National versus Communal Memory in Lebanon

Abstract

The aim of this article is to distinguish between two levels of collective memory in Lebanon: the national memory, which is a very weak and fragile memory, and the communal memory of sectarian groups. Each community in Lebanon enjoys a memory of its own, which it tries to elevate to the national memory, but at the same time intra-sectarian groups contest their internal memories with others. Hence, we see that communities try to force the state to adopt their respective memories, while internally groups tend to eliminate their competitor’s memory and communal narrative.

Notes

Notes

1 In almost all Lebanese villages there are two monuments that commemorate the memory of martyrs who belong to the designated village or a specific political party.

2 The Martyrs Square, where the national heroes were executed by the Ottomans in 1916, has become a small square in a jungle of cement towers, and the martyrs’ graveyard is a neglected place that has no demarcated reference at all.

3 Duncan S.A. Bell, “Mythscapes: Memory, Myth and National Identity,” The British Journal of Sociology 54, no. 1 (2003): 71–72.

4 Jeffrey Olick, The Politics of Regret: On Collective Memory and Historical Responsibility (New York: Routledge, 2007), 122; quoted in Dori Laub and Federico Finchelstein, “Memory and History from Past to Future: A Dialogue with Dori Laub on Trauma and Testimony,” in Memory and the Future: Transnational Politics, Ethics and Society, edited by Yifat Gutman, Adam Brown, and Amy Sodari (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 69.

5 Maurice Halbwachs, The Collective Memory (New York: Harper-Colophon Books, 1950), 48–55.

6 Eviatar Zerubavel, Time Maps: Collective Memory and the Social Change of the Past (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2003), 13.

7 Jan Assmann and John Czaplicka, “Collective Memory and Cultural Identity,” New German Critique 65 (1995): 126.

8 Ibid., 129.

9 Qi Wang, “On the Cultural Constitution of Collective Memory,” Memory 16, no. 3 (2008): 305.

10 Avishai Margalit, The Ethics of Memory (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 14.

11 Bell, “Mythscapes,” 69–70.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid., 71.

14 Ibid., 75.

15 Ibid.

16 Wulf Kansteiner, “Finding Meaning in Memory: A Methodological Critique of Collective Memory Studies,” History and Theory 41, no. 2 (2002): 187, cited in Sami Hermez, War Is Coming: Between Past and Future Violence in Lebanon (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 153.

17 Hermez, War Is Coming, 153.

18 Jenny Edkins, “Remembering Relationality: Trauma Time and Politics,” in Duncan Bell, Memory, Trauma and World Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 101.

19 Zerubavel, Time Maps, 4.

20 Gary Alan Fine, “Sticky Cultures: Memory Publics and Communal Pasts in Competitive Chess,” Cultural Sociology 7, no. 4 (2013): 395–96.

21 Nico H. Frijda, “Commemorating,” in Collective Memory of Political Events, edited by James W. Pennebaker, Dario Paez, and Bernard Rime (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1997), 111.

22 Elsa Abou Assi, “Collective Memory and Management of the Past: The Entrepreneurs of Civil War Memory in Postwar Lebanon,” International Social Science Journal 61, no. 202 (2010): 399.

23 Sune Haugbolle, “Public and Private Memory of the Lebanese Civil War,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 25, no. 1 (2005): 193.

24 Michael Young, “The Sneer of Memory: Lebanon’s Disappeared and Postwar Culture,” Middle East Research and Information Project, no. 217 (2000): 43.

25 Craig Larkin, “Beyond the War? The Lebanese Postmemory Experience,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 42, no. 4 (2010): 618.

26 Young, “The Sneer of Memory,” 45.

27 Ibid.

28 Hermez, War Is Coming, 148.

29 Sune Haugbolle, War and Memory in Lebanon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 71.

30 Abou Assi, “Collective Memory and Management of the Past,” 400.

31 Ibid., 401; Haugbolle, “Public and Private Memory,” 196.

32 Haugbolle, “Public and Private Memory,” 196.

33 Hermez, War Is Coming, 148.

34 Lucia Volk, Memorials and Martyrs in Modern Lebanon (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010), 19.

35 Samir Khalaf, Civil and Uncivil Violence in Lebanon: A History of the Internationalization of Communal Conflict (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 306–9.

36 Volk, Memorials and Martyrs in Modern Lebanon, 97.

37 According to Volk, the land where the martyrs are buried looks abandoned and in disarray. See Volk, Memorials and Martyrs in Modern Lebanon, 51.

