Youth are currently driving the country towards its cultural rebirth since their creativity is also revitalizing the country’s culture in spite of the current economic and political crises. The creativity of the youth is finding its inspiration from abundant resources to create artwork that is native to the nation’s heritage without losing sight of the current global trends.
Teenagers in Tripoli and Beirut have transformed street space into murals galleries. Murals representations convey identity, social commentary, and messages of solidarity that make them controversial and require translation. Lebanese society’s hopes and grievance are iconically addressed in absolute terms through the paintings.
Music is also brought into the limelight with this cultural renaissance. New musicians of all types of music—alternate rock to hip-hop—are taking center stage to warble about socio-political issues, crossing individual and communal histories. Amateur playhouse productions of plays and small club gigs are being used as platforms for warbling hope and determination, warbled not only in Lebanon but even globally.
Literary space has also been created with fresh authors reworking the theme of displacement, memory, and identity. Literary festivals and literary workshops have been the spaces where emerging authors were viewed, spaces where coexistence and experimentation took place in social and biographical life.
Cultural influence has been exploited to the maximum degree in vast numbers by mass media. Mass media such as Instagram and YouTube are used by Lebanese youth to market their work, gain global audiences, and co-produce amongst one another on the global platform. The tools have also enabled ever-larger platforms for imaginative production and ever-wider global visibility of the Lebanese culture.
Apart from this, young cultural creatives have started collectives and grassroots movements to preserve the heritage and folk art. In presenting ancient practices and innovation and novel thinking about how to implement them, they are preserving traditions and making them available to subsequent generations in an increasingly globalized world.
In general, the Lebanese youth are going through culture re-birth by living with freedom and finding national identity all over again. Whatever they follow, it is an inter-action process of tradition and modernity and thus are the most important stakeholders in continuous cultural transformation of the nation with globalization.
