Confessions

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, November 28, 2010

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DIARY

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Antonia Fraser in her Pinter diary: “I need a $60,000 loan."

Even the wealthy have financial problems.

Ask a chief executive officer on Wall Street why the fat bonuses and he will probably make a list of all those things he can't afford.

*

To tell right from wrong is easy. What's hard is why under certain conditions right becomes wrong and vice versa.

*

On my way to the library yesterday, a black fellow walking in the same direction but on the opposite sidewalk wanted to know if had “any food.” “Sorry,” I said, “just books.”

*

Very early this morning (5:07 to be exact) a Buddhist monk on the radio: “Salvation means avoiding the hell that we have made for ourselves.”

Makes perfect sense.

Hell is not an alien place. Hell is within us. Hell is a house that we have built for ourselves. We are its architect, contractor, digger of its foundations, bricklayer, painter, carpenter, plumber, electrician, carpet-layer, and decorator.

*

If for an Armenian, hell is another Armenian, it may be because some Armenians, like some Turks, have made it a lifetime project never to take a hard look at themselves in the mirror.

Where does Ottomanism end and Armenianism begin? When it comes to them and us, I have more questions than answers.

*

Be kind to your enemies, they will hate even more.

#

Monday, November 29, 2010

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DIARY

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According to an article in our paper on the Hitchens/Blair televised debate, Christopher (GOD IS NOT GREAT) Hitchens believes organized religions have been a force for evil; and Tony Blair (a recent convert to Catholicism) believes atheists like Hitler and Stalin have done more harm than the Papacy, and that faith can be a force for good if it emphasizes not dogma but tolerance and understanding – thus implying so far it has failed to do so. Blair's view on faith reminds me of Dr. Johnson's remark on second marriages: “The triumph of hope over experience.”

*

Have you heard this one? An Irish Catholic priest asks a little girl: “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

“A prostitute,” she replies.

“Say that again?”

“A prostitute.”

“Thank God, I thought you said a Protestant.”

*

My question to popes, imams, and rabbis: “Why is it that you can convince millions but not one another? If you cannot reach a consensus, you are as bad as Armenians. With one difference: Armenians harm only themselves. You harm all of mankind when you legitimize intolerance, wars, and massacres.”

*

If not tomorrow or in ten years, and if not ten years, than a hundred years from now, a suicidal fanatic will detonate a nuclear device in a major city in the West. I say this to suggest that if World War III starts, it will be in the name of God.

*

And speaking of Armenians: I wonder if they are mentioned in the recent batch of documents released by WikiLeaks. It would be interesting to know what politicians think of us when they don't need our votes.

*

Turkish proverb as quoted by Hitchens in his memoirs: “When the axe came into the woods, many of the trees said: 'At least the handle is one of us.'”

If this is an apology for treason, it must be a translation from the Armenian.

*

I write as I do because I have read Zarian's posthumously published diaries, notebooks, and correspondence and I am not afraid to say publicly things that he dared to say only privately because he had a family to support.

#

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

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DIARY

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The occupation by Israel of Arab lands has become an endless source of controversy in the international media and on discussion forums on the Internet, including our own. By contrast, only Armenians speak of the occupation of Armenian lands by Romans, Persians, Greeks, Arabs, Turks, and Russians, among others. Why this imbalance in media attention? My only explanation: Hatred of Jews runs deeper than affection for Armenians.

*

Affection for Armenians? Why should the world have more of something which Armenians themselves have so very little of it?

Hatred of Jews? Bad choice of words. The politically “correct” word is anti-Zionism.

*

Everything that is evil in us I ascribe to Turks. It's only fair. We were their scapegoats a hundred years ago. They will be ours now for a thousand years.

*

How many absurd dogmas – like say, Papal infallibility – survive for the sake of consistency (which has been described as “the hobgoblin of small minds).

*

Speaking of hobgoblins: Are there any references to condoms in the Scriptures? Once upon a time Christians challenged the Might of the Roman Empire. They are now gibbering about condoms.

*

When the phone rings these days it's more likely to be a telemarketer. Gone are the good old days when senile vodanavorjis wanted me to translate their verse, or chic Bolsheviks tried to convince me that Russians were our big brothers.

#

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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In capitalist countries there are many government programs, organizations, and groups who look after the hungry, the homeless, and the unemployed. Lenin was against all of them because he explained charity does nothing but postpone the revolution.

One can say so much in a single line!

*

Our propaganda tells us we are better than Turks. But I am of the opinion that we are as bad as the rest of mankind, including Turks.

To those who say we can't be as bad as them because we have at no time committed the unspeakable crime of genocide, I say: “Let us not confuse military inferiority with moral superiority.”

*

God is our Father, we are His children, and all men are brothers. Unlike French grammarians, when God makes a rule, He makes them without exceptions.

All men are brothers is a knife that cuts both ways.

To my Turkish brothers who assert the Genocide is a big lie, I say our function is not to recycle state propaganda but to expose the lies of politicians, and to say or suggest that all politicians lie except Turkish politicians is to expose oneself as a dupe whose thinking has not yet emerged from its infantile stage. I am familiar with the type because the world is full of them and because I too believed everything I was told as a child.

#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, December 2, 2010

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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Nationalists are not born but made. Same with fanatics. And what makes them is education -- a euphemism for systematic brainwashing that starts at a very early age.

*

There is a natural tendency in all of us to “stick to our own kind.” There is an equally strong tendency to be intrigued (and attracted) by the strange, the alien, the unknown, and the “other.”

*

If Wittgenstein is right – and I have every reason to think he is – we may have answers to many questions but not to the most important ones. It follows, anyone who claims to have them is either a liar or a dupe who simply repeats what a liar told him.

For more on this subject, see LOGICOMIX: AN EPIC SEARCH FOR TRUTH by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos H. Papadimitriou, Art by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna (New York, 2009) which is less about Wittgenstein and more about Bertrand Russell, who was Wittgenstein's teacher.

LOGICOMIX has been described by critics as “breathtaking,” “a titanic artistic achievement,” “extraordinary,” “daring,” “engaging,” and most important of all, “accessible.”

*

In Antonia Fraser's diary, we read: “In the spring of 1985 Harold Pinter visited Turkey with Arthur Miller on behalf of PEN International, to protest against the imprisonment and torture of intellectuals. Their guide incidentally was a young writer called Orhan Pamuk.”

We further read here that Pinter's play “Mountain Language” was written after “he learnt that the Kurdish language was forbidden, even among Kurds themselves.”

To my Turkish friends who have written a thousand lines to prove that the Armenian genocide is a fiction of our imagination, I ask: “Have you ever written a single line against torture?”

#

Friday, December 3, 2010

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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Heine: “Whenever books are burnt, men, also in the end are burned!”

And whenever writers are silenced, tongues are also cut out.

The question we should ask is not “Where does Ottomanism end and Armenianism begin,” but “When will Ottomanism end?”

*

The ideal candidate for membership in an Armenian political party is a dupe who has not yet acquired the ability to think for himself.

*

Is the silent majority with me or against me? Neither. You don't have to be a Russell or Wittgenstein to see that you cannot be for or against someone whose existence you don't acknowledge. And when I say “me” I don't mean myself but our dissidents from Khorenatsi to Massikian whose ideas I recycle.

*

A man is shaped by his mistakes. Those who assert infallibility are monsters.

*

I hate to work for money. Hence the choice of my present job. Please note that I say job and not career.

*

While I lived in Athens and Venice it never occurred to me to say I was walking where Socrates and Plato, and Vivaldi, Thomas Mann, and Stravinsky had walked.

*

The disagreement of a single honest man means much more to me than the agreement of a thousand fools and ten thousand dupes.

*

In a dictionary, I read the following definition:

“Party politics: Politics conducted only through the machinery of the party, as against people’s interests generally.”

#

Friday, December 3, 2010

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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Power means first and foremost the power to brainwash.

*

Once upon a time we were brainwashed to believe

what the Pope is to Catholics,

the Sultan and Stalin were to the subjects of their respective empires

and anyone who dared to say otherwise

was declared guilty of a capital offense.

If I have been and continue to be subjected

to verbal abuse by readers

it's not because they disagree with me

but because I disagree with those

who brainwashed them.

Which means, we are the slaves of former slaves

who have brainwashed themselves to believe they are free.

*

Sometimes reality can be

more fantastic than science fiction.

#

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, December 4, 2010

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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Bob Woodward in a recent interview: “I get up in the morning with the question: what are the bastards hiding?”

*

When I run out of things to say, I repeat myself, but not as often as our bosses, bishops, benefactors, and Turcocentric ghazetajis -- especially Turcocentric ghazetajis who, like me, have no choice but to speak about repellent things: Turks, in their cases; our leadership in mine.

*

It is a writer's duty to make sense. Unlike speechifiers, sermonizers, and propagandists, he is not allowed to be irrational.

*

An old Armenian composer once said to me: “I am grateful to all Armenians who refrained from obstructing my path.”

*

To say that I am an unpopular writer is to distort reality. The truth is, in the eyes of those who decide who is and is not popular, I don't even qualify as a writer -- a nuisance and a sh*t-disturber, maybe, but a writer, no!

*

Are we survivors as our propagandists like to tell us? The answer is, only in so far as the brain-dead and the comatose may be said to be alive.

#

Monday, December 5, 2010

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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With Russian military support, Iranian friendship, and American dollars, we are now masters of our own house. We never had it so good. So what if our best and brightest emigrate? So what if we don't have popular support? What matters is that we are no longer “tshvar, ander” but “azad, angakh!”

