Confessions

[arabaliozian]

Azad-Hye, Dubai, 14 October 2006: After knowing the work of Ara Baliozian (born in Athens 1936, lives in Canada) and the depth of his writings, a question pops up: Why this author is not a celebrated personality amongst the Armenians? The answer is not difficult to guess. He has been an ardent critic of the Diasporan institutions, never compromising on his principles and always courageous in telling the truth. These are virtues rarely applauded in our society, where preserving the national identity is equal to keeping old-fashioned traditions. Hence, it is not strange that someone like Baliozian is not known to the wider public.

Below is an interview with Ara Baliozian, followed by brief biography, list of publications and samples of his most recent reflections and quotations.

You are known for your opposition to the traditional way of leading Armenian public life in the Diaspora. Do Armenians in Canada (or anywhere else) lead a different kind of community life, enjoying the benefits of the democratic countries where they have settled?

My anti-establishment views are not exactly mine alone. They belong to our literature from Khorenatsi (5th century) to Zarian (20th century). As for the Armenian community in Canada or anywhere else: they are run by authoritarian and anti-democratic institutions that belong to our political parties and churches. It is an unfortunate fact that we have not yet been thoroughly de-ottomanized and de-sovietized.

Much of what you say is common and known facts but still when it is phrased bluntly it is not appreciated. How do you explain this? Is it something psychological?

Dupes and brainwashed partisans may refuse to see facts, but not Armenians with the minimum degree of common sense and decency.

How many words do you need to describe a present day Armenian? Do you need to use the same vocabulary that used to describe an Armenian of the 1950s or 1920s?

There are basically two different species: The Ottomanized and Sovietized on the one hand and the born-again human beings.

Is there a magical way of solving the existing problems in Armenia? Has there been real diagnosis of the problems?

No magic is needed. Only an enlightened community.

Do you think a strong Armenia will remember the Armenian Diaspora or it will only care for the tax-payers?

I don’t have much trust in politicians and nations as much as individuals. I expect little or nothing from our politicians, whose ethics are lower than a snake’s belly full of buck shot.

What is the most effective way to support Armenia?

By refusing to support the corrupt.

You are known to express lots of ideas in few sentences, but don’t you think that sometimes details could shed more light on a particular subject?

Since I have published 30 books and written literally thousand of commentaries I find there is an overabundance of detail in my writings.

Young Armenians need to see things more clearly: how they can achieve this?

By reading more of our great writers as opposed our self-appointed pundits and academics who have no interest in our literature, only in our Middle Ages and in the massacres.

Do you think that we should work diplomatically with Arab or Islamic countries to explain them our historical presence in the area and encourage them to recognize the Genocide, or this is something that will automatically follow as the World recognizes the Genocide?

The alternative of being diplomatic is to be undiplomatic – not a viable option. As for Genocide recognition: Nations do whatever is in their own best interest. Ethics is for individuals not, it seems, for tribes, nations and empires. The British have a slogan: “We have neither friends nor enemies. Only interests”.

You have translated a lot of literature work into English. Do you think by translating Armenian works into Arabic we gain the attention of the Arabs? What kind of work should we translate?

The best works, of course. But as I said, don’t expect literary masterpieces to change a politician’s mind.

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ADDITIONAL READING

BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF ARA BALIOZIAN

Ara Baliozian is an Armenian – Canadian author, translator, and critic, born in Athens, Greece, 1936. He received his education at the Mekhitarist College of Mourad Raphaelian in Venice, Italy, where he also studied economics and political science at the University of Ca Foscari. He now lives in Ontario, Canada, where he devotes his full time to writing. He has been published in both Armenian and English. He is also the winner of many prizes and government grants for his literary work, which includes fiction, drama, literary criticism, and translations from Armenian, French and Italian. He now mostly posts his works on different Armenian internet discussion boards.

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Ara Baliozian's writings

Memoirs and Fiction

- The Horrible Silence: An Autobiographical Novella (Maral Press, 1982)

- In the New World (Voskedar, 1982)

- The Call of the Crane/The Ambitions of a Pig (Voskedar, 1983)

- The Greek Poetess and Other Writings (Impressions Publishers, 1988)

Historiographical Works

- The Armenians: Their History and Culture (AGBU Ararat Press, 1980)

- The Armenian Genocide & The West (Impressions Publishers, 1984)

- Armenia Observed: An Anthology

Critical Works

- Portrait of a Genius and Other Essays (A/G Press, 1980)

- Views/Reviews/Interviews: Critical Articles, Conversations (A/G Press, 1982)

- Voices of Fear (Impressions Publishers, 1989)

- Perseverance: Ara Baliozian and the Armenian Cause (Impressions Publishers, 1990)

- That Promising Reality: New Visions & Values, The Armenian Revival (Impressions Publishers, 1992)

- Definitions: A Critical Companion to Armenian History and Culture (Impressions Publishers, 1998)

- Unpopular Opinions (Impressions Publishers, 1998)

- Fragmented Dreams: Armenians in Diaspora

- Intimate Talk

- Undiplomatic Observations

- Pages from my Diary: 1986-1995

- Conversations with Nazali Bagdasarian

Translations

- Puzant Granian, My Land, My People

- Puzant Granian, Selected Poems / 1936-1982

- Zabel Yessayan, The Gardens of Silihdar & Other Writings (Ashod Press, 1982)

- Gostan Zarian, The Traveller & His Road (Ashod Press, 1981)

- Gostan Zarian, Bancoop & the Bones of the Mammoth (Ashod Press, 1982)

- Gostan Zarian, The Island & A Man (Kar Publishing House, 1983)

- Krikor Zohrab, Zohrab: An Introduction (Kar Publishing House, 1985)

Compilations

- From Plato to Sartre: Wisdom for Armenians

- Armenian wisdom : A Treasury of Quotations & Proverbs

- Dictionary of Armenian Quotations (Impressions Publishers, 1998)

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REFLECTIONS

An elegantly dressed, coiffed, and bejeweled lady on Armenian TV spouting all the predictable clichés, among them: “There is corruption in Armenia, certainly! But then there is corruption everywhere, including Canada.” With one important difference: in Canada, when exposed, the corrupt are fired, sometimes even arrested, tried and jailed. Also, I have never heard a Canadian justify corruption by saying there is corruption everywhere.

“We shouldn’t judge our brothers in the Homeland.

Are we better than they?”

True! We are not. We too are at the mercy of charlatans with their perennial Panchoonie punch line, “Mi kich pogh oughargetsek” (Send us a little money); and because I have been saying this, I have become persona non grata, and in the eyes of our chauvinists, an enemy of the people. Besides, if we don’t judge the corrupt, in a way we judge and condemn the victims at the mercy of bloodsucking parasites.

“The police stop and give you a ticket for traffic violations you didn’t commit.”

This may explain why everyone wants to emigrate except the police, who, according to a recent visitor “are the fattest and ugliest men I have ever seen.”

“It may take two generations for our brothers in the Homeland to abandon their Soviet ways.”

Who benefits from this kind of talk? Surely not the victims. As for their victimizers: it is almost as if they were given a license to carry on with the full protection and consent of the people for another forty or fifty years – a license for which they didn’t even apply.

I have said this before and it bears repeating: our national sport is the blame-game: we blame the “red” massacres on the Turks and on the indifference of the Great Powers; the “white” massacre (exodus from the Homeland and assimilation in the Diaspora) on “social, economic, and political conditions beyond our control”; our tribalism on our climate and geography; and now, our corruption on the Kremlin. During the Soviet era I don’t remember any one of our chic Bolsheviks in the Diaspora complaining about Soviet corruption. On the contrary. We were told we were in the best of hands and we never had it so good.

“Let’s not forget that, as a state, Armenia is only a new-born child.”

And yet, when it suits us, we claim to be one of the oldest civilizations, after which we brag about the fact that at a time when most of Europe lived in huts and caves, we enjoyed a Golden Age.

To those who explain and justify our criminal conduct, may I remind them that evil triumphs only when the majority adopt a passive stance and they justify their cowardice, moral moronism, and absence of vision by engaging in charlatanism.

On reading Yervant Odian’s COUNCILMAN’S WIFE (first serialized at the turn of the last century, later published in book form in 1921) one thing becomes abundantly clear: the Armenian community of Istanbul consisted of morally bankrupt schemers (I am being politically correct now, because “a bunch of degenerates” would be closer to the truth) who spent their lives backbiting and plotting against one another.

What has changed? As far as I can see, only one thing: we no longer have writers like Odian willing to write about what they see and experience. What we have instead are academics and self-appointed pundits who, afraid to deal with the dark side of our collective existence (please note that I am not saying community life) feel more comfortable and safe writing about the past, and if it’s not the Middle Ages, it’s the massacres, as if we were history"– I use the word in its colloquial meaning.

If we need two generations to de-Sovietize ourselves, how many generations do we need to de-Ottomanize ourselves?

Where the corrupt are in charge, honesty will be outlawed. Where the mediocre are in charge, excellence will be suppressed. Which is why to adopt a passive stance towards the corrupt and the mediocre is to condemn the nation to the death of a thousand cuts. As for those who like to brag about our resilience, adaptability, and instinct for survival: I suggest, to drag on a degraded existence is worse than death.

