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The Armenian genocide, the revolt of Sheikh Said and the Armenians in the Syrian Jazira (1)
by Seda Altug
www.armenianweekly. com
by Seda Altug
www.armenianweekly. com
[We are witnessing a socio-political process in Turkey, where the official state ideology underlying that supports the denial of Armenian genocide, is now being increasingly called into question at some levels of Turkish society. However, because of the official Turkish line and multiple modalities by which it influences the discourse of the elites on the Armenian genocide, public and private debates on the destruction and uprooting of Armenians revolve around 1915. Without diminishing the symbolic significance of that year, 1915 is highlighted as the real time the story begins and ends. Similarly, the dominant stories from above tend to homogenize the Armenians as a group and ignore internal conflict and differentiation of socio-economic, cultural and linguistic diversity. Variations in form, method and time, when the implementation and experiences of genocide, as well as local and regional factors underlying issues remain under-explored.]
The survivors and those who remained - in a radically changed world - are other issues neglected pending a scientific study. In this regard, the dominant discourse Armenian and Turkish evacuate two other remarkable displacement, which occurred immediately after the genocide of 1915 and that led to the remoteness of some 90,000 Armenians from their homes in Cilicia in southeastern Anatolia in early and late 1920s, to various places of French Syria, respectively.
When Armistice Mudros, October 30, 1918, most surviving Armenians in Ottoman Syrian territory, still hoped to return to their homeland since the end of the war And between 120,000 and 150,000 prisoners returned to Cilicia, which was then under French occupation (2). Now the hopes of return of these Armenians were ruined, following the evacuation of Cilicia by France in late 1921 and the signing of the Treaty of Ankara, which demarcates the boundary between French Syria and the Republic of Turkey, the newly created ( October 20, 1921). There followed the opposite new mass exodus of Armenians from Cilicia to Syria and Lebanon (3). The French were followed by tens of thousands of Armenians who had survived the deportations and massacres of the First World War. Approximately 80,000 new refugees arrived in Syria and Lebanon by land or sea, in addition to the Armenian deportees from 1915-16, who had succeeded to return to Cilicia, and local Armenians ( al-Armani al-Qadim ), already living in Syria for centuries and which had completely escaped the mass deportations (4). The vast majority of newcomers came to Alexandretta, Aleppo and Beirut. The historian Richard Hovannisian believes that the end of 1925, there were approximately 100,000 refugees in Syria and in Lebanon 50 000. According to the Mandatory authorities in 1923 about 200,000 Armenians had passed through Aleppo.
The second mass exodus, which is the subject of this article, concerns the Armenians from rural areas of Diyarbakir, Mardin, Siirt and Sirnak. Witnessed one of the bloodiest aspects of genocide: there was little caravan of deportation from this region, where the mortality rate was higher than elsewhere (5). The authorities of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) were able to exploit to their advantage tribal conflicts between internal and external major Kurdish tribes in the region. This is also found in the memoirs of survivors among the Armenians Jazeera, from the cities and villages and districts Reskotan Hazakh and Valley Xerzan (Gharzan) as Biseri / Qubin (now Gercus) Zercil (now Danali) , Farqin (now Silvan) Bolunt (Bilek today) and Khaznamir (now Inpinar) (6). Bissara Ceto, the chief of the tribe Pencinar, Cemilo Ceto and his brother, left the memory of evil personalities, as regards the destruction of Armenian villagers, Kurdish and Syriac in the region (7).
Armenians who managed to survive in the cities of origin or in the surrounding villages until the mid 1920s - thanks to the protection (selective) provided by some lords Kurds - were barely affected by a new wave of state violence in 1925, the revolt of Sheikh Said. The cruel social and military measures of the Turkish state newly created to destroy the rebellion, dealt a severe blow to local networks and tribal protection, through which the Armenians had survived and preserved their livelihoods after the genocide (8 ). Because of the compartmentalization in the Historiography made Turkish, Armenian and Kurdish revolt of Sheikh Said was recognized as a turning point in national history, Kurdish, yet its impact on Armenians requires further research. If one relies on oral interviews with Armenians Jazeera, it is arguable that this was indeed a decisive historical event for the Armenians in this region. Between 1925 and 1930, about 100,000 Armenians from rural areas of Diyarbakir and Mardin fled southward, crossed the Turkish-Syrian still open, often accompanied by their Kurdish counterparts, and found refuge in the north-eastern French Syria, the Syrian Jazira (9).
