| Abstract | This article analyses the management of the past in Lebanon, through the study of memory entrepreneurs and the constitution of a collective memory of the Civil War (1975–1990), in the post-war period. National reconciliation, under Syrian hegemony is based on an amnesty for war crimes and the reintegration of militia heads in state institutions. Memory entrepreneurs, grouped under the banner of “civil society”, fight to impose their version of the past in public spaces, through the mobilisation for the missing, the commemoration of 13 April 1975, and the creation of specialised associations. In response to the government’s discourse legitimising forgetting, and to impunity adopted to ensure national reconciliation, these actors make the democratic demand for justice and reconciliation, from the bottom. This movement is headed by human rights and advocacy associations. They are part of international human rights networks which provide guidelines for ending the war at a global scale. The study of local memorial practices, however, highlights competing narratives of war that reflect the conflicts and internal divisions of civil society.
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