Confessions

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, January 31, 2008

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FRAGMENTS

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Theophylactus Simocatta the Egyptian (500-630 A.D.) in the preface to his UNIVERSAL HISTORY: “History [is] the universal teacher of mankind, who lays before us what we should attempt and what we should leave alone as being unlikely to succeed. I am resolved to throw myself into her embraces, even though the enterprise be greater than my powers in view of the vulgarity of my style, the imbecility of my ideas, the awkwardness of my phraseology, and the unskilfulness of my composition. If any reader should find here and there a touch of felicity in my narrative, he must attribute it to chance, for most certainly it will not be due to the competence of the writer.”

*

The only morally superior Armenian I can name with any degree of certainty is Naregatsi and he represents himself as the most corrupt and evil of men. As for the others: the higher they rise, the lower they sink. To our ghazetajis and all dealers in chauvinist crapola, I say: Read Naregatsi’s LAMENTATION from beginning to end and if that does not have any effect on you, declare yourself a dangerous offender and place yourself under constant surveillance.

*

Self-righteous fools and fanatics are more prone to spew venom than moderates and middle-roaders.

*

I am afraid to say this but it must be said: It is not unreasonable to speculate that the constant harping on Turks in our press and internet forums, and the proliferation of massacre books and videos runs the risk of being classified as hate paraphernalia.

#

Friday, February 01, 2008

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FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS

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On the day a belief system is established, it begins to degenerate. A religion or an ideology may not lobotomize or moronize its converts but it takes them a step away from their individuality by depersonalizing them. That may explain why the inevitable movement in all institutions, organizations, and mass movements is towards the lowest common denominator. Christianity resulted in religious wars, the persecution of heretics, and serial child molesters; Islam in suicidal fanatics slaughtering innocent civilians; Marxism in commissars and the cold-blooded murder of millions; and nationalism in genocides.

Jesus and Mohammad were not historians, but Marx was. Hence his declaration: “I am not a Marxist.” Had Jesus known about the future abuses of Christianity, my guess is he would have given up preaching for carpentry.

To say my brand of ideology or orthodoxy is better than yours or someone else’s, raises the question: Has anyone ever said the opposite? Namely, My orthodoxy is polluted, my religion is second rate, my ideology is not the best, or my belief system is of an inferior brand? To believe also means to believe that one’s belief system is la crème de la crème even when it is la crème de la scum. Hence the phenomenon of skinheads, fascist thugs, and nationalist hooligans.

And now a question: if our nationalists engage in hooliganism against their own kind, what are they capable of doing to an unfriendly, alien, and defenseless minority in their midst when the law is on their side? Answer that question honestly and you may have a better insight into the Turkish mindset during World War I when the whole world was against them and when their own existence was in peril. I said “Turkish mindset.” I should have said “human nature,” and even better, “yourself.”

#

Saturday, February 02, 2008

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HOW TO WRITE HISTORY

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Lucian of Samosata (125-200 A.D.): “My own ideal historian is fearless, incorruptible, high-minded and a frank exponent of the truth. The impartiality of his judgment will not be affected by sympathy or antipathy, good feeling or sentiment, shame or shyness. He will do his best for all his characters so far as he can do it without favoring one at the expense of another. He will be a law unto himself acknowledging no allegiances. He will not stop to consider what A or B will think, but will state the facts.”

*

Something is bound to go wrong in everyone’s life. A great many things have gone wrong in mine. The temptation to blame it one others has been overwhelming. But I am now old enough and objective enough to see that my contribution to my misfortunes has been infinitely greater than the combined hostility of all my adversaries of whom I have had my share, perhaps even more than my share.

*

Mother Teresa, “the saint of the gutter,” is a proof of the fact that you don’t have to be a believer to be a saint. Likewise, you don’t have to be wise to see the truth. All you need is a touch of humility, honesty, and objectivity.

*

A victim may be as deficient in grasping reality as his victimizer.

*

After defining themselves as good Armenians, some of my readers call me a bad Armenian, and worse, anti-Armenian. I am nothing of the kind. I am not even anti-Turkish. I want to be friends with everybody, and some day I may even acquire Turkish friends. As for acquiring Armenian friends: that may prove to be a more demanding enterprise.

#

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, February 03, 2008

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REFLECTIONS

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When told non-violence is for cowards, Gandhi replied: “I prefer violence to cowardice. A coward has no right to call himself a member of the human race.”

*

A nation whose rulers are ignorant philistines, both ignorance and philistinism will be the norm and anyone who refuses to conform will be an enemy of the people – not an enemy of ignorance and philistinism, but a traitor to the cause.

*

There are honest men and there are liars, and i prefer an honest Turk to a lying Armenian.

*

In his efforts to assert his Armenianism, one of our nationalist leaders claimed to have traced his ancestry all the way back to the Mamikonians (Chinese) -- or was it the Bagratunis (Jews)?

*

“There is no such thing as a Turk,” a Turkish friend once informed me. “We have all been bastardized and mongrelized. We are all the offspring of mixed marriages that go back hundreds of years. There is a Greek, an Armenian, a Jew, a Kurd, and an Albanian in all of us.”

*

In the Armenian ghetto where I was born and raised there was a blond barber called Alaman (German in Turkish) and a greengrocer named Kurdoghlanian (Son of a Kurd). They were accepted as Armenians and no one questioned their pedigree, perhaps because everybody was too busy trying to survive in an alien environment to care about such impure concepts as “pure blood.”

*

No matter how hard they try, they will never convince me that honesty and objectivity are anti-Armenian, or that the statement “All men are brothers” is pro-Turkish.

*

To brainwashed dupes who question my Armenianism on the grounds that I am critical of fellow Armenians, I ask: If I speak the truth and in doing so I expose liars, am I good or bad? After long centuries of living in fear, aren’t you tired of lies? Why should truth be a source of dread? What if in treating an honest Armenian as if he were a Turk, you succeed only in exposing your Ottomanism?

*

A historian is not judged by the degree of his patriotism, nationalism, loyalty or subersvience to a power structure, but by his honesty and impartiality. For more on this subject see Michael Grant’s GREEK AND ROMAN HISTORIANS: INFORMATION AND MISINFORMATION (London, 1995).

#

Monday, February 04, 2008

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RANDOM THOUGHTS

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If you speak the truth to liars, they will call you a liar. What else can they do? If you are an honest man among crooks, they will call you a crook. That’s their only line of defense and they will take it for all it’s worth.

*

To deprogram someone against his will can be a formidable undertaking and it doesn’t always work. The alternative – to hope that he will deprogram himself – may take years and sometimes decades, depending on a number of variables which are not worth going into. The fact remains that because we are all products of a cultural milieu with its own specific and clearly defined educational system and dominant ideas, we cannot claim to be who we are in the same way that a wooden table of chair can no longer claim to be a tree in a virgin forest.

*

Crooks and liars are relatively easy to deal with because they are aware of who they are and they feel vulnerable to exposure. Dupes who have been brainwashed to believe they are honest men are infinitely harder to deal with because the lies they recycle are not theirs but someone else’s. This fact makes them invulnerable to reason because there exists between them and reality an impenetrable wall of illusions, and nothing comes more naturally to us than to confuse illusions with reality. Consider what happened to us at the turn of the last century when our revolutionaries thought the Great Powers cared for us. And consider what happens to us today whenever a political candidate, for obvious reasons of his/her own, promises to recognize the Genocide.

*

It is said, investigative reporters are the eyes and ears of a nation. Where are our investigative reporters? Do we have them? Did we ever have them? Why is it that we have dozens of papers but not a single investigative reporter? Are we afraid of what they will uncover?

*

Turks worry me less than the Turk within us.

#

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

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TURCOPHOBIA

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Dionysius of Halicarnassus (first century B.C.), in THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF ROME: “The majority of the Hellenic public have been misled by the false view that founders of Rome were uncivilized vagrants and outlaws who were not even freeborn; and that the secret of Rome’s gradual advance in world dominion has not been her righteousness or her fear of God or any moral quality, but some blind, mechanical and immoral operation of Fortune, who has bestowed her greatest gifts upon her most unprofitable servants, and the lowest of savages…It is my hope that the discovery of the truth may induce a proper appreciation of Rome, unless they are her fanatical and irreconcilable enemies.”

*

Istanbul is not Rome, granted; but neither is Armenia the Garden of Eden.

*

A reader born and raised in Turkey tells me, “Turks can be very nasty if you ever dare to say anything remotely critical about them in their presence.”

Are we different?

“Maybe not, but they massacred us, we didn’t massacre them.”

According to impartial witnesses whenever we had the upper hand, we did to them what they did to us.

“They massacred two million; how many did we massacre, two thousand or two hundred?”

That doesn’t make us more civilized or morally superior. To say otherwise is to confuse military inferiority with moral superiority. You cannot live under a ruthless master for six hundred years without assimilating part of his ruthlessness. Neither can you say to a man, “I want to be friends with you but only on condition that you admit to being a cold-blooded murderer, a thief, a liar, and a bloodthirsty barbarian who should have stayed in Mongolia and never ventured westward where you will never be accepted as a member of a civilized community.” But if you do, don’t be surprised if he doesn’t respond with expressions of gratitude and joy.

