The Memorialization of the Lebanese Civil War Through Art Production - Why is art important in transitional justice? And how have Lebanese artists memorialized the civil war?

Analysis by Audrey Azzo, Visiting Contributor

June 21st, 2021

Introduction

Transitional justice was born as a pragmatic and theoretical field of study in the 1980s and 1990s, after the collapse of authoritarian regimes, but also more broadly in the context of post-conflict societies. Within the process of democratization, scholars and practitioners of the field have attempted to deal with the legacy of state-sanctioned violence. Several generalized pillars were introduced as means to deal with and overcome past atrocities. Amongst them are domestic, hybrid, and international courts, truth commissions, reparations, museums and memorials, but most importantly, structural institutional reforms. Each of these factors is associated with pragmatic means of application yet, they also have their limitations. Lebanese society witnessed a vicious civil war from 1975 till 1989. The reconstruction and reconciliation project that was advanced in the postwar era has proven to be inefficient and exclusive, as it progressively sponsored collective amnesia amongst the Lebanese population. Knowing that little to no transitional justice mechanisms were employed after 1989, the following article aims to look into the efforts that the Lebanese civil society engaged in for the purpose of memorializing the Civil War. We will be focusing precisely on artists and art production (installations, exhibitions, projects) in order to understand their ends, aims, and effects on the Lebanese public. Therefore, we will be examining the question: why is art important in transitional justice? And how have Lebanese artists memorialized the civil war?

Historical context 

Some consider that the 15 years of violence can be sketched out as a series of events limited in time and space, which explains why they denominate it as the Lebanese Civil Wars. If we were to explain the sequence of events, we would have to start off with what is known as the Two Years War. On April 13th, 1975, an armed conflict broke out between a right-wing Christian party known as the Phalange and a left-wing Palestinian party (belonging to the PLO), as Palestinians were given the right to defend their nation in possession of arms on Lebanese territory in the Cairo agreement of 1968 (ultimately undermining the sovereignty of the Lebanese state). In 1976, the Arab League attempted to intervene and end the conflict through the Arab deterrent forces constituting the second part of the conflict.

In 1982, the southern Lebanese border was invaded by Israeli forces. Hezbollah, at the time a non-state violent and armed actor, constituted the resistance and gained popular support. The final segment of the war came shortly after that event and mainly involved intragroup fighting in which militias were combatting each other. In the ’80s, most of the violence revolved around the intra-Christian wars. In 1989, the Taif Agreement was signed as a reconciliatory and peace treaty between all stakeholders involved in the war. Unfortunately, the Agreement was exclusive by nature and only concerned the elite. Subsequently, it was projected onto the Lebanese population as a “fait-accompli”. Instead of employing transitional justice mechanisms such as institutional reforms or reparations for the sake of social cohesion, reconciliation. and dealing with the past, the Taif Agreement institutionalized sectarianism with its new quotas on Christian and Muslim representation in the government. In 1991, an Amnesty law was enabled by the Lebanese parliament, freeing war criminals from any sense of accountability and responsibility. With that in mind, warlords had no reason to change their attitude and established their images as immune and unattainable, consequently acquiring prominent positions in the government, parliament, and administrative branches. On top of that, the reconstruction project inhabited by Solidere under the slogan “an ancient city for the future” ironically destroyed more buildings than “in almost twenty years of artillery bombardment and house-to-house combat”[1] (Makdidsi, 1997). As a matter of fact, Hariri’s project attempted to erase the civil war memory instead of preserving it, ultimately building a bridge between the war and the post-war period.

In Conflict and Peace Studies, scholars differentiate between negative and positive peace. Since 1989, Lebanon has been stagnated in negative peace, which simply entails the cessation of direct violence through compromise and political agreements between top leaders. Positive peace, which necessitates overcoming structural and cultural violence, has never been achieved.          

Since the end of the Civil War, political assassinations, suicide bombings, the 2006 War, various upheavals, and the August 4th explosion have happened, all of which are good indicators of the post-war context. Since the Lebanese ruling elite sponsored collective amnesia and cultural violence, the civil society took it upon itself to memorialize the civil war. We ought to look first at the importance of art in transitional justice scenarios before diving into a selection of important artworks produced by Lebanese artists. 