Do I repeat myself? Why not? How many times are our clichés and fallacies repeated? And I don’t mean harmless, infantile, and meaningless clichés, like first nation this and first nation that, but dangerous ones, like the one about two generations mentioned above….

Instead of meritocracy we have mediocracy, and instead of honesty we have charlatanism. A corrupt power structure conducts a genocidal policy towards all honest men as surely as Talaat did towards all innocent women and children. Now then, go ahead and parrot the two generations cliché with a clear conscience, if you can.

We were morally and politically right to rise against the Ottoman Empire. But we were dead wrong in our reliance on the verbal commitments of the Great Powers. Which means that even our so-called heroes behaved like dupes; even our so-called revolutionaries lacked self-reliance. And what could be more cowardly than heroes and revolutionaries who are afraid of free speech?

If you make a study of censorship and its victims (from Socrates to Solzhenitsyn) you may notice that its aim is to silence not charlatans and liars but men of integrity and truth. My final question is: Do you really believe some day in forty or fifty years our charlatans and parasites will see the light and usher in another Golden Age?

Somewhere along the line I decided that I knew not only everything I needed to know but also what others needed to know, and ever since then my life has been a concatenation of blunders, among them my decision to be not just a writer but an Armenian writer. I know now that the certainty of being right is the greatest source of error.

What is history? What else but the clash of two sets of charlatans and their dupes?

Not being a historian I must rely on the testimony of historians, and when these historians contradict one another, common sense tells me to rely on historians who are in a better position to be objective and impartial.

This automatically excludes all nationalist, tribal, and partisan historians.

In his efforts to silence me, one of our flunkeys with “leadership qualities” (if you can imagine such an absurdity), once said to me: “Do you really think you are the only writer who has been unfairly treated?” To which I replied: “Of course not. That’s why I speak with the strength of many.”

Since dialogue is anti-Armenian, it follows it is a waste of time to reason with a man you can silence.

Orhan Pamuk was awarded the Nobel Prize for two reasons: (one) in addition to being a good writer, he enjoyed Turkish popular support, and (two) he exposed the lies of Turkish propaganda. You may now guess why so far no Armenian writer has been awarded the Prize.

If we don’t betray them to the authorities, we beat them up or silence them. For Armenians divide themselves only against their enemies…. If you read the biographies of our greatest writers. What am I saying? There are no biographies of Oshagan or Zarian.

If most men disappoint us, it may be because we make too many unreasonable demands on them. On the day we convince ourselves that the average man is very much like ourselves, a bundle of contradictions and a self-centered bastard with the potential of a hero or a saint, we may be more willing to see the potential and to ignore the actual.

As the last but one Pope said when he visited a mosque, both Christians and Muslims believe in the same God who is love, mercy, and compassion. What the good Pope failed to say is that what we believe may well be propaganda.

The true aim of education consists in preparing young minds to oppose injustice even if doing so may be against one’s own self-interest.

Guenter Grass (contemporary German author and winner of the Nobel Prize): “History is a clogged toilet. We flush and flush, but the shit keeps rising.” Why is it that we Armenians are incapable of producing such a sentence?

By ignoring the dark side of our history, we sink deeper into filth. Is it conceivable that we will wake up from this nightmare only on the day we drown?

To pretend that we had nothing to do in shaping our destiny as a nation and by extension our identity, or to pretend the Genocide was engineered by the doubletalk of the West and the savagery of the Turks, is to admit that adopting a passive stance has become an integral part of our identity, and so far we have done nothing to expose this scandal and to combat against it.

The average Armenian thinks all he has to do to discharge his patriotic duty is to make periodic contributions to our Panchoonies.

The average Greek today brags about Socrates but ignores the fact that it was average Greeks like him who condemned him to death. This is true not only of Greeks but also patriots of all nations. Patriotism is unthinkable without propaganda. No one who knows and understands history says, “My country, right or wrong!”

When Jesus said “They know not what they do,” he was talking about the average citizen who is capable of committing the most unspeakable crimes with a clear conscience on the grounds that his conduct is motivated by such selfless and noble principles as obedience to established laws and love of country. Even as he sinks deeper and deeper into filth, he pleads not guilty by reason of unawareness and ignorance.

Suicide is a luxury the very poor can’t afford bcause they are too busy trying to survive.

In a corrupt democracy as soon as you throw one set of rascals out, another set moves in. Very often voting consists in rejecting a barrel of rotten apples for the sake of another.

If you think you know better, sooner or later you will run across someone who knows better.

Only after we reject all role models we may discover our true selves. Role models, even the very best, have the validity of hearsay evidence.

Speaking of his Nazi past, Guenter Grass said, “I was too young to be guilty.” I have every reason to suspect, had Germany won, he would have bragged about his service to the nation.

The only reason I concentrate on our failings is that we are in a position to do something about them. As for the failings of the rest of the world: what's the use of bitching?

Last night on CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] an interview with a Turkish novelist who was taken to court because in her latest book an Armenian character from San Francisco refers to Turks as “butchers.” The Turks, it seems, are so eager to achieve membership in the European Union that even a single word in a work of fiction bothers the hell out of them.

In the same way that we are brought up to believe we are a nation of heroes and martyrs, the Turks are brought up to believe they are a nation of empire builders and noble warriors, even if most of their so-called warriors were not Turks but brainwashed and castrated Christians.

Bernard-Henri Levy (contemporary French philosopher): “Israeli writers are better politicians than Israeli politicians because imagination is a necessary ingredient of good politics. By using their imagination, writers are in a better position to understand what it means to be and feel like a Palestinian.”

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, December 23, 2007

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HUMBUG

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One of my gentle and anonymous readers, whose spelling leaves something to be desired, takes me to task for my ignorance of our history. “Armenian history,” he reminds me, “is an extremely complex topic,” and since I obviously do not know as much as he does, I should shut up about it. I am more than willing to concede that I don’t know all there is to know on the subject. But then who does, beside the Good Lord Himself, who so far has consistently refused to publish His version. As far as I know, no human being has ever dared to claim that after a lifetime of study he is now prepared to assert that he knows all there is to know about Armenian or any other history.

*

When after a lifetime of study Toynbee published his monumental ten-volume STUDY OF HISTORY, he was attacked and sometimes even verbally abused by an international array of historians who questioned the accuracy of his facts and the reliability of his conclusions. Dutch historians criticized him for his ignorance of Dutch history; Jewish historians tore him to shreds because he had dared to call Jews “fossils”; English historians dismissed him as a megalomaniacal mystic and charlatan; and Soviet historians treated him as a heretic because he did not share their faith in Marxism. It would be no exaggeration to say that both Spengler and Toynbee, the two greatest historians of the 20th century, have more critics than fans among their fellow historians.

*

Even when they deal in facts and nothing but facts, nationalist or ideologically committed historians lie because they select only those facts that support their particular thesis, and since the number of facts, documents, and eyewitness accounts is nearly infinite, they can do this without much difficulty.

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Who takes nationalist historians seriously? Only themselves, their dupes, and the power structure within which they operate.

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What matters about history is not how much we know or how many facts, documents, and eyewitness accounts we have at our disposal, but what have we learned from it. What have our nationalist or patriotic historians learned from our past? The very same thing that Turkish historians have learned: namely, to paint themselves all white and their adversaries all black.

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History does not have to be the propaganda of the victor or the consolation of the loser. Our sympathies may be with the losers but that does not make their version of events more honest, objective, and impartial.

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The aim of nationalist historians is not to learn but to teach. But teaching that is not preceded by learning is at best propaganda and at worst conditioning or brainwashing. Politics and history don’t mix. To allow politics or ideology to contaminate the study of history amounts to prostituting the past.

*

A final note on our revolutionaries: history judges us not by our intentions (remember the old adage: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”) but our actions; and actions have consequences. It follows, we should judge our revolutionaries not by their intentions but by the tragic consequences of their actions.

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[arabaliozian]

Monday, December 24, 2007

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“I AM NOT A CROOK”

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If bad things happen to good people, let us ask ourselves:

How good are we?

How good are our “brainless leaders”? (Avedik Issahakian).

How good are their dupes who believe we never had it so good because we are in good hands?

How good are the alienated who stay away from Armenian affairs? How good are the assimilated who have given up on us?

How good are our “best and brightest” who so far have failed to convince the world that our genocide is not a figment of our collective imagination?

How good are our intellectuals from Khorenatsi and Yeghishe (5th century) to Zarian and Massikian (in our own days) who have been unanimous in saying our leaders can’t even lead a dog to the nearest hydrant?

How good are our intellectuals and why should be believe them?

Well, what choice do we have? It’s either them or our politicians?

Are politicians capable of speaking the truth when they speak about themselves?

By the way, I don’t agree with Avedik Issahakian. Our leaders are not brainless. After all, they were brainy enough to have a plan B for themselves.

Believe in God, if you must, but believe no one else. Use your brain instead (if you will forgive the overstatement), and may the Good Lord have mercy on your soul (if you have one).

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[arabaliozian]

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

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NOTES & COMMENTS

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To those of my readers who disagree with me, sometimes violently, I say: I hear you. I feel your pain. Once upon a time I too was brainwashed to think, or rather to feel, as you do. To learn to think, to think for oneself, which also means to think against oneself, is a painfully slow process. It takes time. Be patient with yourself and tolerant with those who try to reason with you. Evolution is a law of nature. Never say therefore you will not change, for that way lies stagnation, degeneration, and death.