Armenians and Jazeera French
The Jazeera Syria was indeed a no man's land, which mainly serve as pasture for the Kurdish tribes and Arab nomadic and semi-nomadic until early 20th century. Although the Syrian-Turkish border has been officially demarcated in 1921, that distinction will rarely change immediate official on the ground. The region remained a disputed area between French Syria and Turkey, for nearly ten years. While the French working to stop the anti-colonial revolts in southern Syria, the official state control and even the occupation of the area were suspended. The secret services, French military officers, aid workers and missionaries and Dominicans still patrolling the area during autumn and winter of 1926-27, albeit semi-autonomous (10).
engagement in the Jazeera colonial French had a backdrop antagonism Christians / Muslims (Kurds), the impoverished Armenian refugees had brought with them to Syria. French domination remodeled and redefines the antagonism through several policy measures for social, economic and administrative.
The implementation project was one of the most unique aspects of the creation of the French Jazeera. Robert Caix, one of the strongest proponents of mandatory role of France in Syria, said the intentions of the colonial power - the fact that the High-Jazeera would be effectively "colonized" by a Christian population "traditionally loyal" to the French . He had to "reclaim" a region populated by only a few nomads (11). Called "Kurdish-Christian "By the French secret service officials or" Kurdish-Armenian "in the reports of the Dominican missionaries, the Armenians of Jazeera (and other Christian refugees) were considered a" Christian element on which [the French] can s 'support to counterbalance the Muslim population and make Syria a mixed country "(12). In the colonial mentality, people of Christian territory virgin Jazira was the most appropriate solution to encourage farming and agriculture to open the vast uncultivated land of Jazira - the "savage customs" and "warlike".
authorities pursued a policy towards agricultural contradictory allegiances (semi-) tribal and multi-ethnic Armenian refugees. The religion emerged as a key factor in land distribution or organization of the villages in the countryside. On the one hand, the authorities supported the peasantry and the de-tribalism, but on the other hand, they were concerned about the destruction of tribal power structures, for reasons both political and economic. Most often "outsiders" - farmers or Armenian Kurdish refugees - cultivated land of nomads and paying a fee in exchange for land. They are Armenian sharecroppers who worked the lands of Arab Tayy, paying back a fifth of the crop (13).
The French mandate creation of small towns and villages on a religious basis. These villages formed the background to economic chairing the emergence of a sectarian and dominated by an elite in French Jazeera. The founding of new villages along the border, for the implementation Kurdish and Christian groups, and the appointment of a fellow Muslim village chief (mukhtar ) were certainly new phenomena, which necessitated a radical change in social and political subjectivities of local people and local relations power (14). Gradually, the rural population dispersed and multi-ethnic and formed new tenants on the lands of large landowners - the former heads of Arab and Kurdish tribes.
The French wanted to build urban centers along the border, to offset economic losses due to the delimitation of the border. Because of their behavior less "fiery" and more "civilized", Catholics, both Armenian and Syriac were supposed to constitute the majority of urban populations. Qamishli is an excellent example of this colonial design. Founded in 1926, only 1.5 km from Nusaybin on Turkish territory, its population was 20 000 in 1937.
Trade, which was played between the former cities of origin and the north-eastern Syria and Iraq before the genocide began to be replaced by trading in Jazeera, then trade between Aleppo and Qamishli from the early 1930s. Community networks played an important role in the development of trade between Aleppo and Qamishli. The Armenians were pioneers in the development of trade between Aleppo and urban centers in Jazeera, mobilizing community resources. The Kurds also became involved in this trade, rather as peasant producers of foodstuffs or raw materials, or taking care of the consolidation and delivery of these productions Qamichli to Aleppo. Christians, particularly Armenians in the case of Aleppo, distributing materials and manufacturers in Aleppo Aleppo Jazeera. Meanwhile, the Khan al-Jazeera in Aleppo became one of the most active commercial deposits of this city (15).
officials of the French secret service in French Jazeera leaned primarily on the Christian refugees, originating in Turkey for security and administration of the newly created urban centers. However, the Turkish state regularly sent notes to the French Mandate authorities, asking them to prevent the Armenians from being recruited into the security forces. Many refugees Armenian surnames Semitic adopted to circumvent the ban.