Why is art important in transitional justice?

In recent years, special attention has been given to art production by scholars in the field of transitional justice. Similarities between the two areas have been pointed out and elaborated upon over the years, as art fills the gap left by the legal side of transitional justice, in terms of outreach to the non-legal community, which is the majority of the population in post-conflict scenarios. In The emancipated spectator, Jacque Ranciere points out that visual images magnify “what can be seen, what can be said and what can be thought […] in times of political transition”[2].

It seems that the very first use of art within transitional justice can be traced back to the homas Lubanga Dyilo case (ICC)[3] where the court demanded that reparations should include art. To implement that, the Trust Fund for Victims was established. It is interesting that memorialization was taken from a local point, further stressing the importance of local participation and contextuality. The 10th paragraph in the order on reparations states the latter can “take a range of forms, including written, audio, artistic, events or other mediums”.[4]

There is an inherent problem between law and reconciliation, because law is outcome-oriented and analytical, while reconciliation is a process and specific to each victim[5]. In Setting the Scene: The Use of Art to Promote Reconciliation in International Criminal Justice, Marina Aksenova and Amber N. Rieff stress on the need to build a bridge between law and its values. The authors propose to perceive art as an easy communicative tool for the values that the law attempts to project onto the majority, the audience that does not understand law[6].

 On another note, Eliza Garnsey claims that in our contemporary world, international relations and aesthetics are inherently intertwined, because the latter gives insight into the socio-political situation while also opening up a dialogue and a “space for new political thinking”.[7]

The transitional mechanisms that we know of are efficient insofar as they embody the repair of a vast majority of issues. However, if the ultimate goal is reconciliation for the purpose of avoiding renewed conflict[8], commonly known as “the principle of non-recurrence”, transitional justice must look into a multiplicity of means to achieve its aims of engagement and participation.[9] This is also important because repairing a broken society entails finding creative ways of communication that art is able to provide.

Pablo de Greiff admits that there are reasons for the institution-centered functioning of these mechanisms, but unfortunately, this excludes the cultural aspect[10]. He goes further and claims that cultural production should be emphasized. Sherik Shefik adds to that the constraints that the pillars of transitional justice present us due to the “one-size fits all” approach[11].

We must look closely at the mechanisms mentioned in the introduction to understand their limitations.

Criminal prosecutions through international, hybrid, or domestic courts are lengthy and costly processes. Therefore, prosecutors can only try a small segment of the perpetrators, leaving many victims unsatisfied with the verdicts. On the other hand, truth commissions, such as the TRC, collect testimonies of victims and provide a platform to share individual experiences, ultimately building a “popular imaginary” that helps to overcome the atrocities. However, the process can be selective in terms of what stories to tell, especially when their testimonies have been exposed in courts and trials.[12]

Reparations, which can be material or symbolic, also have their limitations. Material reparations take the form of financial incentives; they must be combined with the symbolic type which entails public apologies. Unfortunately, financial reparations are sometimes not enough and, depending on the culture, could be perceived as insulting[13].

Some claim that art can work as a symbolic reparation, a point we will be elaborating on later in the article.

Structural institutional reforms function hand in hand with the concept of “vetting” and the guarantee of non-recurrence which, in practice, requires the removal of all individuals who participated in violence from governmental positions. Sherik Shefik makes it clear that participation is essential in transitional justice, yet it is reduced and often practiced with a very narrow approach[14].

Finally, memorials are essential in transitional justice, and most of them are state-sponsored, but Shefik rightfully critiques this mechanism for representing a “simplified and hegemonic story for the victims and perpetrators [by] using minimalist interpretations and non-existent storytelling”[15].

In his essay “art as a healing power in transitional justice”, Daniel Golebiewski states that “transitional justice is not a matter of law, but also a process of making sense of the past”[16]. In addition to that, art has the quality to process trauma, a prominent factor in reconciliation according to Marina Aksenova and Amber N. Rieff[17].

There are other points that are essential to mention in regards to the relationship between art and transitional justice. First, art production can improve the efforts that relate to recognizing past injustices, since it creates a dialogue and presents multiple narratives without attempting to unify history. In other words, “it encourages multiple interpretations”[18], as it accentuates the placement of victims, and most importantly, depending on the place in which it is exhibited and mostly when it is shown in public spaces, it is free of institutional constraints[19].

