Armenians in Lebanon: A “State” Within a State

Bourj Hammoud and Governance

Bourj Hammoud is located north of Beirut and was once considered part of Greater Beirut. The area initially grew out of refugee settlement camps where Armenians lived in the post-genocide period. The Lebanese government later demanded that these camps be removed, and over time permanent settlements gradually emerged in the swampy areas surrounding the capital.

Calling Bourj Hammoud a “town,” or even a “city,” is somewhat an exaggeration. Its area is only 2.5 square kilometers, ten times smaller than the Kentron district, the smallest district in Yerevan. Bourj Hammoud is home to over 150,000 people, with estimates reaching as high as 200,000, the overwhelming percentage of whom were Armenians.

In 1953, Bourj Hammoud was granted the status of a separate municipality. The first elections were held, and the Dashnaks defeated the Hunchak party. These were the last elections held in the town. Since then, Bourj Hammoud has functioned as a de facto one-party municipality, with the ARF serving as the main governing authority, maintaining public order, and supporting the stability of local businesses.

It is important to note that Bourj Hammoud, like other Armenian neighborhoods or villages such as Ainjar, is relatively poor. Armenians who achieve higher income levels often move to other areas of Beirut, leaving the Armenian quarters.

The ARF’s dominant role in Bourj Hammoud reflects a broader pattern in Lebanon: under the confessional democratic framework, one-party dominance is common across municipalities. At the same time, this style of governance has allowed the ARF and other Armenian parties to establish and maintain Armenian institutions throughout the country and to wield a meaningful degree of influence within Lebanese political life.

Within the System

In 1943, Lebanon gained independence from France. That same year, it adopted a unique confessional power-sharing system that remains in place today.

Under this system, government positions are allocated by religious affiliation rather than political ideology. Each religious community is guaranteed a set number of seats in parliament. The most well-known aspect is the assignment of the highest state offices: the president is always a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of parliament a Shia Muslim.

Armenians, as members of a distinct confession, have historically benefited from this system. They are guaranteed six parliamentary seats, five of which are usually held by the ARF, while one is held by deputies from the Hunchak or Ramgavar parties. Six seats out of 128 may not seem like much, but in Lebanon, political parties form coalitions across religious lines to secure votes. This makes the ARF a valuable partner for local Christian parties because it can deliver a significant portion of the Armenian vote. Over the years, the ARF has cooperated with parties and movements such as the Kataeb (Phalanges), Lebanese Forces, and other Maronite political groups.

The town of Bourj Hammoud, along with other Armenian communities across Lebanon, provides a base that allows Armenians to play an active role in Lebanese political life.

Institutionalized

Lebanon’s established system of power, which encourages religious and ethnic pluralism, provided a sustainable foundation for the Armenian community to thrive. Situated on the border between Europe and the Middle East, Beirut was accessible to Armenians from across the Diaspora. Whether an Armenian lived in Iran, Syria, Iraq, Cyprus, Greece, or France, they could travel to Lebanon to participate in the Armenian movement.

This freedom, combined with a relative lack of local political ambitions, allowed the Armenian community to develop institutions and networks that have, in practice, become the political and educational center of the pro-Armenian movement worldwide.

Each Armenian party in Lebanon maintains its own daily newspaper: the ARF’s Aztag, the Hunchaks Ararad and the Ramgavar’s Zartonk.

Aztag circulation is around 6,500 copies. For comparison, the largest Armenian-language newspaper in the United States also prints roughly 6,500 copies daily. However, because the Armenian community in the U.S. is more dispersed, those copies carry largely symbolic value. By contrast, in densely populated Bourj Hammoud in Beirut, 6,500 copies reach a concentrated audience and serve as an effective tool for shaping political opinion and uniting the community.

Lebanon is also home to approximately 28 Armenian schools that provide primary and secondary education. More importantly, it hosts the only Armenian university in the Diaspora, the Haigazian University, which has been operating since 1955.

Thanks to the opportunities created by the Lebanese political system, Armenians have built a vibrant and active community, with political rivalries, intellectual life, and cultural institutions.

In just fifty years, Armenians in Lebanon created a “state without a state,” complete with cultural and educational institutions, governing bodies, and even a town. This unique framework gave the Diaspora a small-scale homeland where they could live, organize, and operate fully as Armenians, without needing to be in Soviet Armenia.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

While Lebanon’s confessional system benefited the Armenian community, it also fueled tensions between Christian and Muslim Lebanese. These tensions were further complicated by international involvement, with the USSR supporting Muslim factions and the United States backing the Christians.

Over time, the Lebanese system became a ticking time bomb that ultimately exploded during the Lebanese Civil War.

The Crisis of 1958

Before the Lebanese Civil War, the confessional system contributed to the 1958 Crisis. The main grievance was that the existing political arrangement disproportionately favored the Christian population while largely ignoring the growing Muslim population.

This imbalance fueled rising tensions between Maronites and Muslims. Fortunately, these tensions did not escalate into full-scale military clashes, in part because 14,000 American troops were deployed to Beirut to stabilize the situation.

The 1958 Crisis proved transformative for the ARF, shifting it from a local minority party into a political actor with broader influence. During the conflict, the ARF adopted a pro-government, pro-Western stance. Domestically, this aimed to protect its parliamentary seats and maintain control in Bourj Hammoud. Externally, it sought to prevent the rise of Muslim Arab nationalism, which could threaten Armenian minority communities across the Middle East.

For the Dashnaktsutyun, the crisis increased trust and respect within the Christian political camp and opened new opportunities for the wider Armenian community in Lebanon.

