In Lebanon’s Patchwork, a Focus on Armenians’ Political Might

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May 25, 2009

BEIRUT, Lebanon

– Their political apparatus is a model of discipline. Their vast array
of social services is a virtual state within a state. Their enemies
accuse them of being pawns of Syria and Iran.

Bryan Denton for The New York Times

Hagop Havatian, a Tashnaq official, under a portrait of the party’s
founders. The party operates in 35 nations.

They are the Armenian Christians of Lebanon, one of the Middle East’s
most singular and least-understood communities. And if they sound a
bit like Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group based here, that is no
accident.

Last month, the main Armenian political bloc decided to support Hezbollah’s
alliance in the coming parliamentary elections in Lebanon against the
pro-American parliamentary majority. Because of their role as a crucial
swing vote, the Armenians could end up deciding who wins and who loses in
what is often described as a proxy battle between Iran, Hezbollah’s patron,
and the West.

That fact has brought new attention to the Armenians, a distinct and
borderless ethnic group that is spread throughout the region much as the
Jews once were. In Lebanon, they have their own schools, hospitals and
newspapers. They speak their own language, with its own alphabet
< egion/13ink.html> . Their main
political party, Tashnaq, operates in 35 countries and has a secretive world
committee that meets four times a year. Their collective memory of the
genocide carried out against them in Turkey from 1915 to 1918 helps maintain
their identity in a far-flung diaspora.

"There is a sense of invisible nationhood across borders," said Paul
Haidostian, the president of Haigazian University, the Armenian university
in Beirut.

In fact, their political enemies here accuse the Armenians of siding with
Hezbollah in order to protect the substantial Armenian populations in Syria
and Iran. But the Armenian political leadership says it is fully independent
and has no ideological sympathy for either of Lebanon’s two main political
camps.

Instead, the Armenians say, they are voting with the opposition for reasons
that are entirely local and pragmatic: it offered them full control over the
parliamentary seats in Armenian-dominated districts. The other side did not,
said Hovig Mekhitarian, the chairman of the Lebanese branch of Tashnaq.

"We want candidates who represent our community," Mr. Mekhitarian said. "We
are not with the opposition, and not with the majority."

That dynamic is common enough in Lebanon, a checkerboard of mutually
suspicious sectarian groups that are usually more concerned with protecting
their own interests than with advancing any broader national or regional
agenda.

But even in Lebanon, the Armenians stand out for their independence. During
the 1975-1990 civil war, the Armenians refused to take sides. Tashnaq
discouraged its members from leaving the country (though many Armenians did
leave), in deference to Lebanese patriotism. Officially, the party is
socialist, but its only real credo is survival.

Mr. Haidostian said: "I remember when I used to get stopped at a checkpoint,
they would ask, ‘Are you Christian or Muslim?’ I would say ‘Armenian,’ and
it was like a third category. They didn’t know what to do."

Despite the risks, many Armenians say they find Lebanon a uniquely
accommodating place, largely because its weak state allows them to live
almost as a separate nation. "There is something tentative about Lebanese
identity, and in that questioning Armenians have found a comfortable space,"
Mr. Haidostian said.

Although there have been Armenians here for centuries, they first came in
large numbers after the genocide. Later wars and crises led to more
migration, increasing the size of the Lebanese Armenian community to 240,000
by the 1970s. The creation of the independent state of Armenia in 1918 had
provided refuge to some, but its small size and role as a Soviet client
state after 1920 set limits on its role as an Armenian homeland.

In Lebanon, the Armenians had an unusual mix of freedom and insecurity,
allowing them to practice their religion and culture, but also limiting
their assimilation into the general culture. In the United States, Armenians
often marry outside their group and are less likely to speak their own
language; here, they remain far more distinct.

The Beirut neighborhood of Bourj Hamoud is a kind of miniature Armenia, with
shop signs written in Armenian script and a dense, familial culture of
working-class shops, homes and restaurants. The Lebanese branch of Tashnaq
is based there, flying the party’s distinctive banner bearing a pen, a
shovel and a dagger – representing ideology, work and struggle. There is
also a rich network of schools, orphanages, retirement homes and hospitals.
Schoolchildren learn three languages (and three different alphabets), and
start on a fourth language in the fourth grade.

Maintaining this independence requires political skill. During the
civil war, Bourj Hamoud was trapped geographically between Christian
and Palestinian areas, and its leaders had to work hard to avoid
becoming a target for either side.

Recently, that neutrality has been difficult to preserve. Tashnaq has long
been a de facto Syrian ally, partly because of Syria’s former military
domination of Lebanon. After the Syrian withdrawal in 2005, it remained in
the Syrian political camp, mainly because it blamed the other side for an
electoral law that divided Armenian districts and reduced its power.

This spring, Saad Hariri, the leader of the pro-American parliamentary
majority, tried to mend fences with Tashnaq, which controls the vast
majority of Armenian votes. He had good reason: last year the electoral law
was revised in a way that restored the Armenians’ power.

Lebanese Christians represent the swing vote in this election, and the
160,000-strong Armenian community is by far the most unified subgroup of
those votes. If Mr. Hariri could have persuaded Tashnaq to vote with him,
the balance might have tipped in his favor to defeat Hezbollah and its
allies.

He did not succeed. Mr. Mekhitarian said Mr. Hariri had not offered enough.
"He was really only offering one seat, and he wanted our support in 15 other
seats," Mr. Mekhitarian said.

Members of Mr. Hariri’s party who took part in the negotiations offered a
slightly different account. They said Mr. Hariri offered to satisfy
Tashnaq’s demands on parliamentary seats, but only if the party would commit
firmly to supporting him before and after the elections. It would not do so,
they said.

That is not surprising. In a sense, the Armenians cannot afford to make such
political commitments. Like the Druse and other minorities in Lebanon, they
believe they must subordinate all ideological principles to a nimble defense
of their community.

"In politics, you can’t always be neutral," said Hagop Pakradounian, a
Tashnaq member of Parliament. "But we try to maintain links to all sides."