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[Guest arabaliozian]

HISTORYWe sometimes forget that when we speak of our past we speak of a single version of it – a censored and carefully edited version – a version moreover that does not recognize objectivity and factual accuracy as legitimate or for that matter desirable criteria. Consider the clichй that goes something like this: Armenia became a Christian island in a Muslim sea. This statement completely ignores the fact that Georgia and Russia to the North were also Christian, which made of Armenia not a Christian island but a peninsula..CELEBSFrom Kenneth Tynan’s Diary celebrities emerge as promiscuous, rude, selfish, and above all very ordinary not to say banal. Almost nothing they say is worth quoting. In a way I am glad that my dealings with celebrities has been marginal to the point of nonexistence – only two letters from Saroyan and Lawrence Durrell. I have had more encounters with minor celebrities but none of them may be said to be memorable or even worth mentioning..MY ARMENIAN EXPERIENCEWhen I was young I was deceived by my elders; and now that I am myself old, I am insulted by the young. That about sums up my so-called Armenian experience.I therefore say: Forgive me, Mt. Ararat, if I consider all claims of moral superiority as racist nonsense worthy only of benighted bigots.Friday, August 30, 2002*****************************To a non-believer the Biblical version of the creation in Genesis is pure fiction and fantasy. But to the same non-believer the Big-Bang theory or any other scientific creation theory will sound even more fantastic and unbelievable. What is a man of reason to conclude? That reason cannot explain everything and since human beings are products of some Force or Being that is beyond reason, reason is never enough to explain their actions.*Among my most vociferous critics are Armenians who consider themselves defenders of the faith and myself as a dangerous enemy out to destroy the nation. I say to them: Armenians have confronted and overcome far more formidable threats than myself; they are tough enough to survive the criticism of a minor scribbler; they are even tough enough to survive the charlatanism of our wheeler-dealers and panchoonies.*May I confess that I am allergic to rhetoric. Anything that echoes the nonsense I was exposed to as a child gives me shivers of nausea.*Literature: the art of saying publicly what others are afraid to think privately.Propaganda: the art of repeating what the lowest common denominator wants to hear.Saturday, August 31, 2002****************************Since Armenians have criticized, not to say verbally abused, silenced, betrayed, starved, murdered and driven to suicide some of their ablest writers from Abovian and Baronian to Voskanian and Zarian, it is safe to assert that Armenian literary criticism is a discipline practiced by charlatans at best and at worst by sadistic hooligans.*If you study the criticism leveled against dissidents in totalitarian regimes, one thing becomes immediately clear: certain words (like "unpatriotic") and phrases (like "divorced from reality") occur again and again with the predictable regularity of mantras.Why should I be surprised if some of my own critics question my patriotism and sanity? To them, understanding is not a never-ending process but a dead end; and the only reason they pretend to have understood everything they need to understand is that, what they have understood so far happens to flatter their vanity.What awaits these gentlemen is education by catastrophe.The same could be said of all totalitarian regimes: what awaits them is not reform and progress but decline and disintegration.*"Don't you know any decent Armenians? Are all Armenians charlatans?" I am asked once in a while by outraged chauvinists.My answer: I know an attractive Armenian girl who, whenever an Armenian makes a pass at her, says: "I don't do Armenians."I could say the same: "I don't do decent Armenians," and I have every reason to believe by exposing charlatans I give the decent ones a better chance to carry on their work. Which is why, I can't imagine a truly decent Armenian suggesting that I cover up the blunders and lies of our bloodsuckers and gravediggers. If you don't believe me, ask a decent Armenian who is involved in Armenian affairs (if you are lucky enough to know one).____