Latest from writer Ara Baliozian

August 25, 2004

Sunday, August 22, 2004

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

IN PRAISE OF SKEPTICISM.

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

If you doubt and question everything I write, I say, you are indeed on the right path and you have understood the moral of my story, which is: Question everything you are told, not only by Turks but also by everyone else, including fellow Armenians.

*

None of us lives in a vacuum. We all have an ax to grind. The ax may be well hidden, but it's there all the same: look for it hard enough and you will find it.

*

My own ax to grind is against those who dished out all kinds of half-truths and lies to me when I was a child and had not yet acquired the ability to think for myself. Case in point: For many years I was led to believe Armenia had been a Christian island in a Muslim sea, until someone pointed out the obvious fact that Georgia to our north had been a Christian nation too, which made of us not an island but a peninsula.

*

For many years I was also led to believe our revolutionaries had been heroes and the Ottoman Bank takeover at the turn of the last century had been a brilliant exploit worthy of universal admiration, until someone raised the obvious question: "Was it worth 5000 innocent lives?" What kind of heroes make a separate deal with the enemy, secure free passage abroad for themselves, and abandon their defenseless people at the mercy of an enraged and vindictive tyranny not widely known for its compassionate and fair treatment of its subjects?

*

History, it has been said, is the propaganda of the victor. What if our version of history is nothing but the consolation of the loser?

*

I was taught to believe ignoring the lessons of history means repeating past blunders. Isn't that what we do whenever we divide and subdivide ourselves, or whenever we fail to question the competence and integrity of those who pretend to know better, and based on that false assumption, proceed to draw the line of our destiny?

*

If our revolutionaries had learned to question and doubt the verbal support of the Great Powers, would they have behaved as they did? What if our central problem is neither being an island nor having bloodthirsty barbarians as neighbors, but being naïve dupes of charlatans who promise heaven and deliver hell?

#

Monday, August 23, 2004

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

THE NORMAL AND THE ABNORMAL.

THE ABNORMAL AS A THREAT TO THE NORMAL.

THE LYNCH-MOB INSTINCT.

WHAT IS GENOCIDE?

BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG.

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

If you are honest, all the crooks will conspire against you. Likewise, if you speak the truth, liars will retaliate because they will feel exposed and threatened.

*

At all times and everywhere the majority takes it upon itself to set the rules of conduct and to view dissent or divergence as a threat. The majority may tolerate the existence of a minority so long as the minority adopts a subservient role. But in times of crisis, when the majority feels threatened, minorities will be suppressed, persecuted, and sometimes even eliminated.

*

The lynch-mob or gang-rape instinct is not peculiar to a single race, color, or creed; it is a universal phenomenon.

*

Genocide has nothing to do with number of victims. Killing even a single person on grounds that he belongs to a different race, religion, or ethnic group is genocide.

*

In my efforts to raise consciousness, sometimes it seems, I lower it. That may be because, after centuries of conditioning, some of my readers don't know whether they are rising or falling. It is as though their sense of gravity had been permanently damaged beyond repair.

*

In everything I write I describe the evolution of a damaged consciousness from subservience to liberation. But where subservience is a millennial condition, it becomes second nature and liberation is seen as a deviation, perhaps even an aberration.

*

It has been observed that when the blind acquire vision, they take refuge in dark rooms.

*

Some of my partisan friends are shocked when I tell them the greatest statesman in the world is not qualified to tell even the worst scribbler in the world what to feel, think, and write.

*

In the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we read: "Every individual is equal before the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination."

*

It may be safer to assume you are always wrong with extenuating circumstances if only because the alternative - that you are always right - is too absurd to merit serious consideration.

#

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

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

REPLIES TO MY CRITICS

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

To those of my readers who at one time or another have questioned my qualifications as a writer, or, for that matter, as a concerned citizen (which is how I prefer to identify myself), I say: If you speak as a commissar of culture and your secret god is Stalin, you live at the wrong time and in the wrong place, and I have every reason to suspect, before things get better for you, they will get worse. Prepare yourself for a minimum of seven more lean years.

*

I define a dupe anyone who is taken in by propaganda; and because I have criticized dupes, regardless of national origin, I am described as an Armenian-hater by our dupes, who it seems, are so hungry for love that they can't stand anyone who fails to flatter their ego. To them I say: You are not the only game in town, my friends. Unlike you, there are many others who have mastered the ability to think for themselves. I will go further and say that, the overwhelming majority of Armenians (especially the assimilated and alienated) are not dupes. I count among my friends members of the Party who reject the Party's propaganda line. The only reason they continue to be members is that they come from a long line of partisans and membership in the Party has become a family tradition. Their loyalty is motivated more by nostalgia than ideological commitment.

*

Criticism in defense of a propaganda line is not criticism but cretinism.

*

To those of my critics who write under a false identity, I ask: Does anonymity make you behave in a more responsible or irresponsible manner? If irresponsible, don't you think there is more merit in being responsible? And if everyone were to behave irresponsibly, would we be better off or worse off?

*

A final question: How honest are political leaders in whose version of the past they have done nothing wrong, they are blameless and beyond criticism, and all their utterances must be treated as if they emanated from the Vatican?

#

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

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

If all human utterances have a margin of error, dogmatic assertions can't be right.

*

On the subject of our genocide, when I attempted to explain the Turkish side of the story, an outraged reader countered: "Some stories have only one side!" thus echoing a sentiment first expressed by Albert Camus (who was himself, be it noted, in the eye of several controversial firestorms). But isn't that what the Turks are saying too? - that their side of the story is the only true one and all others must be lies? Is it not inconsistent of us to repeat a line or to adopt a mindset of people whom we consider bloodthirsty savages?

*

No one's version of the story is Holy Scripture. And even if it were, not all of us are fundamentalists.

*

There is an entire library of writings (poetry, prose, criticism, fiction, drama, epic poem, moral treatise, dialogue, etc.) that consists in telling "the devil's side of the story." Three literary masterpieces that come readily to mind: Milton's PARADISE LOST, Goethe's FAUST, and more recently, Thomas Mann's DOKTOR FAUSTUS.

*

Speaking of Thomas Mann: during World War II he published an essay on Hitler (who had tried to assassinate him) titled "A Brother."

*

I doubt if there will ever come a time when Armenians will develop Mann's degree of detachment and call Turks their brothers, but consider some of the arguments in its favor: For six centuries we were their most loyal millet (ethnic group), and since intermarriage was a common practice, it is not at all unreasonable to suggest that a good fraction of Turks today, perhaps even half of them, may well be our half-brothers.

*

If this is bad news to some of my readers, blame historic reality, blame facts, blame statistics, blame even God (as some of our poets have done) but do not kill the messenger, because if you do, you may run the risk of being a Turk's brother not only in thought but also in deed.

*

Even an august institution like the Catholic Church finds the concept of the devil's advocate useful. If we are to the right of the Vatican, can we be too far off the left of Genghis Khan? That may be a comfortable position for some, but not for others, among them myself.

#

August 28, 2004

Thursday, August 26, 2004

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

THE ART OF DIPLOMACY.

ON ARMENO-TURKISH RELATIONS.

THE RIGHT AND THE WRONG WAY.

A MODEST PROPOSAL.

A CRIME AND A TRAGEDY.

LOGIC AND EMOTIONS.

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

One of the first things Raffi Hovannisian did when he went to Turkey as a minister of foreign affairs was to say to the Turks: "You must recognized the Genocide." The Turks responded by saying: "This man hates us and we cannot deal with a man who hates us."

*

One way to define diplomacy is to say that it consists in dealing with the adversary in such a manner as to make him see your side of the story in order to consider its merits. Obviously, so far and after nearly a century of trying, we have failed in that endeavor. We must therefore be more versatile and less stiff-necked and dogmatic in our approach.

*

Before they are condemned, Turks want to be understood because they know instinctively that to be hated precludes understanding, or for that matter, objectivity, fair play and justice.

*

The need to be understood is universal. But we can't understand someone we hate. The alternative is not to love him (only saints can love their enemies) but to try to understand him on his own terms, if understanding him on our own terms means hating him.

*

Henceforth, we should concentrate our efforts on humanizing the Turks as opposed to dehumanizing them, if only because we cannot make any moral demands on a dehumanized entity.

*

If a wolf kills a sheep, is he guilty of murder? In a way, when we reduce Turks to the level of bloodthirsty beasts, we also enter a plea of not guilty on their behalf -- a plea similar to that of insanity. Because if they are no better than animals, they cannot be held responsible for their actions. It is therefore to our advantage not to dehumanize but to humanize them. In other words, to think of them as we think of all other nations that have at one time or another committed genocide and other unspeakable crimes against humanity - that includes Germans and Americans.

*

Our genocide is not just a crime against humanity but also a tragedy, and tragedy, as defined by the Greeks, consists in the downfall or destruction of a being who, as a result of a weakness (as pride, envy, etc.) breaks a divine law or moral precept that leads to terror and catastrophe.

*

I don't always agree with what I write, but if logic dictates, I follow, hoping in the near or distant future my emotions will catch up.

#

Friday, August 27, 2004

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

AN ENIGMA & A BUNDLE OF CONTRADICTIONS.

THE BEST AND THE WORST.

THEM AND US.

ABDICATION OF RESPONSIBILITY.

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

Writers who have analyzed the Armenian temperament agree that an Armenian is an enigma and a bundle of contradictions. Writes Derenik Demirjian: "An Armenian curses God and the Church constantly. But behold the magnificent cathedrals he has built!" And Neshan Beshigtashlian: "Even the Good Lord could not make up his mind what to make of the Armenian. First He made him an angel, then He turned him into a devil, after which He changed His mind again." His conclusion: "The Armenian is an enigma that refuses to be solved."

*

But then, one could say (with Freud and Jung) that all men are to some degree, bundles of contradictions and enigmas even to themselves. Our situation or the Armenian enigma, if you wish, is an integral part of the human condition. Hence the spectacle of the worst parading as the best.

*

Some cases in point from the last century: Fascists in Italy, Germany and Spain; Stalinists in the USSR, and before them, Southern racists in the U.S. before the Civil War, all of whom pretended to be la crème de la crème, but were in fact la crème de la scum.

*

There is however a significant difference between them and us. Whereas racists, fascists and Stalinists have been exposed, and militarily defeated or politically consigned to the dustbin of history, ours continue to be in charge of our destiny. If that's progress, it's more like the progress of a terminal disease.

*

As for those who say it will take at least two generations for things to improve in Armenia, it seems to me, they lack the common sense and decency to see that, by adopting and promoting a passive stance, they are not only abdicating their responsibility as citizens but also legitimizing criminal conduct by supporting a corrupt and incompetent crypto-fascist and racist power structure in both the Homeland and the Diaspora.

#

Saturday, August 28, 2004

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

THE TURKS AND US.

THE ARMENIAN WAY AND THE RIGHT WAY.

TURKS AS UNDERDOGS AND VICTIMS.

THE SULTAN'S COMPLAINT.

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

May I confess that when it comes to Turks and us, more often than not I agree with my critics on an emotional level. But I also know that in diplomacy, politics, and life in general, it is preferable for emotion to be subservient to reason. There is an old saying that I heard again and again as a child: "Why stand up in anger if you are going to sit down the loser?" Isn't that what we did? We rose in anger and most of us didn't even have a chance to sit down.

*

With the slogan, "We have no enemies, only interests," the British built an empire. Consider our status as perennial losers, underdogs and victims to theirs….

*

And since we have been stressing our status as perennial losers, underdogs and victims by constantly reminding ourselves and the world of the massacres, the cynical manipulation of the Great Powers, and the bloodthirsty conduct of the Turks, it never even occurs to us to think of Turks as underdogs and victims. And yet, that's exactly how they saw themselves - and victims not just of a single ruthless adversary but victims of the whole world, beginning with the Russian colossus to the North, the Great Powers to the West, the United States and Australia from across the oceans, and from within their own borders, Arabs, Greeks, Kurds, and Armenians.

*

Listen to the Sultan: "By taking Greece and Romania, the Great Powers cut off the feet of the Turkish state. By taking Bulgaria, Serbia and Egypt they cut off our hands. Now, by stirring up trouble among the Armenians they are getting close to our vital organs and want to cut out our intestines. This is the beginning of mass destruction."

*

With a disintegrating empire and surrounded by enemies on all sides like vultures ready to feast on its carcass, the Turks made the mistake of allowing their emotions to dictate their actions. They were told repeatedly by foreign diplomats and observers that not all Armenians were their enemies, but as a victimized minority, they did what felt right, not what reason told them to be right.

*

It is only very recently that I read that in a single battle at Gallipoli, the Turks had lost 350,000 men to the Allies. But I still don't know the total number of Turkish dead during World War I. I wonder, does any Armenian? Or is it: "The only good Turk is a dead Turk"? Why should we be surprised if the Turks adopted that slogan too? "The only good Armenian is a dead Armenian."

#

September 1, 2004

Sunday, August 29, 2004

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

ON TRIBALISM.

GUT REACTIONS.

ARTICLES OF FAITH.

TABLE MANNERS.

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

One way to explain our tribalism is to say that our bosses, bishops, and benefactors see the nation as an extension of themselves and not the other way around. It's the tail-wagging-the-dog routine. Unlike Louis XIV, they don't even feel the need to say "L'etat c'est moi," (I am the state) because they assume it must be obvious to everyone with the minimum of sense.

