This paper looks at the complex manner in which children were documented in Ottoman Egypt and their access to citizenship later in postcolonial Egypt. It discusses the making of social and... Show moreThis paper looks at the complex manner in which children were documented in Ottoman Egypt and their access to citizenship later in postcolonial Egypt. It discusses the making of social and political categories, like citizenship and statelessness, and how Greeks moved through those categories. This paper also analyzes how these categories were imposed, first by the Ottoman Empire and then by the Egyptian nation-state. The end of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, and the declaration of the Egyptian Republic in 1953, the Suez Crisis in 1956, the Arab-Israeli Wars in 1967 and 1973, and the new labor laws of the 1950s and 1960s, among other events, impacted Greeks and others who lived in Egypt at that time. The impact among Greeks in Suez Canal cities was particularly evident in the community’s cohesion, as most evacuated the cities in 1967 with almost everyone else following in 1973. These economic and political factors, and the social processes the community underwent, defined Greek children’s relation with the Egyptian postcolonial state. Show less
A seemingly insular Armenian Church election that took place in Lebanon in February 1956 was simultaneously a site of contestation by Cold War powers and their proxies. Its disproportionately high... Show moreA seemingly insular Armenian Church election that took place in Lebanon in February 1956 was simultaneously a site of contestation by Cold War powers and their proxies. Its disproportionately high coverage in the Lebanese press--and ensuing political intervention--provides an alternative view of the struggles for power between the United States and the USSR in Lebanon during the Cold War period. This election could have been understood as exclusively affecting Armenians in Lebanon and/or merely an entertaining anecdote of competition between Armenian religious figures. Instead, I argue that it is an opening to observe American-Soviet state competition for political influence in the region outside of the conventional case studies of the 1958 US marine intervention in Lebanon and the American government’s inability to prevent the Soviet suppression in Hungary in the aftermath of the Tripartite Aggression in Egypt in October 1956. And yet, this election must also concurrently be seen as a moment where the Armenian population of Lebanon made use of Cold War suspicions to designate a leader of the Armenian Church seen to suit their community’s interests. This article throws into relief the customary depiction and understanding of the Armenian population in Lebanon as temporary refugees and therefore not an integral part of the Lebanese nation-state by drawing out the use of Cold War rivalries. Show less