Sanja Bahun claims that art can “testify to the social challenges of transition, measuring satisfaction and evaluating the transitional processes”[20]. We can combine this argument with Eliza Garnsey’s explanation of the mode of functioning between art and transitional justice. The first concept she projects relates to “the dialectic memory of art”[21], in which cultural production is a method that functions as a witness and a memorial to former atrocities.

Art production in post-war Lebanon.

Many books, installations, films, and projects have been undertaken by artists who have experienced the Lebanese wars in part of these efforts to memorialize the misfortunate events,  considering that the state gave little to no attention to the matter. The efforts undertaken by political parties (former militias and violent non-state actors) to memorialize the war are not inclusive of all segments of the society[22]. In this section of the article, we will be putting forward and analyzing some relevant artworks, but we will also shed light on the efforts of local non-governmental organizations to enhance and encourage the production of such projects.

Sarah Rogers situates the issue of collective memory, trauma, and the limits of representation as a driving cause for Lebanese contemporary artists. According to her, contemporary artists in Lebanon operated as historians through the different topics they have centered on.  Their artworks worked to produce particular histories of Lebanon[23].

She traces the first artistic public intervention to take place in postwar Lebanon to Ziad Abillama’s beach Installation, 1992. The artist found a garbage dump in northern Antelias and turned it into an installation. After removing loads of garbage and cleaning up the place he collected material that connoted the war and proceeded to close the place with barbed wire and enlighten it. It is noticeable that the material exhibited contains bullets and military gear. For instance, there are two missiles displayed, one on a purple cushion enclosed by a glass box and the other on a shopping cart that was apparently taken from Spinneys[24]. The installation was in heavy contrast to the wreckage of the surrounding area. By exhibiting such a project, Abillama re-contextualized the military equipment used to destroy and turned it into creative and aesthetic production. Roger goes further with her analysis and states, “the experience of violence metamorphosed into an object of historical analysis and aesthetic contemplation” [25]echoing the importance of aesthetics that Eliza Garnsey spoke of in terms of transitional justice.

Another important project undertaken by a Lebanese artist is “Objects of War 1999- Ongoing” by Lamia Joreij. Her work consists of testimonials from family and friends which she filmed. She requested that each interviewee chooses an object that triggers their personal stories during the wars. There are four sections published up until now, ranging from 1999 to 2014. Interestingly enough, interviewees from the 2014 work spoke of the 2006 Israeli Hezbollah war.

In an interview hosted by the Saradar collection, the artist states that “this project contained in its essence its own failure”[26] because she realized that there is no way she can inclusively embody all of the histories in a single narrative. In that sense, her goal was to expose the different truths and versions of the history of the war. This is obvious in the interviews because each person has a different background and a different approach to the events.

The artist specifies that she never shows the project as a film or a simple multimedia video without the display of the objects. The combination of the two elements is necessary to create intimacy and establish a relationship between the interviews[27]. By doing so, she sparks up a dialogue within the audience. Eliza Garnsey uses in her text the example of ‘Rewind: A Cantata for Voice, Tape, and Testimony’, by Philip Miller. It is an audiovisual installation based on the testimonies given during the TRC exhibitions in Venice Biennale. There is a clear link between Lamia Joreij’s project and Miller’s. Both projects have embraced the multiplicity of truths in a subjective sense. Moreover, both projects hoped for the formulations of new identities after being exposed to differences in testimonies and narratives. And most importantly, experiencing both artworks and installations became central in knowing and understanding the past[28].

