Content warning: contains mention of sexual violence and suicide.
Almost two years have passed since Russia invaded Ukraine, and mental health is high on the agenda for the Ukrainian government. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates approximately 9.6 million people in Ukraine may have a mental health condition as a result of exposure to conflict, while Ukraine’s Ministry of Health expects 15 million people will require psychological support to manage mental health problems caused by the war.[i]
Spearheaded by Ukraine’s First Lady, Olena Zelenska, a National Program of Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) aims to provide affordable and effective mental health services for anyone who wishes to use them, while a campaign launched in March 2023 encouraged Ukrainians to look out for each other’s mental wellbeing.[ii] The summit at which President Zelensky made his comments was organised under the theme ‘Mental Health: Fragility and Resilience of the Future’.[iii]
Ukraine has a big task on its hands, and it’s not alone. Around the world, populations in countries affected by conflict are vulnerable to experiences of trauma and its various manifestations. In 2019, the WHO estimated that one in five people living in a conflict zone experience some form of trauma symptom, such as PTSD, depression, anxiety, or sleeping disorders. In Gaza, it is estimated that 97.5 percent of 10 to 19-year-olds suffer from PTSD, and this will rise acutely in response to the current conflict.[iv]
Humanitarian aid to help deliver psychosocial support (PSS) is both welcome and necessary. Yet, recent research carried out by the Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) research programme suggests that, when it comes to addressing conflict-related trauma, men and boys are often overlooked. Not only does this have an impact on the wellbeing of affected individuals, but research suggests that addressing conflict-related trauma amongst men is also vital for prevention of continued insecurity and conflict transformation more broadly.[v]
Overlooking men in humanitarian responses
In a conflict setting, men and boys are affected by direct violence.[vi] They are most at risk of death by violence or summary execution. They are more likely to be imprisoned or disappeared. They suffer beatings and torture due to gender norms which assume them to be the protectors and leaders of a community, rendering them targets of violence. They also experience conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) to a much greater extent than was previously assumed.[vii]
Yet, male victims are underrepresented in PSS services delivered by humanitarian organisations.[viii] A study for XCEPT of 12 INGOs and NGOs operating in Syria, Iraq and South Sudan found that only two of the organisations operated PSS programmes targeted at conflict-affected men.[ix] These were a trauma awareness training programme run by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) in South Sudan and a programme of psychoeducation workshops run by Relief International (RI) in northern Syria.
Although international organisations, such as the United Nations Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC), have made commitments to focusing on gender-related needs in their humanitarian work, for many this equates simply to focusing on women and children.[x] Common stereotypes surrounding gender reinforce the idea that men are primarily the perpetrators, or that they may not need help coping with traumas.[xi] This means that, while there are already insufficient resources dedicated to helping women and girls, there are even less for men.
Such gendered assumptions around the incompatibility of masculinity and vulnerability permeate academic and policy circles, but it is important to note that this is not clear cut. There is a noticeable imbalance in attention paid to manifestations of PTSD amongst Western servicemen, versus the very limited recognition of trauma experienced by civilian men in FCAS.[xii] These inconsistencies raise questions around how stereotypes of masculinity also intersect with race or other identity markers.
The costs of failing to act
Gendered expectations may result in a lack of attention being paid to conflict-related trauma in men and boys, but such norms also impact on the way trauma is experienced. For example, where men are often assumed to be the defenders and protectors of family or society, becoming unable to safeguard family may perpetuate a sense of trauma-associated stress. Similarly, when men are unable to fulfil masculine expectations of being the provider, this again can impact on a sense of wellbeing, that may manifest in negative ways.[xiii]
Recent XCEPT research on the experiences of ex-military Syrian refugees in Turkey found that, for many, practical concerns about being able to provide for their families were a cause of anxiety, leading them to exist in unstable ‘disturbing’ situations.[xiv] A representative from an organisation based in Syria also noted that such situations exacerbated suicidal tendencies:
‘Where the men are sitting at home, or looking for a job, and women are the only providers for the family … in mental health terms, this has become one of the stressors for men – that they cannot provide the needed help for the family or children. Actually, it’s one of the suicide situations [amongst men] in this area.’[xv]
Masculine expectations can also cause men to employ maladaptive coping behaviours, such as risk-taking, withdrawal, or self-harm. Such behaviour can be attributed to a desire to avoid ‘displays of emotional distress, which would be discordant with, and threatening to, masculine identity and performance’.[xvi] Men can therefore be less inclined to seek, or accept, help and support, a choice which increases the risk of developing negative coping mechanisms.[xvii] Concerns about stigma are not unfounded. One study on the survivors of male sexual violence in Northern Uganda found that many were refused help as it wasn’t believed men could have been victims of CRSV.[xviii]
Without receiving proper support, male responses to trauma may develop into a normalisation of violence as a coping strategy. In extreme cases, this can lead to appetitive aggression, whereby an individual gains a sense of pleasure out of violence, which could be a way of buffering the development of PTSD symptoms.[xix] Research has found that, in the aftermath of violent conflict, domestic violence tends to rise when former fighters return home. Community violence can also increase as a result of PTSD symptoms and appetitive aggression.[xx]
Addressing conflict-related trauma in men and boys thus benefits not just their own wellbeing, but the wellbeing of their families and the wider community. After taking part in the programme run by CRS in South Sudan, participants reported benefits such as being able to control stress and channel anger in ways which avoided self-destructive behaviour or lashing out at family members.[xxi]
Addressing conflict-related trauma amongst men
Research carried out by XCEPT highlighted four key points to guide the delivery of PSS programmes for men and boys. In situations where there is limited access to basic needs, these programmes are inevitably deprioritised. This is where using innovative and integrative programming can be beneficial. Such programmes may involve mainstreaming PSS interventions into broader livelihood programmes and context-specific services, which encourages participation and complements efforts to cater to primary needs.
Programmes should also be designed through a culturally sensitive masculinity lens to ensure uptake. This includes using neutral terminology to avoid stigma surrounding mental health; respecting societal norms by scheduling sessions to work around employment commitments or livelihood activities; and considering under what circumstances it is appropriate to host group or individualised programming. For example, for LGBTQI+ men, or in instances where men have suffered sexual violence, individual, confidential sessions reduce risk to the individual, whereas group workshops may be more beneficial for psychoeducation programmes that benefit from peer-to-peer support mechanisms.
Moral injury, the impact of carrying out an action that transgresses an individual’s ethical or moral standards, is often side-lined in PSS programming due to its association with perpetrators of violence. In some situations, engaging with moral injury-induced trauma can be beneficial, as it allows individuals to deal with feelings of anger, which may otherwise find an outlet in the perpetration of violence in the community.
Importantly, local communities should also be engaged in programme design to ensure services are context appropriate. In the programme run by RI, for example, a scoping exercise was initially carried out to establish themes men wanted to focus on. The themes selected tended to revolve around stress and anger management, for which family members then reported ‘good results’ among participants who had been working on these issues. Involving local communities can also help increase the sense of ownership and legitimacy amongst participants, which encourages attendance and engagement.
