arabaliozian

Sunday, July 5, 2009 ***************************************** JACKASSES ****************************************************** I learned to read in time of war when books were luxuries beyond our means. We had only one in the house – a dilapidated elementary school anthology with black and white drawings. The story on page one was not so much a story as an exchange of insults: A street urchin to a donkey driver: “Good morning, mother of jackasses.” “Good morning, my son.” * An exile is someone who lives in an alien country. A double exile is an exile whose homeland is ruled by aliens, and no one can be as alien as one's fellow countrymen. * You cannot speak of freedom to a slave who cannot see or feel the weight of his chains. * A fool who fools another fool thinks of himself as smart. * Don't think of me as a writer or as an Armenian. Think of me as a fellow human being who writes not for readers but for his younger self when he was brainwashed, manipulated, and abused by bastards with an agenda. * A few years ago I wrote a series of short stories whose central character was named Jack S. Avanakian – an Armenian-American variation on Odian's Panchoonie. Once when asked by an interviewer what I was working on, I replied I was planning to write an autobiography titled “The Swan-Song of a Jackass.” “Why a jackass?” “Because only an obstinate jackass would go on writing for thirty years for even more obstinate jackasses." # Monday, July 6, 2009 ***************************************** BAD HABITS ****************************************************** It was only in old age that I learned to assume responsibility for my actions. Until then one of my favorite mantras was, “As a result of political, social, and cultural conditions beyond our control...” which translated into dollars and cents simply means, “not my fault.” The longer we postpone kicking a bad habit, the harder it gets doing what must be done. * A dishonest leadership will spawn a dishonest educational system and dishonest citizens. It is widely known that during the Soviet era everyone engaged in petty larceny. They had no other option if they wanted to survive. There are over a thousand Armenians in California jails today. You may now guess their country of origin. Habits are easier to keep than to give up. * In the Ottoman Empire we were Ottomanized; in America Americanized; in the Middle East Levantinized; in the USSR sodomized – meant to say Sovietized – not that it makes a difference. It was inevitable. It was as a result of political, social, and cultural conditions, blah, blah, blah! * At the turn of the last century our political leaders were idealistic intellectuals, daydreaming poets and revolutionaries inexperienced in the ways of international diplomacy. They tried to transplant progressive Western ideas into an essentially Asiatic environment. Today our leaders are shrewd, down-to-earth, practical businessmen and cynical bureaucrats whose defining feature is contempt for ideas. National benefactors are our kings and heroes now. As for our vodanavorjis and mdavoragans: they are no better than contemptible beggars and brown-nosing academics. * Who in his right mind would choose a corrupt, incompetent, and undemocratic leadership over freely elected honest administrators whose first and most important priority is the welfare of the people? Next question: When was the last time in our millennial history when we the people were given a choice? Bad habits are easier to keep than to give up. * Let us now pray! # Tuesday, July 7, 2009 ***************************************** ON OUR CELEBRITIES ****************************************************** As a child I was brought up to brag about Gulbenkian, Saroyan, Mikoyan, Mamoulian and our Byzantine emperors. As an adult I discovered that Mikoyan was so fearful of Stalin's secret police that he slept with a revolver under his pillow planning to kill himself if they came to arrest him in the middle of the night. And when Stalin ordered the purge of “enemies of the people” in Armenia, Mikoyan went about it with the thoroughness of Talaat, with one difference: whereas in Talaat's holocaust Zarian, Oshagan, and Zabel Yessayan survived, by the time Mikoyan was through his purge there were no survivors except for a handful of yes-men like himself. * It is common knowledge that only 7% of Gulbenkian's vast fortune is earmarked for Armenians. I will not speak of his private life because it is not fit for human consumption. * At no time did Rouben Mamoulian extend a helping hand to Armenian actors, and in this he was not different from his Jewish bosses who were against hiring actors that looked remotely Jewish. * Saroyan's fictional characters are typical Armenians only in the sense that Tevye the Milkman (of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF fame) is a typical Jew. Saroyan “stylized” (his word) Armenians to make them more palatable and harmless to his American audience. But according to his most recent biographer, near the end of his life he was suspicious of all Armenians, including his own children. * As for our Byzantine emperors: their foreign policy was consistently anti-Armenian. * Raffi once said that “treason and betrayal are in our blood.” What he failed to add is that this is especially true in our “best and brightest.” Celebrity is an impure concept. To admire some Armenians simply because they achieved fame and fortune in foreign countries and to ignore the achievements of many others, among them Naregatsi, Abovian, Raffi, Baronian, Odian, and Zarian, is to choose the wrong role models for our children and, in doing so, to corrupt our values and to undermine the integrity of the nation. # Wednesday, July 8, 2009 ***************************************** GRAPHIC PORN ****************************************************** Finally a book by a distinguished scholar (see below) in which the work of nationalist historians is described as “graphic porn.” * One reason the Balkans are a vipers' nest of internecine conflicts is that each ethnic group has its own version of the past wherein it represent itself as innocent victim and its neighbors as “guilty bastards.” To combat this trend, a group of multi-ethnic enlightened historians has decided to produce textbooks that are objective, honest, and fair to all sides, and whenever there are two contradictory versions of the same event, to give both sides of the story. One of these historians, Nenad Seber by name (a British citizen of mixed parentage) is quoted as having said: “Turkish history says the Ottoman Empire was incredibly enlightened, a heaven of religious tolerance, a golden age for the Balkans. According to Greek history books, it was 5 centuries of rape, slavery and butchery. We've moved away from all that. In our Ottoman Empire workbook, for example, we've got a Turkish historian talking openly about the Armenian massacres.” For more on this subject, see Justin Marozzi's THE WAY OF HERODOTUS: TRAVELS WITH THE MAN WHO INVENTED HISTORY (Philadelphia, PA, 2008). #

Wednesday, July 1, 2009 ***************************************** ARMENIANS SPEAK WITH A FORKED TONGUE ****************************************************** I don't believe everything I am told. Neither do I believe everything I read in the papers, especially if it's favorable to someone; in which case what I want to know is: How much is he being paid for saying these things? People lie. People lie all the time, not only because they don't know the truth or if they know it, it happens to be against them, but because they feel more comfortable when they lie. * We all lie when it comes to our problems, and the greatest liar is he who says, “We need solutions.” Because that's the last thing we want. Have you ever met a bishop willing to resign his position or vacate his cathedral for the sake of solidarity? Have you ever met a national benefactor willing to utter a single word against the worship of money? Have you ever met a boss who was not a loud-mouth megalomaniacal narcissist all sound and fury signifying nothing? * I doubt if there is a single Armenian today who does not know what our problems and their solutions are. Even a child knows where divisions are the problems, solidarity is the solution. Where worship of money is the problem, respect for ideas is the solution. * Our greatest intellectual of recent times was no doubt Gostan Zarian, whose life and work prove that we have no use for intellectuals and their ideas. What we need is a messianic figure willing to be crucified. But even then there is no guarantee that will be the end of our problems. Remember the brief life and career of another messiah who was accused of blasphemy by his own people and continues to be rejected by them even today, after they have had two thousand years to reconsider their position on the subject. # Thursday, July 2, 2009 ***************************************** PLATO, OSHAGAN, AND ZARIAN ****************************************************** Everything I write is a paraphrase. I am as original as a cook who combines ingredients available in all supermarkets. If the result is edible or if what I say make sense, I am satisfied. I leave originality to my betters. * Plato was a great philosopher, and according to some, the greatest. A 20th-century English philosopher (may have been Whitehead) once said that all of Western philosophy is nothing but footnotes to Plato. Was Plato an original thinker? We know that most of his DIALOGUES are based on the conversations of his teacher, Socrates. As for Socrates, very probably most of his ideas came from predecessors, who, like himself, never wrote a single line. To say otherwise is to imply that for almost a thousand years Greeks did not think, speak, discuss, and contradict one another. * According to the Oshagans (pere et fils) Zarian was a plagiarist. What was their intention in saying that? To warn the nation not to be taken in by a charlatan or to establish themselves as the alpha males of 20th-century Armenian literature? If Zarian was a charlatan, what about the bosses, bishops, and benefactors whose support they (the Oshagans) enjoyed? * An academic by the name of Stern (I forget his first name) once wrote a detailed study with copious footnotes and a bibliography, in which (unlike the Oshagans) he proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything Sartre wrote can be traced to an illustrious predecessor. Result? Who speaks of Stern today? * If you want originality, read the Oshagans (whose works are being translated into English, I am told). But if you want to understand what's happening to us today, read Zarian. # Friday, July 3, 2009 ***************************************** ON ARMENIANS ****************************************************** There is a brown-noser and a bastard in all of us – the brown-noser is reserved for odars, the bastard for our fellow Armenians. Somewhere between the two there is a human being, but he is well-hidden. * We will think twice before contradicting an odar, but we will contradict, insult, and crap on a fellow Armenian as if it were our patriotic duty. * An Armenian is never as smart as he thinks he is. But that's not his real problem. His real problem is that he is incapable of imagining how unspeakably stupid he can be. * Nikol Aghbalian is right, we are a tribal people; or, in the words of Gostan Zarian, our concept of nation begins and ends with our mountain, our valley, our village, our church, and our chickens. * Dissatisfied with what you have just read? Your refund is in the mail. # Saturday, July 4, 2009 ***************************************** UNTITLED ****************************************************** Criticizing odars is a waste of time. They have critics of their own. They don't need our 2 cents. They might even tell you to go back where you came from. I speak from experience. If by criticizing others we try to cover up our own problems on the grounds that nobody is perfect, we delude ourselves. * We may not know all there is to know about our past. Nobody does. But we should know one things for certain even if it may be hard for some of us to admit it. We should know that what we were told in our formative years, what we read in our papers today, and what our speechifiers and sermonizers tell us, is irrelevant nonsense. We should know that the dark pages in our history are not tragedies but blunders, and only when we see them as such may we arrest our downward spiral and be born again as a nation. #

Sunday, June 27, 2009 ***************************************** BARE-FACED BIG LIES ****************************************************** “God's chosen people.” “Superior race.” “The Cradle of Civilization.” Do you know who popularized the idea of Armenia being the cradle of civilization? A hard-up odar alcoholic academic who got himself a fat check from an Armenian foundation and hoped to get another. “God's chosen people”? Chosen for what, may I ask? To be scattered, insulted, abused, and periodically slaughtered by, among others, the self-assessed “superior race” of Aryans? * Flattery, especially self-flattery, needs no proof. And if you tell a dumb person he is smart, he will not ask you to prove it. “It is written”? All that means is that some megalomaniacal idiot confused his illusions with the voice of God. It happens all the time. The inspired loud-mouth charismatic charlatan is a routine occurrence in history and its latest manifestation is the televangelist in the “Land of Liberty,” where one of the bloodiest civil wars in the history of mankind was fought in defense of slavery. * What I find incomprehensible is not that some readers disagree with what I say but that they don't disagree with the state and direction of our collective existence. They are eager to question the words of a scribbler but not the actions and policies of those who are in charge of our communities and the nation. Figure that one out, if you can. # Monday, June 29, 2009 ***************************************** ONE DAMN THING AFTER ANOTHER ****************************************************** In their efforts to advance a new thesis, some odar academics – those we like to quote – have made such extravagant claims on our behalf that even some Armenian scholars (among them Sirarpie der Nersessian) have rejected them as unjustified, unverified, and erroneous. * Our bruised egos are so hungry for flattery that sometimes we take a disguised insult as a compliment. Case in point: “It takes seven Jews to fool an Armenian.” Translated into ordinary parlance, this simply means: “If you think Jews are bad, I've got news for you: Armenians are seven times worse!” * There is a big difference between being God's children and being the dupes of charlatans who speak in the name of God. * If history is “an unending dialogue between the present and the past” (E.H. Carr, WHAT IS HISTORY?), what has been our contribution to this dialogue beside victims? * Everything that I say today stands in direct contradiction to an early conviction which was instilled in me by individuals with a narrow and dogmatic agenda that distorted reality and perverted my judgment. * We like to brag about our genius for survival. The irony here is that those who did the actual surviving did not brag about it. I know because I grew up surrounded by them. * The sad truth is, those who do the most harm to their fellow men are the least aware of it. * If there is a god, he must be a thirsty one. # Tuesday, June 30, 2009 ***************************************** REFLECTIONS ****************************************************** Man is at his most creative in his invention of lies. * The biggest lies are half-truths. * If you speak against those who speak in the name of God, they will accuse you of speaking in the name of the Devil. * To be brainwashed means not to question the honesty and wisdom of your abusers. * A nationalist historian writes about his nation and its enemies. A historian writes about the past and the conflicting interests of nations. * Nothing offends me more than being insulted by a fool who has been brainwashed to believe he is smart. * If you don't have an agenda, everyone with an agenda will be against you. * Self-esteem is not a reliable index of worth, in the same way that dogmatism is not an index of certainty. * It is a universally shared human weakness to prefer flattery to criticism, but it is a dangerous addiction to prefer lies to truth. * To those who accuse me of having a very low opinion of my fellow Armenians, I can only say, nobody really gives a damn what I or anyone else thinks. What matters, what really matters, is whether or not I can tell the difference between fact and fiction. #