38 Ibid., 109.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid., 164.

41 Ibid., 125.

42 A review of Geagea speeches during the commemoration event shows that he always manages to attack Hezbollah.

43 “Asharāt al-‘Ulūf fi Kiddās Harı¯sa” [Tens of Thousands in the Mass in Harisa], Annahar, no. 22785, 25 Sept. 2006; “al-Kuwāt Istaʾādat ʾAsabihā ash-Shaʾbı¯” [The Lebanese Forces Regained its Popular Cohesion], Annahar, no. 23477, 22 Sept. 2008.

44 “Asharāt al-‘Ulūf fi Kiddās Harı¯sa.”

45 “Geagea During Rally Commemorating LF Martyrs,” National News Agency, 3 Sept. 2016, http://nna-leb.gov.lb/en/show-news/67848/Geagea-during-rally-commemorating-LF-Martyrs-Solution-lies-in-electing-Aoun-as-president-and-Hariri-to-premiership (accessed 28 Nov. 2017).

46 Asharāt al-‘Ulūf fi Kiddās Harı¯sa.”

47 In all speeches from 2006 to 2017. See, for example, “Geagea Insists Majority Government Would Solve Cabinet Conundrum,” Saida Online Magazine, 28 Sept. 2009, www.saidaonline.com/en/news.php?go=fullnews&newsid=14824; “Geagea Says Fear of Extremism Does Not Justify Crimes of Dictatorships,” Naharnet, 24 Sept. 2011, www.naharnet.com/stories/en/15791; “Geagea Slams Suleiman’s Critics,” Naharnet, 1 Sept. 2013, www.naharnet.com/stories/en/96441; “Geagea Says Depriving Lebanon of Christian President a Political Crime, Rejects Autonomous Security,” Naharnet, 6 Sept. 2014, www.naharnet.com/stories/en/146415-lf-chief-geagea-at-annual-mass-commemorating-lebanese-resistance-martyrs#82764; “Geagea During Rally Commemorating LF Martyrs,” National News Agency, 3 Sept. 2016; “Geagea Says Probe Must Involve Hezbollah-Led Deal That Led to IS ‘Escape’,” Naharnet, 10 Sept. 2017, www.naharnet.com/stories/en/235167-lf-chief-geagea-at-annual-maarab-rally-commemorating-lebanese-resistance-martyrs (accessed 20 April 2018).

48 “al-Kuwāt Istaʾādat ʾAsabihā ash-Shaʾbı¯,” Annahar, 22 Sept. 2008.

49 See, for example, the mass from 2005 to 2017.

50 “Asharāt al-‘Ulūf fi Kiddās Harı¯sa.”

51 “al-Kuwāt IstaʾādatʾAsabihā ash-Shaʾbı¯.”

52 “al-Kuwāt al-Abwāb Musharrʾat lil Inkilābiyı¯n wa Shaʾbina Mustaʾed li 14 Athār Kai Lā Tahwa al-Jumhuriyah,” al-Markaz al-Thakāfi lil Buhūth wal Tauthı¯k, 25 Sept. 2011, http://www.markazthakafisaida.org/index.php (accessed 3 March 2018); see also “Geagea Says Fear of Extremism Does Not Justify Crimes of Dictatorships,” Naharnet, 24 Sept. 2011.

53 “Geagea Lashes Out at Government, Says Impact of Syrian Regime Should be Removed,” Naharnet, 1 Sept. 2012, www.naharnet.com/stories/en/52090 (accessed 4 Dec. 2017).

54 Youssef Hourany, “Lebanon Recalls War Dead of 13 Oct. 1990,” Asia News, 14 Oct. 2005, http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Lebanon-recalls-war-dead-of-13-October-1990-4366.html (accessed 20 March 2018).

55 “ath-Thekra al-15 li 13 Tishrı¯n Ahyāha at-Tayār al-Watani fi al-Mutaileb wa Bait Meri wa Bsūs” [the 15th Commemoration of 13 Oct. by the Patriotic Movement in al-Mutaileb and Bait Meri and Bsūs], Annahar, no. 22456, 14 Oct. 2005; “Nashātāt wa Ması¯rāt wa Kadādı¯s fi Thekra 13 Tishrı¯n” [Activities and Marches and Masses in the Commemoration of 13 Oct.], Annahar, no. 23150, 15 Oct. 2007; “at-Tayār al Watani ‘Ahya Thekra 13 Tishrı¯n fi al Hadat” [The Patriotic Movement Commemorated the 13 Oct. in Hadat], Annahar, no. 24191, 13 Oct. 2010.

