Contenu du sommaire

“This marvellous brotherhood”: the Appropriation of the Scout Movement in British Malaya (1907–1942)Initially conceived in 1907 as a civil educational project for British boys, Scouting sought to counter the enervating impact of urban and industrial developments upon the virility and vitality of metropolitan British society. The movement soon spread quickly throughout the empire, enjoying much success among colonial and indigenous youth alike. However, the movement's success in colonial societies was not due to its original message about the need to regenerate or to reclaim masculine and “primitive” virtues previously effaced by “modern civilisation”. Rather, Scouting captured the attention of indigenous youths and local elites because the movement offered an entry into British colonial society – notably by revealing its social norms and codes. Thus, while British youth in the metropole saw Scouting as a movement promoting the benefits of going “back to nature”, some indigenous youths in the colonies perceived Scouting as a social ladder by which they could also be initiated in the ways of metropolitan society. By focusing upon concrete examples from Boy Scouting in British Malaya, this article analyses these two distinct opinions of this youth movement in a comparative perspective. In doing so, it measures how social and political codes were reinterpreted in the process of its transmission between metropolitan and colonial worlds.

A Barrier Against Bolshevism? The Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in Interwar CzechoslovakiaThe article analyses reasons and contexts that allowed the transformation of the local Czechoslovak YMCA association from the wall against Bolshevism (which was the task ascribed to it by its North American sponsors in the immediate post-World War One period) into a unique site of encounter and dialogue between young Christians and Marxists in the second half of the 1930s. It first presents the settling of the association in the newly-created republic with the support of leading political circles around president Masaryk. In the second part, it introduces the tools the association used to foster the socio-cultural bonds between this country and Anglo-Saxon West (namely the spread of knowledge of English language and collective sports). Finally, it analyses changes at both national and international levels that reoriented the Czechoslovak YMCA towards the political left.

Treating the “Youth Peril”: Ayhan Songar, Psychiatrist at the Service of Turkey's Military Regime (1980–1983)Turkey of the 1970s was deeply marked by political violence. Under the military regime (1980-1983), there was close collaboration between the putschists and the right-wing intellectuals around a project of rehabilitation, disciplinarization and penalization of radical youth, considered as the main actor of this violent decade. Ayhan Songar, a prominent figure of the Turkish Right and also a professor of psychiatry and forensic physician, played a key role in this collaboration. Therefore, an analysis of his intellectual and professional trajectory would enhance our understanding of how the military regime sought to scientifically legitimize its power and reforms on youth.

The Maurice Audin Committee: Organising Against Torture
This article aims, by referring to private archives and interviews, at presenting the history of the Maurice Audin Committee. Born during the “Battle of Algiers” (1957), this committee became one of the main players in the anticolonial struggle in France. From the case of Maurice Audin's disappearance, its members – mainly scholars – extend their denunciation to all the cases of torture and war violence committed by the French army in Algeria. An original militant organisation, the committee owes its long life to its solid insertion in anticolonial networks, in the university, the press and publishing. This article highlights the internal hierarchy of the committee and the division of tasks within it.

Reforming the Family: Discourse and Practices Among Algerian Ulama in the 20th Century
This paper compares demographic data about Algerian families in the first half of the 20th century and normative messages spread by Algerian reformist ulama. The biographies of the leaders of the Algerian Association of Muslim Ulama (AOMA) illustrate the changes in families and intergenerational relationships in Algeria, during the period of demographic transformation and intellectual flourishing of the Interwar period. Among these transformations, women's place in society sparked debate within the AOMA until the 1950s, revealing the diversity of practices and messages of Algerian ulama.