*

There are some disagreements that come straight from the gut. And when gut meets brain, brain is bound to lose. I speak from experience. Once upon a time I too had gut reactions. I still do, but when I do I use my brain to cross-examine and x-ray my gut, and sure enough, I invariably detect an infection in the form of an ingrained childhood prejudice or a youthful misconception.

*

When you believe in a propaganda line it ceases being propaganda and is automatically elevated to the status of an article of faith, which also means that anyone who doesn't agree with you must be an infidel dog.

*

A dupe is one who believes his propaganda line is Scripture and someone else's religion is verbal trash. That's one reason why dialogue is un-Armenian.

*

Other possible reasons, according to Shant Avedissian:

"Our instinct for survival drives us to gobble up food

but to scorn table manners;

to get married and establish families but to neglect love;

to accumulate wealth but not to share it;

to erect churches but to be indifferent to matters of faith;

to build cultural centers but to have no interest in culture;

to construct schools in order to teach Armenian to our children but to despise the true meaning of words.

In short, we have mastered the art of survival but not the art of living…."

*

On second thought, have we really mastered the art of survival when most of us, and very probably the best and the brightest, have not survived?

*

Have we really mastered the art of survival if we are, even as I write, witnessing two ongoing genocides: exodus from the Homeland and Assimilation in the Diaspora.

*

When asked about the exodus, an Armenian political leader is quoted as having said: "If they want to leave the Homeland, let them!" That's what I call an answer worthy of a Talaat. With public servants like that, who needs sultans and Stalinists?

#

Monday, August 30, 2004

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

WHY BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE.

TWO QUESTIONS.

THE UGLY ARMENIAN.

QUEEN MAMIKONIAN.

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

Bad things happen to good people.

Everyone knows that.

And smart people do dumb things.

Everyone knows that too.

What is less well known is that there may be secret and underground connections between these two incongruities.

*

Why do smart people do dumb things?

Because they are never as smart as they think they are.

*

I have received nasty e-mails from both Turks and Armenians, and it is astonishing how similar in style, tone, and vocabulary they are. So similar in fact that they might as well have been written by the same person or identical twins.

*

Nobody is perfect, of course. So what if smart people sometimes do dumb things, and dumb people dumber things? That's not a tragedy. Our tragedy or the tragedy of our condition is that we have been and continue to be at their mercy.

*

Why is it that in their efforts to prove they are smarter and better, some Armenians see nothing inconsistent in writing like dumb Turks? Another question: Is it conceivable that the cradle of civilization has spawned gravediggers of civilized discourse?

*

Behind every alienated Armenian there is an ugly Armenian who thinks, since he is smarter and better, he can do no wrong and self-criticism is self-hatred and therefore unpatriotic.

*

If being honest means admitting a major blunder and thus committing political suicide, an ambitious leader will invariably choose survival at all cost and forever after brag about his personal integrity.

*

Who can trust a politician who says "I can do no wrong and I am therefore beyond criticism"? And yet!

*

The only reason some politicians admit minor miscalculations is to cover up major blunders.

*

Only a certified dupe will say, "All politicians lie except ours." And only a fanatic will say, "My party is always right and the opposition always wrong."

*

Sometimes when two Armenians disagree, I cannot help wondering: Is the disagreement between two Armenians or is it between an Armenian and a Turk?

*

Sophie Audouin Mamikonian on Armenians (in a recent issue of PARIS-MATCH): "They don't have enough to eat but they want to crown me Queen of Armenia. When I refused to ascend the throne, these monarchists threatened to abduct my children. We were placed under police protection."

#

Tuesday, August 31, 2004

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

CLICHÉS AND SLOGANS.

THE BLISS OF IGNORANCE.

THE SHEEP AND THE WOLVES.

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

Knowledge is power? What nonsense! No one can tell me the Ottoman Empire, one of the mightiest empires in the history of mankind that lasted six centuries, was based on knowledge.

*

Unmask a slogan or a cliché and you may see more truth in its contradiction. One way to explain the popularity of slogans or clichés is to say that they satisfy a deep-seated need in all of us to simplify the fathomless complexities of life in our favor.

*

If you think, "ignorance is bliss," remember the last time you were manipulated by someone who knew you did not know what he knew.

*

"Power corrupts," we are told. What we are not told is that lack of power or subservience corrupts even more. Are we as a people today more or less corrupt than Turks and Russians, our former masters?

*

A reader, who subscribes to the slogan "The only good Turk is a dead Turk," demands to know: "If good Turks existed, why didn't they stop the genocide?" It doesn't even occur to him to ask, "Where were our revolutionaries - the future leaders of our historic homeland? Why is it that they had a Plan B for themselves but not for the people? We have all heard about our heroes and martyrs and we know the number of our martyrs, but does anyone know the number of our heroes? - or perhaps there were so many of them that no one bothered to count them. If there were many and they were our shepherds, why did they abandon the sheep to the wolves?

#

Wednesday, September 01, 2004

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

AMERICA AND THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE.

RAFFI, ZOHRAB AND SIAMANTO.

THE WISDOM OF THE MASSES.

TWO WARNINGS.

THE MAMIKONIAN PALACE.

SLOBO'S DEFENSE.

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

It is not enough being right; one must also be right at the right time and place.

*

Trying to convince Americans to recognize our genocide is like arguing against capital punishment in a hangman's house.

*

Long before the massacres, Raffi said the Ottoman Empire was no place for Armenians because Turks had no respect for human life. He was ignored.

*

Shortly before the Genocide, Krikor Zohrab urged Armenians to get out of Turkey because, he explained, "this time around they will exterminate all of us." He too was ignored. "Zohrab effendi is exaggerating," they said.

*

When Roupen Sevag's German fiancée urged him to leave Istanbul because, she said, the Turks were nasty folk, Sevag replied: "You don't know these people. I do. Deep down they are nice. Take my word for it. I know what I am saying. I have lived with them all my life." And what was bound to happen, happened. Zohrab, Sevag and Siamanto (who couldn't get used to life in America and returned to Istanbul) were among the first victims of the Genocide.

*

Today, no one is urging Armenians to leave Armenia but they are leaving anyway…by the million. I am told everyone wants to leave - everyone except politicians and policemen. Unhappy is the land whose only happy inhabitants are legislators and law enforcers.

*

An English sociologist published a book recently in which he proves crowds are wiser than individuals. There may be some truth in it. "Two heads," they say, "is better than one."

*

When I was young, my elders misled me; and now that I am old, the young misunderstand me.

*

Everything I write should come with two warnings: "Not for children," and "I could be wrong." On the day I say or imply I can't be wrong, you can be sure of one thing: you are dealing with a morally and intellectually bankrupt charlatan.

*

Sophie Mamikonian: "The Armenian monarchists showed me a picture of my palace in Armenia: the wall of a ruin with three crows on top."

*

Accused of genocide, Slobodan Milosevic is pleading not guilty on the grounds that "Croatia, the United States, Europe, Muslim fundamentalists and terrorists, the Vatican…in short, the international community" had conspired to destroy Yugoslavia, and all his actions had been in defense of the territorial integrity of his homeland.

Sounds familiar?

#

September 4, 2004

Thursday, September 02, 2004

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

MIKOYAN'S ROLE IN THE STALINIST PURGES.

TOLSTOY, DOSTOEVSKY AND SHAKESPEARE.

GREGORIAN CHANT.

WHAT IS ARMENIANISM?

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

A number of Sovietologists have identified Anastas Mikoyan as the main architect of the Stalinist purges in Armenia. If he was, he was a reluctant one, writes Simon Montefiore. In his recently published book, STALIN: THE COURT OF THE RED TSAR, based on interviews with the children of survivors, post-Soviet studies, and newly opened archives, he writes that Stalin chose Mikoyan for that grim task to test his loyalty. “In late 1937,” we read here, “Stalin tested Mikoyan’s commitment by dispatching him to Armenia with a list of three hundred victims to be arrested. Mikoyan signed it but he crossed off one friend. The man was arrested anyway.”

*

While in Siberia, Dostoevsky read some stories by a writer who signed himself “L.T.” Dostoevsky liked the stories but he said, “I believe he will write very little,” adding, “but perhaps I am wrong.” He sure was! “L.T.” stood for Leo Tolstoy, one of the most prolific writers of all time.

*

Though contemporaries, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky avoided each other. But the last book Tolstoy read shortly before his death was Dostoevsky”s BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, perhaps because his home situation, from which he was running away, was more Dostoevskian than Tolstoyan.

*

Tolstoy and Dostoevsky shared one thing in common: they didn’t much care for Shakespeare.

*

Readers sometimes complain that I don’t always answer questions. The truth is everything I write is an answer to a specific question, even when the questioner is anonymous and even when the question is disguised verbal vandalism and hooliganism. Case in point: on a number of occasions I have been asked if my mother was a concubine in a Turkish harem. My mother became an orphan at the age of one and was brought up by French Catholic nuns in Lebanon. Instead of lullabies she sang Gregorian chant to me, which to this day is my favorite kind of music – music in its purest form: simple, accessible, melodic, incandescent, with none of the technical fireworks of J.S.Bach or the rhetoric of Beethoven.

*

Whenever I read an ugly e-mail from an Armenian, I cannot help wondering: what if in our case the concept of survival of the fittest should be replaced with the concept of survival of the nastiest?

*

There are open minds and closed minds, but when an Armenian decides to close his mind, he locks it with seven rusty keys.

*

Why is it that some Armenians use the massacres as a license to do to civilized discourse what the Turks did to us? And more often than not, they are the very same Armenians who demand our unconditional love on grounds of Armenianism.

*

Writes Denis Donikian: “At one time or another we have all been victims of Armenianism.” Perhaps because no one has yet defined what Armenianism is and every Armenian thinks his own brand is the only true one.

#

Friday, September 03, 2004

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

BAYROU ON TURKS.

MONTEFIORE ON MIKOYAN.

AXIOMS.

MEMO TO MY CRITICS.

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

Francois Bayrou, identified as the President of the UDF, in a recent interview published in LE POINT (August 5, 2004): “Turkey’s geography, history, and sociology are not European. Its anthropology is not the same as ours. During a recent conversation with Turkish Prime Minister Nayyip Erdogan, he said: ‘For us, Europe must be a place where different civilizations meet and coexist,” thus conceding that our civilizations are indeed different. In order to qualify as a member of the European Union, Turkey must meet certain criteria. Even the recognition of the Armenian genocide, an indispensable condition in our eyes, is open to negotiation and compromise. That’s not the real stumbling bloc. The real stumbling bloc is the question: Is Turkey’s membership compatible with the political unity of Europe? My answer is, No.”

*

Simon Montefiore on Anastas Mikoyan: “This Armenian who had studied for the priesthood like Stalin himself, was slim, circumspect, wily and industrious, with black hair, moustache and flashing eyes, a broken aquiline nose and a taste for immaculate clothes that, even when clad in his usual tunic and boots, lent him the air of a lithe dandy. Highly intelligent with the driest of wits, he had a gift for languages, understanding English, and, in 1931, he taught himself German by translating DAS KAPITAL.” (And to think that most people can’t understand DAS KAPITAL even when they read it in their mother tongue).

*

We know what we think and how we feel. It is only by knowing what others think and feel that we may acquire a better understanding of our fellow men, and by extension, of the world in which we live – that is to say, reality.

*

Can we really understand ourselves if we don’t understand others? And if we don’t understand others, what can we really understand?

*

Understanding of reality is a seamless web. Partial understanding might as well be misunderstanding, and action based on misunderstanding is bound to fail.

*

Memo to my anonymous critics: “The merit of a criticism is diminished when the critic is too afraid to identify himself.”

#

Saturday, September 04, 2004

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

THE ORIGIN OF WISDOM.

SOCRATES AND ERASMUS.

PERVERTED PATRIOTISM.

ARMENIAN-HATERS.

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

All wisdom begins with the realization that what we know is only a very small fraction of knowledge, and very often so small that it would be more accurate to admit, like Socrates, that all we know for certain is that we don’t know.

*

And speaking of Socrates: there are people who reject ideas simply because they are new ideas. Whenever in history great men, like Socrates, have been persecuted, you can be sure of one thing: the persecution was organized by such people, namely, the scum of the earth who, in the words of Erasmus, prefer “the smell of their excrement,” simply because they are familiar with it.

*

Where hooligans are allowed to hijack the word “patriotism,” love of country becomes hatred of fellow countrymen.

*

To those who at one time or another have accused me of being an Armenian-hater, I say: You have no idea what you are saying. A real Armenian-hater is one who hates Turks not because they massacred us, but because they didn’t do a more thorough job; and I happen to be personally acquainted with such an Armenian, and he happens to be a genuine, bona fide, dyed-in-the wool born-again Christian whose every other line is a quote from the Bible. And he feels as he does because he is convinced Armenians are evil and the Turks massacred them because they were following orders from God – not their Allah, be it noted, but our God who can do no wrong. And if you were to say, I should be ashamed to admit that I have such friends, I will reply: I have made it my business to understand all kinds of Armenians and not just a fraction of them.

#

September 8, 2004

Sunday, September 05, 2004

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

THE TRIUMPH OF THE BLIND.

UNLEARNING FROM HISTORY.

A GENERATION OF TERRORISTS.

