UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) The meaning of resistance: Hezbollah’s media strategies and the articulation of a people el Houri, W. Publication date 2012 Document Version Final published version Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): el Houri, W. (2012). The meaning of resistance: Hezbollah’s media strategies and the articulation of a people. Rozenberg Publishers. General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. UvA-DARE is a service provided by the library of the University of Amsterdam (https://dare.uva.nl) Download date:01 Oct 2021 THE MEANING OF RESISTANCE: Hezbollah’s media strategies and the articulation of a people WALID EL HOURI THE MEANING OF RESISTANCE: HEZBOLLAH’S MEDIA STRATEGIES AND THE ARTICULATION OF A PEOPLE Walid el Houri ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam © Walid el Houri, 2012 All rights reserved. Save exceptions stated by the law, no part of this publication maybe reproduced, stored in a retrieval system of any nature, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, included a complete or partial transcription, without the prior written permission of the authors, application for which should be addressed to author. Cover photo: Various stages of disintegration, 2007 © Nicolien Kegels Rozenberg Publishers Lindengracht 302 d+e 1015 KN Amsterdam The Netherlands (+) 31 (0) 20 625 54 29 [email protected] www.rozenbergps.com ISBN 978 90 361 0286 5 THE MEANING OF RESISTANCE: HEZBOLLAH’S MEDIA STRATEGIES AND THE ARTICULATION OF A PEOPLE ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam op gezag van de Rector Magnificus prof. dr. D.C. van den Boom ten overstaan van een door het college voor promoties ingestelde commissie, in het openbaar te verdedigen in de Agnietenkapel op vrijdag 9 maart 2012, te 14:00 uur door Walid el Houri geboren te Beiroet, Libanon Promotiecommissie: Promotor: Prof. dr. P.P.R.W. Pisters Overige leden: Prof. dr. A.C.A.E. Moors Prof. dr. C.P. Lindner Prof. dr. J. Arquembourg Prof. dr. J. Früchtl Dr. J. Alagha Dr. M.M. Leezenberg Faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen In memory of my grandfather And to my loving parents, Sana and Marwan TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |xi NOTES ON TRANSLITERATION | xiii INTRODUCTION | 1 CHAPTER 1: FROM NASSER TO NASRALLAH: A HISTORICAL CONTEXT | 13 1. The rise and fall of Arab nationalism | 15 1.1 Consolidating the Arab nation | 16 1.2 Nationalism, colonialism and Islam | 23 2. “Islam is the solution” | 26 2.1 From Arabism to Islam |28 2.2 Slums and globalization | 30 3. The emergence of Hezbollah | 35 3.1 The Lebanese Shiite experience | 37 3.2 The transformations of Hezbollah | 39 3.3 The articulation of a multidimensional identity |44 CHAPTER 2: RESISTANCE AND HEGEMONY: SPACE, MEANING, AND THE ARTICULATION OF A PEOPLE|49 1. Populism as resistance: the construction of Hezbollah’s populist identity | 50 1.1 Resistance and hegemony |50 1.2 Politics as articulation |53 1.3 From hegemony to populism |55 1.4 Resistance as an empty signifier |57 1.5 From object to Thing |60 2. Strategies of resistance in war and conflict |63 2.1 On resistance as being heard and seen | 63 2.2 The role of popular culture in counter-hegemony |65 2.3 Political Islam, war, and media strategies |67 2.4 ‘War of signs’: war and the field of perception |69 2.5 Identification and jouissance |70 2.6 Resistance and the politics of space |72 CHAPTER 3: NASRALLAH ON THE SCREEN: NAME AND VOICE OF THE RESISTANCE |77 1. Charismatic leadership |80 1.1 Good, evil and empty signifiers |81 vii 1.2 Salvation narratives |83 1.3 Cultural references|84 2. Shiite faith in Hezbollah’s discourse: the religious sermons |85 2.1 A culture of resistance |87 2.2 Martyrdom, sacrifice, and the victory of blood over the sword |88 2.3 Beyond the religious scope: Ashura as a universal narrative of resistance |89 3. Articulating the nation: the public political speech |90 3.1 A narrative of resistance and victory |91 3.2 Hezbollah and the Lebanese state: articulating “you” and “they” |94 3.3 Resistance as a transnational model |97 4. The spectacle of victory: the 2006 war speeches |98 4.1 Two Lebanese publics: mobilization and reassurance |100 4.2 The Arab public: political criticism and the