The political, economic and ideological France in French Syria Syrian Jazeera allowed to become a microcosm reflecting the opposite of creative dynamics of the Turkish nation. Besides the Armenians and Kurds, Christians were subject to various denominations, mostly Syriac Orthodox Jews from Nusaybin; Kurdish tribesmen sedentary and semi-nomadic and some nomadic Arab tribes. Forced displacement continued for over two decades until the early 1950s. The effects of "modernization unequal colonial and segregationist" laid the foundations for the emergence of sectarianism dominated by an elite French Jazeera, whose peculiarities were taken also, to some extent by the Arab nationalist regime after the independence.
Refugees Armenian and Syrian Arabs
antagonism and hostility between refugees and Syrians to the arrival of the first, whatever its origins and its manifestations - Economic, social or otherwise - are ignored in the Armenian historiography dominant in Syria. As of early divergences are evaded, challenged the process of integration of newcomers in their host society has also remained absent. This ahistorical perspective is consistent with the depoliticization of the community during the period that followed independence in Syria (1946) and does not follow the process of negotiation and transformation within political and social subjectivities (16) . Although there was no direct confrontation between new Armenian and Syrian populations arrivals local Jazeera, the fact that they were not established in the region, the arrival of Armenian refugees after 1925 (and other refugee groups Syriac, Kurdish and Assyrian Jazeera) aroused the greatest concern among the Arab nationalists in the Syrian cities of the interior. While the Arab nationalist unease regarding the arrival of Armenian refugees in 1915 and 1921 expressed via the model against harmful foreign Syrians offended ", this new influx of refugees caused a commotion combat. Their installation Jazeera was considered "the violation of the sanctity of the entity and the Syrian national identity", wrote the newspaper Al- cha'ab , while refugees were considered "settlers »French (17). Their arrival in large numbers aroused fear (fueled by the Syrian nationalist press) that other people might come to settle in Syria. The newspapers were disseminating fanciful figures on new "incursions." The settlement of refugees in the Syrian land in the Jazira and the allocation of land to these refugees were seen as fundamentally unjust and illegitimate actions, similar in nature to "the establishment of Zionist settlers in Palestine." National newspapers of the time compared to newcomers "Zionist settlers in Palestine and implementation projects in Jazeera, supported by France and the League of Nations, a larger project to create a homeland Armenian ( watan Kawm armani ) in the heart of the "Arab homeland." Contrary to a previous era, the French Mandatory regime and "humanitarian aid "League of Nations were sentenced under the pretext of" occupation by Armenians. " Al- cha'ab wrote that "more money will be given to the Armenians by the League of Nations, more Armenians flock in Jazeera, which will soon result of doing their homeland Jazeera" (18). Concern about the (dis) unity of the Syrian land to which the religious and administrative colonial policy of France contributed greatly, brought the Arab nationalists to consider the arrival of refugees and the gradual improvement of their lot as "interference in Syrian territory by building houses, thanks to donations from Western governments, especially Great Britain." Otherwise the streets, at least in their newspapers, nationalists protested against the situation then have to "pay the price of Tragedy ( musiba ) refugees, while suffering under invading armies ( 19).
items often ended with a request to end the recent immigration of Zionists and Armenians to Bilad al-'Arabi Sharq (Eastern Arab territories). Affirming represent an Arab nation united and active, assertive rhetoric calling for a solution involving also the first immigrants. "Their stay here will not last long," wrote Al- cha'ab on a threatening tone. The station has a land Syrian Arab Syrians do not deliver to the Armenians, nor to non-Armenians [...] [The Arabs] will resist by all possible means for settlement. "The Armenians were thus" prevented "a new life in Syria would be unsafe to the sides of the" Angry Arab ".
