From 1975 until 1990, the Lebanese fought a civil war. The country has been widely reconstructed, government and civil society institutions are in place and the economy is growing. However, the divisions between the different Lebanese parties and religions persist. In the last couple of years, there have been more or less intense violent clashes between different political groups and sects. In Lebanon, a situation of negative peace persists.
Today’s youth was born after the Lebanese civil war ended. Most of them don’t know much – if anything at all – about the civil war. They might get biased points of views told by their families. But in their schools, they don’t learn anything about the Lebanese war because it is not subject of the history lessons and nothing is written about it in the history books. Equally, on a more political level, the issue of the civil war remains a taboo. One can speak about it, but not in detail. Some former war lords are now powerful politicians and they don’t want to open up their files to the general public. Therefore, there has not been a national reconciliation strategy. There have been only a few mechanisms of transitional justice put in place, for example compensation payments for the internally displaced people.
This project aims to make the history of the Lebanese civil war an issue in the public, addressing particularly students and teachers, because we believe that working with memories – however painful they might be – has a healing process for the society and understanding the violent past is precondition for creating sustainable peace in Lebanon.
We’ve been working with public high schools all over Lebanon. The Ministry of Displaced People and the Ministry of Education support our project.
Project activities include:
Workshops for teachers and students about memory and reconciliation; conflict prevention and peace building;
Creation of peace units in high schools all over the country;
Working with the administrative level of the government on including the issue of the Lebanese civil war in high school curricula and history books;
Workshops with historians and teachers about creating a common curriculum;
Special events like the commemoration day of the Lebanese civil war (13th April) and the International Day of Peace (21 September); with film screenings, theater plays and workshops;
Production of training materials for peace builders (training book and power-point presentation);
Production of media (three documentary films about the civil war done by high school students; and two documentary films about former combatants done by a film maker);
Round-table meeting with media representatives;
Collaboration with civil society activists for conflict prevention.