A ROUTINE OCCURRENCE

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

There is a type of Armenian who will attack you if he suspects you are ahead of him. He resents being number two where he thought to be number one. The one-eyed, we are told, is king in the land of the blind. But if the blind are Armenian, the one-eyed will be blinded, and sometimes beheaded, too.

*

In the Homeland they silenced Charents, Bakounts, and Zabel Yessayan. In the Diaspora they silenced Shahnour, Zarian, and Massikian. In the Republic of the Blind, no one is qualified to be one-eyed because seeing is a capital offense.

*

Adam Gopnik in a recent issue of the NEW YORKER: "The First World War teaches that territorial compromise is better than full-scale war, that an 'honor-bound' allegiance of the great powers to small nations is a recipe for mass killing, and that it is crazy to let the blind mechanism of armies and alliances trump common sense."

*

Two questions: Has mankind learned any of these lessons? Is man capable of learning from history?

*

If the Azeris of Karabagh, who now live in refugee camps and see us as their Israelis and identify themselves with Palestinians, are they not breeding a generation of future terrorists?

*

When a good Armenian hears a fellow Armenian saying "Armenians are evil," he examines his own heart. When a bad Armenian hears it, he says, "The man is a lunatic."

*

Whenever Armenians get together and start talking about their favorite subject, namely, fellow Armenians, they almost always reach the same conclusion: "Mart bidi ch'ellank!" freely translated: "We will never acquire the status of human beings."

*

There are those who read me only to assert their moral and intellectual superiority. Which raises the question: "Why would anyone waste his time reading an inferior scribbler?"

*

None of us likes to be criticized, but in a democracy, even the mightiest has no choice but to take it. Not so in a fascist environment, where, by silencing their critics, those in power think they become infallible and are therefore beyond criticism. Therein lies the seed of their own destruction.

#

Monday, September 06, 2004

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

BELIEF SYSTEMS.

REALITY AND ITS DEMANDS.

MEMO TO MYSELF.

MY FAVORITE Q/A.

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

With most people, it seems, if you repeat something long enough, they will end up believing it. This is the principle on which all organized religions and ideologies are based. The only reason most Christians are Christians is that they were born and raised in a predominantly Christian country. The same applies to Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists. This suggests a number of things, among them:

(a) homo sapiens hates to think for himself and prefers someone else to do his thinking for him; (b) he is eminently brainwashable; © he cannot discriminate education from indoctrination; (d) he is easily satisfied with what he knows even when what he knows happens to be a palpable lie; and (e) he has 20/20 vision when it comes to the lies of the opposition and might as well be blind to his own.

*

On the day mankind becomes aware of these things, we may have a far better chance to live in a world without intolerance and hatred, as well as war and massacre.

*

How to achieve this goal? The answer is simple as well as obvious: educate people to question and doubt the fundamental assumptions of their belief systems, especially if these belief systems were taught to them when they were children.

*

Reality is like death and taxes: you can neither avoid it nor run away from it. On the contrary: the faster you run away from it, the harder it will hit you.

*

According to an old saying: "If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." So much for those who believe God is on their side.

*

Memo to myself: "Don't rush things. Take it easy. Because if you don't, you may end up so far ahead of your contemporaries that they may never be able to catch up with you."

*

The most unforgettable question/answer I have heard in a film:

"Who the hell do you think you are?"

"You are full of sh**! - that's who I am."

#

Tuesday, September 07, 2004

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

ON LIARS AND FRAUDS.

SHADOW AND SUBSTANCE.

TERRORISTS OR FREEDOM FIGHTERS?

ANATOMY OF PARTISAN THINKING.

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

There is a hidden question mark in all my assertions about Armenians, and, more often than not, the question is: "If suffering ennobles, why have we fallen so low?"

*

It is not easy being a liar - to project a positive image and to harbor negative sentiments and thoughts. If our words don't betray us, our body language will, and our body language is visible to others but not to ourselves.

*

If you think Chechens who kill Russian children are terrorists and Palestinian who kill Jewish children are freedom-fighters, then I assume your favorite book is MEIN KAMPF. And if you were to say, "How can it be my favorite book if I haven't even read it?" I say: "Take my word for it, my friend. It will be your favorite book after you read it."

*

If you think quoting a Jewish writer on an Armenian discussion forum is wrong, am I to assume if I were to quote Goebbels you would have no objections?

*

Scratch an Armenian reader and expose a control-freak commissar of culture who will want to check and double-check not only what you write but also what you read, quote, think, and feel.

*

To those who don't like Jews because Jews, they say, have been screwing the world, I say: The world has been screwing them since the time of the Pharaohs. It's high time they did some screwing of their own - assuming, of course, you are right and that's what they have been doing.

*

You have made it as a writer on the day you discover that even those who hate you, read you.

*

I would not be surprised in the least if some Armenians, who say they don't hate Jews, spend vast sums of money on collecting Nazi memorabilia.

*

Nothing is what it seems. The world is full of frauds that pretend to be better than they are. Because I forget this, I am repeatedly disappointed in my fellow Armenians.

*

If you support one side against the other, you make an a priori decision to emphasize only the negative in the opposition. In other words, you think as if half of your brain were frozen. Which is why single-minded fanatics behave as if they were lobotomized.

#

Wednesday, September 08, 2004

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

WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN.

WHO IS CAIN?

FROM PALACES TO CRAP.

VERBAL SOLUTIONS AND PIZZAS

WITH MUSHROOMS AND ANCHOVIES.

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

In 1957 Bertrand Russell published a book titled WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN, which contains quotations from the Old Testament that legitimize prejudice, racism, and massacre - and massacre not only of women and children but also cattle.

We now have two recent books titled WHY I AM NOT A MUSLIM by Ibn Warraq and WHY I AM NOT A HINDU by Ramandra Nath.

In the first we read: "As soon as I was able to think for myself, I discarded all the religious dogmas that had been foisted on me. I now consider myself a secular humanist who believes that all religions are sick men's dreams, false - demonstrably false - and pernicious."

In the second: "Though I agree with Buddhism in its rejection of god, soul, infallibility of the Vedas, still I am not a Hindu even in this broad sense of the term Hindu, because as a rationalist and humanist, I reject all religions."

If the world is saved it will not be by ayatollahs, mullahs, bishops, popes, televangelists and rabbis but by enlightened men like Bertrand Russell, Ibn Warraq and Ramandra Nath, who refuse to divide their fellow men into believers and infidel dogs.

*

When I went into this business, I made a solemn promise to myself never to lose my temper, to answer all criticisms and questions, to ignore all insults, and to think of my critics not as my enemies but as my brothers. I kept this promise until I realized that one of the worst things that can happen to a man is to have a brother like Cain. I am not saying or implying that my critics are a bunch of Cains; rather, that they assign to me the role of Cain and to themselves that of Abel.

*

The Bible tells us to love our neighbor. It does not tell us to love him only if he agrees with everything we say no matter how uninformed, narrow-minded, and unchristian.

*

Goethe once said that every young writer thinks he can build palaces, but with experience he learns the best he can do is shovel crap.

*

I am reminded of an American plumber's advertising slogan: "Your crap is my bread and butter."

*

As for those who demand instant solutions to all our problems, I ask two questions: (a) What possible use are or have been verbal solutions? and (b) What has been your own contribution to our welfare as a nation, in addition to ordering solutions like a patron in a pizza parlor ordering a pizza with mushrooms and anchovies?

#

September 11, 2004

Thursday, September 09, 2004

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

CREDIBILITY CANYON.

A QUESTION OF RELEVANCE.

PARTISAN VERSIONS OF THE PAST.

ARMENIAN SHAMANISM.

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

Just because I don't believe anything Turks tell me, it doesn't necessarily follow that I am willing to swallow everything Armenians tell me. I have been fooled by so many Armenians on so many occasions that, if an Armenian were to tell me my mother loves me, I would want to double-check his source.

*

If you think my attitude towards my fellow Armenians is negative, I say, I assure you, my friend, my attitude might as well be irrelevant on grounds of insignificance. Who after all gives a damn what a minor scribbler says? Any idiot can contradict him, any hooligan can insult him, and any imbecile can silence him. What is infinitely more relevant and significant is Armenian treatment of writers and, by extension, their fellow Armenians.

*

To put it as elegantly and as diplomatically as I can, collectively, Armenians have behaved like swine towards their writers. No need to take my word for it. Read any history of Armenian literature. But don't expect Bolsheviks, or for that matter, any member of any party to expose its own criminal conduct. When a partisan writes about his party, he operates on the assumption that its leadership has been infallible, therefore beyond reproach.

*

If you want to know how misleading an Armenian can be, read a Communist on Tashnaks and vice versa: a Tashnak on fellow travellers. Once, when I was young and naïve, I published an interview with a prominent Tashnak only to be informed by a prominent Ramgavar that every line in my interview contained a minimum of two lies.

*

Two reasonable men may disagree, but not if one of them is an Armenian.

*

When a reader does not agree with me, he says, "I don't agree with you." But when an Armenian does not agree with me, he calls me an idiot, probably because he believes in shamanism and thinks if he calls me an idiot a few times, I will grow long ears and bray like an ass.

#

Friday, September 10, 2004

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

TOYNBEE'S ANSWER.

GANDHI'S SOLUTION.

GRUB FIRST, THEN ETHICS.

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

When, in the final volume of his STUDY OF HISTORY, Toynbee attempted to combine all religions into a single belief system, because he saw no other alternative to mutual tolerance, universal brotherhood and peace, he was dismissed as a charlatan by humanists and as a blasphemer by men of faith. Result? Mankind continues to be at the mercy of frauds and their dupes, who persecute, kill and die in the name of a truth, which is a lie.

*

Religious leaders would agree with the above assertion provided they and their followers are excluded, of course!

*

Jews believe the Pope and his followers and all Christians in general believe in a false messiah. Christians believe, by rejecting the only true messiah, Jews are destined to burn in hell. Mullahs view Christians as infidels, and Buddhists are convinced anyone who speaks of gods, holy ghosts, messiahs, prophets, angels, devils, and virgin births inhabits a world of non-existent shadows and empty illusions.

*

A humanist believes trying to reconcile two religions is like trying to reconcile two sets of lies. You cannot reconcile 2+2=5 with 2+2=22. How can you reconcile the existence of God with his non-existence? Easy, Gandhi said. If we replace the word God with the word Truth, he explained, even atheists become believers in so far as they believe the non-existence of god to be the truth.

*

Like Toynbee's answer, Gandhi's verbal solution has been ignored, perhaps because it does not take into account theologians and their dogmas, for the sake of which countless men have shed their blood.

*

If a universal religion continues to be a utopian dream today, it's because for every Toynbee and Gandhi, there are thousands of bishops, mullahs and rabbis, who make a comfortable living by peddling nonsense; and between a useless, not to say dangerous, nonsense and a useful truth, man will invariably choose the nonsense.

*

Call it original sin, call it the crocodilian fraction of the human brain, call it human perversity, call it what you will, history is clear on this point: if we view the future as an extension of the past, we are destined to be at the mercy of frauds and their dupes who value superstition above truth, brotherhood and peace.

#

Saturday, September 11, 2004

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

MORE ABOUT RELIGION.

THE POSITIVE AND THE NEGATIVE.

FROM GIBBON TO MARX &

FROM HEGEL TO RAFFI.

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

One of my critics informs me that I tend to emphasize the negative at the expense of the positive. This pattern, he writes, is evident also in my treatment of all organized religions. When I write about Christianity, for instance, I completely ignore its many positive contributions.

*

Let me expand on some of the points in my previous post:

There is no evidence to suggest that mankind has made any moral progress after the advent of Christianity. The last century, for instance, has seen more senseless bloodshed than at any other time in the history of mankind.

*

During the last two thousand years, Christianity has legitimized authoritarianism, monarchy, imperialism, colonialism, intolerance, racism, anti-Semitism, fascism, the persecution and torture of heretics, wars and massacres. Remember Voltaire's dictum: "Since it was a religious war, there were no survivors."

*

After the Golden Age of Greek culture, Christianity ushered in a thousand years of Dark Ages during which scientists were forced to accept the word of the Old Testament as the ultimate authority on all branches of knowledge.

*

Some of the greatest historians and thinkers of the West (from Edward Gibbon to Marx and Nietzsche) have written at considerable length about the negative, not to say, sinister, role of the Church in the West.

Hegel summed up the role of Christianity in the West when he said "the Christian frees himself from the human Master only to be enslaved by the divine Master." Our own Raffi echoed the same sentiment when he wrote: "As for our clergy: they have always been against individual freedom."

*

Speaking of Roman persecution of Christians, Gibbon writes in his DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE: "Christians have inflicted far greater severities on each other than they had experienced from the zeal of infidels." The number of Protestants "executed in a single province and a single reign far exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three centuries and of the Roman Empire."

*

For more on this subject, see DOUBT: A HISTORY by Jennifer Michael Hecht (New York, 2003. 551 pages. Index. Bibliography).

#

September 15, 2004

Sunday, September 12, 2004

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

FAITH, RELIGION, POLITICS AND POWER.

ORWELL, HUXLEY, TOYNBEE, GANDHI.

CRITICIZING THE CRITIC.

BELIEF SYSTEMS AND THEIR CRITICS.

