An Analysis of the Nature of Alteration in the Literature of Political Activists of Hezbollah in Lebanon

The quantitative lexical analysis of the 1985 manifesto published by Hezbollah movement in Lebanon shows the dominance of religious and Shi’i Islamic aspects of the movement in the form of words such as ‘Islam’, ‘God’, ‘the oppressed people’, ‘martyrdom’, ‘the nation’, ‘Wali Faqih’ (the authoritative jurist), ‘Waiting’, ‘the global Arrogance’, and ‘anti-colonialism’. Applying the same approach in analyzing the 2009 manifesto of this movement shows a reduction of in the religious and Shi’i symbolism and, in contrast, an increase in general and common concepts in international political literature such as ‘Lebanon’, ‘national and nationalism’, ‘the government’, ‘citizen’, ‘Arabic’ and ‘human’. Some maintain that this reveals an essential change in the literature of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement. This article uses the methods of content analysis and quantitative lexical investigation to study the nature of that change. The findings of the study show that the aforementioned literary revolution does not necessarily mean an ideological and doctrinal change in the resistance movement. The movement’s reemphasis on Wilaya Faqih, Islam, nation, and combating the hegemony regime all represent the preservation of faithful and Invisible-centered approach in guiding the political conducts and Hezbollah’s no ideological revolution and merely a change in its literature and, sometimes, an alteration in its political insight – not a doctrinal revolution – considering the existing social conditions and backgrounds.