From the first moments of the ceasefire taking effect in Lebanon, at midnight on Thursday, Lebanese from the south began returning from their areas of displacement to their villages and homes, despite the destruction of the bridges linking their region to other regions.
This scene is repeated with every ceasefire in the wars that Lebanon witnessed with Israel. Over the past decades, the relationship of southerners with their land has inspired dozens of poems and songs presented by prominent Lebanese singers, which have become widely popular in the Arab world.
These musical works also indirectly and chronologically documented the history of the region and the transformations of life there since the late 1960s, and varied between popular songs and others with committed political content.
This report reviews the most prominent and widely circulated works, which were written, composed and performed by artists from various Lebanese regions, given the position of the South in the Lebanese conscience in general.
“God be with you, steadfast house in the south.”
Wadih Al-Safi, one of the most prominent Lebanese singers and the most present in the artistic scene, presented the song “God is with you, O steadfast house in the south” in 1967. It was composed by him, and its lyrics were written by Asaad Saba.
The song says: “God is with you, steadfast house in the south, oh under your roof, we have raised you. It is not too much for you to let hearts go, we will not destroy you, oh our house.”
This song is one of the first musical works that directly addressed southern Lebanon, and sang about the idea of steadfastness and attachment to the land.
As stated in her words: “My house does not want to be left empty. My house is its weapon. I will not leave it to the wolf or the camel as its key.”
The song was broadcast on Lebanese state television in 1967, the year that witnessed the outbreak of a six-day war between Israel and a number of neighboring Arab countries, from the fifth to the tenth of June, and it was the third Arab-Israeli war.
Despite the armistice agreement signed in 1949, southern Lebanon continued to witness tensions and intermittent violations, which kept the region in a state of security fragility, before the 1967 war put it once again at the heart of the repercussions of the regional conflict.
Committed songs
After the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975, a new style emerged in Lebanese song known as the “committed song.” It took on a clear political and social character, and began to reflect the positions of its writers and singers on the issues raised at the time. A number of artists who dealt with southern Lebanon in their works were associated with leftist tendencies, and their works intersected with several issues, most notably the Palestinian issue.
In this context, Ahmed Kaabour paid tribute to southern Lebanon in his album “I Call You,” released in 1976, through the song “Southerners,” whose words were written by the poet Hassan Daher: “The sun eats their flesh, but they resist the sun. From the bellies of the earth they rise, from the eyes of the sun they rise, from the face of the moon, they are southerners.”
In the same context, in 1979, the artist Marcel Khalife released a song dedicated to the people of the South, entitled “I am you guys from the South,” written by Hassan Abdullah. It said: “I am you guys from the South. I am from the South. I faced barriers on the roads. I showed my ticket and searches were in my hands and in my pockets. I felt the feeling of a stranger creeping in a strange country.” The song appeared in the film “We Are All for the Homeland,” a documentary made by Lebanese director Maroun Baghdadi (1956–1993) about southern Lebanon and its people.
In the same year, Khalifa sang poet Abbas Baydoun’s poem “Ya Ali,” dedicated to Ali Tawfiq Shuaib, one of the participants in the “Bank of America” operation that took place in downtown Beirut in 1973, following the October War between Egypt and Syria on the one hand, and Israel on the other. Four armed young men stormed the bank and took its occupants hostage, demanding a sum of money in support of what they described as the Arab war effort, in addition to the release of detainees for political reasons.
After negotiations that lasted about 26 hours, the Lebanese security forces stormed the bank, killing Shuaib and one of his companions, and arresting the others. The lyrics of the song stated: “O Ali, we are the people of the south, the barefoot of cities, and we narrate your story, on the clearest ponds and valleys,” concluding by saying: “O Ali, my heart is a southern clay and a southern drum, and I will be like you one day, on a less glorious land. My love will kill me, my sadness will kill me.”
Ahmed Kaabour returned in 1985 with a new song that directly mentions southern Lebanon and its regions, entitled “Oh, I’m Going to My Country,” the lyrics of which he wrote himself.
The lyrics of the song say: “Oh, you are going towards the Litani, come in and say hello. The people of Nabatieh have woken up and spent a while in the tents.”
The reference to the cities of Nabatieh and Khiam carries special connotations in the context of the conflict in southern Lebanon, as they have been linked over the decades to armed confrontations with Israel, and the activity of Lebanese and Palestinian factions since the 1970s.
“Expensive, by God, you south.”
In 1982, the artist Nasri Shams El Din released the song “Ghali, by God, Ya South”, written and composed by Imad Shams El Din, which emerged as one of the most famous Lebanese national songs at that stage.