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

Faith is something that happens in the hearts, minds, and souls of men. What I criticize is not faith but organized religions and the power they wield; and power is power regardless of its physical or metaphysical content.

*

Faith may be beyond criticism, but organized religions, politics and power are not.

*

George Orwell: "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

*

Those who oppose criticism engage in criticism in so far as they criticize dissent on the grounds that their convictions are beyond criticism, especially if there is no positive proof that their convictions are true.

*

Every belief system is also a critique as well as a rejection of all other belief systems.

*

Critics and dissidents are not popular because those who speak in the name of God or Truth don't like being exposed as dealers in "pure wind."

*

Christians called their critics heretics and burned them at the stake. Bolsheviks called theirs Trotskyites, bourgeois reactionaries and counter-revolutionaries and shot them. Muslims called theirs infidel dogs and blasphemers and exterminated them.

*

Even religious leaders who preach love, hate to give up their claim of monopoly of truth, to the same degree that their followers hate to give up their sense of superiority, that allows them to see themselves as the Chosen, and the rest of the world as second-class citizens, or even morally inferior trash.

*

In that sense, one could say that all belief systems are in the business of dehumanizing their fellow men. To flatter the collective ego of a minority (and all religions are minorities) they dehumanize the majority.

*

Efforts to reconcile belief systems, like those made by Aldous Huxley in his book, PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY, and by Toynbee in the final volume of his 12-volume STUDY OF HISTORY, have been ignored, sometimes even ridiculed. Who remembers today Gandhi's noble, even if only semantic, effort to elevate the status of atheism from the opposite of religion to that of religion?

*

As for the positive contributions religions have made: consider the fate of a respectable citizen who has done nothing but serve his fellow men for many years, but as a result of unforeseen circumstances, or confluence of emotional experiences, he commits a criminal act. He is caught, arrested, tried, found guilty and punished. His standing within the community is wrecked. He is disgraced. He becomes a pariah. And now consider the case of the Catholic Church and its many corrupt popes: what has happened to the institution of the papacy? What has happened to Christianity and Islam after their countless crimes that have claimed millions of innocent victims?

*

To those who say, the abuses of individuals should not be ascribed to their institutions, I ask, What if these abuses were committed in the name of these institutions? Should we continue to assert these institutions can do no wrong or they are beyond criticism, and anyone who exposes these abuses is a blasphemer, an idiot, a lunatic, whose ideas are dangerous, negative and anti-social?

#

Monday, September 13, 2004

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

A TURKISH NOBELIST.

A TURCOPHILE HISTORIAN ON TURKS.

ANKARA'S ROLE IN WORLD HISTORY.

PROPAGANDA WAR.

TOYNBEE'S VERDICT.

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

In the August 30, 2004 issue of the NEW YORKER (New York) John Updike reviews a novel titled SNOW by Orhan Pamuk, a contemporary Turkish writer, several of whose books have already been translated into English and published in the U.S. and England. After comparing the author with Marcel Proust, Thomas Mann, and Dostoevsky, Updike writes: "Pamuk, relatively young as he is, at the age of fifty-two, qualifies as that country's most likely candidate for the Nobel Prize."

It is to be noted that the novel takes place in the city of Kars and the Armenian massacres are not mentioned in the lengthy review.

*

In the August 21 issue of the SPECTATOR (London) David Pryce-Jones opens his review of Andrew Mango's THE TURKS TODAY with the words: "Mustapha Kemal, otherwise Ataturk, took the corpse of the Ottoman Empire and reanimated it as Turkey. Breaking both the old sultanate and the hold of Islam, he laid the foundation of a democratic state. It was an extraordinary achievement, not to be witnessed again until Mikhail Gorbachev broke the Soviet Union and the hold of the Communist party - and that was more by accident than design." Armenians are not mentioned in the review.

*

In the August 19 issue of LE POINT (Paris) there is an interview with Semih Vaner, identified as a French expert on the Middle East, who is quoted as having said: "Ankara can play an essential role between the West and the Muslim world." And: "It is time to view the Muslim world in all its diversity. Turkey has a parliamentary system that is competitive and democratic."

Again, Armenians are not mentioned.

*

Is there an Armenian military leader comparable to Ataturk? General Antranik comes to mind. But he might as well be a non-person to the world at large, thanks to our own political leadership that rejected him in mid-career.

*

Did we ever produce a writer who could have qualified as a candidate for the Nobel Prize? The answer is, yes, certainly, many. But we silenced all of them. I have in mind not only writers of the Soviet period that were systematically purged by our commissars, but also writers of the Diaspora, like Zarian, Shahnour, and Massikian, who were rejected and silenced by our own political and literary establishments.

*

If we are losing the propaganda war, whose fault is it? Is it because the world has a short memory? Or is it because we have allowed our destiny to fall into the hands of mediocrities whose number one enemy is excellence?

*

I am reminded of Toynbee's dictum: "Nations and civilizations are not killed, they commit suicide."

#

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

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

Persian proverb: "Adam and Eve spoke in Persian, and the angel who drove them out of Paradise spoke Turkish."

*

I have heard it said that poets are useless, writers deal in verbiage, intellectuals are addicted to words, and you cannot cook pilaf with words. I have also heard it said that man does not live by pilaf alone; and if the man happens to be an Armenian, he will also want some shish kebab.

*

Churchill, not exactly a daydreaming poet, once said: "Jaw-jaw is better than war-war."

*

Ludwig Wittgenstein: "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world." It follows, to silence writers means limiting our options, and with them, our chances to survive and to achieve excellence, both of which are interconnected. To survive in the jungle, you need all your faculties.

*

Where critics are starved, crooks, charlatans and liars grow fat. Hence the old saying: "Priests have seven stomachs."

*

You say I complain too much, but isn't that what you are doing too?

*

"Every concept is in itself an exaggeration," Jose Ortega y Gasset tells us. So that if you say I exaggerate, you are saying I deal in concepts, to which I can only reply, I don't know any other way to express my thoughts, and I refuse to apply fig leaves to them.

*

Zarian was right. We don't have literary critics. What we have are petty meddlers and frustrated commissars of culture who, given the chance, will gladly put a bullet in the neck of anyone who dares to disagree with them.

*

According to Shaw, "A thought is an assault on the unthinking." Every unfamiliar thought is therefore bound to violate our inner balance and thus put us on the defensive. Our first impulse is not to understand it, but to reject it and to silence the thinker.

*

The hardest thing about being Armenian is to disagree with a friend without losing him, and to win an argument without making a mortal enemy.

*

By concentrating on someone else's criminal conduct (which is what we have been doing) we learn nothing. But by exposing our own blunders we may learn not to repeat them.

#

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

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

VERSIONS OF THE PAST.

HISTORY AS THE PROPAGANDA OF THE VICTOR.

ON THE MEDIOCRITY OF OUR WRITERS.

THE NUMBER TWO IN NATURE.

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

To appreciate the absurdities of history as taught to millions of unsuspecting children, consider a Turk's version of Armenian history. I once heard a Turkish historian say that there has never been such a thing as an Armenian nation. Christian Turks, maybe. Armenian nation, never! It follows; to speak of the Armenian genocide is to speak of the Genocide of a non-existent entity.

*

In his book, THE DA VINCI CODE, Dan Brown exposes the dark side of Christianity. When told by readers that his book contradicts everything they have been taught, he replies that history has always been written by the "winners (societies and belief systems that conquered and survived)." So that, in gauging what is true, we should ask: "How historically accurate is history?"

*

Hindus treat their cows with greater respect than their Untouchables. I should like to see a history of Hinduism written by an Untouchable, or a history of the United States written by an American Indian or a Negro. Unless of course you say the testimony of an American racist is more valid than the testimony of a Negro.

*

Even belief systems whose central idea is mercy can be merciless against their critics.

*

After silencing and starving our ablest writers, our commissars of culture say: "Our writers are mediocrities."

*

A hooligan once said to me: "Books speak about the past. I am more interested in the future." He is thinking of his next screw, I thought.

*

Nature seems to be partial to the number two: we have two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs, and a forked tongue.

#

September 18, 2004

Thursday, September 16, 2004

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

To speak of the wisdom of propaganda is like speaking of the shadow of a non-existent object in a dark room.

*

Fascists make good speechifiers, but I see more eloquence in the braying of an ass.

*

Two individuals from two different cultural environments do not speak the same language even when they speak the same language.

*

Confucius: "Clever talk and a pretentious manner are seldom found in the Good."

A variant translation: "A garbage-mouth cannot harbor a golden tongue."

*

I am not in the business of changing anything. I am in the business of understanding, and whenever I am allowed, to share my understanding.

*

When a reader tells me he hates what I write, I make an effort to be more hateful. I don't write to entertain, amuse, and flatter.

*

All censors are cowards because they are afraid of ideas, especially ideas that will expose them as cowards.

*

Judge a tree by its fruit, a man by his ideas, and a belief system by its history.

*

To say nothing is better than to call someone an ignoramus, especially if he is one.

*

An easy riddle: "What does an Armenian with an opinion have in common with the Rock of Gibraltar?"

#

Friday, September 17, 2004

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

AGAINST TURKISH MEMBERSHIP IN THE EU.

ON THE ORIGINS OF PROVERBS.

WAS KOMITAS A TURK?

THE FALLACY OF CENSORSHIP.

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

In an interview published in LE POINT (Paris, August 12, 2004) Pierre Moscovici, a member of the European Parliament, cites the following three reasons why Turkey cannot be admitted into the European Union: "The role of the military on the margins of the regime;

the rights of minorities, notably that of the Kurds; and

the recognition of the Armenian genocide - this final point is for me decisive."

*

If "to kill with words is also murder" (German proverb), who among us will dare to plead not guilty to the crime of massacre?

*

Anonymous: "Let not your tongue cut your throat."

*

More and more frequently now, in English-language books of quotations, Armenian proverbs are identified as Turkish. Since no one has ever come forward and said: "I was there when this proverb was first spoken," I suppose, any nation can identify a proverb as its own. The same applies to the origin of dishes and folk tunes.

*

I remember to have read somewhere that in some Turkish reference works Komitas is identified as a Turkish musician, I suppose, in the same way that Mikoyan and Khachaturian are identified as "Soviet," Saroyan as "American," and Adamov as "French." But since present-day Turkey has disassociated itself from its Ottoman past and its many crimes against humanity, it would be more accurate to use the qualifier "Ottoman" in reference to Armenian proverbs and personalities who were active in Istanbul before World War I.

*

By silencing a writer and suppressing his testimony, censorship attempts to arrest the advance of time, but the best it can do is to slow it down and to postpone the final catastrophe.

*

Whenever I reflect that a fellow Armenian, who insults me or bans me from a forum, would have betrayed me to the authorities or put a bullet in my neck in a different time, place, and regime, I feel like celebrating.

*

To how many of my Armenian critics I could say: "Your aim is not to contradict but to murder with words."

#

Saturday, September 18, 2004

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

ON PROPAGANDA AND

RELATED ATROCITIES.

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

Propaganda is the enemy of literature because literature is the enemy of propaganda.

*

Speechifiers and sermonizers are not used to being contradicted.

*

One of our elder statesmen once told me: "Why do you bother replying to your readers? F*** them!" To which I remember to have replied: "No, I refuse to adopt our leaders as my role models."

*

I write brief sentences to fit the attention span of my readers. To write long paragraphs would be like serving gourmet dishes to addicts of junk food.

*

When a jackass brays he does not expect to have the applause of his audience. But if the jackass is an Armenian he is sure to think his braying is as good if not better than an aria from DON GIOVANNI or THE BARBER OF SEVILLE.

*

I grew up among survivors of the massacres who spoke Turkish among themselves. They had no illusions about their fellow men regardless of nationality. They may have been functional illiterates but they had an instinctive understanding of the role of destiny in human affairs. They didn't make a career of hatred and a full-time job of the massacres. If someone had said to them, by writing books, newspaper articles and letters to the editor, or by delivering speeches and sermons we may be able to persuade the Turks to apologize, they would have looked at him in silent astonishment as if to say: "Of the forty-four types of insanity I have heard about, this must be one of them."

#

September 22, 2004

Sunday, September 19, 2004

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

SCHOOLS OF ARMENIAN CRITICISM.

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

Armenian critics come in all sizes and shapes. A tentative classification follows.

*

The Partisan: Every word he utters is a result of conditioning.

*

The Hooligan: He slings mud on a windy day and he is too dumb to know that the mud will boomerang.

*

The Kibitzer: A smart-ass whose sole ambition in life is to appear better informed rather than to know or understand better.

*

The Fanatic: His brain is so narrow that he is incapable of entertaining more than one idea at a time, and the idea he entertains is either a prejudice or a fallacy.

*

The Garbage-mouth: Imagine a skunk with bad breath that insists on getting up-close and personal.

*

The Parrot: One who operates on the assumption that if he repeats what his daddy, schoolteacher, or parish priest told him when he was a little boy, he can't be far out.

*

The Pontiff: He can say or do no wrong because he knows better; and he knows better because he is better; and he is better because he is in constant touch with the Holy Ghost.

*

The Stalinist: A frustrated commissar of culture who puts a bullet in your neck and calls it dialectic.

*

The dogmatist: He believes every inanity he utters is the alpha and omega of human thought from the ancient Greeks to the present.

*

The Born-again: He has made a religion of patriotism and believes faith can move mountains even though so far he has done nothing to move the dunghill in his backyard.