56 “al-Thekra al-15 li 13 Tishrı¯n Ahyāha at-Tayār al-Watani fi al-Mutaileb wa Bait Meri wa Bsūs,” Annahar, no. 22456, 14 Oct. 2005.

57 Ibid.

58 “Kuddās at-Tayā al-Watani fi Jubail” [A Mass for the Patriotic Movement in Byblos], Annahar, no. 23496, 13 Oct. 2008; “at-Tayār al Watani ‘Ahya Thekra 13 Tishrı¯n fi al Hadat,” Annahar, no. 24191, 13 Oct. 2010.

59 “Kuddās at-Tayā al-Watani fi Jubail.”

60 “Michel Aoun,” Now Lebanon, 12 Oct. 2009, www.now.mmedia.me/lb/en/archive/michel_aoun12 (accessed 2 Feb. 2018).

61 “at-Tayār al-Watani al-Hor ‘Ahya Thekra 13 Tishrı¯n 1990 fi Jounieh” [The Free Patriotic Movement Commemorated the 13 Oct. 1990 in Jounieh], National News Agency, 13 Oct. 2017, www.nna-leb.gov.lb/ar/show-news/308911/AUB (accessed 20 Jan. 2017).

62 “at-Tayār al Watani ‘Ahya Thekra 13 Tishrı¯n fi al-Hadat,” Annahar, no. 24191, 13 Oct. 2010.

63 In all his speeches from 2005 to 2017 there is this attempt.

64 “Aoun from Baabda: Those Hindering National Obligations Will Pay the Price,” Naharnet, 11 Oct. 2015, www.naharnet.com/stroies/en/191736 (accessed 20 Oct. 2017).

65 Ibid.

66 Hassan Nasrallah, 11 Nov. 2001, https://www.mediarelations-lb.org/article.php?id=424&cid=104#.WrUB-ohuY2w; see also, Hassan Nasrallah, 11 Nov. 2008, https://www.mediarelations-lb.org/article.php?id=6434&cid=104#.WrUCJIhuY2w (accessed 23 Nov. 2017).

67 Hassan Nasrallah, 11 Nov. 2001, https://www.mediarelations-lb.org/article.php?id=424&cid=104#.WrUB-ohuY2w; Hassan Nasrallah, 11 Nov. 2009, https://www.mediarelations-lb.org/article.php?id=6464&cid=104#.WrUDIIhuY2w (accessed 22 Nov. 2017).

68 Hassan Nasrallah, 11 Nov. 2008, https://www.mediarelations-lb.org/article.php?id=6434&cid=104#.WrUCJIhuY2w.

69 Hassan Nasrallah, 14 Dec. 2001, https://www.mediarelations-lb.org/article.php?id=644&cid=114#.WrUDmohuY2w (accessed 23 March 2018).

70 Hassan Nasrallah, 12 Nov. 2004, https://www.mediarelations-lb.org/article.php?id=2804&cid=114#.WrUD0YhuY2w; Hassan Nasrallah, 5 Oct. 2007, https://www.mediarelations-lb.org/article.php?id=3924&cid=114#.WrUD24huY2w; Hassan Nasrallah, 26 Sept. 2008, https://www.mediarelations-lb.org/article.php?id=6444&cid=114#.WrUD6IhuY2w; Hassan Nasrallah, 26 Aug. 2011, https://www.mediarelations-lb.org/article.php?id=6734&cid=114#.WrUD9IhuY2w (accessed 20 Nov. 2017).

71 Hassan Nasrallah, 17 Aug. 2012, https://www.mediarelations-lb.org/article.php?id=8964&cid=114#.WrUFoohuY2w; Hassan Nasrallah, 25 July 2014, https://www.mediarelations-lb.org/article.php?id=11984&cid=114#.WrUF14huY2w (accessed 20 Dec. 2017).

72 Hassan Nasrallah, 26 May 2000, https://www.mediarelations-lb.org/article.php?id=1564&cid=144#.WrUF-IhuY2w (accessed 20 Dec. 2017).

