A War of Colors: Graffiti and Street Art in Postwar Beirut 1477328742, 9781477328743

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A War of Colors

A War of Colors Graffiti and Street Art in Postwar Beirut

NADINE A . SINNO

University of Texas Press

AUSTIN

Publication of this work was made possible by fi nancial support from the Faculty Subvention Fund at Virginia Tech. An earlier version of chapter 1 fi rst appeared in ASAP/Journal, Volume 2, Number 1, January 2017. Published with permission by Johns Hopkins University Press. Copyright © 2017 The Johns Hopkins University Press. Copyright © 2024 by the University of Texas Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America First edition, 2024 Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to: Permissions University of Texas Press P.O. Box 7819 Austin, TX 78713-7819 utpress.utexas.edu The paper used in this book meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R1997) (Permanence of Paper).

Libr ary of Congr ess Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Sinno, Nadine, author. Title: A war of colors : graffiti and street art in postwar Beirut / Nadine A. Sinno. Description: First edition. | Austin : University of Texas Press, 2024. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023029701 ISBN 978-1-4773-2874-3 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-4773-2875-0 (pdf) ISBN 978-1-4773-2876-7 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Graffiti—Social aspects—Lebanon—Beirut. | Graffiti— Political aspects—Lebanon—Beirut. | Street art—Social aspects— Lebanon—Beirut. | Street art—Political aspects—Lebanon— Beirut. | Graffiti—Appreciation—Lebanon—Beirut. | Street art—Appreciation—Lebanon—Beirut. Classification: LCC GT3913.813 .S56 2024 | DDC 751.7/3095692— dc23/eng/20230928 LC record available at htt ps://lccn.loc.gov/2023029701 doi:10.7560/328743

For my parents, for Will, and for Beirut.

Contents

Preface ix Introduction. H . arb alwān / A War of Colors

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Chapter 1. Al-shāri‘ ilnā / The Street Is Ours:

Reimagining Beirut’s Visual Culture 23 Chapter 2. Anā shādh / I Am Queer:

Challenging Patriarchy and Breaking Social Taboos 71 Chapter 3. Hadhā al-bah.r lī / Th is Sea Is Mine: Engaging Hazardous Environments as Toxic Politics 113 Chapter 4. Thawrat Beirut likul al-‘ālam / Beirut’s Revolution Is for All the People: Animating the (Intersectional) Revolution 151 Chapter 5. Al-sha‘b al-sūrī ‘ārif t.arīquh / The Syrian People Know Their

Way: Articulating Regional Struggles beyond Lebanon 203 Inconclusions. Qabl mā mūt baddī Libnān /

Before I Die I Want Lebanon To 229 Acknowledgments 235 Notes 239 Bibliography 263 Index 275

Preface

Professing Positionality I was born and raised in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990). In 2001, I left to the United States to pursue a higher education and ultimately a career in academia, which would lead to me splitt ing my time, and my heart, between the two countries. Like many Beirutis of my generation, my visual memories of Beirut’s streets are dominated by pockmarked walls, crumbling buildings, posters of political leaders (both dead and alive), and logos of various militias. In my mind’s eye, Beirut’s streets have always belonged to militias, thugs, and shabāb, or young men (and boys) who act as vigilantes in their respective neighborhoods. The rest of us hurriedly walked through the hazardous, dirty streets to get from one place to another. Even after the war ended, militia stencils and dehumanizing sectarian graffiti continued to monopolize the cityscape, reminding residents and visitors of the tenacity of sectarianism and the precariousness of peace and coexistence in Beirut. As the years progressed, however, a new phenomenon seemed to be at work. Around the mid-2000s, during my visits to Lebanon, I started noticing unprecedented types of graffiti: colorful tags marking the names of graffiti crews, stencils featuring witt y social commentary, and elaborate artistic murals paying homage to Lebanese and other Arab artists. The sight of unexpected portraits, such as those of Lebanon’s beloved singer Fairouz and the renowned Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, or a witt y antiwar stencil gave me pause and tempted me to actually linger on the streets to marvel at and contemplate these artifacts. I was developing a new relationship

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with Beirut’s streets. The graffiti inspired me to take strolls and to wander around in search of more artifacts. Who or what awaited me on the next street or tucked-away alley? I was not in a hurry to get anywhere. It became clear to me, however, that this new artistic graffiti had not replaced other types of graffiti and visual symbols on the walls of the city. Rather, artistic murals stood side by side with, on top of, or under partisan slogans, political posters, casual doodling about old or new loves, and anonymous scrawls expressing frustration with the government. In other words, the cityscape was being contested by both old and new actors who competed in the visual (re)production of space. Such actors included partisan scrawlers, casual doodlers, frustrated citizens, and local and global street artists. The militias and their followers were no longer the only ones policing the city’s space and authoring its walls. Not only did the polyphonous walls intrigue me personally, but the literary scholar in me yearned to study them more closely, as I consider them unofficial yet legitimate texts that register the concerns, fears, and aspirations of residents in postwar Beirut, as seen through the eyes of graffiti makers. I yearned to record and study these visual artifacts, which often engaged in dialogue with one other as well as with off-the-wall political events and cultural narratives—sometimes overtly, sometimes through subtext and mimicry. I wanted to learn more about my city, its transformation, and the culprits behind this new multitextured visual culture. The inscriptions and images on the walls captured me, and I needed to capture them, too, before they disappeared.

Capturing the City’s Walls Armed with an inconspicuous, high-resolution digital camera, my husband and I walked the neighborhoods of municipal Beirut in search of graffiti and street art for over eight years.1 We took thousands of photographs of Beirut’s walls. While photographing the city’s surfaces, we aimed to document all the visual artifacts we encountered, regardless of message or aesthetic quality—or lack thereof. Our forays into the city’s various neighborhoods went smoothly, for the most part. Beyond pausing to check which graffiti caught our attention, most people ignored us and went about their daily business. Sometimes, members of the Lebanese Army or the police force would stop us and inquire about our motives and affi liations. They were usually satisfied with our answer that we wanted to take pictures of the city for my academic research. At the same time, we were often instructed not to take pictures in heavily surveilled areas that were considered “secu-

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rity zones” or potential targets of bombings. In fact, it was in the summer of 2014, during our fi rst official fieldwork trip, that three suicide bombings occurred within the span of one week.2 That summer, ISIS took over Mosul in Iraq, and the Lebanese Army raided multiple hotels in the Hamra area of Beirut, where ISIS militants were allegedly preparing to unleash a series of bombings. The Lebanese Army was on high alert because of security concerns. Undoubtedly, such security concerns often became a pretext for heavy policing, particularly with regard to protecting commercial and touristic areas and government facilities. We came under increased scrutiny in areas near government offices, headquarters of political parties, mansions of political leaders, and famous churches and mosques. Beirut’s southern suburb Dahyieh was completely off-limits to photography. Occasionally, we were stopped and interrogated by the police or members of militias. On one particular occasion, while my husband was taking a picture of a poster of Nabih Berri (Lebanon’s speaker of the Parliament and the leader of the Amal party), we were approached by a man in civilian clothing who ordered him to stop taking photographs, blocked our car with his moped, and started questioning us. After demanding to see the picture my husband had just taken, he asked for our tas.rīh. (permit). When we failed to produce a permit, he reprimanded us for taking pictures without “official permission.” After making a phone call and conferring with a group of young men who quickly showed up at the site, the man ordered us to leave the Mazraa neighborhood immediately. At times, it was easier to take pictures along with a girlfriend instead of my husband. While my husband’s company spared me the occasional catcall, it subjected us to scrutiny since he clearly looked ajnabī (foreign). Americans lingering on the streets of Beirut are often suspected of being spies, CIA agents, or even members of underground radical groups—perhaps in part because of the scandalous history of US military and political intervention in the Middle East. When taking pictures with my girlfriend Rowan, it was much easier to convince interrogators, be they police or neighborhood vigilantes, that I was a harmless, nerdy academic. Sometimes, police officers would allow Rowan to park illegally while I got out of the car and snapped pictures. Having spent the entire fi rst half of my life, and almost all of my summers, in Lebanon, I am used to handling such “gentlemanly gestures” without feeling too patronized. In many ways, I have also been inspired by the tactics of graffiti makers, some of whom I met in person and who explained to me the importance of delicately navigating tricky street politics by cooperating with authorities in order to achieve one’s goals. Feminist feelings aside, I am grateful for the kindness and assistance that these men extended to me and that advanced my research. I also made

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use of my brother’s moped, which allowed us to bolt from places such as Downtown after taking photographs of antigovernment graffiti, when security guards and police officers eyed us with suspicion or headed our way for questioning (or so I thought). Th is was especially helpful in 2016, when I was documenting some of the graffiti that erupted in response to Lebanon’s garbage crisis. I sometimes visited the same area twice or thrice, months or years after I initially documented its graffiti. Going back to photograph the same sites allowed me to see which graffiti pieces endured and which were tampered with, defaced, or reinscribed on the city’s walls. As this book will show, the presence, disappearance, and reappearance of some graffiti pieces have much to tell us about contentious politics, government control, and civic engagement in postwar Lebanon. In addition to amassing a collection of photographs, I spoke with several graffiti artists, either in person or via Skype, including Ashekman, Yazan Halwani, Ali Rafei, Siska, Phat2, and EpS. Whenever I had the opportunity, I visited their studios, homes, or stores. I regret the extenuating circumstances that precluded me from meeting some of the graffiti makers whose work is featured in this book. I also recognize that it is impossible to account for and to analyze all of the graffiti and street art that appeared on Beirut’s streets during the past several years. I did make every effort to include a diverse, fairly representative sample in terms of styles, themes, and time frames. I trust that future scholarly work will include other pieces not covered here. I felt it necessary to give the artists I was able to identify and meet a chance to discuss their work and to represent themselves, with the understanding that my and, ultimately, the readers’ interpretation of their graffiti and street art may diverge from their own. I remain indebted to those graffiti makers whose insights and ways of being in the world—not just cultural productions—have enriched my research and given me muchneeded hope, even as they themselves often felt uncertain about the country’s future.

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A War of Colors

Figure 0.1. M3alim and EpS, “A war of colors,” mural in the Corniche El-Nahr / Peugot area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

INTRODUCTION

H . arb alwān / A War of Colors Streets, as spaces of flow and movement, are not only where people express grievances, but also where they forge identities, enlarge solidarities, and extend their protest beyond their immediate circles to include the unknown, strangers. Here streets serve as a medium through which strangers or casual passersby are able to establish latent communication with one another by recognizing their mutual interests and shared sentiments. —Asef Bayat, Life as Politics

The Lebanese Civil War left its mark not only on the bodies and psyches of the Lebanese people but also on the visual landscape and cultural ethos of Beirut. During the war, and for years following the cessation of armed confl ict, the city’s walls teemed with political posters, sectarian slogans, and the logos of various militias who fought to control Beirut’s streets, literally and symbolically. While the visual culture of wartime Beirut remains generally understudied, Maria Chakhtoura and Zeina Maasri have contributed pioneering studies of graffiti and political posters, respectively. Chakhtoura’s La guerre des graffiti (The graffiti war, 1978) offers an annotated survey of the ubiquitous graffiti slogans that prevailed in Beirut’s streets from 1975 to 1977. Risking her personal safety amid bombings and kidnappings, Chakhtoura aimed her camera at the city’s walls and documented the acerbic visual batt les in which people of all political affi liations participated. Her collection documents the overwhelmingly dehumanizing rhetoric produced and circulated by Lebanon’s various political factions. The derogatory scrawls collected in Chakhtoura’s study include expressions such as “The Phalanges are dogs. Their leader is a pig”; “Jumblat birthed a mule”; “Jisr el-Basha is the graveyard of Palestinians”; and “Arab = Animal.”1 It is no surprise that Chakhtoura lamented the fi ndings captured by her camera, which, according to her, reflected the spirit of “delirium” and “orchestrated fanaticism” permeating Beirut at the time.2 In a similar vein, Maasri’s Off the Wall: Political Posters of the Lebanese Civil War (2009) offers an insightful study of political posters that were ubiquitous during the Lebanese Civil War. Maasri’s study reveals the power of these discursive tools in commemorating sectarian leaders, intimidating

1

and demeaning perceived enemies, and advocating for each political party’s version of truth and its vision for Lebanon. Arguing against the reductionist conceptualization of political posters as mere propaganda, Maasri demonstrates that political posters “are inscribed in the hegemonic articulations of political communities in Lebanon’s war” and that they serve to “articulate the discourses, desires, fears and collective imaginaries pertinent to the various political identities being formed and transformed during wartime.”3 Similar to sectarian graffiti, political posters served as a weapon of war—one that sought to elevate sectarian leaders, dehumanize rivals, and assert the real or imagined dominance of local and regional actors. In addition to bearing the marks of sectarian graffiti and political posters, Beirut’s walls have endured the impersonal, sterile touch of urban revival in the postwar era, as Lebanese leaders have sought to reintegrate Lebanon into the global market and to reinvigorate its tourism sector. After the end of the war, reconstruction efforts swept the country, and signs of change appeared in some parts of the city: freshly painted walls, shiny storefronts, newly paved streets, renovated sidewalks, and striking high-rises. As many Lebanese artists, scholars, and activists have contended, however, such cosmetic changes have been alienating and exclusionary in their own way. Upscale development projects—including Solidere’s infamous reconstruction of Downtown Beirut—do not truly reflect or honor the Lebanese people’s struggles, local talents, or unique history.4 While the reconstruction projects did alter select public spaces, rendering them more habitable, such projects have been largely reserved for neighborhoods deemed worthy of resuscitation because of their potential market value. As Rasha Salti notes, “When a public domain was deemed potentially ‘marketable,’ it was rehabilitated and swift ly auctioned off. When it was not deemed potentially commodifiable, it fell into malign neglect.”5 After the war, around the mid-2000s, Beirut’s walls would be transformed by the hands of emergent graffiti makers who sought to reclaim the streets from their alienating wartime and gentrification-era conditions by producing colorful, thought-provoking visual artifacts. Th is new form of graffiti making initially took place in the city’s lesser-loved alleys, bridges, and streets and gradually spread into more visible parts of the city, including main thoroughfares and highways. By summer of 2014, these innovative graffiti pieces started to resemble a substantial and constantly expanding corpus of work rather than isolated works here and there. Walking the city, residents might come face-to-face with a portrait of Lebanon’s renowned late composer and singer Wadih El Safi or encounter an Arabicspeaking rat bouncing off the walls and inviting them to partake in its abundant feast—a reference to the trash overflowing from garbage bins all over

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the city. Recognizing the potentialities of graffiti and street art in forging an intervention and presenting an alternative discourse to sectarianism, Beirut’s graffiti makers have reimagined the streets as a space for creating community-centered artwork, engendering civic engagement, and voicing social critique—sometimes in aesthetically pleasing ways and other times in a raw, acerbic manner, depending on the sociopolitical moment. By transforming the physical and social landscape of the city, graffiti makers have reclaimed the streets, albeit partially or temporarily, from the hands of political factions that monopolized them during the Lebanese Civil War. It is important to emphasize that artistic stencils and murals do not stand alone in the streets in postwar Beirut. Rather, they exist alongside casual doodling, political posters, partisan slogans and scrawls, antigovernment messages laced with obscenities, and militia logos. In other words, aesthetically pleasing street art, which can be political in its own right, has not replaced other types of inscriptions and visual symbols but rather competes with them in the production and interpretation of space. Furthermore, in Lebanon, as in other places, the production of (implicitly or explicitly) political visual symbols tends to wax and wane depending on shift ing sociopolitical conditions. For example, the Cedar Revolution protests, which erupted in the aftermath of the assassination of former prime minister Rafi k Hariri in 2005, were supplemented by the creation of on-site graffiti by aggrieved civilians. Sune Haugbolle notes that the fence around Hariri’s mosque in Downtown Beirut “had been overwritten with graffiti that revealed the multiplicity of interpretations and standpoints generated by his death.”6 Similarly, Marwan Kraidy observes that as the Syrian uprising intensified, Beirut’s walls were transformed into “batt legrounds between friends and foes of the Syrian revolution.”7 In the summer of 2015, antigovernment graffiti fi lled Downtown Beirut in the wake of the #YouStink protests, which were sparked by Lebanon’s garbage crisis. Multilingual slogans such as “H.ukūmit zbāleh” (Trashy government), “You stink but you don’t do shit,” and “Anā bitnaffas h.urriyeh” (I breathe freedom) remained visible on the walls of Downtown Beirut for years, thus transforming the usually spotless commercial area into a multitextured canvas of crude obscenities, witt y remarks, and poetic dictates for a more just society. More recently, the 2019 protests inspired another surge in graffiti and street art, ranging from amateur scrawls that speak of the Lebanese people’s heartfelt frustration and agony to exquisite murals that voice antigovernment dissent and people’s solidarity, demonstrating the porousness of art and politics, particularly during times of turmoil. For me, the crude scrawls, the minimalist stencils, and the painstaking artistic murals represent equally valuable artifacts that reveal complicated

INTRODUCTION

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affects, thoughts, states of being, and material realities of individuals and groups who have decided to inscribe their grievances and/or aspirations on the walls of the city. A serious study of Beirut’s visual culture necessitates attending to the different types of graffiti and street art—the good, the bad, and the ugly—as well as examining the ways in which these different artifacts evoke, advance, or critique broader sociopolitical narratives and cultural practices. Analyzing graffiti and street art involves exploring actual objects (stencils, murals, scrawls, and walls) as well as the numerous (intangible) matters and discourses they engage with, such as political events, cultural beliefs, daily practices, national or international crises, and mundane and grand affects.

Presenting a Contribution The growing body of scholarly and creative work focused on the visual culture of the Arab world attests to the increased production of public visual artifacts in the region and demonstrates the crucial need for documenting and critically examining these visual artifacts in their complexity and diversity. Chakhtoura’s and Maasri’s aforementioned books on Beirut’s wartime graffiti and political posters, respectively, emphasize the spatial dimension of the Lebanese Civil War, demonstrating that bullets and grenades were not the only weapons employed in dominating the streets. It is important to note that because the deployment of graffiti to reclaim and transform physical and social space, to protest oppression, or to “enlarge solidarities,” to use Asef Bayat’s expression,8 has always existed in Palestine, the journey of Palestinian graffiti is instructive, especially as it demonstrates graffiti’s malleability and adaptability to changing sociopolitical realities. In the context of the West Bank, Julie Peteet’s pioneering study of the graffiti of the First Intifada demonstrates the instrumentalization of graffiti works as “weapons of communication, assault, and defense.”9 Peteet asserts that “the sheer ubiquitousness of graffiti was a constant reminder both of the abnormality of everyday life under occupation and of the mass uprising. . . . [Graffiti] encouraged resistance, cajoled, demanded, critiqued, and provided running political commentary on the progression of the uprising.”10 In Gaza Graffiti: Messages of Love and Politics, Mia Gröndahl persuasively argues that graffiti has consistently served as “a barometer of the political situation in Gaza.”11 Gröndahl explains that the inscriptions and images on the walls of the city often offered invaluable insights concerning ongoing political events, the general mood of the residents, planned protests, and even the availability or scarcity of material resources—including spray cans and paint. She demonstrates that whereas the fi rst year of the 4 / A WA R O F C O LO R S

peace process resulted in “happy and more hopeful” graffiti, the city’s walls articulated the “disappointment, frustration, and anger over a peace process that had not kept its promises” in the autumn of 2000.12 Craig Larkin’s nuanced study of the graffiti of the separation wall— which Israel purportedly erected to stop Palestinians without permits from entering Israel through the West Bank—explores the ways in which the (in)famous wall has been transformed by local and global graffiti artists into “the world’s largest canvas for oppositional protest art, global critique, and local resistance.”13 William Parry acknowledges that while some Palestinians are opposed to beautifying a wall that has caused them tremendous pain, most appreciate the “international show of solidarity the artwork and graffiti represent, and the foreign interest it generates.”14 Importantly, Parry argues that protestful graffiti is “another example of the growing number of ways in which civil society is leading where leaders—for decades—have failed.”15 The collected essays in Pascal Zoghbi and Don Karl’s edited volume show that Arab graffiti makers have utilized graffiti and street art as a means of contesting authoritarian regimes, sending transnational messages of solidarity, and memorializing key figures of the Arab uprisings.16 More recently, Sabrina DeTurk’s Street Art in the Middle East demonstrates the growing presence of street art in the Arab world in both stable and tumultuous countries, including Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine, Bahrain, Oman, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. For DeTurk, both prosperity and strife “can influence the landscape in which contemporary street art is produced and received,” as street art is often driven by private and collective memories that are “positive or negative, real or culturally constructed.”17 Mona Abaza, examining the territorial wars that erupted amid the 2011 Egyptian revolution between graffiti makers and the military junta’s security personnel (whom she refers to as “professional whiteners”), depicts an emergent public culture rooted in graffiti making that has engendered “a novel understanding of public spaces as spaces of contestation, of communication and debate.”18 Building on Abaza’s work, John Lennon states that graffiti “is part of the revolutionary conversation that exerts opinions; it is a tangible display of the political complexity embodied by those inhabiting the streets.”19 In his most recent study of graffiti in areas of confl ict, Lennon persuasively argues that graffiti is essentially “messy politics” and that any study of confl ict that precludes graffiti “tells only part of the story.”20 In her visual memoir of the Egyptian revolution, Bahia Shehab, an artist and a professor who was inspired to design and place her own stencils in Tahrir Square, writes, The artworks range from scribbled slogans and sprayed stencils to large scale murals. They are all beautiful. I feel like I’m walking in INTRODUCTION

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an outdoor museum. . . . It’s so refreshing to see all the different skills and ideas appearing next to each other. I feel like the street has all the ideology of the revolution painted on its walls and I finally feel at home. The street belongs to us all.21 Shehab’s memoir attests to the ways in which graffiti making enables average people to reclaim their sense of agency and belonging—even if temporarily—by transforming the cityscape through writing graffiti or by simply gathering in the streets and enjoying the graffitied cityscape before them. Ultimately, as Lina Khatib reminds us in her analysis of visual cultures across the Middle East, the region “has become a site of struggle over the construction of social and political reality through competing images.”22 Following Khatib, I am interested in what Beirut’s locally produced and globally circulated graffiti and street art can teach us about the real and symbolic struggles of the contested city—as seen through the eyes of its inhabitants, most notably young people with brushes, spray cans, stencils, pens, and the commitment to make an intervention. In her study of Beirut’s 2015 trash protests, Dina Kiwan invites us to constantly seek “competing forms of knowledge,” which appear in different permutations, including fi lm, performance, cartoons, and graffiti, and which constitute important “acts of citizenship.” Kiwan argues that these “emotive knowledge forms redefi ne issues creating alternative discourses and forms of public knowledge,” which can enrich our understanding of everyday politics and give voice to marginalized populations and/or nonstate actors.23 Following Kiwan’s invitation to “explore social change through a focus on the things that people do,” termed “performative acts,”24 I want to approach graffiti making as an emotive and performative act that articulates the discourses and practices of Beiruti residents who wish to show and tell otherwise. In other words, we have seen and heard enough from political leaders. The time is ripe for engaging more seriously with street politics (and play), from the ground up. Crucially, the study of graffiti contributes not only to illuminating the existing lived realities of people in the Arab world but also to bringing to the surface people’s aspirations for forging alternative realities. In other words, graffiti making does not simply reflect different political, economic, and social conditions. Graffiti and street art can also serve as vehicles for shaping these material and sociopolitical realities and calling for change on multiple fronts. The graffiti and street art of Tahrir Square, for example, presented a scathing critique of Mubarak’s authoritarian regime, commemorated key figures of the Egyptian revolution, and protested sexual harassment, thereby demonstrating the multifaceted and expanding role of graffiti and street art. Meanwhile, the anti-Assad graffiti scribbled by a

6 / A WA R O F C O LO R S

group of Syrian teenagers in 2011 contributed to breaking down the wall of fears and possibly sparking the Syrian uprising. As Rana Jarbou rightly argues, “In a country where there was a common fear of merely having political discussions in public, the significance of visible censures could not be [overstated], especially when the streets were not short of abundant glorifications of the Assad regime.”25 In Egypt, Tunisia, and Lebanon, womencentered graffiti and street art have articulated a clear message that the fight for women’s rights should go hand in hand with the fight for political and economic rights, rather than be deferred to more “peaceful” times. In sum, Arab youths are increasingly employing graffiti as a means of intervening by visually making noise. These daily interventions invite us to focus our attention on the stories of those who have decided that “a wall has always been the best place to publish [their] work.”26 I see this study as a contribution to the existing scholarship on visual culture in the Arab world. I wish to take the reader on a journey in which graffiti makers and the city’s walls—not pundits, experts, and political leaders—do the storytelling. The graffiti makers show and sometimes tell that there are alternatives to spending time on the street fighting, planting bombs, harassing women, or scribbling sectarian slogans. Young street artists provide community-centered ornamentation, commemoration, and constructive social critique. These individuals create sites that “can tell stories and unfold histories.”27 Teasing out the “stories” and “histories” embedded in artifacts of graffiti making is the key to ensuring that graffiti makers—not just warring politicians and religious zealots—are given the opportunity to share their interpretations regarding the past and present events affecting their country, as well as their visions and visualizations of the future. Importantly, in her study of the impact of assisted reproduction on the lives and subjectivities of Arab men, Marcia Inhorn offers invaluable insights regarding the ever-changing enactments of masculinities in the contemporary Middle East. She argues that shift ing socioeconomic conditions, new technologies, and life changes contribute to shift ing enactments of manhood, not just among different men but also within the person’s lifetime. Calling for a paradigmatic shift, she proposes an “emergent masculinities” approach, inviting us to critically examine the “ongoing, relational, and embodied processes of change in the ways men enact masculinity.”28 Inhorn’s reflections on embodied emergent masculinities provide further validation regarding the importance of studying graffiti and street art, in part because graffiti making can complicate dominant stereotypes about Arab masculinity (and femininity). Young graffiti artists are modeling alternative modes of being in the world, or being in Beirut’s streets. As I will show, some graffiti artists consider graffiti to be their weapon of

INTRODUCTION

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choice against more lethal weapons, like Kalashnikovs, bullets, and bombs. For some, the “war of colors” is about creating more habitable environments and inviting young children to care for their city. These nonviolent warriors, whose stories rarely make it to the mainstream Western and Middle Eastern media, deserve critical attention. M3alim and EpS’s mural that features a man wearing military camouflage and standing in front of the words “H.arb alwān,” or “A war of colors” (see fig. 0.1), epitomizes the dynamics of civic engagement that are rooted in competitive graffiti making. Mimicking the trope of warfare, the mural heralds an urban war of a different order: a batt le for the ornamentation of Beirut through the production of street art. Armed with brushes and spray cans, young graffiti makers strive to outdo one another in creating colorful street art that is designed to please the eye and open (or challenge) the mind. When I spoke with EpS about the dynamics of graffiti making on the streets of Beirut, he referred to graffiti making as a “healthy competition” that enables graffiti makers to demonstrate their skills while also allowing pedestrians to interact with the artifacts and respond as they please.29 Th is type of intervention is potentially transformative, as it not only physically transforms the cityscape into a more aesthetically pleasing space but also promotes an ethos of artistic rivalry and community building. M3alim and EpS’s proposition offers an alternative discourse to the aggressive usurpation of urban space through the wielding of weapons or the construction of sterile buildings and impersonal commercial centers. Before entering into a more detailed discussion of the conceptual tools and theoretical concepts I draw upon in my analysis of graffiti and street art, it is important to consider the key events and sociopolitical circumstances that characterized the postwar period (1990–present) and under which the graffiti and street art under study were inspired, produced, and circulated. Beyond the following overview, I further contextualize the graffiti artifacts as they appear in each chapter by probing the specific political and social events pertaining to them.

The Precariousness of Peace and Security in Postwar Lebanon The Lebanese Civil War came to a halt after substantial regional and international intervention. Representatives of Syria, the United States, France, and Saudi Arabia, among other countries, organized the signing of the Taif Agreement by the surviving members of the Lebanese Parliament on October 22, 1989, in the town of Taif, Saudi Arabia. But armed combat did

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not end with the signing of the agreement. General Michel Aoun, the commander of Lebanon’s armed forces at the time, launched the H.arb al-Tah.rīr (War of Liberation) against the Syrian troops in Lebanon in an attempt to force them out and reclaim Lebanon’s independence and sovereignty. Aoun also waged an offensive called the H.arb al-Ilghā’ (War of Elimination) against Samir Geagea, his Christian rival and the leader of the Lebanese Forces militia. Around the same time, the predominantly Shi‘a parties Amal and Hizballah clashed in the south of Lebanon and in the southern suburbs of Beirut. In October 1990, the Syrian Air Force, supported by proSyrian groups and militias, attacked the presidential palace in Baabda, forcing Aoun to seek refuge at the French embassy and then exile in France.30 In August 1991, the Lebanese Parliament passed the Amnesty Law exempting militia leaders from criminal liability, thereby precluding victims and survivors of the war from receiving justice. While Lebanon witnessed a revival in commerce, tourism, and social life in the aftermath of the war, the Taif Agreement by no means paved the way for resolving Lebanon’s tumultuous sociopolitical and economic problems, nor did it put an end to armed confl ict. In her study of contentious politics in postwar Lebanon, Rima Majed observes that the decade immediately following the signing of the Taif Agreement witnessed numerous labor strikes and socioeconomic mobilizations protesting the fragile economic situation and the devaluation of the Lebanese lira. People also engaged in protests related to national and regional politics, including Syrian political and military intervention, the Gulf War, and Israeli oppression in southern Lebanon and Palestine.31 In addition to political instability, the post-Taif decade also saw actual violence. In the late 1990s, the Lebanese Army engaged in skirmishes against Sunni Muslim extremists in the north who had been linked to global terrorist networks such as al-Qaida. On April 11, 1996, Israel launched Operation Grapes of Wrath, known in Lebanon as the H.arb Nīsān (April War), conducting massive air raids in southern Lebanon. Over one hundred Lebanese died in the bombing of the town of Qana, when a United Nations compound was hit. Following a few skirmishes at the border, Israel withdrew from Lebanon (with the exception of the Sheb‘ā Farms) in May 2000. But border tensions and flare-ups of armed confl ict between Israel and Hizballah continued for many years. Car bombings and assassinations ensued and would become a hallmark of postwar Lebanon. In addition to killing or maiming targeted politicians and journalists, the acts of violence devastated the lives of civilians who happened to be present near the bombing sites, which included shopping malls, car lots, cafes, and street intersections. On January 24, 2002, Elie Hobeika, the former president of the Lebanese Forces and a former member of Parlia-

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ment who was infamously involved in the Sabra and Shatila massacre, was assassinated in a car bombing. On February 14, 2005, then prime minister Rafi k Hariri was assassinated by a massive truck bomb that exploded as his motorcade made its way to Beirut’s seafront area. A few days after Hariri’s death rocked the country, crowds gathered in Martyrs’ Square in Downtown Beirut, where they heralded the Cedar Revolution. Protestors chanted anti-Syrian slogans and demanded the withdrawal of Syrian troops, the pursuit of truth and justice regarding Hariri’s murder, and the holding of free elections. On April 26, 2005, the last Syrian soldiers evacuated Lebanon. Importantly, however, not all Lebanese supported Syria’s expulsion from Lebanon. On March 8, 2005, Hizballah’s leader, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, called upon his supporters to gather and express gratitude for Syria’s efforts at protecting Lebanon from internal and external strife, as well as express opposition to Resolution 1559, which called for the disarming of all militias, including Hizballah. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Downtown Beirut, waving Lebanese flags as well as pictures of Assad and Nasrallah. A week later, marking the one-month anniversary of Hariri’s death, a massive anti-Syrian rally took place in Martyrs’ Square in Downtown Beirut. The crowds at the rally expressed their opposition to Hizballah’s refusal to lay down their arms and to Nasrallah’s narrative that Lebanese and Syrian relations should be fortified against the sabotaging actions of imperialist powers such as the United States and Israel. That March would mark the butt ressing of division between two emergent political camps, the pro-Syria March 8 alliance and its rival, the anti-Syria March 14 coalition. The polarized politics, demonstrations and counterdemonstrations, political deadlocks, and shifting alliances associated with these camps contributed to maintaining sectarian tensions and political instability and left their mark on the psyches, actions, and lives of the Lebanese people, many of whom had been looking forward to forging and living in a more unified and stable Lebanon. Aside from Hariri’s spectacular assassination, the year 2005 witnessed other assassinations and attempted assassinations, particularly of individuals who expressed public criticism of the Syrian regime. The journalist and professor Samir Kassir, the former secretary general of the Lebanese Communist Party George Hawi, and the editor and publisher Gibran Tueni were all killed by car bombs. The journalist May Chidiac and the former government minister Elias El-Murr, on the other hand, survived assassination attempts but sustained serious injuries. These incidents happened within months of one another, wreaking havoc on victims and bystanders and spreading fear and uncertainty among the Lebanese people about the recurrence of violence in postwar Lebanon. If 2005 marked a peak in the country’s internal strife and assassina-

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tions, then 2006 became memorable for the devastation caused by Israel’s massive air, land, and sea invasion. The thirty-four-day confl ict, sometimes called the Israel-Hizballah War, started on July 12, 2006, after Hizballah seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. Israel considered this operation to be an act of war and launched a massive offensive. The war’s consequences were devastating. About 1,200 Lebanese civilians were killed, 4,000 injured, and a million displaced from their homes. It is important to note that such skirmishes were not uncommon on the border and that Israel’s response was extremely disproportionate.32 The 2006 war left its mark in terms of human and environmental losses but also inflamed sectarian grievances and schisms among those who saw Hizballah’s actions as irresponsible and risky and others who considered Hizballah’s ongoing maneuvers against the Israeli enemy as further testament of their heroism and commitment. The rising tensions culminated in the Ah.dāth (Events) of May 2008, or the “batt le of the streets,” when Hizballah and Sunni militias and their respective supporters engaged in low-level violence on May 7, after the government issued a decision to dismantle Hizballah’s telecommunication network upon reportedly discovering a hidden remote-controlled camera that monitored one of the airport’s runways. The armed confl ict resulted in Hizballah and its allies seizing control of West Beirut and was fi nally resolved with the adoption of the Doha Agreement on May 15. Despite their short duration, the clashes brought back vivid memories of the Lebanese Civil War, and the Lebanese people dreaded the eruption of yet another, perhaps more devastating, internecine confl ict. The Syrian uprising, which began in March 2011 and ultimately escalated into a civil war, has also contributed to the intensification of political tensions in Lebanon. Aside from the mass displacement of refugees who fled to Lebanon in search of safety—an exodus that was met with both empathy and hostility among the Lebanese—Hizballah and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party’s support of Bashar Assad caused further divisions, particularly between the March 8 and March 14 political camps. While some Lebanese who supported the Syrian opposition movement and/or believed Lebanon should remain “neutral” regarded Hizballah’s and its allies’ interference in Syria as immoral and unwarranted, others saw their interventions as necessary acts of defense against Sunni extremism in the region. In addition to political tensions resulting from internal strife, the government’s ongoing failure to provide citizens with basic needs—while advancing the wealth and influence of political leaders—has contributed to an overall sense of discontent and disillusionment among the majority of the population, regardless of political or sectarian affi liation. The years 2015 and 2016 saw a series of protests in response to the government’s in-

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ability to fi nd sustainable solutions to a waste-management crisis caused by the July 2015 closure of the Nā‘meh waste dump serving Beirut and Mount Lebanon. The closure of the dump led the private waste company Sukleen to suspend garbage collection, causing piles of rubbish to fi ll the streets. Led primarily by the grassroots organization T.il‘it Reeh.itkun (You Stink), the protests att racted thousands of demonstrators calling for the downfall of the government, which the protestors accused of negligence and corruption, and often resulted in serious clashes between protestors and the police, road closures, and the disruption of people’s livelihoods, particularly those in the service and tourism sector. While the 2015–2016 protests erupted as a result of a waste-management crisis, the most recent revolution, which began in October 2019 and is often referred to as the Thawrat 17 Tishrīn al-Awwal (October 17 Revolution), was triggered by wildfi res and the Lebanese government’s audacious announcement of regressive taxes. Stoked by strong winds and high temperatures, over one hundred wildfi res broke out on October 14, 2019, spreading rapidly and devastating over 3,500 acres of Lebanese forests. To make matters worse, the government failed to mobilize three fi refighting helicopters that had fallen out of commission because of a lack of proper maintenance. A few days after the fi res were fi nally extinguished, the government announced a series of taxes on WhatsApp calls, tobacco, and gas. The government’s austerity measures, which came on the heels of a recent environmental trauma and increasingly hard living conditions, propelled a revolution that had been long brewing. The protests witnessed a number of contentious socio-eco-political events, including the resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri; intermittent closures of banks; the injury, detainment, and death of protestors at the hands of riot police; the depreciation of the Lebanese pound; restrictive bank policies; and increasing shortages in and price hikes on food staples, gasoline, and medical supplies. The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdowns disrupted the protests, as the government took measures to forbid residents from gathering in the streets. Despite the ongoing threat of COVID-19, the protests resumed in the after math of the Beirut Port blast on August 4, 2020. One of the world’s biggest nonnuclear explosions, the blast was caused by a fi re in a warehouse where a massive stockpile of ammonium nitrate had been improperly stored for six years. The explosion destroyed much of Beirut’s port and damaged many nearby neighborhoods. It claimed the lives of an estimated 218 people, injured around 7,000 people, and resulted in up to an estimated US$15 billion in property damage. It also left about 300,000 people homeless. Th is brief overview provides a taste of the hardship, governmental neglect, and agony that the Lebanese people have endured in the so-called

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postwar era. While the people of Lebanon welcomed the relative peace and prosperity following the cessation of armed combat, they continued to suffer the consequences of this very fragile peace and precarious prosperity. At the same time, it is important to note that these years were not devoid of hope, creativity, and joie de vivre. For some, hope meant dancing in Beirut’s infamous nightclubs into the wee hours of the morning, going for a stroll on the Corniche, smoking arguileh in hip or humble cafes, starting business ventures, or returning to sett le in postwar Lebanon after decades of living abroad. For others, hope came in the form of unleashing creative cultural production such as poetry, novels, music (including Arabic hip-hop), and fi lm. As the days, months, and years passed by, the ongoing power cuts, assassinations, protests, clashes, explosions, and implosions led many to conclude that the specters of war would always loom because the roots of violence and corruption ran deep and strong. And so people went on with their lives, attempting to nurture hope, and sometimes change, amid the most difficult circumstances. It is under such ambivalent circumstances, of nursing disappointment and re-creating hope, that young graffiti makers took to the streets. Their different motivations and goals depended on the moment—and their state of mind and country—in which they found themselves. As this study will show, sometimes they aimed to rehabilitate war-torn areas. Other times, they sought to keep the memory of a cultural icon alive, ensuring that singers, journalists, and poets took center stage on the walls of the city rather than warring politicians. Feeling the winds of change that swept across the Arab world, some scribbled messages of hope and resilience in support of the Arab uprisings, whereas others defaced these messages and wrote slogans supporting political leaders instead. During the garbage crisis, when the shit hit the fan, to use an appropriate cliché, many used vitriolic graffiti to decry the “stinky” government. Most recently, after fi res ravaged the country’s few remaining green spaces, and the government audaciously imposed more taxes, graffiti makers once more headed to the streets en masse in support of the revolution. They scribbled messages and drew images demanding the ouster of all political leaders and the creation of a more just society. And when the government failed to sincerely apologize, to take ownership of the port blast, and to bring the perpetrators to justice, graffiti makers went to the site of the explosion and scrawled messages accusing the government of being responsible for the disaster. Overlooking graffiti’s synchronous and asynchronous engagement with everyday politics is to overlook a valuable alternative source of knowledge that begins and ends with the actions of young people who have something to say. To write. To paint. To share with fellow residents and the

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rest of the world. Th is book serves as an acknowledgement of the actions, thoughts, and feelings of known and unknown residents of the city who raised their pens and brushes and spray cans, or inspired others to do so.

Interpreting Beirut’s Graffiti and Street Art Th is book provides an analysis of graffiti and street art, demonstrating the ways in which they articulate the different (and sometimes contesting) voices, sociopolitical events, cries for help, moments of hope, and acts of protest and persuasion that have characterized Lebanon’s ordinary and extraordinary moments over the past couple of decades. More specifically, I explore the various ways by which graffiti and street art reclaim and transform the cityscape, commemorate cultural icons, voice feminist and LGBTQ+ concerns, protest political corruption and environmental violence, and animate resistance. Finding theoretical tools that might help illuminate the place-making, embodied, affective, and dialogic dimensions of Beirut’s postwar graffiti and street art meant recognizing the necessity of drawing upon a multiplicity of disciplines and critical approaches, because Beirut’s graffiti and street art tell multilayered stories that engage with different but interrelated issues, including art, politics, gender, and the environment. To that end, as the chapters will demonstrate, I humbly lean on the works of scholars from the fields of anthropology cultural geography and literary, affect, visual, and gender studies, among others, as applicable to each graffito, depending on the artifact’s topic, context, and message. Crucially, I gravitate toward theoretical approaches that have the potential to do justice to the graffiti and street art and to illuminate the labors, fears, hopes, and joys of their creators and audiences rather than obscuring them behind heavy-handed concepts that can easily fall short of capturing the complicated realities of living, breathing human beings. I hope that my inclusive conceptual tool kit yields a fruitful engagement with the graffiti pieces—one that is simultaneously intellectual, visceral, and humane. Because graffiti sites are ephemeral and ever changing, they epitomize the dynamic, relational, and performative aspects of place, as emphasized by theorists who advance an anti-essentialist understanding of place, including Allan Pred, Arturo Escobar, and Michel de Certeau. Pred argues that place is never “complete” but is always “becoming.” He asserts that place “always involves an appropriation and transformation of space and nature that is inseparable from the reproduction and transformation of society.”33 In a similar vein, Escobar argues that “place, body, and environment integrate with

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each other”; that “places gather things, thoughts and memories in particular configurations”; and that “place, more an event than a thing, is characterized by openness rather than by a unitary self-identity.”34 Beirut’s cityscape is constantly being produced, struggled over, and altered through the discourses and embodied practices and encounters of various actors, including graffiti makers, pedestrians, corporations, and government authorities. Importantly, graffiti makers are not merely concerned with altering the physical landscape of the city. Rather, their goals often involve advancing broader societal transformations, including fostering coexistence, disrupting sectarianism (and its visual signs), nurturing a sense of appreciation for public art and communal spaces, and/or promoting dissidence in the face of government negligence and corruption. The practices of graffiti makers demonstrate that regardless of policies, laws, and urban planning (or the lack thereof), the cityscape is anything but predetermined or permanent. De Certeau’s notions of “strategies” and “tactics” also offer productive insights with regard to understanding the dynamics of graffiti’s placemaking dimension. De Certeau associates “strategies” with dominant institutions that exert control on the use and accessibility of space through official means such as urban planning, regulations, and/or sanctions. On the other hand, “tactics” involve the unofficial manipulation and appropriation of place through the acts of walking, playing, and other subversive activities. According to de Certeau, “A tactic insinuates itself into the other’s place, fragmentarily, without taking it over in its entirety, without being able to keep it at a distance. . . . Whatever it wins, it does not keep.”35 Graffiti makers may be considered the ultimate tacticians of place. They walk around the city in search of the “perfect” wall, taking into account the message, purpose, and style of the inscription, stencil, or portrait. Sometimes they plan ahead by scouting a location and then surreptitiously inscribing antigovernment graffiti, dashing in and out of neighborhoods; at other times, including during mass protests, they might seize an opportune moment to transform a makeshift government-imposed barrier into a canvas fi lled with texts and images that ridicule the government, cheer demonstrators, or memorialize victims of violence. As Andrea Mubi Brighenti argues, graffiti writers tactfully “re-thematize” walls, “pulling them toward new foregrounds.”36 Crucially, the writers recognize that while a graffito may require a lot of time, nerve, and effort, it may ultimately disappear within moments. Even muralists, who might have spent hours in the sun painting a wall, understand that “what they win, they cannot keep”—that the government might soon deploy its “whiteners” to paint over graffitied walls, or worse still, to arrest and detain the graffiti makers. Despite their tactical behavior, however, some graffiti makers defy

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de  Certeau’s categorical separation between “strategies” and “tactics.” In other words, the actions of graffiti artists demonstrate that these concepts may be intertwined—that lived experiences are messier than neat theoretical concepts. As chapter 1 demonstrates, while some graffiti makers may adopt a categorically anti-institutional stance—often reflected in their crude, acerbic, and cutt hroat graffiti—others have no qualms about occupying an inbetween positionality that navigates, sometimes uncomfortably, margin and center, official and unofficial, and mainstream and peripheral universes. For some graffiti makers, occupying these in-between places involves cooperating strategically with official or mainstream institutions in order to achieve their higher goals of place making and social transformation. On a related note, I use the term “graffiti making” in this book as a deliberate means of including the different types of postwar artifacts that often fall across a spectrum of writing and drawing, art and politics, and even legality and illegality. In other words, it is precarious to draw strict lines between graffiti and street art in Beirut for various reasons, including the fact that many artifacts include both texts and images, which are often associated with graffiti and street art, respectively. Furthermore, graffiti is not technically illegal in Lebanon, unless it interferes with private property, becomes an incitement to violence, or constitutes defamation. Lebanese graffiti’s ambiguous status translates into its defiance of neat categories, unlike in countries where graffiti is more clearly situated as criminal/legal or acceptable/deplorable. Importantly, Lebanese graffiti makers tend to reject strict distinctions between graffiti and street art, since their work manifests a hybridity of elements traditionally associated with both graffiti and street art in terms of artistic inspiration, style, permissibility, aesthetics, politics, and accessibility. The graffiti makers I have encountered have referred to themselves as “graffiti artists” and as “street artists,” and to their works as “graffiti” or “street art,” sometimes interchangeably. Recognizing the porousness of these categories and the different contexts in which the artifacts under study have emerged, I have chosen to adopt the loose and inclusive terms “graffiti makers” and “graffiti making,” while also referencing the other terms as they apply. Crucially, as this study will show, even the most artistic type of graffiti in Beirut is rarely focused solely on aesthetics and engages the “political” directly or indirectly. Here, I take my cue from the scholar of Latin American street art Eva Holly Ryan, who advances the notion that street art is “political” insofar as it is “oriented towards society” and aims “to engage with and challenge existing structures and terrains of power.”37 In the context of the Arab world, Lina Khatib has repeatedly rejected a dichotomous understanding of the political and the cultural, arguing that “it is not

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just that popular culture and politics feed off each other—very often, popular culture is politics. The image-making act can itself be a political act.”38 Similarly, Charles Tripp reminds us that artists can play an important role in “forging a new visual vocabulary. . . . They help to create a powerful mnemonic for collective memory and to establish a presence that demands recognition.”39 The revolution-centered murals in Beirut are a perfect example of street art aimed at depicting governmental negligence and advocating for change, while also pleasing the eye and displaying their artists’ drawing skills and taste. In fact, in the past decade, in the contested Downtown area, both artistic murals and rushed scrawls have “demarcated spaces taken back from the authoritarian state and repurposed for and by collective outpourings of anger, loss and grief.”40 Both seasoned artists and nonartists have engaged in the act of disruptive place making through writing and drawing on walls. By paying attention to graffiti making in its various permutations, this book seeks to acknowledge, compare, and contrast the various actors and their variegated artifacts. We cannot talk about graffiti’s place-making potential without taking into account the significant role of the body. As Arijit Sen and Lisa Silverman argue, “Emphasizing embodiment allows us to identify and underscore the important elements of human agency in both the physical construction as well as the social production of place,” and “a study of place that omits consideration of the bodies that engage it remains incomplete.”41 At the most basic level, graffiti making necessitates the use of one’s body to write, draw, paint, deface, and even jump (fences and other barriers) or run as needed. It involves physical exertion and adrenaline and may result in bodily harm from accidents or arrests. In addition, Beirut’s postwar graffiti pieces are themselves fraught with references to the body—the hungry, angry, laughing, loving, screaming, urinating, and graffiti-spraying body. They portray the body as both vulnerable and agential, real and imagined, and individual and collective. Of course, this book’s understanding of and attention to the body is inclusive, attending to both human bodies (e.g., graffiti makers, pedestrians, politicians, and law-enforcement officers) and nonhuman bodies (e.g., walls, fences, building facades, trees, and the sea)—all bodies that touch and are touched by one another through the act of making graffiti. After all, some young street artists were drawn to graffiti because Beirut’s drab and militia-stenciled walls moved them to make an intervention that shifted the discourse of the street from one that fosters sectarian politics to one that promotes cross-sectarian unity and/or elevates musicians, writers, and other cultural figures. Conversely, the pristine walls of Downtown Beirut tempted frustrated residents to “desecrate” them with obscenity-laden anti-

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government graffiti after political leaders allowed the garbage crisis to escalate, plaguing the city’s residential neighborhoods and threatening people’s physical and mental health. And when the government put up wire fences to protect private establishments and preclude people (or poor bodies) from free access to the sea (a body of water that is supposed to be enjoyed by everybody), environmental activists decried the government’s actions by spraying environment-related graffiti to promote awareness and mobilize residents. Such incidents remind us that people and walls—bodies of all kinds— constantly encounter, transform, and are transformed by one another. The actions of graffiti makers and pedestrians demonstrate that graffiti making is not only a deeply embodied process but also a highly affective one—hence a need to emphasize “affective embodiment.” As Mark Halsey and Alison Young argue, graffiti makers recognize that “writing graffiti is far from a static or two-dimensional activity involving simply the application of paint to a surface. Instead, most understand graffiti writing to be an affective process that does things to writers’ bodies (and the bodies of onlookers) as much as to the bodies of metal, concrete and plastic.”42 When it “engages us, communicates with us, surprises us and makes us feel,” graffiti making constitutes a highly affective practice whose function transcends mere representation and epitomizes the inextricability of embodiment and emotion, where both graffiti makers and their audiences are concerned.43 As Martin Irvine explains, street artists often feel “compelled to state something in and with the city, whether as forms of protest, critique, irony, humor, beauty, subversion, clever prank or all of the above.”44 At the same time, passersby, too, often “construct meanings and feelings about a street artwork or physical environment through their everyday practices of walking, writing, sensing, painting, seeing, and so forth.”45 As we will see, graffiti makers who scribble messages related to feminist, LGBTQ+, and revolution-related issues often articulate strong feelings in their messages, including pride, shame, joy, hope, and frustration. By the same token, pedestrians have responded affectively to graffiti by registering their agreement, crossing out certain messages, or decrying the removal of certain graffiti pieces—thereby expressing intense emotions through their own embodied actions and reactions to the city’s walls. Emphasizing the centrality of emotions in social movements, James Jasper asserts, “Much political activity, no doubt, involves the reference to or creation of positive and negative affects toward groups, policies, and activities.”46 Th is could not be truer than in the case of Lebanon, where fear, frustration, disappointment, and desire for change have compelled people to take to the streets and register their grievances and opposition through graffiti making and other embodied actions. I agree with Nigel Th rift that cities are often “roiling maelstroms of af-

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fect.”47 In Beirut, where contentious politics and precarious realities are the norm, I would confidently argue that urban graffiti has constantly served as a vehicle in shaping and articulating the city’s affective ambience and emotional pulse. In an effort to avoid precluding emotions, or committ ing what Th rift refers to as “criminal neglect,”48 in the study of cities, I made an earnest effort to truly engage with the laughter and the tears—and everything in between—associated with graffiti and street art. Th is meant attending to the humorous, sarcastic, and acerbic elements of graffiti. I sought to tease out the broader cultural narratives, political events, and subversive practices that graffiti’s seemingly trivial jokes, explosive rants, or body-centered images speak to, directly or indirectly, and that sometimes resulted in a graffito’s defacement on the street by state and nonstate actors who felt threatened by the work and demanded its extinction. Graffiti’s conversational tendencies, its deployment of subversive humor, its propensity for transgressiveness and obscenity, and its ephemerality and resurrection, from both natural phenomena and human actions, inevitably led me down the Bakhtinian path. Deploying key Bakhtinian concepts as a springboard for investigating graffiti and street art garnered valuable insights regarding the artifacts themselves, as well as a delightful affi rmation regarding Bakhtin’s infi nite applicability and adaptability to visual culture across time and geography. Ultimately, as Robert Stam persuasively argues, “Bakhtin’s defi nition of text as ‘any coherent complex of signs’ encompasses everything from literature to visual and aural works of art. . . . Bakhtin develops, in effect, a wide-ranging semiotic embracing of both everyday discourse and the entire spectrum of artistic practices.”49 Specifically, Bakhtin’s interrelated concepts of “polyphony,” “dialogism,” and “heteroglossia,” as well as his articulation of the “carnivalesque,” have proved to be relevant and fruitful in my interpretation of Beirut’s multitextured visual culture. At the most basic level, “polyphony” refers to the multiplicity of social voices that exist in a text or conversation. These numerous voices, as Bakhtin asserts, are constantly interacting in a “dialogical” or “relational” manner. Yet this interaction is not always harmonious, being instead characterized by ideological struggles that Bakhtin refers to as “heteroglossia,” where “the idioms of different classes, races, genders, generations and locales compete for ascendancy.”50 Importantly, Bakhtin insists that dialogue is at the heart of any human experience, not just cultural production. He writes, To live means to participate in dialogue: to ask questions, to heed, to respond, to agree, and so forth. In this dialogue a person participates wholly and throughout his whole life: with his eyes, lips,

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hands, soul, spirit, with his whole body and deeds. He invests his entire self in discourse, and this discourse enters into the dialogic fabric of human life, into the world symposium.51 As mentioned earlier, my camera captured Beirut’s streets in an increasingly polyphonous, heteroglossic, and dialogic state of being in which political posters, partisan slogans, humorous stencils, profane scrawls, and aesthetic murals bump up against one another, exemplifying the ongoing conversations, and ideological combat, among their authors and viewers, as well as among individuals and groups beyond the walls themselves. By probing the subtexts embedded in graffiti, I gleaned information that might not have been obvious upon fi rst (or second) glance. For instance, I learned that the frequent assassinations that had occurred during the 2000s were the sad inspiration behind the Ashekman crew’s cheerful-looking murals that depicted the super-robot Grendizer and the bomb-throwing Bomber man. Even the simple stencil that promotes “Haifa for president,” playfully referencing the controversial entertainer, pithy as it is, spoke volumes about the postwar political vacuum, the scandalous lack of competent political leaders, and the disenchantment of the Lebanese regarding the inept political process. The Syria- and Palestine-related graffiti summoned past eras and past “encounters,” both “hostile” and “generous,” to use Sara Ahmed’s terms. In sum, every graffito I encountered conjured up other people, events, and moments—offering a wealth of information that extended well beyond its own parameters. Of course, to draw upon Bakhtin is also to investigate the ways in which graffiti makers, activists, and protestors leveraged their writing, drawing, dancing, and chanting skills to ridicule the government and transform the city center into a carnivalesque, “upsidedown” space that served “to crystallize popular irreverence and demystify the powerful.”52 The carnivalesque performances would become especially popular and visible during mass protests in Martyrs’ Square, as people gathered to write antigovernment graffiti, chant humorous slogans, and demand the ousting—or “uncrowning”—of authority figures. I want to end my discussion of Bakhtin with a note on “unfi nalizability.” In Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, Bakhtin wrote about the study of culture as “open, becoming, unresolved and unpredetermined, capable of death and renewal, transcending itself, that is exceeding its own boundaries.”53 I contend that Beirut’s visual culture lends itself to a Bakhtinian interpretation because of the possibilities for writing and rewriting, drawing and redrawing; Beirut’s walls are simply infi nite and unstoppable. Beirut’s visual culture is undoubtedly “unfi nalizable” not only by virtue of graffiti’s constant transformation on the walls but also by virtue of its stubborn afterlife in virtual space. Crucially, Bakhtin saw creativity itself as “unfi naliz20 / A W A R O F C O L O R S

able” in the sense that he asserted every person’s capacity, and longing, for communion and creativity. Speaking of Dostoevsky, Bakhtin wrote, “He asserts the impossibility of solitude, the illusory nature of solitude. The very being of man . . . is the deepest communion. To be means to communicate.”54 Graffiti does just that—communicate. I am convinced that Bakhtin would have delighted in Beirut’s eclectic visual culture in all its artistry, profanity, contentiousness, play, and disorder.

Chapter Organization In chapter 1, I analyze select murals and stencils that fi rst appeared in postwar Beirut to demonstrate how postwar graffiti artists sought to revitalize neglected streets, commemorate alternative role models to political leaders, decry ongoing sectarianism, and foster community building and civic pride, thereby encouraging residents to reenvision and reexperience the public space beyond the confi nes of sectarian politics. Shift ing my attention to gender and sexuality in chapter 2, I examine the ways in which gender- and sexuality-related graffiti mirrors and advances the efforts of civil-society activists and other residents committed to voicing the concerns and aspirations of women and LGBTQ+ subjects for a more inclusive society, while also registering the resistance of some pedestrians to such progressive efforts. In chapter 3, I explore environment-related graffiti and street art in postwar Beirut, demonstrating how they often reflect and advance onthe-ground environmental initiatives that affect the well-being of living, breathing residents. Focusing on issues such as the usurpation of public space, increased pollution, traffic, and the 2015 garbage crisis, the chapter demonstrates the link between environmental violence and toxic politics. In chapter 4, I provide a contextual analysis of the graffiti and street art produced during Lebanon’s most recent revolution, demonstrating the ways the revolution-centered artifacts mirror and promote the intersectional goals of the protests themselves. In line with the previous chapters, this chapter reiterates the spatial, affective, and dialogical dimensions of graffiti and street art in postwar Beirut. Exploring in chapter 5 postwar graffiti’s engagement with issues beyond Lebanon, I analyze artifacts that engage with regional struggles, most notably the Arab-Israeli confl ict and the Syrian uprising, showing the interconnectedness of people, politics, and visual cultures across the Middle East. I end the book with my “inconclusions,” inviting the reader to consider the potentialities and limitations of graffiti making as a form of repeated political engagement.

INTRODUCTION

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Figure 1.1. Ashekman, “Briefly, the street is ours,” mural in al-Barrad al-Younani

area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

CHAPTER 1

Al-shāri‘ ilnā / The Street Is Ours Reimagining Beirut’s Visual Culture Our main influence was Beirut. When we were kids we used to go to school walking, and we used to see the stencils and logos of militias in the streets. So that was our fi rst encounter with graffiti. . . . We love this form of art because it’s a form of expression. In the region, or in Lebanon, it’s either that you have to carry a gun to shoot people or you have to express yourself in a peaceful way. —Omar Kabbani, personal correspondence, July 13, 2014

When I fi rst encountered the murals of Fairouz, Sabah, and Asmahan in Beirut, my initial reaction was to marvel at the talent of the artists who created them. My awe was followed by a sense of gratitude—someone had spent a tremendous amount of time and effort creating these murals, and I was grateful to them for bringing a smile to my face. As a professor of Arabic, I felt excited that there were young people who appreciated Arab singers enough to pay them homage on the streets. I wanted to take pictures of the murals to prove to students that Arabic music was cool—that Arabic itself could be associated with such talented, timeless women and with hip new artists. I had stumbled upon a new universe, one that was very different from the Beirut of my childhood. After speaking with the artists and doing further research, I would realize that the murals were inspired by memories and stories of 1970s and 1980s wartime Beirut—whose menacing streets were etched into my own consciousness as a child. As I continued my forays into the streets of the city, I learned that behind each of these beautiful artifacts were echoes of the city’s past traumas, as well as promises—to self and others—to confront the residual violence of the war’s visual culture. The Lebanese Civil War and the country’s sectarian system have played a major role in motivating graffiti makers to create artifacts that revisualize the city in ways that seek to disrupt its polarized visual culture. Despite their commitment to creating an alternative visual culture and ethos, however, young graffiti makers have drawn inspiration from wartime visual interventions—the same kinds of images and symbols they wished to replace. Importantly, these postwar artifacts also respond to sectarian symbols and political posters of the present, images that continue to appear on

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the city’s walls, particularly during elections or during times of confl ict. In postwar Lebanon, even when graffiti makers focus on the aesthetics of their work, and even when they shy away from referring to their art as political, for fear of being associated with partisan political groups, the artifacts they leave behind cannot be extricated from the country’s unruly politics. As Sabrina DeTurk argues in her discussion of Lebanese street art, “When entire neighborhoods in the city remain, even now, without fully functional civil services and some are considered too dangerous for outsiders . . . the political can never be fully eliminated from public discourse, even, and perhaps especially, when the discourse is conducted in the subversive medium of street art.”1 Th is chapter offers a contextual analysis of select murals and stencils painted on the walls of Beirut, demonstrating how graffiti makers have used graffiti and street art as a way to reclaim and transform the visual culture of the city. The chapter engages with the following questions, among others: How do graffiti makers seek to disrupt the hegemony of wartime graffiti and sectarianism in postwar Beirut? How do some artists seek to revitalize Arabic in today’s globalized world? How do they commemorate alternative cultural heroes in the hope of displacing—or at least sharing space with— political leaders whose posters and slogans have occupied the city for decades? How do graffiti makers deploy their art as a means of fostering a sense of community in the face of long-standing sectarian tensions and spatial segregation? And what are some of the artists’ challenges, tactics, and triumphs in a postwar Beirut where graffiti is not technically illegal but is always at risk of being defaced by government and nongovernment actors? Before delving into these issues, it is important to briefly consider graffiti’s evolution in postwar Beirut, as average civilians started engaging in alternative place-making practices.

From Western-Inspired Tags to Arabic Calligraffiti The earliest wave of nonsectarian graffiti in postwar Beirut strongly resembled hip-hop graffiti and street art in the West. Most early pieces by graffiti makers with nicknames such as Fish, Frez, and Rek used English and French and had litt le to no connection to Arabic. Pascal Zoghbi explains that this is because European artists played a significant role in shaping the early graffiti scene in Beirut.2 Hip-hop graffiti developed in the urban environment of New York in the 1970s. Generally, this type of graffiti involves tagging, whereby crews mark their territory by inscribing their nicknames using stylized lettering.3 In Beirut, Western-inspired graffiti generally ap-

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Figure 1.2. Phat2, mural in the Salloumi area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and

William Taggart.

peared in abandoned parking lots and under bridges, in out-of-reach places and other recesses of the city’s decaying infrastructure. Such pieces offered unexpected bursts of color that breathed life into otherwise dull or damaged walls. One prominent graffiti artist who began working in this style goes by the name of Phat2 (George Khoury). Born in 1989 in Beirut’s Achrafiyeh neighborhood, Phat2 developed a passion for graffiti and graphic design at an early age. He was influenced by the works of graffiti writers from the United States, New Zealand, and Australia, as well as pioneering Lebanese graffiti crews. Eventually, he cultivated his own style, combining loud colors and increasingly complex lettering as he moved through the city, tagging his name in the most precarious of spaces.4 For example, a tag by Phat2 features the artist’s nickname in bold pink letters, adorning the roof of a dilapidated building (fig. 1.2). The pink graffito is a testament not only to the artist’s attempt at embellishing a dismal-looking abandoned building but also to his “tactics” for infi ltrating a closed-off site. The artist flaunts his skill with the inscribed statement, “You cannot catch me, cannot hold me, you cannot stop, much less control me.” Similarly, a playful piece by ACK (Another Crushing Kill, a crew to which Phat2 once belonged) sits atop the wall of a small balcony of a historic building in Achrafiyeh (fig. 1.3). It

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Figure 1.3. ACK crew, mural in Achrafiyeh. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and

William Taggart.

demonstrates the crew’s artistic and kinesthetic skills and their ability to navigate even the most exposed and hazardous spaces. Phat2 recalls climbing broken stairs and standing on a narrow ledge while painting one of his hard-to-reach pieces and the sense of delight he experienced after the work was completed: “After it was done, I went downstairs and looked at it and

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it was really worth it. As long as it’s there!”5 Phat2’s words echo Michel de Certeau’s conception of tactics as practices that refashion a “field of misfortune” through a combination of “manipulation and enjoyment.”6 Beirut’s plentiful war-stricken buildings provide the ultimate “field of misfortune” for artists seeking to enhance their tagging techniques while also beautifying the city. Despite their admiration for Western graffiti, which initially inspired their excursions on the street and helped them develop their writing and drawing skills, many Lebanese street artists ultimately moved away from solely imitating the West. Experimenting with a multiplicity of languages, symbols, and tropes, they fashioned a more hybridized form of street art— one that emphasized the city’s local color by drawing upon its Arab/Lebanese heritage, without necessarily disavowing external influences or Beirut’s globalized reality. Mohammad and Omar Kabbani (b. 1983), the twin brothers who go by the crew name Ashekman (meaning “exhaust pipe” or “car muffler” in local Lebanese parlance), were born and raised during the Lebanese Civil War. They speak of militias, bombs, and wartime graffiti as their main influences. In addition, they were influenced by Western graffiti artists, including Banksy, Shepard Fairey, and Mr. Brainwash, as well as Western hip-hop music. The brothers started an Arabic-language hip-hop group in 2001, often rapping about social justice issues, including war, corruption, bombings, and terrorist attacks. In 2007, they created their own clothing line and opened a graffiti-themed boutique store in Hamra.7 The brothers were among the fi rst Lebanese street artists to incorporate Arabic calligraphy in their work, leveraging the aesthetic features of the Arabic script to produce unique Arabic-language calligraffiti murals. Calligraffiti is a hybrid visual composition that combines elements from calligraphy and graffiti. It is characterized by the fusion of seeming opposites, such as control and chaos, modernity and tradition, and text and image. Arabic calligraffiti murals merge a variety of elements, such as Arabic calligraphy, portraits, geometric designs, and Islamic scripts.8 One of Ashekman’s pieces demonstrates the merging of hip-hopinspired images with Arabic script. The work is centered around a stylized rendition of the crew’s name in brightly colored Arabic letters and a small image of a cartoonish car muffler in the form of a smiling skull (fig. 1.4). The skull’s eyebrow consists of the Arabic shadda diacritic, one of Ashekman’s trademarks. The Kabbani brothers take pride in utilizing Arabic writing in their pieces and consider it part of their mission to promote Lebanese colloquialisms at a time when Beirut’s middle- and upper-class youths are increasingly using English and French as a mark of social status. Similarly, the prominent street artist Yazan Halwani (b. 1993) went from tag-

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Figure 1.4. Ashekman, mural in Mar Mikhael featuring the crew’s name in

Arabic. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

ging his name in English, in an attempt to emulate “these taggers in New York,” to learning Arabic calligraphy, and his work now pays tribute to an Arab-Islamic heritage of which he is proud.9 The artists’ intentional efforts to incorporate Arabic in their pieces fit into broader conversations (and initiatives) taking place in the Arab world regarding the shift ing status of Arabic in an increasingly globalized society and the need to revitalize Arabic to ensure that young people do not lose interest in the language and, possibly, their sense of identity and belonging. Basma Hamdy argues that “Arabic is a powerful and complex language bearing an enduring significance on the collective identity of the Middle East.  .  .  . Like other languages, Arabic contributes to the imagined bond between individuals, uniting them symbolically with a community across borders and nations.”10 By deliberately utilizing Arabic, the young artists not only revitalize Arabic and encourage young people to celebrate their linguistic heritage and affi liation with other Arabs worldwide, but also disrupt the monopoly over Arabic by political leaders who have instrumentalized Arabic to assert their legitimacy and religious superiority. Furthermore, as Hamdy notes, Arabic has often become associated with violence

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and extremism because groups like the Islamic State (ISIL) have attempted to usurp it. She writes, Arabic calligraphy is a natural component of the ISIL propaganda machine creating an unconscious association between Arabic and Islamic extremism. Th is association is contributing to a growing number of incidents of hostility towards spoken and written Arabic in the West. Because Arabic is the language of Islam, and because ISIL declares Islam as its guiding principle, an inevitable link between Arabic and violence is unavoidable.11 Following Hamdy, graffiti artists attempt to reclaim Arabic and to show local and global audiences that Arabic belongs to a diversity of users with disparate sociopolitical and artistic concerns, priorities, and aspirations. By mindfully utilizing Arabic in their artwork and by publicly discussing the importance of embracing it, the artists challenge multiple narratives, including that Arabic is doomed as a dying language that will not survive the linguistic hegemony of global English, that Arabic is inextricably associated with fundamentalism and violence, and that Arabic is inferior to other languages such as English and French. The artists’ revitalization and promotion of Arabic—as a hip, beautiful language that should be embraced— complements their efforts at ornamenting the streets in a culturally sensitive manner, unifying residents through language and cultural heritage, and commemorating local and regional artists, particularly singers and poets who write and/or sing in Arabic.