*

Instead of saying, the great powers deceived us, we should ask, why did we behave like dupes? Instead of saying the Turks massacred us, we should ask ourselves, why did we surrender our fate into their hands for 600 years?

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A man who is convinced he knows everything he needs to know is a case of arrested underdevelopment.

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The more you deceive yourself the more transparent you become to others.

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If you know 100 things and claim to know 101, sooner or later someone is sure to expose you as an ignoramus.

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[arabaliozian]

ARMENIAN SAYINGS

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A dead jackass is not afraid of the lion.

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Sorrows are easier to survive than hunger.

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Honey will attract flies even from Baghdad.

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To a poor orphan, more bread, less advice.

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Life is a battle and what counts is not the first defeat

but the final victory.

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He is wise indeed whose learning begins in the cradle

and ends in the grave.

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Some books make better friends

than the best of friends.

[arabaliozian]

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

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ANALYSIS

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If you prefer fiction to fact, don’t read what follows because I plan to speak of reality, and reality in our case is seldom pretty.

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If we are angry we have every right to be. Throughout our millennial history we have been ruled by foreign ruffians and domestic riffraff. My disagreement with my fellow Armenians begins when they take out this anger on fellow Armenians, and this without provocation -- unless you call a minor semantic or political disagreement a provocation – as if, throughout our long and happy existence we have known nothing but peace, harmony, and brotherhood among ourselves.

*

One does not have to be a combination of Sherlock Holmes and Freud to understand what I have said so far and what follows, namely that this vast store of accumulated resentment is not directed against our victimizers but against fellow victims, for the simple reason that our victimizers are either beyond our reach or, when within reach, they are invulnerable. This has been said by far better men than myself but it bears repeating: An Armenian’s worst enemy is not an odar but an Armenian, and this “other” Armenian is none other than himself.

*

On more than one occasion I have been told I have no right to speak of our problems unless I also propose a solution. This, needless to add, is a cheap rhetorical maneuver whose message is “Shut up!” To those of my readers who have not yet given up reading me so far, my suggested solution to the problem outlined above is a simple one: awareness. Because awareness of a problem is almost a solution.

*

If I were to describe an Armenian in a single sentence, I would say he is one who knows everything but understands nothing. As a result, his degree of awareness is that of a dinosaur. This may explain why Toynbee in his 10-volume STUDY OF HISTORY calls us “fossils,” like Jews. But whereas Jews were outraged and promptly rejected the label (see Maurice Samuel’s THE PROFESSOR AND THE FOSSIL), as far as i know, none of our professors rose to our defense. Is it because they secretly agreed with Toynbee? Either that or our professors are not in the habit of sharing their understand with us, probably because they know the torrents of verbal abuse that will be unleashed against them by our riffraff and their brainwashed dupes. Perhaps our real tragedy is not that we don’t understand but that we don’t want to understand, and that, I regret to say, is a problem that has no solution.

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[SamvelT]

Dear arabaliozian ! Are You pessimist or optimist ... I find more of the first in your postings ... What can You respond to my question ? Thank You !

[arabaliozian]

Dear arabaliozian ! Are You pessimist or optimist ... I find more of the first in your postings ... What can You respond to my question ? Thank You !

i do my utmost to be an objective realist. / ara

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, December 27, 2007

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POLITICS 101

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A regime, any regime, even a regime of swine, will have its supporters.

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In America today only 50% of the people vote. When asked why he doesn’t vote, a wise man once replied: “I don’t believe in encouraging them.”

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One thing I have learned about my fellow Armenians and myself: We are human beings like the rest of mankind. Anyone who says we are better is either a brown-noser or a damn fool.

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Propaganda teaches us to overestimate ourselves and to underestimate our adversaries, which promotes the view that our leaders are shepherds and their leaders butchers. But then, where would butchers be without shepherds?

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If we are what we have become it’s because of liars whose favorite sport is the blame-game.

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Self-assessed smart Armenians will never agree with me because agreeing with me would amount to admitting they are fools who have been taken in by liars.

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After calling them “enemies of the people,” fascist leaders silence their critics. It is always the same story. After confusing fact with fiction they commit unspeakable crimes against humanity with the full support of their dupes. This may explain why there are people today (not all of them Turks) who believe Talaat was a great leader and his victims traitors who deserved their fate. This may also explain why some of the greatest butchers in the history of mankind, from Caligula and Nero to Stalin and Hitler, had their supporters.

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[arabaliozian]

Friday, December 28, 2007

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THEORY & PRACTICE

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The combined wisdom of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle has been wasted on the Greeks. Greek history is a disaster area. The divided city-states of Greece were at each other’s throats for centuries until they were conquered and mongrelized by, among others, the Turks.

What remains of Buddha’s wisdom in countries like India, China, Korea, and Japan? Mostly superstition and ritual (for more details, see Arthur Koestler’s THE LOTUS & THE ROBOT).

Individual wisdom does not always translate to political know-how for a very simple reason: the pursuit of wisdom and greed for power are mutually exclusive concepts and antagonistic movements from which greed for power will invariably emerge the winner.

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Because I share my understanding, I have become an enemy. A fool will reserve his agreement for men who tell him what he already knows and understands. That’s because, as a fool, he doesn’t understand that knowledge is an endless search.

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If straight talk offends you, who is to blame but your ego?

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Speaking of theory and practice, I read the following headline in our paper this morning: “Hindu Hardliners burn Christian churches, Christians retaliate and burn Hindu homes.”

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[arabaliozian]

Saturday, December 29, 2007

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FEEDBACK

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“If genocide means the systematic extermination of a nation, how come you are still around?” a Turkish reader wants to know.

No matter how systematic and efficiently carried out, a genocide is seldom successful. Even the Germans, the most efficient and systematic of nations, failed to exterminate Jews and Gypsies.

*

Another Turkish reader writes: “The Turks are too sloppy a people to have organized and carried out a policy of systematic extermination.”

It is equally true that Armenians are too divided to agree on anything. And yet, not only they agree on the reality of the genocide, they have also been successful in convincing an important fraction of the world to agree with them.

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My quarrel with our genocide pundits is not that they misrepresent reality but that they live in the past. “Let the dead bury their dead,” we are told, especially at a time when the living are dying.

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To speak of Armenians only in the context of massacres: is that not a misrepresentation? Or, as Gramsci points out somewhere: Why would anyone care about a people known only as victims?

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It is easy to make enemies, much more difficult to make friends. Our challenge is to convert our enemies to friends, and not to convert our brothers to enemies.

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Civility and patriotism are not mutually exclusive concepts. Rules of civilized conduct apply even to superpatriots. So do rules of logic, common sense and decency. To say otherwise is to equate patriotism with barbarism.

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[arabaliozian]

Sunday, December 30, 2007

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DAVID ANHAGHT

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As children we were taught that Armenian philosopher David Anhaght (6th century AD) was called “Invincible” because he never lost an argument. What were the central ideas of his philosophy? Did he support freedom or obedience to authority? Who gave him that sobriquet – his students or disciples? Why is it that he is not mentioned in any text on the history of philosophy – not even in a footnote? What was his favorite method of winning arguments -- quoting Plato, Aristotle, and the Scriptures? Raising his voice? Attacking his adversary’s ideas or person? Finally and most important of all: what’s the merit in winning an argument in defense of false ideas?

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An organized religion becomes idolatry when obedience to God evolves to subservience to men who speak in His name?

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If a messiah were to appear among us today, I suspect one of his most important messages to the world will be: “Verily I say unto you: When a man speaks in the name of God, it is the words of the Devil that issue from his mouth.”

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[arabaliozian]

Monday, December 31, 2007

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QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

ON TURKISH DENIALISM

& RELATED ATROCITIES

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Q: How should we treat Turkish denialism?

A: With understanding. We should not speak of them as if they were bloodthirsty savages.

Q: But isn’t genocide a quintessentially bloodthirsty crime against humanity?

A: Yes, of course. But we should ascribe that crime where it belongs, namely, to their share of ruffians and cutthroats…and I hope you will agree with me when I say that all nations, including the most civilized, have their share of rapists and serial killers.

Q: Isn’t it equally true that not all nations deny their crimes against humanity?

A: Let us not confuse nations with regimes, and regimes with the people. We should not ascribe Turkish denialism to the nation or the people but to the foreign policy and educational system of the present regime. If many Turks reject the charge of genocide, it may be because most Turks, like most people, are dupes whose worldview is shaped by propaganda as opposed to rules imposed on us by objective judgment.

Q: If I understand you correctly, you are saying, Turks may plead not guilty by reason of ignorance?

A: What I am also saying, collective ignorance or patriotic bias is not an exclusively Turkish aberration.

Q: You also seem to be saying all nations and all people are more or less alike. In which case I must ask, how do we explain the fact that Turks are guilty of genocide but Armenians are not?

A: We explain it by saying, that is not a result of moral superiority but of military inferiority.

Q: On a related topic: you speak of Ottomanized Armenians. Could you define Ottomanization for us?

A: I would define it as the assimilation of Ottoman cultural values, such as the adoption of extreme views, even when these views are against our own interests. Case in point: our refusal to engage in dialogue with those who disagree with us, or to interpret disagreement as an expression of hostility or even hatred. Another case in point would be our painting Turks all black and Armenians all white thus undermining our own credibility in the eyes of the world. No one in his right mind believes Armenians are or could ever be all white for the simple reason that even saints are not all white.

