Jump to content

Latest from writer Ara Baliozian


Recommended Posts

Guest arabaliozian

Saturday, November 08, 2003

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

The average law-abiding citizen is swayed more by speechifiers and sermonizers than by the ideas of philosophers or, for that matter, by the words of a solitary scribbler.

*

Exploiters, bloodsuckers, wheeler-dealers and dupes see grandeur in the pyramids of Egypt. All I see is monuments to human degradation.

*

We all make contributions to history: some of us contribute dupes that legitimize the power of charlatans, and others contribute victims, and anyone who dares to point out this fact is dismissed as an eccentric and a hostile witness.

*

Some of my readers don't like it when I express my thoughts. They demand that I express theirs.

*

Writers are eccentric, poets unreliable dreamers, and artists unstable? What about the Napoleons and Rockefellers of this world? What are they if not glorified serial killers and bloodsuckers.

*

The question that I ask myself again and again is: Is it possible that there are readers out there who cannot see what I see? But perhaps we can see only what we are. Confronted with legitimate criticism, a hooligan will see only hooliganism.

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Replies 304
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Guest arabaliozian

Monday, November 10, 2003

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

If an Armenian butcher or Oriental carpet dealer ever comes up to me and wants to know if he could be as successful in literature as he has been in his own field, I would reply: "It depends on the political environment in which you live. Under a totalitarian system, if you parrot the propaganda line of the regime and if you have friends in high places, you could be not only an influential literary critic but also a highly effective judge, jury and executioner."

If Bakounts, Charents, Zabel Yessayan, and Mahari were alive today, they would agree with me.

By the way, I don't know any butchers and the only question I have been asked by Oriental carpet dealers is whether or not I would be willing to translate their writings into English or review their memoirs.

*

In a corrupt environment being unpopular is preferable to being popular.

*

My critics think they are my only readers, and my friends think my critics are riffraff and that I waste my time whenever I take the trouble to answer them. They may be right. I have never heard an Armenian say, "After reading writer X, Y or Z, I changed my mind about issue A, B or C."

*

An agenda, any agenda, is what it states and what it doesn't, and of the two the unspoken part is the more important.

*

You don't have to be literate to read between the lines and I don't just mean printed lines.

*

It's not easy being an underdog. By the time you figure out the rules of the game, you are either too busy being angry or busier taking evasive action against unfair rules to have any time left for positive or creative endeavors.

*

There are those who think deep down I am a revolutionary whose ambition is to overthrow the present leadership.

What rubbish!

First of all, I don't believe in revolutions because all they do is replace one set of rascals with another and I don't see even a remotely better set of rascals on the horizon. All I ask is a little less dishonesty on the part of those who support the status quo.

Please note that I am not asking for honesty. I am old enough to know that politics is not exactly a magnet for men of integrity. All I am saying is, there is a difference between occasional liars and compulsive ones, or between ideology and pathology.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest arabaliozian

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

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

If a politician wants your vote,

he will tell you what you want to hear.

If a businessman wants your money,

he will sell you products or services that you want to buy.

If a writer tells you things you don't want to hear,

it's because he wants neither your vote nor your money.

*

Perhaps everything I write is a fragment of a long autobiographical novel which I may never complete.

*

According to Al Capone: "You can get a lot more done with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone."

Since I don't have a gun, I must modify my kindness.

*

A question I am asked once in a while:

"If you don't like Armenians, why do you write for them?"

My answer: "I write against hoodlums and in defense of decent men everywhere, regardless of nationality."

*

To be an Armenian writer means to be silenced by fascists

and insulted by hoodlums.

*

Propaganda is not what a regime tells you today

but also what you were told as a child by a schoolteacher, a priest or anyone else who spoke in the name of God, Truth, or a power structure.

*

In a corrupt environment, popularity is no guarantee of honesty.

*

Once upon a time I was read only by subscribers of Armenian weeklies and magazines. The typical Armenian subscriber is one whose central concern is seeing his name in print. Now, on the internet, even Turks read me completely free of charge.

*

A word to my critics:

I have no interest in proving you wrong and myself right; all I want to do is allow you to observe our reality from a different perspective or add my perspective to yours so that you may be less vulnerable to manipulation by men with a secret agenda.

If you say, "I can take care of myself; I don't need your two cents' worth," may I remind you that some of our ablest intellectuals were taken in by enemy propaganda - Zohrab by Turkish, Zarian by Soviet - and they paid a very high price for their gullibility: the first was murdered in cold blood by Turks and the second was buried alive by fellow Armenians.

Moral I: None of us can claim to be immune to deception and manipulation.

Moral II: To say or think that one is immune is an unmistakable symptom of self-deception.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest arabaliozian

Wednesday, November 12, 2003

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

Some of my critics, who subscribe to the tit-for-tat school of criticism, accuse me of the very same transgressions that I have been leveling against our bosses, bishops, benefactors and their flunkies - intolerance, dogmatism, refusal to engage in dialogue.

If I were to plead guilty as charged, will anything change in our collective existence?

