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Abstract
Imad Nuwayhid (1944–1975) was a young Lebanese leftist intellectual, hotel employee, and fighter for the Lebanese Communist Party. Alongside thousands of others, he died during the first phase of the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1976). This article explores Imad’s life, death, and legacy through the methodology of ‘Microhistory.’ Consulting Imad’s writings alongside party sources, and conducting interviews with those who knew him, it serves as a window into the politics of memorialization in the Lebanese Civil War with a focus on the Lebanese Left. It argues that multiple actors, ranging from party to family members, produced Imad’s ‘martyr narrative.’ Like others of the era, regardless of party, the narrative stressed ideology and sacrifice over individuality to mobilize the living to fight. These strategies did not, however, unfold without resistance. In the case of Imad, some family challenged the party, positing counter-narratives and claiming Imad as theirs: a Nuwayhid. Their actions seek to restore Imad as an individual, but not always as he lived. These findings contribute to the literature on the Lebanese Civil War and its memory, providing a personal touch through a new and novel level of analysis: the individual, their sources, and the battle over memory that surrounds them.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Ziad Abu Rish, Fadi Bardawil, Michaelle Browers, Matt Buehler, Joan Chaker, Andrew Denning, Agnès Favier, Laure Guirguis, Waleed Hazbun, Tayyib al-Hosni, Leila Hudson, Idriss Jebari, Richard Ivan Jobs, Kate Jones, Jeffrey Karam, Akram Khater, Nabil Khishin, Zeina Maasri, Maha Nassar, Makram Rabah, and Jeremy Randall for help with research and/or providing feedback on earlier drafts and presentations of this article. I also am indebted to the extended Nuwayhid family, especially Iman, Iyad, Jawad, and Walid Nuwayhid. This research would not have been possible without their hospitality, insight, and kindness.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Samir Khalaf (2002) Civil and Uncivil Violence in Lebanon, p. 232 (New York: Columbia University Press).
2 The exception here comes from literature and Women’s and Gender Studies; see Miriam Cooke (Citation1996) War’s Other Voices: Women Writers on the Lebanese Civil War (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press).
3 For important works of political history, which largely focus on elites, parties, and states, see Kamal Salibi (Citation1976) Crossroads to Civil War: Lebanon 1958–1976 (Ann Arbor, MI: Caravan Books); Farid el-Khazen (Citation2000) The Breakdown of the State in Lebanon 1967–1976 (New York: I. B. Tauris); Samir Khalaf, Civil and Uncivil Violence in Lebanon; and Fawwaz Traboulsi (Citation2007) A History of Modern Lebanon (London: Pluto Press).
4 See Oren Barak (Citation2007) ‘Don’t Mention the War?’ The Politics of Remembrance and Forgetfulness in Postwar Lebanon, Middle East Journal, 61(1), pp. 49–70; Laleh Khalili (Citation2008) Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: The Politics of National Commemoration (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press); Najib Hourani (2008) The Militiaman Icon: Cinema, Memory, and the Lebanese Civil Wars, The New Centennial Review, 8(2), pp. 287–307; Sune Haugbolle (Citation2010) War and Memory in Lebanon (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press); Lucia Volk (Citation2010) Memorials and Martyrs in Modern Lebanon (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press); Bashir Saade (Citation2016) Hizbullah and the Politics of Remembrance: Writing the Lebanese Nation (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press); Sami Hermez (Citation2017) War is Coming: Between Past and Future Violence in Lebanon (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press); and Makram Rabah (Citation2020) Conflict on Mount Lebanon: The Druze, the Maronites and Collective Memory (Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press).
5 Carlo Ginzburg (Citation1982) The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller, p. xx (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press).
6 For more on these latter literatures, which are beyond the scope of this article, but inform its research, see Burleigh Hendrickson (Citation2017) Finding Tunisia in the Global 1960s, Monde(s), 11, p. 64; and Fadi A. Bardawil (Citation2020) Revolution and Disenchantment: Arab Marxism and the Binds of Emancipation (Durham, NC: Duke University Press).