Q: Final question: How do we go about de-Ottomanizing ourselves?

A: That’s almost like asking how do we de-programme a brainwashed person? There are no easy answers or methods. Education would be one way. Etiquette would be another. Suppose you believe in something with every single fiber in your body but you are not sure if your interlocutor shares your belief. If you make an assertion based on your belief and introduce or end it with the qualifier, I may be wrong about this, you may consider yourself de-Ottomanized as well as de-Stalinized.

Q: Why is it that a great many Armenians disagree with you?

A: If they do, it may be because I am wrong.

Q: Practicing what you preach?

A: That’s the very least I can do.

Q: I wish you a happy and creative New Year.

A: I too wish you all the best. May all your dreams come true!

#

[arabaliozian]

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

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

IT IS WRITTEN

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

Fools who think they are smart: they are the curse of mankind. I am not surprised therefore when on rereading THE PROVERBS in the Old Testament, I notice that almost every other proverb deals with fools. God loves the poor, it is said, that is why He has created so many of them. If we assume that to be true (which I doubt), why then did He create so many fools when He obviously has nothing but contempt for them (if we assume the Scriptures to be His word)?

*

“Like a dog that returns to his vomit, is a fool that repeats his folly,” reads one proverb.

*

“Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself,” reads another.

*

More random samples follow:

“A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the back of fools.”

*

“A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man quietly holds it back.”

*

“A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.”

*

“A fool’s lips bring strife, and his mouth invites a flogging.”

*

“A fool’s mouth is his ruin, and his lips are a snare to himself.”

*

Is a fool capable of admitting to being one?

What could be more foolish than trying to reason with fools?

While reading THE PROVERBS, has a fool ever thought, “It is about me that the Good Lord speaks.”

#

[arabaliozian]

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

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WHY WE DISAGREE

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

Most Christians are Christians because they were born in a Christian country. The same applies to Muslims and Hindus. Environment plays a key role in determining our belief system. Different environments, educational systems, parents, experiences, role models, and encounters mean different worldviews. Most Tashnaks had Tashnak parents, likewise most Ramgavars and Communists. My father lost everything he owned in two separate occasions, World War I in Turkey and World War II in Greece. He was too busy trying to survive in an alien environment to have any time for politics. This may be only a partial explanation as to why I am suspicious of all political parties and ideologies. This may also be why I don’t expect anyone to agree with me, especially if agreement means recycling the same propaganda line. I am not in the business of recycling propaganda. If anything the opposite applies: I have made it my business to expose the lies of propaganda, the very same lies that are at the root of our internecine conflicts and divisions, not to say dogmatism and authoritarianism. Disagreement is both inevitable and natural; what is not natural is the implication that the neighborhood in which you were born and raised is better than someone else’s, which is almost as absurd as the suggestion that those who brainwashed you were better men than their counterparts on the other side of a mountain, river, sea or some other imaginary line. In my view brainwashing is a criminal offense and no good man would ever engage in such a nefarious activity. Since truth is destined to remain beyond our reach, let us agree that more often than not disagreements are clashes not between a truth and a lie but two half-truths and sometimes even two big lies.

#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, January 03, 2008

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ASKING QUESTIONS, GETTING ANSWERS

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

If you want to know the truth about the Catholic Church, don’t ask the Pope. This inevitably raises the question: If you can’t trust the Pope, whom can you trust? The answer is and must be: No one with power.

*

If you want to know more about Armenians, don’t ask an Armenian, who may know much more about Armenians than most odars. That’s because quantity of knowledge does not always translate to quality, or objectivity, reliability, and honesty. If you want to know the truth about Turks, would you ask a Turk?

*

If you want to know more about nationalism, the worst mistake you can make is to ask a nationalist. Ask instead the victims of nationalism, and if you are an Armenian, you don’t have to look for one. Ask yourself. Armenians have been the first major victims of nationalism in the 20th century.

*

John Stuart Mill: “No one but a fool, and only a fool of a peculiar description, feels offended by the acknowledgement that there are others whose opinion is entitled to a greater amount of consideration than his.” Translated into dollars and cents, this means: All men are created equal, but their opinions are not.

*

Speaking of the Pope and Christianity, I read the following question in a recent issue of THE SPECTATOR: “Where would Christianity be if Jesus had got 8 to 15 years with time off for good behavior?”

#

Friday, January 04, 2008

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AN ABYSMALLY NAÏVE MISCONCEPTION

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

In life we take many things for granted, beginning with life itself, and after life, the abysmally naïve misconception that our “betters” are better and what they say is more or less true because they are more or less honest men. In this context, however, when we speak in terms of more or less, the emphasis should be on less. To cover up the less and stress the more, leaders, all leaders, political as well as religious, like to speak in the name of God and Country, two entities that cannot speak for themselves.

*

Speaking of honesty and politicians: it is said that there is nothing as dark as the prospects of an honest politician, in the same way that nothing invites violence as surely as talk of non-violence.

*

Power, propaganda, deception, and violence or the threat of violence, are inseparable. As for speaking in the name of God: Who would dare to suggest that God is capable of contradicting Himself? And yet, all organized religions contradict one another.

*

Greed for power is a malady and an addiction much more dangerous than all other addictions combined because it affects not a single person but the nation and sometimes even the world. Which is why one is fully justified in saying that our “betters” far from being better may well be our worst. Which is also why the only good thing about political elections is that the losers outnumber the winners.

#

Saturday, January 05, 2008

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

ON FAITH & RELATED ATROCITIES

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

The hardest thing in life is to separate the real from what is not. To a believer, faith is more real than reality. By introducing meaning into our lives, faith makes us blind to reality. That’s one way to explain the ruthless and sadistic persecution of heretics, religious wars (one of which lasted a hundred years) and suicidal terrorists who think they will be rewarded with 72 virgins.

*

The best things in life are not always free. And sometimes we pay most for the things we get for nothing.

*

A dogmatist is one who thinks only God can tell him he is wrong, and he says this in the full knowledge that he is not important enough for the Good Lord to descend from the clouds in order to contradict him.

*

A fool knows that the best way to win an argument is to be so irrational, offensive, and vulgar that no one in his right mind would consider getting involved in his verbal filth. Never underestimate the cunning of fools. Since they have been fools all their lives they have developed all kinds of strategies of survival.

*

It is written: “Let a men meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs, rather than a fool in his folly.”

*

“An Armenian’s tongue can be sharper than a Turk’s yataghan,” Zarian tells us. In what way are we different from them if we do with our tongues what they did with their yataghans?

*

To recognize the fool that resides in all of us is the beginning of all wisdom.

#

[arabaliozian]

AN INTERVIEW

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

Much of what you say is common and known facts but still when it is phrased bluntly it is not appreciated. How do you explain this? Is it something psychological?

Dupes and brainwashed partisans may refuse to see facts, but not Armenians with the minimum degree of common sense and decency.

How many words do you need to describe a present day Armenian? Do you need to use the same vocabulary that used to describe an Armenian of the 1950s or 1920s?

There are basically two different species: The Ottomanized and Sovietized on the one hand and the born-again human beings.

Is there a magical way of solving the existing problems in Armenia? Has there been real diagnosis of the problems?

No magic is needed. Only an enlightened community.

Do you think a strong Armenia will remember the Armenian Diaspora or it will only care for the tax-payers?

I don’t have much trust in politicians and nations as much as individuals. I expect little or nothing from our politicians, whose ethics are lower than a snake’s belly full of buck shot.

What is the most effective way to support Armenia?

By refusing to support the corrupt.

You are known to express lots of ideas in few sentences, but don’t you think that sometimes details could shed more light on a particular subject?

Since I have published 30 books and written literally thousand of commentaries I find there is an overabundance of detail in my writings.

Young Armenians need to see things more clearly: how they can achieve this?

By reading more of our great writers as opposed our self-appointed pundits and academics who have no interest in our literature, only in our Middle Ages and in the massacres.

Do you think that we should work diplomatically with Arab or Islamic countries to explain them our historical presence in the area and encourage them to recognize the Genocide, or this is something that will automatically follow as the World recognizes the Genocide?

The alternative of being diplomatic is to be undiplomatic – not a viable option. As for Genocide recognition: Nations do whatever is in their own best interest. Ethics is for individuals not, it seems, for tribes, nations and empires. The British have a slogan: “We have neither friends nor enemies. Only interests”.

You have translated a lot of literature work into English. Do you think by translating Armenian works into Arabic we gain the attention of the Arabs? What kind of work should we translate?

The best works, of course. But as I said, don’t expect literary masterpieces to change a politician’s mind.

[arabaliozian]

An excerpt from

Pages From My Diary, 1986-1995

by Ara Baliozian

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

Excerpts (Part I)

1986

Somewhere George Orwell says that at fifty everyone has the face he deserves. Whenever I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror I can't help thinking: This isn't quite what I had in mind. But then, I say this about a great many other things: my fellow men, life, the meaning of life, or rather its meaninglessness.

1987

All people with a long history of oppression are short-tempered. When an Armenian loses his temper, the message he is trying to convey is: "I took it from the Turks for a thousand years; I don't have to take it from you." The "I" of course stands not just for himself but for all his ancestors as well—or his collective unconscious.

