UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER
Centre for Mass Communication Research
(CMCR)
英國留學生dissertationBARCODE
EMERGING NATIONAL IDENTITY IN THE LEBANESE TELEVISION
15 YEARS OF CONVIVALITY AND RECONCILIATION,AFTER 15 YEARS OF CIVIL WAR.
A thesis for master degree
Conceived and Developed by:
ALI MAKKE.
Under the Supervision of:
Mr. ANDERS HANSEN.
16th of AUGUST, 2004.
Words number: 17, 841.
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Acknowledgment
I have been lucky in receiving tremendous support from many people and institutions
whilst completing this work. Therefore, I wish to acknowledge these debts of
assistance.
I am beholden to many people who have discussed many aspects of work and offered
helpful advice as well as information on and access to sources. In this respect, it is
difficult to make an exhaustive list, but I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to a
number of those who were willing to spare some of their valuable time.
At the Audio-Visual and Media Council, particular thanks to the Director Abdel Hadi
Mahfouz. At the Lebanese University, Dr Sinno the head of the journalism
department, Dr Zaim for discussing and clarifying some of the issues surrounding the
media identity in Lebanon before the AVIL. And the former chairman of Tele Liban,
Mr. Jean Claude Boulos. At Future TV, the sport commentator Mr. Ali Safa for his
precious information on the Lebanese basketball; Mr. Zaven Kiyoumejian the
Armenian anchor/producer. As well as to my production manager Mr. Ihab
Hammoud, and my executive producer Ms. Lina Majzoub who believed in me once
again, as an academic this time. I have benefited a great deal from the collections in
the Library of the University of Leicester, the Universite Libanaise (Beirut), the
Lebanese American University ‘LAU’ (Beirut) and the archives of Future Television,
and the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (L.B.C).
I am especially indebted to my fantastic supervisor, Anders Hansen, for his invaluable
knowledge, and constant support and guidance throughout the life of this dissertation
and my time in Leicester. Even during my moments of greatest self-doubt, his
encouragement and interest in the topic ensured I remained focused and determined to
the end.
Thanks also to my long suffering Greek and Indian friends in Leicester, especially
Fotini Patrikiou, and Yassin Jamal, who took the task of proof-discussions. And also,
to my sister Dr. Rana Makke, here in Leicester, for putting up with my dark moments
and taking an interest in my progress. Finally, to my lovely parents back in Lebanon,
my sister Dr Zeina and my brother Mazen, for your unswerving support and faith in
me. Thank you.
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… to
Lebanon
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ABSTRACT
After 15 years of a bloody civil war, Lebanon- one of the smallest countries in the
world yet one of the most controversial and diverse in the Middle
East is searching for a new identity that can unite its 17 different ethno-religious
groups. In the aftermath of the war in 1990, Lebanon has known a massive
reconstruction process not just to rehabilitate the physical infrastructure of a ravaged
country but also to establish social reconciliation and conviviality.
The media, in particular the televisions, which used to be a mean of war, are now
considered as main agents in the process of nation building. This study intends to
reveal what is national in the Lebanese private televisions? And how this national
identity, based on plurality and conviviality is presented on the screens?
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................ 6
The research question: ................................................................................................... 6
Expected findings: ......................................................................................................... 8
Structure of the dissertation:......................................................................................... 9
Chapter I.................................................................................................................... 11
A perspective on the Nation and The National identity: ................................... 11
A) Identity:................................................................................................................. 11
B) The concepts of State, Nation and Nation-State: ............................................ 12
C) the National Identity:.......................................................................................... 14
D) Media and the National identity: “the nation building” ............................ 17\\
Chapter II .................................................................................................................. 19
Modern Lebanon in focus: “the kaleidoscopic case” ........................................ 19\\
A) Lebanon, the country of mosaic identities: A background........................... 19
B) Multiculturalism in Lebanon’s Identity ........................................................... 21
C) Lebanon and the sectarianism: the anti-thesis of nation. .............................. 23
D) Sectarianism as Nation:...................................................................................... 25
Chapter III................................................................................................................. 26
The Lebanese Audio-Visual media system: ......................................................... 26#p#分頁標題#e#
A) The state media: from the golden age to the weakest link............................ 27
B) The private broadcasting.................................................................................... 28
1- The Radio .............................................................................................................. 28
2- The Television case: sectarian balance……………………………………………28
Chapter IV................................................................................................................. 32
The audio-visual media, ten years before the AVIL: .......................................... 32
A) The chaotic proliferation of the audio-visual media: .................................... 32
B) States inside the state: ......................................................................................... 33
1- The state Television: a suspended role. ............................................................ 33
2- The private media: ‘States inside the State’...................................................... 34
Chapter V .................................................................................................................. 37
The TAEF and the AVIL.......................................................................................... 37
A) The TAEF Accord (1989): the national reconciliation. ................................... 37
B) The 1994 Lebanese Broadcasting Act: “promotion” of national identity and
cultural diversity .................................................................................................... 39\\
Chapter VI................................................................................................................. 47
The Methodological Framework............................................................................ 47
A) The research objectives…………………………………………………………...46
B) The sampling:....................................................................................................... 48
Channels selection: ..................................................................................................... 48
Shows selection: .......................................................................................................... 49
The period selected: .................................................................................................... 50
C) Research method: ................................................................................................ 50
D) The field work: .................................................................................................... 51#p#分頁標題#e#
Chapter VII............................................................................................................... 52
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Analysing the shows: the TAEF/AVIL interpretation ....................................... 52
A) National campaigns: promoting national codes. ........................................... 52
Conviviality:................................................................................................................ 52
It is good to communicate: .......................................................................................... 54
B) The news: the insider and outsider ‘other’. ..................................................... 55
Newscasters and editors’ religious identity: ............................................................... 56
Friday speech versus Sunday preaches: the holy fight exchange. ............................... 57
The forecast news: tell us your sect we will tell you the weather…........................... 58
Break in, break out: Break up the country................................................................... 58
Is everybody there? Misrepresentation of the minorities:........................................... 60
The ‘South Lebanon’ issue: The insiders’ unity against the outsiders’ threat............ 61
C) The basketball and the media: ‘from a new trend to a national tale’. ......... 62
Sports in Lebanon: a round-up. .................................................................................. 63
The ‘Green Saga’: the victory of a nation.................................................................... 64
Creating a Lebanese role model: .................................................................................. 67
D) Beirut - plural, singular, and common: creating a ‘we space’. ..................... 68
Chapter VIII ............................................................................................................. 73
Conclusion & confirmation of the theoretical framework. ................................ 73
Bibliography:……………………………………………………………………….79
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Introduction
After 15 years of a bloody civil war, Lebanon- one of the smallest countries in the
world yet one of the most controversial and diverse in the Middle
East is searching for a new identity that can unite its 171 different ethno-religious
groups. In the aftermath of the war in 1990, Lebanon has known a massive
reconstruction process not just to rehabilitate the physical infrastructure of a ravaged
country but also to establish social reconciliation and conviviality.
The research question:#p#分頁標題#e#
In Lebanon the formation of the national identity has always been problematic and
still unachieved. This identity has been constructed by a voluntary policy, because the
Lebanese history is not based on a foundation myth, as it shall assume an entire
history of colonization, mandate, occupation, and lately a civil war among its different
ethno-religious groups which has integrated broad successive conflicts and identity
problems. Thus, the question of Lebanon’s identity – and indeed of the very nature of
its existence – has loomed ever since.
In the early 1990s, Lebanon’s civil war ended, more from exhaustion than from the
clear victory of any one group. The peace agreement known as ‘the 1989 TAEF2
accord’ in many ways reinforced the status quo.
1 The 17 different ethno-religious groups in Lebanon are: Sunnis, Shiites, Druzes, Maronites, Greek
Orthodox, Greek Catholics, Latins, Protestants, Armenian Catholics, Armenian Orthodox, Chaldeans,
Syriac Catholics, Syriac Orthodox, Assyrians, Jews, Alawittes, and Ismaiilittes.
2 The TAEF accord: it is a reconciliation agreement between the different ethno-religious groups of
Lebanon, to put an end to the civil war. Been called according to the city of Taef in Saudi Arabia,
where the agreement took place.
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This accord outlined the identity of the Lebanese state, as a nation for all its citizens
without discrimination; and aimed to disseminate reconciliation among the Lebanese.
It stresses also on the importance of the media role to achieve this identity project
since the media were blamed in being a mean of war in the hand of the sectarian
militias and parties.
Furthermore, to maintain the multiplicity of the different ethno-religious groups, the
Lebanese authorities have put in charge a development system of mass
communication, which has to cater all the Lebanese, despite their confessional
identity, in a way to establish one national identity. This identity project is inscribed
in the Audio-Visual Information Law (AVIL 1994) that intends to regulate the
sectarian, chaotic, private audio-visual sector; as well as to promote the national
identity. This law described the aim and objectives of the audio-visual media which is
“to maintain the national identity as well as the national sovereignty, to enrich,
reinforce and establish the cultural, and socio-political structure of Lebanon, and to
reflect an equal discourse between the members of the society, as well as the multicultural,
religious background of the Lebanese”.
The essence of the new media law in Lebanon may involve three main elements: 1)
the construction of togetherness, or “we-space”, through common conception of group
property/ies (these properties will be called sources of identity), 2) the construction of#p#分頁標題#e#
the boundaries of the group, which determine who does not belong to the nation,
mainly through the construction of what is different (“others”), 3) the construction of
the role of a given nation.
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An interpretation of what has been cited in the TAEF accord and AVIL through the
media should provide the Lebanese society an outlet to learn to know each other, to
make them share a collective history, heritage, reality, etc. which is considered as
constitutive elements for their national identity. The national identity is then a
representation of “the common being”; and in the modern societies this image is
contributed through the media in particular the television.
This attribution, show that the television in particular is perceived as “a socialization
agent, it transmits values and represents the characteristic of a national community
that contributes to the integration of the diverse society.”(Chebel, 1986, p. 132).
What had been said so far leads us to raise the following question: to what extent are
the means of communication of Lebanon contributing nowadays to the creation of
national identity?
Expected findings:
This dissertation tends to analyze the construction of national identity over the last
decade in Lebanon. The main purpose of the study is to reveal what national identity
is constructed in public discourse in Lebanon, whether and how this identity changed
over time. This study does not seek to explain the changes of identities, though some
possible accounts of why the identities have been changing over time will be
provided. The aim of the study is to discern whether there exist possibilities for a
common national identity which could legitimize and facilitate the conviviality.
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The study is based on specific methodological premises, which have an influence on
both the selection of material for research and the ways the results are interpreted. It
focuses on the Lebanese national identity new concept, “plurality, diversity, and
conviviality for one national identity” a concept closely related to the idea of a nation
state and the role played by the mass media in particular the television to forge a new
identity among the 17 different ethno-religious group of this tiny country.
Structure of the dissertation:
This dissertation is constructed around five parts. The first part reviews the literature
related to the concept of national identity. The second part is a historical and sociopolitical
approach of Lebanon and its identity. The third part examines the new
Lebanese identity both in the TAEF accord and the AVIL. The fourth part is a
discussion of the methodology and the approach taken for this study. And the fifth
and last part analyses the data from the fieldwork.#p#分頁標題#e#
Chapter I is a literature review on identity, nation, nation-state, national identity and
the role of the media in this respect. Chapter II provides background information on
Lebanon’ identity, the ethno-religious multiculturalism, the concept of sectarianism in
the building the Lebanese state. Chapter III explains how the Lebanese media system,
in particular the audio-visual broadcasting is a product of its sectarian society.
Chapter IV provides grounded examples on the media system before the 1989 TAEF
until the issuing of the AVIL in 1994. Chapter V examines the main codes and clauses
enclosed in the media law and the peace agreement, which focus on the reconciliation
and national identity. Chapter VI is a detailed discussion of the methodological
approach taken.
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Chapter VII reveals how Future TV and L.B.C interpret the TAEF and AVIL codes.
Chapter VIII is a confirmation of the theoretical framework and the findings.
In order to present a comprehensive case study of communication policy in Lebanon,
this dissertation will draw data from various sources and methodologies. The
qualitative interpretative analyses have been favoured. Documentary materials and
transcripts are to be used extensively to describe the historical framework of Lebanon,
and its media policy.
Principles sources include reports of government and non government institutions,
televisions, newspapers, internet sites, annual reports of the media audio-visual
information and media council.
Personal interviews conducted are based on a small, typical sample of respondents
who represents the top figures of the media industry in Lebanon.
The scope of this study is narrowed to two private channels Future Television and
L.B.C who represented the Muslims and Christians respectively.
