Are we advertised to death?
A poster of Ali Khamenei, the spiritual leader of Iran, leads a row of posters of dead Hezbollah combatants in the southern Lebanese village of Yaater. (AFP/Ramzi Haidar)
With the back-and-forth sniping between Lebanon’s political parties this election season, it’s easy to feel that the Lebanese are coming under fire. Indeed, to anyone walking down the street, campaign billboards seem to form a seamless graphic representation of neighborhood power structure; row after row of Hezbollah campaign billboards along the airport road dissolve into Future Movement and Lebanese Forces posters, depending on whether they turn left or right.
Though it’s election season, public political imagery is anything but new in Lebanon. As is the case in other countries, public space in Lebanon is appropriated by various groups as they compete for the public’s attention, whether it is to convince you to buy a product, visit a restaurant, vote for a politician or remember the deceased. But few restrictions limit billboards in Lebanon, so advertisements for anything and everything frequently become overpowering along highways and other well-trafficked corridors.
Political billboards are particularly visible, but several scholarly works have recently begun to deeply examine the legacy they have in Lebanon. While many posters were removed in 2008 following the Doha Accord, election fever seems to be overpowering the spirit of reconciliation reached in Qatar last summer, and it is now difficult to tell that any removal effort ever occurred.
Upon arriving in Beirut six years ago, Paula Schmitt found its billboards “amusing” and “picturesque; a diversion in streets empty of public parks, benches or trees,” but over years spent living and reporting from Lebanon, Schmitt began to understand that the underlying purpose of Lebanese political billboards is to reinforce three “insidious” aspects of Lebanese political culture: “sectarianism, clientelism and the cult of personality.”
This is the thesis of Schmitt’s new book, Advertised to Death: Lebanese Poster Boys, released at Virgin Megastore in Beirut last Friday, in which she relates the development of her understanding of Lebanese political posters in a way that is quite understandable, if a bit unpolished, to those uninitiated into the complexities of Lebanon’s labyrinthine political environment.
The book is an academic-style study that manages to reveal the author’s frustration with the circularity and sectarian nature of Lebanon’s political arena; accordingly, Schmitt’s narrative is frequently punctuated by the use of the first person, so the book reads at times like a dissertation and at others like an opinion piece.
Schmitt, former Lebanon correspondent for Rolling Stone Brasil and Radio France Internationale, wrote the book as she completed her Master’s Degree in Middle Eastern Studies at the American University of Beirut. She makes an academic analysis of the iconography of signage, analyzing poses, geometry, contents and spatial context in Lebanon’s many political billboards. As well as analyzing the traditional posters that grace the cities and villages of Lebanon, Schmitt traces the evolution of posters over the past few years, noting the increased attention paid to design and the movement away from kitsch toward hip. Advertised to Death is illustrated with over 100 photos so readers can examine the competing slogans, photoshop trickery and sectarian nature of the signs for themselves.
Schmidt spares neither side of the political spectrum in her critique, with analysis devoted to the Amal Movement’s Nabih Berri, Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah, the Hariri family, the Gemayel family, and even the all-too-memorable ski accident victim memorial posters that have been plastered around Gemmayzeh and Achrafieh for over a year.
But more attention is paid to the signage of Hezbollah and Amal, perhaps because religious and political billboards tend to be more concentrated in Shia areas, and she chronicles the effective image overhaul executed by Hezbollah following the 2006 July War, when the group began calling itself the Lebanese Resistance.
But iconography is not just the currency of Lebanese politicking. Many Middle Eastern countries have long venerated political and social leaders by iconifying them in posters and other signage. A visit to any residence in Jordan will likely reveal a prominently hung photograph of King Abdullah, and a host of glowering images of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad greets anyone who crosses the Lebanese border at Masnaa. Yasser Arafat’s visage still gazes from the narrow alleyways of Lebanon’s sprawling Palestinian refugee camps.
