10.12.2015ARMENIANS IN THE MIDST OF CIVIL WARS: LEBANON AND SYRIA COMPARED
Ara Sanjian
University of Michigan-Dearborn
Since March 2011, Syria has been the arena of a vicious civil war, in which numerous world and regional powers have also become deeply involved. The long-term existence of the deep-rooted Armenian communities in various parts of Syria has also come under question because of this protracted conflict. An unmistakable feeling of deep unease and anxiety is evident among most Armenians worldwide as fighting persists and no peaceful settlement appears to be in sight.
The Syrian conflict follows another long-drawn-out civil war in next-door Lebanon, which went on for fifteen years, from 1975 to 1990. The Armenian community in Lebanon also suffered gravely during this conflict. However, the general view prevailing among Armenians today, both in Lebanon and abroad, is that the amount of Armenian losses and torment during the Lebanese Civil War was mitigated because of the policy of ‘positive neutrality,’ which the various religious and political components of the Armenian community in Lebanon unfailingly practiced during the decade-and-a-half of bloodshed and destruction.
In the past four years many Armenians have frequently asked why their ethnic kin in Syria have failed to openly proclaim a similar community-wide policy of neutrality in the current conflict and pursue it effectively. This article will attempt to provide a tentative answer to this oft-raised question, based on the comparison of the challenges which Armenians in Lebanon faced during the early stages of their country’s civil war, with the difficulties now confronting the Armenians in Syria.
ARMENIANS IN THE MIDST OF CIVIL WARS: LEBANON AND SYRIA COMPARED (220 KB)
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