73 Ibid.

74 Hassan Nasrallah, 25 May 2005, https://www.mediarelations-lb.org/article.php?id=3164&cid=144#.WrUGPYhuY2w (accessed 20 Dec. 2017).

75 Hassan Nasrallah, 25 May 2006, https://www.mediarelations-lb.org/article.php?id=3584&cid=144#.WrUHZIhuY2w (accessed 20 Dec. 2017).

76 Hassan Nasrallah, 22 Sept. 2006, https://www.mediarelations-lb.org/article.php?id=3684&cid=164#.WrUHq4huY2w (accessed 22 Dec. 2017).

77 Volk, Memorials and Martyrs in Modern Lebanon, 175–77.

78 Ibid., 179–80.

79 This has often happened during Saad Hariri’s prime ministership.

80 “Thekra Hariri Tuʽı¯d Jameʽ 14 Athār” [Hariri’s Commemoration Re-Unites 14 March], Addiyar Newspaper, 15 Feb. 2015, http://www.addiyar.com/article/854814; Joumblatt: An-Nı¯thām as-Sūrı¯ Muntaj Israili” [Joumblatt: The Syrian Regime Is an Israeli Production], Beirut Obsever, 15 Feb. 2007, http://www.beirutletter.org/index.php?page=press&id=1404&action=Detail; “Hariri Reiterates Rejection of Any Alliance with Hezbollah,” Asharq al-Awsat, 15 Feb. 2018, https://aawsat.com/english/home/article/1176066/hariri-reiterates-rejection-any-alliance-hezbollah (accessed 24 March 2018).

81 “Hariri fi Thekra Wālidah” [Hariri in the Commemoration of His Father], Lebanon Files, 14 Feb. 2015, http://www.lebanonfiles.com/news/844174; “Lebanon is Arab and Will Remain So,” Gulf News, 14 Feb. 2016, http://gulfnews.com/news/mena/lebanon/lebanon-is-arab-and-will-remain-so-sa-ad-hariri-vows-1.1672395 (accessed 24 March 2018).

82 The main internal “other” facing the Future Movement is radical Sunni groups who up until now have failed to become a major competitor in the process of assuming the political leadership of the Sunni community.

83 “Thekra Igtiyāl Kamal Joumblatt” [The Commemoration of Kamal Joumblatt], Beirut Letter, 17 March 2009, http://www.beirutletter.org/index.php?page=press&id=6851&action=Detail; “Fi Thekra Igtiyāl Wālidah Kamal Joumblatt” [In the Commemoration of the Assassination of His Father Kamal Joumblatt], Beirut Times, 16 March 2018, http://beiruttimes.com/article/4145 (accessed 30 March 2018).

84 Charles Ayoub, “Joumblatt: Sāmaht Laken Lam Ansa” [Joumblatt: I Forgave but Did Not Forget], Addiyar, 6 July 2017, http://www.addiyar.com/article/1436506 (accessed 20 March 2018).

85 “Intilāk Maʽrad Kamal Joumblatt fi Beitedin” [Kamal Joumblatt’s Exhbition Starts in Beitedin], Anbaaonline, 30 June 2017, http://anbaaonline.com/?p=538421 (accessed 20 March 2018).

86 “Joumblatt Yadaʽ Alam ath-Thaura ʽala Darı¯h Wālidih” [Joumblatt Puts the Flag of the Revolution on His Father’s Tomb], Al-Ittihad, 17 March 2012, http://www.alittihad.ae/details.php?id=27131&y=2012 (accessed 23 March 2018).

87 Bimawdouiyeh talk show on Murr TV, 30 Jan. 2016, http://mtv.com.lb/Programs/Bi_Mawdouiyeh/2016/Videos/Part_1 (accessed 28 June 2016).

88 Sawt al-Jabal, 14 Feb. 2016, https://sawtaljabal.com/news/detailsnews.php?n=news&c=hot&news=8474 (accessed 28 June 2016).

89 The town was a site for violent clashes between the Druze and the Maronites.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eduardo Wassim Aboultaif

Eduardo Wassim Aboultaif is an instructor at the Lebanese American University. He studies deeply divided societies, international relations of the Middle East, and communal memory. His forthcoming book, Power Sharing in Lebanon: Consociationalism since 1820, studies the relationship among memory, trauma, mobilization, and consociationalism in Lebanon.

Paul Tabar

Paul Tabar teaches sociology and migration studies at the Lebanese American University and is an affiliated researcher with the Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University.