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“Governance is for Hezbollah, not for the Maronites”, who lived in the southern suburbs of Beirut in the 1980s, let’s remember this motto well. After its launch in 1982, Hezbollah lifted it up on every street it entered and controlled it during that stage, and through it declared its influence and sovereignty over the region.
Beside him, blue Iranian decorations surrounded the images of the “Wali al-Faqih” rose, and with elaborate artistic drawings and advanced technology at the time, the images of Khomeini and Khamenei were dropped on the walls of the city.
A resident of the southern suburbs recounts how party members used to spray the murals at night after cleaning them on the streets they controlled. “They used projection technology on the wall and put large ornate images and slogans, and then transferred them in color to the wall.”
He added: “The process was dazzling for the people at that time and unknown with the slogans, flags and images that were raised by the rest of the parties and militias in Lebanon. People woke up in the morning with drastic changes in the scene of the neighborhood, photographs they won’t be erased anytime soon, and a control statement that we realized at the time wouldn’t go away quickly. ” “
Some of these murals still exist today in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which are almost 40 years old.
It has become part of the pictorial memory of the region, like the names of neighborhoods and streets launched by Hezbollah since that stage, reflecting through it its ideological background and political affiliation and coloring its areas of control until it becomes the fait accompli and prevailing to this day.
Important streets such as al-Shura, al-Qa’im, Sayed of the Martyrs, al-Kadhim, “the new and the old complex”, and others, acquired their names from the headquarters and complexes established by Hezbollah in those streets that soon received their name and even today, despite the absence of reasons for naming, as is the case of the “Shura”, which is the area that included, in the period before the July War, the headquarters of the Council of the Hezbollah Shura.
In recent days, the municipality of Ghobeiry launched the name of Qassem Soleimani in one of its main streets, which did not come from outside the previous context.
The great controversy that took place about it in Lebanon, and on social media, was not only to oppose the controversial name in Lebanon, but arose from the background of the Lebanese awareness of the symbolism of naming the streets in relation to history from the country.
“Each occupant imposes his own names”
The names of the streets and public squares of Lebanon summarize the historical stages that Lebanon went through, especially those that witnessed the occupation of the country and the intellectual and cultural hegemony over it. Therefore, these names have always been a point of cultural and political disagreement between multi-sectarian Lebanese components.
During the Ottoman era, only the Sultanate approved the names of streets and squares in the country, and Turkish names generally prevailed over them.
During the French mandate, the names of French leaders were scattered through the streets of the Lebanese capital, while the country was divided, along with names and loyalties, during the civil war, with each region using the names of its symbols and leaders to their regions to indicate the identity of the region and the party that controlled it.
In the East Beirut region, names of Christian party leaders, personalities, and religious nomenclature dominated, and names adopted during the French Mandate era were maintained.
Religious names were also present in western Beirut, in addition to the Arab identity that dominated the names during the Nazarene tidal period and beyond, and the domination of the nationalist and pan-Arab parties.
“Street warfare”
In his interview with Al-Hurra, social researcher Nidal Khaled mentions how a naming war broke out on the streets of Beirut after Lebanon entered the Syrian tutelage phase, and how Syrians sometimes flew up monuments and memorials with a “Arab or Nasserite” identity and replaced them with names and memorials. The late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad and his two sons Basil and Bashar (the current president).
Khaled believes that the name in general in Lebanon reflects the social division in the country, from the names of the people to the names of institutions, hospitals, schools, streets and official facilities, and at the same time tells the historical history of the city with all its hegemony over it, and the de facto Lebanese names that preceded it, and some of them chose and promoted it in context to demonstrate political and foreign allegiances.
