Armenians in Lebanon: Becoming Local in the Levant

Abstract

[...]the Lebanese state was somehow Armenianized, in that it started to pay more attention than before to Armenian matters. Located near one another, they attracted children and adults from the neighborhood, and were often flexible regarding membership and affiliation. [...]while youth from the neighborhood often joined a sports team affiliated with a political party, they or their parents were not necessarily party members; rather, they chose a team for its success and quality.10 This situation changed following the 1957 elections and 1958 civil violence. In 1957, according to Dashnak reports, members of the leftist Hnchak Party attacked polling stations by throwing rocks at and opening fire on voters.11 That these attacks took place “at the entrance of Hajin” coded and compartmentalized a bit of Beirut's urban space, separating it from the city as a whole. The support and opposition to the Lebanese president and to the Dashnak Party became opportunities for Armenians to claim and struggle for power, all the while articulating belonging and citizenship.NOTES 1 This observation applies to researchers who work on Armenians in the Middle East more generally, but I restrict my discussion to those focused on Armenians in Lebanon. 2 For more on Armenian involvement in Lebanese politics, see Nikola B. Schahgaldian, “The Political Integration of an Immigrant Community into a Composite Society: The Armenians in Lebanon 1920–74” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1978).