*

Do you want to know why sooner or later Hitler’s name props up in Armenian arguments? The following easy-to-remember formula may be as good an explanation as any:

nationalism + antiSemitism + anti-intellectualism = fascism.

#

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

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OUR BETTERS OR OUR WORST?

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Since time immemorial man has known that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” And yet, the only enterprise in which our leaders have been consistently successful throughout our millennial existence has been in dividing us and in keeping us divided.

Our writers have called them “useless” (Zarian) and “brainless” (Issahakian), and if you think they overstated their case, you should hear what they (our leaders) call one another.

Once, many years ago, when I published an interview with a Tashnak leader, which dealt not with politics or history but with childhood reminiscences and the personalities that had shaped his character and worldview, a Ramgavar leader published an attack so nasty that I was left speechless. This may explain the gutter mentality of some of my brainwashed partisan critics.

*

When things didn’t work out for them, the Bagratunis moved to Georgia, and from Georgia to Russia. When our revolution in the Ottoman Empire failed, our revolutionaries abandoned the people at the mercy of butchers and kept themselves busy by writing long-winded memoirs. They had a Plan B for themselves but only a Plan A for the people.

*

They flatter us by bragging about our survival in an environment where many others perished. They are right: “they” survived all right while countless others did not. They survived to what end and for what purpose? To divide us, of course, and to make sure we stay divided. That’s because that is the only undertaking in which they excel – after all, they had millennia of practice in which to refine and master the technique.

*

Are they our betters or our worst? I will let you answer that question in the hope you will come up with the right answer not because you are smart (I will let them use the maneuver of treating you like fools after flattering you to believe you are just about the smartest people on earth) but because I trust you are capable of using your common sense, which, it has been said, is the least common of all faculties.

#

"Intellect is invisible to the man who has none."

Arthur Schopenhauer

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, February 07, 2008

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THE UNMENTIONABLE IN PURSUIT

OF THE UNEATABLE

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If I am to believe my critics, I am a self-hating narcissist. To which I can only say, “No comment.”

*

One can master the demanding discipline of suffering fools gladly only with the help of the Good Lord. Which is why this particular discipline is less accessible to agnostics and atheists.

*

We all labor under the inflexible law of demand and supply, and the demand these days is for flattering and chauvinist crapola. That’s why everybody speaks about Turkish criminal conduct and no one even dares to mention our “brainless” and “useless” leadership. And because I stress that aspect of our history and status quo, I have become persona non grata and I am called a self-hating s.o.b. with illusions of grandeur, one of which is that I think of myself as a writer. If I am not a writer, why bother reading me in a world that is abundant in unread masters, including our own? Instead of reading our great writers, they read massacre books, which reinforce their image of themselves as perennial victims, after which they wallow in self-pity.

*

Two of the dangers of Turcocentrism is (one) allowing ourselves to be defined by our enemies, and (two) offering them a rent-free permanent residence in our psyche -- which also means allowing them to carry on re-creating us in their own image. Hence the ubiquitous presence of anonymous borodakhos and anpardavan srigas in our internet discussion forums whose idea of criticism is slinging mud hoping some of it will stick, and when none of it even hits the intended target, they keep slinging hoping they will have better luck next time – just like our revolutionaries, who, after repeated massacres, refused to reconsider their tactics, in the same way that now they refuse to acknowledge any responsibility. Learning from our blunders? No time for that. We are too busy trying to educate our enemies who have made it abundantly clear they do not intend to be educated by their former slaves.

#

Friday, February 08, 2008

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ON ARMENIAN ANTI-ARMENIANISM

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Krikor Zohrab (1861-1915): “Oppression corrupts everything it touches, even the highest moral virtues.”

*

Derenik Demirjian (1877-1956): “Every Armenian has another Armenian whom he considers his mortal enemy.”

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Lucretius (98-55 B.C.): “Differences among men, which reason is unable to expel, are so exceedingly slight that there is nothing to hinder us from living a life worthy of gods.”

*

The anti-Armenian Armenian is as real as the anti-Semitic Jew; but whereas the anti-Semitic Jew is an exception, an anomaly, and an aberration, the anti-Armenian Armenian is the rule.

The anti-Armenian Armenian is against any Armenian who does not subscribe to his definition of Armenianism – a definition that is as authoritarian, inflexible, dogmatic, and narrow as himself. In his view, abstractions like tolerance, free speech, fundamental human rights, dialogue, compromise, consensus, and solidarity are degenerate Western concepts whose sole intent is the destruction of the nation; and when he speaks of the nation or nationalism, what he really means is his tribe and tribalism. Fully aware of this collective complex, our leaders have done their utmost to exploit it to their advantage and in defense of their tribal powers and privileges.

Left to their own devices, people do not divide themselves. Divisions are introduced and legitimized by leaders for the simple reason that the average Armenian has no interest in subtle ideological and theological theories. He is too busy trying to survive in an alien, and sometimes even hostile and despotic environment to waste any time on metaphysics.

The Turks have a law (article 301) that says it is a crime to insult Turkishness. We don’t have such a law not because we are more civilized or progressive but because every Armenian is a prosecutor with his own article 301, and if anyone dares to violate it, he runs the risk of being buried beneath an avalanche of verbal abuse. I speak from experience.

#

Saturday, February 09, 2008

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A WRITER AND HIS READERS

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If I understand some of my readers correctly, the function of a writer is to know and understand his readers in order that he may better pander to their needs. If his readers are prejudiced, he should legitimize their prejudices. If his readers hate Turks, he should say they love everybody, they only want justice. A writer who fails to cover up or justify his readers’ failings and limitations ceases being a writer and becomes – in the words of these readers -- a fool and an s.o.b.

I am flattered. I am read by readers so smart that compared to them I am a fool. I must therefore conclude that, if they continue to read me, I must have a special gift, a gift that all writers dream to have, namely, that of being irresistible. Which amounts to saying I am on my way to achieving immortality.

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[arabaliozian]

Sunday, February 10, 2008

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MEDITATIONS

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Nothing comes easier to an Armenian than to overestimate himself to the same degree that he underestimates his fellow men. Hence the familiar phenomenon of the inbred moron who assesses himself as a genius.

*

You may think you know more about yourself than anyone else, but the truth is, what you know is so biased that it might as well be devoid of all value.

*

Sometimes you are judged less by what you know, what you can do, or who you are, and more by your underarm deodorant.

*

The aim of propaganda is to mislead and deceive not the enemy but ourselves.

*

Patriotism is invariably connected to militarism, and the end of militarism is the slaughter of the enemy – in the name of self-defense, of course.

*

It’s when you think you can do no wrong that you commit your greatest blunders.

#

Monday, February 11, 2008

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TURKISHNESS & ARMENISHNESS

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A nearby university town plans to build a 75-foot tall tower proclaiming its “intelligence.” In a letter to the editor I read the following comment: “If we go ahead with this foolishness, most thoughtful people will regard our city as a bunch of idiots.” I agree. Nothing can be as idiotic as bragging about how smart we are.

*

In the Ottoman Empire our daughters were forced into harems. Today they are driven into prostitution, as our sanctimonious benefactors spend millions building churches and museums, which are nothing but monuments proclaiming their greed, wealth, big egos, and arrogance rivaling that of sultans.

*

That some of my readers hate me (and they never lose an opportunity to say so) I know. What I don’t know is whether they hate me more than they hate Turks.

*

The more I deal with Armenians the better I understand Turks.

*

To use love of country as a license with which to hate fellow countrymen is thought of not as a perversion and a liability but as a virtue and an asset called patriotism.

*

We are united by hatred of the enemy but divided by hatred of one another. You may now guess which hatred is more damaging to the nation.

*

The ugly Armenian is convinced that Armenishness is superior to Turkishness.

*

Our second greatest tragedy, which we don’t even mention, is the fact that they had 600 years during which to successfully re-create us in their own image.

#

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

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PARADOXES AND CONTRADICTIONS

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In his NATURAL HISTORY, Pliny writes, “Not even for God are all things possible – for He cannot commit suicide.” Maybe not, but He can walk out on us, as He has done on more than one occasion. The question we should ask is: What if we gave Him more than one good reason to do so?

*

The Armenian paradox: we don’t support one another but we demand the support of the world.

*

With us, friendship is a sometime thing. Whenever I make an Armenian friend, I think of him as a future enemy and I am seldom disappointed.

*

After deceiving himself, he deceives others with a clear conscience.

*

We have been so thoroughly tribalized that sometimes the distance between two Armenians is as great as the distance between an Armenian and a Turk.

*

Whatever understanding I have acquired of Turks it has been through my fellow Armenians.

*

Armeno-Turkish friendship will be possible only on the day Armeno-Armenian friendship becomes a reality.

#

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

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PROBLEMS

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As soon as you solve a problem you are faced with another. That’s life – an endless succession of problems the last of which no one can solve.

*

A good story cannot be the whole story, and a happy ending is only a beginning.

*

Dupes can be easily manipulated to think they are too smart to be duped.

*

I don’t write for Armenians as an Armenian. I write as a human being for fellow human beings.

*

Academics write in a jargon-ridden turgid prose because they don’t want to be read and “understood” by laymen. Criticism by fellow academics is bad enough. What’s unbearable is verbal abuse by idiots.

*

Studies show that getting involved in Armenian affairs can be as hazardous to your health as smoking four packs of unfiltered cigarettes a day.