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Chapter I
A perspective on the Nation and The National identity:
Framing the Field.
Defining the notion of national identity, demands an understanding of the concepts of
the nation and the nation-state, as well as the concept of identity it self. Those are
considered as the basics, and deemed as a framework of the national identity notion.
A) Identity:
What is identity? Why it is problematic? How it is constructed? Is it inherited or
invented? Why it is so important to have an identity? And is the identity composed of
multiple ‘sub-identities’, or is it taken as a whole?
Firstly, it is important to establish what constitutes an identity. The Oxford English
Language dictionary states the following: “State, of being a specified person or thing,
individuality or personality.” (Oxford English Dictionary, 2003, p. 553). According to
Weeks (1990), identity is “about what we have in common with some people and
what differentiates you from others.” (Weeks, 1990, p.89). Thus, identity is this sense#p#分頁標題#e#
of belonging to a certain group or certain entity. It could be identified on the basis of
race, ethnicity, gender, age, or in terms of social interests and status, or religion and
nationality, etc.
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Scholars argued that we do not born with a specific identity (unless the sexual one),
but we acquired it socially. Berger (1966) argued that identity is socially bestowed,
socially sustained and socially transformed. Hall (1992) conceptualized identity as a
postmodern subject, which has shifting, multiple and fragmented identities. In this
conceptualization, a person is not composed of one, but several, often contradictory,
identities that change according to how a person is addressed or represented. Post
modern scholars such as Baudrillard (1988) and Jameson (1991) concurred with Hall
and put forth the idea of pluralization of sources of identity, which owes much to
mass media representations.
Seen as socially constructed rather than socially transformed, therefore, scholars such
as Appaduarai (1986); Douglas and Isherwood, (1979) and McCracken (1988) have a
common theoretical assumption among cultural theorists that social identities,
differences and inequalities are shaped and legitimated through our media, material
and cultural consumption.
The most important in the above definitions is the recognition that identity is socially
constructed and constantly changing.
B) The concepts of State, Nation and Nation-State:
The nation and national identity are salient categories for the modern world that
fundamentally influence how we perceive the world, others, and also how we behave
in front of them. In literature, scholars have come across many difficulties in defining
terms such as nation and state, and to draw limits and borders of each of it. The
majority of definitions of the nation have three main common elements: spatial, social
and political (Smith, 1991).
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The spatial element is the territory; nations are usually linked to a homeland. The
social element is related to the necessity that the members of a nation share common
understandings, aspirations, historical memories, myths, symbols and traditions. The
political element is, for some authors (Smith, 1991; Held, 1984), equivalent to the
“state” or the “government”. Gellner (1983) suggested that a state is a functional
category; it is a political community within fixed geographical boundaries which
organizes the social life of groups of people belonging to it. In these terms, the old
world has known the establishments of many states known as cities, such as Athens,
Beirut and Rome…
Anderson (1991) on the other hand, adopted an anthropological view and referred to
nation as “an imagined political community- imagined as both inherently limited and#p#分頁標題#e#
sovereign”. He gave four reasons as to why the nation is an imagined community.
Firstly, the people in a country or nation will never “know most of their fellow
members meet them or even hear of them”. Even then, each member still has an
“image of their communion”. Secondly, the nation is imagined as ‘limited’ because
“even the largest of them…has infinite, if elastic, boundaries, beyond which lie other
nations”. Thirdly, it is imagined as ‘sovereign’ because the concept was perceived in a
period of time where Enlightenment and Revolution were destroying the legitimacy of
the sacred hierarchical dynastic realm. A nation also transcends the state. It is the
feeling of solidarity a community has for its future. It resembles a group of people
“sharing deep, horizontal comradeship” who wants to be a nation. (Anderson, 1991,
pp. 6-7).
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Smith defined the nation as a “named human population sharing an historic territory,
common myths and historical memories, a mass, public culture, a common economy
and common legal rights and duties for all members” (Smith, 1991, p.40).
Karl Deutsh’s definition of nation consisted of a cultural entity with principles of
coherence called ‘complementary and relative efficiency’. For Deutsh’s, proceeds of
communication are the basis of the coherence of societies, cultures and even of the
personalities of the individuals” (Karl Deutsh, in Schlesinger 1991, p.157).
From The literature reviewed above, one could tell that ‘nation’ has been understood
in different and varied contexts. Scholars have elaborated it in different and
ambiguous meanings and frames.
C) the National Identity:
National identity has been studied by several Social Sciences such as Anthropology,
Sociology, Psychology (especially Social Psychology) etc. So, the study of national
identity and its definition has to incorporate all these approaches.
Schlesinger (1991) called national identity as particular kind of collective identity
constituted at a given strategic level of society. Fishman (1972) considered it as a
result of contrastive self identification: ‘us’ versus ‘them’. Mackenzie (1978)
considered that ‘national identity’ is only one of the four main types of ‘cultural
identity’ bequeathed by the nineteenth century. The others being race, religion and
class (Mackenzie, in Schlesinger, 1991, p.157). National identity is also forged
through international war, sporting events, national disaster and by national pride.
According to Smith, national identity “comprises both a cultural and a political
identity” (Smith, 1991, p.99).
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National symbols also become markers of national identity, such as a name, a#p#分頁標題#e#
national flag, a national anthem, a national language and a common currency.
Sometimes the total number of people speaking the same language and having the
same culture may ‘automatically’ create a national identity out of their cultural
identity. Language and culture were not, Herder (1969) argued, merely aspects of the
social environment within which people made their lives; they were constitutive of
their very identity. Taylor (in Nation and Identity. Edited by: Ross Poole, 1999) who
explicitly follows Herder in this respect-human identity exists only in a framework of
interpretation. The basic framework is provided by the language and cultural symbols
in terms of which we become aware of ourselves and of others. Though our native
language is not part of our natural equipment, it becomes a second nature. It provides
the taken for granted and inescapable framework within which we think, experience,
imagine and dream.
Nations are sometimes created by a language or ethnicity or one religion, and even by
the desire of having one religion as can be the attempt by the Saudi governments,
since the establishment of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at the beginning of the
twentieth century, to create a nation where all its citizens are Muslims, otherwise they
will not be granted the nationality.
Kymlicka (1996) defined the nation and its identity as the existence of a historical
community, more or less institutionally complete, that occupies a concrete territory or
homeland and share a language and a differentiated culture. Beydoun (1993) agreed
with Kymlicka and add the religious identity, “multi-religiosity” that it could be
different among the citizens of a specific homeland but at the same share the same
national identity and target.
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In interpreting Beydoun and Kymlicka, many countries could be taken as an example.
India, it has Gujeratis, Punjabis, Tamiliens, Keralities, Telugus and others. The
Lebanese case is also a good example. Lebanon is nation made up of multi-ethnicities
and multi-religious affiliations. It has Arabs, Armenians, Greeks, White Russians,
Assyrians, Chaldeans, Kurds, Turkish, and many other ethnic minorities. In Lebanon,
ethnic identity and religious sectarian identity are used interchangeably as they follow
one another. I will touch on this later while focusing on the Lebanese case.
In this context, a nation is not necessary as seen by Smith (1991) as “a one big family
with members seeing their nation as a made up of interrelated families linked by
mythical ties of filiations and ancestry.” (Smith, 1991, p. 22).
What has been discussed above, leads us to ask further questions about national
identity, especially where many ethnicities, religions and cultures share the same
homeland. In this case, which group and why manage to obtain the prominence to#p#分頁標題#e#
represent the nation and its identity?
Examples throughout the world provided us with one answer; that the group which
has the political and economic power is able to make its culture the common
articulated ‘national’ one. Smith explained this point and commented “…the culture
of the new state’s core ethnic community becomes the main pillar of the new national
political identity and community.” (Smith, 1991, p. 110). He named such culture as
the ‘Dominant Ethnie’ model. Lebanon is an example of such a model. Arabs
constitute 70% of the Lebanese population. This does not mean that there are no other
ethnicities or the others are persecuted or eliminated. The others become the existing
minorities.
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Their “cultures continue to flourish but the identity of the emerging political
community is shaped by the historic culture of its dominant ethnie.” (Smith, 1991, p.
110).
In order for a national identity to prevail in a country, media are considered as a main
and vital factor. But, how do the media play such a role in forging the national
identity and its formation?
D) Media and the National identity: “the nation building”
It has been asserted or assumed both by casual observers and academic analysts such
as Billig (1995) and Anderson (1991) that newspapers, radio and television are vital
for encouraging their audience both to see the world in national terms in general, and
to think in patriotic terms about their own nation in particular. According to Smith,
“the mass education system and mass media are the major agencies of the national
identity.” (Smith, 1991, p.11). In another words, this is the process of nation-building.
The national media decide on how common images of nationhood are established.
Newspapers, radio and television services produce the definition to its readers and
viewers of what is ‘national’ and ‘anti-national’, the ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’, the
‘good’ and the ‘bad’ and what is ‘desirable’ and ‘undesirable’. It promotes unity by
encouraging participation of vast numbers of people in national functions like in the
national day parades, national celebrations and in national and international sporting
events, the national history. This point is also mentioned by Morley and Robins
(1995) when they stated that “…Historically, then broadcasting has assumed a dual
role, serving as the political public sphere of the nation-state, and as the focus for
national cultural identification” (Morley and Robins, 1995, p.10).
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National identity according to Heidt (1987) is something which “can be and has to be
deliberately developed and even created” (Heidt, 1987, p143). The common#p#分頁標題#e#
invocation of national identity, according to Price (1995) is “the conviction that
something is being described at a level of abstraction that all share in common above
party or sectarian concerns” (Price, 1995, p.40) which I will discuss it when I will
focus on the Lebanese case. Price also believed that institutions must be created to
“…protect, nourish, articulate, and perpetuate…” such identities (Price, 1995, p.40).
More than the symbolic forms like, flags, architecture, costumes, culinary culture etc.,
he feels that “…public schools, the university…and the broadcasting organization
also give form to national identities” (Price, 1995, p.40). Thus, media such as
television channels could have a significant role in creating and developing the image
of the nation for their citizens and in creating a sense of ‘loyalty’ toward their country.
In this next chapter, I will be discussing the concept of the nation in Lebanon, since
the establishment of the country in 1920 to the present time.
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Chapter II
Modern Lebanon in focus: “the kaleidoscopic case”
The media system and policy in Lebanon today cannot be understood without taking
the historical context in which they evolved into account. Thus, this chapter contains a
prefatory look at developments in Lebanon throughout its history to the 1943, when
the country moved to full independence and ceased to be governed under the 1920
League Nations mandate given to France, to the end of the country’s Civil War in
1990. It then describes its multicultural society and the concept of the sectarian state.
A) Lebanon, the country of mosaic identities: A background.
Lebanon is a country with a mosaic identity. Geographically, Lebanon is a tiny
country—about twice the size of the city of Toronto, situated on the eastern shore of
the Mediterranean. Historically, Lebanon has seldom been quiet area. It has been the
scene for many wars, imperial advances, and pitiful retreats; the stone engravings at
‘the dog river’3 are there to remind the Lebanese of the passage of ambitious
conquerors. From the Phoenicians [5000 BC] who creates the first alphabets in the
world; to the crusades followed by the Arabs conquests that integrated the Islam; to
the Turkish colonization that brought the oriental ethics and values, to the French
mandating since the beginning of the 20th century that integrated the French language
[widely spoken nowadays] and the modern European life style, to the formation of the
Lebanese republic in 1920 within its present borders to the declaration of its
independence in 1943.
3 The dog river: or in Arabic ‘Nahr El Kalb”. The riverside witnessed the history of Lebanon. Most of
the conquerors and the old civilizations marked their passages on the stones.#p#分頁標題#e#
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After the formation of Lebanon in 1920 under the French mandate, Harris (1997)
noted that the Maronite4 Christians were the largest ethno-religious group in Lebanon
in the 1940’s and were joined by members of the Greek Orthodox Church in their
desire for independence. The Christians secured the Presidency of the republic, as
well as the directorate of general security and command of the armed forces. “The
Sunni and Shiite Muslims, in return for supporting the Maronites Christians’ push for
Lebanon’s independence and separation from greater Syria, were given the Prime
Minister’s position and the Speaker’s of the Parliament, respectively.” (Friedman,
1989, p. 68).
Thus, in the very process of gaining its independence, Lebanon established what is
generally referred to as “confessional” system of government, a system that allocates
political opportunities in the national government and lately equivalent controls over
media resources among the various religious and ethnic groups in the country.
