From 1975 to 1990, Lebanon experienced a long war involving various
national and international actors. The peace agreement that followed and
officially propelled the country into a "postwar" era did not address
many of the root causes of war, nor did it hold main actors accountable.
Instead, a politics of "no victor, no vanquished" was promoted, in which
the political elite agreed simply to consign the war to the past.
However, since then, Lebanon has found itself still entangled in various
forms of political violence, from car bombings and assassinations to
additional outbreaks of armed combat.
In War Is Coming, Sami Hermez argues that the country's political
leaders have enabled the continuation of violence and examines how
people live between these periods of conflict. What do everyday
conversations, practices, and experiences look like during these
moments? How do people attempt to find a measure of certainty or
stability in such times? Hermez's ethnographic study of everyday life in
Lebanon between the volatile years of 2006 and 2009 tackles these
questions and reveals how people engage in practices of recollecting
past war while anticipating future turmoil. Hermez demonstrates just how
social interactions and political relationships with the state unfold
and critically engages our understanding of memory and violence, seeing
in people's recollections living and spontaneous memories that refuse to
forget the past. With an attention to the details of everyday life, War
Is Coming shows how even a conversation over lunch, or among friends,
may turn into a discussion about both past and future unrest.
Shedding light on the impact of protracted conflict on people's everyday
experiences and the way people anticipate political violence, Hermez
highlights an urgency for alternative paths to sustaining political and
social life in Lebanon.