*

The Phony: He recycles a line from the morning editorial and expects to be taken for a pundit.

*

The Hypocrite or the Forked-tongue: He believes as long as he says the opposite of what he really feels and thinks, he will be on safe ground.

*

The Fundamentalist: He identifies his verbal crapola with Holy Writ.

*

Question: Is it a waste of time reading these critics?

Answer: No, if you want to understand why our past and present are a disaster area and why the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train with a toxic cargo.

*

To those who say, "If you want your readers to respect you, you should respect them." I say, I am not in the business of respecting the irrational, the irresponsible, the phony, the pretentious, and the dishonest. I am in the business of exposing them.

*

And if you were to say, "Why is it that you are the only writer who has such a negative and pessimistic view of our reality?" I will say: No, I am not, not by a long shot! Three generations of Armenian writers before me were brutally cut down before they had a chance to sound the alarm: first time in the Ottoman Empire by Talaat, second time in Soviet Armenia by Stalin, and third time in the Diaspora by our partisans. So much so that I have heard even our chauvinists admit that we have no more literary giants, only contemptible midgets.

*

But in all fairness to our lost writers, many of them predicted the coming catastrophe and were ignored whenever they were not murdered. Shahnour and Massikian come to mind; and Zarian, who said: "Our political parties have been of no political use to us. Their greatest enemy is free speech"; and "Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another." Also to be noted: Zarian ended a chapter in his TRAVELLER AND HIS ROAD , written in the 1930s, with the words, "Vdank, vdank, vdank!" (Danger, danger, danger!) If that's not an S.O.S., I should like to know what is.

#

Monday, September 20, 2004

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

ANALYZING FANATICS.

INSURANCE CLAIMS OF GENOCIDE VICTIMS.

LIES THAT FLATTER AND TRUTHS THAT HURT.

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

To understand some Armenians it helps to read Muslim pundits on their fellow Muslims, because fanatics are fanatics regardless of national origin.

According to Chahdortt Djavann, an Iranian writer and author of a book titled WHAT DOES ALLAH THINK OF EUROPE? "Islam is a closed system that excludes non-Muslims and condemns to death all apostates…. In the Muslim world, Islam has confiscated all thinking. There is no such thing as a thought that is not religious…. [Muslim intellectuals are silent] because the alternative would be to question the legitimacy of the Koran…. Islamists know how to convert the frustrations of the young to religious energy," (LE POINT, Paris, August 26, 2004).

*

On the subject of reparations and insurance claims, I read the following in the CHICAGO TRIBUNE: "The international Commission of Holocaust Era Insurance Claims offered victims $41.5 million in settlements while lavishing more than $40 million in expenses on itself. Neal Sher, head of the commission's Washington office, resigned after an investigation found that he has misappropriated funds. He was later disbarred." Had he been an Armenian, I thought, he would have run for office and would now be the Armenian minister of foreign affairs, perhaps even the prez."

*

To some Armenians the word "kind" might as well be a four-letter word in a foreign tongue.

*

An Armenian says, "Turks are evil and Armenians good." A Turk says, "Armenians are evil and Turks good." Both are believed by millions of their fellow countrymen because a lie that flatters will always enjoy more popularity than a truth that hurts; and because I refuse to be a brown-noser, I have acquired many enemies who would like to see me silenced permanently.

*

But I shouldn't complain because if it weren't for my enemies I would probably have no faithful readers and a steady source of inspiration. As for readers who agree with me: I wouldn't be in the least surprised if I bore them to death. I too would be bored with a writer who tells me nothing I don't already know.

#

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

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

A FAILED EXPERIMENT?

DOUBLE UNDERDOGS.

INDIANS AND FORKED TONGUES.

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

"Armenia is a failed experiment," a friend keeps telling me, "and writing for Armenians a waste of time." Is he right? I am not sure. One reason I continue to write for Armenians is that, as an underdog, I prefer to write for underdogs - make it, as a double-underdog, I prefer to write for double-underdogs. Because, if you didn't already know, we happen to be underdogs not only of Turkish barbarism and Western hypocrisy but also of our own incompetent leadership.

*

Consider our revolutionaries at the turn of the last century: they knew massacres to be a strong possibility, and yet, they didn't have a plan B. They may have had a plan B for themselves (as in the Ottoman Bank caper) but not for the civilians. And they should have had not only a plan B, C, D, and E but also X, Y, and Z. But the fact remains: they did not. And what was bound to happen, happened.

*

And consider our present situation. What's their plan B, or, for that matter, plan A, to arrest the exodus from the Homeland and the assimilation in the Diaspora ? - two ongoing processes that have been described as "white massacres." Again, they may have a plan B for themselves, as they did the first time around…and having survived the massacres, they published copious memoirs in which they portrayed themselves as heroes and dedicated servants of the nation. How to explain their failures? Elementary, my dear Watson. They blamed the West for its double talk (as if there ever was a time in recorded history when the West had not spoken with a forked tongue) and the Turks for their bloodthirsty disposition (as if that came as a surprise too).

*

Speaking of forked tongues: that's how American Indians described all white men long before our massacres. Which may suggest that our own leaders did not know what Indians knew before them. Why should we be surprised if a high-ranking Turkish diplomat is quoted as having said to Bush Sr. during a visit to the White House: "Armenians are our Indians." Thus implying, "If you tried to exterminate your Indians, why shouldn't we exercise the same right when it comes to our own?" And, "If you can speak with a forked tongue, why can't we?"

#

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

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

NATURAL-BORN KILLERS.

SOCRATES ON GODS.

THE NEGATIVE AND THE POSITIVE.

ARMENIAN POLITICS.

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

An Armenian is a natural-born verbal killer. Zarian put it best when he said, "An Armenian's tongue is sharper than a Turk's yataghan." Who among us will dare to plead not guilty to the charge of verbal massacre?

*

When an Armenian from Lebanon and an Armenian from Iran (or anywhere else for that matter) converse in English, nuances are bound to collide, explode, and maim innocent bystanders.

*

Socrates, who has been described as "the big-bang of Western philosophy," once said what needs to be said of all religions: "Of the gods, we know nothing." (See Plato, CRATILUS). Which is why, when it comes to religions, we should have more questions than answers. Which is also why, he who speaks in the name of God should be declared a certified charlatan, a pathological impostor, and a fraud.

*

Everything has been said before. There is nothing new under the sun. Originality now consists in saying, or rather quoting, the right word at the right time and place.

*

Patriotic sentiments spring from the gut and appeal to the gut without a detour to the brain. Unless, of course, you say, "My patriotism is good, but my enemy's patriotism is evil."

*

To those who accuse me of negativism, I ask: "If to expose charlatanism is positive and to cover it up negative, are you not the negative one?"

*

I remember, whenever I would submit an essay dealing with our present situation to the late editor of ARARAT Quarterly, he would reject it with the words, "I don't want to get involved in Armenian politics," as if Armenian politics were a pestilential swamp better left alone than drained.

#

September 25, 2004

Thursday, September 23, 2004

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

DISAGREEMENT - ARMENIAN STYLE.

THE LANGUAGE OF PROPAGANDA.

FOUR RULES WITHOUT EXCEPTIONS.

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

There is a type of reader who disagrees with me long before he has read the first word of the first line. Such a reader is a critic only in the sense that a cobra is a critic of a mongoose and vice versa. Some cases in point follow.

*

"You don't always mention your sources. Is it because you have none to back up your ridiculous assertions and theories?"

More often than not my sources are anonymous readers like yourself whom I sometimes identify as Jack S. Avanakian.

*

"None of your explanations makes sense to me. Why do you insist on wasting your time and ours?"

Perhaps you would like to share your wisdom with us, and if you have none to spare, perhaps you would care to mention another writer we could all read with profit. I hate to think I am the only game in town. Surely, our people deserve better than that.

*

To the gentle reader who tells me, "Haven't you got anything better to do than produce a steady flow of waste matter every day?" I can only say: What's a major intellect like you reading a minor scribbler like me?

*

It has been the destiny of Armenian writers to live among foreigners who don't give a damn about Armenian literature, and Armenians who care more about the false certainties of propaganda and less about the honest uncertainties of literature.

*

Power can speak only one language, that of propaganda. This is true of political as well as religious power. And propaganda and truth are as mutually exclusive as fire and water.

*

My source about the above assertion: life in three different countries - the first predominantly Orthodox (Greece); the second Catholic (Italy) and the third Protestant (Canada) all claiming to have a monopoly on truth, and when asked for proof, all pleading faith, the way cold-blooded murderers plead insanity.

*

All rules have exceptions, except the following four:

Where there are laws, they will be broken.

Where there are principles, they will be corrupted.

Where there is an ideological movement, it will be confiscated by power-hungry cynical manipulators whose number one concern will be number one.

And (I owe the following to Toynbee): Where there are chosen people, they will have been chosen by no one but themselves.

#

Friday, September 24, 2004

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

WARNING.

ENFER DE MERDE.

THE LESSONS OF HISTORY.

PUNDITS & DUPES.

ON INFALLIBILITY.

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

In order not to be misunderstood, one must express the same thought in different ways, and the more ways, the narrower the gap open to misinterpretation.

*

What I am about to say you may have heard or read before. Feel free not to read what follows.

*

The world is an enfer de merde or a cesspool of conflicting interests and belief systems because, (one) only historians learn from history; (two) they invariably draw contradictory lessons; (three) they don't have the power to put into practice what they have learned; and (four) if they had the power, the world would be in a worst mess.

*

We are all authorities on at least one subject: what's good for us, and more often than not, we are dead wrong.

*

Where there is disagreement, either one or, more often than not, both sides are wrong, because any dupe can say, "my side is right," and have a counterpart in the opposition who says the same thing.

*

If we agree that what we don't know far exceeds what we know, or "of the gods we know nothing" (Socrates), or "we cannot answer the most important questions" (Chekhov), it follows, to assume being consistently right or infallible must be just about the surest symptom of being consistently wrong. This must be true not only of Muslims who speak in the name of Allah, but also of Catholics who speak in the name of the Pope, or partisans who speak in the name of the Party, or dupes who at one time or another spoke in the name of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Saddam, and countless others who pretended to know better.

*

If millions, perhaps even billions, have been wrong in the past, who among us will dare to pretend to be right or to know better?

#

Saturday, September 25, 2004

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

FROM AN AFRICAN NOVEL.

MORE ON WRITERS AND COMMISSARS.

ON ARMENIAN IDENTITY.

THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE.

OUR PANCHOONIE RACKET.

GOD, OUR FATHER.

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

From a contemporary African novel: "as ugly and dirty as a hyena's anus."

*

No one and nothing can be as contemptible as a writer in an environment dominated by commissars of culture. Which is why I prefer to identify myself as a concerned citizen. And if, on occasion, I have committed the unforgivable blunder of calling myself a writer, it has been only in the sense of one who uses the written word as a means of communication - as in "the writer of this memo."

*

If you chart the family tree of a commissar of culture, you are sure to find at least two hangmen, three cold-blooded murderers, several career criminals, and a minimum of a dozen jailbirds.

*

In a non-democratic environment one cannot speak of the voice of the people ("vox populi") which has been identified in the past with the voice of god ("vox dei"). One can speak only of the voice of an elite or a power structure, which is more akin to the voice of the Devil. And now, consider the fact that throughout our millennial history we have at no time experienced democratic rule. Even in democratic environments like the United States, France and Canada, we are dominated by non-representative cliques that are as representative as exclusive clubs. As for the so-called democracy in Armenia today: it is as representative as a criminal gang or a mafia.

*

An Armenian born and raised in the United States will share more in common with his fellow Americans than with an Armenian born and raised in the USSR. Most Armenians today might as well be foreigners to one another. But whereas the laws of the land promote solidarity in America (which is also populated by foreigners), the absence of similar laws or values in our case moves us in opposite directions, namely, mutual mistrust, alienation, and assimilation.

*

The only time an Armenian will speak of brotherhood is when he goes into the business of raising funds, which I like to call our "Panchoonie racket."

*

I am willing to concede that even if god doesn't exist, we should live as though he did, otherwise we may end up slaughtering one another. But man, it seems, is so predisposed to slaughter that he will slaughter even in the name of a merciful and compassion god.

*

The aim of propaganda, it has been said, is to deceive your friends, not your enemies. Imagine, if you can, a Turk falling for our chauvinist crapola….

*

After being verbally abused by our commissars and partisans (but I repeat myself) I can truly testify to the fact that an Armenian's tongue can be "sharper than a Turk's yataghan" (Zarian) and uglier than a hyena's anus.

#

September 29, 2004

Sunday, September 26, 2004

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

INFORMATION AND WISDOM.

LITTLE BOYS AND BIG BOYS.

ON THE COMPLEXITIES OF LIFE.

ON LOSING AN ARGUMENT.

ON FICTION.

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

There is a natural tendency in all of us to overestimate the wisdom of someone who knows something we don't know, or to confuse information with wisdom.

*

Everyone knows something no one knows, even if what he knows is about himself and his experiences.

*

Little boys brag about things they haven't done or cannot do. Big boys brag about things they neither know nor understand, all the while hoping no one can tell if they are bragging.

*

In life, the crucified do not always rise on the third day.

