The openMovements series invites leading social scientists to share their research results and perspectives on contemporary social struggles.
Copyright Dar al Mussawir.“You’re studying fiction!” This reaction dates back to 2012, when I first started my research exploring anti-sectarian mobilizations in post-war Lebanon. It exemplifies the extent to which these grassroots efforts have gone unnoticed. They were largely perceived as marginal and doomed to failure in a context of political instability and regional turmoil. Yet, three years later, in August 2015, fiction became ‘reality’. These unheard voices have started making headlines in Lebanese mainstream media.
On August 29, over 70,000 people gathered in Beirut’s iconic Martyrs’ square in an unprecedented non-partisan civic mobilization, against a corrupt ruling class and a dysfunctional sectarian system. With two words,“you stink!” the protesters expressed the sources of their resentment; the uncollected piles of rotting garbage in the streets and the numerous endemic problems of an equally “rotten system”.
