No One Can Deny that it Happened: An Interview With Fatima Joumaa
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Kfarkela, June 2024
On a quiet afternoon in her little home office in Beirut’s southern suburb, I spent a few hours with Fatima Jumaa, a photographer and filmmaker dedicated to capturing the ramifications of the war and funerals of martyrs fallen on the southern Lebanese front during the al-Aqsa Flood. We got to know each other through her work, exchanging our reflections and frustrations, giggling and pausing in silence, comparing our experiences in our shared recent history, getting goosebumps and holding back our tears at times. For this 24-year-old photographer, her practice is a tool crafted and employed for the service of her own community, rather than being a vehicle of escape from it. The delicacy and care with which she looks into the lens offers a refreshing relationship with both the machine and what it captures.
Our corner of the world has been exhaustively documented to the point of oversaturation, by photographers, filmmakers, journalists, and researchers. Fatima’s work stands apart. Her camera captures from within, looking inward and staying close to home. She is neither the first nor the last photographer from the South; she belongs to a long tradition of militant Arab photographers who seized technology to assume their role in their people’s resistance against occupation, turning the camera into a weapon. In Lebanon specifically, organized resistance dates back to the Ottoman era, and the early constituents of the Lebanese state stood in defiance against zionist colonial expansion. What makes Fatima’s work remarkable is its intimacy, captured so closely yet respectfully: these are images not taken for display, but as an invitation to witness. The best propaganda, after all, is that which awakens the visceral and undefeatable spirit of merciless viciousness towards the enemy and warm tenderness towards the friend, reserved only for those whose very existence is only guaranteed through unwavering defiance. And nothing captures this spirit so vividly like a community coming together to mourn and celebrate their loved ones before sending them off into immortality, while simultaneously promising the enemy vengeance and pain.
This interview was conducted in July of this year, roughly two months prior to Israel’s brutal escalation of its war on Lebanon and the destruction of entire villages in the South; the assassination of Secretary-General of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah; and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from the South, Beqaa, Dahye, and the Palestinian camps. Today, public rituals of mourning and celebration of martyrs are a rare sight and a risky endeavor. The conversation and photographs presented below encapsulate a year of defiance and sacrifice, often overshadowed by mainstream narratives and Israel’s strategy of erasure that align resistance with a single ideology.
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Blida, May 2024
Let’s start with the most obvious question: why photograph a war? Especially since you don’t treat the image as photojournalism or news.
I don’t see myself as existing on the margins of this war, sitting in the corner, waiting for something to happen so that I may go photograph it; I am a constant part of this war, which did not begin on the seventh of October 2023. I have an accumulative political awareness that drives forth my conviction that the instrument I hold in my hands is a means to create an image of myself, or to narrate my own story. Even the notions of “resistance” and “occupation” are, to me, simple matters of right. What am I entitled to? I have the right to visit Teta, to go to my village… And to tell my story in all of its detail. And no one has the right to tell it in my stead. We never watch ourselves. We watch all kinds of television, but we never watch ourselves, as a community from the south – the heart of the war.
So the question here isn’t “why do I photograph?” but “why wouldn’t I photograph?” When you ask yourself why you’re not somewhere, your presence there becomes a given. I found myself at funerals, and found the camera to be a tool for self-expression and for documenting my presence there. I consider these images to be visual records of our society as a whole, and of all it has endured throughout the war.
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Blida, March 2024
When did your photos become centered around burial ceremonies and funerals? Tell us what motivated your lens to turn in that direction.
We have a direct relationship with the current war; we are directly living its consequences. The funeral as ceremony is not something that came about during this war. A funeral – particularly for the resistance – is an opportunity for mobilization, and to remind a community of itself, even when the martyr is not someone well-known, and even when we have no relationship with him. My presence at a funeral is a way of offering condolences, of saying “I am with you.” In the end, the dead are dead; we are the ones who need ceremony.
I could not permit myself to remain a mere spectator of the war, especially since visual media traps the portion of the southern Lebanese community that supports Hezbollah within one of two rigid frameworks. The first is a framework of sacrality that makes heroes out of the protagonists of these events – heroes that do not cry, complain, or hurt. This sanctification does not allow people outside of this environment (or anything resembling it, such as Palestine) to accept or understand it at all. The second is a framework of stereotyping this community; stereotyping media do not visually portray or acknowledge this community beyond the scope of a breaking news event, thereby limiting the existence of a whole community to breaking news – after which the community visually disappears.
