TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION

Armenians who immigrated to Lebanon during 1915's bitter incidents in Ottoman lands formed brand new lives for themselves. Leaving the past to the historians, Armenians in Beirut, unlike those in the Armenian Diaspora elsewhere, do not hold grudges against Turkey. Along with the Anatolian culture which they left 90 years ago, they hand down the Turkish language from generation to generation in Beirut.

An old woman living in the Bekaa Valley sings a Turkish folk song. Her name is Yeghisabeth Kesabian. She is 105 years old and the last witness of the expulsion. She was 15 years old when she came to Lebanon from Hatay via Syria in 1915.

During the journey, she says they went through great hardship: "We walked for days. Turkish cavalry were always next to us. They were protecting us against the attacks, but they sometimes were beating us when we were not able to walk fast enough to catch up with the others." She admits that it was a very hard forced walk and a difficult journey. After about three months of travel, Kesabian came to the Bekaa Valley's Anjar region along with her relatives, of whom she is the oldest. She lives with her daughter Sara and her grandchildren. Even her great-grandson, eight-year-old Mardiros knows Turkish. Kesabian taught him Turkish songs.

Her adventure is not limited to 1915. After coming to Lebanon, she went back to Samandag in Hatay (now a province of Turkey ) and got married. She cannot forget that day in Turkey. "I was so happy. Our neighbors, relatives, everyone was there. Rain after the wedding means prosperity. At my wedding, it was raining. Our neighbor prayed for rain. A short while later, it started to rain. My wedding dress got wet. Since I had no other clothes, my mother-in-law dried my dress and helped me to wear it
again."

Married in Turkey, Kesabian puts her finger on a historical point that is missed about her return to Lebanon. In 1939, after Hatay's being included within Turkish borders, of her own will, she returned to the Bekaa Valley with a group of Armenians and continued her life in the valley. During this period, again Turks did nothing wrong against them and they  returned to Lebanon upon their own free will. "The French told us, 'come here', then we went there. When we wanted to leave, Turkish soldiers helped us to get into the cars and escorted us to Damascus. Then, the French took over. In those years, Turks did nothing wrong to Armenians."

Kesabian, one of the last witnesses of the expulsion misses Turkey a great deal. In particular, she wanted to see the village in which she spent her childhood and where she was married; however, she has not fulfilled her wish yet. Now, she has a single request of her grandchildren and her daughter: She wants them to take her to Hatay before she dies.

RESTOKIAN : WE LIVE LIKE TURKS

 

Meraat Al Khaleej magazine's Editor-in-Chief Nataly Restokian, who will come to Antalya, Turkey, for a top-level business meeting to be organized this summer, says that this is not well seen by some radical Armenians. Tashnaks' attitude harms bilateral relations between the two countries according to her. "Armenians have two options:

1) Don't think about Turkey at all and wage war or 2... Have dialogue and solve the problem. The first option is impossible. We are living here like Turks. We watch Turkish television. I eat Ulker biscuits, listen to Ibrahim Tatlises. I wear clothes made in Turkey and so do the others. But for the second option, we have to work hard. Life goes on. I don't want to deal with the past. I want peace and fraternity, not fighting." When you get to know Restokian and talk with her, you see that her expressions are not political.

'Money cannot be a black cat between our friendship with the Turks.'

An Urfa Kebap House in Yeni Maras,in Beitut, is in a neighborhood mostly populated by Armenians... Besides having the most delicious kebaps and lahmacuns, the manager of the house is talkative and a gentleman and that makes interest in the restaurant grow. There are places and very polite helpers or managers who are serving various authentic foods from around the world. But this place has many things to tell Turkish people and the world, because its owner is the son of an Armenian family who immigrated to Lebanon in 1915. His name is Levon Restokian.

Speaking Turkish, Restokian is as good as a local in Urfa in Turkey. He makes the best lahmacun. The word "genocide" for Restokia does not have as much meaning as it does for Diaspora Armenians. According to him, the war incident was one of the mistakes made by Armenians during history and it is nonsense to build up an entire life over this "mistake".

Among his customers, there are many Turks as well as second and third generation Armenians who emigrated from Turkey. On Thursdays especially the biggest demand for lahmacun and doner kebap is from the Turkish Embassy personnel in Beirut. His relations with his Turkish customers are beyond those of merchant-customer. Even more so, some customers like me do not pay the bill at the store. "Money cannot be a black cat (rift) between our friendship," he says and he is still interested in Turkey a great deal. He tells his children about Turkey and teaches them Turkish.

If we leave aside the "Tashnaks" who are the most radical group of Armenians in Diaspora, Restokian represents the average Armenian living in Lebanon, namely people who speak Turkish, who prefer to leave the issues about Turkey and the "things which happened in the past to historians"...

The Diaspora in this country, Lebanon is in fact quite ancient and rooted. It is organized in a wide area from churches to political parties, from media to economic organizations. They live mainly in a densely populated area in Bori Hammoud, in Beirut and Anjar, Bekaa. Valley. They have 3 deputies in parliament.Now debates over genocide are on the agenda due to the anniversary of the events of 1915. But these issues do not take place in daily life. Even the new generations think very different. The daughter of lahmacun master Restokian who, is even loved by Turks, loves Turkey and Turks as much as her father. Nataly Restokian is the editor of the magazine, previously mentioned, addresses the rich businessman of the Arab world and the elite of the country. Nataly Restokian says, "It should no longer be a problem for us that our fathers and grandfathers disagreed with each other and killed each other."

I hope that the 105 year old grandmother Yegisabeth Kasebian attains her wish to see Hatay, her birthplace in Turkey, once more before she passes away, and that the level-headed majority of the Armenians of Lebanon get rid of the radical bull-headed Tashnak politicians in order to prepare peaceful and better tomorrows for everyone concerned.

I'd like to close with the words of the American Patriot Patrick Henry who once said: "I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past."