71. “The War As I See It:” Youth Perceptions and Knowledge of the Lebanese Civil War
- Author:
- Nour El Bejjani Noureddine
- Publication Date:
- 10-2017
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
- Abstract:
- Since the negotiated political settlement that ended the war in 1990, no serious attempt has been made to deal with the war’s legacy. Accountability for human rights violations committed during the conflict has been absent. There has been no effective truth-seeking process, formal acknowledgement of victims’ suffering, or the establishment of an accurate and objective war narrative. This has allowed political and social factions to compete for control of the historical record, with the different sides blaming each other, resulting in multiple politicized and fragmented narratives. Because school curricula do not cover Lebanon’s war or recent history, today most accounts of the conflict are based on personal memories transmitted from generation to generation by family members and neighbors who survived the war. This has left young people without an official source of information about the war to help them to understand it and its legacy, although it often forms part of their personal history and identity. As a result, the post-war generation, and the larger public, does not know what really happened during the conflict. With waves of instability and political violence that risk spiraling out of control, recalling the prewar era for many who lived through the war, young people are left vulnerable to political manipulation.
- Topic:
- Civil War, Transitional Justice, Youth, and Humanitarian Crisis
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Lebanon