*

A bishop will never lose an argument if losing it would mean defrocking himself. Neither will a born-again lose an argument if losing it would mean being dead again.

*

Reality or life is a succession of false starts, vicious circles, and dead-ends. Faith or a belief system allows us to think otherwise by reducing life to a one-dimensional operation in which all questions have answers, the end is predictable, and man is subject to rigid laws. In other words, a belief system is a program and a believer is one who constantly programs himself in order to eliminate the uncertain, the irrational, and the incomprehensible by means of prayer and ritual, also known as incantation and mumbo jumbo.

*

There is a visible as well as an invisible universe. Great many questions about the visible universe remain unanswered. As for the invisible: we know nothing about it. We don't even know if it is an extension of the visible. To believe means to reduce the mystery of reality by assuming that since we know the Creator, we need all we need to know about His creation. I am somewhat simplifying things, but not as much as a man of faith simplifies reality.

*

Every novel has a central theme or thesis, which can be expressed in a single sentence or brief paragraph. I speak only of themes because I have a horror of boring my readers with imaginary characters, landscapes and dialogue. When I was a child, words like "Once upon a time," were pure magic. But I am no longer a child, and dark forests, castles, palaces and beautiful princesses no longer exercise the same spell on me. And it is beyond me why anyone would be interested to read such an opening sentence as "The bell rang and I went to the front and opened the door," or "It was on my wanderings that I first met my beloved."

*

Fine sentiments and thoughts should be expressed either in a fine style or with the utmost simplicity, because even a hint of pretentiousness may expose the writer as a counterfeit.

*

It has been observed that even when our words have wings they may fly in unpredictable directions.

#

Monday, September 27, 2004

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

WHEN BELIEF SYSTEMS CLASH.

PREACHING TO THE CONVERTED.

HOW TO JUDGE A NEW IDEA.

REALITY AND PROPAGANDA.

EXPLOITING DUPES.

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

It is a mistake to judge a belief system on its own terms. It is only when it clashes with other belief systems that it arouses the irrational and the crocodilian in man.

*

If I had a choice between a hundred readers who don't agree with me and ten readers who do, I would choose the hundred for the very simple reason that there is no merit in preaching to the converted.

*

One of the worst mistakes we can make is to approach a new idea with the question: "Is it for us or against us?" We should ask instead: Does it make sense? Does it appeal to our reason or to our emotions? Is it consistent with established facts?

*

Whenever a reader writes that he enjoys reading me, I cannot help reflecting that I must be doing something wrong. I don't write for anyone's enjoyment.

*

The best way to see the discrepancy between reality and propaganda is to study history and compare what happened with what was said by politicians on both sides of the conflict.

*

The astonishing ease with which most people believe their side of the story and the ruthless cynicism with which leaders on both sides exploit this human weakness.

*

Islam says, "If the enemy is an infidel, he deserves to be slaughtered." Christianity says, "If Almighty God is on our side, we can't lose." The clash of these two belief systems resulted in the senseless slaughter of nearly two million Armenians. I am not saying religion was the main cause of our genocide, but I hope no one will disagree with me if I say it was a contributing factor.

#

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

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

ON THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER.

A MONUMENT TO HUMAN DEGRADATION.

THE AIM OF CRITICISM.

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

As a child I was brought up to believe all prayers are eventually answered. If we assume that to be true, we must also assume that the millions of innocent civilians who were senselessly slaughtered during two world wars did not pray hard enough; and they did not pray hard enough probably because their faith in God was not of sufficient strength to meet God's standards. Which also means that in some minimal way, they contributed to their own demise. This type of thinking is another proof of the fact that organized religions, and men of faith in general, are first and foremost in the business of dehumanizing not only their fellow men but also diminishing God. Because, if you think about it, what kind of God would allow children to be slaughtered simply because He was disappointed in the quantity and quality of their prayers? But then, what kind of God would ask a decent father to butcher his own son (see GENESIS) to test his loyalty? Can God be so insecure as to be in need of a poor mortal's loyalty? And if He knows everything, shouldn't he already know the answers to His own questions?

*

The most underdeveloped countries are also the most religious. Two cases in point: Mexico and India. Where religion plays a central role, there will also be poverty, disease, corruption, prejudice, ignorance, and overpopulation. Are we to assume Mexican and Indian children deserve their fate because their parents did not pray hard enough?

*

If Armenians were slaughtered because they more or less deserved it, does that mean the Turks did what they did with God's consent? Or perhaps Sultan Abdulhamid II and Talaat were His messengers?

*

I read in today's paper that Taj Mahal (described as "a monumental love nest" and "India's most famous monument") was built 350 years ago. When I think of Taj Mahal I do not consider its beauty but the degradation of poor anonymous laborers who worked on its constructions to memorialize the love of two individuals who should have been hanged from the nearest tree for their arrogance and greed for immortality.

*

Only the abysmally ignorant view criticism as an expression of hostility rather than concern.

#

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

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

FATHERS AND CHILDREN.

MUD IS MUD.

IN PRAISE OF MODERATION.

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

As children we trust our elders and accept their simple answers to our questions. As adults we continue to behave like children when we are told patriotism or nationalism is good only when it is ours; or the word "homeland" is sacred only when it refers to our own homeland; or again, our mud is better than someone else's.

*

Silence contains the worst lies as well as the best truths.

*

The difference between a fanatic and a moderate is that a moderate suspects there are two sides to every question and if he is honest and objective he may have a better chance to understand reality.

*

If a writer cannot change our perception of reality, he might as well identify himself as an entertainer.

*

Never insult an Armenian writer: being one is insult enough.

#

October 2, 2004

Thursday, September 30, 2004

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

BUDDHA, SOCRATES, JESUS.

THE SEMANTICS OF RELIGION,

PHILOSOPHY, AND MYSTICISM.

GOOD AND EVIL.

GOD AND THE DEVIL.

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

Abandon old habits of thought. Do not even think in terms of good and evil, or right and wrong. Forget what you were taught. Get rid of all preconceptions: that's the only way to grasp reality. This indeed is the central message of Buddhism.

*

Now compare this with Christianity's "Love your enemy," - an idea so new, so strange, and so much against the grain that after two thousand years of countless sermons in countless churches it has yet to penetrate our crocodilian brain. The only way to understand it is by abandoning all definitions, because (according to the recent academic discipline of semantics) words and their definitions are at the root of all our misconceptions and prejudices.

*

Abandoning all definitions: that's also the mantra adopted by Socrates. In his dialogues Socrates begins by stating that he knows nothing and ends by proving that his interlocutors know even less. And who are his interlocutors? Generals, statesmen, philosophers - in short, la crème de la crème of Athenian society at the peak of its Golden Age. As the dialogues unfold, Socrates makes it abundantly clear that the commonly accepted definitions of such terms as justice, goodness, beauty, and courage are full of inconsistencies and contradictions.

*

What I am trying to say here has been said before by far better men than myself, among them Aldous Huxley in his PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY, and Arnold Toynbee in the 10th volume of his STUDY OF HISTORY. The aim of all religions, schools of philosophy and mysticism is the same. It is only when religions acquire a power structure, a hierarchy and bureaucracy, rituals and mumbo jumbo that they betray the original intent of their founders and become instruments of the devil by legitimizing intolerance, fallacies, prejudice, hatred, war and massacre.

#

Friday, October 01, 2004

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

ON FANATICS

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

Fanatics are not born but made, and what makes them are fanatics in the opposite camp. Armenian fanatics exist today because Turkish fanatics existed yesterday; and Turkish fanatics will exist tomorrow because Armenian fanatics exist today. Fanaticism is an endless cycle and if allowed to prevail, the world is bound to drown in blood.

*

When fanatics fight, it is the defenseless and the innocent who die.

*

All fanatics operate on a number of false assumptions or illusions, among them: (one) they are the only answer to a very important question; (two) they are not fanatics but realistic moderates who understand the nature of the adversary; (three) they are instruments of a noble principle or even messengers of God; and (four) they are la crème de la creme (rather than la crème de la scum).

*

One reason the Bible is a perennial best seller is that there is something for everyone in it. Good men will find many passages that speak of compassion, mercy, forgiveness, tolerance, and love, and bad men will find many more lines that justify criminal conduct, including the massacre not only of enemy tribes, including their women and children, but also their cattle. Hence Shakespeare's dictum: "Even the devil can quote the Scriptures to his advantage."

*

One of my born-again critics - make it, crypto-commissars or frustrated executioners parading as devout Christians - writes: "There was a time when we burned blasphemers like you at the stake."

*

If "a bourgeois is a bourgeois regardless of nationality"(Lenin), so is a fanatic. A Muslim fanatic and a Christian fanatic might as well be interchangeable, faceless units that share the same ambition: to drag the world back to the Middle Ages and to hell with such degenerate Western concepts as democracy, human rights, free speech, and the separation of church and state.

*

For every proud Armenian, there are probably ten or more proud Turks. In a battle of prides, we don't have a chance. Which is why I prefer to identify myself as a humble human being that has no use for pride.

*

Where there is chauvinist pride, there will also be self-righteous arrogance, intolerance, hatred, fanaticism, and inevitably bloodshed.

#

Saturday, October 02, 2004

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

WE ARE ALL ASSASSINS

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

From an interview with Yan Moix, a contemporary French author: "There is only one reason that prevents us from behaving like animals: the laws of the land. Without laws we would behave like wild beasts in the jungle." (LE POINT, September 2, 2004).

*

Where there is power, it will be abused. This might as well be one of those rare rules that have no exceptions.

*

Knowledge is power. But so is phony knowledge, which can be even more dangerous than abysmal ignorance. By phony knowledge I have in mind the kind that we ascribe to religious leaders, be they popes, ayatollahs or gurus.

*

Think of the countless heretics who were persecuted, tortured and killed by the Church on the grounds that church leaders knew God's will or the workings of the divine mind better than their victims.

*

Closer to home: consider the ease with which we verbally abuse one another on the Internet simply because the computer gives us the power to do so.

*

I remember the title of a 1952 French film directed by Andre Cayatte, NOUS SOMMES TOUS DES ASSASSINS (We Are All Assassins) that became a widely used slogan. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that a fraction of our brain is crocodilian, (students of anatomy tell us this to be literally true), and it will seize the flimsiest excuse to take over our "human" brain.

*

If a Pope of Rome and a Stalin can behave like ruthless killers in the name of a religion of love or an ideology based on the brotherhood of all men, who among us will plead not guilty or pretend that his brain has no crocodilian fraction?

*

The Turks massacred us because they had the power to do so. Does that mean we wouldn't have done the same to them if our positions had been reversed? To put it differently: Is the crocodilian fraction of the Turkish brain bigger than ours? Or, are all men assassins except us?

#

October 6, 2004

Sunday, October 03, 2004

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

FROM THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION

TO THE GRAVEYARD OF BARBARIANS

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

What if Saddam Hussein understands his own people better than the ablest American expert advising Bush? What if the only way to govern Iraq is by being a ruthless dictator willing to conduct genocidal war against unruly tribes? What if this is true of all tribal people, including Armenians? Hence the often-heard line: "We are not yet ready for democracy." Is it conceivable that the cradle of civilization prefers a political system worthy of murderous barbarians?

*

In his book on Stalin, Montefiore writes that Mikoyan once delivered a speech in which he said: "Every citizen of the USSR should be an NKVD [later KGB] agent."

*

Censorship is book burning without smoke and fire.

*

The only way to make money as a writer, Flaubtert once said, is by flattering the public. Zohrab put it more bluntly when he said, anyone can engage in prostitution, including lawyers (he was a lawyer). Which reminds me of the American joke: "Please, don't tell my mother I am a lawyer. She thinks I am a pimp."

*

An authentic charlatan knows instinctively that if he wants to deceive others, he must begin with himself. In other words, he consents to being his own first victim.

*

The incomprehensible nonsense of a charlatan will be the highest wisdom to another charlatan.

*

Charlatans operate on the assumption that they can fool all the people all the time. This false assumption limits their horizons, condemns them to mediocrity, and leads them to disappointment and defeat when they are finally and inevitably exposed.

*

When I write about charlatans I don't expect their agreement; and sure enough, out come the cloven hooves.

#

Monday, October 04, 2004

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

SOLUTIONS.

ON POLITICS AND POLITICIANS.

WHAT IS HAPPINESS?

A PROBLEM OF IDENTITY.

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

As for solutions to our problems, it is not easy finding solutions in a tribal environment dominated by jihadist leaders who will automatically reject all solutions that do not require the unconditional surrender of the opposition.

*

Do you really know what I think of politicians? I think the world would not be a much worse place if it were run by cab drivers and barbers.

*

I suspect the honesty of chauvinists whose patriotism finds expression only in verbal abuse.

*

About the word happiness: I consider it to be an untrustworthy word. Happiness for a sadist means someone he can torture. The problem is, what if, unable to find a masochist, he victimizes someone who may not be in a position to defend himself?

*

To think in terms of, "If he agrees with me he is smart, and if he disagrees with me he is a fool," is to condemn oneself to learn nothing from others.

*

The search for identity, about which one hears a great deal today, is a luxury only people with full bellies can afford. To the hungry, there is only one legitimate search, that for food. The hungry may find what he is looking for but I doubt if a man without identity will ever find one, perhaps because you can find only that which exists.

*

There is a type of Armenian whose primary concern is to prove he is a better Armenian, as if Armenianism were a contest that he must win at all cost.

