The Hegemony of Resistance: Hezbollah and the Forging of a National-Popular Will in Lebanon

Abstract:

Drawing on the Gramscian concept of hegemony, this article examines Hezbollah’s muqawama project within the Lebanese political arena. It provides a novel interpretation of Hezbollah’s political development from force operating through a ‘blitzkrieg’ strategy to hegemonic politics. It examines the role that the muqawama concept has played in shaping the organization’s changes in its latest phase, as well as its relationship with other political forces at the national and regional level. It concludes by developing a cultural analysis of Hezbollah’s video-clips and songs, showing how these embody the new nature of the muqawama project, and its various dimensions.

Key Words:

• Gramsci
• Hegemony
• Hezbollah
• Lebanon
• muqawama
• Resistance

Notes

1 Al-Akhbar (2022) Victory to Aoun, Bassil and Hezbollah, October 12. Available at: https://al-akhbar.com/Lebanon/346988/%D9%86%D8%B5%D8%B1-%D9%84%D8%B9%D9%88%D9%86-%D9%88%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%8A%D9%84-%D9%88%D8%AD%D8%B2%D8%A8-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%84, accessed on March 28, 2023.

2 At the time of writing, this analysis of the relationship between Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement remains still valid despite the rise of serious differences between the two sides, especially after the end of Michel Aoun’s presidency and the lack of an agreement over who would become new president. As Hezbollah supports MP Suleiman Frangieh, while the Free Patriotic Movement prefers MP Gebran Bassil, who has poor chances to become president, the movement has begun looking for another candidate beyond Frangieh. In such a context, the two parties have not yet announced their withdrawal from the agreement of understanding and alliance signed in 2006. On the contrary, MP Bassil, who is considered the second man in the Free Patriotic Movement, reiterated in more than one press interview the movement’s commitment to Hezbollah, especially on the question of resistance.

3 Magnus Ranstorp (1997) Hizb’Allah in Lebanon (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).

4 See also Martin Kramer (1993) Hizbullah: The Calculus of Jihad, in: M. E. Marty & R. S. Appleby (eds) Fundamentalisms of the State: Remaking Politics, Economies and Militance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press). and others of Kramer’s works, which also take the “terror” approach to the organization.

5 Matthew Levitt (2013) Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press).

6 This perspective can be found in Ghassan ʿAzi (1998) Hezbollah: From the Ideological Dream… to Political Pragmatism (in Arabic) (Kuwait: Dar Qirttas); in Masoud Asad Allahi (2004) The Islamists in a Multicultural Society (in Arabic) (Beirut: Al-Dar Al-Arabiya lil-ʿOloum,); Augustus Norton (2007) Hezbollah: A Short History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press); and in Eitan Azani (2009) Hezbollah: The Story of the Party of God: From Revolution to Institutionalization (New York: Palgrave Macmillan).

7 Amal Saad-Ghorayeb (2002) Hizbullah : Politics and Religion (London; Sterling, VA: Pluto Press).

8 Ahmad N. Hamzeh (2004) In the Path of Hizbullah (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press).

9 Rula J. Abisaab & Malek Abisaab (2014) The Shiʿites of Lebanon: Modernism, Communism, and Hizbullah’s Islamists (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press).

10 Al-Manar is Hezbollah’s television channel. It was launched in 1991.

11 For detailed description of Gramsci’s thought on hegemony (in the Lebanese context) please see Abed Kanaaneh (2021) Understanding Hezbollah: The Hegemony of Resistance (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press), pp. 9-16.

12 Gwyn A. Williams (1960) The Concept of ‘Egemonia’ in the Thought of Antonio Gramsci: Some Notes on Interpretation, Journal of the History of Ideas, 21(4), pp. 587.

13 According to Gramsci, the historical bloc is the force behind the hegemonic project, and it comes into being when different social groups unite around a hegemonic project. The historical bloc is a dialectic concept in that it embodies the interaction between its different components in the goal of achieving unity at a broader scale. Gramsci suggests that the social class leading the historical bloc is a dynamic one. It is not the sum of its parts but rather a new synthesis because it goes through a process of mutual influence, together with other parties and subordinate groups within the same historical bloc.

14 Roger Simon (1982) Gramsci’s Political Thought an Introduction (London: London Lawrence & Wishart), p. 43.

15 Ernesto Laclau & Chantal Mouffe (1985) Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (London: Verso).

16 Ibid.

17 Kanaaneh, Understanding Hezbollah, p. 26.

18 Michael Milstein (2009) Muqawama: The Emergence of the Resistance Challenge and Its Influence on the Perception of Israeli National Security (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Institute for National Security Studies), p. 21.