Although men are often on the frontline of conflict, they are also often overlooked in humanitarian responses to trauma. This affects their individual wellbeing, and the wellbeing and security of wider society, which may bear the burden of maladaptive coping behaviours caused by unaddressed trauma. To make sure PSS efforts succeed, it is important they take the cultural context and local needs into account. While an increase in focus and resources on conflict-related trauma amongst men is important as a matter of both wellbeing and conflict prevention, it remains crucial that this should not lead to the diversion of services away from women and girls, which also continue to be insufficient and under-resourced.
This blog was originally published by the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation.
[i] https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/08/06/ukraine-is-on-the-edge-of-nervous-breakdown
[ii] https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/olena-zelenska-rozpovila-yak-vtilyuyetsya-iniciativa-zi-stvo-80109
[iii] https://www.president.gov.ua/en/news/olena-zelenska-na-yes-2023-mentalne-zdorovya-osnova-stijkost-85541
[iv] FARAH HEIBA, Mental health in Middle East conflict zones: How are people dealing with psychological fallout? https://www.arabnews.com/node/1894521/middle-east
[v] Heidi Riley, Men and Psychosocial Support Services Programming, XCEPT, 2023. https://icsr.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/XCEPT-Briefing-Note-Men-and-PSS-programming.pdf
[vi] KREFT, ANNE-KATHRIN; AGERBERG, MATTIAS. Imperfect Victims? Civilian Men, Vulnerability, and Policy Preferences, 2023, 1-17.
[vii] Philipp Schulz, “The ‘Ethical Loneliness’ of Male Sexual Violence Survivors in Northern Uganda: Gendered Reflections on Silencing,” International Feminist Journal of Politics 20, no. 4 (2018): 583–601.
[viii] https://pscentre.org/men-dont-cry-a-participatory-workshop-on-mhpss-for-men-and-boys-in-humanitarian-settings/; Brun, Delphine. Men and Boys in Displacement: Assistance and Protection Challenges for Unaccompanied Boys and Men in Refugee Contexts. CARE and Promundo, 2017.
[ix] Heidi Riley, Men and Psychosocial Support Services Programming, XCEPT, 2023. https://icsr.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/XCEPT-Briefing-Note-Men-and-PSS-programming.pdf
[x] Gupta, Geeta Rao, Caren Grown, Sara Fewer, Reena Gupta, and Sia Nowrojee. “Beyond Gender Mainstreaming: Transforming Humanitarian Action, Organizations and Culture.” Journal of international humanitarian action 8, no. 1 (2023): 5–5.
[xi] Brun, Delphine. “Why Addressing the Needs of Adolescent Boys and Men Is Essential to an Effective Humanitarian Response.” Apolitical. co. 27 January 2023. https://apolitical.co/solution-articles/en/why-addressing-the-needs-of-adolescent-boys-and-men-is-essential-to-an-effective-humanitarian-response
[xii] Heidi Riley, Men and Psychosocial Support Services Programming, XCEPT, 2023. https://icsr.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/XCEPT-Briefing-Note-Men-and-PSS-programming.pdf
[xiii] Brun, Delphine. Men and Boys in Displacement: Assistance and Protection Challenges for Unaccompanied Boys and Men in Refugee Contexts. CARE and Promundo, 2017.
[xiv] Alison Brettle, ICSR, 2023. https://icsr.info/2023/03/29/forgotten-refugees-the-experiences-of-syrian-military-defectors-in-turkey/
[xv] Heidi Riley, Men and Psychosocial Support Services Programming, XCEPT, 2023. https://icsr.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/XCEPT-Briefing-Note-Men-and-PSS-programming.pdf
[xvi] O’Loughlin, Julia I., Daniel W. Cox, Carl A. Castro, and John S. Ogrodniczuk. “Disentangling the Individual and Group Effects of Masculinity Ideology on PTSD Treatment.” Counselling psychology quarterly 35, no. 3 (2022): 587–604.
[xvii] Slegh, H., W. Spielberg, and C. Ragonese. Masculinity and Male Trauma: Making the Connections. Washington: Promundo US, 2022.
[xviii] Schulz, 592.
[xix] Slegh, H., W. Spielberg, and C. Ragonese. Masculinity and Male Trauma: Making the Connections. Washington: Promundo US, 2022; Hecker, Tobias, Katharin Hermenau, Anna Maedl, Harald Hinkel, Maggie Schauer, and Thomas Elbert. “Does Perpetrating Violence Damage Mental Health? Differences Between Forcibly Recruited and Voluntary Combatants in DR Congo.” Journal of traumatic stress 26, no. 1 (2013): 142–148.
[xx] Nandi, Corina, Thomas Elbert, Manassé Bambonye, Roland Weierstall, Manfred Reichert, Anja Zeller, and Anselm Crombach. “Predicting Domestic and Community Violence by Soldiers Living in a Conflict Region.” Psychological trauma 9, no. 6 (2017): 663–671.
[xxi] Catholic Relief Services. Strengthening Trauma Awareness and Social Cohesion in Greater Jonglei, South Sudan: A Case Study on the Impact of Social Cohesion Programming. CRS, 2022. https://www.crs.org/our-work-overseas/research-publications/strengtheningtrauma-awareness-and-social-cohesion-greater
In this episode, Caterina Ceccarelli examines what we know about the link between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and violent extremism, and explores the pathways by which experiencing tough and potentially traumatic events in childhood might turn someone to extremism later in life.
Content warning: This episode contains mentions of sexual violence, self-harm, and suicide.
Dr Heidi Riley and Beth Heron discuss their research into conflict trauma in men and boys, exploring how stigmas and societal expectations can affect the way trauma is experienced, and the dangers to individuals, communities, and wider society if this trauma is left unaddressed.
Offering insights from their in-depth study of two psychosocial support (PSS) programmes delivered by Relief International in Syria and Catholic Relief Services in South Sudan, the pair share what they learned about the way PSS programmes should be designed and funded.
As governments across Europe face the challenge of reintegrating returnees from Iraq and Syria, Dr Joana Cook examines institutional and societal responses to children growing up in violent extremist affiliated families.
Dr Cook talks to Dr Fiona McEwen about the different ways a child’s life can be impacted when a family member is involved in violent extremism, why the narrative of ‘ticking time bombs’ is detrimental to healthy development, and why we need to change the way we engage with these families.
Read more on Joana Cook’s work.
In this episode, Dr Craig Larkin, Dr Inna Rudolf, and Dr Rajan Basra share insights from their research trip to Iraq and discuss the hurdles faced by local practitioners, disillusionment with the ‘industry of peacebuilding’, and the impact that legacies of conflict and violence have had on Iraq’s diverse communities.
*Information is accurate at the time of writing. The escalation of the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel along the Lebanon-Israel border continues to develop, and therefore assessment is subject to change.