#

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

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

FROM MY DIARY

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

On the Bush/Kerry debate, a Canadian pundit comments: "Kerry made more sense but I would vote for Bush. Kerry is an intellectual who seems to be talking down to people. Americans are suspicious of intellectuals. They prefer presidents who are more like themselves." What about Wilson, FDR, JFK, and LBJ? It seems to me, what one expects from a leader, or for that matter, a doctor, a lawyer, or any professional, is not companionship but competence.

*

On the radio, the haunting slow movement of Elgar's Cello Concerto, which deserves to be heard as often as Dvorjak's and Haydn's. And I don't even remember when was the last time I heard Khachaturian's Cello Concerto. Was it ten or twenty years ago?

*

When asked if she had ever considered divorce, an English lady is said to have replied: "No, never. Murder several times, but divorce, never." I read this in Jeffrey Archer's PRISON DIARY, not a masterpiece but eminently readable.

*

Why is it that a silent woman looks wise, but a silent man dumb?

*

Unbelievable but true: Suleiman the Magnificent once wrote a poem in praise of a contemporary Turkish poet.

*

Is the word mogul related in any way to the word Mongol?

#

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

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

ANOTHER PAGE FROM MY DIARY

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

Overheard: "Lost my wife ten years ago. Run over by a car. Best thing that happened to me."

*

Nothing gives me more pleasure than a volume of good cartoons. A definition of heaven for me would be a set of good cartoons that stretch to infinity; and a definition of hell, a set of bad translations of German metaphysical philosophers.

*

Schnabel playing Beethoven: He makes even the most tedious passages (and there are so many of them in the G Major Sonata) interesting.

*

Perhaps one reason we feel guilty when accused of a crime we did not even contemplate committing is that, at one time or another, we have probably committed the most unspeakable crimes in our dreams, most of which we may not remember.

*

At the funeral of an elder relative I am introduced to quite a few out-of-town Armenians, one of whom tells me: "Your name sounds vaguely familiar." I am reminded of an old English joke that goes something like this: Two Englishmen meet in a pub.

"My name is Porter," says the first.

"Mine is Shakespeare," says the other.

"A familiar name," comments the first.

"It should be," replies the second. "I have been delivering milk in these parts for 35 years."

*

Is it possible to be a political or religious leader and not to engage in some form of propaganda? -- which also means, to mislead people into believing that half-lies are whole-truths?

#

October 9, 2004

Thursday, October 07, 2004

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

THEM AND US

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

Let me put it bluntly for a change.

The Turks are guilty of covering up our genocide (number of victims 1,500,000).

We are guilty of perpetrating two genocides, albeit of the "white" variant - (one) exodus from the Homeland (number of victims so far 1,500,000 and counting) and (two) assimilation in the Diaspora (number of victims many more than 1,500,000 and counting).

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my question to you is: Whose burden of guilt is heavier? Or, if you prefer: In what way are we different from them?

And before you answer that question, please take into consideration the following two factors: The Turks are motivated to cover up their crime by self-interest -- if they plead guilty as charged, they may lose a chunk of their homeland.

By contrast, we are so blinded by our incompetence, corruption and greed that we don't even bother asking: Who is going to defend the Homeland if it is depopulated?

#

Friday, October 08, 2004

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

I experience a state of mind that is akin to a combination of compassion, pity, self-disgust and helplessness whenever I see someone who is beyond my reach committing the same blunder that I committed twenty or thirty years ago.

*

We sometimes forget that those who disagree with us are also human beings, and like all human beings, they have their own set of blind spots and limitations as a result of a limited number of experiences. After all, who among us will claim he has experienced everything and he knows and understands everything?

*

As soon as I think I have explained a very small fraction of reality, something happens to remind me that I have been on the wrong track, and I must go back to square one and start from scratch.

*

A woman is just a woman to another woman. But she is pure magic and the promise of heavenly bliss to a man. The more distant and inaccessible she is the more powerful her spell. Which may explain why the Muslim version of heaven is much more irresistible to a sexually starving and voracious teenager than its Christian counterpart is to Christians of all ages.

#

Saturday, October 09, 2004

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

FROM MY DIARY

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

Whenever I am told "I love to read but I don't have the time," I translate it to mean, "I hate to read."

*

In his PRISON DIARY, Jeffrey Archer writes that some inmates are "genuinely evil," and others "congenitally stupid." But isn't that true of men on both sides of prison walls?

*

According to a Mahdi in today's paper: "Islam is a religion of peace. A true believer cannot be a terrorist." But what if the credo of a religion is contradicted by its history?

*

Newspaper headlines speak louder than sermons because "actions speak louder than words."

*

Are young terrorists innocent dupes? Yes, of course. But then, all followers are because, to paraphrase Krishnamurti, "If you follow someone, you cease following the truth," or "the Kingdom of God" which is within you.

*

Religions and ideologies survive and prosper because "there is a sucker born every day."

*

Belief systems create dupes because between a pleasant lie and a demanding truth, man will invariably choose the lie.

*

The winner of this year's Nobel Prize is announced. She is an Austrian novelist about whom I know nothing. Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, and Philip Roth must be three of the most disappointed men in the world today, except perhaps Saddam in his cell and Osama in his cave.

*

As soon as I sense where a sentence is leading, I skip the whole paragraph. I read as though I were about to catch a train. No patience with most 19th-century novels. Tried George Eliot and gave up after a dozen pages.

#

October 13, 2004

Sunday, October 10, 2004

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

"Armenians are smart." "Armenians are tolerant." "Armenians are progressive." I am astonished at the ease with which some Armenians spout similar clichés that are motivated more by self-flattery and less by objective judgment. Speaking for myself: when it comes to my fellow Armenians, I have more questions than answers, questions such as: "If suffering ennobles, why is it that we have among as such preponderance of loud-mouth charlatans who feel more at home in the gutter?"

*

In his latest novel, THE PLOT AGAINST AMERICA, Philip Roth writes that he grew up "with a definition of the Jew as an object of ridicule, disgust, scorn, contempt, derision, of every heinous form of persecution and brutality." This might as well be how an Armenian writer feels among his "smart, tolerant, and progressive" fellow Armenians.

*

Between a short sentence and a long paragraph, sermonizers and speechifiers will invariably choose the paragraph and the longer the paragraph, the shorter the meaning, and the greater the distance from the truth.

*

Only Armenians who have been exposed to many sermons but have not read a single book by Raffi, Zabel Yessayan, Zohrab, Shahnour, Massikian, Zarian, and many other 19th- and 20th-century writers are convinced our Church has played a central role in our survival as a nation.

*

The only way to avoid controversy is to use words with contradictory meanings. If you think this can't be done, read James Joyce.

*

Judging by the popularity of religions and ideologies, the world seems to be populated by dupes who, when told 2+2=5, say, no, 2+2=22!

*

And speaking of our Church: I wonder, how many Armenians are familiar with Toynbee's classification of it as a "fossil" - meaning, brain-dead.

*

I read the following in a review of a recent biography of Jorge Luis Borges: "He insisted that he was part of a universal culture and refused to be pigeon-holed as an Argentine writer, though he was that, too, of course." I like that.

*

More about our Church. The question we should ask is: Do we believe the fellow with a full belly who speaks in the name of God, or the one who speaks for no one but his half-starving self?

#

Monday, October 11, 2004

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

A routine occurrence in history: when they are underdogs, men of faith preach love, compassion and mercy; but when they are top dogs, they practice intolerance, hatred and murder.

*

On the roots of our own intolerance: after centuries of "Yes, sir!" to a long line of ruthless and alien lords and masters, we turn into control freaks among our fellow Armenians, banning, censoring, and verbally abusing anyone who refuses to say "Yes, sir!" to us.

*

If "there is a Turk in all of us," this Turk surfaces only when we deal with fellow Armenians. Hence, the familiar phenomenon of the Armenian who is a lamb among odars and a wolf among his fellow countrymen.

*

Am I right or wrong? Frankly, I am no longer consumed with the rage to prove myself right. I know that in the eyes of those who have programmed themselves to disagree with me, I will always be wrong. I also know that I am not qualified to deprogram Armenians. Nobody is!

*

Those who disagree with me today may agree with me tomorrow. When I was young, I too disagreed with many things with which I agree today.

*

Whenever something bad happens to me, I look for the silvery lining; and whenever, on those rare occasions, I find it, it turns out to have been a mirage. Once, I remember, I even found a positive aspect in our genocide. If it weren't for the massacres, I thought, we would now be breathing the same air as the Turks, we would be communicating in Turkish with one another, and we would be discussing such topics as the prospect of Turkey joining the EU. And needless to add, we would all be for it.

#

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

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

We all swim in a sea of uncertainty, doubt, and anxiety. We hunger for certainties, and when we can't find them, we invent them; and having invented them, we defend them - sometimes unto death.

*

Since the beginning of time men have sensed the presence of an invisible and incomprehensible power which they have called god. And in their efforts to make the invisible visible, and the incomprehensible accessible, they have invented an astonishing number of stories, myths, fables, legends, dogmas, rituals, and belief systems which they have called religions. But because they have failed repeatedly to explain the mystery, or, if you wish, to lower god to their own level, they have reached contradictory conclusions. The result has been a long series of disagreements, conflicts, and sometimes even wars and massacres.

*

It has been said that, man cannot create a single worm, yet, he has created ten thousand gods.

*

Where people can think for themselves, there will be disagreement. There will be disagreement even where people cannot think for themselves because they have been conditioned not to think but to parrot someone else's thoughts.

*

Disagreement in itself is not a problem. The real problem is how we deal with it. Do we see it as a symptom of heresy, blasphemy, or evil, or do we see it as the beginning of a dialogue that may lead to compromise and consensus, which does not mean agreement but working together -- as opposed to working at cross purposes and against one another. So far, religions have failed to follow the path of dialogue and consensus by asserting a monopoly on truth and by legitimizing intolerance.

#

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

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

When we use the word culture we think of art, literature, and music. We forget that culture springs from an invisible source within us. It is above all an expression of how we feel and think. Ignorance, intolerance and envy are not culture but barbarism.

*

There is ignorance, intolerance and envy everywhere, of course, but they don't set the tone and they don't animate institutions and their policies. Only cultures or societies that are on a downward path do that.

*

In a letter to the editor in this morning's paper I read: "God is love, yes, certainly! But God is also justice." The question is: What kind of justice are we talking about here? An-eye-for-an-eye justice, or love-your-enemy justice?

*

Sermonizers can't be contradicted because they speak on the authority of Scriptures that are full of contradictions.

*

There will come a time when theology and religions in general will be branches of study under psychopathology, like paranoia, schizophrenia, and mass hysteria. And churches will become museums as in Moscow, or movie theaters as in Venice.

*

I share my understanding with those who are in need for it. As for the others, they shouldn't even waste their valuable time reading me, because I have nothing to say to people who know and understand everything. And they have nothing to say to me either for the very simple reason that once upon a time I too knew and understood everything.

#

October 17, 2004

Saturday, October 16, 2004

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

One way to have a balanced view of yourself is by trying to see yourself through the eyes of your enemy. If most people hate doing that it may be because they are too infatuated with their own positive image of themselves and they dread the prospect of seeing the negative. What if the enemy makes a good case?

*

To be infatuated with one’s own image is the surest symptom of being a dupe to propaganda.

*

A reader writes: “How do you know there will come a time when churches and mosques will become museums? Are you a prophet?”

No, I am not because I base my assertion on the past, on history and what is commonly known and accepted as fact. After all, is not the future an extension of the past? Consider the fate of Greek and Roman temples. Consider the fate of the 1001 churches of Ani. As recently as last year, 42 churches were closed down in the Detroit area. What happened to the mosques in Spain? And what will happen to the mosques in America when a weapon of mass destruction claims 100,000, perhaps even 1,000,000 victims, and the terrorist responsible for this holocaust is discovered to have found safe harbor in a mosque?

*

If, on the other hand, you assert that our religion, being superior to all others, is destined to shatter all historic precedents, I ask: “Are you saying that because that’s what you were told as a child or is it because you really think so?”

#

Sunday, October 17, 2004

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

On the radio this morning, an interview with Jimmy Breslin, a well-known Irish-Catholic writer and the author of THE CHURCH THAT HAS FORGOTTEN CHRIST. When asked what he thought about good Catholics who believe in the Pope and go to church every Sunday, he replied: “They are sheep.” Next question: “You mean they can’t think for themselves?” “That’s right!”

*

Since I am in the business of exposing prejudices and fallacies, I am sometimes accused of having my share of them. If I do, I hope they are not those of a good Armenian or a good Christian, but those of an honest human being.

*

A good Armenian: Can anyone define him? It is not at all unusual for a good Armenian to be a bad Armenian in the eyes of another self-appointed good Armenian. The same could be said of a good Christian, a good Muslim, a good Protestant or a good Sunni.

*

Religion generates infidels. Where there are orthodoxies there will be heretics. And every ideology will have its share of dissidents, and sometimes the dissidents will be right and the ideologues dead wrong.

*

Where there are top dogs there will be underdogs. As an underdog of underdogs, or a double underdog, I don’t feel the need to identify myself with them. I am one of them.

*

Could an Armenian be a top dog in the Ottoman Empire or the Soviet Union without betraying not only a fraction of his Armenianism (however you care to define that label) but also his humanity?