As far as I can see, only one thing: the tune I have been whistling in the dark, on a deserted road, in the middle of nowhere.

If, on the other hand, our bosses, bishops and benefactors decide to adopt a more tolerant and less dogmatic approach to community affairs, we may promote ourselves from a collection of unruly tribes engaged in endless conflict to a nation reborn.

Moral I: You want to make yourself useful by providing a service to the nation? Ignore the monkey and go after the organ grinder.

Moral II: If you allow the organ grinder a free hand, he may replace his monkey with a gorilla and the gorilla with King Kong.

Moral III: We have many problems. I refuse to believe I am one of them.

*

If we define history as the propaganda of the victor, we could also define war as two sets of brainwashed dupes shooting at one another and in the process killing innocent bystanders.

*

Is there such a thing as a just war?

Some historians say yes, others no. Which may suggest that historians are like advocates in a court of law: for every historian who says one thing there will be another who will assert the exact opposite. This is true not only of nationalist historians (such as Armenian and Turkish historians) but also of historians within the same nation -- if you consider the fact that we have as many versions of our recent past as we have political parties and religious denominations.

*

Illusions can appear to be more real than reality, and fallacies more true than truth: therein lies their danger.

*

It's not easy explaining things to people who don't want things explained.

*

To those of my gentle readers who would like to see me silenced on grounds of mediocrity, I say and repeat: Don't think of me as a writer but as a witness in a court of law.

Is my testimony honest?

If, on the other hand, I am committing perjury, then all you need to do is produce another witness that will contradict me, after which it will be up to the jury (our readers) to reach a verdict. So that my own mediocrity should be an asset (from your perspective) rather than a liability that needs to be exposed, attacked and suppressed.

*

What's wrong with demonizing the opposition? - be they Turks, the "corrupt" West, Antelias (if you happen to be pro-Etchmiadzin) or Ramgavar (if you happen to be a Tashnag) and so on?

Allow me to answer that question by asking another:

Which one of our many problems has been solved by this tactic?

Its only success has been reinforcing and legitimizing our tribal divisions by exploiting the prejudices and ignorance of a credulous community.

*

As for those who accuse me of being a bearer of bad tidings, therefore depressing, humorless, and monotonous: I promise, if I ever find a way of speaking about our problems in a more entertaining and cheerful manner, I will do so. In the meantime, the only solution to your problem is to ignore me. That should not be difficult since there are many other writers (dead as well as alive) with a more positive and amusing approach to life's many problems.

*

There is nothing new in what I have been saying. Cancer is cancer and it cannot be cured by calling it an attack of flu.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest arabaliozian

Friday, November 14, 2003

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

The will of the nation is the sum total of the will of its people. But where people are divided, the collective will is not so much divided as canceled out.

*

"Hitler would have loved reading you," a Jewish writer is told whenever he publishes a book or story critical of the Jews. I have never been told "Talaat would have enjoyed reading you," but I have been warned again and again that Turks sometimes quote me, the implication being, even if my criticism is fair, I should pretend we are beyond criticism, which also means that any Armenian writer who has ever published a critical book on Armenians - from Khorenatsi to Zarian - must be considered an enemy agent.

*

It is not easy walking away from a fight with a weaker adversary.

*

The pursuit of truth and the pursuit of power are mutually exclusive. Where power enters, truth will be suppressed and persecuted. And since organized religions have a propensity to side with power, it follows, religious leaders have been enemies of dissent, free speech, dialogue, and truth.

*

It is not unusual for one of our academics to quote from my translations and pretend it is his own by changing an adjective here and a comma there.

*

If goodness were always rewarded, it would not be goodness but a profitable investment or transaction.

*

Talk is cheap? If only men of action talked more and acted less!

*

Organized religions have improved a great many people, no doubt about that. But so has the prospect of death, so has Siberian exile, so has tyranny and war (in so far as they have brought forth courage and heroism). So what?

*

In the Middle Ages bloody wars were fought over the correct proportion of the human and the divine in Christ or over whether or not images should be allowed in places of worship. Today these controversies have lost all relevance and meaning.

How many of our own controversies will survive a thousand or even a hundred years hence? But perhaps a hundred years is too far ahead. Even as I write, the overwhelming majority of Armenian-Americans either don't know or care even less about our present-day orthodoxies and heresies that keep us divided. I for one don't give a tinker's bell whether or not Etchmiadzin (an instrument of the KGB, I am told by Anteliassagans) is more legitimate than Antelias (an instrument of the CIA, I am told by Etchmiadznagans).

*

My critics have taught me this most valuable of all lessons:

For an Armenian, no one can be as contemptible as another Armenian.

*

Vahram Papazian: "The greater your worth the greater the pleasure of the worthless to tear you down."

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest arabaliozian

Saturday, November 15, 2003

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

In today's paper I read that a jungle tribe in darkest Africa staged an elaborate ceremony of apology for descendants of a British missionary killed and eaten 136 years ago. I suggest copies of this article be sent to Turkish embassies everywhere with a memo stating simply: "Let that be a lesson to you!" and signed: "Armenian descendants of Turkish cannibalism."

