Most mid-century Arab youth movements modeled themselves on European Fascist parties

Evidence

The Kata’ib were founded in 1936 as a paramilitary youth movement. This was the age of political and militant “shirts,” when blue, green, gray, white, khaki and tan shirts were used to clothe youth movements and proclaim their ideologies in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Many of these paramilitary youth groups found their models in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Francoist Spain, and some of their leaders were no doubt affected by the Fascist ideologies of those countries. In this they were by no means alone in the Arab world, and a large proportion of present-day Arab leaders and movements, including those of the left and extreme left, emerged from the same school. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1411

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on Arab political movements’ shared origins in interwar European paramilitary ‘shirt’ movements — echoes Sivan and others on how Fascist-era methods diffused across the region.
• QUESTION: Which present-day Arab leaders and leftist movements specifically trace their organizational models to this 1930s Fascist school? Worth chasing.