Autour des morts de guerre

While the war still rages in Syria and societies of the southern shore of the Mediterranean hesitate between open protest and fear of state violence, it is important to frame the place of the war dead in these countries of the Near and Middle East, where they seem so intertwined with the political culture. Each time, here as elsewhere, whether at the occasion of political assassinations, civil war massacres or on the battlefield, the war dead are invested with signification in order to weaken their destructive potential. That is why they are so important to study to understand these societies because they inform us about the fabric of social cohesion, its dynamics as well as its tensions, especially during the process of construction of memory, of which they are the object. Many of these deaths are civilians, all are called "martyrs." The ubiquity of this figure loads the war dead with religious sacredness which links them to symbolic universes fed by religious imaginaries, here mainly Sunni but also Shi'a or Christian. It is important to look closely to understand the historical depth of these structures and their intense interrelationship with the social and political processes underway.