However, the book argues that in Lebanon, such posters are not an exception but the rule: “[B]illboards in Lebanon make one believe that constituents here tend to follow personalities, rather than ideas.”
And since it is election season in Lebanon, the old habits of ginning up support with billboards and posters are intensifying with each passing day. As we see with the current election cycle, posters related to particular candidates are not only divorced from any policy proposals, but even willing to veer into territory usually occupied only by personal care products, as was the case with the scandal-producing “Sois belle et vote” billboards.
In an interview with NOW, Schmitt said about today’s billboards: “I know political propaganda is supposed to be very reductive and simplistic, by definition, but in Lebanon they are exclusively so – there are no political proposals on the billboards.”
“The billboards … [are] the first thing we see and absorb and live with if we walk in the city,” Schmitt said. “What does that give me to see the face of Pierre Gemayel, or Hariri, or Nasrallah? How are we benefitting from that?”
Indeed, while this question has been asked before, perhaps it has not been asked enough. The book is interesting and timely, but it does not ask the question as well as it could. The author does not spend much time analyzing the posters of the March 14 coalition, leaving the impression that her study of Lebanon’s political posters is actually more of a work on Shia imagery. The book leaves the reader with questions, but it is at least a good first step toward illuminating the true cost and effect of posters on the contemporary Lebanese political scene.
Article originally published in NOW Lebanon on June 3, 2009.
Lebanese Paintball Craze Springs from Harsh Reality
by Alice Fordham and Tim Fitzsimons, Special to the Globe and Mail
The patch of wasteland in the Hezbollah stronghold of south Beirut has a sign outside reading Special Forces. Inside, the ground is strewn with razor wire, crawling with uniformed youths and ringing with shots.
But it's not the Lebanese army at work: It's ultra-realistic paintball.
Lebanon's teenagers have grown up with war - among other conflicts the civil war that ripped the country apart until 1990, Syrian occupation until 2005 and the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006 - but that hasn't put them off the latest Lebanese craze.
Open for five months, Special Forces is across the road from the square where the militant Islamist political group Hezbollah held a triumphant rally earlier this year, in the heart of the huge suburb of Dahiyeh. The area is patrolled not by Lebanese police, but by Hezbollah.
Special Forces is far from the only paintball company to have opened in Lebanon this year - they often have names like Terror Tactics - but it is particularly popular, said co-owner Mohammad Biab, 24, because it is so realistic.
"Experienced people," he said, smiling, "helped the design to look like a real battlefield."
It is a sprawling patch of rubble, set among bombed-out apartment blocks, casualties of the war between Hezbollah and Israel. But nearby, too, are the new buildings that have sprung up as a result of massive Hezbollah regeneration of the area, which has produced the kind of stability that fosters leisure activities like paintball.
The open-air combat zone has a large dug-out trench to crawl through, barrels to hide behind and strings of real razor wire that inexperienced combatants trip over because the visors on their helmets are nearly opaque.
Mr. Biab gives lectures on tactics before each round, and during play sits on a platform, shouting "go, go," and peppering slow players with "bullets." Every effort, he said, has been made to make the uniforms authentic and to ensure the imported guns look as realistic as possible.
Special Forces is booked up for weeks and people come from all over Lebanon, from Sunni and Christian areas and others besides, Mr. Biab said. Although in the streets outside, many women are veiled and modestly dressed, he said that gangs of girls and mixed groups often come, put on camouflage and stage shootouts.
Hadi, 20, a perspiring customer who travelled from central Beirut to be here, was fresh from his second tour of the combat zone. He said that he liked paintball because "instead of being aggressive on the streets, I can use some weapons here and have fun and I am not hurting people."
But it is not just profit that is motivating Mr. Biab and co-owner Louai Helbawi.
He believes that through paintball he can create in Lebanon a nation ready to defend itself. "The other side," he said, referring to Israel, "is an enemy whose people have to serve one month each year in the army, so the whole environment is prepared for war. So we have to make people prepared for war."