Whenever I read a book by an odar Armenologist, I cannot help thinking that he is more interested in our past than in our future. He values our antiquities much more than ourselves. These academics will probably be happier if we were to vanish from the face of the earth, thus providing them with a clear-cut ending and a final chapter to their field of inquiry.

Whenever I read a critical letter from one of my readers, I am reminded of a friend who runs a pizza parlor. "Armenians are hard to please", he is fond of saying. "Everyone likes my pizza, except Armenians—they always have something critical to say. Some day if you ever go into pizza business you will know what I mean."

I have never bothered to explain to him that I am myself a battle-scarred veteran of many wars; and that unlike the owner of a pizzeria, an Armenian writer is asked to bear not just the cross but also the cost of Armenian literature.

Nothing can be more repellent to me than the self-satisfied smile of someone who thinks he has got it made. Whenever I see such a smile on the cover of a magazine, I feel like going down on my knees and saying: "O God, allow me to die a miserable failure in order that I may never smile like that."

1988

A reader writes: "In one of your articles dealing with wealth, you speak of pirates and merchants as if these two terms were interchangeable. As a businessman myself, I resent that very much. I think you owe all businessmen an apology."

This businessman is right, trade is superior to piracy. But on this point, let me quote the words of an old wise man: "Trade is much superior to piracy. You can rob and kill a man but once, but you can cheat him again and again."

It is a mistake to think of writers as members of an exclusive club - self-centered eccentrics overly fond of abstractions that have little or no bearing on reality and our daily existence. There are no fundamental differences between writers and ordinary human beings.

The most important difference between an ordinary human being and a writer is that a writer has discovered a way or developed a skill which allows him to transfer his inner world onto a piece of paper—that's all.

To those who say: Since writers are no better than the rest of us, why should we bother with them? I say: To ignore a writer's words would be as risky as ignoring or dismissing the advice of a physician, an electrician, a plumber, or for that matter, a garbage collector.

The earthquake may have been an act of God, but we, all of us, must bear some degree of responsibility for its tragic—and tragic to the point of being genocidal—dimensions.

When I speak of catastrophes I have in mind the kind that can be prevented. Man-made catastrophes as opposed to acts of God. Catastrophes can be easily foreseen if we decide to open our eyes and choose not to take refuge in prejudice, ignorance, and apathy.

Again and again I have heard Armenians say: "God must have something against us!" or, "We are not God's Chosen People but Cursed People!" I say, we can no longer afford holding God responsible for all our misfortunes. We must learn to accept responsibility. Because earthquakes don't kill people; buildings do.

1989

It is a mistake to name our schools after millionaires because it sets our children a bad example. Since every illiterate may become a millionaire, a child may be justified in thinking that he doesn't have to bother with arithmetic and spelling because when he grows up he will be a millionaire; and as everyone knows, a millionaire can always hire a secretary and an accountant (who are a dime a dozen) who will handle both his spelling and arithmetic.

If the choice is between schools that bear a millionaire's name and no school at all: then let us at least have the decency to explain to our children that our hands are tied and that the name of the school is a matter of necessity rather than free choice,and that financial profit and the accumulation of wealth are not the noblest and most admirable pursuits in life.

So much valuable time is wasted in life to prove to morons that you are not a moron.

Loyal, dependable reliable: I loathe these terms. Superiors use them to describe those they exploit. I have worked for a large variety of employers none of whom was, and for that matter, cared to be, loyal, dependable, and reliable. Loyal to profit, yes. Loyal to their employees, certainly not. Loyal to principles and ideals—don't make me laugh.

The two supreme aims of American behavioral sciences: (i) How to make workers more productive; and (ii) How to make consumers more greedy. Understand this and you will understand many other facets of American life.

Thomas Carlyle: "I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance."

Will anyone ever brag that he studied political science in Beirut, literary criticism in Teheran, historiography in Ankara, and architecture in Yerevan?

There are people whose only talent consists in being consistently wrong, and they are the very same people who insist on telling others what to think.

A novelist once said that whenever he takes a dislike at someone he puts him in a book and draws royalties on him. I do the same minus the royalty part.

Oscar Wilde in De Profundis : Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinion, their lives a mimicry, their passion a quotation."

Anton Chekhov in his Notebooks : "The university brings out all abilities, including stupidity."

1990

Sometimes in the middle of the night I receive telephone calls from distant places by individuals in search of immortality. These individuals seem to think that I have influence in those places where immortality is dispensed. I try to explain to them that I have problems of my own, that I can't even make ends meet, that my so-called influence is a figment of their imagination, that the status of an Armenian writer in our communities is that between a janitor and an unemployable misfit, and that even if I were to write to a flunky, the chances are I would be completely ignored.

The Arabs castrate rapists and cut off the hands of thieves. Both procedures may be viewed as forms of censorship. Literary censorship is even more barbaric because it attempts to castrate or maim the expression of man's mind and soul. Literary censorship is the first step on the road that leads to massacre.

Some of our academics appear to have made the brilliant discovery that, the more useless and irrelevant their field of expertise, the more they can count on institutional support. I am personally acquainted with academics who know everything that happened to us 70 or even 700 years ago but pretend to know nothing about what's happening today in their own community.

"Why have you given up writing?" I ask a friend who until very recently contributed regularly to our press.

"How can you go on writing?" he replies.

A good question. I wish I knew the answer

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, January 06, 2008

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CROSS-EXAMINATION

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

Socrates, Jesus, Galileo, Solzhenitsyn -- there are several important and revealing parallels in their lives:

They were right, their accusers wrong.

Their accusers outnumbered their defenders.

They were honest men and their accusers charlatans or ignoramuses.

They wanted to share their understanding of truth or reality, their accusers acted in defense of authority, dogma, and power.

All they asked for is tolerance. What they got was is the threat of torture, exile, and death.

Next time you disagree with someone, ask yourself:

Am I on the side of power or truth?

Do I speak as I do because I represent the majority?

Do I consider dissent a capital offense?

Am I for tolerance or intolerance?

Am I on the side of executioners?

Deep inside somewhere, do I harbor a killer?

#

Monday, January 07, 2008

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

CONTRIBUTION

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

Perhaps my sole contribution to society has been my success in annoying some of our charlatans -- judging by the frequency and intensity of their insults.

*

MY EPITAPH

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

“Here lies a man who may have been the cause of a few moments’ insomnia to a handful of loudmouth hooligans parading as superpatriots.”

*

DISAGREEMENT

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

Does disagreement justify insulting and alienating a fellow Armenian? If we use our past as an index: yes. And therein lies the source of all our misfortunes. It follows, the only way to change the line of our destiny is to replace that yes with a resounding NO! A disagreement, be it religious or ideological, should not be seen as an end but only as the beginning of a dialogue leading to compromise and consensus (which does not mean agreement but a willingness to advance in the same direction). He who says disagreement and consensus are mutually exclusive concepts becomes an agent of the enemy and his divide-and-rule tactics.

To those who assert everything I write is an insult to the nation, I say, why should reason and common sense be an insult to anyone but a deranged mind? And to those who say I should ignore the words of hooligans, I suggest our hooligans echo the sentiments and thoughts of our dividers, that is to say, the propaganda of our bosses and bishops – I don’t include benefactors because their only source of authority is the bottom line.

*

Somewhere Paul Valéry speaks of man’s primitive belief in explanations. Any explanation, no matter how absurd, is better than no explanation, he tells us. Hence the undying popularity of astrology, and after astrology, the universal appeal of propaganda.

*

AN EXPLANATION

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

When an old Indian once predicted a bad winter, he was asked how he knew. His reply: “White man make big wood pile.”

#

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

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

ON PATRIOTISM

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

Some of the e-mails I read are so abusive that I have no choice but to conclude they were written under the influence of an illegal substance. Cannibals and butchers have no business in a convention of vegetarians; likewise garbage-mouth dupes in a controversy.

*

On the day a man decides he knows all he needs to know (this is always true of dupes) he dies. He may continue to breathe, walk, eat, and copulate, but he is brain-dead. Knowledge is not an end with a STOP sign, but a beginning with no end in sight.

*

A dupe is one who cannot think for himself, no doubt as a result of six centuries of brutal subjection. Habits can shackle a man as surely as chains and ropes.

*

Ask a dupe to define free speech and he will say it consists in the freedom to recycle his favorite brand of propaganda.

*

We don’t believe in free speech. We think of it as an invention of the degenerate West, the very same West that looked the other way while we were being butchered.

*

We don’t know how to deal with disagreement even though we have had plenty of practice, because dissent is in our blood as surely as “treason and betrayal” (Raffi).

*

Every dupe speaks in the name of patriotism, or so he wants us to believe. What he doesn’t seem to be aware of is that there are strings attached to his particular and peculiar brand of patriotism. During the Soviet era, I remember, one of our white-haired chic Bolshevik elder statesmen (may he rest in peace) wrote me an abusive letter because I had dared to mention violations of human rights in Armenia. In his view, all Armenians owed a debt of gratitude to our Big Brothers, the Russians; and scribblers like me should keep their traps shut.

*

During World War II we had two brands of patriotism locked in mortal combat: the patriotism of Armenians (under Stalin) brainwashed to believe they were fighting in defense of the Homeland; and the patriotism of diasporan Armenians (under Hitler) who fought to liberate the Homeland.

