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SUNSETS AND THE PRINTER OF AMMAN
Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso
Sept 18 2012
Italy
Amman is the capital of a Country hovering between remaining
faithful to a pro-Western monarchy and the shock wave of the Arab
Spring. A community of three thousand Armenians, a small star in the
firmament of the diaspora, lives and survives the contradictions of
the Middle-East. The eleventh episode of our report "From the Caucasus
to Beirut"
'There is a moment, just before sunset, when the sky of Baghdad turns
so red, you just have to look at it. Every day, it's the same thing. I
was born and raised in Baghdad, but I never got used to that light".
Sevag is dozing with his elbow on the less dusty mimeograph in his
typography. An Armenian flag is hanging still over his head, greasy
and tired. Just like him. 'Ten years have passed, since I ran away'.
For a second, the printer's eyes are crossed by a vital energy. 'I
would go back just to fill my eyes with one of those sunsets. But
then...' he dozes off again 'I would leave again. There is no future
for us Armenians in Iraq '.
Jordan, a month before Christmas. The steep paths of Jabal Ashrafieh,
the 'Panoramic Hill', are dotted with paper wreaths and colored
lights. Door to the Southern Arabic deserts, root of the Bedouin
dynasties, Amman is the capital of a Country hovering between remaining
faithful to a pro-Western monarchy and the shock wave of the Arab
Spring. A community of three thousand Armenians, a small star in the
firmament of the diaspora, lives concentrated in the neighborhoods
where the majority of people are Christian, way up high, where the
echo of the demonstrations that fill the streets of the center every
Friday is muffled.
'Before the Americans came, Iraq was a quiet Country'. Sevag's
typography is open, but to get in, one needs to crouch under the
rusty shutter. 'The early bombings were a nightmare. But we Armenians
stayed, we didn't want to leave our homes'. Until NATO's military
intervention, Iraq hosted a community of 25.000 Armenians, descendants
of the genocide survivors. 'The civil war, though, did not leave
us a way out. Car bombs, attacks, abductions. When I got to Jordan,
I continued doing the only thing I knew how to do, the printer. But
business is not going well. My only hope is to get a visa for Canada'.
Out of the 2 million of Iraqi refugees to Syria and Jordan after 2003,
5.000 are Armenians. 'It's always like that, you see', Sevag strokes
his stubble, 'in war, it is the minorities who pay the highest price'.
The sky is a blinding blue. On the horizon, beyond the stretch of
houses assaulting the seven hills of Amman, the desert impends like a
sense of foreboding. A clear ocher universe, where only the Bedouins
remain standing. On the top of Jabal Ashrafieh, in the shadow of the
wall surrounding the intimacy of an Armenian church, a Christmas open
market where people keep coming and going. Hagop, former president of
the Armenian Club of Amman, welcomes a foreign reporter with respect.
'The arrival of the Armenian refugees, almost a hundred years ago, was
a blessing for the Jordanian monarchy. Our fathers brought new trades,
technology, culture. As of today, the majority of the goldsmiths,
photographers and craftsmen in Amman are indeed Armenian'. The pledged
loyalty of the newcomers to the royal family was sealed when they
were granted citizenship, which elevated the status of a group of
refugees to that of fully-fledged members of the community.
'During the years, the community has had highs and lows. In the '50s,
many crossed Syria to settle in Lebanon, a Country that offered great
opportunities. At the time, it was called the Switzerland of the
Middle-East'. Twenty years later, those same families were forced by
the Lebanese civil war to return to Jordan, refugees for the second
time in two generations.
'I remember it as if it were yesterday. Puzzled faces getting off
huge American cars with the Beirut plate, filled with suitcases. Many
left soon, for the United States, Africa or South America'. Another
migration, another brick in the multi-faceted identity of the children
of the Armenian diaspora.
The market is about to shut. While holding a cup of tea and watching
the sun getting ready to fall beyond the desert, the atmosphere in the
church courtyard becomes more intimate. 'Syria will be a carnage, trust
me. Worse than Lebanon, worse than Iraq. There is something bigger at
stake'. As if everything that has been said up till now were only an
introduction, a formality prolog, the conversation violently veers
to the subject that hovers over this land and these people with the
weight of a bolder. 'This time, the United States have found a truly
brilliant way to destabilize the Middle-East, they didn't even have to
drop a single bullet. They directly armed the Syrians against their own
government. And the government is compelled to respond to the fire'.