This confessional system extended and currently extends to all the remaining political
appointees and to members of parliament. As part of the negotiations leading to
independence, official recognition was awarded to 17 different religious or ethnic
groups and each was assigned a fixed number of parliamentary seats. “The country
was then divided into several multi-member constituencies, most of which contained
people from multiple numbers of groups. In any election, a person may vote for all the
seats assigned to his or her district as long as the votes adhere to the community’s
confessional makeup” (Salibi, 1988, p. 134)
Currently, Lebanon is a curious country with many contradictions, a country of
extreme pluralism and deep divisions.
4 The Maronites: are the Catholic Christians of the Middle East, and one of the Lebanese sects. Their
origins back to Syria. Being called Maronites, after their patron Saint Maron.
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Its society is fragmented along sectarian lines, which is going through a controversial
identity. Its institutions are “torn between a state of transformation, which is exhibited
in its relatively modern laws and perspectives, and that of persistence, which is
demonstrated by the performance of its political and religious bosses who put
obstacles in the introduction of change or application of laws that may lessen the
sectarian nature of the social structure”. (Zaim and Nahawand, 1999, p.45)
B) Multiculturalism in Lebanon’s Identity
The formation of ‘Greater Lebanon’5 in 1920 created a clearly bi-National, bi-ethnic
society, similar in many ways to Belgium, Canada and Cyprus. Unfortunately, “the
Lebanese legislators of the 1930s and 1940s, although indicating that Lebanon has#p#分頁標題#e#
multiple communities, chose the Unitarian form of Government to manage the
national destiny of Lebanon. On the other hand did not recognize the existence of a
multi-ethnic society per say.” (Fares, 1979, p. 109). That mistake was one among
others that set the country on fire since 1975.
Since the early eighties, some intellectuals in Lebanon advanced the idea of
multiculturalism and federation, as a way to solve the internal problem of the country.
In this respect, Lebanon will not have to deal with the stress of being a Christian
country or Muslim country, and therefore would avoid the destructive crisis. If the
Christians were a majority in the 1940s, this should not undermine the Muslims right
to be part of Government, and Lebanon should not become a Christian country as
5 Greater Lebanon is the given name in 1920 under the French mandate. During the Ottoman Empire,
Lebanon was divided into two regions. The mountains regions called ‘Mount Lebanon” and were ruled
by princes. And the coastal cities and regions were under the Ottoman Empire. France, in 1920, united
the separated regions together and established the Greater Lebanon.
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long as it is a multiethnic state. And if the Muslims made demographic advances in
the 1980s, this also should not shift Lebanon from a pluralist condition to a unitary
Arab Muslim country. No matter who enjoys the greatest numbers, the fact that the
country is based on multiplicity of communities makes the concept of simple majority
irrelevant. Neither Maronites, nor Shiites can claim being a total majority in Lebanon,
nor can Sunni, Druse or Melkite claim similar realities.
Take for instance Canada. Although the English speaking people are superior in
numbers, and the speaking population is inferior in numbers nationwide, the first
group cannot use the mere fact of their numbers to impose a specific identity on
Quebec. There are two (main) cultural groups in Canada, irrespective of numbers. In
Belgium, the same concept is prevalent. Same goes for Switzerland. The German
speaking people cannot claim the whole of Switzerland for themselves and their
identity, because of sheer numbers. In Cyprus, the Greek numerical majority has
clearly offered the Turks the position of Vice President, even though the Turkish
speaking community does not exceed 20% of the population.
In other words, as Fares (1979) discussed that if a country wants itself to be multiethnic
and remains as such, it cannot allow one ethnic community to claim all powers
and impose its own vision of culture and society, just by claiming that it holds a
democratic simple majority. For in multiethnic societies, there are no simple ethnic
majorities. Majorities are developed inside those communities, while a federal
arrangement organizes the coexistence between the ethnic communities.#p#分頁標題#e#
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Back to Lebanon, this small country was formed as a modern state in 1920. As long as
its main components are attached to the international borders of "Historic" Lebanon,
no community can claim a majority even though it may have the largest numbers of
adherents. On socio-economic levels the majority is national; whoever obtains a
simple majority wins. On the ethnic and cultural levels, each community has its own
outlook and identity to preserve. Such a reality cannot be preserved except through a
historic agreement among the Lebanese communities themselves. For as long as
Multiculturalism is Lebanon's identity, no segment of this society can impose its will
on the others segment because of its size. According to Fares (1980), it is a qualitative
difference that unites the Lebanese. Quantitative claims will only divide them, and
dismantle Lebanon.
C) Lebanon and the sectarianism: the anti-thesis of nation.
Sectarianism or ‘Taifiyya’ refers to the tendency among Lebanon’s various religious
communities that undermines patriotism or ‘wataniyya’; thus the inter-communal
massacres of 1860 between Catholics and Druze, and of course, those that occurred
between 1975 and 1990 are often cited as prominent examples of sectarianism.
Thus, “while the nation is projected as inclusive, stable and democratic, sectarianism
is depicted as exclusionary, undemocratic and disordered.”(Fawaz, 1994, p. 63).
In the modern reconstructed nation, sectarianism serves as a metaphor for the
unwanted past.
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‘Sectarianism’, however, is a neologism born in the age of nationalism to signify the
antithesis of nation; its meaning is predicated on and constructed against a
territorially-bounded liberal nation-state. In Lebanon, sectarianism is as modern and
authentic as the nation-state. In fact, the two cannot be dissociated.
In India, Pandey (1992) have persuasively argued that contemporary communalism is
rooted not in ancient history but in the governing politics and discourses of the British
colonial regime which were appropriated by the nationalists to legitimate specific
paths of elitist development. Sectarianism in Lebanon can be interpreted similarly.
However, the case of Lebanon differs from the Indian example in that the modern
state was established as liberal and (putatively) democratic, but not secular.
From the outset, the nationalist project has been intertwined with what historian
Ahmad Beydoun (1993) called sectarianism as the “unutterable” contradiction that
has haunted Lebanon: the paradox of a national unity in a multi-religious society
wherein religion is inscribed as the citizen’s most important public attribute—stamped
prominently on his or her identification and voter registration card.#p#分頁標題#e#
A second difference from the Indian example lies in the nature of decolonization. The
Lebanese state was created as a result of a series of compromises between the French
mandatory power and the indigenous elites, and not as the result of popular anticolonial
mobilization. An ethos of national unity was never forged in a collective
struggle.
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D) Sectarianism as Nation:
The creation of the Lebanese republic in 1920, which gave the Maronites Catholics
elites of Lebanon the lion’s share of the power, was supplemented in 1943 by a
‘National Pact’ which began the era of formal independence. Presented to the people
as a fait accompli, “the National Pact, itself is a result of elite compromises essentially
legitimated a system of patronage and a division of spoils among the elites of the new
nation-state, thus betraying the inability to locate a genuinely national base.” (El
Khazen, 1991, p. 13). The Maronites elites were guaranteed the presidency, the Shiite
the speaker of the parliament and the Sunnis the prime minister ship.
According to Beydoun (1984), the moulding of nationalist politics onto an Ottoman
social order created a sectarian nationalism and the politics of nationalist elitism. The
problem of how to integrate the masses into the new nation without opening the realm
of back-room politics became the central concern of the elites. Electoral and personal
status laws were regulated by religious affiliation such that to be Lebanese meant to
be defined according to religious affiliation. There could be no Lebanese citizen who
was not at the same time a member of a particular religious community.
In this sense, sectarianism, which undermines the secular national ideal and creates
subversive religious loyalties, is umbilical tied to the 1943 National Pact which
institutionalized the modern, independent Lebanese state.
The war, to be sure, forced changes among various leaderships, but this did not
ultimately change the style of leadership. Hence, the war ended with a new National
Pact called the TAEF agreement—another mysterious back room deal without
popular participation through referendum and, like the 1943 Pact, imposed as another
fait accompli. In the post-war period, the new elites epitomize the politics of the past.
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Chapter III
The Lebanese Audio-Visual media system:
A product of its society
The media policy environment is a direct reflection of efforts to recover from the civil
war, compounded by the geopolitical complexities of Lebanon. In addition, an
important fact about Lebanon’s human geography is the multiplicity of religious
communities. In such a country, the different parties, groups and factions were able to
criticize the mismanagement and malfunctions of the government, and to articulate#p#分頁標題#e#
their goals publicly in a climate of freedom and equality.
To achieve their objectives, the ethno-religious parties and groups established – under
government license [after the issuing of the 1994 AVIL] – their newspapers,
magazines, radio and television stations which varied from quality mainstream media
to the cheapest scandal sheets or stations.
This chapter explores the audio-visual system in Lebanon, from the launching of the
first television channel in the Middle East in 1956, known as ‘Tele Liban’ to the
proliferation of the private audio-visual media. It will shed the light on the
confessional identity of these audio-visual media institutions.
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A) The state media: from the golden age to the weakest link.
The beginning of audio-visual media signified a golden age for Lebanon. ‘Tele Liban’
was the Leading television station in the Middle East. The first regularly broadcast
signals began in may 1956. Tele Liban “initially broadcasting in black and white,
made Lebanon the third country in the world to broadcast in SECAM colour on
October 21, 1967. Indeed, Lebanon was one of the first 15 countries to broadcast in
colour, well before Italy, Spain, Scandinavian countries, Belgium, and all the Arab
countries.” (Boulos, 1995, pp. 28-51).
The Lebanese Television Company (La Companie Libanaise de Television), started
broadcasting in 1956, and Television of Lebanon and the Orient (Television du Liban
et de L’Orient), started broadcasting in 1962. Each was a private television station
that operated under 21 – article agreement with the Lebanese government. Both
agreements prohibited programs that “would threaten public security, morals,
religious groups, or enhance the image of any political personality or party.” (Dajani,
2002, p. 110). Both agreements further provided that all programs should be limited to
education and entertainment except that each station had to broadcast, free of charge,
news programs and official bulletins submitted by the Ministry of Information.
Initially, the two television stations lost money. They, therefore, sought and obtained
the government’s agreement to coordinate their marketing and programs with the
result that, by 1975-just before the Civil War- the two stations had become quite
profitable. In 1976, the stations were occupied briefly by militias. One group, mostly
Muslim, ran the news program in the west Beirut station and the other, mostly
Christian, ran the news in the east Beirut station.
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Shortly later, when the hostilities had decreased somewhat, “the government, under a
December 30, 1977 legislative decree, agreed to merge the two companies into a
single company, the Lebanese Television Company (Tele-Liban).” (Dajani, 2001).#p#分頁標題#e#
The government injected money into the new station in exchange for obtaining 50
percent ownership and six places on a new 12 –person Board of Directors.
Nowadays, ‘Tele Liban’ is probably lowest ranked in audience viewer-ship and
prestige with its declining popularity also attributed to the proliferation of private
stations. In 1998, the Lebanese government compensated Tele Liban for its loss of
exclusive broadcasting rights with a lump sum payment but the station is still not on
sound financial footing.
In addition to the state owned television, the Ministry of Information has continued to
operate the state-owned ‘Radio Liban’. ‘Radio Liban’ has benefited in the past from
considerable assistance from the French government, in the form of programs coproductions,
transmitters and studio equipment. Lately, however, the station has lost
listeners to other stations. And since the Lebanese listeners had shifted from political
news to entertainment after the civil war ended.
B) The private broadcasting
1- The Radio
While the 1994 Audio-Visual Media Law requires that the private stations must have
shareholders from all religious communities in Lebanon, in practice the stations tend
to be identified with a specific religious or ethnic group.
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Of the four licensed private AM stations, Voice of Lebanon (Catholic), Radio Free
Lebanon (Maronites) are allied with Christian groups; Voice of the People (Druze),
although it describes itself as “secular left”, Voice of Beirut, which has Sunni
backing, and the National Broadcasting Network (NBN), like its television
counterpart, is indirectly owned by Nabih Berri, the Shiite speaker of the Lebanese
Parliament.
The FM stations tend to broadcast mainly music with commentary by mixture of
Arabic, French, English language presenters. (Some have Italian, Spanish and
Armenian as an extra). The music includes American and European popular hits on
“Radio One” and “RML, radio Mont Liban”; French singers from the 1960s (i.e.
Charles Aznavour et al) on “Radio Nostalgie”, and light religious songs dedicated to
Jesus on “Radio Pax”. Three of the FM radio stations (Radio Scope, Nostalgie and
RML) are a part of the media conglomerate owned by the Greek Orthodox Murr
Family, which also owns MTV. (Murr TV, which has affiliation with both France 2
and TF1 in France). Sunni Prime Minister Rafik Hariri’s Luxembourg – based
company, Techniques Audio-Visuelles, holds the license for Radio Orient, along with
Future Television network (which has Zen TV for youth on the satellite channels).