Embracing the Scarred City and Promoting Unity As Beirut’s street artists increasingly moved away from tagging their names in English, many started to invoke Beirut itself, often as a trope for unity and antisectarianism. The capital city, as reimagined by street artists, becomes a place where it is possible to express a counterdiscourse to sectarian propaganda and to unite the public through a sense of civic pride and responsibility. As an example, Siska and Prime’s collaborative graffito “Beirut mā bitmūt” (Beirut will never die) is largely considered the fi rst Beirut-centered piece that appeared in the city (fig. 1.5). While Siska (Elie Alexandre Habib) is a Lebanese visual artist and fi lmmaker, Prime (Charles Vallaud) is a French national who spent time with Lebanese graffiti artists in the early 2000s, creating collaborative murals and exchanging drawing techniques. The artists painted the mural during the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, in an attempt to uplift residents since, as Siska

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Figure 1.5. Siska and Prime, “Beirut will never die,” mural in Gemmayzeh. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

put it, “Beirut was empty, gray, and desperate,” and “the citizens were sad” and “felt stuck.”12 The graffito features the text “Beirut mā bitmūt” along with images of a cedar tree and a bomb. Located in the Green Line area, one of the hardest-hit areas during the Lebanese Civil War, the graffito invokes the discourses of death and survival by virtue of its discursive message, the physical surface to which it adheres, and the context in which it was painted. The bullet holes on the wall are remnants of the civil war, thus hailing back to an era of devastation and survival in Lebanon’s history. Invoking Beirut’s survival of past tragedy, the graffiti artists insist on projecting a hopeful future by strategically using a bullet-ridden wall as their canvas, in an attempt to persuade civilians that this violent moment, too, will pass. Siska and Prime’s graffito does not attempt to obliterate (or gentrify) the scars of war, but rather draws attention to them by situating them at the core of the medium and the message alike. At the same time, this graffito may invoke what has become a cliché: a phoenixlike Beirut that continuously resurrects itself from its ashes. Notwithstanding the graffito’s possible association with a sentimental image of a mythical Beirut, it is crucial to emphasize the tragic context in which this

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graffito was born: an unexpected war with Israel, which ultimately resulted in roughly 1,200 deaths, 4,000 injuries, and the displacement of approximately a million Lebanese civilians. Therefore, harboring hope and promoting communal solidarity became a vital factor in every aspect of daily life, as civilians found themselves in the midst of yet another war with no end in sight. The graffito reflects these sentiments and represents the visceral, affective response of two graffiti artists who risked their safety in order to spread a message of hope. In times of distress, such seemingly simple acts can make a difference, if only by raising people’s morale and reminding them that they are not alone. Siska’s stated intention to combat fear and destruction with a socially focused mural that seeks to alleviate people’s suffering, even if momentarily, echoes Jill Bennett’s insights on practical aesthetics and art’s ability to generate collective affect. For Bennett , “affect is not merely encoded into a subject body but dispersed through the landscape in a manner that creates the possibility of its communalization.”13 By creating artwork that acknowledges recurrent trauma and taps into a communal ethos of persistence, Siska engages in “[producing] an account of the multiple affective registers of collective life that keep people loosely knotted together (attached to themselves and to the social) while the ground is shift ing.”14 Furthermore, aside from its therapeutic potential, the mural’s representation of a unified Beirut in the face of calamity offers an alternative national narrative to the divisive sectarian discourses produced by Lebanon’s militias during the Lebanese Civil War and beyond. During the war, Beirut was spatially divided into a Christian-dominated East and a Muslimdominated West, and it remains generally segregated along sectarian lines. As Sune Haugbolle asserts, “symbolic turf wars” are still reproduced by political parties and their followers, and “this geography of communitarian divisions reflects the sectarian political system in Lebanon, but also continual sectarian divisions in the population.”15 Importantly, at times of confl ict, such tensions are often at risk of further escalation, as residents fi nd themselves competing for limited resources and are likely to lean more on their sectarian political leaders. Cognizant of Beirut’s history and the resurgence of sectarian tensions in 2005 and 2006, Siska asserts, “Usually, political messages and signs were meant to divide the city into different territories. Our idea was to unify the message and the territory—one message for all, one city for all.”16 Siska’s reflexive stance regarding Beirut’s devastating sectarian past and the residual impact of that past on the present eschews the dangers of a more simplistic or regressive type of nostalgia. Siska’s engagement with Beirut’s sectarian history involves “forward-looking uses of the past, of the past as a set of resources for the future,” rather than a mere

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construction of the past as an idyllic (or ideal) place to where one can simply escape from a dystopian present.17 On this scarred surface to which Siska and Prime’s mural adheres, the past is resurrected without being idealized. Similarly, the present time remains unavoidably present by virtue of the ongoing violence that threatens to exterminate Beirut’s people and its infrastructure. No amount of nostalgia in this graffito is capable of rendering residents who are under the bombs forgetful of the present moment. The graffito advances a productive and uneasy engagement with history and present moment alike. Despite its sentimentality, Siska and Prime’s graffito is more textured and nuanced than nostalgia-weary scholars might readily admit upon fi rst glance. Siska followed this piece with other Beirut-centered graffiti, long since defaced, including one that read, “Yā Beirut” (which roughly translates to “Oh Beirut”). The graffito references the eponymous poem by the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani, which was adapted into a famous song by the Lebanese singer Majida al-Roumi. In the poem, using a collective “we” on behalf of the Lebanese people, the speaker confesses to “injuring,” “burning,” and “making Beirut weep.” The poem emphasizes the Lebanese people’s complicity in infl icting wounds on their beloved city, presenting a counterdiscourse to a popular national narrative that the Lebanese Civil War was exclusively waged by self-serving outsiders who preyed on Lebanon and sabotaged an otherwise harmonious people.18 I discuss the implications of this song because it is important to see what type of national narratives graffiti artists choose to allude to, to visibilize, or to protest in their artifacts. Here, Siska echoes a literary counterdiscourse that speaks of the city’s pain and victimization, as well as the responsibility of the Lebanese people in contributing to the violence that ravished their city. Siska’s Beirut-centered graffiti inspired dozens of other artists to follow suit by painting the city’s walls with the words “Beirut” in Arabic and/or English, in a variety of styles and colors, thereby privileging the city’s name over their own individual names, signatures, or political affi liations. Ashekman’s calligraffiti mural “Li-Beirut” (For Beirut) features a portrait of Fairouz gazing dreamily into the future. It also includes the fi rst verse of Fairouz’s song “Li-Beirut,” printed multiple times and resembling the lines of a letter or book (fig. 1.6). The verse reads, “Min qalbī salāmun li-Beirut,” or “From my heart, a greeting to Beirut.” The word “salām” also means “peace.” The ballad is one of many touching songs that Fairouz devoted to the burning city, pointing to both its dystopic transformation and its resilience in the face of atrocity. Th is mural may be considered in dialogue with Siska’s “Yā Beirut” and Siska and Prime’s “Beirut mā bitmūt,” as well as other Beirut-centered murals. Together, these pieces seek to advance an art-

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Figure 1.6. Ashekman, mural of Fairouz in Gemmayzeh. The Arabic inscription reads, “For Beirut.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

centered discourse that promotes urban unification in the face of sectarian tensions, confl ict, and tragedy—without turning a blind eye to the atrocities of the bloody past or to the precariousness of the present. While the Beirut-centered murals seek to promote a message of civic unity through cultural production, the artists themselves are often vocal about the ubiquitous presence of sectarianism and the corrupt Lebanese political system that sustains it. The artists often reference Lebanon’s (broken) confessional system, either in the murals themselves or in their public commentaries about the artifacts (e.g., on social media or in interviews). As an example, in a mural he created as part of the 2017 White Wall festival, Yazan Halwani painted the two main characters of Ziad Doueiri’s fi lm West Beirut (fig. 1.7): Tarek Noueri, a Muslim boy, and his friend May, a Christian refugee whose family moves to Beirut at the outset of the Lebanese Civil War.19 The calligraphy-infused mural covers the Noueiri Building, which is located in the former Green Line area that divided Christian East Beirut and Muslim West Beirut during the war. The location of the mural is therefore perfectly suited for the problem the artist seeks to highlight: namely, Tarek and May’s potential struggles to maintain a relationship in a country that pits them against one another and disapproves of their inter-

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faith union. On his Facebook page, Halwani spoke candidly about his frustration with the fact that to date, civil marriage—which would allow Muslims and Christians to intermarry—has not been legalized in Lebanon. He stated, The mural is a reminder of Lebanon’s post-war sett lement: a political system built on sectarianism and business interest that blocks true national cohesion. The persistence of the current political class in fueling sectarian grievances.  .  .  . Case in point, 27 years after the end of the Civil War, with the absence of civil marriage Tarek and May would not be able to get married if their story had continued (. . . in the way I imagine).20 Halwani’s scathing critique of the Lebanese sectarian system helps contextualize a mural that at fi rst glance may seem purely decorative, or even naively nostalgic (something the fi lm itself has been legitimately critiqued for). Halwani’s engagement with the subplot between Tarek and May goes beyond the fi lm to delve into Lebanese political life. His paratextual commentary invites the viewer to consider the mural for the multilayered and multipurposed artifact he intended it to be. In other words, Halwani’s mural seeks to pay homage to a popular Lebanese fi lm, to decorate a building that has seen its share of destruction, and to point an accusatory fi nger at a corrupt political system that precludes interfaith marriages, all at the same time. Examples of other pieces that reference Beirut, without necessarily conjuring up heavy subtexts, include an expansive mural by Phat2 that features a cartoonish man cheerfully spraying the word “Beirut” in vibrant blue, in Arabic and English, in opposite directions; a colorful Arabic-language piece by Ashekman that reads, “Min Beirut” (From Beirut); and anonymous stencils that state phrases such as “Live, Love Beirut” and “Re-Beirut.”21 By inscribing “Beirut” on the walls, artists seek to demonstrate their commitment to ornamenting the streets, displacing sectarian symbols, and expressing their solidarity with the scarred city and its residents, regardless of religious or ethnic affi liations. Artistically, the Beirut-centered murals demonstrate the growth that many graffiti makers underwent as they shifted from tagging their own names in Latin letters to inscribing the city’s name, thereby symbolically handing the walls back to the city. It is important to note that street artifacts that foster unity and celebrate Beirut as a city for all Lebanese continue to bump up against enduring warlike slogans that emphasize sectarian divides. More often than not, sectarian and partisan slogans appear in the form of crude scrawls that are

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Figure 1.7. Yazan Halwani, mural in the Mathaf (Green Line) area featuring the protagonists Tarek and May from the fi lm West Beirut. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

created using pens, crayons, or Sharpies. Such symbols further demonstrate the dialogical nature of Beirut’s streets and the ongoing batt les with regard to dominating the capital’s visual culture. Examples of such scrawls include “Ya ‘Umar, Tarik Jdideh.” Th is succinct phrase references ‘Umar Ibn alKhatt āb, one of the earliest Muslim leaders, whom Sunni Muslims hold in high esteem, as they consider him to be one of the four Rightly Guided Caliphs, but whom many Shi‘a Muslims do not view as a legitimate leader of the Islamic Ummah. Tarik Jdideh is a Sunni-dominated neighborhood that includes many Hariri supporters. The neighborhood has witnessed numerous clashes between Sunni and Shi‘a in the past decade, particularly during political elections and religious holidays. The writer of the graffiti territorializes the wall by coupling ‘Umar’s name with the area of Tarik Jdideh, in an attempt to assert Sunni dominance in the area. Another, more divisive graffito states, “Al-Qus.ayr maqbarat h.izb al-shayāt.īn,” or “Al-Qus.ayr [will be] the graveyard of the party of the devils”—a reference to the 2013 battle in which Hizballah reportedly fought on the side of the Assad regime in the Syrian town of al-Qus.ayr. The graffito is signed with the name or pseudonym 7amza, most likely a reference to H.amzah Ibn ‘Abdul-Mut.t.alib, a figure generally revered by Sunnis, and the paternal uncle and companion to Prophet Mohammad. Crucially, the graffito demonizes Hizballah and predicts their extermination in the Syrian Civil War. It also seeks to provoke pedestrians who support or sympathize with Hizballah. That the graffito is painted over in red precisely where it says “al-shayāt.īn” (the devils) suggests that at least one pedestrian found it offensive and made an effort to blot it out. The pedestrian’s active retaliation demonstrates how graffiti often “ruptures people’s sensory experiences as they pass through public space in ordinary life,” and how “people construct meanings and feelings” about their environment through everyday practices, such as walking and writing.22 Parallel to the Sunni-centered graffiti are scrawls and stencils that pay tribute to Muslim figures and logos of militias that are largely celebrated by (or have become increasingly associated with) Shi‘a Muslims. These include scrawls that state allegiance to Ali Ibn-Abi T.ālib and his daughter (Sayyeda) Zaynab, who is considered the “heroine of Karbala,”23 as well as logos of the predominantly Shi‘a political parties H.arakit Amal, or the Hope Movement,24 and Hizballah. The persistence of sectarian symbols and scrawls suggests that political wars are still being fought, anonymously, on Beirut’s walls through acts that visually territorialize and reterritorialize the city’s neighborhoods. At the same time, sectarian graffiti now competes and coexists with artistic, nonsectarian graffiti and street art.

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Decrying Sectarian Violence and Precarity in Postwar Lebanon As the aforementioned sectarian scrawls remind us, while the Lebanese Civil War officially ended in 1990, the country has continued to witness occasional flare-ups of sectarian violence. The tensions have resurfaced most visibly in clashes between Sunni and Shi‘a Muslims, particularly in the aftermath of the 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafi k Hariri and the July 2006 war with Israel. As mentioned in the introduction, in May 2008, political tensions between the March 14 alliance and the March 8 coalition of political parties led by Hizballah escalated into a battle of the streets. Although it was ultimately diff used by the Lebanese Army, the confl ict was not easily forgotten. The image of a besieged Beirut, occupied by masked men with Kalashnikovs, brought back vivid memories of the bloody Lebanese Civil War, and Lebanese citizens would relive their trauma, fearing the eruption of yet another, perhaps more devastating, internecine war. Finding themselves in a déjà vu situation, where the bloody past threatens to rear its ugly head, many Lebanese writers and fi lmmakers have revisited the topics of war and violence in their creative work, sometimes despite their desires to move beyond war-related topics.25 Similarly, some graffiti makers have created artifacts that address themes of enduring sectarianism, violence, and precarity in postwar Lebanon. Marwan Kraidy att ributes the proliferation of antisectarian graffiti to the fact that many progressive Lebanese activists came to perceive Lebanon’s institutionalized political sectarianism as “a primal sin of the Lebanese polity,” which prompted them to “make this issue a rallying cry for various social and political causes.”26 The sociopolitical issues at the forefront of the minds of antisectarianism activists—and that translated into inscriptions on the city’s walls—concerned the lack of basic public services and human rights, the corruption of political elites, and the absence of an independent judiciary system. According to Kraidy, the Arab uprisings served as a contributing factor in inspiring some Lebanese left ists to rebel more vociferously against the sectarian system and to leverage stencils as a means of rallying civilians around their cause.27 Some graffiti makers have highlighted the crisis of enduring sectarianism by creating somber, unpolished stencils with straightforward messages in Arabic rather than elaborate murals. Written in black or red ink, an interrelated set of stencils waves the proverbial fi nger at sectarianism, targeting it as the ultimate culprit of Lebanon’s ongoing problems. The stenciled messages, written in Arabic, pose the following questions, among others:

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Figure 1.8.

Unsigned stencil in the Clemenceau area. The Arabic text reads, “When will the civil war end?—When the sectarian system collapses.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

“Why is the electricity still out?—Because of the sectarian system,” “Why don’t we have an independent judiciary?—Because of the sectarian system,” “Why have the disappeared not returned yet?—Because of the sectarian system,” and “Why is the number of poor people increasing in the country?—Because of the sectarian system.” The stencils share the same rhetorical strategy, asking various questions about the reason for Lebanon’s precarious living conditions, which ultimately results in one answer: sectarianism. Th rough drilling and repetition, the question-based stencils invite the Lebanese public to ponder the premise that their country’s ongoing ailments are all a result of the long-enduring sectarian system and that the same dysfunctional system can only reproduce the same outcomes, even during times of peace or relative stability. In his discussion of the activism of the families of the disappeared in Beirut, John Nagle asserts that the families would gather and protest in Downtown in order to “remind the state and wider society of the injustice of the disappeared and the dangers of a postwar order built on impunity and political sectarianism.”28 In the same vein, these chastising stencils warn residents of the repercussions of collective amnesia and the fragility of peace in postwar Lebanon. In fact, one provocative Arabic-language stencil presumes that the war never truly ended: “When will the civil war end?—When the sectarian system collapses” (fig. 1.8). The seemingly simple stencil features a loaded rhetorical question that alludes to the porousness of war and peace in Lebanon. At the core of each of the antisectarian stencils is the premise that as long as there is sectarianism, Lebanon will remain in a perpetual state of war and impoverishment. Taken as a whole, the antisectarian stencils on the walls of Beirut—and in other Lebanese cit-

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ies29—also serve to remind fellow Lebanese of their complacency in participating in, or at least tolerating, a political system based on confessionalism, and they work by “reinserting memory into amnesiac spaces.”30 At the same time, the stencils are forward looking, and perhaps even hopeful, as evidenced by the assertive expression “When [i.e., not if] the sectarian system collapses.” Sectarianism is constructed both as the root of all evil and as a perishable and reversible system, rather than as a primordial essence that cannot be overcome. The stencils’ confrontational engagement with sectarianism should not be underestimated, particularly considering that “in postwar Lebanon, sectarian violence was often the elephant in the room when people spoke about the Civil War.”31 Now the elephant in the room is referred to by its real name, “al-nidhām al-t.a’ifī,” the sectarian system, and is depicted as a badge of shame on the walls of the city. While the antisectarianism stencils do not offer long or elaborate political analysis, their efficacy stems from their pithiness, repetition, memorability, and/or biting sarcasm. As Kraidy notes, Th rough compelling political messages that are brief, concise, hardhitt ing, and in most cases instantly recognizable, stencils are effective in a saturated information environment, wherein brevity helps a message achieve speedier circulation and more visibility. . . . Brief and repeated, stencils gain recognition, spreading and ingraining political messages in people’s consciousness.32 In a city where residents are constantly bombarded by stimulating advertisements, religious and sectarian symbols, and the ever-present glossy images of political leaders, the efforts of progressive youths to visualize otherwise should not go unnoticed. At the most basic level, antisectarian graffiti attests to the presence of individuals and groups who refuse to adhere to or perpetuate sectarian identities and practices, thereby defying the mainstream narrative that no Lebanese can escape sectarian identification.33 Furthermore, by drawing the attention of passersby to the fact that their fellow residents are visibly frustrated with institutionalized sectarianism, and by asserting that rejection of the sectarian system is the only viable way to cure Lebanon’s numerous ailments, the antisectarian stencils seek to recruit other pedestrians into joining the antisectarianism movement. One stencil simply instructs, “Fakkir Libnānī Fakkir ‘ilmānī,” or “Th ink Lebanese. Th ink secularly,” thereby advocating for secularism (fig. 1.9). Such stencils also remind existing “stealth seculars” that they are not alone in their beliefs and struggle against sectarianism or institutionalized religion. Unsurprisingly, the ubiquitous “Fakkir Libnānī, Fakkir ‘ilmānī,” stencils have been defaced with black paint covering the word “secularly” in several

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Figure 1.9.

“Th ink Lebanese. Th ink secularly,” unsigned stencil in the Ein et-Tineh area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Figure 1.10.

“Th ink Lebanese. Th ink secularly,” unsigned stencil in the Ein et-Tineh area. The Arabic words for “think” and “secularly” are defaced. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

areas of the city, which demonstrates that not all Lebanese endorse secularism or want to do away with religion altogether (fig. 1.10). Such stencils may be contrasted with the religious stencils scattered on walls all over Beirut, including those that feature crosses in all shapes, colors, and sizes, or messages such as “Hallowed be thy name,” “Allahu akbar,” and “Yasū‘ [Jesus], I love you.” The presence of stencils that elevate and undermine religious beliefs, figures, and institutions reflect the cacophony of voices and opinions articulated by residents who feel strongly about institutionalized religion and its opposite, whether positively or negatively. Humorous stencils with politically oriented messages have also occupied a visible presence on Beirut’s walls. In her study of Beirut’s postwar graffiti, Tala Saleh discusses the gradual proliferation of what she refers

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to as “protest stencils,” which she describes as “a form of graffiti that states a dissent to political confl icts and comments on social issues and current events in a comical manner.”34 Protest stencils tend to be small, simple (created with cardboard cutouts and spray paint), socially oriented, and humorous. Despite their simple form and lighthearted tone, however, they often incorporate important subtexts that offer sociopolitical criticism. Over the past decade and a half, some of the playful protest stencils that have fi lled Beirut’s streets have drawn attention to the recurrence of violent confl ict and to the absence of government control with regard to unregulated weapons and the looming threat of violence. Among the ubiquitous protest stencils are some that feature small, black bombs with wicks or fuses. According to Saleh, these bomb-shaped stencils were fi rst spotted in the aftermath of the assassination of Hariri and the ensuing string of explosions that targeted numerous political figures and journalists. For Saleh, despite their whimsical shapes, the bomb-shaped stencils “kept fresh the tragedies in everyone’s mind. They kept an awareness of danger, anonymity, and spontaneity of those explosions.”35 Following Saleh, one can conclude that the stenciled bombs that popped up all over the city attest to the graffiti makers’ determination to confront and visually represent Beirut’s precarious reality in a humorous manner. Rather than denying violence or choosing not to engage with it altogether, the stencils’ creators gently drew attention to the ongoing “postwar” violence, thereby eschewing the type of war amnesia that many Lebanese have been encouraged to endorse. At the same time, the minimalism of the bomb stencil speaks to the power of the image, perhaps also reflecting the artists’ privileging of images that “show, don’t tell,” over verbose sloganeering or sermonizing. A related but slightly more complex stencil features a man kicking around a bomb in lieu of a soccer ball (fig. 1.11). The stencil satirizes the pervasiveness of weapons and assassinations in Beirut, suggesting that the Lebanese are still playing with fi re. In addition to alluding to assassinations, the stencil may also be considered a cautionary artifact that draws attention to the increasing intersection of (sectarian) violence and sports, particularly soccer, in Lebanon. After all, the stencil of the man kicking a bomb fi rst appeared during the 2006 World Cup. The timing of this stencil makes sense, since the World Cup has always been an important event in Lebanon, often leading to rambunctious street celebrations (which involve flag waving and car honking) as well as occasionally violent clashes among fans who support rival international teams, most notably Germany and Brazil. It is also common for fans to shoot guns in the air when their team wins, which may result in neighborhood disturbances, fights, and the injury or killing of people by stray bullets.

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Figure 1.11. Unsigned stencil of a soccer player kicking a bomb in Tallet El-Druze. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Importantly, local soccer (or football, as the Lebanese call it), too, has become especially polarized, especially among young men. Arguments that may start with playful teasing or disagreements over match results can quickly escalate into violent sectarian altercations. In his discussion of the politicization of national soccer in Lebanon, Karim Makdisi convincingly argues that sectarian leaders have mindfully sabotaged soccer, putt ing their political and neoliberal agendas fi rst and ensuring that the Lebanese fan base remains divided. He writes, Rather than use Lebanon’s national soccer team to unite people and aid in the reconciliation of its communities, Lebanon’s authorities instead continue to neglect such potential while its ruling class encourages further division amongst the country’s soccering communities that would preserve their power and their stranglehold in formulating, and sustaining, Lebanon’s fragile sectarian identity.36 Engaging with this idea, the seemingly simple bomb stencil serves as a springboard for thinking through the violence of sectarian strife, whose tentacles have become far-reaching, affecting all facets of Lebanese society. Like music, art, and civil society, sports may potentially play a signifi-

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cant role in bringing the Lebanese people together and providing a positive space for bonding—if allowed to flourish in a democratic, organic manner. Thanks to Lebanon’s political elites, however, top-tier Lebanese soccer teams have become increasingly affi liated with sectarian leadership. Since politicians have fanned sectarian tensions by sponsoring different teams and pitt ing their fans against one another, soccer games in Lebanon have turned increasingly violent, with fans of rival teams engaging in physical altercations, destroying stadiums, hurling slurs at one another, and chanting dehumanizing, partisan slogans. In fact, in the past few years, fans have been consistently barred from attending soccer matches (as well as basketball games) for fear that sectarian violence may erupt and get out of control. The vicious cycle of violent behavior and aborted spectatorship, however, precludes the emergence of a healthy sports culture that could help build community, unifying fans in their passion and appreciation for the sport. Given this context, the stencil of the man kicking a bomb suggests that a soccer match is always already an explosive endeavor in modern-day Lebanon. Ticking bombs that speak of past, present, or future violence have become a common trope not just in protest stencils but in elaborate murals as well. A playful mural by the Ashekman crew features the Japanese video game character Bomberman carrying a bomb and running away, alongside the expression “Mat.lūb,” which translates to “Wanted” (fig. 1.12). While the mural looks cheerful, with bright colors and humorous cartoonish drawings, Omar Kabbani explained to me that the Ashekman brothers painted it in response to the series of targeted bombings that maimed or claimed the lives of the aforementioned politicians and journalists. In most cases, the perpetrators of these assassinations have remained unidentified and on the loose. Bomberman, therefore, represents the figure of the uncontrollable, elusive assassin who can wreak havoc and then hit the ground running. The graffito thus highlights the absurd political situation and the failure of the authorities to bring the perpetrators to justice—as all the while the government claims to crack down on terrorism by increasing censorship and surveillance. In Askheman’s mural, killings are compared to mindless video games, where violence is normalized and human lives are rendered insignificant. The mural also echoes the Lebanese people’s frustration with their political leaders and the oft-repeated question “Wayn al-dawleh?” (Where is the government?), evoked particularly in the wake of tragic events. It articulates some people’s perspective that the Lebanese government has not been present or responsive to the needs of the city, particularly with regard to ensuring safety and national security. The trope of the “mat.lūb,” or “wanted criminal,” has appeared in other R E I M A G I N I N G B E I R U T ’ S V I S U A L C U LT U R E

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Figure 1.12. Ashekman, “Wanted,” Bomberman mural in al-Barrad al-Younani area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

graffiti pieces, including a stencil that features the face of a bearded young man wearing a baseball cap backward, an expression of mischief on his face. The caption reads, “matloub: we3e am sakran,” or “Wanted, drunk or sober.” Given that some graffiti artists have been arrested or interrogated for painting controversial stencils, this stencil could easily be referencing those “artist criminals” whom the government would prefer to hunt down and persecute rather than spending its resources looking for “real criminals.” In a similar vein relating to government incompetence, a series of satirical murals by Ashekman portray the figure of Grendizer, the robot hero of the eponymous Japanese anime that gained popularity with children growing up in the 1980s and 1990s. One of the Grendizer murals features the giant robot assuring residents in classical Arabic that “a people who have Grendizer will never die” (fig. 1.13). By this logic, it is the fantastic Grendizer, not political leaders, who must protect and save Lebanon from its predicament. It is important to note that Grendizer in this mural speaks in Modern Standard Arabic, rather than in a Lebanese dialect (the language of everyday life), thus parodying the politicians’ use of a high register that is generally perceived as convoluted and disconnected from people’s everyday needs. Like Ashekman’s Bomberman, Grendizer exposes the failure of Leb-

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anese politicians to translate their (empty) promises into action because they are too busy pursuing their own interests. Using humorous street art, the brothers articulate a seriously disturbing message regarding the city’s dysfunctional leaders and its increasingly dystopian reality. The Kabbanis have produced numerous variations of the Grendizer mural, with one referring to him as “bat.al al-sha‘b” (the people’s champ/hero). A fantastic robot becomes a more promising alternative than Lebanon’s political leaders. According to the antique collector and art history professor Hadi Maktabi, the extraterrestrial Grendizer is here to rescue us as he “blazes his laser beams perhaps to purify Beirut’s putrid air.”37 Maktabi’s use of the expression “putrid air” is not incidental and refers to Beirut’s literally toxic air as well as its toxic politics—a theme that is central to chapter 3 but also pertains to this book’s overall insistence on the inseparability of social, political, and environmental justice. For Maktabi and others, rather than being associated with waste and degradation, Lebanese street art helps purify and render the stinky city (with its stinky politics) more habitable. When I asked a middle-aged cab driver what he thought of the city’s colorful mu-

Figure 1.13. Ashekman, mural of Grendizer in the Verdun area. The Arabic

caption reads, “A people who have Grendizer will never die.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

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rals, he said, “Ktīr h.ilwīn, bikhallūnā nitnafas shway ‘al aqal. Mish ah.la min manzar-l-zbāleh?” (They’re very prett y. They allow us to breathe at least. Isn’t it better than the sight of trash?). Th is perception of graffiti as refreshing or restorative—as antigarbage matter—offers a counternarrative to a dominant (and generally Western-centered) discourse about graffiti’s association with dirt and fi lth. As Alison Young notes, graffiti is commonly represented as “the polluting flood of dirty signifiers,” such that a graffiti piece is often treated as a “rott ing piece of garbage, or the stinking evidence that someone urinated in public.”38 In Beirut, however, in the presence of overwhelming mounds of garbage and numerous posters of politicians often perceived as fi lthy with corruption, graffiti pieces are sometimes considered recuperative and refreshing. Importantly, Ashekman’s deliberate practice of placing Grendizer all over the city also serves to parody and disrupt the strategies and performances of Lebanese politicians. If political leaders insist on fi lling the city with their redundant posters in order to assert their dominance on the street, then the Ashekman crew is equally committed to putt ing Grendizer on every corner, thereby competing with politicians on the walls and enacting what Andrezej Zieleniec refers to as the “right to write the city.” Building on Lefebvre’s insights on the production of space, Zieleniec argues that graffiti exemplifies “a return to the city as oeuvre, a living creative work of art, always in the process of being made and remade.”39 By spraying the city, graffiti makers demonstrate “creative engagement with and the colonisation and appropriation of space through imaginative, playful and artistic interventions” in a manner “that confl icts, contests and challenges dominant discourses, representations and the regulation of space.”40 Following Zieleniec, the capital city’s walls are treated as canvases to display artists’ work while also serving as vehicles for expressing political criticism, decentering dominant visual representations, and giving residents an opportunity to breathe in a different type of (sensory and emotional) experience on the street. Another graffito that engages with issues of precarity and violence is a protest stencil that features a pistol with a knotted barrel, captioned with the phrase “Knot Violence” (fig. 1.14). The graffito, which I photographed in 2014, offers a two-dimensional representation of the famous knotted-gun sculpture by Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd. Reuterswärd created the sculpture as a tribute to John Lennon after the musician’s murder in 1980, and it became a global symbol of peace. The original sculpture stands outside the United Nations Headquarters in New York and has also been adopted as the logo of the Non-Violence Project Foundation.41 It is worth noting that Beirut currently boasts a copy of the knotted-gun sculpture, unveiled in

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Figure 1.14. “Knot Violence,” unsigned stencil in the Saifi area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

October 2018. The sculpture is located on the seafront, close to the Holiday Inn hotel, a bullet-ridden building that is a shell of its former self, prior to the Lebanese Civil War. The presence of the anonymous knotted-gun stencil—which preceded the erection of the knotted-gun sculpture and popped up in different neighborhoods in the city—demonstrates the presence of individuals, groups, or civic institutions that have felt the need to advocate for peace on the city’s bullet-ridden walls. The presence of the stencil also demonstrates the engagement of local artists with international discourses of peace and nonviolence. As this book continues to emphasize, it is important to keep stock of the spaces and moments of intersection between the local and the global, as manifested in Beirut’s visual culture, so that one can better account for the variety of potential influences, motivations, and discourses that shape the artists’ worldviews and styles. Not unlike Bakhtin’s dialogic novel, a graffito such as the knotted-gun stencil incorporates different voices and genres, including criticisms of violence and appeals for peace, both “here” and “there,” within and beyond Lebanon. While the “Knot Violence” stencil harkens back to the sculpture of a Swedish artist who memorialized John Lennon, an elaborate mural by Karim Tamerji and Said Fouad Mahmoud likely takes its inspiration from

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Figure 1.15. Karim Tamerji and Said Fouad Mahmoud, “Where’s the evolution?,” mural in the Verdun area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Darwin’s theory of evolution, as well as Rudolph Zallinger’s illustration The Road to Homo Sapiens, as it draws attention to the regressive nature of violence. Located in an alley close to Beirut’s upscale Verdun area, the mural features an ape-man in different stages of evolution, gradually transforming from a hunched, furry chimpanzee into a modern man standing upright (fig. 1.15). The hairless man carries a rifle with one hand and a detonator connected to an explosive belt with the other. A cold and determined expression on his face, he threatens to detonate the suicide belt and exterminate himself and everything around him. Written in all capital letters, the question “where’s the evolution?” sits atop the image, alongside red paint that resembles dripping blood. Farther along the wall, the authors have also included the caption “an animal called human.” The mural interrogates our “evolution” as humans, particularly in light of humanity’s acts of militarization and self-annihilation. It proposes that the hairy, hunchback chimpanzee might have lost his hunchback but that the supposedly evolved man is not all the wiser, thanks to his self-destructive behavior. In a society where humans are considered unquestionably superior to animals, and where the word “sa‘dān” (monkey/chimp) is often used in a derogatory manner to denigrate or make fun of someone’s inferior looks,

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manners, or intellect, the mural would be considered quite controversial, if not outright offensive, by some.42 The word “box,” written in larger letters below the caption, suggests an even worse stage of dehumanization: the man carrying the bomb has now lost all sentience (as evidenced by his expressionless face), as he is transformed into a mere box, a container for carrying explosives. The antiviolence mural articulates both misanthropy and concern toward fellow humans. Nonetheless, despite their brutal messaging and dark humor, the creators cared enough both to ornament the street (the mural is captivating and adds character and texture to an otherwise drab wall) and to provoke residents, inviting them to think about the fate of humanity, or Lebanon’s fate, in light of recurrent violence. Like the aforementioned graffiti pieces, the mural serves as a daily reminder of the pervasiveness of violence, including suicide bombing, and the precarity of life in Beirut. Some Lebanese artists have visualized violence in ways deemed too provocative by government authorities, in part because the graffiti pieces were perceived as targeting law enforcement, military, or paramilitary entities, thereby threatening peace and order. Among the graffiti makers who have suffered harassment and censorship is Ali Rafei (b. 1986), a graphic designer and graffiti maker who hails from the northern city of Tripoli and whose graffiti pieces have appeared in that city and in Beirut. Rafei was fi rst introduced to graffiti, namely tagging, through a Lebanese Belgian friend on one of his visits to Lebanon. He felt “visually interested” in his friend’s graffiti making and “starting imitating his lettering” while developing his own tagging style. In 2010, he took to Tripoli’s streets to practice his newfound graffiti-making skills on abandoned walls, across the street from his home, and in Souk al-Ah.ad, before making his way to Beirut’s graffiti scene.43 Rafei’s “I [heart] corruption” graffito features a male law enforcement officer smiling smugly, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, as he unbuttons his uniform to expose an undershirt that says, “I [heart] corruption.” Rafei’s sarcastic graffito did not sit well with law enforcement officers. Shortly after it appeared on the street, police officers painted over the entire graffito in black paint. The corrupt-officer mural lasted on the street for only several hours, but the graffito continues to live in virtual space. Rafei’s corrupt officer was swift ly exterminated in Hamra at the hands of actual police officers who might have seen in the mural an unsavory version of themselves, but the officer was resurrected online, resuming his otherworldly journey from one screen to another, indefi nitely. When I asked Rafei to tell me more about the “I [heart] corruption” piece, he said that the graffito represents “the middle fi nger that we all feel like raising every day in the face of the government” and that “people share it whenever they feel an-

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gry at the police,” which delights him.44 Rafei’s words articulate the “complex interaction of affect, play and the possibilities of catharsis in street art production.”45 The graffito allows Rafei to vent through the act of painting, but it also gives his audience an opportunity to enjoy the therapeutic effects of his scathing humor by revisiting and sharing the image of the corrupt officer on social media. Rafei’s graffito not only articulated a protest against police corruption and brutality but also included a sarcastic, antipartisan message that would have been recognizable to Lebanese people who witnessed the proliferation of competing campaigns and billboards by rival political coalitions in 2008, namely the March 14 Sunni-led political alliance and the March 8 Hizballah-led coalition. The March 14 alliance had launched a massive “I [heart] life” campaign and eponymous posters in an effort to brand itself as a progressive group whose goals centered around prosperity, education, and the celebration of life—as opposed to the March 8 rivals, whom the former sought to brand as a “death cult” centered on waging war, suicide bombing, and causing disorder.46 In response to the “I [heart] life” billboards that appeared in the country, the March 8 coalition launched its own billboards, which co-opted the “I [heart] life” branding, thereby using their rivals’ words (and visuals) against them. The March 8 billboards featured statements such as “I [heart] life—with dignity,” “I [heart] life—with peace,” “I [heart] life—undictated,” and “I [heart] life—with colors.” The opposition’s countermessaging aimed to demonstrate that while the March 14 alliance pursued an empty lifestyle, centered on consumerism, the opposition movement pursued a life that was meaningful and was rooted in values such as dignity, freedom, and diversity of thought and representation. Ali Rafei explained to me that as someone with a background in advertising, he wanted to create a graffito that would parody these visual wars between groups that were so invested in branding themselves and others. He capitalized on the “I [heart] . . .” campaigns to show that both parties were corrupt, and that because of their internecine fighting, they were both far off the mark when it came to promoting life and dignity. Rafei’s criticism is thus twofold: it is directed at the state as well as the Lebanese people who are participating in the propagation of the sectarian system by blindly following political elites. Importantly, the antagonistic “I [heart] .  .  .” campaigns and Rafei’s playful yet dead-serious “I [heart] corruption” graffito all demonstrate that spatial transformation remains a crucial goal for anyone with a cause or a mission in Lebanon, no matter how symbolic or trivial such visual interventions might initially seem. People invest in billboards, banners, and graffiti as a means of occupying physical space and transforming the city into an af-

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fective place, loaded with political texts and subtexts. In other words, as the war of colors continues to unfold, the physical cityscape (including walls, building facades, and storefronts), the digital realm (e.g., social media), and the hearts and minds of the residents become contested sites over which various actors compete for presence and space. The Syrian Lebanese graffiti artist Samaan Khawam found himself not only dealing with censorship but also being dragged to jail and then the courts for producing graffiti that referred to the violence perpetrated during the Lebanese Civil War in a way authorities deemed too overt. Khawam was in the middle of drawing on a wall in the area of Karantina when two military officials stopped him and asked what he was doing. He explained that he was in the process of painting a series of pieces—with the theme “kayy lā nansā” (so we would not forget)—that would remind people of the consequences of sectarianism, so the war would not be forgotten or repeated. The officers made a phone call, and ten minutes later Khawam was taken to the police station. His stenciled graffiti, which featured military helmets, rifles, and boots, had not singled out any particular militia. Instead, it implicated people of all religious affi liations in the perpetration of violence. Khawam’s work in progress was defaced, and he was repeatedly summoned to the police station after the fi rst arrest. He explains that after the situation escalated, he reframed the message of his graffiti to articulate the tyranny of the Lebanese state and its law enforcement apparatus: the helmet, the rifle, and the boots became metonyms representing the violence and repression perpetrated by the Lebanese police state, not just paramilitary militias. Eventually, he was charged with vandalism. He expressed his willingness to serve jail time rather than pay a fi ne to the government. “My problem is not just with this president, or the head of the army. I have a problem with this whole corrupt system. . . . I’d rather get drunk with the money than pay it to the government,” he said in an interview with the show Inta H.urr, which included a segment on Khawam. The show advocated for clearing Khawam of all charges and lauded his efforts to use art as a means of ornamenting the city and spreading awareness about the consequences of sectarian violence.47 He was acquitted in June 2012, after his case gained attention and support from activists, artists, and journalists who considered the attack on Khawam symptomatic of larger attacks on freedom of expression. The journalist and activist Fadi Tawfiq argued that for Khawam’s supporters, this incident was not just about Khawam’s individual case but rather about the Lebanese government attempting to exert control over artists, when it had failed to control serious threats and crises in the country. Tawfiq argued, “The wall is one of the remaining islands of freedom in this country, and if we remain silent about our right to it, this will become a

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precedent for suppressing artists even more.”48 For him, the island of freedom that the wall represents serves as a prominent haven for self-expression and creativity—and it must be protected by and for the entire community. The Egyptian graffiti artist Ganzeer announced his support of Khawam on social media and posted an image featuring a drawing of Khawam standing behind two litt le boys, with one boy holding a paint roller and the other a rifle. The image was captioned, “Mann sayantas.ir?” (Who will win?).49 The image of the warring boys offers a reminder that many graffiti artists consider paint brushes and spray cans as nonviolent weapons of choice against a rival attempting to control the streets through all means necessary, including guns. The fast and furious censoring of Rafei’s and Khawam’s graffiti ultimately reveals what the Lebanese government deems taboo and off-limits when it comes to freedom of expression in Lebanon: overt antigovernment or antimilitary discourse. It also speaks to graffiti’s perceived threat. That the officers carrying guns felt intimidated by drawings of men with guns demonstrates further that graffiti making can be a dangerously creative weapon, one entangled in broader societal issues such as freedom of speech, the (political) role of art, and government corruption.

Commemorating Cultural Icons In her analysis of wartime political posters, Zeina Maasri notes that over one-third of the Lebanese Civil War posters she amassed were dedicated exclusively to the “veneration of leaders.” She asserts that the figure of the za‘īm (sectarian leader) often “got amplified into a mythical hero, [a] protector of his community and its sectarian interest,” and that political posters were the vehicles through which sectarian leaders “enter[ed] the realm of myth, fi xed by their portrait’s reference to a frozen ideological moment. The city, the street, and the partisans [fell] under their watchful gaze.”50 The ubiquity of posters featuring the photographs of leaders meant that people were being socialized into believing and acting out the notion that sectarian leaders are the only viable role models. Since many graffiti makers have aimed to counteract sectarian visual markers, it is no surprise that they have produced their own (sub)versions of leadership posters. Deploying portraits of esteemed singers, poets, and journalists, street artists have memorialized various cultural icons whose importance is based on their intellectual and artistic contributions to society rather than their sectarian affi liations or political achievements. To borrow Rafael Schacter’s words, these artists seek to “reach out to the public with their images” because they

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believe that their artifacts are “more appropriate, more social, than the vast majority of visual culture that [lies] within the street.”51 Unlike polarizing partisan slogans or the posters of sectarian leaders, such murals seek to create an alternative visual culture that aims to engender a sense of pride, civic engagement, and national belonging that is rooted in cultural production rather than highlighting (and fueling) sectarian passions. Fairouz (b. 1935) is among the cultural figures whom some graffiti artists have memorialized. The venerated singer has achieved an iconic status in Lebanon and throughout the Arab world for reasons that go beyond her unrivaled voice. She is generally admired by Lebanese of all religions, sects, and political affi liations; and many Lebanese respect the fact that she did not leave the country during the war, despite having the means to emigrate. As Zeina Tarraf argues, despite the complicity of Fairouz’s songs in forging contradictory forms of nationalism (including at times a Christiancentered one and at others a more pan-Arab identity that is highly supportive of the Palestinian cause), Fairouz is predominantly “figured as a symbolic force that transcends the narrow confi nes of politics.”52 When her son and manager, Ziad Rahbani, proclaimed in an interview that his mother admired Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizballah, some Lebanese were outraged because she has been consistently seen as a public figure uniting the Lebanese across sectarian lines rather than engaging in partisan politics. In response to Rahbani, Walid Jumblatt, the leader of the Progressive Socialist Party, declared that Fairouz was “too great to be classified as belonging to this or that political camp, or to this or that axis.”53 Such comments, Tarraf argues, “reveal not only the esteem that Fairouz holds in the Lebanese symbolic sphere, but also the anxieties that manifest themselves when Fairouz is taken from her position as a unifying force and brought down to the divisiveness of Lebanese politics.”54 Acknowledging Christopher Stone’s valuable work that explores the fuzzy nature of the nostalgic sentiments engendered by Fairouz’s songs, Tarraf persuasively demonstrates that “the nostalgia that resonates throughout Fairouz’s music provides and operates as a space on and through which national belongingness can be performed.”55 It is this sense of “national belongingness” that Beirut street artists call upon and foster in their public art. Fairouz is commemorated in the public sphere precisely because her music has served as the medium of affective attachment that “indexes modes of national belonging” and that is informed by “ familiarity as an affective experience that is fundamental to the structure of belonging.”56 Crucially, Fairouz’s songs offered the Lebanese people much hope during the war and are a staple in many households (including my own) and at various social gatherings. One of the most famous calligraffiti murals is

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Figure 1.16. Yazan Halwani, mural of Fairouz in Gemmayzeh. Photograph by

Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Halwani’s portrait of Fairouz in Gemmayzeh (fig. 1.16).57 It features an image of Fairouz in profi le. Her mouth is slightly open, as if she were photographed in the midst of singing. The carefully selected black, gray, and beige colors complement the faded paint of the salmon-colored wall. The portrait deft ly follows the path of the stairway up the street. Aside from producing an aesthetically arresting mural that integrates harmoniously with its surroundings, Halwani had another purpose in mind when painting Fairouz. He wanted kids to grow up looking at pictures of artistic role models, not politicians. He boasts about delightedly “removing politicians’ faces” so he can create a smoother surface for painting his portraits.58 Halwani’s mural thus represents a literal and discursive intervention into the streetscape that constructs an alternative discourse about more deserving role models. At the same time, Halwani did not merely leave his audience feeling proud for being part of the culture that produced Fairouz. Using his calligraphy skills, he inscribed a chastising expression by the Palestinian rapper Tamer Nafar, which translates to “Our grandfathers invented the zero, and their grandchildren became zeros.” Nafar’s line, which invokes the Islamic Golden Age and its scholars’ contributions to mathematics, warns of the deterioration of Arab nations over the past few decades. The mural

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therefore simultaneously seeks to lift the spirits of Beirutis while also cautioning them against ideological complacency. The message of the Fairouz graffito seems to incorporate the artist’s references to both utopian and dystopian elements within Arab culture. By referencing the current regression of Arab societies and the complacency of young people, Halwani eschews broadcasting a message that may be read as uncritical nostalgia and naive optimism. His self-reflexive graffito both delights and infuriates. Halwani’s ambivalent mural echoes Svetlana Boym’s insightful discussion of “reflective nostalgia,” a form of looking back that can be “ironic” and “humorous” and thus “reveals that longing and critical thinking are not opposed to one another, as affective memories do not absolve one from compassion, judgment, or critical reflection.”59 Halwani’s murals include potent social messages that seek to invite their audience to imagine an alternative perspective, without didacticism. One famous mural features an image of a 100,000 lira bill with a pensivelooking Gibran Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) superimposed on it (fig. 1.17). Halwani’s mural manifests Edward Soja’s conceptualization of “Th ird-

Figure 1.17. Yazan Halwani, mural close to Sodeco Square depicting Gibran

Khalil Gibran on a 100,000 lira bill. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

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space” as a “real-and-imagined” site where “the repetitive and the differential” and the “knowable and unimaginable” come together.60 While the pictures of the bill and Gibran are themselves independently repetitive and knowable, their unexpected concurrence on the bill on the wall is differential and unimaginable. Halwani reimagined the 100,000 lira bill as a document that would commemorate a well-known Arab artist on a daily basis, reminding the Lebanese of Gibran’s worthy artistic contributions. The innovative piece captured the attention of Riad Salameh, the president of Lebanon’s Central Bank, who found Halwani’s suggestion of printing Gibran’s picture on the Lebanese bank note compelling, though “complicated” in practice.61 Halwani’s vision of putt ing the face of a philosopher and poet on Lebanese currency might have been utopian, but it offered an intervention nonetheless. It enabled public dialogue about paying homage to artists who have contributed to enriching Lebanese and Arab heritage by proposing that they remain visible in the transactional public space. While Halwani’s portrait-centered murals do not usually include overt political messages, his portrait of the late Samir Kassir (1960–2005) unquestionably engages with politics (fig. 1.18). Born to a Palestinian father and a Syrian mother, Kassir was a prominent journalist and professor who supported the Palestinian cause and was a staunch advocate of secular democracy. Some Lebanese believe he was assassinated because of his unwavering criticism of Syria’s military presence in Lebanon. Kassir’s murder was one among a series of targeted assassinations (or attempted assassinations) that plagued the country from 2004 to 2008.62 Halwani found it necessary to memorialize Kassir for his intellectual contributions, while at the same time reminding residents of the heavy price the journalist paid for voicing his opinions in a so-called democratic Lebanon. Yet Halwani’s mural is not devoid of hope. Next to Kassir’s portrait, Halwani cited a line by Kassir himself that reads, “Inna al-Ih.bāt. laysa qadaran” (Despair is not destiny), thereby broadcasting Kassir’s message of hope and persistence against all odds. The Palestinian writer Mahmoud Darwish (1941–2008) also found his way onto one of Beirut’s walls, when Halwani decided that the esteemed poet and activist was a role model worthy of public commemoration. Halwani’s choice to paint a massive mural of Darwish in the luxurious area of Verdun has political implications. In a country that includes avid supporters of the Palestinian cause as well as residents who remain apathetic (or even antipathetic) to the plight of Palestinians, Halwani is not afraid to publicly demonstrate his respect for the acclaimed poet and for the causes Darwish advocates, while also ensuring that public commemoration is not limited to Lebanese icons. By putt ing Darwish on the wall, Halwani also affi rms Lebanon as a legitimate home and appropriate commemorative space

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Figure 1.18. Yazan Halwani, mural of Samir Kassir in Karantina. The Arabic caption reads, “Despair is not destiny.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

for the poet, thereby acknowledging and legitimating the right of Palestinians to the city. Not everybody agrees with Halwani’s vision, however, as evidenced by the fact that Darwish’s mural was defaced (fig. 1.19). It has been rumored that a homeless man with mental illness is behind the defacement of Halwani’s murals and the scribbling of Christian-centered religious texts and images on various graffiti pieces, including the symbol of the cross, the expression “Al-zinā h.arām” (Adultery is a sin) and the phrase “Yasū ‘al-t.āhir” (Jesus the pure), but there is no conclusive evidence to support this rumor. The defaced mural speaks to ongoing tensions regarding who should or should not be commemorated, regardless of the actual facts concerning the sabotaged mural. What one can safely conclude, however, is that sites of graffiti, including aesthetically pleasing murals, are rarely neutral or merely aesthetic in a country such as Lebanon. On the contrary, as Schacter argues, public art may be perceived to be “as powerful as it is pollutive,” thus bearing “an ability to att ract and repel in quite equal measure.”63 In the context of Beirut’s contentious streets, the artwork of Halwani and other graffiti makers may tap into individual and collective anxieties regarding who should have the power to capture the attention of the city’s public, let alone occupy its public space. Halwani has not limited himself to the commemoration of established cultural figures. His work has also depicted less privileged members of society. One of Halwani’s most touching and thought-provoking murals me-

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Figure 1.19. Yazan Halwani, defaced mural that originally featured a portrait

of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

morializes Ali Abdallah, a homeless and mentally ill man who died on Bliss Street on one of Beirut’s coldest nights in January 2013.64 Wondering if Abdallah might have survived if he had received proper assistance, Halwani inscribed Abdallah’s face as a “constant reminder” of the necessity of extending care to underprivileged people on a regular basis, rather than acting only when tragedy strikes.65 Abdallah’s makeshift memorial may be considered an attempt to restore some dignity to a man who was literally left out in the cold. The artwork reiterates an ethics of care, whereby values such as “sensitivity, empathy, responsiveness and taking responsibility” become the basis of relating to one another.66 At one point, the mural was defaced. Years later, Halwani repainted Abdallah’s somber face in intricate detail, including the cigarette that had often dangled from his lips (fig. 1.20). Next to Abdallah’s image, he scribbled, “Ghadan yawmun afd.al” (Tomorrow is a better day), which refers to the title of a song by the Lebanese alternative rock band Mashrou’ Leila.67 The dialogic mural thus incorporates various layers of meaning, including an allusion decipherable to fans of the band. The restored mural communicates a sense of renewed hope regarding the public’s attention to homelessness, since Abdallah’s tragic case—

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Figure 1.20. Yazan Halwani, mural of Ali Abdallah in Concorde / Hamra.

Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

and Halwani’s mural—might have brought attention to a long-overlooked problem. By repainting Abdallah’s image, Halwani reaffi rmed Abdallah’s right to the city, granting him the same respect the muralist had granted acclaimed singers, poets, and journalists. Ironically, he tasked graffiti— the most transient of mediums—with immortalizing and elevating a onceforsaken man and promoting an ethics of care. Halwani has extended this same ethics of care to others, including those who disappeared during the war, by creating a calligraffiti mural that features the expression “La h.ayy wa la mayyit” (Neither alive nor dead). In addition to the text, Halwani painted a woman with her arms raised in the air. She seems to be calling out for her loved ones and/or appealing to others for help. The text and image speak to the unknown fate of the victims and to the pain that the families of the disappeared have endured for several decades. For this mural, Halwani chose a wall topped by barbed wire, thereby alluding to the detention of the disappeared men and women, some of whom were tortured or killed. According to Amnesty International, the vast majority of the kidnapped were civilians who “were abducted at checkpoints, taken from their homes or from the streets, whether it was in ex-

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Figure 1.21. Ashekman, mural commemorating the musician Wadih El Safi in the

Tabaris area. The Arabic caption reads, “Pure gold” and “Safi is gone.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

change for other prisoners, for money, for revenge, or for the purpose of creating fear within communities.”68 The families and friends of the disappeared continue to await any news regarding their loved ones’ fates and to demand that the government exert a more serious effort to address the unresolved issue of the disappearances. Here, Halwani’s act of commemoration is intertwined with his (political) commitment to remind the public of one of the ugliest legacies of the Lebanese Civil War and to support the families of the disappeared by keeping the memory of their loved ones alive. Ashekman have also employed the calligraffiti mural as a means of alternative commemoration. One of Ashekman’s murals includes a portrait of the late Lebanese composer and singer Wadih El Safi (1921–2013). The calligraffiti mural features a black-and-white portrait of Safi, along with the expression “Dhahab S.āfī,” enclosed by two small ‘ūds (lutes) in lieu of quotation marks, against a purple background (fig. 1.21). The word “dhahab” means “gold,” while the singer’s last name, Safi, literally means “pure.” Thus, the expression “Dhahab S.āfī” (Pure gold) reflects the Kabbanis’ linguistic savviness as hip-hop artists who have a penchant for wordplay. The expres-

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sion also means “Safi is gone” (since the word “dhahab” also means “departed”). The Kabbanis’ mural mourns the loss of one of Lebanon’s national treasures (pure gold). It grants the legendary musician the public honor the Lebanese government failed to bestow upon him. Similar to Halwani, the Kabbani brothers have also paid homage to Fairouz, often linking her to the city she loves and to which she has dedicated many of her songs. In addition to the aforementioned “Li-Beirut” mural, the twins created a Fairouz mural in Corniche Al Mazraa, next to the Cola Bridge. The massive mural, which spans a six-story building in the Mazraa area, features a portrait of Fairouz and includes Arabic calligraphy, transcribed in yellow, against a blue background. One of Fairouz’s eyebrows is adorned with the recognizable shadda diacritic, thereby signifying the Ashekman branding. By putt ing Fairouz atop the building, the brothers hoped residents of the area would “drink their morning coffee on their balconies while contemplating Fairouz, Lebanon’s sun,” thereby making her the center of attention and giving residents a reason to smile.69 Using social media, the brothers have annotated the Fairouz mural with personal remarks about their mother driving them to school in wartime Beirut while listening to Fairouz on the radio. They write, “Our mum used to listen to #Fairuz every morning back when she used to drive us to school. The soothing songs stuck to our collective memory. Th is #calligraffiti mural is dedicated to every optimistic person who manages to keep up their positivity and inspire others.”70 The brothers’ personal reflections likely resonate with many residents who continue to do the same: to listen to Fairouz as they go about their daily commutes, often stuck in Beirut’s traffic, where Fairouz offers not only entertainment but also hope and consolation amid political and economic instability. Here, neither past nor present is idealized; they are simply brought together through the jogging of personal and collective memory. Fairouz’s soothing songs may be as much needed today as they were during wartime Beirut, and staying optimistic is a feat amid ongoing political tensions and economic struggles. Fairouz becomes an anchoring force in an otherwise uncertain environment. The brothers’ admittedly nostalgic references to a bittersweet past—which the people have coped with despite its brutality—echo a desire not to “return to an earlier state or idealized past” but rather “to recognize aspects of the past as the basis for renewal . . . as a means of taking one’s bearings for the road ahead in the uncertainties of the present.”71 Similar to Fairouz, the late singers Asmahan and Sabah have also had their share of commemoration on Beirut’s streets. I discuss these murals in the next chapter, as they spark important conversations not only about the commemoration and valorization of artists (over sectarian leaders) but also

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about gender and sexuality, by virtue of these women’s perceived controversial personas and nonconformist behavior in their private and public lives.

Conclusion A new generation of graffiti makers has sought to shift the discourse in the streets from one that glorifies political leaders and fuels sectarian divisions to one that celebrates artists, cultural productions, and civic engagement— while also voicing social critique, particularly against Lebanon’s sectarian system and its political elites. In this chapter, I have focused on graffiti and street art primarily intended to revive neglected streets, commemorate alternative role models to political leaders and militias, decry sectarianism, and encourage dialogue and civic participation. Ashekman’s slogan “Alshāri‘ ilnā” (The street is ours), which appears in the graffito featured at the beginning of this chapter (fig. 1.1), articulates the Kabbanis’ promise to reclaim the streets from civil war militias and put them in the hands of artists and residents. In other words, for the Kabbanis and other graffiti artists of their generation, the maneuvers of militiamen inspired a desire for an alternative spatial intervention. In their Arabic hip-hop song “El-7itan 3am Te7kineh” (The walls are talking to me), the Kabbani brothers rap about the walls’ pleas for help. The walls in Ashekman’s song complain that they “can’t take it anymore” and implore the artist to “protect them” because they “want to be in good hands.”72 The street artists featured in this chapter employ graffiti and street art as a means of affective place making, centered on repairing the city’s depressed walls and giving them the face-lift they deserve—while always working from within the city’s physical and social fabric. Yazan Halwani has expressed a similarly affective att itude toward Beirut’s walls. He argues that whereas many graffiti writers in the West have employed graffiti as a means of vandalizing the public space in order to express their dissatisfaction with the system, graffiti artists in Beirut rebel against (destructive) mainstream behavior by repairing Beirut’s damaged public spaces. He explained to me that “in the West, the graffiti writers may see themselves in a David-Goliath type of batt le with the government and municipality. Here, I see it more like David versus the sick lady Beirut. Here, everyone is ruining things. So, I fi x things.”73 Halwani’s personification of Beirut as a sick lady and his vision of himself as her caretaker demonstrate the ever-changing role of graffiti across time and place and the futility of painting all graffiti and street art in broad brushstrokes. In other words, for Halwani, Lebanese street artists are subversive in their attempts to control

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damage and chaos by creating aesthetically pleasing murals, as opposed to Western graffiti makers who might feel the urge to destroy pristine places that reek of wealth and privilege. As Margaret C. Rodman persuasively argues, “Places are not inert containers. They are politicized, culturally relative, historically specific, local and multiple constructions.”74 In the case of Beirut, Halwani utilizes street art as a means of fostering a “place-based ethics of care,”75 rather than as a means of rebelling destructively against an unjust system that marginalizes him as an individual, the way a gang member might have felt in 1970s New York. Aware of the government’s failure to care for Beirut’s wretched areas, as well as the residents’ general indifference about maintaining public space, Halwani intervenes by creating public art. His rebellion takes the form of doing something nice for the city. Halwani’s words and actions echo Banksy’s statement that “some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place.”76 Halwani argues he is “trying to show people that it’s very easy to change the city, to make it ours and not [that of] some politicians . . . so [residents] know that the city is theirs and they have a responsibility and right” to care for it.77 Halwani’s words reflect his mindful effort not only to embellish a neglected city but also to remind fellow Lebanese of their right to the city, as well as their duty. The on-the-ground actions of Beirut’s graffiti makers demonstrate the complex politics of revisualizing the city. They often complicate categorical separations of margin and center, art and violation, and mainstream and peripheral by virtue of the changing status of graffiti and street art in the eyes of authorities, the public, and the street artists themselves. Graeme Evans reminds us that in everyday practice, divisions between crime and art, and control and tolerance, “[play] out in a continuum along which city authorities, the public, and graffiti and street artists move, as taste, opinion (including local and national media), city branding and development shift over time.”78 Graffiti and street art are neither legal nor officially illegal in Lebanon, and graffiti makers operate under unpredictable conditions and dictates established by those in power. For instance, some graffiti makers might choose to negotiate with the police when caught in action. Confronted by a police officer, an artist’s fi rst impulse is often neither fight nor fl ight. As Omar Kabbani explains, “When you do graffiti, you can’t be the bully,” and “you have to act smart.” He and his brother have dealt with law enforcement officers in an assertive but respectful manner. On one occasion, a police officer interrogated the Kabbani brothers and eventually discovered that they were the Ashekman hip-hop band, so he asked them to sign one of their CDs for his son and let them be.79 In a similar instance, after interrogating Halwani and determining that he was not vandalizing the

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street, a police officer pointed out that his graffito lacked color. Delighted that the officer was engaging with the work in progress, Halwani invited the officer to help him fi ll in some color. But Halwani has also experienced less friendly encounters with the police, including an incident in which his possessions were temporarily confiscated. Nevertheless, he continued to act with self-restraint in order to prevent tensions from escalating.80 Such interactions demonstrate that street artists may not radically challenge authority; rather, they may opt to negotiate with law enforcement personnel in an effort to fulfi ll their missions of revisualizing the city and reclaiming public space. Other graffiti makers, however, such as Ali Rafei and Samaan Khawam, have endured more severe harassment (and even jail, in Khawam’s case) because their street art was more overtly critical of the government and the military, prompting police officers to treat them with more suspicion and less leniency. By the same token, street artists often have a complex, ambivalent relationship with social institutions such as the mainstream media and the municipality. While graffiti makers often articulate critical stances regarding the mainstream media’s or the government’s shortcomings, some still strategically woo and court such institutions when the situation demands it. When a new cleanup resolution dictating the removal of political posters and sectarian slogans came into effect in February 2015, for instance, resulting in the removal of one of Ashekman’s murals, some graffiti artists worked with the media to save their other pieces.81 Ironically, Ashekman’s removed mural featured the expression “Anta, h.urr aw lā takūn” (To be free or not to be), along with three monkeys enacting the famous “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” maxim (fig. 1.22). The mural, which champions freedom of expression, was removed under the pretext that it was political and had to be painted over like all other politically driven visual symbols. Ashekman’s graffito became the fi rst street-art casualty of law enforcement, even though it was neither sectarian nor illegal, since the brothers had secured permission from the mayor and the owner of the building to paint it. The removal of the mural—which was not explicitly political but which nonetheless struck law enforcement officers as such—speaks to the ambivalent status of Beirut’s street art. In other words, the art is not perceived as just decorative, or as merely an innocent form of embellishment. It has the power to be controversial and critical, causing authorities to question whether or not it should be allowed to flourish on the streets of Beirut, particularly at times when political slogans are being erased. In response to what they perceived as an unjust act of censorship, the civic institution March—to which the Kabbani brothers belong and whose main goal is to fight for freedom of expression in Lebanon—vociferously

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Figure 1.22. Ashekman, “To be free or not to be,” original mural in the Mar Mitr area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

supported the brothers during their clash with the municipality.82 The group released a statement on their Facebook page admonishing the government for suppressing civil rights and obliterating constructive street art. An excerpt from the message reads, “Is this the solution to Lebanon’s problems? Silencing voices calling for freedom, literally painting over positive messages? Does our government have any regard for its citizens’ most basic civic rights?”83 The renowned talk-show host Zaven Kouyoumdjian devoted an episode on his television show to discussing the impending fate of other murals, including Halwani’s beloved portraits. Residents of the area were also interviewed, and they expressed rage at the government’s decision to remove artistic murals that gave them much joy in the streets. The combined efforts of street artists, grassroots organizations, bloggers, and the mainstream media ultimately resulted in an apology from Mayor Ziad Chebib. The mayor even invited the Kabbani brothers to repaint the mural in the same location.84 The repainted mural includes the same text, “To be free or not to be,” but the text is now supplemented by an arguably more provocative image—that of an arm manipulating a Kermit the Frog puppet (fig. 1.23). Ashekman’s mural suggests that a puppetlike existence, devoid of agency

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Figure 1.23. Ashekman, “To be free or not to be,” repainted mural featuring Kermit the Frog in the Mar Mitr area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

and freedom of expression, is not worth living. According to DeTurk, by painting Kermit the Frog, a popular cultural figure associated with childhood, the brothers “inject an element of banality into the work that also serves to mitigate its barbed message.”85 Moreover, the mural’s erasure and resurrection attests to the ways in which a city’s visual culture is continuously reimagined by numerous intersecting discourses, including the statements and actions of street artists, public officials, media figures, and city residents—all of whom interact and compete in the production and interpretation of the visual culture in which they coexist. As Carla Sarmento and Ricardo Campos argue, visual culture encompasses a “combination of universes and sub-universes, with their agents, objects and specific processes of production, dissemination, and reception of visual goods,” and its “renewal” is often contingent upon “cooperative and confl icting relations.”86 Adopting the term “post-graffiti” to discuss contemporary forms of urban inscriptions that defy strict binaries in terms of production, circulation, and reception, Luke Dickens argues that while the renowned street artist Banksy may be “vociferously opposed to zealous municipal officials,” he has often been “more conciliatory in practice.”87 Dickens’s observations may be

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equally applied to Beirut’s street artists, who may rage against the municipality but remain open to negotiation and reconciliation. These artists occupy an in-between space from which they may work with and against government officials as they attempt to transform Beirut’s visual culture and foster communal engagement. In his discussion of street culture in the era of increased globalization, Martin Irvine emphasizes that contemporary street art increasingly resists “reductionist categories” and that “the most notable works represent surprising hybrid forms produced with the generative logic of remix and hybridization.”88 The choices of Beirut’s graffiti makers reflect their attentiveness to intersecting local and global discourses in the capital city. As I discussed earlier, the Kabbani brothers and Halwani have elevated local cultural icons by engraving their faces on the city’s walls. They have also tasked themselves with promoting the Arabic language, both in its spoken and written variations. At the same time, the Kabbani brothers have incorporated global figures, such as Kermit the Frog, Bomberman, and Grendizer, with which the Lebanese public is familiar because of the ubiquitous presence of global goods, foreign television shows and fi lms, and multinational corporations. The brothers Arabize and hybridize these figures, adapting them to the demands of Beirut’s streets. Beirut street artists are also mindful of the critical role of the internet, particularly social media, in facilitating the global circulation of street art. They mindfully seek to utilize the opportunities presented by cyberspace with respect to archiving and disseminating their work. Graffiti artifacts exist on the streets of Beirut and well beyond them, often populating websites based in and beyond Beirut. Even when they are defaced on the streets of Beirut, the works often thrive online because they “continually codeswitch back and forth between the city as a material structure and the ‘city of bits,’ the city as information node.”89 The graffiti makers design, execute, and digitally document their artifacts with the knowledge that these artifacts will soon embark on a border-crossing journey on the web. Some graffiti makers, such as the Kabbani brothers and Halwani, do not hide their motivations to establish themselves as professional artists, while at the same time they continue to ornament the streets of Beirut. Trained in graphic design, the Kabbani brothers perceive themselves as self-made artists and entrepreneurs whose graffiti-themed apparel store and contractual work allows them to “stock the fridge” and to fund their public art.90 They are proud of their roots as struggling, amateur graffiti artists, but they now see their artwork as a growing brand. They also refuse to completely veer away from their unique aesthetic style for the sake of making a deal, carefully choosing to work only with clients who commis-

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sion them to “do-that-thing-that-[they do] for them, too,” to borrow Adam Euewens’s description of the calligraffiti artist Niels Shoe Meulman’s approach to graphic design.91 Yazan Halwani explained to me that painting a wall in Beirut’s streets can range in cost from three hundred to several thousand dollars, so he must fi nd a way to pay for the wall. He asserted that “the artist can’t do the work unless he can fi nance himself as an artist. I personally do gallery shows and canvases. . . . I paint these canvases, I sell them to the rich and then I give them to the poor, that is, the city.”92 The Kabbani brothers and Halwani have donated their time and skills to nonprofit organizations and have made a living selling individual artworks or leading educational seminars in Lebanon and abroad. Luke Dickens argues that “contemporary inscribers” are “media savvy individuals” who mindfully produce cultural artifacts that “operate across increasingly sophisticated social, professional and entrepreneurial networks,” and that it makes sense to view this “new-found affi liation with the establishment as partial, negotiated and ambiguous, rather than a comprehensive ‘selling out.’ ”93 Following Dickens, it is crucial to consider the context in which this street art is situated and to resist summarily dismissing it as complacent or apolitical based on the reductionist view that unless it is anonymous, illegal, and explicitly political, and unless its producers refrain from using their artistic skills to make a living, a graffito does not “count.” Having experienced censorship and surveillance, some of Beirut’s street artists seek to transform the city by inscribing images and texts that are transformative while also minimizing the risks of retaliation. It is equally important to acknowledge that these youths once found a way to make a living—inside Lebanon—at a time when many young people of their educational and artistic skills had to emigrate in search of more secure and lucrative career opportunities, not to mention personal safety. The murals thus communicate not only their artists’ overt messages about art and social justice but also unspoken subtexts about making do with limited resources in the face of rising political tensions, governmental neglect, and diminishing employment opportunities within Beirut. The Kabbanis’ and Halwani’s self-articulated visions and artwork reflect the aesthetics and spirit of what Schacter terms “consensual ornamentation,” or “outward looking, legible, community-embracing visual designs” that mirror their practitioners’ “desire for harmony, communion, for an intersubjective relationship with the wider public sphere.”94 Schacter’s conceptualization of the ornament as having “an ability not only to remodel our physical environment, but to reconstruct our understanding of the world itself ” offers a useful framework for understanding the decorative and transformative dimensions of Beirut’s murals.95 The murals of graf-

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fiti makers—including Halwani, Siska, Ashekman, and Rafei—represent community-centered artifacts whose function is rooted in a desire for visual as well as social transformation, rather than purely decorative or consumptive purposes. While some graffiti artists have created elaborate murals in their attempt to disrupt the hegemony of sectarian symbols and transform the residents’ relationship with public space, other anonymous graffiti makers have opted for playful and/or somber stencils to draw attention to the persistence of violence and precarity in postwar Beirut, while also urging residents to reject the sectarian system. By seeking to disrupt the hegemony of sectarian political posters and other visual symbols, Beirut’s graffiti makers demonstrate that “to be political is not just to express political opinions but rather to be oriented toward society, to engage with and challenge existing structures and terrains of power.”96 Regardless of whether one likes or detests Lebanese graffiti and street art, it is important to acknowledge that, in the context of Lebanon, even the most seemingly decorative artifacts provoke heated debates about civic responsibility, sectarianism, art, public space, and the right to the city.