The theory that behind the Syrian Spring lies an external interference
is common, especially among those who perceive change as a leap in
the dark, who feel vulnerable outside of the existing balance. 'But
civilians are being massacred. A government should protect their
citizens'. Hagop responds coldly. 'Why?', he asks without even waiting
for an answer, 'Did the Ottoman government defend its Armenian citizens
in 1915?' From my journal. November 27 In the night, on the Jabal
Ashrafieh the desert wind blows ice on my face: one piece of ice for
each doubt I carry inside of me. Where is this story taking me? I
have been walking for months on the ashes of human tragedies like a
shadow going on and off stage without ever being recognized. Had it not
been for a scrupulous customs officer, today I would be in Damascus,
evoking the ghosts of someone else. How much war have my questions
gushed back? The fratricidal Iraq of the printer from Baghdad, the
schizophrenia of the '70s Lebanon, Hagop's cynical - though legitimate
- fear of the Arab Spring, the Syrian civil war, now just around the
corner from Damascus. To the North, beyond the point where the Milky
Way seems to blend with its own reflection, there is Syria. Looking
at this sky upside-down, the epilog is finally clear to me. This
story is coming to an end. That is where it is going to end.
Whirls of sand spin in the sky, emanating a leaden light that fades
the colors of the desert. Beyond the border, a shaking shadow: Daraa
appears as if it were floating on the horizon. The Syrian Spring burst
in the streets in early March, when a bunch of minors was arrested
for writing on a wall that the President of the Republic, Bashar
al Assad, should get out of the way. As is the case for all Syrians
accused of political crimes, the boys were clobbered. The citizens,
however, did not behave as usual. They took to the streets and set
fire to the courthouse with gasoline. The explicit act of protest
marked the start of the uprising.
This border has been shut for a few days. No one goes out, no one
comes in. Syria looks more and more like a closed sack where violence
unknown to the history of the Country is brewing. This side of the
border is equipped to host the people ready to run away, paving desert
stretches where the tent cities will be set. Bulldozers dance on the
sand like pachyderms in love. But this land was not made for common
men. Only the Bedouins can remain standing in the desert.
The plane makes sinuous acrobatics before lining up with the landing
strip in Beirut. Somewhere on the top of the mountains filling the
eyes looking over the East, one can find the only door to Syria that
is still open. Collective taxis to Damascus depart from the Port every
hour, loaded with men who are used to thinking that, for some strange
alchemy, war will not concern them. Before joining them, I absolutely
have to fulfill one last task. Amongst the rows of apple and cherry
trees in the Bekaa valley, a woman has been waiting seventy years to
see the face of her sister again. The long wait is about to end.
http://www.balcanicaucaso.org/eng/Dossiers/From-the-Caucasus-to-Beirut/From-the-Caucasus-to-Beirut/Sunsets-and-the-printer-of-Amman-122515
From: Baghdasarian
Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso
Sept 18 2012
Italy
Amman is the capital of a Country hovering between remaining
faithful to a pro-Western monarchy and the shock wave of the Arab
Spring. A community of three thousand Armenians, a small star in the
firmament of the diaspora, lives and survives the contradictions of
the Middle-East. The eleventh episode of our report "From the Caucasus
to Beirut"
'There is a moment, just before sunset, when the sky of Baghdad turns
so red, you just have to look at it. Every day, it's the same thing. I
was born and raised in Baghdad, but I never got used to that light".
Sevag is dozing with his elbow on the less dusty mimeograph in his
typography. An Armenian flag is hanging still over his head, greasy
and tired. Just like him. 'Ten years have passed, since I ran away'.
For a second, the printer's eyes are crossed by a vital energy. 'I
would go back just to fill my eyes with one of those sunsets. But
then...' he dozes off again 'I would leave again. There is no future
for us Armenians in Iraq '.
Jordan, a month before Christmas. The steep paths of Jabal Ashrafieh,
the 'Panoramic Hill', are dotted with paper wreaths and colored
lights. Door to the Southern Arabic deserts, root of the Bedouin
dynasties, Amman is the capital of a Country hovering between remaining
faithful to a pro-Western monarchy and the shock wave of the Arab
Spring. A community of three thousand Armenians, a small star in the
firmament of the diaspora, lives concentrated in the neighborhoods
where the majority of people are Christian, way up high, where the
echo of the demonstrations that fill the streets of the center every
Friday is muffled.
'Before the Americans came, Iraq was a quiet Country'. Sevag's
typography is open, but to get in, one needs to crouch under the
rusty shutter. 'The early bombings were a nightmare. But we Armenians
stayed, we didn't want to leave our homes'. Until NATO's military
intervention, Iraq hosted a community of 25.000 Armenians, descendants
of the genocide survivors. 'The civil war, though, did not leave
us a way out. Car bombs, attacks, abductions. When I got to Jordan,
I continued doing the only thing I knew how to do, the printer. But
business is not going well. My only hope is to get a visa for Canada'.
Out of the 2 million of Iraqi refugees to Syria and Jordan after 2003,
5.000 are Armenians. 'It's always like that, you see', Sevag strokes
his stubble, 'in war, it is the minorities who pay the highest price'.