7 I thank Joan Chaker for this term and idea.
8 Al-Nida’ October 29, 1975; and al-Nahar October 29, 1975.
9 The Ain al-Rummaneh massacre refers to events that unfolded on April 13, 1975, when Kata’ib fighters opened fire on a bus coming from a rally hosted by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Beirut. The Kata’ib fighters killed twenty-six Palestinian men, women, and children. For more information, see el-Khazen, The Breakdown of the State in Lebanon 1967–1976, pp. 285–290.
10 Salibi, Crossroads to Civil War: Lebanon 1958–1976, p. 113. This phase began with the April 13, 1975 Ain al-Rummaneh massacre and ended with the Syrian intervention into Lebanon, starting May 31, 1976. For more on this phase, see Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon, pp. 187–204.
11 For the entries dedicated to Imad, see Lebanese Communist Party (Citation1980) Shuhada’ al-Hizb al-Shiyu‘i al-Lubnani 1975–1980: min ajalak ya watani [Martyrs of the Lebanese Communist Party, 1975–1980: For your sake oh nation] , p. 44 (Beirut: Manshurat al-Hizb al-Shiyu‘i al-Lubnani); and Lebanese Communist Party (Citation1985) Dafa‘an ‘an al-Jabal Dafa‘an ‘an al-Watan [Defending the Mountain, Defending the Nation] , p. 23 (Beirut: Lebanese Communist Party).
12 For more on this phase of the war, see Rabah, Conflict on Mount Lebanon.
13 I borrow this term from David Cook (Citation2007) Martyrdom in Islam, pp. 1–3 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press).
14 To be clear, the state or its representative institutions do not often create martyr narratives. Instead, mostly through legal means following the war, they encourage collective amnesia. For more information, see Barak, ‘Don’t Mention the War?’; and Haugbolle, War and Memory in Lebanon, pp. 71–79.
15 Cook, Martyrdom in Islam, p. 1.
16 Volk, Memorials and Martyrs in Modern Lebanon, p. 19.
17 Kevin W. Martin (Citation2015) Syria’s Democratic Years: Citizens, Experts, and Media in the 1950s, p. 66 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press).
18 For more information on enemy images, see Janice Gross Stein (Citation1996) Image, Identity, and Conflict Resolution, in Chester Croker & Fen Osler Hampson (eds) Managing Global Chaos: Sources of and Responses to International Conflict, pp. 93–111 (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press).
19 Zeina Maasri (Citation2009) Off the Wall: Political Posters of the Lebanese Civil War, pp. 87–88 (London: I.B. Tauris).
20 Ibid, p. 89.
21 See Malik Abisaab (Citation2010) Militant Women of a Fragile Nation (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press); Akram Khater (Citation2011) Embracing the Divine: Passion and Politics in Christian Middle East (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press); Dana Sajdi (Citation2013) The Barber of Damascus: Nouveau Literacy in the Eighteenth-Century (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press); and Laila Parsons (Citation2016) The Commander: Fawzi al-Qawuqji and the Fight for Arab Independence 1914–1948 (New York: Hill and Wang).
22 My approach builds off studies on the Lebanese Civil War and its memory, ranging from Zeina Maasri to Makram Rabah. However, to this author’s knowledge, there is no recent, critical, micro-level research focusing on rank and file fighters and how they individually are remembered.
23 All interviews were conducted in a mix of Arabic and English and interviewees consented under Institutional Review Board protocol.
24 This series of documents is referred to below as ‘Imad Nuwayhid, Personal Sources: Letters and certificates, 1965–1971.’
25 Iman Nuwayhid, interviewed by author, Beirut, Lebanon, June 1, 2016. Imad was one of seven siblings and second oldest. Iman and Walid Nuwayhid, interviewed by author, Beirut, Lebanon, May 25, 2018. For more information on the Druze and their history, see Talal Fandi & Ziyad Abi-Shakra (eds) (Citation2001) The Druze Heritage: An Annotated Bibliography (Amman, Jordan: The Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies).