Thursday, June 24, 2009 ***************************************** MEMOIRS ****************************************************** Because I was born in Greece to Armenian parents in a multicultural ghetto of refugees from the Ottoman Empire whose common medium was Turkish, I learned three languages without any effort on my part. I never asked anyone about the meaning of words or their definitions: I just knew. Something similar happens in the realm of ideas dealing with religion, ethics, and justice. I accepted them as facts rather than as prejudices, misconceptions, assumptions, fallacies, theories, or hypotheses. As a result, ideas that I encountered later in life – ideas like atheism, agnosticism, the brotherhood of all men, democracy, and passive resistance – appeared at first as alien, sometimes even as incomprehensible. Which is why intolerance comes naturally to all of us. It is tolerance that must be taught and learned, and more often than not, it is neither taught nor learned. * In my twenties I tried to teach myself Japanese and Zulu, among other languages. Today I remember only one word in Zulu -- “kitab” (book), and I remember it because it is the same word in Turkish. * And now allow me to tell you my favorite Nasreddin Hodja story: It is said that in his youth the Hodja made a fortune as a smuggler. Everyone knew this but but no one knew what was it that he was smuggling, not even the border guards who would search him and his donkey thoroughly every time he crossed the border, which he did frequently. Many years later when one of the border guards met the Hodja and asked him what was was it that he was smuggling, the Hodja replied, “Donkeys.” * Speaking of smugglers: When an American customs officer asked Oscar Wilde if he had anything to declare, Wilde is said to have replied: “Only my genius” -- no doubt one of the most dangerous commodities known to man. # Friday, June 25, 2009 ***************************************** ACADEMICS ****************************************************** If the overwhelming majority of our academics stay away from Armenian studies, it may be because they have no desire to submit their intelligence to someone who may not have enough of its himself – namely, bosses, bishops, benefactors and their flunkies. As for the very few who get involved in Armenian studies, they invariably end up recycling the propaganda line that says, we did nothing wrong and the rest of the world did nothing right. To say otherwise would amount to biting the hand that feeds them. If history is the propaganda of the victor, these academic charlatans seem to be saying, we will make ours the consolation of the loser. * What have we learned from history? Only this: power means above all the power to cover up blunders and to misrepresent defeats as moral victories. * Because 2500 years ago Herodotus introduced his HISTORIES with the warning that he intends to speak of the great deeds and achievements of both "Greeks and barbarians," he was torn to shreds by Greek critics (among them Plutarch) as a lover of barbarians. * “If you are nice to them, they will be nice to you.” This is a rule that works with gentlemen but not with bastards -- and the world is full of them – and I don't mean gentlemen. And the trouble with bastards is that you can never be nice enough to them. Lower your pants and they will resent you for not bending over. * Three things to remember: (one) a fruitful failure is better than a sterile success; (two) “Thou shalt not” does not always work; and (three) Sooner or later a prejudice will bite your ass. * What I write may best be described as a digression in a footnote of a book that I will never write. # Saturday, June 26, 2009 ***************************************** INTELLECTUALS AND ACADEMICS ****************************************************** An intellectual is someone who dedicates his life to ideas. An academic is someone who dedicates his life to his career. Once upon a time we had intellectuals but no academics. Today we have no intellectuals but over a thousand academics. Which may explain why in literature even the Turks are ahead of us. * Likewise we have many nationalist historians but not a single historian. A nationalism historian is one who places the interests of the nation above the interests of mankind. In other words, he makes of history a branch of political propaganda. * In the following two quotations, a 19th-century German philosopher and a 20th-century British historian reflect on historians. Arthur Schopenhauer: “Clio, the muse of history, is as thoroughly infected with lies as a street Если Вы видите это сообщение, значит кто то пытался Вас оскорбить. Просьба сообщить нам об этом http://forum.hayastan.com/index.php?act=report&t=34878 with syphilis.” A.J.P. Taylor: “Human blunders, usually, do more to shape history than human wickedness.” * There is an old saying: “Historia magistra vitae” (The past is our great teacher). There is another, even older, saying: “Omnis homo mendax” (All men are liars). * I have two kinds of hostile readers: those who say they don't understand me, and those who understand me too well. As for the brainwashed: they are like parrots, disposed to understand only other parrots. #

Sunday, June 20, 2009 ***************************************** TOURIST PRIDE ****************************************************** “I am proud of my Armenian identity,” I am reminded by readers once in a while by way of questioning my own loyalty to the Homeland. We live in a world where everyone is brainwashed to be proud of his ethnic identity, even when we vote with our feet and choose to live on foreign soil and consider our homeland as “a nice place to visit.” * JERMAG CHART ************************************ Only the naïve and the blind believe because the Turks are not massacring us today we are not being exterminated. Who is doing the extermination? To put it differently: Who is at the source of our alienation? Who else but Turks, of course! What else is Armenianism if not Turcocentrism? Michael Arlen (Kouyoumdjian) saw this clearly when he warned his son to stay away from Armenians because “they dwell too much on Armenian problems...distant repellent events...They are sweet people, but you can't let them too close. They end up boring you to death.” * ROOSTERS ***************************** The nice thing about our brand of politics is that when we do something right, no matter how insignificant, we behave like roosters who believe if it weren't for their vocalizing the sun wouldn't rise. But when we do something wrong, no matter how catastrophic, we blame it on others. A win-win situation if there ever was one. # Monday, June 21, 2009 ***************************************** X ****************************************************** Supporting a corrupt regime has nothing to do with patriotism and everything to do with treason, betrayal, and cowardice. And the problem with political corruption is that as a rule it gets worse rather than better. It gets worse until it becomes unbearable. Which is what's happening in Iran today. And which is bound to happen in our own homeland sooner or later. And if our brothers and sisters in the Homeland never rise against the regime, we shall have no choice but to conclude that subservience has become such an integral part of our character as a nation that we no longer even take notice of it. * If I am for revolution in Iran, why am I against our revolutionaries in the Ottoman Empire? Two reasons: (one) they had a Plan B only for themselves, and (two) they relied on others. If you are David confronting Goliath, you'd better make damn sure (one) you are one of God's Chosen; (two) you are technologically more advanced than your adversary; and (three) you have developed the necessary skill to use your new equipment. * The American, French, and Russian revolutions succeeded because the revolutionaries had the support of the majority. The majority of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, in addition to being a very tiny minority, lacked political awareness. I know because my father was one of them, and most of the Armenians in the ghetto where I grew up were refugees, spoke Turkish among themselves, and were illiterates who signed their name with an X. # Tuesday, June 22, 2009 ***************************************** FROM MY NOTEBOOKS ****************************************************** It's an old trick familiar to all religious leaders: whenever they want to do the devil's work, they speak in the name of god. * It took a world war to prove Hitler wrong; and it took the collapse of the Soviet Empire to prove Stalin wrong. It is the fate of an immovable object to meet an irresistible force. * “There is corruption everywhere.” That's the kind of talk the corrupt love to hear; and they will call anyone who repeats that line a true patriot. * A suicidal man should not brag about surviving still another attempted suicide. * If it can happen to someone else, it can happen to me. Even if I am god's chosen, I am not the only one. * Every Armenian should carry a sign with the warning: "Contradict me and make an enemy for life!" * Two Armenians were having a quiet conversation. It can happen. # Wednesday, June 23, 2009 ***************************************** WHAT ABOUT US? ****************************************************** “There is a lot that we don't know,” a friend tells me speaking of our past. And whose fault is that, may I ask? Ours or theirs for failing to share what they know? We will never know everything. Nobody ever does. Does that mean we should withhold judgment or submit our intelligence to those who may not have enough of it themselves? Who benefits from our ignorance? * Most of my readers don't like me. That's because I hold a mirror up to them and they don't like what they see. They blame the mirror and they blame me for holding it up to them. They never blame themselves. That's the beauty of the blame-game. It allows you to paint yourself all white and the opposition all black. * A regime with enemies will have enemies even among its own people. A regime that speaks of exterminating the enemy will invariably start by killing its own people. Isn't that what's happening in Iran today? And what about us? #

Thursday, June 17, 2009 ***************************************** WHEN THE RICH FIGHT IT IS THE POOR WHO DIE ****************************************************** When the fat cats on Wall Street made a mess of the world economy, they gave themselves a fat bonus, as the poor lost their jobs, their savings, and their pensions. Worse was to follow. The top dogs in Washington bailed out the fat cats with the money of the very same victims who had been skinned alive. It's always the same story. * To identify a people – any people – with the regime – any regime – amounts to identifying the victim with his victimizer. * We either parrot the words of cunning manipulators or we learn to think for ourselves. * If you think slavery in a democratic America was a mistake that has been corrected, consider the legitimacy of the Vietnam and Iraq wars. All men are created equal? If true both Bush Jr. and Chaney would be among the dead now. Closer to home: after leading the people to genocide our own “best and brightest” blame it on the rest of mankind, as if mankind had suddenly changed the rules of the game on us; and what is even more unbelievable, they are believed. Speaking for myself: I have trouble deciding which is more reprehensible: the massacres or the cold-blooded and calculated deception. * A smart Armenian is one who says, “I don't want to be like my people. I want to learn from my mistakes.” * In our case, “Know thine enemy” and “Know thyself” might as well be synonymous statements. * In this morning's paper I read: “...much of the world remained an unwelcome place for many...” You may now guess who the “many” are and who are responsible for driving them out. * To paraphrase Saroyan: “Empires may rise and fall but bloodsuckers hang in forever.” # Friday, June 18, 2009 ***************************************** THE WAGES OF SIN ****************************************************** Hannah Arendt: “If we do not know our own history, we are doomed to live it as though it were our fate.” * At the beginning we were divided by deep valleys, high mountains, and long winters. What divides us today? Nothing but habit. Habit compounded by ignorance. Habit so deeply entrenched that it might as well be in our DNA. If two Armenians on a desert island don't build three churches (the third being the one they stay aware from) they will feel as though they had a monkey on their back. * One reason solidarity has eluded us so far is that we pretend to be ignorant of the consequences of tribalism. It is not easy to convince a tribal people to become a nation by submitting their will to a centralized authority. But the alternative – that is, allowing geography or habit to shape our destiny – is infinitely harder. We know now that the alternative has been defeat by a smaller but better organized tribe, followed by centuries of degrading subservience, mass deportations, and massacres (both “red” and “white” -- that is, alienation and assimilation). Knowing this we continue to stay divided and to waste valuable energy, resources, and emotional investment on genocide recognition, a cause that so far, and after almost a century, has failed to resurrect a single victim or to annex a single square inch of historic Armenia. * It is said of masochists that if they fail to find a sadist, they become their own sadist. That, it seems, is the alternative we have chosen – to wallow in self-pity and to beg others to support our cause, as if others supported us when we needed them most. As if others support anyone that is not in their own interest. * There are two kinds of failings or sins: those we commit knowingly and the others. But sooner or later we are punished for both. And the wages of sin is death. # Saturday, June 19, 2009 ***************************************** QUESTIONS IN SEARCH OF AN ANSWER ****************************************************** Chekhov: “If I cannot answer the most important questions, am I not fooling the reader?” Why do things exist? What is the meaning of life? Why did Socrates say, “The only thing I know is that I don't know”? If “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” are our dividers with us or against us? If our house collapses, who must be held responsible? If not our dividers, who? Who benefits from our divisions? What is the meaning of our genocide? If the Turks are bloodthirsty barbarians, why is it that it took us six hundred years to figure that out? How smart are we if we believe in the propaganda of our dividers? Why is it that for every Armenian who says one thing there will be another who will say the exact opposite? Why is it that a fully grown adult feels the need to repeat what he was taught as a child by his schoolteachers and parish priest? Why is it that “the cradle of civilization” has become the grave of common sense and decency? Why did Zarian say “Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another?” Why is it that we have many poets but not a single philosopher? Why is it that Armenian stories end with the words “Three golden apples fell from heaven”? Is that why we suffer from an advanced case of collective concussion? #