Radio Orient is a pan-Arab station that broadcasts to Europe and the Middle East from
both Paris and Beirut.
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2- The Television case: sectarian balance.
In 1994, however, audio-visual and information law AVIL no. 382/94 stopped the
private channels chaos and cut down the number of networks to just 10 by 2001. The
initial five private Category 16 licenses to be allocated were, as might be expected
under the country’s confessional system of the government, awarded to specific
political interests.Licenses were granted according to a confessional balance.
For example, in exchange for two licenses granted to ‘MTV’ and ‘LBC’ (that
represent the Christians), two others were given to ‘Future television’ and ‘NBN’
(that represent the Muslims), and similarly to ‘Tele Lumiere’ (a strict religious
Catholic channel) and its Islamic counterpart ‘Al Manar’.
In addition, three new licenses were granted in 2001 to ‘NTV’, ‘UTV’ (the Armenian
television) and ‘ICN’, the last two channels have not started broadcasting yet.
One of the six licenses was allocated to MTV (Murr TV), a company that is owned by
Gabriel Murr, brother of former Interior Minister Michel Murr and uncle of current
Interior Minister Elias Murr (son of Michel and son-in-law of Lebanese President
Emile Lahoud).
Another license was allocated to Future Television, a company owned by Sunni Prime
Minister Hariri, (the Rupert Murdoch of the Middle East). The third license went to
the National Broadcasting Network (NBN), a company owned primarily by the Shiite
Parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berry.
6 Broadcasting network has been classified into two categories: those classified Category 1 have news
and political shows. And Category 2, are restricted just for entertainment.
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The fourth license went to Al Manar Television, part of the media arm of the Syrianand
Iranian-Backed Shiite resistance group, Hezbollah. The fifth license was allocated
to LBC Television (now LBCI), a company whose major shareholders include
Maronites and Catholics business men and parliament members.
Each of the five stations described above broadcast terrestrially and has satellite
channels as well. Since then, a sixth television station, New Television (NTV),
received a Category 1 license, although it broadcasts only by satellite. New TV was
initially denied a license but finally received one in 2000.
Al Manar’s application for a license was denied, then granted on a restricted basis,
then rescinded, and then awarded permanently. And Tele Lumiere, has been
reclassified as Category 2.
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Chapter IV
The audio-visual media, ten years before the AVIL:
‘The distorted image’
The Civil War totally altered the landscape of television broadcasting as well. During
the war years between 1975 and 1990, the configuration of the Lebanese audio-visual#p#分頁標題#e#
sector was based upon the “militias’ sectarian political game,” which required
propaganda tools. This led to the proliferation of audio-visual media outlets.
Thus, this chapter look at the image of Lebanon and its identity on both private and
public screens. The private media has been accused of being a mean of war for
triggering the sectarian divisions, as well as distorting the image of the country.
Zaim and Nahawand (1999) argued that through these screens, Lebanon has had many
identities… These channels created ‘states’ inside ‘the state’. Thus what does that all
mean? And how the scene looked like through these sectarians channel, since the
launching of the L.B.C. in 1985 until the issuing of the AVIL in 1994?
A) The chaotic proliferation of the audio-visual media:
For a long time, the situation of the audio-visual sector was not based on any laws,
and many networks taking advantage of the anarchic environment opened up.
Boyd (1991) discussed that there are two factors contributed to the proliferation of
these unofficial stations.
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First, the government-run television station, just like its radio counterpart, failed to
report accurately and thoroughly on the political and social issues that caused the
Civil War.
In 1976, ‘Tele Liban’ was occupied briefly by militias. One group, mostly Muslim,
ran the news program in the west Beirut station and the other, mostly Christian, ran
the news in the east Beirut station. Second, once the war started, “most of the different
factions felt that their political perspectives needed to be broadcast electronically as
well as articulated in the print media.” (Boyd, 1991, p. 59)
‘Radio Liban’ remained the country’s sole radio station until the mid-1970s when the
Civil War triggered an outburst of private stations and brought the state’s monopoly
of radio broadcasting to a dramatic end. “Between 150 and 300 unlicensed radio
stations, many quite local, went on and off the air between 1975 and 1989.” (Boulos,
1995, p. 201).
A similar history of pre-1994 proliferation affected television. By the end of the Civil
War, “between 40 and 50 unlicensed television stations were, or had been,
broadcasting to portions of Lebanon.” (Boulos, 1995, p. 201). Beginning with the
LBC (Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation) representing the Maronites Christian in
1985 and was linked to the Lebanese forces militias.
B) States inside the state:
1- The state Television: a suspended role.
Since the outbreak of the civil war in 1990, private channels representing the main
sects mushroomed rapidly, to disseminate the political opinions, the sectarian identity
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and military orientations of their leaders. The TAEF Agreement in 1989 accused the#p#分頁標題#e#
media of being a mean of war in the hands of their leaders.
‘Tele Liban’ (the state owned channel) was totally ragged after the war and merely
bankrupted claimed Jean Claude Boulos, former chairman of Tele Liban. Local
productions were reduced to 5 %. Before the war, ‘Tele Liban’ was used to produce
more than 500 hours of local drama per year. Our shows grids were depending on
imported shows and western drama. It was much less cheaper than local production.
To put it in another words, our screen did not has any national sign, unless its name
‘Tele Liban’ and the national anthem broadcasted every morning.
2- The private media: ‘States inside the State’
“All of us for our nation, for our glory for our flag”7
Hence, which nation and which flag were on the Lebanese private televisions? Is there
just one nation, or several states inside the nation?
It has been argued that “If you want to understand the Lebanese problem, examine its
audio-visual media sector, if you want to understand the sectarian divisions watch the
private televisions.” (Sinno, 2001, p.109). For the private channels, the notion of
national identity or fostering a national image has different meanings. Each channel
interpreted Lebanon from its own perspective.
7 The first verse of the Lebanese National Anthem. By, Rashid Nakhleh. 1927.
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Examining the content of television programs ten years before the issuing of AVIL
“one could get an idea to which extent the Multi-religiosity of the Lebanese media is
affecting the nature of the country identity”. (Boulos, 1995, p.69). These private
channels offered versions of Lebanon’s identity, based on its sectarian affiliation.
For ‘Al Manar Television’, the “mouth piece of Hezbollah”, the Islamist agenda
remains at the core of their media schedule. Inspired and supported by Iran, “Al
Manar” did not (and still does to a certain extent) broadcast Lebanese movies or
songs, instead they promote Islamic Iranian music and series. The only issue that
seems to foster a ‘sense of national identity’ was their adoption of south Lebanon
occupation issue and the national resistance.
According to a questionnaire set in 1999 by (Stat Ipsos), “85% of the Christians do
not watch AL Manar because they feel that it does not reflect the image of whole
Lebanon; and 15 % they watch it to know the latest news about the Israeli occupation
of south Lebanon”. (Source Stat Ipsos Lebanon, 1999).
For the MTV (Murr TV), Lebanon is restricted geographically to some suburbs of the
capital city, where the Greek Orthodox resides. And since the majority of the shows
were in French language, and just the news in Arabic, one could tell that the official#p#分頁標題#e#
language of Lebanon is the French, and the Arabic is an optional second language.
On the other hand the two competing channels ‘L.B.C.’ (Maronites Catholics
Christians) and ‘Future television international’ that represents the Muslims (Sunni)
have also their own version of Lebanon’s identity.
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L.B.C’s “Lebanon does not have any Arabian aspect; instead it is a Mediterranean
country more able to be westernized. Lebanon is the inherited land of the Maronites
Catholics of the Levantine. The Muslims were portrayed as ‘the other’. It did not
attempt any issue related to them; Islamic events or festivals were not on its calendar.
Future Television, as a representative of the Muslims, in particular the Sunnis, shrinks
Lebanon to its capital’s geographical borders. The worthy news is those occurred in
the capital, and had no intention to wide up its map of concerns. On Future TV,
Lebanon is a fully Arabic country with special affiliations with the other Arab
peninsula countries.
Hence, this tiny geographical place called Lebanon held at that time many states. The
Arabic state presented by Future TV, the French colony form of the MTV, the Islamic
republic promoted by Al Manar, the Mediterranean island portrayed on the
L.B.C…and many other scenarios and identities on the other remote channels.
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Chapter 5
The TAEF and the AVIL
Living in denial
A) The TAEF Accord (1989): the national reconciliation.
The TAEF accord was signed on October 22, 1989 by the representatives of the
various ethno-religious communities for the sake of national reconciliation. It was in
response to the initiative of the Arab League and in the presence of the bridesmaids:
Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Algeria.
The agreement was signed after Lebanon had reached the conclusion that none of the
parties in Lebanon is able to get the upper hand in the power struggle. This accord has
to establish peace and conviviality among the Lebanese different groups. Its reform
scenario includes politics, administration, education and also the media. The accord’s
general principals are:
- “Lebanon is a sovereign, free, and independent country; a final homeland for
all of its citizens; a unity of people, land, and institutions within its borders as
defined by the Lebanese constitution and recognized internationally.
- “Lebanon is of Arab affiliation and identity; it is a founding and active
member of the Arab League and is bound by its charter.
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- “Lebanon is a democratic, parliamentary republic founded on the respect for
the public liberties, the foremost of which are freedom of opinion and belief.
And on social justice and equality of rights and duties without discrimination#p#分頁標題#e#
or distinctions among sects and ethnicities.
- “The land of Lebanon is but one land for all Lebanese…no segregation of
people on the basis of any affiliation whatsoever: No partitioning, dividing, or
settling.
The accord stresses on the role of the media in working hand in hand with state to
facilitate the process of the national reconciliation and unity.
The media role has been framed under the law and within the framework of
responsible freedom, in a manner that serves the objectives of reconciliation and of
ending the state of war, and building the state of conviviality. And also to give the
minorities particular importance in a way to integrate them under the umbrella of the
Lebanese society.
The TAEF accord, though, has to establish the new features of Lebanon, as an Arab
country, as well as a balance between the Muslims and Christians groups in rights and
duties.
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B) The 1994 Lebanese Broadcasting Act: “promotion” of
national identity and cultural diversity
This section shall be examining the content requirements of the Lebanese
Broadcasting Act, specifically as regards the protection and promotion of national
identity.
In October 1994, the Lebanese government, in an effort to gain control over the
plethora of unlicensed stations that had begun broadcasting during the Civil War,
enacted Law 382/94, known as the 1994 Audio-Visual Media Law. The law ended the
state’s theoretical monopoly over electronic broadcasting and made Lebanon the first
country in the Middle East to establish a regulatory system for permitting private
radio and television broadcasting to be both produced and distributed within its
borders. The Audio-Visual Information Law (1994) is considered as the post Civil
War government’s interpretation of the 1989 TAEF Accord.
As mentioned before, the TAEF Accord established the new features of the Lebanese
republic and stresses on the role of the media to promote the national reconciliation.
The French Audio-Visual Law of 1986 was used as a blueprint for the Lebanese
AVIL to follow. The Lebanese version differs from the French one, since Lebanon is
a sectarian country, and France is a secular nation.
The 1994 Audio-Visual Law distinguished between Category 1 licenses, which
allowed for the broadcast of news and political programs, and category 2 licenses for
television and radio stations that did not intend to broadcast news.” (Achi, 1994, p.
230).
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The 1994 Audio-Visual Media Law establishes a “licensing board” known as the
National Audio-Visual Media Council, or AVMC. Its 10 members were politically
selected along confessional lines, half by Parliament and half by the Cabinet, but they
also were recognized for their intellectual, literary, scientific and technical#p#分頁標題#e#
backgrounds and experience. Their mission according to the 1994 Laws was to:
1) Review license applications submitted by the Minister of Information.
2) Verify that the applications meet the requirements of the law.
3) Advise the Cabinet on whether it should approve or reject the application. The
cabinet was then to make the final decision.
4) Examining the content of the shows produced by the radio and television
channels. Not in context of freedom restriction, but in terms of the national
identity, and preventing any misunderstanding of multi-ethnicities or religions
in the country.
Actual implementation of the Audio-Visual Media Law took several years, but by
2002, Lebanon had reduced the number of private radio stations broadcasting news to
16, four AM and 12 FM, and the private television stations licensed for terrestrial
broadcasting are 10.
According to the 1994 Audio-Visual Media Law’s prescribed procedures, a television
station, among other requirements, had to broadcast for a minimum of 4,000 hours per
year, with 40 percent locally produced programming, and to transmit those programs
through all of Lebanon.
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The Legislation further anticipated that applicants for licenses would be given a
provisional permit to operate for a year, at the end of which they would be granted a
full 16-year license if they had abided by all conditions pertaining to shareholding,
assets and programming.
