Beirut's Unending Echo: The Archive as a Weapon
The context they conveniently omitted: FIRST INSTANCE: The Legacy of Deliberate Forgetting (1975-1990) Lebanon's civil war, which raged from 1975 to 1990, officially ended with the Taif Agreement. This accord, brokered by external powers, notably Saudi Arabia and Syria, included a blanket amnesty law for war crimes committed during the conflict. Records show this political decision, rather than
fostering reconciliation, enshrined a culture of impunity. There was no 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission' analogous to South Africa (1996), no efforts to document individual narratives or hold perpetrators accountable. The official narrative was one of moving forward, which in practice meant burying the past and protecting the warlords who transitioned into political leaders. This intentional
void in a collective, adjudicated memory is precisely why artists are compelled to sift through 'fragments.' REPETITIONS: The Cycle of Unresolved Trauma (2005, 2020) The assassination of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in 2005, followed by the 'Cedar Revolution,' momentarily brought the question of accountability to the fore. However, the subsequent years — marked by political assassinations
(e.g., MP Gebran Tueni, 2005; Minister Pierre Gemayel, 2006), sectarian clashes, and external interventions — demonstrated how easily the unresolved issues of the past could be re-exploited. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), established by the UN, was beset by financial difficulties and political interference, ultimately securing only one conviction (in absentia) nearly 15 years later, for a