By Syndication Bureau
Neil Hauer
Neil Hauer
The history of the Middle East has been one of ethnic and cultural
diversity. As the birthplace of civilization in the Fertile Crescent,
and then of the three Abrahamic religions, it has naturally seen the ebb
and flow of a vast number of distinct peoples and communities. Yet
these days, that legacy’s continued status appears more in jeopardy than
ever. With decades of war, instability and religious extremism
worsening conditions, another of the region’s ancient communities is
increasingly flowing outwards: the Armenians.
Armenians have been long present in the Levant and elsewhere in the
region. With a rich history of mercantilism, small-scale migrations from
their mountainous homeland in eastern Anatolia established the first
communities in the region long ago. Most contemporary Middle Eastern
Armenians, however, arrived as a result of the 1915 Armenian genocide
that saw Ottoman troops disperse them from their territories into the
rest of the empire and beyond.
The communities established a century ago have since been whittled
down by a process that has drastically accelerated in the past 10 years
and even more so in the last 12 months. The long-term survival of
Armenians as a distinct community across the region is more in question
now than at any time before.
Of the three largest communities, the most severely reduced is the
one in Syria. Home to perhaps 80,000 Armenians before the war, the
Syrian Armenians had the distinct misfortune of being concentrated in
Aleppo, which suffered massively as the center of a four-year struggle
between government and opposition forces. Even more shocking was the
2014 sacking of Kesab, an exclusively Armenian village in the northwest
of the country. Armenians across the world were transfixed in horror as
anti-regime jihadists ransacked the town. Their homes destroyed, more
than 20,000 Syrian Armenians repatriated to Armenia with the help of
that country’s government, while more went elsewhere. Some accounts
place the number of Armenians remaining in the country to be as low as
15,000.
Iran and Lebanon, the other two centers, have each shed many of their
own Armenians in the past few years. Lebanon’s Armenian population,
once perhaps a quarter of a million strong, saw its share of emigration
during the 1975-1990 civil war there. More have left recently due to
more mundane reasons: economic stagnation and unemployment. Those same
factors have also played a key role in outflows from Iran, whose
Armenian population dates back to a 17th century resettlement program by
the then-shah.
While these two countries have seen severe economic difficulties, the
homeland has become much more attractive. The “Velvet Revolution,” as
commentators have dubbed the peaceful uprising that toppled the Republic
of Armenia’s authoritarian government last spring, has delivered an air
of hope to the country. While the diaspora once viewed it dourly, this
perception has been turned on its head, with immigration numbers (most
of them ethnic Armenians) reaching their highest point in over a decade.
Exact statistics are hard to come by, but repatriation organizations
active in the republic note that the largest increase has been from
Lebanon and Iran. Should successful economic and political reforms
follow, further Armenian migration from these two countries would almost
certainly ensue.
Another region-wide trend has played a major role: Christian
persecution. Across the Middle East, Christian communities have suffered
killings and other attacks with increasing regularity. Perhaps the two
most severely affected have been Iraq, where anti-Christian violence
since 2003 peaked with the rise of ISIS, and Egypt, whose Coptic
Christians have suffered immensely. Both countries are also host to
Armenian communities, the vast majority of whom, however, have since
fled. Even in Israel, home to a few thousand Armenians, notably in
Jerusalem’s 2,000-year old Armenian quarter, discrimination against the
community has occurred on a sustained, if much less violent, level.
The trend has played out on a massive scale: whereas Christians were
estimated to form more than 13 percent of the Middle East’s population
in 1910, that number is expected to fall to barely 3 percent by 2025. A
seismic shift in the region’s demographics is occurring and the
Armenians are fully caught up in it.
Unlike Arab Christians, however, Armenians do have a homeland state,
one where the population shares their language, faith and customs. The
mere existence of the Republic of Armenia is thus a major blessing for
many Middle Eastern Armenians. But there are still many challenges.
Armenia is a developing country, with an average monthly wage of only
$300. Unlike locals, who mostly live in houses and apartments long owned
by their families, repatriates must spend half their salary or more on
rent alone. Two centuries of Russian and then Soviet domination have
naturally affected local culture and mindsets as well, creating
difficult-to-bridge cultural and linguistic gaps. Still, they are lucky
to have this imperfect refuge.
The Armenian retreat stretches from Alexandria to Aleppo to Esfahan
and it shows few signs of stopping. Most of the smaller communities,
like those in Iraq, are already nearly gone. Those in Iran and Lebanon
are likely to survive, albeit in truncated form, and possibly even
thrive: forming their own enclaves in each country, they are large
enough to be self-sustaining and also enjoy special privileges afforded
to them under the respective national governments. The United Arab
Emirates has also remained a rare hub, its financial opportunities and
stability encouraging a still-vibrant Armenian presence.
The second half of the 20th century saw the Jews of the Middle East
vanish from the lands where they had lived for centuries; the first half
of the 21st is witnessing the phenomenon repeated among Christians. For
the Armenians, driven there by force a century ago, their fate now,
again, seems to lie elsewhere.
Neil Hauer is a security analyst based in Tbilisi, Georgia. His
work focuses on the Syrian conflict, particularly Russia’s role;
politics and minorities in the South Caucasus; and violence and politics
in the North Caucasus, particularly Chechnya and Ingushetia.