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Figure 2.1. Unsigned stencil in Hamra that translates to “I am queer.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

CHAPTER 2

Anā shādh / I Am Queer Challenging Patriarchy and Breaking Social Taboos Scandalized? Take a minute and ask yourself why. Could it be because you’ve been conditioned to be so? Could it be because you believe in freedom taken but not in freedom given? Could it be because you’ve confused love and ownership? . . . Well, guess what: there are always phantoms of others in your bed. A couple having sex is almost never composed of just two people. —Joumana Haddad, Superman Is an Arab

On June 25, 2022, organizers of Beirut Pride, an LGBTQ+ initiative that advocates for gender and sexual diversity, announced that within hours of putt ing up their “Blooming Billboard” in Achrafiyeh, which consisted of flowers featuring the Pride flag and the caption “Love always blooms,” the billboard “was destroyed by people who believe we don’t deserve equal rights to them.”1 Video clips and social media posts about the billboard circulated online, showing individuals identifying as “Jund al-Rab” (Soldiers of God) pulling flowers off the billboard, condemning homosexuality, denouncing civil marriage, and warning activists and politicians against promoting progressive agendas in the “Holy Land.” In a similar manner, some residents in the predominantly Sunni Tarik Jdideh neighborhood gathered in the streets to denounce the events of the LGBTQ+ community, calling LGBTQ+ individuals an “infi ltration” into their community.2 Reverend Abdo Abou Kassm, director of the Catholic Center for Information, expressed sympathy toward the anti-LBGTQ+ protestors, arguing that LGBTQ+ community members “have your freedom at home, but you cannot promote this in the community, as it is in fact against nature. . . . Our society is not ready for this.”3 It is worth noting that a day before the “Blooming Billboard” incident occurred, Interior Minister Bassam al-Mawlawi sent a letter to the Internal Security and General Security directorates, instructing them to take all measures necessary to prevent gatherings that aimed to promote “sexual perversion,” citing the circulation of social media posts about parties and events promoting homosexuality in Lebanon. The letter indicated that the ministry had received calls from religious officials “rejecting the spread of

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this phenomenon,” which had “negative consequences on the individual and on society” and was “contrary to the habits and customs of our society and contradict[ed] the principles of all Abrahamic religions.”4 It is possible that the letter from the interior minister emboldened not only law enforcement officers—who swift ly heeded the call by forcing LGBTQ+ community organizers to cancel any scheduled events, in addition to visiting the offices of Helem, the country’s fi rst registered LGBTQ+ advocacy group—but also neighborhood vigilantes, who likely felt threatened by the increased visibility and gains of Lebanon’s LGBTQ+ community over the past few years. Furthermore, given that recently elected members of Parliament now include politicians who support legalizing optional civil marriage and decriminalizing homosexuality, it is no surprise that tensions would reach an all-time high during Pride month. Importantly, the fact that a billboard made up of delicate flowers— some of which had not even fully bloomed—caused such anger and violence, in a cosmopolitan Christian neighborhood that boasts an “open” lifestyle and a highly celebrated nightlife scene, demonstrates the power of the visual in generating highly affective responses with regard to issues of gender and sexuality. For people such as the Soldiers of God, the “perverse” flowers had to be crushed before they could even bloom and capture the admiration, and intrigue, of passersby. The interrelated incidents that occurred in June 2022 demonstrate the ways in which gender and sexuality are being iterated, represented, and contested in the Lebanese public space and beyond. In postwar Beirut, religious authorities, average residents, activists, and government officials are increasingly entangled in discursive and spatial wars regarding what is considered acceptable on the streets of Beirut, particularly with regard to gender- and sexuality-related discourses and practices. Furthermore, the predominantly negative reactions of Lebanon’s political and religious leaders toward the LGBTQ+ community demonstrate the ongoing impact of toxic sectarianism on the rights and lives of marginalized communities in postwar Lebanon. Analyzing graffiti and street art that engage with issues of gender and sexuality, this chapter investigates the following questions, among others: What type of gendered and sexual identities, subjectivities, discourses, and practices are being inscribed onto Beirut’s postwar landscape, and why? How does graffiti making serve as a spatializing practice that challenges, or affi rms, pedestrians’ understanding and experience of gender and sexuality? What do the artifacts on the street reveal about the aspirations, affects, tactics, and subjectivities of individuals who envision and construct a more inclusive Beirut—as well as those who are opposed to gender justice or who see nonconforming gender or sexual practices as transgressive, im-

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moral, or taboo? How do graffiti and street art contribute to expanding the discourse on the street, from one that reinforces and exacerbates sectarian tensions (and intolerance of the other) to one that draws attention to a number of other pressing social issues, including sexism, gender violence, and homophobia? How may artistic murals, as well as crudely inscribed texts and images, contribute to combating the “hegemony of the heterosexual matrix” that has long controlled the representations and everyday practices of women and other marginalized subjects?5 And what are the agential potentials (and limitations) of graffiti with regard to reflecting and advancing alternative gender and sexual politics and engendering solidarity and/ or empowerment among the city’s minoritized residents? To better appreciate the significance, potentialities, and limitations of gender- and sexuality-related graffiti and street art, it is important to briefly describe the status of gender and sexual rights in postwar Lebanon, as well as the efforts and accomplishments of civil-society activists who have been advocating for a more just society.

Gender and Sexual Rights in Postwar Lebanon Gender and sexual rights (and abuses) cannot be extricated from a country’s sociopolitical context, particularly in the case of postwar Lebanon, where civilians have had to grapple with war’s residual violence, reified sectarian and ethnonationalist ideologies, hegemonic masculinities, and a fragile, unsustainable confl ict resolution. In her discussion of the Lebanese Civil War’s legacy of violence, Maya Mikdashi persuasively argues that “patriarchal sexism” is just as fundamental to Lebanese law as “political sectarianism,” and that the two have cross-fertilized and sustained one another. The presence of the AK 47, and the ease of access to it, points to an intersection between Lebanon’s history of war and the violence that marks public and intimate spheres. Th is violence is political. It is about the struggle over as well as the maintenance and regulation of power and resources within ideological frameworks—in this case sex and sectarian based patriarchal nationalism.6 Lebanon’s enduring sectarianism, its patriarchal laws, the proliferation of unregulated weapons, internecine and external confl icts, the Syrian refugee crisis, weak and corrupt governance, and the deterioration of public services have all played a role in propagating gender and sexual discrimination and violence. Furthermore, divided as they may be, Lebanon’s political and religious leaders—barring a few exceptions—continue to unite when it

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comes to dismissing and undermining the rights, and humanity, of women and sexual minorities. Despite being celebrated as a religiously diverse and cosmopolitan country, where women and sexual minorities face less oppression than their counterparts in other Arab countries, sexist laws, patriarchal practices, gender violence, and homophobia have prevailed in postwar Lebanon. At the same time, the country’s relative stability, the digital revolution and circulation of alternative global discourses of gender and sexuality, a general sense of “war-weariness,”7 and a hope for change among some Lebanese residents have enabled members of Lebanon’s civil society to gain more momentum, visibility, and traction in their fight against hegemonic gender and sexual identity discourses, laws, and cultural practices—occasionally making gains in areas that include legislation and the media, even if full-fledged cultural transformation remains elusive. The Lebanese Constitution states that all Lebanese are “equal before the law”; however, “discriminatory provisions within the nationality law and the Penal Code, combined with a strong patriarchal system, generally put women at a disadvantage.”8 Lebanon still does not recognize civil marriage, and the constitution authorizes religious courts to govern personal status laws and family-related matters, “all of which discriminate against women.”9 Religious leaders have vehemently opposed civil marriage legislation, which they regard as a violation of article 9 of the constitution, which “guarantees that the personal status and religious interests of the population, to whatever religious sect they belong, shall be respected.”10 All of the eighteen recognized religious sects in Lebanon grant more rights to men than to women on issues such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, and custody. Despite some important constitutional amendments that promise to guarantee equal rights for all citizens, discriminatory provisions persist, keeping women at a disadvantage. For example, a Lebanese woman cannot pass her citizenship on to her husband or children. Women who marry foreign men also face stigmatization and discrimination, particularly if the man is of a different religion or race. Laws governing abortion are also regressive and pose physical and mental health risks for women who face a situation of unwanted pregnancy. Articles 539 to 546 in the penal code ban abortion, except when a woman’s life is at risk. Anyone who “aborts, facilitates, promotes, sells, buys or acquires its means” risks imprisonment and fi nes.11 According to article 545, however, a woman who undergoes an abortion to “ ‘save her honor’ could benefit from an attenuating excuse.”12 While the circumstances related to saving one’s honor are not specified, these often include incidents of extramarital pregnancy, including pregnancy caused by rape, and these benefits

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extend to the persons participating in the abortion, including family members.13 The criminalization of abortion leads to the reinforcement of stigmatizing discourses and patriarchal practices that preclude women from making choices about their bodies and reproductive health. It also poses health risks to women who seek illegal abortions (in unsafe sett ings), particularly unmarried women and/or economically disadvantaged women. Seeking a clandestine, illegal abortion may also have dire psychological consequences for women dealing with fear of imprisonment, abuse (at the hands of underground doctors or family members), and/or guilt (for aborting the child or engaging in premarital sex). The lack of sex education on abortion, and other matters related to sexual and reproductive health, exacerbates this problem and contributes to the disempowerment of women.14 Lebanese laws have also been complicit in perpetuating violence against women and in protecting perpetrators of gender-based violence. According to articles 503 to 506 of the penal code, rape is identified as a forced sexual act committed by anyone other than the husband, which means that marital rape is not recognized as a punishable crime. While the long-overdue Lebanese Law 293, issued in 2014 to protect women against domestic violence, does criminalize a spouse’s utilization of threats or violence to claim what the law states is a “marital right to intercourse,” it does not criminalize marital rape itself, according to Human Rights Watch.15 Importantly, according to Fatima Moussawi and Nasser Yassin’s analysis of Law 293, the fact that fourteen women were reportedly killed between 2014 and 2016 “draws serious questions about the effectiveness of the law in protecting women and the ability and readiness of women to use it.”16 Financial dependence on the spouse and the lack of sufficient resources for the victims of domestic violence (both women and children) further contribute to keeping women trapped in abusive relationships. In a related manner, it was not until 2017 that the Lebanese Parliament abolished articles 522 and 516, which enabled rapists to escape punishment if they married their victims; however, articles 505 and 518 of the penal code may still be utilized to exonerate rapists of minors if the victims have been “promised for marriage to the rapists by their parents.”17 In addition, to date, there is no law in place regarding sexual harassment in the workplace. Th is means that a woman risks losing her job, not to mention her reputation, if she reports the actions of her harasser. Aside from the discriminatory laws themselves, women are highly discouraged from reporting rape, sexual harassment, or other forms of assault for fear of stigmatization and persecution. Crucially, Lebanese laws do not protect foreign domestic laborers, who are made further vulnerable by their citizenship status, socioeconomic class, and lack of legal and communal support. Domestic workers, who are

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predominantly women from African, East Asian and South Asian countries, sometimes suffer verbal, physical, and sexual abuse in the Lebanese households where they work, and they have litt le to no recourse to the courts to seek justice. The long-overdue 2014 Lebanese family violence law “does not protect domestic laborers. It does not even recognize these women as subjects of law or as residents of a domicile.”18 Syrian refugee girls and women living in Lebanon have also been at increased risk of gender-based violence, and those from underprivileged socioeconomic backgrounds are especially vulnerable to rape as well as coercive early marriage.19 It is important to note that despite facing immense challenges, civilsociety groups and feminist organizations have been actively advocating for women’s rights over the past couple of decades. Their contributions include but are not limited to seeking new legislation that protects women, demanding the reform or annulment of oppressive laws, and urging the government to dedicate resources to preventing and/or responding to gender-based violence, in addition to empowering women, providing support for victims, and spreading awareness regarding women’s issues. Among these organizations is the Lebanese Women Democratic Gathering, a nongovernmental feminist organization established in 1976 that advocates for the rights of girls and women in Lebanon. The group’s vision is “to achieve equality between women and men in all spheres and to provide protection from gender-based violence.”20 The organization’s campaigns have included urging the government to raise the minimum age for marriage in Lebanon through proposing a draft law concerning the issue of child marriage, spreading awareness about and seeking justice for refugee women, promoting safe reporting of domestic violence (particularly during lockdowns), combating cyber violence against women, exposing the adversity of Lebanese personal status laws and advocating for just civil laws, and fighting for women’s rights in the labor market. Another leading organization is KA FA (Enough Violence and Exploitation), a nongovernmental feminist and secular group established in 2005. KA FA seeks “to create a society that is free of social, economic, and legal patriarchal structures that discriminate against women.”21 KA FA has been actively involved in advocating for the elimination of gender-based violence (including against migrant domestic workers), demanding legal reform, influencing public opinion regarding discriminatory cultural practices, and empowering and supporting victims of violence. Not surprisingly, Lebanon’s sectarian system and discriminatory laws have also negatively impacted the rights and lives of sexual minorities, as well as helped to sustain and justify homophobic societal discourses and practices. John Nagle argues that while power-sharing systems generally aim to protect ethnic minorities by ensuring that no singular group gains

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dominance over others—and, therefore, they may have the potential to theoretically “open up space for minority groups to demand rights”—this is far-fetched in the case of Lebanon, since “by legitimizing exclusivist, sectarian notions of the ethnic nation, power-sharing threatens to penalize nonheterosexuality.”22 Lebanon’s constitution itself criminalizes nonconforming sexuality, as article 534 penalizes “any sexual intercourse contrary to the order of nature” with up to a one-year prison sentence. Consequently, some men and trans women have been subject to invasive rectal examinations by internal security forces, aimed to allegedly confi rm the engagement of “suspects” in same-sex intercourse and prosecute them. Such a law also serves to propagate homophobic societal discourses, as well as to legitimize physical, verbal, and mental abuse, by police officers, employers, and family members, against sexual minorities. According to a 2015 nationwide study conducted by the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center, 82 percent of respondents perceived homosexuality as “a threat to the traditional family,” 85 percent considered homosexuality as “endangering the institution of the family,” and “more than half of respondents felt strongly about both of those views.”23 Such statistics reveal that public att itudes about nonnormative sexualities, much like Lebanese laws, are far from being progressive, or even mildly tolerant. Sexual minorities must make difficult decisions regarding revealing or hiding their alternative gender and/or sexual orientations, let alone embracing or eschewing coercive heteronormativity, since they risk unemployment, homelessness, and alienation from disapproving family members and friends who might otherwise be loving and supportive. More than anyone, they must grapple with the “phantoms of others” in their bed, to use Joumana Haddad’s words, and may suffer emotional, physical, and/or fi nancial effects on their well-being if deemed guilty, shameful, or sinful by loved ones, government authorities, and/or enemies who might judge them, exert punishment (or revenge) on them, or exploit their secrets. Nonetheless, as the civil-society activist Ghassan Makarem reminds us, even in the bleakest circumstances, “people are capable of forging links with each other and creating spaces to satisfy their needs.”24 In the past two decades, Lebanon has witnessed the emergence of civil organizations advocating for gender and sexual rights. Most prominent among these organizations is Helem, a nongovernmental organization founded in 2004 that advocates for the civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights of the LGBTQ+ community. Among Helem’s primary goals has been fighting for the annulment of article 534 of the Lebanese Penal Code. Helem’s work also includes “behind-the-scenes activism,” such as working with security forces, teachers, and healthcare workers who often interact with sexual minorities, as well as collaborating with the Ministry of Public Health

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to promote HIV testing and screening.25 Important to note is Helem’s commitment to welcoming the membership of Palestinian refugees; campaigning for the civil, political, and economic rights of refugees; and providing support for refugees seeking escape from persecution because of their sexual orientation. According to Makarem, who is one of Helem’s founders, from its inception, the group has been an anti-imperialist, antisectarian, and anti xenophobic movement, focusing on social work, particularly as it relates to empowering marginalized communities.26 In addition to Helem, Meem (2007–2014) was a Lebanese LGBTQ+ group that offered community-based support, legal advice, and psychological counseling for lesbian, queer, and transgender people in a safe environment. The organization began as a support group within Helem, called Helem Girls, with the aim of creating a space where women’s issues could become more centered within the organization. Despite feeling that the support group had opened up a valuable women-centered space, some members of Helem Girls remained “unsatisfied with the affi rmative and visible strategies of Helem and some of the hierarchies in the organizational structures,” and they subsequently established Meem.27 Meem operated without a governing board, and it prioritized feminist issues while ensuring anonymity and confidentiality for its members, thereby avoiding a strategy of being “above ground.”28 In addition to providing a safe haven for LGBTQ+ women, Meem also offered moral, legal, and fi nancial support to numerous women in Lebanon.29 Despite their differing strategies and organizational structures, both Helem and Meem were conversant with local and international discourses of LGBTQ+ rights, worked with European and American NGOs, and devoted much of their efforts to combating the sectarian system complicit in curtailing the rights of women, sexual minorities, and other marginalized communities. Even though Lebanese laws have not drastically changed, the LGBTQ+ community in Lebanon has made significant gains. In several cases since 2009, judges have ruled against the application of article 534, acquitt ing defendants charged under the law.30 While there is no guarantee that future, less progressive judges will follow suit, such judiciary rulings are certainly promising.31 Moreover, a campaign by civil rights groups against rectal examinations ultimately led the Ministry of Justice and the Order of Physicians in Beirut to denounce and prohibit such invasive tests in 2012.32 Importantly, Meem and Helem (and other LGBTQ+ organizations) have successfully provided support to sexual minorities and drawn attention to the legal and social discrimination against people with nonconforming gender identities and sexual orientations. The use of the nonderogatory Arabic word “mithlī” to describe homosexual individuals has become more wide-

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spread and acceptable in everyday Lebanese parlance and in the media. LGBTQ+ organizations and their supporters have garnered increased visibility and support in the media. And activists have participated in marches calling for ending discrimination against women and sexual minorities, have created informational and artistic publications, and have connected with the broader public to spread more awareness of LGBTQ+ issues. Given that Lebanon’s civil society has been involved in robust campaigning and advocacy work in postwar Lebanon, and given the (incremental) shifts concerning notions and practices of gender and sexuality, it is no surprise that some of Beirut’s graffiti makers have inscribed messages and images that deliberately promote the empowerment of women and sexual minorities, protest sexism, denounce homophobia, and advocate for a more just society, thereby complicating dominant perceptions of gender and sexuality in Beirut’s streets in anonymous and public ways. Such provocative graffiti, however, appears to entice both agreement and resistance.

Celebrating (Transgressive) Female Artists Murals depicting female artists on the walls of the city were among the earliest and most popular women-centered artifacts that appeared in postwar Beirut. Importantly, some of the female icons who have earned a spot on Beirut’s streets may be described as nonconformist and transgressive in terms of their self-representation, public behavior, and life choices. Some have outright rejected societal expectations of womanhood—for example, embracing their sexuality and refusing to bow down to popular views of social taboos. Such women have pursued their creative endeavors and ambitions despite the criticism and hurdles they have faced inside and outside the entertainment industry, in part because of their nonnormative performance of Arab womanhood. Among such female icons is the late singer Sabah (1927–2014), whose controversial persona has often elicited complicated responses among the Lebanese public.33 In June 2015, the Kabbani brothers completed a calligraffiti mural that memorialized Sabah because they felt “she wasn’t commemorated as she should have been.”34 Painted in bright green and yellow, Ashekman’s mural of Sabah features the blonde artist smiling and gazing upward (fig. 2.2). Her face exudes sadness, happiness, and hope, all at the same time. The background against which her portrait is set incorporates Arabic calligraphy, making it appear as if the singer is emerging out of the petals of a flower. Below the image is a quote in Lebanese dialect that translates to “I want to live to one hundred, so they can call me al-S.abbūh.a.”

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Figure 2.2. Ashekman, mural of Sabah in Achrafiyeh. The Arabic caption reads, “I want to live to one hundred, so they can call me al-S.abbūh.a.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Despite her popularity, Sabah was often criticized by the media, including journalists and talk-show hosts, for marrying and divorcing too frequently and for acting in ways that were purportedly inappropriate for a woman of her age and stature. She endured inhumane jokes about her age— and aging—and faced numerous rumors about her death years before she actually died. Yet the transgressive Sabah would publicly decry and mock such ageist and gendered criticism. As Sami Asmar notes, “In addition to breaking records, Sabah broke many taboos. She spoke uninhibitedly on numerous talk shows about raising children, her sex life, marriages, and betrayal by husbands, as well as her failures in some of those areas,” and she stood out for “staying above religious differences and political intrigues.”35 The mural thus invokes a rich subtext with which many of Sabah’s fans (and foes) are familiar, engaging audiences beyond the level of aesthetics or commemoration. The quote by Sabah that Ashekman incorporated into the graffito shows her defiance of not only detractors who mocked her for her alleged “ungraceful” aging but also those who unleashed rumors about her death decades before her actual death. Here, Sabah playfully talks about looking forward to living a long life, and she refers to her diminutive nick-

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name “al-S.abbūh.a,” which means “litt le Sabah,” suggesting that her biological age does not reflect her youthful, passionate spirit and active lifestyle. In the Kabbanis’ mural, Sabah continues to provoke those who wished to see her end her career and disappear from the public eye because they believed she was too old (and tacky) to appear onstage—especially because “well into her 80s, she appeared with thick, tumbling blonde locks, sparkly dresses, red lipstick and heavy eyeliner.”36 The Kabbani brothers therefore honor Sabah in a way that highlights her outspoken, joyful persona, since she herself joked about being entertained by the rumors surrounding her premature death and was often quoted as saying that she “kept people busy even in her death.”37 The brothers’ mural is located in Achrafiyeh, on Mar Mitr Street. Given Achrafiyeh’s infamous traffic, drivers have ample opportunity to contemplate the mural and reminisce about Sabah and her art. In an interview with the Al-Anadol news agency, a local female resident commented, “The ambiance was great during the painting of the graffiti, and we [the viewers] were waiting eagerly for the completion of this work so we could judge it.”38 The interviewee perceived and spoke of the Kabbani brothers’ Sabah mural as a form of participatory public art that necessitates an interactive response—a judgment—on her part. Another resident asserted that he would love to see Sabah honored in other Arab cities, while a third passerby complimented the Kabbani brothers, stating that they were the main reason he started to admire “the art of graffiti.”39 The pedestrians’ responses echo Rafael Schacter’s assertions that public art “is not produced to be merely att ractive, as mere ornament,” but rather is meant “to att ract, to entice us within its web.”40 Sabah’s mural captivates passersby and engenders reflections and conversations about various issues, including the street artists’ drawing and painting skills, the singer’s (gendered) private and professional life, and the evolving role—or worthiness—of Beirut street art itself in the eyes of the city’s residents. In his discussion of Sabah’s mural on Mar Mitr Street, Omar Kabbani evoked Lebanon’s civil war, as he usually does when reflecting on his art. He explained his desire to transform Beirut into an “open museum for all the people,” so that the dirty walls that have been “deformed by partisan slogans” can reflect the beauty of the city and its people. He asserts, “I could have chosen to carry weapons in the past, but I preferred to take up a spray can and a brush and to make graffiti on the walls since those are the weapons of mass expression, not weapons of mass destruction. The bullet kills, but paint/color is the symbol of peace.”41 The war analogy, of machine gun versus spray can, is a recurring trope among male postwar graffiti and street artists. It speaks to the mindfulness of these young men about constructing and enacting their preferred version of masculinity and citizenship among

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the different choices that Beirut offers—including armed and aggressive masculinity. Speaking of war, the “war of colors” reached its peak in the summer of 2015. Days after the brothers completed their mural of Sabah, Yazan Halwani unveiled his own massive calligraffiti mural of the trailblazing Sabah in Hamra, one of Beirut’s busiest neighborhoods. The mural features a portrait of Sabah flashing her broad smile against a backdrop of Arabic calligraphy, whose letters resemble blowing leaves and create a halolike effect around the singer’s head (fig. 2.3). Halwani chose this sett ing for his Sabah mural because the building once housed the Horseshoe Café, a popular haunt for artists and intellectuals such as the Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani and the Lebanese Armenian painter Paul Guiragossian. In a discussion of the mural, Halwani lamented the fact that the neighborhood— which now hosts multinational corporations such as H&M, Starbucks, and RadioShack—had lost its local flavor, and he hoped his Sabah mural might help re-create “the sense of culture that used to exist.”42 By painting an Arabic calligraffiti mural of Sabah, Halwani immortalizes the artist, showcases Arabic script, and embellishes the city in a way that does not erase or erode its cultural distinctiveness. Halwani’s close attention to the specificities of the cityscape and its history reiterate Martin Irvine’s discussion of the “deep identification and empathy” that contemporary street artists feel toward the cities in which they work. Regardless of the artists’ motives, their aesthetic styles, or the quality of their work, the city remains “the assumed interlocutor, framework and essential precondition for making the artwork work.” Irvine notes that “the placement of works is often a call to place, marking locations with awareness, over against the proliferating urban ‘nonplaces’ of anonymous transit and commerce. . . . Street art is driven by the aesthetics of material reappearance.”43 Thus, at the hands of Halwani, Sabah appears on the highly commercial street, reminding the city’s pedestrians, tourists, and drivers of a local heritage and a musical legacy that have been revived and rendered once more visible despite (and perhaps because of) the increasingly ubiquitous signage of multinational chain restaurants and stores. Crucially, and most relevant to my discussion of gender, Halwani emphasized that his decision to memorialize Sabah stemmed not only from his desire to celebrate her artistic contributions or to beautify the street but also from his intention to highlight Sabah’s legacy that goes beyond artistic performance and entertainment. He praised Sabah’s insistence on resisting dominant gender norms and asserting her right to live a free, fulfi lling life, despite violating traditional values and customs. In his description of the Sabah mural, Halwani wrote, “She was not only an ‘icon.’. . . I think we need

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Figure 2.3. Yazan Halwani, mural of Sabah in Hamra. Photograph by Nadine

Sinno and William Taggart.

to take Sabah’s drive in modern society, break taboos when need be and not be held by norms.”44 Halwani has presented (or represented) Sabah—an artist typically lauded for her ability to entertain rather than for her moral uprightness or, conversely, her transgressions—as a worthy role model who can inspire both men and women to question and rebel against widely held

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values and practices. Sabah’s alleged liability, her breaking of societal taboos, is instead presented as her strength and legacy in Halwani’s mural. In his discussion of the imaginative banners used in social campaigns in Market Square in Durham, England, Ash Amin emphasizes the role of visual interventions in disrupting everyday space and activity and infusing the urban space with artifacts that may generate productive conversations among pedestrians. According to Ash, elaborate banners “would leave a trace in the memory of people passing by, perhaps even draw them into respectful conversation with the activists and each other.”45 In a similar manner, Halwani’s stunning mural of Sabah and his public statements about memorializing her seek to encourage audiences online and offl ine to pause, reflect, and perhaps engage in conversations about Sabah’s persona, artistic contributions, resistance, and “scandalous” life—for better or worse. Halwani’s visual intervention “has everything to do with interrupting everyday rhythm and visual iconography of place, making a corner of the shared space eventful, and altering the experience of public space. . . . The political moment [lies] in the entanglement of aesthetic form, material culture, and everyday practice.”46 The act of paying tribute on the street, as well as online, to Sabah’s spirit of nonconformity takes on an arguably political dimension in a society where people are generally socialized to avoid breaking dominant societal norms, particularly those related to “proper” gender behavior, as well as sectarian identification. Another female artist whom Halwani has commemorated is Asmahan (1912–1944), a Syrian Egyptian singer and actor.47 Halwani, who has referred to Asmahan as a “personal favorite,” painted a massive mural of her in Gemmayzeh.48 Set against a calligraffiti background, the mural captures the face of the singer-actress as it would have looked at the peak of her youth and stardom (fig. 2.4). Lips brightly colored and black hair pinned behind her ears in a low bun, Asmahan stares into the distance, as if in a trance, yet her eyes sparkle mischievously. Asmahan was famous for her legendary voice, which rivaled that of the Egyptian Umm Kulthum. Unlike Umm Kulthum, however, Asmahan would become infamous for her defiant persona, turbulent personal life, and mysterious death, which fueled rumors of her entanglement in espionage operations during World War II. According to Sherifa Zuhur’s insightful study of Asmahan’s life and art, while Umm Kulthum might have embraced the “appearance of virtue” by allowing her family members to chaperone her, the “party-hopping” Asmahan “seemed to thwart” the image of the respectable family woman.49 For decades, Asmahan was often regarded, by the Arab community at large and her Druze community in particular, as a “beautiful and troubling memory of shame”

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Figure 2.4. Yazan Halwani, mural of Asmahan in Achrafiyeh. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

because of the way she fiercely pursued her music career, often privileging her music over her marriage to Hassan al-Atrash.50 Like Sabah, Asmahan was often vilified by critics, agents, and disapproving family members for her passionate love of music and for her embrace of the glamorous life that her career afforded her. She also refused to hide her so-called vices, living her life out in the open, including drinking and smoking in public. A careful study of her art and life, however, reveals that “she was emotionally vulnerable, not a jaded, self-involved individual, despite the entertainment industries’ polishing of those traits.”51 By commemorating Asmahan and calling her his personal favorite, Halwani adds his voice to those who refuse to see her as a shameful woman, fallen from grace, and who instead appreciate and revere her in all of her complexity as a woman and an artist. Captioning another Asmahan piece, a mixed-media work on canvas produced for the 2013 Beirut Art Fair, Halwani valorized Asmahan over male political leaders, asserting, “Let’s praise our cultural icons instead of our war criminals.  .  .  . Maybe we [could] move forward, then.”52 In this way, Halwani genders the street (and his social media ac-

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counts) by commemorating a female hero who refused to conform to gender expectations and patriarchal ideals of Arab womanhood. The Lebanese visual artist and writer Zena El Khalil agrees with Halwani’s assessment of Asmahan as an inspiring figure whose influence should be far more celebrated. For El Khalil, Asmahan has served as a personal role model, a sort of feminist figure, despite the decades that separate them. She writes, Growing up, I didn’t really have a role model until I discovered Asmahan. . . . When I learned of her story—about how she was young, how she started her career through the push of her mother, how [she] practically had to run away to Cairo to pursue [her] artistic career—that kind of resonated with me. . . . Because I also come from a conservative family, I could relate to the idea of fighting to be able to do what I do, to produce my work the way I want to. . . . She is the person I call [upon] when I need advice. . . . I think, What would Asmahan do? I see her full of pride and strength, and I try to draw upon her energy.53 In addition to serving as a muse-like figure to artists such as El Khalil, Asmahan has been increasingly lauded as someone who dared to dream— something that has rarely been talked about or discussed in official accounts of her life. The Palestinian fi lmmaker Azza El Hassan, who directed The Unbearable Presence of Asmahan, a documentary about the artist’s life and musical career, discovered upon a visit to a refugee camp in Vienna that many of the refugees had not known anything about their destination prior to landing in Vienna, but they had felt encouraged by Asmahan’s song “Euphoric Nights in Vienna.” One of the fi lm’s interviewees explained that Asmahan “allows us to dream . . . because without [dreams], we cease to be human.”54 In this sense, similar to other types of cultural production such as fi lm and books, Halwani’s street art contributes to excavating the significant presence and positive contributions of female artists in the Arab world, particularly those who might have been understudied, vilified, or underappreciated. Similar to skillful and famous street artists, anonymous pedestrians have also gendered Beirut’s public spaces, fi lling them “with the forests of their desires and goals,” to borrow de Certeau’s words.55 While street artists have paid tribute to accomplished artists such as Fairouz, Sabah, and Asmahan, an anonymous stencil maker has decided that an even far less established artist and entertainer, the (in)famous Haifa Wehbe, would do a more adequate job of governing the country than its politicians. In the summer of 2014, sprinkled across several walls in various Beirut neighbor-

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Figure 2.5.

Unsigned stencil nominating Haifa Wehbe for president in the Ain al-Mreisseh area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

hoods, were stencils that read “Haifa for President,” sometimes in all capital letters (fig. 2.5). Haifa needs no introduction in Lebanon, as evidenced by the absence of her last name on the wall. The singer-actor is most known for her controversial persona, excessive plastic surgery, suggestive video clips, and questionable artistic talent. Using satire and pop culture, the anonymous stencil maker playfully asserted Haifa’s superiority to Lebanon’s then presidential candidates, who included the former army general and political exile Michel Aoun (who ultimately became president) and the Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, who had spent eleven years in prison after accusations of being involved in political killings and the bombing of a church during the war. Not only were the two candidates deemed undesirable options by many Lebanese citizens, in part because of the candidates’ participation in the Lebanese Civil War, but at the time the stencils appeared, the people had grown frustrated by the Lebanese Parliament’s repeated failure to achieve a quorum in order to hold elections in the fi rst place. By nominating Haifa for president, the author(s) of the satirical stencils drew attention to the farcical situation in which the Lebanese people found themselves, as the country suffered a political vacuum as a result of the deferred presidential elections. They playfully insinuated that such desperate times perhaps necessitated an entirely radical option, one that did not include appointing the same old, same old politicians responsible for the country’s decline. Haifa is valorized as a more viable option to the corrupt and inadequate male politicians. At the very least, the subversive and unexpected stencil had the potential of eliciting smiles and jokes from disgruntled residents going about their daily lives. As one graffiti documentarian asserts, “Stencils make life more colorful,” altering the visual landscape

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with unexpected texts and images and giving pedestrians something to think or smile about.56 In the context of the Arab world, Khalid Kishtainy argues that political humor, in its different manifestations, can be part of what he refers to as “civilian jihad”—a type of political struggle whose “weapons” include a range of nonviolent practices, including boycotts, protests, sit-downs, jokes, and other actions of civil disobedience. Importantly, Kishtainy argues that politically centered humor can help connect residents through shared laughter, alleviating their despair and alienation from one another and the nation. Humor is most required in a nation’s darkest hours, for it is at such times that people begin to lose faith in themselves, submit to despair, and descend into melancholy and depression. Life appears to be meaningless, and the homeland feels like a spider’s web. People lose contact with fellow citizens and eventually come to accept their solitude. . . . Humor is the best remedy for such ills. Laughter lifts one from the melancholy and lethargy; a political joke told by another reconnects citizen with citizen. Both are no longer alone. There are others who share my thoughts; we have shared suffering and hopes. Laughter is a collective fraternity.57 The faintly written words “I agree!” that appear under the stencil suggest that at least one pedestrian was amused by the sarcastic stencil and felt the need to register their support of Haifa’s nomination for president. Following Kishtainy, because of their therapeutic and satirical function, such stencils may help foster a sense of solidarity, community (imagined or real), and encouragement among fellow residents who feel disillusioned by Lebanon’s leaders and the country’s socioeconomic situation, thereby serving as yet another weapon of solidarity in the hands of nonviolent activists. At the same time, one must be careful to recognize the limitations of humor and the importance of supplementing it with other on-the-ground, serious acts of defiance and civil disobedience. As the next chapters will show in more detail, many Lebanese citizens employ political humor and sarcasm as part and parcel of organized and impromptu acts of civil resistance, including protests, sit-ins, and activist campaigns against corruption and injustice.

Fighting Lookism In addition to celebrating transgressive female icons in public space, graffiti makers have questioned dominant societal discourses that promote unrealistic expectations of women and women’s bodies and prompt some

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Lebanese women to seek painful, expensive, and invasive cosmetic procedures. In her insightful study of cosmetic surgery in Lebanon, Sandra Beth Doherty discusses how Lebanese society perpetuates cosmetic surgery and the surveillance of women’s bodies, institutionalizing such practices as Lebanon’s “beauty regime” and rendering women complicit in the policing of other bodies. She writes, In Lebanon, perhaps more so than elsewhere in the Middle East a willowy Euro-American female form—fair and straight hair, blue, green, or hazel eyes, fair skin, petite nose—is presented as the ideal on billboards and in the media. When the Lebanese woman viewing these images, over and over, reflects back on her own physical appearance, she may receive the message that her body is “unacceptable: too fat, too wrinkled, too old, and too ethnic.” . . . Internalizing this message can lead women to embark on a rigorous course of self-surveillance, which may include going under the knife. Once these women are lauded for their newfound youth and beauty, their self-surveillance may become a policing of other women as pressure mounts to conform to a socially sanctioned esthetic norm.58 The graffiti pieces centered on ridiculing unrealistic beauty standards or caricaturing the normalization of invasive procedures may be seen as provocative antidotes to toxic cultural scripts about ideal beauty as well as roadside billboards promising bodily transformation at a “reasonable” price. The tongue-in-cheek artifacts may be considered visual interventions that seek to challenge pedestrians to reflect more critically on local and global narratives about idealized femininity and its consequences. Among the beauty-centered artifacts is one that features Snow White carrying a rifle, captioned “Fight Lookism” in English and incorporating Arabic text (in colloquial Lebanese) that translates to “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” (fig. 2.6). For a start, this unexpected graffito subverts the stereotypical Snow White by turning the allegedly pure, wholesome, and victimized female figure into a fighter who carries an automatic rifle and does not need to be saved by handsome princes or patriarchal dwarfs. Rather, the transformed Snow White calls for a fight against the dominant beauty standards she has been made to represent (including fair white skin, a dainty nose, a slim figure, perfect hair, and a hyperfeminine demeanor) and that remain very much valued and pursued among many Lebanese women—sometimes with the help of cosmetics, plastic surgery, and other invasive means. Furthermore, it is important to note that such dominant beauty standards are often employed to criticize

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Figure 2.6. “Fight Lookism,” unsigned stencil in the Corniche El-Nahr / Peugot

area. The Arabic caption reads, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

and even ostracize women who do not fit them or who outright reject them. On this wall, Snow White is appropriated by the graffiti maker, who recasts her as a woman vehemently waging war against unrealistic, imported, and heteronormative standards of beauty—rather than allowing such standards to be weaponized against her. She also becomes glocalized and “reterritorialized,” to borrow Deleuze and Guattari’s term, by virtue of speaking in Arabic and fulfi lling a completely different role than the one originally prescribed to her in the German fairy tale and in Disney’s fi lm. Th is hybridized graffito playfully seeks to shock unwitt ing pedestrians, while enticing them to ponder and engage in conversations about the violence of beauty standards and the damaging effects of objectifying women, with friends or strangers who may encounter the artifact on the street or on social media. Other graffiti pieces engage more directly with the infatuation of Lebanese women with unrealistic beauty standards—and their resorting to cosmetic surgery, fi llers, and Botox—also in a succinct and humorous manner. These include a simple black-and-white graffito that features two women side by side, separated by a question mark (fig. 2.7). The woman on the left has an exaggerated appearance—with cosmetically inflated lips, aug-

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mented breasts, and a menacing facial expression—while the appearance of the woman on the right (whose expression conveys perplexity or discomfort) seems to be unaltered by cosmetic procedures. Below the question mark is a caption in Lebanese Arabic that loosely translates to “Grandma, why are your lips so big?” The graffito clearly draws upon the story of “Little Red Riding Hood,” which many Lebanese will have read in Arabic, English, or French. It invokes the series of questions that Litt le Red Riding Hood asks the wolf who has devoured, and then disguised himself as, her grandmother—so he can ultimately eat her. Taken to its extreme, the graffito alludes to the ways in which some Lebanese women have resorted to radical beauty procedures that ultimately transform them into monstrous, unrecognizable versions of themselves. After all, as Anne Balsamo reminds us, cosmetic surgery is not merely a “discursive site” where the construction of a gendered identity is negotiated, but it is also “a material site at which the physical female body is surgically dissected, stretched, carved and reconstructed according to cultural and eminently ideological standards of physical appearance.”59 While this graffito may be considered simple or

Figure 2.7.

Unsigned stencil on Jeanne D’Arc Street. The caption translates to “Grandma, why are your lips so big?” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

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Figure 2.8.

Unsigned stencil on Jeanne D’Arc Street. The caption translates to “I haven’t done any cosmetic procedures. Only lying is shameful.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

even silly, it visually alludes to everyday narratives and practices regarding how some Lebanese women become witt ing or unwitt ing subjects of invasive procedures in order to feel better, fi nd a partner, and become accepted, because they have internalized the narrative that cosmetic surgery can “improve self-esteem, social status, and sometimes even professional standing.”60 Another, related graffito, created using the same stenciling style, features a tall woman with cascading hair, perky breasts, a tiny waist, and voluptuous buttocks—unrealistic physical traits that are increasingly sought after among many Lebanese (and non-Lebanese) women today (fig. 2.8). Written in Lebanese dialect, the caption below the image translates to “I haven’t done any cosmetic procedures. Only lying is shameful.” Th is sarcastic expression succinctly sums up the pain that some women go through in their endless pursuit of perfection, as well as the pressure of pretending they have not had any work done. The narrative of asserting one’s “natural” beauty and maintaining a facade of authenticity, while also disavowing or downplaying having had work done, can be extremely damaging to young

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women in Lebanon and elsewhere. Furthermore, as Balsamo argues, plastic surgery transforms a woman’s body into a site where women “consciously or not accept the meanings that circulate in popular culture about ideal beauty and, in comparison, devalue the material body. The female body comes to serve, in other words, as a site of inscription, a billboard for the dominant cultural meanings.”61 That young Lebanese women are being increasingly exposed to airbrushed images of picture-perfect women on social media, including local celebrities such as Haifa Wehbe and Nancy Ajram, does not make the situation any easier; rather, it reinforces and normalizes the necessity of pursuing cosmetic procedures and undermines a woman’s own body, and other Lebanese women’s bodies, in the process.62 Importantly, these “flawless” female celebrities do not usually acknowledge having had any procedures, despite the fact that it is often very apparent that they have, and despite the presence of websites devoted to showing “before” and “after” photos of their transformations at the hands of plastic surgeons. The unspoken cultural message captured by this graffito suggests, “It’s only natural to go under the knife, but you must still deny it.” The messages that such graffiti pieces highlight with regard to women’s struggles with and negotiation of harsh beauty standards are not far-fetched and cannot be separated from broader societal discourses and events. During the 2019 protests in Lebanon, a video circulating online included a segment featuring a Lebanese woman lividly complaining about her inability to afford expensive beauty treatments, including lip fi llers. Rather than raging against government corruption, lack of adequate electricity and water, and rising unemployment—all of which were at the center of the uprising—the woman ranted about sagging eyelids and deflated lips, since she could no longer afford beauty treatments.63 There is a (slight) chance, however, that the woman was being intentionally facetious, and the ways people choose to be humorous are always contextual and may reveal larger societal narratives and tensions—in this case the trauma of not being able to afford a beauty treatment. Like the video clip, the highly gendered graffiti pieces draw attention to increasingly ubiquitous beauty procedures in Lebanon, which some may see as empowering, damaging, or anything in between, but which are nonetheless worthy of conversation, discussion, documentation, and analysis, regardless of our personal value judgements.

Protesting Gender-Based Violence In their introduction to Understanding Graffiti, Elizabeth Olton and Troy Lovata argue that “incising an image or phrase on a wall, tree trunk, or

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fresco; painting a billboard or a train; and reshaping stone are socially embedded acts that invite the viewer to engage in a dialogue. . . . Experiencing these texts changes viewers; it asks them to see differently.”64 In this way, some Lebanese graffiti makers have leveraged their skills to invite pedestrians to reflect on and engage in dialogue about gender-based violence. Among the works referencing gender violence is a stencil, att ributed to KA FA and the feminist collective Nasawiya, that calls for the criminalization of marital rape by leveraging traditional media, social media, and street announcements.65 The stencil includes the image of an assertive-looking woman with her fist clenched in a revolutionary gesture, along with the caption “H.ārib al-ightis.āb” and its English translation, “Fight Rape” (fig. 2.9). Th is seemingly simple stencil, which exists in Arabic and English (and in a variety of colors), should be analyzed within its specific local context since, as Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian reminds us, cultures “differ in their reactions to crimes against women,” and “it is the social values that shape our concept of the victims and, therefore, our ways of helping and intervening.”66 As in other countries, rape is still an underreported crime in Lebanon because reporting rape might jeopardize a Lebanese woman’s reputation without necessarily resulting in her rapist’s conviction. Since a woman’s “chastity capital,” to borrow Christa Salamandra’s term,67 is still a strong factor in determining her “worth” and marriage prospects (and possibly the marriage prospects of her sisters), reporting rape is often seen as counterproductive because it exposes the woman’s status as “damaged goods” and may lead to further trauma, loss of status, and social stigmatization.68 As Shalhoub-Kevorkian concluded in her work with Palestinian rape victims, “the ability to disclose the trauma is affected by the sociocultural message that advocates maintaining such information as confidentially as possible. . . . The need to privatize and keep the abuse a secret is meant to protect not only the victim, but also other family members (particularly females).”69 Crucially, interfamilial violence, including marital rape, molestation by relatives and family friends, and coerced incest, are often dealt with privately, away from the public eye. In fact, marital rape and acquaintance rape that do not involve the use of overt violence are often dismissed or downplayed. The seemingly simple stencil “Fight Rape” therefore brings a taboo subject (and reality) out of the privacy of people’s homes and onto the streets. It encourages public conversations about rape while also inviting pedestrians to participate in the collective campaign against rape. The twoword sentence shifts the conversation on rape from one that focuses on a woman’s loss of honor and the silencing of discussion to one that constructs rape as an act that all of us must join the fight against as responsible citizens. As Amin argues in his discussion of urban habitat and human behav-

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Figure 2.9.

“Fight Rape,” unsigned stencil in the Mathaf (Green Line) area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

ior, “We have to think of the street or square as a space of circulation and encounter of the near and afar . . . one that produces cultural summations that wax and wane in intensity, give way to other relational combinations, incorporate distant resonances, and, for all this, shape sociality in the most indirect of ways.”70 Here, the graffito seeks to shape a kind of “sociality” that is characterized by an ethos of recognition (of sexual violence) and solidarity (joining the fight against rape and not being complacent). Importantly, this visual artifact contributes to the disruption of the predominant cultural narrative that proclaims that while Lebanon may suffer from political violence or armed confl ict, rape remains an allegedly rare incident thanks to persistent communal intervention and/or religious and cultural values that prohibit premarital sex, let alone sexual assault. In other words, by inviting viewers to fight rape, the stencil asserts the unequivocal existence of rape as a social problem that should be seriously and collectively confronted. Victims of sexual assault who encounter this stencil are also reminded that they are not alone and that there are activists who support their struggle.

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When I asked Joumana,71 a middle-class Lebanese woman, how she understood this stencil, she said, “The stencil is general enough to where it seems to be addressing a range of people from rape victims, to mothers of boys, to law or policies makers and those advocating for gender justice. We can all do our part in trying to prevent rape in our society, no?” Joumana’s response, which emphasizes collective responsibility, echoes Samantha Wehbi’s recommendations on rape prevention, which emphasize that “the key to any successful resistance to rape lies in the strength and unity of the community’s response. Only through such consolidated community efforts can women live safely in a society that would no longer blame them for the rapes that they might endure.”72 The stencil—whose meaning was not lost on viewers such as Joumana—reiterates the message that unless and until rape is perceived as a social problem that we must all fight, it will continue to be underplayed and confi ned to the domestic sphere. Another related stencil simply features the phrase “lebanese sexist laws,” sprayed in capital letters in bright green, thereby implicating (and visually screaming at) Lebanese laws themselves, which are pitted against women. These laws range from those that preclude women from passing on their Lebanese nationality to their children to those that do not consider marital rape to be a punishable crime. The stencil demonstrates the increasing presence of individuals and institutions that are opposed to the status quo and are calling for social and legal reform in writing—on walls, among other venues. The stencil also reflects the ethos of the “rightful resistance” that is becoming increasingly visible in Lebanon and the rest of the Arab world and that demonstrates how Arab women are increasingly invested in “asserting their rights as politically active citizens to determine the laws that have such an impact on their lives.”73 Other stencils that highlight gender-based violence go beyond Lebanon to engage with regional struggles, such as the Arab uprisings. One stencil, for example, features a blue brassiere and the words “D.ud al-nidhām,” or “Against the regime” (fig. 2.10). The stencil memorializes a female protestor, fi lmed being beaten and dragged by the police during the 2011 antiregime protests in Egypt, whom the media at the time referred to as the “lady with the blue bra” or as “sitt al-banāt” (the best of girls / a lady among girls).74 As the woman was beaten and kicked by the police, her torso became exposed, revealing her brassiere. The woman’s undergarment, originally intended to cover her private parts and to remain hidden underneath a layer of clothing, is symbolically transplanted onto the wall in full view of pedestrians. Importantly, the caption “Against the regime” demonstrates the graffiti maker’s attempt to shame the regime for infl icting violence on the female activist, thus shift ing the discourse from one that emphasizes

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Figure 2.10.

Unsigned blue bra stencil in the Ain et-Titneh area. The Arabic caption reads, “Against the regime.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

female modesty (decrying the exposure of the woman’s allegedly scandalous underwear) to one that implicates law enforcement officers for engaging in gendered violence. The blue bra—which was considered by some religious figures, media pundits, and supporters of the Egyptian regime as an indication of the woman’s “loose morals”—is heralded here as a badge of honor (rather than a badge of shame), rallying activists against police brutality.75 It is worth noting that the act of restenciling the blue bra and redirecting shame toward authority figures has also occurred in the work of Egyptian graffiti makers, including the professor and artist Bahia Shehab. Upon watching the video of the incident, Shehab decided to voice her own opposition to police brutality by spraying the expression “La li-ta‘riyat alsha‘b” (No to stripping people) alongside a stencil of a footprint that consists of a script that reads, “Tah.ya al-thawra silmiyya” (Long live a peaceful revolution). Explaining the context and meaning of her version of the blue bra stencil, Shehab stated that “we do not believe in responding to violence with violence,” while also acknowledging that “this is a very difficult resolution to maintain once you witness their brutality. My respect for a character like Gandhi has increased greatly.”76 Shehab’s words demonstrate the complex emotions and actions of protestors and graffiti makers who witnessed or experienced the Egyptian regime’s brutality, choosing to speak up against violence by using their spray cans and words as weapons of documentation and persuasion. The resonance of the blue bra stencil beyond Egypt further demonstrates the inextricability of gender and national struggles worldwide. Rana Jarbou notes that “the blue bra icon was stenciled in other Arab cities in solidarity with Egyptian women, and also as a borrowed symbol to

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express local manifestations of violence against women.”77 After all, Lebanese women, too, have been pushed, kicked, arrested, and shamed by law enforcement officers at demonstrations in Beirut, as in other Arab cities, in an attempt not only to harm them but also to intimidate other women and discourage them from taking to the streets. Crucially, the stencil invokes a multilayered narrative about the woman’s simultaneous victimization and resistance. As Nicola Pratt reminds us, “Representations of gender and sexuality should not be reduced to a binary of resistance/domination,” and bodies are constantly being “(re-)negotiated, (re-)signified, and (re-) defi ned in response to and in struggle over political transformations.”78 By spraying the blue bra on the wall, the stencil makers not only express solidarity with the Egyptian protestors, particularly the woman herself, but also participate in visibilizing and articulating the intersecting issues of civil disobedience, female activism, sexual harassment, and police brutality. Furthermore, the presence of this graffito confi rms the transnational nature of graffiti and the ways in which wall inscriptions “help form a fluid civic community that is materially based in particular streets but conceptually linked to other streets throughout the region and the world.”79 The link between gender, political struggle, and graffiti making is epitomized in another simple stencil that started popping up across Beirut as the Tunisian, Egyptian, Syrian, and Libyan uprisings were unfolding. It features the head of a woman with bright-red lips and hair in the shape of the map of the Middle East and North Africa. The caption reads, “Intifad.at al-mar’a al-‘Arabiyya”—that is, “The uprising of the Arab woman” (fig. 2.11). The succinct stencil constructs the uprisings as primarily pertaining to Arab women and their pursuit of social justice. Women’s issues are represented as being at the center of the uprisings, rather than relegated to the background. Women are constructed as leaders of the (now feminized) uprisings, not mere supporters of men. Furthermore, by asserting that this intifada is primarily a women’s intifada, the stencil contributes to carving out a feminist space on the wall. Importantly, this stencil is affi liated with a worldwide feminist-activist campaign, the Uprising of Women in the Arab World, which advocates for the implementation of numerous rights for women, including freedom of thought and expression, freedom of movement, freedom of dress, freedom of housing, the right to divorce, the right to independence, the right to education, the right to work, the right to vote, equality at work, equality in society, and protection against domestic violence.80 According to Jarbou, during the Arab uprisings, complimentary “online and offl ine manifestations of feminist activities were in flux with varying momentums depending on the events and how people engage with these events.”81

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Figure 2.11. “The uprising of the Arab woman,” unsigned stencil in Hamra. The

stencil overlaps with another handwritten message that reads, “Jesus persists.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Another stencil addresses gender violence as embedded in language itself. Sprayed in red paint, the Arabic-language stencil “Kissī mish msabbeh” (My vagina is not a swear word) offers a pithy lesson about language (mis) usage by shocking and awing pedestrians (fig. 2.12). The dialogic stencil invokes familiar yet underanalyzed everyday Lebanese/Levantine curse expressions, such as “Kiss immak/ikhtak bi ayrī” (Your mother’s/sister’s vagina is in my penis)—phrases that normalize women’s genitals as targets of sexual assault and transform them into dirty words, often exchanged by (male) rivals as a means of demeaning one another. Engaging with existing linguistic and cultural narratives that undermine women’s bodies, the stencil echoes Bakhtin’s reflections on the continuous dialogic interaction among the different language users and their speech acts: Utterances are not indifferent to one another, and are not selfsufficient; they are aware of and mutually reflect one another. Each utterance is fi lled with echoes and reverberations of other utterances to which it is related by the communality of the sphere of speech communication. . . . Each utterance refutes, affi rms, supple-

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ments, and relies on others, presupposes them to be known, and somehow takes them into account.82 Filled with “echoes and reverberations of other utterances,” namely parochial Lebanese swear words, this bold stencil invites its onlookers to contemplate and challenge the usage of sexist language in everyday speech. It also seeks to reclaim women’s genitalia from the sphere of offensive language and the aggressive performance of masculinity. While the aforementioned stencil employs Lebanese dialect and assumes a no-nonsense tone in its criticism of everyday curse words, another gender-centered stencil utilizes English, one of the most commonly used languages among middle- and upper-class Lebanese, and employs a rather playful yet critical tone. Situated in the trendy neighborhood of Mar Mikhael, home to various restaurants and bars, the stencil reads, “ ‘I really wanna marry the guy who whistled at me from his car’—said no woman ever” (fig. 2.13). Th is stencil highlights the prevalence of catcalling in Lebanon, while at the same time warning men that contrary to popular belief, women are not charmed by men who harass them on the street. While the stencil is defi nitely playful and hyperbolic, it still offers an intervention in the sense that it refutes enduring cultural narratives that normalize catcalling as a manly act that women (should) fi nd tolerable, if not endearing. The humorous message may be seen as a strategic way of capturing the attention of young college students (who frequent the bars and restaurants of Mar Mikhael), perhaps prompting further conversations among them regarding catcalling and other forms of sexual harassment. Finally, it is important to note the possibility that this inscription might have been cre-

Figure 2.12.

Unsigned stencil on Clemenceau Street. The Arabic text reads, “My vagina is not a swear word.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

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Figure 2.13. “ ‘I really wanna marry the guy who whistled at me from his car’—

said no woman ever,” unsigned stencil in Mar Mikhael. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

ated by one or more women who experienced catcalling and who took to the wall as a means of disabusing young men of any deeply ingrained beliefs regarding the effectiveness or alleged popularity of aggressive masculinity, particularly with regard to att racting women, while venting their frustration anonymously. As one practitioner of graffiti once said in response to the question of why people write graffiti, “Because sometimes you feel like lett ing the whole world know how you’re feeling [without] giving yourself away.”83 Urban graffiti, particularly gender-related graffiti, provides an outlet for airing individual and collective grievances and initiating dialogue with an imagined community of city dwellers who may agree, disagree, or feel completely indifferent.

Queering Beirut’s Walls In her discussion of Lebanon’s postwar graffiti, Rasha Salti argues that “there is an organic mirroring between the plural and vivacious use of the

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city’s walls in the postwar period and the state of civil society.”84 Extending Salti’s argument, I contend that Beirut’s postwar graffiti, particularly queercentered graffiti, not only mirrors ongoing changes within Lebanese society but also serves as an additional tool for promoting and advancing activist messages and progressive gender politics. Furthermore, since “language is one of the practices through which people transform place into space,”85 queer-positive graffiti messages can play a role in constructing more inclusive public spaces where nonconforming gender and sexual identities and practices may be enacted and performed—as well as challenged and resisted—through the acts of reading, writing, and interpretation. Most messages referencing homosexuality on Beirut’s walls consist of rushed scrawls (using pens or markers) rather than elaborately painted murals, perhaps suggesting the writers’ pressing urge or spontaneous decision to articulate, anonymously yet publicly, the intense emotions and affective investments that are often born out of lived experiences—thereby enacting “unplanned participatory citizenship and unregulated defacement” on the street.86 Such graffiti also suggests that its writers do not have the luxury of lingering and being “out” on the street as they voice their opinions or celebrate nonnormative sexual identities and practices. Rushed scrawls, including “Gay is okay,” “I am bisexual,” “Queer and proud,” and “Lesbian” have become more widespread in the past few years, often appearing in numerous neighborhoods and in different handwriting and formats (fig. 2.14). These messages remind fellow Lebanese that gay people do exist in Lebanon and that some individuals hope to express their sexual orientation despite social taboos. These expressions present a counterdiscourse to the dominant rhetoric that frames queerness as a pathological disease or a psychological disorder that invites shame and/or requires a cure. Other queer-positive graffiti pieces include handwritten messages that read, “I am not a homophobe” in green capital letters, “End homophobia,” and “Love is love—gay [heart symbol].” A more elaborate stencil that mimics a red stop sign, with the inscription “Stop homophobia,” has also been sprayed in white paint in several neighborhoods across the city (fig. 2.15). Such graffiti markings may serve to assure gay residents that there are individuals who support their sexual rights and who do not consider homosexuality unacceptable or sinful. Together, these inscriptions testify to the presence of city dwellers who are seeking to reclaim and queer Beirut’s walls by “recognizing the different groups that constitute urban space” and by resorting to the conscious discursive acts of “retelling the city through multiple narratives and reaffi rming rights.”87 In his study of gay-oriented bathroom graffiti in men’s restrooms in US high schools and universities, William Leap explains that gay students

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Figure 2.14. Unsigned “I’m bisexual” and “Gay is okay” graffiti in Gemmayzeh. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Figure 2.15.

“Stop homophobia,” unsigned stencil in the Bourj al- Ghazal area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

listed gay-oriented graffiti messages among the informal resources that enabled them to learn more about gay culture and to feel empowered about the presence of other gay individuals in their community. Leap’s research indicated that encountering gay-oriented commentary “assured [students] that other men-interested-in-men had passed through that area and were likely to return. Most respondents added that they found security in that discovery, even if they did not fully understand what that security entailed.”88 Leap’s assertions that anonymous gay-oriented bathroom graffiti can contribute to the construction of gay culture and spaces may be applied to Beirut’s street graffiti. In a country where being gay is still considered taboo and is punishable by law, encountering such affi rmative messages may provide unexpected—albeit temporary—feelings of hope and solidarity. These interspersed messages often dialogue with and reference one another—sometimes in the same spot on the wall (as writers add or respond to a given message) and sometimes across different geographical locations in the compact city (as writers inscribe the same or related messages in different locations in Beirut). Reading, writing, and interpreting queer-oriented messages may also be seen as creative ways of not only representing but also performing queerness in the street, albeit anonymously. Such writing-centered initiatives, which involve asserting one’s queerness and inscribing it onto the city’s walls in public view, no matter how transient such acts might seem, can be significant milestones for those negotiating their nonnormative gender and sexual identities in the face of societal constraints, familial disapproval, and legal hurdles. As Andie Elizabeth Shabbar argues, the agential potential of queer graffiti lies not only in the reclamation of space or the discursive speech acts of writing “We’re here and queer” on the walls, but in the dynamic construction and performance of identity that occur as human bodies alter the environment they inhabit. Building on Karen Barad’s work on posthumanist performativity, Shabbar argues that agency is not something humans have, it is not a product of human will, intentionality, or subjectivity—rather, matter is agentic because, as Barad states, matter is a continuous doing and a process of becoming. . . . Therefore, the dance of agency between nature and culture is one where agentic individuals do not exist prior to or independent of multiple interrelations, but, instead, emerge with/in and as them.89 With this in mind, it is important to note that queer-related graffiti messages summon and provide witness to the multiple queer bodies that have interacted with their urban environment, as well as with other (friendly

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or nonfriendly) bodies occupying the heteronormative city. In this sense, taken together, queer graffiti messages have the potential to (re)shape matter (e.g., walls, buildings, parks), as well as residents’ “patterns of thought” in unpredictable ways.90 The queered walls become witnesses to a specific historical moment, one in which queer subjects have spoken up and transformed the discursive and physical environment of the capital city, asserting their right to inscribe and occupy it. As Andrzej Zieleniec persuasively argues, “The right to the city by ‘writing the city’ through graffiti provides an urban semiotic that engenders new spatial practices and offers the possibility of new ways of seeing, reading, and understanding the urban, the city and everyday life. It gives voice and acknowledges those who live in the city but are often overlooked or ignored.”91 It is important to acknowledge that queer-affi rmative messages have elicited not only positive but also negative responses among urban dwellers in different neighborhoods since, as Salti notes, “homophobia cuts across appurtenance and communitarian affi liation” in Lebanon as in other places.92 A case in point is a graffito that features the expression “Anā shādh,” meaning “I am queer” (see fig. 2.1). The subversive message, in which the speaker asserts their queerness and reclaims the word “shādh” (an Arabic word for “queer” that is synonymous with the word “deviant” and has been used in a predominantly pejorative fashion), seems to have solicited an equally affective, albeit hostile, response on the part of at least one viewer, who sprayed over the message with red paint. Th is altered graffiti captures a contentious dialogical interaction between at least two engaged entities: a speaker who proclaims a queer identity and attempts to reclaim and repurpose the Arabic word “shādh” from the realm of pejorative language and a receiver who seems unsett led by this bold embrace of queerness.93 As Bakhtin argues, The word in language is half someone else’s. . . . Prior to this moment of appropriation the word does not exist in a neutral and impersonal language, but rather it exists in other people’s mouths, in other people’s contexts, serving other people’s intentions; it is from there that one must take the word, and make it one’s own. [But] expropriating it, forcing it to submit to one’s own intentions and accents, is a difficult and complicated process.94 In this graffito, the attempt to reclaim the word “shādh” is indeed a “complicated” and “unfi nalizable” process—one that lends itself to oppositional intervention(s) by anyone possessing a pen, a Sharpie, or spray paint. But the fact that the original graffito was altered does not take away from the meaningfulness and subversiveness of the message. If anything, the “act of retaliation” demonstrates the original graffito’s power to elicit a (negative)

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reaction from those who feel threatened by its message and its transformation of public space. In a related manner, on one wall in Mar Mikhael, the inscribed expression “Gay is okay!” has been met with a hostile statement—clearly written in response to “Gay is okay!” by virtue of the message’s placement and content. It says, in transliterated Arabic, “Wlak ’ayrī bil luwāt,” which roughly translates to “Hey, f--- fags (with my penis).” Clearly, the author of this message not only disagreed with the statement that “gay is okay” but also felt the urge to express aggression, or even discursive/corrective rape, against all gay people by placing a sadistic message right above the original graffito. Beyond issues of discursiveness and rhetoric, these everyday acts of inscription and effacement—which seek to valorize or to undermine nonnormative sexual orientations and gendered behaviors—confi rm that “everyday life is a complex negotiation where the concepts and practices of citizenship, exclusions and prejudices are co-constituted with other urban dwellers.”95 In the case of Beirut, such back-and-forth graffiti making reveals that more urban dwellers are taking to the streets to express their embrace of and/or solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community, thereby pushing against dominant discourses of heteronormativity. At the same time, the relatively new spatial acts of resistance are also being challenged by those who feel the urge to protect the heteronormative city from such interventions. At the very least, the dialogic graffiti artifacts testify that uncomfortable conversations and contentious wars of words regarding sex and sexuality are taking place on the streets and are no longer happening exclusively behind closed doors. The aforementioned conversations on the wall also urge us to consider the corporeal and affective dimension of graffiti writing, particularly with regard to social issues that affect living, breathing human bodies. As Jennifer Edbauer persuasively argues, Writing scenes are overwhelmingly populated by bodies: shocked, angry, delighted, and feeling-full bodies.  .  .  . The writing scene can never be reduced to mere signification insofar as the body is the very apparatus that creates meaning. . . . Because the body-ofsensation is always stubbornly present in scenes of writing, there can be no affectless compositions.96 By asserting their presence and dignity on the walls of the city, the writers of messages such as “I am bisexual,” “Gay and proud,” and “Anā shādh” defy the dominant culture’s imperative to remain subdued and/or to feel ashamed or guilty for being queer or engaging in same-sex practices. Rather, they seek to assert their nonnormative gender identities or sexual practices,

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sometimes despite risking themselves by being “out” on the street (literally and discursively), where not everybody is a supportive ally, and where their proclamations and enactments of nonnormative sexuality may be met with hostility and aggression—not to mention arrest. While some scholars of gender and sexuality, most notably Joseph Massad, have argued that the notion of Pride is a predominantly Westernimposed construct,97 and while there is defi nitely legitimacy to the argument that some Arabs who engage in same-sex practices may not selfidentify as LGBTQ+ or may prefer discretion over disclosure with regard to their sexual lives, it is important to acknowledge that some Lebanese embody complicated and hybrid identities that cannot be categorized as purely local or westernized. Sa’ed Atshan reminds us that we must endeavor “to understand how East/West binaries, the language we use, and the political projects we espouse are not black and white in the increasingly globalized and transnational world in which we live.”98 Aside from the Lebanese who split their time between Lebanon and abroad (North America, Africa, and the Persian Gulf), or the returnees who have moved back to Lebanon after living in the diaspora, some Lebanese who have lived in the nation their entire lives are mindful of and conversant with evolving local and global discourses of gender and sexuality for many potential reasons, including their bilingual education, media consumption (i.e., fi lms, blogs, Twitter, etc.), and personal encounters with foreigners on a regular basis. As Sara Mourad rightly points out in her discussion of erotic desire in Lebanon, For reasons beyond their control, many people in Lebanon grow up learning French or English, along with Arabic in American or French schools and universities.  .  .  . Many from the middle and upper classes grow up as Arabs with a hybridized, Western education. . . . For many, sexual knowledge is shaped by foreign media consumption: for instance, learning about contraception from girls’ and women’s magazines or discovering sexual practices in porn.  .  .  . Although using English words does not actually make one westernized and does not make what is signified a product of the West, Euro-American influences on the rest of the world must be recognized without recurrence of the fictions of unities and polarities, without making such statements as “this is like the West” or “this is not like the West.99 Dismissing those who do self-identify as gay, bisexual, lesbian, or shādh (and who engage with Pride-related discourses) as colonized subjects or misguided Western imitators not only may result in doing disservice to the experiences of these individuals themselves but also risks homogenizing

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Arab subjects and the diverse (and messy) ways they choose to frame their identities and lived experiences. Asfaneh Najmabadi explains in an interview that constructing local people who have embraced identities such as gay or lesbian as passive recipients of Western ideals transforms them into “dupes of the imperialist onslaught” and “agentless creatures,” in part because this approach wrongly assumes that power operates in a “unidirectional flow from one place to another,” when in reality people often navigate global influences in an agentive manner that suits their local needs and aspirations.100 Such critiques also run the risk of disregarding the desire of some marginalized individuals and groups to identify with a broader public and their efforts at seeking alliances and solidarities with both local and global LGBTQ+ individuals and communities. In addition to antigay messages, a series of statements condemning adultery have also appeared in Beirut’s streets. Written in Arabic, these messages include “Al-zinā h.arām” (Adultery is a sin), “T.a‘ūn al-zinā” (The plague of adultery), “Ijrām al-zinā” (The crime of adultery), and “Al-zinā jū‘ ” (Adultery is hunger). Sometimes such messages are scribbled over the portraits of cultural icons, while at other times they appear next to or over the stencils affi liated with the Anarchists of Lebanon or those hailing the uprisings as a women’s movement. Often, these messages are accompanied by crosses or supplemented with other religious messages, particularly ones that glorify Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary, describing them as “pure” and of “good manners.” These recurring messages lend themselves to multiple possible interpretations of writers’ motivations, including the following: a disapproval of projecting the faces and bodies of men and women on the street; the shunning of any references to worldly matters; the valorization of chastity and piety; and a wish to regulate sexual activity and confi ne sex to marriage. Regardless of the conclusions one might draw from reading these rushed scrawls (usually fi lled with spelling mistakes), they do deserve to be acknowledged and discussed in a chapter on gender and sexuality. As I argue throughout this book, the placement of new messages next to or on top of old messages demonstrates the dialogic struggles among graffiti makers and highlights the fact that public artifacts often induce affective reactions among numerous actors fighting for spatial representation. As James Jasper reminds us, “emotions are also tied to moral values, often arising from perceived infractions of moral rules.”101 In this case, the graffiti messages and images seem to have prompted passersby to reaffi rm their piety and rejection of worldly matters, in particular condemning out-of-wedlock sex and painting over graffiti that features human faces and bodies or that draws attention to women’s struggles. Furthermore, the graffiti makers seem to have felt the need to remind fellow residents that they must glorify Jesus Christ

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and the Virgin Mary on the walls of the city instead of celebrating other people or advocating for other (worldly) causes. The anti-adultery messages are not exclusively antigay, for they express opposition to any kind of sexual relationships outside the confi nes of marriage. At the same time, by condemning out-of-wedlock sex in general, these messages inevitably render same-sex relations as unacceptable, criminal, deviant, or, at the very least, impermissible, since same-sex marriage is not legal in Lebanon. By making reference to “sinful” sex all over the city and valorizing the sacred over the (allegedly) profane, the religiously oriented scrawls contribute to rendering Beirut’s walls more gendered, because they do valorize and promote certain types of masculinity and femininity, ones characterized by piety and purity, as epitomized by Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. By repeatedly referencing and condemning sinful sex all over the city, they also ironically participate in rendering the streets more, not less, sexualized, since, as Marwan Kraidy notes, “sexual repression in fact re-asserts the centrality of sexuality in modernity.”102 Importantly, as the scrawls castigate passersby and warn them about the dangers of adultery, the messages manifest the ways in which anxieties and moral panics about embodiment and sexuality are often articulated on the city’s walls in culturally and religiously specific ways.

