Religiosity among the Youth: A Phenomenon Independent of the Ideological Establishment

This study analyzes a new type of religiosity that has appeared in force in the streets and public squares during the Arab revolts: youth religiosity. My approach relies on an understanding of religion as a cultural system in an attempt to analyze, from a socio-cultural perspective, the relationships linking the modes of production of religiosity to the conditions of the social structure in the context of segmentary Arab societies. It is based on a the following hypothesis: the evolution and dissemination of new means of communication have led to the emergence of a new public space that, while being virtual, has broken the master-disciple hierarchy upon which activist Islam had built its educational regime. As a result, the Arab masses gained access to multiple sources of Islamic political knowledge, along with the ability to choose among them what they see fit, or to adopt an idea, or a group of ideas, without the need to enroll in the educational regime of the ideological establishment.