Debating ‘Religious Violence’ in Lebanon: A Comparative Perspective on the Mobilisation of Religious and Secular Militias during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990)

In a world where collective violence seems increasingly mapped in relation to religions and religious actors rather than secular forces, to understand the potential of religion in promoting conflict has become a formidable and important goal. On the one hand, there are those that argue that ‘religious violence’ is not really religious and at most a perversion of religious teachings. On the other side of the spectrum, an increasing number of commentaries conclude with urgent warnings against religion’s propensity for violence. Rather than taking sides in a debate characterised by sweeping generalisations, this dissertation aims to unravel how, when and at what levels religion can play a role in the social and political mobilisation towards violence, while comparing these mechanisms to non-religious equivalents. A Social Movement Theory (SMT) framework is adopted to analyse the mobilisation processes in four diversely oriented militia movements active in the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990): the Kataeb, the Amal movement, the Progressive Socialist Party and the Lebanese Communist Party. The thesis makes empirical and theoretical contributions on three analytical levels. At the macro-level, the thesis demonstrates how religion co-determined the character of the socio-political context, economic relations, foreign influence, and security issues, against which militia movements emerged as competing forces. The adaptation of critical realism aids in conceptualising the interdependence between these different factors as well as between the analytical levels. At the meso-level it shows how the cooperation and incorporation of religious resources involved significant re-imaginations of prevailing hierarchies and structures – an observation that should change the manner in which we theorise about religion as a resource for mobilisation. Analysing the speech of militia leaders, using the psychometric of integrative complexity, the thesis further demonstrates that no significant differences exist between the relative complexity of religious and non-religious idea structures. IC’s focus on cognitive structures adds an innovative edge to SMT. At the micro-level, augmenting SMT by incorporating insights from the field of social psychology, the thesis evidences how religion played a role in social identification and a mediating role in existential anxiety. Simultaneously, the dissertation cautions that the role of religion is in most instances similar to the role of non-religious counterparts. The research thereby complicates generalising theories on ‘religious violence’, presenting the social mobilisation towards violence as contingent on a complex mix of religious and non-religious ideas, societal structures, available resources, leadership attitudes, social identifications and personal affections

Technical vs Ideological Manipulation of MENA Political Narratives via Subtitling

MENA political conflicts have inculcated controversial narratives, giving rise to deep-seated political tensions and combat, locally and globally. Political media can accentuate or contest such narratives and, sometimes, even create new ones. Narratives dwell in their source text until they are relocated to the target text through the translation process, in which they can often be subject to multi-level manipulation in proportion to the ideological constraints of translators and their institutions. Subtitling, in particular, also has its own technical constraints that can require textual manipulation. This variation of constraints motivated the study to investigate whether manipulation is technically necessitated or ideologically driven. The ultimate purpose is to raise awareness of the commonly unrecognised role of ideology in manipulating the subtitling of political narratives under the pretext of technicality. Focusing on the Arabic–English subtitling of MENA political narratives produced by Monitor Mideast, Palestinian Media Watch, and Middle East Media Research Institute, the investigation starts with the first phase, where a micro-analysis drawing on Gottlieb’s (1992) subtitling strategies differentiates between the subtitlers’ technical and ideological choices. The second phase of the investigation comprises of a macro-analysis (comprehensive framework) drawing on Baker’s (2006a) narrative account, which interprets the subtitlers’ ideological choices for the text in association with broader patterns of manipulation in the paratext and context. The study discussed concrete examples where ideology—rather than a technicality—manifested in textual choices. Coherently woven, furthermore, the narrative distortion shown was not only limited to the text but also included the paratext and context. Besides paratextual verbal manipulation (e.g., using different titles), there were also higher-level patterns of non-verbal manipulation that included reconfiguring the original narrative features. These multi-level manipulation patterns have ultimately led to the source text narratives being reframed in the target text

Arab Media Systems

This volume provides a comparative analysis of media systems in the Arab world, based on criteria informed by the historical, political, social, and economic factors influencing a country’s media. Reaching beyond classical western media system typologies, 'Arab Media Systems' brings together contributions from experts in the field of media in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to provide valuable insights into the heterogeneity of this region’s media systems. It focuses on trends in government stances towards media, media ownership models, technological innovation, and the role of transnational mobility in shaping media structure and practices. Each chapter in the volume traces a specific country’s media – from Lebanon to Morocco – and assesses its media system in terms of historical roots, political and legal frameworks, media economy and ownership patterns, technology and infrastructure, and social factors (including diversity and equality in gender, age, ethnicities, religions, and languages). This book is a welcome contribution to the field of media studies, constituting the only edited collection in recent years to provide a comprehensive and systematic overview of Arab media systems. As such, it will be of great use to students and scholars in media, journalism and communication studies, as well as political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists with an interest in the MENA region

Arab Media Systems

"This volume provides a comparative analysis of media systems in the Arab world, based on criteria informed by the historical, political, social, and economic factors influencing a country’s media. Reaching beyond classical western media system typologies, Arab Media Systems brings together contributions from experts in the field of media in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to provide valuable insights into the heterogeneity of this region’s media systems. It focuses on trends in government stances towards media, media ownership models, technological innovation, and the role of transnational mobility in shaping media structure and practices. Each chapter in the volume traces a specific country’s media – from Lebanon to Morocco – and assesses its media system in terms of historical roots, political and legal frameworks, media economy and ownership patterns, technology and infrastructure, and social factors (including diversity and equality in gender, age, ethnicities, religions, and languages). This book is a welcome contribution to the field of media studies, constituting the only edited collection in recent years to provide a comprehensive and systematic overview of Arab media systems. As such, it will be of great use to students and scholars in media, journalism and communication studies, as well as political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists with an interest in the MENA region.

Annotation Automatique Des Connaissances Spatiales En Arabe

In this paper, we introduce a rule-based approach to annotate Locative and Directional Expressions in Arabic natural language text. The annotation is based on a constructed semantic map of the spatiality domain. Challenges are twofold: first, we need to study how locative and directional expressions are expressed linguistically in these texts; and second, we need to automatically annotate the relevant textual segments accordingly. The research method we will use in this article is analytic-descriptive. We will validate this approach on specific novel rich with these expressions and show that it has very promising results. We will be using NOOJ as a software tool to implement finite-state transducers to annotate linguistic elements according to Locative and Directional Expressions. In conclusion, NOOJ allowed us to write linguistic rules for the automatic annotation in Arabic text of Locative and Directional Expressions

Tourism And The Emergence Of Nation-States In The Arab Eastern Mediterranean, 1920s-1930s

In the aftermath of World War I, the beaten paths of tourism guided an increasing number of international tourists to the hinterlands of the Arab Eastern Mediterranean, where they would admire pyramids and Roman ruins. Yet they were not the only visitors: Arab nationalists gathered in summer resorts, and Yishuvi skiing clubs practised on Lebanese mountain slopes. By catering to these travellers, local tour guides and advocates of tourism development pursued their agendas. The book unearths unexpected connections between tourism and the emergence of nation-states in Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Lebanon. Arab middle-class actors striving for independence, Zionist settlers and mandate officials presented their visions of the post-Ottoman spatial order to an international audience of tourists. At the same time, mobilities and infrastructures of tourism shaped the material conditions of this order. Tourism thus helps us to understand the transformations of Arab societies in their global context, and its history is a colourful story of the emergence of the modern Middle East