today are totally different from the spirit that char-
acterized its birth during the 1940s and institution-
alization in the 1950s. Throughout North Africa
and Egypt, the infrastructures put in place for
youth sensitization and participation are experi-
encing, to varying degrees, serious shortages, if not
outright failure, as in Algeria and Morocco. This
gloomy spectrum ranges from the meager subsidies
they receive, the extremely limited numbers of edu-
cators who create and watch over programs and
projects, to the bankruptcy of the belief-systems
that nourish them. The weight of Islamist move-
ments and the spread of various non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) specializing in artistic move-
ments are the two, though quite polarized, ingredi-
ents that have somewhat slowed down the apathy
and alienation vis-à-vis public affairs that have suf-
fused youth movements in these countries – though
such apathy exists to a much lesser extent in Libya
due to the repressive political regime. Women edu-
cators and younger women beneficiaries are active
participants and actors within youth movements in
these countries today.
Examples of modern organizations in Egypt are
AIESEC Egypt, the Arab Office of Youth and Envi-
ronment (AOYE), and the Egyptian Girl Guides
Association (EGGA). In Libya organizations in-
clude the Secretariat of Youth and Sport of the
Masses and and an NGO, the General Union of
Great Jamahiriya Students (GUGJS). In Tunisia
there is a ministry of youth (Ministère de la jeunesse
et de l’enfance), and an important NGO is the
Union of Tunisian Youth Organizations (UTOJ). In
Algeria, there is the Algeria National Union of
Algerian Youth (UNJA) and the famous Conseil
supérieur de la jeunesse (CSJ). In Morocco there is
also a ministry and a number of other NGOs such
as AIESEC Morocco, Chantiers jeunes Maroc
(CJM), and the Fédération nationale de scoutisme
marocain (FNSM). Though there is no longer the
euphoria of youth movements that existed in the
mid-twentieth century, the current programs of
these associations and NGOs have not only created
a new dynamic of societal relations but have also
opened up the public space for youth for various
forms of expression. They aim at fostering self-
esteem and group solidarities that exemplify, in the
end, the underlying philosophy that has always
nourished the culture of youth movements since its
inception with socialist ideologies.Bibliography
Arab Scout Conference, <http://www.arabscout.org/About
Us/Organizational_Body.htm percentArabScoutConfer
ence>.794 youth culture and movements
N. Bancel, D. Denis, et al. (eds.), De l’Indochine à l’Algé-
rie. La jeunesse en mouvements des deux côtés du
miroir colonial, 1940–1962, Paris 2003.
R. Meijer (ed.), Alienation or integration of Arab youth.
Between family, state and street, Richmond, Surrey
2000.
NITLE (National Institute for Technology and Liberal
Education) Arab World Project, <http://arabworld.nitle.
org/main_menu.php>.
M. Tessler, Morocco’s next political generation, in Journal
of North African Studies5:1 (Spring 2000), 1–26.
United Nations,Youth Profiles Online research reference,
2002, <http://www.un.org/ esa/socdev/unyin/wywatch/
country.htm>.Jamila BargachTurkeyThe study of youth culture and movements in
Turkey is relatively new. Kinship terminology and
the use of a term to denote the period between
puberty and marriage suggest that age, and the dis-
tinction between juniors and seniors, play a central
role in the construction of personhood in Turkish
society. Historically, it was preferable, for reasons
of social control, to keep the period between
puberty and marriage as short as possible. In
Ottoman society, young men formed the backbone
of revolts from the sixteenth century. “Wild blood”
(delikanlı, the term used to refer to youth) was to be
channeled along tracks acceptable to adult society,
such as the military, apprenticeship, agricultural/
pastoral labor, and early marriage. The threat of
nonconforming behavior on the part of young
women required even more stringent and internal-
ized systems of domination.
The period of reforms known as the Tanzimat
(1839–76) ushered in a new conception of youth. It
is no coincidence that the main social movements of
the late Ottoman period were known as the Young
Ottoman movement and the Young Turk move-
ment. In the late nineteenth century, educated
young Ottomans (mostly men) were called upon to
save the institutions of empire. The emphasis on the
modernizing role of educated youth culminated in
the 1920s in a veritable cult of youth initiated by
the new Turkish state to build a national con-
sciousness and a modern nation-state. The phrase
“children of the republic” refers to this new youth.
Up until the present, it would be young women’s
bodies in particular that would come to symboli-
cally represent the nation.
In 1960, the Democratic Party, which had ruled
the country since the first multi-party elections, was
removed from power by a military coup. University
students played a role in protests against the