Projects documenting the memory of the Lebanese Civil War

The links to relevant groups, projects, and research are listed in alphabetical order of the organization

ACT for the Disappeared

ACT for the Disappeared is a Lebanese human rights organization seeking to bring answers to the thousands of families of the missing and forcibly disappeared in their demand to know the fate and whereabouts of their loved ones and to initiate a sustainable peace-building reconciliation process in Lebanon.

Projects that document histories of the war:

• Memory Map

• Fushat Amal

• Waynon 

• Empty Chairs, Waiting Families (as a collaboration between the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), ACT for the Disappeared, and Artichoke Studio)

They also conduct ongoing work investigating the fate of the missing and protection of grave sites. Their YouTube channel displays some of their work.

AUB library guide

This guide from the American University of Beirut’s library links to numerous books, films, artworks, projects, and resources related to the Lebanese Civil War.

CEMAM’s research and publications

CEMAM (Centre d'Études pour le Monde Arabe Moderne) is a research center at the University of Saint Joseph (USJ) that builds knowledge about social change from the analysis of the movement of ideas in the Arab Middle East. Several of the center’s projects and conferences focus on the memories of the civil war such as the international event: Colloque international: La guerre du Liban revisitée.

Dar el Mussawir projects

Dar el Mussawir is a photography association in Lebanon and the Middle East that offers photography training programs, equipment, exhibitions, and lectures. Dar el Mussawir have worked with the NGO ZAKIRA – the Image Festival Association on an exhibition “From Memory to Memory” "من ذاكرة للذاكرة" to honor the photographers and journalists that documented daily life during the war.

Fighters for Peace

Fighters for Peace is a non profit that engages the youth and civil society activists in conversations about peace building and reconciliation. It is centered on ex-combatants sharing their stories and experiences. The website includes testimonies, activities to engage in conversations, and some resources.

Forum ZFD

Forum Ziviler Friedensdienst or Forum ZFD works with peace consultants and advisers in Germany and ten other countries in Europe, the Middle East and South-East Asia.

They have 2 relevant projects in Lebanon (on which they collaborated with the Lebanese Association for History):

•  Sites of Commemoration (2016 - 2017)

•  The Memory of War (2012 - ongoing)

• Oral History and the Lebanese Civil War

ICTJ projects

The  the International Center for Transitional Justice has a number of projects related to the civil war in Lebanon.

• “The war as I see it” is a contest in which ICTJ asked Lebanese youth to use their cameras to explore their understanding of the war.

• Lebanon: Addressing a Legacy of Conflict is a multi-year project aimed at sparking debate on how to break the cycle of political violence in Lebanon and bring about accountability, the rule of law, and sustainable peace. It produced four publications and multiple events on the wars of Lebanon, seeking greater clarity on: What happened? How has the government responded? How are people affected? And what does Lebanese civil society think should be done?

• One of the publications: Living with the Shadows of the Past: The Impact of Disappearance on Wives of the Missing in Lebanon

Institut Francais du Proche Orient’s seminar

In 2020, the IFPO organized a Research seminar: Current research on Lebanon in war(s) to offer a space for exchange and reflection between researchers from different disciplines working on the war period or the war itself, as well as its legacies over time.

KAFA’s project on women’s memories

KAFA (enough) Violence & Exploitation is a Lebanese civil, non-governmental, non-profit, feminist, and secular organization that focuses its work on gender-based violence. In 2021, the organization adopted an intergenerational and intersectional approach to work on the memory of the Lebanese civil war from a gender perspective aiming at:

• Challenging the mainstream narrative of the civil war, while highlighting women’s experiences and roles;

• Bridging the gaps between different generations of women, especially the war generation who were oppressed by the amnesty law;

• Contributing in the Lebanese history by archiving women’s experiences through collecting their testimonies and documenting them;

• Highlighting the lack of gender justice in the Lebanese history books through conducting a research in collaboration with Lebanese Association for History

 As part of the project, a play entitled “Left to tell "بقي حدا يخبر" was developed with the participating women. It reenacts women’s stories during the war and its recording and is meant to be used as a tool to initiate conversation on the subject with other groups of women.

The Lebanese Association for History

The Lebanese Association for History has many projects tackling the civil war. They organize training and curricula for history teachers to engage students in learning about their country's history including the sensitive history of conflicts and wars.

Some relevant examples: 

• a panel discussion on the Oral History and the Memory of the Civil War in Lebanon as part of the UNDP Lebanon’s event on the commemoration of the war during the opening of “Nazra” photo exhibition in Beit Beirut

• Collaboration with ForumZFD for artistic exploration of the memories of civil war

• “Sites of Commemoration in Lebanon: Towards a better understanding of the past” (with Forum ZFD)

• Presentations on approaches to “Teaching and learning the civil war”.

UMAM Documentation & Research

UMAM Documentation & Research manages several documentation and memory projects and websites that archive testimonies and stories. “Diwan Al Zakira Al Loubnaniye” (Memory at Work) is an online database focused on Lebanon’s civil wars and the memories they stir.

• Directory of UMAM D & R (Books, periodicals, et al.)

• MENA Prison Forum

• Memory At Work (Diwan Al Zakira Al Loubnaniye)

Forum for Memory & Future

Forum for Memory & Future (مُنتدَى الذَّاكِرَة وَالْغَد) is an inclusive forum that seeks to promote ways of coming to terms with the past, including its violent conflicts and the conflicting memories that arose as a result, with a view to dealing with these conflicts and memories in light of their impact on the present and future.

The Missing of Lebanon

The Missing of Lebanon is a Facebook community managed by photographer Dalia Khamissy who has been working on telling the stories of the families of the victims of enforced disappearance and the missing of Lebanon since 2010.

Nada Sahnaoui’s artworks

Nada Sahnaoui is a visual artist who works on installations that tackle war, personal memories, public amnesia, and the writing of history. Below are some of her artworks that tackles issues of the Lebanese civil war.

• Waynon

• Lebanese War Statistics

• War Games

Right to Know

Right to Know (حقنا نعرف) is a project by the committee of the families of the kidnapped and disappeared in Lebanon (لجنة أهالي المخطوفين والمفقودين في لبنان). The families along with other citizens and some media and civil society organizations work on commemorating the war. They organized the campaign “Remember to Not Repeat” ("تنذكر تَـ ما تنعاد") in 2000 and called for April 13 to be a national day for memory. They share all their activities on the Facebook page Right to Know.

Salam w Kalam: Our Stories in War and About It

The UNDP called for stories about war that reflect a personal experience in a shelter, hiding from shelling at home, or of fleeing. They selected some stories of the memory of the Lebanese civil war or of the Syrian war and published them whithin the peacebuilding project Salam w Kalam (Peace and Talking).

Signs of Conflict

Signs of Conflict is an archive of posters that were produced by the various warring factions, political parties and movements during Lebanon's civil war. The website also links to exhibits centered around certain themes like Martyrdom, Belonging and others, as well as a chronology of the war as told through posters.

Les Archive de l’Orient-Express

Les Archives de l’Orient-Express is a site that displays 27 issues published in the margin of L’Orient-Le Jour between Novemnber 1995 and February 1998.