مكانة النخبة في التغيير الحضاري لدى مالك بن نبي

Abstract EN

Elites’ action in the revival process (Nahdha) of the Arab and Muslim societies holds an outstanding place in Bennabi’s intellectual works.

We can identify three main phases in his analysis of the elite corresponding to the three stages of the evolution of these societies.

He started with expounding his theory about the elite’s segmentation between the traditionalist and the modernist wings and underlined their positive achievements: the “Islahi” movement brought the awareness of the crisis and initiated the intellectual revival whereas the modernist tendency reevaluated the traditional norms.

Bennabi also pointed out to their shortcomings: the limited scope of the reform, the literary inclination and social inefficiency for the traditionalist tendency and the blind intellectual mimetism and the consumerist attraction towards Western products with little knowledge acquisition for the modernist trend.

Bennabi focused upon two factors that impaired both elites’ action:-the negative consequences of the decadence affecting the “post-Almohadian” man - colonialism’s obstacles.

In the second phase coinciding with Arab and Muslim countries recovering their sovereignty, his production aimed at preparing the influential elites to their forthcoming missions and guiding them to face the “struggle of ideas”.

The third phase in Bennabi’s great intellectual works starts with the effective gaining of independence by most of the Muslim countries (including Algeria in 1962) where he critically analyzed the socio-economic and political plans initiated by the national modernist elite and laid down the foundations of the “sociology of independence” focusing on the ways to cure the “social pathologies” faced by newly independent countries.

In the conclusion, I assessed the disastrous consequences of having neglected Bennabi’ farseeing analysis and wise recommendations; two decades after his death, Algeria witnessed a deep crisis, the 1988 crisis.

His analysis applies to Arab and Muslim countries.

His analysis applies to Arab and Muslim countries.