Conclusion The previous chapter demonstrated how postwar graffiti makers have sought to reclaim Beirut’s public spaces from the monopoly of partisan symbols by memorializing unifying cultural icons, undermining sectarianism on the wall, and making the streets more habitable for all residents to ponder and repurpose as communal space. By unpacking the gendered dimensions of graffiti and street art, this chapter has further shown the linkages between sectarianism, violence, sexism, and homophobia, while also revealing the postwar graffiti makers’ alternative enactments of masculinity. In other words, by elevating transgressive female icons; protesting sexist and homophobic discourses, practices, and laws; and undermining machismo, some graffiti makers exhibit and model an alternative masculinity that is rooted in an ethics of care and social justice—but is not necessarily devoid of competitiveness, since the war of colors involves flexing one’s muscles to create artifacts that outshine or outlast the work of other graffiti makers. Bullet holes and other scars of war no longer monopolize Beirut’s walls. Nor do the walls continue to serve as mere surfaces for the territorial markings of one political party or another—though those still do exist. In post-

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war Lebanon, images and texts engaging with gender and sexuality abound, adding layers to and transforming the increasingly palimpsestic walls. As more seasoned artists and average pedestrians leave their marks on the walls, the public space is transformed into a contested platform where unruly voices and emotionally charged debates around issues of gender and sexuality compete and collide. By inserting sexed and gendered artifacts in public places, graffiti makers act in ways both transgressive and political, since they challenge prevailing norms and power relations in society. Young street artists have reimagined the tradition of (male) commemoration through their embodied practices on the street: today, the images of female artists such as Sabah and Asmahan sit side by side, and sometimes on top of, those of alive or dead political leaders. Such intervention is both physical and discursive, as it signifies the alteration of both the materiality of the cityscape and the discourse of memorialization itself. By replacing the posters of corrupt patriarchs, whose claim to fame is often rooted in political and military gains, with the murals of transgressive female singers, the street artists also offer an alternative narrative regarding the (depreciating) value of hegemonic, violent masculinity—while also articulating an ethics of care for the city and its residents. In addition to seasoned artists, the city’s passersby often become active participants (or anonymous scribblers), responding to or creating their own polyvocal images and texts about transgressive femininities and masculinities, gender violence, and homosexuality. Importantly, the walls attest to the emergence of new “counterpublics,” and they demonstrate the ways in which “the rise of new feminist and social movements, globalization, the increasing influence of global human rights discourse and changing socio-economic conditions affecting population patterns have led to the emergence of new discourses, demands and patterns regarding sexual behavior, and a growing push for change from below.”103 At the same time, while many graffiti makers articulate inclusive, queerpositive, and progressive gender politics, others beg to differ—defacing or juxtaposing such messages with responses that undermine the legitimacy of nonnormative gender identities and sexual practices. The intensity of the inscriptions that revolve around gender and sexuality remind us that graffiti writing is an affective process that “connects bodies known and unknown through the proliferation of images.”104 The contentious spaces of encounter give us a glimpse into the increasingly gendered and sexed urban imaginary and into the evolving concerns and investments of Beirut’s residents, particularly young urbanites. Importantly, the gender- and sexualityrelated images and messages on the wall “imbricate the human body with the urban fabric, fusing veins and avenues. Clenched fists, open palms, in-

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solent eyes, or simple stick figures at play illustrate how this kind of creative insurgency extends human corporeality in the public space.”105 No longer do Beirut’s streets serve as mere platforms featuring the posters of well-coiffed politicians and macho militiamen. Today, the body of the average resident in all its glory and imperfection, pleasure and suffering, and shame and pride makes an appearance on Beirut’s walls. Like other forms of cultural production, including fiction, newspapers, comedy shows, blogs, paintings, and other forms of media, graffiti and street art serve to provide a dynamic and ever-changing source of information, as well as a tool, that may both reflect and shape the tugs of war (and peace and justice) with regard to articulating and navigating evolving notions of gender and sexuality in postwar Beirut.

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Figure 3.1. “Th is sea is mine,” unsigned stencil on Jeanne d’Arc Street.

Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

CHAPTER 3

Hadhā al-bah.r lī / This Sea Is Mine Engaging Hazardous Environments as Toxic Politics How can we turn the long emergencies of slow violence into stories dramatic enough to rouse public sentiment and warrant political intervention, these emergencies whose repercussions have given rise to some of the most critical challenges of our time? —Rob Nixon, Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor

Wartime Lebanon, like confl ict zones elsewhere, provided a fertile ground for the violation of the environment and its inhabitants in numerous ways. The environmental atrocities of the Lebanese Civil War—whether caused by armed confl ict, forced human displacement, or the collapse of existing environmental regulations—included the disruption of numerous terrestrial and marine habitats; massive air, soil, and marine pollution; sanitation and waste-management problems; and the loss of biodiversity. Such environmental crises naturally resulted in long-term consequences for the inhabitants of the land, who suffered displacement, loss of livelihood, birth defects, respiratory diseases, and cancer, among other ordeals. Sadly, despite the cessation of armed violence and the gradual return of the rule of law, postwar Lebanon has continued to endure environmental devastation in its various permutations. Th is is in part because Lebanon’s political elites have maintained a highly opportunistic approach toward the environment, intervening at times and conveniently disengaging at others, depending on their own interests. As Paul Kingston states, Lebanon suffered untold environmental devastation during the war. Moreover, with the return of peace to the country, the overwhelming priority of the government has been to promote the reconstruction process, an imperative that has relegated many environmental issues to the backburner. Industrial pollution remains a serious issue virtually untouched by government regulations, quarrying has gone on with impunity . . . and Lebanon’s Mediterranean coastline, ostensibly publicly owned, has been increasingly encroached upon by private developers.1 113

Since government elites have consistently privileged their interests over the well-being of civilians, it is no surprise that the environment represents yet another sphere in which they have leveraged their power to reap political and fi nancial gains. Aside from facilitating land grabs associated with postwar reconstruction projects, Lebanon’s political elites have sought to coopt environmental issues upon realizing the increased availability of foreign funding related to environmental protection and preservation. They have done so by expanding and repurposing the enduring patron-client networks in order to appropriate the environmental initiatives of Lebanese civil society.2 Caroline Nagel and Lynn Staeheli argue that “sectarian leaders themselves have picked up on many of the same themes espoused by NGOs, using environmentalism toward their own ends—not least to provide a veneer of legitimacy to their real-estate dealings.”3 Despite the challenges of fostering robust (and nonsectarian) environmental advocacy in Lebanon, some civil-society organizations, concerned residents, university professors, and environmental experts have sought to promote awareness of environmental justice and citizens’ rights and responsibilities in regard to preserving and reclaiming public spaces. Among the leading nonprofit organizations that have prioritized environmental issues, while emphasizing the inextricability of environmental justice and sectarian politics, is Nahnoo, “a research, capacity building and advocacy platform for participatory public policy-making, working towards an inclusive society in Lebanon.”4 In addition to preserving Lebanon’s public spaces and demanding governmental transparency, Nahnoo’s campaigns have focused on challenging the sectarian system and attaining a civil state in which all citizens are considered equal.5 Concerned civilians and environmental activists, within and beyond nongovernmental organizations, have increasingly articulated their frustration with the government’s support of unregulated urban sprawl, tree logging, infrastructure development, and other actions that disregard the right of residents to a healthy environment, including free leisure spaces, good-quality air, and reasonable protection from noise and chemical pollution. Amid these ongoing concerns, environmental graffiti has served as an important strategic tool for lamenting the devastated city and establishing links between toxic environments and toxic politics, as well as for spreading awareness about residents’ duties and responsibilities toward the environment. Focusing on graffiti and street art that engage with environmentrelated issues, this chapter asks the following questions, among others: What type of concerns and demands do environmentally conscious graffiti makers visualize and advocate for on the streets of Beirut? How do graffiti making and environmental activism intersect? What struggles and calls

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to action do graffiti makers register regarding the people’s right, or lack thereof, to public beaches and parks in postwar Beirut? How does graffiti articulate the link between accessibility to public space, enduring sectarianism, and government corruption in post–civil war Beirut? In what ways do graffiti and street art articulate the toxic politics, emotional geographies, and sense of “slow violence,” to use Rob Nixon’s term,6 experienced by residents who demand healthier and more accessible public spaces? How might graffiti and street art reflect and shape the spatial struggles and affective transformation of places in which they appear? And how do environmental graffiti and street art highlight the centrality and “action-potential” of collective affects,7 particularly at protest sites, where emotional protestors gather en masse to express grievances and demand change—sometimes confronting hostile bodies, both human and inanimate, including law enforcement officers and makeshift barriers?

Demanding Access to Open Public Spaces Environmentally oriented graffiti makers often lament Beirut’s rapidly disappearing public spaces and the preclusion of average residents, particularly the working class, from enjoying the litt le that remains of Beirut’s green and maritime spaces. To that end, some have leveraged stencils as a means of protesting unchecked privatization and/or the policing of open public spaces at the hands of political and private-sector elites. One of the most prominent contested sites that has occupied a strong presence in the graffiti on Beirut’s walls for several years is Horsh Beirut, the urban park situated in the heart of the capital. The Horsh has shrunk from a pine forest of over 1.25 million square meters in 1696 to around 300,000 square meters today. The park has been affected by numerous wars, including the Lebanese Civil War and the 1982 and 2006 Israeli invasions of Lebanon. According to Nagel and Staeheli, the park reportedly served as a “dumping ground for bodies” during the civil war, and its trees were destroyed and used for fuel.8 Even though the park underwent renovation after the end of the Lebanese Civil War, it remained closed to the Lebanese public for about twentyfive years. For many years following the end of the civil war, while Western foreigners were allowed to use the Horsh freely, only Lebanese citizens over the age of thirty-five with medically documented reasons were able to apply for permission to enter the Horsh. The public discourse propagated by Lebanese officials regarding the alleged inability of the Lebanese public to behave appropriately in the Horsh prompted environmental activists to take action by exposing the government and mobilizing residents to join

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them in protesting the unjust closing of the park. In May 2015, civil activists called for a demonstration at the entrance of the Horsh. Activists from various nongovernmental organizations came together under the campaign “Ma‘an li-’i‘ādat fath. wa taf ‘īl Horsh Beirut” (Together to reopen and activate Horsh Beirut). The campaign organizers posted a message explaining the motivations behind the demonstration, offering an invitation to protest because we have been deprived during Eid from Horsh Beirut. Because denying access for one cross section of the population and giving access to another is discriminatory and illegal. Because among those in power are those who do not respect citizens and have described them with heinous terms. Because there are no justifications for the continuous closure of the Horsh. Because the municipality of Beirut repeatedly promised to reopen Horsh Beirut but never fulfi lled its promise. Because citizens do not have even the most basic of rights to green space.9 The park was fi nally reopened to the public on September 3, 2015, in what many considered a substantial victory for civil society. Since around 2010, a few years before the Horsh was reopened to the public, the city witnessed an outpouring of stencils protesting the closure of the Horsh to the general public and demanding that it be open and accessible to all residents. The stencils created by Horsh activists and other concerned residents are extremely dialogical, in the sense that they directly or indirectly interrogate and/or respond to the aforementioned debates and discourses surrounding the Horsh saga. The stenciled messages dedicated to the Horsh are varied but are almost always written in Lebanese Arabic. Th is demonstrates the graffiti makers’ commitment to ensuring that the messages are widely accessible to all Beirutis, including underprivileged residents who may not be versed in a second language. One of the most prominent Horsh stencils reads, “Horsh Beirut lakul al-‘ālam” (Horsh Beirut is for all the people), a seemingly simple statement that may be unpacked by attending to its cultural context and by drawing upon Bakhtin’s insights on multivoicedness and dialogism. In his essays on speech genres, Bakhtin urges attention to the “addressivity” of every utterance, its anticipation of interlocutors, and its employment of particular rhetorical strategies in order to respond to real and imagined audiences and discourses. For Bakhtin, the addressee is always involved in any given speech communication, and the addressee is not limited to a speaker directly involved in a speech act. Rather, addressees may be physically and even temporally distant. Bakhtin notes that

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the addressee may be an immediate participant-interlocutor in an everyday dialogue, a differentiated collective of specialists in some particular area of cultural communication, a more or less differentiated public, ethnic group, contemporaries, likeminded people, opponents and enemies, a subordinate, a superior, someone who is lower, higher, familiar, foreign, and so forth.10 Taking Bakhtin’s insights into account, the Horsh stencil potentially speaks to multiple addressees and audiences, including civil activists, government officials, urban planners, local and global human rights and environmental activists, and average residents, some of whom may be opposed to or supportive of opening the Horsh to the broader Lebanese public. The stencil is dialogic in that it includes a subtext regarding the municipality’s discriminatory narrative and practices (which rendered the park not for “all the people”), as well as the activists’ counternarrative, which continuously asserted that accessing Beirut’s public park is a constitutional right for all people, without exception. Th is stencil is also historically specific, as it elucidates and documents an important chapter in Beirut’s history—a time in which the Lebanese government selectively allowed and denied people access to Beirut’s one sizeable park (based on their nationality and class), repeatedly lied about reopening the park, circulated discriminatory narratives about the Lebanese people, and triggered a national campaign against the government’s discourses and actions. Another Horsh-related stencil asks in Lebanese Arabic, “Laysh Horsh Beirut ba‘du msakkar?” (Why is Beirut’s Horsh still closed?), to which yet another stencil dialogically responds, “Because of sectarianism.” These back-and-forth stencils establish the connection between sectarianism and the suppression of basic human rights—including access to fresh air and recreational space. The stencil practitioners are by no means exaggerating the impact of sectarianism on all aspects of Lebanese society, including accessibility to green spaces. Here, the stenciled messages may be considered “a response to preceding utterances of the given sphere (we understand the word ‘response’ in the broadest sense).”11 After all, some Lebanese authorities articulated their fear of sectarian tensions as a reason to justify keeping the Horsh closed. As the Horsh is located in an area where Sunni, Shi‘a, and Christian neighborhoods border each another, Khalil Choucair, a member of Beirut’s municipal council, stated that “with this huge space that lacks the minimum standards of security, fights can occur. Such things might explode.”12 By constructing the Horsh as a perilous playground for sectarian fights, rather than a place of leisure and coexistence, the municipality’s discourse serves to further pit the Lebanese people against one another, mo-

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bilizing sectarian politics to ignite fear of the other. As David Sibley notes, “The anatomy of the purified environment is an expression of values associated with strong feelings of abjection, a heightened consciousness of difference and, thus, a fear of mixing or the disintegration of boundaries.”13 With the continued closure of the park, the residents living in the surrounding Sunni, Shi‘a, and Christian neighborhoods are disallowed from “mixing,” and boundaries remain hardened instead of potentially becoming more porous with the opening of the Horsh. Emphasizing the Lebanese people’s presumed inability to share the park because of their sectarian differences also seeks to preclude intersectarian alliances, including class solidarity among people of different religions and sects. Tara Mahfoud notes that “set between socioeconomically and religiously diverse neighborhoods, the park could serve as a sett ing where interaction between these different communities with diverse social identities could take place. Th is is prevented by restrictions.”14 Importantly, the Horsh could provide an oasis and gathering place for Beirut’s most disenfranchised and poorest communities, who cannot afford to patronize the city’s cafes, malls, and private parks. Barring average residents from the park under the pretext of avoiding sectarian tensions and disorderly conduct may actually serve to fuel sectarian tensions and fear of the other, as communities remain trapped in their sectarian silos and are discouraged from mingling with others. Mohammad Ayoub, founder of Nahnoo, one of the nonprofit organizations that advocated for the park’s opening, further asserted, “They keep saying that our young people are antisocial. . . . But what do they expect when they have no other recreation except going on the Internet?”15 A policy of keeping residents out of the Horsh and publicly rehashing the narrative that young people are simply incapable of acting in a civil manner, particularly toward those who belong to different sects, re-creates the logic of exclusion employed by the government with regard to banning soccer fans from stadiums (as discussed in chapter 1). In other words, rather than nurturing civic engagement and national unity through the appreciation of sports or the outdoors, the Lebanese government prefers to discipline civilians—sometimes preemptively—and to reinforce the discourse of irreconcilable differences. The stencils (and the statements of activists) that chastise the government and call it out for sustaining sectarianism reflect the cognizance of some Lebanese citizens of the government’s consistently sectarian logic and seek to prompt other residents to unite and rise up in dissent. In addition to the stencils blaming sectarianism for the Horsh’s closure, the stencil “Shāyif al-Horsh shū kbīr” (See how big the Horsh is?) has been inscribed across Beirut’s walls for several years (fig. 3.2). Signed by

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Figure 3.2. Nahnoo, “See how big the Horsh is?,” stencil on Bliss Street. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Nahnoo, this sarcastic yet sentimental stencil would likely resonate with many residents because it invokes a famous song by Fairouz, “Shāyif al-bah.r shū kbīr” (Do you see how big the sea is?), in which the speaker tells her lover that her love for him is as big as the sea and as wide as the sky. In the same song, the speaker laments the long time she has spent waiting for her lover across the seasons and dreaming of him. In many ways, then, the dialogic stencil repurposes the lyrics in Fairouz’s famous song to speak of the activists’ labor of love in proclaiming and awaiting the opening of Beirut’s park, a space so big that there should be room for “all the people.” Another Horsh-related stencil sponsored by Nahnoo that appeared in different parts of the city in 2014 might ultimately be considered prophetic. Written in Arabic, the stencil features a maplike triangular image of the park. The accompanying text, which echoes the confidence and resilience of the Nahnoo activists, reads, “Al-Horsh rāji‘ w-l-h.aqq mā bīdī‘” (The Horsh is coming back, and justice will not be lost). Given that environmental activists had consulted with lawyers regarding the legality of depriving residents of a public space, it is no surprise that the stencil’s message was framed in terms of “al-h.aqq,” meaning “right” or “just cause.” Together, this

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and other Horsh-related stencils were used as a means of spreading awareness among people regarding their right to enjoy the public park, since it is very hard to access free or even cost-effective leisure spaces in Lebanon, and underprivileged people in particular are accustomed to being barred from whatever green spaces remain in Beirut. Even universities and schools such as the Lebanese American University, the American University of Beirut, the International College, and the American Community School—which claim to be nonprofit and community centered—only allow students, faculty, staff, alumni, donors, and political figures to access their pristine campuses that overlook Beirut’s seashore. In other words, many residents are conditioned to being deprived of green spaces in the city, unless they are paying for access or leveraging their political connections. Some do not even feel comfortable being in these green spaces, where they feel stigmatized for standing out or for having insufficient cultural capital, such as English language skills, a university education, or international travel experience. For some activists and scholars, however, exclusionary practices and narratives about the Horsh can and should be “de-programmed, [to] take on a new life and become something different, responding to the spatial needs of the community within a garden.”16 In other words, they want the Horsh to become a more inclusive communal space where all residents can feel welcome and not out of place. The attempts to deny the city’s underprivileged and disenfranchised residents their environmental and human rights have materialized in other contexts, most poignantly in Dalieh al-Rouche, the working-class, informal, rocky beaches up the Corniche. For hundreds of years, the area has been utilized by residents, particularly working-class families, for activities such as swimming, fishing, farming, and holiday celebrations. But the Dalieh’s heritage, collective memories, and informal economy became increasingly threatened by real estate investors, who, thanks to gradual and surreptitious changes in legislation, ultimately managed to gain ownership of almost the entire coastline. In 2014, private developers articulated tentative plans to build a private beach resort, hotels, and apartments along the coast. The initial phases of this work resulted in demolishing fishing ports and fencing the site with barbed wire in 2015 to prevent public access. As in the case of the Horsh, activists, scholars, and residents sprang into action and started advocating for the preservation of the Dalieh and supporting its hard-hit fishermen by partaking in sit-ins, protests, awareness campaigns, and legal batt les. Most prominent among the civil-society groups was Al-H.amla al-Ahliyya li-l-h.ifādh ‘ala Daliat al-Rawcheh (the Civil Campaign to Protect the Dalieh of Rouche), a coalition of individuals and nongovernmental organizations that advocated for preserving the Dalieh as an

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“open-access shared space for all city dwellers and visitors.”17 In addition to organizing protests and raising public awareness, members launched a legal challenge against the government, arguing that a law that had taken effect in 1989 during the Lebanese Civil War should be rendered invalid by virtue of the chaotic circumstances under which the law had passed. The legal cases are still ongoing, while the site continues to host regular sit-ins and acts of civil disobedience defying the privatization and physical enclosure of the area, social awareness and beach cleanup campaigns, and joyful celebrations.18 Parallel to such on-the-ground efforts, various individuals and groups within and beyond the coalition launched a series of visual interventions that spoke to the woes and the acts of resistance of residents intent on ensuring that the coastal area remains accessible to all. Among the visual interventions that appeared on the city’s walls is a simple Arabic-language stencil that asserts, “Hadhā al-bah.r lī,” or “Th is sea is mine” (see fig. 3.1). The stencil references the eponymous grassroots campaign initiated by the group Dictaphone, a research and performance collective that creates sitespecific, live art events that are rooted in multidisciplinary studies of space and that invite residents to “question our relationship to the city, and redefi ne its public space.”19 Importantly, “Hadhā al-bah.r lī” echoes a famous verse by the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, emphasizing the right of Palestinians to their homeland, particularly the natural spaces they have known so intimately by virtue of being born and raised in historic Palestine. Other variations of this stencil include a longer excerpt that translates to “Th is sea is mine / Th is fresh air is mine / The sidewalk and everything on it is mine,” offering a slight modification of Darwish’s lines “Th is sea is mine / Th is fresh air is mine / Th is sidewalk, my steps and my sperm on the sidewalk are mine.” The speaker in Darwish’s poem asserts entitlement to the water, air, and sidewalk in defiance of the Israeli occupation that led to the dispossession of Palestinians from their homes and homeland. In her discussion of the poem, Tahrir Hamdi writes, The idea of inclusiveness (as opposed to Israel’s exclusiveness) resonates throughout “Mural.” At the end of his poem, Darwish is seen not only imaginatively reinhabiting the land, but also obsessively and possessively reclaiming a lost space after a long journey. . . . After having been expelled from his home, the poet is here imaginatively returning to his place—“the return of the wandering soul”—to possess all of space in its vastness and smallness, spatially and temporally. Darwish is effectively reclaiming a lost Palestinian geography.20

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In the context offered by Hamdi, the Dalieh activists’ decision to stencil verses adapted from Darwish’s poem makes perfect sense, with the major difference being that the usurping enemy here is exemplified by Lebanon’s political and private-sector elites, not an outside occupier. The comparison that the stencil invokes between the usurping Israeli government and the corrupt Lebanese government would likely resonate with many Lebanese people, who have often felt that they are up against two enemies: the Israeli government outside and the Lebanese government within—the latter of which has no qualms about harming its own people. Here, the words of the poem are mobilized in defiance of environmental insecurity, governmental corruption, and neoliberal policies that have resulted in the colonization of public space and the oppression of Lebanon’s most vulnerable populations—including fishermen already suffering fi nancial distress resulting from the scarcity of fish (caused by pollution and overfishing) and the lack of supportive government programs. Engaging with familiar literary and cultural narratives, the stencil echoes Bakhtin’s reflections on dialogism and polyphony. Darwish’s lines transcend their original context and poetic genre and fi nd renewed resonance with local, regional, and global audiences committed to reclaiming Beirut’s seashore. Of course, Darwish’s lines are also “unfi nalizable,” to use Bakhtin’s words, as they are modified to iterate a reality that is both similar to and divergent from their original sett ing. The usurpation of the Dalieh does speak of a different historical and material context from the occupation of Palestine by an outside enemy, but the loss and injustice articulated in Darwish’s poem would ring true for locals who were evicted (or at risk of being evicted) from Dalieh, the only home they knew. Other less poetic and more somber Dalieh-related stencils directly chastise the municipality, urging it to disband the fencing that was erected around the Dalieh and to classify the Dalieh as a natural reserve. The stencils translate as follows: “The Dalieh fence is a shame, O municipality, protecting it is a conspiracy against Beirut” (fig. 3.3); “Enough violations of the laws concerning natural spaces, remove the fence around the natural Dalieh immediately”; and “It is your duty, O government, to classify the Dalieh as a natural reserve.” Here, emotive and legally informed graffiti messages are leveraged as a means of chastisement and public shaming, as they expose the government’s complicity in protecting the interests of Lebanon’s private developers at the expense of the Lebanese public, especially the working class. They also challenge the authorities to fi nd alternative solutions, namely categorizing the Dalieh as a natural reserve and halting further development projects. According to the Civil Campaign to Protect the Dalieh

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Figure 3.3.

Civil Coalition of Public Spaces and Urban Mobility and Nahnoo, “The Dalieh fence is a shame,” stencil in Mar Mikhael. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

of Rouche, the municipality of Beirut has the authority to approve or deny any building permit for any development project in Dalieh, according to article 13 of the Lebanese building law. The municipal council can also seek the acquisition of Dalieh lands through expropriation by deeming the land necessary for public benefit. The calls for the municipality to take action— to do the right thing by its residents—therefore appeal to existing laws and regulations, in addition to leveraging the residents’ needs, aspirations, and affective investments with regard to this contested space.21 Similar to other antigovernment political stencils, the Dalieh-related stencils are generally raw and unpolished. They not only reflect negative feelings of anger, betrayal, and frustration but have also been designed to be pragmatic. In other words, they needed to be swift ly adhered to surfaces so that activists could plaster them onto the walls and get going, thereby increasing their chances of avoiding confrontations with authorities or private security personnel.

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Protesting Waste Mismanagement and Toxic Politics The connection between the environment and toxic sectarianism goes beyond the struggles over public space in postwar Beirut, as evidenced by the crisis that erupted after the government repeatedly failed to handle issues related to waste management and public health. One of the earliest graffiti pieces motivated by the government’s incompetence at managing hazardous waste is a stencil inspired by the animation fi lm Ratatouille. Created by Ashekman, the graffito includes a stenciled rat, modeled after Remy from Ratatouille, wearing a chef ’s hat and sporting the crew’s trademark shadda in green on his eyebrow (fig. 3.4). The image is topped by the colloquial Lebanese expression “’Arrib ‘at.-t.ayyib,” which roughly translates to “Come get the yummy stuff !” The Kabbani brothers fi rst painted the graffito after Sukleen, a private garbage-collection company, stopped collecting the city’s trash in 2014 after civil-society activists and community members blocked the roads leading to the Nā‘meh landfi ll, a hazardous dump site infamous for its unsanitary conditions, unsustainability, and limited capacity. The halting of garbage collection by Sukleen left the city’s public garbage bins overflowing with trash. The Ratatouille graffito captured the dismal situation of Beirut’s fi lthy streets, which became a haven for rats and infestation, highlighting the disastrous outcome of the government’s inability to properly and promptly dispose of the trash and protect residents from hazardous conditions. The artists innovatively appropriated the idea of garbage, symbolically transforming that which is “dystopian, disagreeable, and malodorous” into witt y, eye-catching artwork.22 The image of the overjoyed rat hosting dinner parties and running amok in Beirut articulated the absurdity of the situation while also providing the city’s human residents with a well-designed, humorous artifact that directly spoke to their concerns. The graffito also established a connection between trashy streets and toxic politics—or disagreeable refuse and disgusting leaders. In other words, the graffito suggested that in the absence of government planning, unruly rats were now thriving in the streets, feeding on a surplus of rott ing food. The rats, rather than government authorities, were now in control. While certainly a product of its specific time and place (the garbage strikes in Beirut), the Ratatouille graffito also attests to the increased hybridization and dialogism of street art in Beirut and other networked cities. As Martin Irvine reminds us, contemporary street art is a “visual dub, extracting sources and styles from a cultural encyclopedia of images and message styles, editing out some transmitted features and reappropriating others, inserting the new mix into the visual multitrack platform of the city.”23 In Ashekman’s hands, Hollywood’s Remy is reterritorialized; plucked out

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Figure 3.4. Ashekman, “Come get the yummy stuff !,” Ratatouille stencil in Bourj al- Ghazal. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

of his Hollywood fi lm, the chef rat now inhabits the alleys of Beirut, speaks with a heavy Beiruti accent (not standard English), and references an escalating garbage problem in Lebanon. To borrow Deleuze and Guattari’s words, this hybridized graffito demonstrates that “minor languages are not simply sublanguages . . . but potential agents of the major language’s entering into a becoming-minoritarian of all its dimensions and elements.”24 In other words, English is no longer the dominant language in this graffito, as Lebanese dialect literally enters the picture and becomes Remy’s preferred mode of expression—pushing English out of the picture. Furthermore, Remy himself is transformed into an elusive figure who claims a blended heritage. He is both familiar and defamiliarized, an outsider-insider who hops from wall to wall, and ultimately one computer screen to another, manifesting the impurity and mixed lineage of culture(s) and artifacts. Ashekman’s garbage-centered graffito was somewhat prophetic, as it seemed to anticipate what would ultimately become a severe garbage crisis in the summer of 2015, as heaps of garbage accumulated across Beirut and the towns of Mount Lebanon after the Nā‘meh landfi ll was shut down again (as scheduled about a year in advance), and Sukleen’s contract ended

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with no alternative garbage-collection agreement in place. The Lebanese government had clearly failed yet again to provide a sustainable solution to a decades-old problem, but this time the consequences were unprecedented, as activists and other aggrieved citizens flooded the streets and demanded that all politicians step down, with no exception, under the slogan “Killun ya‘ni killun” (All of them means all of them). In the wake of the heavily attended protests—which were led by two major movements, Til‘it Rīhitkun (#YouStink) and Badnā Nh.āsib (#WeWantAccountability)—the Kabbani brothers reproduced the Ratatouille graffito all over the city and posted a picture of it on their Facebook page, annotated with the following caption: “With the trash flooding the streets, #EntrepreneurRats in #Beirut started opening #StreetFood franchise all over the city #ashekman #thestreetisours #stencil #trashtalk.”25 True to their word, the brothers stenciled more chef rats on the streets of Beirut, and the festive yet menacing rats could often be spotted on walls where the trash from public garbage bins overflowed onto the sidewalk. In the summer and fall of 2015, Downtown Beirut would be fi lled with graffiti and street art that emphasized the protestors’ cognizance of the inextricable link between ineffective waste management and toxic sectarianism. After all, the emergent social movements and protests might have been primarily triggered by the garbage crisis, but the grievances and demands of the people went far beyond the technicalities of waste management. Rather, people’s complaints registered governmental neglect, ongoing deterioration of living conditions (including power outages and water shortages), rising living costs, and the country’s political vacuum after the Lebanese Parliament repeatedly failed to elect a president when the term of the former president Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014. Marwan Kraidy notes that “the period between March 2014 and July 2015 can be understood as a protracted, slow motion beheading of the Lebanese body politic. In this logic, the garbage crisis exposed a decapitated, therefore aimless and rott ing, body politic—the nation as decomposing corpse.”26 In a related manner, Dina Kiwan emphasizes that activists and other aggrieved citizens treated the garbage crisis as something much larger, and much more frustrating and shameful, than an isolated incident of technical failure on the part of the government. Kiwan contrasts the “emotive” and “political” knowledge that informed the activists’ stances with the purely “practical” knowledge that informed the actions of the apolitical “waste management problem” task force formed by several American University of Beirut professors, which generally restricted itself to recommending practical waste-management interventions, thereby “avoiding engagement in the wider politics of the trash problem.”27 Kiwan explains that the task force’s

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neutral and “sanitizing” approach to interpreting and navigating the wastemanagement crisis was critiqued by many activists for whom “trash became an emotionally-laden metaphor for all that is rotten in the relationship between citizens and the state.”28 It is no surprise then that in the wake of antigovernment protests, the walls of Beirut’s Downtown, home to the Lebanese Parliament, upscale boutiques, and exclusive restaurants—the epitome of unfettered capitalism—would become overwritten with political and at times provocative and obscene graffiti. The usually spotless area that had been “severed from the rest of the city by iron fences guarded by armed soldiers,” and where the unspoken (and sometimes spoken) message was that “only people who look ‘appropriate’ are let in,”29 was transformed into a multitextured canvas of crude obscenities, revolutionary stencils, politically explicit murals, and dictates for a more just society. The graffiti and street art inspired by the garbage crisis—whether ugly or prett y, rushed or elaborate—reflected and catalyzed the transformation of Beirut’s Downtown from a sterilized, exclusive locale into an affective gathering space, bustling with numerous civilians performing what Kiwan refers to as “emotive acts of citizenship.”30 For many activists and disenfranchised citizens, allowing trash to accumulate on the streets (or forcing hapless residents to burn it in open dump sites), thereby spreading germs and exacerbating respiratory diseases and air pollution, represented the most recent iteration of the absence of care, ethics, and accountability on the part of the Lebanese government toward its own people. Crucially, as Ziad Abu-Rish persuasively argues, while the government might have been missing in action with regard to securing its citizens’ basic needs and fi nding solutions to an escalating publichealth problem, it was “on prominent display throughout the summer and fall of 2015 as it beat up, arrested, and ‘disappeared’ scores of unarmed civilians.”31 The government’s scandalous absence with regard to fi nding solutions, contrasted with its vigilant presence with regard to disciplining protestors, only propelled the demonstrations and graffiti making forward, infusing them with more intense affects, particularly as the government itself deployed emotive discourses of shaming, criminality, and immorality in order to stigmatize protestors and discourage them from participating in acts of civil disobedience.32 A group of graffiti inscriptions, taken together, demonstrates the construction of environmental justice, social justice, and economic justice “as parts of the same whole, not as dissonant competitors,” and depicts the mobilization of the body both literally and metaphorically.33 Scrawls such as “Mā h.adā asra‘ min al-cholera, #BadnaNh.āsib,” or “Nobody is faster than cholera, #WeWantAccountability” (fig. 3.5), highlight the health hazards of

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Figure 3.5. “Nobody is faster than cholera,” unsigned scrawl in Downtown

Beirut. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

accumulated garbage and unsustainable waste management by warning of a (human-made) health crisis for which the Lebanese government must be held accountable. By putt ing cholera at the center of the message, the graffiti makers mock the government for causing the return of a nineteenthcentury pandemic, thereby continuing to take the country backward. Other graffitied statements, such as the English-language insult “You stink but you don’t do shit” (fig. 3.6), call out politicians for their incompetence and undermine them by associating them with odor and bodily waste. An irreverent Arabic-language scrawl threatens, “Baddī shikh bi-nus. al-wasat. al-tijārī” (I want to pee in the middle of the commercial center), expressing its writer’s discontent and desire to publicly drench the high-end center of commerce with urine. An even bolder sentence sprayed in blue reads, “H.illū ‘an ayrnā” (Get off our penis), thereby placing the (sticky, fi lthy, parasitical) government at the site of the nation’s collective (male) body and demanding that it vacate the (genital) area. The graffitied phrase “T.us ikht aldawleh,” which loosely translates to “Spray the government’s sister,” invites other pedestrians to assault the usually spotless surfaces of Beirut’s Downtown by spraying them with graffiti. Crucially, the expression “t.us ikht” is a 128 / A W A R O F C O L O R S

Figure 3.6. “You stink but you don’t do shit,” unsigned scrawl in Downtown

Beirut. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

play on the common offensive expression “kis ikht,” which refers to dishonoring someone by penetrating his or her sister’s vagina. Here, spraying— not penetrating—becomes the primary means of defi ling the government. Female bodies, nonetheless, remain the symbolic batt leground over which this act of desecration by paint must occur. The body-centered jokes and insults invoked against government actors on graffitied walls are reminiscent of Bakhtin’s insights on “grotesque realism,” which aims to “degrade, bring down to earth, turn their subject into flesh,” and where collective laughter is “linked with the bodily lower stratum.”34 The graffiti fi lling Beirut’s Downtown at that time suggested that Lebanon’s leaders did not inspire reverence or respect. Rather, they became associated with bodily matter and fi lth. At the same time, as Bakhtin reminds us, “degradation digs a bodily grave for a new birth,” which is a productive regeneration of sorts. Here, the “new birth” perhaps takes the form of a burgeoning nonsectarian revolution that demands the emergence of a healthier, more just society. The unruly inscriptions, centered on disease, contamination, sexual assault, and bodily functions, reflect the ways in which Downtown Beirut, the center of politics, tourism, and banking, was

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reterritorialized by frustrated citizens who wished to show it—or “rebirth it,” to use Bakhtin’s words—in a way that was very different from its original formation. Simply put, the medium became the message in the summer of 2015. Danielle Endres and Samantha Senda-Cook argue that “(re)constructing the meaning of place, even in temporary ways, can be a tactical act of resistance” and that “place is a performer along with activists in making and unmaking the possibilities of protest. . . . The very place in which a protest occurs is a rhetorical performance that is part of the message of the movement.”35 In the case of Downtown Beirut, disgruntled residents who had long been excluded from the area (as well as the economy and the political process) decided that the glossy center of commerce must be transformed through graffiti making into a profane and unrecognizable site— before possibly resurrecting it as a viable city center for all. Aside from the obscenity-laden messages that targeted Lebanon’s political elites, some of the inscriptions appealed to fellow Lebanese residents, prodding them to rebel against the corrupt sectarian system that had long impoverished and suppressed them. Such revolution-centered graffiti often drew inspiration from the slogans and tropes employed in the Arab uprisings, thereby mobilizing recognizable and relatable cultural narratives that juxtapose lower-level and higher-level human needs such as food (bread), freedom, and dignity. For example, an Arabic-language message sprayed in red paint translates to “O you who are kneeling at the doorsteps of hunger, rebel, for bread does not come through kneeling!” A second message, sprayed in black paint, translates to “O you dead people, wake up, for the era of death has passed.” In the same vein, English-language scribbles include “When injustice becomes law, rebellion become[s] duty” and “Let’s put an end to the Mafia’s reign!” In all these messages, the audience is encouraged to take action, to resist complacency, and to fight for a dignified life. Written in Arabic, more succinct slogans include “Lan nard.a bi-l-dhil” (We will not accept humiliation), “Hurriya + thawra = karāma” (Freedom + revolution = dignity), “Al-sh‘ab arād al-h.ayāt” (The people have willed life),36 “Li-yasqut nidhām al-az‘ar” (May the thuggish system fall), and “Bitnaffas h.urriyyeh” (I breathe freedom). Together, the revolution- and environment-oriented slogans articulate the intersection of hunger, dignity, and freedom and document the people’s increasing urge to rise up en masse against the unjust suppression of both fresh air and the right to live in a just society where basic human necessities are available to all citizens. For many citizens across the Arab world, Charles Tripp has argued, “the attempt to win recognition for their dignity and thus their rights as citizens has been a central part of widespread resistance politics. . . . Th is in itself

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can help give a collective identity to a politics of resistance where no strong sense of cohesion existed before.”37 The unleashing of highly charged scrawls by protestors who wish to air their grievances, or even to deliberately “trash” the city center, may be contrasted with the use of street art as a means of reinvigorating neglected areas and making them more habitable for residents (as discussed in chapter 1, for example). In both scenarios, graffiti makers have found the government to be inadequate and have decided to take matters into their own hands and to transform the public space, for better or worse. In other words, while the predominately ornamental and commemorative murals were erected during relatively peaceful times in areas that the artists felt could benefit from some love and care, the rushed scrawls of summer 2015 emerged during a moment of national crisis that culminated in contentious protests in a very affluent and contested area—Beirut’s city center. The Downtown graffiti inscriptions of summer 2015, particularly the improvised inscriptions, were unsurprisingly hostile, scathing, and obscene. For some residents, the pristine city center perhaps needed to receive its share of figurative beatings and contamination before potentially being recuperated and transformed into a more inclusive public space. Here, graffiti offered a means of articulating the pain and grievances of citizens who were feeling increasingly disillusioned with their political leaders and who had perhaps suffered even more state-sponsored violence and stigmatization for being at the forefront of the garbage protests or for simply belonging to the working class. The 2015 graffiti messages represented a different kind of spatial intervention—in other words, by virtue of their sociopolitical circumstances and location. It is important to note that some activists preached civility and restraint and that not all protestors participated in producing hostile graffiti. Some felt that they should avoid giving the government an excuse to use force, while others felt that it was important to avoid any kind of violence on a matter of principle. It is impossible to determine with any certainty which individuals or collectives were behind the anonymous crude scrawls, but the anonymity and crudeness of these scribbles do not make them less deserving of critical examination. Rather, if we truly recognize the importance of understanding politics and cultural production from the ground up, instead of limiting our study to more formal and deliberate iterations of political dissidence, then we need to take these inscriptions seriously and treat them as an alternative “knowledge form,” to use Kiwan’s term.38 In fact, in the absence of government control and specific authorship, hurried scrawls provide an important insight into some people’s rawest and perhaps most ungovernable emotions. In the summer and fall of 2015,

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angry graffiti served as a vehicle for venting the frustrations and pain of enraged humans who might have determined, consciously or unconsciously, that the time for civility had passed, perhaps epitomizing a moment of the subaltern speaking loudly and clearly and daring (real and imagined) audiences to do a better job of listening.

Leveraging the Wall of Shame Aside from the randomly scattered emotive and body-centered inscriptions, the city center witnessed the swift production of a collaborative, antigovernment mural that would become known in Lebanon and abroad as the Beirut Wall (after the Berlin Wall) and alternatively as Jidār al-‘Ār, or the Wall of Shame. The Wall of Shame was born after the government erected a massive concrete barrier around the Grand Serail, in an attempt to block antigovernment protestors from reaching the headquarters of the prime minister and other political establishments on August 24, 2015. The government’s action demonstrated its strategic use of the wall as a “boundary-creating object,” designed to determine the “distribution of inter-visibilities, defi ne flows of circulation, set paths and trajectories for people, and consequently, determine the possibilities and impossibilities of encounter.”39 Fearing further encroachment by the protesting bodies in the square, the government hustled to stop the protestors’ movements and literally draw boundaries between political elites and average civilians. Sami Baroudi, a professor of political science at the Lebanese American University, noted that the government “was surprised at the intensity of the demonstrations—everyone was taken aback. . . . They underestimated the extent of popular protest.”40 Similarly, the political science scholar Imad Salamey stated that “the political elite is nervous. . . . The movement is bringing in more of the mass population, and is anti-elitist and anti-sectarian in its nature.”41 Given the momentum of the garbage protests, it is no surprise that the government’s strategic use of the wall was quickly challenged by the protestors’ tactical use of it. Within an hour of the government erecting the wall, activists, artists, and other residents transformed the dull slabs of concrete into a colorful canvas that featured impromptu artistic paintings, sarcastic stencils, and multilingual obscenities. Experiencing anger, frustration, and jouissance, some of the protestors usurped the smooth, empty slabs of concrete, highlighting the government’s oppressive measures but also its misguided step, which unwitt ingly provided them with the tools necessary to reclaim physical space, public attention, and airtime. As one scribbler inscribed, “Shukran ‘ala hadhih al-

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fush.a lil-ta‘bīr” (Thank you for this space for expression). The concrete wall was transformed from a barrier to a wide-open canvas that offered numerous possibilities for the articulation of people’s thoughts, feelings, demands, and solidarities. The graffiti artist who goes by the name Exist stated, “It was an obvious sign [that the government] is scared of this connection between people, regardless of their political party. . . . Writing on the wall is symbolic. It shows we don’t care if they put up more blocks, such as using politics, we will continue connecting with each other.”42 For Exist, the act of collectively writing on the Wall of Shame allowed the graffiti makers and protestors to connect with and support one another against a common opponent, the Lebanese government. The master’s tools were now being used to shame the master and to expose the tenuousness of the government’s control over the masses, the public space, and the framing of the protests— while further solidifying the bonds among the protestors and creating an affective environment in which irreverent protestors felt empowered by the presence of other participants. In his discussion of the territorial dimension of graffiti, Andrea Mubi Brighenti notes, The wall is an object that calls into play the interweaving of space and social relations. Walls, like other territories, are material and immaterial. They manage space, command attention, and defi ne mobility fluxes that impose conduct, but they are also constantly challenged because of the meaning they assume. They can be reassuring as well as oppressive, they can be irritating as well as inspiring.43 Following Brighenti’s idea, the makeshift separation barrier might have prevented the disgruntled protestors from gett ing too close to the Parliament, thereby generating anger and disappointment among the activists, but the people regained some agency by repurposing the very walls designed to irritate and subdue them. The makeshift canvas inspired protestors to spray multilingual antigovernment scribbles and slogans, including, “The monsters behind the wall,” “Mukāfah.at al-sha‘b” (The struggle of the people), and “Liyasqut. alnidhām” (May the system fall). One witt y scribble said, “H.ayt.kun wāt.i,” echoing a famous Lebanese saying that literally means “Your wall is low” and is often used offensively to accuse someone of having loose morals or questionable ethics. Another graffito, drawing a comparison between the separation barrier in the square and the apartheid wall in Israel/Palestine, stated, “Hunā Beirut, wa ‘udhran hunā Falast.in. Al-jidār al-‘āzil” (Here’s Beirut, and excuse me, here’s Palestine. It’s the separation wall). The jokes scribbled on the wall were supplemented by banners that res-

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idents held at the site, in addition to jokes that circulated online via Twitter and other social media platforms. In one example, a PBS NewsHour article covering the incident at the time included a picture of an elderly man sitt ing on the sidewalk in front of the Wall of Shame, right under the graffiti that referenced the apartheid wall. The man held a poster with an Arabiclanguage message that read, “I swear to God, I thought I was at the border with Israel.”44 A social media user made a different comparison by tweeting, “We have our very own Berlin Wall now,” while another observer tweeted a picture of the concrete-slab wall alongside the caption “So much for awareness of symbolism, state erects wall almost exactly where divide between West and East Beirut was,” comparing the barrier to the civil war Green Line that had separated the Christian and Muslim parts of the city. The ongoing dialogic exchanges among protestors and spectators about the separation barrier, the “stinky” government, and the nation’s toxic sectarianism illustrate Diane Riskedahl’s insights on how politically oriented graffiti and banners often function like “a sacred joke that binds through laughter” and how signs can help build “an affi liative bond for those who partake in them.”45 As these examples show, in the summer of 2015, graffiti and street artists facilitated the process of place making and contributed to binding protestors (and sometimes spectators abroad) through politically oriented artifacts that sought to mock and undermine the government while validating the people’s anger and demands for change and giving them the opportunity—and space—to laugh and vent together. Of course, exchanging images and interpretations of the locally produced walls also meant wider circulation. As Lina Khatib reminds us, “The remediation of street art aids both processes: It allows this art form to send its messages to a wider public while also addressing the local one, and it in turn extends the scope of semiotic aggregates, as remediation is itself based on the virtual presence of images that become part of people’s networks of meaning.”46 The far-traveling images served to keep people engaged and connected internally and externally, and locally and globally. The barrier’s more elaborate and controversial interventions included the murals of Philippe Farhat, a Beiruti artist who painted images of people with their mouths taped shut, with the names of various political parties or coalitions written on the tape (e.g., Hizballah, March 14, March 8, al-Marada, and the Lebanese Forces). “After they erected this wall, I had the idea to go and draw these figures to say that the Lebanese government is preventing its people from speaking, because there are many political parties in Lebanon who restrain citizens from expressing their will,” Farhat told the International Business Times. “So, my message is that, in Lebanon, people are oppressed. They are not allowed to speak or to express their

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ideas.”47 By including the names of prominent political groups and incriminating them all, Farhat sought to challenge the sectarian system that he believed had rendered many Lebanese complacent. The protestors’ irreverent transformation of the separation barrier into a local-yet-global, fi xed-yet-mobile artifact of public mockery demonstrates “a clever utilization of time, of the opportunities it present[ed] and also of the play that it introduce[d] into the foundations of power.”48 The fact that the impromptu mural was effective in reterritorializing Downtown, rallying residents and posing a threat to the Lebanese government’s public image, became evident when the government rushed to dismantle it within twenty-four hours. As M. Lane Bruner reminds us in his study of carnivalesque protests, “Corrupt governments, populated by people wanting to use political power to maintain their unjust advantages, have a very limited sense of humor and stifle public critique to maintain their status.”49 The erection and dismantling of the Wall of Shame proved to be a public spectacle, broadcast on local and global media and circulated in newspapers and on computer screens. The world witnessed the actions of a humiliating and humiliated Lebanese government that had lost its control, as well as its sense of humor, at least temporarily. The planned and unplanned, generous and hostile encounters among numerous human bodies (protestors, police officers, politicians), inanimate objects (graffitied walls, police vehicles, tear gas, rubber bullets, posters, flags), and digital texts (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook) resulted in a carnivalesque atmosphere where emotions—positive and negative—ran high. Protestors mocked and raged against the government, screamed, and danced in the streets; police officers disciplined protestors and protected politicians and their headquarters; and journalists (including civilian observers and bloggers) documented and circulated the dramatic events to worldwide audiences. Like other actions at the protests, the graffiti making that took place in the square, which ridiculed the government and emboldened protestors, can be characterized as both rational and emotional, pragmatic and utopian, planned and improvised, and desperate and hopeful. Crucially, the highly emotive graffiti and street art and other carnivalesque tactics that emerged on the square—including a makeshift market that mimicked the old souk of prewar Beirut50—remind us that “not all meaningful political and creative activities undertaken by social movements are driven by clear processes of rationalization and strategic planning. But neither does this imply that they are irrational acts borne of collective neurosis.”51 Here, thoughts, emotions, and practices intermingled. Importantly, by coming together to protest, chant, spray obscenities, and create socially engaged public art, and by turning Downtown into a vivacious place, the

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graffiti makers and other participants converted the Central District from a sterile, “thinned-out” site that had lost its “habitudinal density” in the reconstruction process to a “thick” place, characterized by a robust visual culture and affective engagement.52

Sounding Sarcasm beyond Downtown Beirut Downtown Beirut might have been the epicenter of the garbage-related demonstrations and visual interventions in 2015 and 2016, but it was not the only place featuring emotive and sarcastic graffiti inspired by environmental and toxic politics. Ali Rafei created a graffiti piece in Hamra that parodied what he considered a hypocritical security-centered discourse propagated by law enforcement units during the protests. Rafei explained to me that after witnessing the violence that the Lebanese darak (internal security forces) infl icted on the garbage protestors—as the forces were shadowing protestors and carrying banners that read “Minkum lakum lih.imayatikum” (Of you, for you, for your protection)—he created a graffito that exposed the discrepancy between what the internal security apparatus was claiming and what its members were actually doing. To that end, Rafei stenciled the image of a police officer raising his baton, preparing to strike a shirtless man who lay motionless on the ground. Rafei captioned the image “Minkun, lakum, ‘alaykum” (Of you, for you, against you), thereby parodying the security forces’ aforementioned slogan about (allegedly) protecting people’s safety. Unsurprisingly, the stencil of the violent policeman beating a helpless and immobilized civilian disappeared shortly after it appeared on Jeanne D’Arc Street—just like Rafei’s “I [heart] corruption” graffito before it. Rafei’s dark humor might have been lost on the government, but it was not lost on graffiti fans and journalists, who continued to circulate the graffito online. In her discussion of the government’s removal of political street art in Bolivia, Eva Holly Ryan argues that “the impulsion and fervor with which authoritarian regimes seek to suppress oppositional street art and immobilise those who create it are testament to the very power of the medium.”53 In the context of the Middle East, Charles Tripp has similarly argued that the “formidable apparatus of censorship” is often a testament to “the care that government takes of its own image and its perennial anxiety about the fragility of that image and its vulnerability to gifted and determined resistance.”54 Signed by the #YouStink movement, a series of interrelated stencils also appeared outside Beirut’s city center during and in the aftermath of

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the demonstrations, in areas including Achrafiyeh and Hamra. The politically themed stencils incorporate and repurpose popular Lebanese proverbs to prod the Lebanese people to take action and rise up against the corrupt sectarian system, while also providing comic relief and new channels of communication and solidarity on the walls. One of the stencils reads, “Al-sākit ‘an al-h.aq shayt.ān ’akhras,” which loosely translates to “He/she who remains silent against injustice is a mute devil.” Leveraging a familiar saying that is centered on morality and principles of good and evil, the stencil warns passersby that by ignoring government injustice and keeping one’s mouth shut, one becomes an immoral accomplice akin to Satan. Another graffito jokes, “Wat.an bi-l-’īd walā ‘ashr zu‘amā ‘al-kursī” (A homeland in hand is better than ten leaders in their chairs), thereby repurposing the saying “One bird in hand is better than ten in a tree.” The stencil suggests that it is better to let go of the political leaders en masse in favor of reclaiming one stable Lebanon. A third stencil revises a famous Lebanese saying, “Al-bāb illi bi-yijīk minnu-l-rīh., siddū w-istarīh.” (Shut/amend the door that brings in the wind so you can rest), into “Al-nidhām illi bi-yijīk minnu-l-rīh., s.alhū w-istarīh.” (Reform the system that brings you a storm so you can rest). That the antigovernment stencils were written in Arabic demonstrates that the primary audience of these campaigns are Lebanese residents. Khalid Kishtainy reminds us that “most Arab jokes and humorous anecdotes build upon the language, relying on word play, which make them difficult to translate and to be appreciated by non-Arabic speakers.”55 The stencils’ engagement with proverbs and other cultural narratives further demonstrates the writers’ attempts to appeal to an imagined community of fellow Lebanese who are familiar with the proverbs and for whom cultural dictates about speaking up against injustice, pursuing peace of mind through putting an end to dysfunctional mechanisms, and seeking realistic goals would likely resonate. In sum, these stencils work from within the fabric of Lebanese society. Importantly, the activists privilege local Lebanese parlance over formal Arabic, ensuring that their messages are accessible and appeal to people across social classes.

Promoting Environmental Awareness and Forward-Looking Solutions In addition to leveraging graffiti and street art as a means of demanding equal access to open spaces and protesting toxic sectarianism, graffiti makers have used stencils and street art to offer forward-looking solutions, in-

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cluding demanding the building of parks instead of highways, the enhancement of public transportation, and the facilitation of soft mobility (active or human-powered mobility). Among the environment-centered graffiti is an artistic stencil that offers a succinct but scathing critique of excessive development and the deforestation resulting from uncontrollable urban expansion in postwar Beirut. The stencil features a man swinging an axe at a cedar tree (fig. 3.7). The lumberjack stands between a group of colorful cars and the tree itself. The statement “One tree left and the highway’s on” is stenciled in capital letters on the right and left sides of the image. The sarcastic graffito articulates the frustrations of individuals and civic groups that are opposed to the development projects annihilating Beirut’s green spaces. It also highlights the fact that Beirut’s natural resources are on their way to extinction: we are down to the last tree. Here, rather than being an emblem of longevity, the aboutto-be-felled cedar tree prophesizes the demise of Lebanon as symbolized by the tree, which occupies the center of the Lebanese flag and serves as a metonym of the nation. The stencil suggests that Lubnān al-Akhd.ar (Green Lebanon) will cease to exist once the highway replacing the forest is completed, making room for the forward movement of the droves of colorful cars. The stencil’s reference to a treeless, environmentally devastated Lebanon is not an exaggeration. Lebanon loses about 1,500 to 2,000 hectares of forest annually as a result of development, logging, and wildfi res,56 and so the stencil serves to visualize an ongoing environmental crisis, inviting residents to pause and consider the dire consequences of development on the natural world and the sustainability of the Lebanese nation itself. While the highway-versus-tree stencil laments the overall privileging of highways over green spaces, other more politically oriented stencils have decried specific construction projects and urged civilians to protest the government’s and the private sector’s annihilation of their neighborhoods and spaces of leisure. As an example, the Arabic-language stencil “Lā li autostrad Fouad Boutros, na‘am li muntazah Fouad Boutros” (No to a Fouad Boutros highway, yes to a Fouad Boutros park) appeared in several neighborhoods in Beirut in 2014. The Fouad Boutros highway construction project was promoted as a solution to the dense traffic in heavily populated Achrafiyeh; however, environmental experts and activists, many of whom were affi liated with Nahnoo, argued that the implementation of the project would actually escalate traffic problems. Crucially, they estimated that the highway would cause the demolition of approximately thirty buildings, some of which had high heritage value, in addition to increasing air and noise pollution, causing serious health hazards for residents. Furthermore, activists and professionals highlighted the detrimental effects of the

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Figure 3.7. “One tree left and the highway’s on,” unsigned stencil in Hikmeh.

Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

highway on the environment itself. They contended that building the highway would significantly diminish the remaining greenery and biodiversity of the area since it would require the uprooting of about one hundred trees and the destruction of approximately ten thousand square meters of green space.57 Concerned citizens swift ly mobilized and formed the Civil Coalition against Fouad Boutros Highway, a group of residents, activists, academics, lawyers, and environment experts that organized protests in March 2014. Protestors held multilingual banners condemning the plan, with some calling the project “dhū t.ābi‘ ijrāmī” (of a criminal nature) and others demanding that the government leave them “shī sha’fī” (some small piece) of the green space that remains.58 Given this context, the somber anti highway stencil aimed to serve multiple purposes, including alarming the area’s residents about the planned highway, proposing a park as an alternative solution regarding the (mis)use of public space (and public funds), and sending a warning to the municipality that some citizens opposed and would expose its land expropriation plans. By employing graffiti and other visual symbols and taking to the streets,

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the antihighway activists called attention to the “structures and topographies of power through their own appropriation of spaces and material” and fostered “a transformation of existing visual patterns and cues, through which new ideas, actors, and actions can be made visible.”59 Indeed, new nongovernment actors and underexplored ideas emerged during this crisis, as people met, interacted, and learned more about the project. The coalition members made it clear that they wanted the designated area to be converted into a park where people could gather during their holidays and vacations—not a highway that would destroy their ears, lungs, and already diminished green space. The graffiti protesting the Fouad Boutros highway, then, both testified to and facilitated the on-the-ground efforts of civic groups and residents who organized campaigns against building a superfluous highway. According to Mohammad Ayoub, the director of Nahnoo, the mobilization was successful because protestors demanded that an environmental impact assessment be conducted before the government implemented the project. The results of the assessment opposed the implementation of the highway project, and the project was suspended, though not canceled altogether.60 Some of the partnering organizations, including Beirut Madinati, even capitalized on the Fouad Boutros highway dispute, using it as a teaching moment as they urged the government to shift its focus, or its problem-solving process, from building more highways to supporting shared transportation and soft modes of mobility as a means of combating traffic all over Lebanon, not just in Achrafiyeh.61 The push for more environmentally and resident-friendly solutions to Beirut’s chronic traffic problems has been depicted in several stencils, including an Arabic-language one that reads, “There is no solution to Beirut’s traffic congestion crisis except for shared transportation. Understood, O municipality?” (fig. 3.8).62 The stencil includes the Facebook and Twitter addresses of the nongovernmental organization Coalition for Public Spaces and Urban Mobility, which demonstrates the collective’s deliberate efforts to identify themselves and provide contact information for residents who may be interested in joining the movement. The stenciled message echoes the recommendations of experts, including Ziad Nakat, a senior transport specialist with the World Bank, who emphasized that “what we need to do is improve public transport. There is no city in the world that tackles congestion by building just roads and bridges. . . . The solution is by introducing reliable public transport, making parking space more expensive so that people would use their private cars only when needed.”63 The tone of the stencil may be described as didactic and sarcastic at the same time. It is didactic in its strong assertion that the only long-term solution to Beirut’s traffic crisis is investing in revitalizing public transportation, which would ideally result

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Figure 3.8. Civil Coalition of Public Spaces and Urban Mobility and Nahnoo, stencil in Mar Mikhael. The Arabic script reads, “There is no solution to Beirut’s traffic congestion crisis except for shared transportation. Understood, O municipality?” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

in having less cars on the streets and in decreasing Beirut’s noise and air pollution. On the other hand, the sarcasm of the stencil is directed at the municipality, the primary addressee of the message. The term “mafhūm” (understood?) would resonate with many Lebanese residents who have heard this term or one of its variations, such as “Shū fh imnā?” (So, what did we understand?), from frustrated Lebanese teachers trying to communicate important information, sometimes with a necessary dosage of tough love (or condescension), to students who do not seem to get it. In using a highly recognizable expression and manner of speaking, the coalition emphatically instructs and publicly mocks the municipality, urging it to stop committ ing the same mistakes (e.g., building more highways or changing the direction of traffic) and start investing in a public transportation system that will motivate people to drive less. While some civil-society activists have focused on publicly shaming the government and urging it to develop more sustainable urban mobility plans, others have leveraged their street art as a means of educating both local authorities and average residents and encouraging them to

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change their perceptions and behaviors with regard to mobility and public space. Such collectives include the nonprofit organization the Chain Effect, whose stated mission is to “promote the bicycle as a sustainable and convenient form of urban mobility, and facilitate its use in Beirut through street art, public interventions, community projects and holistic city planning.”64 The collective largely comprises street artists dedicated to enhancing environmental awareness and public health through engendering a cycling culture. The members’ tool kit mainly includes street art, workshops, talks, campaigns, social activities, community-based interventions, exhibitions, and advocacy work. The collective’s bilingual website features information about biking-centered and mural-painting events; resources for buying, renting, or donating bicycles; and opportunities for community engagement. According to Zeina Hawa, one of the founding members of the collective, while there has been recent growth in the number of people using bicycles for fitness and recreation, those who use bicycles for actual transportation remain a minority in the capital city (and the country in general). For Hawa, this is largely due to the common perception that cycling is dangerous. She has argued that contrary to popular belief, Beirut’s narrow streets and low traffic speeds mean that “cars don’t pose as large a threat to people on bikes.”65 The group seeks to encourage residents to change their perceptions about cycling and to consider the negative impacts of frequent driving on their physical and mental health, workplace efficiency, and time management, as well as the environment around them. For Hawa and her Chain Effect cofounders, street art and environmental activism make perfect bedfellows in a city like Beirut. She remarks that public art in itself is already such a powerful way to reach people because it is highly visible, very interactive and targets everyone, regardless of economic class, education levels or accessibility. . . . It made so much sense to use public art to create a stir about bicycling and sustainable mobility because it is highly situational—the activity of gett ing from place to place happens in a city’s streets— and it really pushes people to think about transportation patterns and habits while they are in the process of moving around.66 Hawa’s rationale about targeting and engaging urban drivers in a conversation about alternative transportation at the right time and place explains why the fi rst step the collective took was to paint colorful murals all over Beirut, gently prodding residents to try biking. The cycling-centered murals and stencils are vibrant, bilingual, and playful, and they are often placed in heavily congested areas, which means that drivers are confronted with mes-

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Figure 3.9. The Chain Effect, stencil in the Ain al-Mreisseh area. The script

reads, “If you were on a bike, you would have gotten home a long time ago.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

sages about replacing their cars with bicycles as they are reeling with anger and frustration from Beirut’s soul-crushing traffic jams. One mural, which exists in both Arabic and English, features small stenciled bikes in different colors, along with the (taunting) expression “Law kint ‘al bicyclette, kint ws.ult ‘al bayt min zamān,” or “If you were on a bike, you would have gotten home a long time ago” (fig. 3.9). A second mural also features stenciled bicycles and includes a message in both Arabic and English: “Ih.ruq dhānātak, mish benzinātak / Burn your fat, not your fuel” (fig. 3.10), highlighting the health, economic, and environmental advantages of riding a bicycle. A third Arabic-language mural gently pleads with residents to “do a good deed and ride a bike,” appealing to people’s emotions and sense of altruism. The same piece also includes the stenciled words “‘ajqa” (traffic), “saffeh” (parking spot), and “mas.rūf ” (expense), succinctly reminding people of the woes associated with driving in the city. The message is simple and suggests that by leaving the car at home and riding a bicycle, residents will be doing themselves and the environment a favor. Together, the bicycle-centered texts and images affectionately tease drivers about the costs of driving for both driver and the environment,

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Figure 3.10. The Chain Effect, mural on Spears Street. The script reads, “Burn

your fat, not your fuel.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

gently luring them into considering the bicycle as an alternative means of transportation. Like good advertising, the murals rely on good timing and placement. They effectively seek to harness people’s collective (generally negative) affects, particularly during rush-hour times, when Beirut drivers may sit in their cars for hours, to remind them that the car-centered status quo is not working. Since the launching of the initiative in 2014, the “bicycle walls” have become very familiar to and popular among residents. Some drivers snapped pictures of the walls while they were stuck in traffic and posted them on social media, which attests to the visibility and interactive dimension of the conversational murals. The movement’s founders have been joined in their mission by dedicated volunteers who would also like to see a more expansive cultural shift regarding transportation and the environment. One of the mural-painting projects included forty-five schoolchildren and scouts, which means that children are being socialized into thinking about space and mobility in a socially responsible manner from an early age.67 In a society where middleand upper-class households pride themselves on having more than one car and avoiding local taxis or buses (which are generally perceived as dirty, ple-

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bian, and inefficient), such interventions have the potential to be transformative. Using a bicycle for transportation is constructed as a good deed that promotes good health and good citizenship—one that should not be looked down upon or feared. In sum, through collaborative graffiti- and placemaking activities, children are made aware of alternative modes of transportation as well as alternative ways of seeing and being in the world. Children also become active participants in painting bicycle walls and thereby potentially replacing divisive political slogans with street art that promotes the environment as well as public well-being. In doing so, children too become actors in the transformation of the cityscape and the construction of an active (or proactive) type of citizenship—one centered on caring for the environment and the street. In other words, the environment is constructed as a “field of social practice in which people may formulate ideas about the roles and responsibilities of citizens and members of ‘the community.’”68 Hawa is not shy about the motivations and visions of her team, which extend to influencing local authorities in addition to average urban dwellers. She says, “In Beirut we hope to see a shift away from car-centered planning and development. . . . We’d like to see a greater awareness among local authorities that building more roads for cars is outdated and a dead end, that we need to think about streets for everyone, all different types of users, and streets that invite people to enjoy their city.”69 Hawa’s words reiterate that the cycling-centered initiative is not just about the environment for the environment’s sake but rather also about transforming the streets into healthy, enjoyable, and accessible spaces for people to enjoy. Hawa’s vision complements the vision of other street artists, such as Yazan Halwani and Ashekman, who seek to make public spaces more habitable through public art while also encouraging people to take ownership by maintaining the street and treating it as a communal space to enjoy, rather than a mere thoroughfare or a tabula rasa for political posters. One prominent mural on Bliss Street features a young woman riding a bicycle, her hair flying in the wind, alongside a rhyming phrase that reads, “Sou’ bicyclette w-khalli al-sayyārah bil-bayt,” or “Ride a bike, and leave the car at home” (fig. 3.11). That the cyclist in the image is a woman renders the proposition (and the inscribed wall itself) even more revolutionary and gendered, since some people believe that cycling in public spaces is not appropriate for young women. In the same vein, smaller stencils of girls on bikes have appeared all over the city’s walls, as if normalizing female cycling through visual bombardment. Although generally speaking Lebanon is not as socially conservative as other countries in the region of Southwest Asia and North Africa, and while there are no laws that prohibit women from

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Figure 3.11. The Chain Effect, mural on Bliss Street. The Arabic script reads,

“Ride a bike, and leave the car at home.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

cycling, some people do have concerns that cycling may expose women to social stigmatization, sexual harassment, and injury, among other risks.70 In some traditional Lebanese families, girls and young women are warned against riding bikes in public so they do not risk being labeled “hasan s.abī” (tomboy), “faltāneh” (loose), or even “fājra” (indecent).71 The persistence of prohibitive att itudes about female cycling, the lack of proper infrastructural systems for cycling, and the prevalence of sexual harassment on the street do increase the barriers for women’s entry into the world of urban cycling. Against such enduring narratives, the stencils of girls and women riding bikes invite residents to dare to imagine otherwise. In her study of street art in Latin America, Ryan argues that “painting too can disrupt and reconfigure public spaces, playing with the urban aesthetic to probe at existing boundaries and construct ‘anti-environments’ through which new possibilities of thought and action might be revealed.”72 Following Ryan, if the murals commemorating Sabah dare us to conjure up an “anti-environment” where transgressive singers, not politicians, are constructed as heroes, then the stencils of women riding bikes dare us to imag-

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M3alim and EpS, “A war of colors,” mural in the Corniche El-Nahr / Peugot area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Phat2, mural in the Salloumi area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

ACK crew, mural in Achrafiyeh. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Ashekman, mural in Mar Mikhael featuring the crew’s name in Arabic. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Yazan Halwani, mural in the Mathaf (Green Line) area featuring the protagonists Tarek and May from the fi lm West Beirut. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Ashekman, “Wanted,” Bomberman mural in al-Barrad al-Younani area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Ashekman, mural of Grendizer in the Verdun area. The Arabic caption reads, “A people who have Grendizer will never die.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Karim Tamerji and Said Fouad Mahmoud, “Where’s the evolution?,” mural in the Verdun area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Yazan Halwani, mural of Fairouz in Gemmayzeh. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Yazan Halwani, mural close to Sodeco Square depicting Gibran Khalil Gibran on a 100,000 lira bill. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Yazan Halwani, mural of Ali Abdallah in Concorde / Hamra. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Ashekman, mural commemorating the musician Wadih El Safi in the Tabaris area. The Arabic caption reads, “Pure gold” and “Safi is gone.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Ashekman, “To be free or not to be,” original mural in the Mar Mitr area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Ashekman, “To be free or not to be,” repainted mural featuring Kermit the Frog in the Mar Mitr area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Unsigned stencil in Hamra that translates to “I am queer.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Ashekman, mural of Sabah in Achrafiyeh. The Arabic caption reads, “I want to live to one hundred, so they can call me al-S.abbūh.a.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Yazan Halwani, mural of Sabah in Hamra. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Unsigned blue bra stencil in the Ain et-Titneh area. The Arabic caption reads, “Against the regime.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Unsigned stencil on Clemenceau Street. The Arabic text reads, “My vagina is not a swear word.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

“Stop homophobia,” unsigned stencil in the Bourj al-Ghazal area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

“You stink but you don’t do shit,” unsigned scrawl in Downtown Beirut. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Mjay, mural in Downtown Beirut featuring a graffiti maker spraying the word “thawra” (revolution). Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

EpS, Exist, and Sp*z, “hope,” mural in Downtown Beirut. Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

Meuh, “hope,” mural in Downtown Beirut. Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

“Respect to our army,” unsigned mural in Downtown Beirut. The Arabic scrawls translate to “Geagea is a Zionist” and “We have not forgotten Sabra and Shatila.” Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

Signature illegible, mural featuring the mug shots of Lebanon’s major political leaders in Downtown Beirut. Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

Sumer Ziady of the Art of Change, mural in Downtown Beirut. The Arabic text reads, “Revolution” and “Oh, freedom.” Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

Unsigned stencil in Hamra. The Arabic text that originally read, “Syria: The revolution continues,” now reads, “Assad’s Syria continues.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Unsigned scrawl in Hamra. The Arabic text that originally read, “Syria is free,” now reads, “Long live Syria.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Unsigned graffitied message in the Mathaf (Green Line) area. The Arabic text that initially read, “To every despicable Syrian, leave,” now reads, “To every despicable racist, leave.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

“Western Armenia Eastern Turkey,” unsigned stencil on Bliss Street (the same stencil also appears frequently on Armenia Street). Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

“Before I die I want Lebanon to,” collaborative wall in the Fouad Chehab Bridge area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

ine a city where women cycle freely—unhindered by traffic or the fear of social stigma or gendered violence. In other words, like most graffiti and street art in Beirut today, environmental graffiti is as much about place making and spatial transformation as it is about interrogating the possibilities and challenges of forging an alternative social order and body politics. It is worth noting that in November 2020, a couple from Tripoli celebrated their marriage by hosting a bicycle wedding, where they and their guests, who came from across the country, rode bikes in the streets and performed traditional wedding celebration rituals, including the zalghūta (ululations), barmit al-‘arūs (bride’s tour), and zaffeh (wedding march). Friends rang their bicycle bells instead of honking in their cars as they cheered on the young couple.73 That a bicycle wedding took place in one of Lebanon’s most conservative cities, and that it involved a bride who wears a headscarf, goes to show that change may not be so far-fetched when it comes to forging bike-friendlier streets and cultural values.