*

Once upon a time Turks were subjects of the Sultan. They are now children of Atatürk. They didn't lose an empire, they gained a papa.

*

The only thing our benefactors know about literature is that all writers are beggars.

*

When it comes to writers, what our leadership wants is not their ideas but their cojones surgically removed and presented to them on a platter; and the astonishing part is that most writers don't mind singing soprano.

*

Some of my Turkish friends think because I am critical of Armenians I must be anti-Armenian and pro-Turkish. It doesn't even occur to them to think that I may be against lies, intolerance, and corruption regardless of nationality.

#

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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Think of ideas – all ideas – as experiments,

because if you don't,

you may end up as a Catholic, a Bolshevik,

or even a suicidal Muslim terrorist.

That's what happens to people

who take what they think or believe seriously

with no margin of error, no humor, no doubt,

no objectivity...and no sense.

Claude Levi-Strauss may well be closer to the truth

when he says, there is no difference

between a primitive jungle tribe

that trusts its witch doctor

and a so-called 21st-century industrialized, civilized,

and progressive society

that takes its popes, imams, and rabbis seriously.

What matters about a man

is not what he thinks or believes

but what he questions and doubts –

beginning with his own religion.

Not “I think therefore I am,”

but “I doubt therefore I am a human being.”

#

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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Where there is freedom of speech there will also be freedom to recycle lies and propaganda – in other words, fascism without fascists.

*

As power increases the number of brain cells decreases: there is an algebraic equation to prove this fact but those in power have been against its publication – for obvious reasons.

*

For everyone who knows what he is talking about there are at least ten (some say ten thousand) who don't.

*

I know what I write makes a deep impression when old friends become new enemies.

*

Harold Pinter: “Life is beautiful but the world is Hell.”

*

Rumor has it that writers, and artists in general, are unreliable and solitary eccentrics, unlike political and military leaders who oppress, exploit, deceive, lie, declare wars and commit massacres. In an abnormal world the normal is seen as an aberration.

#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, December 9, 2010

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SELF-RELIANCE

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In our environment money is used to stifle dissent and to subsidize propaganda. Truth is out.

Lies are in.

Flattery, yes.

Objective assessment, no!

Even worse: money is used to divide the intellectual class.

Brown-nosers are in.

Critics, let them eat cak (sic)!

We now have a generation of opportunistic careerists and cowards who calculate every word they speak. Will a wrong word or a misplaced comma offend anyone who may be in a position to advance my career?

In the words of an academic: “My family comes first.”

*

In this morning's paper I read: “A clown, a priest, an academic, and a convicted pedophile were among 25 Canadians arrested...”

My first thought: they arrest theirs, we promote ours.

Hence my loathing of benefucktors.

*

Remember: the men at the top don't always know better.

Respecting your elders does not mean ignoring the dictates of your own brain and its ability to tell right from wrong.

*

Do we have a word for self-reliance?

I am not sure. If we do, we seldom or never use it.

*

I agree with the wise man who said that we should treat our enemies as if they were destined to be future friends.

The reason I ignore this piece of excellence advice is that

I have acquired too many enemies and I don't have much of a future left.

#

Friday, December 10, 2010

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QUESTIONS I HAVE BEEN ASKED

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Why do you write?

I write because that's my way of thanking all those writers I have read, enjoyed, and learned from.

Why do you write more about Armenian blunders and less about Turkish criminal conduct?

I write less about Turks because I don't want to muscle in the territory of our Turcocentric ghazetajis who make a comfortable living by writing about nothing else.

Are you anti-Armenian?

I am against idiots who pretend to be smart regardless of nationality.

Are you pro-Turkish?

I prefer an honest Turk to a dishonest Armenian. If that makes me pro-Turkish I am more than willing to plead guilty as charged.

You write about our divisions as if that were a capital offense. But isn't it true that there are divisions everywhere, including America?

America is a big country with many small divisions. We are a small country with many big divisions all of which have an incomprehensible origin buried in the distant past.

Are you an atheist?

On that subject I have more questions than answers. Does that make me an atheist?

You are more critical of Armenians than Turks. Why?

Turks have critics of their own, including one who is a Nobel Prize winner.

You have said you have more enemies than friends. Does that bother you?

Of course it does. But I have come to terms with that reality and with the fact that when I die the celebrants will outnumber the mourners.

You have said on more than one occasion that we are not smart. Do you really mean that?

What I have said is that we have many smart Oriental carpet dealers but idiots for leaders.

Don't we have a rich culture?

What we have is a culture of intolerance. We have consistently rejected our ablest intellects. We have created an environment in which creativity and originality cannot survive let alone develop.

Don't you ever get tired of writing as you do?

I get more tired of listening to lies.

#

Saturday, December 11, 2010

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FILTH

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On the subject of our commissars, I once had the following exchange with one of our vodanavorjis:

“What makes you think he is a man we can trust?” I wanted to know.

“I once heard him say that poets are engineers of the soul,” she replied.

“He didn't say that.”

“He said it to me.”

“I meant, Stalin said that. Our commissar was quoting him.”

And I remembered the following lines from Zarian's TRAVELLER AND HIS ROAD:

“They are spitting on Raffi. They are spitting on Aharonian. They are spitting on Derian. And that with the borrowed spittle of Muscovite masters. Even their filth is second hand. Even their trash has not been picked up from our own streets. Danger, danger, danger!”

#

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, December 12, 2010

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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When Socrates was mentioned in a discussion, a Soviet agent is reported to have said: “I regret to say, I am not acquainted with the gentleman.”

*

Brainwash a decent man to believe that the fellow on the other side of an imaginary line, who may well be as decent as he, is a mortal enemy, and he will turn into a killer. Unlike Dr. Jekyll, you don't have to drink a potion to turn into Mr. Hyde. All you have to do is expose yourself to state propaganda.

*

Some day, when mankind is civilized, there will be a law that says, brainwashing children (sometimes also identified as education) is a crime against humanity.

*

To confuse ideology with theology: that’s another function of brainwashing. Theology legitimizes and promotes intolerance and hatred in the name of God or Truth. Odium theologicum is a well-known Latin expression that means: “The bitter hatred of rival theologians. There are no wars so sanguinary as holy wars, no persecution so relentless as religious persecution, no hatred so bitter as theological hatred.” (BREWER’S DICTIONARY OF PHRASE & FABLE, 16th edition, revised by Adrian Room, London: Cassell, 1999, page 841.)

*

Perhaps I should warn my readers that I don't write as a writer, or as an Armenian, or for that matter, as that most contemptible of all beings: an Armenian writer.

Once upon a time I did write as an Armenian writer -- a nightmarish experience I wouldn't wish on a Turk. I write instead as a human being who happens to be an Armenian – an identity imposed on me by circumstances beyond my control.

#

Monday, December 13, 2010

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WORDS

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In his CRIME AND PUNISHMENT Dostoevsky quotes a long letter – a polite and courteous letter – and tears it to shreds by exposing the venom that is hidden between the lines.

Reading between the lines is an art.

Diplomacy sometimes consists in saying the opposite of what one means or thinks.

*

A study of TV commercials has found that 95% of them are either false or misleading.

*

The Chinese don't have a word for “no” -- “perhaps” is as far as they will go – neither do they have a word for “husband.” When a Chinese woman wants to say “my husband,” she says “my good for nothing.”

True or false?

I don't know. I am only paraphrasing what I remember to have read somewhere.

*

Writes Saroyan's wife in her memoirs: “When I say la, you must understand lalabloo.”

*

One reason I am thought of as anti-Armenian or even pro-Turkish is that when I say chick I don't mean chickpeas.

I mean what I say because I speak only for myself.

I represent no one and I work for no one.

I can't be fired or demoted.

And I can afford a paycut in my salary because I work for nothing.

#

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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If you have the power and the money,

you can go on with the deception indefinitely.

That's the only way to explain the continued existence

of rabbis, imams, and popes.

*

Faith can remove only those mountains

that were raised by our own fears, ignorance, and prejudices.

*

Identity is revealed not only in what we say,

but also in what we choose not to say.

To the discerning ear

silence can speak louder than a thousand speeches

delivered by a thousand stentorian speechifiers.

*

The ambition of every Armenian dunghill is to be Mt. Ararat.

*

The torch of truth burns many asses.

*

From nature’s point of view,

chastity is a far more dangerous sexual perversion

than all the others put together.

#

Wednesday, December15, 2010

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WHAT I BELIEVE

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The aim of civilization is to civilize,

and the aim of religion is to make you a better person.

That's the positive view of reality.

To have a more balanced view however,

it is necessary to see the negative in the positive,

and vice versa.

Or to separate propaganda from fact.

*

Civilization is a jungle and religion has ruined many lives,

and i don't mean just the lives of heretics, infidels, and victims of religious wars (one of which lasted a hundred years), I mean...: see below.

*

If you are weak or defenseless,

you will be victimized by the strong (our history in a nutshell).

If you are young, you will be brainwashed by the old.

If you are innocent and inexperienced, you will be duped by the cunning.

If you are poor, you will be exploited by the rich.

And there will always be a rabbi, bishop, or imam

who will legitimize these aberrations in the name of the Almighty.

*

Benefactors and I share one important thing in common: generosity.

They are generous with money,

I am generous with unsolicited advice –

a kibitzer who doesn't know when to shut up.