“It is a kind of offering loyalty and obedience to the regional and international axis supported by the sects,” says Khaled, adding: “30 years of Syrian presence Many of the streets, corridors and hospitals in Lebanon are named after Hafez al-Assad and they moved and changed their names after the departure of the Syrian army from Lebanon and the alteration of the political balance. Then it took opposite names. “
He continues, “Some of them came back and were named after Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and therefore all of this stems from the political conflict in the country, and from naming streets with Iranian names that come in the same context and that will go after the collapse of the Iranian project in Lebanon. “
The latest “street wars” in Beirut were most indicative of the ongoing struggle for domination, and the role of street naming in it, when the Hezbollah-controlled “Ghobeiry” municipality, which recently named one of its soleimani streets, he decided to name a street that connects to a hospital. Rafik Hariri “on behalf of Hezbollah leader Mustafa Badreddin, who was assassinated in Syria and charged as a planner and head of the group that planned and executed Hariri’s assassination at the time, and at a time that coincided with recent briefing sessions. of the International Tribunal for Lebanon in the Hariri case.
Soleimani is not the first “occupation”
In the midst of the great controversy generated by the name of the street “Fantasy World” with the name of Qassem Soleimani, a comment from a Hezbollah supporter emerged on Twitter in which he provides guidance to those who do not know where the street is, in the It says: “When you come from Beirut airport, you come across a big sign that goes by Below, Imam Khomeini avenue is coming a little closer. You have two options, either go to Hafez Al-Assad highway or Sayyid Musa Al avenue -Sadr, and if you continue along the old airport road, you must take Al-Sadr avenue located 500 meters after the Hospital of the Great Prophet, so you have two options, either to the right, to go to Mártir Al street -Qaid. Hajj Imad Mughniyeh, reaching the road of the martyr Sayyid Hadi Nasrallah, or went to the road of the martyr Commander Hajj Qassem Soleimani, which led to the road of the late president Hafez al-Assad and then to Al-Quds street .
This comment summarizes the reality of what the streets of the southern suburbs have achieved in terms of designations, and therefore of “hegemony” as confirmed by social researcher Nidal Khaled, who sees in these labels “a devotion to the situation of Facto and the concept of influence and control, whether partisan or popular, which does not take into account the “other.” The difference is imposed by force through the Lebanese party components and entities that are treated according to the concept of fracture and As has happened in all eras, what we see today is the result of what could be called the “Iranian era”, which, like the other, is trying to change the country’s social and political scenario.
Soleimani Street, where Hezbollah attacked International Tribunal investigators years ago and seized laptops from them, not the first street named after an Iranian figure, and in February 2019 a road sign called the Rafic Airport Exit Hariri in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, hung as “Avenue Imam Khomeini”, was raised by the Federation of Southern Suburbs Municipalities.
Before that, in the city of Nabatiyeh, the Iranian ambassador to Lebanon, Muhammad Fateh Ali, sponsored the opening and inauguration ceremony of the president of the Iranian Authority to contribute to the reconstruction of former Lebanon, “the martyr engineer Hussam Khosh Nwais” .
The silence of the state … and its impotence
According to information transmitted by local media in Lebanon commenting on the name of “Qassem Soleimani Street”, the Minister of the Interior and Municipalities, Muhammad Fahmy, did not approve the decision on the name of the street in accordance with what is required by law to the Ministry of the Interior or his objection to the denomination in a period of less than one year, but resorted to a loophole. Legal through a period of one year, and the matter has not been resolved. Which made the decision by virtue of the verdict ratified implicitly one year after its registration in accordance with article 63 of the Law.
This behavior, which was considered “a silence to satisfy Hezbollah,” recalled the fact that the street was named Mustafa Badr al-Din, who witnessed a conflict at that time with the Minister of the Interior, Nihad Al-Machnouk, who used his powers and tried to force the municipality of Ghobeiry to change the name of the street and denied his signature on the permit decision, demanding the removal of the sign. .
However, the municipality did not comply with that and the issue entered a legal debate that made the name a fait accompli, which was considered a religious act by the municipality and the adaptation of the municipality as an official civil institution for the benefit of Hezbollah. , who controls it.
The Al-Hurra website attempted to communicate with the Ghobeiry municipality in the person of its owner, Maan al-Khalil, who initially agreed to conduct a press interview, but withdrew his approval after reviewing the subject of the interview and requested a special permission from the municipality to carry out the interview, while this permission is supposed. To issue it.
