The Hizbullah Phenomenon: Politics and Communication

Abstract

For many years, Hizballah was perceived as a success story by many in Lebanon and, indeed, throughout the Middle East and the Arab and Muslim world, and even beyond. The organization seemed to succeed in whatever it attempted to achieve. It was active in several arenas at once—in the Lebanese Shiʿi community, in the Lebanese political arena in general, on the front with Israel, and even in the regional arena at large—and in each sphere, it seemed to grow ever stronger.What was the precise nature of Hizballah's success and to what in particular should it be attributed? Should the focus be on the organization's ability to defy Israel, to “needle” and “wound” it over and over again, and even to create a degree of deterrence capability such as the Arab states over the years had found it difficult or impossible to develop? Or perhaps one should focus on Hizballah's success in turning the Shiʿi community in Lebanon into a cohesive political entity striving for a leading role in the state, perhaps even the predominant role? Or perhaps the focus should be on another front altogether, that is, Hizballah's unprecedented achievements in advancing Iran's interests while serving as Tehran's vanguard in penetrating to the shores of the Mediterranean?Whatever answer one gives to these questions, one thing is clear: Hizballah's perceived success relied in no small degree on its ability to make itself seem more powerful than it really was and on its skill in creating, via the communications media, a modern “David and Goliath” story with the roles reversed. This process was greatly aided by today's modern media that blur the lines between the real and the virtual worlds. Hizballah discovered how to use digital media and communications in a sophisticated way and turned media into one of its main instruments for consolidating its standing and building its image of success.However, it is important to separate reality from fantasy; Hizballah's aura of success turned out to be fleeting, and it has shown clear signs of fading altogether. For some time now, it seems that the organization has lost its magic touch and is no longer moving from success to success. When did the damaging reversal take place?Was it the Second Lebanese War in the summer of 2006? Hizballah emerged from that conflict acting as if it were the victor, while in reality, once the fighting ended, the organization's supporters in Lebanon, if no one else, were compelled to see the difference between a virtual victory in the media and the reality on the ground. All around them, Hizballah's supporters were confronted with a reality of destruction and devastation that Hizballah had brought down upon them because of the war it carried out against Israel.Or perhaps the moment of transition began in May 2008, when Hizballah turned its weapons against its fellow Lebanese, members of the Sunni community, and thus revealed its true face, not as an organization of resistance to Israel, but as a Shiʿi political force in Lebanon seeking to advance its own narrow sectarian political agenda.March 2011, when the Syrian revolution broke out, might also be considered as marking a critical juncture for Hizballah. It now found itself on the wrong side of the political equation. In the eyes of many observers, Hizballah allowed itself to be drafted into the service of Shiʿi Iran in support of Syria's cruel dictator, who had resorted to slaughtering his own people, especially members of the Sunni majority who were seeking liberty and freedom.These developments influenced the way many people perceived Hizballah, especially those in the Arab world, but also those in the West as well. Nevertheless, for the masses of Shiʿis in Lebanon, Hizballah was and remains a significant factor in their daily lives, regardless of the state of the organization's image and media gimmicks. Hizballah won the support of the local Shiʿi communities—thanks to the financial, educational, social welfare, and other services it provides to these communities—and these services are what guarantee the continued support of the Shiʿi population in Lebanon.The book under review, The Hizbullah Phenomenon: Politics and Communication, focuses on Hizballah's pre-2011 glory days. The book appears at a difficult time for Hizballah. This difficulty is evident from Hasan Nasrallah's nervous and overwrought speeches in recent years, in which he is clearly apologetic as he strives to justify Hizballah's unpopular intervention in the Syrian civil war. Many Lebanese Shiʿi families are paying the price with the lives of their sons in that war. Nasrallah has also given speeches revealing real anxiety, not necessarily in regard to Israel, but particularly in regard to the Islamic State (is), which is perceived as the up-and-coming star in the Arab and Muslim worlds. Indeed, the is not only threatens Hizballah physically, but also, and mainly, seeks to remove the organization from its position as the media darling of the Arab and Muslim worlds.The authors of The Hizbullah Phenomenon undertake to examine the connection between politics and the media, or, in other words, the connection between the Hizballah's political activities—its policies, ideological principles, modes of action affecting the public, and so on—and its communication strategies—the clever ways it uses the media to make itself appear more powerful and promote the “Hizballah