Article 7 (paragraphs 3 and 4) of the Act stipulates that the granting of a license to an
applicant is conditional, among other things, upon the applicant’s commitment to
develop a common national identity culture, based on conviviality, co-existence and
different ethno-religious groups.
Under a section titled “Minimal Broadcasting Hours and Compulsory Local
Programmes”, the Guidebook specifies that a minimum of 730 hours of “compulsory”
local programmes should be broadcast per year. Considering that, according to the
same Guidebook, a television station of the first category (i.e., with political
programming) has to broadcast at least 12 hours a day. The percentage of
“mandatory” local production amounts to approximately 16.6% of a station’s yearly
total broadcasting time. For a station that broadcasts 24 hours a day, the percentage
drops accordingly by half and barely makes up 8.4 % of the total yearly output.
Moreover, of the total compulsory 730 hours, 13 hours should be dedicated to drama
or fictional programming, be it “inspired by Lebanese, Arab, or international history
and literary heritage”. In other words, a licensed private television station is required
by law to produce no less than 5 hours and 12 minutes of locally produced drama
about Lebanon annually.
Other compulsory locally produced programmes include series, news bulletins, game#p#分頁標題#e#
shows, children’s programming, documentaries, sports shows and so on.
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Assuming a daily broadcast of 12 hours, we end up with the following percentages:
0.89 % goes to local drama/series, 6.39 % to local news, 2.94 % to songs and music,
2.05 % to game shows, and a remaining 4.08 % to sports, variety shows,
documentaries, and development programming (e.g., agriculture, public health, etc).
Finally, according to the same Guidebook, 20% of the compulsory 730 hours of local
production, or 3.3 % of the total yearly output (always assuming a daily broadcast of
12 hours) shall be dedicated to children and youth. This percentage of programming
for children and youth is extremely low, especially considering that reconciliation and
peace in Lebanon may be dependent upon the education of the younger generations
and the instilling of the ideals of co-existence in a still highly fragmented, multiconfessional
society.
Finally, since the programme quotas fixed by the Guidebook are given in absolute
terms (or numbers of hours) and not expressed as a percentage of a station’s total
yearly output, all the above percentages, once again, can drop by half if a station
broadcasts up to 24 hours a day (which is the case for most operating private stations
in Lebanon). In either case, it is actually very hard to see how these mandatory,
incredibly low quotas can effectively protect, much less promote or "develop the
national identity ", as specified in the Guidebook of Operating Conditions. Indeed,
with such a low number of compulsory hours of local production and content, it
would be a miracle if any of the goals behind the quota system were achieved.
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The section of the Guidebook titled General Terms lists some of these goals that have
to promote a common national identity conceptualized as an exemplar of coexistence,
diversity and conviviality.
“Hiring local talent, and, more specifically, upon the fulfilment of quotas for
every sect.
“Broadcasting is expected to serve the ‘public interest’ or ‘general welfare’
carrying out tasks which contribute to the wider and longer term benefits of
society as a whole without any distinction between religions or ethnic affiliations.
“Broadcasters should recognize their special relationship to the sense of
national identity.
“All channels should adopt national issues as a top priority, such as “the
case of the occupation of south Lebanon”, “the Lebanese captives in the Israeli
jails” and the “425 UN security council resolution.
“It is forbidden to promote the relation with the Israeli enemy.
“Sectarian diversity of Lebanon should be taken as a richness and
uniqueness element in building the national identity of Lebanon. Broadcasters#p#分頁標題#e#
should promote it by songs, campaigns, and shows.
“Religious events should be celebrated on all channels (such as Ramadan,
the Christmas, the Easter, and other sects’ religious events and occasions)
“Standard Arabic is the official language of news bulletins.
“News should cater common information, to all the Lebanese, reflecting a
common Lebanese reality.”
“Broadcasters should give a great importance to the national sports teams.
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“Broadcasters should thrive to highlight Lebanon’s archaeological,
historical, artistic and cultural landmarks.
Not only are the Lebanese percentages of local programming low, other content
restrictions (e.g., scheduling time) are very lax or nonexistent, and actually make it
possible for private broadcasters to eventually avoid producing local content
altogether if they wished to, dealing a deadly blow to Lebanese culture, Lebanese
artists and independent producers.
For instance, while still respecting the letter of the law, Lebanese private broadcasters
can schedule Lebanese programming late at night, and reserve the lucrative prime
time slot for (cheap) popular US or Mexican Commercial series. They can also replay
old Lebanese series ad nauseam in order to fulfil the quota requirement, without
having to produce any new local programming.
Finally, it is possible for Lebanese broadcasters to make Lebanese programming in a
non-Lebanese language, since nothing in the Act or the Guidebook specifies anything
about the language to be used in all types of programming except for the news.
Indeed, a recent content analysis found that most of the children programmes on one
of the major Lebanese private television stations were not in Arabic. Instead, they
were mostly in French or English. When Arabic children’s programmes existed, they
made extensive use of French or English, without attempting to include the Arabic
translation in the subtitles. Another problematic omission in the 1994 Act concerns
religious broadcasting catering to the various confessions that make up the Lebanese
population. The Guidebook does include the possibility of airing religious
programmes, however a maximum total of 52 hours a year is allowed, and this is to be
distributed among the various confessions.
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Considering at least the 5 major confessional groups in the country (i.e. Sunnis,
Shiites, Druze, Maronites, and Greek Orthodox), this could mean that each of these 5
groups can get as little as 10 hours of airtime during an entire year. For a "religious"
country (as stipulated in the constitution) comprised of no less than 17 different
religious communities, where politics and religion are inseparable components of
one’s identity (at least according to the state), it is hard to see how this requirement of#p#分頁標題#e#
"pluralism" in the broadcast media can be achieved by allocating one hour a week to
religious programming relevant to all religious communities, unless the pluralism
referred to in the Act is seen to mean everything but religious pluralism. Considering
that there is no other possibility foreseen by the Act to broadcast religious
programming, and that the "forgotten" public broadcaster (i.e., Tele Liban) cannot be
relied on to act in the public interest and provide a forum for all religious constituents
in the country, the Act’s protection of pluralism of ideas, on the one hand, and its
practical prohibition of religious programming, on the other, seem to be quite
irreconcilable, even paradoxical.
One could argue that the 1994 Act is in tune with the post-Civil War, amended
constitution’s goal to abolish sectarianism, which is perceived to be the source of the
country’s ills.
However, while the amended constitution recognizes the need to work towards that
goal in stages (Article 95), the 1994 Act simply obliterates the need to address the
issue/problem of sectarianism in the media.
The Lebanese post-Civil War governments seem to prefer the "stick one’s head into
the sand" approach to media and society in general and hope that things will somehow
change for the better on their own.
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Moreover, the absence of any clause requiring Lebanese broadcasters to address
"minority interests" is also in tune with the Acts’ general rejection of the public
broadcasting ideal of addressing diverse ethnic or religious groups. The situation is
paradoxical in an additional manner with respect to Armenians, who constitute the
country’s largest ethnic/linguistic community.
Like any of the country’s religious groups (Armenians in Lebanon are mostly
Armenian Catholic or Armenian Orthodox Christians), Armenians have the
constitutional right to political representation in parliament, to set up their own
educational and religious systems, and to resort to their own religious courts
concerning civil matters /disputes. The Broadcasting Act does not recognise their
right to be represented in the Lebanese media.
Worse yet, through their "rulings", they - more often than not- provide a convenient
cover up for what is essentially a politically-based decision. For example, the
Lebanese National Audio-Visual Council - set up in 1996 to license and monitors the
private broadcast media in Lebanon - still does not have the budget, facilities,
location, permanent staff and equipment to carry out its "monitoring" activities.
Even if it did, its powers are minimal, while most of the decision making authority
regarding regulation of media content is retained by the Minister of Information#p#分頁標題#e#
and/or the Council of Ministers.
In the following chapters, this study will be examining to which extent the televisions
are interpreting the AVIL, and what is considered as promoting the national identity,
based on the conviviality of the ethno-religious groups.
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Chapter VI
The Methodological Framework
A) Research objective:
The purpose of this study is to understand to which extent the Lebanese television
channels are interpreting the concept of plurality and conviviality conceptualized by
the post – civil war governments, as a key agent to a united common identity. In a
way to answer the research question: what in the television programmes can be
explained as an expression or a symbolic manifestation of plurality and conviviality
for a common national identity in Lebanon?
The study seeks to investigate whether these interpretations were fully or partly
successful in meeting their target, or lacked of certain strategies and/or coordination
with the state policy, and re-consideration of the media laws.
On the other hand, what impact could have the shows on the society, and to which
extent they created a feeling of nationalism.
The initial idea is to examine how the presentation of national identity differs,
depending on the sectarian identity of each channel. However, it was decided that
such an issue would be much too large for the remit and time scale of the project if the
study will be extended to cover the entire existing channels. Instead, it was decided to
narrow the focus of the research to study just two terrestrial channels, examining
whether they are participating in the making of common national identity based on
plurality and conviviality.
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B) The sampling:
Choosing a sample was among the challenges of the study. It became an essential part
to bring a stratified sample that is representative of both the religious identity and the
variety of the shows. In Lebanon there are seven working private terrestrial channels
with sectarian identities, and one state owned television.
The analysis is restricted to two private televisions “Future Television International”
and “The Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation, L.B.C”, in particular the terrestrial
channel of each television and not the satellite one. Since the satellite channels have
different programming that intends to serve the international and Arab market, and
their target to be pan-Arab channels and not to serve the Lebanese Diaspora abroad,
and when they do so, it falls under the folkloric cultural identity. Furthermore, the
satellite television stations are governed by Law 531 of 1996, in addition to the
previous in the 1994 Audio-Visual Law.
Channels selection:
The selection of the terrestrial channels was just restricted to Future TV and L.B.C.#p#分頁標題#e#
according to the following criteria.
1. The sectarian identity of each channel; L.B.C represents the Christian’s
perspective, and Future TV represents the Muslim one.
2. Both channels are considered major players in the media industry; they have
thematic sisters’ digital channels for youth, and sports. Statistics by Stat-Ispos showed
that both channels manipulate 70% of the viewing public, due to their modern and big
productions. Both channels control 50% of the local advertising market.
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Thus, they are more able to produce than the others. Other private channels have a
niche audience and attract little advertising revenue.
3. Both channels were launched before the issuing of the AVIL act, which enables to
have an idea about their media agendas during the ‘chaotic period’.
4. The state owned television was ignored in the study (although, it is assumed that
the public broadcasting services are more able to represent the national identity). All
its current broadcasted program are restricted to 3 main news bulletin in Arabic,
Armenian and French, and 2 live shows, one is the morning show, the other is a live
shopping show in the afternoon. Beside these, all the other shows are rerun. ‘Tele-
Liban’, is lowest ranked in audience viewer-ship and prestige with its declining
popularity also attributed to its financial situation. The government does not show
[until now] any intention for a possible reformation, which deprived the channel to be
a main player in the process.
Shows selection:
Both television channels show have been critically selected, in a way to answer the
main elements of the theoretical framework and literature, as well as to respond to the
laws key rules.
Thus, the shows started with the national campaigns which focused on the
homogeneity of the society, followed by the news bulletins which show the
difficulties of the task, then the sports coverage and the importance of the basket ball
in the Lebanese society to build a national identity among the youths, and at the end
the importance of the common heritage in the national glory day which focused on the
geographical and historical ‘we space’.
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The period selected:
From initial preliminary research and analysis of the television productions, one could
tell the two phases in which the televisions have passed by; ‘Before’ and ‘After’ the
issuing of the AVIL.
The study covers a period of 15 years starting from 1989, the date of the TAEF accord
which framed the identity of the Lebanese State and its plurality, to 2004, the date of
conducting this study. Having chosen a period of 15 years has another connotation on
the social level, which is 15 years of conviviality after 15 years of civil war.#p#分頁標題#e#
The first phase is from 1989 to 1994 (from the TAEF accord to the AVIL), in which
the media industry was chaotic and unorganized. The second phase is from the issuing
of the AVIL in 1994 until present time.
C) Research method:
As Hansen et al (1998) suggested that the decision on the research method is
governed by the nature of the investigation, the availability of the resources and time.
Practicability and feasibility are also important considerations.
The study was conducted through the use of qualitative analysis. The choice was
made up since the study seeks the interpretive explanations of the issue. Such a task
involves a continuous un-riddling, a dynamic and permanently re-construction of
interpretations, as one works through the units of analysis. As Alasuutari (1995)
suggested that often the new questions coming up during un-riddling lead to new
operationalizations and purification phases (…)” (Alasuutari, 1995, p. 18).
