Armenia and Lebanon: A Shared Destiny

Abstract

Many Armenians in the diaspora have two homelands in their heart: Armenia and Lebanon. The country was a safe haven for persecuted minorities in the Middle East and was for decades the cultural and political center of the Armenian diaspora. Hundreds of thousands of survivors also passed through Beirut on their way to warmer climes across seas and oceans.

Lebanon is not just an adopted country, it is also an extension of Armenian Cilicia, abandoned by France to Kemalist Turkey in 1921. Even today, the Lebanese-Armenian community, diminished by periodic waves of emigration, perpetuates the habits and customs of the former Armenian-Cilician centers of Marash, Hajin, Sis and Ainteb. Historian Ara Sanjian has described the Armenian presence in Lebanon as insular and autonomous.

This exceptional political situation in Lebanon is unique in the Middle East and Lebanon’s Armenians have adapted to the country’s governance system of consociationalism, also known as “personal-based federalism”. This political system was borrowed from Ottoman tradition, the French jurists in charge of the mandate over Lebanon, and local traditions that mediated inter-community relations.

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