When other nations hear about the realism of the paintball in Lebanon, he hopes, they will know that this is a nation that knows how to defend itself.
Customers come for entertainment, said Mr. Diab, "but the hidden idea behind this is political."
However, he said, the tactics of paintball do not foster an aggressive attitude to battle. "The first time you go out and carry a gun," he said, "the main object that directly comes into your head is that you have to defend yourself from bullets.
"Then afterwards," he added, as Hadi and his friends kicked off their boots like old soldiers, "comes the entertainment."
This article was published in the Globe and Mail on October 28, 2008.
Hezbollah: Party of God
(This multimedia presentation was published in Autumn 2007.)
HEZBOLLAH: Party of God from Institute For Global Leadership on Vimeo.
Hezbollah’s New Face
BEIRUT – 16 July 2008
The media circus staged last week by Hezbollah is what should be remembered as their true victory from the prisoner swap.
Following closely on the heels of the Mediterranean love-fest with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris, during which Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President Michel Sleiman were closer to each other than they will probably ever be again, this past week’s events show how much distance there really is between the two countries.
All of the important members of the Lebanese government were on hand at Beirut airport to laud the return of the prisoners – including a visibly unenthusiastic Prime Minister Siniora – as Hezbollah claimed victory and draped the day’s festivities in their flag. The images of the President giving a rousing speech praising the resistance contrasted sharply with the message from Paris, which was one of international cooperation.
Hezbollah’s motivation behind the theatrics was twofold: first, to give its supporters, still hurting from the 2006 war, an opportunity to thumb their noses at Israel; and second, to place into the news cycle the image of a nation rallying behind an event that was simultaneously Lebanon’s and Hezbollah’s.
Hezbollah had to make as much as possible out of the prisoner event, as its May campaign in Beirut and elsewhere left a negative image in the minds of Lebanese and people around the world. Their ability to stage the event and roll out all important members of government was largely based on the May events and the unity government that the resistance is now a part of.
It jumbled the party’s political imagery with that of the Lebanese state, further blurring the line between the two entities. The event’s posters and advertisements had a custom-made logo, the stage entrance of Kuntar and the others looked like they must have spent some time practicing in Israeli prison, and Nasrallah’s brief, security-blanketed appearance gave special weight to the day’s festivities. Their celebration was, by far, the most organized and well-executed enterprise to hit the streets of Beirut for some time.
Hezbollah’s tight visuals and sweeping camera montages held the attention of a news-addicted nation for an entire day, with everyone’s eyes fixed firmly on the pomp and symbol-laden circumstance of the party’s grand nationalization campaign. The degree to which Hezbollah endeavored – with success – to portray last week’s Hezbollah celebration as an event being celebrated by all Lebanese is impressive.
However, the fact remains that the prisoner swap was at least as much about Israeli domestic politics than it is about the strength of the weapons of the resistance. Ehud Olmert, buffeted by scandal and his botched handling of domestic and international affairs, has been grasping at anything to improve his image so that he can avoid the disintegration of his coalition. Israeli public opinion demanded from the unpopular Premier that the two soldiers be returned in accordance with Israeli military custom and Jewish tradition, and Hezbollah successfully kept silent about their deaths for nearly two years, so it had the upper hand in bargaining.
According to the posters strung up at the Naqoura border crossing, “Freedom is guaranteed by Nasrallah, and Humiliation is guaranteed by Olmert.” The words were in English, intended to be impress upon outside observers what a feat the group had accomplished. The various elements of the celebrations show that Hezbollah is intent on expanding beyond the hearts and the minds of the adoring supporters in the suburbs, who need no further proof. The next challenge for the group is bringing even broader support to their side. And with the possibility of peace between Israel and Syria hovering over the Levant, Hezbollah has to keep its image Lebanese.