Conclusion In his discussion of environmental politics and social justice, Rob Nixon invites us to reframe and expand our conceptualization of violence. He urges us to take into account environmental crimes, which have often taken place surreptitiously and gradually, instead of limiting our attention to more immediate and discernable crimes. For Nixon, violence is customarily conceived as an event or action that is immediate in time, explosive and spectacular in space, and as erupting into instant sensational visibility. We need, I believe, to engage a different kind of violence, a violence that is neither spectacular nor instantaneous, but rather incremental and accretive, its calamitous repercussions playing out across a range of temporal scales.74 Engaging with this broader conceptualization of violence, the graffitied walls that center an environmental message reveal a Lebanese public that is recognizing and articulating, through text and image, that national (in)security goes beyond the threat of bullets and grenades to include issues of environmental justice. Graffiti makers, including environmental activists, have taken to the streets to warn residents about the destructive impact of “incremental and accretive” violence caused by unregulated urban sprawl, the appropriation of public spaces by political and private-sector elites, and unsustainable waste management—which reflect the government’s incom-

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petence in taking care of its citizens. Graffiti makers are pointing out that such slow violence can be devastating to people who have already suffered their share of spectacular violence, even though they may not automatically associate deforestation, privatization of public space, buildup of hazardous trash, and other acts of environmental degradation with “real” violence as they once knew it. Lebanon’s environmental crises cannot be extricated from the corrupt sectarian system that continues to wreak havoc on the lives and livelihoods of residents. By seeking to engage pedestrians through provocative and humorous texts and images that reference environmental devastation and the need to take action, graffiti makers utilize political humor as a “handy, cheap, and nonviolent means of information and communication.”75 Furthermore, when combined with other spatial practices during turbulent times, graffiti making can be “highly mobile and mobilizing.”76 As I continue to stress, however, satirical and politically themed graffiti and street art represent a small but important chapter in a larger narrative of Lebanese civic engagement, antigovernment dissent, and pursuit of justice. The leveraging of environmentally oriented graffiti that highlights toxic sectarianism may certainly engender more possibilities for self-expression and participatory politics, but such tactics must be complemented by an “arsenal of contestation strategies,”77 including demonstrations, sit-ins, protest camps, socialawareness campaigns, petitions, and legal-based initiatives—all of which have become more widespread in Lebanon in the past decade. The garbage protests have demonstrated the ways in which graffiti making may erupt in response to on-the-ground government suppression and police brutality and as a way of channeling deeply felt collective affects, including anger, frustration, and exhilaration. Crucially, feeling angered and challenged by the separation wall in Downtown Beirut, for example, protestors took spray cans to walls, transforming the gray barrier into an emotionally laden Wall of Shame. The protestors’ act of resorting to graffiti making at the moment the barrier was erected reiterates the intersection of affect, embodiment, place, and resistance art—feelings and actions. As Cameron Duff reminds us, affect “describes both the distinctive set of feeling states realizable within a particular place as well as the store of action-potential, of expressions, capacities, and practices experienced in that space.”78 Every protest and political graffiti-making event has attested to the residents’ articulation of the “will to live,” to echo both the aforementioned graffito (“The people have willed life”) and the words of the poet Abū alQāsim al-Shābbī that inspired it; however, they have also painfully demonstrated the Lebanese government’s stubborn refusal to step down, to make

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serious reforms, or to allow its people to “breathe freedom,” as one of the anonymous stencils asserts. The next chapter will take us to the most recent thawra (revolution) of 2019—an even more heart-wrenching time in Lebanon’s history in which government-sponsored slow violence, against the people and the environment, ultimately turned spectacular and deadly.

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Figure 4.1. Zeru, graffito in Downtown Beirut. The Arabic caption reads, “Beirut’s revolution is for all the people.” Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

CHAPTER 4

Thawrat Beirut likul al-‘ālam / Beirut’s Revolution Is for All the People Animating the (Intersectional) Revolution The revolution was about breaking down all walls and refusing to silently accept incompetence out of fear. Artists had to become fearless, to use their work as a statement of the protesters’ presence and determination to remain standing. —Tamara Nasr, quoted in Sarah Khalil, “Lebanon’s Revolution”

“Inna al-thawrata tūladu min rah.m al-ah.zān” means “The revolution is born out of the womb of sufferings.” The message, left by an anonymous writer on a wall in Downtown Beirut, refers to a line from Majida al-Roumi’s famous wartime song “Yā Beirut.” Like the revolution itself, the revolution’s graffiti and street art have been rooted in people’s daily experiences of suffering and resistance in the past few years. If the Lebanese protests of 2015 to 2016 were triggered by a waste-management crisis, then the 2019 revolution, often referred to as the Thawrat 17 Tishrīn al-Awwal (October 17 Revolution), was ignited by raging wildfi res and the government’s announcement of regressive taxes. Later, in August 2020, after the country’s economy had collapsed amid a fi nancial crisis, a lethal explosion of improperly stored ammonium nitrate at Beirut’s port would send people back to the streets. In a photographic essay featuring graffiti from the 2019 protests, Cybèle Andrei argues that the blaze from the wildfi res “fueled a collective and deeply repressed need to release and express frustration at a system that had utterly failed the vast majority of citizens.”1 She states that from the outset, the “unique moments of social euphoria indeed prompted young people who had never painted before to grab brushes and to join street artists” in visually documenting and promoting the protests on the walls of the city.2 Andrei’s words emphasize graffiti’s increasing allure as a means of self-expression and protest during painful and frustrating times for professionals and amateurs alike. In this chapter, I highlight the events, discourses, and public sentiments that the revolution-centered artifacts have drawn upon, shaped, and articulated. In line with the previous chapters, I demonstrate the dialogical

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and place-making dimensions of contentious graffiti, while also reiterating the centrality of affect and embodiment to the process of graffiti making. The chapter addresses the following questions, among others: What type of political and cultural narratives do the revolution-centered scrawls, stencils, and murals dialogically engage with, reject, or reinforce? How do graffiti makers leverage their skills to express public outrage, cheer protestors, document precarity, decry violence and injustice, and/or transform physical spaces? What might revolution-centered artifacts tell us about the vulnerability of graffiti makers, as well as their capacity to manipulate their environment through craft ing a “spatial imagination” that challenges the one associated with the Lebanese state?3 What common vocabulary, political vernacular, and recurrent tropes have graffiti makers adopted during the revolution, and why? And, importantly, in what ways does this recent round of graffiti making reflect the intersectional approach of activists and graffiti makers, particularly with regard to issues of gender, sexuality, and the environment? Before examining the robust graffiti and street art of an era marked by tremendous loss, grief, rage, and hope, it is important to consider briefly the significant events and context-specific public affects that led up to and transpired during the revolution and its aftermath.

Confronting Wildfires, Regressive Taxes, and Government Neglect Stoked by high winds and extreme heat, over one hundred wildfi res broke out on October 14, 2019, and spread rapidly, engulfi ng over 3,500 acres of Lebanese forests and sending residents scurrying for their lives in residential areas including Chouf, Aley, and Matn. As residents attempted to help fi refighters extinguish the fi res or fled their homes to avoid suffocation, burning, and death, the government failed to mobilize three fi refighting helicopters (donated to the country in 2009) that had fallen out of commission due to lack of maintenance. Meanwhile, countries including Cyprus, Jordan, and Greece sent fi refighting planes, and Ghana promised to assist with reforestation. As usual, the Lebanese government failed to contain an environmental crisis that could have been mitigated, while foreign governments demonstrated a more effective response. According to Karine Zoghby, project officer at the Disaster Risk Management Unit, the country had been following Lebanon’s 2008 National Forest Fire Management Strategy, which delineates coordination, awareness, and training efforts; however, “parts of the [national forest-fi re strategy] were implemented and other parts were not for various reasons—be it the need for resources, or due to policies, or

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the need for adequate management.”4 As the Lebanese people learned of the government’s response and the fate of the defunct helicopters, many became incensed, particularly at the “juxtaposition of emergency aircraft in disrepair and pristine police vehicles,” often used to quell demonstrations.5 A few days after the fi res were brought under control, as people were still reeling from the damage infl icted on residents, wildlife, and property, the government announced a series of taxes on WhatsApp calls, tobacco, and gas—prompting a revolution that erupted on October 17, 2019. Similar to the garbage protests, the October Revolution represented a grassroots political mobilization primarily triggered by an environmental crisis but caused by numerous accumulating factors, including ongoing government dysfunction, divisive sectarian politics, a stagnating economy, rising unemployment, unchecked privatization and development, nepotistic legislation, severe class discrepancy, and a continued lack of basic services, including electricity, water, healthcare, and sanitation. Adding insult to injury, the proposed austerity measures and higher taxes threatened to devastate not only the country’s long-suffering working class but also its politically disillusioned middle class, who now faced the prospect of a severe economic downturn. Unlike the garbage protests, however, the October Revolution spread beyond the capital from the outset, reaching over seventy cities and villages across Lebanon and garnering unprecedented cross-sectarian and crossclass support and cooperation.6 Protestors visually demonstrated this remarkable unity by forming a human chain that stretched from the northern city of Tripoli to the southern city of Tyre and included tens of thousands of men and women holding hands. The slogans “Al-sha‘b yurīd isqāt alnidhām” (The people demand the fall of the system), a staple of the Arab uprisings, and “Killun ya‘ni killun” (All of them means all of them), which fi rst appeared during the Lebanese garbage protests, became common refrains during the October 2019 revolution. In contrast to the 2005 Cedar Revolution, in which political leaders urged their followers to attend protests, the October 2019 protestors took to the streets “despite party leaders’ best efforts to dissuade them.”7 By this time, more and more people seemed to have come to the conclusion that Lebanese political leaders “stink but don’t do shit,” to echo the words of an unforgiving 2015 graffiti slogan. Rima Majed and Lana Salman argue that “in a radical shift during the fi rst week of protests in October 2019, the taboos and unspoken fears fell. Without exception, all politicians (including Nasrallah) were named and shamed— and even cursed—in the streets.”8 Protestors chanted and held signs that mocked once-revered sectarian leaders by name, including the country’s president, Michel Aoun; Hizballah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah; Speaker of

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the Parliament Nabih Berri; Prime Minister Saad Hariri; and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil.9 As the following discussion will demonstrate, naming and blaming politicians and demanding that all of them step down similarly prevailed in graffiti and street art. The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing lockdowns disrupted the protests, as residents feared the spread of the virus or were barred from gathering in the streets. According to the historian Ziad Abu-Rish, the Lebanese government’s rapid response to COVID was very much connected to its political calculations vis-à-vis the protests. Abu-Rish persuasively argues that the state of emergency implemented in the wake of the pandemic allowed the Lebanese government to prosecute protestors strategically under a new set of laws. He reminds us that while the government was quick to crack down on individuals and groups suspected of gathering during the COVID lockdowns, it did not offer the type of assistance and support needed to alleviate the suffering of families, such as rent or mortgage relief.10 Despite the ongoing threat of COVID-19 and the government’s continuing crackdown on politically active groups and individuals, the protests resumed vigorously in the aftermath of the devastating Beirut Port blast on August 4, 2020. The blast occurred when a warehouse containing around 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, an explosive substance that had been inappropriately stored at the site for over six years, caught fi re.11 The explosion resulted in an estimated 218 deaths, injured around seven thousand people, and resulted in up to an estimated US$15 billion in property damage. It also left about three hundred thousand people homeless. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, Evidence strongly suggests that some government officials foresaw the death that the ammonium nitrate’s presence in the port could result in and tacitly accepted the risk of the deaths occurring. Under domestic law, this could amount to the crime of homicide with probable intent, and/or unintentional homicide. It also amounts to a violation of the right to life under international human rights law.12 According to Amnesty International and other organizations, the port blast might have been averted if the government had promptly handled the explosive material instead of storing it in a residential area and ignoring multiple warnings regarding the dangerous consequences of allowing it to remain on the premises.13 The catastrophe painfully illustrated how governmental negligence and corruption—or slow, incremental violence—can transform into lethal, spectacular violence in a matter of minutes. The government’s

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failure to promptly and sufficiently assist victims of the blast and to bring those responsible to justice further fueled people’s hurt and frustration. The following sections examine select graffiti and street art that primarily engaged the October 17 Revolution and the 2020 port blast, in addition to referencing the long-enduring sociopolitical and economic problems that have plagued the country for decades, providing some insights into the aforementioned research questions.

Amplifying the Revolution In her discussion of the vibrant murals that fi lled Cairo’s Mohammed Mahmoud Street, Amanda Rogers argues that street art serves as more than a barometer of collective sentiment and is often “a constituent part of the country’s evolving civil society—an active component of participatory democracy.”14 Similarly, Lina Khatib asserts that the visual art created in Tahrir Square “acted as a means of democratic dialogue,” enabling ordinary citizens to participate and to feel supported and empowered.15 Mona Abaza reminds us that “the ebbs and flows of these artistic expressions reveal that revolutions are all about a dynamic process. It is a process that involves precarious forms of contestation that continuously foster creativity and a strong desire for recording the moment photographically, before it once again withers away.”16 Rogers’s, Khatib’s, and Abaza’s insights apply to the revolution-centered graffiti and street art in Beirut, since many professional artists and nonartist residents adopted graffiti as a means of occupying and transforming public space, documenting the events as they unfolded, while also voicing the long-standing demands of residents for a more just and livable Lebanon. Primarily, the works of graffiti and street art that occurred alongside and following the 2019 protests have helped to brand the demonstrations as nothing short of a full-fledged, historic revolution that differs from what came before it, including the garbage protests, which may be considered an important precursor. To that end, it is not surprising that the term “thawra” has featured heavily and frequently in numerous graffiti pieces, especially in Beirut’s Downtown area, the epicenter of the protests. As of October 2019, the word “thawra” has appeared frequently in the streets in various styles, ranging from rushed scribbles and simple stencils that read “Thawra” or “Tah.yā al-thawra” (Long live the revolution) to more creative and elaborate murals. The repetitive inscription of the word “thawra” in public spaces is important because it signifies the graffiti makers’ collective and persistent

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call for public dissent in the form of a national revolution, akin to the other uprisings that swept the Arab world. Many thawra-centered inscriptions categorically stated, “Thawra, mish h.irāk” (A revolution, not a movement), thereby insisting that the 2019 protests must be distinguished from the garbage protests that preceded them and that were often referred to as “h.irāk.” The high frequency and repetition of the term “thawra” also reflect the efforts of graffiti artists and activists to alter the visual as well as social atmosphere of streets and neighborhoods, in a way that often mimics the dynamics of pervasive branding and advertisement. In other words, pedestrians are bombarded with the thawra “brand,” in the hopes that this will encourage them to visualize, think, feel, and take in the revolution so they might join or persist in the collective fight for justice. It is worth noting that the graffitied messages invoking the thawra became increasingly connected to a larger visual discourse. The “qabd.at al-thawra” (revolution fist), a six-meter-high cutout in the shape of a raised fist, with the word “thawra” written across the arm of the cutout, was erected during the fi rst days of the uprising in Martyrs’ Square. About a month later, an unidentified man on a motorcycle was seen throwing a petrol bomb at the revolution fist, sett ing it on fi re, and fleeing the scene. Images and videos of the burning fist, alongside comments of outrage, circulated online shortly afterward, as activists promised to persist in their fight for justice, against all detractors. By repeatedly visualizing the thawra through numerous texts and images, graffiti makers therefore tried to ensure that the thawra-centered messages (and images) were sufficiently and consistently represented in public space—regardless of the severity of antirevolution sabotage, or perhaps because of it. In addition to the thawra-related scrawls and scribbles generated by anyone with a pen or a spray can, many professional artists created lavish murals dedicated to the revolution. Among the prominent thawra-centered murals is one by Roula Abdo, a woman who participated in the demonstrations from the beginning and later joined the Art of Change, a collective of artists who have utilized street art as a means of amplifying the voices and demands of the Lebanese people during the protests.17 Abdo’s mural portrays a somber-looking face with a rag covering the mouth (fig. 4.2). The rag features the Arabic word “thawra” in red and black over an image of a cedar tree. The phrase “Qad mā tjarrbū tsaktūnā” (No matter how much you try to silence us) is written at the bottom of the rag. By depicting the protesting body as defiant in the face of state suppression, the mural illustrates the government’s failed attempts to keep the protests (and protestors) subdued and under control. Abdo has stated that art plays an important role during revolutions, including lift ing people’s spirits, “keeping people motivated, giving them

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Figure 4.2.

Roula Abdo, mural in Downtown Beirut. The phrase on the rag translates to “Revolution. No matter how much you try to silence us.” Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

hope and reminding them why they went to the streets in the fi rst place. . . . It becomes another side of the revolution, which shows that the revolution is thought and creativity.”18 Abdo’s words demonstrate her conviction that street art can serve as a means for motivating people and combating revolution fatigue, depression, and discouragement. Abdo’s and her fellow artists’ holistic perception of the revolution as a physical, artistic, and intellectual endeavor is revealing. It not only reflects the state of mind of young people who are committed to fighting tyranny through various means (including scrawls and paintings) but also illustrates the tenuousness of alleged binaries such as art/life or politics/aesthetics in confl ict zones. Lebanese artists feel the urge to leverage their artwork in the service of mass protests, particularly when the platform for displaying this art is none other than the contested streets. Furthermore, for Abdo and other artists and civilians, the 2019 revolution was ultimately a revolution of the mind against tedious and

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Figure 4.3. Mjay, mural in Downtown Beirut featuring a graffiti maker spraying

the word “thawra” (revolution). Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

destructive politics; consequently, innovative graffiti became a catalyst for articulating this revolution of the mind. Other thawra murals employ a more cheerful tone, including a mural by Mjay that features a masked graffiti artist who sports a ponytail and holds a spray can while contemplating the word “thawra,” painted in big blue letters on the wall (fig. 4.3). Importantly, the graffiti artist is wrapped in a Lebanese flag. Referencing the art of graffiti itself, the mural suggests that producing graffiti that elevates the revolution is one way of enacting Lebanese citizenship and performing resistance, reiterating the war of colors that graffiti makers have been engaging in over the past couple of decades— and that often becomes more pronounced during times of political unrest. The elusiveness of the graffiti maker’s gender is telling: it suggests that graffiti making and protesting can and should be enacted by anyone, regardless of one’s gender. As one graffito (and the eponymous title of this chapter) states, “Thawrat Beirut likul al-‘ālam”: Beirut’s revolution is for all the people (see fig. 4.1). In subsequent sections, I will discuss in more detail the inclusivity and intersectionality of the 2019 protests, including their engagement with issues of gender and sexuality. Other graffiti pieces articulate the demonstrators’ unwavering commitment to a peaceful thawra, despite the ruthless and at times indiscriminate attacks by officers of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces. Among

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the graffiti pieces that emphasize nonviolent resistance is a mural that features a face with one eye tearing up and the other covered with an eye patch (fig. 4.4). Blood oozes profusely from the covered eye. The mask over the figure’s mouth and nose spells out the Lebanese Arabic word “silmiyyeh” (peaceful) in reference to the revolution. In this graffito, the artist juxtaposes the peaceful resistance of protestors and the government’s excessive use of violence against them. The graffito becomes a dialogic artifact, visualizing the story of bloody encounters between protestors and security forces (or antirevolution thugs allegedly protected by the police). It is important to note that the use of excessive and indiscriminate violence against protestors has been documented by several organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. In August 2020, Human Rights Watch monitored protests, collected evidence from protest sites (including fi red munition), interviewed protestors, and analyzed videos of security forces attacking and injuring demonstrators in Downtown Beirut, including health workers, lawyers, and journalists. According to Human Rights Watch, Metal pellets fi red by shotguns were the main cause of many serious injuries on August 8, including injuries to protesters’ eyes and vital organs. . . . Given their inherently inaccurate nature, indiscriminate impact, and evidence of the serious injuries they have caused, the use of shotguns fi ring multiple pellets—rubber or metal— against demonstrators at any range should cease immediately.19 Given this context, the graffito offers an artistic visual interpretation of the material and psychological reality many protestors faced when the Lebanese Internal Security Forces (and the Parliament Security Force) used brutal force against them—particularly causing injuries to their eyes and other organs—in an attempt to preclude them from expressing themselves. In this image, the teary eye suggests a reference to the security forces’ use of tear gas, while the patched eye possibly alludes to their utilization of rubber bullets and metal pellets. The mural pays homage to the injured protesting body and reiterates the high cost of taking to the streets and demanding justice. The painting is thus a representational object that puts (contentious) embodiment at the center of the message. Importantly, the act of painting an antigovernment mural—amid mass protests—that depicts police brutality and bodily injury is a highly embodied process in itself, one that necessitates confronting one’s fears and putting one’s body (and mind) on the line. As this chapter’s opening epigraph by Tamara Nasr asserts, graffiti artists of the revolution had to become fearless to put their art in the service of documenting and advancing the revolu-

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Figure 4.4. Unsigned mural in Downtown Beirut. The Arabic word translates to “peaceful,” in reference to the revolution. Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

tion. In sum, embodied place making during protests can help create emancipatory antigovernment “counter-spaces,” but it also involves risks, since, as Henri Lefebvre has argued, “a counter-space and a counter-project simulate existing space, parodying it and demonstrating its limitations, without for all that escaping its clutches.”20 Street art that is produced during tumultuous times is a far cry from the type of art produced in the safety of one’s studio—or even on a public street during peaceful times—because it involves risking police violence and sustaining physical and psychological trauma or even death. While most of the thawra-centered murals emphasize peaceful resistance, a few seem to imply that violence is a legitimate option in a country where the government has no qualms about using excessive force against its own people. One mural features an arm holding a flaming Molotov cocktail against the backdrop of a circle fi lled repeatedly with the Arabic word “thawra.” The graffito alludes to the use of makeshift explosives that some protestors hurled against security forces—preemptively or in retaliation for the latter’s brutal use of violence against the demonstrators. In addition to rendering visible and elevating the thawra, this graffito provides a visual documentation of the fact that the revolution included participants who chose to use violence.

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Expressing Hope, Demanding Freedom In addition to branding the protests as a revolution by providing different visual iterations of the term “thawra,” the graffiti and street art of 2019 (and 2020) articulated the dominant collective affects and aspirations associated with the revolution. Hope was one of the most prominent emotions articulated on the walls of the city, particularly during the early stages of the revolution and later in the aftermath of the Beirut Port explosion. Among the most famous and polished hope-centered murals is a massive collaborative mural by the graffiti artists Sp*z, Exist, and EpS (fig. 4.5).21 The mural features the word “hope,” written in red, upper-case block letters against a sky-blue background. Two white doves perch in front of the hope backdrop, with one holding an olive branch in its mouth. The mural’s other details include a mosque and a church, standing side by side, reflecting the artists’ emphasis on peaceful coexistence in a postrevolution Lebanon. In addition, EpS’s trademark monkey and a smiling cat appear at the bottom of the mural, adding a sense of playfulness to an otherwise serious mural and suggesting that animals should be part of the picture in Lebanon’s peaceful future. Other less aesthetically elaborate murals also depict the word “hope,”

Figure 4.5. EpS, Exist, and Sp*z, “hope,” mural in Downtown Beirut. Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

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including a cheerful mural by the graffiti maker Meuh, painted in large, pastel-colored bubble letters (fig. 4.6).22 The words “never lose” are scribbled in purple atop the word “hope,” so the entire message reads, “never lose hope.” At the bottom of the letter H, the phrase “hoping for change” appears, articulating the writer’s aspirations for an alternative future for Lebanon. At the same time, a closer look at the mural reveals the presence of a question mark inside the letter O. The question mark seems to balance the message’s optimism with the sense of uncertainty and questioning that often comes with the anticipation of change. As Ernst Bloch reminds us, “Hope is the opposite of security. It is the opposite of naïve optimism. The category of danger is always within it.”23 In fact, for some graffiti artists, particularly the ones who started painting murals at the outbreak of the revolution, graffiti making helped provide the cautionary hope that they and other demonstrators needed so they might face their fears and persevere in their fight against government oppression. In other words, graffiti epitomizes the ways in which seemingly contradictory affects, such as hope and fear, often collide in the mind and on the wall during difficult times. Roula Abdo’s mural “We Shall Pass” also manifests a message of hope and determination, in this case by deploying a powerful visual metaphor (fig. 4.7). The mural features two hands attempting to force open two panels of the concrete wall the government erected around the Parliament about four months after the start of the 2019 revolution. According to one journalist, Abdo’s gray and black mural has become “one of the most emblematic artworks of the thawra . . . an allegory of the audacity, the determination, and the inextinguishable hope of the Lebanese people who are fighting to break down the barriers behind which their executioners take refuge.”24 As discussed previously, Abdo is among the artists who see graffiti making and demonstrating in the streets as ideal bedfellows, mutually benefitt ing one another. Abdo felt the urge to paint “We Shall Pass” as a means of empowering both herself and other demonstrators who felt frustrated by the government’s attempts to block the protestors from entering the square, as politicians hid behind mighty walls instead of facing civilians and listening to their demands. Abdo stated, When I saw these concrete blocks being consolidated around Place de l’Etoile (Nejmeh Square) after more than 100 days of demonstrations, I felt the urge to force them down. . . . I also wanted this representation to be a sign of encouragement and hope addressed to all the demonstrators. A way to encourage them to persist in their protest movement, not to be put down, to believe in their strength which can break the walls of fear.25

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Figure 4.6. Meuh, “hope,” mural in Downtown Beirut. Photograph by Garrett

Stockwell.

Abdo’s words emphasize the mixed feelings of hope and fear that demonstrators experienced at the outset of the revolution. Unable to tear down or jump over the makeshift walls that separated her and other demonstrators from the Parliament building, Abdo decided to visualize people’s success at breaking other types of walls, namely the walls of fear that had prevented them in the past from taking to the streets with the same (antisectarian) commitment that characterized the 2019 protests. She altered the government-imposed barrier to articulate a message of hope and persistence in the face of despair and frustration. For Abdo, this transformed wall could perhaps lift other people’s morale and remind them of what they had already accomplished, as well as what potentially lay ahead. As Michel de Certeau argues, A way of using imposed systems constitutes the resistance to the historical law of a state of affairs and its dogmatic legitimations. A practice of the order constructed by others redistributes its space; it creates at least a certain play in that order, a space for maneuvers of unequal forces and for utopian points of reference.26 Similar to the graffiti makers who transformed the concrete walls that were erected around the Parliament during the 2015 garbage protests, Abdo

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Figure 4.7. Roula Abdo, “We Shall Pass,” mural in Place de l’Etoile (Nejmeh Square). Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

and other artists repurposed a wall that the Lebanese state had designed to serve as a disciplinary barrier into a canvas meant to uplift the mood of demonstrators, document civil resistance, and provide an outlet for channeling people’s affects. Like the aesthetically pleasing murals that reference hope, many rushed scrawls have alluded to the importance of maintaining hope, despite the challenging circumstances that residents may be facing. One self-evident graffito, penned in black ink, simply states in all-capital letters, “hope must never die,” loudly articulating the necessity of remaining hopeful during Lebanon’s difficult (and deadly) times. Other hope-centered scrawls take a more poetic route, citing verses by the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. One scrawl states, “ ‘Ala hadhih al-’ard. ma yastah.iq al-h.ayāt,” a line from Darwish’s poem “On Th is Earth” that translates to “On this earth is something worth living for,” or, literally, “On this earth, there is that which deserves life.” Here, the line borrowed from Darwish assures protestors, as well as nonparticipants who might be walking by the wall, that there is hope beyond Lebanon’s current state of despair and darkness and that it is important to keep up the fight. Importantly, Darwish’s verse, and subsequently the dialogic scrawl citing it, insists that one must fi nd freedom and joy here on earth and not defer it to the afterlife. The message is a counterpoint to dominant religious and cultural narratives that emphasize accepting one’s

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fate on earth and focusing on paradise as the place where good things await those who have patiently endured their earthly plight. Similarly citing a line from Darwish, another penned message reads, “Wa nah.nū lam nah.lum bi akthar min h.ayāt k-al-h.ayāt” (And we didn’t dream of life other than it is). The line suggests that longing for life is not too much to ask for, nor should it be unattainable. As mentioned in previous chapters, Darwish is highly respected across the Arab world, and his poetry often emphasizes the necessity of nurturing and fi nding hope even in the most unfortunate places and circumstances. Engaging with Darwish is therefore a rhetorical device that graffiti makers purposefully leverage because they recognize that many Lebanese people appreciate Darwish and the Palestinian people’s fi rsthand experience of oppression, as well as their s.umūd, steadfastness, in the face of tyranny. To borrow Bakhtin’s words, as it makes its way to Beirut’s walls, Darwish’s authoritative poetry serves as an “internally persuasive discourse,” which can be “applied to new material, new conditions; it enters into interanimating relationships with new contexts. . . . In each of the new contexts that dialogize it, this discourse is able to reveal ever newer ways to mean.”27 Beyond nurturing a sense of hope in the streets, Lebanon’s graffiti artists have depicted freedom as one of the major demands of the people, echo-

Figure 4.8. “H . uriyyeh” (Freedom), unsigned mural in Downtown Beirut. The Arabic word inside the balloon translates to “sectarian leader.” Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

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ing the aspirations of the Arab uprisings. Many activists and protestors have urged fellow Lebanese to free themselves from the ferocious grip of Lebanon’s sectarian system and the political leaders who have ruled—and ruined—the country for decades. In addition to their critique of the sectarian system, Lebanese activists have advocated for freedom from poverty, corruption, immense national debt, police brutality, humiliation, and government surveillance. To that end, the outbreak of the revolution witnessed the creation of several murals dedicated to freedom. Some murals simply spell out the English word “freedom” in colorful upper-case block or bubble letters, while others show more complexity. One famous mural in Downtown Beirut features the word “h.uriyyeh,” the Arabic word for “freedom,” in bright-red script (fig. 4.8). Adjacent to “h.uriyyeh” is a stencil of a litt le boy holding a pin to burst a red balloon that contains the word “za‘īm” (sectarian leader). Together, the text and image suggest that only when the sectarian leaders have been poked—and have had their bubbles burst—will the Lebanese fi nally enjoy freedom. The stencil also suggests that even children understand that formerly untouchable political leaders must go and that the sectarian bubble must fi nally pop.

Building Solidarity In addition to amplifying the revolution and articulating the affects and aspirations of protestors, many graffiti makers have sought to highlight and enhance solidarity among the demonstrators, particularly given that the 2019 revolution witnessed unprecedented cooperation among people of different ages, gender identities, sexual orientations, socioeconomic backgrounds, religions, and sects. To that end, some pithy graffitied phrases have sought to reiterate the unity of civilians as one entity confronting the government elites. These include a scrawl that states, “Ya nih.nā, ya hinneh,” a popular Lebanese saying that loosely translates to “It’s either us or them,” implying that at this point in Lebanon’s history, either the government or the people will survive, because the two cannot continue to coexist under the current circumstances. The statement also seeks to articulate and promote a collective readiness to fight (to the death) the allegedly invincible Lebanese government. A related scrawl features the image of two arms clasped together, captioned by the phrase “Sawa d.udd.un” (Together against them). The graffito serves as an illustration of an actual 2019 human chain composed of protestors from areas across the country who held hands to send a message to the sectarian state that the Lebanese people were capable of uniting, regardless of their religious, sectarian, and socioeconomic af-

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Figure 4.9. Roula Abdo, mural in Downtown Beirut. The Arabic phrase reads, “It’s the people’s rule now.” Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

fi liations. In a similar vein, two interrelated inscriptions state, respectively, “Al-quwwa li-l-nās” (the Arabic translation of the famous slogan “Power to the people”) and “Na‘am li-l-sha‘b” (Yes to the people). One mural by Roula Abdo includes a somber-looking face (a trademark in her murals) painted in black and white, with a Lebanese flag draped over the figure’s nose (fig. 4.9). A crown, composed of a group of litt le stick figures holding hands, sits atop the person’s head. Below the image is the expression “Al-h.ukm s.ār lil sha‘b,” which roughly translates to “It’s the people’s rule now.” Using text and image, Abdo reimagines Lebanon as a country where the government has already been ousted and where good governance by and for the people prevails. Here, the graffiti artist—a protestor and an activist herself—seeks to animate the revolution through projecting her utopic vision for the future, as if assuring others that a positive outcome is attainable in Lebanon’s foreseeable future. One graffito reads, in Lebanese Arabic, “Farra’tūnā, ma rah. tfar’ūnā” (You dispersed us, but you will not separate us), thereby harnessing the double meaning of the verb “yffarri’ ” (to disperse, to separate/divide). In this scrawl, the graffiti maker argues that although the authorities might have succeeded at physically dispersing the protestors, they will not be equally successful at dividing them. Th is us-versus-them rhetoric, articulated in graffiti, reflects the thoughts and affects of a disenchanted and enraged

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Lebanese public that has witnessed the impoverishment (and decline) of its middle class and the increased destitution of its poor as a result of corrupt socioeconomic policies that have caused immense inequity. In their discussion of the revolution’s politics of solidarity, Majed and Salman emphasize that the unprecedented level of intersectarian solidarity among the Lebanese is directly related to the effects of an unregulated “Lebanese-style neoliberalism” that had flourished in the context of an “elite-maintained sectarianism.” In other words, if sectarianism had divided the Lebanese in the past, then economic distress might have conversely united them against the political elites in 2019. Majed and Salman observe that hundreds of thousands of protestors are speaking an “us versus them” language that is increasingly class based. The few in power are seen as ruthlessly suffocating the many for their own benefits and interests. Both the economic crisis and incompetent government responses have made clear to many that the haves who govern and reproduce their wealth and preserve their positions of power were doing so at the expense of the have-nots, who could no longer make ends meet.28 Collectively, the graffiti pieces that emphasize “us” (the people) versus “them” (the government elites) work to escalate people’s rage against the government and to remind protestors that they must avoid internecine confl ict at all cost, since they share a common adversary—the Lebanese political establishment—regardless of the (sectarian and class) differences that may exist among them. Crucially, some graffiti makers have tried to appeal to the Lebanese Army in an attempt to integrate similarly disaffected soldiers into the people’s protests instead of alienating them. In one example, a slogan states, “Sha‘b wāh.ad, wat.an wāh.ad, jaysh wāh.ad” (One people, one nation, one army). In a similar vein, a more elaborate mural features a uniformed Lebanese solider receiving a rose from a curly-haired girl draped in a Lebanese flag (fig. 4.10). The daintiness and tenderness of the girl handing out flowers is juxtaposed against the formal, tough demeanor of the soldier. Nonetheless, the soldier in the image is depicted as having accepted the rose, which he holds in his hand. The image is topped by the phrase “Respect to our army,” written in bright-red capital letters. The graffito depicts a (real or imagined) historical moment, in which a Lebanese soldier responds to demonstrators with openness and graciousness rather than aggression and brutality. Such army-friendly pieces echo the efforts of Egyptian and Syrian protestors—and the visual artifacts that represented these efforts—at motivating soldiers to switch sides and join the demonstrations, particu-

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Figure 4.10. “Respect to our army,” unsigned mural in Downtown Beirut. The

Arabic scrawls translate to “Geagea is a Zionist” and “We have not forgotten Sabra and Shatila.” Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

larly during the initial stages of the uprisings. Despite the significant depreciation in the value of the salaries (and pension earnings) of soldiers because of Lebanon’s currency crash, the added strain stemming from a surge in crime, and the disillusionment of many soldiers toward Lebanon’s political elite, as of the time of writing this chapter, the Lebanese Army has not switched sides, as some Lebanese were hoping. Anticipating the feelings of fear and loneliness that may set in during troubled times and discourage demonstrators from persisting in their efforts to bring about change, some graffiti makers fi lled different neighborhoods with a blue-colored stencil that reads, “Kulnā ma‘ak,” an informal expression that translates to “We’re all with you.” The stencil seeks to assure its addressees—anyone participating in the demonstrations, marches, or sit-ins—that they are not alone in the struggle. Another, more personal message, scribbled in regular handwriting, states, “La-yalli ba‘dun hawn, mankun lah.ālkun. Ana kamān mish fālleh” (For those who are still here, you are not alone. I am also not leaving) (fig. 4.11). Th is statement was mostly likely scribbled by a female protestor, since the verbal noun “fālleh” has a feminine ending. Here, the female protestor and graffiti maker addresses protestors who are squatt ing or camping in Downtown Beirut— and who may be feeling apprehensive about diminishing attendance or the

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Figure 4.11.

Unsigned stencil in Downtown Beirut. The Arabic script reads, “For those of you who are still here, you are not alone. I am also not leaving.” Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

detention of fellow protestors—and assures them that she is not leaving. As Bakhtin reminds us, all rhetorical forms “are oriented toward the listener and his answer. . . . It is highly significant for rhetoric that this relationship toward the concrete listener, taking him into account, is a relationship that enters into the very internal construction of rhetorical discourse.”29 Following Bakhtin, the graffitied statement takes into account the material conditions and mental states of the protesting people on the square. It is directed toward an imagined yet real listener, a fellow protestor who may be experiencing fatigue, loneliness, and hesitation and who the graffiti writer assumes needs some mental empowerment (just as she herself might be in need of empowerment). The emphasis on solidarity, communal support, and power in numbers has been a prominent feature of the revolution and its corresponding visual culture. Th is sense of solidarity was not limited to Lebanese people in the capital

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city. Graffiti that emphasized communal support often made references to Tripoli, Lebanon’s second-biggest city and one that has played a remarkable role in recent protests. In the past two decades, Tripoli has suffered its share of government negligence, impoverishment, violent confl ict, and chronic unemployment. Maren Milligan rightly states that “Tripoli has largely been excluded from the reconciliation and reconstruction projects of the post– civil war period.”30 A 2016 United Nations report estimated that about 50 percent of residents in Tripoli live below a poverty line of US$4 a day.31 The situation has most certainly escalated even further in the aftermath of Lebanon’s 2020 economic meltdown. Tripoli has also struggled with youth radicalization, including at the hands of the Islamic State, in part because of the city’s extraordinary socioeconomic distress and the absence of institutional support. Some believe that the Lebanese government deliberately turned its back on Tripoli, as evidenced by the military’s minimal intervention during the recurrent sectarian clashes between Sunni and Alawite Muslim residents, particularly in 2012. In her analysis of Tripoli’s internecine fighting and the failure of the military to maintain peace between the warring residents of Bab al-Tabbana and Jabal Muhsin, Milligan explains, The Lebanese army is regarded by some as a politicized institution either incapable of intervening or unwilling to risk it. Soldiers are increasingly visible along Syria Street—the dividing line between Bab al-Tabbana and Jabal Muhsin—as well as in the adjacent heights. The army presence remains thin, however, with residents complaining that soldiers withdraw when shooting starts, in what one civil society observer calls a policy of “negative neutrality.”32 Rather than attempting to foster economic stability and political reconciliation, Sunni politicians from Tripoli, including Najib Mikati, a former prime minister and businessperson, have been repeatedly accused of advancing their wealth and influence and pitt ing Tripoli’s communities against one another. It is no surprise that the residents of the abandoned city have taken to the streets in droves, or that Beirutis have embraced Tripoli residents in the collective struggle to dispose of the government. Among the Tripoli-centered scrawls that have appeared in different parts of the capital city—including Downtown, Bliss, the Ring Bridge, and Hamra—are the messages “Ya T.rāblus, nih.na ma‘ik li-l-mawt” (Oh, Tripoli, we are with you until death), and “T.rāblus, lā mā nbī‘hā” (Tripoli, no, we will not sell it). The graffiti makers’ promises to remain loyal to Tripoli, and not to sell the city out or abandon it, represent a dialogic counternarrative that alludes to and distinguishes itself from the government’s approach, which has been characterized by complete disregard for the people of Tripoli. Similarly, an

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Figure 4.12. Dew, Tripoli stencil on the Ring Bridge. Photograph by Garrett

Stockwell.

Arabic-language mural by Dew features the word “T.rāblus” (Tripoli) written in bright-blue bubbly letters on the Ring Bridge, which connects East and West Beirut and has witnessed massive protests and bloody encounters between protestors and the Lebanese security forces. Next to the word “T.rāblus” is an image of a clenched fist (which resembles the iconic aforementioned “revolution fist”), signifying defiance and resistance (fig. 4.12). Whether through rushed scrawls or sophisticated stencils, graffiti makers have pledged their commitment to stand by Tripoli and to keep its best interests at the forefront of their demands.

Expressing Outrage and Sorrow While hopeful and cautiously optimistic works of graffiti have been a prominent feature of Lebanon’s revolution, graffiti makers have equally tasked themselves with depicting people’s negative affects and thoughts toward the government and the nation’s woeful condition that ignited the revolution in the fi rst place. The graffiti and street art targeting Lebanon’s political elite engage with decades-old grievances and social justice demands as well as more recent economic, sociopolitical, and environmental crises that rocked the country from 2019 to 2021. In other words, the visual artifacts

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of the revolution draw from a deep well of rage over unresolved problems in addition to articulating specific “moral shocks,” which occur “when an unexpected event or piece of information raises such as a sense of outrage in a person that she becomes inclined toward political action.”33 The “moral shocks” in Lebanon have included the government’s failed response to the wildfi res, regressive taxes, restrictive banking policies, and the Beirut Port explosion. Written from the perspective of a collective “we,” or the average civilians, a series of stencils succinctly but scathingly cites the corrupt and unjust actions (or inaction) of a collective “intū,” or “you all”—a reference to Lebanon’s political elites who have caused the people significant harm. Appearing in various neighborhoods, the stencils include one that reads, “Jawwa‘tūnā” (You all starved us / made us go hungry). The phrase is framed by an image of a fork on one side and a knife on the other. While hyperbole is often a hallmark of graffiti that aims to critique the government, in this case the stencil’s reference to starvation is not an exaggeration. According to a 2020 report by Save the Children, 910,000 people in Beirut, more than half of them children, no longer have sufficient food because of the economic crisis. A representative of the organization stated, “We will start seeing children dying from hunger before the end of the year.”34 Calling for immediate reform and international support, Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, has similarly asserted, “Th is situation is fast spiraling out of control, with many already destitute and facing starvation as a direct result of this crisis.”35 Using one word, the stencil maker reminds fellow residents, political leaders, and the rest of the world that the Lebanese state is directly responsible for starving its people. A cruder stencil features a cow’s udder alongside the verb “H.alabtūnā” (You all milked us) (fig. 4.13). Here, the graffiti maker accuses political leaders of actively dehumanizing and squeezing the life and livelihood out of civilians, thereby sucking them dry. In a similar vein, a related stencil features the verb “Sara’tūnā” (You all robbed us) alongside an image of an open wallet with a whizzing airplane flying out of it (fig. 4.14). The playful yet acerbic stencil establishes a link between a thieving government and a bankrupted Lebanese public who must immigrate in order to eke out a living abroad.36 The subtext in both stencils alludes to widely circulated narratives about the political elite’s recurring schemes of embezzling public funds, raising taxes, pilfering foreign aid, and impoverishing civilians.37 Once again, the stencil’s accusation is not unfounded. In their analysis of the Lebanese government’s mismanagement of foreign aid in the past few decades, Karim Merhej and Marie-Christine Ghreichi concluded, “Corruption in Lebanon is deeply rooted and heavily ingrained in the state. The Lebanese govern-

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Figure 4.13.

Unsigned stencil in Hamra. The Arabic caption reads, “You all milked us.” Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

ment’s history of managing foreign grants and loans has been mired in controversy, with vast sums earmarked for infrastructural and socioeconomic development ending up being squandered or embezzled.”38 The government’s alleged misappropriation of international aid has been ongoing since the civil war era. According to a 2021 report by the London School of Economics, Lebanon has received an estimated US$170 billion in fi nancial assistance from various donors since the end of its civil war, which is greater than the amount of aid given to countries under the Marshall Plan.39 But “thanks to corruption, much of this money was misspent or stolen, leaving Lebanon heavily indebted and still with poor infrastructure.”40 Despite the wretched state of Lebanon’s infrastructure, private construction and public-works projects continue regularly, without proper scheduling or the implementation of noise-control mechanisms. Addressing this issue, one stencil features a speaker turned up to the highest volume sett ing, with the expression “T.awashtūnā” (You all dizzied us). The verb “t.awash” here refers to both the physical and the psychological damage caused by loud construction noise, including hearing loss, agitation, and disorientation. At the bottom of the picture, in small print, a line states in Arabic that “the site work should begin at 8:00 a.m. and be completed by 2:00 p.m.” Here, the graffiti maker laments Beirut’s chronic noise pollution and suggests a reasonable work schedule that would allow construction to occur while decreasing the public’s exposure to harmful noise. The stencil hints at a lack of rules and regulations for construction workers, and unregulated work conditions more broadly, and suggests that politicians are failing in their obligation to protect workers and citizens. Related to the noise-pollution stencil is one that implicates the government in causing—or failing to contain—air pollution. It features two industrial chimney towers whose billowing smoke forms a black cloud, accompa-

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Figure 4.14.

Unsigned stencil in Hamra. The Arabic caption reads, “You all robbed us.” Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

nied by the caption “Khanaqtūnā” (You choked us). The stencil alludes to a well-known pollution problem caused by the Zouk Mekael power station, whose huge amounts of smoke and toxic emissions have contributed to an increase in cancer and respiratory illnesses in communities that live in close proximity to the plant. In April 2015, during a protest held outside the plant, Zouk Mikael’s mayor, Nouhad Naufal, called the situation a “national environmental disaster” and asked the government to take action to either renovate the plant or disconnect it from the grid.41 Taken together, these accusatory, intersectional stencils reveal the ways in which graffiti makers have acted as visual whistleblowers, shaming the government and drawing attention to the inextricable link between issues of public health and the government’s incompetence with regard to protecting its citizens from problems caused by modifiable environmental factors, or “slow violence.” The Lebanese government’s perceived corruption and negligence have incited a general att itude of repulsion among many Lebanese residents— as captured by a glocalized stencil that features the “pile of poo” emoji. The stencil’s swirl of brown poop rolls its eyes and opens its mouth in an expression of disappointment. The poop holds a green dollar bill, and the verb “Qarraft ūnā” (You all disgusted us) captions the image. Similar to other graffiti artists’ leveraging of famous cartoon characters, such as Kermit the Frog, Grendizer, and Remy, the graffiti maker here harnesses a global symbol to serve Lebanese purposes, stating in no uncertain terms that Lebanese leaders have disgusted citizens with their fi lth and greed. Of course, the stinky icon conjures up the disgust-centered discourses that were a prominent feature of the #YouStink protests and that have become even more relevant today. Like other stencils, the “pile of poo” emoji demonstrates the interconnection between the two protest movements, as well the glocality and scatological humor one has come to expect from sarcastic Lebanese graffiti.

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Similar to the aforementioned stencils, which lament the difficulties of living in Lebanon, a series of sorrowful murals by the graffiti artist Brady Black have focused on depicting the increasingly deteriorating living conditions that have rendered Lebanon a hostile home for millions of people. Painted meticulously, a series of interconnected paste-ups feature realistic images of men, women, and children under duress, telling stories of collective hunger and desperation and emphasizing the need for communal empathy.42 Located near the American University of Beirut, one of the murals depicts a sad-looking young boy holding a morsel of food to his mouth, his eyes glazed over. The boy with ruffled black hair wears a T-shirt that says, “Give us [today] our daily bread” (fig. 4.15). Similar to the “Jawwa‘tūnā” (You starved us) stencil, the mural evokes Lebanon’s catastrophic food shortage, particularly the worsening bread crisis that peaked in 2021. According to the United Nations, food prices have increased by up to 400 percent in Lebanon, and the bread crisis has only gotten worse as many bakeries have been forced to shut down because of rising fuel costs. Th is has led to long lines at bakeries, with residents showing up as early as 3:00 a.m. in an attempt to secure one bag of (overpriced and stale) bread.43 Importantly, the graffiti maker seems to be invoking a Christian prayer, as if to leverage the power of religious shaming—and communal empathy—in an area that is often crowded with street kids who have been forced to beg from students and employees at the American University of Beirut. A related mural, located on a wall by the public trash bins in Hamra, features a young man with disheveled hair and a hardened-looking face. The image is captioned by the expression “Kids should eat out of plates, not dumpsters,” written in bright-yellow capital letters. What makes the mural even more unnerving is the fact that children do congregate by the wall that houses this image as they scavenge for food from nearby dumpsters. During his most recent visit to Lebanon in 2022, my husband saw a young boy standing inside a dumpster, beating it with his hands like a drum, swaying to the sounds of his fi lthy, makeshift dirbakkeh. Perhaps he was celebrating fi nding a meal; or perhaps he was feeling exhausted and in need of a break. No matter how we may interpret this incident, I can confidently say that the garbage bins have been teeming with children looking for food or recyclable objects they can sell—or even making music in the most desperate of places. Another adjacent mural in the same style features a portrait of a young girl, also looking distraught, her hair covering one of her eyes. The image of the girl is captioned, “If you can’t feed 100 kids, feed one,” in pink letters. The quote is adapted from Mother Theresa’s famous saying “If you can’t feed a hundred people, just feed one,” thereby urging pedestrians to do their part and suggesting that even a small act of kindness that saves

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Figure 4.15. Brady Black, “Give us [today] our daily bread,” mural in Hamra. Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

one child from starvation is a worthy endeavor during these difficult times. On his Instagram account, Brady Black posted a picture of the wall that includes both portraits. He wrote, “Both portraits are of children from Beirut that were eating out of dumpsters nearby. The situation in Beirut becomes more and more dire by the day with estimations [that] 60–70% of the population does not have enough money for their simple daily needs.”44 One of the murals tackles begging, which has become more prevalent since 2019. It features a child holding on to the elbow of an older man (who seems to be his father), with both of them looking distraught and vulnerable (fig. 4.16). The image of the boy and the man is captioned, “We are all beggars,” written in blue capital letters. The message suggests that parents cannot feed their families and have had to resort to roaming the streets in search of help with their children in tow. The phrase “We are all beggars” also suggests that begging has become—or will soon become—rampant among residents of different ages, genders, and backgrounds and that people should express empathy toward one another. The hunger- and beggingcentered murals literally paint a picture of Beirut’s most vulnerable population, and they invite pedestrians to confront the dismal reality before their eyes and to assist others less fortunate than themselves, because people are interconnected and must collectively shoulder the weight of Leba-

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Figure 4.16.

Brady Black, “We are all beggars,” mural in Hamra. Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

non’s political and humanitarian crisis and the social instability of a nation gone awry.

Disparaging Elites Given Lebanon’s increasingly dystopian state, and given that the mass protests have largely been met with government crackdowns, police brutality, military tribunals, and a disregard for people’s demands and plights, many revolutionary graffiti pieces not only reprimand but also insult and even threaten Lebanese authorities. In other words, in addition to depicting Lebanon’s wretched state, a substantial amount of protest graffiti and street art targets politicians, military and law-enforcement institutions, and fi nancial leaders in a way that is unapologetically wrathful, disparaging, and per-

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sonal. In fact, some graffiti and street art pieces specifically articulate the metanarrative that being rude and using obscenities are necessary when dealing with Lebanese authorities. The pithy scrawl “Al-shatīma wājib” (Insult/cursing is a duty) provides a useful lens to frame the ethos of this type of graffiti. For many activists, adopting incivility has become a moral imperative when engaging with government officials and members of law enforcement who have mistreated the Lebanese people, with regard to both broad issues (e.g., the economy, healthcare, and social services) and concrete practices (e.g., manhandling protestors, using tear gas, and fi ring rubber bullets or live ammunition at demonstrations). One of Roula Abdo’s murals directly engages with the discourse of impoliteness. Captioned “Bikhs.ūs. al-waqāh.a,” a phrase that loosely translates to “Speaking of rudeness,” the mural features a portrait of a man wearing a scarf with the emblem of the cedar. A long arm with an index fi nger stretches to poke one of the man’s eyes as the man opens his mouth in pain. The invasive arm with the long index fi nger may be considered a metonym of the violent state, as evidenced by the message written on the arm’s sleeve, which reads, “Als.ult.a al-h.ākima,” or “The ruling power” (fig. 4.17). Abdo’s mural offers a visual response to the state’s vitriolic narratives about allegedly rude and audacious protestors who have used obscene language in reference to the president and a number of ministers in their slogans and chants. After all, on several occasions during the uprising, political leaders such as Michel Aoun, Gebran Bassil, and Hassan Nasrallah have accused protestors of being disorderly rogues who should learn how to voice their concerns with respect. According to Majed and Salman, “Tropes of ‘civility’ and ‘proper speech’—especially coming from those in power—are primarily disciplining mechanisms that aim to reinforce self-censorship. . . . They also conveyed threats of violence should the naming and shaming of politicians not stop.”45 Abdo’s mural thus ridicules a government that has the audacity to blind its people—by literally and symbolically poking them in eye and directing veiled threats at them, all the while sermonizing about the importance of remaining courteous. It also demonstrates that some protestors refuse to be intimidated and to self-censor out of fear of government retaliation. Indeed, similar to the trash-centered slogans of the 2015 demonstrations, the revolution-centered slogans, chants, and graffiti pieces became increasingly offensive in response to the worsening economic and political crises and the perceived brazenness of the Lebanese government in clinging to power and blaming protestors for the country’s chaos. Among the most ubiquitous threatening scrawls is one that reads, “Al-sha‘b iza jā‘, byākul h.ikkāmu” (If the people get hungry, they will eat their rulers). Unlike the

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Figure 4.17. Roula Abdo, “Speaking of rudeness,” mural in Downtown Beirut.

Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

aforementioned fragility-centered murals that simply visualize hungry and homeless people and appeal for an ethics of care, this inscription mobilizes hunger to threaten vengeance against political elites. The message fi rst appeared on banners that some protestors, including anarchists, carried during a march to the Lebanese Parliament in January 2020. The graffito and banners therefore mirror and reinforce one another. They warn the government, in a rather menacing tone, that starving the population might actually lead to unleashing the people’s cannibalistic tendencies toward the leaders responsible for their plight. The statement seems to be inspired by the universal slogan “Eat the rich,” which is popular among anticapitalist and anarchist groups in Lebanon (as elsewhere) and has appeared on Beirut’s walls for many years.46 Here, the Lebanese activists and graffiti makers alter the popular saying into a statement that constructs Lebanese leaders as the rich who will be devoured when the hungry people reach their breaking point. The seemingly matter-of-fact “If . . . then . . .” scrawl aims to strike some terror, or at least unease, in the minds and hearts of Lebanese politicians who might catch a glimpse of it on the streets, online, or in newspapers. In a similar vein, another graffito, signed by Renoz, depicts a fancylooking armchair with a skull seated on it, suggesting that political positions in Lebanon are occupied by leaders who remain in power long after they die and turn into skeletons. The graffito of the skull sitt ing in the chair

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could also be interpreted as a warning to politicians, cautioning them that the chair will become the death of them if they do not step down. Along the same lines, another graffito features a hand with the middle fi nger raised and the word “Khod,” which loosely translates to “Take that / up yours.” The graffito raises an accusatory (middle) fi nger at the government, articulating the sense of irreverence and frustration experienced by citizens toward their leaders. The stencil of the middle fi nger appears next to another graffitied message that reads, “Ya qrūd, rja‘ū ‘ala qafaskun” (You monkeys, get back to your cage). Monkeys are generally considered repulsive animals in Lebanese culture and are typically associated with obnoxiousness, mimicry, and fi lth. Therefore, the stencil dehumanizes political leaders and demands that they be trapped and kept away from the people. The association of politicians with culturally unfavorable animals appears in yet another graffito, a mural signed by Sp*z that features a fat pig wearing a suit and smoking a cigar—a nod to the global anticapitalist symbol often used to reference greed. A small, inverted crown hovers above the pig’s head. The mural is captioned by an Arabic sentence, written in spoken Lebanese, that reads, “Al-tāj idh.ashū bi-tīzak” (The crown, shove it up your ass) (fig. 4.18). The plump pig, wearing a suit embellished with a dollarsign-embroidered handkerchief, represents gluttonous politicians who con-

Figure 4.18. Sp*z, mural of a pig smoking a cigar in Downtown Beirut. The caption, rendered in spoken Lebanese, translates to “The crown, shove it up your ass.” Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

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tinue to get bigger and to thrive at the expense of the people. By instructing the pig to sodomize itself with its crown—the symbol of power—the graffiti maker perhaps suggests that politicians have leveraged their power in a strictly self-serving or self-gratifying manner that is of no benefit to the rest of the population. Even more so than the monkey, the pig is associated with all that is fi lthy and unholy in Lebanese culture. Together, the damning graffiti pieces incorporating animal imagery and sexual-assault rhetoric capture people’s mounting frustrations and their visceral desires to see their politicians screwed, in the same way that they feel violated, dehumanized, and even pimped out by the Lebanese political elites. In other words, such disturbing graffiti reflects and shapes the antigovernment cultural idioms created during disturbing times, articulating and intensifying the contentious dynamics between people and government. Thawra graffiti artists have also painted unflattering caricatures of Lebanon’s major political leaders—for the fi rst time in Lebanon’s recent history—shaming them collectively on the walls of Downtown Beirut. One mural features black-and-white drawings of Michel Aoun, Nabih Berri, Walid Jumblatt, Saad Hariri, and Samir Geagea against a sky-blue backdrop fi lled with dollar signs (fig. 4.19). The political leaders look bewildered and panic-stricken, as evidenced by their facial expressions, including droopy eyelids, raised eyebrows, and frowning foreheads. The mural suggests that the men have become weary, fearful, and uncertain. Th is unflattering narrative about deflated Lebanese politicians offers an antidote to a widely common narrative about the political acumen and mightiness of Lebanese leaders, and how they have persisted for decades and often confronted inside and outside enemies swift ly and effectively. On the wall, the formerly mythologized protectors of their respective sects seem depleted of both energy and power. Other graffiti makers have added their touch to this mural, including one who scribbled the expression “zi‘rān,” or “thugs,” in the center of the wall. Other graffitied messages, including “thawra” (revolution), “h.uriyyeh” (freedom), “Lubnān yantafid.” (Lebanon is rising up), and “fas.l al-dīn ‘an al-dawleh” (separation of state and religion), also surround the mural, as the dialogue on the wall continues. If the postwar graffiti and street art of Yazan Halwani and Ashekman aimed to scrub the faces of politicians off the walls by replacing the leadership posters with portraits of renowned artists, then the thawra-related murals sought to reinscribe the faces of politicians on the wall—in a humiliating, incriminating manner. Th is is the case with yet another Downtown Beirut mural, which depicts mug shots of Walid Jumblatt, Fouad Siniora, Gebran Bassil, and Saad Hariri, who are dressed in black-and-white-striped

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Figure 4.19. Signature illegible, mural caricaturing Lebanon’s major political

leaders in Downtown Beirut. Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

prison outfits and hold placards (fig. 4.20). They also wear clown makeup, as evidenced by the red dots on their noses and their exaggerated lips. At least two narratives may be gleaned from this mural. Given the prison outfits, the fi rst narrative relates to the politicians’ perceived dishonesty and criminal activities, suggesting that they all belong in prison. Th is narrative alludes to the fact that some political leaders have been suspected by Lebanese civilians of amassing wealth through questionable deals, including sponsoring or facilitating extravagant development projects, embezzling funds, and money laundering. Epitomized by the clown makeup, the second narrative speaks of the politicians’ perceived ineptitude, subservience, and pandering to regional political leaders or governments who have used Lebanon’s selfserving pawns in broader global power games. In an opinion piece aptly titled “Lebanon and the Land of Karagoz,” John Bell, a former political adviser to the personal representative of the United Nations secretary-general for southern Lebanon, argued, Today, politics in Lebanon reflect both meanings of that term [“Karagoz”]: the clown and the puppet show. Every evening, Lebanese are entertained on the TV news by the splendiferous view of their politicians meeting and greeting each other. Nothing much gets done.  .  .  . It may be harsh to call them clowns, but the cha-

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rade, the endless soap opera, does go on and on. Meanwhile, some also argue that the reality of Lebanon also reflects the original idea of Karagoz, the shadow puppets. The local leaders are the willing servants of regional agendas, manipulated by taut golden strings stretching from Tehran and Riyadh to Beirut.47 It is no coincidence, then, that Saad Hariri’s placard contains the words “Saudi Oger” and “Future TV,” highlighting Hariri’s ties to Saudi Arabia. Future TV is a satellite television station that was founded by Saad Hariri’s father, Rafi k Hariri, and flourished for over two decades. Citing fi nancial reasons, the station shut down in September 2019, and its demise cannot be fully dissociated from the dissolution of Rafi k Hariri’s Saudi Oger, a construction and services company in Saudi Arabia that is considered a cornerstone of the Hariri family fortune. The graffiti maker appears to shame Saad Hariri by drawing attention to his Saudi connections, fi nancial failures, and political undoing in the aftermath of his reported falling out with Saudi Arabia’s government. While Hariri’s placard references the former prime minister’s fi nancial and political woes, Gebran Bassil’s placard uses his own words against him. The expression “24/7–2005” likely refers to Bassil’s public promises as energy minister, over a decade ago, about securing uninterrupted electricity for all Lebanese citizens. Of course, by October 2021, most Lebanese would consider themselves fortunate to receive five hours of government-supplied electricity a day, and most rely on commercial generators or paid subscriptions to keep their homes and business lit and functioning. Bassil, therefore, is represented as a trickster who does not say what he means or mean what he says. A similar accusation of abuse of power is leveled against former Lebanese prime minister Fouad Siniora, who holds a placard with a message that translates to “11 billion.” Th is number likely refers to a news piece about a state prosecutor questioning Siniora over the whereabouts of an estimated US$11 billion in state funds. Siniora’s office issued a statement that his spending of this sum of money was legal, but some Lebanese, particularly his fellow residents in Sidon, want to see him held accountable for possible mismanagement of funds that they believe rightfully belong to the people. In the words of one protestor from Sidon, “The theater of simply summoning him is not enough. We want the money, we want our children’s money and we will not leave the streets until we get it back.”48 Ironically, the protestor’s use of the word “theater” mirrors the graffito’s deployment of the clown trope and invokes the farcical performances of the Lebanese state and its failure to implement any concrete reforms. Finally, Walid Jumblatt’s placard, translated from Arabic, reads, “Where

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Figure 4.20. Signature illegible, mural featuring the mug shots of Lebanon’s

major political figures in Downtown Beirut. Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

to?” The phrase likely echoes a tweet by the long-serving leader of Lebanon’s Progressive Socialist Party that translates as follows: “Where to? Yes, where to? Today more than ever, this question comes to my mind. Where is America’s ruler dragging the world, and where are the likes of him dragging us in Lebanon?” For years, Jumblatt has developed a reputation for adeptly deflecting criticism by fl ip-flopping on his political positions as needed, including temporarily distancing himself from political elites and proclaiming support for anticorruption groups, before embracing the regime again when it suits him. Th is graffito articulates some Lebanese people’s disillusionment with Jumblatt’s tactics and tired narratives. The placard thus turns Jumblatt’s question against him, in essence suggesting that he is one of the corrupt Lebanese leaders who have led the country into economic and political meltdown and must now answer the question “Where to?”