*

Dupes are easy to identify. They write as if their readers were functional illiterates and Mongoloid retards. Their patriotism is akin to the venom of vipers that paralyzes the brain. Patriotism is not a dogma that legitimizes intolerance. Patriotism means love of country (not hatred of fellow countrymen), and love is first and foremost acceptance, understanding, compassion, and solidarity. Disagree with me if you must, but do not think of me as your enemy.

#

Wednesday, January 09, 2008

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

PARALLELS

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

Flavius Josephus of Jerusalem (37-100 AD), the Jewish historian of the Judaeo-Roman war, makes the following comment on “the misfortunes of my country.” “She fell,” he writes, “because she was a house divided against itself.” He goes on: “The hands of the Romans were forced by the tyrannical leaders of the Jews, and the fire was called down upon the Holy Temple by their doing.”

*

ON NATIONALISM

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

Yeghishe Charents (1897-1937): “‘Homeland,’ ‘pure love,’ ‘oblivion and dreams’: these are the germs of our literary tuberculosis which gives birth to nationalism, romanticism, pessimism, and symbolism.”

*

General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”

#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, January 10, 2008

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THE ART OF READING

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

There are three rules for being a good pianist: practice, practice, and practice. There is only one very easy rule for being a good reader: stop reading when the book bores you -- stop reading even if the author is the Good Lord Himself, and I dare anyone to read the final pages of EXODUS and the first pages of LEVITICUS without yawning.

*

DEMOCRACY RUN AMOK

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

The Internet is a great invention. It allows everyone an equal opportunity to express himself. A garbage-mouth teenage hooligan and a white-haired elder statesmen may post on the same forum, and what is even more astonishing, to reach an agreement. That’s what happens in an environment where closed systems of thought are dominant and free speech anathema. Writes Lance Morrow: “Sometimes it is the faithful of the churches and the mosques who need policing most of all.” Also commissars parading as editors, publishers, and forum moderators.

*

ON POPULARITY

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

Ever since it dawned on me that the ambition of every scribbler is to be popular, I have done my utmost to be unpopular – an enterprise easily achieved by calling a spade a spade and by writing what you see as opposed to what you pretend to see what isn’t there.

*

ON BEING POSITIVE

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

To expose and analyze the ugly and the incomprehensible in us may well be the most positive form of criticism. What could be more cowardly, and therefore negative, than to cover up or ignore the fact that we, as human beings, have our share of failings and that these failings have contributed mightily to our misfortunes.

*

WRITERS

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

Most Armenian writers today write for odars in odar languages. Some say this is a curse of our smallness. I disagree. It is rather the curse of a nation ruled by philistines for whom esthetic values and free speech are unpatriotic concepts. As recently as seventy years ago we had giants like Oshagan and Zarian who wrote in Armenian for Armenians. We don’t even have midgets today.

#

Friday, January 11, 2008

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MEMO TO A TURKISH FRIEND

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

Turks are warlike, and proud of the fact. Only warlike people become masters of a great empire and run it for six centuries. But are they magnanimous in victory? That is the unanswered question. To fight in defense of the territorial integrity of the Homeland may be a noble enterprise, and to emerge victorious a glorious achievement, but to do so with gallantry, that is the mark of a truly civilized nation. If the Armeno-Turkish conflict during World War I was a “war” which the Turks won, then it is up to them to have the nobility of character and generosity of spirit to admit that if in the heat of battle innocent civilians perished, they are willing to discuss the matter with their defeated adversaries and to negotiate terms with the benevolence that is becoming in a victor. Then and only then will they prove to the world that, as truly civilized people, they more than deserve to join the European Union and be seen as an integral part of the West.

#

Saturday, January 12, 2008

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

Nothing bores me as much as talk of Jewishness, Turkishness, Armenishness, or any other kind of --ishness whose sole intent is to make its adherents feel good by emphasizing the positive and covering up the negative thus certifying their perennial status as dupes.

*

No one can be as dangerous as the brain-dead who believes his convictions are his.

*

To think and to think you are thinking are two entirely different activities.

*

To our superpatriots I ask: What do you say to fellow Armenians whose favorite mantra is “Mart bidi ch’ellank”?

*

Let Yanks speak of the American Dream. For us it’s the Armenian Nightmare without end and without closure (to use one of their favorite neologisms) compliments of our Turcocentric pundits.

*

To reduce life to the point that one can think only of massacres: I can’t imagine anything more narrow, negative, and ultimately hateful.

*

Organized religions are like loaded guns. Harmless in themselves but lethal in the hands of irresponsible people, and like drunk drivers, irresponsible people are everywhere.

*

It is said that Laurence Oliver used to stand behind the curtain muttering at the audience over and over “You bastards.” Exactly my frame of mind when I take pen in hand. I am not complaining. Our bastards are my bread and butter. If it weren’t for them I would run out of inspiration and fall silent.

#

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

Arthur Schopenhauer

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, January 13, 2008

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

DISCRIMINATION

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

One reason we find it difficult to come to terms with reality is that our reality is grim. Hence our tendency to take refuge in propaganda, which is as real as a castle in the air. As an Armenian, the hardest thing for me to stomach was the fact that I came from a long line of people whose masters were Turks.

If we like to brag about our celebrities it may be because, unlike us, they were successful in breaking their Ottoman mold and emerging as individuals who did not allow their past to shape their future. In Biblical terms, they ceased being pillars of salt and were born again as human beings.

Nothing can be more misleading than to judge a nation by relying on the words of their politicians. And yet this is what the average Armenian and Turk do. To the average Turk, Armenians are “infidel bastards,” and Turks “the most civilized people on earth.” To the average Armenian, Turks are bloodthirsty savages who will never change their ways as Asiatic barbarians. It is now time that we abandon our respective brands of nationalist fundamentalism and allow the moderates to be heard. Let us follow the world’s example and learn to discriminate Germans from Hitler’s Nazis, and Turks from Talaat’s butchers.

#

Monday, January 14, 2008

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

A SCI-FI SCENARIO

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

Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that a future pro-Armenian Democratic administration in Washington convinces a moderate Turkish regime in Ankara to accede to all our financial and territorial demands. Will that be the end of the story or the beginning of another dark chapter?

Here is what I suggest will happen: The moderate regime in Ankara will be toppled by a coalition of angry fundamentalists, ultra-nationalists, and displaced Turks and Kurds, and Armenia will become the target of terrorist attacks or even wars on three fronts: Azeris, Kurds, and Turks. In short, Armenia will become another Israel.

That’s not all. To recover the money depleted on reparations, the not-so moderate and definitely not-so pro-Armenian regime in Ankara will tax the Armenians within Turkey, whose life will become so unbearable that they will emigrate to foreign lands – anywhere but Armenia, the source of all their troubles.

Who will come to our aid this time? Who can? Only the Good Lord; and if we adopt the past as our guide, He has at no time shown an inclination to do so.

*

To speak of actions and to ignore their backlash is the very same mistake our revolutionaries made at the turn of the last century. We are brought up to believe we are smart, but I suggest to follow the dictates of our gut and to ignore the warnings of our brain is just about the dumbest thing we can do.

*

Let me conclude this excursion into science fiction with a quotation from Shahan Shahnour, who was born and raised in Istanbul and knew Turks better than all our present-day Turcocentric pundits combined: “We may think of Turks as backward slobs, but make no mistake about that: when it comes to Armenians, they can be very, very calculating and methodical.”

*

There is an old saying: “When dreams come true they turn into nightmares,” and another about answered prayers, which I can’t remember at the moment…

#

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

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BETWEEN WAR AND PEACE

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It may not happen in our lifetime but sooner or later it will happen. No doubt about that. Africa will follow Europe’s example and realize that coexistence leading to union is better than endless internecine conflict, tribal wars, revolutions, counter-revolutions, coups, massacres, and genocide. Closer to home: what about the Middle East? Does anyone think people in the Middle East are so backward, bloodthirsty, fanatical, and irrational that they will opt for endless conflict? And if they do so, who will be the beneficiary? Does anyone think Turks will go on calling Armenians infidel bastards and Armenians will reciprocate by calling them Asiatic barbarians? How much more blood will have to be shed before political leaders in Africa and the Middle East realize that peace is better than war, coexistence and cooperation are more civilized than mutual hostility, and in the long run economic barriers and protectionism protect no one. Next time you think of Turks try to think of them less as past enemies and more as future friends. Think of them too as part Armenian because that’s what in fact they are. Turks and Armenians, Palestinians and Israelis, Syrians, Iraqis, Iranians, and Kurds: they will choose to follow either Europe’s or Africa’s example; and who in his right mind will say the morally superior and more progressive role model is Africa?

*

All wars are blunders. No one wins a war. Consider the recent case of two mighty empires fighting and losing a war against two tribal nonentities – Vietnam in the case of the United States and Afghanistan in the case of the USSR. We like to say the Allies won World War I and World War II, and we would like to forget about the fate of Armenians and Jews. What kind of victory is it when the innocent victims number in the million? This is clearly seen and understood by anyone with the minimum of common sense and decency, except some political leaders and our own ubiquitous Turcocentric pundits.