The ongoing conflict in Gaza has precipitated responses from across the region. In Lebanon, a marked escalation in fighting between Israel and the Shi’a militant group and political party Hezbollah is raising fears of a conflict spillover into regional war.[i] For the over 100 dead thus far, and approximately 75,000 civilians in south Lebanon forced to flee the crossfire, the conflict is having a significant impact.[ii] The effect of the violence, however, extend throughout the country, igniting memories which expand far beyond the south. Amongst the population, the conflict is exacerbating anxieties of an ever-present state of war in Lebanon, as well as threatening to re-open schisms between the country’s already disparate communities. Contextualising the current escalation in the context of Lebanon’s legacy of war memory, it is possible to understand how inherited and first-hand traumatic recollections of violence trigger and inform reactions and fissures amongst the country’s diverse populations.
No War, No Peace
Following Hamas’ attacks of 7 October 2023, Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in a significant military escalation along Lebanon’s southern borders: Hezbollah, alleging it is acting in ‘solidarity’ with the Palestinian people (and its allies, Hamas), and Israel, in defence against its most powerful regional enemy.[iii] Whilst the geographically localised conflict has not yet led to the formation of a second front against Israel, it marks the most significant escalation since the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War, and this escalation has shown little sign of abating.
At the time of writing, both the range and intensity of the fighting are gradually increasing, well beyond zones previously marked as red lines, and both Hezbollah and Israel are continuing to employ increasingly heavier weaponry. On 2 January 2024, an Israeli drone strike killed a top Hamas official in the Dahiyeh neighbourhood of Beirut.[iv] It has become difficult to discern which military actions constitute a response, and which are intended as a provocation. It has also become difficult to establish at what point the situation becomes not merely an escalation, but a war between two neighbouring countries. For Lebanon, after four years of economic crisis, successive bouts of ’sporadic violence‘, and traumatic conflict, the current escalation threatens the stability of the already weakened state, and risks widening gulfs between communities, where memories of violence are not unifying but polarising.[v]
Conflict memory in Lebanon
Lebanon’s Civil War (1975-90) constitutes the largest scale conflict the country has experienced within recent years, but a significant proportion of the population do not have first-hand experience of the war’s traumatic events. Rather, they have an experience of what Marianne Hirsch has referred to as ‘postmemory’, and what, in the context of Lebanon, Craig Larkin has described as ‘an inherited form of memory, which carries and connects with the ‘pain of others’, suffusing temporal frames and liminal positions.’[vi] The political amnesty agreement which ended the Civil War has had a further impact on the collective memory of the conflict, with the principle of ‘no victor, no vanquished’ facilitating a top-down driven culture of what has been termed ‘collective amnesia’.
For many of the Lebanese population, recent experiences of war with Israel occupy a position of greater proximity in their memory. The current escalation is not isolated; Lebanon has technically been at war with the state of Israel since its formation in 1948 and the formation of the Palestinian militant group Fatah, who conducted operations from rural areas in south Lebanon in the 1970s.[vii] The subsequent period has been punctuated by some of the most violent episodes in Lebanese living memory, including the 1982 invasion of Beirut by Israeli armed forces, and waves of occupation, skirmishes, and post-Civil War interventions.
In 2006, a Hezbollah operation which killed three Israeli soldiers, and saw the capture of two others, led to an exchange of aerial bombardment and a full-scale war which, over the course of 34 days, devastated the south of the country, as well as the capital, Beirut. During the war, 1,200 Lebanese civilians were killed, 4,400 were wounded, and approximately one million were displaced. The extensive damage inflicted on the Lebanese infrastructure was estimated at USD 2.8 billion, triggering a five percent contraction in the country’s economy.[viii]
Military strategists refer to the 2006 war as the ‘Unfinished War’.[ix] Despite the destruction, Lebanon maintained its territorial integrity, while Israel did not achieve its military objective to disarm all militias in Lebanon – explicitly Hezbollah. The UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which marked a ceasefire between the two parties, did not signal a formalised end to hostilities.[x] Within one year, Hezbollah was able to replenish its military capacity, and the bolstered presence of UN forces along the Lebanese southern border has not prevented exchanges of fire between the two parties, which occur every few years. Prior to the current conflict, the most recent exchange occurred in April 2023, when more than 30 rockets were fired from southern Lebanon into Israeli territories, following attacks by Israeli police on Palestinians in al-Aqsa Mosque.[xi]
The legacy of an ‘Unfinished War’ is a conflict suspended in the present. Writing in 2017, Lebanese author Sami Hermez remarked that ’this lack of resolution practically guarantees that past political violence remains a central concern in the present and facilitates the feeling of its reemergence in the future.’[xii] This state of uncertainty – of no war, no peace – has been compounded in recent years by successive episodes of traumatic violence and political instability. Since 2019, Lebanon has been suffering from an economic crisis which has devastated the country, with over 80 percent of the population now living below the poverty line, and a reduction in 98 percent of the value of the national currency.[xiii] This is in addition to the 2019 thawra uprising, which was accompanied by widespread violence, and the explosion at the Beirut port in 2020. Although few Lebanese leaders have yet attempted to reckon with the lasting impact on the civilian population, the explosion of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in the centre of Beirut’s port constituted the largest non-nuclear blast in history, killing over 200 and wounding more than 6,000.[xiv]
As with the Civil War, there has been little attempt to constitute a centralised, collective memory of such violent episodes which may be unifying for the country.[xv] At the time of writing, Lebanon has been without a president for one year, and its confessional political system is dominated by competing hybrid sovereignties in the form of sectarian political groups and militias.[xvi] Memory in Lebanon experiences a similar stratification: ‘[t]he past [now] seeps into the present‘,and memorialisation proliferates on a predominantly sectarian basis, driving particular narratives of history and political agendas.[xvii] For Hermez, the combination of past conflict, future threat, and diverging memories imbed a continuous state of uncertainty: ‘[w]hile actual war might not currently afflict any of the interlocutors, they live with the daily expectation of possible future violence, and the recognition of an unsettled past.’[xviii]
‘Is it war?’ Recurring fears and normalising violence
The current escalation of violence at the border is reigniting traumatic memories of conflict with Israel, and raising fears that continued escalation will lead to a repeat of previous military occupation and destruction. For those living within the vicinity of the border, the practical realities of memory are impossible to ignore. Villages, which were considered in 2006 to be populated by part-time ’village guards‘ mobilised by Hezbollah, are today experiencing similar levels of aerial bombardment.[xix] Many locals recall this memory in anticipating a repetition of 2006. In a recent interview with Reuters, one resident of the southern town of Rmeish commented, ’I was here in 2006 – those were terrifying scenes. And the shelling yesterday was very heavy.’[xx]
Some even perceive Israel’s ability to stoke traumatic memory to be a deliberate strategy. One Lebanese social media user shared Israeli Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant’s warning that, ’what we are doing in Gaza we can do in Beirut,’ and stated in response, ‘for anyone still not understanding the PTSD provoked by such cyclical threats, wake up,’ claiming that the Gallant was ‘instilling fear amongst the Lebanese population, a fear rooted in recent collective memory.’[xxi]
Although it is difficult to assess the conflict’s impact on collective memories whilst it continues, anxieties around the escalation are already beginning to undergo a process of normalisation. One month after the initial attacks, the resulting tension was becoming incorporated into an ongoing narrative of violence: ‘we are used to it’, or ‘heyk hayetnā’ (this is our life) is the phrase often used by those in Beirut to describe how they are reckoning with the latest development in Lebanon’s climate of no war, no peace.