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Blida, March 2024
So, in my view, funeral ceremonies present a new perspective of this community, straight from the very heart of reality. You may see a martyr’s mother crying over her deceased and mourning him, then suddenly, in the next second, she’d cease crying and declare, at the top of her lungs: “I offer myself to the land and to the resistance.”
The funeral is one of the most honest moments. It is a moment of death and burial, and one cannot but be themselves in moments like this. The martyr’s mother, wife, or daughter does not conform to simply saying what is required of her; rather, she expresses all of her beliefs in this moment of honesty and intimacy.
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Blida, March 2024
How do people treat you and your camera? Particularly in terms of the element of intimacy, which the camera violates, on the one hand, and in terms of the security concerns over the nature of being in a place that is in the line of fire, on the other.
I see a moment of truth in death, as I mentioned. People are spontaneous in front of the camera most of the time, if they see it as a tool for addressing the world. A woman who wants to threaten Israel does so through the camera; a woman who wants to address the people does so through the camera… My relationship with these people developed gradually. When I first started photographing the funeral ceremonies, I would do so from afar, and timidly, making sure to keep a fair distance between myself and the deceased’s family and attendees. But one funeral after another, I decided that I would spend more time with the women. Because a man’s camera does not enter these spaces, I considered it a privilege that I was able to be curious about this community – particularly its female aspect. So I let myself get closer.
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Some women, as soon as they see the camera, immediately address the lens; they have speeches and prayers prepared for delivery, and it is as if they are speaking to the outside world through my machine.
Others will cautiously ask first, “which channel?” before I let them know that I am filming for a personal project and not for a particular channel. In the South, we are often next to the event or the bombed house or the site where the deceased was martyred. So they would start to threaten and intimidate the enemy, while the rubble of a house or the sound of airstrikes and explosions are in the background – a complete war scene. A woman would say, for instance: “this destruction here makes us stronger in the face of Israel. We hope this message reaches far and wide, to the young and old. We tell Israel: meet us on the battlefield and show us your strength. We have men. You fight us with aircrafts.”
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Blida, March 2024
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Blida, March 2024
This is in the southern villages. What about Beirut?
Funerals in Beirut usually take place at Rawdat al-Shahideen in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Every time I miss a funeral, the women who organize them ask me, “you’re coming up short! Where were you last week?” And though each funeral is for a different person, it builds on the one that came before it. Funerals create a new community of people who attend them, even after they’ve just buried their own in a prior funeral. I see the woman I photographed at the funeral last week again, and I talk to her, and she asks me for photos. Some faces become familiar to you, and yours to them.
II have not encountered anyone who has asked me not to take photos. At the same time, I know very well when to put my camera down and stop photographing.
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Houla, March 2024
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Blida, March 2024
So you attend the funeral, but with a camera – unlike journalists and photographers who attend just to take photos.
Exactly. And my camera is not neutral. I am photographing my family, and my people, and we chat, and they ask me about my hometown and where I’m from. Sometimes I stand out, especially when I’m not wearing black. Funerals are very long, sometimes lasting hours, so conversation is inevitable. Funerals are immutable events, but their participants and their interactions change. I now have friendships born of these funerals. I got to know some of these friends at Rawdat al-Shahideen in Beirut, and then encountered them again in the villages of the South. You’ll see a woman displaced from her village at funerals in other villages, and this creates familiarity and an intimate little community. This is how I discovered that I’ve photographed the same women across different locations and ceremonies, and that I’m not the only one who follows funerals from region to region and from village to village.
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Ayta ash-Shaab, July 2024
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Ayta ash-Shaab, July 2024
What is the difference between symbolic funerals in large cities (such as Beirut and Saida) and the actual funerals in the villages?
The funeral and its audience can be divided into two parts, the partisan and the popular, and both are present at every funeral.
The funeral procession is made up of these two parts as well. The audience is, naturally, the family of the martyred, the village, the supporters, and, of course, political representatives.
And when I say “partisan,” I don’t just mean Hezbollah; there are many parties and groups that constantly bury their martyrs. The funeral begins during the day – an intimate ritual in the village’s hussainiyya with only the martyr’s family and close circle of loved ones. As soon as their bodies leave the hussainiyya, the martyrs belong to the entire village and no longer to their family, alone. The village itself comes to be considered a part of the commemoration. This is also tied to the location of the funeral. When people go to a border village [for a funeral], for example, it is an expression of political stance that stretches beyond merely offering condolences to the martyr; it is a stance of opposition to the Israeli enemy. After these public rituals, the intimate family scene returns, particularly after the moment of burial.