#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, February 14, 2008

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CLICHÉS

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The starving Armenian writer is as much a cliché among us as “the starving Armenian” was to the world during World War I. On more than one occasion my anonymous detractors, whom I suspect to be either bishops or sons of bishops, have accused me of living on welfare. It is an undeniable fact that in a barbarian environment writers either starve or have no choice but to depend on the charity of swine. But in a civilized society writers enjoy the support of the state by means of literary prizes, grants, royalties, public lending rights, and copyright laws, which means, whenever a book is borrowed from a public library or even a single page is xeroxed, a writer gets his cut. To my detractors I therefore say: I may write for barbarians like you but I live in Canada, which happens to be a civilized country. I say this for another reason, namely, to let boys and girls with literary ambitions know that there is life before death even for Armenian writers, provided of course they avoid living and working among philistines with a forked tongue who praise writers only after they are safely dead and buried.

*

Once, when I addressed one of my persistent and anonymous critics as “Your Eminence,” he was never heard from again.

*

Even when not bishops, my detractors share with them two important features: dogmatism and infallibility.

*

A definition of dogmatism: “50% wishful thinking and 50% dishonesty.”

#

Friday, February 15, 2008

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THE REAL STORY

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We speak about our genocide in order to avoid speaking about a greater tragedy: our leadership.

*

When it comes to writing and reading, I prefer the stench of reality to the perfume of imagination.

*

Even the smartest man on earth is no match for “the cunning of Reality” (Hegel) with an infinite number of tricks and traps up its sleeve.

*

Changing water into wine – that’s nothing. The fact that water exists is the real miracle.

*

After saying something, have you ever wondered why you said it? What that means is that our words spring from a source that is beyond our understanding.

*

The beauty of free speech is that it allows a fool to make a bigger fool of himself.

*

They tell me I am consistently negative. What nonsense! To write is to hope. I will stop writing only on the day I give up all hope.

*

To those who demand solutions, I say: History provides us with an infinite number of precedents and solutions; and by history I don’t mean the history of nationalist historians. Nationalist historians are to real historians what Inspector Clouseau is to Sherlock Holmes.

#

Saturday, February 16, 2008

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THE WRONG SORT OF PEOPLE

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Jon Wynne Tyson: “The wrong sort of people are always in power because they would not be in power if they were not the wrong sort of people.”

*

Nothing can be more naïve than to say, since someone’s words, ideas, or actions are motivated by patriotism, they must be good; and nothing can be more infantile to the point of being idiotic than to confuse dissent with treason. Against how many innocent men has the charge of treason been leveled by the likes of Hitler and Stalin?

*

Because I try to be objective, they tell me I am motivated by self-loathing. It is true, I am not particularly fond of myself. To those of the opposite disposition, I say: No honeymoon under heaven is endless. Let’s talk when your honeymoon with yourself is over.

*

I am reminded of our revolutionaries in the Ottoman Empire and their ideals and dreams. Their infatuation with themselves and the righteousness of their cause was such that they had a Plan B only for themselves. They made the same mistake Hitler did, with one difference. At the end of the story, Hitler committed suicide.

*

Charlatans come in groups because there are so many of them.

#

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, February 17, 2008

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MEMO:

TO OUR TURCOCENTRIC PUNDITS

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If you treat them as enemies, you should not be surprised if they behave as enemies. One way to define diplomacy is to say that it consists in treating an adversary as if he were a future ally. History provides us with many instances of past enemies who are now the best of friends. Another point worth emphasizing: it is a tragedy not an unsettled score. To treat it as if it were an unsettled score is to make of it a political football game. But perhaps before we teach ourselves to treat them as potential friends, we should learn to treat one another, if not as brothers, than at least, as human beings, who like all human beings may not always see eye to eye with us. Am I making too many unreasonable demands on you? If so, then please accept my heartfelt apologies.

*

FURTHER READING

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The literature on the subject is vast to the point of being limitless. If you are interested, I suggest you begin with the Gospels. I am not suggesting taking the Gospels literally and loving them. What I am suggesting is that we treat them less as once bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians always bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians, but as fallible human beings with their own share of blind spots, prejudices, and failings, always keeping in mind that very probably half of them may well be half-Armenian.

#

Monday, February 18, 2008

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HONESTY

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Most of my readers are smarter than I am. If they were as honest, they would be far ahead of me.

*

Events in history are like the final paragraphs in mystery novels, or like plants with very deep roots. We planted the seed of our genocide on the day we surrendered our destiny into the hands of the Sultan.

*

I once heard David Suzuki, a well-known Canadian dissident, identify himself as a “shit-disturber.” Writes Carlos Fuentes, a prolific Mexican writer and diplomat: “You can only live by sticking your neck out, dirtying your fingers, exposing yourself.” I prefer the Canadian’s version of the story.

*

When it comes to belief systems, objectivity may be difficult, even impossible to achieve. But honesty is not. An honest Christian or Muslim will have to concede that his religion has been a mixed blessing and, for countless innocent victims, an unmitigated curse.

#

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

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HOMELAND & DIASPORA

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According to foreign observers, there is freedom of the press in Armenia. If true, that means our brothers in the Homeland have been more successful in de-Stalinizing themselves than we in the Diaspora have been in de-Ottomanizing ourselves.

*

Why should I, or anyone else for that matter, be on the side of a victim whose secret ambition is to be a victimizer?

*

An important part of life consists in being assessed by individuals who have assessed themselves as competent judges.

*

One good thing about alienation is that it allows one to be more objective.

*

Education allows the educated classes to acquire more ways to mislead and deceive the uneducated.

*

To be a nationalist in the Diaspora amounts to living where the money is and saying your heart is on Mt. Ararat. The true definition of homeland is not where your ancestors were born but where you are allowed to work and provide for your family.

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Wednesday, February 20, 2008

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STRAIGHT TALK

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If you think my approach to Armenian issues is blunt and undiplomatic – too much vinegar and not enough honey – it may be because my target is not the general reader but myself. Once upon a time, when I was young, I too thought like a dupe, spoke like a moron, and behaved like a prick. I know now that you cannot expose double-talk with a forked tongue. Diplomacy doesn’t work with white men with black hearts.

And speaking of straight talk: I just read a brief memoir of an Armenian writer by her son who says his mother contracted cancer and died because her readers made her life a misery. Nothing further, your Honor.

"Intellect is invisible to the man who has none."

Arthur Schopenhauer

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, February 21, 2008

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GETTING WISDOM

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If your aim is the acquisition of wisdom, real time-tested wisdom, rely on popular sayings by Anonymous, the greatest philosopher of all time.

“Don’t believe everything you are told.” “Don’t believe everything you read in the papers.” “Believe what you see, ignore what you hear.” “Drumbeats sound better from a distance.” “Don’t stir the pot too much, you may expose the manure.” “Some people will say and do anything for money.”

Cases in point: During the Soviet era, a highly respected Armenian academic taught “scientific atheism” in Yerevan. But when the Kremlin collapsed, he immigrated to America, saw the light, was born again, and is now making a comfortable living as a professor of theology.

After being paid a goodly sum by the Gulbenkian Foundation, a British academic and notorious drunkard, wrote a lavishly illustrated book titled ARMENIA: CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION.

When another one of our brilliant academics, whose education and political career were subsidized by one of our political parties, was made a more attractive offer by the opposition, he promptly switched loyalties.

Moral: Our “betters” may well be our worst.

If you find all this depressing, remember, “Better to sob with the wise than to laugh with fools.”

#

Friday, February 22, 2008

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ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN ARMENIAN LIFE

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In his REPUBLIC, Plato writes that in an anti-intellectual environment, a philosopher cannot but be like “a man who has fallen among wild beasts, who is unwilling to share in their misdeeds and is unable to hold out singly against their savagery.”

*

Our bishops represent the Almighty, our benefactors represent another Almighty, and our bosses represent their respective little mafias. Who represents the people? The voice of the people continues to be an absent factor in our collective existence.

*

Albanians are ahead of us. They are now willing to concede that they allowed themselves to be manipulated and moronized by a petty dictator like Enver Hoxa because he was successful in convincing them they were just about the smartest people on earth. (For more on this subject, see Paul Theroux’s THE PILLARS OF HERCULES.)

Something similar happened to Germans under Hitler: by convincing them they belong to a superior race, Hitler was successful in making them behave like swine. Mussolini, Stalin, and Mao – the secret of their success was flattering the masses by brainwashing them to believe a glorious destiny awaits them.

*

What happened to our intellectuals? Even after Talaat and Stalin slaughtered two generations of our ablest writers, we had giants like Shahnour, Zarian, Oshagan, and Massikian. We don’t even have midgets today. And why? The answer is obvious. Consider the way we treated Zarian. Insulted, abused, and ignored in America, he was lured behind the Iron Curtain with promises none of which were kept. Shahnour was forced to write in French in order to survive as a ward of the State. Oshagan spent an important part of his life flattering idiots. And when Massikian offered to give away his books free of charge, there were no takers.

*

Somewhere Antranik Zaroukian writes: “Even as they speak of crucifixion, they nail us to the cross.” And by “they” he didn’t mean the people, but their “betters” and their gangs of dupes, who, even as they praise dead writers, they bury living ones.