19 Muhammad Murad (2009) The Development of Political Options among the Shiites since the Emergence of the Modern Lebanese State to Date (in Arabic), Shuaoun Al-Awsat, 132, p. 157.

20 Majed Halawi (1992) A Lebanon Defied (Boulder: Westview Press), p. 52.

21 Ibid, p. 42.

22 Saʿdun Hamada (2008) The Shiʿite History in Lebanon (in Arabic), 1 (Beirut: Al-Khal), pp. 8–9.

23 Theodor Hanf (1993) Co-Existence Times of War-from the Collapse of a State to the Emergence of a Nation (in Arabic) (Paris: Euro-Arab Center for Studies), p. 141.

24 Eyal Zisser (2009) Lebanon: Blood in the Cedars (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Kav Adom), p. 59.

25 Abisaab and Abisaab, The Shiʿites of Lebanon.

26 Saad-Ghorayeb, Hizbu’llah: Politics and Religion, p. 17.

27 Hamzeh, In the Path of Hizbullah, pp. 15–19.

28 Ibid., p. 24.

29 Abed Kanaaneh (2018) From Jihad to Muqawamah: The Case of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Journal of the Irish Society for the Academic Studies of Religion, (6), pp. 38–59.

30 The Falange (Kata’ib in Arabic) party is a Lebanese far-right Christian party that played a major role in the Civil War (1975–1990).

31 Azani, Hezbollah: The Story of the Party of God, p. 246.

32 Saad-Ghorayeb, Hizbu’llah: Politics and Religion; Joseph Alagha (2006) The Shifts in Hizbullah’s Ideology: Religious Ideology, Political Ideology, and Political Program (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University).

33 Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy.

34 Ibrahim al-Haydri (1999) The Tragedy of Karbala: The Sociology of the Shiite Discourse (in Arabic) (Beirut: Dar al-Saqi), p. 91.

35 Kamran Aghaie (2004) The Martyrs of Karbala: Shiʿi Symbols and Rituals in Modern Iran (Washington: University of Washington Press), pp. 87–112.

36 Hamid Dabashi (2011) Shiʿism: A Religion of Protest (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press), p. 80.

37 Zeev Shternhell, Mario Schneider & Maya Ashri (1992) The Foundations of Fascism: A Cultural Dimension to the Political Revolution (in Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Ovid), p. 93.

38 Rula el-Husseini (2008) Resistance, Jihad, and Martyrdom in Contemporary Lebanese Shiʿa Discourse, The Middle East Journal, 62(3), pp. 399–414.

39 Hamid Dabashi (2008) Islamic Liberation Theology Resisting the Empire (London: Routledge), p. 96.

40 Ibid, p. 71.

41 Ibid, p. 202.

42 Kanaaneh, “From Jihad to Muqawamah: The Case of Hezbollah in Lebanon.”

43 For “Al-Risala al-maftuha” (the Open Letter), Feb. 16, 1985, I used the version given in Joseph Alagha (2011) Hizbullah’s Documents: From the 1985 Open Letter to the 2009 Manifesto (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press), pp. 434–52.

44 For “Al-Wathiqa al-siyassiyya” (the political document), Nov. 30, 2009, I used the copy given at Hezbollah website at: https://www.moqawama.org.lb/essaydetailsf.php?eid=16245&fid=47, accessed on March 28, 2023.

45 Hasan Nasrallah, cited in Josef Alagha (2011) Hezbullah’s Documents: From the 1985 Open Letter to the 2009 Manifesto (Amsterdam: Pallas Publications-Amsterdam University Press), p. 138.

46 Al-Wathiqa.

47 On this point see Bashir Saade (2016) Hizbullah and the Politics of Remembrance Writing the Lebanese Nation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

48 Al-Wathiqa

49 Arrisala al-Maftuha (the Open Letter)

50 Ernesto Laclau (1979) Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism, Fascism, Populism (London: Verso).

51 Rudiger Dornbuch & Sebastian Edwards (1991) The Macroeconomics of Populism, in: R. Dornbuch & S. Edwards (eds) The Macroeconomics of Populism in Latin America, pp. 7–14 (Chicago: Chicago Press).

