Remembering is tough for the Lebanese, and Monika Borgmann finds this sad. Meeting NOW Lebanon’s Alice Fordham in her office in South Beirut, this vivacious woman smokes and gesticulates, saying that amnesty after the civil war came with amnesia, and a country that cannot come to terms with its violent past cannot have a peaceful future. As a German, she perhaps knows something about reconciliation with a tough history. Along with her Lebanese husband, she runs a project UMAM which uses art and archiving to work toward national memory. Putting the cool into collective consciousness, they attract a diverse Lebanese audience – particularly last week, when a private screening of the banned film Waltz With Bashir raised eyebrows in the international press, and prompted calls the film to be available to the Lebanese. 

NOW Lebanon: Tell us a bit about the organization UMAM - who are you and what do you do?

Monika Borgmann: Lokman [Slim, Monika's husband] and I founded UMAM documentation and research after finishing a documentary - Massaker - in September 2005. The film portrays six men who have been killing in the massacre of Sabra and Shatila. While doing the research for this film, it became evident that there are no archives in Lebanon. We wanted to get a real picture of what was happening during the massacre. But there is no place in Lebanon with an open archive where you get informed about Lebanese history in a very simple way. A lot is published but there is no central place.

So after we finished the film, we founded UMAM in 2004. UMAM has basically two aims, on one hand establishing an archive on the history of Lebanon with a special focus on the civil war, and on the other, cultural events very often linked to memory and violence. And these cultural events can be exhibitions, film screenings and so on. We have a hangar that used to be a warehouse, which got damaged during the civil war. So we renovated this hangar in 2004 and opened it for the first time in April 2005 with a screening of a film called Lebanon in Turmoil.

Until the war of 2006, mainly we organized activities in the hangar, although we also had a major event in September 2005 called Civil Violence and War Memories Here and Elsewhere. There were two roundtables, screenings and exhibitions, and this was also the only time we could screen Massaker publicly. Then, on August 6, 2006, a building next to us was bombarded, and we had what is called collateral damage.  The hangar was or badly damaged again, and a part of the archive was damaged.

So then, the archive became the priority for us. We got some emergency funding and reconstructed the hangar a second time and we started digitalizing and entering data to a database. We started professional work on archiving, and since then, we have had several events where the archive and public events came together.

In 2008, we started another major project under the title, What is to be Done, Lebanon's War-loaded Memory, and this program includes workshops, film screenings, exhibitions. It's one of UMAM's major projects and the archive is the other one. It has been used by researchers, journalists and sometimes also artists. We are still digitalizing it and entering data, and one day we would like to have an official opening for this archive which would also make it accessible for everybody. A part of the archive will also be on our new website very soon. For us it is important because making it open to everybody it will encourage others to participate in this process.

 So, you’ve started the archiving and kept up the cultural side. Why do you do them both?

Borgmann: I think Lebanon never looked back to its past. There was an amnesty but there was also a kind of amnesia. And talking about the civil war became a taboo, because it was said that the wounds need to be healed, and if you open the wounds of the past new violence will emerge, we need time and so on. But, I think no country can escape confronting its past forever, it's a painful process, but it's one which is not avoidable.

There is no universal model of how it should be done, but if you look worldwide you cannot escape it. The Germans after the Nazi regime and Hitler and the Holocaust, thanks to the Americans, we had the Nuremberg trials. It took a while before society was ready to face the violence of Hitler, but there was a process of coming to terms with the past. You can look wherever you want in the world and somehow it's clear you cannot escape, in the long term, this process. But, after the Taif Agreement, Lebanon decided not to look back to the past. And in general the whole civil war became a kind of taboo; no one talks about it, otherwise you open the wounds.

I think that this policy has proven to be a failure. Even if we say that the civil war is a taboo and no one should talk about it, the civil war is used as a kind of political ammunition, daily. And also if we go back to May 2008; not talking about the past didn't prevent further violence. I don't want to say that if Lebanon had dealt with its past, Lebanon would be totally peaceful - this would be totally naive. But maybe we wouldn't have the same confrontation lines. And of course you can't take Lebanon from the regional problems, but maybe if Lebanon had dealt with its past, the situation would be slightly different, in the sense of better.