#

Saturday, February 23, 2008

**********************************************

BITCHING

*****************************

What have we learned from our genocide? “All you do is bitch,” a Turcocentric ghazetaji tells me. “Isn’t that what you do too?” I wanted to know. He replied with an insult. End of discourse.

*

“After reading four or five of your posts, I can guess what you are going to say next,” a reader informs me. “Why bitch, if you can stop reading me?” I am tempted to ask. Instead I say: “Sorry to be a source of disappointment to you, my good friend.” Perhaps from now on I should append the following lines after everything I post: “If not perfectly satisfied, your money will be cheerfully refunded.”

*

We see the best in ourselves and the worst in others. Or perhaps what we really do is project the worst in us on others, and it makes no difference who the other is – a Turk, an Armenian, or, like Sultan Abdulhamid II, a half-Armenian. If only we could see the worst in ourselves and the best in others! Am I bitching again?

#

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, February 24, 2008

******************************************

A PROBLEM EXPOSED

************************************

A clearly stated problem has a better chance to be solved than one that is covered up, ignored, or explained and justified as an integral part of the human condition, like death and taxes. Perhaps one reason we have so far failed to solve our problems is that we consider them to be so complex that they might as well be insoluble, when all we need to solve them is a touch of honesty, such as a more or less independent judiciary. I am not talking here about total honesty, which in a political context may well be a utopian daydream, but only a touch or even a willingness to move in that direction. What is so complex to the point of being insoluble about an independent judiciary? Have all honest Armenians been systematically eliminated by Stalin and his neo-Stalinist and crypto-Stalinist successors? These gentlemen are neither invisible nor grey eminences working behind the scenes. Their names and the names of their victims are not buried in inaccessible archives written in invisible ink. They are familiar figures to the natives. Let’s talk to them. Let’s publish their stories. Let’s expose the crooks instead of allowing them to make headlines in our diasporan press as if they were statesmen or servants of the people. And if so far we have failed to do that, is it because they enjoy the full support of our equally corrupt and incompetent diasporan leadership? What else? And if we can’t take care of our own backyard, how can we ever hope to clean up the mess in Yerevan?

#

Monday, February 25, 2008

**********************************************

THE ROAD TO HELL

*********************************

It is not easy for a human being to kill another human being, but much easier if one of them hangs a label on the other. Labels are useful because they reduce, simplify, and dehumanize. Facing an enemy (a useful label) you don’t feel the need to think of him as a fellow human being or someone’s son, husband, brother, friend, or even uncle or neighbor. If it weren’t for labels, nations would not declare war on other nations, religious leaders would lose an important fraction of their powers and privileges, and prejudices would be exposed for what they really are -- extensions of ignorance. Labels are good for the few (the men at the top) but bad for the overwhelming majority. The road to hell is paved with labels.

#

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

**********************************************

DUPES

****************************

Pro-establishment arguments travel with the speed of light, become common currency, and are repeated ad nauseam. By contrast, anti-establishment arguments are immediately buried, ignored, and forgotten. An example of pro-establishment argument: It may take two or three generations before our brothers in the Homeland are de-Sovietized. Examples of anti-establishment arguments: Avedik Issahakian’s reference to our leaders as “brainless” and Zarian’s as “useless” -- and more precisely: “Our political parties have been of no political use to us. Their greatest enemy is free speech.”

The absence of free speech may explain why our pro-establishment bias has become a permanent condition. When the establishment controls the press, the podium, and the altar, the result will be a brainwashed community that will behave like sheep even when the sheepdogs behave like ravenous wolves.

Where everyone thinks alike, no one thinks. And when our panchoonies say “mi kich pogh oughargetsek,” they will never add, “to support the status quo, that is to say, number one,” but “to help the needy.”

As for those who ascribe our present condition to factors beyond our control, I ask: Why should war, earthquake, and the collapse of a morally and politically bankrupt regime promote profiteering, corruption, incompetence, lies, and cannibalism? When Zarian said, “Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another,” he did not have in mind hard-working stiffs who survive by cheating and exploiting no one, but our sermonizers, speechifiers, and holier-than-thou parasites, charlatans, and bloodsuckers.

A final note on free speech: If Armenianism (whatever the hell that means, because as far as I know, so far no one has bothered to define it)…if, I say, Armenianism cannot be reconciled with human rights, then it is time that we consign it to the dustbin of history.

#

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

************************************************

AN ARMENIAN PROPHET

*************************************

The only way to survive during the Soviet era was to be critical of the world but not the commissars and everyone connected with them. We don’t have commissars in the Diaspora. What we have instead are bosses, bishops, and benefactors – a holy trinity as untouchable as Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Hence our academics and dime-a-dozen Turcocentric ghazetajis whose number two concern is Turks -- number one being number one. As for the welfare of the nation: Nothing could be further from their thoughts. That’s as good a definition of Armenianism as any. And if you think what I am saying is new or unpatriotic, listen to Raffi: “Every man for himself: that’s the prevalent mentality among us. As long as I can take care of myself, why should I give a damn about anyone else?”(English translation: “I’m all right, Jack!”)

Here is Raffi again, in a prophetic message to our academics and ghazetajis: “What’s done is done. What we must do now is assess the damage and figure out how to avoid the next catastrophe.”

And here is Raffi again on our leadership: “We are like sheep without a shepherd…We have no leaders. What we have are merchants and clergymen. Merchants are trash. As for the clergy: they have always been against individual freedom.”

*

Shaw once said that he had solved all of mankind’s problems but people went on speaking about their impenetrable complexities. To those who speak about the complexities of our problems, I say, “Read Raffi!”

*

What to do about our problems? You have a number of options: (one) Shut up about them; (two) pretend they don’t exist; (three) blame them on everyone else but our leadership; and (four) speak of massacres.

#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, February 28, 2008

*********************************************

AGHBER

***********************

There are Armenians who think they are better Armenians because they speak, read, and write in Armenian. They may speak nonsense, read only ghazetajis, and write b.s., but they feel fully qualified and authorized to rate themselves as superior types. Others rate their patriotism by the number of times they have visited the Homeland or the amount of money they have invested there (not always for altruistic reasons); still others because they are members of this or that political party, congregation, or club.

One of the most repellent aspects of Armenianism is the very ease with which some Armenians rate themselves as better. Ours is an environment in which even garbage-mouth skinheads assert superiority.

Only arrogant fools assess themselves as better and expect to be believed.

I have never visited Armenia. I am told if I ever do, the natives will call me “aghber,” meaning brother. The fact that aghber also means trash in Armenian may well be a pure coincidence, of course, but being a skeptic, I am not always disposed to believe everything I am told.

Speaking of patriotism: Charents is one of our greatest patriotic poets, and his “Yes im anoush Hayastani” (To my sweet Armenia) is one of his most beloved poems. Even children of five are taught to learn and recite it by heart. All this is well known. What is less well known is that Charents was driven to commit suicide in a Yerevan jail by banging his head against the wall. In addition to being a great poet, Charents may also have been an alcoholic, a drug addict, a womanizer, and an attempted murderer. Socrates and Christ were none of these things. But in the eyes of their morally superior fellow countrymen they were judged to be criminals guilty of capital offenses. I mention this to point out the fact that some of the worst crimes in the history of mankind were committed by self-righteous, holier-than-thou superior scum.

What about me? Am I a good Armenian? Am I even an Armenian? I don’t know and I no longer care to know. Trying to be an honest man among crooks and charlatans keeps me so busy and requires so much effort that I have no other ambition in life.

#

Friday, February 29, 2008

*****************************************

ON A FAMILIAR MISCONCEPTION

**************************************************

Sometimes we forget that as products of authoritarian -- sometimes even brutally despotic – regimes, we are predisposed to view all criticism as negative, unnecessary, and dangerous. Hence the frequently leveled charge against me that I am too tough on my fellow Armenians, which of course is not just a lie but also a Big Lie. If I am tough, it’s not against my fellow Armenians but only against our non-representative leaders and their dupes, which happen to be a minority for the simple reason that the overwhelming majority of Armenians are non-partisan, anti-partisan, alienated, and either assimilated or on their way there. Not to be critical would amount to adding hypocrisy to our previous list of failings by pretending to be we are in good hands and perhaps even we never had it so good.

If you still think I am unfair to Armenians, I suggest you read Tolstoy on Russians, Mann on Germans, Sartre on his fellow Frenchmen, Raffi, Odian, Zarian, and Massikian on Armenians, and Naregatsi on himself. Here is another explanation as to why I am perceived as negative to the point of being anti-Armenian: We are all brought up to believe our leaders are our masters. But that is a misconception that our leaders have done their utmost to perpetuate. It is therefore up to us to remind them that far from being our masters they are our servants and they are there not to be feared or respected but to serve our interests. If we cannot do that, then we deserve to behave like sheep, and like sheep to be occasionally butchered.

#

Saturday, March 01, 2008

********************************************

AGHBER (ii)

************************************

Where there is prejudice there will also be a power structure that either legitimizes it or ignores it.

*

I don’t write to entertain. I write to understand and explain reality, especially when reality is against us.

*

Nothing astonishes me more than the ease with which an Armenian thinks he is smarter or better informed than his fellow Armenian.

*

If you think you are smart, you will be disposed to think of others as less smart even when they are smarter than you.