Sunday, June 13, 2009 ***************************************** ON KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING ****************************************************** Socrates: “Know thyself.” The Koran: “He who knows himself, knows God.” The Bible: “The Kingdom of God is within you.” Three synonymous statement. Three different ways of saying the same thing. * “The Kingdom of God is within you,” and “Our Father Who art in heaven”: I see a contradiction here. Which may suggest that the Bible cannot be the word of God. God does not contradict Himself. Neither does He speak with a forked tongue. Men do. * Men contradict one another because they don't understand; they can only hope to move in the direction of greater understanding. * I do not have a quarrel with God, only with men who speak in His name after which they legitimize crimes against humanity. * God does not issue licenses authorizing men to speak in His name. Licenses are issued by men to other men against other men. * Faith can be an asset as well as a liability. It is an asset when it leads to a greater understand and compassion for our fellow men. It is a liability when it makes us self-righteous, dogmatic and intolerant. * Diogenes Laertius: “When Thales was asked what was difficult, he said 'to know one's self.' And what was easy, 'To advise another.'” To advise another: in modern parlance, to sermonize and speechify. * Sartre: “We believe that we believe, but we don't believe.” * If I bore you, I apologize. If I challenge you, I consider my mission accomplished. # Monday, June 14, 2009 ***************************************** ODDS AND ENDS ****************************************************** If I am for honesty it is not because I love truth (which I will never know) but because I hate all those who deceived me when I was young, gullible, and could not yet think for myself. * Am I a failure if so far the world has failed to provide me with a friendly audience? * A good speechifier knows what the people want to hear and he doesn't mind submitting his intelligence to the rabble. * Sometimes our first impressions are more accurate because they are based one a wider and therefore more balanced set of data. Afterwards we can be easily swayed by words. * To attack and insult someone from a position of self-assessed infallibility is to openly declare oneself to be unteachable, unreasonable, and unspeakable. * Long live fools and fanatics! If it weren't for them, I would run out of inspiration. * We like to say there are always two sides to every story after which we readily give in to the temptation of believing our side. # Tuesday, June 15, 2009 ***************************************** ETCETERA ****************************************************** The temptation to contradict is one that no Armenian can resist. It is a mental aberration and a pathological condition that only a radical shift in our educational system may cure. To begin with, we should teach our children that far from being smart, we may well be the dumbest people on earth. One reason: for more than a thousand years we have been the slaves of some of the most backward and brutal people on earth, Stalin's USSR being the latest. How can I forget the fact that during the Soviet era I would receive letters and phone calls from Armenian-Americans (I called them chic Bolsheviks) trying to convince me that the Russians were our Big Brothers (literally rather than in the Orwellian sense of these words), Solzhenitsyn was a traitor, the Nobel Prize committee a Jewish conspiracy, Paradjanov a syphilitic black marketeer and pederast, and Zarian a hireling of the CIA. I have myself been accused of being an agent of every secret organization on the planet, including the KGB, the CIA, the Mossad, and the Gray Wolves, whoever the hell they are. * In our environment, fanaticism, ignorance, stupidity, and malice speak louder than their counterparts. As for actions: they speak louder than words only when they are directed against defenseless fellow Armenians, the more defenseless the better. * If that's what I think about Armenians, why do I bother writing for them? I go on writing for them because I refuse to believe that only brown-nosers and propagandists qualify as writers, and because I believe no one is beyond redemption. I speak from experience. Once upon a time I too shared all their prejudices, blind spots, and arrogance. If I can see the light, so can anyone else. If this is an illusion, may I never lose it. * Michel Sardou: “God? I believe him when I need him. Like the rest of mankind. And if he fails to respond, I appeal to another.” # Wednesday, June 16, 2009 ***************************************** OUR FAVORITE MANTRA ****************************************************** A reader writes: “They massacred us because they hated us.” That's racist talk and that's nonsense. Not all Turks hated us. Some even risked their lives to save some of us, in the same way that today some of them are willing to risk their freedom to support our cause. No doubt Talaat and his gang of cut-throats were racist, but then, who wasn't? Even Americans of “all men are created equal” fame were racists. They didn't massacre all their minorities, true, only some of them. They were smarter than Turks. They divided and exploited them mercilessly. Where would America be today without its cheap labor? Empires are raised by brute force but maintained by divide-and-rule manipulation. We are better at dividing ourselves – or rather, allowing others to divide us -- than dividing our enemies. This may explain why almost all talk of Armenians by Armenians ends with the mantra, “Mart bidi ch'ellank.” And because I explain and expand on this mantra, I am silenced. We want flattery, not criticism no matter how objective and honest. But flattery does not solve problems, it covers them up. Flattery does not build character, honesty does. #

Thursday, June 11, 2009 ***************************************** ORIGINAL SIN **************************************** We begin by saying yes to our parents, then to our schoolteachers and parish priest (or rabbi or mullah) after which we consider it our duty to say yes sir! to empty suits and bearded fornicators. And now think of the millions of innocent victims who perished just because some loud-mouth damn fool spoke in the name of a non-existent being or a misguided ideology or a phony orthodoxy. And if you think this sort of aberration belongs to the past, think again. I have seen it happen in my own lifetime and I see it happen again and again whenever I read the headlines in newspapers or watch the news on television. And why? Because we all think my speechifier or sermonizer knows better, his god is a better god, his ideas are better ideas...all of which combined makes us morally superior and we can do no wrong and anyone who says otherwise is a liar who deserves to be silenced and sometimes silenced permanently. The very same people who taught us to believe tasting the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge was the Original Sin have brainwashed us to believe to gorge ourselves on the fruit from the Tree of Ignorance is our patriotic duty. If you have a better explanation, I am all ears. # Friday, June 11, 2009 ***************************************** IT WAS WORSE THAN A CRIME, IT WAS A BLUNDER **************************************** There is a tendency in all of us to avoid confrontation especially when the opposition is more powerful. We call it playing it safe or being cautious. And yet, we look up to those rare heroic individuals who stand up for what is right even if it means losing their freedom and sometimes even their life. Think of Socrates versus the Athenian establishment, think of Jesus, Galileo, Gandhi, and Solzhenitsyn. And now, let us consider the case of our revolutionaries in the Ottoman Empire. The reason they rose against the Empire was that they believed the Great Powers of the West to be on their side and with such allies they could not lose. But lost they did and it was not they who paid a heavy price but the people. Socrates and the others mentioned above relied on no one but themselves and suffered the consequences. Most of our revolutionaries survived to publish long-winded memoirs, to rewrite history, and to cover up their blunder. I don't find that heroic but cowardly and contemptible. We all make mistakes, of course, but some of us are honest enough to admit them, sometimes even to apologize. # Saturday, June 12, 2009 ***************************************** WHEN THE BLIND LEAD THE BLIND **************************************** Baudelaire on the idea of superiority: “a satanic idea, if ever there was one.” I have said many nasty things about self-assessed moral superiority, but I have never gone as far as calling it satanic. It takes the daring of a genius to see things as they are. The rest of us might as well be blind to reality. * Give a nobody authority or make him feel superior and he will speak in the name of god or historic necessity or greater wisdom and go on the warpath against infidels or inferiors or anyone else who stands between him and more power. Megalomania is a hungry monster that is never satiated. Even the popes of Rome, whose job was to preach love of the enemy, went to war. But then, where would authority be without dupes? To believe in someone else and to ignore “the kingdom of god” which is within us, might as well be the source of all crimes against humanity. * Flaubert: “To be stupid, selfish and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.” #

Sunday, June 7, 2009 ***************************************** LESSONS **************************************** In his Anatolian impressions, Lord Kinross (the future biographer of Kemal) mentions meeting some elderly Turks who bragged about teaching us (Armenians) a lesson during World War I that we would never forget. One could say, it is now their turn to learn they can't get away with murder – though if it were up to me, I would be reluctant to teach them anything if only because people who cling to their ignorance will have to learn the hard way, and the longer it takes the harder the lesson is bound to be. But then, consider the absurdity of our own situation. We are trying to teach the Turks a lesson that the mighty of this world have consistently refused to learn (hence their unpopularity, gradual disintegration and inevitable downfall) even as we go about refusing to learn a more obvious lesson, namely that a house divided against itself cannot stand (hence our status as perennial losers). # Monday, June 8, 2009 ***************************************** ON A NUMBER OF THINGS **************************************** Intolerance is almost always a byproduct of a misguided idealism or a phony orthodoxy. But I am beginning to suspect that's not our problem. Our problem, our real problem, is mediocrity and its twin, opportunism. * We have a thousand voices supporting Genocide recognition but not a single whisper in defense of free speech. * Man thrives on good food, good sex, and bad ideas. * We speak like parrots, drink like fish, eat like pigs, fight like dragons, live in asphalt jungles, and we call ourselves civilized human beings. * If a better world is ever discovered in the universe, we will do to it what we did to America and its Indians. * Human nature continues to elude me. No matter how hard I try I cannot understand why millions of people are fascinated by individuals who hit a ball with a modified stick. # Tuesday, June 9, 2009 ***************************************** WITH MALICE TOWARD SOME, WITH CHARITY FOR ALL **************************************** My explanations are mine and no one else's. They apply only to my own brand of ignorance. If you agree with me, it may be because we share the same area of darkness. If you disagree with me, it may be because you are already in possession of your own explanations. In which case I can only warn you not to be taken in by flat-earth theories. Don't let appearances deceive you. The most obvious explanation may also be the most misleading. Remember, it is not the sun that revolves around the earth even if the Holy Scriptures (the Word of God) and the Pope of Rome said so and repeated for more than a thousand years. And if I repeat myself, it may be because I cannot reconcile myself to the fact that those who pretend to be wiser are no better than damn fools whose number one concern is not the welfare of the people but their infallibility, which is nothing but a mirage, an illusion, a figment of their imagination, and a Big Lie. We have been and continue to be at the mercy of bunglers who would rather preside over the destruction of the nation than give up even an invisible fraction of their powers and privileges. # Wednesday, June 10, 2009 ***************************************** THE SCUM OF THE EARTH **************************************** If you lose a friend on account of political differences, it maybe because he wasn't a good friend to begin with. I speak from experience. I have lost several friends because in their view I was on the wrong side of a political issue and their side happened to be infallible. To them I say, “Good riddance!” * It is a mistake to identify patriotism with a specific regime. I have nothing against patriotism provided it is willing to expose the swine at the top. As for the kind of patriotism that sings of the eternal snows of Mt. Ararat, I can only say, “Nothing further, your Honor.” * Believers in one God (Christians, Muslims, Jews) should develop a consensus if they want to be believed. * I consider fascination with royalty a branch of zoology. The first and only thing I think when Prince Charles is mentioned is that he doesn't squeeze his own toothpaste on his toothbrush. The queen? She reminds of an aunt. As for the princesses: I am reminded of an old friend who when asked to name his favorite actor, he mentioned several familiar names. When asked to name his favorite actress, he said, “All of them!” * Stendhal: “All my life I have always seen what I imagined rather than reality.” There is an element of wishful thinking in all thinking. Propagandists know this and do their utmost to exploit it, and the more successful they are, the greater the distance between us and reality. #