26 Author Interview with Iman Nuwayhid, Beirut, Lebanon, June 1, 2016.
27 Author Interview with Walid Nuwayhid, Beirut, Lebanon, May 25, 2018 and email correspondence, March 12, 2019.
28 Author Conversation with Nuwayhids and friends, Ras al-Metn, Lebanon, June 3, 2018; and Agnès Favier (Citation2004) Logiques de l'engagement et modes de contestation au Liban: genèse et éclatement d'une génération de militants intellectuels, 1958–1975 [Logics of engagement and modes of protest in Lebanon: Genesis and collapse of a generation of intellectual militants], Ph.D. dissertation, Université Paul Cézanne Aix-Marseille III, pp. 157, 282.
29 Jawad Nuwayhid, interviewed by author, Beirut, Lebanon, May 30, 2018.
30 Certificate of employment at Hotel Phoenicia Intercontinental, September 28, 1965. Located in Imad Nuwayhid, Personal Sources: Letters and certificates, 1965–1971. Courtesy of the Nuwayhid Family. All certificates cited below are from the same collection.
31 US Congress, House of Representatives, Committee on Foreign Affairs (Citation1954) H.J. Res. 350: To promote the foreign policy of the United States by Fostering International Travel and the Exchange of Persons, 83rd Cong., 2nd sess., February 8–March 31.
32 Certificate of Lebanese secondary education from the National Ministry of Education and Fine Arts, August 10, 1966.
33 Letter home September 6, 1966. Located in Imad Nuwayhid, Personal Sources: Letters and certificates, 1965–1971. All letters home cited below are from the same collection and were written in Europe.
34 Letter home, June 27, 1967.
35 Maha Nassar (Citation2016) Brothers Apart: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World, p. 148 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press).
36 Certificate of employment at the Hanover Intercontinental Hotel, October 15, 1967.
37 Letters home, September 19, 1967 & October 1, 1967; and Certificates of employment at Hotel Phoenicia Intercontinental, November 9, 1967–March 31, 1968 and April 1, 1968–August 31, 1968.
38 Author WhatsApp Interview with Nabil Khishin, February 3, 2021.
39 Abram Leon (Citation1969) Al-Mafhum al-Madi lil-Mas’ala al-Yahudiyya, trans. Imad Nuwayhid (Beirut: Dar al-Tali‘a lil-Taba‘a wa al-Nashr).
40 Abram Leon (Citation1970) The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation, pp. 255–256 and 269–270 (New York: Pathfinder Press). Leon died at Auschwitz in 1944. For Leon’s bio sketch, see ibid, pp. 14–31.
41 For more information on how the Left in the United States discovered and translated Leon, see Tal Elmaliach (Citation2017/18) The ‘Revival’ of Abram Leon: The ‘Jewish Question’ and the American New Left, Left History, 21 (2): pp. 73–95.
42 Leon, Al-Mafhum al-Madi lil-Mas’ala al-Yahudiyya, pp. 6–7.
43 Certificates of training at École Hôtelière and employment at Hotel Mirabeau, Lausanne between October 1969–December 1970, and March 15, 1971.
44 Letter home, April 27, 1971.
45 Lebanese Communist Party, Dafa‘an ‘an al-Jabal Dafa‘an ‘an al-Watan, p. 23; and al-Nida’ October 29, 1975.
46 Al-Nida’ October 29, 1975.
47 Walid Nuwayhid, WhatsApp correspondence, February 2, 2021. For more information on the group, see Laure Guirguis (Citation2020) ‘Dismount the Horse to Pick Some Roses’: Militant Enquiry in Lebanese New Left Experiments, 1968–73, in: Laure Guirguis (ed) The Arab Lefts: Histories and Legacies, p. 188 (Edinburgh, UK: University of Edinburgh Press).
