THE SECULAR SAINT: ICONOGRAPHY AND IDEOLOGY IN THE CULT OF BASHIR JUMAYIL Sune Haugbolle On 23 August 1981, leader of the Lebanese Forces Bashir Jumayil (BJ) related the following in an interview with the Lebanese French-language daily L’Orient le-Jour (LOLJ): LOLJ: Do you think about death? BJ: No. LOLJ: Fear of death? BJ: Perhaps the war has allowed us to overcome this idea. LOLJ: So, you are not afraid of dying? BJ: Well yes, I am not a superhuman. Whether or not Bashir Jumayil had read Nietzsche and knew of his concept of the Übermensch—as well as its troubling adaptation by the Nazis—we do not know. In any case, his use of superhuman (surhumain) is a striking invocation of some of the qualities bestowed on him by his supporters even while he was still alive. Often portrayed in army fatigue with a steely gaze poised over crossed arms, ‘Bashir’, as he is simply known in Lebanon, presents a picture of determination on the posters, banners, key-rings, t-shirts and stickers that can be observed in East Beirut and other parts of Lebanon. Other representations conflate his face with symbols of Maronite Catholicism in order to depict his crucial role for the Lebanese Maronite community. Moreover, videos of his speeches can be downloaded from the Internet, and DVD and CD-ROM compilations of images and videos circulate among his supporters. Like many other dead leaders in the Mid- dle East—from religious leaders such as Ayatollah Khomeini and Musa al- Sadr to heads of state like Gamal Abdel Nasser—he has been turned into an icon, a stylized emblem with considerable aura and power appropriated for a number of purposes and invested with various meanings that touch on cultural registers ranging from political history to religious and commu- nitarian signification. These meanings are reified and redefined through social practices of emulation, iconization and commemoration, which draw heavily on religious symbolism. Hiding behind such ‘secular icons’1— 1 In the 20th century, the original meaning of icon as an image preserving the divine has been gradually secularized to mean any “representations that inspire some degree of 191-212_Bandak_Bille_F10.indd 191 12/10/2012 6:02:44 PM