The Daily Star (Lebanon)
March 14, 2009 Saturday

Times are changing in Bourj Hammoud

by Aline-Sophia Hirseland

First, it was swampland, then a safe haven, followed by a few decades
of being a reservoir for the working class of Greater Beirut, mostly
Shiites and Palestinians. During the Civil War people left, while
today it has become a meeting-place of a new working class, from
Ethiopia to Sri Lanka.

People and Places

First, it was swampland, then a safe haven, followed by a few decades
of being a reservoir for the working class of Greater Beirut, mostly
Shiites and Palestinians. During the Civil War people left, while
today it has become a meeting-place of a new working class, from
Ethiopia to Sri Lanka.

And throughout all these phases, it has been synonymous with
Armenians.

The town of Bourj Hammoud sits just east of Beirut by the seaside,
bordered by Amarat Chalhoub and Sin al-Fil, and the Beirut
neighborhoods of Nahr and Achrafieh. The Bourj Hammoud we know today
was founded by Armenian refugees who escaped from the violence
unleashed in the Ottoman Empire in 1915. They were given the
permission to populate the till-then swampy area, and in the following
years, more and more Armenians joined the community after arriving
from Turkey, and particularly Cilicia, an Armenian stronghold in
southeastern Anatolia.

The original Armenian congregations were refugee "camps" in which
people of the same geographical origin generally gathered, such as
Sis, Marash, Adana, Tiro and Sanjak.

Shiites started to migrate to Nabaa, the southern part of Bourj
Hammoud that is adjacent to Sin al-Fil, in the middle of the 20th
century. Bourj Hammoud was at first part of a bigger municipality,
together with Jdeideh and Sadd al-Bushrieh, as it was then very thinly
populated.

In 1951 it became an independent municipality and during the middle
decades of the 20th century, thousands of internal migrants, mainly
Shiites from the Bekaa and the South, along with stateless people like
Palestinians, began to congregate in the Bourj Hammoud region, filling
the ranks of Greater Beirut’s working class.

Before the Civil War, the population rose to several hundred thousand
people in the wider East Beirut suburbs centered around Bourj Hammoud,
but the events of 1975-1976 led to a quick depopulation. Most
non-Armenians and non-Christians in Bourj Hammoud left as the Civil
War’s massacres took place around them in Tel al-Zaatar and
Karantina. Imam Musa Sadr finally brokered an exodus from Nabaa, and
Bourj Hammoud lost much of its diversity.

The war years took their toll on the Armenian-dominated community,
through emigration and migration to other places inside Lebanon. Bourj
Hammoud today remains densely populated and has a mixed residential,
commercial and industrial aspect. Its goldsmith industry is widely
known, but local enterprises also produce shoes, bags and clothes. Not
surprisingly, it’s the place to visit if you want to pick up imported
goods from the independent state of Armenia.

Raffi Kokoghlanian, Bourj Hammoud’s deputy mayor, says the Armenian
community remains very grateful that Lebanon took in his people. They
enjoy religious freedom and were able to build their schools,
charitable associations and even a university (Haigazian).

"Lebanon has given us a lot, and we want to give something back," says
Kokoghlanian, arguing that the "genocide" has been a reason for
Armenians to avoid conflicts and remain a very closed community, at
least until recently. In the Civil War, Armenians tried to stay
neutral. "Bourj Hammoud was an example for friendly coexistence
between the confessions," says Kokoghlanian.

The experience of what most Armenians call "genocide" made them very
aware of their identity as a people and of the danger of losing this
identity. This is why, until recently, Armenians would avoid renting
property to non-Armenians, as they wanted Bourj Hammoud to remain
predominantly Armenian. Furthermore, mixed marriages between Armenians
and non-Armenians were rare. But this is changing.

Azadouhi Azadian is in her 80s and has lived in Bourj Hammoud all her
life. In the old days, she relates, there were no foreigners in the
community, only Armenians like herself. After the Civil War, many
people left and spread out, to all corners of the world. And in the
last decade or so, Lebanese Shiites have begun moving back, joined by
the country’s foreign workers; Egyptian Muslims, Buddhists from Sri
Lanka, and Orthodox Ethiopians. Storefronts with the flag of the
Philippines and languages of Sri Lanka are now common sights.

An Armenian high school student who gave his name as Steve says most
of his neighbors are Arabs, mainly Christians, while there are also
some Syrians living in his part of Bourj Hammoud. Even though the
relationships with non-Lebanese are friendly, he remarks: "We don’t go
to their houses, but we greet them." He personally has only Armenian
friends.

Grace Baboyan, a student of Information System Management at the
Lebanese American University, who has grown up in Bourj Hammoud, sees
the Ethiopians who shuttle daily between their workplaces in wealthier
neighborhoods and Bourj Hammoud, where the rents are noticeably lower
than elsewhere in Greater Beirut.

She says that nowadays, Arabs and Armenians have a lot of contact with
each other, they establish friendships and the number of mixed
marriages is increasing, even though these marriages remain limited
mostly to those between Christians. "Now we are losing our fear," she
says.

Some Arabs have attended Armenian schools and learned the Armenian
language there. Earlier generations of Armenians didn’t speak Arabic
very well, while today’s generation knows Arabic much better. Baboyan
observed that Armenians have begun to sell their houses to
non-Armenians, which is why Shiites have returned in recent years.

Azadian says that the relationships with Arab Christians are very
good. After the Civil War when the economy was struggling, the
communities helped each other out: "If someone had a bakery, for
example, he would bake some extra bread and gave it to the Armenians
for free."

For the 80-something Azadian, Bourj Hammoud’s services have definitely
improved in the last few decades: the shopping centers have become
better equipped, the products are of better quality and many people
are attracted to the neighborhood’s shopping districts, whether they
need to pick up a kilo of basterma or a kilo of gold.

The benefits of public works projects and renovated pedestrian streets
have helped Bourj Hammoud, whose municipality appears to be
ever-present – its uniformed traffic policemen are perhaps the most
obvious sign of this, when one drives through the town.

"Every time [the municipality] has money it does something, because
everybody loves Bourj Hammoud," Azadian says.