ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces an aspect of Taha Abderrahmane’s contribution to the formation of modern Arab political philosophy. The philosopher builds his project of renewal, known by now as Trusteeship Paradigm, on a call for a “double awakening”: philosophical and political. Abderrahmane contends that at the heart of any genuine renewal is the question of ethics that touches the individual human being before it reaches society at large. He builds on the classical Arab and Islamic traditions to speak of the “awakened youth” as the highest level of ethical practice that can lead to such an awakening (i.e. revolution). This chapter reads this concept in the light of the so-called Arab Spring of 2011, with a focus on the Moroccan case.