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Kfarkela, June 2024
Do you usually see media cameras at village funerals?
Yes, but rarely. The rare times I saw “major” media coverage were when an entire family, the al-Barjawis, was martyred in Nabatieh and an official ceremony was held in which politicians and parties spoke, and another time during the funeral of a senior Hezbollah official, which, in the media’s eyes, constitutes a news item worthy of coverage. But after the ceremonies, when every martyr is taken to their village to be buried, the journalists disappear, and as do their cameras; to them, the news is over.
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Let’s go back to the gatherings of women for a moment, which you were privy to; you had the opportunity to discover a space of resistance closed off to men and the privilege of photographing that part of the ceremony. Do the women now wait for you, or expect to see you, at the funerals?
I’ve noticed that a lot of women treat the funerals like weddings. The ceremony changes and transforms at the heart of the funeral; you’ll hear many different voices and overlapping emotions. One of the women may say, “this is a wedding. This is his wedding.” Of course there is sanctity in martyrdom, but I see it as more than that: someone new is born during a funeral. For instance, the mother of the martyr is no longer just a mother; she has become the “mother of the martyr.” Her transformation into the mother of the martyr is not sudden. The mother of the martyr sheds her individual role in resistance work. She is the one who raised and taught and planted the spirit of resistance in her son. She is the one who accepted his role. And if we do not understand this, we may find her behavior during her son’s funeral to be strange; we may find her feelings and her strength odd. But she considers this a part of her duty; her son’s martyrdom means what was once his path is now hers. The martyr departs but his mother remains, and this is a path she has chosen for herself.
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Blida, March 2024
We see nothing but truth and clarity in the moment of death. I’ve found this shift in roles to be particularly prominent among the women. This or that son or husband has completed his mission, and the consequences of this mission have passed onto his mother or wife. Even a woman’s home transforms into a martyr’s home. What does that then mean? It means we visit this home and meet to discuss the developments of the war, and to analyze and question our role in it. This shift is visible chiefly in the ceremonies of Ashura, where the home is transformed into a site of mobilization. And so, the circle of life is completed. And those who cannot see martyrdom as an indivisible part of life, and not as a goal in and of itself, will not understand. We do not wish to die – contrary to popular belief.
I also remember conversations I’d heard in my village, Houmine, about martyrs who were buried there because their families could not bury them in their home villages of Sujud and al-Rihan during the Israeli invasion. So they were buried in mine. I remembered this because the difference today, during this war, is that every martyr is buried in their village, in broad daylight, in areas considered military zones, or border villages that are bombed on the daily. And despite everything, the funeral is not limited to a person or two; you’ll see the entire village walking in their funeral. I see this as a loud and clear assertion of our right to the land, and of the martyr’s right to be buried on their land. When you look at death from this perspective, you will see that this is the discourse of resistance. All the pillars, parties, and factions of the resistance challenge the enemy: “show me what you’ve got!”
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Blida, March 2024
Israel has launched some airstrikes during the funerals in villages. I saw one such instance at a funeral in Odaisseh. And if I wanted to romanticize this phenomenon, I would say that the martyr is still fulfilling his responsibility, even after his martyrdom. Why do I still go to the village for his funeral, in defiance of the enemy? Because I feel safe. And this safety is thanks to the sacrifice of this martyr and others like him. The very same applies to the people of the border villages, who have been displaced to other villages in the South, and still return to their own to attend the funeral and to check on their homes, their neighbors, and their land. Just two days ago, I saw the people of Aita al-Shaab carrying their hookahs and bags of mixed nuts to sit in front of their destroyed homes, and staying that way until the funeral was over. And this goes back to the feeling of safety I just talked about. The funeral is safety.
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Blida, March 2024
What is Zionist occupation to you? How old were you during the 2006 war?
The first time I really understood what occupation meant was during the 2006 war, when I simply wanted to visit another village in the South and couldn’t. This is occupation: for the occupier to prevent you from what you are entitled to, like going from one place to another within your country. My mother is not from the South; she is from the village of Lassa in the Jbeil district. I was seven years old during the July war. We were displaced to Lassa during the war, and our house contained a large number of displaced people from the South. That’s where I experienced the war. I was watching how people lived far away from the bombing; it was just another summer vacation, with beach parties all around us, while we were inside a house sheltering numbers of displaced families. Today, I live the very same contradiction in Beirut. I think of my aunts who fled to Hamra and told me that the sounds of the parties and nightlife distracted them from thinking about the fate of their children, their homes, and everything they had left behind: “The parties are nonstop, as if we’re on another planet. Is it better to hear the screams of our minds, fearful over our homes and our people? Or should we silence it and listen to the sound of celebration coming through the windows of the houses around us? Which sound do we want to hear?”
