144 Between Private and Public
the public sphere in general were shaped by such ambiguity, contravening
more homogenous forms of nationhood.^55 At the same time, the weak
foundations for cross-sectarian nationalism often necessitated, and con-
tinue to necessitate, strong attachments to the nation in the form of sym-
bols and discourses that are blatantly “Lebanese”—such as cross-sectari-
anism and the Lebanese flag—but often enacted or uttered in a specific
sectarian context, medium or physical space that makes the nationalism
open to sub-national readings “between the lines.” As I have argued in
another article, this dynamic was exposed in dramatic ways during the
so-called “Independence Intifada” in 2005.^56
rguably, the dilemmas of overlapping and unresolved identities A
and nationalist imaginaries that have confronted the Lebanese in their
struggle to construct an inclusive public sphere on the ruins of the civil
war are not particular to the postwar period, but are products of Lebanon’s
specific brand of sectarian power-sharing and can be traced back to the
foundation of modern Lebanon.^5 Before the war, the situation in Lebanon
could be described as a stalemate of competing nationalisms, all of them
struggling to achieve a hegemonic position. The war transformed this
competition into violent struggle. After the war, a new public consensus
stressing coexistence, tolerance and, more implicitly, Syrian tutelage effec-
tively effaced the strident ideologies from public discourse. In a gendered
understanding of the war, the men might be to blame, but in an ideologi-
cal sense the culprits are the particularistic brands of nationalism, which
the men fought for, and by extension the people who ran the militias. In
national discourse, the particularistic ideologies became the fall guy, and
their former adherers therefore had to distance themselves publicly from
sectarianism and isolationism in order to renew their membership of the
national realm. The amnesty law in 1991 gave them legal amnesty, but
in order to achieve public absolution they had to denounce their former
attachment in public rituals of catharsis. Other groups were politically or
socially marginalized and simply sought recognition of their perspective
by remembering the war: women stressed civilian suffering; secular mid-
dle classes stressed that the war was not of their making; Christian parties
used memory of the war to come to terms with their fall from power; and
former foot soldiers blamed their leaders. Disparate parts of Lebanon’s
confused civil war sought integration of their experience in the collective