*

“A man with an idea is my enemy,” said Napoleon.

A man with a thousand ideas must be a nightmare

to anyone with a Napoleonic complex.

*

I repeat myself because my aim is less to explain and educate

and more to deprogram the brainwashed.

*

A decent man will never murder another decent man.

But brainwash him to believe the other is his mortal enemy

and you will have a cold-blooded killer in your hands.

That's politics for you.

*

In our environment, selfless intellectual labor is so unpopular

that it might as well be some kind of self-inflicted insanity.

That may explain why I am a majority of one.

#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, December 16, 2010

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PHILOSOPHY

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Our problem is not that we don't have the right answers,

but that, according Martin Heidegger, we don't even have the right questions.

What about Greek philosophy beginning with Socrates?

According to Plato, Socrates was better at asking questions

than at answering them;

and the most important questions he asked

remain unanswered to this day.

*

The real scandal is not that we don't yet have the right questions

but that so far we (including Heidegger himself who was a Nazi)

have been dependent on the answers of idiots.

*

Some of the best brains of the 20th century --

among them Russell, Whitehead, and Wittgenstein --

attempted to establish the rules of logic

but they failed to reach a consensus.

Assuming they will reach a consensus in fifty or a hundred years:

what are the chances that the world will abide by them?

*

If there can be one god,

why not a thousand gods? --

unless of course god is a fascist

whose most important number is One?

*

A fascist god is the only logical explanation

as to why so far mankind has been ruled

by so many bloodthirsty tyrants.

*

If god is a fascist, an atheist may be said to be

a member of the democratic opposition.

*

Nothing can be as dangerous as sanity in an insane world,

or honesty in a world run by swine.

#

Friday, December 17, 2010

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TRANSLATION

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THE MAN WHO RAN AWAY FROM THE KING

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

BY AVEDIK ISSAHAKIAN

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

Once upon a time

A mighty king

Decided to see his realm

To visit and inspect

Every town and village.

Orders then he issued

And with him arose

A retinue of servants,

Soldiers, carriages, and horses.

*

Days later

As the crowds roared

And as His Royal Majesty

Made a triumphal entry

Through the gate

Of a distant town

A humble townsman

Made a sudden exit

From another gate

And he ran and he ran

Like a hunted beast he ran

Through forests and valleys

Through dark and uncharted regions.

*

“Hold it right there!”

Cried out a stranger

Standing in his path.

“What's the rush, tell me.

Is it the law you are trying to evade?

Are you a bandit perchance

Or maybe a cold-blooded killer?"

“I am innocent, I swear,”

Said the townsman,

“What bread I have eaten

I have earned with my own sweat.

I beg you, let me explain

Why I am running so.

His Majesty the King, you see,

Is visiting my town.

Now then, please understand,

What I am about to say.

His Royal Highness,

As everyone knows,

Is a man of great might

But his brains, alas

Is that of a child.

I have heard it said

That the further away

From such a king you are

The better off you are.”

*

After hearing this

The stranger let him pass.

And the townsman

Took to his heels once more

And he ran and he ran

Like a hunted beast he ran

Through forests and valleys

Through dark and uncharted regions.

(1935)

#

Friday, December 17, 2010

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SCENARIO

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

Before we were born, we were only inanimate scattered atoms. After we die, we will revert to our previous state, before we are born again and so on until the solar system burns itself out, the cosmos collapses, and is followed by another Big Bang.

*

In an infinite number of cycles there is always a remote possibility that there will be another Socrates, another Napoleon, another American Revolution, and another you. To ask whether this is good or bad is like asking is reality good or bad?

*

Life is a process in which the living organism sheds atoms with every breath it takes. So that the cycle or process I described above, also sometimes referred to as reincarnation, happens even when we are alive. The atoms we shed do not vanish but are constantly reassembled into other living organisms. The world as we know it is itself a living organism that constantly dies and is resurrected. The atoms we have shed are already in the living creatures around us, including the birds that migrate to distant continents. Parts of you now live in a South-American rain forest, an African jungle, and a Siberian river or lake.

*

What is the role of God in all his?

So far I have been dealing with scientifically verifiable facts. All questions dealing with God must be referred to metaphysicians or theologians which is a discipline I am not qualified to speak about, except to say that when two theologians disagree or contradict one another – and they almost always do – it is safer to dismiss both as charlatans.

#

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, December 19, 2010

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DEGENERATION

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Science tells us “most evolutionary change has been degenerative” (J.B.S. Haldane), and “natural selection does not guarantee progress” (Julian Huxley).

It follows, survival in itself is meaningless and may even be a liability and a visible as well as unmistakable symptom of moral degeneration.

*

Armenian psychology has evolved not in freedom but in subservience, which means, more cunning and less intelligence, more greed for material possessions and less interest in spiritual attainments. Hence our contempt for selfless intellectual labor, which is shared even by our intellectual class -- that is, our academics.

*

The hungry man thinks of food, the sexually starved man of women, the poor of luxuries, and the slave of freedom -- but only after he has satisfied his primary needs, that is, food and sex, by which time he may have acquired the burden of providing for a family and keeping up with the Joneses.

*

Like most oppressed people, the Armenian tends to see freedom as the freedom to oppress. Which is why Stalin was a more ruthless tyrant than Ivan the Terrible; the French Revolutionaries were more bloodthirsty than kings, and American capitalists chose to see no contradiction between the assertion “All men are created equal,” and slavery.

*

A fund-raiser's assessment of reality: if it can raise funds, it's good; if it can't, it's bad. You may have noticed that fund-raisers are neither vegetarian nor lean, but carnivorous fat slobs. Lean fund-raisers are only the front men. It never pays to underestimate the cunning of degenerates.

#

Monday, December 20, 2010

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DEGENERATION (II)

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When things get from bad to worse and from worse to unbearable, you stay away from them. This is seen as a positive development by those in charge of things on the grounds that one less malcontent means one less potential trouble-maker.

*

Alienate, silence, and eliminate all potential trouble-makers and you end up with a bunch of dupes who will believe anyone who speaks in the name of God or with the blessing of someone who speaks in the name of God.

*

When two men speak in the name of God and they contradict each other, it's not because one of them is right and the other wrong but because both are about to do the Devil's work.

*

Remember, some of the worst crimes in the history of mankind (among them our own genocide) were committed in the name of God.

*

Belief systems are a dime a dozen and dupes are without number.

*

Dupes are not born but made and what makes them is a compulsory educational system.

*

Being a dupe is an addiction acquired at a very early age and as such difficult to kick.

*

In a world where everyone is brought up to believe his is the only true God, either there are no false Gods or there are no Gods.

*

Belief systems exist because there are deceivers and there are dupes. Now then, go ahead and say, my belief system is better than yours because my God is the only true God, my religious leaders are not deceivers, and I am not a dupe.

#

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

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CHOPPED LIVER

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

Throughout our long history we have fought and died by the thousand and by the million in the armies of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, and more recently of the Soviet Union.

During World War II Armenians fought and died on both sides of the conflict.

In the 20th century alone Armenians have fought and died in Spain, France, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan (with both the Soviets and the Yanks).

But when during World War I we were being massacred by the thousand and the million, no one lifted a finger to help us; and to this day some of the very same people in whose service we fought and died are unwilling to use the G word because it would be against the interests of Turks who are allies – unlike us, whose status apparently does not even rise above that of chopped liver.

That, my friends, is what it means to be weak.

And as if our weakness weren't enough of a burden and a curse, our leaders in their wisdom continue to divide us even as they speechify and sermonize on self-sacrifice, patriotism and solidarity.

How to explain these inconsistencies, paradoxes, contradictions, and oxymorons?

Many years ago, in the ghetto, I had a friend who used to brag about the fact that his father knew more Turkish swearwords than anyone else. When really angry, my friend said, his father would go on cursing forever and it was like music to the ears (my friend took violin lessons).

In one of his Prefaces G.B. Shaw speaks of a similar virtuoso, who it seems, one day lost everything he owned in an accident, and all he could say was: “I cannot do justice to this situation.”

Neither can I.

#

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

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

CHOPPED LIVER (II)

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

It is a fruitless undertaking and a complete waste of time to argue with someone who has programmed himself to disagree with you.

A man who has brainwashed himself cannot be deprogrammed.

*

Religion has been a source of comfort and joy to many?

Yes, of course – but not to the countless victims, including those who were massacred in the name of Allah.

*

I am sure Germans felt more than just comfortable in the belief that they belonged to a superior race. In the same way that Jews, Christians, and Muslims feel comfortable in the knowledge that theirs is the only True God and anyone who says otherwise is an infidel.

*

A belief system in itself and in isolation is harmless, of course. It becomes an instrument of the Devil only when it is organized and its leadership falls into the hands of arrogant, ambitious, and intolerant leaders.

*

Readers who are not satisfied with my arguments, urge me to reply to specific questions and to expand on others.

But everything I write is either a reply or an elaboration of a previous point.

As for answering all questions:

I cannot do that.

I don't have all the answers.

No one does – no one that is, except imams, popes, and rabbis, and if you believe them, you will believe anything, including the Big Lie that you know better on the grounds that your imam, bishop, or rabbi said so.

#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, December 23, 2010

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

Yanks speak of the American Dream.

We don't speak of the Armenian Dream

because we don't have one.

What we have in great abundance instead is nightmares.

*

Acknowledging blunders makes one humble, cautious, and wise.