*

Most Armenians respect bosses, bishops, and benefactors much more than intellectuals, poets, and academics. As for our academics, writers, vodanavorjis and ghazetajis: they do their utmost to deserve their contempt.

*

Frederick the Great once described a nation as “a beast with many tongues and many eyes,” and he is generally recognized as an enlightened king. He counted among his friends J.S. Bach and Voltaire, who, as far as I know, neither knew nor cared about each other. As for Frederick the Great: he loved music and literature, but he loved war and conquest even more.

*

Whenever I am told Armenians were the first nation to convert to Christianity, I am reminded of the saying, “A converted cannibal is one who, on Friday, eats only fishermen” (Emily Lotney).

*

To those who complain that I repeat myself, I have a suggestion. Read me only once a week, or even better, once a month. And if that doesn’t work, make it once a year. If you still catch me repeating myself, let me know and your money will be cheerfully refunded.

#

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, March 02, 2008

******************************************

OBAMA

*******************

He reminds me of Raymond Chandler’s line, “The room was as dark as the prospects of an honest politician.” If, unlike the Kennedys, he survives, I suspect he will accomplish very little because he and his followers underestimate the power of the establishment to obstruct populist reforms. Those in power, Hegel tells us, will give it up only after “a bloody struggle,” and, one could add, they will never give it up to a ventriloquist’s puppet. Too much exposure does not seem to work in his favor, perhaps because he has no depth, or if he has depth, he knows how to conceal it. He comes across as a one-dimensional do-gooder who knows all the right verbal moves, which make him predictable and ultimately boring. If I were Hillary, I would let him speechify himself to oblivion.

*

GUEDIGUIAN

********************************

A French journalist by the name of Isabelle Daniel has published a book titled CONVERSATIONS AVEC ROBERT GUEDIGUIAN (196 pages, 19 Euros), which LE POINT (Paris, January 31, 2008) describes as of great interest “from the first to the last page.” In the same issue of LE POINT I read the following quotation by a minor celebrity: “My father told me, some day you will fall in love with a woman and you will give her all that you have. Afterwards you will divorce her and give her half of everything else.”

*

KARAJAN

**************************

In a new biography of maestro Herbert von Karajan (from the Greek Karayannis, literally Blackjohn) we are informed that from 1933 to 1945 he was a card-carrying Nazi but that his wife was Jewish and Hitler detested him. While in Italy I remember to have been told the following anecdote. When after a concert at La Scala representatives of the Armenian community of Milan went backstage to shake his hand and tell him how proud they were of his success, he had no choice but to point out the fact that he was not one of them.

#

Monday, March 03, 2008

*****************************************

ARMENIANISM AS PATHOLOGY

**************************************************

If to be human and to be Armenian is not a contradiction, it follows neither is patriotism and fundamental human rights. And yet, whenever I write about Armenians, I feel the need to remind myself and my readers that it is not as an Armenian that I write, but as a human being.

*

Free speech: did we ever have it? Do we have it today in America? Have you ever met a partisan willing to concede our partisan press is not free?

A headline in our local paper this morning reads: “Suspicious vote spurs violence in Armenia.” In the final paragraph we are informed: “The state of emergency decree imposes severe restrictions, including banning all mass gatherings and ordering the news media reports on domestic political matters include only official information.”

So what else is new? Under Levon’s regime, I remember, an editor from Yerevan telling me his office had been vandalized and his reporters beaten up by thugs.

*

In one of his books, Granian says non-partisan Armenians are to blame for all our problems because they refuse to get involved in community affairs. When in my review I pointed out that we had more reasons to blame our partisans because they had been successful only in one endeavor, namely creating, legitimizing, and subsidizing divisions, he called to inform me that I had misunderstood…he had not meant…what he really had meant…and so on. But I knew better. I had heard that cliché line about contemptible chezoks before, many times.

*

Nothing could be more unpatriotic than to assume that as Armenians, it is our duty to cover up our failings or to pretend they don’t exist. To assert superiority, to speak with a forked tongue, to adopt a holier than thou stance, to violate a fellow Armenian’s fundamental human rights… all these things and more may be said to be an integral part of our pathological identity. Listen to Stepan Voskanian (1825-1901): “For thirty-five years I did not write a single word in Armenian. I was treated so shabbily by my fellow Armenians that I could not help hating everything that I held dear as a young man; and since I was starved by my own countrymen, I had to write in French in order to survive.” Elsewhere: “The position of an Armenian critic is very precarious these days. How is he to discharge his duties? If he speaks the truth, he is dismissed as an enemy. If he uses his common sense and says what he thinks to be right, he is rejected as a hostile witness.”

*

And now, Simon Vratsian (1882-1969): “All our religious, political and cultural institutions share a single aim, the survival of the nation. If the nation perishes, neither Etchmiadzin nor Antelias, not even God in His heaven, can be of any help to us.”

How many of our present leaders have had the honesty to say as much?

*

Finally, a detail that so far I neglected to mention. After World War II, repatriated women were also addressed as aghber by the natives. But being called aghber was the least of their problems. They were also bullied and intimidated. So much so that they would warn visitors from abroad not to complain or say anything remotely critical not only in the presence of officials and strangers but also in the privacy of their own homes and in the presence of members of their own families who happened to be native-born. I am not adopting a holier-than-thou stance. I am only suggesting to call some Armenians swine would be an insult to pigs.

*

Am I wrong? If I am, ascribe it to human fallibility. I have at no time paraded as an infallible judge. If only the infallible were allowed to speak, the voice of the Pope of Rome would be the only one that is heard in our environment.

#

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

********************************************

ON BELIEF SYSTEMS

***********************************

How do you convince a believer that what he believes in is false? That’s easy. It can’t be done. Don’t even try. It will be a waste of time. No amount of philosophical arguments or documentary evidence or eyewitness accounts will make him change his mind. That’s because Homo sapiens has a brain that is quintessentially brainwashable, which is worse than saying he is brainless. That’s why Genghis Khan, Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao had more followers than dissidents.

*

During the Soviet era some very smart people in the West, including famous philosophers like Sartre, denied the existence of gulags. It was all a fabrication of the filthy bourgeoisie, they said. I remember, when I first published a critical commentary on Levon’s regime, I lost a friend who happened to be a historian. If our historians cannot learn from history, what can we hope for from our laymen?

*

Consider a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew and their conviction that theirs is the only true religion for which they are willing to kill and die. It never even occurs to them that it was not they or their religious leaders who chose their religion for them but the fact that they were born and raised on this or that side of a mountain or river.

I am not advocating the abolition of all religions or belief systems. What I am saying is that they should be private affairs. The moment they get organized they become dangerous if only because they assert superiority and legitimize intolerance.

*

When a nation is divided into two hostile groups, most people will be driven to take sides. Very few will dare to say “A plague on both your houses!” And why? Because that would be unpatriotic. It follows as night follows day, civil wars are the sincerest expression of one’s love of God and Country.

*

There is nothing wrong with patriotism provided you keep in mind your enemy too has been brainwashed to believe there is nothing wrong in killing you in the name of God and Country.

#

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

*********************************************

HOOLIGANISM IN THOUGHT AND ACTION

********************************************************

Only naïve souls with an unrealistic view of political leaders and their dupes are shocked over recent developments in Armenia. Speaking for myself, I shall resist the temptation of repeating two of the most hateful (to me) clichés in the English languages: “I told you so,” and “Let that be a lesson to you.”

*

In his book ON MURDER, Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) tells us, the trouble with murderers is that sooner or later they will think little of being late for their appointments. Likewise, the trouble with people who treat their fellow men like trash is that sooner or later they will think little of calling them trash.

*

People don’t judge you by how much you know but by how useful you can be to them, even if the service you provide is flattering their ego by pretending they know better.

*

I am beginning to suspect our genocide has become a favorite subject with us because it is a clearly defined black-and-white story that reinforces our self-assessed moral superiority. What kind of moral superiority is it that allows us to stab one another in the back even when we are not provoked, unless you consider questions like “How dare you expose my prejudices, or question the wisdom of my limitations, or the caliber of my Armenianism (which may well be disguised Ottomanism, Bolshevism, or hooliganism)” as provocations.

#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, March 06, 2008

******************************************

ON POPULARITY

*************************************

Once upon a time I was popular. Everything I wrote was translated and published in a dozen papers in Canada, the United States, and the Middle East; and I wrote what was expected of me so well that even our bosses, bishops, and benefactors wanted to hire me. That’s when I knew I was on the wrong path. Popularity in our context is the kiss of death.

*

The most widely exploited commodity is not labor but ignorance.

*

It should be obvious by now that our problems will not be solved by our politicians for the simple reason that our politicians are our problems.

*

I will be more than happy to be on the side of our ideologues and believers if someone explains to me which one of their dogmas justifies the division, dismemberment, and the ruin of the nation.

*

Nothing comes easier to a loser than to brainwash himself into believing that on a higher plane or in a different dimension he is a winner and those who portray themselves as winners are swine.

*

We may sympathizers with failures and losers but not when they are in denial of their condition.

