Everyday Sectarianism in Urban Lebanon by Nucho Joanne Randa

Author:Nucho, Joanne Randa. [Nucho, Joanne Randa.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780691168975
Publisher: PrincetonUP
Published: 2016-07-15T05:00:00+00:00

DEVELOPING “GOOD” WOMEN, PROGRESS THROUGH THE NETWORK

Silvart, an energetic woman in her late fifties, had spent most of her life working in Bourj Hammoud, though she and her family lived in a middle-class suburb nearby. During the long, dark years of the civil war, Silvart had begun her career as a coordinator between various international charities and the prelacy of the Lebanese branch of the Armenian Apostolic Church, which runs several schools and churches in the area. In those days her work was focused on emergency and relief services. Like many of my interlocutors in Bourj Hammoud, Silvart had harrowing tales of the war. A constant barrage of shells falling close enough for her to hear the whizzing sound of their flight through the air, one blowing up her car just in front of her house, militiamen overrunning and claiming her family’s shop in a nearby neighborhood—all these were stories she related during our conversations. And yet Silvart also echoed another popular sentiment I’d heard through many of my interviews about Bourj Hammoud during the war—one of nostalgia.

“During the war, people knew who they really were,” Silvart said. Ultimately, Silvart thought, “being Armenian” was the only recourse for safety, for stability, for a sense of community and solidarity for an Armenian in Lebanon. There were various ways for women to demonstrate their commitment to being Armenian. One of them was sending one’s children to the Armenian schools in Bourj Hammoud or elsewhere. While lower-income families were more likely send their children to Armenian schools, particularly with the assistance of arachnortaran scholarships and subsidies for Armenian students, Silvart suggested that wealthy Armenians seem to have “forgotten their roots” and send their children to exclusive Lebanese Christian academies that do not offer any instruction in Armenian language or history. She noted, sardonically, that the next time Lebanon was enveloped in a violent, cataclysmic war (an inevitability, she thought), these people would be faced with the reality that they are first and foremost Armenians, and only other Armenians can offer them the protection and security that is so elusive in times of conflict.

Silvart’s lifelong work has been to support and maintain the “community,” a task that, ironically, has only become more difficult since the civil war in Lebanon ended in 1990. During the war the needs were obvious, and it was easier to attract international assistance. Now, however, despite the economic and political instability that has plagued the country ever since the war ended, it is much harder to attract aid. Silvart enthusiastically listed all the economic development projects for women that she had been involved with since 2000. Two of the projects, a catering business and a job placement service, were illustrative of the types of enterprises that the Tashnag-dominated arachnortaran had embarked on that serve mainly Armenian women. The catering business employed Armenian women who lived in the Bourj Hammoud area. Specializing in Armenian and Lebanese dishes like manti (meat dumplings) or kibbet laqteen (pumpkin croquettes), the business maintained a food delivery service with a menu that changed daily.

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