The sky is a blinding blue. On the horizon, beyond the stretch of
houses assaulting the seven hills of Amman, the desert impends like a
sense of foreboding. A clear ocher universe, where only the Bedouins
remain standing. On the top of Jabal Ashrafieh, in the shadow of the
wall surrounding the intimacy of an Armenian church, a Christmas open
market where people keep coming and going. Hagop, former president of
the Armenian Club of Amman, welcomes a foreign reporter with respect.
'The arrival of the Armenian refugees, almost a hundred years ago, was
a blessing for the Jordanian monarchy. Our fathers brought new trades,
technology, culture. As of today, the majority of the goldsmiths,
photographers and craftsmen in Amman are indeed Armenian'. The pledged
loyalty of the newcomers to the royal family was sealed when they
were granted citizenship, which elevated the status of a group of
refugees to that of fully-fledged members of the community.
'During the years, the community has had highs and lows. In the '50s,
many crossed Syria to settle in Lebanon, a Country that offered great
opportunities. At the time, it was called the Switzerland of the
Middle-East'. Twenty years later, those same families were forced by
the Lebanese civil war to return to Jordan, refugees for the second
time in two generations.
'I remember it as if it were yesterday. Puzzled faces getting off
huge American cars with the Beirut plate, filled with suitcases. Many
left soon, for the United States, Africa or South America'. Another
migration, another brick in the multi-faceted identity of the children
of the Armenian diaspora.
The market is about to shut. While holding a cup of tea and watching
the sun getting ready to fall beyond the desert, the atmosphere in the
church courtyard becomes more intimate. 'Syria will be a carnage, trust
me. Worse than Lebanon, worse than Iraq. There is something bigger at
stake'. As if everything that has been said up till now were only an
introduction, a formality prolog, the conversation violently veers
to the subject that hovers over this land and these people with the
weight of a bolder. 'This time, the United States have found a truly
brilliant way to destabilize the Middle-East, they didn't even have to
drop a single bullet. They directly armed the Syrians against their own
government. And the government is compelled to respond to the fire'.
The theory that behind the Syrian Spring lies an external interference
is common, especially among those who perceive change as a leap in
the dark, who feel vulnerable outside of the existing balance. 'But
civilians are being massacred. A government should protect their
citizens'. Hagop responds coldly. 'Why?', he asks without even waiting
for an answer, 'Did the Ottoman government defend its Armenian citizens
in 1915?' From my journal. November 27 In the night, on the Jabal
Ashrafieh the desert wind blows ice on my face: one piece of ice for
each doubt I carry inside of me. Where is this story taking me? I
have been walking for months on the ashes of human tragedies like a
shadow going on and off stage without ever being recognized. Had it not
been for a scrupulous customs officer, today I would be in Damascus,
evoking the ghosts of someone else. How much war have my questions
gushed back? The fratricidal Iraq of the printer from Baghdad, the
schizophrenia of the '70s Lebanon, Hagop's cynical - though legitimate
- fear of the Arab Spring, the Syrian civil war, now just around the
corner from Damascus. To the North, beyond the point where the Milky
Way seems to blend with its own reflection, there is Syria. Looking
at this sky upside-down, the epilog is finally clear to me. This
story is coming to an end. That is where it is going to end.
Whirls of sand spin in the sky, emanating a leaden light that fades
the colors of the desert. Beyond the border, a shaking shadow: Daraa
appears as if it were floating on the horizon. The Syrian Spring burst
in the streets in early March, when a bunch of minors was arrested
for writing on a wall that the President of the Republic, Bashar
al Assad, should get out of the way. As is the case for all Syrians
accused of political crimes, the boys were clobbered. The citizens,
however, did not behave as usual. They took to the streets and set
fire to the courthouse with gasoline. The explicit act of protest
marked the start of the uprising.
This border has been shut for a few days. No one goes out, no one
comes in. Syria looks more and more like a closed sack where violence
unknown to the history of the Country is brewing. This side of the
border is equipped to host the people ready to run away, paving desert
stretches where the tent cities will be set. Bulldozers dance on the
sand like pachyderms in love. But this land was not made for common
men. Only the Bedouins can remain standing in the desert.
The plane makes sinuous acrobatics before lining up with the landing
strip in Beirut. Somewhere on the top of the mountains filling the
eyes looking over the East, one can find the only door to Syria that
is still open. Collective taxis to Damascus depart from the Port every
hour, loaded with men who are used to thinking that, for some strange
alchemy, war will not concern them. Before joining them, I absolutely
have to fulfill one last task. Amongst the rows of apple and cherry
trees in the Bekaa valley, a woman has been waiting seventy years to
see the face of her sister again. The long wait is about to end.
http://www.balcanicaucaso.org/eng/Dossiers/From-the-Caucasus-to-Beirut/From-the-Caucasus-to-Beirut/Sunsets-and-the-printer-of-Amman-122515
From: Baghdasarian