#

Friday, March 07, 2008

***************************************

READING

****************************

In THE JOURNAL OF JOYCE CAROL OATES: 1973-1982 (New York, 2007) I read: “The power of literature to shatter one’s peace of mind…” She means of course her peace of mind. I doubt very much if most people are capable of having their peace shattered by ideas. When it comes to literature, philistines are like the tone deaf with music and the blind with art. Speaking of music: I like her taste in music – Chopin, Verdi’s REQUIEM, Cesar Franck’s organ works. Her chitchat on her contemporaries (Updike, Susan Sontag, and Cheever, among others) is less illuminating. She writes a great deal about her own works with which I am only marginally familiar. Among the Armenians she mentions (but only in passing) are Saroyan, Arlen, and Nona Balakian.

*

Also reading NATIVE SON by Richard Wright (1940) and READING LOLITA IN TEHRAN by Azar Nafisi (2003). The common theme in both works: the way a state uses the majesty of the law to humiliate, bully, brutalize, and dehumanize its own citizens. What a book one could write on justice in the service of injustice.

*

PARIS MATCH (February 20, 2008) concludes its review of CONVERSATIONS AVEC ROBERT GUEDIGUIAN by Isabelle Danel with the words, “a must for cinephiles, apprentice directors, and moviegoers alike, this book should sell millions of copies.”

*

Poets and intellectuals are generally thought of as dreamers, even mental masturbators. In a commentary in our paper today, titled “American ‘dreamers’ blundered into war,” the ‘dreamers and fantasists’ are identified as Dick Cheyney, Donald Rumsfeld, Bush and their gang of neocons.

*

George Herbert: “Do well and right, and let the world sink.”

#

Saturday, March 08, 2008

******************************************

YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW

**************************************************

Fascists come in all sizes and shapes. There are even genocide and denialist fascists willing to kill and die for their cause. I suspect these fascists will be satisfied only if their counterparts are annihilated. But if for every Armenian fascist there are at least two, perhaps even twenty-two in the opposite camp, it is not unreasonable to imagine which side may experience another genocide or be collateral damage in a future Middle-East war.

*

According to Hegel, the real is reasonable, which means, if something happens there must be good reasons why it happened. It is up to us to understand these reasons. Now tell me, which part of the above scenario you didn’t understand.

*

Two things to remember: (a) We cannot apply yesterday’s solutions to today's problems; and (b) “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

#

****************************************************************************

BOOK REVIEW

***********************

Conversation with Ara Baliozian.

World Literature Today, March, 1998 by Zeytountsian, Stephan

********************************************************************

Nazeli Baghdasarian. Kitchener, Ont. Impressions. 1998. 95 pages. Can$9.95. ISBN 0-920553-24-9. As the title suggests, Nazeli Baghdasarian's book consists of a lengthy interview with the prolific Armenian writer and critic Ara Baliozian. Baghdasarian is a native of Racine, Wisconsin, with an academic background as a university librarian, having worked at both the Arizona State and Fresno State libraries.

Far from being a heavy-duty esoteric dialogue, Conversation is a cozy and intimate chat between two unpretentious people. Baghdasarian's questions are fundamental in nature and are ...

Read the rest of this article with a Free Trial at HighBeam Research.

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, March 09, 2008

********************************************

MEGALOMANIA

********************************

When, following the collapse of the regime, the Soviets opened their archives to scholars, it was revealed that Maxim Gorky, the darling of the commissars, did not die of natural causes. For more details, see THE MURDER OF MAXIM GORKY: A SECRET EXECUTION by Arkady Vaksberg (New York, 2007). Vaksberg quotes profusely from Gorky’s private correspondence in which his loathing for Lenin, Stalin, and their gang of Bolsheviks is made abundantly clear (see below). The most frequently mentioned Armenian here is Nina Berberova, whose ITALICS ARE MINE is one of the most outstanding memoirs of the 20th century.

There is no doubt now that even as they went about murdering their (as well as our) greatest writers, the Soviets portrayed themselves as patrons of the arts and lovers of literature. And we are no different. The only reason our bosses and bishops pretend to support literature is to cover up their philistinism. As for our benefactors: their greatest source of esthetic enjoyment is the bottom line. Raffi was right when he said, “Profit is their only homeland.”

Two typical passages from Gorky’s correspondence follow:

“Lenin is not an omnipotent magician, but a cold-blooded conspirator, who has no pity for either the honor or the life of the proletariat. The workers must not allow adventurers and madmen to heap upon the head of the proletariat disgraceful, senseless and bloody crimes, which not Lenin but the proletariat itself will pay for.”

“Having imagined themselves to be Napoleons of socialism, the Leninists rant and rave, completing the destruction of Russia – the Russian people will pay for this with oceans of blood.”

If there is an inflexible law in history it is this: Where the men at the top are “adventurers,” “madmen,” and “Napoleons,” oceans of blood is bound to flow; and as long as these megalomaniacs remain in power, they will continue to portray themselves as heroes, idealists, and statesmen of vision whose sole aim in life is to defend and protect the interests of the people; and needless to add, the majority of the people will believe them.

#

Monday, March 10, 2008

****************************************

GOD SAVE THE ARMENIANS

****************************************************

I doubt if anyone else can.

*

Armenians who have all the answers (and there are very few who don’t) call me an idiot and a liar, even a Turk in disguise. It is beyond me why these paragons of Armenianism waste their time reading me when they can share their answers with the rest of us – unless of course these answers are inanities that so far not only have they failed to solve a single problem but they have also promoted the kind of mindset that sees nothing unpatriotic or morally questionable in treating fellow human beings not as potential friends but as confirmed present and future enemies.

*

Perhaps I have not been lucky in my readers. The civilized ones don’t read me because they have long been alienated by the barbarians. As for the barbarians…but I shouldn’t complain; if it weren’t for them, I would now be busy boring the hell out of you by writing about glorious sunsets and the eternal snows of Mt. Ararat.

*

The difference between our Turcocentric pundits and me is that they try to civilize the Turks and I try to civilize the Turk within us. Only time will tell who has the more difficult task.

*

Since most Armenians and Turks are only part-Armenian and part Turk, the chances are most of them assert their national identity on very flimsy grounds. Some Turks may even be more Armenian than Turk, and vice versa. Nationalism is a political theory. It has no basis in biology. If a Turk and Armenian hate each other unto death, it is due less to their identity or DNA and more to their killer instinct, which does not recognize national barriers. Think of Cain and Abel. Think of civil wars and revolutions. Think of our internecine conflicts and irreconcilable differences. Think of our willingness to cling to any propaganda line that legitimizes mutual intolerance and contempt. Think of March 1.

#

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

********************************************

A DEADLY COMBINATION

****************************************

Millions went up in smoke on March 1. More millions ended in the wrong pockets. Corruption is inevitable. So is stupidity. What’s deadly is their combination.

*

After our kleptocrats alienate and drive out the able-bodied, they will be left with the old and the sick; and when the enemy threatens to invade the land, they will run away with their loot and live happily ever after in Monaco or Rio.

*

What we need is a redefinition of patriotism. How to reconcile love of God and Country with support of crooks and vandals?

*

An English philosopher once said that even the most selfish man harbors altruistic drives. But as an Englishman, he was talking about his fellow Englishmen, who have never been slaves, or so they sing in “Rule Britannia.” It’s different with us. Once upon a time we were slaves. We are now slaves of former slaves. Why is it that this detail is covered up by our historians and philosophers? Do we have them?

*

Fiction: a genre of writing employed by novelists, short-story writers, nationalist historians, and ghazetajis.

*

Life: a succession of imaginary victories and real defeats.

#

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

************************************************

MEMO TO K.

******************************************

People don’t riot for no reason at all. If you expect us to believe what happened on March 1 was vandalism by hooligans, then we have no choice but to conclude that you have become a dupe of your own propaganda, and that you live and operate in a world of illusions and lies. Far more astute observers than myself have called your regime “a mafia democracy.”

Armenians have endured long centuries of brutal oppression and more recently they have suffered a long litany of wars, massacres, starvation, and earthquake. They can take moderate amounts of abuses of power and corruption. What they cannot take is greed and stupidity with no end in sight. And if you expect them to die in defense of their homeland, don’t be surprised if they are also willing to risk their own lives in defense of their homes. You may have the police on your side today but to rely too much on them may succeed only in postponing the final catastrophe, because in the next riot, they may join the rioters.

#

[gserj]

А поговорить?

[Bagirka]

А поговорить, Алексей - в Оффтоп, - там можно вволю наболтаться и не мешать сурьезным людям.

Edited March 13, 2008 by Bagirka

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, March 13, 2008

************************************************

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

***************************************

One can always say the majority is on my side in a community where the majority is either silent or alienated.

*

Nationalist history is to history what military music is to music.

*

Being critical of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors is like conducting a war on three fronts. I don’t have a chance.

*

A popular Armenian writer is first and foremost a cover-up artist.

*

Two occurrences that convinced me to take myself seriously: (one) a long letter by one of our eminent academics to an odar editor saying I am unreliable, untrustworthy, and uninformed; and (two) a unanimous decision by our editors to reject everything I write.

*

Men of power prefer slimy brown-nosers to honest men. In the words of Julius Caesar: “If bandits and cut-throats support me, I will call them friends.”

*

OVERHEARD

*****************************

What’s the difference between an Armenian wedding and an Armenian funeral? One less loudmouth.

*

“After my grandfather was beheaded by the Turks, he made me promise to hate them until I die.”