Refusing to acknowledge them makes one arrogant, self-righteous, and stupid.

*

Whenever I see an anonymous insult

in a discussion forum on the Internet

I think he must be a bishop or the son of a bi-

shop.

*

The greatest misfortune that can befall a writer

is being born an Armenian.

The only benefit: no matter how many lies you expose,

you will never run out of them.

*

Emigration, alienation, assimilation, assassination:

they too are expressions of dissent.

*

Puzant Granian: “We have many national benefactors

but not a single national writer.”

*

Anonymous: “In his own home a mouse is a lion.”

*

Anonymous: “Patience is a tough tree that bears sweet fruit.”

*

Vahram Papazian: “The greater your worth

the greater the pleasure of the worthless to tear you down.”

#

Friday, December 24, 2010

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

HUMBUG

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

The closer to the truth I get,

the more enemies I make.

*

For most of my life I thought my function as a writer was to inspire pride in my readers – even as I was degraded, insulted, lied to, and forced to flatter the colossal egos of megalomaniacal nonentities.

But then I saw the light and was born again as a human being,

after which things got from bad to worse.

There are no happy endings in Armenian literature.

If it's not TB, it's Turks;

if it's not Turks, it's commissars;

and if its not commissars

it's our own Ottomanized and Sovietized partisans and panchoonies.

*

I don't write to be controversial.

I write as a human being for readers who have shed their status as dehumanized dupes.

*

Here on earth money may perform miracles,

but in hell it can't even buy an ice cube.

*

Is there life after death?

The answer to that question is so valuable that its price is death.

#

[arabaliozian]

Friday, December 25, 2010

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

HUMBUG (II)

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

One of the professed aims of all believers is to make the world a better place, but they succeed only in butchering one another. You may have an explanation for this, but I don't.

*

May I state here and now and once and for all that I too am a believer, and I believe in the Unknowable and the Incomprehensible, and categorically reject anyone and everyone who says he speaks in the name of a comprehensible and knowable God.

*

We are told to judge a tree by its fruit. If we judge the Book by the number of innocent men and women it has victimized, we shall have to conclude that it is a tree not of knowledge and understanding but of prejudice, ignorance, intolerance, cruelty, exploitation, deception, and crimes against humanity.

*

And now from the sublime to the ridiculous: in all my life as a working stiff I have received four paychecks that have bounced and all four were from Armenian editors and publishers – that is to say, by the very same individuals who shape perceptions of reality.

This is either a meaningless coincidence or one pregnant with meaning. If the second, we have two choices: to cover up or to deny the reality of this meaning or to confront it.

I am all for confronting it.

*

Denialism is an aberration that consists in rejecting the reality of verifiable facts in the name of patriotism. It follows, both Armenian and Turkish denialism spring from the same source: namely, Ottomanism. Or as Nixon once put it: “When the President does it, it's not illegal.”

*

Once upon a time there was a mighty Persian king who hated the Greeks so much that he ordered one of his servants to say “Remember the Greeks” with every meal he served.

I see myself as that servant who with everything he writes he says, “Remember our crooks.”

*

I have seen the light and it is pitch-black darkness.

*

Roald Dahl's famous last words, “Ow, F*ck!”

#

Sunday, December 26, 2010

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

If you want to understand your fellow men,

their belief systems or religions is as good a starting point as any.

To begin with, there are “the people of the Book”

(meaning the Old Testament)

who identify themselves (in chronological order)

as Jews, Christians, and Muslims,

and who say they believe in the same God

but call one another infidels and heretics.

And then there are Buddhists who consider

all talk of God, messiahs, and prophets as so much stuff and nonsense.

If you can reconcile these inconsistencies and contradictions

you may – repeat, may – begin to understand your fellow men;

or more reasonably, to conclude that

trying to understand them is a waste of time.

#

Monday, December 27, 2010

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

We speak and behave as if we had nothing to do with our misfortunes, whereas I think we had everything to do with them.

*

When theory meets reality, one of them is bound to lose, and it's never reality.

*

When I committed my greatest blunders, it didn't even occur to me to think that I may be doing the wrong thing.

*

We are not what we pretend to be; we may even be the exact opposite.

*

The negative should be covered up? That would be like treating a disease by ignoring its symptoms.

*

Just because our chains are invisible it doesn't mean they don't exist.

*

To be an Armenian means to be the citizen of an alien empire. Fifteen centuries ago we could speak of Armenian identity and culture. Today we can only speak of a culture that has been thoroughly bastardized by alien influences – among them Ottoman, Soviet, and American.

*

There is more merit in being a humble human being than a proud Armenian. He who speaks of pride deals in lies.

*

An Armenian is more interested in settling scores than in discussing issues.

*

We pretend to understand others better than we understand ourselves.

#

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

No one is immune to deception.

If smart men with the best education money can buy

and at the top of their game can be taken in

by the likes of Wall Street CEOs and Madoff,

who dares to assert immunity?

*

Trust a man if you must

but only if he speaks against his own interests and is dirt poor.

*

Philosophy after Plato,

music after Bach,

art after Leonardo:

what I see is not progress but degeneration.

Contemporary art is to me as phony as Madoff.

*

Turks are convinced they have been

misunderstood, misrepresented and maligned by the infidel West.

The Armenian genocide explains nothing because

to begin with it never happened.

What really happened was that

troublemakers within the Empire

(among them Armenians) started it

by assassinating Turks

and raping and massacring innocent Turkish civilians.

Everything that followed is now shrouded in the fog of war.

All talk of genocide is therefore politically motivated,

and politics is a filthy business

with one notable exception: Kemal.

*

To the overwhelming majority of well-educated and smart Turks,

Kemal is a combination of Washington, Lincoln, and Mahatma Gandhi.

#

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

What keeps me going is propaganda.

I am like the plumber whose business card said:

“Your sh*t is my bread and butter.”

*

There are so many contradictory belief systems

that the first line of every credo should read:

“I believe in lies.”

*

My definition of lie:

“Any verbal expression that legitimizes intolerance

and ultimately war and massacre.”

*

No one has ever heard of a society

that has survived and prospered

because its leadership silenced dissenting voices.

*

Me a pessimist? No way!

It takes a large amount of foolish optimism

and colossal arrogance to aim at success

when far better men than myself have failed.

*

My greatest achievement so far:

I have survived fifty Canadian winters.

#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, December 30, 2010

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

What have we learned from our Soviet experience and the Genocide?

As far as I can see, nothing.

When it comes to free speech, our revolutionaries in the Diaspora are as intolerant as our commissars in the Homeland.

In their eyes silencing dissent is not a crime, dissent is.

They'd rather be wrong their way than right in someone else's.

All they care about is maintaining and whenever possible increasing their power even if it means hoodwinking, bamboozling, flimflamming, and brainwashing innocent civilians and their defenseless children.

In their thinking (or unthinking) when truth (that is, their ideology) speaks, lies should be silenced, in the same way that when the wise (that is, the boss) speaks, fools should hold their tongue.

*

“From the crucifixion of Christ to the excommunication of Spinoza: what have you learned from history?” I once asked my old friend, the rabbi.

His reply:

“Who are you to tell us how to deal with our criminals?”

Spoken like a true commissar and a revolutionary.

#

Friday, December 31, 2010

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

To those who hunger for solutions to our problems,

may I remind them that

great reformers like Jesus, Mohammad, and Marx,

who provided solutions to mankind's problems

and changed the world,

did not always change it for the better.

*

If the Kingdom of God is within us,

so are the solutions to all our problems.

*

The blame-game is not a solution,

neither is lamentation –

and that's what Turcocentrism is --

endless and fruitless talk of Turks and massacres.

*

Turcocentrism is the absence of all ideas

and the denial of all solutions.

In that sense it is more pathology than ideology –

a pathology that says we are beyond criticism

and free speech is our only enemy

(which happens to be the official Turkish line too).

*

I suggest we don't need reformers.

What we really need is a good look at ourselves in the mirror.

*

It takes great courage to see ourselves as we are.

*

Speaking of solutions:

Talaat and Atatürk, and before them Sultan Abdulhamid II,

had one for the Turks.

So did Hitler for the Germans.

#

[arabaliozian]

Saturday, January 1, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

We search for meaning in a meaningless world

and when we can't find it, we invent it

driven by the same urge that a drowning man

is said to cling to a serpent.

*

Life is made unbearable by ignoramuses

who make a comfortable living

by pretending to know better.

*

For every economist who says one thing

there will be another who says the exact opposite.

*

Mankind has always been at the mercy of a majority of dupes

and a minority of flim-flam artists

whose number one concern is number one.

*

No one has ever seen the mind of God

or the soul of man but theologians and psychologists

pretend to understand and explain both.

*

Socrates and Jesus did not write a single line

but ten thousand books have been written about them.

*

Logicians don't agree on the rules of logic

and philosophers can't explain why things exist.

*

Dupes of the world unite,

the light you pretend to have seen

is only the mirage of a black hat in a dark room.

#

Sunday, January 2, 2011

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

MEMOS TO OUR WRITERS

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

MEMO I:

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

If you are paid by the line,

resist the temptation of being long-winded.

*

MEMO II:

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

If you deal in propaganda,

be honest enough not to pretend to believe everything you say.

*

MEMO III:

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

If you are a Turcocentric ghazetaji

or a member of the Genocide mafia

(i.e. academics whose field is massacres)

it would enhance your credibility if once or twice a year

you were to admit that not all Turks are bloodthirsty savages

and not all Armenians are civilized.