According to one resident of a village close to the border, ’it has become a normal matter as we have been through many wars.’[xxii] Life continues, but one bank employee revealed that they ‘go into work, but no one’s working.’[xxiii] This process of normalisation is punctuated by events signalling peaks of violence in Gaza and at the border (such as the killing of journalists in shelling in the south, the explosion at the Baptist hospital and the regular speeches of Secretary-General of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah). Such events cause the closure of schools, universities, bars, restaurants, and the cancellation of events both at the borders and in Beirut, as many prefer to stay at home. Yet, as Hermez comments, ‘in contexts of protracted conflict, as in Lebanon, we are always already embedded in political violences in such a way that neither the ordinary/normal nor political violence has any meaning without the other’.[xxiv] The current conflict is an actualisation of fears already anticipated through the continuous presence of traumatic memory. In the words of one young Beirut resident, ‘it’s the uncertainty which is hard. Is it war? Or is this just the situation now?’[xxv]
Whose war is it?
Whilst populations in Lebanon, regardless of ‘their political or sectarian persuasion, will often feel the violence and uncertainty of the future’, reactions to the escalation on the border are both polarised and polarising.[xxvi] This is driven by different experiences of the present situation and by past violence: ‘what is feared, how change will proceed, who will be at most risk, these questions are determined differently across groups and become contested sites for political debate.’[xxvii]
Marches for Hezbollah in support of Palestine continue to attract thousands, and Nasrallah continues to invoke historic as well as present aggressions of Israel, but a petition against Lebanon being ’dragged into another cycle of destruction and bloodshed’ has also gained thousands of signatures.[xxviii] Such stark schisms in conflict memory threaten to exacerbate the already strained relations between sectarian groups in Lebanon.
A significant factor contributing to the polarities of conflict memories triggered by the current escalation is the political and geographic proximity to past and present violence. The south of Lebanon, referred to as al-jnūb (the South), has a particular political and cultural identity. It is mostly controlled by Shi’a militia and political groups Hezbollah and Amal, and has been, as a result, disenfranchised and neglected by any centralised statehood. Poverty levels in south Lebanon are now much higher than the national average. According to one resident from the South, ’people with kids left because in 2006, there was no bread, no milk, no medicine. Lebanon is already like that now, so imagine what it would be like if things escalate.’[xxix] This has led to resentment and further distancing of residents of the South from the political centre. ’Okay, you want to start a war. The least you can do is secure the citizens you have, give them protection or food’, remarked another resident from the South.[xxx]
The defining feature of the construction of the South’s identity and its ostracisation from the centre has been its history of violence, which is distinct from other areas of Lebanon, having been under military occupation by Israel between 1985 and 2000 – for most of this time, travel into and out of the South was not possible – and having experienced first-hand the impact of cross-border violence. This collective memory of violence is enshrined even in popular place names, such as the Hojeir Valley, also known as the Martyrs Valley, Leaders Valley, Death Valley, Resistance Valley, Mirkava Cemetery: all references to sites of conflict with Israel.[xxxi] Such physical locations of memory are what Pierre Nora has called lieux de mémoires – their physical proximity means conflict memories are more immediately accessible to the people of the South than to those in other parts of the country, to whom the South was viewed as ‘an ‘other space’, outside state sovereignty.[xxxii]
For those not close to the border, and without ties to the South or militia groups involved in confrontations with Israel, it is possible to marginalise the current situation as an isolated conflict limited only to the South as a site of exception. As Volk described in 2007, ‘[d]espite being officially liberated, al-jnūb continues to loom large in the popular imagination as Lebanon’s inaccessible and embattled borderland.’[xxxiii] In response to the current escalation, memories of past and present conflict are vastly different according to geography and social ties. In an interview with Le Orient, a resident of a southern village commented, ‘[t]he country is at war, but it’s only in the South that we can see this … it’s as if we were a different country.’[xxxiv] The escalation is also articulated by many as ‘someone else’s war’; whether that is between Hezbollah and Israel, Israel and Hamas, or the US and Iran. A resident of the predominantly Sunni town of Dhayra which was hit with Israeli white phosphorus shells, claimed that Palestinians had ‘infiltrated’ the village in order to attack Israel: ‘we’re used to paying the price for the wars that don’t concern us.’[xxxv] In an interview with The Washington Post, another resident of a village attacked by Israel said, ‘I blame Hezbollah,’ cursing the fighters as ‘terrorists.’[xxxvi]
Memory and mobilisation
Yet it is also likely that the current conflict, and its subsequent, but ongoing, memorialisation has the potential to reinvigorate and mobilise popular support for the axis of resistance (known as al-muqwāma, which refers to resistance against Israel as well as against a US-led ‘Western’ front), and for Hezbollah narratives positioning itself as the defender of the resistance, if not the defender of Lebanon, in the absence of a capable centralised Lebanese state. Following the announcement of the 2006 ceasefire, despite a significant asymmetry in material losses between the two sides, Nasrallah announced a ‘divine, historic and strategic victory’ over Israel, which demonstrated that ’no army in the world [was] strong enough to disarm [them]’.[xxxvii] The Hezbollah museum in Mleeta, south Lebanon, is an example of Hezbollah’s utilisation of 2006 conflict memory to establish legitimacy as national protector of the country against Israel.[xxxviii] This was largely successful: the group’s subsequent memorialisation of their 2006 ‘victory’ against Israel earnt them, to an extent, ‘rare cross-sectarian support’.[xxxix] In a recent interview with The Guardian, a Beirut resident whose home was destroyed in 2006 recollected, ‘before 2006, Israel had a free hand in the south … it’s because of that war and the resistance that we can now stand tall in our villages … the war established a rule: you kill one of us, we kill one of you.’[xl]
Since 2006, Hezbollah’s involvement in a series of external conflicts and controversies – the group’s takeover of West Beirut in 2008, their intervention in the Syrian Civil War, and even their suspected negligent contribution to the 2020 Beirut port explosion – has marginalised them amongst Shi’a communities, as well as the general population of Lebanon.[xli] Yet the current escalation, and Israeli military activity in Lebanese territory, is revitalising memories of 2006 resistance, and the pivotal role of Hezbollah. For some, these memories are mobilising. In a recent interview with The National, one 22-year-old resident of Qana, a village in south Lebanon which experienced significant conflict in the 2006 war, affirmed his commitment to military resistance: ‘we will retaliate … My mother is the first to encourage me. She lost her sister in 2006.’ Regarding those who did not support the southern factions’ involvement in the conflict, the interviewee responded: ‘they have not experienced what we have, that’s why.’[xlii]
Conclusion
Although the current escalation between Hezbollah and Israel is situated within a context of cycles of violence, it is difficult to predict at the present moment how it will be memorialised. As Lara Deeb has commented, ‘representations of the past are frequently about the present and hold implications for the future’.[xliii] For some in Lebanon, these implications are already a cause for concern: as a southern resident told journalists, as a missile exploded overhead, ’don’t film those who are fleeing … It’s a bad image of al-janūb.’[xliv]
Today, the appetite for a full-scale confrontation with Israel seems limited. Hezbollah has grown in size and strength since the war with Israel,but in 2024, they are now operating in a very different environment.[xlv] In 2006, following the Israeli Operation Grapes of Wrath and an attack on the village of Qana on a previously unprecedented scale, cross-sectarian groups of Beirut residents joined relief efforts to provide refugees from the south with shelter, food and medical supplies in a show of ’unified national grief and outrage‘, where ’Qana became an important symbol of post-civil war Lebanese unity‘.[xlvi]
In the current context, living in a landscape of memories of the damage inflicted in 2006, combined with the state of the Lebanese economy, such a homogenous response is unlikely. One resident of Hamra district in Beirut said that, due to the economic situation, they were ‘not sure the Sunni of Beirut will take in people [predominantly Shia] from the South, as they did last time’.[xlvii] In response to high-level threats from military officials in Israel to ‘bring Lebanon back to the Stone Age,’ one southern resident commented, ‘[y]ou’re in Lebanon, right? Are we not in the stone age already?’[xlviii]
Whether or not fears of a full-scale war with Israel are realised, it seems likely that the ongoing conflict will further drive the diverging of narratives amongst the Lebanese population. The conflicting memory culture in Lebanon, international and local discourse surrounding the escalation, as well as and developments on the ground, will all shape the way in which the current escalation is experienced by Lebanon’s diverse communities in the present, and the way in which it is understood in the future.