Centering Gender and Sexuality Despite being primarily born out of people’s pain and fear in the face of a fragile economy and political gridlock, the 2019 revolution demonstrated a significant cultural shift with regard to women and gender issues, which

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people increasingly perceive as inseparable from the larger pursuit of sociopolitical and economic stability. For a start, the revolution witnessed the most frequent, robust, and substantial participation of women in the nation’s history of protest. Since the beginning of the uprising, Lebanese women from across the country joined general as well as women-centered demonstrations, coordinated vigils, confronted law-enforcement officers, cooked for protestors, set up screen-printing stations,49 chanted antigovernment slogans, and marched to governmental or fi nancial institutions—sometimes with children in tow. According to Majed and Salman, one reason women became actively engaged in the revolution relates to the fact that the country’s wretched situation—caused by the sectarian, neoliberal system—has contributed to the fragmentation of families as more men migrate in search of livelihood. Consequently, women have had to bear the brunt of care labor, as they are generally expected to “nurture what’s left of communities and families decimated.”50 The increasingly harsh reality of navigating estrangement from loved ones and being left behind to care for the sick, the young, and the elderly, amid highly challenging conditions, led to more weariness and antigovernment sentiment on the part of women. In other words, women started to regard themselves as increasingly burdened by a government that has long mistreated them and undermined their contributions by virtue of upholding discriminatory laws that keep them vulnerable and sidelined. Finding themselves with litt le or nothing to lose, many women took to the streets—as protestors and graffiti makers—to voice their dissent against a system that had not served them and had reached an intolerable level of cruelty. The women’s participation in demonstrations was not limited to supporting men or merely contributing to an increase in protest attendance. The journalist Richard Hall notes that “the role of women in these protests has been more than symbolic; it has dramatically altered their character and direction.”51 One of the most famous incidents that occurred on the fi rst night of the revolution—and that shaped the narrative around women’s participation—was an altercation between a female protestor by the name of Malak Alaywe and a minister’s bodyguard in which Alaywe kicked the bodyguard in the groin. Alaywe reportedly attacked the armed bodyguard after he attempted to disperse the protestors. Dubbed the “Kick Queen,” and the “Icon of Lebanon’s Revolution,” Alaywe gained further public attention after celebrating her wedding to a fellow demonstrator (whom she met at one of the 2015 garbage demonstrations) at a protest in Riad al-Solh Square. By holding her wedding in the square, she showed how love and politics are particularly intertwined in a country where many young men and women cannot afford to get married and establish a family.

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Importantly, Alaywe’s actions showed other women (and men) what courage and embodied disobedience might look like from a woman’s perspective. As Mariana Wehbe, a vigil organizer, asserted, “We grew up in fear. There is none of that now. If we have a problem we are going to scream about it. . . . Th is energy has always been there, we just found a way to unleash it and show who we really are.”52 In the same spirit, Lebanese mothers have marched on several occasions, including on Mother’s Day in 2021, asserting their unique positionalities as women who feel obligated to fight for their rights and their children’s futures. At the protests, mothers chanted slogans or held banners that spoke of their pain—specifically of losing their partners and children to emigration and/or violence (including sectarian violence and the port explosion). Women-centered graffiti and street art have echoed this ethos of female empowerment. A red, white, and green stencil in Downtown Beirut depicts a woman kicking someone in the groin, which might very well be a tribute to Alaywe’s famous altercation with the armed bodyguard. That the stencil is painted in the colors of the Lebanese flag, with the woman kicker placed in the middle of the image, suggests that women’s empowerment and selfdefense in the face of patriarchal violence should be at the center of a postrevolution Lebanon. In a related manner, the theme of speaking up has appeared on Beirut’s walls in a way that centers the place of women in the revolution, as in the case of a rushed graffito featuring a woman with her fist raised. The image’s captions read, “Lan naskut . . . h.urriyya . . . al-thawra imara’a,” which translates to “We will not shut up . . . Freedom . . . The revolution is a woman” (fig. 4.21). In addition, among the most popular slogans that graffiti makers have scribbled on the walls is “Al-thawra unthā,” or “The revolution is female.” Other variations of this popular slogan include “Thūrī, fa-l-thawra unthā” (Revolt, for the revolution is female), “Al-quwwa li-l-nisā’ ” (Power to the women), “Ana qā’idat al-thawra” (I am the female leader of the revolution), and “Untha bi-alf rajul” (A female is worth a thousand males). Such slogans amplify women’s voices and highlight their contributions as leaders of the revolution. Other artifacts, such as the graffitied messages “Ajsādunā lanā” (Our bodies are ours), “Thawra bilā jins mish thawra” (A revolution without sex is not a revolution), and “Vagina power,” emphasize female embodiment and suggest that a political revolution remains incomplete without a sexual revolution that promotes corporeal independence in the face of patriarchal control and sexual taboos. In addition to scrawls and stencils, some street artists, including female graffiti makers, have painted elaborate murals that highlight women’s unwavering pursuit of (political and bodily) freedom and justice. One mu-

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Figure 4.21. Unsigned graffito in Downtown Beirut of a woman yelling, along

with the captions, “We will not shut up . . . Freedom . . . The revolution is a woman.” Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

ral by Sumer Ziady, a member of the Art of Change collective, features two muscular women, partially draped in Lebanese flags, with their hair made of the iconic “wings of freedom” symbol (fig. 4.22). Both women have one of their breasts exposed, but they do not seem concerned about their partial nudity as they march forward with determination. Th at the mural portrays the women with at least six arms suggests that they possess extraordinary strength. The words “Thawra” and “Ya h.uriyyeh” (Oh, freedom) caption the image, cementing the connection between the fight for political rights and the fight for women’s rights, as epitomized by the female warriors in the image. Th is women-centered mural has inspired other inscriptions around it, including a handwritten message signed by Hiba that translates to “Please, nobody erase this,” alongside a heart symbol. Another handwritten inscription, signed by Wosoul, translates to “Please teach your boys that a woman is a companion/comrade. She is the nation. She is life.” The exchanges among different graffiti makers demonstrate the mural’s ability to engage pedestrians, in this case like-minded individuals who support elevating women-related issues and/or women artists. It also attests to graffiti’s place-making abilities to create a makeshift space dedicated to advocating for women as crucial partners in the building of a postrevolution Lebanon. Importantly, Ziady posted on Instagram pictures of herself painting the

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graffito. She wrote, “Day 12 of the Lebanese Revolution was the fi rst time I ever painted on a wall, thanks to artofchange.global. I also want to thank the unknown riot police officer that stood for 2 hours with his flashlight helping me while I painted.”53 Ziady’s words highlight the ways in which the act of painting a mural, particularly one’s fi rst mural, can be empowering to the graffiti maker herself, not just the protestors whom the graffiti maker seeks to empower. Furthermore, that a riot police officer decided to help Ziady—rather than harass her or sabotage her work—shows that some members of the security forces were empathetic to the protestors (and perhaps even supportive of the revolution itself) on a personal level and that they expressed that sense of solidarity by assisting graffiti makers in small but important ways. Another mural, signed by the graffiti maker Mjay, portrays a nude woman with long hair fanning a fi re that seems to have emerged from be-

Figure 4.22.

Sumer Ziady of the Art of Change, mural in Downtown Beirut. The Arabic text reads, “Revolution” and “Oh, freedom.” Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

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tween her legs (fig. 4.23). The woman is sitt ing in front of a house as opposed to inside of it. She also appears to be holding and protecting the house with all her might.54 The raging fi re may be read as a symbol of the October Revolution and/or a reference to the literal wildfi res that contributed to triggering it. That the fi re seems to be erupting from the woman’s private parts also suggests that the current political revolution is simultaneously a sexual revolution, bent on defying established traditional att itudes with regard to women’s chastity and public conduct. Regardless of how one might construe the exact symbolism of the fi re (which lends itself to multiple interpretations), the mural depicts women as protectors of their community, constructing them in an agential role. The woman’s nudity could be problematic for some who might be concerned about its potential reinforcement of female objectification. At the same time, like the previously mentioned mural, the woman at the center of the image is depicted as being actively engaged (by wrapping her arms around the house) rather than sitt ing passively or posing for someone’s gaze. In addition to amplifying women’s voices, some activists adopted an intersectional approach by “taking on causes such as the kafala system, the systematic abuse of refugees, [and] the harassment and discrimination faced by members of the LGBTQ+ community, among many other struggles that receive just as much priority.”55 They conducted public teach-ins at protests about numerous issues such as civil disobedience, the environment, toxic masculinity, the rights of migrant workers, and inclusive nation building. In turn, graffiti makers have depicted, promoted, or advanced the efforts of feminists and LGBTQ+ activists who consider the revolution an opportunity to adopt a holistic approach to social justice—one that takes into account the plights and needs of marginalized populations, including women, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and migrant workers. Scrawls such as “Na‘am li h.imayat h.uqūq al-rūmaniyyāt wa-l-rūssiyyāt” (Yes to protecting the rights of Romanian and Russian women) and “Lūt.ī mish msabbeh” (Fag is not a swear word), as well as “Gay rights,” have appeared in the public space alongside antigovernment scrawls. Such messages that announce the rights of migrant workers and gay people reveal the ways in which graffiti makers have carved out a space for reiterating and advancing a more progressive and revolutionary discourse regarding minoritized populations as the revolution is unfolding, rather than deferring such demands until more peaceful times. On a related note, one graffitied scrawl that has appeared in several areas, including Hamra and Downtown Beirut, reads, “Mia Khalifa ashraf minkun,” which translates to “Mia Khalifa is more honorable than you all”—where “you all” refers to Lebanese political leaders. Khalifa is a fa-

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Figure 4.23. Mjay, mural of a woman protecting a house in Downtown Beirut. Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

mous Lebanese American adult fi lm actor whom the Lebanese government and some Lebanese citizens have demonized for her former line of work but who sprang into swift action in the aftermath of the port explosion. In addition to using her platform to spread awareness about the revolution, she donated a substantial amount of money to the Lebanese Red Cross in the aftermath of the August 4, 2020, explosion. She also auctioned her famous eyeglasses and donated the proceedings to Lebanese charities. And she called upon other celebrities, particularly those of Lebanese heritage, urging them to make donations and/or use their social media to spread awareness and raise funds for Lebanon. By valorizing Khalifa over Lebanese leaders, the graffiti makers reiterate the sentiments of Lebanese activists who raised banners with pictures or slogans praising Khalifa at demonstrations, specifically indicating that she is more virtuous than Lebanese politicians. Privileging Khalifa over Lebanon’s politicians and calling her a woman of honor—despite her experience as a former adult fi lm actor who did not shy away from using the hijab as a prop in her fi lms—reflects changing cultural att itudes regarding the conceptualization of virtue. At least temporarily, rather than being reduced to a sex icon or an allegedly disgraceful woman, Khalifa is lauded for using her platform and personal wealth to help her country. In sum, her perceived honor is dissociated from her sexual conduct and ascribed to her revolution-related activism and support of Red

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Cross volunteers and affl icted families. Crucially, the narrative about Khalifa being more honorable than Lebanese politicians conjures up and reinforces the aforementioned narrative about the perception of Lebanese leaders as the ultimate villains who have pimped out the country. The discourse about virtuousness (or the lack thereof) suggests that it is Lebanon’s shameless political elites, not a retired adult fi lm actor, who must be chastised for dishonoring the Lebanese people.

Blaming the Banks The banking sector has also received its share of derisive graffiti, thanks to hyperinflation, the devaluing of the Lebanese currency, restrictive banking policies on cash withdrawals, and law enforcement’s fierce protection of banks from protestors and disgruntled civilians unable to access their money. In March 2020, Lebanon’s attorney general suspended an order freezing the assets of twenty banks and their directors, which Lebanon’s fi nancial prosecutor Ali Ibrahim had issued to curb and investigate suspected capital fl ight. The suspension of the order triggered a march toward Downtown Beirut to protest the state and the banking sector. Many Lebanese believe, for good reason, that the banks have actively robbed them of their savings while allowing political elites to withdraw their money behind closed doors. In response to this fi nancial and legal turmoil, bankingspecific works of graffiti have appeared on or close to buildings that house bank offices, as well as Downtown, the de facto fi nancial district of the country and (former) stomping grounds of the rich and powerful. One Arabic-language scrawl states, “Lift banking secrecy off your accounts,” in reference to politicians’ private bank accounts, which have been shielded from scrutiny by the Lebanese banks’ secrecy laws. Such fi nancial secrecy laws have enabled politicians to eschew bank audits that may expose illegal transactions if lifted. They also hurt the interests of the Lebanese public, particularly the country’s most vulnerable populations, since international donors have expressed concerns about sending much-needed aid to Lebanon because of the perceived lack of transparency and accountability of the Lebanese banking system. In addition to demanding transparency, which would facilitate scrutinizing the assets and exposing potential embezzlement or money laundering by powerful politicians, many banking-related scrawls have called for the toppling of the banking system altogether. Among the most commonly seen bank-related scrawls is one that reads, “Liyasqut. h.ukm al-mas.rif ” (May the rule of banks fall), thereby mimicking the stencils (and the slogans and chants before them) calling for

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the ouster of the sectarian system and the police state. The banking sector is seen as a tentacle of the political system, one that must be cut off for the country to begin to recover. Some of the graffiti pieces calling for the downfall of the banking system include a stencil of Riad Salameh, Lebanon’s Central Bank chief since 1993, with horns on his head. The stencil suggests that Salameh is a corrupt devil who must be exorcised and punished. The image of a devilish Sala meh conjures up numerous dialogical narratives regarding the embezzlement allegations he is currently facing in France and Switzerland but has vehemently denied. The allegations in Paris contend that Salameh, members of his family, and associates utilized companies, assets, and investment vehicles worth hundreds of millions of euros as a means of diverting funds out of Lebanon. In addition, Salameh has faced accusations of corruption related to his facilitating of bank-subsidized loans and advancing of the careers of select Lebanese politicians (or their children), businesspeople, and journalists who are in his inner circle or whom he has rewarded for portraying him favorably in public. The devil-centered stencil, then, illustrates its graffiti maker’s humorous attempts to demonize one of Lebanon’s most powerful and enduring authority figures. Unsurprisingly, the Lebanese Central Bank has been the target of many organized and spontaneous protests, sit-ins, and marches. In turn, its walls have also been graffitied and repeatedly scrubbed clean. The sentence “Salameh ‘ars. al-bank al-duwalī” (Salameh is a pimp of the World Bank) has been repeatedly scribbled and crossed out on the building’s facade (fig. 4.24). The recurrence of the tropes regarding pimping and sexual assault in association with Lebanon’s leaders alludes to the level of disgust that protestors have reached and their perception that these leaders have sold Lebanon and screwed its people in the process of enriching themselves. Another bank-related scrawl that has appeared in various handwritings but does not name names reads, “Al-mas.ārif h.aramiyyeh” (The banks are thieves), thus personifying the banks as crooks and accusing them of robbing the nation. A different stencil translates to “We will liberate our deposits from the banks,” accusing bankers of imprisoning people’s money and pledging to set free people’s rightful savings.56 These stencils reveal the sense of injustice experienced by people who worked hard to save money and trusted the banks with their deposits, including working- and middleclass civilians who found themselves in the difficult position of being unable to transfer money to children studying abroad or to pay for hospital fees within Lebanon and abroad. In addition to the issue of restrictive banking policies that have robbed people of their savings, the accusation of theft may also be referring to the way Lebanese banks and government officials

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Figure 4.24. Unsigned graffiti at the Central Bank in Hamra. The Arabic text

originally read, “Salameh is a pimp of the World Bank,” but the word “pimp” has been crossed out. Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

have been purportedly siphoning foreign aid by selling local currency at high rates. According to an investigation by Thomson Reuters Foundation, an estimated US$250 million in United Nations humanitarian aid meant to be disbursed to Syrian and Palestinian refugees and underprivileged communities in Lebanon has been absorbed by banks selling the local currency at unfavorable rates.57

Demanding the Downfall of the Criminal Government Crucially, graffiti and street art have also articulated the rage, trauma, and aspirations for revenge that are specifically associated with the Beirut Port blast. Artists and nonartists used scrawls, stencils, and murals as a vehicle for expressing their fury against the Lebanese government in the aftermath of the explosion. In his exploration of the role of emotion in social movements, James Jasper argues, “If people believe their government should have foreseen or prevented a catastrophe, or should have done more to help afterward, they may become indignant even without believing that the government actually caused the calamity.”58 In much the same way, many Lebanese have felt frustrated for decades by the government’s incom-

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petence, but the port explosion pushed them over the edge. Some now see the government as a criminal establishment, whether because of its negligence, the potential attempt to benefit from the stored ammonium nitrate, its failure to prevent the incident, and/or a lack of accountability in the aftermath of the explosion. To that end, people’s unprecedented levels of rage have moved them both to protest in the streets and to create antigovernment graffiti that publicly reveals their desires and intentions to oust a government that has lost its right to rule, let alone continue to exist in its current formation. Many Lebanese have been demanding that the sectarian government be fully replaced by a technocratic one in which democratically elected political leaders can leverage their credentials and skills to improve the country’s situation. Among the most damning antigovernment graffiti created in response to the port blast is one that appeared on a wall right across from the port a few days after the explosion. Written in both Arabic and English, the simple messages read, “Dawlatī fa‘alat hadhā / My government did this.” The anonymous graffiti maker shames the Lebanese government by directly implicating it in the blast at the main site of death and destruction. The blunt, raw message, penned in black ink, gathers much of its affective and critical power from both its timing and its location. In other words, the message captures the visceral yet cognitive reaction of many Lebanese to the human-made, traumatic disaster that rocked the (already ailing) country and that could have been avoided if the government had taken the necessary steps to ensure public safety. According to Bassel Salih, a Lebanese activist, the graffito is equivalent to “an accusatory fi nger in the past, present and future, of this ruling system that is waging a social war on its people.”59 Crucially, the penned statement reveals that the graffiti maker is not concerned with the details of the incident; the fact that the blast happened at a governmental facility because of an illicit transaction is enough for the writer to accuse the Lebanese government of committ ing a crime. The statement may also be considered a plea to an outside observer to whom the writer appeals desperately for support. Th is outside observer may include foreign government heads of state, international donors, and social justice activists and human rights groups whom the graffiti maker forewarns about working with or trusting the Lebanese government (whose customary reaction has often involved pleading for fi nancial support from international donors). Unsurprisingly, the incriminating graffito was painted over a few months after it fi rst appeared. As this book has demonstrated, however, despite its seemingly transient nature graffiti does not just disappear into thin air, as if it never existed, when scrubbed away or painted over. Th is is especially true when the larger community grows attached to a graffito and con-

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siders it legitimate (regardless of whether or not it is technically legal). In this case, the graffito resembled a visual cry against an allegedly criminal Lebanese government, an artifact speaking truth to power, for the whole world to take note. Th is simple graffitied message carried infi nite emotional valence in the eyes (and hearts) of many Lebanese. As soon as people awoke to the news regarding the effacement of the port graffiti, they started circulating tweets that called out the unwarranted act of erasure, thus keeping the original message alive online. The hashtag “Dawlatī fa‘alat hadhā / My government did this” went viral, with many tweeting a variation of the expression or providing commentary on what had happened. Tweets included the following statements, translated from the Arabic: “My government is still killing us every day a thousand times”; “[What] my government did is not a joke—it’s a genocide, a documented crime. You cannot erase your criminality”; and “You will not be able to alter history. You know that, and your hands are tainted in blood.”60 These highly emotional reactions in response to the disappearance of the graffiti from the port site remind us that in the context of traumatic events, cultural productions can “engender contact and actualize and expand the interpretative community or ‘community of sentiment.’ ”61 Indeed, the port graffito accusing the government of criminality quickly became a cherished artifact belonging to all Lebanese people—a makeshift memorial telling, in three Arabic words, a story about past and present trauma. Th is public eyesore also provided an outlet for the survivors and the families of dead victims who might have found some comfort in publicly shaming the Lebanese government and in keeping the memory of their loved ones alive. Created by and for the community, the removal of this emotionally loaded artifact was not going to occur as discreetly or smoothly as the government might have wished. The contentious situation, prompted by the erasure of the port graffiti, escalated even further when a victim who had survived the blast went back to the site and recorded himself and a friend (re)writing on the whitewashed wall a follow-up statement that translates to “You cannot erase your criminality. My government did this.” In a video posted on social media, the graffiti maker points to his injured arm and explains how he could have easily been one the “martyrs.” He vows, “Even if they erase [the graffiti] a hundred times, this evidence of their crime, we will rewrite it again a hundred times.”62 The act of reinscribing the accusation, and reascribing guilt to the Lebanese government, has been recorded, digitized, and circulated indefi nitely. Collectively, the original graffiti, the repainted graffiti, and the tweets and videos that memorialized the explosion humiliated the Lebanese government both locally and globally and fueled ongoing activism and demands for social justice. The acts of writing and rewriting this accusatory

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message and broadcasting it publicly—both on the streets and through digital reproduction—also warn the Lebanese government that the crime will not be forgotten. A parallel discourse about seeking revenge for the Lebanese people in general and the port victims in particular, through lynching government officials, also emerged at protests and in graffiti in the aftermath of the explosion. On August 8, 2020, some activists set up provisional nooses in Downtown Beirut and called for the hanging of Lebanese political leaders.63 That day has been referred to as the “Saturday of Revenge,” the “Day of Rage,” and “Judgment Day,” among other descriptors. Protestors placed nooses around the necks of cardboard cutouts of Michel Aoun, Hassan Nasrallah, and Gebran Bassil, among other politicians. Some demonstrators took pictures with the hanged politicians. Describing the eerie scene, one journalist wrote, “The time for accountability is long gone; now is the time for vengeance.”64 Echoing this bloodthirsty discourse, two related scrawls that are often seen next to each other read, “Fajjartūnā h.arfiyyan” (You literally exploded us) and “Na‘īsh liqatlikum” (We live to kill you). The messages are supplemented with an image of a noose with a stick figure hanging from it (fig. 4.25). The fi rst scrawl accuses the government of blowing up its own people, and the second message promises that the people will survive in order to exact revenge and exterminate their murderous political leaders. In a third, related piece, a hangman-style figure appears with the game’s blanks fi lled in with the letters “‫ب د ر ي‬,” or “B a d r i.” Th is likely refers to Badri Daher, the former director of Lebanon’s customs authority, who was arrested and questioned about the explosion. For the graffiti maker, government officials deserve nothing less than a death sentence, or even a public lynching, in return for all the damage they allowed to happen (or failed to deter). Employing dark humor, the writers of this type of graffiti visualize a collective desire among some Lebanese citizens to see their officials suffer a horrible death. The hangman graffito utilizes gallows humor to articulate the collective rage (affect) but also the judgment (cognitive appraisal) of some Lebanese people who believe that Lebanese officials deserve a similar, if not worse, fate than that suffered by the unwitt ing port victims who lost their lives. Extending the trope of a murderous government, a fourth scrawl associates the Lebanese government with terrorism. The graffito succinctly reads, “Dawlat irhāb” (A terrorist government / a government of terror), thereby accusing the government of domestic terrorism. The stencil dialogically deconstructs the government’s master narrative that Lebanon is a victim of foreign or proxy terrorists who continue to wreak havoc on the country—or their intimations that antigovernment protestors are traitors

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Figure 4.25. Unsigned scrawls in Downtown Beirut that read, “You literally

exploded us” and “We live to kill you.” Photograph by Garrett Stockwell.

who deserve to be detained, tortured, and prosecuted in military tribunals. After all, the Lebanese government has had no qualms about leveraging terrorism-related charges to prosecute protestors, including minors, particularly in Tripoli. As Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa has stated, “The Lebanese authorities’ oppressive and disproportionate use of terrorism-related charges to prosecute protesters marks an alarming escalation in their repression and is clearly intended to instill fear and deter protests.”65 A fi ft h scrawl reads, “Khityār ’irhābī” (Terrorist old man). The expression alludes to President Aoun, whom some consider a washed-out politician who has forced his way to the presidency despite proving himself to be incompetent, and even detrimental, to the country in his past position as an army general.66 The unapologetically ageist sentiments against Aoun—who is often referred to as “kharfān” (senile) and in need of a “h.fād” (diaper)—are less about aging per se and more about the fact that many Lebanese perceive Lebanon’s enduring politicians, including Aoun, as antidemocratic, power-hungry, and unstable thugs who have overstayed their welcome and have wasted decades sabotaging the country. Regardless of whether or not we take the lynching- or terrorism-centered graffiti literally, this type of crime-centered graffiti reveals the depth of the feelings of hurt and anger among Lebanese people and their skepticism that the nation’s

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political leaders will be willing to step down peacefully or make any substantial reforms. On the contrary, many Lebanese believe that Lebanon has been usurped by a violent, authoritarian state that is anything but democratic. It is no surprise, then, that stencils referencing surveillance, authoritarianism, and militarism have been proliferating, including two that translate to “Military Beirut welcomes you” and “May the police state fall.”

Conclusion In his discussion of people’s resistance in the Middle East, Charles Tripp reminds us that the visual arts, including graffiti, “can resonate with people’s experiences, epitomizing in visual images or memorable phrases a sense of shared experience. In fact, they can create a powerful, shared vocabulary, a visual idiom that becomes an accepted way of expressing both identity and political determination.”67 In this way, the revolution-related graffiti and street art visualize people’s experiences, demonstrating their mutual vulnerability in the face of a government considered oppressive and neglectful by many people. During troubled times, graffiti makers often seek to validate people’s dejection, alienation, and despair but also help to transform these feelings (and thoughts) into more purposeful, collective action, including but not limited to mobilizing antigovernment protests and solidarity movements. Similar to the 2015 garbage protests, the 2019 October Revolution and its corresponding graffiti erupted mainly in Beirut’s Central District, occupying and transforming the once fancy and exclusive area into the rightful place for all residents to air their grievances—or simply to take a walk and enjoy the revolution’s vibrant visual culture, without feeling like outsiders. Rida al-Mawla, a Lebanese citizen, explained that he rarely took walks in Downtown Beirut before the revolution but that the changing urban landscape, enabled by the affective and thought-provoking murals, altered his perspective and his daily habits. He stated, “I am starting to feel that Downtown Beirut now represents me more than any other time in the past. It is as if Beirut has screamed to us through the walls and expressed all the feelings that had been buried under the buildings.”68 Al-Mawla’s words reiterate the affective and embodied place-making dimensions of protest art and the potential of graffiti makers to transform an (exclusionary) place like Beirut’s Central District into a more inclusive and revolutionary space, even if temporarily. It is important to emphasize that graffiti making was supplemented by other types of embodied communal activity, including teaching, debating, singing, dancing, playing cards, eating, and smoking shisha in the

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square—all of which contributed to the spatial, social, and psychic transformation of the Central District. In reclaiming formerly exclusive spaces, and by depicting the Lebanese flag in numerous murals (as opposed to the flags of specific political parties or movements), graffiti makers sought to perform alternative modes of citizenship, characterized by speaking up, taking to the streets, making art, and enacting solidarity across sects, classes, and gender identities. Importantly, more than any other protests in the past, this revolution and its corresponding graffiti framed environmental and gender issues as inextricable from economic and political concerns and as no less integral to the larger pursuit of social justice. After all, the 2019 wildfi res, ongoing waste mismanagement crisis, and poor environmental conditions have all contributed to making life in Lebanon increasingly insufferable and precarious. The port blast served to solidify people’s beliefs regarding the integrative and incremental nature of both violence and resistance. In an interview with the BBC, Beirut resident Eddie Bitar stated that political leaders “took our money, they put debts for the generations to come. They killed our forests, they burned them. They are killing our soul.”69 Bitar’s words demonstrate the ways in which he and other average citizens now perceive embezzlement, the burning of forests, and the killing of souls as interrelated, cumulative acts of violence that cross-fertilize one another. Relatedly, women have disproportionately suffered the consequences of Lebanon’s economic collapse and increased emigration, by virtue of being the primary caregivers for children and the elderly—on top of continuing to endure discriminatory laws and patriarchal cultural practices. Graffiti and street art’s emphasis on raising the voices of women, sexual minorities, and other marginalized populations in the face of injustice echo the words and actions of activists who consider the revolution an opportunity to demand a more inclusive society “for all the people.” In addition to capturing people’s sense of hope, exhilaration, and determination to seek transformational change on multiple fronts, the thawrarelated graffiti and street art captured people’s sense of rage, fear, and despair in the face of a collapsing economy and the persistence of what they came to regard as a ruthless government that refuses accountability. On my visits to Lebanon in 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023, I saw men, women, and children, including Syrian refugees, rummaging through public trash bins in various neighborhoods within and outside of Beirut. I also encountered people—some of whom looked like they might belong to the Beiruti or Syrian middle class—who sheepishly stopped and solicited other pedestrians for money that they said they needed for medication, food, or school fees. I saw more emaciated women and babies crouched under blankets on

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sidewalks than at any other time. For me, the stencils and murals about people starving, begging, and dumpster diving ring very true and are no exaggeration. Whereas the references to hunger, begging, and homelessness have become more frequent in the recent round of graffiti making, the theme of decrowning politicians is by no means new, as discussed in the previous chapters. The revolution resurrected and recycled some of the same narratives about corrupt and incompetent leaders that have been circulating in the Lebanese collective imagination and visual culture for many years. At the same time, many Lebanese, including graffiti makers, are increasingly moving away from repeating the quintessential question “Wayn aldawleh?”—that is, “Where’s the government?”—and have begun scribbling on the walls with defamatory catchphrases such as “Liyasqut. h.ukm al-az‘ar” (May the rule of the scoundrel/crook fall) and “Lā thiqa” (No trust). The port explosion and the government’s failure to conduct a transparent investigation have cemented this sense of distrust for many Lebanese. The thawra-related graffiti and street art suggest that some civilians have lost interest in seeking reform altogether. In other words, rather than inquiring after the whereabouts of the government or demanding reforms, the revolution and its corresponding graffiti have focused on calling for the ousting of the entire political class and the sectarian system that political leaders have protected with all their might. Furthermore, as some of the noose-centered graffiti has shown, some residents no longer believe in peaceful resistance; this type of graffiti echoes an increasingly accepted and circulated cultural narrative about the fantasy and/or legitimacy of murdering politicians in public spaces. As one scrawl on the wall has proclaimed, “The people have spoken,” but Lebanon’s political elite refuse to listen to any voices that do not endorse and mimic their own.

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Figure 5.1. “The Syrian people know their way,” unsigned stencil in Hamra.

Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

CHAPTER 5

Al-sha‘b al-sūrī ‘ārif t.arīquh / The Syrian People Know Their Way Articulating Regional Struggles beyond Lebanon In confl ict zones, graffiti is rooted in the sociopolitical context of the area, and to read it allows for nuanced insight into the confl ict. Equally important, though, is how various social actors reimagine and distribute this graffiti to re-create their walls, streets, and public spaces. —John Lennon, Conflict Graffiti

Beirut’s locally produced graffiti and street art have not confi ned themselves to sociopolitical events, discourses, and public figures that strictly involve Lebanon. After all, “a small and politically fractured country greatly affected by external political and social forces, Lebanon has always shaken to the tune of neighborly turmoil.”1 The Lebanese crises, protests, and visual cultural productions described in this book transpired and took shape while people across the Arab world wrestled with enduring and unprecedented political and socioeconomic realities. The Palestinian-Israeli confl ict represents an ongoing struggle in which Lebanon and consequently Lebanese visual culture have remained embroiled. More recently, the Arab uprisings, most prominently the Syrian uprising and the ensuing civil war, have also compelled the Lebanese people to articulate and enact solidarities—and at times hostilities—toward their fellow neighbors in various ways, including graffiti making. Importantly, for decades, Lebanon has been home to Palestinian and Syrian communities, whose presence continues to shape the Lebanese sociopolitical and visual landscape. Th is chapter focuses on how Lebanese graffiti makers have inscribed texts and images that primarily engage the Palestinian-Israeli confl ict and the Syrian crisis. By inscribing (or defacing) slogans and images that summon Palestine, Israel, and Syria, graffiti makers seek to commemorate (or contest) important regional political events, to express their support for (or opposition to) people and causes associated with neighboring countries, or to invite pedestrians to ponder broader sociopolitical events and locales that have inevitably affected Lebanon. The chapter addresses the following questions, among others: How do political events from elsewhere appear on

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Beirut’s walls? How are regional alliances and hostilities represented and argued over? And what do the graffitied messages that engage with issues beyond Lebanon reveal about ongoing internal divisions, differing perspectives, contested citizenship, and competing affective investments among the Lebanese themselves? Before analyzing the highly affective graffiti associated with the Arab-Israeli confl ict and the Syrian crisis, it is important to consider Lebanon’s complex history and relationships with its neighbors in the region.

Tracing Contentious Politics Lebanon’s political fortunes and its relationship with its neighbors—particularly Palestine, Israel, and Syria—have long been subject to the whims of international and regional powers. Wars, military interventions, refugee crises, and shift ing political alliances have all played a role in fomenting regional tensions and shaping the Lebanese people’s perceptions and att itudes regarding both governments and civilians in these bordering countries. At the end of World War I, the French and British governments divided up territories formerly controlled by the Ottoman Empire. In 1920, Mandate Syria and Lebanon fell under the control of the French, who further divided the territory into several administrative districts. The new boundaries of Greater Lebanon created a country with a bare Christian majority, sett ing the stage for Lebanon’s fragile sectarian politics. After the creation of the Lebanese Republic in 1926, some Lebanese created or joined parties that promoted a uniquely Lebanese national culture, defending the Frenchdrawn borders, while others joined pan-Arabist groups or supported political parties that emphasized Lebanon’s historical and cultural ties to Syria.2 A complex web of family and regional loyalties overlaid these national political differences. Disputes over control of the country’s political system resulted in the National Pact of 1943, an informal agreement between Lebanon’s political elites that set the terms for the country’s power-sharing system.3 A year after French soldiers left Lebanon in 1946, the United Nations drew contested political borders in the region, partitioning what had been British Palestine into Israel and Palestine against the clearly expressed will of the majority resident Arab population.4 The resulting 1948 war between Arab armies and Jewish defense forces displaced over 700,000 Palestinian refugees, an estimated 120,000 of whom sought refuge in Lebanon.5 The 1967 war created more Palestinian refugees, including members of the Palestinian resistance movement, who would launch their armed lib-

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eration struggle from Lebanese soil. Legal barriers prevented most Palestinians from obtaining Lebanese citizenship or permission to work legally in the country; as a result, most of Lebanon’s Palestinian population lived (and continues to live) in poverty. The Palestinian presence in Lebanon has long been a divisive issue in the country. Many Lebanese feel a sense of solidarity with the Palestinian cause, while others feel a sense of resentment or even hostility toward the Palestinians, whom they consider to be a disruptive force in Lebanese society and a potential threat to Lebanon’s delicate political balance. From 1973 to 2000, Israel’s armed forces repeatedly attacked, invaded, and occupied Lebanese territory to eradicate Palestinian armed groups and Lebanese Shi‘a militias that had formed to liberate Lebanese territory from Israeli occupation.6 Th is decades-long confl ict contributed to the increased displacement of the rural Shi‘a population, who also suffered economic impoverishment, leading some to move to the capital city in search of job opportunities. A poverty belt formed around the capital, bringing this newly displaced Shi‘a population into close proximity with Lebanon’s Palestinian communities residing in refugee camps. While left ist, Muslim, and pan-Arabist Lebanese groups largely supported the Palestinian cause, Christian political groups generally regarded the Palestinian resistance movement in Lebanon as a threat to Lebanon’s sovereignty and national security. As the years unfolded, tensions brewed among Lebanon’s different political factions, culminating in the formation of two major camps: a Lebanese nationalist (mostly Christian) camp and a pan-Arab socialist (mostly Muslim) camp. As time progressed, however, seemingly rigid ideologies and political commitments gave way to personal vendettas and power plays among members of the same religious groups.7 The Lebanese Civil War broke out in 1975, and Syrian troops entered the country just three years later, remaining in the country well past the conclusion of the confl ict in 1991.8 Syria’s long military presence, its intervention in Lebanon’s local and global politics, and its changing political alliances vis-à-vis Lebanon’s various sectarian factions earned it both friends and enemies. While some Lebanese considered the Syrian presence necessary for maintaining stability and mediating among Lebanon’s antagonistic political factions, others feared its growing influence and viewed the Syrian army as a foreign occupier that had overstayed its welcome. After the assassination of Prime Minister Rafi k Hariri in 2005, hundreds of thousands of Lebanese took to the streets during the so-called Cedar Revolution, demanding an end to Syrian military occupation of the country. Attitudes toward Syrian influence over Lebanese politics would divide the country further, with several Lebanese political parties, including Hizballah and Amal, forming a pro-Syria bloc known as the March 8 alliance. In

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response, the March 14 alliance was formed by Lebanese political parties with an anti-Syria stance, including the Sunni Future Movement, the Kataeb Party, and the Lebanese Forces, led by the Maronite politician Samir Geagea. The Free Patriotic Movement, led by the Maronite general Michel Aoun, initially supported the March 14 alliance but would join the March 8 bloc prior to the 2005 elections, after coming to a power-sharing agreement with Hizballah.9 After the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, over a million Syrian refugees fled to Lebanon, straining the country’s already weakened economy and infrastructure.10 Some Syrians were forced to share resources and spaces with the country’s already long-suffering Palestinian population.11 Hizballah and Lebanon’s Syrian Social Nationalist Party would send fighters to Syria in support of the Assad regime, while other Lebanese political parties lent their political support to Syria’s opposition movement. The relationship of Lebanese political parties to Syria (and, importantly, to Syria’s allies, including Iran) remains a deep source of division in Lebanese political discourse. The following sections demonstrate the ways in which postwar graffiti has engaged with old and new regional struggles and contentious politics, particularly focusing on the Arab-Israeli confl ict and the Syrian Civil War.

Standing with Palestinians against Oppression Palestine has always occupied a significant place in Lebanese collective imagination, cultural production, and everyday spaces. Lebanon has been home to many Palestinians since the 1948 Nakba, and for many of them, Lebanon may be the only country, or home, in which they have lived. The Palestine-related graffiti I have encountered tends to focus on the dispossession of Palestinians and their ongoing struggles to reclaim Palestine. Among the most prevalent and recognizable stencils that summon Palestine is one of Handala, the most famous figure in the work of the Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali and a prominent national symbol of the Palestinian struggle against oppression.12 The Handala stencils feature the barefoot, ten-year-old refugee child in green or red, his hands famously clasped behind his back, his hair sparse and spiky (fig. 5.2).13 Handala’s demeanor as a child who went from facing the world to turning his back forever is worth discussing, since it demonstrates how an iconic image—and its various uses—can evolve depending on changing political conditions. Fayeq Oweis explains that

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after the October war of 1973 and the events that led to the end of the war and the agreements brokered by Henry Kissinger, al-Ali predicted unjust solutions that would be imposed on the Arab side. He decided to turn Handala’s face away and clasp his hands behind his back as “a symbol of rejection of all the present negative tides in our region.” Additionally, Handala was not willing to participate in the negative tides or these unjust solutions. . . . Handala became an advocate of democracy and human rights. He was provocative and incited people to take action. Handala was not only a Palestinian boy, he was an Arab, a humanitarian, and a global person. He participated in many international events. As a Palestinian, Handala was faithful to the cause of Palestine, to the refugee camps, to the Palestinian people, and to the poor and the oppressed. As an Arab, he advocated democracy, human rights, opportunity for all, freedom of expression, Arab unity, and protecting the Arabs’ natural resources. His role in the cartoons was also to expose the brutality of the oppressor, whether it was the Israeli occupation, the dictatorship of the Arab regimes, or the hypocrisy of the Palestinian leadership.14 Oweis argues that Handala was a peace advocate who condemned the Lebanese Civil War and was vehemently opposed to sectarianism and othering, in addition to fighting for human rights and social justice, speaking up for the poor and the disenfranchised, and critiquing both Arab leaders and outside oppressors. Handala, therefore, makes a perfect addition to Beirut’s postwar visual culture, since many graffiti makers have aimed to combat sectarianism on the street and promote unity while also voicing critique against both inside and outside oppressors. It is worth mentioning that on the sixtieth anniversary of the Nakba, an international initiative named Take Handala to the Streets encouraged people worldwide to fi ll the streets with the figure of Handala, since he “beautifully and powerfully reminds the world that the Palestinian people will never give up their right to return.”15 To that end, the activists created a series of downloadable Handala images that included posters, cutouts, banners, and stencil templates. Users of the images were instructed to send a brief commentary on their experience utilizing the Handala resources and to upload at least three pictures to the website. The initiative demonstrates the ways in which graffiti can serve as a fairly cheap tool that civil-society activists may harness and make part of their tool kit—and that may be crowdsourced worldwide. The right of return remains a major concern for many Palestinians, par-

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Figure 5.2.

Unsigned stencil of Handala in Hamra. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

ticularly for the families who fled or were forced out of Palestine. In Beirut, as in Palestine and Israel, graffiti makers have resorted to “visualizing political practices that emphasize a ‘return’ to the land they believe was stolen from them.”16 Inscribed in black ink, one Arabic-language stencil directly addresses the Palestinian people’s right (and wish) to return and translates to “May 15, the people want to return to Palestine.” The stencil commemorates the Nakba, which remains etched in the collective Palestinian imagination and invokes deep collective affects among those living in occupied Palestine as well as those in the diaspora. As Julie Peteet argues in her analysis of West Bank graffiti, inscriptions referencing 1948 often signal “a historical consciousness of critical moments in time and place and an attempt to recover history and a geopolitical and social continuity denied and marginalized,” while they also bind Palestinians, “wherever they are, in the struggle to unite what has been fragmented: the space of Palestine and its people, those on the inside (dakhil) and in the diaspora (alghurba).”17 Extending Peteet’s argument, I contend that while such a stencil commemorates and resurrects the past, it also looks toward the future by

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insisting that Palestinians remain committed to securing their right to return to their homeland. Similarly, a blue Arabic-language stencil features a map of Palestine alongside a statement that translates to “We will not abandon / give up on Palestine.” Both stencils provide a counternarrative to a dominant Israeli narrative that the right of return should no longer be part of the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, since Palestinian refugees living in the diaspora are currently sett led in their host countries and their return would sabotage Israel’s demography and its status as a Jewish state. Dan Rabinowitz asserts that “Palestinian refugees returning to their original locations within Israel proper remains unthinkable for an unshakable majority of Israelis. Part of this is erstwhile Israeli anxieties about demography, focusing on the fear of becoming a minority again.”18 For Palestinian refugees and their supporters, however, this narrative is seen as morally unjust and highly contestable, a position reflected in graffiti messages that reiterate the aspirations of many Palestinians to return to their homeland— or at least to have the choice to return. Another Arabic-language stencil that lays claim to the Palestinian homeland simply asserts, “Al-Quds lanā” (Jerusalem is ours) (fig. 5.3), asserting the Palestinian people’s rightful ownership of and belonging to Je-

Figure 5.3. “Jerusalem is ours,” unsigned stencil on Bliss Street. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

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rusalem, a highly contested city that has witnessed territorial disputes between Israelis and Palestinians and has been recognized by the Trump and Biden presidential administrations as Israel’s capital city. Importantly, the expression “Al-Quds lanā” (Jerusalem is ours / Jerusalem belongs to us) also alludes to the song “Zahrat al-mada’in” (The flower of cities), which Fairouz sang for Jerusalem and whose last lines, when translated to English, state, “Th is is our home and Jerusalem belongs to us / And with our hands we will bring back the glory of Jerusalem / With our hands the peace will return to Jerusalem.” The dialogic stencil therefore engages with art and politics, or art as politics. While most Palestine-related works of graffiti seek to affi rm the Palestinians’ right of return, one Israel-centered scrawl directly targets Israel. The rushed scribble simply reads, “Isrā’īl sharrun mut.laq” (Israel is absolute evil). The anti-Israel phrase—often att ributed to the Shiite cleric Musa Sadr19—has been commonly uttered by Arab leaders and citizens, particularly at times of crisis. Here, graffiti becomes an outlet for voicing a person’s or a group’s deeply felt emotions against a perceived enemy. Two related stencils take up a combative tone and target the United States. One translates to “Know your enemy. America is your enemy. Jerusalem is ours.” The graffiti maker points an accusatory fi nger at the United States, a country some Arabs (and non-Arabs) view as complicit in the atrocities committed by the Israeli government and military in the region because of US fi nancial and political support for Israel. Similarly, when translated to Arabic, the other stencil states, “Boycott . . . resist. America is your enemy. Jerusalem is ours.” The graffiti maker urges pedestrians to take action, referencing the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to secure equality, justice, and freedom for Palestinians and to terminate international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians. While I cannot ascertain the exact date that these anti-American stencils fi rst appeared, I spotted them for the fi rst time in June 2018, so it is likely they were penned on the wall in defiance of Donald Trump’s announcement that the United States would move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Graffiti making here both engages with political events (e.g., announcements about the US embassy and commemoration of the Nakba) and also serves as a vehicle used by activists to embolden others to participate in the BDS movement or to take a defiant stance toward Israel and its ally, the United States. By urging audiences to resist, boycott , and know their enemy, the Palestine-centered stencils mirror the ways graffiti was leveraged as a tool of resistance during the fi rst uprising in Palestine, where inscriptions on the wall were used for “issuing directives both for

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confronting occupation and transforming oneself in the process. . . . [Graffiti] suggested and beckoned people to resist, to take action.”20

Summoning the Syrian Frenemy Syria has always been a powerful presence in Lebanon, literally and symbolically, by virtue of Lebanon’s and Syria’s aforementioned inextricable histories, geographies, and sociopolitical conditions. In fact, among the earliest civilian-produced graffiti in postwar Beirut are the anonymous messages inscribed during the 2005 Cedar Revolution, or the Independence Intifada, after the assassination of Rafi k Hariri. Graffiti produced during this period generally demanded the withdrawal of the Syrian military from Lebanon and an end to foreign political intervention. In February 2005, a fence near Hariri’s memorial shrine was fi lled with messages and images expressing the beliefs, aspirations, and emotions of people protesting in Martyrs’ Square. According to Sune Haugbolle, the inscriptions that appeared during the Independence Intifada “challenge[d] the dominance of sectarian imagery” associated with wartime territorial markings in their emphasis on unity, accountability, and independence. Haugbolle specifies some of the representative works of graffiti as follows: A few texts protested against Resolution 1559, such as la lil tadakhul al-amriki, la li 1559 (no to American intervention, no to 1559), but by far the predominant public face was one that mourned Hariri and celebrated Lebanese unity in slogans such as une fois unies jamais soumis (once united never subdued), muslim, durzi, masihi = al-wahda al-wataniyya, Lubnan qawi (Muslim, Druze, Christian = national unity, a strong Lebanon), shu ta ’ifatak? Lubnani! (what’s your sect? Lebanese!), and “In times like these, we are all Lebanese.” A third category of slogans celebrated particular leaders and parties, or even countries, as in “vive Chirac, vive la France,” while just as many called for “Syria Out!” or more harshly asked “Bachar la pute” (Bashar the whore) to return to Syria.21 As Haugbolle’s description reveals, graffiti inscriptions cannot be extricated from the location and circumstances in which they were born, particularly during times of political upheaval. In 2005 in Downtown Beirut, many enraged citizens pledged unity and protested Syria’s military presence despite decade-long entrenched fears about being surveilled and possibly detained by the Syrian intelligence apparatus. They took pens and

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spray cans to the city’s walls and marked the skin of the wounded city with messages that summoned countries and leaders near and far. The graffiti surrounding Hariri’s shrine was hardly artistic, but it clearly expressed people’s anger at the brutality of the murder (regardless of how they felt about Hariri as a man or a political leader). In that particular moment on the walls surrounding Hariri’s shrine, while the anti-Syrian messages spoke of Lebanese frustration with Syria’s military presence, the messages related to France reflected the strong attachment some Lebanese still have to the former colonial power and illustrate the ways in which such ties become mobilized—and visualized—in times of crisis.22 In sum, here as in other places, the graffiti succinctly serves as a “chronotype,” to apply Bakhtin’s concept, where “time, as it were, thickens, takes on flesh, becomes artistically visible; likewise, space becomes charged and responsive to the movements of time, plot and history.”23 As history has shown, the sense of unity witnessed in Downtown Beirut in 2005, in the wake of national trauma, would not stand the test of time; however, it was certainly captured, if not facilitated, by graffiti and other visual artifacts as a unique historical moment that would have reverberations for years to come.24 In addition to Hariri’s assassination, the Syrian revolution and the ensuing civil war and refugee crisis have also left their mark on Beirut’s walls, further demonstrating Syria’s strong visual presence in the city. Because Syria’s involvement in Lebanon has been contentious, and because the feelings and perceptions of the Lebanese people about the Syrian government (and the Syrian people) fall on a continuum—with staunch supporters, avid detractors, and everything in between—it is no surprise that the Syrian uprising would prompt divisive graffiti exchanges on the surfaces of the city. In fact, many of the sites that have included Syria-related graffiti have been fraught with defacement, affi rming that graffiti in postwar Beirut is a “conversation, not a monologue.”25 I will share that I sometimes felt nervous approaching those sites and taking pictures, for fear that someone might be lurking in search of the last person who expressed disagreement with them on the wall, including members of Lebanese political parties that support the Assad regime. My own very visceral reaction in front of the contested walls—as I felt the rush of adrenaline, fear, excitement, and apprehension—helped me to understand even more vividly the affective dimension of graffiti. Feeling paranoid at times, I would turn around periodically to check my surroundings before snapping a picture and scurrying away. I worried that someone might follow me and demand that I destroy the pictures before I could upload them, which did happen to my husband when he was seen snapping a photo of a poster featuring Nabih Berri. I felt in awe of the urban graffiti artists and vandals who dared to create, respond to, or

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paint over Syria-related graffiti, regardless of which side they supported or opposed. The Syria-related graffiti that I captured appeared in the form of stencils and rushed scrawls but not murals. Most likely, the graffiti makers felt it necessary to paint and run, to avoid being caught up in turf wars—or harassed and detained by law-enforcement or military-intelligence officers. One of the most memorable Syria-related stencils features a young boy extending his arm and inscribing the expression, “Al-sha‘b al-surī ‘ārif t.arīquh,” which means, “The Syrian people know their way” (see fig. 5.1). The message asserts that the Syrian people know what they are doing and where they are headed, countering pro-Assad discourses about the purposelessness of the revolution and the Syrian people’s inability to act without the guidance of their patriarchal leaders (fi rst Hafiz, then Bashar Assad). Marwan Kraidy explains that the graffiti that articulates support for the Syrian revolution was largely inspired by the posters of an activist Syrian group that goes by the name AAAT (Al-Sha‘b al-Sūrī ‘ārif T.arīquh, or The Syrian People Know Their Way). According to Kraidy, the figure of the child is often used in the group’s posters to demonstrate that “even Syrian youngsters knew their way.”26 Beyond asserting the critical-thinking abilities and determination of (old and young) Syrians, given that the stencil features a young boy scribbling graffiti, the graffito may be a tribute to the children of Daraa, who, inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Libya, jokingly scribbled anti-Assad expressions on the walls of their school—an act that led to their imprisonment and torture.27 The expressions that the schoolchildren wrote included the following (translated) sentences: “The people want to topple the system”; “May Hafiz’s soul be damned. Await what’s coming”; and “Doctor [Bashar], your turn has come!” The detention of the children at the end of February and beginning of March 2011 is considered by some to be one of the main incidents that sparked the Syrian uprising, since the people of Daraa took to the streets to protest the torture that was infl icted on the children and the humiliation of their families. Syrians in Daraa marched in the streets on March 18 of that year, demanding accountability from Atef Najib, the political security chief in the city of Daraa (and a cousin of Assad), and calling for political reform. While the Syrian uprising must have been brewing for decades and cannot be tied to any one incident, it is important to note that what might have started as a joke by a group of mischievous adolescents became a pivotal moment in that it prompted antiAssad Syrians to rally together and protest a decades-old pattern of humiliation and violence. The sarcastic graffiti incident echoes the words of the humor scholar Khalid Kishtainy, who argues, “The means of nonviolent action, and especially humor, often influence the course of history gradually and surrepti-

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tiously. There is no record of a regime falling because of a joke, but there is hardly any such event occurring without being preceded by a rich harvest of political jokes and satirical literature.”28 Unlike jokes exchanged behind closed doors or jokes that are tactfully embedded in literary narratives or television shows, the graffitied jokes crossed the line by directly naming and mocking Syria’s allegedly untouchable leader in a public space. In other words, the marriage between graffiti and explicit sarcasm proved to be an explosive combination. As Pascal Zoghbi states, the story about a handful of boys being detained and tortured for making graffiti demonstrates that “in Syria [graffiti] is not only a matter of censorship but also a matter of life and death.”29 Another Syrian-uprising-related stencil on Beirut’s walls features an Arabic-language message that reads, “Al-thawra al-sūriyya t.arīqunā nah.wa ijtiyāz al-haza’im wa-l-nakbāt” (The Syrian revolution is our way toward overcoming defeats and disasters). The reference to “defeats and disasters” alludes to historical events beyond Syria, particularly when the word “nakbāt” (the plural form of the word “nakba”) is used. Here the possessive pronoun “our” references a real or imagined community of Arabs who have experienced a series of defeats in the past—including the 1948 Palestinian Nakba (catastrophe) and the Arab countries’ defeat in the 1967 war against Israel—but who believe that rising up against their own oppressors may be the Arab world’s only salvation. By alluding to the Nakba, a historical event that is recognizable to most Arabs, the writer attempts to rally Arabs of different nationalities around the Syrian people’s fight for justice. The message suggests that only through overthrowing dictators like Assad can the Arab world begin to transcend its long history of defeat and humiliation. The idea that Arab leaders have contributed to the failure of Arab countries and their defeat by outsiders, particularly Israel, is a popular sentiment in Lebanon and throughout the Arab world.30 Stenciled in blue ink, another graffito translates to “In remembrance of the Syrian Revolution. Freedom for the prisoners of conscience in Saudi prisons.” The stencil explicitly brings together Syria and Saudi Arabia, suggesting that activists who dare to speak their minds suffer similar plights in these countries. The stencil maker or makers seem to be hinting that the Lebanese people should not fail the imprisoned Saudi activists in the same way that they failed the Syrian activists who were fighting for their country’s freedom. The stencil, like most texts, is open to more than one interpretation; however, it certainly draws a connection between Syrian and Saudi activists and prisoners of conscience who remain detained without an end in sight.31 It also highlights the shared human right abuses that are ongoing in the Arab world and that need to be addressed both in the Le-

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vant and in the Gulf. Th is stencil is not cheerful or whimsical, like some of the others described elsewhere in this book. It prioritizes being instructive and cautionary over eliciting a smile or a laugh, in part because it centers on the brutal fate of prisoners of conscience detained in Saudi Arabian prisons. Given that the Syrian uprising was still unfolding at the time, and given that the stencil was referring to prisoners whose futures may still be hanging in the balance, the stencil maker or makers might have intentionally opted for a somber tone. Few stencils that revolve around the Syrian revolution have remained immune from defacement by supporters of the Syrian regime or those who harbor animosity toward Syrian refugees and people who express antigovernment views. It is important to explore some graffiti that demonstrates such contentious politics. One revolution-related stencil initially featured a red fist raised in defiance along with the Arabic-language caption “Sūryā: Al-thawra mustamirra” (Syria: The revolution continues). The stencil was defaced by the time I saw and photographed it. The word “al-thawra” (the revolution) had been painted over in black, and the word “al-Assad” was added in big letters, such that the revised statement reads, “Sūryā alAssad mustamirra,” or “Assad’s Syria continues” (fig. 5.4). A closer inspection also reveals the additional expression “Kis ikht Bashar” (F--- Bashar’s sister), written next to the defaced stencil. Clearly, the cross-outs and additions point to the embodied presences and dialogic exchanges of pro- and antirevolution individuals and groups. Similarly, on another fence, an Arabic-language stencil had originally read, “May Mr. President, Dr. Bashar Assad, fall,” mocking the Syrian president and calling for his downfall. Th is satirical stencil also suffered its share of tampering. In this case, the pro-Assad supporter simply scratched the paint off of the letters “qaaf ” and “t.aa” from the word “yasqut.,” such that the word now simply reads “yas” (yes). The edited message potentially reads, “Yes to Mr. President, Dr. Bashar Assad,” thereby rewriting the word calling for Assad’s downfall and instead pledging loyalty to the Syrian president. As this chapter’s opening epigraph rightly notes, we need to pay attention to the ways in which graffiti may be reimagined by different social actors who seek to re-create the walls, streets, and public spaces that reference a certain political confl ict. Among the most famous anti-Assad stencils is one that has been att ributed to the Egyptian street artist al-Teneen and an anonymous Lebanese collaborator and that features Bashar Assad sporting Hitler’s hairstyle and mustache. The image is captioned, “Malik al-ghābeh rākib dabbābeh” (The king of the forest is riding a tank).32 The phrase, which rhymes in Arabic, mocks Assad (whose last name translates to the “Lion”) for casting him-

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Figure 5.4.

Unsigned stencil in Hamra. The Arabic text that originally read, “Syria: The revolution continues,” now reads, “Assad’s Syria continues.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

self as the powerful lion-king of the forest while cowardly hiding behind an armored vehicle—undermining his allegedly natural ability to lead and protect his kingdom. Shortly after it was spotted in Cairo, the Hitler-Assad stencil started popping up in Palestine and Lebanon. According to Zoghbi, shortly after the stencil appeared in Lebanon, it was blacked out in several areas by members of political parties that support the Syrian regime and act as its watchful eyes in Lebanon.33 Nonetheless, the presence and removal of this famous stencil on the streets of at least three Arab countries, as well as online, demonstrate the dynamics of graffiti wars, censorship, and revolutionary and counterrevolutionary politics at their best—or worst. They also speak to the power of humor as “a vital factor in laying down the prerequisite for fearlessness without which it would be impossible to approach the world realistically. As it draws an object to itself and makes it familiar, laughter delivers the object into the fearless hands of free experimental fantasy.”34 It is important to understand that both Lebanese and Syrians have been conditioned, for decades, to avoid joking openly about Syrian political figures, particularly Assad, since any criticism of him and other Syrian po-

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litical figures could result in torture, detainment, and even death. Th rough this and other sarcastic graffiti (including the aforementioned antiregime scribbles by the adolescents in Daraa), this unspoken pact is forever broken. The anti-Assad jokes momentarily “demolish fear and piety before an object, before a world, making of it an object of familiar contact and thus clearing the ground for an absolutely free investigation of it.”35 The sarcastic graffiti makers ensure that Bashar Assad is no longer constructed as untouchable or holy. Th rough sarcasm and laughter, Assad is figuratively dragged down from his throne and brought into “familiar contact” on walls and digital screens across the world. The juxtaposition of Assad’s status as president-doctor with his imminent demise in some graffiti pieces echoes Bakhtin’s carnivalesque acts of the “mock crowning” and “subsequent decrowning of the carnival king.”36 Using graffiti and humor, graffiti makers elevate Assad by upholding his loft y titles, including president, doctor, and king, only to mock him and diminish his status immediately thereafter. Importantly, the risk of stenciling pro-Syrian-revolution messages may not end with mere defacement of the graffiti itself but may also result in arrest, as in the case of Khodr Salemeh and Ali Fakhri, two Lebanese civil-society activists who were spotted spraying messages in support of the Syrian revolution in the area of Ras al-Nabaa. Salemeh and Fakhri were arrested by Lebanese enforcement officers on April 21, 2012, for allegedly vandalizing the walls and inciting hatred. Worried that the vandalism charge might not stick because of the absence of explicit antigraffiti laws, the arresting officers reportedly threatened to charge them with evading the police and “incitement to cause trouble and division.” As news of their arrest started to spread on social media, supporters such as fellow activists, lawyers, and journalists held a protest sit-in outside the police station where the men were being held. The activists scribbled on the ground where they gathered, “The bloggers are in prison and the thieves are outside.”37 The protestors pledged not to leave the streets until Salemeh and Fakhri had been released, which they were several hours later, after then prime minister Najib Mikati was reportedly pressured to intervene and decided to deescalate the situation.38 The incident demonstrates the connection between activism and graffiti making as well as the Lebanese public’s increasingly positive att itude toward graffiti, particularly when it includes a social-justice message. For many activists, artists, and average citizens, arresting graffiti makers not only signifies an unacceptable crackdown on activists but also forewarns of the Lebanese government’s inclination to walk in the footsteps of its “Syrian counterpart.”39 Th is prospect can be traumatizing for Lebanese and Syrian residents who suffered surveillance at the hands of the Syrian intelligence apparatus during the Lebanese Civil War

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and beyond. Some worry that by arresting Lebanese and Syrian activists and graffiti makers, Lebanese law enforcement officers might be serving the interests of the Syrian regime and working to transform Lebanese policies around freedom of expression, activism, and censorship. Unlike the aforementioned Syria-related stencils, which are typically prepared in advance by activists committed to drawing the public’s attention to the ongoing plight of the Syrian people, the handwritten Syriacentered scrawls are often produced spontaneously as pedestrians experience the urge to unleash heartfelt feelings and/or respond to an already existing graffito that moves them to take action. It is no surprise then that spontaneous scribblers do not occupy themselves with things like proper branding, tone, and technique when it comes to their politically themed scrawls, which are often characterized as emotive, terse, straightforward, and generally unaesthetic. The freewritten messages in support of the Syrian revolution have appeared in both English and Arabic, which suggests their appeal to both local and global audiences. Succinct messages have appeared on walls in different parts of Beirut, including scrawls that read, “Freedom for Syria” (written in English), “Stop of kill [killing] in SYR [Syria]” (written in English), “Sūryā h.urra” (Syria is free), “Al-Jaysh al-Sūrī al-H.urr” (The Free Syrian Army), “Al-sha‘b al-sūrī ‘ārif t.arīquh” (The Syrian people know their way), “Sūriyyā badhā h.urriyya” (Syria wants freedom), and “Bashar kalb” (Bashar is a dog). Like the stencils, some of the prorevolution and anti-Assad handwritten messages were edited or defaced by detractors. The word “kalb” (dog) in “Bashar kalb” was blotted out with white paint. One of the “Sūryā h.urra” scrawls in Hamra was revised with deletions and additions, such that the new version read, “Tah.yā Sūryā,” or “Long live Syria” (fig. 5.5)—one of the famous exhortations that Syrian Social Nationalist Party members say upon greeting each another. Similarly, the word “h.urriyya” (freedom) in “Sūriyya badha h.urriyya” was covered up with paint. For opponents of the revolution, any written references to freedom on the walls had to be swift ly edited or banished from Beirut’s public space. A few Syria-related handwritten messages articulated downright hostility and racism toward the Syrian people in general. One inked message in Mathaf read, “Irh.al ya sūrī” (Leave, [you] Syrian), instructing Syrian residents to leave the country. Another anti-Syrian scrawl originally read, “Ila kul haqīr sūrī, ’irh.al” (To every despicable Syrian, leave). In these messages, Syrians are told to leave simply for being Syrian and for being perceived as out of place in Lebanon. Syrians are also called names in these types of messages and are constructed as a despicable homogenous body that poses a danger to the neighborhood. Both of these scrawls reiterate

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Figure 5.5.

Unsigned scrawl in Hamra. The Arabic text that originally read, “Syria is free,” now reads, “Long live Syria.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

Sara Ahmed’s reflections on the discourse of “stranger danger,” which produces the stranger as a figure that “comes then to embody that which must be expelled from the purified space of the community, the purified life of the good citizen.”40 Extending Ahmed’s insights to the Lebanese-Syrian context, the Syrian resident becomes the “nearby stranger” whom vigilante graffiti makers have already recognized as alien by virtue of the Syrian person’s migration. As Ahmed argues, In such a construction, the strangers are the ones who, in leaving the home of their nation, are the bodies out of place in the everyday world they inhabit, and in the communities in which they come to live. . . . Here, the condition of being a stranger is determined by the event of leaving home.41 Hostile graffiti becomes yet another means of policing the Syrian “stranger” and ensuring that the Syrian people do not feel safe or welcome in the adopted country.

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In an analysis of divisive graffiti texts and symbols that have fi lled the Italian-Slovenian border area, including anti-immigrant graffiti, Alessandra Miklavcic writes, Graffiti that are framed in short, threatening expressions, such as “Basta Immigranti” [Enough with Immigrants], target Others but do not confront them physically. For this reason, I call their use “metaencounters.” Using the tool of ubiquity and playing on the production of fear, the anonymous interlocutors mark their territory through symbolic violence. Graffiti, however, does not stay mute or untouched. “Graffiti wars” are ongoing and signs are frequently transformed.42 I agree with Miklavcic that more often than not, offensive graffiti is used as a means of infl icting symbolic violence and that graffiti wars are ongoing because walls rarely remain muted or untouched. At the same time, I would argue that reading such hostile comments on the wall may seriously (re)traumatize Syrian newcomers who might have already been stigmatized, tortured, and bombed in their home country. In other words, such words may contribute to infl icting and reinforcing trauma and violence. Furthermore, such hateful messages, or meta-encounters, may also encourage and embolden other anti-Syrian pedestrians to harm Syrians in their neighborhoods, including physically. Such messages can easily catalyze actual abusive encounters, thereby infl icting real, not just symbolic, violence. Crucially, such anti-Syrian sentiments and practices are not always tolerated in Lebanon, as evidenced by the fi nal fate of one of the aforementioned anti-Syrian scrawls. The message “To every despicable Syrian, leave,” was revised to say, “To every despicable racist, leave,” by a pedestrian who crossed out the word for “Syrian” and added the Arabic word “ ‘unsurī” (racist) in green instead (fig. 5.6). The antiracist interlocutor co-opted and subverted the message scribbled by the initial writer, instructing “every despicable racist” to leave instead. The actions of the second scribbler may serve not only to shield fellow Syrian neighbors from encountering the hurtful graffiti messages but also to send a message—using the very same weapon—to anti-Syrian graffiti makers that their intimidation-by-graffiti tactics will be subverted by watchful residents who will edit the dehumanizing walls of the neighborhood and its affective environment. The exchanges between pro- and antirefugee graffiti makers echo Cameron’s Duff ’s assertion that “to walk is to be affected by place and to simultaneously contribute to the ongoing co-constitution of self and place.”43 In these dialogic exchanges, a pedestrian is affected by the inanimate (yet animated) wall and moved to take action, and by doing so, the graffiti maker commits a racist or antiracist act.