*

MEMO IV:

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

If you are a brown-noser

have the decency not to say it smells like roses.

#

Monday, January 3, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

ON REWRITING HISTORY

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

We rewrite history for a number of reasosns, among them:

to cover up blunders;

to misrepresent military defeats as moral victories;

to prepare the nation for another war;

to play the favorite sport of nationalist historians

and their dupes – namely, the blame-game.

To project a better image of ourselves,

and since none of us is perfect,

we can all use some cosmetic surgery.

*

JUDGING MEN

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

If we judge men not by their words but by their actions,

how do we judge men like, say, our activists,

who do nothing but speechify and raise funds?

*

SCAPEGOATS

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

Turks believe Kurds to be disguised Armenians

in the same way that Egyptians today

believe recent shark attack in the Red Sea

are the actions of Mossad agents

disguised as man-eating sharks.

Even as we say and repeat all men are brothers,

we fabricate ten thousand lies, fallacies, and misconceptions

to prove that most men are our enemies,

including our own brothers.

*

UNSPOKEN AMBITION

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

The secret ambition of all rulers

is to have subjects who are such simpletons that

they will believe everything they are told.

To our bosses, bishops, and benefactors,

a thinking Armenian might as well be as dangerous

as a bloodthirsty Turk with a yataghan

let loose in a crowd of unarmed giaours.

*

THE CONSTITUTION

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

In America even criminals use the Constitution to their advantage.

Is that option available to the innocent in Armenia?

More questions:

Do we have a constitution?

And if we do, how much of it is empty verbiage –

is it 99% or 98%?

#

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

The world as we know it

and the life as we experience it

cannot be the beginning and end of all things.

What makes me say that is neither faith nor logic

but wishful thinking.

A gloomy view of life and death?

Maybe, but also the only one I can entertain

without running the risk of making a damn fool of myself.

*

The two theological assertions that make sense to me are:

“Of the gods we know nothing” (Socrates) and

“The kingdom of God is within you” (Jesus).

*

Ten thousand speeches and ten thousand sermons

delivered by the greatest speechifiers and sermonizers of all time

are not worth a single statement by an honest man.

*

How to recognize an honest man?

Both Socrates and Jesus were dirt poor

and were condemned to death by bullies

parading as political and religious leaders.

*

And now from the sublime to the ridiculous:

“Our political parties have been of no political use to us.

Their greatest enemy is free speech” (Zarian).

That to me is the only assertion worth making about Armenians.

The rest is propaganda.

#

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

For a thousand years we dreamt of freedom;

and now that we are free,

we have succeeded only in turning a blessing to a curse.

And this is especially true of the Diaspora.

*

By emphasizing one aspect of an occurrence and ignoring another,

one can speak the truth and lie at the same time.

*

Loyalty for the powerful by the powerless

is the foundation of fascism.

*

Under fascism free speech is defined

as the right to recycle propaganda.

*

Patriotism does not mean supporting the leadership

or being subservient to it.

It is this very misconception that is at the root of all massacres.

*

Fascism may be abolished but fascists live.

*

Marxism in a nutshell:

There is a slave in all of us.

The capitalist is a slave to his capital

as the exploited or unemployed worker is to his poverty.

And both are slaves to dead matter.

*

If there is a God and He is Almighty,

I can't imagine Him to be cruel.

And yet, look at history.

God may be incomprehensible but history is not.

*

When I read a bad writer

I can't help thinking that either his prose is unreadable

or I suffered a stroke in my sleep.

#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, January 6, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

In a recent issue of LE POINT (Paris: December 2, 2010) I read that Mario Monicelli, one of my favoried Italian directors, has committed suicide (“by defenestration from a hospital window”) at the age of 95.

*

In the same issue there is talk of a contemporary Syrian poetess by the name of Maram al-Masri who has translated into French (from the Arabic) a collection of her own verse titled SOULS WITH NAKED FEET. She is identified as a social worker in the suburbs of Paris and her poems are said to be testimonies of “abused, insulted, raped, sequestered, and abandoned women.”

I have retranslated from the French two samples of her poems.

*

First marriage at 16.

Eight children at 27.

First divorce at 30.

*

Why does my dad

beat my mom?

She doesn't know

how to iron shirts.

When I grow up

I will know

how to iron shirts.

*

I wish we had more poets like al-Masri as opposed to the kind of vodanavorjis who produced Bolshevik-chauvinist inspired nonsense that earned Sylva Kaputikian her Stalin Prize, or the hermetic verbiage by the likes of Krikor Beledian and Garo Armenian.

*

“The demonization of Israel – will it ever end?” writes Bernard-Henri Levy in a commentary in the same issue. Jews, he writes, are the only people in the history of mankind who have known nothing but totalitarian and tyrannical regimes but who have freely chosen a democratic form of government from the very beginning.

#

Friday, January 7, 2011

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

ON FAITH AND RELATED ATROCITIES

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

Certainties driven by faith are illusions (a euphemism for lies).

*

It should be a crime punishable by law to say or imply,

my imam is a man of God,

but your pope is a baloney artist, or vice versa.

*

Plato believed in the existence of universal ideas.

Aristotle, who was his student, did not.

Schopenhauer believed Hegel to be

one of the greatest charlatans that ever lived.

Marx (who changed the political map of the world) was a Hegelian.

This may suggest, charlatans enjoy a greater degree of credibility

than honest men.

*

It is safe to assume that whenever a man begins a sentence with the words

“I believe,” he either deceives himself or is about to deceive others.

*

Othello believed Desdemona to have been unfaithful to him.

Result: after murdering her, he committed suicide.

More recently, our own revolutionaries believed

the Great Powers of the West would never allow the Ottoman authorities to massacre unarmed Armenian civilians.

So much so that at one point they even challenged the Sultan to massacre.

How could they have thought to be 100% right

when they were in fact 100% wrong?

One way to answer that question is to say that

they were blinded by faith or rather by their own b.s.

I also suspect they were not and could not have been 100% sure

because they had a Plan B for themselves.

Which may suggest that even when deceivers believe in their own lies,

there is always a residue of unspoken doubt in them.

Hence the old sayings “Idol-makers do not believe in idols,”

and “Even the Pope doubts his faith seven times a day.”

*

For many centuries millions of people believed kings ruled by the grace of God.

Man, we are told, has created and believed in ten thousand gods.

In a historic context, faith cannot be said to have been an asset to mankind

but the most misleading and dangerous liability.

*

We should teach ourselves to say,

“Because I believe it, it cannot be true.”

*

Instead of saying what I believe is true,

and what you believe is a lie,

we should teach ourselves to say,

“We are both dupes at the mercy of deceivers

who are themselves dupes

of their own illusions, arrogance, stupidity, and greed for power.”

*

We should teach ourselves to say,

“I believe that I believe but I don't believe” (Sartre),

and “The function of philosophy is to introduce doubt

where there are only certainties” (Bertrand Russell).

*

Finally, if you say “If all belief systems are wrong,

so must be your own unbelief.”

To which I can only reply:

“Like fire and water, faith is a good servant but a bad master.”

#

Friday, January 7, 2011

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

QUESTIONS I ASK MYSELF

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

You have been writing for three decades now:

what have you accomplished?

Nothing.

Why go on then?

In the name of consistency.

The era of messiahs may be over

but they go on waiting, why?

In the name of consistency rather than hope.

Why do you keep writing about Armenians?

I don't write about Armenians,

I write against myself and dupes in general –

the world is full of them.

As I see it, our choice is between being objective about ourselves

or being exterminated by either “red” or “white”massacre

(that is, alienation and assimilation).

*

ARMENIAN QUOTATIONS

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

Anonymous: “A clear conscience is a soft pillow.”

*

Vahram Papazian: “To be indifferent to crime is to conspire with criminals.”

*

ON THE ARMENIAN IDENTITY

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

The Armenian identity

is an extension of the Armenian experience

and the Armenian experience

is a collective possession

as opposed to an individual acquisition.

None of us is in a position to assert,

“My experience is pure gold, yours counterfeit.”

Every Armenian – from the most assimilated

(who doesn’t even want to identify himself as an Armenian)

to the most dedicated chauvinist –

may be said to be the custodian

of a facet of the Armenian experience and identity.

And some day if and when we are allowed

to cross-examine assimilated Armenians,

we may discover that their alienation was a direct result

of the fact that at one time or another they were seen by

so-called authentic Armenians

as deviations from the norm.

It follows, self-assessed authentic Armenians

may well be at the very root of all our problems –

from dogmatism and intolerance

to tribalism and Ottomanism.

#

[arabaliozian]

Saturday, January 8, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

The shortest book in the world:

HUMAN RIGHTS IN ARMENIAN HISTORY.

*

Pragmatism always asks: What is the practical or cash value of an idea?

If nothing or negative, it may be safely ignored. Hence the official American reluctance to use the G word. The “cash” value of Armenian friendship is less than the value of Turkish loyalty in the Middle East.

*

Armenian academics are quintessential pragmatists. They would never write a single line against God and capital – make it, Capital and god; and when I say god, I mean of course the god of imams and bishops.

*

What if the first thing we say after we die is neither “I was right,” or “I was wrong,” but nothing?

*

We have nothing to fear from God, but everything to fear from men who speak in His name.

*

For a thousand years we were not allowed to shape our destiny. We know now that our so-called declaration of independence changed nothing.

