Amal Movement (Lebanon)

حركة أمل, Harakat Amal

Last modified: 2021-09-18 by ian macdonald
Keywords: amal | el-amal | disc (green) | circle (red) | triangle: top fly (red) | triangle: top fly (black) | text: arabic (white) |
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image by Eugene Ipavec | 2:3

• Introduction
• Description
• Construction Sheet
  Variants:
  • Variant in Gaceta de Banderas
  • Black Variant in Gaceta de Banderas

• Political Parties (Lebanon)
• Lebanon

Amal Movement (Arabic: abbreviation of أفواج المقاومة اللبنانية, transliterated as Afwâj al-Muqâwmat al-Lubnâniyya, or just حركة أمل, transliterated as Harakat Amal, lit. Amal Movement, also "hope") is short for "Lebanese Resistance Detachments." Amal became one of the most important Shi'a Muslim militias during the Lebanese Civil War. Amal grew strong with the support of, and through its ties with Syria, and the 300,000 Shi'i internal refugees from southern Lebanon after the Israeli bombings in the early 1980s. Amal is also an Arabic noun, meaning "hope." Amal's historical objectives were to achieve greater respect for Lebanon's Shi'ite population and to get a larger percentage of resources allocated to the Shi'ite-dominated southern part of the country than that of the present.
At its largest the militia had 14,000 troops. Amal fought a long campaign against Palestinian refugees in the Lebanese Civil War called the War of the Camps. After the War of the Camps, Amal fought a bloody battle against its fellow Shi'a group Hezbollah for Beirut which resulted in Syrian intervention.
Sources: Wikipedia, Amal Movement official website
Esteban Rivera, 18 August 2007

The Hezballa is Lebanese and Islamic Shia'a. (...) The Shia'a has also another group in Lebanon which is called El-Amal, whose leader Nabia Beri is a minister in the Lebanese government.
Anonymous, 22 September 1998

I found in an old Time magazine (June 1985, with the cover article being about the TWA flight hijacked to Beirut) a picture of a masked man holding the flag of the Shi'ite Amal group.
Frank George Valoczy, 12 February 1999

Variants

Variant in Gaceta de Banderas

[Gaceta de Banderas, January 2002, contains images of Lebanese political parties, reported by Michel Lupant and drawn by Jorge Hurtado following his specifications. (...) The flag of the Amal Party (Shi'ite) is similar to that in FotW, but the Arabic stylized lettering in the central emblem is "thicker", the black fly triangle is larger and the proportions are ca. 7:9. It is confirmed that the black-red stripes are on the top fly (not hoist). The light blue colour within the central emblem, which showed on a picture in an Israeli newspaper, is not confirmed. The emblem appears not to be mirrored, rather readable on both sides.
Santiago Dotor, 22 May 2002

Michel Lupant actually brought these flags home for his collection, and showed them to us at the October 2001 meeting of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Flaggenkunde. I took pictures of these flags. (...) In my opinion, the green in the above image is somewhat too dark.
M. Schmöger, 24 May 2002

This actual flag shows the "امل" lettering (Arabic "aml" = "Amal") in white on a green disc surrounded by a thick red rim fimbriated white (both inside and outside) all on green background, with black triangle and red diagonal stripe on the upper corner of the flag – not sure whether fly or hoist, but on the same side as the lam letter (the last letter, at the left), so I'm betting for fly side.
Comparing with our flag image, the style details of the lettering, and the colors and shape of the disc and rim are identical to the variant reported in [gdb] Gaceta, which however shows the upper corner red and black triangle on the alif side (the first letter, at the right, probably meant to be hoist).
António Martins-Tuválkin, 23 February 2007

Black Variant in Gaceta de Banderas

[Gaceta de Banderas, January 2002, contains images of Lebanese political parties, reported by Michel Lupant and drawn by Jorge Hurtado following his specifications. (...) Michel Lupant says,

Pendant ma visite en avril 2001 j'ai (...) traversé la vallée de la Bekaa dans l'est du Liban. Partout des drapeaux étaient attachés aux poteaux le long des routes, aux fenêtres, en guirnalde à traves les rues. Il s'agissait (...) aussi nombre de drapeaux noirs (la couleur des chiites) avec l'emblème d'Amal en blanc, parfois avec des inscriptions en arabe, ou bien des drapeaux noirs à inscriptions blanches.

Santiago Dotor, 22 May 2002

My translation:

During my trip in April 2001 (...) I travelled across the Bekaa valley in Eastern Lebanon. (...) There were also several black flags, the Shiite colour with the emblem of Amal in white, sometimes with Arabic inscriptions, and black flags with white inscriptions.

Ivan Sache, 22 May 2002

image located by Bill Garrison, 15 August 2021

From https://www.picfair.com/pics/06329285-flags-with-hezbollah-logo-for-sale-with-barcelona-and-madrid-ones-as-tourist: a variation of the basic green-field "Amal Movement" political-party flag with a white-ink picture of its current leader: Nabih Berri; in Tyre, Lebanon; c. early 2021?
Bill Garrison, 15 August 2021