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Figure 5.6. Unsigned graffitied message in the Mathaf (Green Line) area. The

Arabic text that initially read, “To every despicable Syrian, leave,” now reads, “To every despicable racist, leave.” Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

The pedestrian potentially transforms, and is transformed by, the acts of walking and writing (or rewriting). As these examples show, Beirut’s dialogic surfaces, particularly those that have become home to Syria-related inscriptions, are characterized by contestation and “unfi nalizability,” to employ Bakhtin’s term. In her application of Bakhtin’s concept of unfi nalizability to visual art, Deborah Haynes asserts, “What we apprehend are constructions, and inevitably confl icts arise over these constructions. Therefore no one person or one group can contain the truth because we simply cannot see everything that is.”44 From this viewpoint, graffiti disputes may be seen as discursive wars about making visible one’s construction of the truth, while attempting to disappear another person’s version of it (e.g., about refugees, about the Syrian Civil War, and about Lebanon’s responsibilities toward the Syrian neighbor). As proponents and opponents of the Syrian revolution discharge their feelings through words and images, and as they attempt to disappear one another’s compositions, sentiments, and voices, they produce territorialized and reterritorialized surfaces that are actually reminiscent of Beirut’s

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turbulent walls during the war. The war of colors between people who are pro– and anti–Syrian revolution in postwar Beirut does not merely reflect a political divide among the Lebanese people; it also engenders different performances of Lebanese citizenship and belonging. By creating, editing, or defacing political messages, graffiti makers perform their versions of citizenship and identity. One becomes through the act of (re)writing. One also participates in the production of the (affective, charged) city through one’s inscriptions, since “places evolve and mutate according to the affective pitch and echo of the myriad practices and encounters experienced in place.”45

Conclusion Beirut’s walls have included texts and images that address issues beyond Lebanon by virtue of the country’s location and its sociopolitical entanglements with bordering countries. Palestine-related graffiti in Beirut has focused on highlighting the suffering and injustices that the Palestinian people have endured. In part, this is due to the long-established presence and rich contributions of Palestinian communities in Lebanon as well as the generally shared att itudes and practices of resistance toward Israel’s enduring military and political interventions in the region. While there are some Lebanese who believe that Palestinians have contributed to Lebanon’s sociopolitical and economic demise and who oppose the integration of Palestinians, these residents are not the ones taking to the streets. In other words, the Palestine-positive graffiti messages suggest that it is the pro-Palestinian residents who are taking the initiative to carve out a space for articulating their stance toward Palestinians—not the anti-Palestinian individuals and groups, as was the case with disparaging wartime graffiti during the Lebanese Civil War. The rise in anti-Israeli sentiments in the wake of Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon and Israel’s multiple attacks on Gaza and other Palestinian areas in the past two decades might have also contributed to the increased visual articulation of solidarity with Palestinians. The Syria-focused graffiti inscriptions, however, have been more diverse, controversial, and contentious, with supporters and opponents of the Syrian revolution utilizing the walls as batt lefields for asserting their antagonistic stances on the Syrian government, antigovernment protestors, and Syrian refugees and for contesting their counterparts’ version of the truth by rewriting and repurposing their rivals’ messages. The back-and-forth quarreling on the walls is not surprising since, as Kraidy reminds us, “nothing reflects the promiscuous hostility between camps than slogans sprayed, scribbled over, scrubbed clean, and subverted,” particularly in an area like

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Hamra, where “the odds are evenly divided between supporters and opponents of the ruler of Damascus.”46 Importantly, contentious and polarizing graffiti inscriptions are often rooted in strong affective experiences that cannot be extricated from past and present encounters and broader political issues. Ahmed notes that every encounter presupposes “other encounters, other speech acts, scars and traumas that remain unspoken, unvoiced, or not fully spoken or voiced.”47 In this context, a person’s motivation to write or react to a Syria-related scrawl or stencil may be related to real or imagined, positive or negative, encounters with other Syrian bodies, including but not limited to Syrian soldiers, intelligence officers, average Syrian citizens (who might have offered refuge during the 2006 Israeli invasion of Lebanon), or even the massive portraits of Hafiz Assad gazing at them in the streets for decades. While dehumanizing graffiti should never be condoned or excused, it is necessary to keep in mind the impact of past and present encounters—both the hostile and the generous—on personal and political Syrian-Lebanese relations and, subsequently, on Syria-related graffiti.48 While this chapter has focused on Palestine- and Syria-related graffiti messages because of their prominence and recurrence on Beirut’s walls, Beirut’s walls have occasionally featured graffiti related to other regional confl icts and struggles. As an example, a stencil commemorating the Armenian genocide has appeared on Armenia Street, as well as Bliss Street, over the past several years. Written in black capital letters, the stencil asserts, “turkey guilty of genocide,” thereby commemorating the extermination of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire.49 Another stencil states, “Western Armenia Eastern Turkey,” with a red X crossing out the words “Eastern Turkey,” highlighting the territorial disputes between the two nations and asserting Armenia’s sovereignty. On Armenia Street, such scrawls are likely to resonate with members of the Armenian Lebanese community and with other social-justice activists committed to keeping the memory of the genocide alive and rallying members of the community around this cause. Interestingly, one of the stencils supporting Armenian sovereignty sits next to a stencil advocating for fighting rape and another stencil calling for retaking the Parliament (fig. 5.7). That these stencils appear side by side shows the intersectional goals of graffiti makers and activists. Texts and images paying tribute to the Egyptian uprising have also made an appearance on Beirut’s walls, which further demonstrates the “transnationalizing nature of global protest communications as well as their capacity to help build and sustain feelings of political affi nity and solidarity.”50 For example, painted in black, red, and white—the colors of the Egyptian flag—one Arabic-language graffito reads simply, “Bh.ibbik Mas.r,”

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Figure 5.7. “Western Armenia Eastern Turkey,” unsigned stencil on Bliss Street (the same stencil also appears frequently on Armenia Street). Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

or “I love you, Egypt” (fig. 5.8). Another message, which seems to address Egyptian protestors, reads, “Irfa‘ rāsak foq. Inta mas.rī” (Hold your head up high. You are Egyptian), cheering on the protestors and validating their demand for a life of dignity (karāma). According to Lina Khatib, this slogan fi lled many walls across Egypt during a time that was characterized by “a sense of optimism about Egypt’s future and of national pride.”51 Inscribing it on Lebanon’s walls speaks to the sense of solidarity, support, and camaraderie among Egyptian and Lebanese graffiti makers, as well as to the regional resonance of the themes of dignity and pride. A third graffito includes a stencil of Abdel Halim Hafez (1929–1977), the famous Egyptian singer and actor, along with the phrase “ ’Arūs al-Nīl” (Bride of the Nile), in reference to Egypt. By evoking and commemorating the popular Egyptian singer, the graffito serves to advance cultural belongingness and unity during a time of national crisis. A fourth stencil features the iconic Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum (1904–1975), her famous silk scarf clutched in her hand. Similar to the Lebanese street artists who chose to commemorate Fairouz and Sabah on the street, the artists memorializing Abdel Halim Hafez and Umm Kulthum may be seeking to remind the Egyptian nation

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(or even the Arab world) of creative cultural icons whom everybody can get behind and fi nd inspiration from, particularly during troubled times. Bahrain’s uprising that began on February 14, 2011, was also referenced on Beirut’s walls, albeit briefly and in a much less elaborate manner. Black-and-red stencils that read, “Bi-l-Bahrain thawrat sha‘b” (In Bahrain, a people’s revolution) and “Intifadat 14 Febrayir” (February 14 Uprising) appeared in several Beiruti neighborhoods from 2011 to 2014, commemorating the revolution and emphasizing the role of average civilians in the social protest movement.52 The scarcity of Bahrain-related graffiti may be linked to several issues, including the Bahraini and Saudi Arabian governments’ swift suppression of the uprising, the presence of Saudi supporters in Beirut, and the mainstream media’s blackout in regard to covering the 2011 protests at the Pearl Roundabout in Manama. Beyond regional confl icts, politically themed graffiti in Lebanon sometimes incorporates and draws inspiration from old and contemporary global sociopolitical discourses and worldviews. For example, it is extremely common to encounter the hammer and sickle symbol on Beirut’s walls, which might have been stenciled or drawn by members of the Lebanese Commu-

Figure 5.8. “I love you, Egypt,” unsigned graffito in the Saifi area. Photograph by

Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

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Figure 5.9. “Occupy Beirut,” unsigned stencil on Bliss Street. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

nist Party, which has existed for decades in Lebanon, and/or residents who endorse communist or Marxist ideals. Lebanese youth have similarly engaged with global protest movements. When the Occupy Wall Street movement gained momentum in the United States, a red, green, and black graffito that read, “Occupy Beirut,” appeared in different neighborhoods in the city (fig. 5.9), particularly near universities where young people might have felt inspired by the movement.53 Given Lebanon’s extreme income inequality, public debt crisis, and dysfunctional welfare system, it makes perfect sense that a global protest movement against income inequality would resonate with young Lebanese residents. In sum, while the vast majority of Beirut’s graffiti and street art has been oriented toward Lebanon’s predicament, the graffitied walls have also engaged with external causes, confl icts, and political events that have moved and affected the Lebanese people, directly or indirectly. As the walls transform in response to shift ing political realities and material circumstances, the constantly evolving graffiti epitomizes what Ella Shohat and Robert Stam have referred to as “the palimpsestic multi-trace nature of art” that often “operates both within and across cultures,” demonstrating how “dialogism operates within all cultural production, whether literate or non-literate,

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high-brow or lowbrow.”54 By paying attention to the dialogic conversations taking place on the city’s surfaces in both harmonious and jarring ways, we may better gauge the sentiments and opinions of Beirut’s residents, as well as the affective cadence of the political landscapes and physical spaces they inhabit, re-create, and repurpose.

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Figure 6.1. “Before I die I want Lebanon to,” collaborative wall in the Fouad Chehab Bridge area. Photograph by Nadine Sinno and William Taggart.

INCONCLUSIONS

Qabl mā mūt baddī Libnān / Before I Die I Want Lebanon To To be Lebanese today is to take small steps home, with one hand on your heart and another fi rmly planted against the wall. . . . It is to pay the heavy price of living and being, and not cower under the weight of it all. It is to learn from time, hollow wisdom and from space, scathing cynicism. . . . It is to reinvent hope, when you know you have to reinvent it again tomorrow. —A. Naji Bakhti, Between Beirut and the Moon

I hesitate to end this book with a conventional conclusion if I am to take seriously my premise about the unfi nalizability of graffiti, or if I am to maintain any hope that the fate of Lebanon has not been sealed. Beirut’s streets continue to be written and rewritten, with stories that are sad at times and hopeful at others—continuously evolving in defiance of aesthetic and political stagnation. In this spirit of openness, I present some (inconclusive) remarks regarding the significance of postwar graffiti making in Beirut and warmly invite future critical studies of graffiti and street art in the Arab world, so that we may together build a more comprehensive picture of the ways in which people are expressing their aspirations, fears, and demands as they seek to re-create their environments—sometimes under the most trying of circumstances. Th roughout this book, I have aimed to interrogate and illustrate the ways in which Lebanese postwar graffiti and street art provide invaluable insights concerning the country’s sociopolitical situation and the efforts of young people to repurpose public space and claim their right to the city— or what Andrzej Zieleniec refers to as the “right to write the city.”1 Graffiti makers have utilized graffiti and street art to commemorate creative cultural icons, embellish neglected neighborhoods with community-centered art, pollute pristine but exclusionary spaces, promote cultural unity, advocate for (or undermine) gender and LGBTQ+ rights, decry governmental corruption and neglect, spread environmental awareness, and call for the downfall of the sectarian system. At the very least, postwar graffiti and street art have presented “challenges to different conceptions of what kind

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of city we want and also who has the power to mould, shape, adorn, decorate and control what does—and what does not—appear there, how spaces and places are organized, policed and regulated.”2 Whether or not the efforts of graffiti makers have been explicitly successful is beyond the interest and scope of this book. My emphasis has been less on documenting the measurable outcomes of Beirut’s graffiti and more on exploring the ways in which graffiti and street art have articulated the city’s sociopolitical conditions and the concerns, affects, and aspirations of its residents—as seen through the eyes of young people armed with brushes, spray cans, and the determination to make an intervention despite the stubborn persistence of grim political realities. Exploring the transformative power of storytelling among Lebanese activists “in the aftermath of failure,” Fuad Musallam demonstrates how activists have utilized in-group storytelling about past struggles as a means of effecting the “delinking of ‘failure’ from ‘movement death’ ” and fi nding ways to “make failure actionable” in the future instead of spiraling into complete despair and inaction.3 Whereas Lebanese graffiti makers may not always seek radical and systematic political action like the activists featured in Musallam’s work, their collective practices of speaking out on the walls of the city, day after day, year after year, may be considered a form of repeated political engagement in the face of harsh realities that are designed to break them and other residents. In the larger context of limited public debate and institutional support, taking the initiative to participate and express agency on the street sets an example for fellow Lebanese youths (and young people worldwide), who may be at risk of internalizing complacency and cynicism and not learning from past struggles and failures. Reflecting on her actions as a young graffiti maker and activist during the Egyptian revolution, Bahia Shehab writes, I will not be ashamed of dreaming and believing in change, and what other people look at as failure I will look at as learning. I know now that we cannot change the world in a decade. I know that archaic systems take time to crumble. But I know too that ideas never die, and that we move on in life after such a monumental experience feeling more connected and hopefully having found some answers to the millions of questions we had and will keep having.4 Shehab’s words reiterate the importance of maintaining hope and agency in the face of ongoing challenges and political setbacks. Like her, I believe that every graffitied wall “becomes a conversation, an open invitation for people to look or comment or ignore. . . . Passers-by have the right to add to it, subtract from it, or erase it altogether. . . . What matters is keeping the conversation going.”5 It is my hope that this book has revealed the types of

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conversations and stories that Lebanese graffiti makers have invited us to contemplate, engage with, share, and even act upon if so inspired. It is important to recognize that while many graffiti makers have articulated their motivations to inspire certain actions on the part of the public, it is hard to ascertain to what extent residents who do not participate in graffiti making, or do not particularly care for graffiti, have been transformed or moved to action by the artifacts under study. In other words, while activists, graffiti artists, and graffiti fans (groups that often overlap) tend to stress graffiti’s potential to make a difference—whether through boosting people’s morale, rejuvenating public space, or providing an outlet for venting— we cannot foresee the long-term effects of graffiti making, or even graffiti’s reception across the country, without conducting longitudinal reception studies. Inviting readers to complicate their interpretation of graffiti making as a means of reclaiming space and agency and building community in Egypt, Hannah Elansary highlights the importance of conducting “further research into reception and effect.”6 I agree that reception studies that investigate the intersection of graffiti making and other forms of activism, while also gauging people’s reactions to the graffitied messages and images created during times of confl ict, would be invaluable not only for Egypt but also for Lebanon and the rest of the Arab world.7 At the same time that I caution against glorifying or overloading graffiti and street art with expectations, I remain confident that graffiti making has had tangible consequences in postwar Beirut, which demonstrates graffiti’s potential as a means of enacting repeated political engagement. It is incumbent on visual culture scholars to critically examine and acknowledge these consequences by means of paying tribute to residents who have invested time, energy, skills, and physical and mental labor into creating graffiti and street art—regardless of whether we are fans of the inscriptions or the people behind them. Contrary to wartime Beirut, the walls and facades of buildings in postwar Beirut have become more colorful and diverse by virtue of the numerous graffiti pieces that have replaced or shared space with the militia stencils, partisan slogans, and political posters—attesting to the fact that politicians and militias are no longer the only actors in the batt le for Beirut’s visual culture. Cultural icons such as Sabah, Fairouz, Mahmoud Darwish, and Wadih El Safi now occupy the walls of the city alongside or on top of the usual political culprits whose pictures (and militias) monopolized the streets during the Lebanese Civil War. Even when some of the murals have been defaced, residents have noticed and demanded that such murals be sanctioned, protected, and celebrated. Beirut’s residents now expect a different visual environment and affective ambience—one that more fully reflects their own experiences, thoughts, and aspirations.

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Beirut’s walls have also been queered by messages speaking of LGBTQ+ subjectivities and practices that are still deemed illegal, taboo, shameful, or altogether nonexistent in mainstream cultural narratives. The effectiveness of the scrawls remains to be determined if one limits one’s understanding of effectiveness to changes in laws or policies, although these too are changing because of the efforts of civil-society activists and concerned individuals, some of whom have engaged in gender-related graffiti making. It is nonetheless certain that such scrawls have already brought gender and sexuality conversations from the bedroom and onto the street and defied the dominant cultural dictate to uphold silence and “sitr” (concealment/discretion) about such private matters. These inscriptions also point to the increasing engagement of residents with issues of local and global discourses of gender and sexuality. Even when gender- and sexuality-related graffiti messages are defaced, their traces (or the responses to them) often tell affective stories about feeling proud of, ashamed by, or hateful toward nonnormative notions of gender and sexuality. In a related manner, stencils about the Horsh Beirut and the Dalieh alRouche have drawn attention to the Lebanese government’s and the private sector’s usurpation of public space, as well as the efforts of environmentalists and concerned citizens who have refused to give up that space without a fight. Demeaning scrawls have repeatedly desecrated Downtown Beirut, showing the limitations of both the police and private security companies at surveillance and contributing to the sabotaging of the Central District’s local economy, which relies heavily on tourism and service industries. Texts and images about toxic waste, cholera, air pollution, and the necessity of disposing of the political class have articulated the outrage and actions of a Lebanese public that is anything but resigned or apathetic. The Lebanese government’s frustration with the graffitied Wall of Shame and its dismantling of the barrier altogether have been broadcasted and digitally archived forever, documenting a pivotal moment in the history of Lebanese (and perhaps worldwide) protest movements and graffiti making. In sum, Beirut’s walls have been talking around the clock about numerous societal issues. They are living documents—narratives to which more texts and images may be added, deleted, and adjusted based on the changing socioeconomic and political situation and the affective responses of residents. Beirut’s local walls have been digitized, mediated, and circulated indefi nitely through social media, since the internet “has become the space to visually express political views that do not have a place in the offl ine world.”8 Many works of graffiti continue to endure online, providing infi nite access to worldwide viewers. It is not an exaggeration to contend that graffiti and street art have been

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alerting us for decades about Lebanon’s impending doom, as well as the emergence of antisectarian impulses and initiatives, no matter how minoritized or tenuous those may be in the face of deeply entrenched sectarianism, police brutality, and a collapsing economy. Antisectarian graffiti emphasizing the greed and corruption of the political elites appeared a decade before the “Killun ya‘ni killun” (All of them means all of them) protests demanded the fall of the sectarian system; and graffiti about waste mismanagement and looming rat infestations occupied the walls before the garbage crisis reached its peak. Scribbled as early as 2015, slogans associating toxic air and toxic politics—and demanding that the people be allowed to breathe—now sound ominous in the wake of the August 2020 port explosion that solidified the government’s disregard for clean air and human lives alike. The bicycles and witt y phrases of advice stenciled on the walls of the city encouraging residents to “burn fat not fuel” and watch their “mas.rūf ” (budget) could not have been more relevant and heart-wrenching in 2021, in the midst of hyperinflation, fuel shortages, and dangerous traffic stemming from long lines at the gas stations. The bicycle murals, which made news headlines again in 2021, have reminded citizens that bikes may very well help them get to their universities and jobs at a fraction of the cost in a time when fuel shortages and stifl ing traffic have left people immobilized. In brief, graffiti and street art have served as the writing on the wall, both literally and figuratively. Whether or not we deem them prophetic (for hindsight is twenty-twenty), works of graffiti and street art call us to attend to the ways in which young people are turning Beirut’s walls into public podiums from which to speak of the good, the bad, and the ugly in presentable and crude, planned and spontaneous, and rational and emotional ways. I want to end with one more graffito: two walls, captioned by the expression “Qabl mā mūt baddī Libnān” and the English translation, “Before I die I want Lebanon to,” inviting pedestrians to pause and inscribe their bucket-list aspirations for a future Lebanon (see fig. 6.1). These hopeful yet somber walls present a suitable last example about the unfi nalizability of people’s aspirations, commitments, and affective investments, as well as the unfi nalizability of graffiti itself.9 The constantly expanding multilingual phrases inscribed on the walls document the (small and big) dreams of residents regarding their country’s future. The responses to “Before I die I want Lebanon to” include the following: “be one Lebanon,” “have a decent soccer team,” “be the land of the future,” “be a country not a zoo,” “fight back,” “be more stable,” “become a green country,” and “be free.”10 At the risk of sounding sentimental, this graffito moved me to tears as I stood under the decrepit Fouad Chehab Bridge on the outskirts of Downtown Beirut, reading the handwritten messages of fellow Lebanese who cared—and dared—

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to stop, to share their thoughts and emotions, and to “reinvent hope,” in seriousness or in jest. I hope this book invites the reader to think about, to think through, and to think beyond graffiti and street art in profound and playful ways. In other words, this is a book about graffiti and street art, but it is also a book about civic engagement, protest, suffering, place making, joy, and resistance through other means. Ultimately, it is a book about average civilians longing for communication and communion and seeking them through the act of graffiti making.

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Acknowledgments

Writing a book on graffiti and street art in postwar Beirut has been a challenging undertaking—physically, intellectually, and emotionally. I could not have completed this project without the support of so many individuals. I am delighted and honored to have the opportunity to thank them in print. Th is book would not exist if not for the graffiti makers who created murals, scrawls, and stencils that captured my heart and mind. I thank the named and anonymous graffiti makers who took the initiative, and sometimes the risk, to make interventions on the streets of Beirut. Th is book is a testament to their active engagement with the city’s spaces, memories, and politics. Thank you Ashekman, Yazan Halwani, Ali Rafei, Siska, Phat2, and EpS for talking to me and sharing your thoughts. ‫ ﻳﺴﻠﻤﻮا دﻳﺎﺗﻜﻦ‬for all that you do for the city and its residents. I have benefited from institutional support at Virginia Tech in the form of internal research and travel grants from the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. I thank my former and current department chairs, Jackie Bixler and Janell Watson respectively, for their support as I navigated balancing my research with teaching and directing the Arabic Program. I am grateful to my colleagues in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures for their collegiality and support. I am deeply indebted to Nora Almoussa, Nala Chehade, Reem Shawkat, Christina Daamash, Ashley Worrell, Monata Koslowski, Robert Juengling, Sidiratu Bangura, Emma Jones, and Megan Seaman for their assistance with tracking down sources and helping me stay organized. I am profoundly grateful for my students at Virginia Tech for their inspiring curiosity, thoughtful questions, and genuine affi rmation. The interest that my students showed

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in graffiti and street art—and in the activism and cultural production of Arab youth in general—pushed me forward to complete this book. Many thanks to the students at the University of Kentucky, the American University of Beirut, and the ALIF Institute in Fes who also listened to me talk about graffiti and asked questions that challenged me to think in different directions. I thank the amazing (past and present) MCLL staff members, Rhonda Pennington, Katie Akers, Terri Allen, Carolyn Kletnieks, Pam Saville, and Erin Hale for facilitating my teaching and research endeavors through their important labor, and for providing humor and moral support. Rhonda Pennington has especially been there for me since I joined Virginia Tech a decade ago, offering wise advice, empathy, and laughter. I offer my heartfelt gratitude to Garrett Stockwell, who took pictures on my behalf when I could not be in Lebanon. Without your generous contributions, Garrett, this book would not be the same, so ‫ﻳﻌﻄﻴﻚ أﻟﻒ ﻋﺎﻓﻴﺔ‬. At the University of Texas Press, I thank Jim Burr for supporting this project and for his professionalism, wise guidance, and timely responses to my inquiries. I also thank Mia Uribe Kozlovsky for her thoughtful advice, kindness, and efficient assistance. I am grateful to Lynne M. Ferguson for warmly welcoming me at the University of Texas Press and efficiently shepherding the manuscript through copyediting and production. I cannot thank Abby Webber enough for the excellent job she did editing the manuscript. I am deeply grateful for the intellectual and moral support of Lucia Volk, a wonderful mentor, colleague, and chosen sister. Lucia read the entire manuscript and provided invaluable feedback and motivation, particularly during the revision stage, when I needed a heavy dose of support to get to the fi nish line. Without Lucia’s guidance and intelligent interventions, this book would not exist in its current form. Lucia’s insightful scholarly work on Lebanon has inspired me for years, and I am delighted by the opportunity to revisit and engage with it. Lucia, ‫ !ﻣريﳼ ﻛﺘري ﻳﺎ ﻗﻠﺒﻲ‬Special thanks to my mentor and friend Ted Swedenburg for his encouragement, especially during the early stages of research, when I worried about the validity of writing an entire book on Beirut’s graffiti. My mentor and friend Mohja Kahf has played a critical role in shaping my critical reading and research skills, while also showing me how meaningful emotional investments can enrich literary criticism and cultural studies. Mohja, thank you for stretching my mind in unimaginable ways. I am grateful for all the scholars and journalists whose thoughtful, creative work on visual culture in the Arab world helped me frame my project, craft my arguments, and engage with important issues, including Maria Chakhtoura, Mai Maasri, Marwan Kraidy, Mia Gröndahl, Sune Haugbolle,

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Pascal Zoghbi, Don Karl, William Parry, Julie Peteet, Rana Jarbou, Basma Hamdy, Lina Khatib, Dina Kiwan, Craig Larkin, Mona Abaza, John Lennon, Bahia Shehab, Sabrina DeTurk, Tala Saleh, Rasha Salti, and Charles Tripp. Their scholarly and creative output has enriched this book and made my journey a lot less solitary. Their collective intellectual voices have been ringing in my ears for years, and I feel honored to have engaged and drawn upon their work. I am also extremely grateful to the two anonymous reviewers who provided very generous and constructive feedback on the manuscript. My heartfelt thanks to dear friends and colleagues who have provided much needed intellectual support, feedback, and affi rmation at different stages of the manuscript, including Paula Haydar, Adnan Haydar, Rachel Scott, Mona Samaha, Joe Samaha, Andres Morana, Tyson Duff y, Amal Amireh, Ghadir Zannoun, Hanadi Samman, Mazen Naous, Ghenwa Hayek, Carol W. N. Fadda, Tarek El-Ariss, Kifah Hanna, and Suad Joseph. I am grateful beyond words to Amira Jarmakani and Pauline Homsi for their intelligent feedback and unwavering support throughout this journey. Amira and Pauline, your brilliant, warm way of being in the world has helped me persist during the darkest of times. I thank Suze Dambreville, Sarah Peace, Hadi Aridi, Hajar Al-Dirani, and Joumana Oweida for their wisdom, humor, love, and care—you guys are my tribe, and you sustain me. I am forever grateful to Rowan Oweida, Guita Oweida, and Ammo Maher Oweida for surrounding me with love and care during some very difficult times in Lebanon. I especially thank Rowan for driving me around Beirut, looking for evasive graffiti pieces in the summer of 2016. Rowan, you are my hero, and your street cred is unmatched. I am forever thankful for the unconditional love and support of my family. Baba Adel (‫ )اﻟﻠﻪ ﻳﺮﺣﻤﻪ‬and Mama May sacrificed so much so I could pursue an education in the United States, and I will never take their sacrifices for granted. Mama’s fierce love, fabulous meals, wholehearted prayers, and riveting storytelling have nourished me for decades. Baba’s lifelong struggles at home and abroad as our family’s primary breadwinner, extraordinary knowledge of Lebanese politics, and deep appreciation for the written word and for Lebanon’s sea (which he crossed from Jounieh to Beirut as a young swimming champion from Ain al-Mreisseh) have informed this work in conscious and unconscious ways. !‫ﻳﺎ ﺑﺎﺑﺎ ﻫﺬا اﻟﺒﺤﺮ ﻟﻚ‬. I thank my smart, loving sisters, Maya and Shireen, for being there for me in joyful and heartbreaking times despite the distance that separates us. Thank you, Shireen, for caring about this book and for accompanying me on one of my graffiti adventures. My brother, Samer, deserves a special thank you for empowering me to hop on his moped and capture pictures that I could not have cap-

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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tured otherwise. Sam, I so appreciate your hustle and fearless spirit! Jack Sinno’s calming presence, insatiable curiosity, and companionship made writing much more enjoyable, and for that I am full of gratitude. I also extend my heartfelt thanks to my caring in-laws Susan Brown, Dale Wallgren, Sam Taggart, and Annette Enderlin, who have supported me for decades, taken serious interest in my work and home country, and encouraged me to keep going. Thanks most of all to my dearest husband and colleague, William Taggart. Will walked and photographed the streets of Beirut with me for years, taught me how to aim my camera, and endured unpleasant questioning by uniformed and nonuniformed men on my behalf. Importantly, he read, provided feedback on, and edited every conference paper, chapter, and draft I have written. His intelligent, candid feedback influenced every decision and revision. Thank you, ‫ﺣﺒﻴﺐ ﻗﻠﺒﻲ‬, for the love, companionship, commitment, and intellectual engagement. Thank you for lending me your anthropologist’s eyes and reminding me that even the lowliest scrawl deserves to be recorded and analyzed. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you, Beirut, for everything you have given and taken from me.

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Notes

Preface 1. The neighborhoods we visited included the following, among others: Aamiliyeh, Achrafiyeh, Adliyeh, Ain al-Mreisseh, Ain et-Tineh, Badaro, al-Barrad al-Younani, Bliss, Bourj al- Ghazal, Clemenceau, Corniche El-Nahr, Downtown, Gemmayzeh, Hamra, Hikmeh, Horch, Kantari, Karantina, Koreitem, Malaab, Manara, Mar-Elias, Mar Mikhael, Mar Mitr, Mathaf, Mazraa, Saloumi, Sanayeh, Snoubra, Tabareez, Tallet El-Druze, Tarik Jdideh, Verdun, Wata, and Yessoueiyeh. 2. The fi rst suicide bombing occurred on June 20, 2014, in east Lebanon (Dahr al-Baidar); the second, on June 24, 2014, in Beirut (Tayyouneh); and the third, on June 27, 2014, in Beirut (Raouche).

Introduction. H . arb alwān / A War of Colors 1. Chakhtoura, La guerre des graffiti, 70, 103, 132, 77. All translations are mine. 2. Chakhtoura, 6. 3. Maasri, Off the Wall, 17. 4. Solidere is the private company that was tasked with supervising the redevelopment of the Beirut Central District. Many scholars have engaged in insightful discussions about the controversy surrounding the reconstruction of Downtown Beirut. See, among others, Aseel Sawalha, Reconstructing Beirut: Memory and Space in a Postwar Arab City (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010); miriam cooke, “Beirut Reborn: The Political Aesthetics of Auto-Destruction,” Yale Journal of Criticism 15, no. 2 (2002): 393–424; Caroline Nagel, “Reconstructing Space, Recreating Memory: Sectarian Politics and Urban Development in Post-War Bei-

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rut,” Political Geography 21, no. 5 (2002): 717–725; Sari Makdisi, “Laying Claim to Beirut: Urban Narrative and Spatial Identity in the Age of Solidere,” Critical Inquiry 23, no. 3 (1997): 660–705. 5. Salti, “Urban Scrolls,” 620. 6. Haugbolle, “Spatial Transformations,” 72. 7. Kraidy, Naked Blogger of Cairo, 121. 8. Bayat, Life as Politics, 13. 9. Peteet, “Writing on the Walls,” 139. 10. Peteet, 143. 11. Gröndahl, Gaza Graffiti, 49. 12. Gröndahl, 12. 13. Larkin, “Jerusalem’s Separation Wall,” 141–142. 14. Parry, “Art of Resistance,” 77. 15. Parry, 77. 16. Pascal Zoghbi and Don Karl, eds., Arabic Graffiti (Berlin: From Here to Fame, 2013). 17. DeTurk, Street Art, 18. 18. Abaza, “Segregating Downtown Cairo,” 126. 19. Lennon, “Assembling a Revolution,” 240. 20. Lennon, Conflict Graffiti, 2. 21. Shehab, Crush the Flowers, 46. 22. Khatib, Image Politics, 2. 23. Kiwan, “Emotive Acts of Citizenship,” 122. 24. Kiwan, 135. 25. Jarbou, “Words Are Weapons,” 42. 26. Banksy, Wall and Piece, 8. 27. hooks, Yearning, 152. 28. Inhorn, New Arab Man, 31. 29. EpS, personal communication, 3 August 2017. 30. For more insights on the Lebanese Civil War, including assassinations, massacres, and memorials, see Volk, Memorials and Martyrs. 31. Majed, “View from the 1990s.” 32. An examination of this complex topic is beyond the scope of this book. My aim here is to provide some background information regarding the (increased) political instability that has characterized the country since 2005 and that affected Lebanese cultural productions, including graffiti and street art. 33. Pred, “Historically Contingent Process,” 279. 34. Escobar, “Culture Sits in Places,” 143. 35. de Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life, xix. 36. Brighenti, “At the Wall,” 323. 37. Ryan, Political Street Art, 140. 38. Khatib, Image Politics, 3. 39. Tripp, Power and the People, 259. 40. Ryan, Political Street Art, 109.

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41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

Sen and Silverman, “Embodied Placemaking,” 4–5. Halsey and Young, “ ‘Our Desires Are Ungovernable,’ ” 276–277. Nomeikaite, “Heritage and Embodiment,” 44. Irvine, “Work on the Street,” 236. Nomeikaite, “Heritage and Embodiment,” 47. Jasper, “Emotions of Protest,” 402. Th rift , “Intensities of Feeling,” 57. Th rift , 58. Stam, Subversive Pleasures, 18. Stam, “Left Cultural Critique,” 121. Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, 293. Stam, “Left Cultural Critique,” 136. Bakhtin, Speech Genres, 135. Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, 287.

Chapter 1. Al-shāri‘ ilnā / The Street Is Ours 1. DeTurk, Street Art, 51. 2. Zoghbi, “Beirut’s Graffiti Writing,” 89–90. 3. Phillips, Wallbangin’. 4. Phat2, personal communication, 29 July 2017. 5. John Lennon and Amar Shabandar, “In Conversation with Phat2,” Lebanese Walls, 8 April 2014, htt p://www.lebanesewalls.com/2014/04/08/in-conver sation-with-phat2/. 6. de Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life, 18. 7. The store ultimately closed down, most likely because of Lebanon’s deteriorating economic situation. 8. For more information on Arabic calligraffiti, see Massoudy, “Two Daughters.” 9. Elkamel, “Meet ‘Beirut’s Banksy.’ ” 10. Hamdy, “Arabic Language,” 155. 11. Hamdy, 167. 12. Siska, “Beirut Never Dies,” 101. 13. Bennett , Empathic Vision, 128. 14. Berlant and Prosser, “Life Writing,” 183. 15. Haugbolle, “Spatial Transformations,” 62. 16. Siska, “Beirut Never Dies,” 101. 17. Pickering and Keightley, “Modalities of Nostalgia,” 937. 18. Works of scholarship that discuss the role of “collective amnesia” in postwar Lebanon include Haugbolle, War and Memory; Khalaf, Lebanon Adrift; Mackey, House Divided. 19. The White Wall street art festival was fi rst launched in 2012 at the Beirut Art Center. It was curated by Siska, Charles Vallaud, and Don Karl, with the support of Fondation Saradar. It brought together local, regional, and international

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graffiti makers who created graffiti and street art works that were featured in outdoor exhibitions open to the public. 20. Yazan Halwani, “Immeuble Noueiri, Beirut Green Line, 2017,” Facebook, 23 October 2017, htt ps://www.facebook .com/YazanOne/?hc _ref =ARRF _Nxg-L4nP_c4OlSOWz041BdvPyjXAPoaxdYXrrOLqjsRHG _WrLm6co4Udp vlLqQ. 21. Note that the former stencil most likely refers to the “Live Love Beirut” initiative, which was created by a nongovernmental organization in 2012, “born out of the need for some genuine positivity in the midst of national turmoil.” For more information, see Live Love Beirut, “About,” accessed 16 November 2019, htt ps://livelovebeirut.com/about. 22. Nomeikaite, “Heritage and Embodiment,” 47. 23. In the Batt le of Karbala, October 10, 680, a party led by H.usayn, the son of Ali, was massacred by an army sent by the Umayyad caliph Yazid. 24. Literally meaning “Hope,” the Amal movement (also considered a political party and a former militia) was founded by Musa al-Sadr and Hussein el Husseini as the “Movement of the Dispossessed” in 1974. The movement’s official membership is predominantly Shi‘a, and it was initially intended as a force against socioeconomic disparity and the hegemony of Sunni elites. 25. Alexandra Chreiteh sets her novel ‘Ali wa-Ummuhu al-Rūsiyya (2010; Ali and His Russian Mother, 2015) against the backdrop of the July 2006 war. While the narrative is by no means limited to the exploration of “spectacular violence” and is devoted, rather, to a complex investigation of gender and sexuality, it still attests to the resurgence of violence and sectarianism in contemporary Lebanese literature. In a similar vein, Rashid al-Daif ’s Hirrat Sikirida (Sikirida’s cat, 2014) addresses provocative themes, including ethnicity, race, and disability, but it nonetheless employs the Lebanese Civil War as a sett ing. Contemporary fi lmmakers such as Nadine Labaki, who initially sought to depart from the exploration of war, have returned to an even more direct exploration of sectarian violence and its discontents. Inspired by the events of May 2008, Labaki’s tragicomic fi lm Halla’ la wayn? (Where do we go now?, 2011) explores issues including recurring violence, sectarianism, and communal healing. 26. Kraidy, Naked Blogger of Cairo, 127. 27. Kraidy, 129. 28. Nagle, “Resisting Amnesia in Beirut,” 160. 29. In The Naked Blogger of Cairo (2016), Marwan Kraidy mentions seeing these graffiti stencils in Byblos, Saida, and Tyre and hearing that they could also be spotted in Tripoli, which points to the activists’ efforts at spreading their message across the country. 30. Nagle, “Resisting Amnesia in Beirut,” 157. 31. Haugbolle, War and Memory, 27. 32. Kraidy, Naked Blogger of Cairo, 122–123. 33. Th is discussion brings to mind an incident I experienced during one of my routine summer visits to Lebanon. I was late for my fl ight back to the States and

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was frantically looking for my gate at the Rafi k Hariri International Airport when a man from the general security team stopped to offer me help. As he was walking me to the gate, he asked what my name was, to which I replied with “Nadine,” instead of supplying my full name. He then asked what area I was from—a followup question that almost always aims to identify a person’s sect. When I said halfjokingly, half-provocatively, “Anā min Libnān” (I am from Lebanon), to indirectly let him know that I knew what he was really asking, he became visibly angry and said, “You can say this expression ‘Anā min Libnān’ when you leave the country. As long as you are on Lebanese soil, you answer the question I am asking about where you are from. We are a sectarian country, whether you like it or not. Got it?” When I asked, “Is this really the last memory you want me to have as I leave Lebanon?” he said, “Why not? Th is is the truth. Mā fi mahrab [There is no escape].” 34. Saleh, Marking Beirut, n.p. 35. Saleh, n.p. 36. Makdisi, “On Soccer and Politics.” 37. Hadi Maktabi, personal communication, 24 June 2016. 38. Young, Judging the Image, 54–55. 39. Zieleniec, “Right to Write,” para. 27. 40. Zieleniec, para. 35. 41. See the Non-Violence Project Foundation home page, htt ps://www.non violence.com/. 42. I fi rst photographed the mural in 2014. When I revisited the mural in 2018, I found a big red X sprayed across the image of the chimpanzees in the mural, which signifies that at least one pedestrian felt the need to cross them out. 43. Ali Rafei, personal communication (Skype), 9 January 2017. 44. Rafei, personal communication. 45. Ryan, Political Street Art, 135. 46. Khatib, Image Politics, 30–35. 47. “Enta Horr - Graffiti Artist Semaan Khawam ‫ اﻟﻔﻨﺎن ﺳﻤﻌﺎن ﺧﻮام‬- ‫إﻧﺖ ﺣﺮ‬,” YouTube video, uploaded by MTV Lebanon, 18 April 2012, htt ps://youtu.be/cBWr0z Re9qM. 48. Fadi Tawfiq, quoted in Sanaa al-Khoury, “Semaan Khawam: Charged with Graffiti,” Al-Akhbar, 4 April 2012, htt ps://www.al-akhbar.com/Literature _Arts/67835. 49. Ganzeer, March 2012, htt ps://ganzeer.com/Samaan-Khawam. 50. Maasri, Off the Wall, 57, 58. 51. Schacter, Ornament and Order, 75. 52. Tarraf, “Affective Landscapes,” 148. 53. Quoted in Tarraf, 148. 54. Tarraf, 148. 55. Tarraf, 149. 56. Tarraf, 154, 155. 57. Gemmayzeh is a neighborhood in the Achrafiyeh district of Beirut. Th is area is generally considered Bohemian and artistic, with historic buildings dating

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back to the French era. It was heavily bombarded during the Lebanese Civil War and has undergone some renovation but continues to show scars of the war. Currently, it features bars, cafes, and restaurants and has a vibrant nightlife. 58. Yazan Halwani, personal communication (Skype), 1 August 2014. 59. Boym, Future of Nostalgia, 49–50. 60. Soja, Thirdspace, 56–57. 61. Yazan Halwani, personal communication, 1 August 2014. 62. May Chidiac, a journalist and an avid critic of Syrian intervention in Lebanon, was also a victim of an assassination attempt on September 25, 2005; she survived but lost an arm and a leg. Gebran Tueni, a Lebanese politician and former editor of An-Nahar newspaper, was killed by a car bomb on December 12, 2005. 63. Schacter, Ornament and Order, 35. 64. Bliss Street is located in the Hamra area, in the Ras-Beirut district of Beirut. It is home to the American University of Beirut. Th is area includes historical and commercial buildings and many restaurants that cater to university students. It also has cafes where students, professors, artists, and activists often meet to socialize and discuss everything from fashion to politics. 65. Yazan Halwani, personal communication, 1 August 2014. 66. Held, Ethics of Care, 119. 67. Mashrou’ Leila are known for their bold, satirical lyrics that explore social issues within Lebanese society, including war, assassinations, and othering. 68. Lynn Maalouf, “Lebanon: The Right to Know for the Families of Disappeared,” Amnesty International, 13 April 2019, htt ps://www.amnesty.org/en/latest /news/2019/04/lebanon-the-right-to-know-for-the-families-of-disappeared/. 69. Hovsepian, “Massive Mural of Fairuz.” 70. Ashekman, “Min qalbi salamun li Beirut” (From my heart, a greeting to Beirut), Facebook, May 29, 2017, htt ps://m.facebook .com/ASHEKMAN/photos /10158848154420360/. 71. Pickering and Keightley, “Modalities of Nostalgia,” 921. 72. Ashekman, “7itan 3am Te7kineh.” 73. Yazan Halwani, personal communication, 1 August 2014. 74. Rodman, “Empowering Place,” 205. 75. Till, “Mapa Teatro’s Artistic Encounters,” 150. 76. Banksy, Wall and Piece, 8. 77. Bramley, “Beirut Graffiti Artist.” 78. Evans, “Piece-Making to Place-Making,” 174. 79. Omar Kabbani of Ashekman, personal communication, 13 June 2014. 80. Yazan Halwani, personal communication, 1 August 2014. 81. For details regarding the campaign, see “Political Banners Removed, Dialogue Goes On,” Daily Star, 6 February 2015, htt p://www.dailystar.com.lb/News /Lebanon -News/2015/Feb -06/286594 -political -banners -removed -dialogue -goes-on.ashx. 82. Founded in 2011, March is a nongovernmental organization dedicated to fighting for the right to freedom of expression (against censorship, particularly in

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the areas of art and culture), women’s rights, diversity, and confl ict resolution. For more information, visit March’s website, htt ps://www.marchlebanon.org. 83. March Lebanon, “Beirut’s Public Art Pays the Price of Political Compromise,” Facebook, 5 February 2015, htt ps://www.facebook .com/marchlebanon /photos /a .397998033570929.77264 .348852438485489/792150690822326 /?type=1&comment_id=792210434149685¬if _t=comment_mention. 84. Najib, “Beirut Governor Ziad Chebib.” 85. DeTurk, Street Art, 65. 86. Sarmento and Campos, “Theories and Methodologies,” xiv. 87. Dickens, “Placing Post- Graffiti,” 488. 88. Irvine, “Work on the Street,” 236. 89. Irvine, 242. 90. Omar Kabbani of Ashekman, personal communication, 13 June 2016. 91. Eeuwens, introduction to Calligraffiti, 17. 92. Yazan Halwani, personal communication, 1 August 2014. 93. Dickens, “Placing Post- Graffiti,” 477. 94. Schacter, Ornament and Order, 50, 55. 95. Schacter, 10. 96. Ryan, Political Street Art, 140.

Chapter 2. Anā shādh / I Am Queer 1. Milton, “Beirut Pride Billboard Vandalised.” 2. Chehayeb, “LGBTQ Community Suffers Setback.” 3. Chehayeb. 4. See the following for Al-Mawlawi’s letter: Nizar Hassan (@Nizhsn), “Breaking: Lebanon’s Interior Minister @MawlawiBassam has issued a memo,” Twitter, 24 June 2022, htt ps://twitter.com/Nizhsn/status/15403986366596096 04?s=20& t=NOQw_TovFVlrHVeo2O1Y_w. 5. Sargsyan, “Discursive Presence,” 103. 6. Mikdashi, “Politics of Gendered Violence.” 7. Whitaker, Unspeakable Love, 42. 8. Latif, “Gender Profi le: Lebanon.” 9. Abdel Khalik and Naji, “Mothers and Daughters.” 10. Lebanese Constitution of 1926, chap. 2, art. 9, accessed 17 November 2019, htt ps://www.presidency.gov.lb/English/LebaneseSystem/Documents /Lebanese%20Constitution.pdf. 11. Abdel Khalik and Naji, “Mothers and Daughters.” 12. Fathalla, 23. 13. Fathalla, 23. 14. While the Lebanese government has not been successful at providing substantive sex education, there are nonprofit organizations in Lebanon that are trying to fi ll this gap. Among the leading organizations is Marsa Sexual Health

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Center, which provides confidential and anonymous services related to sexual and reproductive health. Marsa’s services include providing free HIV testing, pap smears, and counseling. According to Marsa’s website, “All services are provided to all in a friendly environment free of stigma and discrimination against age, sex, gender and sexual orientation.” Marsa home page, “Welcome!,” accessed 21 May 2022, htt ps://marsa.me. I visited Marsa in the summer of 2022 and felt how welcoming and warm the staff are. Marsa’s publications (in Arabic and English) about contraception, testing, and other reproductive health issues are also remarkable in terms of quality and accessibility. 15. Human Rights Watch, “Domestic Violence Law Good.” 16. Moussawi and Yassin, “Dissecting Lebanese Law 293.” 17. Abdel Khalik and Naji, “Mothers and Daughters.” 18. Mikdashi, “Politics of Gendered Violence.” 19. According to a report by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, a 2016 survey of 1,513 displaced Syrian families in the Bekaa indicated that “the marriage rate for females aged 15 to 17 among Syrian displaced persons was nearly four times the rate of marriage for females under 18 in Syria in 2009.” For more information, see “Sixth Periodic Report Submitted by Lebanon under Article 18 of the Convention, Due in 2019: Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,” United Nations Digital Library, 27 July 2020, htt ps://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3889198. 20. Lebanese Women Democratic Gathering (RDFL) home page, 2019, htt ps://www.rdflwomen.org/eng/about-us/. 21. KA FA (Enough Violence and Exploitation), “About KA FA,” accessed 17 November 2019, htt ps://kafa.org.lb/en/about. 22. Nagle, “Craft ing Radical Opposition,” 77. 23. Nasr and Zeidan, “Exploring Lebanese Att itudes.” 24. Makarem, “Story of HELEM,” 102. 25. Nagle, “Craft ing Radical Opposition,” 81–82. 26. Makarem, “Story of HELEM,” 105. 27. Moussawi, “(Un)critically Queer Organizing,” 602. 28. Moussawi, 604. 29. Moussawi, 602. 30. Arab Foundation for Freedoms and Equality, “Activism and Resilience.” 31. Helem and Arab Foundation for Freedoms and Equality, “Universal Periodic Report on Homosexuality and Gender in Lebanon,” March 2015, htt ps://ilga .org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Shadow-report-22.pdf. 32. Arab Foundation for Freedoms and Equality, “Fight for Rights Ongoing in Lebanon,” 29 September 2015, htt ps://afemena.org/fight-for-rights-ongoing-in -lebanon/. 33. Sabah’s birth name is Jeanette Feghali. Aside from “Sabbūh.a” (a diminutive version of her stage name, Sabah, which means “morning”), she was also known as “Shah.rūra,” meaning “songbird.” 34. Email correspondence with artist, 14 June 2015.

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35. Asmar, “Curtain Descends.” 36. Associated Press, “Legendary Lebanese Singer Sabah Dead at 87,” Billboard, 26 November 2016, htt ps://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6327805 /lebanese-singer-sabah-dead-87. 37. Associated Press. 38. “Bil-graff ītī, judrān Beirut al-kharsā’ marāyā tatakallam” (With graffiti, Beirut’s mute walls become talking mirrors), Al-Anadol, 13 June 2015, htt ps:// www.alaraby.co.uk/‫ﺗﺘﻜﻠﻢ‬-‫ﻣﺮاﻳﺎ‬-‫اﻟﺨﺮﺳﺎء‬-‫ﺑريوت‬-‫ﺟﺪران‬-“‫ﺑـ“اﻟﻐﺮاﻓﻴﺘﻲ‬. 39. “Bil-graff ītī, judrān Beirut al-kharsā’ marāyā tatakallam.” 40. Schacter, Ornament and Order, 42. 41. “Bil-graff ītī, judrān Beirut al-kharsā’ marāyā tatakallam.” 42. Bramley, “Beirut Graffiti Artist.” 43. Irvine, “Work on the Street,” 237–238. 44. Yazan Halwani, “I painted the legendary Sabah,” Facebook, 11 June 2015, htt ps://www.facebook .com/YazanOne/photos/a .318487981532765/884976774 883880/?type=3. 45. Amin, “Animated Space,” 251. 46. Amin, 252. 47. Amal al-Atrash was known for using the stage name Asmahan. 48. Yazan Halwani (@YazanHalwani), “A personal favorite .  .  . Asmahan,” Twitter, 6 April 2014, htt ps://twitter.com/yazanhalwani/status/4528154466902 38464. 49. Zuhur, Asmahan’s Secrets, 189. 50. Zuhur, 213–216. 51. Zuhur, 219. 52. Yazan Halwani, “Asmahan: Let’s praise our cultural icons instead of our war criminals,” Facebook, 23 September 2013, htt ps://www.facebook .com /YazanOne/htt ps://www.facebook .com/YazanOne/photos/a .3184 87 9815 327 65.69475.318060401575523/564739913574236/. 53. Quoted in Iain Akerman, “Druze Muze,” Reorient, accessed 17 November 2019, htt p://www.reorientmag.com/2015/03/asmahan/. 54. Akerman. 55. de Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life, xxi. 56. Quoted in Howze, Stencil Nation, 82. 57. Kishtainy, “Humor and Resistance,” 62. 58. Doherty, “Cosmetic Surgery,” 29. 59. Balsamo, “On the Cutt ing Edge,” 225. 60. Balsamo, 225. 61. Balsamo, 231. 62. Sandra Beth Doherty notes the ubiquity of fashion magazines in Lebanon that feature advertisements for cosmetic surgery while displaying photos of celebrities who have undergone numerous procedures. She notes that Haifa Wehbe is believed to have undergone “numerous image-enhancing operations” and that widely circulating anecdotes indicate that the number of Nancy Ajram’s surger-

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ies are “equal to her age.” She refers to both singer-performers as “Lebanon’s plastic surgery sweethearts.” Doherty, “Cosmetic Surgery,” 29, 30. 63. See “‫ دﺑﻜﺔ وﺑﻮﺗﻜﺲ وﻋﺮﺳﺎن وﺣﻔﻼت ﺑﺎرﺑﻜﻴﻮ‬..‫( ”ﺛﻮرة ﻟﺒﻨﺎﻧﻴﺔ ﻋﴫﻳﺔ‬A modern Lebanese revolution: Dabkeh dance, botox, brides and grooms, and barbecues), YouTube video, uploaded by Foochia, 20 October 2019, htt ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v = lt482-aCgCw. 64. Olton and Lovata, introduction to Understanding Graffiti, 12. 65. Jarbou, “Resistance Passed through Here,” 144. 66. Shalhoub-Kevorkian, “Cultural Defi nition of Rape,” 177–178. 67. Salamandra, “Chastity Capital,” 152–162. 68. Contemporary Lebanese novels such as Alexandra Chreiteh’s Dāyman Coca- Cola and Rashid al-Daif ’s Tistifl Meryl Streep and Hirrat Sikirida explore sexual assault, including rape and unwanted sexual advances, and the ways in which victims of sexual assault may struggle with facing their aggressors. In Chreiteh’s novel, when one of the protagonists is raped, she worries about her status as a nonvirgin, but she does not consider confronting her rapist. In Tistifl Meryl Streep, the male protagonist molests a seamstress and brags about forcing himself on his wife (essentially committ ing marital rape), despite her protests, on their wedding night. In Hirrat Sikirida, an Ethiopian domestic worker is coerced into having sex and has a child out of wedlock, but she and her child are stigmatized. 69. Shalhoub-Kevorkian, “Cultural Defi nition of Rape,” 190. 70. Amin, “Animated Space,” 246. 71. Since Joumana did not wish to disclose her last name, I have not included it here. 72. Wehbi, “Women’s Rape Perceptions,” 187. 73. Tripp, Power and the People, 216. 74. Kraidy mentions that the anonymous female protestor was later identified by at least one Egyptian newspaper as the political activist Ghada Kamal. For more information, see the chapter “Blue Bra Girl” in Kraidy, Naked Blogger of Cairo. 75. According to Soraya Morayef, a journalist based in Cairo, “Egyptian media and society’s reaction to this shocking video was in itself horrifying—a witch hunt of sorts began in an attempt to expose the identity of this victim,” and “socalled religious figures and TV pundits like Khaled Abdallah questioned her morality and insisted that she deserved the beating.” For more information, see Soraya Morayef, “Women in Egypt through the Narrative of Graffiti,” Atlantic Council, 5  March 2013, htt ps://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/women-in -egypt-through-the-narrative-of-graffiti/. 76. Shehab, Crush the Flowers, 34–36. 77. Jarbou, “Resistance Passed through Here,” 144. 78. Pratt , “Egyptian Women.” 79. Lennon, “Routes of Confl ict Graffiti,” 63. 80. For more information, see the Uprising of Women in the Arab World, “About,” Facebook, accessed 17 November 2019, htt ps://www.facebook .com /intifadat.almar2a/about. 248 / N O T E S T O PA G E S 93 –9 8

81. Jarbou, “Resistance Passed through Here,” 145. 82. Bakhtin, Speech Genres, 91. 83. Quoted in Fraser, “Meta- Graffiti,” 260. 84. Salti, “Urban Scrolls,” 624. 85. Leap, Word’s Out, 74. 86. Lee, “Anybody Can Do It,” 309. 87. Beebeejaun, “Right to Everyday Life,” 330. 88. Leap, Word’s Out, 75. 89. Shabbar, “Queer Bathroom Graffiti Matters,” para. 16. 90. Shabbar, para. 26. 91. Zieleniec, “Right to Write,” para 37. 92. Salti, “Urban Scrolls,” 625. 93. It is important to note that the word “shādh” has been embraced and reclaimed by some Lebanese queer activists but not others. The expression “Eh ana shādh” (Yes I am a deviant) became popular during a 2010 campaign for the International Day against Homophobia. For more information, see Mourad, “Queering the Mother-Tongue.” 94. Bakhtin, Dialogic Imagination, 293–294. 95. Beebeejaun, “Right to Everyday Life,” 325. 96. Edbauer, “(Meta)Physical Graffiti,” 133. 97. See, for example, Joseph Massad, Desiring Arabs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). 98. Atshan, Queer Palestine, xii. 99. Mourad, “Queering the Mother-Tongue,” 2534–2536. 100. Bayoumi, “Politics of Writing History,” 216. 101. Jasper, “Emotions of Protest,” 401. 102. Kraidy, “Arab Uprisings,” 124. 103. Ilkkaracan, “Contested Political Domain,” 3. 104. Halsey and Young, “Writing Graffiti,” 278. 105. Kraidy, Naked Blogger of Cairo, 131.

Chapter 3. Hadhā al-bah.r lī / This Sea Is Mine 1. Kingston, “Environmental Politics,” 55. 2. Kingston, 60–62. 3. Nagel and Staeheli, “Politics of Citizenship,” 258–259. 4. Nahnoo home page, accessed 16 May 2020, htt ps://nahnoo.org/. 5. Nahnoo home page. 6. Nixon, Slow Violence, 3. 7. Duff, “Production of Place,” 885. 8. Nagel and Staeheli, “Politics of Citizenship,” 255. 9. “A Call to Demonstrate to Re-open Horsh Beirut,”An-nahar, 5 November 2015, htt ps://www.annahar.com/arabic/article/235810-‫ﺑريوت‬-‫ﺣﺮش‬-‫ﻟﻔﺘﺢ‬-‫اﻟﺘﻈﺎﻫﺮ‬-‫اﱃ‬-‫دﻋﻮة‬. 10. Bakhtin, Speech Genres, 95. N O T E S T O PA G E S

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11. Bakhtin, 91. 12. Daragahi, “Lone Public Park Isn’t.” 13. Sibley, Geographies of Exclusion, 78. 14. Mahfoud, “Excluding and Excluded,” 101. 15. Daragahi, “Lone Public Park Isn’t.” 16. Idris, “Stitching the Scar,” 88. 17. Civil Society Knowledge Center, “The Civil Campaign to Protect the Dalieh of Raouche,” 13 March 2014, htt ps://civilsociety-centre.org/collective/civil -campaign-protect-dalieh-raouche. 18. For more information, see the coalition’s Facebook page at htt ps://www .facebook .com/dalieh.org/. 19. For more information, see Dictaphone Group, “About,” accessed 21 May 2023, htt ps://dictaphonegroup.com/about/; see also the group’s Facebook page, htt ps://www.facebook .com/dictaphonegroup/. 20. Hamdi, “Darwish’s Geography,” 14. 21. For more information on the history of the Dalieh and the efforts of activists to reclaim it as a communal space, see Saksouk-Sasso, “Making Spaces.” 22. Shohat and Stam, “Narrativizing Visual Culture,” 43. 23. Irvine, “Work on the Street,” 255. 24. Deleuze and Guattari, Thousand Plateaus, 106. 25. Ashekman, “Aarrib ‘at.-t.ayyib,” 25 July 2015, Facebook, htt ps://www .facebook .com /ASHEKMAN/photos/a .10150381636065360/101559242341 55360/. 26. Kraidy, “Trashing the Sectarian System,” 21. 27. Kiwan, “Emotive Acts of Citizenship,” 124. 28. Kiwan, 124. 29. Bădescu, “Beyond the Green Line,” 362. 30. Kiwan, “Emotive Acts of Citizenship,” 114–142. 31. Abu-Rish, “Garbage Politics.” 32. For an insightful discussion of the government’s defamation tactics against protestors, see Kiwan, “Emotive Acts of Citizenship.” 33. Curtin, Environmental Ethics, 7. 34. Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, 20. 35. Endres and Senda- Cook, “Location Matters,” 257–282. 36. Th is expression is highly recognizable because of its dialogical reference to verses by the Tunisian poet Abū al- Qāsim al-Shābbī, which translate as follows: “If the people will to live / Providence is destined to favorably respond / And night is destined to fold / And the chains are certain to be broken.” Here, the scrawl asserts that the Lebanese people have now willed to live. 37. Tripp, Power and the People, 9–10. 38. Kiwan, “Emotive Acts of Citizenship,” 122. 39. Brighenti, “At the Wall,” 322. 40. Sami Baroudi, quoted in Owens, “Blast Wall’s Disappearance.” 41. Imad Salamey, quoted in Owens.

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42. Owens. 43. Brighenti, At the Wall, 323–324. 44. Epatko, “Garbage Buildup in Beirut.” 45. Riskedahl, “Scriptorial Landscape of Lebanon,” 142. 46. Khatib, Image Politics, 159. 47. Buchanan, “Lebanon ‘You Stink’ Protests.” 48. de Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life, 38–39. 49. Bruner, “Carnivalesque Protest,” 142. 50. Among the carnivalesque performances that garnered worldwide attention is the makeshift flea market dubbed Abu Rakhoussa (meaning “cheap”). The market was created after Nicolas Chammas, the head of the Beirut Traders Association, complained that the protests were hurting businesses in the area by turning Downtown into the cheap flea market that had historically existed in the area. At the Abu Rakhoussa open-air marketplace, one could buy cheap clothing, used books, traditional foods and juices, and trinkets from unauthorized pop-up stores that would not normally be allowed to operate in the square. For more information on Abu Rakhoussa, see Habib Batt ah, “Abou Rakhousa and the Politics of Poverty,” Beirut Report, October 2015, htt ps://www.beirutreport.com/abou -rakhousa-and-the-politics-of-poverty/. 51. Ryan, Political Street Art, 28. 52. Casey, “Between Geography and Philosophy,” 686–687. 53. Ryan, Political Street Art, 76. 54. Tripp, Power and the People, 259. 55. Kishtainy, “Humor and Resistance,” 58. 56. US International Development Agency, “Environment and Global Climate Change,” accessed 20 May 2021, htt ps://www.usaid.gov/lebanon/envi ron ment-and-global-climate-change. 57. Meraaby, “Fouad Boutros Highway.” 58. Stop the Highway, Build the Fouad Boutros Park, “Environmental and Public Health Impact: The Destruction of Gardens and Orchards,” accessed 31  August 2016, htt ps://stopthehighway.wordpress.com/the-hekmeh-turk-fouad -boutros-project/environmental-impact-2/. 59. Ryan, Political Street Art, 26. 60. Meraaby, “Fouad Boutros Highway.” 61. Beirut Madinati, a volunteer-led, nonsectarian political campaign, emerged in April 2016 and ran in the May 2016 Beirut municipality elections. The campaign promised to work on issues such as urban mobility, public spaces, affordable housing, sustainable waste management, natural heritage, community spaces and services, socioeconomic development, environmental sustainability, health and safety, and municipal governance. Beirut Madinati fully endorsed the idea of building a park instead of a highway. 62. Traffic congestion is directly linked to residents’ dependency on private cars, given that there is no reliable or effective public transportation system. A 2017 study by the economist Mirna Chami indicates 1.75 million registered vehicles in

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Lebanon, of which 85 percent are cars. Furthermore, five hundred thousand to six hundred thousand vehicles enter and exit Beirut daily. For more information, see Mirna Chami, “Road Traffic in Lebanon: A Structural Problem That Needs Immediate Intervention,” 10 August 2017, htt ps:// blog.blominvestbank .com/wp -content/uploads/2017/08/Road-Traffic-in-Lebanon-A-Structural-Problem-that -Needs-Immediate-Intervention-1.pdf. 63. Kadi, “Traffic Congestion.” 64. The Chain Effect home page, accessed 15 May 2021, htt ps://thechain effect.me/. 65. Angus, “Colorful Street Art.” 66. Angus. 67. Angus. 68. Nagel and Staeheli, “Politics of Citizenship,” 249. 69. Angus, “Colorful Street Art.” Note that Hawa talked about expanding the initiative to include Tripoli, the second-largest city in Lebanon. 70. In 2016, Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa banning women from cycling in public. In 2013, the online initiative Girls Revolution called upon Egyptian women to fight against the stigma that cycling is “unladylike” with the campaign “We Will Ride Bicycles.” In 2018, Saudi Arabia held its fi rst women-only cycling race. Lara Ahmed, “Female Cyclists Ride Past Stigma,” Women of Egypt Mag, 11 September 2020, htt ps://womenofegyptmag.com/2020 /09/11/female-cyclists-ride-past-stigma-lara-ahmed/. 71. Growing up, my sisters and I were not permitted to ride bicycles outside of designated spaces, in part because our parents feared for our safety and in part because they worried that cycling would ruin our reputations, since “decent” girls were not supposed to act like boys or venture around the city unsupervised. 72. Ryan, Political Street Art, 141. 73. Lazkani, “Couple in Lebanon.” 74. Nixon, Slow Violence, 3. 75. Kishtainy, “Humor and Resistance,” 54. 76. Arenas, “Mobile Politics of Emotions,” 1136. 77. Waldner and Dobratz, “Contentious Political Participation,” 380. 78. Duff, “Production of Place,” 885; emphasis mine.

Chapter 4. Thawrat Beirut likul al-‘ālam / Beirut’s Revolution Is for All the People 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Andrei, “I Am Revolution,” 97. Andrei. Chattopadhyay, “Visualizing the Body Politic,” 46. Brennan, “Lebanon’s Wildfi res Risk.” Hodges, “Country on Fire.” For some, the #YouStink movement, despite its initial successes, failed to

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earn support beyond its liberal secular base because it lacked well-defi ned objectives and the ability to build coalition across different classes and sects. For more information, see Hodges, “Country on Fire.” 7. Hodges. 8. Majed and Salman, “Lebanon’s Thawra.” 9. It is important to note that during the 2015 garbage protests, the discourse that all political leaders were responsible and deserved to be blamed for the country’s demise was resisted by some within the several networks of “the movement” (al-hirāk). According to Carmen Geha, “a narrative that blamed all politicians equally revealed some cracks within the social networks of the movement whereby certain actors defended some politicians, claiming that ‘their’ politician could not be blamed to the same extent as the others.” Carmen Geha, “Politics of a Garbage Crisis: Social Networks, Narratives, and Frames of Lebanon’s 2015 Protests and Their Aftermath,” Social Movement Studies 18, no. 1 (2018): 78–92. In 2019, more people and groups were willing to articulate that all politicians needed to be held accountable. 10. Abu-Rish, “Lebanon’s Uprising.” 11. The ammonium nitrate had been transported aboard the MV Rhosus, a cargo ship that was abandoned in Beirut after being declared unseaworthy. The ship was confiscated and brought to shore by the port authorities in 2014. The exact details surrounding this shipment remain unknown as of the writing of this chapter. 12. Human Rights Watch, “ ‘They Killed Us from the Inside’: An Investigation into the August 4 Beirut Blast,” 3 August 2021, htt ps://www.hrw.org/report /2021/08/03/they-killed-us-inside/investigation-august-4 -beirut-blast#_ft n299. 13. Leaked official documents suggest that Lebanese customs, military, and security authorities and the judiciary had repeatedly warned the government of the dangerous chemicals at the port on at least ten occasions over the course of six years, but no action was taken. The president was also aware of such warnings but did not intervene. For more information, see Amnesty International, “Lebanon: One Year on from Devastating Beirut Explosion, Authorities Shamelessly Obstruct Justice,” press release, 2 August 2021, htt ps://www.amnesty.org/en/latest /press-release/2021/08/lebanon-one-year-on-from-beirut-explosion-authorities -shamelessly-obstruct-justice-2/. 14. Rogers, “Street Called Mohammed Mahmoud.” 15. Khatib, Image Politics, 153. 16. Abaza, “Emerging Memorial Space?” 17. Established in May 2019 and directed by Imane Assaf, the Art of Change sought to advance the creation and promotion of public art in Lebanon, a mission that became particularly crucial during Lebanon’s revolution. At the outset of the revolution, the Art of Change assembled a team of artists dedicated to articulating people’s feelings and demands through graffiti and street art. The initiative started by calling on artists to paint the wall of the ESCWA building in Riad El Solh Square. The wall, dubbed the Revolution Wall, would then expand to reach

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the Ring Bridge as well as the wall of Électricité du Liban, the main electricity supplier in Lebanon, which consistently witnessed protests due to the governmentimposed daily power cuts. The Revolution Wall includes graffiti and street art by other artists and residents who do not belong to the collective but who wished to participate in graffiti making. Karam, “Beirut Street Art,” 112. 18. Khalil, “Lebanon’s Revolution.” 19. Human Rights Watch, “Lethal Force Used.” 20. Lefebvre, Production of Space, 382. 21. It is worth noting that the mural covers the facade of the hotel Le Gray Beirut, which was badly damaged during the Beirut Port explosion. Commenting on the collaborative wall, EpS said, “The message is beautiful but I feel that our situation is hopeless.” For Sp*z, “Downtown Beirut is an area usually reserved for the wealthy. By reclaiming these places and personalizing them, we have made graffiti our form of resistance against the system.” Hourany, “Processing Trauma through Art.” The decision of prominent, prorevolution graffiti artists to paint a mural on the facade of a hotel in Downtown Beirut invites further contemplation of the ambiguous positionality that Lebanese graffiti artists sometimes navigate with regard to serving both the Lebanese public (through timely cultural production) and private businesses, which may proclaim solidarity with the protestors during troubled times but generally remain centered on seeking profit, sometimes at the expense of the environment or the wishes of the city’s residents. That the hotel is considered by some to have long been an advocate for local culture, and that it was ruined by the blast resulting from governmental neglect, renders the context even more complex. 22. Meuh is a Beirut-based French graffiti maker who fi rst arrived in Lebanon in 2013, where he immediately felt enamored with Beirut’s graffiti scene and the sense of freedom and comradery among graffiti makers and other residents of the city, particularly in comparison to the more violent graffiti scene in Paris. Meuh has worked as a freelance journalist and graffiti tour guide in Beirut and has collaborated with Lebanese graffiti artists such as EpS. 23. Bloch, Utopian Function, 16. 24. Zalzal, “Roula Abdo.” 25. Zalzal. 26. de Certeau, Practice of Everyday Life, 18. 27. Bakhtin, Dialogic Imagination, 345–346. 28. Majed and Salman, “Lebanon’s Thawra.” 29. Bakhtin, Dialogic Imagination, 280. 30. Milligan, “Tripoli’s Troubles to Come.” 31. Knecht and Abi Nader, “Lebanon’s Sweeping Protests.” 32. Milligan, “Tripoli’s Troubles to Come.” 33. Jasper, “Emotions of Protest,” 409. 34. Agencies, “Nearly 1 Million Batt le Starvation in Lebanon’s Beirut, Report Says,” Daily Sabah, 30 July 2020, htt ps://www.dailysabah.com/world/mid -east/nearly-1-million-batt le-starvation-in-lebanons-beirut-report-says. 254 / N O T E S T O PA G E S 15 6 –17 3

35. Agencies. 36. According to an article by Samia Nakhoul, “immediately after the August blast, searches in Lebanon for the word ‘immigration’ on Google Trends hit a 10-year peak, and a recent search by the Arab Opinion Index revealed that four out of five Lebanese aged 18 to 24 are considering emigration.” Samia Nakhoul, “The Blast That Blew Away Lebanon’s Faith in Itself,” Reuters, 24 December 2020, https://www.reuters .com /article/us -lebanon -crisis -witness -insight /the -blast -that-blew-away-lebanons-faith-in-itself-idUSKBN28Y0QX. 37. The misappropriation of foreign aid reportedly reached unprecedented levels in the aftermath of the Syrian refugee crisis, which led to an influx of international aid meant to assist Syrian families but that the Lebanese government has been accused of misappropriating or not disbursing in a timely manner. For more information, see Jana Dhaybi, “Report Alleges Gross Misuse of Donor Funds for Refugee Education in Lebanon,” Alfanar Media, 12 June 2020, htt ps://www .al -fanarmedia .org /2020/06/report-alleges -gross -misuse -of -donor -funds -for -refugee-education-in-lebanon/; see also “Yasqut H.ukm al-Fāsid, Madāris min Raml” (May the corrupt system fall: Schools of sand), YouTube video, uploaded by AL Jadeed, 29 May 2020, htt ps://youtu.be/2bEZusgS4PM. 38. Merhej and Ghreichi, “Foreign Aid to Lebanon.” 39. Gadalla, “Lebanese Politicians.” The Marshall Plan was a US-sponsored program to rebuild the economies of Western Europe after World War II. 40. Gadalla. 41. Armstrong, “ ‘Environmental Disaster.’ ” 42. The Beirut-based American graffiti artist Brady Black has utilized street art as a means of giving voice to the city’s marginalized populations, often painting portraits of real people, including young laborers and their parents, whom he has encountered on the streets. Black has also painted numerous portraits in Martyrs’ Square of victims who died in the August 4 Beirut Port explosion. For more information, see Frakes, “Art for Accountability”; see also Brady Black’s Instagram account, @bradytheblack. 43. For more information, see AFP, “ ‘Nothing Left’: In Crisis-Hit Lebanon Bread Too Is Scarce,” France 24, 13 August 2021, htt ps://www.france24.com/en /live-news/20210813-nothing-left-in-crisis-hit-lebanon-bread-too-is-scarce. Currently, the bread crisis has become even worse in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, since Lebanon imports wheat from both countries. 44. Brady Black (@bradytheblack), “If you can’t feed 100 kids, feed one  Mother Theresa,” Instagram, 6 April 2021, htt ps://www.instagram.com/p /CN UUcP WM 7U9/?utm _source = ig _web_copy _link & igshid = MzRlODBiN WFlZA==. 45. Majed and Salman, “Lebanon’s Thawra.” 46. “Eat the rich” is an abbreviation of the phrase “When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.” 47. Bell, “Land of Karagoz.” 48. Reuters Staff, “Ex-Lebanese PM Questioned over How $11 Billion Was Spent,” Reuters, 7 November 2019, htt ps://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon N O T E S T O PA G E S

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-protests -siniora/ex-lebanese -pm-questioned-over-how-11-billion-was -spent-id USKBN1XH2HA. 49. Lebanese graphic designers Farah Fayyad and Siwar Kraytem set up a makeshift screen-printing station in Downtown Beirut, where they produced logos and images in support of the revolution. Their designs included an image of the Egg (the unfi nished cinema building in Beirut that was used during the protests as a space for talks by academics, artists, and students), captioned with a message that translates to “The revolution has hatched”; the word “Fikko,” which means “Leave us alone”; the expression “H.āmīhā haramīhā,” which loosely translates to “Its protectors are its thieves,” in reference to corrupt politicians; and images of female activists raising their fi sts in protest, captioned with the expression “Al-thawra” (The revolution). At the protests, people brought their T-shirts to the designers, who tagged their images and slogans on them upon request. Fayyad and Kraytem’s contributions demonstrate women’s active participation in animating the revolution through contextualized cultural production, showing the connections between art and protest and art as protest. For more information about Fayyad and Kraytem’s work, see “Lebanese Uprising Inspires Artists to Excel in Media Output,” AlBawaba, 29 October 2019, htt ps://www.albawaba.com/editors-choice/lebanese -uprising-inspires-artists-excel-media-output-1317860. 50. Majed and Salman, “Lebanon’s Thawra.” 51. Hall, “Leading the Revolution.” 52. Hall. 53. Sumer Ziady (@madsumerian_art), “Day 12 of the Lebanese Revolution was the fi rst time I ever painted on a wall,” Instagram, 28 October 2019, htt ps:// www.instagram.com/p/B4LEXcpl5sB/. 54. Mjay is the nickname of the Lebanese street artist Marie Joe Ayoub. Ayoub has been consistently involved in creating and facilitating the production of collaborative, community-centered art that aims to spread awareness regarding the importance of protecting Lebanese heritage sites, fostering coexistence and respect for others and the environment, and nurturing an interest in art and cultural production among Lebanese and Syrian youths. The female figure featured in this graffito has appeared in other works by Ayoub, thematizing the commitment to protect one’s home and heritage against the threats of unregulated development, demolition, and explosions. 55. Zaghbour, “October Revolution.” The kafala system ties migrant workers’ residency to their employers. Employees, including live-in domestic workers, cannot leave their jobs without the consent of their employers, which may be hard to secure. Those who do leave without permission risk arrest, abuse, and deportation. The restrictions associated with the system make it very difficult for employees to report incidents of abuse, exploitation, and the indefi nite withholding of wages and travel documents by the employer. 56. Ironically, a few years after this scrawl fi rst appeared, Lebanon witnessed a series of incidents that involved depositors holding up banks in an attempt to withdraw their savings, including a woman who said she needed to withdraw her funds in order to pay for her sister’s cancer treatment. 256 / N O T E S T O PA G E S 18 4 –193

57. Azhari, “Lebanese Banks.” 58. Jasper, “Emotions of Protest,” 410. 59. “ ‘My Government Did Th is’ . . . the Disaster of the Port Blast Does Not Leave the Minds of the Lebanese,” Alaraby, 9 April 2021, htt ps://www.alaraby .com/news/‫اﻟﻠﺒﻨﺎﻧﻴني‬-‫أذﻫﺎن‬-‫ﻋﻦ‬-‫ﺗﻐﻴﺐ‬-‫ﻻ‬-‫اﳌﺮﻓﺄ‬-‫اﻧﻔﺠﺎر‬-‫ﻓﺎﺟﻌﺔ‬-‫ﻫﺬا‬-‫ﻓﻌﻠﺖ‬-‫دوﻟﺘﻲ‬. 60. “ ‘My Government Did Th is.’ ” 61. Bennett , Empathic Vision, 142. 62. One version of this video may be found at the following link: “‫دوﻟﺘﻲ‬ ‫‘[ ”ﻓﻌﻠﺖ ﻫﺬا ‘ﺷﻌﺎر ﻳﺜري ﺿﺠﺔ ﰲ’ ﻟﺒﻨﺎن‬My government did this’: A slogan causes an uproar in Lebanon],” YouTube video, uploaded by Syria Stream, 9 April 2021, htt ps://www .youtube.com/watch?v =63WWAYYcLfI. 63. It is worth noting that Martyrs’ Square (Sah.at al-Shuhada), located in the heart of Downtown Beirut, was named after the May 6, 1916, executions ordered by Jamal Pasha (infamously known as Al Jazzar, or the Butcher), the Ottoman leader of Greater Syria. The symbolism of the location is therefore important precisely because actual lynching had taken place in that particular area. 64. Bitar and Chehayeb, “Beirut Explosion.” 65. Amnesty International, “Use of terrorism charges.” 66. The narratives about Aoun being mentally and physically unfit to rule have been rampant over the past several years, with many implying that his sonin-law Gebran Bassil is the puppet master leading Aoun and manipulating Lebanese politics. 67. Tripp, Power and the People, 307. 68. AFP, “Rusūm al-graffiti: Sarkhāt ihtijāj ‘abr judrān Beirut” (Graffiti drawings: Screams of protests through Beirut’s walls), Al-‘ayn al-Ikhbāriyya, 16 November 2019, htt ps://al-ain.com/article/lebanon-graffiti-art-beirut. 69. Bateman, “Beirut Blast.”

