paradoxes

[Guest arabaliozian]

PARADOXES*********************After Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms, there are millions who worship Elvis.After Galileo, Newton and Einstein, there are those who believe the earth is flat.After allowing ourselves to be divided, colonized, victimized, exploited, enslaved, massacred, and dispersed by hidebound barbarians and uncivilized imbeciles, we think of ourselves as smart.After murdering innocent civilians in the name of a "merciful and compassionate Allah," a devout Muslim thinks he will be rewarded in heaven.I dare you to consider these things and maintain your sanity.Friday, August 16, 2002******************************It’s impossible to be right in the eyes of readers whose most highly developed faculty is their spirit of contradiction.*If to be positive or constructive or optimistic means covering up our failings and ignoring our contradictions, I suggest that’s not being positive but cowardly.*Is nationalism good or bad? I see nothing wrong in the kind of nationalism that promotes peace and brotherhood, or respect for all nations. But I will be damned if I will support the kind of nationalism that promotes racism, intolerance, hate and bloodshed.*I was brought up to hate the Turks. I know now that it is wrong to hate a nation. Let us hate, if we must, murderers, racists, and all forms of intolerance even when they happen to be Armenian.*There is one in every crowd and forum: a pervert who will pervert the meaning of your words, including words that are comprehensible to infants.*Shahan Shahnour in a letter to Krikor Keusseyan: "Armenian literature is hostile to humor, it prefers rhetoric and sentimentality."LATER…*****************What keeps me going is the thought that I continue to be a source of annoyance to my critics by letting them know that there may be others out there who don't always agree with them because they are products of different environments and experiences; and by reminding them that no one represents God on earth, especially those who claim to speak in His name.*If I keep saying the same thing over and over again, then I must be a fool; and if you keep reading me in the hope that I may change my tune, then you must be a worst fool.*Writers come in all sizes and shapes, but literature comes in only one: good. Bad literature cannot be said to be literature in the same way that crap or vomit cannot be said to be food.*Far better men than myself have described Armenians as a tribal people. Nikol Aghbalian, a great intellectual and community leader at the turn of the century said, "we are very much like Turks and Kurds, a tribal people."I have always maintained that we, all of us, are in the business of recycling.There are no original ideas. Some recycle chauvinist crap, others recycle the ideas of Khorenatsi, Yeghishe, Raffi, Voskanian, Baronian, Odian, Massikian, Zohrab, Zarian, Aghbalian, Zabel Yessayan, Shahnour and many, many others, all of whom, please note, all of whom, were very critical of our foibles, complexes, and contradictions.