The qualitative approach will give the study the required flexibility that the task of unriddling
demands.
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And since the objective of the study is to understand the extent of the interpretation in
study by relating social and cultural observations, the quantitative analysis is avoided,
as the study attempts to “…demonstrate that the analysis relates to things beyond the
material at hand.” (Alasuutari, 1995, p. 156).
The second reason to favour the qualitative analysis is due to the time restrictions of
the study. The study tend to examine a period of time up to 15 years dating from 1989
to 2004, which it means that there are many materials to analyze. And as the time
given to field work occurred in Lebanon, was for one month; thus, any big scale study
would exceed the time given to achieve the dissertation. Putting it in Krippendorf
words “the content analyst may be faced with large volumes of linguistic data that can
no longer be analyzed by a single person.” (Krippendorf, 1980, p. 31).
Through the research, I shall attempt to examine to what extent the two private
channels Future Television international and the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation
(L.B.C) preserve the notion of promoting national unity among the local society.
D) The field work:
The field work was conducted in Lebanon, for one month long, starting in late March
2004 up to the third week of April 2004. Data was gathered from different sources.
(TV shows, AVIL and TAEF accord transcripts and documents, in addition to the
interviews with top media figures. Some of the interviews are used as statements and
some were run for the purpose to comprehend the situation of the media productions
during the period of war and before the release of the acts and accords.
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Chapter VII
Analysing the shows: the TAEF/AVIL interpretation#p#分頁標題#e#
In this chapter, I shall be analysing the genre of the shows telecasted, and in particular
what are the important ideas transmitted. What I am interested in is not just a
description of surface events but rather an analysis of selected programs with respect
to some underlying structure or pattern which may be regarded as promoting national
identity and social bonding and what is still anti-national.
A) National campaigns: promoting national codes.
This section focuses on two national campaigns. The first campaign “conviviality”
believed in secularism as a mean to achieve the conviviality. The second campaign
“it’s good to communicate” focused on communication and co-existence as a means
to achieve its purpose.
Conviviality:
In 1996, the then president of the republic Mr. Elias Hrawi proposed the civil
marriage project. He believed that the emergence of a mixed marriage generation
would have to lessen the upheaval of sectarianism and that can create with time a
secular society. The idea is not new for the Lebanese, since they are used to travel all
the way to Cyprus or Greece to sign up a civil marriage. Therefore, a national
campaign titled “civil marriage for conviviality” has been produced by the ministry of
information and telecasted on the private channels.
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The campaign started with archived footages from the war, depicting the horrible
destruction of the country. It extensively used photos of people holding holly symbols
necklaces around their neck, getting into fight. These footages fade out, and dissolved
with the map of Lebanon used as a background, where 17 new born babies sleeping
side by side. The babies were just in their nappies without any religious symbols
around their neck. The voice over made by the president himself, stated that “these
babies are the outcome of the civil marriage; they strongly believe in one God and one
land. These babies are baptised by the water of their holly land”.
Interpreting this campaign, one can tell that, investing the voice of the president
which represents the power of the state to comment over the footages gave credibility
to the project, and showed that there were serious interests from the state members
themselves to lessen the sectarianism.
The extensive deliberate showing of holly symbols necklaces around the neck
signifies that sectarianism is the illness of Lebanon and the cause of 15 years of war.
The 17 babies represented the 17 different sects of the country; they were necklace
free which it has to promote the idea of secularism. Being in a sleeping status side by
side in the open air implies the different groups enjoy conviviality and peaceful calm
life which has been missed for 15 years long in Lebanon. This depiction contradicts
with the war time scenes, at the time when people hide in underground shelters.#p#分頁標題#e#
At the end, although the importance of the campaign and the consent of the Lebanese
people on the civil marriage project, the parliament did not ratify it until the present
time, since the religious leaders did not agree for several reasons, claiming that the
society will lose its ethics and values.
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This campaign has been followed by another campaign that focuses on the
communication between sects as a best mean that leads to the conviviality.
It is good to communicate:
The second campaign was held in 1998 by the leading mobile phone firm ‘Liban
Cell’. It projected its slogan “it’s good to communicate” on the Lebanese post-war
society. The campaign showed Lebanese from different sects talking about their
experiences in communicating with other ethno-religious groups, taking from Beirut’s
mosques and churches, backgrounds to their confessions.
The campaign proves firstly that Lebanon is a country of co-existence and no group
can ignore the presence of the other; fifteen years of bloody confrontations were
enough to prove that no group is a winner. By showing the 17 different sects, multisectarianism
is taken as a source of richness and not the illness of Lebanon.
At the same time, although the society became very westernized, it stills faithful and
attached to the religion. This is clear from the location chosen to shoot the campaign;
the backyards of the mosques and churches. It takes the style of religious confession
in front of the camera and not in front of the monk or the sheik.
This campaign conveys a message that multi-sectarianism that used to be the illness
of the country, when it is linked and associated with a multi-lateral communication it
becomes richness to the Lebanese identity. To put it otherwise, it promotes the idea of
coexistence and the spirit of tolerance, the idea that diverse religious communities –
Shiites, Sunnis, Christians, and Druze – could live together, and even thrive, in one
city and one country without having to abandon altogether their individual identities.
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Through the communication, the Lebanese will come to understand each others and
end up with a united vision and then identity about their country. Through
communications, Lebanese have found that what united them is much more important
than the minor differences.
Thus, plurality and conviviality are not a purpose but means to achieve a purpose – a
common national identity.
B) The news: the insider and outsider ‘other’.
Richard Collins (1990) estimated that the construction of national identity is much
more influenced by the news media than other cultural and variety shows which have
entertainment objectives. He supposed that “political identity and sense of citizenship#p#分頁標題#e#
are more closely related to consumption of political communication such as television
news than to consumption of entertainment.” (Collins, 1990, p. 255). Thus, news is
assumed to be the core agent to construct the national identity, because “it provides
homogenous reading grill that allow the individuals to judge the reality in their
society through the same referent and reactivates the sense of belonging to the
environment where the events take place.” (Chebel, 1986, p. 132). Therefore, news
have a visualization effect of “national reality” since it distinguishes through the
delivered information of the “us” versus the “others”.
In order to do so, the Audio-Visual and Information Law in Lebanon, obliges the
television channels to reflect the pluralism of the Lebanese reality. This pluralism
should be interpreted by the diversity of the topics approached, the diversity of the
opinions and point of views and by the diversity of the Lebanese reality covered by
the news.
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Close observations of the news bulletins on both channels provide the answers to the
following questions. Do the news bulletins contribute to the construction of the
Lebanese national identity by representing the diverse ethno-religious affiliations?
Does the Lebanese reality look alike on both channels? Does the news structure obey
the ‘AVIL’ and political objectives which tend to reflect the entire country as well as
to inculcate a sense of belonging? Has Lebanon been taken as a whole one entity?
Newscasters and editors’ religious identity:
According to the AVIL, media institutions should have no discrimination between
Lebanese over their sectarian identity. Although, a close reading of the main evening
news bulletin at 8:00 pm sharp on both channels showed the following:
On L.B.C. all the newscasters are just Christian Catholic Maronites. On the other
hand, Future TV enjoyed some variety of religious identities, with Muslim anchors
exclusivity (both Sunnis and Shiites). The reason behind the variety as it is claimed by
the head of the news department at future TV Mr, Mohamed Assi is that “we should
think out of the box”. But indeed, thinking out of the box is thinking election wise.
Future TV belongs to the current Prime Minister Hariri; and hiring anchors from
different religious background has a political significance that could serve in the
elections and raise the polls.
Thus, the segregation started from the name of the news anchor that has a sectarian
indication. This could be understood as well, that this news is made by Christians, to
the Christians; it holds their point of view and perspective about Lebanon as a
homeland of the Levantine Christians, and vice versa.
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Friday speech versus Sunday preaches: the holy fight exchange.#p#分頁標題#e#
The AVIL organized the religious issues in the media by giving it a certain amount of
time; although the mechanism still very religious. Religious leaders enjoy frequent
appearances on the screens, and their weekly messages include political ideologies.
A religious speech is supposed to hold ethical and moral meanings; but in Lebanon, a
religious leader gives himself the authority to interfere and comment over the sociopolitical
and even economical mechanism of the country.
In this respect each leader, concludes the government agenda of the week, and
examines how much the policy was on the favour of its sect.
Both channels adopt these speeches and give them a high significance. Friday’s
evening news bulletin on Future TV starts with the ‘Mufti’ (the Muslim religious
leader) speech. On the other side, Sunday’s evening news bulletin on L.B.C starts
with the Patriarch preaches. Both channels are considered involved in the speeches,
since they telecast segments of the speeches as the first news in the bulletin and then
rerun the entire speech after the news bulletin ends up.
The media, in particular the news are not casting aside the role of the religious
leaders. The media in this respect is giving an unrestricted access to the religious
leaders to exchange what it has been called by An Nahar newspapers the ‘holy fight’.
(An Nahar, 19, January 2002).
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The forecast news: tell us your sect we will tell you the weather…
Even through the forecast news segment in the main bulletin the Lebanese are
segregated. Both Future TV and L.B.C provide a daily forecast news segment in their
evening news bulletin.
Beside that the forecast newscasters should be Muslim on Future TV, and Catholic on
L.B.C, the audience should be aware of his/her religious identity to choose the
channel which can provide weather news service about his region. Both channels are
similar in presenting the weather through a 3D map that supposed to show all the
regions of Lebanon. But the difference is that each channel focuses on the regions of
existence of each sect.
Lebanon through the L.B.C’s forecast map is Mount Lebanon within its cities, towns
and villages. And Mount Lebanon for the Maronites Catholic is not a matter of
geography; Mount Lebanon is the ‘Fatherland’ of the Christian of the Levant, and it
has been mentioned in the holly bible several times.
Lebanon through Future TV is the big coastal cities within the capital Beirut.
Historically the coast has been inhabited by Muslim majority who enjoyed the
economical power and trade since their relation with the Ottoman Empire.
Thus, being a Muslim Lebanese, living in an area with Muslim majority, will switch
on Future TV to enjoy the forecast news, and vice versa.
Break in, break out: Break up the country.#p#分頁標題#e#
The evening news bulletins on both channels are segmented into national affaires,
international news, sports, economic, and forecast news.
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The breaks in/out credits are used not just for a break time between segments, but also
they reflect the Lebanese reality through the perspective of each channel.
Future TV made the tour of the reconstructed regions after the war, showing the
glittery lights of the capital during the night time, and the sleepless Lebanese mingling
in the streets.
On the other hand L.B.C. uses footages from their daily news segment ‘issue of the
day’; and mainly the issue is a social problem, that focuses on people needs and
problems, such as the unsolved traffic jam on the main highway that links the capital
with its northern suburbs; the garbage collection in a late time in the night, that affects
the neighbourhood or any other issue that it has to criticize the government policy.
In interpreting both breaks in/out segments, the Lebanese reality is not alike for both
Muslims and Christians. Through Future TV, Lebanon is a peaceful country, enjoying
modern lifestyle and cosmopolitan cities. Lebanese has no economic or financial
problems therefore they can spend long hours out in the coffee shops and restaurants
in the street of the most expensive city in the Middle East. On L.B.C, Lebanon has
many social problems, and its development process lacks organization.
Thus, the Future’s Lebanon is different than the L.B.C’s one. By identifying to one of
the double version of Lebanon, is a matter of belonging to two different countries
with two different realities.
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Is everybody there? Misrepresentation of the minorities:
In the TAEF agreement, it has been mentioned that Lebanon is a country for all its
citizens without exception; on the other hand, the AVIL did not include any clause
related to the minorities.
Armenians, who constitute 10% of the Lebanese population nowadays, are poorly
represented in the Lebanese media. And when they did, they are underrepresented as
one of the active groups of the country and are overrepresented as criminals and
lawbreaking.
Abu Hasna (2000) argued that not just in the newspapers Armenians suffered the
misrepresentation also in the electronic media. They are depicted as the outsider, the
other; those who had have no hand in making the history of the country. Just Future
TV has an Armenian news bulletin for 30 minutes at 3:00pm, presented and produced
by Armenians. And for their evening news bulletin Future TV specifies a 5 minutes
segment in Armenian presented by an Armenian co-anchor. This Armenian language
segment reports the daily events in Lebanon and the world with a special report from
the motherland Armenia. Abu Hasna (2000) argued that as much as this segment is#p#分頁標題#e#
considered as an acknowledgment of the Armenian existence in Lebanon, although
the Armenian affairs when it is framed as news from the motherland has double
connotation: the positive side is building a link between the country of origins and the
hosting country. On the other hand it can have a negative effect on the Armenian side
it reminds them that they are not fully integrated yet in the country, even if they made
their first arrival from more than 100 years ago.
