Al-Akhbar as a Platform for Interaction between Secularity and Religion

• In Event: Politics Goes Local in the Middle East

Abstract

Over the past few years, my research has focused on the development of the Lebanese Hizbullah, and its adoption of the concept of muqawamah (resistance) as an integral part of its identity and that of its supporters. I have provided a new explanation for the process of Hizbullah's development from a purely military-religious organization into the main representative of a social group that is at the center of a unique counter-hegemonic project. I have termed this project "the muqawamah project."
The proposed paper focuses on a significant medium that plays a central role in the production of a hegemonic muqawamah project: Al-Akhbar newspaper. While Al-Akhbar is influenced heavily by Hizbullah, it’s not directly controlled by it. The relative freedom from Hizbullah's control is central to understand the new phase into which Hizbullah has entered in order for it to build and re-instill the muqawamah project into Lebanese, Arab-Islamic, and global collective awareness.
Hizbullah’s media channels have been addressed in several studies, including Khatib, et al (2014) and Harb (2011). However, none of these studies have examined the Al-Akhbar newspaper, which was first published in Lebanon in August 2006.
In this paper I will examine a broad sample of Al-Akhbar editions, as well as the history of the newspaper, the writers and their backgrounds, and the journalistic articles and reports published since the newspaper’s launch. This will help shed light on the nature of the opposing and allied streams and forces inside the newspaper that have come together to construct muqawamah as an alternative hegemonic project in Lebanon and the wider region. The paper will demonstrate how Al-Akhbar has become a platform for intellectual and ideological interaction between the various movements that constitute the muqawamah project in Lebanon. In analyzing the data, this paper will use qualitative methods, alongside some quantitative methods that will help examine the types of texts published in the newspapers.

Author

• Abed El Qadir Kanaaneh, Ruhr University Bochum