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Wednesday, January 16, 2008

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NOTES / COMMENTS

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“The stranglehold of bureaucracy is becoming unbearable, the battle against corruption has yet to start. The authorities are not doing enough to fight organized crime.” That’s Gorbachev speaking of present conditions in Russia. If any one of our panchoonies (“Mi kich pogh oughargetsek”) were to speak like that, his sources of income would dry up.

*

What does the average Armenian know about our millennial history beside the Genocide? My guess is, the names of a handful of kings, most of whom were not even Armenian, and Vartanants, which, according to some historians, never happened.

*

Common sense and decency are not marketable products because everyone thinks he already has more than enough of both.

*

Truth and politics are mutually exclusive concepts. The closer to the truth a politician gets, the more dupes he alienates.

*

To be consistently positive about Armenians and consistently negative about Turks is the most effective way of undermining our credibility.

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[arabaliozian]

Thursday, January 17, 2008

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SMOKE & MIRRORS

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Nigoghos Sarafian (1905-1973): “Our history is a litany of lamentation, anxiety, horror, and massacre. Also deception and abysmal naiveté mixed with the smoke of incense and the sound of sacred chants.”

*

In the Preface to his ANECDOTA or SECRET HISTORY, the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesaria (500-565 AD) writes that, by exposing past blunders, historians warn future leaders not to repeat them in the hope their incompetence will never be exposed and their reputation will remain unblemished. If it weren’t for historians, he goes on, we would never have known about “the dissolute career of Semiramis and the frenzy of Sardanapalus and Nero…”

*

Nothing comes more naturally to a blundering leader than to cover up his incompetence and to misrepresent his liabilities as assets, and his military defeats as moral victories. To this type of frauds parading as statesmen, and to their hirelings and dupes, honest observers will be branded as hostile witnesses and even enemy agents to be silenced, ostracized, and persecuted.

*

If you listen carefully to our sermonizers, speechifiers, and dime-a-dozen pundits, you will notice that their central message is always the same, namely, we are in good hands -- our leaders have done nothing wrong – it’s all someone else’s fault – the West betrayed us and the Turks are bloodthirsty savages, thieves, rapists, and liars. Hitler blamed the Jews. We blame the world, after which we expect its sympathy and support.

*

After experiencing centuries of oppression and degradation under ruthless alien despots, we cling to the absurd notion that God is on our side, there is justice in this world, and sooner or later victory will be ours. All we have to do is trust the judgment of our bosses and bishops, and support them by sending “mi kich pogh.”

*

Where there is leadership without accountability there will also be taxation without representation.

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Friday, January 18, 2008

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

AMOT!

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

“I love mankind,” Baronian once said, “but I hate men.” Born and raised in the Ottoman Empire, Baronian was in an excellent position to know that men are either executioners or victims, masters or slaves (Hegel), exploiters or workers (Marx); and the secret ambition of all underdogs is to be top dogs, exploiters, masters, or executioners. He also knew that when victims cannot victimize their executioners, they victimize one another. Baronian did not live long enough to be victimized by Turks, but he was betrayed to the Turkish police and victimized by his fellow Armenians.

*

We love literature but we hate writers. No, not quite. If truth be told, it’s much worse. We don’t give a damn about writers and what we really hate is free speech. And we hate free speech because it threatens to expose us as potential executioners not of our enemies but fellow Armenians who dare to disagree with us. I speak from experience.

*

Like all nations we have our share of skinheads, philistines, and hooligans, with one difference: they are now our masters. Or, in the words of a wiser man than myself: “Once upon a time we were slaves. We are now slaves of former slaves.”

*

To silence someone whose sole intent is to share his understanding of reality is to choose to be on the side of executioners, assassins, and some of the worst serial killers in the history of mankind – Hitler and Stalin being two recent cases in point.

*

To our hooligans I say: For once, reality is against you because we live on a continent where free speech happens to be a fundamental human right. You have two options: get out or stop reading, or if you can’t give up reading, read only chauvinist crapola, partisan editorials, and our dime-a-dozen Turcocentric pundits. But if you insist on reading me, it may be because deep down somewhere – assuming such depths exist – you find truth irresistible. Either that or you are fed up with your own lies which are not even yours but that of our crème de la scum parading as our crème de la crème.

*

Only people who can’t tell the difference between literature and propaganda assert truth is on their side. Only fanatics who can’t tell the difference between god and the devil dare to assert god is on their side.

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Saturday, January 19, 2008

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WRITERS & POLITICIANS

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Hagop Baronian (1842-1891): “Truth is a language that if not spoken is forgotten.”

*

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

*

Shahan Shahnour (1904-1974): “For my generation of Armenians, the enemy is not the Turk but us.”

*

The pen is mightier than the sword? Our writers and poets were Talaat's and Stalin’s first victims.

“Writers are the architects of the soul,” one of our bosses once said to me and I believed him, until I read a similar statement by Stalin.

*

We are all born dupes but inevitably we run across another dupe who stands in direct contradiction to us. At which point we wonder: How can anyone be so wrong and so sure of himself? What if he is right and I am wrong? What if we are both wrong? Why would anyone lie to us?

*

We either believe our politicians or our writers. I am not saying all writers speak the truth and all politicians are compulsive and habitual liars. What I am suggesting is that, when it comes to lying, politicians are better at it because they have had more practice.

*

I don’t write against Armenians. I write against charlatans and dupes. Only readers who can’t tell the difference between one and the other accuse me of being anti-Armenian.

*

Shirvanzadeh (Alexander Movsessian: 1858-1935): “The narrow partisan propaganda line that is espoused by our press is the enemy of all literature.”

*

Siamanto (Adom Yerjanian: 1878-1915): “Our perennial enemy – the enemy that will eventually destroy us – is not the Turks but our own complacent superficiality.”

*

Hagop Garabents (Jack Karapetian: 1925-1996): “Once upon a time we fought and shed our blood for freedom. We are now afraid of free speech.”

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[arabaliozian]

Sunday, January 20, 2008

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CROCODILES

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Readers who disagree with me and engage in verbal abuse are not my enemies. They are enemies of free speech, and enemies of free speech are fascist bullies who have no place in civilized discourse for the simple reason that they are against discourse.

I did not create free speech. Free speech has been around for a long time. So have been its opponents and victims, of course. Greeks, who 2500 years again disagreed with Socrates, also rejected the concept of free speech and dialogue by silencing him permanently. We have come a long way since then. Heidegger, one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, was also a Nazi, and as a Nazi he deserved the hangman’s noose. But he was left alone, probably because Americans, like Armenians, don’t think highly of philosophers because they favor philomorons, like Senator McCarthy, Kennedy’s “best and brightest” of Vietnam fame, Bush and his gang of neo-cons, and televangelists and their “moral majority.” As for Russians, our “Big Brothers”: they are worse. My guess is, Russians have silenced, exiled, and exterminated more intellectuals (including our own) than all other nations combined. Chekhov was right when he predicted that 20th-century Russia would be at the mercy of “crocodiles,” that, unlike their jungle counterparts, would engage in cannibalism.

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Monday, January 21, 2008

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THE LAMENT OF A WRITER

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“I am ashamed to call myself an Armenian,” Vahé Oshagan is reported to have said when one of his books was given a negative reception in our weeklies. Once upon a time I too identified myself with my fellow Armenians to such an unreasonable degree that I was embarrassed when any one of them behaved badly. I know now that Armenians, all Armenians without exception, are first and foremost individuals before being members of a tribe or nation; and as individuals, they should be judged as individuals. If an Armenian chooses to make an ass of himself in public, so be it, that is his choice, not mine or anyone else’s. If, as an individual he is free, so am I, and I freely choose not to be responsible for his actions.

*

Only dumb people assess themselves as smart, believe in their own assessment, and brag about it. And it doesn’t take much to be a victim. It takes even less to wallow in victimhood. Now then, go ahead and say, I am proud to be an Armenian because I am smart and because I come from a long line of perennial victims who have harmed no one but themselves and one another.

*

Whenever odars are given the opportunity or care enough to judge us, they will do so not by what we say about ourselves but our history; and no matter how you slice it, our history is a sad one, or, to put it more bluntly, it is nothing to brag about. If we have anything to brag about, it is our literature. But who reads Armenian writers these days? Not even Armenians. If Vahé Oshagan were alive today, I would tell him he has nothing to be ashamed of. After all, his book was read and reviewed by a handful of Armenians, which means, he was better off than most of our classics.

#

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

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MEMO TO OUR PUNDITS

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Being popular by writing what the people want to read means pandering to the lowest common denominator, and as such it is to be avoided because it is the surest symptom of unprincipled mediocrity.

*

To speak of massacres is to relive them, and to speak of Turks means to reassert them as our masters even if the assertion is made in a remote corner of our subconscious. Our aim ought to be recovering our humanity and with it our creative impetus, which will allow us to make contributions to the welfare of our fellow men regardless of race, color, and creed. Then and only then we may deserve universal support.

*

Our writers are not our enemies, and yet this is how we have treated them. Being the offspring of victims does not justify us victimizing one another, especially those among us who dare to speak honestly and objectively about our failings. We all sympathize with victims, but if they insist on it day in day out, compassion fatigue may set it and sympathy may turn to annoyance and irritation.

*

To our Turcocentric pundits I say, it is now time that you downsize your Turcocentrism and emphasize Armenianism by writing more about our present problems and contradictions, of which we have more than our share.