*

Because for more than a thousand years we have been abused by alien tyrannies, we assume abuse and tyranny to be an integral part of the human condition, very much like death and taxes.

*

Whoever said “friends are God's apology for relatives,” knew what he was saying. Whenever I think of my relatives, I look forward to Alzheimer's.

#

Monday, January 10, 2011

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

THINGS THEY DON'T TEACH IN SCHOOLS

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

Real education begins

after you drop out or graduate.

*

God is an absentee landlord.

We remind ourselves of this fact whenever we say

“Our Father, Who art in heaven.”

*

You may not be Samson

and she may not be Delilah

but the only thing

you will get from her for nothing

is a haircut.

*

Gandhi on the British in India:

“A satanic force.”

Churchill on Gandhi:

“A malignant subversive fanatic,”

“a thoroughly evil force,”

and “the most successful humbug.”

*

Even our betters don't always know better,

and sometimes what they pretend to know

may well be worse than ignorance.

#

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

A headline in my morning paper reads:

“Oldest known winery unearthed in Armenia.”

We now have anoither thing to brag about:

we are the offspring of winos.

*

I was brought up to respect my elders and I did,

until I became an elder myself.

*

To speak of God amounts to translating an incomprehensible text

into a non-existent language.

*

To judge a religion by its scriptures

or an ideology by its political platform

is as absurd as judging a man by his intentions

as opposed to his actions.

Religions and ideologies should be judged by their history.

*

Every time a man speaks the truth

he makes a thousand enemies;

that’s because for every bitter truth

there are a thousand sweet lies

and as many dupes who hate to give up their illusions.

#

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

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

I MAY HAVE SAID THIS BEFORE...

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

...But it bears repeating.

*

A revolution in which the revolutionaries survive

but the people perish by the million.

*

A status quo in which the offspring

of the very same revolutionaries

now say to the offspring of the victims:

“We promise to get even with the Turks

provided we have your financial support.”

*

“In politics,” it has been said,

“lies are called promises.”

*

In the Homeland, rule by mafia.

In the Diaspora, rule by fund-raisers.

*

A nation of sheep

deserves wolves as leaders.

*

Our collective IQ is negative.

#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, January 13, 2011

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

ON SUBSERVIENCE

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

Once, a few years ago, when i pointed out to some children what they were doing was dangerous, I heard one of them saying, “You can't tell me what to do, you are not my father.”

What a difference, I thought, between their ways and ours.

I was brought up to respect my elders even when I did not respect them, even when I sensed they were throwing their weight around -- perhaps because I didn't know – I was never taught to see the line that separates respect from subservience.

Respect is earned.

Subservience is imposed by the powerful over the weak, or by bullies over cowards.

*

In the early chapters of memoirs by Jewish celebrities in America mention is invariably made of bullies who insulted, humiliated, and beat them up on the grounds that they were the offspring of Christ-killers.

I spent my childhood in an Armenian ghetto in Greece and I too was beaten up by bullies – not Greek bullies but Armenian bullies.

When I grew up I dismissed and forgot these painful early experiences because I was taught to believe Armenians were civilized, compassionate, and innocent victims of bloodthirsty barbarians. I even wrote a dozen books recycling this propaganda line.

*

I know now that we are not what we pretend to be.

I also know now why Zarian said, “Our political parties have been of no political use to us, their greatest enemy is free speech.”

Free speech is our enemy because it threatens to expose our “betters” as bullies and ourselves as cowards.

The truth is, we have been abused and intimidated into subservience for such a long time by alien bullies that we assume intimidation and subservience to be an integral part of the human condition.

If I have said this before, it bears repeating.

#

Friday, January 14, 2011

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

SEMIRAMIS

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

There was a time when I wrote nothing but fiction.

That's when I worked in factories, department stores,

and insurance companies and came into contact

with a rich variety of characters.

It was at the head office of a large insurance company

that I met and worked with a foul-mouthed young divorcee

who was fond of delivering lines like

“Let me sit in your lap and we'll talk about the first thing that comes up.”

She inspired me to write a novella titled SEMIRAMIS

which was accepted for publication in an American periodical

but never saw the light of day

because the periodical went out of business.

When I sent it to a literary agent in New York,

I received a letter that said in effect:

“The story you have submitted is better suited

for university periodicals with which we don't deal.”

Later when I submitted it to ARARAT,

a literary quarterly published in New York,

the editor rejected it with a single line that stated

“We don't publish pornography.”

All this happened decades ago

and I lost track of my real-life Semiramis.

As for the editor, he died three years ago,

may the Good lord have mercy on his soul.

#

Saturday, January 15, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

A headline in this morning's paper reads:

“Tunisian president flees amid rioting.”

That will never happen in Armenia for two reasons:

old men, women, and children don't riot;

like Turks, the Russians will exterminate the people

before they even consider submitting to their will.

*

A writer conducts a war on three fronts:

against the prejudices of the ignorant and brainwashed masses;

against the diabolical cunning of the competition;

and against the ruthless intolerance of those in power.

*

Any day now I expect a new translation of the Old Testament

to have a footnote identifying the Serpent in the Garden in GENESIS

as a Mossad agent.

*

One of the worst mistakes an Armenian can make

is to confuse Turkish venom with Armenian voki.

*

Men of reason may compromise and reach a consensus.

Reason has at no time played a central role in Armenian affairs.

*

Prejudices are stonewalls erected to obstruct the path of reason.

#

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, January 16, 2011

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

VOODOO

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

Don't believe everything you read in the papers or books -- including holy scriptures. Likewise, don't believe everything you are told by men who pretend to know better including so-called experts because for every expert there will be another who will say the exact opposite.

*

There is patriotism and there is voodoo patriotism.

Voodoo patriotism may be defined as the fallacy that says “My country, right or wrong,” which is not patriotism but fascism, and fascism is not based on political science (an oxymoron if there ever was one) but on voodoo.

*

We wallow in superstitions of all kinds and call it science or faith. That's because mankind has not yet emerged from its primitive state and finds voodoo more accessible and flattering to its powers of comprehension than science, which is based on verifiable facts reached by objective judgment.

*

When two experts in the same field contradict each other and make no effort to compromise and reach a consensus, laymen may be justified in concluding they are both engaged in voodoo.

*

There is a strong element of voodoo in all organized religions.

The epidemic of child-molesting priests is an extension of the superstitious belief that as men of God, clergymen can do no wrong.

*

When capitalists and communists disagree and make no effort to compromise and reach a consensus, it is safe to assume their economic theories are more voodoo than science.

*

All organized religions believe all other religions to be voodoo and they are all right.

*

Our present economic malaise is a result not of real economic theories but of voodoo economics.

*

The objective and irrefutable truth is, imams, popes, and rabbis care more about their own powers and privileges than about God, perhaps because deep down somewhere they know God to be beyond their or anyone else's reach.

#

Monday, January 17, 2011

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

DIARY

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

Reading Thomas Mann's DIARY 1918-1939.

His observations on his fellow Germans could also apply to us.

“The German desire for legend and for myth, which runs counter to truth and counter to intellectual honesty.”

*

“The German spirit wallows in the manure of myth.”

*

“The Germans' hatred of truth.”

*

“We no longer have real history, but only mock semblances and degenerate epilogues, counterfeit history.”

*

“...hatred for common sense and progress.”

*

His comment on C.G. Jung applies to our own academics:

“He is an example of the irresistible tendency of people's thinking to bend itself to the times. He swims with the current. He is intelligent, but not admirable.”

*

“Charming young chaps” are as ubiquitous in Mann's diary as little girls in Nabokov's novels.

#

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

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

More Quotations from

Thomas Mann's DIARY 1918-1939.

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

On Beethoven's MISSA SOLEMNIS:

“Great beauty of the Sanctus; the rest inaccessible.”

*

On Peguy:

“A spiritual forerunner of fascism.”

*

On Christianity:

“An abject and servile religion of the lowly.”

*

On a novel by Sinclair Lewis:

"Too horribly true to life and therefore very powerful.”

*

On Spengler:

“A hyena of history.”

*

On “an ugly anonymous” letter:

“The vile depths to which the world will perhaps descend...”

*

Only one very brief reference to Hegel, and three references to Verdi's REQUIEM (“great music”).

*

ON MIRACLES

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

Ten thousand biblical miracles don't impress me as much as the existence of the universe does.

*

ON GOD

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

Since theologians have so far (after two millennia) failed to reach a consensus,

it is safe to assume that only God is qualified to speak about God.

#

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

There is only one issue about which we are not divided: Turks.

We see them as bloodthirsty barbarians,

they see themselves as avenging angels.

Who is right?

*

Our revolutionaries see themselves as heroes,

Zarian saw them as useless cowards who are afraid of free speech.

What a book one could write on the dangers of self-assessment!

*

If we judge Christians or Muslims by their holy scriptures and sermons,

they stand for love, tolerance and compassion.

And yet, there is more intolerance and hatred in their history.

*

Love and hatred come from a deeper place than commandments and scriptures. One does not have to be a psychoanalyst or a philosopher to see that

“white man speaks with a forked tongue,”

and sermons only “add hypocrisy to our previous list vices” (Bertrand Russell).

#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, January 20, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

Some of the most progressive and civilized democracies in the West

share the same problem in common:

corruption in high places.

But if we are to believe our Turcocentric ghazetajis,

Turks are our only problem – a problem

they think they can solve by barking at them – a solution

that after one hundred years

has not generated a single red cent or a single inch of soil.

