The Imagined Community of Lebanese Youth Activists: Political Resistance By Other Means?
The Imagined Community of Lebanese Youth Activists: Political Resistance By Other Means?

Author(s): Khaled Nasser, Sarah Anne Rennick
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Civil Society
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: Imagined community of Lebanese youth activists; political resistance; political ; imagined community; Lebanese youth activists;
Summary/Abstract: The last decade of Lebanese youth activism shows a trajectory that seems somewhat incongruous with that of regional neighbors. Having largely sat out the broader revolutionary movements in 2011, youth activism seemed to join the Arab Spring in 2015 with the YouStink movement, which saw grievances move from issue-based claims around the garbage crisis to much broader calls for wide-ranging reform of the sectarian political system. While this movement failed to produce regime change, it nonetheless laid the foundations for the emergence of new generation political forces that challenged outright sectarian political party logic. Yet after some initial electoral success, these new efforts also seemed to fade away. Then in October 2019, revolutionary mobilization arrived in earnest, calling for an overhaul of the entire political class under the collective banner “All Means All,” only to dissipate under the crushing weight of Covid-19. In parallel to these protest waves and various manifestations of direct political contestation has been a plethora of new youth initiatives in various forms of public service within the country’s diverse civil society sector, which aim to either work with the State or indeed fill in gaps where the State is absent.

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