Abstract:

The author addresses the problem of contested histories and memories in Lebanon. By setting a focus on contestation through public commemoration festivities, Mara Albrecht discusses the discrepancy between the lack of a public process of coming to terms with the past and the numerous public events by political parties that are dedicated to remembering the civil war. She locates this ambivalent discourse in the wider context of symbolic politics in Lebanon and expounds why Lebanon’s fixation with the symbolic sphere of politics is a result of its fragmented society, its dysfunctional political system and the competition of multiple national and historical narratives.
DOI: dx.doi.org/10.1515/phw-2020-16551.
Languages: Arab, English, German