October 12, 2024
By Nasser Kandil
Hezbollah’s Media Relations Officer, Haj Mohammad Afif, addressed the public from the southern suburbs for the second time, discussing issues of media, politics, and the battlefield while sending out messages to both internal and external audiences. What stood out in his appearance was a response to those betting on Hezbollah’s downfall, declaring that while Hezbollah is indeed an organisation, it is a powerful, large, and cohesive one. Hezbollah is a resolute, experienced, professional, and capable resistance that does not waver under pressure. But beyond all this, Hezbollah is an umma, and an umma cannot be defeated or dismantled.
This term, “umma”, is a strikingly new concept in the context of Hezbollah. It implies that the resistance, symbolised by Hezbollah in the era of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has grown far beyond the ranks of its organisation and the committed members of its resistance structure. It has certainly expanded beyond the popular base of support, which is traditionally tied to a single sect governed by the party’s ideological character. Over the years following the liberation of southern Lebanon, especially after the 2006 July War, Hezbollah has transformed. Once viewed as an insular and rigid ideological party, difficult for outsiders to join, it has now become something many are drawn to. This includes non-Shia Muslims, Christians, secularists, secular Shia, nationalists, leftists, and advocates of freedom and liberation worldwide. In their homes, the image of Sayyed Nasrallah has found a place alongside those of Gamal Abdel Nasser and Che Guevara.
The assassination of Sayyed Nasrallah, orchestrated by a U.S.-Israeli decision, was an attempt to preempt his emergence as a leader whose popularity could not be contained – a leader of an Arab liberation movement transcending sects, doctrines, states, and ideologies. He was poised to fill the vacuum in global liberation movements after the war’s end. But the assassination that sought to prevent his rise only turned him into a martyr, an icon, and a saint. His words, recordings, speeches, and images will spread, and his name will soar.
The idea of the Umma of Hezbollah once seemed like a mere wish or dream. Perhaps it is Sayyed Nasrallah’s martyrdom that has turned this nation into a living reality. People may feel that with each martyrdom, they lose something personal, but in truth, the entire world – particularly the Arab and Islamic worlds – has gained the Umma of Freedom, Liberation, and Resistance. This nation, now simply known as the Umma of Hezbollah, is indeed the Umma of Nasrallah.