Thursday, June 4, 2009 ***************************************** ON PROPAGANDA AND RELATED ATROCITIES ***************************************************************** Propagandists and their dupes are less like victimizers and victims and more like co-conspirators. * For every temptation to believe in a flattering lie there is a counter-urge to confront the truth no matter how unpleasant. * To suppress a truth does not mean to obliterate it. * If in crime it's cherchez la femme, in all verbal communication it's cherchez the unsaid or the covered up -- there it is, step one of deconstruction 101. * I don't understand everything and I don't want to understand everything because I already understand enough; I also understand that there isn't one hell of a lot I can do with what I understand except to become more aware of my own powerlessness. * Our history makes one point very clear: in time of trouble, when we need them most, our political parties were nowhere to be seen. But in time of peace they are all over the place -- in schools, churches, community centers, and the media, speechifying, sermonizing, editorializing, organizing demonstrations, lobbying, and, above all, rewriting history in their efforts to cover up their blunders and inability to face facts and to come to grips with reality. # Friday, June 5, 2009 ***************************************** FAITH AND IMAGINATION **************************************** Since the ancients could not understand the solar system, in their wisdom, they invented or imagined one they could understand. All systems of thought, all organized religions and ideologies, are efforts to reduce a complex and incomprehensible reality to our own level even if it means perverting it in the process. Hence the celebrated dictum: “Man cannot create a single worm, yet he has created ten thousand gods” -- and, one could add, for every god, ten thousand lies. * The human brain is a miracle more complex than a thousand computers combined. Its urge to understand and explain is as irresistible as the urge to procreate, and to procreate at all cost, even if it means procreating charlatans and dupes willing to kill and die in the name of a lie. * God orders Abraham to butcher his son Isaac to prove his loyalty to Him. I challenge anyone to imagine a worst case of abuse of power. * Is it possible to be honest and to speak of God or in His name? Even when Mother Teresa, that most exemplary of saints, lost her faith, she did not dare to say so openly when she was alive. # Saturday, June 6, 2009 ***************************************** STATUS QUO **************************************** Solutions to problems are unwelcome where exposing past blunders is not an option. Our leadership seems to be saying, “We will consider the viability of your solutions provided you do not question our infallibility.” They ignore the obvious fact that had they been infallible we would have no problems. * “What would you have done in their place?” is one of those loaded questions that is raised again and again. If you say, “I would have done things differently,” they will say, “So you think you are smarter? Easy to say, harder to prove.” What I prefer to say instead is: “Very probably I would have done what they did, with one difference: I wouldn't spend the rest of my life blaming others and pretending I am infallible even as I go about committing the same blunder over and over again.” * Our central problem today is a leadership that is incapable of doing what must be done because doing so would expose the past blunders of incompetent narcissists and their dupes who are infatuated with their own image. * What blunder am I talking about? That of dividing our greatest source of power and refusing to learn the lessons of history. * It takes two to tango. We have the leadership we deserve. Our tragedy, our real tragedy is centuries of hopeless subservience and the acquisition of layers upon layers of habits that spring from it, namely, our respect for authority even when this authority mimics Ottomanism and Sovietism. * Man's original sin is not tasting the fruit from the tree of knowledge but saying “Yes, sir!” not only to God (as Abraham did when ordered to cut his son's throat) but also to any impostor who speaks in His name. #

Sunday, May 31, 2009 ***************************************** FUNNY BUSINESS ************************************ Almost every other day our local paper prints a letter critical of its editorial policy. By contrast, our weeklies pretend not to have a policy, or if they do, it has only two criteria: truth and excellence. I dare you not to see any humor in this. * At one time or another I have offended Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, dupes, fanatics, nationalists, communists, capitalists, racists, propagandists, lawyers, and chief executive officers, and by my rough estimate, several billion people. Why should I be surprised if so far I have failed to acquire the status of a best-selling author? * If I repeat myself it may be because no one minds repeating “I love you” to the person s/he loves. Why should you mind if I say and repeat, I hate charlatans, bloodsuckers, and idiots who parade as leaders of men? -- unless of course you are one of them. * I don't write about labels, I write about human beings and if most of them are Armenian it may be because I know them and myself better than I know the rest of mankind. I have at no time hidden the fact that in my formative years I was as big a dupe of our propaganda as those I now ridicule. You might say therefore that I attack and expose not just fools but also my former self. * Truth sets you free only in theory. In practice it destroys an important fraction of your self. That is why it is ruthlessly shunned by most. * Plot for a play: two characters agree to achieve perfection by exposing each other's failings, and they end up destroying themselves. # Monday, June 1, 2009 ***************************************** EDUCATION BY INDOCTRINATION **************************************** Education by indoctrination should be a criminal offense. The only reason it isn't is that everybody does it and no one seems to mind. * There is in all of us an infantile need to believe in lies and when no one deceives us, we deceive ourselves. * As a child he was taught to speak the truth, and when the Turkish police came and wanted to know where was his uncle's hiding place, he said “In the well,” and he took them there. * When God asked Cain where was his brother Abel (as if He didn't know), Cain replied, “Am I then my brother's keeper?” * We are told violence in movies begets violence in life. What about intolerance in organized religions and ideologies? How many violent movies did Cain see? Was Genghis Khan influenced by John Wayne, and Napoleon by Brando? * The Republicans (most of them White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) are now calling the Hispanic Supreme Court nominee a “racist.” They forget that for more than a hundred years Supreme Court Justices (most of them WASPs) legitimized slavery and racism in America. These WASPs! – they sure know how to take care of their own. That may well be the secret of their success. You may now guess what is the secret of our failure. * Question to our Turcocentric ghazetajis: “Does it ever occur to you that you may be barking up the wrong tree?” # Tuesday, June 2, 2009 ***************************************** SUCCESS **************************************** Give a man the best education money can buy and a position of great responsibility and end up with an assh*le who thinks he deserves a fat bonus just for pulling his dick. * Some readers disagree with me not because they find my arguments defective but because they think I stand between them and their chances to achieve success. * There is a saying in Hollywood: “Success is relative, the closer the relative, the greater the success.” * If we think what we are told to think, are we (brain)dead or alive? And if we are alive, is our life worth living? * When I hear someone use the word “culture” I immediately assume he means his particular brand of barbarism. * We say Naregatsi is our Dante and Shakespeare combined, but whereas Italian and English children can quote lines from Dante and Shakespeare, I have yet to hear a single Armenian boy or girl, or adult for that matter, quote a single solitary line by Naregatsi. * We brag about our culture but we prefer to speak about massacres, as if being massacred were a great achievement. * When your whole life is a big blunder, you hate like hell anyone who dares to suggest you may have made a mistake. # Wednesday, June 3, 2009 ***************************************** DIPLOMACY 101 **************************************** The Turks know better what happened if only because they know both sides of the story, unlike us who know only our side. They have a better grasp of world history too if only because they ran an empire for six hundred years. Which means they speak a language that is accessible to other empires. All they have to say to the Americans is, “Armenians are our Indians,” and all Americans have to do is think: “What if in time of war when our very existence may well be in peril our ethnic minorities behave like the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I?” Which may also explain why the Soviets opposed all talk of Genocide recognition. When our first foreign minister visited Ankara and mentioned the Genocide, the Turks said, “This man hates us. We can't negotiate with him.” Our president agreed and immediately replaced him. He understood that you can't call a man a murderer and a barbarian and expect him to behave like a civilized human being. Were the Turks murderers and barbarians? Yes, of course. No doubt about that. Even the murder of a single innocent human being is an act of barbarism. But that's in civilian parlance which has nothing to do with the semantics of diplomacy. If the Turks behaved like bloodthirsty barbarians, so did the rest of mankind before, during, and after our Tragedy. We cannot educate, reform, and persuade mankind into behaving like the civilizations they pretend to be. We can only deal with them in such a way as to defend and protect our interests. So far we have failed to do so perhaps because we are not as smart as we pretend to be. #

Thursday, May 28, 2009 ***************************************** ALAS! ************************************ You want to be a benefactor? Making a million or a billion is the easy part. What's hard is the realization that all they want is your money, and when they look at you they don't see a face but a dollar sign. You want to be a boss or bishop? Nothing to it. You start by saying “Yes, sir!” to the idiots who are ahead of you and the chances are you will have no trouble filling vacancies all the way to the top. You want to be a writer? You have two options: (one) to write what they want to read, and (two) to write what you think. If you choose the first option, they may do you the favor of printing you; if the second, you may be free to live in the gulag of your choice. * Literature: a field of human endeavor in which even the Turks are ahead of us. * Journalism: ditto, alas! * In a letter to the editor in our local paper today I read the following: “The general public, poorly educated for the most part and in many cases barely literate, is bamboozled by the media and lulled by game shows and sports extravaganzas.” Replace “games” and “sports” with “atrocities” and “massacres” and you will have a fairly honest and objective assessment of our situation, alas! # Friday, May 29, 2009 ***************************************** ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM AND PRO-MESSIANISM ************************************ On more than one occasion I have been attacked and insulted by readers on the grounds that so far I have failed to come up with the right verbal formula that will save the nation, as if such a formula ever existed in some yet undiscovered dimension and it was up to me to fetch it. Illusions, like fools, come in all sizes and shapes. There are still Russians today who believe in Stalin's propaganda line and call Solzhenitsyn a traitor, as there are Germans who are for Hitler and against Thomas Mann, who exposed Hitler's charlatanism. Fascism is not dead in Italy, neither is Maoism in China. The ancients may not have known much about balanced diets but they knew that one way to kill a man was to condemn him to eat the same food for forty days. Hence the spectacle of dupes who after being fed the same propaganda line for a generation become living cadavers. I have yet to meet the Armenian dupe or Turcocentric ghazetaji who was not brain-dead. Perhaps our anti-intellectualism is nothing but an extension of our pro-messianism. And the problem with pro-messianism is that it completely ignores the fact that messiahs don't solve problems, they compound them by making unreasonable demands on us poor mortals – such as loving our enemies. The only Armenian I know who dared to speak of sympathy for the Turks was Saroyan. As for our sermonizers whose job it is to preach the message of our Savior: the less said about them better. # Saturday, May 30, 2009 ***************************************** VARIATIONS ON ABRACADABRA ************************************ At the end of his career as teacher and philosopher, Plato had every right to believe that he had been successful in solving most of mankind's problems, one of them being that rulers should also be philosophers. We know now that power and wisdom are mutually exclusive concepts and mankind prefers to be ruled not by philosophers but by philomorons. When Marx toiled on his magnum opus in a London library writing against exploitation, did it ever occur to him that some day his ideas would be exploited by bloodthirsty barbarians who would victimize millions of innocent human beings? And to think that he was fully aware of the fact that for nearly two millennia mankind had exploited even the Word of God by reducing it to “opium" thus legitimizing the rule of the Devil. What are ideas if not variations on abracadabra? We like to say if it weren't for good men, mankind would be in a far worse shape. Maybe so. But what kind of consolation is that for the hungry, the sick, the dying, and the dead? Illusions are for the living and the favorite occupation of the living is to spin illusions. There you have it, a history of human thought in a single sentence. #