*

Asked if he experiences shortness of breath when he exercises, the 82-year old John Mortimer, who loves his morning drink and cigar, is quoted as having said: “How should I know? I never exercise.”

#

Friday, March 14, 2008

******************************************

REFLECTIONS ON PROPAGANDA

AND THE PRESENT SITUATION IN THE HOMELAND

*************************************************************

When it comes to someone else’s propaganda, we have 20/20 vision; but when it comes to our own, we pretend to be deaf, blind, and stupid.

*

What an insider knows and what the average citizen thinks he knows may be as different as black and white. Why are we surprised if the average Turk does not know as much as Pamuk and Akcam do?

*

Propaganda: when insiders conspire to manipulate the people with lies.

*

We all know that Gomidas Vartabed was a saintly musician who, as far as is known, never harmed a soul. How many of us know that he operated in a hostile environment in both Etchmiadzin and Istanbul, and that the very same individuals who should have supported him, did their utmost to obstruct his path? Was his breakdown, from which he never recovered, a sudden reaction to the massacres or the last straw that broke the camel’s back?

*

We are brought up to be proud of ourselves even when – or is it, especially when –we have little or nothing to brag about. In that respect, animals are superior to men. You will never hear spiders and scorpions bragging about surviving dinosaurs and saber-toothed tigers.

*

A writer must be prepared to disappoint his readers. The more readers he disappoints the closer to the truth he gets. The alternative is pandering to their narcissism.

*

When you don’t agree with a self-assessed smart Armenian, he will call you a fool, an idiot, and worse: an anti-Armenian and a pro-Turkish denialist s.o.b. I speak from experience. If your opponents call you an s.o.b. and make it abundantly clear that you will make them happy on the day you drop dead, you can be sure of one thing: you have hit paydirt.

*

If you can’t come to terms with angels, you may have to deal with devils. One could say that we were victimized in the Ottoman Empire because we ignored the warnings of Raffi, Baronian, Odian, and Voskanian.

*

If Churchill were alive today, he would sum up the present situation in the Homeland thus: “Kocharian is riding a tiger, and the tiger is getting hungry.”

*

A headline in our paper today reads: “A danger to Canadian democracy: Prime minister’s concentration of power could lead to abuses, Gomery says.” We don’t have that problem because “Armenian democracy” might as well be an oxymoron.

#

Saturday, March 15, 2008

********************************************

ON RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

************************************************

What we have been witnessing since March 1 is nothing short of a mass conversion. Everyone it seems is for democracy, free speech, and honest elections (did we ever have one in the Diaspora?)

*

I remember a very brief conversation I once had with one of our bosses, who had expressed his affection for me because I had written about the double-talk of a rival boss. Asked why he supported a corrupt leader like Levon Corleone (first o with an umlaut), he replied: “If we don’t support him, he will not let us help the people.” “You mean he is so evil that he would rather see his people suffer and starve rather than…” I should have guessed. He didn’t let me finish. He lost his composure and said something to the effect that he thought this was going to be a friendly chat rather than a third degree.

*

As for our dime-a-dozen Turcocentric pundits: they have suddenly discovered they have more than one set of barbarians to deal with.

*

As far as I know, no one wants to have anyone’s human rights violated, but everyone comes up with excellent reasons why sometimes it is necessary…in the name of patriotism…in the interest of the people…for the sake of certain noble principles…and so on and so forth. Translated into everyday parlance, all these circumlocutions stand for one thing: in our environment, the ego is king.

*

Top dogs, underdogs, corruption, stupidity, greed, subservience, propaganda, riots…they are what they are regardless of nationality, and they are to be found everywhere. If you accept this simple fact and keep it in mind, a great many incomprehensible things become comprehensible. As for patriotism: it’s amazing the amount of crap that is dished out in its name.

*

As recent events in Lhasa may suggest, even Buddhists, who believe the world is an illusion, riot, and their rioting is no illusion.

#

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, March 16, 2008

*************************************************

CHOICES

*****************************

Since the beginning of time, men have tried to understand and explain reality. To that end they have created systems of thought and belief that attempt to do the job. But since these systems contradict one another, none of them enjoys universal acceptance. As a result, not only do we have believers and heretics, but also bad believers and good heretics, and an infinite number of shades of gray.

*

A good Christian is one who accepts misfortunes as punishment for his sins. A committed idealist is one who views his defeats as results of his failure to live up to his principles. A good historian is one who analyzes the past objectively and honestly without allowing a belief system or ideology to contaminate his perception of reality. Are we or have we ever been good Christians or idealists? Do we have honest and objective historians? Can a good Christian live among bad Muslims and vice versa?

*

One of our right-wing (i.e. pro-establishment and partisan) pundits recently concluded a commentary with the words, “Armenians are their own worst enemies.” If we assume that to be an irrefutable fact or historic reality, the only answer – or rather, the beginning of a tentative answer – is, if as Armenians we cannot love one another, let us at least make an effort to hate less. If we can do that, we may have a remote chance to qualify as human beings. If we can’t do that, we shall have no choice but to conclude “mart bidi ch’ellank.”

#

Monday, March 17, 2008

******************************************

NOTES / COMMENTS

***************************************************

To prove that we enjoy complete freedom of the press in the Diaspora, a dedicated member of the Party once said to me: “None of my articles has ever been rejected or modified in any way.”

*

Our political parties don’t need members who have acquired the skill to think for themselves; they need robots whose favorite words are “Yes, sir!”

*

Only thoroughly brainwashed and moronized Armenians think they are smart.

*

When a good cause falls into the hands of perverts, it turns into a curse.

*

While we mourn our victims, we should also mourn our judgment, for it too was massacred.

*

If you get emotionally involved in an argument, you will be at a disadvantage because the gut cannot compete with the brain.

*

It is only when you think you are smart enough to fool others that you expose yourself as a fool.

*

Dogs and cats are treated better in America than the Untouchables in India. Our dissidents are our Untouchables.

*

A front-page headline in our paper this morning reads: “Dalai Lama appeals to the world for help in Tibet.” Who speaks for Armenians?

#

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

*********************************************

LINES

***************************

A good patriot is one who cannot admit that the actions of his enemies may also be motivated by patriotism. To those who say, patriotism does not justify the massacre of innocent civilians, I say, neither should it justify violating anyone’s fundamental human right of free speech. And I dare any one of our partisan papers to print these lines.

*

Where there is talk of denialism, anti-Armenianism, treason, and betrayal, can a lynch mob be far behind?

*

Readers who are pro-bullshitism call me anti-Armenian, which may suggest that some of them cannot tell the difference between Armenianism and b.s.

*

If your parents, schoolteachers, and parish priest dealt with your education (some would call it indoctrination), I am afraid you need professional help because I do not feel qualified to de-program you.

*

Some of my readers qualify as good Armenians only on the grounds that their “tongue is sharper than a Turk’s yataghan” (Zarian), and they are more than willing “to survive by cannibalizing one another" (ditto).

#

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

*************************************

ON CONTROVERSIES

**************************

Where there are controversies, there will also be individuals on both sides who know the truth but who prefer not to share their knowledge. Their aim is not consensus but never-ending conflict.

*

When Turks and Armenians paint themselves all white and their adversaries all black, odars may be justified in suspecting that both sides are guilty of misrepresentation.

*

Armenians who love to quote Saroyan’s pro-Armenian statements should be reminded that he also said he felt sorry for the Turks; and when Armenians adopted Palestinians as their role models and engaged in acts of terrorism and assassination, he (Saroyan) was at a loss and could not understand why his fellow Armenians behaved that way. Perhaps one reason Saroyan loved Armenians, or so he said, was that he neither knew nor understood them completely.

*

In our culture smart wheeler-dealers rate above honest men. That is unfortunate because more often than not the smart in step one become dumb in step two, perhaps because there is a natural tendency in all smart people to overestimate themselves to the same degree that they underestimate their adversaries.

*

Where there is a big mouth, there will also be a small brain.

#

ARA BALIOZIAN

PERTINENTES IMPERTINENCES

traduit de l'anglais par Mireille Besnilian, Dalita Roger, Denis Donikian

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ********* ******

Vient de paraître pour la première fois en français un choix d’aphorismes d’Ara Baliozian le mal-aimé. Traduites de l’anglais par Mireille Besnilian, Dalita Roger et Denis Donikian, ces « Pertinentes impertinences » font aujourd’hui l’objet d’un magnifique recueil publié par la maison d’édition Actual Art d’Erevan en Arménie, dont le maître d’œuvre est Mkrtich Matevossian.

Méconnu, sinon méprisé, mais tout autant lauréat de nombreux prix pour une œuvre qui touche aussi bien à la fiction, au théâtre, à la poésie qu'à la critique littéraire et à la traduction, Ara Baliozian est une figure rare d'écrivain prolifique, talentueux et anti-conformiste qui met sa plume au service de ses convictions. Son franc-parler salutaire en dérangera plus d'un.

Pour exemples de ce franc-parler : « Le problème avec les Turcs, c’est qu’ils croient ce que disent leurs hommes politiques. Notre problème ? Le même ». Ou encore : «Une controverse arménienne est un massacre sans effusion de sang. » Et enfin : «Cela vaut la peine de se rappeler que la ploutocratie et la démocratie sont des concepts mutuellement exclusifs ».