*

Trying to impress others is a form of subservience because it implies dependence on what they think.

*

It has been pointed out to me that I write like a grim grouch and that to make my message more palatable and effective I should deliver it with a friendly smile and a touch of humor. It is not easy to speak of a nation dying the death of a thousand cuts (some of them self-inflicted) and to be amusing at the same time. But perhaps someone in the future, someone with Shakespeare's genius, will succeed in performing that difficult task. I have this deep-seated conviction, you see, that when it comes to human beings and what they can achieve, it never pays to say never - though one must also concede that Shakespeares have not been a dime a dozen in the history of our literature or any other literature, for that matter, including English. In the meantime all I can say in my defense is that I am not here to entertain or amuse anyone but to enrage as many as I can at what's being done in their name.

*

A valid idea cannot be forgotten or ignored. It may be perverted, and it usually is, but it cannot be buried.

*

Some day I would like to compile a book of favorite sayings not only of famous men but also of lesser mortals. About a month ago I heard a Canadian politician quoting his: "If you are in a hole, stop digging," and I could not help reflecting that if Nixon, Clinton and their advisers had heeded the wisdom of this message they would have saved themselves a heap of trouble. Which reminds me of the favorite saying of a late aunt: "Have my own troubles shat on me that I should waste my time on someone else's?"

When it comes to favorite sayings, I have so many that I wouldn't know where to begin. "White man speaks with a forked tongue," is one of them, and another: "You want a friend? Get a dog."

My mother's favorite saying: "To the poor, everyone is generous with advice." Which is why an Armenian dispensing unsolicited advice reminds me of a Greek bearing gifts.

*

To my critics who say their sole intent is to make me a better man and writer, I say: My only hope is that you will not give up your reformist zeal if you fail to reform me but will persevere and try to reform others, among them our bosses, bishops, benefactors and their flunkies - an enterprise in which I have failed miserably.

I have failed, yes, but so has ever other Armenian critic that has ever lived, from Khorenatsi and Yeghishe to Baronian, Odian and Massikian.

*

I deal in facts. If you don't like them, don't get mad at me because I am only an observer. Blame yourself for being too scared to face reality or too myopic to see beyond your proboscis.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest arabaliozian

Monday, November 17, 2003

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

A dialogue with a reader:

READER: Why don't you modify your style with a touch of humor?

MYSELF: It's not easy writing about massacres and being funny.

READER: But you don't always write about massacres.

MYSELF: Everything I write is an attempt to analyze the factors that contributed to three sets of massacres: the turn-of-the-century Hamidian massacres and the 1915 Genocide in the Ottoman Empire, the "white massacre" or assimilation in the Diaspora, and the present exodus from the Homeland, everyone of which claimed a million and a half - some say two million - victims. And now, my turn to ask you a question.

READER: Shoot!

MYSELF: Why this hunger for humor? Is your life so barren of laughter that you want to see comedy in tragedy? And on a more personal note: How would you feel if someone spoke of a personal tragedy in your life in a manner that would amuse an audience?

READER: You may have a point there.

MYSELF: Let me be more specific. Has anyone ever laughed at a misfortune that happened to you or to a loved one?

READER: Not to my knowledge, no.

MYSELF: But if someone were to laugh, would you laugh with him?

READER: No, I don't think so.

MYSELF: Of course not. You would feel offended and angry, yes?

READER: That would be my reaction, I agree.

MYSELF: Which is why I choose not to offend my readers by making a joke of our collective misfortunes.

*

I have more critics than readers; either that or my critics have multiple personalities or they use several aliases.

*

Sometimes originality consists in isolating and emphasizing what has been written about only peripherally or ignored.

*

Naivete and power make an ephemeral combination.

*

Writing is not a business. It is possible to write a dishonest book and make a fortune, and write an honest book, or even a good one, and starve. The overwhelming majority of writers on best-seller lists of, say, fifty years ago are now deservedly forgotten.

*

As soon as I realize someone is a charlatan, I stop reading him. I therefore say to those of my readers who have described me as a dispenser of verbal manure: Surely, you must have better things to do than waste your valuable time on crap!

*

We have survived our leadership: that to me is an irrefutable argument for God's existence.

*

In a democracy, abuse of power is probable;

under fascism, inevitable.

*

A power structure that has all the answers will view questions as subversive.

*

A community that has no place for dissidents and no use for investigative reporters is a community of dupes run by liars afraid of exposure.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest arabaliozian

Tuesday, November 18, 2003

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

We seem to think of our problems as if they were very much like mathematical equations that someone, somewhere, some day will be successful in solving them. We at no time think of solutions as labor intensive processes that may make demands on all of us. And if there is any blood, sweat and tears involved, it will be someone else's.

*

On the power of words:

If Helen of Troy is thought of us the Miss Universe of antiquity it is because she was immortalized by a poet who never laid eyes on her.