The release of the song coincided with the military invasion launched by Israel in June 1982, after its ambassador in London was shot by a Palestinian faction.
Israel said that the goal of the operation was to remove PLO fighters from its northern borders, while the Palestinian factions considered their operations against Israel from Lebanon as part of the ongoing conflict.
The 1982 invasion, which reached the capital, Beirut, was an extension of the 1978 Litani ground operation, which Israel launched with the aim of removing PLO fighters, and ended with the occupation of the area south of the Litani River.
Nasri Shams El-Din spent the majority of his artistic career in the Al-Rahbna Theater, and participated in a number of works of a national nature with them, and “Ghali, by God, Ya South” was one of his most famous solo works.
The song was released on the album “Al-Tarboush”, which was Nasri Shams El-Din’s last album, before his death in 1983.
“You are lost, my love, you are the soil of the South.”
The song “Bracelet of the Bride”, sung by Fairouz in 1982, written by Joseph Harb and composed by Philemon Wehbe, is one of the most prominent Lebanese patriotic songs that directly mentioned the South in the wake of the Israeli invasion. Her words stated: “The bride’s bracelet is made of gold, and you are made of hearts, oh dust of the South.”
The song evokes elements of the southern landscape, such as the cultivation of olives and ears of corn, the sea castle of Tyre, and the rock of Jabal Amel. Two passages stand out in the text that express the continuity of the connection to the land, despite the succession of wars and transformations, as it says: “And wars will start, and wars will end, and you will remain astray, my beloved, O dust of the South,” and “As soon as peoples come and peoples go away, they will all go away, and the South will remain.”
Previously, in 1977, Fayrouz sang the song “O Flower of the South” in the play “Petra.” Her words came: “Oh flower of the south, oh bird of crying, oh little one, forgive me,” before concluding by saying: “I will see you for an hour, it will be worth the whole world, oh flower of the south.”
However, some opinions indicate that the song may be related to the events of the play itself, which takes place in the city of Petra in southern Jordan, and not necessarily in southern Lebanon.
Fairouz also sang a song entitled “The Lebanese National Resistance” in a live recording in 2000, during the Beiteddine Festivals, and it is one of the works written by her late son Ziad Rahbani.
The song was in Ziad Rahbani’s well-known style, based on harsh language and direct criticism. Ziad wrote in its text: “They finished the songs softly and sang in the south. They finished the poems here and sang in the south. Neither the witnesses decreased nor the witnesses increased, and if he stands in the south, he stands with his children.”
He continues in another clip: “They broke the podiums here and are attacking the south. Those who are speaking today are different from those who died. The one who is proud of the whole earth is always the same. This is not a song, this is just a greeting.”
“The Sun of Truth Has Gone” and “My Loved Ones”
Julia Boutros emerged on the Lebanese singing scene in 1985 with a song that quickly gained symbolic status, and many Lebanese began to repeat it during times of crisis.
Boutros was seventeen years old when she performed the song “Ghabet Shams al-Haqq,” whose lyrics were written by the poet Nabil Abu Abdo, and composed by her brother Ziad Boutros, despite his young age.
The lyrics of the song stated: “The sun of truth set and the dawn became sunset, and the breast of the East split, and the paths became blocked. We refuse, we die. Tell us we will stay, your land, the homes, and the people who are miserable. Here is ours, oh south, oh my love, oh south.”
Julia Boutros said in one of her concerts that the song was written after an operation carried out by the Israeli army in March 1985 on the town of Zararia in southern Lebanon, which resulted in dozens of deaths and injuries, according to Lebanese and international sources.
After the 34-day July 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, Boutros returned with a new song inspired by a letter that Hezbollah’s Secretary General at the time, Hassan Nasrallah, had handwritten to the party’s fighters during the war.
The poet Ghassan Matar wrote the letter poetically, and Ziad Boutros composed it, and it was titled “My Beloved Ones.” Her words stated: “I listened to your message, and it contains pride and faith. You are, as you said, men of God in the field. You are a true promise, and you are our coming victory, and you are from the mountains of the sun, powerful against the powerful… my beloved.”
During the past twenty years, Lebanon has witnessed broad political and social transformations, and public opinion was divided between supporters and opponents of the feasibility of any new wars, as well as regarding the role of Hezbollah, which was founded in the early 1980s with Iranian support, and was viewed by its supporters as a resistance movement during the period of the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon in 1982.
On the other hand, the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom, and Japan, along with a number of other Western countries and Gulf states, classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. The issue of his weapons and his role as a resistance is still the subject of widespread internal debate in Lebanon, in light of his participation in political life and enjoyment of parliamentary representation.