Sunday, May 24, 2009 ******************************* A LIE EXPOSED ************************************************** We have been exposed to the lie that we are smart for such a long time and so often that we now believe it to be a self-evident truth. It isn't! Some of us may be smart in the marketplace, but when it comes to such far more important matters as defending our fundamental human rights, we might as well be just about the dumbest people on earth. * Our leaders are to us what the Pope is to Catholics – infallible. This is what our nationalist historians tell us and this is what, as Orthodox dupes, we believe. * If theology is a branch of science fiction, Armenian history is pure fiction. * For six hundred years we were at the mercy of Turks. The unspoken message of our Turcocentric ghazetajis today is, we still are.... * Since I don't have any political ambitions, I refuse to say “Yes, sir!” to idiots. # Monday, May 25, 2009 ******************************* FREE PRESS ************************************************** We don't have a free press. We never had one. But that's not the real scandal. The real scandal is that no one seems to care. No one seems to know that a community without a free press is a blind and deaf community. And I am not talking about the Homeland now. I am talking about the Diaspora. Once, when an editor exposed the corrupt practices of one of our political parties, he was nearly beaten to death. The perpetrators were never caught. Which may suggest that, when it comes to silencing critics, we go about it with professional efficiency and know-how. We expect this sort of thing to happen in the Homeland where a free press is an anomaly. But not in the Diaspora, and definitely not in a democratic environment. How do they get away with it? Easy! The very same people who are in the business of silencing dissent also keep telling us we are smart, we are progressive, we are civilized, we are freedom-loving, when in reality, we are nothing of the kind. “You speak of corruption,” a friend, himself a writer, once said to me. “Do you have any evidence?” That's when he harbored political ambitions. Shortly thereafter he called again to say that his latest commentary had been censored and he was planning to take legal action. Did he? I don't know. But I do know that he quit writing. About a month ago I watched a televised speech by an official from the Homeland (a former member of the Party) in which I heard a great deal of palaver about the importance of preserving our mother tongue, the bane of mixed marriages, the primacy of Etchmiadzin and so on and so forth. But not a single word on human rights. Judging by the prolonged applause, no one seemed to have noticed that. Smart, civilized, progressive, freedom-loving? Don't make me laugh! # Tuesday, May 26, 2009 ******************************* PROFILES IN COURAGE ************************************************** Readers who know little or nothing about Armenian literature call me brave for writing as I do. I am nothing of the kind. Raffi (1835-1888) was brave when he said, “There is more profit in defending the interests of wolves against sheep than the other way around,” and, “The fiercest enemies of critics are those who serve tyrants.” A notorious Kurdish assassin was hired to have him silenced permanently. Zarian (1885-1969) was brave for exposing the moral bankruptcy of the Soviet regime long before Solzhenitsyn did, returned to Yerevan, where, some say, he was murdered. Bakounts (1899-1937) was brave when he described the regime as a “disease,” was arrested, jailed, tortured, and shot. Shahnour (1904-1974) was brave when he said, “An Armenian's indifference for the collective good of the people is a thick, impenetrable shield which dulls and neutralizes his soul. What insufferable rottenness, especially when he is educated.” Aramais Sahakian (b. 1936) was brave when he said “Let us learn to be human by observing animals.” And I could go on and on... Compared to them I am no better than a scarecrow whose words carry as much weight as an ant's fart. As for those who insult me on the Internet, they are no better than faceless, gutless, anonymous scum. # Wednesday, May 27, 2009 ***************************************** WHAT I DON'T BELIEVE ************************************ After saying and repeating “All men are created equal,” Americans look down at the rest of mankind, including the majority of their fellow Americans because they happen to belong to a different race or nationality. If Americans can deceive themselves, why can't we? If all nationalist historians place the demands of propaganda above objectivity, why should we be the only exceptions? Why shouldn't we say and repeat, in our failings we are like everyone else, but in every other respect we are unique, that is to say, superior? Why shouldn't we brag about our small and ephemeral empire under Dikran the Great and call our military defeats moral victories? If reality is against us, why shouldn't we invent a lie and repeat it until it acquires the sheen of a self-evident truth? If we are dupes, why can't we brainwash ourselves into believing we are just about the smartest people on earth and it takes seven Jews to fool an Armenian? As for our writers who tell us a different story, who cares what a few malcontents think? * I don't believe in small or harmless lies because they may lead to big and dangerous lies. The American belief in their own invincible military might led to the disaster in Vietnam. And their belief in their superior brand of democracy may lead to more tragedies in the Middle East, Afghanistan and elsewhere. * I think of a childhood friend who believed in cigarette commercials, became a chain-smoker, and is now dying of terminal cancer. * A headline in one of our weeklies today reads: “Armenian police vow to end attacks on journalists.” To which I can only say, “If you believe that, you will believe anything!” #

Thursday, May 21, 2009 ******************************* IDIOTS ************************************************** On child-molesting priests, the official defense of the Catholic Church goes something like this: Sexual molestation of defenseless children is not a crime but a sin that required repentance followed by forgiveness and renewal. The degradation and damage to the child is not taken into consideration because less relevant or real than the sin of the priest. Leave it to theologians and lawyers to explain and justify criminal conduct. * When we speak of the blunders and crimes of the Vatican, one of the first instances that comes to mind is the persecution of Galileo Galilei. It took centuries for the Vatican to admit error. It may take many more centuries for the Church to realize that covering up the “sins” of the clergy was even a bigger crime because it amounted to issuing a license for abuse. * The world will be a better place on the day theologians concentrate their efforts in exposing the shortcomings of their own belief systems as opposed to asserting moral and intellectual superiority with arguments that convince no one but themselves and their dupes. * If the Pope doubts his faith seven times every day, as Italians are fond of saying, let him say so if only because in matters of faith doubt is more civilized than certainty. * And if God is infallible, why did He create an imperfect world in which man's inhumanity to man is a constant and war and massacre are routine occurrences? To those who say wars and massacres are men's doing, not God's, because God has given men free will that allows them to choose between good and evil; I say, the free will argument may apply to the victimizer, not the victim. Given the choice, who would freely choose to be the victim of self-righteous idiots? # Friday, May 22, 2009 ******************************* WHAT I BELIEVE ************************************************** I believe God is not who we think He is, and when we speak in His name, we lie. I believe with Socrates that “of the gods we know nothing.” I believe with Gandhi that God is Truth provided we agree that none of us knows the truth or is in a position to grasp all of Reality, only a fraction of it. I believe the Bible is not “the word of God,” but a search for truth, which is endless. I believe with Tolstoy that “the Kingdom of God” is within us and to look for it in heaven or anywhere else is a waste of time. I believe to speak of God as if He were not the Unknown and the Unknowable is to try to make comprehensible that which is incomprehensible by bringing it down to our own level. I believe when Popes, Imams, and capitalists speak in the name of their conception of God it is impossible to tell to what extent they identify God with their own power and I believe power corrupts everything it touches. I also believe with Socrates, Christ, and Tolstoy that poverty is the surest proof of honesty. # Saturday, May 23, 2009 ******************************* MAYBE ************************************************** If no one in a position of power speaks as I do, it may be because I have nothing to defend but my fundamental human right of free speech. * If you think I am the bearer of bad tidings, it may be because you prefer your illusions to my reality, which may well be another illusion. * During the Soviet era, I remember, one of our elder statesmen wrote me an angry letter in which he said, “How dare you criticize the Homeland. Saroyan never did. You think you are better than Saroyan?” To which I could only say: “Far better men than Saroyan have been critical of the Soviets, including a good number of Soviets.” That may have been good enough to shut him up for a while but not to convince him, because shortly before he died he sent me a venomous missile. * We are not what we think we are. Our identity revolves around this fact and the way we fail to come to terms with it. Which amounts to saying, our identity is as intangible as the shadow of a black hat as reflected in an invisible mirror in a dark room. * To believe a nation's own version of its past amounts to believing a criminal's plea of not guilty. * If a ruthless serial killer were to write his memoirs, you can be sure of one thing: he would portray himself as a victim rather than a victimizer. # http://baliozian.blogspot.com/

Sunday, May 17, 2009 ******************************* UNTITLED ************************************************** Einstein didn't believe in God and when he said so publicly he received death threats. This may lead one to suspect that love of God can make a killer out of a law-abiding citizen. * I was brought up as a devout Catholic and when I first met an atheist I was sure he wasn't what he pretended to be because if he were he would be a dangerous madman, which he wasn't. * Both Napoleon and Dostoevsky thought belief in God is necessary for the people because if God didn't exist “everything would be permissible” (Dostoevsky) and “the poor would butcher the rich” (Napoleon), which of course is nonsense because Napoleon ruled with the help of a mighty police force, and what sent Dostoevsky to Siberia for five years was not God but the Czar. * God must exist because something (in this case the universe) cannot come out of nothing. But that doesn't answer the question whether or not God cares to get involved in human affairs, because so far He has behaved like an absentee landlord. What kind of loving Father would allow the rape and murder of an innocent child? * We are told we cannot understand God because His mind works in mysterious ways. If so, then there isn't much we can do except to say “of the gods we know nothing” (Socrates) and go about our business as if He didn't give a damn. * Some of my readers may not be aware of the fact that there can be such a thing as an atheist religion. Buddhism, for instance, as popular in the East as Christianity in the West, is an atheist religion. I also suspect there are many Christians out there who are not aware of the fact that a good Christian can also be an atheist (Tolstoy was one). # Monday, May 18, 2009 ******************************* OPPRESSORS ************************************************** We have survived our oppressors only at the cost of becoming our own oppressors. * “The Kingdom of God is within you,” we are told by the Scriptures. So is the kingdom of knowledge, according to Socrates, and by knowledge he did not mean such things as the capital of Egypt or the distance between Sparta and Troy (which is information) but the ability to tell right from wrong. * “Let us reason together,” we are also told by the Scriptures. But so far we have consistently preferred to “unreason” against one another. What am I driving at? Nothing much. Only this: the blame-game is for idiots. * Because I like to quote Socrates and the Scriptures (“A house divided against itself cannot stand,” “Where there is no vision the people perish”) I am told I hate myself. If true, I suppose something similar could be said of Socrates and Jesus. In his APOLOGIA, Plato tells us Socrates almost challenged, not to say provoked, the Athenian jury to condemn him to death. And Jesus knew what Judas was up to but did nothing to stop him. Does that mean their executioners were not idiots? # Tuesday, May 19, 2009 ******************************* DEMOCRACY ************************************************** On the radio, three professors of philosophy arguing about democracy. Where philosophers disagree, lawyers enter; and where lawyers enter, big money casts the deciding vote. Hence boom-and-bust capitalism in America, and kleptocracy in Armenia. * Spengler on democracy: “A small number of superior heads, whose names are very likely not the best known, settle everything, while below them are the great mass of second-rate politicians selected through a provincially-conceived franchise to keep alive the illusion of popular self-determination.” * I once asked the son of our local mayor if he plans to go into politics. “It's not up to me,” he replied. “It's up to the people on King Street.” (Our King Street is the equivalent of Wall Street in New York.) * Since I can't hang them, I write about them. * If you have enough money for bread and books, making more of it is a waste of time. * To be a man of faith means to reject all evidence to the contrary regardless of its merits. * In our belief systems we resemble parrots, and in our defense of these belief systems, we behave more like cannibals. # Wednesday, May 20, 2009 ******************************* CONSENSUS ************************************************** We will promote ourselves from tribalism to nationalism, and from nationalism to multiculturalism – because whether we like it or not we not only live in a multicultural world but we are ourselves multicultural – on the day our “betters” adopt the mantra “the principle of solidarity is not negotiable,” which translated into dollars and cents means, consensus is more important than dead-end discord and strife, and consensus does not mean agreement on all points but only agreement to advance in the same direction. * I have never met an anti-Semite who was not as bad as his distorted image of Jews. * I am more than suspicious of all claims of moral superiority, especially of the self-assessed kind, which is always symptomatic of moral inferiority. * My question is: Why is it that some Armenians who have been fully aware of corrupt practices in the Homeland from day one are heard from only when they are personally stung by them? Don't they know that by keeping silent they actively legitimize the very same system whose victims they now claim to be? What about the countless other victims, who cannot afford lawyers, are in no position to make headlines, and whose sole alternatives are either emigration or prostitution? #

Thursday, May 14, 2009 ***************************************** MART BIDI CH'ELLANK / III ************************************************** To say, “We don't need critics, we need solutions,” is another way of saying, we don't give a damn about our literature and its central message. To self-assessed enlightened readers who like to say, “Why should I waste my time with second-raters when I can read Plato, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky?” I say, our writers may indeed be second-raters compared to the three gentlemen mentioned above, but they have come up with first-rate solutions. * Naregatsi's solution paraphrased: “If you want to understand the source of your problems, look within, examine your conscience, analyze yourself.” It follows, the blame-game of our Turcocentric ghazetajis and speechifiers is a sham if only because after a century of verbiage and venom, it has failed to resurrect a single victim or annex a single square inch of soil. But even if some day in the near or distant future we are successful in getting an apology, a billion dollars, and our historic lands, problems like corruption and incompetence in high places, and such iniquities as destitution, prostitution, alienation, and assimilation will not go away. * The solution of writers from Yeghishé (5th century AD) to Charents (20th century) paraphrased: “Where dividers enter, death follows.” * If I repeat myself it may be because sometimes with the deaf I don't have a choice. If on the other hand, you say “Naregatsi, Yeghishé, and Charents are dead men and their solutions are as defunct as they are. We need new thinking, we need creative brains.” I say, if by new solutions you mean verbal formulas like abracadabra, you will never find them. And if by creative thinking you mean a messiah, you are barking up the wrong tree because no one in his right mind will volunteer to be crucified by brainless dupes. # Friday, May 15, 2009 ******************************* OUTSIDERS ************************************************** What has been the influence of Armenian literature on Armenian history? That's an easy question with an obvious answer: Nothing, zero, nada, nil, vochinch. What has been the influence of Socrates on Greek history? Same answer. Socrates influenced only other philosophers and no one else. After Socrates, Greek history went into a steady decline never to recover its former glory. What has been the influence of Christianity on the West? The destruction of classical cultures, the introduction of dogmatism, intolerance, the Dark Ages, twenty centuries of internecine wars and slaughter, the Crusades, persecution of heretics, the Inquisition, and more recently, televangelists and a child-molesting clergy – that is to say, moral bankruptcy. Christianity may have influenced artists like Michelangelo, thinkers like St. Thomas Aquinas, composers like J.S. Bach, and poets like Dante, but not kings, politicians, and in general those in charge of human affairs, who went about their business as if Christ had never been born. What am I driving at? Oh! nothing much. Only this: men are swine who have no use for common sense and decency. Keep that in mind and you will have no more unanswered questions. Why do I go on writing? Habit. Also to let our charlatans know that there is at least one Armenian who refuses to be their dupe, whatever the hell that's worth...probably no more than a second's insomnia. # Saturday, May 16, 2009 ******************************* A LITANY OF LIES ************************************************** “Because we were a small Christian island in a vast Muslim sea” -- I am now paraphrasing our party line -- “we were set upon and victimized by a wide assortment of imperialist barbarians on the warpath.” In other words, we are without blame. It's the fault of our geography and religious faith. Rubbish! To begin with, in the Middle Ages, Armenians were the most highly paid mercenaries in the region. Some of the most ruthless emperors and generals in the Byzantine Empire were of Armenian descent. We were at no time an “island” since Georgia to the north was also Christian. Furthermore, throughout our historic existence, we have served our masters, be they Christian, pagan, atheist, Muslim, fascist, and Bolshevik, with greater zeal than we have defended our own interests. Or, as Raffi puts it: “Whenever we have been invaded by Persian, Greek, Arab, Seljuk, or Mongol armies, these armies have advanced under the leadership of an Armenian. Armenians have always fought side by side with the enemy against their own people.” Elsewhere, “Where Armenian blood flows, look for an Armenian hatchet.” Why these distortions and lies? Because everybody does it. Americans and Turks may not speak the same language but they share the same grammar – that of power. Where would America be today without its systematic extermination of the natives and the cheap labor of slaves who died by the million while being transported from Africa? Here is how Nigoghos Sarafian sums up our past: “Our history is a litany of lamentation, anxiety, horror, and massacre. Also deception and abysmal naiveté mixed with the smoke of incense and the sound of sacred chants.” #