phenomenon” as something unique in the region. In the introduction to the book, “Hizbullah's Communication and Political Evolution,” the authors succinctly characterize the organization and argue: Hizbullah, the Lebanese ‘party of god’, is a late twentieth-century phenomenon, the outcome of a series of socio-historical and political junctures marked by domestic political upheaval and regional conflicts. Hizbullah is a by-product of regional geostrategic alignments: the group is ideologically and politically connected to Iran, and its capabilities, weaponry and operations are influenced by Iranian patronage. It is also has long-term strategic links with Syria, which has acted as a conduit for the supply of arms and personnel from Iran and serves as an important ally in domestic politics. In the space of thirty years, Hizbullah has established itself as the most powerful political force in Lebanon and as a dynamic actor in the broader region through its use of a sophisticated political communication strategy which blends military, social, economic and religious elements while remaining adaptive to changing socio-political contexts. This strategy, as the book will show, has been a central tool that the group has used to disseminate its image and ideology. (p. 1)And the book's central argument is stated a few pages later: This book argues that Hizbullah's communication strategy has served as the foundation for its political evolution and endurance as a movement. Ever since its inception, Hizbullah has paid constant attention to its image, seeking to manage and institutionalize it in order to achieve legitimacy, to reach out to different constituents and to implement its political goals. The starting point for this book is that Hizbullah's political evolution and its success within particular contexts cannot be appreciated without understanding the methods, tools and practices it has employed since its formation in 1982, and the relationship between agency and structure—i.e., the activism of its elites and ideologues functioning within organized and deeply rooted structural arrangements, and the relationship between this activism and political contexts. Indeed, it is Hizbullah's highly organized structure that has allowed it to develop and reproduce authority in popular culture, and to devise and implement communication strategies in line with changing political, economic and social contexts…. (Furthermore), This book argues that Hizbullah's political, economic, military and cultural mobilization and activism cannot be seen as natural or taken-for-granted responses to accumulated grievances, or as a reactionary product of a cultural essence. Rather, Hizbullah's activism and mobilization have resulted from the agency of its elites and ideologues and their implementation of a political communication strategy designed to widen its support base and increase its influence. (p. 5)Thus, in the various chapters of this collection of essays, the authors deal with the familiar story of the development of Hizballah, but they do so from unique perspectives. Among the book's chapters are “Hizbullah's Political Strategy,” by Lina Khatib; “From the Invasion to the Liberation: Communicating Hizbullah's Political Repertoire, 1982–2000,” by Dina Matar and Atef Alshaer with Lina Khatib; “Hizbullah in the Twenty-First Century: The Struggle for Political Survival, 2000–2012,” by Lina Khatib; and the particularly interesting article, “The Poetry of Hizbullah,” by Atef Alshaer; as well as Dina Matar's important article, “Hassan Nasrallah: The Central Actor in Hizbullah's Political Communication Strategies.”Matar's article focuses on Hasan Nasrallah, Hizballah's Secretary General and supreme leader. For good or for bad, for two decades now, the fate of Nasrallah and the fate of Hizballah have been intimately bound together. This close connection between the identity of the leader and his organization enables scholars to analyze them through the prism of charisma. True, charisma is usually thought of as an attribute of a political personality, but it can also carry over to his (or her) organization insofar as the latter has a life of its own.It will be recalled that “charisma,” from the Greek meaning “gift of the gods,” refers to a personal quality or charm that gives an individual exceptional interpersonal communication skills and the ability to influence or exert authority over people. The charismatic person is able to use his charm, which includes more than the ability to speak persuasively and think rationally, to reach people's hearts and influence their opinions, and sometimes he is able to attract the masses to his cause and organization. The modern use of the word “charisma” was introduced by the German sociologist Max Weber. He used the term to describe the influence of a leader whose followers attribute his influence to his supernatural or divinely conferred traits. Weber thus defined “charisma” as “a certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities.” The most significant point is the recognition of these traits. “This recognition is a matter of total personal devotion resulting from enthusiasm or despair and hope…. Charisma can be bound up with subjective or internal redirection that emerges from suffering, conflict, or enthusiasm,” a process that can occur at times of “spiritual, physical, economic, ethical, or political crisis.”However, as is well known, charisma also