Mohamed, a secular-minded doctor, does not recognize himself in the description of the southern suburbs of Beirut as a Hezbollah stronghold or a “exceptional, monochromatic and fantasy place, whose inhabitants are portrayed as strictly religious people”. For this pediatrician, Dahiyé (neighborhood, in Arabic), bombed by the Israeli army since the end of September, “Shiite region with diverse sensitivities before being a zone of influence of Hezbollah”It was, above all, his place of life, before and after the twenty-five years he spent in France, as a student and practitioner.
Goes back in history: “Starting in the 1950s, poor Shiites from southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Plain settled on the outskirts of Beirut. Then they were politically marginalized and their agricultural regions of origin were abandoned by the State.”says the doctor, whose family is from the South.
These emigrants do not arrive in a virgin place: a petty bourgeoisie has emerged in the territory we now call the southern suburbs. A former place of silk production, it brings together several municipalities, dotted with green spaces and orchards, and whose population is mixed from a confessional point of view: Christians – as demonstrated by the presence of churches – and Muslims coexist. The region offers proximity to Beirut, with its airport providing employment and cheaper housing.
But in the late 1960s, Middle East geopolitics reached this area that had “I have always been a rebel” and it was “A home for progressive, Arab nationalist and communist ideas”explains Lamia Moubayed, an expert in public governance, born there. He told the story of his mother and his family in a book, Leila (Dar Al-Jadid, 2022, untranslated). At that time, young Shiites joined the ranks of Palestinian fedayeen (fighters). Two refugee camps, Bourj Al-Barajneh and Chatila, are located on the outskirts of the southern suburbs. Cleric Moussa Sadr conceptualizes the “disinherited” status of Shiites and advocates a liberation that involves a return to religion.
“Islamic countersociety”
With the civil war that broke out in 1975, the southern suburbs lost their diversity: Christians left, at a time of general retreat. The forced displacements of the time caused a new influx of Shiites to the southern suburbs. As a result of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, Hezbollah will gradually take control of this region. In the 1980s, while its activists were fighting against the troops of the Jewish State in the south of the country, the movement launched its “Islamic counter-society” project, opening charitable associations inspired by the Iranian model and a hospital. Its penetration is facilitated by the absence of the State.
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