Lebanese Graffiti

(for more Artistic lebanese Graffiti, you can also link to the new posts Bombing Beirut and Lebanese graffiti 02 of the new tags that were drawn in 2008 after this post was written.)

Nearly all of the graffiti in Lebanon over the past years were either 1. political words & sentences or 2. signage for shops or places. However, last week I was driving to Beirut and I have spotted a new graffiti that did not have either a political connotation to any political party or it was a signage for a shop. It is a pure social graffiti done by young Lebanese groups to express their feelings about Beirut.

In this post I have placed at the beginning pictures of the new graffiti and then at the end the political and signage graffiti. The political and signage graffiti are only sprayed Arabic words without any artistic or design feel in them. Individuals who work or belong to a political party do most of the political graffiti. Hence they are not graffiti artists. As for the signage graffiti, they are sprayed written by shop owners. On the contrary, the new graffiti are done by young graffiti artists who do not belong to any political party or want to advertise their shops.

When I was still in The Netherlands, I was impressed by the beauty and amount of graffiti there. Especially while traveling by train where all the walls around the tracks are full of graffiti. And now whenever I travel to a new country or city, most of the pictures that I take will be graffiti from these places. When I came back to Lebanon after I finishing my studies at KABK, I noticed that in Lebanon we do not have any artistic graffiti. All the graffiti that you see are simple spray Arabic, English or French words.

I thought how come in a third world country like Lebanon, where plenty of empty walls and destroyed buildings from the war are present, there are no social artistic graffiti? Why aren’t the Lebanese people expressing their anger, ideas and feelings on the dirty walls? Why there is only political ugly graffiti? Why there are only names of political leaders or political parties sprayed on the walls?

To answer these questions we need to go deep in the sociology of the Lebanese people. The concept of how every political leader controls an area in Lebanon. How the Lebanese people make themselves belong to political parties as if it is their only way of living in Lebanon. The different sects and how the politics are directly linked to religion. Etc…

When I saw the new social artistic graffiti, I was so excited and glad that some of the new young Lebanese generation are looking at life in Lebanon in a different perspective. To make graffiti adhere to our social lives and against bad politics instead of advertise sectarian politics. To make graffiti about Lebanese people and not about the political messages of our corrupt politicians.

Graffiti can be read as sociological explanation for a nation. When I see these new graffiti I am more optimistic that some of the Lebanese people are thinking about their own personal social lives before the political issues. We need this in Lebanon. Lebanese people should wake up and understand that the politicians should do what the Lebanese people need and not visa versa. Most of the Lebanese people now follow a political party and live their lives accordingly. They do what they are asked to do without even asking or thinking about what they are saying or doing.

Back to the graffiti, I noticed that the group/s or the individual/s who did this graffiti are (Fish, Siska and Bug RGB). These are the signatures that I found on the wall beside or within the graffiti. Well I do not know whom these names belong to, but I would be very interested to meet the new Lebanese graffitists whom I consider as pioneers for the coming graffiti in Lebanon. If you read my post please add your own ideas and opinions about the graffiti done.

p.s: you can also have a look on other Arabic Graffiti at: 1.BOKSMATI GRAPHIX & 2.AEROSOLARABIC.

Here are few pictures of the political and signage graffiti that i have mentioned before.

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