Memory and Conflict in Lebanon: Remembering and Forgetting the Past by Craig Larkin

Author:Craig Larkin [Larkin, Craig]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Middle East, General, Social Science, Anthropology, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9781136490613
Google: Gd3FBQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-03-15T01:35:06+00:00

Figure 5.4 Amal poster on the old airport road, showing leader and parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, and the movement’s religious founder, Musa as-Sadr, May 2006 – Craig Larkin ©.

Hashim Sarkis, writing on Lebanon’s post-war built environment, locates the problem in the disintegration of the distinction between public and private space. The war, he claims, caused the state to relinquish control of the public domain and these civic spaces became ‘occupied by communities seeking expression and identification’ (Sarkis 1993: 120). This process is yet to be fully reversed, and consequently many residential and commercial areas of Beirut continue to abound with shrines of saints, images of martyrs and posters of political scions, rather than national emblems or a collective unifying ‘neutral’ space (see Figures 5.6 and 5.7). These districts are not only claimed spatially through symbolic branding, but defined internally by graffiti and murals. The walls speak, as such, into the lives of the community; informing of past heroes and battles; warning against present dangers and enemies and instructing on identity and ideology. In Ashrafieh an inscription proclaims, ‘Eastern Beirut is one and it will remain one, as a forbidden Christian territory’; a stark reminder for those proponents of integration. In Basta, a faded slogan projects both hope and threat, ‘Amal is light for those seeking it and fire for those who aggress’; the interpretation lies with the reader. In Dahiyya, street names and open spaces have been rebranded under Hizbullah’s guidance and commemoration days – ʿAshouraʾ, al-Quds Day,

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