SYRIA’S ARMENIANS FLEE FROM CONFLICT: COMMUNITY THAT FOUND SANCTUARY 100 YEARS AGO NOW BEING TARGETED
The Toronto Star, Canada
February 26, 2013 Tuesday
Growing up in the 1960s, Sarkis Assadourian felt safe and sheltered in
Aleppo’s buzzing Meidan district, in what was then Hafez Assad’s Syria.
“It was a shopping area, like a village, and 90 per cent of the people
were Armenian,” said the former MP for Brampton and Don Valley North.
“Nobody bothered us. The Muslims called us ‘our Armenian brothers.'”
But now Aleppo has fallen into the flames of a vicious civil war,
with thousands of Armenian-Syrians fleeing to other countries –
as their families once fled to Syria for sanctuary after the 1915
Ottoman genocide.
With a death toll of about 70,000 Syrians since the uprising began
almost two years ago, life for minorities is increasingly perilous.
Although Christian Armenians represent only 120,000 of Syria’s 22
million people, many of them are among the country’s most highly
educated professionals. Threats, kidnappings, killings and the bombing
and burning of Armenian churches have driven thousands to abandon
their businesses, homes and life savings.
But many who have left the country blame Islamist rebel groups as
much as President Bashar Assad Enhanced Coverage LinkingBashar Assad
-Search using:Biographies Plus NewsNews, Most Recent 60 Days(the son
of Hafez, who died in 2000) for the bloodbath that has engulfed them.
Their plight adds to the apprehension of western leaders over the
future of Syria if and when the opposition takes power. Canada has
refused to recognize the opposition unless it rejects extremism and
endorses inclusion of minorities.
“Assad was wrong,” said Assadourian in an interview. “He used a cannon
to kill a fly. But what will happen if fundamentalists take over?
Christians are losing ground throughout the Middle East. In Syria,
there will be very few left.”
Armenians, as well as other Christians and Assad’s own Muslim Alawite
minority, may not embrace the regime, but they fear new rounds of
persecution and killing at the hands of extremists. They also fear
the all-against-all civil war that brought neighbouring Lebanon –
similarly divided along ethnic and religious lines – to its knees
after 15 years of strife that began in 1975.
That’s a far cry from the tolerant Aleppo of Assadourian’s childhood
memories. The majority of Syria’s Armenians lived in the thriving
commercial centre, which is now in ruins.
“Our teacher was a Sunni Muslim, and she adopted an Armenian orphan.
There was no hatred toward our community,” he said.
Although the older Assad ruled with an iron fist, brutally crushing
rebellions and torturing and murdering thousands of suspected
opponents, he understood his own vulnerability as a member of
a minority. He secularized the country, railed against “odious
narrow-mindedness and loathsome bigotry,” and tried unsuccessfully
to change the constitution so that non-Muslims could be president.
Now thousands of Armenians have joined the more than 600,000 Syrians
who have fled as refugees, some of them anxiously hiding in the
country they once feared most, Turkey.
At least 6,000 have been taken in by struggling Armenia, which has
given them aid, medical care and speeded-up residency and citizenship
in spite of its strained budget. Some have headed for even poorer
Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory controlled by Armenia but also
claimed by Azerbaijan.
Many look back at Syria with longing, but with fading hope that they
will be able to return. Ultimately, says Assadourian, the flight of
minorities such as Armenians won’t help a post-Assad Syria become a
democratic society. “Whoever is in power must understand that if you
are going to run a country, you have to widen your base,” he said.