52 Hezbollah platform, 1996, Hezbollah website, Available at: https://www.moqawama.org.lb/essaydetails.php?eid=11253&cid=109, accessed on March 28, 2023. And Hezbollah platform, 2009, Hezbollah website, at https://www.moqawama.org.lb/essaydetailsf.php?eid=14229&fid=45, accessed on March 28, 2023.

53 Al-‘Ahd, “The Proletariat, the Fuel of War and the Victim of the ‘Taif Agreement’” (in Arabic), May 1, 1992; Al-‘Ahd, “What Does Rafiq Hariri Want from Lebanon” (in Arabic), Mar 26, 1993; Al-‘Ahd, “That is how Hariri Buys Lebanon… and for whom does he Buy it?” (in Arabic), April 9, 1993.

54 Al-ʿAhd, “Nasrallah: If we asked to choose between the Muqawama and the Parliamentary Representation, we will definitely renounce the later” (in Arabic), September 25, 1992.

55 Muhammad Raʿd, cited in: Saʿad Ghareeb, Hezbollah: Religion and Politics, p. 99.

56 Al-ʿAhd, “The Communist Party wants to be an instrument of sedition against Muslims and its elements assassinate the mujahid ‘Ali Shehadeh in an armed ambush” (in Arabic), February 28, 1986.

57 Abisaab and Abisaab, The Shiʿites of Lebanon, p. 133.

58 Quoted in Imad Salamey & Frederic Pearson (2007) Hezbollah: A Proletarian Party with an Islamic Manifesto – A Sociopolitical Analysis of Islamist Populism in Lebanon and the Middle East, Small Wars & Insurgencies, 18(3), pp. 421–422.

59 Hamzeh, In the Path of Hizbullah, p. 43.

60 Kanaaneh, Understanding Hezbollah, pp. 140–143.

61 Naʿim Qasim (2008) The Muqawama Society: the Martyrdom Will and the Production of Victory (in Arabic) (Beirut: Maʿhad al-Maʿarif al-Hiqmiyya lil-Dirasat al-Dinniyya wal-Falsafiyya).

62 Shawn T. Flanigan & Mounah Abdel-Samad (2009) Hezbollah’s Social Jihad: Nonprofits as Resistance Organizations, Middle East Policy, 16(2), p. 128.

63 Ibid, pp. 125–126.

64 Joseph Daher (2020) Hezbollah, Neoliberalism and Political Economy, Politics and Religion, 13(4), pp. 719–747.

65 Peter D. Thomas (2013) Hegemony, Passive Revolution and the Modern Prince, Thesis Eleven, 117(1), p. 27.

66 Thomas, “Hegemony, Passive Revolution and the Modern Prince”, p. 28.

67 “نشيد اكبر نصر,” n.d., Available at: https://video.moqawama.org.lb/details.php?cid=13&linkid=2219, accessed March 28, 2023.

68 Ibid.

69 “نصرك هز الدني,” n.d. Available at: https://video.moqawama.org.lb/details.php?cid=13&linkid=1947, accessed March 28, 2023.

70 “كلنا مقاومة كلنا للوطن,” n.d. Available at: https://youtu.be/0ijDi4YZgCY, accessed March 28, 2023.

71 “يا وطني يا وطن النور,” n.d. Available at: https://youtu.be/fUMb7T9wkRA, accessed March 28, 2023.

72 “هيهات يا محتل,” n.d. Available at: https://video.moqawama.org.lb/details.php?cid=10&linkid=824, accessed March 28, 2023.

73 Samer Abboud and Benjamin Muller (2012) Rethinking Hizballah: Legitimacy, Authority, Violence (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.), pp. 54–55.

74 “خلي السلاح صاحي,” n.d. Available at: https://video.moqawama.org.lb/details.php?cid=13&linkid=2144, accessed March 28, 2023.

75 “Hizballah Nasheed - الله أكبر الله أكبر - Arabic - ShiaTV.Net,” n.d. Available at: https://www.shiatv.net/video/645cd7ad69525c46992a, accessed March 28, 2023.

76 “نصر العرب - Vidéo Dailymotion,” Dailymotion, n.d. Available at: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x393ft, accessed March 28, 2023.

77 Julia Boutros, “جوليا بطرس - أحبائي 2006,” December 18, 2013. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkTqtStlBx0, accessed March 28, 2023.

78 Quoted in Al-Akhbar, “Ziad: Those who attack ‘al-Sayyid’ and ‘al-Sayyida,’ defend Israel” (in Arabic), December 20, 2013.