*

The devil has many disguises, including that of his former self - an angel.

*

"I pray thee, understand a plain man in his plain meaning," says one of Shakespeare's characters, thus implying perverts will invariably pervert the meaning of an honest statement.

*

Alzheimer's can be a blessing to those with a bad conscience.

*

The very same people who tell you "Don't believe everything you read in the papers," are more than willing to believe any charlatan willing to echo their prejudices and sentiments.

*

We are like everyone else (when it comes to failings) but everyone else is morally inferior (when it comes to explaining our tragedies).

*

All fools are offended by intelligence.

*

In a snake pit, it is the snake with the most powerful venom that survives.

*

Were Pearl Harbor and 9/11 inevitable? Many Americans believe they were not and they could have been prevented. Has anyone ever asked the same question about our genocide?

*

Our editors and publishers don't like paying their contributors because every Oriental carpet dealer not only writes but is also willing to pay editors to see his name in print.

*

The English brag about the fact that they have never been enslaved. We brag about the fact that we were the first nation to accept Christianity and the first nation to suffer a genocide in the 20th century. Everyone likes to brag about something or other. There are even people who brag about things they should be ashamed of. And I like to brag about the fact that I have been fired as often as I have been hired.

*

A good friend of mine, a competent trial lawyer, once gave me the following advice: "It is better to drop your pants and bend over than to sue a corporation or individual with limitless financial resources."

*

More about problems:

Most people with problems don't want solutions; they prefer to be told their problems are figments of their imagination. If psychoanalysis is popular it is because it says all problems are in your head and their existence is dependent on your willingness to believe they exist.

*

More on our editors:

As far as they go, I might as well be an abominable no-man. I suspect the only time they will acknowledge my existence is when they announce my non-existence in an obituary.

*

"Armenians will respect you only if you become a success in odar circles," I am told again and again by well-meaning friends.

Maybe, but why should I care to have the respect of readers who don't respect their own judgment? -- readers so confused, ignorant and base that they must look up to odars for guidance -- the very same odars who are invariably dismissed by them as uncivilized, ruthless, double-talking brutes.

*

Before I translated Zarian, I was a solitary creature living in the middle of nowhere. After I published my Zarian translations, every other Armenian writer became my close friend. But their friendship came to an abrupt, and sometimes even rude, end when they realized I had no intention of translating them. Now I know how women feel when they are pursued not for their minds but for their interstices.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest arabaliozian

Wednesday, November 19, 2003

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

In his ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF PACIFISM, Aldous Huxley defines nationalism as "idolatry" and a "religion of war." And in his ENDS AND MEANS he refers to propaganda as "organized lying." I prefer "institutional charlatanism."

*

I am personally acquainted with an Armenian academic who publishes a critical commentary once every five years and spends the next five years living in fear of assassination. Another academic once told me he refuses to publish anything critical of the Turks because he is afraid of retaliation.

*

When a nation is defeated and conquered, its elite and the institutions it controls are divided into two: resisters and collaborators. If the conqueror is ruthless, the resisters are systematically eliminated or silenced and forever after their testimony is ignored. You may now draw your own conclusions.

*

Has religion played a positive role in our history? If you ask a priest, he will say, yes, of course, it goes without saying! Many others will disagree. The only thing religion has taught us, they will explain, is to make of us faithful slaves to tyrants: and sure enough, we were known to the Turks as their "most loyal millet."

What about the average church-going Armenian who believes a priest represents God on earth?

One way to explain him is to say that there are millions of people around the world who have been indoctrinated to believe Islam or Buddhism or some other religion is the only true way to heaven or nirvana, and anyone who says otherwise is an infidel, a giaour, and a creature whose ancestor was probably a dog (so much for religious tolerance). Faith might as well be a cement wall that the light of reason cannot penetrate.

*

Blunt talk: I am all for it but not when it emanates from a bully.

*

He who brags will insult and threaten. The secret ambition of every windbag is to be a fire-breathing dragon.

*

If you write, you will make mistakes and there will always be readers who will be glad to correct you (simply because everyone loves to assert his superior knowledge), and editors who will demand revisions (because that's what editors do).

But if you are a leader, you can always surround yourself with yes-men and underlings who will cover up your blunders and misrepresent your defeats as moral victories; and they will do this in the hope that on the day they become leaders they too will have achieved infallibility.

Abuse of power in Armenian history: what a book one could write on that subject, and probably one of the longest in the history of world literature.

*

We are all unique and we have all been assigned to play a unique role in life.

Perhaps my role consists in calling a spade a spade.

This may not be a popular or profitable line of work but it has its secret compensations, one of them being: whenever you tell an Armenian he is making an ass of himself, you almost certify his status as an ass, because he tends to operate on the assumption that there is only one way to prove to himself and the world at large that he is not an ass and that's by being inflexible, self-righteous, obstinate, and ornery.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest arabaliozian

Thursday, November 20, 2003

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

Writes Pascal:

"Reason makes more demands on us than a master. If we disobey a master we may be penalized, but if we disobey reason we will be idiots."

