Reactive political graffiti

Abstract

February 14, 2005, a day to remember for the Lebanese. Prime Minister (PM) Rafik Hariri was assassinated in a car explosion in Beirut. Hariri was always a popular figure but his assassination led him to symbolic status. Mass demonstrations followed, called the Cedar Revolution by the US State Department, Christians and Muslims together demanded their freedom from Syria's grip. But in disagreement, Lebanon's "largest religious group, the Shia, remain[ed] alienated". Along with the demonstration and other reactions of the people was yet another unique way to protest, this being to write graffiti on the walls of Martyrs' Square in Beirut. The overall aim of this thesis is to analyze and interpret the people's communication of worries, desires, political interests, frustrations and taboos through the study of graffiti at a particular time of history and selected place. The study is based upon a collection of 455 photographs of graffiti taken between February 24, 2005 and May 29, 2005. Twenty months later, a website was developed aiming at opening a forum which will allow graffiti­ makers to express their opinions, anonymously or not, on a virtual wall emulating the walls in Martyrs' Square. The methodology undertaken consisted in an extensive literature review related to visual expressions, followed by a brief history of graffiti and different methodological approaches to analyze graffiti. The Grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) was adopted to interpret the data as well as Content analysis (Neuman, 2000) to gather and sort the quantitative data. The social-cultural analysis and dialogic approach adopting Bakhtin's theory was used in order to interpret the data. Burke's theory of symbolic action was also applied. Most of the graffiti consisted of deep and clear messages related to the assassination and consequently to the mourning for PM Hariri. The Truth was a popular slogan created at the time, which indicated plainly the need to know who was responsible for the murder. The most important result was the one that affected positively the unity of Lebanese. The comparison between the graffiti collected on Martyrs' Square walls and the virtual graffiti confirms the relationship of peoples' reactions with respect to event and context. The place, the writer, and time are as important as the graffiti itself, as suggested in Bakhtin's theory. The tool was not flexible enough and did not encourage many individuals to participate. The data analysis on the virtual graffiti suggests a desire for unity and shows diversity and division among the Lebanese.