Lokman Mohsen Slim (; 17 July 1962 – 4 February 2021) was a Lebanese Shiite publisher, political activist and commentator, who promoted a Culture of Remembrance to cope with the many past and present conflicts of Lebanon and the whole region. Slim was known to be a prominent critic of Hezbollah but also critical of all other sectarian parties. He was found shot to death in his car in Hezbollah-dominated southern Lebanon. Many people, including Slim's sister have alleged Hezbollah to have committed the assassination, a charge that Hezbollah has denied.
Early life and career
Lokman Mohsen Slim was born in Haret Hreik, what was then a village near and is now Southern Beirut. He was the scion of an influential Lebanese-Shia family with strong ties to the Christian elites. His mother Salma Merchak, who survived him, is a Christian from Egypt. His father Mohsen Slim was a deputy (MP) in the Lebanese parliament from 1960 to 1964 and in 1977 founded the Shia-dominated party of the Union des Forces Libanaises, which demanded the disarmament of the militant Palestinian forces in Lebanon. Later in the course of the Lebanese Civil War he moved his law practice to Paris.
Lokman Slim moved to France in 1982 to study philosophy at the Paris-Sorbonne University. He returned to Beirut in 1988. Two years later, he founded Dar al Jadeed Publishing House, which publishes Arabic literature and essays of controversial content. Its publications range from books banned by the Lebanese General Security to the first Arabic translations of the writings of Muhammad Khatami, the former Iranian reformist president, which generated controversy within the Shia community in Lebanon. Several of Slim's articles, essays, and translations have been published in English, French, and Arabic newspapers and books. He lived and worked in the Southern Suburbs of Beirut, Greater Beirut, South Lebanon, and the Bekaa Valley.
Art as political activism
In 2001, Slim moved into film with the establishment of Umam Productions, which has produced several films, including Massaker co-directed by Slim and his German wife Monika Borgmann. It won the Fipresci Award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2005. In 2004, he co-founded Umam Documentation & Research (D&R), a non-profit organization based in the southern Beirut suburb of Haret Hreik, where the organization is creating an open archive of materials concerning Lebanon's social and political history. The organization organizes and facilitates exhibits at its famous “Hangar” for artists to openly address the scars of the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), which is considered taboo and taught neither at the elementary or high school levels. Umam also organizes film screenings, art exhibitions, and discussions relating to civil violence and war memory.
One of Umam's ongoing exhibits since 2008 is “Missing,” a collage of photographs depicting persons missing from the Lebanese Civil War. The exhibition is presented in conjunction with Committee of the Relatives of the Kidnapped and Missing in Lebanon, Support of the Lebanese in Detention and Exile, and the Committee of the Families of Lebanese Detainees in Syria along with hundreds of individuals related to the missing.
Civic education as driver for political change
Slim's project Hayya Bina (HB), meaning "Let’s Go", is an initiative which began during the 2005 parliamentary elections in Lebanon with the aim of promoting citizen involvement in the political process and opposing Lebanon's sectarian system. Slim himself compared the religiously based sectarian communities to “cells in which the Lebanese are jailed." Hayya Bina implements projects nationwide, working particularly in the Shiite communities of South Lebanon, the “Dahieh” of Beirut, Mount Lebanon, and the Bekaa Valley regions.
In 2008, Hayya Bina participated as a partner with the National Democratic Institute's (NDI) “Citizen Lebanon” project. In conjunction with leadership and civic participation trainings conducted by NDI, Hayya Bina spearheaded a number of public advocacy projects in Shiite areas of Lebanon. In Baalbek, Hayya Bina's field staff organized a pesticide project in order to help boost the economy of local farmers; in Shmustar, staff coordinated with residents to publicly advocate for garbage collection services to prevent communicable diseases from spreading; in Hermel, a region-wide project to clean up the Assi River. This project included environmental awareness activities, cleanup days, and formal discussions with elected officials.