*

Another thought by Pascal:

"There are two kinds of people:

the just who think they are sinners,

and the sinners who think they are just."

What about the idiots who think they are smart?

*

At least once a day we should remind ourselves that our leaders are our servants and our bishops are not "princes of the church" but servants of God and the community.

*

One good thing about writing for the internet:

at least one does not contribute to the slaughter of trees.

*

You want to complicate your life and make enemies?

Seek out the company of liars and speak the truth.

*

Dialogue is impossible with people who confuse disagreement with hostility.

*

We engage in verbal massacre because the real thing is against the law and not because we are better than Turks.

If anything we are worse because the massacre is against our own kind.

*

You never get exactly what you want:

it's either more, less or nothing.

*

For everything I know I don't know a thousand things.

It is different with our charlatans:

not only do they know everything I know plus the thousand things that I don't know, but also the ten thousand things no one will ever know.

*

Money goes to money, they say; something very similar happens to culture too. Consider the situation of 20th-century French literature, one of the most highly developed and influential in the world: the three playwrights who revolutionized the French theater (Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, and Eugene Ionesco) were an Irishman, an Armenian, and a Romanian respectively);

and now consider the situation of Armenian literature at the other end of the spectrum: not only we don't encourage or welcome outside help, but we also alienate and silence our own (from Abovian to Zarian).

*

It is better to be underestimated than overestimated if only because it is better to surprise than to disappoint.

*

Hell can't be worse than the world of my dreams. Why should I be afraid of it? I visit the place every night.

*

A nation stands divided when that which divides it is more important than that which keeps it united.

What is it exactly that keeps us divided?

Some obscure ideological or religious orthodoxy or heresy?

I don't think so.

What keeps us divided are the egos of ambitious little men to whom their powers and privileges are more important than the survival of the nation.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Dear Ara,

I enjoy reading you.

I don't regard your writings as anti-armenian.... because I see the pain

But your experiences and knowledge about Homeland do not go beyond some

standart cliche's taken from the western newspapers of the Cold War era.

You need to come to Armenia to get to the balls of our existence.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest arabaliozian

Friday, November 21, 2003

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

The trouble with self-righteous people is that even when they brag they think they are infallible.

*

If only writers could choose their readers and readers would read only writers who parrot their thoughts, life would be such a pleasant experience!

*

Politics is the art of promising the impossible

and delivering only a fraction of the possible.

*

A skinhead's worldview is circumscribed

by Hitler's MEIN KAMPF.

*

Three lines an Armenians hates to speak:

I don't know.

I was wrong.

I don't understand.

*

To reason with some people amounts to trying to rescue them from the grip of their mediocrity.

*

Arab proverb: "If an unlucky man went into business selling shrouds no one would die."

*

Chekhov: "But perhaps the universe is suspended on the tooth of some monster."

*

A nation that drives Abovian to suicide and buries Zarian alive has no business lamenting about its brain-drain as if it were a misfortune imposed by unforeseen circumstances beyond its control. Brain-drain has been and continues to be a carefully calculated and implemented policy by our leadership, and anyone who can't see this understands nothing about our recent history and knows even less about our character as a nation.

*

All power is suspect, and power without moral authority is criminal.

*

I am naturally suspicious of all Armenian enterprises that echo Comrade Panchoonie's punch line: "Mi kich pogh oughargetsek" (Send us a little money).

*

In our environment recycling propaganda is patriotic

and exposing lies "cheap talk"?

*

In an asylum where the inmates are in charge the self-evident will be a source of endless controversy.

*

Morality cannot be legislated, especially when the legislators are crooks.

*

Unlike the insane, the sane know how to check their insane impulses.

*

The astonishing ease with which people believe lies that are to their advantage and reject truths that are against them.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest arabaliozian
Dear Ara,

I enjoy reading you.

I don't regard your writings as anti-armenian.... because I see the pain

But your experiences and knowledge about Homeland do not go beyond some

standart cliche's taken from the western newspapers of the Cold War era.

You need to come to Armenia to get to the balls of our existence.

dear friend:

armenian writers from armenia are getting out of armenia.

they must know something you don't know....

Link to post
Share on other sites

dear friend:

armenian writers from armenia are getting out of armenia.

they must know something you don't know....

Dear Ara,

It is true that many people including writers leave Armenia for better life. And it is sad.

The Exodus has reached life threatening proportions for us as a nation.

But who if not you and other Armenian writers could help prevent this suicide.

You mention Bakunts, Charents and others who fell victims to Red Terror but you fail to

mention that they became Bakunts and Charents because they fought that Terror.

You often rightly ridicule the "patriotically" inclined butchers and carpet dealers.

But isn't it what they would say if asked about the reasons for leaving Armenia.

"Young man I know something about life in Aremenia you don't " they would say

and feel at peace.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest arabaliozian

Saturday, November 22, 2003

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

Humility, even self-effacement: I no longer consider them virtues but realistic assessments.