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Markaba, May 2024
You mentioned the word “intrusion,” so let’s get back to that. How do you balance intrusion and curiosity?
It wasn’t easy at first. I used to ask myself questions like, “am I taking advantage of this? Am I creating something I have no right to create? Am I intruding?” These questions no longer linger. The difference now is in what I do with these questions. How do these questions control how I photograph scenes? The things that satisfy me and ease the process are, firstly, people’s desire for photos and archives, and secondly, the fact that I do not treat these scenes like quick news. I won’t take 5-6 photos and leave. No. I spend long hours with people and show them the photos and give them the camera so that they can see themselves. I used to photograph before the war to create an archive of my family’s life; this family grew during the war to include people of the villages, people of the South.
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Blida, March 2024
Many of the scenes that I capture (in videos or photos), I know full well I won’t be publishing or sharing with anyone, especially the ones with audio. When I first started capturing funerals, particularly the women’s gatherings, I would go back and revisit the videos I took. Watching them back, I felt like I was intruding upon the sanctity of death, and upon intimate moments that should not be disturbed. I’d ask myself, “how could you just go in that way? How could you get this close? How could you decide to leave the camera on?” Later on, when I listened to the audio alone (without the visual element), I realized that it was tied to an entire community, and not to specific people. I was more accepting of it because I saw that it was in line with the motivation behind my photography. And in the moments I find myself questioning the feasibility of this work, I go back to the audio samples, which embody the experiences of this entire community – from crying and screaming, to ululations and celebrations, and I understand that not everything I capture is for publication.
Maybe when the war is over and I’m able to take some distance from it, this will allow me to go back and prove that this is what happened, and no one can deny that it did.
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Blida, March 2024
In that context, tell us about the exhibition you recently organized at your university, and how you exhibited photographs from the border villages for an audience that is not from the South.
I don’t like to use this kind of terminology that separates Lebanon regionally. All of Lebanon is at war with Israel. But I do realize that there is a Lebanese public that does not see the war or experience its consequences, and perhaps does not want to see it. Because the exhibition was taking place in the Lebanese University’s Faculty of Fine Arts, we approached the images aesthetically rather than purely as documentation.
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Blida, March 2024
The exhibition was the first step. It took place in Furn el-Chebbak. I had many concerns before the exhibition – concerns that were related to Gaza. There is an abundance of documentation, images, and videos coming out of Gaza, but nothing is happening to stop the genocide. And nothing comes close to the gravity of what we see. So the question is: “will my photos from the South – from a war that is limited, that has rules, and that cannot be compared in any shape or form to the genocide happening in Gaza – have an impact?” The way I see it, the image does not “have an impact.” It only makes its case to the viewer: “look at what I have seen, and look at what you have decided to continue thinking.” But the image will not change anyone’s perspective. No one will look at a photo from Gaza or from the South to try to understand Israel’s crimes, or to try to comprehend the sacrifice of our people. These are simply cases made to them. The aim of the exhibition was to inspire discussion around that which exists beyond the image, and around the responsibility the image can impose upon anyone who views it.
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Tell us about the South and about your many visits to the border villages.
It’s a very strange feeling. In Kfarkela, for instance, you see a wall of cement, and land beyond it that is identical to yours. Looking out, you remember that, prior to 1948, there were people from Kfarkela who were owners of that land, and people from that land who were owners in Kfarkela. And it is precisely in this moment that the notion of supporting Palestine and supporting this cause disappears, and things become simple and less complicated: You understand that we are one people. When it rains in the South, I sit and wonder about the weather in Gaza and how the displaced must be getting by in their tents. Our relationship is so much closer than just “supporting Palestine.” We are one people.
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In front of Israel's Bayad Blida post, March 2024
The safety I feel when I take a specific photo is thanks to the photo that I cannot take. Photographing that which is visible (to document the consequences of the war) is only possible thanks to that which is invisible – our resistance. There is something behind me, pushing me ever forward; there are hands that do not photograph. I think about that a lot. Whose are the hands that fired this or that rocket? The week after, he will be sitting in one of our cafes in the street. This invisible image is what drives me to photograph the visible. It makes you realize neither did the war start today, nor will it end today. The rockets and gunfire will stop, but the war rages on.
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Jabal Amel road, March 2024