Making this archive accessible is not now a step to reconciliation - I would never go so far - but it is a step of giving the opportunity to the Lebanese to know or even virtually meet the other, and come back to their own history. This is the purpose of the archive.

And the art?

Borgmann: Art is a wonderful tool to address a wider public, and is maybe the best way sometimes to talk about sensitive topics. I don't say this should be the only role for art, but if you want to address these kinds of topics like memory, art is a wonderful tool to do so and to reach a wider audience.

What brought you to Lebanon?

Borgmann: I studied Arabic in Germany and for one year in Damascus, and I came to Lebanon for the first time at the end of the civil war. And…it took me. Lebanon took me with all what was happening. I used to work as a freelance journalist, and for ten years I was based in Cairo, and I came a lot to Lebanon - and somehow I always wanted to live here, even while living in Cairo I wanted to be here. So I came to Beirut in 2001 to start the research for this film Massaker and I met Lokman, and we directed this film together and then we founded UMAM as I said and since, I am here...so I stayed.

You work with the problems in Lebanon but what's your favorite thing about the country?

Borgmann: It's an extremely lively country, and this is because of all the contradictions, and I’m very much attached to this. I mean, there is this variety; this is maybe the best thing. It's an extremely active country and an extremely powerful country, with all these contradictions and differences and its variety of everything.

And what do you hate most?

Borgmann: Maybe all radicalisms in their extreme forms. And exclusion. I think Lebanon is at its best is variety, and what I hate the most is maybe each effort to diminish this variety.

Your house and the hangar are here, in Dahiyeh. Does this have any impact on what work you do and who comes to see it?

Borgmann: We are in Lokman's parents’ house, one of the very few houses left. Before the civil war this was a residential area, with villas and gardens, and then it was transformed and became the so-called Dahiyeh. It became a conscious decision to be based here. And of course, managing an artistic space in this area, it's more challenging than to do it in Hamra or in Gemmayzeh. But for me it's also more interesting. We are not talking just about an artistic space but about a real meeting place. Our public is very diverse. We have of course the cultural Beiruti public, but also we are the only cultural space in this part of the city, so by organizing the cultural activities here, we bring people to the Dahiyeh who are not used to coming to this part of the city. It might be because they have nothing to do here, or because they have a mental border, and it's not 100% a region under state control. But I know is that some of our audience is coming for the first time to the Dahiyeh. And we are attracting people from the Dahiyeh, so there is a kind of meeting space which has quite a wide public. I'm very happy about it. The philosophy is that we are not only doing programming from an artistic space, but at the same time we are creating a meeting space.

Do you have to deal with Hezbollah?

Borgmann: No, no, Hezbollah never interfered in any of our activities.

What's your best hope for Lebanon's future?

Borgmann: I think Lebanon has to look at its past. I think it's necessary to remember and to deal with the memories in a constructive way because this is a basis for a real reconciliation on the Lebanese level. I think you need to agree on your past, and to build up a real citizenship. And this is my hope - let's not talk about reconciliation. Let's talk about citizenship. Being a citizen of your own country; Lebanon needs to deal in a constructive way with its past to be able to build the fundaments of a real citizenship in Lebanon. Otherwise it will become more and more sectarian.

What's your biggest fear?

Borgmann: That Lebanon will go more and more into sectarianism and by this also become very weak. I think this citizenship of which I am talking is the only way to build the kind of strong Lebanon that would not be influenced by all the regional games talking place. And the more Lebanon becomes sectarian, the more it is vulnerable to all regional influences.

What, artistically, excites you about Lebanon at the moment?

Borgmann: I am a fan of films, and there are a lot of wonderful films, and I would like to see more internationally good films playing here. I would like to see more cinemas all over the country playing really internationally rewarded movies that everybody wants to see.

I love the design of UMAM, and of the website, and the office; they are all red. Why red?

Borgmann: We love red! It's very personal. Lokman and I love red. It's a purely personal love, without anything political or whatever, really it's a color of life.