depends on success and fades away when political, economic, military, or any kind of failure takes place. Charisma cannot be preserved without success.The successes achieved by Nasrallah's charisma, and consequently his organization, depended on the ability of both of them to maximize their achievements under favorable circumstances. At home, these circumstances included the weakness of Hizballah's rivals in both the Shiʿi community and the Lebanese social and political system in general. On the regional level, Hizballah's power inside Lebanon was limited by the restrictions forced upon it by both Israel and Syria. At the same time, Hizballah enjoyed the unlimited and disproportionate support of Iran, in the form of billions of dollars supplied annually and weaponry enough to satisfy a whole state.However, these circumstances, with regard to both Iran and the region in general, were destined to change, and not necessarily in Hizballah's favor. In Iran, the changes taking place were made manifest when Hassan Rouhani was elected president in June 2013. Dina Matar alludes to this in her chapter entitled, “Hizbullah in the Twenty-First Century: The Struggle for Political Survival.” This chapter deals with the organization in the shadow of the “Arab Spring,” and in face of the revolutions spawned by that phenomenon throughout the Arab world. Matar argues that, “With dignity and heroism having come within the reach of the average Arab citizen as a result of the Arab Spring, the narrative of victimization was the only way in which Hizbullah would now be able to stand out in a region that was witnessing a rise in individual agency beyond the umbrella of political organizations, a factor that Hizbullah's communication strategy had never had to address before. The Arab Spring, then, put Hizbullah at a crossroads, not only stealing its limelight but also testing its credibility in the Arab world, and consequently, its longevity. Thirty years after Hizbullah came into existence, the group's communication strategy appears to have come full circle” (p. 118).The summation presented in the final chapter of the book, “Conclusion: Hizbullah at a Crossroads,” makes the following three points: The trajectory of Hizbullah's communication strategy offers a number of important lessons for scholars of social movements, activism and political communication: first, communication strategy succeeds when a group can bridge the gap between the way it perceives itself and the way others perceive it, rather than remaining focused on the validity of its ideologies vis-à-vis those of others—the smaller the distance between these perceptions, the higher the degree of the communication strategy's success. Second, no communication strategy can succeed if it lacks credibility. Hizbullah has consistently relied on notions of justice and liberty to prove its legitimacy to its audiences, claiming to represent the voices of the people, to speak for the oppressed and to seek “justice” for victims of Israeli aggression while branding itself as a “liberator” and “defender” of land and people. But this image was threatened when the Assad regime in Syria turned its weapons on its own people during the Arab Spring, as opposed to directing them towards the Israeli “enemy” in the occupied Golan Heights. Finally, in order to be successful, there is a need for a dynamic relationship between communication strategy and changing political contexts. Hizbullah's evolving communication strategy is part of the party's place within a larger political opportunity structure where “fixed or permanent institutional features combine with more short-term, volatile, or conjectural factors to produce an overall particular opportunity structure. (p. 189)Before the Arab uprisings, and particularly before the Syrian rebellion, Hizballah had been largely successful at taking advantage of changes in the political environment to carve a favorable image, and simultaneously, to adapt its image according to changes in the environment. This highlights the fine balance that exists between political adaptability and reliability and between structure and agency. However, the uprisings, coupled with a significant shift in the visible performance of politics by ordinary citizens in the Arab world, thus far constitute the main obstacles to maintaining the credibility of Hizballah's familiar communication framework, and consequently its ability to capture the imagination of its intended audiences.However, with all due respect to communications, publicity, and propaganda, it should be noted that Hizballah's ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Asad, observed in March 2011 that the glorious aura of the struggle with Israel, and even the halo of an Arab “David” fighting the Israeli “Goliath,” were not enough to save one at the moment of truth brought about by a broad-based popular uprising. At this point, we should also recall that for the masses of Shiʿis in Lebanon, Hizballah is not merely a virtual entity, but rather a very tangible and important factor in their daily lives. At every step it is there, beginning in kindergarten, then in school, and on to the health clinic and hospital, including all aspects of economic life and social relations. Thus, it would seem that as long as Hizballah continues to meet the practical needs of the Lebanese Shiʿis and fulfills their political desires and aspirations, its continued existence is assured.