Youth and Youth Culture in the Contemporary Middle East

Jørgen Bæk Simonsen

Description

As the analytical concept of youth gained importance, and was generally accepted as a period with its own cultural values and norms, social scientists began to analyze how social change was linked to youth. In the Middle East, a new concept of youth already began to find its way into the region in the late 19th century, and played a role in the anti-colonialist struggle. The same concept still plays a leading role today in the way young people act in relation to traditional values, political systems, and the West. In the Arab world in general, some 50% of the total population is 18 years of age or below, which means that youth as a social group is of growing importance in the area. This also means that for decades to come Middle Eastern governments will be challenged as their young citizens demand work, a place to live, and access to enjoyable and challenging activities for the ever-expanding leisure time embedded in a modern way of life. Drawing on extensive research, which covers a wide geographical area, this volume includes, among others, articles on: Youth, History and Change in the Modern Arab World; The Discovery of Adolescence in the Middle East; Discovering the Other: Arab/Jewish Youth Encounters in Arab Films; Youth, Moral and Islamism: Spending Leisure Time with Hamas in Palestine; The Construction of Youth in Public Discourse in Turkey: A Generational Approach; and, Youth Culture and Official State Discourse in Iran. Youth and Youth Cultures in the Contemporary Middle East is a comprehensive work which describes and analyzes the forms of youth culture presently being exposed throughout the contemporary Middle East. It will appeal not only to scholars, but also to those with a general interest in Middle Eastern culture.

Sujets

• Géographie
• Géographie
• Géographie
• Géographie
• Colonisation
• Middle Eastern studies
• Sociology
• Islam

Informations

• Publié par: Aarhus University Press
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2005
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788779348851
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Youth and Youth Culture in the Contemporary Middle East

Youth and Youth Culture in the Contemporary Middle East

Edited by Jørgen Bæk Simonsen

Proceedings of the Danish Institute in Damascus III · 2005

Youth and Youth Culture in the Contemporary Middle East Copyright: The authors and Aarhus University Press 2005

Graphic design and cover: Jørgen Sparre Cover: Photo by Kirsten Thun, the border between Syria and Lebanon The Arabic text in translation “Changes will come”

ISBN 87 7934 885 8

Aarhus University Press

Langelandsgade 177

DK8200 Aarhus N

www.unipress.dk

Published with financial support from

The Danish Research Council for the Humanities

and Enkefru Plums Mindefond

Table of Contents

Introduction: Youth, History and Change  in the Modern Arab World Jørgen Bæk Simonsen, The Danish Institute in Damascus

“Watan” and “Rujula”: The Emergence of a New Model of Youth in Interwar Iraq Peter Wien, AlAkhawayn University

The Discovery of Adolescence in the Middle East Jakob SkovgaardPetersen, University of Copenhagen

Discovering the Other: “Arab/Jewish” Youth Encounters in Arab Films Ala alHarmarnah, University of Mainz

New Trends in the Young Egyptian Theatre: Ahmad al‘Attâr and The Temple Independent Company Monica Ruocco, University of Lecce

Young, Male and Sufi Muslim in the City of Damascus Leif Stenberg, University of Lund

Interpreting Discourses of Honour in the Evolving Dating Culture of Young Cairenes from an Asian yin and yang perspective Ikran Eum, Myong Ji University

7

10

21

35

56

68

92

5

The Construction of “Youth” in Public Discourse in Turkey: A Generational Approach Leyla Neyzi, Sabanci University

Youth, Moral and Islamism: Spending Your Leisure Time with Hamas in Palestine Michael Irving Jensen, University of Copenhagen

Youth in Morocco: How Does the Use of the Internet Shape the Daily Life of the Youth and What Are Its Repercussions? Ines Baune, University of Leipzig

Iranian Youth and Cartoons in the Islamic Republic under President Khatami Farian Sabahi, Bocconi Business School, Milan

Youth Culture and Official State Discourse in Iran Claus V. Pedersen, University of Copenhagen

107

116

128

140

155

Introduction

Youth, History and Change in the Modern Arab World

J Ø R G E N B Æ K S I M O N S E N ,The Danish Institute in Damascus

Social scientists and historians working with social history have defined youth as a social construction and as a period between two very different times in life: childhood and adult hood. The precise definition of youth differs considerably but most commonly includes people between 15 and 30. Despite this definition, however, ‘youth’ in the general debate extends well beyond the borders originally related to the specific ageperiod of youth. In most parts of the modern industrialised world, people in their 30s, 40s, and even 50s, consider themselves young, thus eroding all serious analytical meaning of the word. th During the 20 century youth has been analysed from a number of different perspec- tives. In psychology, research has focused on the ways that children when reaching a certain age gradually try to emancipate themselves from their parents; in sociology the norms and ways in which young people organise themselves socially have been analysed; scholars interested in sociolinguistics have analysed the language(s) used by youth; social scientists have concentrated on the drive to change which is embedded in youth, and economists and people working in public relations and advertising have for decades been aware of youth as consumers. st In the expanding and developing multicultural Europe of the 21 century, much focus is invested on the challenge that young people from migrantparents expose,vis á vistradi- tional norms for social interaction with others. In a new context there is a reawakening and repetition of a number of fears held by the older generation pertaining to youth. During the 1950s the concept of the angry young man was widespread in European literature and theatre; during the 1960s young criminal gangs, left to themselves on streetcorners while their parents were working, were of common concern; and now the same fears are linked to young people with family roots outside Europe. In political ideology, youth has always been of importance because it could be manipu- lated and socially moulded to realise a different future. The various national movements th in Europe during the 19 century offer an endless number of examples of this. The same became prevalent in the rest of the world, also in the Arab Middle East as indicated in

