“If the Israelis step out of line,” Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah told the Ashoura crowds on Wednesday, “the second Lebanon war in 2006 would be nothing compared to what we have in store for them."  We are always ready, he went on, to offer ourselves and bodies as martyrs to defend honorable lives.

But he did not speak for everyone. Watching the thousands in south Beirut at this Shia religious festival, roaring assent to the Sayyed’s words seemed as much a part of being Shia as the mourning for Imam Hussein. However, as rocket fire shook the southern border on Thursday, reluctance grew among the Shia to be part of this one voice of support for war with Israel. Not everyone has the fearlessness and desire for martyrdom expressed daily in Hezbollah leaders’ speeches. Among Shia who suffered in 2006 and in the civil war, there is dissent from Hezbollah’s hegemonic message.

Amal supporters at the frenzied Shia gatherings in Nabatiyeh on Wednesday told NOW Lebanon that the bloody displays were, “a very scary view for Israel. They know that we are not afraid of anything.” But, when pushed, even some 18-year-old residents of Nabatiyeh participating enthusiastically in the blood-letting ritual, said that they did not want war with Israel. “This is not to do with politics,” they said. “It is for Hussein. We do not want war with Israel – not right now.” And Intisar Sham, 23, said that the fighters of the south should not be aggressive. “It is only a resistance movement,” she said. “If they hit us we will fight back.” Even her grandmother, who emphasized her pride in the bloodletting, “because Israel will be afraid,” said that “we just want to live in peace.”

As peace seems less likely in the largely Shia south, the reaction is more one of fear than of aggression. Passport offices have been busy since the beginning of the Gaza incursions by Israel, as residents, particularly young people with families, rush to renew their passports. Many families have evacuation plans, amid fear that Sunni and Christian families will not take them in, as they did during the July war in 2006. The danger that civilian targets will be bombed is very real. IDF Northern Command Chief Gadi Eisenkot said in an interview earlier this year that in the event of another conflict with Lebanese forces, "what happened in Dahiyeh…in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on,” adding that, "we will apply disproportionate force on [each village] and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases.” No wonder there is fear in the South.

Ahmad al-Assaad, leader of the Lebanese Option Gathering political group, held an alternative Ashoura celebration in  Beirut’s BIEL centre yesterday, for Shia looking for less politicized celebrations. Thousands of people attended. “It is not true,” he told NOW Lebanon, “that the Shia agree with the policies of Hezbollah. Hezbollah is exerting a lot of pressure and terrorizing the people.  When people speak to someone they trust, they have a completely different view from the one expressed by Hezbollah. After all, people are people and they all want to live in peace. It is not written on our foreheads that Shia in Lebanon should always have war and always die. The Shia are fed up with this.”

Shia activist and head of UMAM gallery in south Beirut Lokman Slim also begged to differ from the bellicose message. “Hezbollah,” he said, “are playing on a very sentimental issue. People feel it is a duty to demonstrate as part of their religious celebrations. The party is taking advantage of this sentimental duty to attribute to itself a larger political message.”

Mr. Slim’s point that people feel it a duty to abide by Hezbollah’s line is borne out by the party’s supporters. In the first of Hezbollah’s two huge Gaza rallies this month, a group of giggling teenage girls with hijabs and posters explained why they were there. “It’s a wajib,” they said, a duty, “of course it’s a wajib.” Sayyed Hassan told them to be there, so they came. It was a message repeated by men and women of all ages. A group of young men at the second Gaza rally told NOW Lebanon that they were protesting because Sayyed Hassan told them to protest, and if he told them that the next step would be military action, they would be ready to die.

The party’s strengthening of its political line by mixing it with religion has also intensified since Israel’s incursion into Gaza began. The overtly political message of the last ten days’ Ashoura celebrations has given the impression that being Shia is synonymous with an aggressive stance against Israel and a willingness to die. Nasrallah told the crowds on the first day of Ashoura that "today you are expressing your constant commitment to this yearly call... To Gazans I say: your pain is our pain and your wounds are our wounds." He called on them to resist with “fearless Husseini fists raised.” At smaller, Hezbollah-run events, like the parade in the wholly Shia town of Ghazieh on Tuesday night, traditional Shia songs had anti-American and anti-Israeli slogans incorporated into them.

However, Mr. Slim pointed out that despite this reinforcing of the message, after Thursday’s rocket attacks, one should, “look at the Shia in south Lebanon today. They are scared, they are considering leaving. Everybody is afraid; no one wants war.”