Images in the media: Erasing Lebanese contradictions

Looking for the truth

It is often said that a photo speaks a thousand words. Spencer Platt’s photo of Lebanese women cruising the devastated, rubble streets of southern Lebanon in a red convertible car after the month-long Israel-Lebanon war last summer, speaks volumes.

The photo, recently named the World Press Photo of the Year, was recognized for demonstrating a slice of the many contradictions that exist in Lebanese society.

I traveled to Lebanon before the war and saw these paradoxes first hand. I saw devout Muslim women in headscarves and loose-fitting robes as well as other women dressed in tight, revealing clothes with heavy make-up and coiffed hair. Lebanon is all too familiar with these inconsistencies in its society.

Cynthia Sammour, a Lebanese graphic artist from Tripoli, told me that Platt’s photo shows that the Lebanese have “gotten used to the concept of war.”

“They’ll be stuck with a curfew on one day and then go out clubbing the next day,” she explained.

This may be true. Perhaps more worrisome than these contradictions is the escalating divisions at the political level. For example, while Lebanese politicians and religious leaders make appeals for unity, the opposition, led by the Shiite Hezbollah party, is holding an open-ended public sit-in aimed at bringing down the Lebanese government. The population, taking its cues from political figures, becomes further divided along sectarian and political lines.

Lebanese media do not hesitate to highlight these differences, sometimes even mocking them.

Enter “La Youmal” (Arabic for “Not Boring”), a popular Lebanese television comedy show on Future TV, which spoofed these protests.

In the scene, two crowds of angry protestors are yelling at each other.

One group, led by a man, is carrying bright yellow Hezbollah flags and chanting, “We will make the government collapse.”

The other group, led, by a woman, is carrying Lebanese flags and chanting, “You will not make the government collapse.” Finally, the lead man, who turns out to be recently married to the lead woman, says “It’s 2:30 already, what did you make for lunch?” She tells him and the newlyweds go off to eat together, leaving the protesters behind.

A report on New TV, further illustrated widening gaps in Lebanese society, addressing a novel trend among cell phone users. Lebanese are downloading cell phone rings of political and sectarian songs and speeches by their politicians of choice, including Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and Parliament Member Saad Al Hariri, son of the slain Rafiq Al Hariri.

One unnamed, cell phone user told New TV that he changes his cell phone ringer according to his location.

“If I am in the Dahiya (southern suburb of Beirut), I put Nasrallah as the ringer,” he said. “If I am on the Jeerah road, I put on Hariri.”

Amidst a tense political atmosphere, the Lebanese people are still trying to recover from a devastating war with Israel last summer. The war cost the country nearly one thousand lives, displaced hundreds of thousands of others and caused billions of dollars in damage. The continued sectarian clashes, explosions, assassinations, and political chaos have pushed many people over the edge.

New TV reports that Lebanese youth are increasingly using sedatives to calm their nerves. Forged prescriptions and drug traffickers are making such drugs readily available to an anxious youth.

“Sometimes I have nervous breakdowns,” one unnamed Lebanese woman told New TV. “I take a pill or something so that I don’t bother the people around me.”

But is Lebanon really heading towards a sectarian civil war? While most youth, who spoke to Future TV, dismissed the idea of a civil war, others, like Ali, put it more plainly.

“People are driven. They’re driven by what their politicians say. People are very emotional in Lebanon. Depending on what their politicians tell them to do, they perform. And you had foreign interventions like the Syrians, the Israelis, the Palestinians; they all influenced what happened in Lebanon.”

Nonetheless, unique efforts are underway to calm nerves and reduce sectarian tensions. One Lebanese advertising company, 05Amam, exists solely to promote Lebanese unity through humor and satire. 05Amam also distributes humorous signs, pamphlets and paraphernalia to promote tolerance and sectarian coexistence. For example, one of its street signs reads, “Parking for Maronites Only.” Maronites are a Christian sect in Lebanon.

“By laughing, it might unite us,” Khodar Maccaoui, 05Amam’s vice president told Future TV. “We don’t think that this campaign is going to eradicate sectarianism in Lebanon or make it disappear. The objective is to show people that if you are Shiite, Sunni, Maronite or Orthodox, we are all the same, we are all Lebanese.”

Such unifying messages are needed today, more than ever. Certainly, the Lebanese people, having lived through a difficult 15-year civil war and an equally long Syrian occupation are keen to emphasize their Lebanese identity while minimizing political and sectarian differences as well as foreign influences.

While in Lebanon, I sat at a dinner table with Muslims and Christians of varying political orientations. We ate together, discussed politics and sang the latest songs together. I witnessed true co-existence between Lebanese Muslims, both Sunni and Shiite as well Christians and Druze, who were living peacefully side-by-side as friends and neighbors.

As the world’s attention focuses on Lebanon, we can only hope that the Lebanese will reach common-ground solutions to their political and sectarian rifts. Rather than contradictions and divisions, perhaps future award-winning photos will portray Lebanese peace and harmony.

Souheila Al-Jadda is a journalist and an associate producer of a Peabody award-winning show, Mosaic: World News from the Middle East, on Link TV.