ABSTRACT
The ‘median’ point of a long quest, turning from Westernization to Islamism, to which the 20th century was a witness, the ‘Khaled-Che’ episode acquired a heuristic value, helping to understand the ups and downs, the good and the bad phases of the revolutionary passions in the Middle East. In Persia, the long revolutionary episode is closed by the counterrevolution of the Palace, but leaves behind a constitutionalist heritage that will later flourish during the political struggles. The Nationalist right shows the route to consolidating itself by forming a strong authoritarian structure of national unity. It identifies the external, European enemy, its domestic ‘lackeys’ but avoids bloody class struggles since the ostensible aim is national unity. The Arab city is not more vulnerable or even threatened because the young refuse to join the ruling classes. The young generation knows that the only way to achieve their night of 4 August is to abandon their own class and thus unite the nation.
