Page 20 - Issue 41

ELITE Vol.1, Issue 41, March 2022

Arab Identity of Youth in an Era of

Intellectual Swings
Mai Hossam Eldin Hosny - Level 4 - Political Science

mai.hossam2018@feps.edu.eg
First of all, what motivated me to write this article is the This era has become a club that you must own a
divisions we are currently experiencing in the Arab subscription card to enter, the price of which is to give
world. I keep wondering how can an entity that has up one's heritage. Although these currents adhere to
always held up slogans of unity destroy itself from the statements related to the need for coexistence and
inside out? Be the reason of its demise? While acceptance, they began accusing everyone who
contemplating this situation, it has become linked in my adheres to customs of being backward.
mind a lot to the situation that the youth of my Rather, most of these currents refer to extremists as
generation are going through, where they are getting “fundamentalists”, as if, at their roots, society’s beliefs
exposed to a huge number of theories, all of which claim are a cause of extremism, and they should therefore be
to possess a solution and a path for reformation. I replaced by “modern” ideas.
believe that as a result, there have recently been swings I do not exclude from this the transition to extremist
in the thoughts of most youth, where they have shifted to ideas that call for the preservation of beliefs and
attitudes that are contrary to what they used to believe in replacing the means of enticement with intimidation
before. Some have adopted inconsistent and and threats, which contradict the nature of cultural and
contradicting ideas, such as adopting theories that reject religious values. This, in turn, has left us with the
one thing and others that accept it at the same moment in scourge of sectarianism in most parts of the Arab
order to try and keep up with the times and also to world. Hence, the Arab youth have not enjoyed the
satisfy their instincts that reject radical changes. freedom that some would imagine would accompany
When I speak of intellectual swings, I mean changing this state of intellectual upheaval.
one's beliefs and replacing them with newer ones. Every In such a context full of intellectual polarization, the
time there is a new wave of thought, everyone must keep Arab youth live in a state of marginalization, where
up with it, However, I do not mean that intellectual they cannot produce a new argument or revise what is
swings is a negative phenomenon in general, what I being presented to them. Even their ability to choose
mean is making the phenomenon more severe without from these theories is restrained by many constraints.
being associated with any specific goals or making it a Thus, the destruction of the Arab identity in the minds
requirement for this age like the adoption of feminism or of the youth in favor of countless identities was
secularism or adopting ideas concerning the recognition inevitable. Today, we do not find any serious talk
of groups which do not need to be recognized by society about Arabism where belonging to these stereotypes
because they do not exist in the Arab society in the first outstrides belonging to the Arab nation, and it is rare to
place. find intellectual moderates.
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