[i] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/30/lebanon-fears-regional-war-as-hezbollah-israel-fighting-icntensifies; https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231123-israel-fm-threatens-regional-war-over-tensions-in-lebanon/
[ii] https://reliefweb.int/report/lebanon/lebanon-glance-escalation-hostilities-south-lebanon-27-december-2023
[iii] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/8/israel-hezbollah-exchange-fire-raising-regional-tensions
[iv] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/explosion-southern-beirut-suburb-dahiyeh-two-security-sources-2024-01-02/
[v] Larkin, C. (2010). ‘Beyond the war? The Lebanese postmemory experience’. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 42(4), 615-635. 415.
[vi] Hirsch, M. (2008). ‘The Generation of Postmemory’. Poetics today, 29(1), 103-128; Larkin, C. (2010).
[vii] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/17/beyond-hezbollah-the-history-of-tensions-between-lebanon-and-israel
[viii] https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/palestine-israel/2023/10/26/is-lebanon-on-the-brink-of-a-2006-war-scenario/
[ix] Spyer, J. (2009). ‘Lebanon 2006: Unfinished War’. In Conflict and Insurgency in the Contemporary Middle East (pp. 157-172). 153
[x] https://peacemaker.un.org/israellebanon-resolution1701
[xi] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/6/israel-intercepts-rocket-fired-from-southern-lebanon-military
[xii] Hermez, S. (2017). War is coming: between past and future violence in Lebanon. 5.
[xiii] https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/lebanon/overview; https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/CR/Issues/2023/06/28/Lebanon-2023-Article-IV-Consultation-Press-Release-Staff-Report-and-Statement-by-the-535372
[xiv] Helou, M., El-Hussein, M., Aciksari, K., Salio, F., Della Corte, F., Von Schreeb, J., & Ragazzoni, L. (2022). ‘Beirut Explosion: The Largest Non-Nuclear Blast in History.’ Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, 16(5), 2200-2201.
[xv] https://www.xcept-research.org/martyrdom-in-lebanon-an-evolution-of-memory-making/; As Hermez and others have commented, ““Rather than any state-enforced amnesia or remembering, there was an abrogation of responsibility on the part of the state, which left a narrative of the war open to interpretation. In fact, if the state enforced anything, it was to lead the way to multivocal expressions of memory.” Hermez, S. (2017). War is coming: between past and future violence in Lebanon. 5. 148
[xvi] Fregonese, S. (2012). ‘Beyond the ‘Weak State’: Hybrid Sovereignties in Beirut.’ Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 30(4), 655-674.
[xvii] Schudson, M. (1997). Lives, laws and language: Commemorative versus non-commemorative forms of effective public memory. The Communication Review,2(1), 3-17. 15.
[xviii] Hermez, S. (2017). War is coming: between past and future violence in Lebanon. 294.
[xix] Beirut Urban Lab has provided a comprehensive map of ongoing cross-border conflict events during the current escalation: https://aub.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/2a3cd18fa4f4400ba5ee330273117f95; Spyer, J. (2009). 147.
[xx] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/lebanon-edge-after-deadliest-border-clashes-since-2006-2023-10-10/
[xxi] https://www.instagram.com/p/Czlbyi3Mrsb/?igshid=ODhhZWM5NmIwOQ==
[xxii] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/south-lebanon-town-border-conflict-brings-fear-resignation-2023-10-25/
[xxiii] Researcher’s own fieldwork interviews, November 2023.
[xxiv] Hermez, S. (2017). War is coming: between past and future violence in Lebanon. 15.
[xxv] Researcher’s own fieldwork interviews, November 2023.
[xxvi] Hermez, S. (2017). 87.
[xxvii] Hermez, S. (2017). Ibid.
[xxviii] https://www.change.org/p/lebanon-against-war-sign-the-petition-now
[xxix] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/lebanon-edge-after-deadliest-border-clashes-since-2006-2023-10-10/
[xxx] Ibid.
[xxxi] https://aoav.org.uk/2018/the-reverberating-cultural-impacts-from-the-use-of-explosive-weapons-in-lebanon/
[xxxii] Nora, Pierre. ‘Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.’ Representations, no. 26, 1989, pp. 7–24; Volk, L. (2007). ‘Re-remembering the dead: A genealogy of a martyrs memorial in South Lebanon.’ The Arab Studies Journal, 15(1), 44-69. 47.
[xxxiii] Volk, L. (2007). 50.
[xxxiv] https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1359221/in-south-lebanon-2023-war-scars-evoke-2006-memories.html
[xxxv] Ibid.
[xxxvi] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/19/lebanon-israel-border-hezbollah-gaza/
[xxxvii] https://www.muslimobserver.com/victory-rally-speech-transcript-hasan-nasrallah/
[xxxviii] https://lobelog.com/what-does-hezbollah-want/; On Mleeta, Hezbollah’s Landmark to the Resistance, see: Harb, Mona, and Lara Deeb. ‘Culture as history and landscape: Hizballah’s efforts to shape an islamic milieu in Lebanon.’ Arab Studies Journal 19.1 (2011): 12-45; Meier, Daniel. ‘From Frontline to Borderscape: The Hizbullah Memorial Museum in South Lebanon.’ Borderscaping: Imaginations and Practices of Border Making. Routledge, 2016. 77-86; and Larkin, Craig, and Ella Parry-Davies. ‘War Museums in postwar Lebanon: Memory, violence, and performance.’ Power-Sharing after Civil War. Routledge, 2021. 78-96.