Contemporary art has witnessed different and divergent changes throughout the second half of the 20th century. One prominent shift in the art world emerged in the ’80s, with the theory on relational aesthetics conceptualized by Nicolas Bouriaud[29]. For him, relational art is a work that engages and produces specific experiences with the audience’s participation; he deems that a process-based approach is central in this typology of art, where there are no set criteria to abide by. It is about the social relations created between the artwork and the audience that is of paramount importance. This clarification explains why Marina Aksenova and Amber N. Rieff consider this art genre as a potential for integration in matters of reconciliation[30]. Their text resonates with a specific artwork exhibited in 2008 in an empty parking lot in the Beirut Downtown area by Nada Sehnaoui. The artist filled the space with 600 toilet seats and invited people to sit, talk and enjoy their time. The work was named ‘Haven’t 15 years of hiding in the toilets been enough?’[31]. There are two essential aspects to discuss in this artwork. First, the fact that it is exhibited in a public space downtown, a place heavily privatized, is to be considered as a critique to the ruling class. Second, this artwork is relational, at best because it encourages the participants to share an experience and opens up debate on the topic of the war, ultimately addressing the collective and state-sponsored amnesia. The audience takes part in constituting the whole project and this participation is considered a key element in transitional justice for the purpose of reconciliation.  In addition, the German philosopher Theodor Adorno is mentioned in Marina Aksenova and Amber N. Rieff’s text, specifically, his theory on how art functions in opposition to society, applies in Sehnaoui’s project.  Through art’s antipathy and hostility towards society, it acquires its status as social, and ‘Haven’t 15 years of hiding in the toilets been enough?’ is social through its opposition to society and the established status quo. The projects also successfully transmitted to the audience concepts of accountability, reconciliation, and collective amnesia in a simple yet powerful way.

In the last segment of the article, we will be focusing on the initiatives undertaken by civil society organizations to commemorate the civil war, specifically Beit Beirut and UMAM Documentation & Research.

Beit Beirut is a building located on what is known as the “green line” which divided west from north Beirut, it was also occupied by the Lebanese forces during the war. The site is considered to be a war museum. Prominent artists seized the opportunity to exhibit their work on this site. For instance, Zena el Khalil filled two entire floors with 17,000 green poles as a tribute to the disappeared, in her project titled ‘Sacred catastrophe: Healing Lebanon’ [32]. UMAM, on the other hand, has the commemoration of the war as its first and most important goal, with the creation of their internet-based archive ‘Memory at Work: A Guide for Lebanese on Peace and War’, they have contributed to accessing valid and valuable resources onto the general public. The most interesting aspect of UMAM is the HANGAR, a large space that fostered contemporary art practices in Lebanon and ultimately ignited discussions and debates about the political atmosphere. Taking into account that the institution is situated in Dahye, a region under Hezbollah’s grip, by providing the public with a place such as the HANGAR, UMAM acknowledges the institutional constraints imposed on artistic expression in the rest of the Lebanese territory and provides a safe haven for all sorts of people to express their ideas and stories. It also promotes the multiplicity of narratives and is inclusive in all of its projects. It works with both perpetrators and victims, as it did with its documentary MASSAKER (2005), non-Lebanese citizens are also a topic of discussion. In recent years, UMAM worked on the Syrian civil war.

To conclude, the artist bears the role of a historian when he works towards the commemoration of conflict in war-torn societies. Art must be integrated as a mechanism in transitional justice because it is locally born and exits the “one size fits all” paradigm. The efforts of the Lebanese government to commemorate the war were inefficient in terms of reconciliation and transition, therefore, individuals and civil society organizations took the lead on this project and embraced the multiplicity of narratives without romanticization. The most interesting genre of art that must be employed in transitional justice is relational art because of its inclusivity and lack of guidelines. Many artists other than the above-mentioned contributed to this effort, namely Rawi Hage, Wajdi Mouawad, Akram Zaatari, Jayce Salloum, Elias Khoury, Carole Mansour, Paula Yacoub, and so on. However, the question resides in the efficiency of these projects: to what extent have they affected reconciliation? A precise quantitative analysis must be undertaken to answer this question but from a general assessment, the state must back these initiatives for them to be efficient, and with the lack of a state in the current context, this goal seems to be far down the line of policy initiatives on the government’s agenda. Nevertheless, artists successfully commemorated the Lebanese civil wars through the multiple means and mediums presented to them under the circumstances.

[1] Makdisi, Saree. “Laying Claim to Beirut: Urban Narrative and Spatial Identity in the Age of Solidere.” Critical Inquiry 23, no. 3 (1997): 661–705. https://doi.org/10.1086/448848.

[2] Rancière Jacques, and Gregory Elliott. The Emancipated Spectator. London: Verso, 2021. (page 103)

[3] Aksenova, Marina, and Amber N. Rieff. 2020. “Setting the Scene: The Use of Art to Promote Reconciliation in International Criminal Justice.” Leiden Journal of International Law 33 (2). Cambridge University Press: 495–516. doi:10.1017/S0922156520000011.