Over the past few months, as rumblings of a Syrian-Israeli peace deal grew louder, Hezbollah greatly strengthened its presence in Lebanon. In May, the group demonstrated its military dominance when it took over West Beirut, and in July, its media advantage with the prisoner swap. Its events and coverage of the prisoner exchange were designed to reorient public opinion away from considering Hezbollah a fringe group and instead toward seeing it as a party that represents the Lebanese people.
Hezbollah Prisoner Exchange
Beirut - 16 July 2008
I began my day at four thirty in the morning. The electricity was out at the Orange House, but Poopy and Sour were barking and the two old ladies had emerged from their bedroom, bustling around in preparation for their daily sea-turtle regimen. I sat on the patio and thumbed through Fast Food Nation as the sun began to peek from around the banana leaves and orange trees. “That bird,” she told me, pointing up, “is the one that wakes me up every morning.”
It was five when we walked through their garden, over the disused train tracks, down the dirt road that cut through their orchard and unlocked the gate down to the beach. It was warm, just right, and strange looking crabs scrambled in terror from Poopy’s lazy march down the sand. We scoured one side of the beach, picking up random bits of trash that had washed in from other Mediterranean countries, and stared out at the wonderful mix of turquoise and purple that was slowly giving way to day. Fadi, the taxi driver from Beirut who was fixing for a journalist from the Frankfurter Allgemeie Zeitung, was there with us. He took out his Beiruti post-war traumatic stress disorder with a short bamboo rod on unlucky crabs. Meanwhile, we dug up turtle nests and fitting them with protective cages to discourage foxes and people. 
The eggs were soft, and she only dug up enough to see that they were there before covering the hole up. The whole thing was done quickly enough. I went back to the house and continued to read the good parts of the book. It was peaceful, quiet, for a bit. At breakfast I had toast with labneh and watched intently as flies feasted on poisoned sugar. I swiveled my head around and looked through the leaves of the trees and spotted UNIFIL helicopters zooming back and forth over the sea. By then, the cars had begun to zoom triumphantly south down the coast road to Naqoura, the border town with Israel where the day’s prisoner swap was happening. I went out to the road and watched as heavy Mercedes zoomed with young men hanging from the windows waving Amal and Hezbollah and SSNP flags, and they waved to my camera as I snapped photos of them. I left Mansouri with the German and the cabbie and went back north to Beirut. Nobody was on the highway; a lot of people were taking the day off to celebrate. I got dropped off at the Kuwaiti Embassy by the highway in a part of Beirut I didn’t know and I asked the incredulous embassy guards if they knew where Dahiyeh was. They squinted through the sun at me, listening hard, and after they deciphered what I was trying to say, they gesticulated wildly. Turn right, their hands said. I walked some more, past the infamous Sabra Palestinian refugee camp, and past a few relics of the 2006 Israeli bombing (emphasis on few). I got a little lost, so I ducked into a juice shop as the electricity flickered out and the blenders sputtered to a halt. I had a lemon ice slushie, and I sat sipping it and writing down thoughts. A sunglassed man was sitting at a table on the sidewalk, and I could see from inside that he had a thin, curled clear tube leading from under his collar to his ear. I only then realized that I was in the security zone, the area in the southern suburbs where Hezbollah reins supreme, checks passport, grants permission for access, and generally functions as an independent state. I walked out, careful to check over my shoulder to be sure that he wasn’t slowly tagging along, and walked down toward the route indicated by the man at the embassy. I had my camera backpack and my camera slung over my shoulder, and soon I heard “Psst, psst” coming from a teenager wearing tight black clothes with a walkie talkie sticking out of his pocket. On his brown baseball cap, I could make out the faded image of the fist holding a rifle – the symbol of Hezbollah. “Soura? Soura?,” he asked, and I knew he was talking about the camera. A few others swarmed up around him and stared at the scene, fingering their walkie-talkies. I had only experienced their tight control of images once in 2007, but then I was with a tour organized by the press office. I tried to explain that I was trying to find Jamya al-Qai’m. He looked at me bewildered. “Party?” I said, trying hard, “celebration? Nasrallah? Woo-hoo!?” “Ahh, okay,” he said, getting it. He pointed with his walkie-talkie over toward the other side of the street where there stood a black structure that looked like a miniature air traffic control tower. As I walked across the street I looked around and noticed the dozens of men with brown hats and walkie-talkies that were watching me from stores, from balconies, from windows with the curtains suddenly pulled