My abridged translation of Armenag Yeghiayan’s sequel (Լեզուական Փեթակ՝ Պուրճ Համուտ – 5 -). The original is linked. Vahe H Apelian
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| Courtesy Garo Konyalian |
After commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Genocide, various initiatives took place. A new national awareness began in our lives, as well as in Bourj Hammoud, whose Armenian ethnographic makeup was already sufficiently compromised by the repatriation that took place from 1946-48. Thousands of Armenian owned apartments changed hands. The new owners were our Arab compatriots from the south. The Arab Israeli war that took place during the same years, also brought hundreds of thousands of immigrants to Lebanon in general, and to Bourj Hammoud in particular. The vast swamp of Nabaa, next to the New Sis section of Bourj Hammoud, was drained and turned into a densely populated suburb populated mostly by Palestinians.
One of the targets of this new national awareness became the campaign against the Turkish language. The language became the subject of a long lasting and consistent persecution. This campaign had its own slogans, one of which was "Answer in Armenian to those who speak Turkish". The slogan was enforced mainly orally, but also in writing. Young men were seen in the streets of Bourj Hammoud, armed with pails full of paint and brushes, painting the slogan on walls without the permission of the owners, giving rise to rebuke both by Armenian and Arab owners of the properties.
Little by little, this act was refined. Amateurish handwriting was replaced by leaflets that displayed the slogan with an artistic designs. These leaflets were more easily tolerated by the homeowners, whose walls would bear the colorful announcements plastered over them.
Along with leaflets, came the flyers, which carried more than a sentence long slogan, but also noted brief historical facts and especially numbers to make their points and impress the recipients. These posters were distributed a little bit everywhere: at the entrance of cinemas, in front of lecture halls, in public buses or simply in the streets, to pedestrians who were not always Armenians who sometimes accepted the poster. Others threw it away with an instinctive indifference simply because they could not read. That is why soon the flyers started appearing bilingual relieving the distributor guessing the national affiliation of the recipients, some of whom after glancing over it, would ask for details about its content.
The campaign against Turkish thus gained more popularity. And finally, oral propagandists joined the campaign. They usually consisted of a young boy and a young girl. These young preachers went around the neighborhoods of Bourj Hammoud and fulfilled their mission in favor of speaking Armenian with dedication, when the Turkish speaking business owners or shopkeepers could not refuse them and would invite them in.
It could be assumed that this colorful campaign against speaking Turkish was a temporary fad and that it will soon subside. However, it did not happen that way. It was carried forward with a consistent drive and started changing nature of Bourj Hammoud. It even started addressing the merchants of Bourj Hammoud and the grocery owners who imported and sold Turkish good. The anti-Turkish campaign did not spare the customers as well, who bought Turkish products.
Bourj Hammoud started becoming more of an Armenian enclave by the day.
The eminent French Armenian writer, novelist and satirist Nshan Beshigtashlian, visiting Lebanon said that Lebanon is the Armenian Diaspora stronghold, but Bourj Hammoud is the stronghold of this Diaspora stronghold.
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| Courtesy Arin Ch Artwork |
But an entrenched mindset persisted.
The Turk lived in us for centuries, if not always in the conscious, but in our subconscious. The reality of the Genocide did not always succeed in erasing that centuries-old, entrenched chock hold from the Western Armenian’s consciousness. In response to the anti-Turkish campaign, the average Western Armenian was disposed and inclined to accept the devastation genocide brought to the nation and attributed it to several names: Talaat, Enver, Jamal and few others. But, in the Western Armenian consciousness other kind of murderers and other executioners did not have a place. That is why the Western Armenian was not willing, nor found it to be reasonable, to do away Turkish food, music, film, cheap good and especially the Turkish language.
Against the anti-Turkish campaign, everyone had their own self-defensive response ready:
- Is purchasing a bottle hot pepper paste going to enrich the Turkish army?
- If I am not going to say dolma-sarma, what am I going to say?
- If I don't watch Turkish films, then what movies should I watch? Do you have similar Armenian movies?
- What is wrong with the language?
- How can I learn a new language at this age?
And so on...
In any case, time had its beneficial effect as well, and indeed, towards the end of the century, a significant retreat of the Turkish language could be noticed. Foremost, the new generation almost no longer spoke Turkish. Turkish speakers were rarely met on the streets of Bourj Hammoud. Turkish almost disappeared from parties forever. Turkish CDs and tape recorders had no place in the shops.
This success came about mostly by the consistent and exemplary struggle. But the demise of the Turkish speaking generation from the daily life of Bourj Hamoud, greatly aided the campaign against speaking Turkish.
And as the French would say
"And the combat ended, for lack of combatants!" (--Et le combat finit, faute de combattants !!!)
*****
“I often claim that Turkish is one of the mother tongues of the Armenian people" (Bagrat Estugian, see the “supplement” below).”
I had just finished this article of the sequel “Bourj Hammoud, Armenian Beehive”, when by an amazing coincidence, I read Jirayr Cholakian’s, the editor of “Nor Haratch”, interview of Bagrat Estugian, the editor-in-chief of "Akos”. I quote the following from the interview, emphasizing some parts .
“In the years following the genocide, we as a diaspora settled in large numbers in the Middle East, for example in Lebanon, where non-Armenian speakers were the majority. Therefore, those who came from Marash were not Armenian speakers at all. Or, if they were Armenian speaking, then they had a special dialect of Armenian: the dialect of Mount Musa, the dialect of Cilicia. We saw that in those years that most of our people did not speak Armenian.
The leaders of that region organized campaigns against them to make them Armenian speaking. And they succeeded, yes. Today, the people in no other corner of the world speak as much Armenian as in Lebanon and in Syria, especially in Beirut and in Aleppo. But in spite of that, I still meet young people who know Turkish very well. Therefore, we have not succeeded in banning the speaking Turkish altogether, which in my opinion is a fortunate phenomenon. All languages are dear to us, but the Turkish language more than the others. For example, Turkish folk music is responsive in us.
All these supplement our emotional life. It is pointless to ban a language with artificial hostility. You may have animosity against an ideology or an understanding, but fighting against languages is pointless, and we can already see its results in the mouths of a 20-year-old young men from Aleppo and young men from Beirut" ("Nor Haratch", 26/1/23, p. 4).
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