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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

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HISTORY AS THE PROPHETESS OF TRUTH

& WELLSPRING OF PHILOSOPHY

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Diodorus of Sicily (first century B.C.), Greek historian: “Even the entirely fictitious legend of Hell is a mighty instrument for turning the hearts of men to righteousness and the fear of God. How much greater, therefore, must we conceive to be the potential ennobling influence upon character of History, the prophetess of truth and the wellspring of philosophy?”

*

Nothing stays the same. Suppose in a future post-global warming and post-World War III America the Constitution is amended and the laws of taxation re-written, so that instead of collecting taxes from ethnic minorities, bureaucrats from the IRS visit homes and collect our children – boys for the army, and girls for “comfort,” that is, legalized prostitution. How long before we emigrate? It took us 600 years to get out of the Ottoman Empire and even then we had to be driven out at the point of a yataghan. Our pundits are unanimous in saying Turks are butchers, rapists, thieves, and liars. I wonder, why is it that it took us 600 years to figure that out? If my better-informed readers know the answer to that question, why is it that so far they have kept it to themselves? At least let us have the honesty to admit that we may not be as smart as we think we are, and our greatest deceivers have not been the Great Powers of the West but our own speechifiers and sermonizers parading as statesmen and pundits.

*

Once upon a time we were free. Then we ceased to be free. We forgot what freedom meant. We had to be taught what freedom meant by the West, and we are still learning. Some day we may even begin to appreciate the value and importance of free speech.

*

Samuel Butler (1835-1902), English author: “Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.”

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[arabaliozian]

Thursday, January 24, 2008

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FROGS

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Speaking of our revolutionaries, one of our elder statesmen once compared them to “frogs trying to rape an elephant.”

*

Save the nation? Part the Red Sea? Change water to wine? Raise the brain-dead? I leave these things to better men than myself. I write. That’s the only thing I do because that’s what all writers, including our own, have always done. I write to express my thoughts and sentiments as honestly and objectively as I can. Let others do what they will with them.

*

Where honesty and objectivity are equated with self-hatred and betrayal, free speech will be violated in the name of God and Country.

*

To say my country, right or wrong, is less nationalism and more narcissism, and as such, less ideology and more pathology.

*

Our pundits are more interested in settling old scores than in the welfare of the nation. Perhaps because, in Einstein’s words: “The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.” Or, frogs cannot solve problems created by elephants.

*

Instead of trying to solve problems created by others, let us begin with problems created by us, such as: respecting one another’s fundamental human right of free speech, engaging in dialogue, and developing a consensus. I wonder why is it that these problems are ignored by our “betters.” Is it because they don’t require any capital investment and no letters that end with their favorite mantra, “mi kich pogh…”

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Friday, January 25, 2008

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DEFINING FASCISM

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One reason why I write about our problems is that I don’t know much about Eskimo and Patagonian problems. As for Canadian problems: once, when I dared to say something on the subject, I was told to go back where I came from. That put an abrupt end to my career as a Canadian critic.

*

We are all born fascists. But whenever we confront another fascist unwilling to relinquish his infallibility, we are given a chance to reconsider our political convictions.

*

I once asked a Turcocentric pundit if he had read a single Armenian writers and he said he had not, after which he advised me to write more about Turkish atrocities. I didn’t ask him to define patriotism, but if I had, my guess is he would have said “hatred of Turks,” which may suggest there is more Ottomanism and less Armenianism in his worldview.

*

Bad things happen to good people because when bad people do bad things to bad people, they don’t give a damn about collateral damage. That’s how Turks see the Genocide – as collateral damage, which is something that happens in every war, beginning with Homer’s ILIAD.

*

We have a better chance to reach a consensus with the Turks if we tell them, we understand why they did what they did and we would like them to understand us when we say what they did was not right.

*

Our bosses, bishops, and benefactors are convinced they are saying what must be said and doing what must be done, and they resent usurpers like me who try to muscle in their territory.

*

It would be a mistake to underestimate the power of our hoodlums. They may seem to be a harmless and non-representative minority, but all they need to become a murderous majority is someone like Hitler and Stalin.

*

“Hoodlumism in the name of patriotism,” is as good a definition of fascism as any.

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Saturday, January 26, 2008

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ALIEN TRASH

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You cannot tell people what to think and how to feel. You can only speak of your own thoughts and feelings and all the mud that is flung in your direction by dupes simply because you refuse to subscribe to their lies, which are not even theirs; or, as Zarian puts it: “even their trash is picked up from alien streets.”

*

I cannot adapt. I cannot change colors like a chameleon. Call it an evolutionary failure. My kind may well be headed for extinction. That doesn’t mean I will exit in silence.

*

To how many of my critics (if you will forgive the overstatement) I could say: When I was your age – and it makes no difference if you are nine or ninety – I too pretended to know and understand things that I didn’t, and succeeded only in making an ass of myself.

*

No man can be said to be an authority on his fellow men, let alone himself, because most of our real self is buried in our subconscious. We can only speak of unverified and unverifiable theories and guesses.

*

No need to contradict someone who lives in a world of illusions because reality will be his most effective and persistent contradictor.

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[arabaliozian]

Sunday, January 27, 2008

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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It would be useful for all Armenians to be reminded once in a while that we live in a world where wars and massacres are dime-a-dozen routine occurrences.

*

Leaders, all leaders, even the most enlightened and progressive, share in common the conviction that the less the people know the better.

*

Sooner or later every Armenian writer must resign himself to the fact that there isn’t much he can say to readers who know better and have all the answers.

*

We like to say that Jews go out of their way to support their own and that we go out of our way too but only in the opposite direction. But I am suspicious of all ethnic or racial generalizations. In my view, it is a fact of human nature that envious mediocrities will do their utmost to obstruct the path of anyone that threatens to expose their mediocrity.

*

Reason alone is not enough, but reason is all we have in a world where faith, dogma, and subservience -- that is unreason -- are synonymous.

*

Breakdowns occur because we cannot go on deceiving ourselves, others, and least of all, reality.

*

When a man says God is on his side, he is sure to be closer to the Devil.

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Monday, January 28, 2008

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ON TURKISH LOVE & ARMENIAN HATRED

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If Turks love me and Armenians hate me (this according to one of my gentle anonymous readers on the Internet) it may be because Turks are not always wrong and Armenians not always right -- especially when it comes to judging their fellow Armenians.

To avoid recognizing the devil in us we demonize others –i.e. we project. In the same way that Jews demonize anti-Semites, and some blacks demonize white men (“White man is the devil”), we demonize not only Turks and the Great Powers of the West, but also anyone who dares not to be on our side. On more than one occasion I have myself been demonized by fellow Armenians simply because I refuse to parrot their favorite brand of propaganda. Hence my skepticism of all blame-games.

Playing the blame-game might as well be synonymous with being infallible, and being infallible means an inability to learn from one’s mistakes, because in order to learn from them one must first admit them.

An addict of the blame-game is a morally bankrupt man because he’d rather lose his reason than give up his addiction.

As for Turks loving me: as far as I know, Turks don’t read me, and if they read me, they don’t comment on what I write. The only Turk who has written me agrees with me that Armeno-Turkish relations will have a better chance to improve on the day extremists on both sides are marginalized thus allowing the moderates the upper hand.

As for Armenians who hate me: I also have a good number of Armenian readers who agree with me, and others who are critical only because I don’t go far enough in my criticism. My comment on Armenians who hate me: their verbal abuse is such that it does not require any comment on my part.

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Tuesday, January 29, 2008

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THE BARBARIANS AMONG US

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After reading Plato’s dialogues, Shaw’s plays, and countless letters to the editor in foreign newspapers and magazines, I have discovered that every assertion can be contradicted and every generalization questioned without resorting to verbal abuse. Verbal abuse not only detracts from the merit of the argument but also exposes the writer’s character, IQ, and level of upbringing.

*

It is not true that I criticize Armenians, or only Armenians, or all Armenians; I criticize only charlatans and their dupes regardless of nationality – dupes who have dug themselves into a hole so deep that they can no longer see the light of reason.

*

It has been said that suffering is one of the very best ways to learn to know oneself. But I guess, when given the opportunity to learn, some people will choose the bliss of ignorance.

*

The trick in good writing is to convince the reader that you write to express not your own sentiments and thoughts but his.

*

We are not a nation but a mosaic of tribes and products of different environments and cultures. Unless we stress what we share, learn to explain ourselves in a civilized manner, and understand one another – none of which can be achieved by means of insults and verbal abuse – we are doomed.

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Wednesday, January 30, 2008

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REASON AND AUTHORITY

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Theophylactus Simocatta the Egyptian (500-630 A.D.): “By reason, men converge toward one another and advance from the outer surface to the inner mind. Reason has showered innumerable blessings upon men and is an admirable collaborator with nature.”

*

If one is brought up to respect authority, those in authority are brought up to deceive and intimidate. Authority and subservience produce dogmatism, intolerance, and ultimately war and massacre. Is anarchy the answer? No. Skepticism? Yes. Don’t believe everything you are told. Authority is a double-edged sword that speaks with a forked tongue. Its main concern is to legitimize its own power at all cost even if it means the conscious avoidance of truth and the destruction of the world.

*

The best way to achieve immortality is to speak the truth to liars, for liars have the memory of elephants.

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