back. They were everywhere. I stayed calm, knowing that you just need permission to be there, so I took out my passport and my press card and handed it to the man, trying to stay cool. “American?” he asked, lip curling, as he looked down at my passport. “Yep,” I said, resigned. (I had failed once before in pretending to be Canadian in sticky situations, so I just decided to never do it again.) “Daily Star?” “Yes, here for the celebrations.” He took my camera and slung it over his shoulder and went to a telephone and talked quickly to someone. He came back and told me to show him what I had photos of, so I showed him the photos of the beach and the turtle nests. He seemed confused. I said “Sour,” and he relented. He told me not to take any pictures of the neighborhood. I said I hadn’t, and I wouldn’t. But I told him that I wanted to get photos of the celebrations later in the day. “Okay,” he said, and then he walked away, with my camera over his shoulder. I followed him, a little worried. He brought me to the Hezbollah Media Relations Office, somewhere I had been before. 
He pressed the button for the elevator and we stood as it rose up, silently, awkwardly, and he knocked hard on the door and we were let into the office. A stern, teacherly-looking woman looked at me, noticeably unhappy to see someone there. “Yes?” They took my passport and photocopied it and she told me to go away and come back when the party had started. “Watch TV,” she instructed, “and come back when the helicopters land at Beirut airport.” As she was leaving the room I called out and told her that I had met her before, when my university had visited Dahiyeh last year, and she looked at me suspiciously. She didn’t remember. I asked for directions to Jamya al Qai’m, the mosque where the thing was supposed to happen and she wrote it for me on a piece of paper. She looked happy when I left. She had more important things to attend to - it was a big day. I went out from the office and was immediately redetained by forgetful Hezbollah security forces, who gesticulated at each other wildly in Arabic as I stood, frustrated, waiting for them to work out the misunderstanding. “I’m going away. Going, away, this way, I swear, no pictures, leaving. Coffee. Where can I have coffee?” They told me to go that way, and so I went. I sat in a long, handsome restaurant and drank many rounds of Turkish coffee as all the patrons watched Al Manar as the prisoner swap began. A few of the wealthy people there waved Hezbollah flags as if they were at some sort of unenthusiastic baseball game. I watched as trucks laden with coffins draped in the Lebanese flag crossed the border in front of a bandstand that read, “Freedom is guaranteed by Hassan Nasrallah, Humilitation is guaranteed by Ehud Olmert.” I forgave them for their awkward construction and realized that the group was trying to move its message to people like me. Those who it had not already won over. The whole entourage was there at Beirut airport to greet the prisoners when they arrived in the afternoon, including a visibly unhappy-to-be-there Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, whose new unity government included the celebrators. He gave the customary three cheek kisses stiffly, with little emotion. President Michel Suleiman, on the other hand, seemed very happy to be there. Since the prisoners had landed, I left and walked back to where I was going. I’ll cut out all the boring repetition of the various circles I made trying to figure out how to get in. On the way, a boy of maybe ten years asked me “You are American?” and groaning, I said, “yes...” “You love America?” I thought to myself “I could explain my sense of nationalism to you, but you would not understand...” He cut off my inner monologue with “And you love Israel?!” “No, please, go away,” I said, looking around and seeking to avoid a scene. I found the press tent eventually. It was a huge warehouse with the stylized portrait of Imad Mugniyeh, the recently assassinated Hezbollah terror mastermind. I was greeted with a smile by the sharply dressed media liaisons who took my bag, my press card, and asked me to sit down. They very quickly ran my name against a database and came back out, holding my press card (on which my name was misspelled) and asked “Are you still a student at Tufts University, or are you a journalist now?” I gulped. I hadn’t told them anything about anything having to do with Tufts. But I had interviewed a Hezbollah MP in 2007 with a Tufts delegation. They had a good database, and they wanted me to know it. “I’m still a student, but I’m just working at the Daily Star for the summer.” “Okay, just one moment,” he said with a smile. Someone brought me an Iranian-funded bottle of Tanourine mineral water and I sipped, waiting. They came back and tagged my camera and bag with security clearance slips and gave me a press pass which had a specially-designed logo for the event, and a serial number stamped into it with gold foil. They put me in a minibus and drove us through the layers of roadblocks and directly to the press stand. We passed guns and buns and an “ultra-realistic” paintball course and walked up into the crowd. 
