From Karbala to July... When Memory Becomes a Message
Sheikh Hassan Badawi – Religious Scholar and Professor at the Hawza Seminary

Memory does not always begin with a book; sometimes, a story told within the family, a photograph, or the testimony of someone who lived through the war may be enough. As the years pass and new generations grow further removed from the events, a question emerges: How does an ideology that emerged during a time of conflict reach a generation that did not live through the experience?

Sheikh Hassan Badawi explains that Hezbollah’s ideology and the resistance ideology developed within a historical context linked to the Israeli occupation of Lebanon and the 1982 invasion, alongside the political and social transformations in Lebanon and the region. This ideology brought together religious and doctrinal dimensions with political, social, and field dimensions, grounded in concepts of dignity, rejection of occupation, steadfastness, sacrifice, and the liberation of land, with the concept of Wilayat al-Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) as one of its foundations.

However, resistance, according to this perspective, was not solely military; it was also connected to social and institutional work, from education, healthcare, and welfare to assisting families and strengthening steadfastness, making the values of solidarity, mutual support, and sacrifice part of the experience.

At the heart of this vision stands Karbala and the uprising of Imam Hussein, with the values it embodies of rejecting injustice, holding on to dignity, steadfastness, and sacrifice. Through the family, society, institutions, religious discourse, and the media, these values are passed from one generation to another and become part of memory and consciousness.

Then came the July 2006 War, giving these ideas a tangible experience. Over 33 days, people experienced displacement, destruction, anxiety, steadfastness, and return, turning the war into a collective experience that left an imprint on political and social memory. Images of destruction, testimonies from residents, speeches, and media coverage remained as witnesses to that period and, over time, became symbols associated with steadfastness, deterrence, and strategic balance.

Here, the media emerged as more than merely a transmitter of events; it preserved the images, recordings, and testimonies that documented the details of the war, transforming the field experience into material that later generations could return to in order to understand it and its context.

However, the new generation receives information differently, through phones, videos, photographs, maps, and interactive platforms. Therefore, transmitting history is not limited to the question of “What happened?” but also includes “Why did it happen?” and how people experienced the events and how memory was shaped around them.

With the multiplicity of narratives surrounding Hezbollah and the July War, documents, sources, and testimonies become essential for building an archive that helps audiences access, compare, and understand information within its context.

From here, digital media can become a bridge between the past and the new generation through an archive that brings together photographs, recordings, documents, testimonies, maps, and a timeline, transforming history from static material into an experience that can be explored and interacted with.

The new generation may not experience the July War as those who came before them did, but they can see it in photographs, hear it through testimonies, read it in documents, and understand its circumstances and context.

Thus, memory does not remain preserved in the past; instead, it becomes a story told anew, moving from a generation that lived through the event to a generation searching for its meaning, and from an old photograph to a digital screen that carries it into the future.

The History of 2006