Araz Kojayan

During a war, bodies and souls are transformed, willingly or not, and the passage of time seeps into them more quickly than is natural. Uncertainty, fear, and loss transform the individual from within, and the survival instinct comes to dominate all values. This latter has a sharper manifestation on the individual's daily life in countries composed of diverse and multi-layered communities, such as Lebanon.

One hot summer afternoon, my father asked me to bring back “one kilo of almonds,” (noush in Armenian). I was to try our local grocers first, but if I couldn't find any, I had permission to go to Nor Marash. My wish had finally been granted. That day, I gained the opportunity to cross the avenue that was otherwise off-limits to my nine-year-old self. I entered the first shop with enthusiasm. Noticing that no one was speaking Armenian, I simply said, “Baddi kilo noush” (one kilo of noush in Arabic), not realizing that “noush” was not an Arabic word.

SAR by dancer and choreographer Mihran Tomasyan and musician Saro Usta, which was first staged by the Çıplak Ayaklar Kumpanyası in 2015, was performed again a few weeks ago. We believe that the performance itself and the Q&A session afterwards speaks a great deal about the experience of being an Armenian from Turkey and we would like to share the discussion we, three of the Parrhesia members, had with Agos readers.

Bourj Hamoud, for example, is located on the outskirts of Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, and simultaneously it is considered an important center of the diaspora for Armenian diaspora communities. It still has an agency that stubbornly continues to reproduce Armenianness, even though with different paces every now and then, and creates a reality that is different from its surroundings.