6 days ago
35 years after the Christians, the Shiites face the twilight of their domination
On Feb. 17, 1974, in Bednayel, near Baalbek, the spiritual leader of the Shiite community, Musa Sadr, no longer minced his words. 'From today onwards, we will weep no more,' he warned. In his speech, the charismatic cleric listed the problems of the Bekaa and southern Lebanon — the long-neglected Shiite-majority, mired in poverty and insecurity at a time when the community's political weight was still quite small. 'The people of our faith should no longer be treated as second-class citizens,' he said. 'And unfortunately, the state understands only the language of violence.' A month later, the Amal Movement was born. It was the first cry of a future Shiite followed was a long series of local and regional upheavals: the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the inception of Hezbollah after a...