[xxxix] https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/palestine-israel/2023/10/26/is-lebanon-on-the-brink-of-a-2006-war-scenario/
[xl] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/27/fear-and-defiance-in-lebanon-as-the-threat-of-new-war-opens-old-wounds
[xli] https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/palestine-israel/2023/10/26/is-lebanon-on-the-brink-of-a-2006-war-scenario/
[xlii] https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/palestine-israel/2023/10/17/survivors-of-lebanons-qana-massacre-defiant-as-israel-fight-looms/
[xliii] Deeb, Lara. ‘Exhibiting the “Just-Lived Past”: Hizbullah’s Nationalist Narratives in Transnational Political Context.’ Comparative Studies in Society and History 50.2 (2008): 369-399. 370.
[xliv] https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1359221/in-south-lebanon-2023-war-scars-evoke-2006-memories.html
[xlv] https://aoav.org.uk/2018/the-reverberating-cultural-impacts-from-the-use-of-explosive-weapons-in-lebanon/#_edn3
[xlvi] Laurie King-Irani, ‘Commemorating Lebanon’s War Amid Continued Crisis,’ Middle East Report Online, 14 April 2005; Volk, L. (2007). 49.
[xlvii] Researcher’s own fieldwork interviews, November 2023.
[xlviii] https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/10/13/israel-hamas-war-sparks-south-lebanon-exodus-as-people-flee-border-areas
Research report, Rift Valley Institute
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Lebanon’s difficulties are manifold: deliberate economic depression orchestrated by the country’s ruling elite;[i] political paralysis caused by the Lebanese parliament failing to elect – for the 12th time – a president;[ii] and unhealed psychological scars following the Beirut Port blast in 2020 that ranks as the third largest urban explosion in history, after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings.[iii] But this veil of despair masks what was once a vibrant undertone of optimism and joy – four years ago, Lebanese people from all walks of life came together to reclaim their bodies, their streets, their city, and their country, in hope for revolutionary change.[iv]
Today, Lebanon marks the anniversary of the October 2019 uprising, alternatively called thawra (revolution) by idealists. On 17th October 2019, Lebanese people from all walks of life coalesced and rose up against a ‘kleptocratic ruling class of sectarian leaders and financiers that had captured and bankrupted the state after fifteen years of civil war (1975-90) and three decades of post-war neoliberal policies’.[i] Demonstrators objected to endemic corruption and demanded instant reforms to an absurdly clientelist and sectarian system ingrained at the heart of Lebanon’s political and economic system.
Four years on, however, the legacy and significance of the uprising remain a matter of controversy. For its critics, the thawra is synonymous with negative emotions and distressing memories, due in part to the internal divisions among protestors, increased state repression, co-optation strategies by the ruling elites, and the ongoing economic meltdown which all characterised the failure of the revolution.[ii] Advocates, on the other hand, argue that the thawra remains an ember of optimism in a gloomy mist of political hopelessness.[iii]
I spent two months in my Lebanese homeland earlier this year to carry out fieldwork for my PhD, which focuses on geographies of emotions within Lebanon’s October 17 protest movement, exploring how spaces, places, landscapes, and memories affect protestors politically and influence their feelings and emotions regarding the thawra and its aftermath. I was able to gather personal testimonies of Lebanese youth who recall complex emotions and painful memories encountered during the thawra. Here are some of their stories.
Amongst the demonstrators in October 2019 was 20-year-old undergraduate student at the American University of Beirut (AUB), Fatima,[1] who is part of both the AUB secular club and organisation Mada, a political network and movement constituting of secular clubs in universities and syndicates across Lebanon.
For Fatima, the thawra was a revelation and a conviction that it was no longer a choice to be politically neutral, as she proudly reveals: ‘I was raised in a repressive and infantilising atmosphere where my family attempted to repress my political opinions and silence me, making me this numb machine that succumbs to their political ideologies. This made me feel isolated from what was going on in the world consider[ing] I was being sheltered from something I was going to be inevitably exposed to at university’.
When the protests broke out on 17th October, Fatima was finishing school, and she admits being conscious of certain aspects of her own political ignorance. She witnessed her friends embracing their own political activism, which motivated her to rebel with them. ‘I saw all kind of things happening, especially the teach-ins and heated debates that made me more politically aware. I witnessed violence, I saw people falling in love, I saw people rejoicing, dancing, and cursing politicians. For the first time I got this multi-faceted view of what Lebanon is’.
Four years later, Fatima still views the thawra as part of her daily life. ‘The way we do it for me and for those in Mada and the AUB secular club is that we run for elections, we hold daily discussions, we protest, we hang posters, we invite experts to give a talk, we go on television to speak’. It seems that there is no one dimension or direction to resisting amongst youth today, and there is hope this will bring change. For example, one year after the thawra, thanks tostudents like Fatima, there was unprecedented success for independent secular groups in student council elections, over those aligned with the traditional political parties.[i]
The thawra encouraged many to see another side of Lebanon, and of themselves. ‘This is where my feminist political identity developed,’ Fatima professes. ‘I saw women being at the forefront of the revolution. I saw brave women standing up for themselves and fighting against the sectarian class, like the heroic women that kicked a police officer in the face. Seeing this as someone who was still in school was a steppingstone for my adulthood and shaped who I am. I felt that one day I can be one of those women. In fact, I am now’.
The legacy of the thawra is one of political activism, but also one of distress. Anger and humiliation are common shared sentiments amongst youths I interviewed, as they revealed painful memories of this mass revolt that continue to affect them today. I spoke to 24-year-old graduate, Mona, who worked with think-tanks in the Middle East, researching youth participation in the thawra.
‘The thawra was the first time I participated in a protest movement and will be the last,’ she told me in a dispiriting tone. ‘I was very hopeful at first, I sensed a feeling of solidarity I never experienced before. I felt that people had my back, and we shared the same vision for this country. I started asking political questions when we used to have dinner with my family, which was a taboo back then. I questioned my aunt about the reasons she supports Hezbollah. I am not scared or intimidated to ask questions anymore. I felt the urge to learn and the right to know, unlike in the past where I believed it was too complicated to understand politics’.
Unfortunately, this optimism for change was soon overshadowed by utter hopelessness. Mona shares a painful memory of the march to mark the first anniversary of the Beirut Port explosion on 4th August 2021 which impelled her to distance herself from activism. As protestors expressed their outrage over the political elites’ ineptitude and corruption in the aftermath of the blast that killed 180 people, injured more than 6,000, and caused massive destruction across the city, the Lebanese military used lethal force against them.[i]
‘I had some hope that the Lebanese authorities will be afraid of us as we were well equipped with tear gas to protect ourselves from the brutality of security forces. Like cockroaches they compelled us to leave. I remember this vividly as I was with one of my closest friends. We started crying, we literally failed, there was nothing we can do. Everyone was fleeing from the tear gas and water cannons. I kept crying for feeling hopeless. That night completely changed my perception towards Lebanon. I now separated myself completely from Lebanese politics as a result of [the] hopelessness I felt after that night,’ she cried.