*

Insults are my most reliable source of inspiration.

Anger is my favorite muse.

*

Imagine a blind man trying to enlighten an audience with 20/20 vision:

that's what it feels like writing for Armenians.

*

The central concern of our leadership is not to lead

but to shield their fraction of the community from reality.

*

Born and raised as a subservient underdog,

I don't have any sympathy or respect for top dogs or leaders.

To me they are no better than white trash.

Dealing with them is almost like experiencing

what it must have been like living in the USSR and the Ottoman Empire.

*

I've had it with diplomatic double-talk.

Since I have nothing,

what can I possibly lose?

*

More lines from Mann's DIARY:

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

“Read Brecht with increasing distaste.”

*

“Young American men not particularly appealing.”

*

“Impotent hatred must not consume me.”

#

Friday, January 21, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

Where money enters, temptation is sure to follow;

and where there is temptation, sooner or later someone is sure to give in to it;

and when someone gives in, others are sure to follow.

This is as true of financial institution on Wall Street as of the Vatican.

I would like to be part of a movement

in which not only money does not change hands,

but also money-changers are unceremoniously driven out.

*

Claims of uniqueness are suspect

because they are invariably made to advertise assets,

and where assets are advertised, liabilities are sure to be covered up.

*

Never underestimate the ruthless cunning of top dogs.

What makes them who they are is not love of truth

but a propensity to lie and deceive.

*

Intolerance of dissent means tolerance of lies.

*

Where there is no free speech,

speech will contaminated with lies.

Where there is freedom to lie,

there will be no freedom to speak the truth.

*

More lines from Mann's DIARY:

“Some music. Charmed by pieces by Rossini and Chopin.”

“The blindness of these people [Germans] is monstrous.”

“The fifteen or sixteen capitalist arch-villains in the world who call the tune.”

In a 1939 entry: “Einstein visited.”

Not a word on what was said. Was it small talk? Somehow I have trouble imagining Mann and Einstein engaged in nothing but small talk at a time when the world was on the brink of another war.

#

Saturday, January 22, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

How to recognize a killer?

If he speaks like a commissar, he qualifies.

*

How to recognize a Turcocentric ghazetaji?

If he quotes Talaat and Hitler more often than Naregatsi and Hitler,

he is one.

*

Whenever I am accused of negativity, I am tempted to ask:

Are you a fund-raiser?

Do you have political ambitions?

If no, who brainwashed you?

*

Our problem is not (in Donald Rumsfeld's words)

“known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns,”

but “knowns” whose existence we refuse to acknowledge.

*

If Armenia had been an American-style democracy,

immediately after the Genocide there would have been hearings

in search for answers to the question:

What went wrong?

Who miscalculated?

Who, beside Talaat, must be held responsible?

#

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, January 23, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

Speaking of one of our political bosses,

a friend – himself a poet – once said to him:

“He is a good man, a man we can trust.”

“I trust no one in politics,” I said.

“You don't know him as I do.

He loves literature and he respects writers.

He once told me poets are engineers of the soul.”

“He never said that,” I said.

“He said it to me.”

“He was quoting Stalin.”

*

We are a nation whose defenders of the faith

are themselves ignorant infidels.

*

Worth repeating and remembering:

Don't believe everything you read or you are told.

Everyone has an ax to grind – an ax aimed at your neck.

*

Never identify a regime, any regime, or power structure

with the Homeland.

*

Most of our disagreements and controversies

are rooted in two propaganda lines

which we have swallowed hook, line, and sinker.

#

Monday, January 24, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

Nothing comes more naturally to an Armenian bully than to assume, as a superpatriot he speaks in defense of the eternal snows of Mount Ararat.

“All you do is write,” such a specimen once told me.

To which I could only say:

“And what else have you been doing beside pulling your dick?”

I should write a book on the art of making enemies for life.

*

Armenians are smart?

A really smart person does not need to be told he is smart;

and the surest way to flatter the vanity of an imbecile

is to tell him he has the IQ of a genius.

*

“Among ten men nine are sure to be women,” Turks say.

This may explain why they relied on infidel boys

to do their fighting for them.

This may also explain why slaughtering defenseless women, children, and old men came naturally to them.

*

They say “Live and let live, that's my philosophy -- not that's my favorite cliché, platitude, or slogan, but philosophy.

In a democracy everyone is a philosopher.

Not a philomoron but a philosopher.

Nobody ever says “I believe in God, that's my theology,”

or “Smoking causes cancer, that's my oncology.”

*

An Armenian born in Iran and educated in Yerevan

became an instant celebrity last week.

He was in all the papers, on radio, and TV.

He killed a cop for no apparent reason.

#

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

The “I” must be the most irrelevant part of our being.

We are born without it and we lose it when we die.

*

If only popes, imams, and rabbis were honest enough to admit

they don't deal in verifiable facts

but in unverifiable assumptions and theories

all of which may be open to error.

Or, like Socrates, to be modest enough to say,

“Of the gods we know nothing.”

*

As children we are taught to believe obedience to authority is a virtue.

As adults we learn that subservience to scum is an inevitable fact of life

that we challenge at our peril.

*

One positive aspect of computers is that

it makes inaccessible people accessible.

*

An Armenian will demand your agreement (meaning subservience)

even when he contradicts himself.

*

Anonymous: "It is easy to lust for fame,

much harder to achieve greatness."

*

Ideological truths become lies

when they justify violations of human rights,

the first of which is always freedom of speech.

Where there is censorship of ideas

there will be censorship of lives.

Next time you promote censorship,

ask yourself this question:

"Do I really want to legitimize murder

in the name of God and Country?"

#

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

The work of an honest writer

tells the story of a liberation from the tyranny of fear,

the limitations of ignorance,

and the oppression of prejudice.

*

The aim of all propaganda is to legitimize prejudice

by means of such lies as “superior race,”

“the Chosen People,” and closer to home,

“first nation this, first nation that, “ -- lies

whose ultimate aim is to convince dupes

they are in the best of hands

and they never had it so good.

*

Even the most liberal and democratic power structures

will speak the truth only if it is in their own interest.

But since self-interest is a big lie,

and since truth and lies are mutually exclusive concepts,

it follows: even when nations speak the truth, they lie.

Either that or they use one truth to cover up many lies.

*

Where was God before the Big Bang?

The only possible answer:

in a dimension that is beyond

the time-space continuum – such as

the dimension of dreams, music, and mystical visions;

or the realm of Platonic ideas,

“the Kingdom of God” within us,

or the “satori” of Zen Buddhism.

#

[arabaliozian]

ON HISTORY AND HISTORIANS

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

A capitalist version of American history is to be

trusted as much as a communist version of Russian

history. Likewise, since nationalism is also an

ideology, a Turkish version of Turkish history is

as trustworthy as a Greek version of Greek

history, or a Jewish version of Jewish history,

or a Palestinian…and so on and so forth.

*

There are those who maintain the Armenian version

of Armenian history is an exception to this rule.

I am not one of them.

*

But to speak of an Armenian version of history is

a misnomer because we don’t have one but several

– provided we define history not just as what

happened by why.

*

In one version of our history, General Antranik

is represented as a great military leader and a

hero. In another, he is described as a war

criminal. And in the General’s own version,

Armenian political leaders are the real war

criminals who should be crucified because they

must be held partly responsible for the

massacres.

*

Why does the average Turk trust Turkish

historians more than any other? For the same

reason that the average Greek, Jew, Russian,

American, and Armenian trusts his own historians.

*

Historians are motivated not by love of truth,

but, at best, by love of God and Country; and it

is a universally acknowledged fact that, in a

world where gods and geographic boundaries are in

conflict, my god and my geography will be closer

to the truth than my enemy’s.

*

As he is drowning while Smyrna is in flames, a

Greek character in BIRDS WITHOUT WINGS by Louis

de Bernieres, is quoted as saying to an imaginary

audience: “Don’t misunderstand me, it isn’t that

I think Greeks are worse than Turks, what

irritates me is that they think they’re so much

better when really they’re exactly the same.”

Such admissions are made only in works of fiction

written by foreign writers. I was born and raised

in Greece and I now live in a Canadian city with

a substantial Greek community, and I have never

heard a Greek expressing sentiments remotely

similar to these and I doubt if I will live long

enough to hear an Armenian admit that Turks too

are human beings who deserve to live.

*

Whenever a Jewish writer says anything critical

of Jews, he is told: “If Hitler were alive today,

he would enjoy reading you.” And whenever I try

to humanize Turks, I am accused of covering up

the Genocide. It comes with the territory, I

guess -- the territory being an attempt to view

the past without bias.

#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, January 27, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

All our organizations (be they political, cultural, or religious)

have a HUAC (House Un-Armenian Activities Committee)

and a McCarthy of their own whose job it is

to separate the sheep from the goats,

the (brain)washed from the unwashed,

the dupes from those who can think for themselves,

the kind who drop their pants and say thank you

from the kind who for some unfathomable reason of their own

refuse to do so.

*

Dissidents are not born but made,

and what makes them are self-satisfied, power-hungry idiots

who pretend to know better.

One such specimen once promised a goodly sum

if I consented to write portraits of ADL leaders,

to which I could only say,

I didn't know any,

I had never heard of one,

and I wasn't even aware of their existence.

*

Some great men believed in Big Lies

for the same reason that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

of Sherlock Holmes fame believed in ghosts.