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According to Zaven Kiyoumejian8 an Armenian Lebanese TV anchor/producer at
Future TV, the news discourse address to the Armenians as foreigners and does not
focus on the active role of the Armenians in the Lebanese society which is considered
as anti-reality.
The ‘South Lebanon’ issue: The insiders’ unity against the outsiders’ threat.
May 2000, was a historical date in the Lebanese agenda. The Lebanese resistance
forced Israel to withdraw from south Lebanon after more than 20 years of occupation
and conflict. South Lebanon is a melting pot of ethno-religious identities, and no
group can claim its dominance; even if some claim that the south has been freed by
Hezbollah, (the strict Islamic party backed by Iran).
Taken as a whole, the region could be considered as an ideal example of pluralism
and diversity beside Beirut the capital city.
The media coverage on that occasion was outstanding on the national level. Both
Future TV and L.B.C approached it as a national issue that concern the entire society,
boosting up in the Lebanese a sense of belonging, togetherness and heroism.
Both Future TV and L.B.C, established open airs studios, taking from the sceneries of
the region, backgrounds for their news set. Both channels talked about the South as
‘coming back home’. They made the tours of the freed regions, running interviews
with the local people, visiting the families of the freed resistant, making special
reports about the feelings of the Lebanese in other regions, through live links. Freed
captives were portrayed as heroes, who suffered for several years in tiny cells for the
sake of their country.
8 Zaven Kiyoumejian, interviewed in 17 of April 2004 in Beirut.
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Close examination of the south Lebanon issue have shown how idealistic can go the
Lebanese channels. An Nahar newspaper titled: “L.B.C. / Future TV linking the
country, and create togetherness”. (An Nahar, 24 may 2000).
Such common approach is due to the emergence of an outsider ‘other’ which is Israel.
In this case the media applied the Lebanese popular say: “my brother and I against my
cousin, and my cousin and I against the foreigner”. To put it otherwise the Muslim
considered the Christian as an insider ‘other’ and vice versa, but when it comes to the#p#分頁標題#e#
threat from the outside, they united against it.
C) The basketball and the media: ‘from a new trend to a
national tale’.
Various strands of nationalism may be identified and are rarely explicit in nature, a
codified but nonetheless inseparable element of sport. One must first determine why
sport is evidently an appropriate avenue for the expression of nationalistic spirit.
Rowe and Lawrence (1986) asserted that this is because sport is a particularly
compelling ideological cement…it encourages the suspension of…antagonism in
favour of a fabled national interest” (Rowe & Lawrence, 1986, p. 203). According to
Blain et al (1993) sport as a whole “constitutes a particularly elaborated symbolic
system” (Blain et al, 1993, p. 186), take place in competitive framework and as such,
give rise to the semiotic-friendly idea of nationalism.
The media as a fourth estate, with their ability to create or reinforce public opinion
can perpetuate notions on nationalism. Rowe and Lawrence (1986) argued the
purpose of nationalism when combined with sport is to attempt to distinguish
nationhood from that of others.
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This section intends to study how the relationship between sports, national identity
and the media, has formed in the last decade in Lebanon, and the extent to which this
has implicated sport in the construction of a particular version of Lebanese national
identity shall be examined later in this section. Thus my viewpoint is closely
connected with the framework of nationality and the concepts of nation-building,
collective experience and national identity. However, this section does concentrate on
the media presentation of the Lebanese victory in the Asian Basketball Championship
in 1999.
Sports in Lebanon: a round-up.
Likely to other sectors and institutions, the sports in Lebanon have been affected
during the years of war. According to Ali Safa9, senior sports commentator at Future
TV described the situation at that time as pathetic. A full destruction of the sports
arenas, breaking up of the sports federations; sectarian issues emerged among the
teams who were divided according to their religious identity, which deprived Lebanon
to be represented in international sporting competitions.
Hariri10’s first government in 1993 gave a great importance to the sports sector in its
reconstruction strategy. Millions of dollars were invested in the reconstruction of new
modern sports arenas throughout the country, and got ready to host national, regional
and international sports competitions.
9 Ali Safa, interviewed on March 29, 2004.
10 Rafik Hariri: is the current Lebanese prime minister. He came for the first time into power in
1993.Mr. Hariri, one of the richest in the world, has launched in 1993 the reconstruction strategy of#p#分頁標題#e#
Lebanon.
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In the last decade, Lebanon came back again on the regional and international sports
agenda, new sports fields were explored. In team games, they have enjoyed some
notable successes, not least Lebanese’ ice hockey players have fared even better,
winning World titles, and last year the Mediterranean championship in snowboarding
since Lebanon is the only Middle Eastern country that enjoys snow and winter sports.
The list of Lebanese sporting achievements could be continued for some time. But
perhaps the most remarkable of all was the 1999’s Asian Basket Ball Championship
when the Lebanese Basket ball team became the Asian Basket ball champion. The
fact remains that Lebanon acquired a sporting national identity thanks to the media
which have performed consistently well at the highest level in a variety of sports.
The ‘Green Saga’: the victory of a nation.
Examining the current news bulletins on television nowadays in Lebanon, one will
notice that the opening news stories are about national basketball and that basketball
topics seize a considerable amount of prime time news. Back some years ago, news
bulletins included a separate sports news segment, coming usually at the end of the
news program.
Not just in the news, many other shows have been produced since the victory of the
national team on the international level in Asian Basketball Championship 1999.
L.B.C, which had enjoyed an exclusive coverage for the Asian Basketball
Championship, produced a special documentary called ‘Green Saga ’about the
achievements of the national team. It documented the journey of the national team
during the championship. The documentary discourse, narratives and jargons have a
clear sense of nationalism and national flavour.
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The documentary framed the victory as a nation’s dream; this dream exceeds its
geographical boundaries. Its men are mighty, brave warriors to realize it into fact.
Those men came from different background to represent one united nation called
Lebanon. They have brotherly cooperated to meet the dream and to make out of it a
national myth for the coming generations. Those men were called the ‘descendants of
the land of the cedars’11. The last part of the documentary showed the team’s return to
Lebanon. This segment was titled ‘here come the true Lebanese’. And the true
Lebanese is understood as the new generation who cast aside the sectarian identity for
the sake of their nation.
The documentary holds many national meanings and interprets the concept of
pluralism and conviviality. Starting with, the title ‘Green Saga’: the ‘green’ is not just
the uniform colour of the national team, but also the symbol of Lebanon and its#p#分頁標題#e#
distinguished green nature known by lifelong pine and cedars trees. Such
identification implied that the victory will live as long as those trees and it will be
connected to the nation as its trees. As well as the word ‘saga’, has to create a kind of
myth to be transmitted from a generation to another.
Furthermore, the key element of the Lebanese national identity, conviviality and
plurality for one national identity, was well interpreted in this documentary. The
plurality is the different sectarian identities of the players. The conviviality is their
cooperation and being re-united as a national team once again, aiming to hold the
name of their country to the highest international achievements.
11 The cedar tree or as it is internationally known as ‘Cedars of Lebanon’ is the national symbol of
Lebanon. Know as a lifelong tree, the Lebanese believe that it is a holy tree, since it was mentioned
several times in the Bible. In Lebanon they call it the ‘Cedars of the Lord’.
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According to Hobsbawm (1983), competitive sports have functioned as an institution
through which nationalist meanings have been naturalized and brought into people’s
everyday lives. This is enabled by the nature of competitive sports, which is based on
the opposition of the participants. Indeed, sports have been called “a war without
weapons” and it has been considered as one of the most important means to reinforce
national identification especially in countries where other means of “validation” have
been scarce (cf. Bale & Sang 1996).
Thus, the use of the word ‘worriers’ in the documentary, signifies that the games were
like a battlefield. The confrontation with the ‘other’, like China and South Korea, well
experienced countries and hundred times much bigger than Lebanon, means that the
competition was on its highest level. Furthermore, allowing for the fact that Lebanon
is a country under reconstruction in all its fields, which might understood that
victories have greater importance in relative terms.
While success in sports was seen to provide a meaning of projecting national image to
a national and international public, the Lebanese national team confrontations with the
‘others’ has also created opportunities for strengthening beliefs about the unique
character of ‘our’ nation in the light of the real or imagined difference of the ‘others’
(Hobsbawm, 1983, pp. 142-4).
The extensive use of words such as ‘we the Lebanese’, ‘our nation is playing’, ‘our
Lebanese players’, ‘Go Lebanon, Go; Long live Lebanon’; ‘here comes the real
Lebanese’; ‘these are our heroes’; in the media narratives and discourses intended to#p#分頁標題#e#
boost up the national feelings and to create into the Lebanese people the love to the
fatherland, in other words to create a Lebanon well valuable for the Lebanese.
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Creating a Lebanese role model:
Rowe and Lawrence identify that “through the identification of the sports champion
with the nation we are asked to celebrate a country’s power and strength” (Rowe &
Lawrence, 1986, p. 198). In this respect, the national team players, in particular the
two main players, Elie Mshantaf (Christian) and Fadi Khatib (Muslim) who scored
the victory, were turned into national idols and narratives of sports victories. They
were depicted as Lebanese brothers, cooperating together to meet their target, and
have the essential characteristics for an ideal brave Lebanese Youngman.
Thus, it is not surprising why youths have the same haircuts, want to dress like them,
or trying to have a sporty lifestyle like them, as well as talking about their nation
victory and their dream to be Lebanese basketball players.
And since the Lebanese modern society lacks heroes from the present times, the
winners hence serve as propagandists for the ultimate aims of the state, and
nonetheless serve to accentuate the potential power of sport and the media thereof, in
the creation or reinforcing of nationalist sentiment. One may assert that it is in the
media depiction of the sport where this synonym occurs. It is with this assertion that
analysis of power of the media becomes essential, most particularly regarding the
importance of media forces in the projection of an image and promotion nationalism
and national imageries.
Sports have been prized in this documentary because of the contribution which it is
believed to make the fabric of Lebanese society, in particular among the young
generation.
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For those youngsters, such image of Lebanon as a sporting nation leaves a definite
lasting impression. It is undeniable that, for most of the last decade, Lebanon has
managed to avoid sectarian division at least in the sport.
The actual semiotics of the operation of the sporting events, supplemented by the
L.B.C coverage thereof, do much to accentuate fervour and creation of identity which
may constitute nationalism and a media audience being forced to identify with the
nation through the sport. This strand of nationalism is codified through the simple
nature of the Lebanese national basketball achievements world wide. It appears to be
structured to foster national sentiment and identification and glorify nation.
Achievement in sports has also another role, in that it was expected to create that
Lebanese, are strongly united. Victories in sports created the meaning for the newly
recovered Lebanese nation desperately needed collective traditions, experiences and#p#分頁標題#e#
heroes to increase national consciousness and integration.
This section tried to explore the contribution made by mediated sport to the
construction of Lebanese national identity in the period of reconstruction –It shall be
argued that, sport not only reflected the contemporary articulation of Lebanese
national identity but also played an important part in the construction and
consolidation of the particular sense of identity being expressed.
D) Beirut - plural, singular, and common: creating a ‘we space’.
In the AVIL Guidebook, it is asserted that the media should highlight Lebanon’s
archaeological, historical, artistic and cultural landmarks. On the other hand, the
current president of the republic Mr. Emile Lahoud, launched what it has been called
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“the national glory day” on the 10th of August of each year. He aimed to give the
Lebanese, the opportunity to have accesses to the presidential, governmental, and
parliament palaces and also, free entrance to the museums, archaeological sites and
galleries; in a way to create a sense of nationalism, love to their fatherland and a
collective memory.
The media on this occasion, in particular L.B.C. and Future TV, have played a
significant role in promoting the cultural heritage, history, and the Lebanese
Landmarks.
Both channels rescheduled their day agenda to telecast special reports and live shows;
they made the tour of the archaeological and historical sites, talking about the ancient
peoples and civilizations who established in Lebanon since ages, reflecting in that the
diversity and the richness of the Lebanese history. But the most remarkable among
all, was a documentary produced by Future TV in 2003, about the capital Beirut.
The documentary begins with archived images of the fifteen years war, that
transformed the capital city, Beirut, from the ‘Paris of the Mediterranean’ to a bloody
battleground of rival sectarian factions. Once celebrated as the ‘Paris of the
Mediterranean’ and a playground for the elite of the Arab world, Beirut in the 1970s
and 1980s became notable primarily as a haven for terrorists, neologism
‘Beirutization’ has joined ‘Balkanization’ in the lexicon of social disintegration.