Ces extraits sont tirés du journal qu'Ara Baliozian tient depuis plusieurs années et qu'il diffuse à des correspondants du monde entier depuis Kitchener au Canada, généralement sous forme d'aphorismes, par le truchement d'Internet. Ses observations et ses analyses sont celles d'un moraliste iconoclaste qui ne s'en laisse pas conter et qui attaque frontalement les non-dits, les tabous et les préjugés de sa culture d'appartenance.

Parions que le bon sens dont il fait preuve mettra le lecteur dans la même disposition que celle de William Saroyan disant : « Je lis tout ce qu'Ara Baliozian écrit, avec fascination et gratitude ».

On peut se procurer le livre en écrivant à : denisdonikian( at)gmail. com

ISBN : 978-99941-831- 5-9

10 € + 1,50 € pour frais de port.

Accueil

Aide et téléchargements

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, March 20, 2008

*********************************************

A SHIP WITHOUT A CAPTAIN

***************************************

By emphasizing some details and ignoring others, one can speak the truth and lie at the same time. Likewise, by combining the letter of one law with the spirit of another, one can pretend to serve justice even when committing unspeakable crimes against humanity.

*

“Why don’t you leave us alone and busy yourself educating your Turkish brethren,” writes a gentle reader. I speak in defense of my brothers, all my brothers, regardless of race, color, and creed. To the fools who tell me to shut up, I dedicate the following lines by Walt Whitman: “Whoever walks a furlong without sympathy / Walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.”

*

It’s astonishing the amount of crap people will take before they decide enough is enough.

*

The best I can hope to achieve is embarrass the bastards. Is it worth it? I am not sure. It keeps me busy thinking I carry on a tradition that goes back many centuries: that of calling a spade a spade and a baloney artist a jackass.

*

Again and again I am reminded that honey is more effective than vinegar. Yes, by all means. Let’s try the honeyed approach with the Turks for a change, not only because it is more civilized or effective but also because we have wasted vast amounts of vinegar without any tangible results.

*

Speaking of Whitman: when Lincoln was assassinated, he wrote one of his most celebrated poems titled “O Captain! My Captain!” which begins with the line, “O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done,” and ends with the words: “…on the deck my Captain lies, / Fallen cold and dead.”

And I reflect that, at the end of “our fearful trip” what lay “fallen cold and dead” was not our captain (did we have one?) but the nation, which happens to be one of those minor details that have been covered up by our nationalist historians.

#

Friday, March 21, 2008

***********************************************

METAMORPHOSIS

***********************************

The American conservative pundit, William F. Buckley, who died recently, is quoted as having said that Africans will be ready to run their own affairs “when they stop eating each other.” On reading this line, I immediately remembered the old saying, “One Armenian eats one chicken, two Armenians eat two chickens, three Armenians eat each other”; and Zarian’s dictum, “Armenians survive by cannibalizing each other.”

If Africans learn to run their own affairs before we do, no doubt it will be because their former masters and role models were European, unlike ours who were Asiatic.

*

To preach is to confess, because preachers tend to practice the opposite of what they preach.

*

Power seems to radically alter the DNA of most people, which may explain why Armenians with power behave as though they belonged to a different species.

*

I once had the following brief exchange with one of our notorious Turcocentric pundits who has succeeded in elevating Turcocentrism to a pathological monomania:

“You complain too much,” said he.

“Isn’t that what you do too?”

“Who asked you?”

*

No Armenian will ever praise with the same intensity as he reviles.

*

“I am a tolerant man…”

“Live and let live, that’s my philosophy.”

“I love my fellow Armenians, regardless of their political and religious affiliations.”

To describe oneself is to deceive oneself.

*

The ego is an extension of the gut.

#

Saturday, March 22, 2008

******************************************

ADVICE TO A YOUNG WRITER

****************************************************

Work hard. Write every day. Concentrate. Rewrite. Delete more and expand less. Avoid writing at night when your critical faculties are down. But if you are an Armenian, find yourself another line of work.

*

I am not rejected because I am misunderstood. I am rejected because I understand and what I understand is not flattering to our vanity.

*

If you voice opinions that I held twenty or thirty years ago, I will not agree with you because agreeing with you would amount to deleting two or three decades from my life.

*

One problem with brown-nosers is that after spending a lifetime osculating derrieres, they are outraged when the same treatment is denied to them.

*

If you can reconcile belief in God with belief in the honesty of multimillionaire televangelists, you may claim to understand America.

*

Cioran: “Shakespeare: the meeting of a rose with an axe.”

*

Paul Morand: “Unpopular people fascinate me.”

*

Anonymous: “Contentment is better than wealth.”

#

[gserj]

“One Armenian eats one chicken, two Armenians eat two chickens, three Armenians eat each other”

What does this saying means?

[Bagirka]

it means that you, Alex, have choosen only and only one saying out of thousands to pay attention to.

[gserj]

it means that you, Alex, have choosen only and only one saying out of thousands to pay attention to.

I've read a message above and asked about a saying mentioned in it.

[Kars]

It’s just another example of Mr. Baliozian’s unique sarcasm regarding Armenians.

And yet I must admit that I find a lot of truth hidden behind his sardonic words.

[Bagirka]

Even though..... still

[gserj]

Even though..... still

Bagirka, you are oversensetive.

[gserj]

It's just another example of Mr. Baliozian's unique sarcasm regarding Armenians.And yet I must admit that I find a lot of truth hidden behind his sardonic words.

I thought that was popular saying. If it isn't his invention what does it means?

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, March 23, 2008

******************************************

RESURRECTION

*******************************

We began our career as a nation as Homo sapiens and eventually evolved (some would say degenerated) into Homo Ottomanicus, Sovieticus, and Americanus, among others subspecies. Our only hope now is to resurrect the Homo sapiens that lies buried deep in our subconscious.

*

In whatever I write my guide is neither nationalism nor patriotism but common sense and decency. More people have died in the name of patriotism than any other word, except perhaps the word God. In our cultural and environmental context moreover, the word patriotism has been abused so ruthlessly that it might as well be synonymous with treason.

*

During the Soviet era, I remember, some of the most venomous letters and phone calls I received were from chic Bolsheviks – wealthy Armenian-Americans who supported the regime in the name of patriotism.

*

The average Armenian is endowed with phenomenal powers of persuasion, but as a rule, these powers work only on himself and his like-minded dupes.

*

In our dealings with Turks, we might as well resign ourselves to the fact that we will never get 100%. But even if we do, it will amount to less than 1% since we cannot resurrect a single victim.

*

The role model of all bullies is God who does not threaten with personal injury but with eternal hellfire.

*

Armenians are united by little except mutual contempt.

#

Monday, March 24, 2008

***********************************************

MYTHS

************************

If you believe what your political leaders tell you, you can’t be very smart. “A man who believes in honest politicians,” is as good a definition of dumb as any you care to mention.

*

Armenians believe to be smart for the same reason that ancient Greeks (one of the smartest and most civilized and progressive people in the history of mankind) believed in their gods. Even after Socrates told them “Of the gods we know nothing,” they went on building magnificent temples to Zeus, the alpha male of their zoo of fornicating gods.

*

The first time I heard someone say Armenians are not smart (he was not an odar but an Armenian-American academic whose judgment and integrity I had no reason to question) my initial reaction was not disbelief but outrage and derision. And even today, many years later, I find it difficult to say Armenians are dumb. If I don’t mind saying it now it may be because I have come to terms with my own limitations, prejudices, and blind spots. Needless to add, what I just said does not apply to those of my fellow Armenians who happen to be without limitations, prejudices, and blind spots.

#

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

*****************************************

WHAT DO POLITICIANS WANT?

***************************************************

It is said of Hitler that he had two favorite subjects: the loyalty of dogs and war.

*

What do politicians want? Power, and power is like money, they can never have enough of it. Politicians need loyal subjects as much as capitalists need workers; and a loyal subject is one who says “Yes, sir!” even when what he is told makes little or no sense.

*

Patriotism is defined as love of God and Country, and love of God and Country has nothing to do with defending the blunders of politicians. And yet, in the minds of naïve dupes, love of God and Country is often equated with loyalty to a regime.

*

After being subservient to a long line of sultans and commissars, some Armenians see nothing wrong in being subservient to their own leaders. But subservience is subservience and it means “submitting one’s intelligence to someone who may not have enough of it himself” (Santa Teresa of Avila).

*

Left to their own devices, people are not disposed to hate their fellow men simply because they live on the other side of a river or mountain, unless of course their political leaders convince them otherwise; and if there is one thing politicians are good at, is promoting and legitimizing prejudice, hatred, and ultimately war in the name of God and Country.

*

Armenians and Turks share a common enemy: their political leadership.

#

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

*********************************************

CRITERIA

******************************

Like most people, I judge a nation not by the number of its speechifiers, sermonizers, and propagandists, or for that matter by the number of its millionaires, multimillionaires, billionaires, and wheeler-dealers; I judge a nation by the number of tongues it cuts out or writers it silences.

*

If one hundred or even a thousand dupes say one thing and a man who has acquired the skill to think for himself says another, who will have more credibility in your eyes?

*

Can a collection of barbarian tribes ever hope to achieve the status of a civilized nation on the grounds that sixteen centuries ago it converted to Christianity or a century ago it experienced genocide?

#