*

If it weren't for our hooligans, everything I say could be dismissed as false and malicious fabrication. But it is not their mindset that I want to expose - after all, every community has its share of skinheads and hoodlums, dupes and fanatics - but the unspoken sentiments and thoughts of their role models and authority figures in whose defense they speak.

*

In the Armenian ghetto where I grew up there were Armenians who looked more like Mongols, Tartars and Germans than Armenian but they identified themselves as Armenian. I say this to point out the fact that the only way to survive in an intolerant environment, where the offspring of mixed marriages are stigmatized as bastards, is to conform even if it means to misrepresent and to lie.

*

A hooligan is equipped to understand only other hooligans - and that may well be his greatest punishment.

*

Never marry a woman whose only asset is desirability because marriage will make all other women more desirable.

*

What have I done for Armenia?

I have translated some of her writers into English.

A couple of skinheads, who have not read my translations and don't know which writers I have translated, have said that my translations are bad and my choice of writers worse. But our academics who have both read and reviewed my translations have delivered a more favorable verdict.

What has Armenia - or rather, my fellow Armenians have done for me?

They have done their utmost to reduce me to the status of a Soviet-style non-person or an abominable no-man. And I can almost hear the voice of a reader who is familiar with the history of our literature saying: "So what else is new?"

*

My favorite Armenian sayings:

Hagop Baronian: "Truth is a language that if not spoken is forgotten."

Gostan Zarian: "Our political parties have been of no political use to us; their greatest enemy is free speech."

Hagop Garabents: "Once upon a time we shed our blood for freedom; we are now afraid of free speech."

*

My favorite Turkish proverbs:

"When the house is finished, death enters."

"Among ten men, nine are sure to be women."

*

My favorite books:

The best book on the Caucasus and one of the very few non-fiction books that I have read three times and plan to read again: THE SABRES OF PARADISE by Lesley Blanch. There are many Armenians here, not all of them admirable specimens - one notable exception: a young Armenian girl called "the Pearl" who is abducted by Muslim warriors, falls in love with her captor, and when her family shows up to pay the ransom and take her back home, she refuses to go with them.

*

Two American novels that I have read three times:

LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov, and

FAREWELL , MY LOVELY by Raymond Chandler.

*

Two favorite short stories:

"The Lady with the Pet Dog" by Anton Chekhov, and "Dead Yellow Women," by Dashiell Hammett.

*

Two books that changed my life:

THE IDIOT by Dostoevsky, and

AN INTRODUCTION TO ZEN BUDDHISM

by D.T. Suzuki.

*

The only book that I never get tired of rereading:

Arnold J. Toynbee's RECONSIDERATIONS (Volume 12 of his STUDY OF HISTORY).

*

My favorite biography:

THE LIFE OF MAHATMA GANDHI by Louis Fischer.

*

My favorite autobiography:

Jean-Paul Sartre's WORDS.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest arabaliozian

Dear Ara,

It is true that many people including writers leave Armenia for better life. And it is sad.

The Exodus has reached life threatening proportions for us as a nation.

But who if not you and other Armenian writers could help prevent this suicide.

You mention Bakunts, Charents and others who fell victims to Red Terror but you fail to

mention that they became Bakunts and Charents because they fought that Terror.

You often rightly ridicule the "patriotically" inclined butchers and carpet dealers.

But isn't it what they would say if asked about the reasons for leaving Armenia.

"Young man I know something about life in Aremenia you don't " they would say

and feel at peace.

i have no intention of becoming another esh-nahadag (jackass-martyr).

our nation has contributed more than its share of them.

another more or less will make no difference.

Pity the nation that needs heroes, martyrs...and i would add, jackasses!

Link to post
Share on other sites

"" i have no intention of becoming another esh-nahadag (jackass-martyr).

our nation has contributed more than its share of them.

another more or less will make no difference.

Pity the nation that needs heroes, martyrs...and i would add, jackasses!""

I don't suggests a scarifies or martyrdom , especially there is nothing to be a martyr

for. I only pointed to the fact that in times of imminent danger it makes a lot of

sense to take a stance.

Unfortunately those "jackasses" can not speak from their graves,

so feel free exercising your cynicism ... many did

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest arabaliozian

Monday, November 24, 2003

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

QUESTION: What happens when an expert on any given subject meets an ignoramus who thinks he knows all he needs to know?

ANSWER: Whatever it is that happens when the Immovable Object meets the Irresistible Force.

*

The less mature the mind

the more inflexible the views.

*

The hardest challenge an Armenian writer confronts today is to convince non-readers to read him, and the next hardest is to prove to them that he is neither an enemy nor a lunatic but a fellow human being exercising his fundamental human right of free speech.

*

Shamyl, a Muslim warlord and the central character of Lesley Blanch's THE SABRES OF PARADISE on first seeing a lobster:

"Shaitan himself must look like this." When told it made delicious food:

"For the giaour."

And on first seeing monkeys:

"They are Jews that were punished for offending Allah."

*

I remember to have read somewhere that tragedy cracks the heart wide open and forces the beauty out.