Lebanese Civil War

Less than 20 years later, however, Lebanon descended into the Civil War, a brutal urban conflict that lasted from 1975 to 1990. Lebanon’s internal political complexities, combined with the Palestinian refugee crisis in the south, brought refugees into conflict with Lebanese authorities, similar to what had happened earlier in Jordan. The outcomes of the Civil War still haunt Lebanon today. For the Armenian community, it marked a turning point. Like any war, it served as a litmus test for societal institutions. The “state within a state,” largely established by the ARF, faced major challenges.

The war was fought between confessional militias: Maronites, Sunnis, Shias, Druze, and others. One might assume that Armenians would side with Christians against Muslims, as they had in 1958. In reality, however, Armenians adopted a strategy of armed neutrality. This approach created tension with the Maronite Christians but helped prevent clashes with Muslims.

According to the memoirs of an ARF official, at the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War, the Maronites demanded 5,000 Armenian soldiers from the ARF. The party refused, in line with other rival Armenian parties. This refusal sparked violence between the two Christian groups in the country.

To understand the significance of 5,000 soldiers in the context of the war, it is worth noting that the list of Christian martyrs from the Maronite militia contains around 5,000 names. An additional Armenian force could have been crucial for the Christian side.

What were the calculations behind this strategy? During the 1958 Crisis, Armenians had sided with the pro-governmental side. What changed? For post-genocide Armenians, the primary goal was the preservation of life, not taking military action. Supplying 5,000 soldiers to friendly Maronites could have resulted in mass casualties. Even a higher chance of victory did not resolve this concern. Lebanon was still another country, not an Armenian state, and it could not demand such sacrifices.

Moreover, taking sides could have affected other Armenian diasporas in the Middle East. In 1958, the American presence reassured the Christian population. In the Civil War, however, Christian militias allied with Israeli forces. Aligning with them could have had unpredictable consequences for Armenians in Syria, Jordan, Iran, Egypt, and elsewhere. The Lebanese Armenian community, personified by the Dashnaks, saw itself as a leading force in the worldwide Armenian movement and took responsibility for Armenians across the Middle East.

The choice had consequences. The Maronite militia, while clashing with Muslims, also initiated a battle with Armenians. In Bourj Hammoud, where the ARF was dominant, the Armenian militia mobilized and a curfew was imposed. Over the 15 years of war, approximately 2,000 men were drafted into the party’s internal activist groups to maintain order.

It is important to note that the Maronite-Armenian clashes were far less brutal than those elsewhere in the Civil War. Heavy artillery, air power, and other advanced weaponry were not used. These were mainly local attempts by Maronites to invade Bourj Hammoud, resembling urban skirmishes more than full-scale insurgency.

Nevertheless, the Dashnaks’ methods proved effective. Armenians largely avoided the bloodshed of the Lebanese Civil War, and economic life in Bourj Hammoud continued despite the surrounding conflict. In fact, the wartime economy there was reportedly stronger than it is today.

The success of the Dashnak strategy is especially clear in comparison with other Armenian quarters at the time. For example, residents recall that areas under the Hunchaks were effectively occupied by Maronites. These communities did not participate directly in the war, likely because the ARF, with its established structures, was a more desirable partner. Still, the occupation deeply affected them, placing them in danger and constraining social and economic life.

Even so, the Lebanese Civil War reduced both the Armenian population and its influence in the country. The functioning of Armenian institutions could not offset the hardships of years of daily wartime life.

Today

The mass migration of Armenians from Lebanon began during the war and continued afterward. French, American, and German communities welcomed the new arrivals. Some Armenians moved to Armenia, and a notable Australian community began forming at the time as Lebanese Armenian refugees settled there.

Since the 1980s, the number of Armenian voters in Lebanon has remained roughly the same. By contrast, Sunni and Shia populations have grown significantly.

Bourj Hamoud remains an Armenian-majority area, but it is no longer exclusively Armenian.

In Lebanon, parliamentary seats are still occupied, parties continue to operate, and newspapers remain active, but Armenian influence is gradually fading year by year. Events such as the Beirut port explosion and ongoing regional conflicts continue to reduce the Armenian population in the country.

One measure of Armenian influence in Lebanese politics is the degree of Turkish involvement. During the Dashnak’s prime, even amid the chaos of the Civil War, such influence was impossible. Now, as the Armenian population declines, Turkish influence is growing year by year.

The trend suggests that the Armenian community is unlikely to maintain the same level of influence it once had. The foundations for that no longer exist, and demographic changes have reshaped the landscape.

However, the experience of building a functioning “state within a state” offers lessons that deserve far wider attention across the Armenian diaspora. Diaspora communities naturally organize around cultural and religious life—this is both expected and necessary. But in the Armenian case, it has often proven insufficient in the absence of a consistently strong nation-state. Neglecting political engagement in host countries ultimately weakens the community’s ability to protect and advance its own interests.

Lebanese Armenians have largely resisted these trends. By maintaining their cultural identity, they were able to exert political influence in the country where they lived. They managed to preserve the community through turbulent times, not perfectly, but their experience offers important lessons for the wider Armenian diaspora.

Lebanon’s trials and tribulations are far from over, the aftershocks of the port explosion and the country’s economic crisis, in addition to renewed Israeli attacks and the consequent refugee crisis have fractured the already fragile sectarian truce, leaving no community unaffected or sheltered. The Armenian community with its increasingly diminishing numbers, shrinking institutions and neighborhoods and the muffling of its political impact in the face of greater local and regional crisis, is no longer the exception.