Chapter 5. Al-sha‘b al-sūrī ‘ārif t.arīquh / The Syrian People Know Their Way 1. Kraidy, Naked Blogger of Cairo, 118. 2. Fieldhouse, Western Imperialism, 309–311. 3. For more information on the National Pact, see Volk, Memorials and Martyrs; Hanf, Co- existence in Wartime Lebanon. 4. For more information on the United Nations partition plan, see Swedenburg, Memories of Revolt; Beinin and Hajjar, “Arab-Israeli Confl ict.” 5. Traboulsi, History of Modern Lebanon, 114. 6. Complicating matters further is the fact that the border(s) between Israel/ Palestine and Lebanon were never clearly drawn, and disputes over specific sites, most notably the Sheb‘ā Farms, continue to the present day. 7. Volk, Memorials and Martyrs, 105–106. 8. The Lebanese Civil War erupted on April 13, 1975, when gunmen from the right-wing Christian Phalangists militia ambushed a bus, killing twenty-six N O T E S T O PA G E S

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of its mostly Palestinian passengers—allegedly in retaliation for a shooting that had taken place earlier at a church and that the Phalanges militiamen att ributed to Palestinian assailants. The event is often referred to as the “Ain al-Rummaneh bus incident.” 9. Volk, Memorials and Martyrs, 162. 10. Salloukh, “Syrian War,” 62. 11. Fiddian- Qasmiyeh, “Shift ing the Gaze,” 408–409. 12. Naji al-Ali was born in 1938 in the Palestinian village of al-Shajara, located between Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee. In 1948, al-Shajara was one of the numerous Palestinian villages destroyed in the Nakba. Al-Ali was ten years old when he and his family were expelled from Palestine. They relocated to the Ein alHilweh refugee camp in the southern city of Sidon (Saida) in Lebanon. On July 22, 1987, al-Ali was shot outside the offices of Al- Qabas newspaper in London. He died on August 29. His murderer was never brought to justice. The Palestinian writer and activist Ghassan Kanafani has been credited with “discovering” Naji al-Ali. He published some of al-Ali’s drawings in Al-Hurriyya magazine, the voice of the Arab Nationalist Movement. The publication of the cartoons helped launch alAli’s career as a political cartoonist. 13. According to Fayeq Oweis, “the handhal is a resilient plant that has deep roots and the ability to grow back regardless of attempts to cut or weed it out. It is always associated with bitterness and thus bitterness and resilience became common features of Handala.” Oweis, “Cartoons of Naji al-Ali.” 14. Oweis. 15. The initiative was endorsed by the Palestinian Popular Conference, International Jewish Solidarity Network, Local Nakbah Committee, Arab Resource and Organizing Center, and Middle East Children’s Alliance. For more information, see “Take Handala to the Streets!,” accessed 25 June 2020, htt p://www .handala.org/interact/nakbah.html. 16. Lennon, Conflict Graffiti, 110. 17. Peteet, “Writing on the Walls,” 150–151. 18. Rabinowitz, “Right to Refuse,” 499. 19. Volk, Memorials and Martyrs, 120. 20. Peteet, “Writing on the Walls,” 141, 143. 21. Haugbolle, “Spatial Transformations,” 72. 22. Some Lebanese (including the Lebanese diaspora in France) have strong attachments to France and view France as the lesser evil in comparison to the United States or Syria. France’s long and contentious history in Lebanon is beyond the scope of this book, but it is worth mentioning that during troubled times, some Lebanese look toward France for help and mediation, in part because they believe that Lebanon fared better under the French Mandate than on its own or under the influence of Syria. Importantly, the Hariri family has had a long-standing relationship with the former French president Jacques Chirac going back to the early 1980s. Chirac was regarded by Lebanese Christian and Sunni elites as an ally, someone who would jump to Lebanon’s rescue during a crisis. President Emmanuel Macron

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would later walk in Chirac’s footsteps. Macron’s fi rst visit to Beirut a few days after the August 4 explosion was met with hope that he could put pressure on Lebanon’s political leaders to pursue economic and political reform. In fact, a petition demanding that the country become a French protectorate again started circulating online shortly after Macron’s visit ended. For more information, see Lauren Chadwick, “France and Lebanon: The History of a Turbulent Relationship,” Euronews, 9 January 2020, htt ps://www.euronews.com/2020/09/01/france-and-lebanon-the -history-of-a-turbulent-relationship. 23. Bakhtin, Dialogic Imagination, 84. 24. Graffiti making was one of many iterations of the intensive visual imagery that appeared during the Cedar Revolution. Lina Khatib persuasively argues that the Cedar Revolution “catalyzed a new style of politics in the Middle East that is marked by deliberate visual saturation,” which involved banners, flags, paintings, photos, billboards, and other visual markers. Khatib, Image Politics, 16. 25. Kraidy, Naked Blogger of Cairo, 118. 26. Kraidy, 125. 27. Evans and Al-Khalidi, “Two Years of Rebellion.” For more information, see “‫( ”إﺟﺎك اﻟﺪور ﻳﺎ دﻛﺘﻮر“ ﴍارة اﻟﺜﻮرة ﻷﻃﻔﺎل درﻋﺎ‬It’s your turn, doctor: The children of Daraa spark the revolution), YouTube video, uploaded by AlJazeera Arabic, 1 March 2016, htt ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v =XWrwKIm0mkY. 28. Kishtainy, “Humor and Resistance,” 54. 29. Zoghbi, “Graffiti in Beirut.” 30. Th is sentiment has been articulated in poems by Niza Qabbani and Mahmoud Darwish, novels and short stories by Ghassan Kanafani and Zakkariyya Tamer, and cartoons by Ali Ferzat and Naji al-Ali. 31. Saudi prisoners of conscience include human rights activists, women’s rights defenders (who have called for an end to male guardianship, for example), writers, preachers, and lawyers. Activists are often accused of working with foreign governments and attempting to cause chaos in the country. 32. Th is stencil was removed before I was able to photograph it, but it can be found on numerous blogs. See, for example, Suzee in the City, “Protest Graffiti: Solidarity with Syria Spreads from Cairo,” 11 August 2011, htt ps://suzeeinthecity .wordpress .com/2011/08/11/protest-graffiti-solidarity-with-syria-spreads -from -cairo/. 33. Zoghbi, “Graffiti in Beirut.” 34. Bakhtin, Dialogic Imagination, 23. 35. Bakhtin, 23 . 36. Bakhtin, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, 124. 37. Naharnet Newsdesk, “Authorities Release Two Activists.” 38. Naharnet Newsdesk. 39. Zoghbi, “Graffiti in Beirut.” 40. Ahmed, Strange Encounters, 22. 41. Ahmed, 78. 42. Miklavcic, “Slogans and Graffiti,” 449.

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43. Duff, “Production of Place,” 887. 44. Haynes, Bakhtin Reframed, 45. 45. Duff, “Production of Place,” 885. 46. Kraidy, Naked Blogger of Cairo, 118. 47. Ahmed, Strange Encounters, 156. 48. Contemporary Lebanese cultural production has been increasingly addressing Lebanese prejudice against Syrians. In one example, the romantic comedy Mahbas (Solitaire) tells the story of a woman whose brother died by a Syrian bomb and her inability to accept her future son-in-law because he is Syrian. While the fi lm is lighthearted and politically thin (by virtue of the genre), it does deserve credit for exposing anti-Syrian racism in Lebanon. 49. Armenians mark the date April 24, 1915, as the start of the Armenian genocide, when several hundred Armenian intellectuals and community leaders were detained, arrested, and executed (with 1917 generally believed to be the estimated date of the ending of the brutal detainments, executions, and forced marches that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians). But it is important to note that there were also massacres of Armenians in 1894, 1895, 1896, and 1909, as well as a recurrence of such acts from 1920 to 1923. 50. Cott le, “Arab Uprisings of 2011,” 654. 51. Lina Khatib, “Street Art and the Egyptian Revolution,” in IEMed Mediterranean Yearbook 2013 (Barcelona: European Institute of the Mediterranean, 2013), 300, htt ps://www.iemed.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Street-Art -and-the-Egyptian-Revolution.pdf. 52. Marwan Kraidy att ributes the stencils expressing solidarity with the revolution in Bahrain and Syria to the antisectarian left movements fighting for an end to the sectarian regime in Lebanon. Kraidy, Naked Blogger of Cairo. 53. Occupy Wall Street was a protest movement against economic inequality that began in New York City’s Wall Street fi nancial district in September 2011. It soon gave rise to the wider Occupy movement in the United States and other countries. 54. Shohat and Stam, “Narrativizing Visual Culture,” 29.

Inconclusions. Qabl mā mūt baddī Libnān / Before I Die I Want Lebanon To 1. Zieleniec, “Lefebvre and Graffiti.” 2. Zieleniec, para 8. 3. Musallam, “ ‘Failure in the Air,’ ” 33. 4. Shehab, Crush the Flowers, 135. 5. Shehab, 108. 6. Hannah Elansary, “Revolutionary Street Art: Complicating the Discourse,” Jadaliyya, 1 September 2014, htt ps://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/31151 /Revolutionary-Street-Art-Complicating-the-Discourse.

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7. Locally based studies, including Arabic-language reception studies that explore the att itudes and reactions of residents toward graffiti and other visual symbols, would especially enrich the field of Arab visual culture studies. Such studies would help further establish Arabic graffiti and street art as legitimate fields of critical inquiry, as well as help diversify the broader field of visual culture studies, which has been largely Western centered. 8. Khatib, Image Politics, 35. 9. These walls were reportedly painted by the students of Notre-Dame de Jamhour, in collaboration with a few nongovernmental organizations that issued a call for commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the Lebanese Civil War. For more information, see Najib, “Before I Die, I Want Lebanon To . . . ,” Blog Baladi, 15 April 2015, htt ps:// blogbaladi.com/before-i-die-i-want-lebanon-to/. 10. On my most recent trip to Lebanon in 2023, I revisited the Fouad Chehab Bridge. The walls had been recently covered with black paint, except for the expressions “Before I die I want Lebanon to” and “Qabl mā mūt baddī Libnān.” The English-language wall included one graffitied message that read, “Hold me tight when I come back” and “‫ﻣﻐﱰب‬.” The latter word means “expatriate” or “immigrant.” Th is message speaks to the increased immigration of the Lebanese people in the wake of Lebanon’s economic collapse and their longing to feel welcomed in their home country upon return.

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Index

Note: Italicized page numbers indicate material in photographs or illustrations. AAAT (Al-Sha‘b al-Surī ‘ārif T.arīquh), 213 Abaza, Mona, 5, 155 Abdallah, Ali, 58, 59 Abdallah, Khaled, 248n75 Abdo, Roula, 156–157, 157, 162–164, 164, 167, 167, 179, 180 abortion rights, 74–75 Abu Rakhoussa market, 251n50 Abu-Rish, Ziad, 127, 154 Achrafiyeh area, 25, 26, 71, 80, 81, 85, 137, 243n57 action-potential of graffiti, 115, 148 adultery, 57, 108–109 affective embodiment, 18–19, 148, 152 “Against the regime” (stencil), 96, 97 Ah.ad, Souk al-, 49 the Ah.dāth (Events) of May 2008 (battle of the streets), 11 Ahmed, Sara, 20, 219, 223 Ain al-Mreisseh area, 143 Ain et-Tineh area, 40, 97 air pollution, 45. See also environmental damage and activism

ajnabī (foreign), xi Ajram, Nancy, 93 AK 47s, 73 Al-Ali, Naji, 206–207, 258n12 Alawites, 171 Alaywe, Malak, 186 al-Barrad al-Younani area, 22, 44 Al-H.amla al-Ahliyya li-l-h.ifādh ‘ala Daliat al-Rawcheh, 120 Al-Horsh rāji‘ w-l-h.aqq ma bīdī‘ (The Horsh is coming back, and justice will not be lost), 119 Al-Hurriyya magazine, 258n12 Ali and His Russian Mother (Chreiteh), 242n25 Ali Ibn-Abi T.ālib, 36 ‘Ali wa-Ummuhu al-Rūsiyya (Chreiteh), 242n25 al- Qaida, 9 Amal, 9, 36, 205, 242n24 American Community School, Beirut, 120 American University of Beirut, 120, 126, 176, 244n64 Amin, Ash, 84

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Amnesty International, 154, 159, 198, 253n13 Amnesty Law, 9 Anarchists of Lebanon, 108 “Anā shādh,” 105–106, 249n93 Andrei, Cybèle, 151 animal symbolism, 181–182, 181 Another Crushing Kill (ACK), 25, 26 anticapitalist graffiti, 180–181 antigovernment sentiment and graffiti, xii, 3, 6–7, 15, 121, 123, 126–128, 129; and the Wall of Shame, 132– 136 antisectarian sentiment, 29, 37–52, 38, 78, 109, 163, 166–168, 233, 260n52 Aoun, Michel, 9, 87, 153–154, 179, 182, 197–198, 206, 257n66 April War, 9 Arabic language and script: and antisectarian street art, 37–38, 45; Arabic calligraphy and calligraffiti, 27, 28–29, 32–33, 33, 53–54, 59–61, 68, 79, 82, 84; Arabic music, 23; and backgrounds of Lebanese street artists, 27–29; and motivations of street artists, 23–24; and protesting gender-based violence, 94, 99–100; and subtexts embedded in street art, 34; and Western-inspired Arabic calligraffiti, 24–29 Arab-Israeli War (1967), 204, 214 Arab/Lebanese heritage, 27, 56 Arab Nationalist Movement, 258n12 Arab uprisings, 13, 96–98, 130, 153, 166, 203 Arab womanhood, 79 Armenian genocide, 223, 260n49 Armenia Street, 223, 224 article 534, 77–78 Art of Change collective, 156, 188–189, 189, 253n17 Ashekman: and antisectarian street art, 43–46; and Arabic-language street art, 27, 28; and celebration

of female artists, 80, 80; and commemoration of cultural icons, 61; and garbage protests, 124–126; and goals/context of Lebanon’s street art, 62–66; Grendizer (mural), 45; and political/leadership corruption, 182; and promotion of environmental awareness and solutions, 145; Ratatouille stencil, 125; as source for text, xii; and subtexts embedded in street art, 20; “The street is ours” (mural), 22, 62; “To be free or not to be” (mural), 64, 65, 66; and unifying potential of street art, 32, 34; Wadih El Safi mural, 60 Asmahan, 23, 61, 84–86, 110 aspirational elements of street art, 229–234 Assad, Bashar al-, 6–7, 10–11, 36, 213, 215–218, 216 Assad, Hafi z, 213, 223 Assaf, Imane, 253n17 assassinations: and antisectarian street art, 37, 41, 43; and commemoration of cultural icons, 56, 244n62; impact of regional struggles on Lebanon, 205; and postwar confl ict in Lebanon, 9–11, 13; as subject of music, 58, 244n67; and subtexts embedded in street art, 20; and Syrianthemed street art, 211–212; and varied subjects of street art, 3 Atrash, Hassan al-, 85 Atshan, Sa’ed, 107 audience for graffiti: and activism for public space access, 116–117, 122; and antisectarian street art, 50; and Arabic-language street art, 29; and celebration of female artists, 80, 84; and commemoration of cultural icons, 54–55; and garbage protests, 130–132; and support for Palestinians in Lebanon, 210; and Syrianthemed street art, 218; and theoret-

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ical approach of text, 14, 18; and the Wall of Shame, 135, 137 austerity measures, 12, 153 Australia, 25 authoritarianism, 5, 6, 17, 199 awareness-promoting graffiti, 137–147 Ayoub, Mary Joe (Mjay), 158, 189–190, 191, 256n54 Ayoub, Mohammad, 118, 140 Bachelet, Michelle, 173 Bahrain, 225 Bakhti, A. Naji, 229 Bakhtin, Mikhail: and carnivalesque elements of street art, 212, 217; and “chronotype” concept, 212; and dialogic elements of street art, 47, 99, 105, 122, 165; on “grotesque realism,” 129–130; on participant-interlocutor dynamic, 116–117, 170; and theoretical approach of text, 19–21; and unfi nalizability of street art, 20, 221 Balsamo, Anne, 91, 93 banking industry, 192–194, 194, 256n56 Banksy, 27, 63, 66–67 Barad, Karen, 104 Baroudi, Sami, 132 Bassil, Gebran, 154, 179, 182, 184, 197, 257n66 bathroom graffiti, 102, 104 Bayat, Asef, 1, 4 beauty standards, 88–93 “Before I die I want Lebanon to. . .” (collaborative wall project), 228, 233–234, 261n10 Beirut Art Fair, 85 Beirut Madinati, 140, 251n61 Beirut Pride, 71–72 Beirut Traders Association, 251n50 “Beirut will never die” (mural; Siska and Prime), 29–32, 30 Bell, John, 183 Bennett , Jill, 31 Berri, Nabih, xi, 154, 182, 212

INDEX

Between Beirut and the Moon (Bakhti), 229 bicycles and bicycle-related graffiti, 142–147, 143, 144, 146, 233, 252n71 Biden, Joseph, 210 Black, Brady, 176–177, 177, 178, 255n42 Bliss Street, 119, 145, 146, 171, 209, 223, 224, 226, 244n64 Bloch, Ernst, 162 “Blooming Billboard” incident, 71–72 “Blue bra” (stencil), 96–98, 97 body-centered graffiti, 17, 128–129, 129 Bolivia, 136 Bomberman, 20, 43, 67 bombings, xi, 9–10, 49. See also port explosion (2020) bomb-shaped stencils, 41, 42, 43 border tensions, 9 Bourj al- Ghazal area, 103 Boycott , Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, 210 Boym, Svetlana, 55 bread crisis, 176 Brighenti, Andrea Mubi, 15, 133 Bruner, M. Lane, 135 bullet holes, 30, 109 Cairo, Egypt, 155 calligraphy and calligraffiti: and Arabic-language street art, 27–29; and celebration of female artists, 82; and commemoration of cultural icons, 53–54, 59–61; and gender/ sexual rights in postwar Lebanon, 79; and goals/context of Lebanon’s street art, 68; and graffiti celebrating female artists, 84; and unifying potential of street art, 33. See also Arabic language and script camping, 169 Campos, Ricardo, 66 capital fl ight, 192 car bombings, 9–10

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the carnivalesque, 19–20, 135, 217, 251n50 catcalling, 100–101 Catholic Center for Information, 71 Cedar Revolution (2005), 3, 10, 153, 205, 211, 259n24 cedar tree symbolism, 30, 138, 156, 179 celebrities, 93 censorship, 43, 49, 51–52, 64–65, 68, 214. See also legal status of graffiti and street art Central District, 136, 199–200, 232, 239n4 Chain Effect, 142, 143, 144, 146 Chakhtoura, Maria, 1, 4 Chammas, Nicolas, 251n50 Chebib, Ziad, 65 Chidiac, May, 10, 244n62 Chirac, Jacques, 258n22 cholera, 127–128, 128 Choucair, Khalil, 117 Chreiteh, Alexandra, 242n25, 248n68 Christian Lebanese population: and activism for public space access, 117–118; and commemoration of cultural icons, 53, 57; and gender/sexual rights in postwar Lebanon, 72; impact of regional struggles on Lebanon, 205; and Lebanon’s connection to France, 258n22; and postwar confl ict in Lebanon, 9; and queerthemed street art, 108–109; and unifying potential of street art, 34; and the Wall of Shame, 134 “chronotype,” 212 citizenship rights and values, 74, 75, 145, 222. See also emigration; immigration and migrant-related graffiti; refugees and refugee-related graffiti cityscape of Beirut, 6, 8, 14–15, 51, 82, 110, 145 civic engagement, 3, 8. See also civil society activism

Civil Campaign to Protect the Dalieh of Rouche, 120, 122–123 Civil Coalition against Fouad Boutros Highway, 139 Civil Coalition of Public Spaces and Urban Mobility, 123, 140–141, 141 civil disobedience, 121. See also revolution-centered graffiti civil marriage, 34, 71, 74 civil society activism: and activism for public space access, 116, 120; and antisectarian street art, 42–43; and environmental protection, 114; and garbage protests, 124; and gender/ sexual rights in postwar Lebanon, 74, 77, 79; and government leadership failings, 5; and promotion of environmental awareness and solutions, 141; and queer-themed street art, 102, 232; and revolutioncentered street art, 155; and solidarity themes in street art, 171; and support for Palestinians in Lebanon, 207; and Syrian-themed street art, 217 class divisions and confl ict, 120, 153, 168, 178–185 Clemenceau area, 38 Clemenceau Street, 100 collective identity, 131 colonialism, 46, 107, 122, 211 community-centered artwork, 3, 21, 69, 229 Conflict Graffiti (Lennon), 203 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, 246n19 Corniche Al Mazraa area, 61 Corniche El-Nahr area, xiv, 90 corruption: and antisectarian street art, 49–51, 233; and environmental damage, 148; and garbage protests, 130; and gender/sexual rights in postwar Lebanon, 73, 186; and

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government negligence, 14, 152– 155, 200, 253n13; misappropriation of foreign aid, 255n37; and outrage/sorrow in street art, 174, 175; and police forces, 49–51; and political corruption, 184; and revolutioncentered street art, 152–155, 194–199; and sarcasm in street art, 136; and the Wall of Shame, 135 cosmetic procedures, 89–93, 90, 247n62 counterpublics, 110 counter-spaces, 160 COVID-19 pandemic, 12, 154 cultural icons and heroes, 13, 14, 24, 52–62, 109 currency devaluation, 192 Daher, Badri, 197 Dahyieh suburb, xi Daif, Rashid al-, 242n25, 248n68 Dalieh al-Rouche, 120–122, 123, 232 Daraa, Syria, 213, 217 darak (internal security forces), 136 Darwin, Charles, 48 Darwish, Mahmoud, ix, 56, 58, 121–122, 164–165, 231 Dāyman Coca- Cola (Chreiteh), 248n68 “Day of Rage,” 197 De Certeau, Michel, 14–15, 27, 86, 163 defacement of graffiti, 57, 58, 67, 102, 110, 212, 215, 217–218, 231–232 Deleuze, Gilles, 90, 125 “Despair is not Destiny” (Halwani), 56, 57 DeTurk, Sabrina, 5, 24, 66 development projects, 2, 113–114 Dew (graffiti artist), 172, 172 “Dhahab Sāfī” (“Pure gold”), 60–61, 60 dialogical dimensions of graffiti: and activism for public space access, 116–117, 119, 122; and antigovernment street art, 197; and antisectarian street art, 47; and art’s engage-

INDEX

ment with politics, 210, 250n36; and author’s interest in street art, x; and commemoration of cultural icons, 56, 58; and cultural sources of street art, 124; and hope/freedom themes in street art, 164–165; and impact of regional struggles on Lebanon, 226–227; and political corruption, 182; and protesting gender-based violence, 94, 99, 101; and queerthemed street art, 104–106, 108; and revolution-centered street art, 151– 152, 155, 159; and solidarity themes in street art, 171; and street art targeting banking industry, 193; and Syrian-themed street art, 215, 220– 221; and theoretical approach of text, 14, 19–20, 62; and unifying potential of street art, 32, 36; and the Wall of Shame, 134 Dickens, Luke, 66, 68 Dictaphone collective, 121 digital documentation and circulation of graffiti, 67, 135, 197, 217, 232 disappeared people, 59–60 discrimination, 73–79, 116–117, 186, 190, 200, 246n14, 246n19 divorce, 74, 80, 98 Doha Agreement, 11 Doherty, Sandra Beth, 89, 247n62 domestic laborers, 75–76 domestic terrorism, 197 domestic violence, 75–76, 98 Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 21 Doueiri, Ziad, 33 Downtown Beirut: and activism for public space access, 232; and antigovernment street art, 197, 198; and antisectarian street art, 38; and garbage-collection crisis, 18, 126– 131, 128, 129; and gender/sexual themes in street art, 188, 189, 190; hope and freedom themes in street art, 163, 164, 165; impact of port

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Downtown Beirut (continued) explosion, 254n21; Martyrs’ Square, 10, 20, 156, 211, 255n42, 257n63; and political corruption themes in street art, 181, 182, 183, 185; and postwar confl ict in Lebanon, 10; and redevelopment projects, 2, 239n4; and revolution-centered street art, 155, 157, 158, 160; and shift ing urban landscape, 17, 148, 199; and solidarity themes in street art, 169–170, 169, 170, 171; and Syrian-themed street art, 211–212; and varied subjects of street art, 3; and the Wall of Shame, 135–136 Druze community, 84 Duff, Cameron, 148, 220 East Beirut, 31, 33, 134, 172 “Eat the rich” slogan, 180, 255n46 economic rights and justice, 7, 127, 172– 178, 200. See also class divisions and confl ict Edbauer, Jennifer, 106 Egypt and Egypt-related graffiti, 5, 6, 96–97, 98, 168, 223–225, 225 Elansary, Hannah, 231 Électricité du Liban, 253n17 El Hassan, Azza, 86 “elite-maintained sectarianism,” 168. See also class divisions and confl ict El Khalil, Zena, 86 El-Murr, Elias, 10 embezzlement, 192, 193, 200 embodiment, 17–18, 109, 152, 159 “emergent masculinities” approach, 7 emigration, 53, 68, 187, 200. See also immigration and migrant-related graffiti; refugees and refugee-related graffiti emotive element of graffiti and street art, 6, 18, 122, 127, 135, 194, 218 Endres, Danielle, 130

English language and script, 24, 29, 34, 89, 94, 100, 130 environmental damage and activism: and access to open public spaces, 115–123; and legacy of Lebanese Civil War, 113–115; and outrage/sorrow in street art, 172, 175; promotion of environmental awareness and solutions, 137–147; and protesting of waste-management crises, 124– 132; and revolution-centered street art, 200; scope and goals of environmental street art, 147–149; and theoretical approach of text, 14, 18; and use of sarcasm, 136–137; and the Wall of Shame, 132–136 ephemerality of graffiti, 14, 19 EpS, xii, xiv, 8, 161, 161, 254n21 Escobar, Arturo, 14–15 ESCWA building, 253n17 ethics of care, 58–59, 63, 109, 110, 180 ethnic nationalism, 77 Euewens, Adam, 68 “Euphoric Nights in Vienna” (song), 86 Evans, Graeme, 63 evolution, 47–49 Exist (graffiti artist), 133, 161, 161 Facebook, 126, 135, 140 Fairey, Shepard, 27 Fairouz, ix, 23, 32, 33, 53–55, 54, 61, 119, 210, 224, 231 Fakhri, Ali, 217 “Fakkir Libnānī Fakkir ‘ilmānī” (“Th ink Lebanese. Th ink Secularly”), 39, 40 family violence, 75–76 Farhat, Philippe, 134 fashion magazines, 247n62 Fayyad, Farah, 256n49 female artists, 79–88, 110 feminism and feminist themes, 14, 18. See also gender issues and identity

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“Fight Lookism” (stencil), 89, 90 “Fight Rape” (stencil), 94, 95 fi nancial secrecy laws, 192 First Intifada, 4 Fish (graffiti artist), 24 Fondation Saradar, 241n19 food shortages, 173–174, 176–177, 177, 200–201 foreign aid, 173, 194, 255n37 foreign labor, 75 Fouad Boutros highway, 138, 140 Fouad Boutros park, 138 Fouad Chehab Bridge, 228, 233–234, 261n10 France, 8, 258n22 “Freedom” (mural), 165, 166 freedom of expression, 51–52, 64–65 Free Patriotic Movement, 206 French language and script, 24, 29, 107 Frez, 24 Future TV, 184 Ganzeer, 52 garbage-collection crisis, xii, 2–3, 12– 13, 18, 46, 124–132, 148, 233, 253n9 “Gay and proud” (scrawl), 106 “Gay is okay” (scrawl), 103, 106 Gaza, 222 Gaza Graffiti: Messages of Love and Politics (Gröndahl), 4 Geagea, Samir, 9, 182, 206 Geha, Carmen, 253n9 Gemmayzeh area, 33, 54, 54, 103, 243n57 Gender and Sexuality Resource Center, 77 gender issues and identity: and activism for public space access, 232; Arab womanhood, 79; and bicycle activism, 146–147; and celebration of female artists, 85–86; and discrimination, 74; gender-based violence, 75–76, 93–101, 110; gendered dimension of street art, 109–111; and gender/sexual rights in postwar

INDEX

Lebanon, 73–79; and revolutioncentered street art, 185–192, 200; and theoretical approach of text, 62; women’s role in revolution-centered politics, 256n49. See also LGBTQ+ community and issues General Security Directorate, 71 Ghreichi, Marie- Christine, 173–174 Gibran, Gibran Khalil, 55–56, 55 globalization, 28, 67, 110 government negligence, 12, 15, 17, 152– 155, 175, 195, 253n13. See also port explosion (2020) Grand Serail, 132 graphic design, 67, 68 Greater Lebanon, 204 Green Lebanon, 138 Green Line area, 30, 33, 35, 95, 134, 221 green spaces, 13, 116–117, 120, 138–140 Grendizer, 20, 44–46, 67; mural, 45 Gröndahl, Mia, 4 Guattari, Félix, 90, 125 Guiragossian, Paul, 82 Gulf War, 9 Habib, Elie Alexandre (Siska), 29–32, 30 Haddad, Joumana, 71, 77 Hadi Maktabi, 45 Hafez, Abdel Halim, 224–225 “Haifa for President” (stencil), 87, 87 Hall, Richard, 186 Halsey, Mark, 18 Halwani, Yazan: “Ali Abdallah” (mural), 58, 59; and Arabic-language street art, 27–28; and celebration of female artists, 82, 83, 83, 85–86; and class confl ict themes in street art, 182; “Fairouz” (mural), 54–55, 54; “Gibran Khalil Gibran” (mural), 55, 55–56; and goals/context of Lebanon’s street art, 62–64, 67–68; “Mahmoud Darwish” (mural), 56, 58; and promotion of environ-

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Halwani, Yazan (continued) mental awareness and solutions, 145; “Samir Kassir” (mural), 57; as source for text, xii; “Tarek and May” (mural), 35; and unifying potential of street art, 33–34 Hamdi, Tahrir, 121–122 Hamdy, Basma, 28–29 Hamra area: and gender/sexual themes in street art, 190; and graffiti featuring regional struggles, 202, 208, 216, 218, 219, 223; and graffiti highlighting deteriorating living conditions, 176, 177, 178; and graffiti targeting banking industry, 194; and graffiti targeting political elite, 174, 175; and graffiti using sarcasm, 136–137; historical and commercial significance of, 244n64; Lebanese Army raids in, xi; and queer-themed street art, 70; and solidarity themes in street art, 171; and street art celebrating female artists, 82, 83; and street art fighting gender violence, 99; and street art targeting police corruption, 49 H.amzah Ibn ‘Abdul-Mut.t.alib, 36 “Handala” (stencils), 206–207, 208, 258n13 harassment of graffiti artists, 64 Hariri, Rafi k, 3, 10, 37, 41, 184, 205, 211–212 Hariri, Saad, 12, 154, 182, 184 Haugbolle, Sune, 3, 31, 211 Hawa, Zeina, 142, 145 Hawi, George, 10 Haynes, Deborah, 221 hazardous waste, 124. See also garbagecollection crisis health crises, 127–128, 128 Helem, 77, 78 heteroglossia, 19–20 heteronormativity, 77, 106 highways, 138–141, 139, 251n61

hip-hop artists, 24, 27, 60–61, 62, 63 Hirrat Sikirida (Daif), 242n25, 248n68 HIV/AIDS, 77 Hizballah, 9, 11, 36–37, 50, 53, 153–154, 205, 206 Hobeika, Elie, 9 Holiday Inn hotel, 47 homelessness, 57–59, 200–201 homosexuality and homophobia, 77, 101–109, 110. See also LGBTQ+ community and issues “Hope” (mural; Meuh), 162, 163 “Hope” (mural; Sp*z, Exist, and EpS), 161, 161 hope and freedom themes, 161–166 Hope Movement, 36 “hope must never die,” 164 Horseshoe Café, 82 Horsh Beirut, 115–120, 119, 232 human rights, 117, 259n31. See also gender issues and identity; LGBTQ+ community and issues Human Rights Watch, 75, 154, 159 humor and jokes in graffiti, 40, 88, 137, 148, 213–217; and subversive potential of street art, 19 hybridization of art forms, 67, 124 hyperinflation, 192, 233 “I am queer” (stencil), 70, 105 Ibrahim, Ali, 192 “I’m bisexual” (scrawl), 103, 106 immigration and migrant-related graffiti, 76, 173, 190, 219–220, 255n36, 256n55, 261n10. See also refugees and refugee-related graffiti impoliteness and incivility, 179 Independence Intifada, 211 inflation, 192 Inhorn, Marcia, 7 Instagram, 135, 177, 188–189 Inta H.urr (show), 51 International Business Times, 134 International College, Beirut, 120

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International Day against Homophobia, 249n93 internet, 67, 232. See also digital documentation and circulation of graffiti intersectionality, 21, 152, 158, 175, 190, 223 Irvine, Martin, 18, 67, 82, 124 Islamic Golden Age, 54 Islamic State, xi, 29, 171 Israel and Israel-related graffiti: and activism for public space access, 121– 122; and antisectarian street art, 37; and border disputes, 257n6; and confl ict-inspired street art, 29, 31; graffiti on separation wall, 5; impact of regional struggles on Lebanon, 203–206; invasions of Lebanon, 29– 31, 115; and postwar confl ict in Lebanon, 9, 10–11; and support for Palestinians in Lebanon, 207–210, 209, 222–223; and the Wall of Shame, 133–134 Israel-Hizballah War, 11 Jarbou, Rana, 7, 97, 98 Jasper, James, 18, 108, 194 Jdideh, Tarik, 36 Jeanne d’Arc Street, 91, 92, 112, 136 Jerusalem, 209–210, 209 Jesus Christ, 40, 57, 108, 109 “Jesus persists” (scrawl), 99 Jidār al-‘Ār. See Wall of Shame “Judgment Day,” 197 Jumblatt , Walid, 53, 182, 184–185 “Jund al-Rab” (Soldiers of God), 71 Kabbani, Mohammad, 27. See also Kabbani brothers Kabbani, Omar, 23, 27, 63, 81–82. See also Kabbani brothers Kabbani brothers: and antisectarian street art, 45; and Arabic-language street art, 27; and celebration of female artists, 79, 81; and commemo-

INDEX

ration of cultural icons, 61; and garbage protests, 124, 126; and goals/ context of Lebanon’s street art, 63, 64–65, 67, 68 KA FA (Enough Violence and Exploitation), 76, 94 kafala system, 190, 256n55 Kanafani, Ghassan, 258n12 Karantina area, 51, 57 Karl, Don, 5, 241n19 Kassir, Samir, 10, 56–57, 57 Kassm, Abdo Abou, 71 Kataeb Party, 206 Kermit the Frog, 65, 66, 67 Khalifa, Mia, 190–191 Khalil, Sarah, 151 Khatib, Lina, 6, 16, 134, 155, 224, 259n24 Khatt āb, ‘Umar Ibn al-, 36 Khawam, Samaan, 51, 64 Khoury, George (Phat2), 25–27, 34 Kingston, Paul, 113 Kishtainy, Khalid, 88, 137, 213 Kissinger, Henry, 207 Kiwan, Dina, 6, 126–127, 131 “Knot Violence” (stencil), 46–47, 47 Kouyoumdjian, Zaven, 65 Kraidy, Marwan, 3, 37, 39, 109, 126, 213, 222, 242n29 Kraytem, Siwar, 256n49 Labaki, Nadine, 242n25 “lady with the blue bra” (“sitt albanāt”), 96 La guerre des graffiti (Chakhtoura), 1 land developers, 113–114 Larkin, Craig, 5 Law 293, 75 Leap, William, 102–104 Lebanese American University, 120, 132 Lebanese Army, x, xi, 9, 37, 168–169 Lebanese Central Bank, 56, 193, 194 Lebanese Civil War: and activism for public space access, 121; and antisectarian street art, 37, 39, 47, 51;

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Lebanese Civil War (continued) and author’s background in Lebanon, ix; and backgrounds of Lebanese street artists, 27; and celebration of female artists, 81–82, 87; and commemoration of cultural icons, 60; damage to Gemmayzeh area, 244n57; environmental legacy of, 113–115; and gender/sexual rights in postwar Lebanon, 73; impact of regional struggles on Lebanon, 205; impact on public spaces, 115; instigating event, 257n8; and motivations of street artists, 23; and postwar confl ict in Lebanon, 9–14; and previous studies of street art, 1–2; as sett ing for Lebanese literature, 242n25; spatial dimension of, 4; street art commemorating, 261n9; and Syrian presence in Lebanon, 205–206; and the Taif Agreement, 8; and unifying potential of street art, 30, 32, 33, 62; and varied subjects of street art, 3; and veneration of sectarian leaders, 52, 231 Lebanese Communist Party, 10, 225–226 Lebanese Constitution, 74 Lebanese flag, 158 Lebanese Forces militia, 9 Lebanese Internal Security Forces, 71, 136, 158–159, 189 Lebanese Parliament, 8, 75, 126–127, 133, 154, 163–164, 180 Lebanese Penal Code, 77 Lebanese Red Cross, 191–192 Lebanese Revolution, 189 Lebanese Women Democratic Gathering, 76 “Lebanon’s Revolution” (Khalil), 151 Lefebvre, Henri, 160 legal status of graffiti and street art, 16, 63–64 Le Gray Beirut (hotel), 254n21

Lennon, John (author), 5, 203 Lennon, John (musician), 46, 47 LGBTQ+ community and issues: activists, 190; and “Blooming Billboard” incident, 71–72; and context of Beirut street art, 72–73, 109–111; gender and sexual rights, 73–79; and gender-based violence, 93–101; and lookism, 88–93; and motivations of street artists, 21; queerthemed street art, 101–109, 232; and “shādh” term, 105–107, 249n93; and tactics of street artists, 14, 18; and transgressive female artists, 79–88 “Li-Beirut” (mural; Ashekman), 32– 33, 33, 61 Libya, 98, 213 Life as Politics (Bayat), 1 linguistic hegemony, 29 Litt le Red Riding Hood, 91 “Live Love Beirut” initiative, 34, 242n21 London School of Economics, 174 “Long live a peaceful revolution” (stencil), 97 lookism, 88–93 Lovata, Troy, 93 M3alim, xiv, 8 Maalouf, Lynn, 198 Maasri, Zeina, 1, 4, 52 Macron, Emmanuel, 258n22 Mahfoud, Tara, 118 Mahmoud, Said Fouad, 47–49, 48 Majed, Rima, 9, 168, 179, 186 Makarem, Ghassan, 77 Makdisi, Karim, 42 Manama, Bahrain, 225 March (civic institution), 64 March 8 alliance, 50, 205–206 March 14 alliance, 50, 206 marital rape, 75, 94 Mar Mikhael area, 28, 100, 101, 106, 123, 141

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Mar Mitr area, 65, 66 marriage practices, 34, 71–76, 80, 85, 94, 108–109, 147, 246n19, 248n68 Marsa Sexual Health Center, 245n14 Marshall Plan, 174 Martyrs’ Square, 10, 20, 156, 211, 255n42, 257n63 masculinity, 7. See also gender issues and identity Mashrou’ Leila, 58, 244n67 Massad, Joseph, 107 Mathaf. See Green Line area “matloub: we3e am sakran” (“Wanted, drunk or sober”), 44 Mawlawi, Bassam al-, 71 Mazraa neighborhood, xi media skills, 68 Meem, 78 Merhej, Karim, 173 Meuh, 162, 163, 254n22 Meulman, Niels Shoe, 68 migrant labor, 76, 190, 256n55 Mikati, Najib, 171, 217 Mikdashi, Maya, 73 military juntas, 5 military tribunals, 178 militias: and the Amal movement, 242n24; and antisectarian street art, 51; and author’s interest in street art, ix–xi; and backgrounds of Lebanese street artists, 27; and confl ictinspired street art, 31; impact of regional struggles on Lebanon, 205; and motivations of street artists, 23; and onset of Lebanese Civil War, 257n8; and postwar confl ict in Lebanon, 9–11; and previous studies of street art, 1; and shift ing urban landscape of Downtown Beirut, 17, 111; and unifying potential of street art, 36, 62; and varied subjects of street art, 3, 231 Milligan, Maren, 171

INDEX

“Min Beirut” (From Beirut), 34 minimum wage, 76 Ministry of Justice, 78 Ministry of Public Health, 77 “mithlī” term, 78–79 Mjay (Mary Joe Ayoub), 158, 189–190, 191, 256n54 modesty standards, 97 Mohammed Mahmoud Street (Cairo), 155 molestation, 94 “moral shocks,” 173 Morayef, Soraya, 248n75 Mother’s Day march, 187 Mother Theresa, 176 Mount Lebanon, 12, 125 Mourad, Sara, 107 Moussawi, Fatima, 75 Mr. Brainwash, 27 Mubarak, Hosni, 6 “mug shot” (mural), 182–185, 185 Muhsin, Jabal, 171 murals: and activism for public space access, 121; and author’s background in Lebanon, ix; of cultural icons, 52–62, 54–55, 57–60; of female artists, 79–84, 80, 83, 85; and goals/ context of Lebanon’s street art, 69; and motivations of street artists, 23; and varied subjects of street art, 3. See also specific works and artists Musallam, Fuad, 230 MV Rhosus, 253n11 mythical Beirut, 30–31 “My vagina is not a swear word” (stencil), 99, 100 Nafar, Tamer, 54 Nagel, Caroline, 114, 115 Nagle, John, 38, 76–77 Nahnoo, 114, 118–119, 119, 123, 138, 140, 141 Najmabadi, Asfaneh, 108 Nakat, Ziad, 140

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Nakba (1948), 206, 207–208, 210, 214, 232, 258n12 The Naked Blogger of Cairo (Kraidy), 242n29 Nakhoul, Samia, 255n36 Nā‘meh waste dump, 12, 124, 125 Nasr, Tamara, 151, 159 Nasrallah, Hassan, 10, 53, 153–154, 179, 197 nationalism, 53, 77 National Pact of 1943, 204 “Neither alive nor dead” mural (Halwani), 59 Nejmeh Square, 162 New Zealand, 25 nightlife scene in Beirut, 13, 72 Nixon, Rob, 113, 115, 147 noise pollution, 138, 174 nongovernmental organizations, 77, 114, 116, 140, 242n21, 261n9. See also civil society activism nonnormative gender identities, 78, 104, 106–107. See also LGBTQ+ community and issues nonprofit organizations, 68, 118, 120 Non-Violence Project Foundation, 46 “No to stripping people” (stencil), 97 Notre-Dame de Jamhour, 261n9 Noueri, Tarek, 33 obscenity, 3, 19, 130, 179 Occupy Beirut, 226, 226 Occupy Wall Street, 226, 260n53 October Revolution (2019): and gender/sexual themes in street art, 190; hope and freedom themes in street art, 161–163; and the kafala system, 190, 256n55; and outrage/sorrow in street art, 172; and political corruption, 184, 185; and revolutioncentered street art, 151–153, 155–158; and shift ing urban landscape of Beirut, 199; and solidarity themes in

street art, 166, 168; wildfi res as trigger for, 12 Off the Wall: Political Posters of the Lebanese Civil War (Maasri), 1 Oger, Saudi, 184 Olton, Elizabeth, 93 open public spaces, 115–123 Operation Grapes of Wrath, 9 “orchestrated fanaticism,” 1 Order of Physicians, 78 Ottoman Empire, 204 Oweis, Fayeq, 206–207, 258n13 Palestine and Palestinian-related graffiti: and activism for public space access, 121; and al-Ali’s background, 258n12; and border disputes, 257n6; and commemoration of cultural icons, 53, 56; and gender/sexual rights in postwar Lebanon, 78; graffiti on separation wall, 5; impact of regional struggles on Lebanon, 203, 204–206; and onset of Lebanese Civil War, 257n8; and postwar confl ict in Lebanon, 9; and subtexts embedded in street art, 20; and support for Palestinians in Lebanon, 206–211, 222–223; and Syrianthemed street art, 214, 216; and Take Handala to the Streets initiative, 258n15 pan-Arabism, 53, 205 parks and public spaces, 138, 251n61 Parliament Security Force, 159 Parry, William, 5 Pasha, Jamal, 257n63 patriarchalism, 73, 74, 86, 187. See also gender issues and identity PBS NewsHour, 134 Pearl Roundabout, 225 pedestrians: and action-potential of street art, 148; and antisectarian street art, 39; and celebration of female artists, 81; and changes to Bei-

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rut cityscape, 15; and collaborative street art project, 233; and competitive element of graffiti, 8; and contested nature of public spaces, 110; and garbage-collection crisis, 128; and gender/sexual themes in street art, 188; graffiti and sectarian divides, 36; and graffiti as embodied process, 18; and graffiti featuring regional struggles, 203, 210, 218, 220; and graffiti highlighting deteriorating living conditions, 176, 177; and revolution-centered street art, 156; and street art celebrating female artists, 82, 84, 86; and street art fighting gender violence, 94, 96, 99; and street art fighting lookism, 88, 89, 90; and theoretical approach of text, 17 Penal Code, 74 performative element of graffiti, 6, 130, 158 Peteet, Julie, 4, 208 Peugot area, xiv Phalangists, 1, 257n8 Phat2 (mural), xii, 25 photography, x, xi “pile of poo” emoji, 175 Place de l’Etoile (Nejmeh Square), 162 poets and poetry: and action-potential of street art, 148; and activism for public space access, 121–122; and author’s background in Lebanon, ix; and celebration of female artists, 82; and commemoration of cultural icons, 52, 56–57, 59; and confl ictinspired street art, 29; and dialogic element of street art, 250n36; hope and freedom themes in street art, 164–165; and postwar confl ict in Lebanon, 13; and unifying potential of street art, 32; and varied subjects of street art, 3. See also Darwish, Mahmoud

INDEX

police corruption and brutality, x, xi, 49–51, 63–64, 96–97, 136, 148, 178, 233 political engagement, 231. See also civic engagement; civil society activism political repression, 154, 198. See also authoritarianism political subjects of street art, 1–2, 4, 16, 40, 52, 73–74, 123, 148, 185 pollution, 175 polyphony, 19, 121 port explosion (2020): and antigovernment street art, 194–197; and antisectarian street art, 233; and calls for French aid, 259n22; cause and extent of damage, 12; and gender/sexual themes in street art, 187, 191–192; Le Gray hotel damage, 254n21; negligence as cause of, 253n13; and outrage/sorrow in street art, 173; and postwar confl ict in Lebanon, 12–13; and revolutioncentered street art, 151, 154–155, 161, 200–201; source of explosive materials, 253n11 portrait-centered murals, 54–56, 54, 55 posters, 110, 111 “post-graffiti,” 66 poverty, 171, 173, 200–201 power-sharing systems, 76–77 Pratt , Nicola, 98 precarity, 69 Pred, Allan, 14 pride, 107 Prime (Charles Vallaud), 29–32, 30 private property, 16, 18 Progressive Socialist Party, 53, 185 propaganda, 29 property laws, 16, 18 protests, 9, 12, 15, 20, 93, 96, 121, 126 public services, 73 public shaming, 141 public spaces, 115–123, 119, 145, 155–156, 232

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public transportation, 138, 140–141 “Pure gold” (Ashekman), 60 Qabbani, Nizar, 32, 82 Qana, 9 queer-related graffiti, 101–109, 232. See also LGBTQ+ community and issues Rabinowitz, Dan, 208 racism, 220 Rafei, Ali, xii, 49, 64, 136 Rafi k Hariri International Airport, 243n33 Rahbani, Ziad, 53 Ras-Beirut district, 244n64 Ratatouille (fi lm and stencil), 124, 125, 126 “Re-Beirut,” 34 redevelopment projects, 2, 239n4 reformism, 73, 76, 96, 137, 201 refugees and refugee-related graffiti, 260n48; and al-Ali’s background, 258n12; and celebration of female artists, 86; and gender/sexual rights in postwar Lebanon, 73, 76, 78; and gender/sexual themes in street art, 190; impact of regional struggles on Lebanon, 204–206; and misappropriation of foreign aid, 255n37; and postwar confl ict in Lebanon, 11; and revolution-centered street art, 200; and street art targeting banking industry, 194; and support for Palestinians in Lebanon, 206–207, 209; and Syrian-themed street art, 212, 215, 220–221, 221, 222; and unifying potential of street art, 33 regional struggles: and international politics, 204–206; Palestinian struggle in Lebanon, 206–211; Syrian struggle in Lebanon, 211–222 Rek (graffiti artist), 24 religious authorities, 72

religious leaders, 73–74 religiously-oriented graffiti, 108– 109 remixing, 67 Renoz (graffiti artist), 180 resistance politics, 130–131. See also revolution-centered graffiti Resolution 1559, 10 “re-thematizing” walls, 15 Reuterswärd, Carl Fredrik, 46 revolution-centered graffiti: and the Beirut Port explosion, 151, 154–155, 161, 173, 187, 191–192, 194–197, 200– 201; fostering solidarity, 166–172, 167, 169, 170, 172, 202; and garbage protests, 130; and gender issues, 185–192, 188, 189, 191; hope and freedom themes in street art, 161–166, 161, 163, 164, 165; murals and scrawls amplifying, 155–160, 157, 158, 160; and political corruption, 178–185, 180, 181, 183, 185; and screen printing, 256n49; targeting banking industry, 192–194, 194; targeting government negligence and corruption, 152– 155, 194–199, 198; targeting political elite, 172–178, 174, 175, 177, 178; and theoretical approach of text, 18 Revolution Wall, 253n17 Riad El Solh Square, 253n17 “rightful resistance” ethos, 96 “right to write the city,” 229 Ring Bridge, 171, 172, 253n17 Riskedahl, Diane, 134 The Road to Homo Sapiens (Zallinger), 48 Rodman, Margaret C., 63 Rogers, Amanda, 155 Roumi, Majida al-, 32, 151 rudeness, 180 Ryan, Eva Holly, 16, 136, 146 Sabah, 23, 61, 79–86, 80, 83, 110, 146, 224, 231, 246n33

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Sabra and Shatila massacre, 10 Sadr, Musa, 210 Safi, Wadih El, 2, 60, 231 Salamandra, Christa, 94 Salameh, Riad, 56, 193, 194 Salamey, Imad, 132 Saleh, Tala, 40–41 Salemeh, Khodr, 217 Salih, Bassel, 195 Salloumi area, 25 Salman, Lana, 153, 168, 179, 186 Salti, Rasha, 2, 101–102, 105 sarcasm, 39, 88, 92, 136–137, 141. See also humor and jokes in graffiti Sarmento, Carla, 66 “Saturday of Revenge,” 197 Saudi Arabia, 8–9, 184, 214–215, 225, 259n31 Save the Children, 173 Schacter, Rafael, 52, 57, 68, 81 scrawls: and antigovernment street art, 194, 197–198, 198; and antisectarian street art, 37; and dialogic element of street art, 250n36; and garbage protests, 127–128, 128, 129, 131; and gender/sexual themes in street art, 187, 190; hope and freedom themes in street art, 164; and impact of regional struggles on Lebanon, 232; and political corruption themes in street art, 179–180; and previous studies on street art, 1; and queer-themed street art, 102, 108– 109; and revolution-centered street art, 152, 156–157, 201; and shift ing urban landscape of Downtown Beirut, 17; and solidarity themes in street art, 166–167, 169, 171–172; and street art targeting banking industry, 192–193; and subtexts embedded in street art, 20; and support for Palestinians in Lebanon, 210; and Syrianthemed street art, 213, 218–220, 219, 223; and unifying potential of street

INDEX

art, 34–36; and varied subjects of street art, 3–4 “The sea is mine” (stencil), 112, 121 sectarian system and confl ict: and activism for public space access, 117; and antigovernment street art, 195; and antisectarian street art, 42, 233; author’s experience with, 243n33; and behavior of security forces, 243n33; depicted in Lebanese literature, 242n25; environmental justice and activism, 148; and environmental protection, 114; and garbage protests, 124, 130; and gender/sexual rights in postwar Lebanon, 73; and gender/sexual themes in street art, 186, 187; hope and freedom themes in street art, 163, 165, 166; impact of regional struggles on Lebanon, 204–205; and militias of Lebanon, ix; and motivations of street artists, 23; and nonsectarian political campaigns, 251n61; origins of Lebanese system, 204; and powersharing systems, 76–77; and previous studies on street art, 2; and queer-themed street art, 109; and revolution-centered street art, 153, 201; and solidarity themes in street art, 168, 260n52; and street art targeting banking industry, 193; and support for Palestinians in Lebanon, 207; and Syrian-themed street art, 211; and unifying potential of street art, 33, 34–36, 62; and varied subjects of street art, 3, 229; and the Wall of Shame, 134 secularism, 39–40, 56, 76, 253n6 “See how big the Horsh is?” (stencil), 118–119, 119 self-censorship, 179 Sen, Arijit, 17 Senda- Cook, Samantha, 130 separation wall, 5, 133

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sexism, 109–110 sexual harassment and assault, 6, 95, 182, 248n68 sexual identities, 21, 62, 101–111. See also gender issues and identity; LGBTQ+ community and issues shabāb, ix Shabbar, Andie Elizabeth, 104 Shābbī, Abū al- Qāsim al-, 148, 250n36 shadda diacritic, 27, 61, 124 shādh term, 105–107, 249n93 Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Nadera, 94 “Shāyif al-bah.r shūkbīr” (Fairouz song), 119 Shehab, Bahia, 5–6, 97, 230 Shi‘a Lebanese population, 9, 36, 37, 117–118, 205, 210 Shohat, Ella, 226 Sibley, David, 118 Sidon, Lebanon, 184 Silverman, Lisa, 17 Siniora, Fouad, 182, 184 Siska, xii, 29–32, 30, 241n19 sit-in protests, 121 Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor (Nixon), 113, 115 Snow White character, 89–90 soccer, 41–43, 42 social critique function of street art, 3, 7–8 social justice, 68, 98, 127, 172–178, 195, 196–197 social media: and antigovernment street art, 196; and commemoration of cultural icons, 61; and fight against lookism, 93; and garbage protests, 126; and gender/sexual themes in street art, 191; and goals/ context of Lebanon’s street art, 67; and outrage/sorrow in street art, 177; and promotion of environmental awareness and solutions, 140; and queer-themed street art, 107;

and Syrian-themed street art, 217; and the Wall of Shame, 134, 135 social taboos: and celebration of female artists, 79–80, 84; and censorship of antigovernment street art, 52; and gender/sexual themes in street art, 187; and protesting gender-based violence, 94; and queer-themed street art, 73, 102, 104, 232; and revolution-centered street art, 153 Sodeco Square, 55 soft mobility, 138 Soja, Edward, 55–56 solidarity, 166–172, 167 Solidere, 2, 239n4 Spears Street, 144 Speech Genres and Other Late Essays (Bakhtin), 20–21 spies, xi sports, 41–43 Sp*z, 161, 161, 181, 254n21 squatt ing, 169 Staeheli, Lynn, 114, 115 Stam, Robert, 19, 226 stencils: and antigovernment street art, 194, 197, 199; and antisectarian street art, 37–44, 38, 40, 47, 51, 242n29; and celebration of female artists, 86–88, 87; and class confl ict themes in street art, 181; and Egyptthemed street art, 225; and environmental street art, 112; and fight against lookism, 90, 91, 92, 92; and garbage-collection crisis, 125, 126– 127; and gender/sexual themes in street art, 187; and goals/context of Lebanon’s street art, 69; hope and freedom themes in street art, 166; and impact of regional struggles on Lebanon, 223–226, 224; and “Live Love Beirut” initiative, 242n21; and lookism issue, 91–92; and militias

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of Lebanon, ix; and motivations of street artists, 23–24; and “Occupy Beirut,” 226; and outrage/sorrow in street art, 173–176, 174, 175; and previous studies on street art, 5–6; and promotion of environmental awareness and solutions, 137–143, 139, 145–146; and promotion of environmental issues, 141, 143, 144; and protesting gender-based violence, 94–100, 95, 97, 99, 100; and queerthemed street art, 70, 102, 102, 103, 108; and revolution-centered street art, 149, 152, 155, 201, 202; and shifting urban landscape of Downtown Beirut, 17; and solidarity themes in street art, 169, 170, 172, 172, 260n52; and street art targeting banking industry, 192–193; and subtexts embedded in street art, 20; and support for Palestinians in Lebanon, 206–210, 208, 209; and Syrianthemed street art, 214–218, 216; and tactics of street artists, 15; and unifying potential of street art, 34, 36; and use of public spaces, 115–123, 119, 123; and use of sarcasm, 136– 137; and varied subjects of street art, 3–4, 231–233 stereotypes, 7 Stone, Christopher, 53 “Stop homophobia” (stencil), 102, 103 strategic behavior, 15–16 Street Art in the Middle East (DeTurk), 5 “The street is ours” (mural; Ashekman), 22, 62 subtexts embedded in street art, 20, 34 subversive potential of graffiti, 19 suicide bombings, xi, 49, 239n2 Sukleen, 125–126 Suleiman, Michel, 126 Sunni Future Movement, 206

INDEX

Sunni Lebanese population, 9, 11, 36, 37, 49, 71, 117–118, 171, 258n22 Superman Is an Arab (Haddad), 71 surveillance, 43, 68 Syria and Syria-related graffiti: and antisectarian street art, 51; and anti-Syria sentiment in Lebanon, 221, 222, 260n48; and art of Martyr’s Square, 257n63; and assassinations, 244n62; and celebration of female artists, 82, 84; and commemoration of cultural icons, 56; and community-centered art, 256n54; and French influence in Lebanon, 258n22; and gender/sexual rights in postwar Lebanon, 73, 76; impact of regional struggles on Lebanon, 203–206; and marriage rates among displaced persons, 246n19; and misappropriation of foreign aid, 255n37; and origins of Syrian uprising, 7; and postwar confl ict in Lebanon, 8–11; and previous studies on street art, 5; and protesting gender-based violence, 98; refugees in Lebanon, 200; and revolution-centered street art, 202; and solidarity themes in street art, 168, 260n52; and street art targeting banking industry, 194; and subtexts embedded in street art, 20; and Syrian-themed street art, 211–222, 216, 219, 222–224; and unifying potential of street art, 36; and varied subjects of street art, 3 Syrian Air Force, 9 The Syrian People Know Their Way (activist group), 202, 213, 218 Syrian Social Nationalist Party, 11, 206, 218 Tabaris area, 60 Tabbana, Bab al-, 171 tactical behavior, 15–16

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tagging, 24, 49. See also scrawls Tahrir Square, 5, 6, 155 Taif Agreement, 8–9 Take Handala to the Streets initiative, 207 Tallet El-Druze area, 42 Tamerji, Karim, 47–49, 48 “Tarek and May” (mural; Halwani), 35 Tarik Jdideh neighborhood, 36, 71 Tarraf, Zeina, 53 Tawfiq, Fadi, 51 taxes and taxation, 12–13, 151, 153, 173 terrorism, 43, 197, 198 thawra murals and scrawls. See revolution-centered graffiti Thawrat 17 Tishrīin al-Awwal (October 17 Revolution). See October Revolution (2019) theoretical approach to study of graffiti, 14–21 “Th ird space,” 55–56 Thomson Reuters Foundation, 194 Th rift , Nigel, 18–19 Til‘it Rīhitkun (#YouStink), 126 Tistifl Meryl Streep (Daif), 248n68 “To be free or not to be” (mural; Ashekman), 64, 65, 66 Together to reopen and activate Horsh Beirut campaign, 116 tourism, xi, 2, 9, 12, 82, 129–130, 232 traditionalism, 82 traffic, 138, 140–144, 141, 143, 144, 147, 251n62 transformative power of graffiti, 229–234 transgressive female artists, 79–88, 110 transient nature of graffiti, 6, 59, 104, 130, 195–196. See also unfi nalizability Tripoli, Lebanon, 49, 153, 171, 172, 172 Tripp, Charles, 17, 130, 136, 199 Trump, Donald, 210 Tueni, Gibran, 10 Tunisia, 98, 213

Twitter, 134–135, 140, 196 Tyre, Lebanon, 153 Umm Kulthum, 84, 224–225 The Unbearable Presence of Asmahan (fi lm), 86 Understanding Graffiti (Olton), 93 unfi nalizability, 20–21, 221, 229 United Nations, 9, 46, 171, 173, 176, 183, 194, 204 United States, 8, 10, 25, 210 unity-promting graffiti, 29–36 “The uprising of the Arab woman,” 98, 99 urban parks, 115–123 urban revival, 2 Vallaud, Charles (Prime), 29–32, 241n19 vandalism, 63. See also defacement of graffiti varieties of graffiti and street art, 3–4, 16 Verdun area, 45, 56 vigilantes, ix violence, 49, 69, 109, 147, 160, 220. See also specific conflict names Virgin Mary, 108, 109 “Wadih El Safi” (mural; Ashekman), 60–61, 60 Wall of Shame, 132–136, 148, 232 “The walls are talking to me” (Kabbani brothers), 62 “Wanted,” Bomberman (mural; Ashekman), 43–44, 44 “A war of colors,” (mural; M3alim and EpS), xiv, 8 War of Elimination, 9 War of Liberation, 9 Wartime Lebanon, 113 waste management crisis, xii, 2–3, 12– 13, 18, 46, 124–132, 148, 233, 253n9 Wehbe, Haifa, 20, 86–87, 87, 93

292 / I N D E X

Wehbe, Mariana, 187 Wehbi, Samantha, 96 “We Shall Pass” (mural; Abdo), 162, 164 West Bank, 4, 5, 208 West Beirut, 11, 33, 134, 172 West Beirut (fi lm), 33, 35 “Western Armenia, Eastern Turkey” (stencil), 223, 224 Western-inspired graffiti, 24–29 #WeWantAccountability, 126 “Where’s the evolution?” (Tamerji and Mahmoud), 47–49, 48 White Wall street art festival, 33, 241n19 wildfi res, 12, 13, 152–155, 190 “woman protecting a house in Downtown Beirut” (mural; Mjay), 189– 190, 191 Women’s rights, 7, 21, 108, 259n31. See also gender issues and identity

INDEX

World Bank, 140, 193 World Cup of 2006, 41–43 “Yā Beirut” (Qabbani), 32–33, 33, 151 Yassin, Nasser, 75 Young, Alison, 18, 46 “You stink but you don’t do shit” (scrawl), 129 #YouStink movement, 3, 12, 126, 136– 137, 175 za‘īm (sectarian leader), 52 Zallinger, Rudolph, 48 Ziady, Sumer, 188–189, 189 Zieleniec, Andrzej, 46, 105, 229 Zoghbi, Pascal, 5, 24, 214, 216 Zouk Mekael power station, 175 Zuhur, Sherifa, 84

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