*

No job can be as demanding

as a job that any nonentity can perform.

That's because nonentities can be easily replaced

by other nonentities and the world is full of them.

*

Charlie Chan: “Truth, like football – receive many kicks

before reaching goal.”

#

Friday, January 28, 2011

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

ACADEMICS

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

Academics operate in a dog-eat-dog environment.

The competition is stiff.

The unspoken rules and commandments outnumber the spoken ones.

In what follows I have made an attempt

to share my knowledge and understanding

of their character, values, and worldview.

*

Violations of human rights in both the Homeland and Diaspora

is a subject they avoid discussing

because it may question the integrity of individuals

on whose goodwill they depend.

*

Our historians study history

not to learn from it but to hone their skills

of their favorite sports, namely the blame-game.

Their unspoken message is:

(one) there is nothing wrong with us;

(two) we never had it so good;

(three) we are in the best of hands.

*

In a Western-style democracy

some of the most ferocious anti establishment critics

(like Bertrand Russell and Arnold J. Toynbee in England)

were themselves members of the aristocracy.

We don't have an aristocracy.

What we have are the offspring of victims

shaped by famine, poverty, and slum-life,

that is to say, individuals whose greatest ambition in life

is a steady income and a suburban existence.

*

In the 19th century we produced fearless intellectuals

like Raffi, Baronian, and Odian

who exposed the corruption and greed

of our establishment figures -- that is, bosses, bishops, and benefactors.

Even under Stalin we had intellectuals

who placed dedication to ideals and principles above their self-interest.

Today we have only academics

who live in fear of their own shadows.

To paraphrase an old Turkish saying:

Among ten Armenian academics

eleven are sure to be brown-nosers.

*

Their favorite topics of expertise are

Middle Ages, massacres, and anything else that is removed

from our present state of decline, degeneration, and disintegration.

*

During the Soviet era when they published their travel impressions of Yerevan,

they never dared to criticize anyone above hotel waiters.

*

They operate on two levels:

privately they are full of venom;

publicly they are all sugar and spice.

Their greatest enemy is neither intolerance nor corruption,

neither authoritarianism nor Ottomanism,

but the competition – anyone, that is,

who may be perceived as a threat to their position of eminence.

#

Saturday, January 29, 2011

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

CONTRADICTIONS

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

An Armenian prefers his own ignorance

to someone else's knowledge.

*

If an idea flatters his vanity,

he will make it his own.

*

Tell a coward he comes from a long line of proud warriors

and he will bare his teeth and growl

next time he faces a mirror;

and when he slices a watermelon,

he will imagine it's a Turk.

*

Since he cannot defeat the Turk

he will exploit, insult, and humiliate a fellow Armenian.

You want proof?

Read a history of Armenian literature.

*

He is self-righteous, therefore infallible.

*

He is smart but he can't tell the difference

between a synonym and an antonym.

Neither can he tell the difference

between an insult and a compliment.

Example: “It takes seven Jews to fool an Armenian.”

And the synonymous assertion:

“After shaking hands with an Armenian,

count your fingers.”

*

He stresses the irrelevant at the expense of the essential.

Case in point:

He does his utmost to avoid asking questions like:

Has a thousand years of subservience to alien tyrants

changed our DNA?

If the answer is “It has not,”

how do we explain the contradictions outlined above?

#

[arabaliozian]

2010 EDITION, CANADIAN WHO'S WHO

UTP, 10 St. Mary Street, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4Y 2W8

Tel: (416) 978-2239 x 244 Fax: (416) 921-6353

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

Ara BALIOZIAN

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

BALIOZIAN, Ara; writer; b. Athens, Greece 10 Dec. 1936; d. Avedis and Araxi (Ghougassian) B.; e. Coll. Armeno Moorat-Raphael 1954; Univ. of Ca Foscari 1955; WRITER 1974−PRESENT; author The Armenians: Their History & Culture (2 edns.) 1975, 1981, Armenia Observed: An Anthology 1979, The Armenian Genocide & the West (Jerusalem) 1985, Zohrab: An Introduction 1985, The Greek Poetess & Other Writings (fiction and essays) 1986, Fragmented Dreams: Armenians in Diaspora 1987, Voices of Fear 1989, Perseverance (with Lawrence Terzian) 1990, Intimate Talk: Autobiographical & Critical Writings, Conversations, Letters & Translations from the Armenian 1991, Armenian Wisdom: A Treasury of Quotations & Proverbs (2 edns.) 1992, 1994, That Promising Reality 1992, Undiplomatic Observations 1995, Pages From My Diary 1996, Conversations (with Nazeli Bagdasarian) 1997, Unpopular Opinions 1997, Definitions 1998, Dictionary of Armenian Quotations 1999, The Horrible Silence & Other Writings (in Russian) 2008, Pertinentes Impertinences (in French) 2008; pub. 25 books and transl. 6 Armenian classic authors; contbr. articles & poems to encyclopedias & anthologies, to World Literature Today (Oklahoma) and to other publ. in Canada, U.S.A., Middle East, Armenia; works transl. into French, German, Greek, Spanish, Dutch, Russian, Armenian, Roumanian & Danish; non-practicing Catholic; languages spoken: English, Armenian, Greek, Italian, French; languages written: English, Armenian; recreations: music, astronomy, playing the piano and church organ.

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, January 30, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

When I was young I was exposed to the wisdom of our elder statesmen.

Now that I am old I am exposed to the insults of the young.

But I shouldn't complain.

Compared to many others I have been the luckiest of men.

Very few Armenian writers were lucky enough to live past the age of forty;

and those who did, spent a good number of years in fear

of Siberian exile or starvation.

*

To the poor everyone is generous with advice, my mother used to say.

“Write more like Saroyan.”

“Be as critical as you can provided

you also amuse and entertain your readers, like Mark Twain.”

“Be more positive and constructive.”

The implication of this final line is that so far Armenian literature

has failed in its mission because Armenians remain as divided today

as they were a thousand years ago.

But I believe Armenians remain divided today

not because Armenian writers have failed

but because the dominant mindset of our leadership has been self-interest.

If it's good for me, my family, my party, or my tribe,

it must be good for the nation.

Even when they preach patriotism

they legitimize treason by dividing the nation into tribes.

They confuse nationalism with tribalism,

and ultimately Armenianism with Ottomanism.

No amount of sermons, speeches, editorials, and commentaries

can alter this fact and the only Armenians who cannot see this clearly

are the ones who have been so thoroughly brainwashed

that they have lost all ability to see, think, and speak for themselves.

#

Monday, January 31, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

There are Armenocentric Turkish ghazetajis

as surely as there are Turcocentric Armenian ghazetajis.

These gentlemen (if you will forgive the overstatement)

operate on the assumption that

they discharge their patriotic duty

whenever they emphasize the criminal conduct

and lies of the opposition.

On the day they fall silent,

Armenians and Turks may have a better chance

to reach a consensus and establish peaceful coexistence

that may well be of benefit to both.

*

One of our elder statesmen once wrote me a letter

in which he said that I had a better chance

to achieve fame and fortune as a writer

if I were to accept his advice on what to write and how to write it --

one such advice being, “Write more like Saroyan.”

Shortly before he died he informed me

that he had 43 unpublished manuscripts to his credit

and asked me if I would be willing to edit and revise them.

Moral of the story:

After shaking hands with an Armenian

willing to share his wisdom

count your fingers.

*

I have noticed that Armenians who have met Saroyan

on even one occasions

never call him Saroyan but Bill.

#

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

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

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

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

A private blessing, religious faith becomes a collective nightmare

when it acquires a leader, dogmas,

commandments, rituals, and mumbo jumbo.

*

Where there is a leader

there will be power and authority.

Where there is power there will also be greed for more power.

This is as true of emperors, kings, and dictators

as it is of popes, imams, and rabbis.

And where there is greed for power

there will be wars and massacres.

This is not theory or anti-religious bias

but historic reality.

*

Historians speak of holy wars but not of holy massacres.

And yet, when Voltaire said,

“Because it was a religious war, there were no survivors,”

he knew what he was saying.

*

If you know the right words, even if you are blind,

you can lead men with 20/20 vision into the ditch.

The trick is to ascribe your words not to yourself

or to any man dead or alive,

but to God.

*

Faith moves mountains, we are told.

What we are not told is that

it can also slaughter millions

with a clear conscience.

*

Everything I say is open to error

because I speak as a man

and all men are prone to error.

But if I were to speak in the name of God

I would become infallible by proxy.

*

God does not contradict Himself.

But men do. And when men who speak in the name of God

contradict one another, it is safe to assume that

they speak not in the name of God but in the name of the Devil.

#

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

According to an American pundit,

Americans are such “know-nothings” that

some of them quote lines from Marx's Communist Manifesto

thinking they are quoting the Constitution of the Unites States.

Even their congressmen and senators, it seems,

can't tell the difference between the Declaration of Independence

and the Constitution.

What about us?

Do we have a Constitution?

And if we do, who takes it seriously?

Can you quote a single line from it?

Is there a paragraph in it in defense

of the fundamental human right of free speech?

Why is it that whenever I am silenced

by an editor or forum moderator,

no one raises an objection?

Why is it that these editors and moderators

consider censorship a patriotic duty?

Is it some kind of conditioned reflex

that we acquired during a thousand years

of blind obedience to alien and brutal tyrants?

Do you have answers to these questions?

If yes, please let's have them.

Because I don't!

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