UMAM Documentation and Research (UMAM D&R) is a nonprofit cultural organization founded in 2004 by Lokman Slim and Monika Borgmann. It is located in Haret Hreik, a town part of the Dahieh Southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, that was heavily bombed during the 2006 Lebanon War. UMAM D&R works towards raising awareness of civil violence and war memories in Lebanon.
History
The idea for UMAM Documentation and Research, grew out of concern, first discussed among a small group in 2000, about how Lebanon's postwar political culture had failed to reckon with its own history. The organization was formally founded in Beirut in 2004 by the political activist and publisher Lokman Slim and his wife, the German documentary filmmaker Monika Borgmann, and received official recognition as a non-governmental organization from Lebanon's Ministry of Interior and Municipalities in 2005.
UMAM is based in Haret Hreik, a town within Beirut's southern Dahieh suburb that was heavily bombed during the 2006 Lebanon War.Its adjoining cultural venue, known as the Hangar - a converted former fruit and vegetable warehouse, opened in 2005 and hosted art art exhibitions, film screenings, round-table discussions, and public lectures; The hangar sustained light damage during the 2006 war and was subsequently refurbished.
Activities and collection
Umam's stated mission centers on the belief that confronting Lebanon's violent past, particularly the 1975-199- Civil War is essential to preventing renewed conflict, and that the common political strategy of "closing the files" on the past violence has failed. The organization position itself as a platform for public debate and truth seeking rather than an adjudicator of blame.
To that end, Umam has assembled, what is described as a "citizen archive" of materials documenting Lebanese history from 1840 to the present, including books, periodicals, political propaganda, private business records, naos, academic research transcribed speeches, street signage and graffiti, oral testimonies, and victims of the civil war, and photographs and names of people who went missing during the conflict. The collection also includes reels of films and other "gray" previously uncatalogued material. Since 2017 UMAM has expanded its documentation work to cover the lives of refugees in Lebanon, drawing on local media coverage to track hate speech bias, and public attitudes toward Syrian and Palestinian refugees.
UMAM is a member of the International Coalition of sites of Conscience, a global network of historic sites and memory initiatives engaged in public dialogue about human rights and social justice.
Documentation and Archive
UMAM handles archival documents related to Lebanon from 1840 till today and has assembled a vast collection that ranges from materials such as books, newspapers, leaflets, posters, videos and magazines, to personal and official documents, narratives, interviews, and various types of “gray” or uncategorized but related information, in order to document Lebanon's recent social and cultural history. Umam has initiated several projects and events in order to promote their collection.
The Hangar
The Hangar in 2018
The hangar is a former warehouse for fruits and vegetable, adjacent to the villa housing Umam D&R. It opened in 2005 as a cultural venue for art exhibitions and films. It suffered of light damage during the 2006 war and was refurbished.
The hangar featured events with numerous artists including Marwa Arsanios, Houssam Boukeili, Gregory Buchakjian, Sophie Calle & Walid Raad, Omar Fakhoury, Sirine Fattouh, Gilbert Hage, Nathalie Harb, Maxime Hourani, Hatem Imam, Lady Lena Kelekian, Jeroen Kramer, Ilaria Lupo, Noel Nasr, Cynthia Nohra, Estefania Penafiel Loaiza, Amal Saade, Stephanie Saade, Walid Sadek, Roy Samaha, Nada Sehnaoui, Siska, Souheil Sleiman, Alfred Tarazi, Karine Wehbe and Raed Yassin.
Assassination of Lokman Slim
Slim, an outspoken critic of Hezbollah from within Lebanon's Shia community, was abducted in February 2021 after visiting friends in southern Lebanon and was later found shot dead in his car. He had received death threats at his home in Haret Hreik over a year earlier, after publicly stating in a January 2021 television interview that Hezbollah, along with Syria and Russia, bore responsibility for the ammonium nitrate stockpile that caused the August 2020 Beirut port explosion.
Slim's assassination has widely been attributed to Hezbollah, though no one has been charged and the investigation by Lebanese authorities has stalled. A year after the killing Borgmann told Al Jazeera that the investigation remained open but that no suspect had been identified or arrested. Mohanad Hage Ali, a research fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said at the time that Lebanon's political establishment, including Hezbollah would likely let the case b forgotten rather than pursued.
References
↑"Umam D&R". Insight on Conflict. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 20 January 2012.
