2 - Neighborhood Islamism

Summary

Chapter 2 zooms in on the Popular Resistance, one of the militant Islamist factions which would merge within Tawhid upon its creation in 1982 and was disproportionately strong in one neighbourhood of Tripoli only, Bab al-Tebbaneh. It explains how this originally Marxist group embraced Islamism instrumentally in 1980. This was because its leader, who also acted as the neighbourhood strongman or informal local leader, sensed that this ideology would fulfill strategic functions to his district in a new security environment, one especially marked by Syria’s 1976 military intervention in Lebanon and occupation of Tripoli. In this increasingly repressive context, Islamist ideology not only allowed the Popular Resistance to continue mobilizing Bab al-Tebbaneh’s residents and to keep their local solidarities alive; it also enabled the faction to ally across space and class with resource-rich ideological actors and to enlist the support of militant Islamist militias in the local feud which opposed the inhabitants of the neighborhood to the Alawi and pro-Assad nearby district of Jabal Mohsen. After the Popular Resistance eventually merged within Tawhid in 1982, it would drag the movement into its neighborhood rivalry unrelated to ideology, which affected its behavior.