"The settlement of refugees Earthen Syrian Arab 'was a phrase that is frequently found in newspapers of the time, usually followed by a description of the role of "foreign powers" in the "lowering" of Syria, its land and its people. Revealing a nationalist anxiety over the lack of an autonomous national or develop its own historical destiny. Al- cha'ab recounts how "since the Armenians left their homeland, the doors of every country they have been closed, except that country, while security and peace made by the French allowed them to enter here. "(20) The same article claims that the League of Nations consulted all Western countries, the French agreed and chose the" High-Jazeera "(most likely the French translation of High-Jazira) as a suitable place.
In this climate of controversy and suspicion of weariness against the French regime and the process of opening the disputed territory of non-Jazeera Arab refugees and non-Muslims as Jazeera and its inhabitants were integrated for the first time to the national Syrian. It against this background and its political repercussions in the Syrian view that under the French populations of the current Jazeera remember the past. And this is against Arab nationalist fervor and increasing clashes between communities as the main Armenian political parties, and the hentchaks Dashnaks, began to publicly declare their good will toward Arabs. An Armenian newspaper, Lebanon, writes in an article published in Arabic, May 15, 1930, that "if the Armenians were forced to come to Syria, they never had the intention to create a national home. In fact, Armenians have a national homeland, but it is under Soviet domination. When it reopens, there they return. "(21)
Similarly, a joint party and Hentchak Ramgavar said:" We have only one homeland: it is Armenia. In this hospitable country, we strive only to provide for our families and to educate our children. We would like to see cordial relations between Arabs and Armenians maintain and misunderstandings that led to suspicions being raised. " Several other Armenian newspapers again assured the Arabs that Syria was not comparable to Palestine or to the Armenians in the USSR (22). An article published in Yaprad , Aleppo Armenian newspaper, 24 May 1930, notes the emergence of the image of the "Armenian host great worker and apolitical" in the collective memory of Syria. It reads: "The Armenian is welcomed with hospitality in this country and this fact is evidenced by the mandatory power and the noble Arab people. It is quite obvious that people welcome has no ambition to engage in politics. The so-called project to install an Armenian homeland in Syria is totally unfounded and purely imaginary. "(23)
Conclusion
In the world that preceded the genocide, several areas of the provinces of Diyarbakir and Mardin harbored a mixed population, with many Christian groups of different persuasions, the Kurds, Jews and Yezidis submitted vaguely Kurdish tribe, with a degree of autonomy. Both in rural than in urban centers of Mardin and Diyarbakir were a considerable number of Jews, Arabs and Christians in various denominations, along with Kurdish leaders and Arab tribes residing in the city center. Surrounded by fertile plains of the Jazira, the urban population of Mardin and Diyarbakir practiced a regional trading, often in partnership with aghas Kurdish and Syriac and Armenian merchants. The rural population shared a common culture, a common dialect and a common respect for the agricultural cycles. Being subjected to similar hierarchies and to obey the same leader of the Kurdish tribe, or to have both a mukhtar mukhtar Christian and a Muslim in a mixed village, was hardly unusual. Kurdish tribal groups dominated the region and also incorporated many non-tribal Kurds that Christians in their semi-feudal structures of control (24). Several Kurdish tribes, including Haverkan, accounted for significant Christian and Yezidi, who were on good terms with the rest of the Muslim elites in the Kurdish tribe. The traditional division of labor was essentially an inter-religious among Kurdish peasants and peasant Christians Armenians worked as craftsmen (such as blacksmiths, saddlers, weavers, potters or sharecroppers), while the Kurdish peasants were mostly specialized in Livestock (25). Threats, looting and massacres, often made by their counterparts in state and Kurdish militias in 1915, leading inevitably to the erosion of mutual trust and coexistence between communities.
The French attempts to land distribution, their policy on refugees and urban planning were aimed at all refugees to be Christians urbanized lower class, peasants or small landowners, getting in return their loyalty. Armenian political organizations also attempted to transform these populations "Kurdish-Armenian" to "true Armenians, first by teaching them their language, then the" true "Christianity (26). Community leaders off or more established, especially from Aleppo and Beirut, assumed another task for the general division of labor: being the "whites" of their community changing, they had to "charge" seek from the French authorities for protection and support on behalf of newcomers. This civilizing mission by the Armenians of the middle class, the sectarian system supported by France and dominated by an elite, and the Christian visibility which resulted in the region, all contributed to "heal" the wounds of genocide, even if it was not necessarily successful.