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The very next images shifted to highlight on the city, more than a decade after the
civil war; Beirut is in the final stages of a multi-billion-dollar reconstruction effort
that has attempted to re-create the ‘old’ cosmopolitan Beirut and to transform the city
centre into a sanitized Middle Eastern theme park (Makdisi, 1997; Kubursi, 1999).
The documentary tends to speak of Beirut as an almost magical place where the
romantic Arab world meet Western sophistication- a place embodying a sanguine#p#分頁標題#e#
combination of glamour and warmth, openness and kin-based insularity,
cosmopolitanism and distinctive ‘local’ character.
In this respect, and despite the efforts to recast Beirut as a stable, unified place, the
city holds over the meanings of Lebanese identity and nationhood. The competing
meanings rooted in the Lebanese turbulent history.
In interpreting the documentary, the reconstruction process has been represented in
the media not only as a rehabilitation of physical infrastructure, but, equally an
attempt to reinterpret Lebanon’s tumultuous past and to create a new collective
memory of the Lebanese ‘nation.’ The city is represented, in this respect, as a text of
an ongoing discourse about the shape and meaning of Lebanese nationhood and
identity. And like many texts, the built environment is significant not only for what it
says, but for what it neglects to say about the past and the present (Till, 1999;
Johnson, 1994).
Focusing on the capital has many connotations. Since the end of the civil war, a
nation-building agenda has infused the country’s reconstruction. Reconstruction
efforts have centred on Beirut—the centre of Lebanon’s financial services industries
and the engine of its economic growth since independence.
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The concentration of redevelopment in Beirut in the media also has an important
symbolic dimension. Beirut was for years a virtual power vacuum, fragmented into
militarized slums and subject to constant outside intervention. The city was essentially
the capital of a state that had ceased to exist, and of a ‘nation’ which had never
inspired the allegiance of its inhabitants.
The centrepiece of the documentary has been the rebuilding of the 180 hectare of
Beirut. In contrast to pre-war laissez-faire development, the new city centre
development has been planned in great detail and centrally controlled. And, it has
made tangible its new image of a united and civic-minded Lebanon. This is meant to
signal the beginning of legitimate, centralized authority where there had been political
chaos and fragmentation.
The documentary enthusiastically described these as places where people can mingle
as they once did. Significantly, in this sense, the media conceive of public spaces not
as a new feature of Beirut’s landscape, but as a return to an authentic, pre-war Beirut.
The public spaces of Beirut, along with the re-created [souks] markets and refurbished
commercial and residential districts, are understood as the revival of a genuine Beirut,
where Muslims and Christians intermingled as friends and neighbours. These spaces,
documentary suggests, capture a uniquely Lebanese ethos of openness and diversity,
and are a material representation of a common Lebanese identity.
Significantly, some of these new public spaces shown in the documentary are#p#分頁標題#e#
organized around archaeological sites uncovered during the demolition of war-torn
buildings.
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The priority given to archaeological preservation reflects a purposeful effort not only
to draw tourists to the city centre, but, quite literally, to excavate the heritage of the
‘Lebanese people,’ and in so doing to indicate the continuity between today’s
citizenry and Lebanon’s ancient inhabitants. The Phoenician and ‘Levantine’ elements
of that heritage have been given the most play, as they embody the images of the
Lebanese nation favoured by Lebanese.
More cynically, the documentary stressed on the preservation of Lebanon’s ancient
monuments that it has to signify a concerted effort to bury and to deny the country’s
more recent past. A striking element of the documentary is the lack of scenes of a
substantial public memorial to the civil war or to its victims.
This glaring forgetfulness of the landscape is at least partly explainable, since neither
the state nor the media seem willing to address openly the memories that undoubtedly
loom largest in the minds of Beirut’s citizens.
In the media, the new Beirut should serve as a symbol of Lebanon’s civic-minded
future rather than as reminder of its dismal recent past.
The media coverage of the city centre has attempted to generate—or from their
perspective, revive—a civic consciousness and unified national identity. Through the
documentary, the new Beirut is designed to represent a national space where a decade
earlier there had been only rubble and gutted-out structures.
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Chapter VIII
Conclusion & confirmation of the theoretical framework.
Lebanon’s most famous singers ‘Fairouz’ sings, “What is Lebanon?” before
answering: “a few cedars attracting the attention of the whole world.” nationalist -
chauvinistic exaggeration often goes hand in hand with the actual weakness of a
nation. This is particularly true in times of pain and desolation, as it was in Lebanon
where constructed “Lebanonism”- an expression of crafted nationalism- provided a
psychological refuge for its citizens. This is only normal; nations are often built
through the pain and suffering, as products of nationalism. As Hobsbawm (1983) put
it, nationalism comes before nations. Nations do not make states and nationalisms but
the other way around. Peoples first seek togetherness and then translate it into
geographical terms, surrounding themselves with borders.
From the theoretical framework, national identity is understood as a social construct,
which involves the construction of two elements: the object of self- ascription and the
bonds which link a person to a nation be it blood ties, collective experience, culture,#p#分頁標題#e#
history etc...Nation identity as well is constructed not only through the identification
of its sources and the formation of its symbols, but also through the construction of
“others”, which allow a nation to define itself with the use if contrast.
On the other hand, the Lebanese media, which served as a mean of war in the hands
of the sectarian parties, have had an endemic problem in building their nation. In the
media in particular the television channels, the state has never fully been taken for
granted in Gellner’s words, and nationalism had a strong sectarian colouring. In
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Lebanon, allegiance to sect comes before allegiance to country. Sectarianism is the
most outstanding characteristic of the Lebanese society. It is also one of the main ills
that weighs heavily on the mind and work of the Lebanese people.
Every Lebanese sect has its own version of history and identity that can incite tension
between them. Admittedly, the Hobsbawm-Gellner ideal type, however, was a very
tall order in the limited period provided Lebanon since independence.
The discussion in the previous chapters reflects how the media in Lebanon,
particularly, the television is interpreted and defined: what is considered national
identity , in terms of ‘plurality and conviviality’ and what is anti- national identity in
terms of ‘sectarian divisions’.
The analysis of television in Lebanon has shown that, in spite of the descriptions of
mass media in general and television in particular as vital instruments in and for the
process of nation-building and the development of a national collective identity, there
are only few shows which seem to be deliberately designed and used to serve that
purpose. Firstly, the national campaigns may be interpreted as carrying an implicit
framing of the nation-building by introducing the new concept to the society.
Secondly, the sports documentary “Green Saga” is a positive step in the right
direction to develop implicitly a supra national identity among Lebanese. The Asian
Basketball Championship is an arena through which is possible to manipulate the
sectarian images of Lebanon and its population. In fact, it is often argued that sports
arenas have become places for producing images of national heroes and victories that
are comparable to the images of the battlefields and war heroes in national narratives
(Archetti, 1994, p. 232).
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The success in sports was seen as means of projecting a national image to a national
and international public. As well as “its usefulness of understanding the ‘us’ within
nation-state”. (Bale and Sang, 1996: 17; Hill, 1996; 1-6). L.B.C. has played an
important role in this process, by constructing, legitimizing and reinforcing the#p#分頁標題#e#
national imagery of Lebanon and the Lebanese as both an insider and outsider agent.
As Bale and Sang (1996) argued that apart from war, no other form of bonding serves
to unite a nation better than representational sports.
And thirdly, the documentary on Beirut at Future TV shows the plurality of the capital
city and its diversity throughout its history. History is another important source of
national identity. It provides a source for the construction of “we-space”; it
symbolizes the everlasting commitment of Lebanese to their freedom, to the
independence of their state. Unfortunately, recovering a sense of the History may not
be an easy task. The past can be clouded.
But it is also possible to discern an even more significant treatment of history. History
is not only what it was long ages ago; history is created every day, every moment, and
the members of a nation are directly involved in its development. The feeling of
creating history is conditioned by the experience of fights for independence, building
and rebuilding their nation, or simply living together and making decisions-this is the
most source of national identity.
Although, in the news section, the ‘togetherness’ depends on the identity of the ‘other;
whether, the other is an outsider or insider. Since for each sect the ‘other’, might live
around the corner. The ‘we’ in the news, are the members of the same community
itself. But on the international level, such as the issue of South Lebanon and its
confrontation with Israel, the ‘we’ broaden its meaning to cover all the groups.
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The example of Lebanese television proved what Heidt (1987) suggested that national
identity is something which can be ‘created’. It also concurred with Price’s (1995)
argument that everyone shares the national identity above party or ‘sectarian’
concerns. Indeed, there are no basic divisions between Lebanese people in terms of
ethnic divisions. There are religious communities, which should not be mistaken for
ethnic groups. The Lebanese share in Smith’s (1991) words, a historic territory,
common myths, and historical memories, mass, public culture, and common legal
rights and duties for all its communities.
However, I shall conclude that the interpretation of the AVIL/TAEF is not fully
achieved yet. The AVIL terms are seemingly broad in their definition, “not all of its
terms are strictly applied” as Abdul Hadi Mahfouz12 discussed. The Lebanese
National Audio-Visual Council - set up in 1996 to license and monitors the private
broadcast media - still does not have the budget, facilities, location, permanent staff
and equipment to carry out its "monitoring" activities. Even if it did, its powers are
minimal. The sectarian identity, still explicit in the private channels, since the#p#分頁標題#e#
licensing is based on sectarian partition; therefore one cannot put blames on the
private channels, or even to have great expectations. On the other hand, The PSB13
which supposed to play a more effective role is weak and lost its viewer ships.
The AVIL should be reconsidered and readapted to the media mechanism and the
social construction. The absence of clauses related to the minorities, or the Arabic
language, religious shows and many others.
12 Abdel Hadi Mahfouz is the general director of the Lebanese National Audio-Visual Media Council.
Interviewed in 25th of March 2004.
13 PSB: the Public Service Broadcasting. It is meant there the state owned channel “Tele Liban”.
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The new laws and narratives must eliminate everything that creates conflict between
Lebanese in order to facilitate the healing process. Nevertheless, the 1994 Audio-
Visual Media Law has been applied, to prune the chaotic proliferation of small
broadcasting stations that mushroomed during the civil war, by dramatically relicensing,
and rationalizing the system, motivated in some part by the need to bring a
greater degree of order to their airwaves. It also did so by an unarticulated formula
that in practice reflected the distribution of power within the country: one station for
the Catholics, one for Orthodox Christians, one for the moderate Shiite Muslim and
other for the more militant Hezbollah, another for the Sunni Muslims, and so on.
The new Lebanon, for instance, has maintained the division of political offices by sect
and, according to some commentators, has “perpetuated the political power of the
"sects’ lords" who divided the running of the country between themselves.” (Asmar et
al, 1999, p. 36). The new political establishment has seized upon this emergent and
fragile sense of sovereign nationhood among Lebanese.
Sectarianism is a problem not of the past but of the present. Although it is constructed
as the dark deviant underside of the nationalist narrative, sectarianism is a nationalist
creation that dates back no further than the beginnings of the modern era when
European powers and local elites forged a politics of religion amid the emerging of
sectarianism in a country where the citizen is given little choice between the
exclusionary politics of the elites or a self-destructive gratification born of rebellion
against the resurrected confessional social order.
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The end of the civil War renders Lebanon’s neutrality a less important characteristic
in terms of the construction of national identity. In addition, challenges to a cohesive
sense of ‘Lebanisation’ have arisen as a result of the country’s membership and
different sects which have weakened substantially the relative homogeneity of the#p#分頁標題#e#
Lebanese population. The 1989 TAEF Agreement and the 1994 AVIL represented the
common factors of political reconciliation between all Lebanese communities and
nation. They both enclosed laws and vital mean to assure communal harmony and
establish stability and peace between Lebanese communities.
Therefore, the major figure of Lebanon after the TAEF and AVIL shows the struggle
to build the conviviality between different sects and not a secular system.
The certain government leaders’ calls to “abolish” sectarianism and to efface all traces
of the war, has been disingenuous. The government has re-inscribed the
confessionally-based hierarchical social order while reconstructing the nation-state. If
it might be perceived as an oasis of equity, in fact it is an inappropriate chaos arising
from the country’s weak central government.
According to Zaim and Nahawand (1999), it is still too early to judge and measure the
extent to which the Lebanese televisions have been able to create a sense of national
identity, because of the sectarian structure of the society and the power of the
religious ‘Bosses’ who put obstacles in the introduction of change or application of
laws that may weaken the sectarian nature.
For the time being, it is the only way, Lebanon still in a period of healing, and for the
media, it is a hard task to go. Later it can raise the truth dosage. Therefore, plurality
and conviviality is not the purpose but a mean to achieve the purpose.
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