48 Al-Nida,’ October 29, 1975; and Author Interview with Walid Nuwayhid, Beirut, Lebanon, May 25, 2018.
49 Author Interview with Jawad Nuwayhid, Beirut, Lebanon, May 30, 2018; and WhatsApp correspondence April 12, 2021.
50 Al-Nida’ October 29, 1975.
51 In this stage of research, no dated documentation, whether contemporary or after his death, exists for Imad between May 1973 and the start of the war in April 1975. Moreover, the family’s lack of specific, dated memories on Imad during this time compounds the two-year gap in precise information.
52 For more on this dynamic in Europe, see Axel Schildt & Detlef Siegfried (eds) (Citation2006) Between Marx and Coca-Cola: Youth Cultures in Changing European Societies, 1960–1980 (New York: Berghan Books).
53 For more on this battle, see Salibi, Crossroads to Civil War, p. 132.
54 Muhammad and Diyab were both 22 and from villages in south Lebanon; Al-Nida’ October 29, 1975.
55 Author’s conversations with Nuwayhids and friends, Ras al-Metn, Lebanon, June 3, 2018.
56 Lebanese Communist Party, Shuhada’ al-Hizb al-Shiyu‘i al-Lubnani 1975–1980, p. 64. It was a slight mistitling, using the word for ‘case’ (qadiyya) over the correct ‘question’ (mas’ala). While minor, it points to a lack of knowledge on the specifics of Imad’s translation or an appropriation of his work for the current moment (where the word qadiyya was often paired with Filastiniyya, to mean ‘the Palestinian issue’).
57 Emphasis added. Lebanese Communist Party, Shuhada’ al-Hizb al-Shiyu‘i al-Lubnani 1975–1980, p. 64. The volume claims that he received his training at École Hôtelière in Lausanne before moving to Hanover.
58 Of course, the framing of this claiming may be different, depending on the cause of the group (for example, to destroy or uphold the Maronite status quo) or whether it placed its martyrs ‘within a secular or religious framework.’ Maasri, Off the Wall, p. 88. For similarities and differences between group martyr narratives, as exemplified in posters, see ibid, p, 41.
59 Al-Nida,’ October 29, 1975.
60 For a sampling of leftist cultural production—not just martyr narratives—around the war, and the differences between formats (poetry, essays, cartoons, letters), see Dylan Baun (Citation2020) Populism and War Making: Constructing the People and Enemy during the Early Lebanese Civil War Era, in Amit Ron & Majia Nadesan (eds) Mapping Populism: Approaches and Methods, pp. 146–157 (New York: Routledge).
61 Al-Nida’ October 29, 1975.
62 Al-Nida’ November 6, 1975.
63 Ibid.
64 Ibid.
65 Emphasis added; Al-Hurriyya (‘the Freedom’) November 10, 1975.
66 For examples on the other side of the war, see Kata’ib’s al-‘Amal (‘the Action’), and dedications to fighters Bassem (December 4, 1975) and Yusuf (December 8, 1975).
67 Al-Nida’ October 29, 1975.
68 Corroborating this beyond Imad necessitates interviews with loved ones of other individual casualties to the war, which this author has not conducted.
69 Author Interview with Walid Nuwayhid, Beirut, Lebanon, May 25, 2016; see also Al-Nida,’ December 9, 1975.
70 To be clear, Walid is not angry about the omission, just cognizant.
71 For example, Muhammad Maki’s mother wrote the dedication to her son, who died alongside Imad, for the Lebanese Communist Party volume: Lebanese Communist Party (Citation1980), Shuhada’ al-Hizb al-Shiyu‘i al-Lubnani 1975–1980, p. 65.