Notes
1. Among Armenians and Kurds in the Syrian Jazeera, the Armenian genocide is qualified undergraduate ferman , while the revolt of Sheikh Said is called the second ferman . In the local sense, the Syrian Jazeera is referred to as binxet , a neologism describing the land " under the "Baghdad Railway", while Turkey is designated as one of serxet above the line of the Baghdad Railway.
2. SE Kerr Lions of Marash, Personal Experiences with American Near East Relief (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1973), p. 36. Ara Sanjian, "The Armenian Minority Experience in the Modern Arab World," Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies 3, No. 1 (Spring / Summer 2001), p. 152.
3. Studies on the Armenians in Syria are at odds over the significance of the Ottoman Syria in most survivors of the Armenian genocide. See Raymond Kevorkian, ed., "The Extermination of Ottoman Armenian deportees in the concentration camps of Syria and Mesopotamia (1915-16): the second phase of the genocide," Journal of Contemporary History Armenian , 2 (special issue ), 1998 10-14, 45-46, 60-61. On deportations to Syria, see also Album Taqrir Musawwar likawafil CMBS al-Armani al-Sha'b fi'am 1915 ila al-al-'aradhi Suriyya (Halab: Barq Editions, 1994) - publication supported by Robert Jébéjiyan , owner of Violet Jébéjiyan Library ; Thomas H. Greenshields, The Settlement of Armenians refugees in Syria and Lebanon, 1915-1939 , thèse de doctorat non publiée, Université de Durham, 1978 ; Vahram L. Chemmassian, « The reclamation of captive Armenian Genocide Survivors in Syria and Lebanon at the End of World War I », Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies , 15 (2006), p. 110-140 ; et Nicola Migliorino, (Re)constructing Armenia in Lebanon and Syria : Ethno-cultural Diversity and the State in the Aftermath of a Refugee Crisis (Oxford : Berghahn Books, 2007).
4. Sur les Arméniens d’Alep durant le génocide, voir Hilmar Kaiser, en collaboration with Luther and Nancy Eskijian, At the Crossroads of Der Zor: Death, Survival, and Humanitarian Resistance in Aleppo, 1915-1917 (Gomidas Institute, 2002).
5. Ugur U. Ungor, A Reign of Terror / UPC Rule in Diyarbakir Province, 1913-1923 , Master's thesis, unpublished, supported the department of history at the University of Amsterdam in June 2005.
6. On the Armenians in this region, see Raymond H. Kevorkian and Paul B. Paboudjian, Armenians in the Ottoman Empire on the eve of Genocide (Paris: ARHIS, 1992), p. 400-401.
7. On the clashes between Kurdish tribes in the region, see Ungor, A Reign of Terror , P. 27-31. See also www.tirej.name / osman% 20sebri/3.html .
8. For a more elaborate study on the influx of refugees, see Vahe Tachjian, France in Cilicia and Upper Mesopotamia / the borders of Turkey, Syria and Iraq 1919-1933 (Paris: Karthala, 2004 ), p. 274-285. According to the report and Basmadjian Térdjanian, the end of 1929, 500 Armenian families were entered into High-Jazeera (Centre of Diplomatic Archives in Nantes / CADN, m. SL, 1st payment, bd No. 2544, "Report Basmadjian and Michel Tergenian on emigrants Armenians, and recently arrived refugees in areas of Kamechlié, Hassatché, Amouda and Karami, December 28, 1929, p. 2).
9. Robert Montagne, "Some aspects of the settlement of Upper Jeziri" Bulletin of Oriental Studies, II, 1932, p. 53-66. For a detailed geographical approach to the region, see André Gibert Fevret and Maurice, "The Syrian Jazira and economic awakening," Journal of Geography Lyon, 28, 1953 p. 1-15, 83-99; Vaumas Etienne, "The Jezireh," Journal of Geography , 65 (348), 1956, p. 64-80; P. Poidebard, "Archaeological Mission High Jazira (Fall 1927)," Syria , 9, 1928, p. 216-223. The early history of the region, see Louis Dillemann, Eastern Upper Mesopotamia and adjacent countries: Contribution to Historical Geography of the Region (Paris: Geuthner, 1962). On barriyya, see Victor Muller, with the Bedouins in Syria (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1931).
