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"Ma dama al-shabab m'ana fainana la shaka najihun With the youth at our side, there is no doubt we will succeed.1 This slogan from the Kata'ib, a Lebanese youth organization, reflects a sentiment shared across the globe in the twentieth century: youth, however defined-by age, class, gender- mattered. Kata'ib leadership knew this, and surely had the youth with them, whether measured by the tens of thousands of young Kata'ib members, their investment in the group's ideology, or their participation in Kata'ib rituals. In July 1958, for example, the Kata'ib held a ceremony for new members at its headquarters in Beirut, Bayt al-Kata'ib, or the "Kata'ib home." In the space that hosted many gatherings, ranging from lectures to sport tournaments, young men and women congregated alongside party officials and supporters to "perform the oath" (ta'diyya al-yamin). This included the routine dedication to party and nation, "in service of Lebanon," another Kata'ib slogan since the 1930s. Thereafter, recruits received their membership cards from the president of the party, Pierre Gemayel. He congratulated each individual on their "engagement in the new party life."2 The event then ended with the singing of the Kata'ib anthem, played by its very own band"--

By the mid-twentieth century, youth movements around the globe ruled the streets. In Lebanon, young people in these groups attended lectures, sang songs, and participated in sporting events; their music tastes, clothing choices and routine activities shaped their identities. Yet scholars of modern Lebanon often focus exclusively on the sectarian makeup and violent behaviors of these socio-political groupings, obscuring the youth cultures that they forged. Using unique sources to highlight the daily lives of the young men and women of Lebanon's youth politics, Dylan Baun traces the political and cultural history of a diverse set of youth-centric organizations from the 1920s to 1950s to reveal how these youth movements played significant roles in the making of the modern Middle East. Outlining how youth movements established a distinct type of politics and populism, Winning Lebanon reveals that these groups both encouraged the political socialization of different types of youth, and, through their attempts to 'win' Lebanon - physically and metaphorically - around the 1958 War, helped produce sectarian violence.

Starting with the nationalist and anticolonial movements of the early 20th century, youth have played an important role in political life in the modern Middle East. But despite their importance, youth often go unrecognized as a category of analysis. In this episode, we speak with historian Dylan Baun about his work on youth politics in interwar Lebanon, exploring the rituals and political practices of groups like Kata'ib (Phalange) and the Progressive Socialist Party which would become key actors in the fighting of 1958 and later on, in the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1990. We learn how young people forged political community both through and beyond sectarian violence, a phenomenon that Dr. Baun argues became strongly associated with rebellious youth.