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From Symbols of Militant Shi’ism to Signs of Moderate Nationalism: Transformations in Hizbullah’s Political Posters (1985–present)
Abstract
In the aftermath of Israel’s 33-day war on Lebanon in 2006, Hizbullah issued a controversial nation-wide media campaign claiming a ‘Divine Victory’. The campaign, executed in three different languages on billboards that lined highways across Lebanon, addressed an audience beyond the confines of Hizbullah’s Shiite constituency. The signs and aesthetics, put to use in this campaign, did not resort to the typical repertoire of politico-religious symbolism that the party had repeatedly utilized in posters during its formative years (1985–90). The latter posters, modeled after the example of Iranian post-revolution propaganda, coupled the iconography and aesthetics of revolutionary struggle with Shiite symbolism pertaining to jihad and martyrdom. In comparison, the visual rhetoric of the ‘Divine Victory’ campaign clearly departs from the earlier radical and religiously inscribed model and embraces instead a softened visual rhetoric centered on nationalism. The campaign articulates Lebanese national symbols with signs of disciplined military force while being aesthetically comparable to modern mainstream commodity advertisement. In as much as this campaign presents a politically conscious transformation in the media strategies of Hizbullah, it does not constitute a sudden shift from the party’s previous media activities. Seen from the purview of Hizbullah’s short yet industrious history of political propaganda, the current campaign reveals to be at the end of a continuum of gradual changes that began to take shape in the early 1990s. These changes are equally manifest at the level of discourse, visual rhetoric and resources of public expression. This paper traces the transformations of Hizbullah’s political posters from 1985 to present. It analyses the changing signs and discourses, in their textual, visual and aesthetic materializations, and in relation to the corresponding modes of production and dissemination. The paper presents a comparative study of the posters according to three major stages in the political development of the party: starting with the formative years of Hizbullah’s Islamic Resistance (mid-1980s–90); moving to the ‘Lebanonisation’ of its party politics in post-war Lebanon leading up to the liberation of the south from Israeli occupation (1990–2000); and ending with the current rise of Hizbullah’s political power in Lebanon, in the aftermath of the 2006 war with Israel and amidst heightened internal conflicts. The posters used in this study have been collected between 2005 and 2008, along with interviews conducted with former and current Hizbullah media officials.
Discipline
Media Arts
Geographic Area
Lebanon
Sub Area
Arab-Israeli Conflict