10. David Mizrahi, "Army, state and nation Middle East. The Birth of Special Forces in the Levant during the French Mandate, Syria, 1919-1930 ", World Wars and Conflicts Contemporary, 2002 / 3, 207 p. 107-123, and Martin Thomas, "French Intelligence-Gathering In The Syrian Mandate, 1920-40," Middle Eastern Studies , 2002 (38), 1, p. 1-32.
11. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Levant, 1918-40, Iraq, vol. 51, letter from Robert Caix, Acting High Commissioner in Syria and Lebanon, Millerand, Chairman and Minister of Foreign Affairs, April 8, 1920, Beirut, p. 185-187.
12. Diplomatic Archives Centre in Nantes (CADN), Syria, Lebanon, first installment, No. 586, letter (No. 612/KD) Weygand of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, August 25, 1924.
13. Syrian Republic, General Report recognition land, 1940, p. 34.
14. Diplomatic Archives Centre in Nantes (CADN), Office Politics, folder 1976, Refugees, Poidebard, High Jazira.
15. Philip Khoury, Syria & the French Mandate (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1987), p. 527.
16. On the relations between the Armenians in Syria and the Syrians under the French mandate, see Keith Watenpaugh, "Towards a new category of colonial theory: Colonial cooperation and Survivor's Bargain, The Case Of The post-genocide Armenian community of Syria Under French mandate" , in Meouchy Nadine and Peter Sluglett, The British and French Mandates in Comparative Perspectives / The English and French mandates in comparative perspective (Leiden: Brill, 2004), p. 599.
17. Al- cha'ab , "the Suriyya allata Hurmat Laha, 13 November 1935.
18. Al- cha'ab , "al-watan al-Armani al-fi qawmi Shimali yuallim al-suriyyin, November 3, 1928.
19. Al- cha'ab , "al-watan al-Armani al Kawm fi Suriya, of awaal-" east "iskan ila al-Armani al-fi cazira, January 28, 1930.
20. Al- cha'ab , "al-want al-Armani al-fi qawmi Shimali yuallim al-suriyyin, November 3, 1928.
21. Taken from: Diplomatic Archives Centre in Nantes (CADN), file 576, Policy Department, engineering, "Armenia and Armenians", editor: Commander Terrier.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.
24. Martin van Bruinessen, "Constructions of ethnic identity in The Late Ottoman Empire and Republican Turkey: The Kurds and Their Others" www.let.uu.nl .
25. Habitual Tachjian, P. 175, footnote on page 303 (CADN, Syria, Lebanon, first installment, No. 1065, letter (No. 4204/DZ) Colonel Callasi, Deputy Representative of the High Commissioner for sanjak Deir ez Zor, the delegate the High Commissioner in Damascus, October 24, 1928, Deir ez Zor, p. 1).
26. Nureddin Zaza mentions in his memoirs efforts acculturation Dashnaks Armenian community of Aleppo Qamishli, with Armenians from Bisheri. Regarded as lacking the "characteristics necessary to be a real Armenian, they found themselves teaching language and religion. Ref. : Nurettin Zaza, Bir Kurt olarak Yasamim (Mezopotamya Editions, 1993).
[ Seda Altug studied economics at Bogazici University, where she supported a Masters history. Her thesis is titled Between Colonial and National Dominions: "under the French Mandate Antioch (1920-1939) [between colonial domination and national: Antioch under the French mandate (1920-1939)]. She is currently a doctoral student at Utrecht University in the Department of Oriental Studies. His thesis is titled Veiled sectarianism: Community, Land and Violence In The Memories of the genocide - Border & the French mandate in Syrian Jazira (1915-1939) [A veiled sectarianism: community, territory and violence in the memories of genocide - Border and French mandate in Syria Jazeera (1915-1939)]. His interests include state-society relations and inter in French Syria and the border and the political memorial in modern Syria.]
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Source: http://www. armenianweekly.com/wp-content/files/Armenian_Weekly_April_2010.pdf
Translation: © George Festa - 01.2011
Courtesy of KM, editor of the Armenian Weekly .
In this post, Stéphane Baillargeon 
