Imagery intifada

  This March 14 will be the fifth anniversary of the massive gathering that took place one month after the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. And while the politics of the event continue to divide the Lebanese, there is a less-publicized aspect of the popular demonstrations of 2005 that merits retrospective consideration: their branding by advertisers and activists. The visual success of the independence intifada was its most enduring feature. It highlighted an instinctive understanding by the organizers of how politics and imagery could be combined to advance a political agenda, and how this required capturing the imagination of markets in Lebanon and worldwide. Above all was the international media market – which permitted demonstrators to access foreign audiences – but also the market of association, since the imagery pushed people inside Lebanon and out to mentally associate what was happening with similar efforts that had taken