If this is a rule, we must be the exception.

*

To accuse our turn-of-the-century leadership in the Ottoman Empire of incompetence is not the same as justifying the Genocide. I have at no time suggested or implied that stupidity is a capital offense. Neither is saying what must be said.

*

It is all a matter of disposition. If a man is disposed to learn, he will learn even by contemplating a bird in flight, a flower in bloom, or a grain of sand. But if he is not, even a teacher with the wisdom of Socrates, Confucius and Christ will be of no use to him.

*

There is something profoundly evil in perverting morality in the name of morality; and yet, this is exactly what all ideologies and organized religions have done.

*

We understand ourselves by observing others because they make visible that which we prefer not to see in ourselves.

*

Secret ambitions: to write two accessible books

on Bach and Hegel.

*

The ambition of every slave is to be a master. To put it differently: the only thing that oppression has taught us is to oppress - and since we cannot oppress others, we oppress one another.

*

Other writers that I have admired sometimes to the point of obsession: Thomas Mann, Charles Peguy, Plato, Simenon, and Cabrera Infante. For seven years THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN was to me what the Bible is to a born-again.

*

Propaganda is produced by a minority that is against thinking and consumed by a majority that cannot think.

*

In all political movements, lust for power is invariably hidden behind noble slogans: the greater the lust, the nobler the slogans. On the political stage, whenever God is summoned, the Devil is sure to enter.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest arabaliozian
I don't suggests a scarifies or martyrdom , especially there is nothing to be a martyr

for. I only pointed to the fact that in times of imminent danger it makes a lot of

sense to take a stance.

Unfortunately those "jackasses" can not speak from their graves,

so feel free exercising your cynicism ... many did

armenian writers who were murdered by the turks and the soviets

were betrayed by their fellow armenians.

when Raffi said "treason and betrayal are in our blood,"

he wasn't being cynical, he was being realistic.

he had enough courage and integrity to face facts...

and that's exactly what i am doing!

Link to post
Share on other sites

armenian writers who were murdered by the turks and the soviets

were betrayed by their fellow armenians.

when Raffi said "treason and betrayal are in our blood,"

he wasn't being cynical, he was being realistic.

he had enough courage and integrity to face facts...

and that's exactly what i am doing!

Dear Ara,

I have a lot of respect for what you are doing and yet please explain: what is it to be

"realistic" ??? This is a central question.

You pick any nation and you will find a plethora of examples of betrayal and treason.

So, Raffi wasn't probably unique in his assessment of national characteristics

and you repeat it. Only weak nations blame their universal misery on things like

treason and Raffi too understood that and in no way regarded us a sheep.

But IS IT THE ONLY THING THAT RAFFI said about us .... He probably had a lot

richer and a lot more complex understanding of Armenian "reality".

Can you also explain the correlation of my previous postings addressed to you with

the question of Armenian treason.?

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest arabaliozian

Tuesday, November 25, 2003

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

In his recently published travel impression [RETURN TO THE HOMELAND, Yerevan, 2003, 331 pages (in Armenian)] Markar Sharabkhanian writes that Hovannes Shiraz once referred to Armenian bureaucrats in Yerevan as "hooligans" (sriganer).

I am not surprised.

It is the same in the Diaspora.

Give an Armenian nonentity a title and he will turn into a hooligan even when he deals with writers twice his age. Their slogan: "If it ain't broke, break it, shatter it to smithereens and pulverize it!"

*

Because I refuse to take orders from fools, I am thought of as a megalomaniac; and because I refuse to conform, I am dismissed as an arrogant eccentric. In the kind of world we live in, fools conspire with other fools into believing they know better, and being fools they believe it.

*

Reality invents characters that fiction cannot imagine. Which is why I prefer to observe characters than invent them. Who would have thought a hundred years ago that the offspring of survivors of Ottoman massacres would support Islamic fascists and view Jews and Americans as the source of all evil? If you speak with these Armenians, you will be told all about Israeli and American fascists. What you will not be told is the number of their Armenian victims.

What motivates these Armenians to think and feel as they do? I have no idea but I suspect historic amnesia has something to do with it.

*

Who is a Jew? Nobody knows. Even some Jews don't know they are Jews. It makes sense. The Jewish Diaspora has a millennial history of dispersion, persecution, assimilation and intermarriage. It stands to reason for some Jews to adopt non-Jewish names and identities and hide this fact from their children. It follows that we may never know to what degree anti-Semitism is an expression of self-hatred.

As for Armenians who traces their family trees all the way back to the Mamigonians and Bagratunis (such Armenians exist, believe it or not!), they should be reminded that the Mamigonians were of Chinese descent and the Bagratunis identified themselves as Jews.

As for Turks: can anyone prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that half of Turkey is not half-Armenian?

*

In a recent interview, Cabrera Infante suggests that Latin America should be renamed Mongrelia because its inhabitants are mongrels. (See LATIN AMERICAN WRITERS AT WORK: THE PARIS REVIEW. Edited by George Plimpton. New York, 2003, 325 pages). This may also be true of Canada, the United States, all of Europe, the Middle East and the Caucasus.