Introduction 7 ·

some of the articles in this book (cf. JakobSkovgaard Petersen, Peter Wien and Michael th Irving Jensen). During the 20 century fascist and communist regimes were engaged in efforts to manipulate the new man or the new woman by socialising young people to expose the social norms of the political ideology of which they were part. This effort has also been attempted in a number of modern Arab countries where special regimesupport- ing organisations for youth have been trying to do the same. The theme of youth and the new nation state are analysed in a Turkish perspective by Leyla Neyzi, and in an Iranian perspective by Farian Sabahi and Claus V. Petersen. As the analytical concept of youth gained importance and was generally accepted as a period with its own cultural values and norms, social scientists began to analyse how social change in several cases was linked to youth. From the middle of the 1960s and through to the middle of the 1970s, Europe and the US experienced a decade with dramatic social change initiated by youth. Young people openly challenged traditional social rules and norms. At the political level, groups of young people strongly criticised the existing inequalities of the world and this has remained an integral part of political life ever since. The challenges embedded in Arab youth are analysed in the articles written by Ikran Eum and Ines Baune, based on anthropological fieldwork in Fes, Marocco and Cairo, Egypt. In spite of differences in defining the exact lower and upper limits of the agegroup labelled youth, youth as a social group in the modern contemporary Middle East is of growing importance. The success of most modern nationstates in the region in eradicat- ing infant mortality, reducing the number of deadly diseases traditionally taking the life of many children, as well as the state’s success in extending the life expectancy of the adult part of the total population, has dramatically changed the demographic composition of the population in all areas of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. For decades to come, the demographic change will pose a number of serious challenges to all political systems in the region as well as the rest of the world, and for decades to come the governments in the Middle East will be challenged as their new citizens demand work, a place to live, and entertainment for the expanding leisure time embedded in a modern way of life. In general, some 50% of the total population of the Arab World is 18 years of age or under. The governments of the Middle East have tried to combat the increase of the population in different ways. Although, these efforts have resulted generally in a decreasing birthrate, the dramatic imbalance already in existance makes the future look complicated anyway. For decades to come the number of new jobs needed to absorb young people of both gender who wish to enter the workforce will be higher than any government can possibly offer, adding to the many social challenges facing the societies of the Middle East. Also, add to this the demands of the older section of the population for political reforms and a right to take part in the decisionmaking process. TheArab Human Development Report 2002onCreating Opportunities for Future

8 · Youth and Youth Culture in the Contemporary Middle East

Generationsand the 2003 report onBuilding a Knowledge Society, both analyse a number of the interrelated problems linked to the demographic imbalance. The focus of both reports is on youth, indicating the importance of the present groups of youth in the Arab world; groups from which the future leaders will come. The Middle East is faced with many challenges, and this volume presents a number of articles on various themes pertaining to youth in the contemporary Middle East. The international society of scholars have not invested much interest so far in the youth of the 1 Middle East, and only very few books have been written on this important subject. The articles published in this volume of theProceedings of the Danish Institute in Damascus, Vol. III, were originally presented at a conference in Damascus in December 2002 organised by The Danish Institute in Damascus and The University of Damascus. The conference was sponsored byThe Danish Research Council for the HumanitiesandThe Novo Foundationin Copenhagen. The publication of the book has been made possible by financial support fromThe Danish Research Council for the Humanitiesand theEnkefru Plums Mindefond.

Damascus, October 2004

Jørgen Bæk Simonsen

NOTES 1 Cf. Roel Meijer:Alienation or Integration of Arab Youth,London: Curzon (2000) and Ali Akbar Mahdi (ed.):Teen Life in the Middle East,Westport: Greenwood Press (2003).

Introduction 9 ·

“Watan” and “Rujula”

The Emergence of a New Model of Youth in Interwar Iraq

P E T E R W I E N ,AlAkhawayn University

Youth movements were arguably the first visible manifestation of “youth” as a category of modern nationalism in the Arab world. In the West, adolescent youth became an issue of national interest in the context of efforts to discipline the younger generation for service to the nation. Youth organisations, such as BadenPowell’s Boy Scouts, essentially served 1 that aim. In the Arab world, Iraq provides an example that invites a comparative perspec- tive to be taken with regard to the functionalizing of youth for nationalism. In the 1930s, the Iraqi media used the national youth movement alFutuwwa to construct an image of a masculine youth. The youth played the role of the vanguard of nationalism in the young Iraqi state. In a discourse of Arab nationalism, this image referred to aspects of masculinity (or “rujula”) such as boldness, physical fitness, chivalry, fighting spirit, selfsacrifice, and priority of the community over the individual. In the first section of this article, I will introduce alFutuwwa in the general framework of Arab youth movements. In the next section, I will then develop in brief the concept of masculinity that I used for my analysis. The main section will consist of a detailed interpre- tation of a few sources, such as newspaper articles and public speeches. From a perspective of public debate in Arab Iraq, this contemporary Arabic language material will provide evidence for the thesis that the Iraqi Arab youth movement in the 1930s did not draw so much on the model of the fascist youth movement in Europe at the time, as has often been suggested. Rather, it was the ideals of the Boy Scout movement and, more general, of the language and imagery of nationalist masculinity that provided these models, which virtu ally all European nationalist movements shared. The article is a section of my research on Arab nationalists’ perceptions of authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and fascism in interwar 2 Iraq and can only provide an introduction to the topic.

Al-Futuwwa as an exceptional Arab youth movement

From a general perspective, youth organisations were a phenomenon that spread in the Arab world since the 1920s and grew greatly in popularity in the 1930s. Nationalist parties

10 · Youth and Youth Culture in the Contemporary Middle East