72 Al-Nida,’ October 28, 1976.
73 Ibid.
74 Al-Nida,’ November 5, 1975.
75 Author Interview, Iman Nuwayhid, Beirut, Lebanon, June 1, 2016.
76 Author Interview with Jawad Nuwayhid, Beirut, Lebanon, May 30, 2018. This exchange rate is according to Banque Du Liban for December 1975. See Data Series online at: https://www.bdl.gov.lb/statistics/table.php?name=t5282usd, accessed March 15, 2020.
77 Author conversations Nuwayhids and friends, Ras al-Metn, Lebanon, June 3, 2018.
78 For more information, see Melani Cammett (Citation2014) Compassionate Communalism: Welfare and Sectarianism in Lebanon, pp. 44–49 (Cornell, NY: Cornell University Press).
79 Again, to prove this beyond Imad necessitates another level of investigations and interviews.
80 Author Interviews with Jawad Nuwayhid, Beirut, Lebanon, May 30, 2018 & Walid Nuwayhid, Beirut, May 25, 2016.
81 Author Interview with Iman Nuwayhid, Beirut, Lebanon, June 1, 2016.
82 Ibid.
83 Al-Nida’, October 30, 1975.
84 Author Interview with Walid Nuwayhid, Beirut, Lebanon, May 25, 2018. Jawad explains his reaction and anger similar to Walid Jawad Nuwayhid, whom author interviewed in Beirut on May 30, 2018.
85 Author Interview with Iman Nuwayhid, Beirut, Lebanon, June 1, 2016.
86 Ibid, emphasis added. To be clear, interviewees who resist the official martyr narrative stress Imad as an individual, not as a Druze or a symbol for the Druze community. Given that the Nuwayhids are Druze, this could be implicit. But at this point, in this case, it does not appear that sect identity is a point of emphasis.
87 It must be noted that I find cleaning the slate to be different from state-sanctioned amnesia. While the former actively claims the individual, the latter does not. While there is extensive literature on the amnesia of the Lebanese Civil War, ranging from Oren Barak to Sune Haugbolle, to this author’s knowledge, no research has been conducted on this specific form of resistance in or after the war. Hence, to confirm how cleaning the slate unfolds beyond Imad necessitates more micro-level research.
88 Author Interview with Jawad Nuwayhid, Beirut, Lebanon, May 30, 2018.
89 Author Conversation with Nuwayhid family and friends, Ras al-Metn, Lebanon, June 3, 2018.
90 Ibid.
91 Sune Haugbolle (Citation2019) Entanglement, Global History, and the Arab Left, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 51, p. 302.
92 Michael W. Suleiman (Citation1967) Political Parties in Lebanon: The Challenge of a Fragmented Political Culture , pp. 73–74 (Cornell, NY: Cornell University Press.
93 Author Interview with Jawad Nuwayhid, Beirut, Lebanon, May 30, 2018.
94 Ibid.
95 Ibid, June 5, 2018.
96 See Marieke Krijnen & Mona Fawaz (Citation2010) Exception as the Rule: High-End Developments in Neoliberal Beirut, Built Environment, 36, pp. 245–259.
97 For examples, see Maasri, Off the Wall; Julie K. deGraffenried (Citation2014) Sacrificing Childhood: Children and the Soviet State in the Great Patriotic War (Topeka, KS: University Press of Kansas); and Lillian Guerra (Citation2018) Heroes, Martyrs, and Political Messiahs in Revolutionary Cuba, 1946–1958 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press).
98 Shown to me during a conversation with Nuwayhids and friends, Ras al-Metn, Lebanon, June 3, 2018.
99 Jumblatt was the leader of the Lebanese National Movement, of which the Lebanese Communist Party was a part. For more information on Kamal Jumblatt, see Yusri Hazran (Citation2010) Lebanon’s Revolutionary Era: Kamal Junblat, The Druze Community and the Lebanon State, 1949 to 1977, Muslim World, no. 100, pp. 157–176.
100 Author’s conversations with Nuwayhids and friends, Ras al-Metn, Lebanon, June 3, 2018.