One good thing about mongrels is that they may be less disposed to massacre one another and more skeptical about charlatans like Hitler preaching racial superiority.

*

According to Garcia Marquez (in the same book) the world is divided into two groups. "Those who shit well and those who don't; it makes for very different characters. But historians don't say these things because they are not important."

*

I am grateful to all the editors who by rejecting my work forced me to find my own voice.

*

"Why do you complain so much?" one of our high-ranking bureaucrats once demanded to know. "Do you think you are the only writer who has been treated badly?"

"No, of course not!" I replied. "That is why I speak with the strength of many."

He said nothing, but I could sense that he would have preferred if I had kept my mouth shut, dug a hole in the ground, crawled into it, and buried myself alive.

*

If I have had a series of negative experiences,

what I write is bound to be negative.

And if you have had a series of positive experiences,

what you write is bound to be positive.

It would be absurd of me to write as if I have had your experiences and vice versa.

Instead of insulting each other names, let us learn from each other's experiences.

If we insult each other, we both lose.

If we learn from each other, we both profit.

You may now guess which of these options is favored by Armenians.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest arabaliozian
I have a lot of respect for what you are doing and yet please explain: what is it to be

"realistic" ??? This is a central question.

You pick any nation and you will find a plethora of examples of betrayal and treason.

So, Raffi wasn't probably unique in his assessment of national characteristics

and you repeat it. Only weak nations blame their universal misery on things like

treason and Raffi too understood that and in no way regarded us a sheep.

But IS IT THE ONLY THING THAT RAFFI said about us .... He probably had a lot

richer and a lot more complex understanding of Armenian "reality".

Can you also explain the correlation of my previous postings addressed to you with

the question of Armenian treason.?

dear friend:

i think perhaps you have the wrong idea about Raffi and all our critics and dissenters in general beginning with Khorenatsi and all the way down to Zarian. i urge you to read them carefully and objectively without preconceived notions and then keep in touch. an open mind is the best instrument of knowledge. / ara

Link to post
Share on other sites

dear friend:

i think perhaps you have the wrong idea about Raffi and all our critics and dissenters in general beginning with Khorenatsi and all the way down to Zarian. i urge you to read them carefully and objectively without preconceived notions and then keep in touch. an open mind is the best instrument of knowledge. / ara

My only preconceived notion is that I really don't have one.

if we conceive ideas from the original source as you suggest, let's say "SAMVEL" as one example; the message or the messages there, are plain and simple.

If a non-armenian had to read this book (to exclude any nationalistic bias) he would not find it strikingly different in concept from a historical novel of his land. In fact there are plenty of reviews on SAMVEL and Khent from russian readers. And in no way they make conclusions that many armenians do.

It is a paradox. We subject ourselves to a harsher critisism and self-doubting than we deserve and it is what we do the best.

No ukrainian starts thinking of his people as to be prone to trason after reading "Taras Bul'ba" in which father kills his son.

From three of my postings you have detected a "close- mindedness" of mine lack of knowledge and showed me to the books.

I wanted to keep in touch ,but apparently you don't.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Guest arabaliozian

Wednesday, November 26, 2003

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

QUESTION: What have our political leaders contributed to our culture?

ANSWER: Commissars of culture?

QUESTION: What have our commissars of culture contributed to our literature?

ANSWER: Censorship and mediocrity - whenever, that is, they were not allowed to kill.

*

A respectable, law-abiding citizen on his own is a more or less harmless creature. It is when he joins a group and surrenders his mind to a religion or ideology that he is dehumanized. The Eleventh Commandment should be: "Thou shalt not join a group, gang or mafia, or speak in the name of God or Allah, or agree with anyone who does."

*

When the Turks massacred, when the Soviets purged, when the Nazis exterminated, and when our own hooligans go about their business of recreating the community in their own image, all questions are answered with certainties and all doubts banished. The absence of doubt may be said to be the surest symptom of dogmatism, intolerance, and ultimately, criminal conduct.

*

It is when we are sure about the morality of our actions that we open ourselves to the charge that the only thing we have learned from our Ottoman experience is Ottomanism.

*

Before you decide to join a group, have a diaper change.

*

Writers that have fascinated me at one time or another - in chronological order: G.B. Shaw, Aldous Huxley, Saroyan, Anatole France, Turgenev (FATHERS AND SONS), James Jones (FROM HERE TO ETERNITY), Thoreau, Edmund Wilson, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Edward Dahlberg.

*

One way to define freedom of speech is by saying, even the ablest statesman in the world is not authorized to tell even the worst scribbler what to write and how to write it.

*

There are those who think that which is (or the status quo) has been defined by powers beyond our control (God, history, the invisible forces of the universe), and our only option is to understand and accept it as an inevitable fact of life, very much like death and taxes.

Whereas I think the status quo is a colossal blunder committed by sadistic morons and incompetent fools and our only option is to correct it.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...