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

NY Times ^ | 5-26-09 | ROBERT F. WORTH

[SJackson]

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.

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. 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.

[SJackson]

Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.

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[forkinsocket]

& also because of Amin Jumayyil & Gabriel Al-Murr’s racist tirades against Armenians.