Hizbullah's Construction of National Identity : "We are in principle not like Others"

• Main Author: Bergh, Viveka
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Religionshistoria 2015
• Subjects: Critical Discourse Analysis; Hizbullah; Al-Manar; Discourse; Media; Nationalism; Identity construction; National Crisis; Recontextualisation; Terrorism; Lebanon; Kritisk diskursanalys; Diskurs; Identitet; Nationell kris; Rekontextualisering; Libanon
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-255701

The purpose of this paper is to understand how national identity is discursively constructed by Hizbullah at a time of national crisis, and to shed light on its potential effects on the social world. The critical discourse analysis focuses on how difference and otherness are constructed on Hizbullah’s television channel Al-Manar. It illuminates Hizbullah’s discursive construal of a national in-group and an ‘enemy’ out-group, and identifies the main discourses that Hizbullah draws upon. The backdrop is the violent events in the Lebanese town of Arsal, erupting in early August 2014 and soon amounting to a national crisis. How Hizbullah, one of the main political actors in Lebanon and the region, constructs the world discursively does arguably have impact on the social world. The analysis identifies an order of discourse that on the one hand is permeated by pluralism and inclusion and on the other hand influenced by an exclusionary discourse connecting the out-group to terrorism. The author suggests that the Western discourse of ‘war on terrorism’ has been recontextualised by Hizbullah, and argues that there are reasons to pay close attention to the potentially harmful socially constructive effects of this discourse. Nevertheless, a cross-confessional national unity is simultaneously highlighted in Hizbullah’s discourse.