Hizb'Allah is trying to refocus the quite bloody Shia holiday of Ashura on killing other people, rather than letting one's own blood in an orgy of self flagellation:
Hezbollah held its main [Ashura] ceremonies in Al Dahiya, a southern suburb of Beirut. Bloodletting wasn't on the agenda, but violence was. "Do you want to suffer with Hussein? Then the setting is ready: the Karbala of the South," Fadlallah said in one of his Ashura polemics, encouraging listeners to martyr themselves fighting Israel. "You can be wounded and inflict wounds, kill and be killed, and feel ... the spiritual joy of Hussein when he accepted his own blood and wounds."
[...]Hezbollah is trying to recast Ashura to serve its political agenda--and to focus Muslim anger on Hezbollah's political targets (mainly Israelis and Americans). Though blood is usually associated with violence, the self-flagellation traditionally practiced on Ashura actually encourages political quietism; it directs violence inward, in contrast with the activist attitude cultivated by Hezbollah. "Self-flagellation doesn't serve a revolutionary, radical purpose," says Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, an expert on Hezbollah. "You are beating yourself rather than your enemy."
Some Shia recognize the naked self interest in Hizb'Allahs efforts:
[...]many Ashura mourners in Nabatiyya explicitly rejected any contemporary political resonance for Ashura. "This is the only thing we have left that has not been used by politicians," said one participant from Nabatiyya. "We sacrifice our blood to honor the memory of Imam Hussein, not to further their agendas." [...]Hezbollah's attempt to recast the Ashura rite is a way of consolidating its control of Lebanese Shia. [...]as squeamish as Western audiences might be when confronted with the bloody images of Ashura, they may have more in common with Nabitiyyans [who ignored Hizb'Allah's edict] than initially meets the eye. As one blood-covered Ashura participant proclaimed defiantly, "Who said Hezbollah can tell us what to do?"
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