Today, Mona lives in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and works as a senior communications executive. She is one of many who have joined the exodus of Lebanon’s most educated citizens, to search for jobs and education abroad in the aftermath of the thawra, because of the continuing social, economic, and political crisis.[ii]
On the four-year anniversary of Lebanon’s thawra, the impact and significance of this historic event remains unresolved. This transformative moment is also one of the most disputed protest movements in contemporary Lebanese politics. It is crucial to revisit personal testimonies and critically reflect on these competing emotions and painful memories to understand the myriad ways Lebanese youth currently engage with and feel about the thawra, their perceptions of change, and how this influences the actions they will take in the future. The hope, despair, fear, and joy embodied in the diverse Lebanese narratives reflect diverging perspectives and timeframes, but also attitudes to Lebanon’s convoluted past and the quest for a better future.
[i] Human Rights Watch (2020) Lebanon: Lethal force used against protestors [Online] available from https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/08/26/lebanon-lethal-force-used-against-protesters
[ii] Financial Times (2023) More than half of young Arabs in Levant and north African pin hopes on emigrating [Online] available from https://www.ft.com/content/0ef960d8-1282-4fa9-a009-e24eebeab0e7
[1] Interviewees names have been changed to ensure anonymity.
[i] Arab Reform Initiative (2021) Lebanon’s student movement: A new political player? [Online] available from https://www.arab-reform.net/publication/lebanons-student-movement-a-new-political-player/
[i] Makdisi, K., 2021. Lebanon’s October 2019 Uprising: From Solidarity to Division and Descent into the Known Unknown. South Atlantic Quarterly, 120(2), pp.436-445.
[ii] LCPS (2021) Why did the October 17 Revolution witness a regression in numbers? [Online] available from https://www.lcps-lebanon.org/articles/details/2462/why-did-the-october-17-revolution-witness-a-regression-in-numbers
[iii] LSE (2023) Lebanon Unsettled: The contentious geographies and histories of the October 2019 uprising [Online] available from https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2023/07/31/lebanon-unsettled-the-contentious-geographies-and-histories-of-the-october-2019-uprising/
[i] World Bank (2022) Lebanon’s Crisis: Great Denial in the Deliberate Depression [Online] available from https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/01/24/lebanon-s-crisis-great-denial-in-the-deliberate-depression
[ii] Al Jazeera (2023) Lebanon’s parliament fails to elect president for 12th time [Online] available from https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/6/14/lebanons-parliament-fails-to-elect-president-for-12th-time
[iii] Al Hariri, M., Zgheib, H., Abi Chebl, K., Azar, M., Hitti, E., Bizri, M., Rizk, J., Kobeissy, F. and Mufarrij, A., 2022. Assessing the psychological impact of Beirut Port blast: A cross-sectional study. Medicine, 101(41).
[iv] Cornet, L. (2022) An Emotional Diary of the Lebanese Revolution [Online] available from https://phmuseum.com/news/an-emotional-diary-of-the-lebanese-revolution
Generally, you don’t have violent conflicts linked to pastoralism in Cameroon. There is a very organised system of managing transhumance. The timing of this seasonal pastoral movement, including movement of Nigerian pastoralists crossing into Cameroon, is controlled by the Ministry of Livestock. During the designated period of transhumance, farming activities along transhumance corridors, around watering points and in mixed farming zones are halted. If there is destruction of crops within that period, pastoralists are not liable.
Cameroonian pastoralists have complained that cross-border pastoralists come with diseases, but compulsory vaccination reduces this problem, which might otherwise result in conflict.
In cases where the movement of pastoralists does lead to disputes, there are also mechanisms in Cameroon to prevent and resolve conflict. Where crops are destroyed during transhumance, the Agro-Pastoral Commission, which is a state organ, intervenes to resolve the dispute between farmers and herders.
There are also dialogue platforms which facilitate dialogue between the aggrieved parties to resolve disputes. What is good about these is that the conflict is often resolved at the community level without the involvement of the police or the law courts. Where both parties agree on the findings of the dialogue, this has helped to bring about peaceful coexistence between the farmers and pastoralists.
In the public discourse in Nigeria, the way the media talks about pastoralism and transhumance is negative. They have a blanket term, ‘Fulani herdsman’, which is used widely in the media as a negative stereotype. In Cameroon, the term ‘Fulani herdsman’ isn’t used. If there is destruction, it’s not put on a tribal basis. In Nigeria, the blame is on cattle owners. In Cameroon the blame is more on the herdsman for leaving the cattle loose. When the blame is shifted people understand, they don’t attack whole communities and fewer farmer-herder conflicts are recorded.
When we’re talking about pastoral movements it’s important to understand the context and history. Before the partition of Africa by the colonial masters, there were no borders between Nigeria and Cameroon, there were just kingdoms. So, pastoralists feel that this is their land and that they can graze their livestock anywhere they wish. They also have kinship relationships with other pastoralists across national borders. In my case, the majority of my clan are in Nigeria. But with independence and the creation of states this movement across the borders by pastoralists and their livestock is being restricted.
In the last eight years, pastoralists have started moving in greater numbers from Nigeria into Cameroon and subsequently into the Central African Republic (CAR).
In the past, the population density in Nigeria was much lower. Today, high demographic pressure, coupled with the mechanisation of agriculture, means that more land is needed for crop production and grazing land is being taken away. Land grabbing by elites in traditional grazing areas has worsened the situation. Pressure on land, reduced pasture and watering points, in combination with violent farmer-herder conflicts are pushing pastoralists to move into Cameroon and the Central African Republic. In CAR there is less pressure on land; there are still vast rangelands, water and good pasture.
Some of the pastoralists we interviewed said that CAR is better than where they’d come from even though there is an armed conflict going on. They told us that they can negotiate with armed groups and pay an annual tax to graze their livestock. Nevertheless, at times the conflict in CAR can be disruptive to pastoral activities – when there is difficulty in Central Africa they come back into Cameroon, then when the situation normalises, they go back to Central Africa.
Although pastoral movement is well managed in Cameroon and is generally peaceful, the increase in the number of pastoralists coming in from Nigeria is adding to pressure and tensions in some areas. In the Northern region of Cameroon, where we did part of our fieldwork, availability of land is decreasing. The region is a population hotspot, and with the crisis of Boko Haram, many more people have migrated there from the Extreme North of Cameroon, around Lake Chad. There are also other pressures on land. As more pastoralists cross the border into Cameroon from Nigeria the potential for tension increases.
One source of tension is between migrant herders and agro-pastoralists, who are semi-settled, and who have a little livestock around their farms. They often complain that migrants’ animals come with diseases and sometimes destroy crops. This is a potential source of conflict with agro-pastoralists and with sedentary farmers. If the influx of livestock from Nigeria continues in large numbers, it may lead to violent conflicts in the future.
