screen TVs, the ones inevitably dominated by the West—TikTok made it so easy to launch oat milk into the local markets, compressing entire ideologies into thirty-second trends.

The result? A generation exposed to more cultures, norms, and contradictions than any that came before, but that did not necessarily wipe out the traditions and homeland norms that were nonetheless embedded into their minds. The Gen Zs on the older end of the spectrum still grew up with tough love and Mickey Mouse Magazines; this brought about slow integration, even hyper-rejection from some for fear of the unknown. Those born later, though, got to experience gentle parenting, a childhood with enough screen time to require an optometrist, making friends via Twitter, and an attention span of exactly ninety seconds.

There has been a tremendous shift in societal norms that neither resembles the liberated West nor the more conservative East. A cross-cultural clash is witnessed in Gen Z embracing a performatively open mind in the way they dress and party with contradictory culturally-religious speech, brought together by the simultaneous socialisation of traditional parents, international schools, and global media consumption. 

On a much deeper level, we see demons fighting between struggling to find personal spirituality, all the while, public piety is thrust upon them. For the first time in a while, people are trying to make sense of religion via personal interpretations as they reject performative religiosity that is deeply embedded in the nation— everyone is trying to ignore the elephant in the room, but inevitably, we also see those rejecting religion altogether. 

This linguistic blending and refusal to conform is deeply political; it reflects the hybridity, but also a widening social, cultural, and economic gap. In international schools, kids are taught critical thinking in English, in public schools, students memorise answers in Arabic. 

There’s no moderation: inequality is embedded in their tongues.

See, the version of Egyptian Gen Z seen on social media is usually privileged, Westernised elites that vibe in New Cairo— blissfully ignoring all the red-brick buildings sitting in the background of the Ring Road. Beyond that, drive is a completely different Gen Z, one that is still deeply rooted in traditional norms, navigating economic precarity with access to the domesticated internet hindered by language barriers. 

The thing about Egypt, from the Pharaohs to modern-day Arabic-speaking Egyptians, is that it has always had a thing for classism that was never overcome. But the question is yet to be answered: how can they converse when they are coming from the same soil of two different realities?

Whenever I am abroad, asked about Egyptian society, my languages fail me as I can never find the right words to describe just how multicoloured it is; the progress and alienation, the tradition and cultural break-throughs, upscale parties and impoverished neighbourhoods. I do not think Egypt’s Gen Z is able to realise themselves, tied down by expectations whilst trying so hard to fit in, constantly navigating between adapting to different perspectives.

Out of fear, many Gen Zers nod along to their parents’ political opinions as they simultaneously update the group chat about the absurdity of what they are listening to. The real shift is happening silently— at the dinner table, in classroom discussions when the phones are locked away, and in the things they choose not to say out loud.

Maybe in a true conclusion, Gen Z in Egypt is not having an identity crisis, it is experiencing an identity remix; not rejecting tradition wholesale, but not surrendering to it either. Gen Z is curating, adapting, and translating. But the truth is: not all get remixes, some are still buffering.

And maybe the real reflection here is not just about how Egypt’s Gen Z is changing, but about who gets to change, and who gets left behind.