reflections

[Guest arabaliozian]

Sunday, August 04, 2002********************************Flattery is music to the ears of dupes, the young and the insecure. I speak from experience. When I was a boy, nothing pleased me more than to hear that Armenians are smart, sensitive, civilized, compassionate, progressive, and so on and so forth. Now that I am old, I dismiss all flattery as an insult.*We have produced many celebrities who have been of no use to us. We have also produced a vast army of more or less anonymous parasites and their offspring who have become past masters at speechifying during the day and gravedigging at night.Hagop Baronian knew what he was talking about when he said: "You want to serve the nation? Be a parasite." To which I can only add: "You want to resurrect the nation? Be a gravedigger."*A good idea never dies, but a bad idea has a longer lifespan.*From the struggle of Armenians versus the rest of the world, Armenians have emerged the losers; and from the struggle of Armenians for solidarity versus Armenians for tribalism, Armenians for tribalism have emerged the victors; and these two phenomena may be seen as cause and effect.THE WRITING ON THE WALL***********************************The Writing on the Wall and the writing on the washroom wall are in two different languages, and those who can read the second will have trouble deciphering the first.THUNDER-TALK***************************************There is a type of chauvinist windbag who makes all moderates look like Turcophiles. If these borodakhos bigots ever assume power, you can be sure of one thing: most of us will end up in concentration camps.I SPEAK FROM EXPERIENCE*********************************Expose the Turk in an Armenian and make a bloodthirsty enemy for life; and the more phony his patriotism, the more ferocious the Turk that resides in his heart.QUESTIONS******************Why is it that some Armenians, after assessing themselves as good Armenians, take this assessment at face value but totally ignore someone else’s assessment of himself as a good Armenian?Why is it that, with this type of Armenian, self-assessment is valid only when administered by himself and no one else?Can you help me to find an answer to this riddle wrapped in an enigma, locked in a safe, and buried in a very deep "khor virab" at the foot of Mt. Ararat?Monday, August 05, 2002********************************A sad day. I just finished reading for the third time THE SABRES OF PARADISE  by Lesley Blanch. An unforgettable masterpiece. A book about the Caucasus. There are many Armenians in it. Armenians from all walks of life – generals, merchants, translators, diplomats, wheeler-dealers, concubines…. The central character is Shamyl the Avar, Lion of Daghestan, a ferocious Muslim warrior and religious leader. As fascinating as Shamyl is the Caucasian landscape – the mountains, the deep gorges, the rivers, the forests….There aren’t too many books that I have read more than twice. The three that come readily to mind are Thomas Mann’s THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN Sartre’s WORDS and Nabokov’s LOLITA.Another that may or not may not qualify as a book (it’s a long short story of about 40 pages) is Tolstoy’s HADJI MURAD. The SOVIET-ARMENIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA tells us that Tolstoy wrote this story about a contemporary of Shamyl with the assistance of an Armenian, Loris Melikov, who is also mentioned and discussed by Lesley Blanch. To those of my readers who have not yet read THE SABRES OF PARADISE, I say, I envy you. You have something to look forward to. Not just a book but a life-enhancing experience!Tuesday, August 06, 2002******************************Being misunderstood is a universal condition and hoping to be accepted by the world on our own terms an empty illusion.*My agenda: to dramatize what others ignore or pretend not to know.*You want to please your readers?  Be a parrot. You want to be hated? Think for yourself.*Better to be wrong and to think the unthought  than to be right and to regurgitate the already thought.*What could be more pitiful than the spectacle of a man who, in his efforts to prove himself superior, exposes himself as the scum of the earth.*Olivier Messiaen: "Among birds most fights are settled by tournaments of song."And they say man is a reasonable being!