Communists in Beirut (☭)…

While a number of media outlets in America have been sounding the alarm that “Marx is Back,” in many places around the world he never left. Today in Beirut, the Communist Party held a Labor Day rally to protest proposed tax increases being considered by a parliamentary committee. Though the Communist Party in Lebanon is not as strong as it once was, it remains visible and active in organizing events like today’s march, and weighing in on the crisis in Syria. In fact, the 14th Meeting of International Communist and Workers’ Parties (IMCWP) was held in Beirut in 2012 to “strengthen the struggles against escalating imperialist aggressiveness” and to fight for “peoples’ socio-economic-democratic rights and aspirations.”

While some have argued that the Communist Party in Lebanon has been suffering from a crisis of ideology and political vision, others contend that Lebanese communists have been divided along sectarian lines. Regardless, communist imagery in Beirut–from kitschy Communist pubs to Che Guevara t-shirts–is living on in the consumerist realm. In fact, a significant number of my students self-identify as Communists–though some of the politics behind this label are too complex to explain in a blog post.

Though I first became interested in the history of communism in the Middle East while studying the subject with Rashid Khalidi at Columbia University, I’ve learned more specifically about the history of communism in Lebanon since moving to Beirut. It’s a fascinating topic, and there’s still so much more I hope to learn while I’m here…