[4] Idem

[5] Idem

[6] Idem

[7] Garnsey, Eliza. “Rewinding and Unwinding: Art and Justice in Times of Political Transition.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 10, no. 3 (2016): 471–91. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijw010.

[8] Shefik, Sherin. “Reimagining Transitional Justice through Participatory Art.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 12, no. 2 (2018): 314–33. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijy011.

[9] Idem

[10] Idem

[11] Idem

[12] Dukalskis, Alexander. “Interactions in Transition: How Truth Commissions and Trials Complement or Constrain Each Other1.” International Studies Review 13, no. 3 (2011): 432–51. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2486.2011.01014.x.

[13] Urban Walker, Margaret. “Making Reparations Possible: Theorizing Reparative Justice.” Essay. In Theorizing Transitional Justice, 211–20. Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate, 2015.

[14] Shefik, Sherin. “Reimagining Transitional Justice through Participatory Art.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 12, no. 2 (2018): 314–33. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijy011.

[15] Idem

[16] Golebiewski, Daniel. “The Arts as Healing Power in Transitional Justice.” E-international relations, February 19, 2014. https://www.e-ir.info/2014/02/19/the-arts-as-healing-power-in-transitional-justice/.

[17] Aksenova, Marina, and Amber N. Rieff. 2020. “Setting the Scene: The Use of Art to Promote Reconciliation in International Criminal Justice.” Leiden Journal of International Law 33 (2). Cambridge University Press: 495–516. doi:10.1017/S0922156520000011

[18] Garnsey, Eliza. “Rewinding and Unwinding: Art and Justice in Times of Political Transition.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 10, no. 3 (2016): 471–91. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijw010.

[19] Haider, Huma. “Art and Transitional Justice- Topic Guide.” GSDRC, August 2016. https://gsdrc.org/topic-guides/transitional-justice/thematic-aspects-of-transitional-justice/art-and-transitional-justice/.

[20] Bahun, Sanja. “Transitional Justice and the Arts: Reflections on the Field.” Research gate , January 2015. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311427731_Transitional_Justice_and_the_Arts_Reflections_on_the_Field.

[21] Garnsey, Eliza. “Rewinding and Unwinding: Art and Justice in Times of Political Transition.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 10, no. 3 (2016): 471–91. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijw010.

[22] Resources, July 1, 2012. https://www.c-r.org/accord/lebanon/dealing-lebanons-past-remembering-reconciliation-art-and-activism.

[23] Rogers, Sarah. “Out of History: Postwar Art in Beirut.” Art Journal 66, no. 2 (2007): 8–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043249.2007.10791250.

[24] Idem

[25] Idem

[26] Words on Works: Objects of War by Lamia Joreige. Youtube. Saradar collection, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KD32vEwSCU.

[27] Idem

[28] Garnsey, Eliza. “Rewinding and Unwinding: Art and Justice in Times of Political Transition.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 10, no. 3 (2016): 471–91. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijw010.

[29] “Relational Aesthetics – Art Term.” Tate. Accessed May 6, 2021. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/r/relational-aesthetics.

[30] Aksenova, Marina, and Amber N. Rieff. 2020. “Setting the Scene: The Use of Art to Promote Reconciliation in International Criminal Justice.” Leiden Journal of International Law 33 (2). Cambridge University Press: 495–516. doi:10.1017/S0922156520000011

[31] “Post-War Beirut: Interventions for Public and Private Spaces.” Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. Accessed May 6, 2021. https://www.acsa-arch.org/chapter/post-war-beirut-interventions-for-public-private-spaces/. (Click on "download paper")

[32] Larkin, Craig, and Ella Parry-Davies. “War Museums in Postwar Lebanon: Memory, Violence, and Performance.” Nationalism and Ethnic Politics 25, no. 1 (2019): 78–96. https://doi.org/10.1080/13537113.2019.1565182.

Cover photo credit to: Abdallah Farah, The story of a pyromaniac photographer, part of the project Wonder Beirut (1997-2006) by Khalil Joreige and Joana Hadjithomas.