Sunday, May 10, 2009 ***************************************** EXPLANATIONS ************************************************** There is a type of liar who after lying repeatedly ends up believing in his own lies. That's one way to explain the popularity of sermonizers and speechifiers. * Avedik Issahakian: “A wealthy man is nothing but a thief who has not yet been caught.” Perhaps because he does his thieving in a land whose legislators are themselves thieves. * Puzant Granian: “We have many national benefactors but not a single national writer.” That may be because benefactors prefer lies and flattery – that is to say, speechifiers, sermonizers, and brown-nosers. * Writers like Siamanto and Totovents could not stand life in America and returned to Istanbul under Talaat and to Yerevan under Stalin respectively only to be arrested and slaughtered, probably because they found the prospect of being dependent on the charity of swine worse than death. * The overwhelming majority of our writers agree in telling us that if we want to get at the roots of our misfortunes we must look within and that the blame-game is a Big Lie. Which means, our Turcocentric ghazetajis are no better than cretins whose sole aim in life is to moronize the people -- not a particularly demanding enterprise when dealing with a nation that has been brutalized by millennial oppression by some of the most ruthless and bloodthirsty regimes in the history of the world. # Monday, May 11, 2009 ***************************************** OF CABBAGES AND KINGS ************************************************** We should treat Turks as friends if only because it is easier to negotiate with friends than with enemies. If so far we have failed to do that it may be because we cannot even treat our brothers as friends. When was the last time an Armenian trusted another Armenian? * According to Lobo Antunes, a celebrated contemporary Portuguese writer, the only way to write is “to imagine yourself naked, smelling of formaldehyde, flat on your back in a marble tub, waiting for them to cut open your ribs with a huge pair of scissors.” A man after my own heart. I too believe to write any other way is to recycle propaganda. * If you play poker with a king and you win his kingdom, don't be surprised if he says, “Off with his head!” * I envy the rich for being in a position to deliver the line, “Talk to my lawyer!” * And speaking of the rich: It is said of one of our national benefactors that whenever someone approached him directly with a request for financial support, he would say, “Talk to my people.” * Self-deception is escape from reality, and those who deceive themselves might as well be open invitations to deceivers. # Tuesday, May 12, 2009 ***************************************** MART BIDI CH'ELLANK ************************************************** Do you want to understand Turks? Think of an Armenian with power. * The ideal dupe is someone who has been brought up to believe he is smart, he is progressive, and he is beyond criticism. Whereas a really smart person is more like Socrates who knew more than anyone else but who pretended to know nothing. * If I repeat myself it may be because I hope to have better luck with the next generation. Call me an optimist. In this line of work you have to be a little crazy to carry on. * What is the difference between literature and trash? The trash gets printed. * Our brainwashed dupes today are more pro-establishment than our bosses, bishops, and benefactors, in the same way that our oligarchs in the Homeland are more capitalist than Wall Street. # Wednesday, May 13, 2009 ***************************************** MART BIDI CH'ELLANK / II ************************************************** Our struggle, our real struggle, is not against men but against an abstraction that is lighter than a feather but weighs on us like a mountain: our history. Millennial oppression has so thoroughly dehumanized us that we can no longer act, we can only react blindly, and whenever we react blindly we do so not only against our own interests but also against reason itself. Consider our genocide as a case in point: we didn't have to predict it in order to take evasive action. All we had to do is listen to the countless warnings of foreign observers, missionaries, and our own insiders within the Ottoman administration. And consider what's happening today: our literature, our religion, and reason itself are unanimous in warning us that the only way to divide a house is by tearing it down. And yet...(the two saddest words in the English language, it has been said) we continue to waste millions by constructing two schools, two houses of worship, and two community centers when one would be not only sufficient but also the right thing to do. We all know what happens to the blind leading the blind, let alone to the blind, deaf, and dumb leading the blind, deaf, and dumb who have somehow managed to convince themselves that not only they are smarter than anyone else but also that God Almighty Himself is on their side. #

Thursday, May 7, 2009 ***************************************** WHAT I KNOW ABOUT OUR RULING CLASSES ************************************************** We may not have an aristocracy or an elite, but we have always had a ruling class or classes, even if more often than not they were not our real rulers but “their” puppets – and by “their” I mean our masters and oppressors, that is to say, the enemy. We have always had dissidents too, even in our Golden Age (5th century AD), even if their word didn't carry much weight, and whenever not silenced by the likes of Talaat and Stalin, they were alienated by our “puppets” and ignored by the people. Consider our situation today: our ruling classes have the power and the money. They control our churches, community centers, schools, and the press. They run bureaucracies. They subsidize the publication of textbooks which legitimize and promote their own version of the past that is as objective and honest as any state-sponsored version of the past taught in, say, Turkish or even American educational institutions. What has been the contribution of our dissidents in our context? The same as that of the people – only victims. There is an American political saying, “Let the best man win.” In our case the chances are the winner will be “the best man” only for the enemy and the worst for the rest of us. This may explain why our dissidents, very much like the people, have been and continue to be perennial losers. # Friday, May 8, 2009 ***************************************** WHAT IF I AM WRONG? ************************************************** A question that comes up again and again is: “What would you have done in their place?” One way to answer that question is by saying I am more worried about what I should be doing in my place: Should I join them in covering up their blunders and make a comfortable living, as most of my former friends and academics are doing? Or state honestly what I think, even if it means living in solitary confinement in my self-imposed gulag? QUESTION: What if you are wrong? ANSWER: There is always that possibility, of course. To say otherwise would be a declaration of infallibility, which, by the way, is what they imply when they blame all our misfortunes on others. Besides, I'd much rather be wrong as an honest man than right as a rascal. But assuming I am wrong: What's the harm done? I can always be corrected, insulted, silenced...and I have been -- insulted and silenced more often than corrected. But when the leadership is wrong the result may well be either a “red” or a “white” massacre, that is, alienation and assimilation in the Diaspora and exodus from the Homeland. # Saturday, May 9, 2009 ***************************************** GETTING AWAY WITH MURDER ************************************************** Sex was a taboo subject in the Ottoman Empire but the Sultan could have as many as a thousand houris in his hourihouse. As for our own mini-sultans: after leading the nation to defeat, oppression, and massacre, they dare to speechify and sermonize on patriotism to the rest of us. * How do I know my version of the story to be the only true one? I don't. But unless proven otherwise, I shall continue to assert what I understand to be an honest and objective assessment of our situation. * Am I saying anyone who disagrees with me is dishonest? No! He could also be an ignoramus. * Another word for lamentation for the sake of lamentation is self-pity, and the aim of self-pity is to invite others to pity us. If you don't believe me, listen to Zohrab: “One should confront the misfortunes of life not with despair and dejection but in the same way that one confronts the sudden arrival of an unwelcome guest – with a smiling face. We Armenians should sing and laugh more often in order to develop that degree of emotional health and intellectual balance without which we can achieve very little in this world. A nation that is given to lamentation will never amount to anything.” * And here is Zohrab again on propaganda: “My code of ethics: between the real and the imaginary, choose the real; between truth and falsehood, choose truth, at all times, everywhere.” #

Sunday, May 3, 2009 *********************************** WHAT IS LITERATURE? ********************************************** There is no consensus on the subject. Some say the function of literature is to understand reality. Others, to introduce or enhance moral standards. To educate, explain, and instruct. To fight corruption and injustice. To expose prejudices. To see beauty and eternity in a blade of grass. Dissidents believe the function of literature is to question authority. Those in authority disagree: they say writers should behave like a chorus singing hymns to their infallibility, greatness, integrity, vision, and glory. It has also been said what literature does is to make "sh*t look like rose jam" (Jean Genet). Speaking for myself, I believe the first and most important function of literature is not to bore the reader. And speaking of sh*t and rose jam: I am reminded of Saroyan defending his one-dimensional depiction of Armenian characters in his fiction by saying he had only “stylized” them -- probably meaning that he had done to Armenians what Leonardo had done to Mona Lisa, or what Balthus had done to his street scenes: that is to say, introduced something that is not present in reality. * Monday, May 4, 2009 **************************************** AMERICANS AND GENOCIDE ************************************* Hugo Chavez: “Columbus was the commander of an invasion that resulted in the greatest genocide the world has ever known.” Now you know why American presidents promise but they hesitate to deliver. All the Turks have to do is tell them, “Armenians are our Indians.” * A WOMAN ON WOMEN *********************************** Colette on feminists: “I would put them all in a harem.” * CIORAN ON THE FRENCH ************************************** “They prefer an elegant lie to a clumsily expressed truth.” * ON SACRED COWS ********************************* The only thing they are good for is shish kebab. # Tuesday, May 5, 2009 ***************************************** NOTES AND COMMENTS ************************************* To understand how easy it is to be wrong, all I have to do is review my past, and I don't mean my distant past. I mean yesterday. * There is more to being Armenian than hating Turks and lamenting our martyrs. Looking backward is useful only if we learn from our blunders. What have we learned so far? Life isn't fair? Big fish eat small fish? Politicians speak with a forked tongue? But then, are we fair to one another? Are our big fish vegetarian? Are our politicians honest? Don't make me laugh. * Truth may well be beyond our reach, but honesty is not. # Wednesday, May 6, 2009 ***************************************** THE INSULTED AND THE INJURED ************************************************** One of the most astonishing things about human nature, Dostoevsky tells us, is that it can get used to anything. For a thousand years we were ruled by tribal kings, princes, and nakharars. For six hundred years we were the obedient subjects of sultans and more recently of ruthless commissars. Today we find ourselves at the mercy of empty suits and bearded charlatans who rule by delivering empty verbiage and whose role models are not statesmen or men of faith but “crocodiles” (Chekhov). And whenever someone takes it upon himself to point this out, he is either starved or silenced permanently. And here I could make a long list of names from Abovian (who committed suicide) to Zarian (who for all practical purposes was buried alive). Have I said this before? Why shouldn't I say it again, if what I and many others before me have said has so far failed to register on our collective consciousness? “I can't write novels like Dostoevsky,” Oshagan is quoted as having said, “because we Armenians don't have Dostoevskian characters.” But what is the history of our nation with all its unspeakable betrayals, degradations, and suffering if not a character straight out of Dostoevsky? #

