Singer dragged into Mideast fray
Son says Lebanese icon backs Hezbollah
BEIRUT — Through decades of conflict, there has been one thing all Lebanese could agree on: their adoration of iconic singer Fairouz, who stood unquestioned above the fray with her anthems to Lebanon and Palestine and songs of love.
Now the 78-year-old singer has been dragged into the thick of the country’s bitter political and sectarian divisions after her son said in an interview that she loves the leader of Hezbollah, sparking an uproar among opponents of the Shiite guerrilla group.
Angry critics on Twitter and Facebook and in Lebanese newspapers have sharply said Fairouz should stay out of politics, some even accusing her of treachery, while supporters have indignantly replied that she is free to support whomever she chooses. Fairouz herself has remained silent. Throughout her career, she has never expressed her political opinions and she rarely gives interviews.
The storm has brought warnings from politicians that Lebanon’s society itself is fraying — an indication of just how prominent a national symbol Fairouz is.
“This surprising campaign is an indication that the country is heading toward destruction,” parliament speaker Nabih Berri, head of a Shiite party allied to Hezbollah, told As-Safir newspaper.
The comments by Fairouz’s son touched off the increasing divisions in the country over Hezbollah. The Syrianand Iranian-backed group gained prominence and sup- port in Lebanon and around the Arab world for its fight against Israel.
But it has long had opponents in Lebanon, particularly among the Sunni community, because of its domination over the country’s politics and its state-within-a-state status, backed by its guerrillas, who are even more powerful than the military.
The criticism increased this year when the group sent fighters to back Syrian President Bashar Assad against rebels in that country’s bloody civil war. Since openly joining the war in May, battle-hardened Hezbollah fighters have helped Syrian forces capture areas near the capital of Damascus, as well as the strategic town of Qusair near Lebanon. That has infuriated Sunnis in Lebanon and elsewhere in the region, who largely support the rebels.
In mid-December, Fairouz’s son, Ziad Rahbani, a prominent composer and playwright who openly expresses his support for Hezbollah, told a news website linked to the group that his mother loves Hezbollah chief Sheik Hassan Nasrallah “a lot.”
He added that his mother “will be angry with me as she did last time when I gave a TV interview and revealed some of her personal matters. She boycotted me.” Last year, he told the Lebanon-based, proSyrian TV station Al-Mayadeen that his mother’s points of view in politics are “not far from mine.”
Later, after the uproar began, Rahbani gave an interview to Al-Mayadeen TV, saying Nasrallah and Fairouz are Lebanon’s two most important figures during the past 60 years. He said those who criticize them are indirectly “defending Israel.”
Fairouz, who is Christian, has been an icon Lebanese of all stripes agree on, with her music touting love of the country above its divisions. That reputation was enshrined during Lebanon’s bloody civil war from 1975 to 1990, when she stayed in the country. Love for her extends across the Arab world because of her songs supporting the Palestinian cause against Israel.
But her son’s comments threatened to tarnish her with the same brush as Hezbollah in the eyes of critics.
“If you seriously love Nasrallah, do you know how many … have been lost in Syria because of the war and Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria,” Nadim Koteich, host of a news show on Lebanon’s Future TV and a sharp critic of Hezbollah, said on his show recently, addressing Fairouz.
He also pointed indirectly at assassinations of nearly a dozen anti-Syrian figures in Lebanon since 2005, which some have blamed on Hezbollah, though the group denies any role.
Pierre Abi Saab, who heads the cultural section of Lebanon’s daily al-Akhbar, told AP that Rahbani “said something that is probably true, but he had no right and had no authorization from the family to say it.” He added that Rahbani is “known for saying everything in interviews without any selfcensorship.”