Recently a lot of mining has been happening along transhumance corridors and around national parks. This is also a cause for concern as mining pits are a death trap for livestock. There is also industrial agriculture, with foreign companies buying up large chunks of land or elites grabbing land along corridors. Palm, cocoa and tea plantations are being created, reducing the available rangelands and pushing more local pastoralists towards Central Africa.
In addition to all the negative impacts, there are positives. Migrant pastoralists have brought wealth to local economies. They have driven down the prices of beef in Cameroon, they buy crops from farmers and stimulate business activities. They also pay taxes to the councils.
Firstly, I think there should be better regional policy to encourage and support cross border transhumance. There is the ECOWAS protocol and African Union Charter on pastoralism, which include rules governing transhumance, but these should be properly enforced. Governments, and individual states, should also be encouraged to have bilateral and trilateral protocols.
There is also an urgent need to improve pastoral infrastructure, particularly in Nigeria. This is where donors and international NGOs can support. Lack of pasture and watering points are the main push factors for pastoralists moving out of Nigeria but a big bore hole in one area can save thousands of migrating cattle. This infrastructure will reduce movement, or at least help with managing movement. This in turn would reduce conflict. It is important that livestock development projects listen to pastoralists’ concerns and priorities and not be determined by the political priorities of elites. Governments should also be encouraged to preserve and restore pastoral zones and support livestock production.
This article was originally published on Conciliation Resources’ website.
I’m Dr Rajan Basra, and I’m a post-doctoral researcher on the XCEPT team at King’s College London (KCL). My research focus is on terrorism, especially how prisons manage offenders who are suspected, or convicted, of terrorism offences. Over the last two years, I’ve been interviewing ex-prisoners, and I’ve been looking at what this can tell us about the role prisons might play in radicalisation.
Since starting work on XCEPT, I’ve also been interviewing people who have been affected by terrorism, specifically the families of men who were kidnapped by jihadist groups in an incident in Lebanon in 2014. That’s been incredibly eye-opening. To date, most of my research has focused on the perpetrators. I’ve been so much more interested in the people behind the violence. What’s motivating them? What’s their life story? Why are they doing this? How are they doing this? Shifting attention to looking at people affected by that violence, and to hear their stories, has been fascinating.
Before joining XCEPT, my research focused mostly on jihadis in Europe. For my PhD, which I completed in the Department of War Studies at KCL, I was looking at people who were part of the jihadist movement and who had histories of criminality. Sometimes they’d also spent time in prison for criminal offences – what you’d consider ‘regular’ criminal offences – and had been radicalised in prison, or they’d networked with extremists there. I wanted to see what influence criminality has on jihadist extremism/radicalisation. I found that it can affect the narratives people tell, and also the spaces (prison) where radicalisation occurs.
It’s a fascinating area of study, but my interest was really sparked in 2011. I was traveling in the Middle East, and it just so happened to coincide with the Arab Spring. I spent a month in Syria, and I was lucky enough to meet some of the very first protestors in the country. These people were literally protesting for 5 or 10 minutes after Friday prayers, and even doing that was such an act of defiance because they were risking their lives, risking arrest and torture or disappearance. By chance, I had the opportunity to speak with some of these people. I remember meeting one man in Syria, and I said to him, ‘So what do you do?’, and he said, ‘If you’d asked me a week ago, I would say that I’m an architect, but if you asked me today, I’d say that I’m a revolutionary’.
After leaving Syria, I kept a close eye on what was happening in the country, in the very towns that I had visited, and as I saw that conflict descend into a civil war, and then the emergence of IS, I decided I wanted to take a closer look to understand what was going on. That led me to do an MA in Terrorism Studies at KCL, and then I stayed on to do my PhD.
This interest isn’t exclusive to me though. You see how popular true crime is as a genre. I think everyone has this curiosity – maybe even a morbid curiosity – about how human beings can treat other human beings, even if that’s in really depraved and horrific ways. People want to understand what drives someone to do that, to want to kill another person, and terrorism is all about that. Terrorists are not just killing someone for the sake of killing them. They’re doing it to send a message to a broader audience. I find it so interesting looking at what drives people to commit such acts of violence, examining their motivations, what those messages are, and what they hope to achieve.
This is where it gets a bit tricky, because if you say you understand where someone’s coming from, then people can accuse you of being an apologist, or legitimising a terrorist’s motivation, their cause, or the way they behave. That’s not true, obviously. I do think it’s important to look deeper at the human beings involved, to understand what has happened in their life that’s led them to this point. It’s easy to dismiss someone as simply being ‘evil’, but I think we all start from the premise that no-one is born that way – something has happened that has brought them to this stage. It could be a combination of many different things, such as someone’s environment or personality, or cultural or situational factors.
One of the holy grails in terrorism studies is to better understand it so you can help prevent it, but preventing terrorism is so multi-faceted and so complicated, just like the whole phenomenon is. If we can better understand the circumstances that have led someone to engage in terrorism, then maybe it is possible to improve prevention, and that’s why I think it’s so important to try and make sense of these motivations.
I hope that the work we’re doing on prisons will help to fill a gap in existing literature. A lot of research on the subject looks at the experience of prisoners through the lens of court documents, policy documents, and media reports, but rarely does it involve speaking with people who have been through it. To speak to people who have actually lived through the experience, and know what it’s like to be in an IS prison wing, is something that’s really invaluable. Prisons have been a running thread throughout the history of terrorism, but within the field it’s still somewhat overlooked. My colleague, Dr Craig Larkin, and I have interviewed dozens of ex-prisoners in Lebanon, and I think this will give a detailed and nuanced look at extremists, or suspected extremists, who live in prison, and how their time inside shapes their experiences and their lives.
I do think prisons can play an important role, because whenever you look at any terrorist movement in history, their members have almost always spent time in prison. If it wasn’t informative in shaping their views, it’s where they ended up after they acted upon their views. Even when you look at history more generally, people have had their ideas shaped by their time spent in prison. Hitler, for example, wrote Mein Kampf while he was incarcerated. Jihadi propaganda often talks about freeing prisoners, and the issue of imprisoned comrades is a strong cause for militant groups around the world, regardless of ideology or location. Clearly, it’s an important issue, and that’s why I think our research is so important, as I hope it will shed some light on what it’s actually like to be inside prison, and why it matters so much.
For me personally, my fieldwork interviewing victims of terrorism in Lebanon has been some of the most satisfying work that I’ve ever done. To get the opportunity to speak to people who have lived through these incredible experiences, both good and bad, has been a real privilege. I do consider it a genuine honour to have been able to sit down with people and listen to their stories. That’s been the most interesting, and the most challenging, part of working on XCEPT.
I’m really proud of everything our team is doing, and the promise of being able to contribute something new to current understandings of the intersection between conflict, trauma, peacebuilding, and violence is really exciting. I’m looking forward to seeing what the next few years bring.
Find out more about Dr Basra’s research into prisons