Thursday, April 30, 2009 ******************************************** ON INTELLECTUALS ************************************** Intellectuals are a nuisance to the rich and parasites to the poor. But their real enemies are neither the poor nor the rich but intellectuals. * ON TURCOCENTRISM ********************************** The unspoken message of our Turcocentric ghazetajis seems to be, the keys to the Gates of Heaven will be ours only after we do to them what they did to us. These ghazetajis are the true offspring of our revolutionaries in the Ottoman Empire who promised heaven and delivered hell. * ENEMIES ********************** We are our greatest enemies. I can prove this by saying I have done more harm to myself than all my enemies combined. * CRITICS ************************ Socrates and Jesus had them, and as everyone knows by now, saints have been the most consistently and universally abused people on earth. * ON AUTHORITY ********************** Respect for authority is the source of all evil. * ON REVOLUTION ********************************** Revolutions are less about justice or the distribution of wealth, and more about the distribution of power, and power will be abused regardless of who is at the top. For the slave, it makes no difference if his master is Turk or Armenian. # Friday, May 1, 2009 ******************************************** SIGNS ************************************** Everything is as it should be. I never had it so good. The surest warnings of an impending catastrophe. * You say I always see the dark side of things. I say someone has to. Paranoiacs have enemies too. And who said pessimists are always wrong? * You cannot hide your ignorance. It is your most transparent possession. * When an Armenian defeats another Armenian, it is the nation that loses. * A lie is like a deadly virus. Left unattended it will poison and kill its promoter as well as his dupes, families as well as communities, tribes as well as nations, empires as well as civilizations. * In democracies, dissidents like Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell were (and still are) universally respected, sometimes even Nobelized. We all know what happened to dissidents in the USSR. I venture to suggest, we Armenians (judging by the number of writers we have betrayed, silenced, starved and driven to suicide) are more like Stalinists than the British. # Friday, May 1, 2009 ******************************************** FROM MY NOTEBOOKS ************************************** We all make mistakes, especially the infallible. * The brainwashed never question their infallibility. * The brainwashed cannot speak for themselves, neither can they think, they can only follow orders, or, like monkeys, dance to the tune of an invisible organ-grinder. * The 5th century AD was our Golden Age, the 20th century our Stone Age. * When the old fight, it is the young who die. When the rich fight, it is the poor who die. If it were up to the old and the rich to do the dying, we would have no more wars. * Where there is an Armenian church there will also be a wealthy merchant with a guilty conscience. #

Sunday, April 26, 2009 ******************************************** ELEGY ************************************************ An American chief executive officer – young, handsome, healthy, fabulously wealthy – has committed suicide. One down, ninety-nine to go. * Two American governors, Spitzer and Blogojevich, were caught red-handed. One resigned, the other impeached. But to me, the greater scandal is the fact that several of Obama's financial advisers are former Wall Street chief executive officers. If it takes one to catch one, how come no one has been caught yet? Bernie Madoff? If he is in jail today it's because he confessed. And then there are the senators who deny the reality of the Genocide not because they are convinced that to be the truth but because they are being handsomely compensated by Turkish lobbyists. * The rich are swine. Even as I curse my fate, I thank God for making me poor. * What is the penalty for being wrong? If nothing, anyone can say anything he wants. * To be easily satisfied with one’s own arguments is an unmistakable symptom of advanced cretinism. # Monday, April 27, 2009 ******************************************** LIVE AND LEARN ************************************************ When it comes to learning about oneself, friends are useless, enemies more valuable. * Repeating oneself and being consistently negative are not mortal sins; being dishonest is. * A hundred years ago our political leaders were naïve daydreamers. Today they are – or rather they think they are – pragmatic operators. I have trouble deciding which is worse: being at the mercy of fools, or idiots who think they are smart? * Let others speak of the American dream, we can speak only of the Armenian nightmare. * What kind of loving Father is He that needs to be constantly reminded to “give us this day our daily bread,” after which He lets millions die of malnutrition and starvation. * You begin to learn only after you unlearn what you have been taught. Likewise, you begin to write only after you give up all literary ambitions. * I am grateful to readers who don't think highly of me. The temptation to believe sycophants can be overwhelming. * When experts disagree, prejudice casts the deciding vote. * Because the prodigal son returned, the fatted calf was butchered. Good news for the guilty son, bad news for the innocent calf. Why couldn't they have a vegetarian feast? # Tuesday, April 28, 2009 ******************************************** FEEDBACK ************************************** Do not bother reading what follows because I have said it before, and many others have said it before me. * Some readers tell me I make them laugh. Others say I depress them. I suggest it's not me they are talking about but our reality. * I wish I were a comedian. The ability to make people laugh at themselves I consider one of the rarest of all gifts. * We all have our share of failings, limitations, and blind spots. In religious parlance, we are all sinners, including saints. That's Naregatsi's message, in case you are not willing to take my word for it. With one difference. Some of us pretend otherwise, and they happen to be the worst, and it's their awareness of their condition that makes them compensate by assuming a holier-than-thou stance. * To my critics I say, criticize, if you must, the incompetence of our political leaders, the values of our merchants, the dogmas of our bishops, and the double-talk of our superpatriotic bloodsuckers. Do not shoot our critics, who like piano players in western saloons, are doing their best. * AMERICANISMS ********************************** “What's your racket?” “I am not a crook.” “Do bears shit in the forest?” “Does the Pope speak Latin?” And the other day in a movie: “Does the Pope shit in the forest?” # Wednesday, April 29, 2009 ******************************************** SKELETONS IN THE CUPBOARD ************************************** ********************************************* FIRST NATION? ********************* Love our enemies? We can't even stop hating one another. * EITHER / OR? **************************** “Do you think of yourself as a success or a failure?” Very much like the overwhelming majority of my fellow men, I think of myself as a working stiff. * MIRACLES ************************* There are two kinds of miracles: (one) useless – like walking on water; and (two) dangerous – like promoting alcoholism by turning water into wine. * MEMOIRS ********************* One reason I went into writing is that I hate working for nonentities who expect you to behave like a lesser nonentity – and all for minimum wage. I know now that writing for Armenians is no different – minus the minimum wage, of course. * WINNERS AND LOSERS *********************************** “Just because you are a loser, it doesn't follow so is the nation. Stop projecting!” I think of myself as someone who speaks of reality in an environment dominated by propagandists who speak of fantasy, which allows them to see moral victory in military defeat, and a Higher Truth in a Big Lie. #

Thursday, April 23, 2009 ******************************************** ON SHRINKS ************************************************ After the composition of his First Piano Concerto, Rachmaninoff is said to have experienced a crisis during which he became convinced he had lost his creative impetus permanently. But after seeing a psychiatrist he recovered his creativity and composed his Second Piano Concerto, or so we are told by his biographers. What we are not told is that if he had not seen a shrink, maybe he would have composed nine symphonies. Marlon Brando was under constant psychiatric care and instead of getting better, he got worse, in addition to making an unholy mess of his private life and his physique. Neither Tolstoy nor Dostoevsky were ever treated by a shrink, and my guess is, their problems were worse than Rachmaninoff's and Brando's combined. * Once upon a time, in the Middle Ages, we were celebrated for being good fighters. We still are, but only against the wrong enemy: ourselves. * I write for two totally non-literary reasons: to fight boredom and to acquire friends; and with every book I have published, I have acquired a new friend; also (alas!) twenty-two enemies. * There is no evidence to suggest that the average Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, or Jew is a better human being than the average agnostic or atheist. Which amounts to saying: all organized religions are more or less alike and very often they succeed only in legitimizing prejudice, promoting a false sense of moral superiority, and dehumanizing a fraction of mankind with such labels as pagans, heretics, infidels or giaours. # Friday, April 24, 2009 ******************************************** ARMENIAN MANIFESTO ************************************************ What choice did we have under the Ottomans and the Soviets? Wrong question. When we had a choice, we failed to present a united front to the enemy. And what made our enemies invincible was their solidarity. Let's not lose sight of that fundamental fact, which our dividers do their utmost to cover up in order to appear (a) to be blameless, and (b) to continue dividing us. Blameless? Why do you think General Antranik wanted to see them hanged from the nearest tree? Why do you think Zarian called them “cannibals”? And please,don't tell me our sermonizers, speechifiers, and Turcocentric ghazetajis know better than Zarian, the General, and Charents, whose final “Message” mentions neither Turks nor Russians. Let's not have any illusions about our men at the top, who like Wall Street chief executive officers, care more about their powers and privileges than the welfare of the nation. Which is why, at the risk of repeating myself, I will say again: Armenians of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your dividers. # Saturday, April 25, 2009 ******************************************** MAXIMS AND REFLECTIONS ************************************************ It is not easy writing for readers who already know everything they need to know, even if what they really know happens to be recycled mumbo jumbo. * Work hard, but not too hard: you may be digging your own grave. * Authority thrives on ignorance. Where there are leaders (as opposed to public servants) there will be spin doctors, cover-up artists, an uninformed community, and dupes. * From nature’s point of view, chastity is a far more dangerous sexual perversion than all the others combined. * Venetian saying: "The priest’s friend loses his faith, the doctor’s his health, the lawyer’s his fortune." * Schopenhauer: "We pay an attention to the opinion of others which is out of all proportion to its value." * When midgets are in charge, giants become outlaws. # ====================================================================== Ara Baliozian reads the Armenians, yo’ ************************************************ by Christopher Atamian ************************************** Published: Saturday April 18, 2009 "Lying is done with words and also ­silence." -Adrienne Rich The poetic genre known as the aphorism goes back at least to Hippocrates, in 5th-century B.C.E. Greece. The word aphorism derives from the Greek aphorismos and denotes an original and easily remembered thought, expression, or witticism. Popular aphorists of the past include Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, and Erasmus. Armenians have a practitioner of this rarefied art as well, and he goes by the name of Ara Baliozian. The author of some 20 books of prose, poetry, and plays, as well as translations of Armenian writers such as Zabel Yessayan and Kostan Zarian, Baliozian was born in Athens, attended the now-­defunct College Moorat-Raphael in Venice, and currently resides in Kitchener, Ontario. His newest work, a slim volume (56 pages) titled Pertinentes Impertinences, is a series of reflections and aphorisms in French translated from English by Denis Donikian, Mireille ­Besnilian, and Dalita Roger, and published last year by Arvesd Aysor in Yerevan. Baliozian writes about a wide range of topics and people, though he seems particularly at home when perhaps justifiably lambasting Armenian politicians and leaders. Baliozian takes no prisoners - intellectual or otherwise. This hasn't necessarily made him the most popular writer in the Armenian diaspora, though an increasing number of people now read his work with passion and a deep-seated sense of appreciation for his daring to say what so many others think. Whether Baliozian's views represent those of an enlightened minority or of a silent majority, his work should be read by every Armenian, especially when they are young and in their formative stages, as a means of opening their minds to different ideas and ways of thinking about their culture. In a sense, Baliozian is heir to the Armenian writers before him who dared to analyze and constructively criticize Armenian society. The Armenian mind that Baliozian deconstructs so ably is a direct descendant of the mentality that Hagop Oshagan describes in novels such as Mnatsortats and Haji Murad and that Constantinopolitan writers such as Krikor Zohrab wrote about before the Catastrophe of 1915. "If you want to understand Armenians," Baliozian writes, "don't read their nationalist historians; read instead a history of Armenian literature. The only reason we don't burn writers the way Indians burn widows is that we prefer to ignore them, which amounts to burying them alive." Baliozian on the sacred cows of Armenian culture: "Because I refuse to share their obsession with massacres and money, they call me negative. One way to be positive in their eyes is to adopt ‘Yes, sir!' as a mantra.'" (Both quoted from baliozian.blogspot.com. All quotes that follow are from Pertinentes Impertinences.) Baliozian's oeuvre is in point of fact rather subversive. He uses repetition to his advantage and hammers away at his iconoclastic thoughts and ideas in the same way that the Armenian press and powers that be have drilled their own propaganda into Armenian minds and hearts for centuries now. It's a welcome counterbalance. While no one would deny, for example, the terrible suffering that successive Ottoman and Turkish governments have inflicted on Armenians and on the Armenian psyche, Baliozian is quick to confront the type of knee-jerk anti-Turkism that portrays Turks as somehow more cruel or barbaric by nature than others: "Our magazines regularly publish so many anti-Turkish commentaries that if our editors were to define what it means to be Armenian, I would imagine they would define it as hating Turks. And to think that these are the exact same people who criticize me under the pretext that I am a repetitive pessimist." (p. 18) Baliozian's writing is also an intelligent and sometimes humorous call to introspection and societal self-criticism: "An Armenian-American composer admitted to me one day: ‘I hope that Armenians won't support me. I'd be grateful if they spared me their hostility.'" (p. 49) When analyzing the current Armenian craze for all things Gorky, Baliozian recalls the following: "Speaking of Arshile Gorky, one of our elder statesmen once told me: ‘Not a single Armenian bought a painting from Gorky while he was alive.'?" (p. 49) The author is at his most incisive when taking on taboos in Armenian intellectual history and commenting on the behavior of certain contemporary leaders: "Our charlatans tell us that our patrons, bishops, and do-gooders know better than we do because they speak in the name of God and Capital. And when God and Capital speak, the scribblers are meant to shut their mouths and listen. Otherwise their mouths must be shut for them, that is to say, cut their tongues cut out, in good old Ottoman fashion." (p. 27) There is isn't much to criticize about Pertinentes Impertinences apart from the fact that Baliozian, perhaps weary of repeating the same mantras that go unheeded, may indeed at times begin to sound repetitive. Baliozian's observations, however, are about as close as any contemporary Armenian writer comes to getting at the truth of things. And as the commonplace aphorism states, the truth will set you free. A fitting coda to this piece and to Baliozian's work comes from Kingsley Amis, whom the author quotes as saying: "If you don't disturb anybody with what you write, then I think there's no point in writing." (p. 47) All (re)-translations of Baliozian's writing from French to English were made by Christopher Atamian.