The square was packed. The press stand was in the middle, with half of the area already packed with screaming, adoring, chanting fans all posing for the cameras. The tall apartment blocks surrounding were filled with people hanging from their balconies, waving flags. There were many security personnel on every building’s roof... In front of us, the VIP section was set up and largely empty. The stage had an enormous cutout fist punching the air – a new symbol I had 
seen on a few billboards – and a band singing rousing party music. The scene was truly incredible. There were boom cameras swinging over the scene, broadcasting live on Al Manar. The two jumbotrons were showing the festivities as they unfolded at Beirut airport: the President, Prime Minister, Speaker of the Parliament all lined up, kissing the prisoners as they disembarked in Hezbollah uniforms. President Suleiman gave what, despite my lack of Arabic, was certainly a rousing speech. The crowd behind me booed and cheered at all the right moments – whenever a member of the March 14th movement appeared on the screen, they all hissed and booed, and whenever anyone allied with Hezbollah came on, they went crazy. Like clockwork. 
There were also hundreds upon hundreds of security guards, of different levels. There were some wearing suits and carefully shuffling along the press so we didn’t stray, and there were also crowd managers who wore yellow Hezbollah hats and sunglasses, and told the people to stop littering and things like that. Three young girls wearing abayas were certainly spying on all the press on stage, covertly filming us as we took photos, typed up stories, and talked on our cell phones. I guess this is how Hezbollah builds its database.
There were a few speeches, and from the jumbotrons I could tell that things were getting closer. The motorcade was making its way from the airport to the square, and off to the side there appeared to be a commotion. Soon afterward, the prisoners themselves burst onto the stage, Samir Kuntar (the most notorious, and perhaps, most guilty) in the lead. They broke through the bars that were in the back of the stage, looking as if they had been practicing the stunt for some time, and not like they had just walked off of a helicopter fresh from thirty years in a foreign prison. Eventually Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah came on stage, literally wearing his security guards, who were hugging his large frame - likely already clad in many layers of Kevlar. The leader looked triumphant, hugged Kuntar, and began to give a speech. The crowd behind the press stand was euphoric; everyone was standing on their folding chair, and some even fell backward near me in a domino scene, but quickly regained their spot and threw pebbles at the heads of journalists for us to sit down. 
This was one of Nasrallah’s first public appearances in many months (I had heard two years, but I’m not sure), but he was gone quickly. Kuntar gave his speech, and by the time he was done, Nasrallah was back on the jumbotron, at his safehouse, giving the rest of his remarks. The whole thing was so incredibly carefully staged. We left the stage soon after, still in shock at what we had seen, the sounds, the organization of the whole event. As we walked through the dark streets of Dahiyeh and tried to find a taxi, Nasrallah’s speech echoed from every home, store, and passing taxi. It was eerily similar to what being in a totalitarian state must be like when The Leader gives a speech. Everyone was listening. My thoughts of the event will be posted soon. They are less organized, but that is a rundown of what happened.