I was still a child, but I can clearly remember how Hezbollah began growing around me, within my surroundings, long before I had even heard the words “Hezbollah.” It emerged through details we once thought were isolated, insignificant practices, until those scattered details expanded into what would eventually become Hezbollah’s sphere of influence.

I grew up long ago, yet that sphere has continued to expand, not only at the expense of everything around it, but even at the expense of memory itself. I can barely remember what life was like before those practices emerged, practices that later proved to be anything but small. 

One of my earliest memories of the changes they brought to my school, The Seven Moons in Burj al-Barajneh, was when a group of young men and women calling themselves the “Student Mobilization” took over the wall magazine and transformed its content into purely religious material. Then they took over the school’s celebrations, reducing them to commemorations tied exclusively to Imam Mahdi, Imam Ali, Eid al-Ghadir, Al-Isra and Al-Mi‘raj, and similar religious occasions. I also remember how these practices spread to other schools, where principals and owners were threatened into compliance, and their rules were imposed on both administrators and students alike. 

In the neighborhood where I lived in Haret Hreik, I remember how the chador gradually took over the area. Their women began stopping girls who were not veiled, either advising them or scolding them over their clothing. There were even rumors that some of their young men were throwing acid at unveiled girls.

I also remember the scenes my family, our neighbors, and I secretly watched at night from the building’s airshaft during one of the clashes between Hezbollah and the Amal Movement, when brother killed brother right outside our building entrance.

I remember how, during Ashura, they would suddenly begin sealing off the neighborhood entrances, blocking cars from passing, and taking over entire streets in the afternoons to perform rituals of self-flagellation, striking their backs and chests with chains. We watched them from the window of our small apartment, which had no balcony.

The women participating in the processions would knock on the doors of nearby apartments, asking to use the bathroom. I remember that we never opened the door to anyone.

I also remember how, during Ramadan, we began waking up startled by religious chants blasting from loudspeakers mounted on buses sent to wake people for the pre-dawn meal, and how the traditional musaharati, the man who once walked the streets waking people for suhoor, gradually disappeared. 

Then came the water tanks placed along the roads bearing the Iranian flag, the growing number of women dressed in what they called “Islamic attire,” and the gradual transformation of the hijab itself, how it was styled and tightened to conceal more of the face, worn in a way that clearly distinguished them from women affiliated with the Amal Movement, or simply from other veiled women. 

I remember how countless images of bearded men began appearing on building entrances and facades, becoming the first thing we saw whenever we opened our windows. Black banners were erected across every neighborhood, bearing slogans about Jerusalem, Karbala, and martyrdom. 

I remember how young men replaced the songs once blasting from their cars with party anthems, mourning chants, and eventually political speeches. I remember, too, how my father and I would argue every time I left the house wearing a sleeveless shirt. He insisted I cover my shoulders, at least until I was outside the boundaries of the neighborhood. I never listened, and he never stopped trying. 

I remember how our neighbor, Um Ali, began wearing the hijab and stopped shaking hands with my father. Gradually, the evenings we used to share with them during New Year’s celebrations and birthdays disappeared as well.

I remember how nearly every shop name became Zahraa, Batoul, or Hawraa.

I remember how certain neighborhoods and streets became places we could no longer enter, turning into what were known as “security zones.” In some buildings where Hezbollah figures lived, visitors were searched every single time they entered. Many residents eventually left those buildings, fleeing these practices. 

I remember how photography became forbidden unless approved by Hezbollah’s young men, and how anyone who failed to comply risked being chased down and interrogated, as happened to a photographer friend and me while we were filming a university project about the banners and walls covering the neighborhood. 

I remember the black flags planted on every pole, the oversized silver rings with their heavy stones, the beards, and the permanent frowns etched onto faces.

I remember how, in the South, we began hearing about bombs being thrown at shops selling alcohol, how swimming pools stopped serving it altogether, how swimsuits became forbidden, and how many restaurants were no longer allowed to host parties.

I remember when suddenly every girl was veiled, and we began hesitating before extending our hands in greeting.

Then the prayers started being recited in accents that felt unfamiliar to us.

The voices of the elderly women who once led mourning gatherings gradually disappeared, replaced by younger women dressed in chadors, trained to recite in new, highly theatrical styles. It became a profitable profession for many of them, especially those who could make the women in attendance cry the hardest.

Religious clerics became a compulsory presence at every memorial marking a week since someone’s death.

Husseiniyas turned into party centers draped with Hezbollah flags and portraits of its secretary-generals.

At the vocational school where I studied, some students began reproducing in art classes the imagery that had spread across neighborhood walls and banners: the faces of martyrs, barbed wire, and blood dripping from a sword.

Then, at university, nude model drawing was removed from the fine arts curriculum in branches controlled by Hezbollah, particularly the Rawcheh campus.

I remember how the wives of party members began flaunting the excess power of both their husbands and the party itself, a display that might start with their blacked-out SUVs, but certainly did not end there.

People ask me, and others like me, why our position toward Hezbollah feels so personal. How could it not be personal, when the party invaded our hearing, occupied our visual world, replaced our accents, imposed a new language of grief, and normalized customs that were never part of our social fabric?

How could it not be personal, when colors themselves became suspect, joy turned into guilt, and even smiling began to feel inappropriate?