Sunday, April 19, 2009 ******************************************** ON RECEIVED IDEAS ************************************************ At a time when I didn't know who Shakespeare was, I heard an adult say, “HAMLET is Shakespeare's greatest play.” I immediately adopted that line as dogma and repeated it whenever Shakespeare was mentioned, until I heard someone say, “I prefer MACBETH.” If all ideas are open to contradiction, received ideas are doubly so. “Notwithstanding what the Good Book says about divided houses,” a reader tells me, “there are benefits to being divided. If one part is defeated and perishes, the other survives. Perhaps that's the secret of our survival." Maybe so, but what kind of life is it whose sole aim is survival? No doubt to survive is better than the alternative, but I believe, and I hope you will agree with me when I say, there are greater goals in a nation's life than mere survival. Such as? Such as creating a new civilization. We did that once. Which means we can do it again. And how do we do that? We begin by questioning the validity of all received ideas, one of them being that since to endure is one of our greatest achievements, we can now relax and say “yes” to whatever we are told by our “betters,” who on closer inspection may well be nothing of the kind. They may even be our worst! # Monday, April 20, 2009 ******************************************** REFLECTIONS ************************************************ The fascist mind comes in two parts: the ideological and the criminal; and the function of the ideological is to camouflage the criminal. * Politicians who profess family values see nothing morally inconsistent in screwing the nation. * Because our enemies won, we were not allowed to name our traitors. * Like most Armenians, I have followed many controversies in our media, and I have witnessed many more, but I have at no time heard an Armenian say: "I was wrong!" or, even better, "I was dead wrong because I placed my own ego, interests, family, political party, church, or tribe above the interests of the nation." * A power structure that has all the answers will view questions as subversive. * A woman raising her skirt in public will attract a bigger audience than a writer spilling his guts out. * At one end of the spectrum we have decent human beings who happen to be Armenian, and at the other, carcinogenic agents who wrap themselves up in the flag in order to hide their true colors. # Tuesday, April 21, 2009 ******************************************** VARIATIONS ON A FAMILIAR THEME ************************************************ We are told sex and violence in movies lower the moral standards of a nation. What we are not told is that intolerance in organized religions and ideologies, in addition to lowering moral standards, it claims many more innocent victims. Intolerance also divides a nation thus making it more vulnerable to rape and massacre (of the “red” as well as the “white” variants). Don't get me wrong. I am not advocating for more sex and violence in movies. What I am doing is exposing the double-talk of religious and political leaders who speak with a forked tongue and are believed by dupes. * The guiding principle of all men at the top is, if the truth will harm your power, prestige, and integrity, it's okay to lie your head off. But the problem with lies is that they invariably create a chain reaction of more lies until the truth is buried beneath them like a needle in a haystack. Case in point: If the Turks are bloodthirsty savages, why were we their most faithful subjects for six hundred years? And if we are smart and they are dumb, why is it that it took us six centuries to unmask them? And even more to the point: if they are pathological liars and we speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, why are we against dissent and free speech? What are we afraid of? And if we have produced more heroes per capital than any other nation on earth, allow me to pose the following question: What could be more cowardly than fear of free speech? # Wednesday, April 22, 2009 ******************************************** WHY HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF ************************************************ History repeats itself for the simple reason that the men at the top are bastards and the people are as gullible as children. Thoreau was right when he said Egypt would have been better off if the people had drowned the pharaohs in the Nile like dogs instead of building pyramids for them; and Shaw was also right when he said we would have no more wars if soldiers took aim and shot not at the enemy but at their own sergeants. One reason he was an enthusiastic supporter of the Soviets is that Russian soldiers in World War I did exactly that. * Homer was dead wrong when he decided not to quote Greeks who said they resented killing and dying in defense of the non-existent honor of a slut who happened to be the wife of an impotent fool. * I once heard one of our notorious bloodsuckers say, if he were to work for an odar organization, he would make twice as much. In nature, parasites do their work in silence; among us, they demand our gratitude. * Among my readers, I have critics (which is understandable), enemies (which is less so), and mortal enemies (whose hatred of me is so visceral that it might as well be Ottoman). #

Thursday, April 16, 2009 ******************************************** FROM MY NOTEBOOKS *********************************** You may have noticed that, when an intelligent man behaves stupidly, the reasons he invents to justify his conduct will be even more stupid. * A fanatic will always have more enemies than a moderate because he will arouse hostility among fanatics in the opposite camp as well as moderates in his own. * Even when our predictions come true they do so in such an unexpected manner or context that their accuracy becomes irrelevant. * It is not at all unusual for our chauvinists to preach Armenian civilization and to practice Ottoman barbarism. * Where a part-time janitor makes more money than a full-time writer, there will be an abundance of trashy propaganda and a total absence of ideas. * In all political movements, lust for power is invariably hidden behind noble slogans: the greater the lust, the nobler the slogans. * The nobler the idea or ideology, the more crooks it will attract. # Friday, April 17, 2009 ******************************************** CONTEMPT *********************************** A couple of weeks ago I was exposed to a long televised lecture on solidarity and the primacy of Etchmiadzin by a former members of the Communist Party from the Homeland, that is to say, a full-time professional divider and atheist. Because as an orphan during World War I my mother was brought up as a Catholic by nuns, my schoolmates made fun of me and treated me as a lesser Armenian, perhaps even a coward and a renegade, all because, it seems, during the massacres, when Turkish soldiers came to arrest Armenians, the Catholics would say, “I am not an Armenian, I am a Catholic.” A loud-mouth taxi-driver uncle of mine held me in visible contempt and even ridicule because I dared to have ambitions beyond his attainments. The secretary of a so-called cultural foundation, himself a writer and teacher, once screamed at me: “How dare you criticize us? Just who the hell do you think you are?” In recounting these very few but representative anecdotes, my aim here is not to preach mutual respect – that would be highly premature – but to provide an objective assessment of our present situation that may lead to an enhanced awareness of where we stand as a community and as a nation. To those who tell me I write about our problems but fail to provide solutions, I add the following solutions to this particular problem: If you want to be loved, don't make yourself hateful; and if you want to be thought of as a smart Armenian, don't behave like a damn fool. # Saturday, April 18, 2009 ******************************************** MY FAVORITE BIBLICAL ONE-LINERS ************************************************ “Where there is no vision the people perish.” * “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” * “The Kingdom of God is within you.” * ON CONTRADICTIONS ************************************* There are two kinds of contradictions: (one) the kind that leads to compromise and synthesis, and (two) the dead-end, dogmatic, or Armenian kind that arrests progress because reason is replaced with ego. Result: no vision, a house divided, death and destruction – that is, the Kingdom of the Devil. * HEADLINE ******************************* “I am proud of my Armenian ass,” reads the headline of an article about an attractive wench in one of our weeklies. This vulgar boast is preferable to me to still another headline by one of our Turcocentric ghazetajis. * QUESTION ************************** What is the difference between pride in one's ass and pride in one's ego? * ANSWER *********************** One way to sum up the plot of Homer's ILIAD is to say it is about a war of egos over the abduction of an ass that resulted in the destruction of Troy and the death of countless “esh nahadags.” Because he was blind, Homer could not see this aspect of his story. As a result, he glorified militarism and heroism. #

Sunday, April 12, 2009 ******************************************** THE LANGUAGE OF DIPLOMACY ************************************************* According to Talleyrand (see below) “Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts.” Elsewhere he gives the following definition of non-intervention: “Mot metaphysique et politique qui signifie a peu pres la meme chose qu'intervention.” (A metaphysical and political word that means approximately the same thing as intervention.) Had our revolutionaries known what Talleyrand knew, namely that, in diplomacy verbal support means the opposite of military intervention, the Genocide could have been averted. What a difference a single word makes! No wonder medieval Jewish scribes copying the scriptures were warned a single wrong letter would mean the destruction of the world. Which is why Turks are against the use of the word genocide: they know it would usher in escalating territorial and financial demands with no end in sight, in addition to legitimizing Kurdish territorial claims. * Talleyrand (1754-1838) maybe said to have been the French Mikoyan. No matter who was at the top he got along with him. He knew how to compromise, adapt, and survive. Like Mikoyan he was educated in a seminary and it was said of him (as it could have been said of Mikoyan): “He would sell his soul for money, and he would be right for he would be exchanging dung for gold.” # Monday, April 13, 2009 ******************************************** MY FAVORITE AMERICAN WRITER ************************************************* It was in FROM HERE TO ETERNITY by James Jones that I first “met” Gandhi, and it was in Gandhi's writings that I first read about Thoreau. I dare anyone to read him (Thoreau) and not be infatuated by his down-to-earth honesty and style that does not take any prisoners. * On politicians: “Office-seekers and speech-makers who do not so much as lay an honest egg.” * On patriotism: “The remembrance of my country spoils my walk.” * On society: “Pigs in a littler which lie close together to keep each other warm.” * On wealth: “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.” * On his fellow men: “The man I meet with is not often so instructive as the silence he breaks.” * On his choice of career: “I have tried trade; but I found that it would take ten years to get under way in that, and that then I should probably be on my way to the devil.” # Tuesday, April 14, 2009 ******************************************** ON BLUNDERS ****************** Since the number of blunders is infinite and man's capacity to commit them without limit, both the young and the old, the experienced and the inexperienced, the careful and the careless, and the wise and the fool are destined to commit an equal number of them. * MAN AND GOD ************************** If to believe in God were the same as believing in men who speak in His name, a suicidal terrorist would qualify as a man of faith instead of a brainwashed fanatic and a brainless dupe. * THE GOOD AND THE BAD ************************************* In the presence of a bad man I am diminished. In the presence of a good man I am born again. * ON BEING HONEST *********************************** One of the benefits of being honest is to be shunned by crooks. * ON ECOLOGY ****************************** God is not an ecologist. He exterminated dinosaurs, saber-toothed tigers, the mammoth, and countless other species. # Wednesday, April 15, 2009 ******************************************** DRAGON'S TEETH *********************************** “The Passage du Commerce Saint-André” by Balthus is no doubt one of the most mysterious paintings by one of the most enigmatic modern painters. The old man in it is identified by Balthus himself as an Armenian. See BALTHUS: A BIOGRAPHY by Nicholas Fox Weber (New York, 1999), page 27. I am reminded of the words of a much traveled Dutch doctor who once told me: “No matter where you go, you will run into an Armenian.” If Talaat were alive today he would be willing to concede that deporting Armenians was a blunder because it amounted to sowing dragon's teeth. * In DICTIONARY OF LITERARY AND THEMATIC TERMS by Edward Quinn (New York, 2000), there is an entry on “naturalism,” with a single bibliographic source, Y.H. Krikorian's NATURALISM AND THE HUMAN SPIRIT (1944). * ON THE ART OF WRITING ****************************** Reduce a page into a single line. * ON THE ART OF LIVING ***************************************** “Divorce reason and marry booze.” This according to Omar Khayyam. * ACCORDING TO HORACE ************************************** “Poems written by water-drinkers have a short lifespan.” * ON LITERARY IMMORTALITY ****************************************** It lasts as long as the blink of an eye when measured in cosmic time. * MORE WORDS OF WISDOM **************************************** Viscount Samuel: “It is those who strive to make things better who save them from becoming worse.” * The TALMUD: “Thy friend has a friend, and thy friend's friend has another friend: be discreet.” #