articulation of the nation |102 4.3 The Israeli public: psychological warfare |104 5. Media and war from 1967 to 2006 |107 5.1 Victory and defeat in the Arab context |108 5.2 Hassan Nasrallah: the emergence of a charismatic narrator |110 IMAGE ANNEX | 115 CHAPTER 4: SPECTACULAR VIOLENCE: FILMING HEZBOLLAH’S MILITARY OPERATIONS |123 1. Videotaping Hezbollah’s military operations |125 1.1 The Dabsheh tank, October 29, 1994 |126 1.2 Storming the Ahmadyeh outpost, June 29, 1996 |126 1.3 The Tallouseh operation, January 15, 1993 |127 1.4 From home movies to military videos |127 2. Same videos, different message |130 2.1 The videos as events |131 2.2 Framing the videos |131 2.3 The dual audience of the media war |132 3. On the strategy of showing violence |134 3.1 Showing is doing |134 3.2 Exhibiting power: hegemony and the promise of order |138 3.3 Playing the military operations |139 3.4 Perception and emotions: framing victory and showing martyrdom |141 4. The videos as archives |143 4.1 From the event to the archive |143 4.2 The political function of images |144 4.3 Re-articulating the archive |146 viii CHAPTER 5: THE MUSIC VIDEOS: FROM THE SECT TO THE NATION |149 1. Resistance in sounds and images |150 1.1 A genealogy: from MTV to Al Manar |150 1.2 The grammar of music videos |152 1.3 Music and war |153 1.4 The changing context of a practice |155 2. The changing boundaries of a multidimensional people |156 2.1 A religious call to duty |156 2.2 Articulating victory: the Hezbollah anthem |159 2.3 The emergence of a national narrative |161 2.4 Re-articulating the Arab nation |163 2.5 "The victory of the Arabs": from Lebanon to the Arab nation |166 CHAPTER 6: THE POLITICS OF INHABITATION: MAKING SPACE SPEAK |173 1. Land and identity: Lebanese politics and the Ashura campaigns |174 1.1 Occupation and resistance |174 1.2 Lebanese politics and sectarian (im)balance |176 1.3 Black turns yellow: colour politics and the changing face of the resistance |178 2. The faces of resistance: martyrdom and the de-politicization of politics |180 2.1 Politics and advertisement |180 2.2 Politics and emotional frames |183 2.3 Mobilization, commodities, and the faces of martyrs |185 3. Re-appropriating space: everyday spatial practices of liberation and hegemony|189 3.1 Power and deterrence |189 3.2 Displays of order and military trophies |192 3.3 Transgression and the meaning of space: the re-appropriation of Khiam |193 CONCLUSION |199 BIBLIOGRAPHY |207 SUMMARY |219 SAMENVATTING |223 ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would first like to thank the members of my committee for their interest, time and surely their patience in reading my project. I would also like to thank the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis and the University of Amsterdam for providing me with an open and inclusive atmosphere to develop my academic interests with seminars and events that shaped both my academic and intellectual work. My gratitude then goes to my supervisor, Patricia Pisters, who has been involved in my academic career and supportive of me ever since I arrived at the University of Amsterdam to do my MA in Film Studies in 2005. After supervising my MA thesis she encouraged me to write my PhD. Her comments, support, and constant encouragement throughout the long process of research and writing were invaluable and without her inconspicuous ways of getting me to organize my time this project would have remained a work in progress. I would also like to thank Eloe Kingma and Marc van Steekelenburg for all their help and for answering my many questions in dealing with the bureaucratic complications that come with being a non-EU national in the Netherlands. Throughout the last five years, a number of people were there to share and help manage (most of the time successfully) the complicated emotions that came with the process of writing a PhD. I would like to thank these people who made my life in Amsterdam and Beirut a great experience filled with challenging and insightful (late-night) conversations lasting countless hours, drinks and topics. These people have become my extended family scattered around the world but always present in my heart and life. Each of them has had an impact on me in a unique and immutable way and for that I am grateful.