Allow me this one time to speak as a Shi’i: The sectarian taboo, music videos and the securitization of sectarian identity politics in Hezbollah’s legitimation of its military involvement in Syria

The irony of sectarianism: Sectarianizing by desectarianizing in Syria

“…Mabon and Ardovini (2016) succinctly considered sectarianization as a process of becoming “different” (p. 552). Helle Malmvig pushed the understanding, further by tracing sectarianism through “self‐other” relations, that is, any articulations of the self rely on “simultaneous presumptions of an other” (Malmvig, 2021, p. 7). In her excellent analysis of Hezbollah's narrative on sectarianism, Malmvig (2021) showed how Hezbollah is sectarianizing by investigating a series of relational signs of othering marked with difference and sameness.…”

“…108–110) or desectarianization guardian on basis of his capacity and powers to maintain this idealized status quo. The regime maximizes utility as its sectarianizing ruling elites regularly define and discredit their rivals by accusing them of being sectarian (Malmvig, 2021, p. 5; Van Dam, 2011, p. 131) 6 . My analysis explains the contradiction by understanding both terms as two sides of the same coin and by showing how desectarianization is sectarianism by other means .…”

Interregnum: The Regional Order in the Middle East and North Africa after 2011

“…It is firmly institutionalized in Lebanon's political system and clientelist networks, and since the 2003 US invasion it has been a strong feature of Iraq's divided politics and society, just as monarchies in the Gulf such as the Khalifa family in Bahrain and the Al Saud family in Saudi Arabia have enacted power through divide-and-rule tactics over their Shia populations for decades (Haddad 2011, Salloukh 2017, Moore-Gilbert 2016. But until recently, sectarianism was largely dismissed and denied in official discourse, as political leaders and government officials would often delicately balance between using subtle sectarian strategies, and at the same time seeking to contain and silence overt sectarianism (Salamandra 2013, Haddad 2011, Malmvig 2019. With the destruction of the Iraqi state in the wake of US invasion and the institutionalization of sectarianism in the new Iraqi political system, sectarianism grew more widespread.…”

“…Gause 2014: 5, Ayub 2013, Hashemi andPostel 2017: 21). Iran and Hezbollah have similarly engaged in sectarian fear-mongering to mobilize Shia fighters for war and to gather support for their interventions, while attempting to de-legitimize Saudi Arabia and actors linked to Riyadh by framing these in sectarian terms as Wahhabis, Sunni extremists or so-called takfiris (see also Malmvig 2019). This is an important difference compared to the pre-2011 era, where Iran successfully employed the "resistance axis narrative" and often downplayed sectarian differences between Sunni and Shia.…”

“…Also Turkey, which traditionally has refrained from legitimizing its regional policies in sectarian terms, is increasingly resorting to sectarian language, just as jihadi networks and social media have amplified sectarian worldviews. We thus see an increased number of regional powers employing a more explicit sectarian language, softening what was once a well-established "sectarian taboo" or non-sectarian norm that constrained the use of aggressive sectarianism in the region (Haddad 2011, Malmvig 2019).…”