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The relationship between space, language, and the active construction of political identity in Lebanon is explored through a diachronic look at the outdoor display of political rhetoric of the Lebanese political leader, General Michel Aoun, and his evolving party, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), in the public landscape of Beirut. Specifically, I will focus on graffiti of the FPM in 2005 and discuss its resonances with the earlier political rhetoric of Aoun during the civil war and his Paris exile, at a time when he was in a conflicted relationship with the state. I will then look at his later political advertising campaigns from 2008-2009 to see how some semiotic elements from Aoun's time in exile and his return in 2005 have been extended into the more recently professionally polished party image. Through the examination of linguistic strategies, such as the use of reported speech and graffiti font, I argue that these textual artifacts contain the residue of contested ideologies of populism, nationhood, and belonging, which gain particular meaning when placed in specific geo-semiotic zones within the political landscape of the city. These ideologies formed the basis for constructing a graphic identity for Aoun in subsequent advertising campaigns. The publicly placed written word, then, provides a medium through which political identity is formed, negotiated, and revised. [political discourse, Lebanon, arabic, advertising, graffiti]

No abstract

The debate over sovereignty in Lebanon involves a battle among distinct and varying political imaginaries. This struggle is evident in the negotiation of the Syrian presence within Lebanon prior to the withdrawal of the Syrian military in the spring of 2005. I focus here on the early public call for change made by the Maronite Patriarch that preceded the broader national movement for Syrian withdrawal. I argue that this statement challenged previously entrenched concepts regarding the relationship between Syria and Lebanon and contributed to redefining Lebanese discourses of sovereignty. Specifically, I look at the metaphor of kin relations: aspects of a sibling relationship that embed Lebanon in a script of reciprocal obligations are contrasted with a more individuated notion of state rights. The rhetorical strategy of contrasting the rights and obligations of brotherhood relations through the use of marked terms of dependency and inequality became a means for revising the discussion of the political relationship between the two countries while still maintaining the trope of Arab brotherhood. [sovereignty; political discourse; kinship metaphor; Lebanon-Syria relations]Marwan begins to slow down as the peak of the military checkpoint appears on the horizon. The small wooden station is painted with the Lebanese flag, but is manned by Syrian soldiers, tired-looking young men in washed-out uniforms too big for their frames. Slowing down, he reaches for the radio, turning the music all the way down. Our easy conversation stops. He takes off his sunglasses and lowers his window as we near the soldiers with their AK-47 Kalashnikov rifles crooked in their arms. The soldier on the driver's side bends down to look into the car, making eye contact only briefly before waving us over the speed bumps and on our way. This disruption, which occurred twice along the road to Marwan's hometown of Zghorta (in Lebanon) from Beirut, was a strong reminder of the Syrian presence and the control that the Syrian government wielded in Lebanon during the duration of my early fieldwork (1999)(2000)(2001).