Hizbullah’s De-Radicalization through Performing Arts

Abstract

The Lebanese Hizbullah is infamous for its terrorist global reach and militant face. In the 1980s and early 1990s, Hizbullah abducted Westerners in Lebanon and battled the Israeli Army until it withdrew in 2000. In the Arab Uprisings, Hizbullah is fighting alongside the Syrian regime and lending logistical support to the Iraqi and Yemeni Shi‘ite armed militias. Employing political disenfranchisement discourse and tactics, Hizbullah seems to shift within the parameters of pan-Islamism and pan-Arabism, while maintaining its Lebanese national identity at the centre. Notwithstanding this, Hizbullah’s resilience and assertiveness allows it to move between militancy (hard power) and integration (soft/smart power). The former exemplifies its hawkish policy during the Arab Uprisings, while the latter illustrates its dovish domestic face of being an integral part of the Lebanese state, from which it derives its legitimacy. This shift fuelled Sunni–Shi‘a discord (fitna), threatening a serious spillover of the Syrian civil war into Lebanon after al-Qa‘ida affiliates –ISIL and Nusra Front –battled Hizbullah and the Lebanese Army on Lebanese soil. In spite of that, Hizbullah exploits the concepts of cultural citizenship and cultural politics to promote, in mixed gender spaces, purposeful performing arts such as music, dance, revolutionary theatre, and satire (soft power). To my knowledge, Hizbullah is the only Islamic party that has an orchestra of more than 100 musicians who play more than 44 instruments. Many Islamists –such as the Taliban and ISIL –classify these as ‘instruments of the Devil’.