Lebanon’s ‘age of apology’ for Civil War atrocities: A look at Assad Shaftari and Samir Geagea

Abstract

Abstract: From 1975 to 1990, Lebanon experienced a civil war that devastated the country. Approximately 100,000 people died during the 15-year conflict, and thousands of others were left displaced, injured or missing. The end of the war did not lead to reconciliation between grieving parties, especially among the rival sectarian groups that had tormented one another. But in 2000, Lebanon entered into its own ‘age of apology’, a movement that had been widespread around the world in the 1990s but less prevalent in Lebanon until the new millennium. This article examines two of these apologies in detail, those of Assad Shaftari and Samir Geagea. Both men were prominent members of Lebanon’s Christian community and their apologies led to a considerable amount of debate and controversy. By exploring Shaftari’s and Geagea’s prewar lives as well as the public response to their apologies, this article considers some of the ways Lebanon has sought to confront the violent legacy of the Civil War in the immediate postwar period Show more