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Collection title
I Remember...
First broadcast date
2010
Abstract
Mikhael Raphael arrived in France in 1971, at the age of 19. He works as a doctor-cardiologist in Aubagne and shares with us some of his childhood memories in Lebanon.
Audiovisual form
Portrait
Primary theme
Contemporary historical challenges 19th-20th c.
Secondary themes
- Economy / Agriculture, breeding
- Society and way of life / Family and related
- Society and way of life / Religious Practices
Credits / Cast
- Rhoufari Mathieu - Director
Map locations
- Lebanon - Bekaa valley - Ras Baalbeck
- France - South East - Aubagne
Context
Mickael Rafael
Sophie Gebeil
The village of Raas Baalbeck is in the north east of the country on the plain of Bekaa. In this part of the country there are many villages in which Christians and Shi'a Muslims live together peacefully. The Shi'ite Muslims are a minority branch of Islam, born from the disagreement over who would succeed Mohammed after his death. The Shi'ites are those who followed Ali, cousin and adopted son of the Prophet (shi'a in Arabic means the party). Although it's difficult to say exactly where the various religious communities settled, the Shi'ites were in the north of the Bekaa, the south of Lebanon and Beirut. The Shi'ites are also very numerous in Syria, Iraq and Iran, where they are in a majority. The festival shown in film is Ashura, which has a particular meaning for Shi'a Muslims because it commemorates the death of Husayn, son of Ali, killed by the soldiers of the Umayyad Caliph Yazid I in 680 at Karbala (present-day Iraq), considered as deeply unjust.
The chain of mountains which characterise theLebanon has for centuries been a refuge for religious minorities in the Arab world. The Christian Maronites, Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox live side by side with Sunni Muslims (the majority branch of Islam), Shi'a and the Druze. During the civil war (1975-1990) the political issues (the Israeli-Arab conflict and the Palestinian presence in the Lebanon) cooincided with the religious tensions. The militias, usually formed on a sectarian basis, fought each other for 15 years: the Shi'a imam Moussa Sadr (1928-1978), quoted in the film, founded Amal, an armed movement, while the Lebanese Forces consisted mainly of Christians. The Amal militia however stopped fighting after the death of their imam who had made Islamo-Christian dialogue one of his priorities. He was present at the consecration of Pope Paul VI in 1963 and defended the notion of a Lebanese nation state.
Because of the massacres, violence and road-blocks, two thirds of the Lebanese people were forced to leave their homes during the war and one third of them had lost their homes by the end of the fighting. The displaced people stuck together in groups defined by their religion. The Christians from the Bekaa migrated mainly to the east of Beirut. However these movement of people coincided with a rural exodus which had started before the war in the 1960's, with thousands moving to the major cities by the sea to find work. As a result, the cities expanded rapidly. This movement accompanied the development of the country which was accentuated after the war. The majority of Lebanese adopted a more urban way of life, with new consumer habits, reasonable domestic comfort and the use of a car – to the detriment of the Lebanon's farming sector.
The question of Lebanese identity raised in the film is a crucial issue in the post-war reconciliation. Advocated by the state, it is sometimes based on the religious convergance as the shots of the Annunciation show, with Christians and Muslims celebrating together. The definition of a specific Lebanese identity has been important since 1943. At first it was supposed to justify the creation of an independent Lebanon separate from Syria, which wanted to absorb the country into a Greater Syria. Whether by attachment to the Phoenician presence in Antiquity, music, way of life or art, the war made this search for identity an imperative: to manage to live together beyond the internal politico-religious divisions and the many regional conflicts and rivalries.
Geo location on Googlemaps of the places mentioned:
Bibliography and Web-sites:
MERMIER Franck et VARIN Christophe, Mémoire de guerre au Liban (1975-1990), Sinbad, Actes Sud, Paris, 2010
SENAC Philippe, Le monde musulman des origines au XIème siècle, SEDES, Paris, 1999
VERDEIL E., FAOUR G., VELUT S.,
Atlas du Liban. Territoires et société, IFPO – CNRS Liban, Beyrouth, 2007. Disponible en ligne, consulté le 10.12.11, <
http://ifpo.revues.org/402>.
NASSER Liliane Rada, Ces Marseillais venus d'Orient, L'immigration libanaise à Marseille aux XIXe et XXe siècles, Editions KARTHALA, Paris, 2010, 255 pages.