*

The problem with labels is that they tend to reduce or even dehumanize the other. For an Armenian, the label Turk comes with a heavy burden of history, and we are all creatures of the past. But to be creatures of the past does not necessarily mean being its slaves.

*

When I wrote recently that a man does not need a cathedral in which to pray, a reader wrote: “How do you know? Why do you project your own predilections on others?” This reader may not be aware of the fact that it was the construction of a cathedral in Rome that split the Church into Catholics and Protestants, and this split was the cause of many wars, one of which lasted a hundred years.

*

Sometimes I feel like a Muslim among Christians, and like a giaour among jihadist Muslims. Some readers think what I say is so eccentric and odd that I might as well be an enemy of the people. I have every reason to suspect that these readers confuse spin and propaganda with fact and reality. Or, as Jimmy Breslin says, they think not like men but like sheep. They view the past and present, that is to say, reality, through the eyes of bishops, imams, and politicians. And the world continues to be in an unholy mess because people don’t trust their own judgment and prefer to accept the judgment of spinners and propagandists. But ignoring our judgment is also ignoring that which separates us from animals.

*

Propaganda dehumanizes. Political and religious leaders don’t say that because if they did, they would expose themselves as dehumanizers and the real enemies of mankind, and more precisely, wolves in shepherd’s clothing.

#

October 23, 2004

Thursday, October 21, 2004

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

God is not a fascist but the god of fascists is. He will not tolerate deviationists and dissidents, also known as heretics and blasphemers. Hence the tragic and violent fate of those who at one time or another dared to challenge his authority.

*

Teilhard de Chardin: "The way we treat people is the way we treat God." I wonder how many Christians even came close to suspecting that when they were burning heretics at the stake, it was God they were burning?

*

Dostoevsky: "A man is endowed with the faculty to rise above the human condition and to embrace eternity." Though he was himself a devout Orthodox Christian, Dostoevsky did not say "a Christian," but "a man." I like that.

*

A Christian needs an imam as much as a Muslim needs a bishop. As for a man: he needs neither one nor the other - unless of course he has the mind and soul of a sheep.

*

A conviction is no longer a conviction if it is a result of conditioning or brainwashing. A child or a robot cannot have convictions. Convictions are convictions only when formed by reason and experience.

#

Friday, October 22, 2004

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

Smart prophets and pundits are like astrologers: the more vague and ambiguous their predictions, the better chance they have of not being wrong.

*

Why do we feel the need to voice our disagreements and to insist that we are right and our adversaries wrong? According to Hegel as explained by Kojeve: "Man, to be really, truly man, and to know that he is such, must impose the idea that he has of himself on beings other than himself."

*

Sartre on Freud: "The dimension of the future does not exist for Freudian psychoanalysis." Not quite: Freud concentrated on analyzing past wounds because he knew we are creatures of the past with wounds that must be healed and conflicts that must be resolved if we want to find the right path and fulfill our destiny. But Sartre is also right in so far as obsession with the past may turn us into pillars of salt.

*

The Genocide is our collective wound and so far we have failed to heal it because we have made Turkish acceptance of responsibility as a necessary condition. In other words, as victims of murder, we have made ourselves dependent on the goodwill, decency, and sense of justice of murderers.

*

As for world opinion: it remains divided because nations too are creatures of the past with their own open wounds and unresolved conflicts. Americans cannot side with us because they too, like Turks, are guilty of having adopted a genocidal policy towards their native Indians. And Israelis side with Turks because they live in fear of another holocaust and Turks happen to be their only Muslim friends in the Middle East.

*

It is an illusion to think that on the day Turks plead guilty we will be born again as human beings and resolve our internecine conflicts.

*

"The past is not a proof that can be corrected," writes Herzen, "but a guillotine knife; after it has once fallen there is much that does not grow together again, and not everything can be set right."

*

What if our dependence on Turkish goodwill is another symptom of our slave mentality?

#

Saturday, October 23, 2004

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

It is not at all unusual for an Armenian to behave like a Turk in defense of his self-defined and self-assessed Armenianism and to see no inconsistency or contradiction in it.

*

It is beyond me why in the eyes of some Armenians, Armenianism and civilized conduct appear to be incompatible concepts.

*

As subjects of the Ottoman Empire, history appeared to us as immobile. But at the turn of the last century it began to move and to move so fast that so far we have failed to catch up with it, which also means we cannot grasp its meaning and perceive its direction.

*

Hegel: "Each consciousness seeks the death of the other."

When Hegel wrote that line he was not thinking of Armenians but he might as well have been.

*

Great many incomprehensible things become comprehensible if you take into consideration the fact that we live in an imperfect world as imperfect beings with imperfect judgments. If you add to that mixture the fact that we are also torn by a set of conflicting and alien traditions, ideologies, religions, loyalties and vested interests, you may have to conclude that the most incomprehensible thing of all is the fact that we are alive - though battered, wounded, and sometimes even eviscerated, but still breathing….

*

So many hooligans pretending to know better because they are better have insulted me, that I am beginning to develop the skin of a crocodile.

*

Three funerals in less than two weeks: the shape of things to come or the shapeless thing getting closer?

*

When a reader tells me to write more like Saroyan or Mark Twain or Michael Moore, I am tempted to ask: "And how do you like your pizza? - with or without anchovies?" Next question: "Do you think I am a pizza?"

*

In his book, WITH BORGES, Alberto Manguel writes, Borges was so sentimental that he wept at the end of ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES, one of my favorite Jimmy Cagney movies which I have seen and enjoyed several times without shedding the shadow of a single tear…and I thought I was sentimental.

#

October 27, 2004

Sunday, October 24, 2004

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

SPEECHIFIERS AND SERMONIZERS

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

Whenever I am invited to deliver a speech, I try to explain that what I have to say is not exactly speechifiable. Last time I heard one of our popular speechifiers, he voiced the same old familiar slogan: "We must support our beloved homeland because without it we are no better than lost sheep wandering aimlessly in a desert of alienation." My message would be the exact opposite: the Homeland should support the people or us because without the people the Homeland is nothing but a piece of real estate.

*

As things stand, to support the Homeland also means to reinforce and legitimize a corrupt power structure and a priviligentsia whose number one concern is number one.

*

Lenin opposed all forms of charity, because, he explained, "charity does nothing but postpone the revolution."

*

"The Homeland needs us!" yes, certainly, it goes without saying. But what the Homeland needs even more is elected officials who will live up to their responsibilities by being honest public servants accountable to the people. This may not be part of our culture or authoritarian traditions, granted. But what is the alternative besides despotism, Sultanism, or Stalinism?

*

I am not suggesting a regime change by assassination or revolution, but by gradual reform. Let us help the Homeland by all means, but let us also do whatever we can to clean up the mess there. Easier said than done? Yes, especially if you take into account the fact that before we undertake to clean up the mess there, we should clean up our own mess here.

*

We in the Diaspora may be financially better off, but morally we too are in desperate need of reform. Which is why I shiver when I see diasporan charlatans and gravediggers going to Armenia and parading as benefactors and saviors of the nation.

*

Corruption and incompetence are at the root of the exodus from the Homeland and a high rate of assimilation in the Diaspora: two "white massacres" that are more or less ignored by our ghazettajis and phony pundits, who prefer to stress such meaningless controversies as the use of the word "kef" or the adoption of the vernacular badarak.

*

If the present rate of assimilation and exodus continues, who do you think is going to support and defend the Homeland? Our speechifiers and sermonizers in the Diaspora or our wheeler-dealers with their Swiss bank accounts and villas in the Homeland?

#

Monday, October 25, 2004

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

MATTHEW 7:6

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

"One reason I refuse to write for Armenians is the warning in Matthew 7:6," a reader writes.

*

A couple of days later, the same reader: "It seems to me you take Armenian affairs and your fellow Armenians too seriously, and you consistently ignore the advice in Matthew 7:6."

*

I check Matthew 7:6 and I read: "Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, less they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you."

*

I dread to think what would happen to me if I were to adopt St. Matthew's sentiments and vocabulary. As for political correctness: I agree with those who dismiss it as "semantic fascism."

*

Ever since I read Gandhi's definition of religion - any belief system that you think is true, including atheism - I can no longer identify myself as a non-believer. Like Chekhov, I believe that we cannot answer the most important questions with any degree of certainty, and what make most belief systems intolerant are the certainties they pretend to possess.

*

People believe for two main reasons: they were conditioned to believe at a time when they couldn't think for themselves; and they believe because they feel a deep need to believe…and they will believe in anything and anyone, including Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Castro.

*

As a child I was educated to be a devout Catholic. In my twenties I discovered Zen Buddhism. I now think there is a core of universal truth in all religions, provided we define religion as an endless quest. I also think if Socrates, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed and Gandhi ever met, they would agree with one another and they would consider their followers as so many dogs and swine.

*

There is a type of Armenian criticism that I call "nuisance criticism," whose intent is not to make sense or to expose contradictions (which is the true definition of criticism) but to make a nuisance of itself and to silence dissent. It is no exaggeration to say that some of our ablest writers - from Voskanian and Massikian to Shahnour and Zarian - fell silent as a result of this type of criticism.

*

When an American criticizes America, he is motivated by love of America. But when a Muslim jihadist criticizes America, his ultimate aim is the total destruction of the continent.

*

To my critics I say: Next time you think of attacking me, ask yourself, "Am I motivated by Ottoman venom?" and if the answer is yes, keep silent. Because, remember, the most devastating criticism is silence born of apathy.

#

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

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

CRITICS AND COMMISSARS

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

Times may change, continents may change, but the number of our commissars, it seems, is destined to remain constant, with one difference: they no longer have a license to kill.

*

Whenever our editors reject one of my commentaries, they never explain why, and when they do, their lies are so transparent that I experience a shiver of shame on their behalf.

*

Some of our commissars may no longer have a license to kill or to silence but they make up for it with concentrated Ottoman venom.

*

I write only about what I see, experience and think. Obviously, I am in no position to write about what someone else sees, experiences and thinks.

*

To those who say I am an enemy of the people, I say: "That's what you think and I cannot be held responsible for what you think."

*

To those who would like to see me silenced, I say: "You, my friend, are an anachronism. Because, in case you didn't know, the era of commissars of culture has been consigned to the dustbin of history, where it belonged in the first place. Of course, you are free to disagree with me. But again, I cannot be held responsible for what's in your head, only for what's in mine. Besides, why should I write about what you think if (a) you are in a far better position to do that, and (b) I don't even know who you are?"

*

Censorship exists where there are dark secrets and lies, which, if exposed, would tarnish the image of those in power. It is the function of a critic to expose these lies and secrets. A critic who fails to do that is like a doctor who ignores the symptoms of serious illness in his patient. Such a doctor is not a doctor but a quack whose license should be revoked. And such a critic is not a critic but a propagandist and a parrot that can repeat only what others see, think and feel.

#

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

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

Because I am in the habit of trashing charlatans, a reader writes: "It is wrong to trash the Homeland," thus identifying the Homeland with charlatans.

*

"Why is it that you consistently stress the negative and ignore the positive?" I am asked repeatedly. Allow me to answer that question by asking another, which, as far as I know, is never asked in our environment: "Why is it that we can afford to support priests, bishops, editors, and schoolteachers by the dozen, sometimes even by the hundred, but we cannot afford a single full-time investigative reporter?"

*

The publisher of a chezok diasporan weekly once said to me: "On the day I published an investigative report on the ARF, the ARF issued an order to its members to cancel their subscriptions. As a result, in a single week, I lost a thousand subscribers."

*

An editor from Yerevan: "Once, recently, when I published an investigative report critical of the regime, my office was vandalized and my reporters beaten up."

*

If we had an investigative reporter, would anyone tell him to investigate the positive and to ignore the negative?

*

As I see it, we are experiencing two "white massacres" - exodus from the Homeland and assimilation in the Diaspora: number of victims, a million and a half each. Please note that both semantics ("white massacre") and statistics (a total of three million victims) are not mine. Are they accurate? You be the judge.

*

Should I apologize for not being the bearer of bad tidings?

*

You want positive? Easy! Read ARF weeklies on ARF activities, ADL (Ramgavar) weeklies on Ramgavar undertakings, AGBU- and Armenian Assembly-sponsored publications on their respective success stories throughout the world. And if you need more, expose yourself to the verbal diarrhea of our dime-a-dozen sermonizers, speechifiers, and pundits.

*

And I can imagine a member of the Party reviewing Solzhenitsyn's GULAG ARCHIPELAGO in a Soviet literary periodical and saying: "On the whole, this book emphasizes the negative and completely ignores the many positive aspects of Soviet life."

*

We may not have real Gulags, granted; but we do have a good number of moral Gulags.

*

Even if I were to write about real Gulags, would I be believed? To this day, Solzhenitsyn is attacked by crypto-Stalinists (you will be surprised how many of them are still with us) on the grounds that he allowed himself to be an instrument of American imperialism.

*

You want more positive? Every other day I receive a newsletter or a brochure in which the many wonderful deeds of our charitable organizations (there must be hundreds of them) are described in some detail, with the inevitable Panchoonie punch line: "Mi kich pogh oughargetsek" (Send us a little money).

#

October 30, 2004

Thursday, October 28, 2004

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

THE POSITIVE AND THE NEGATIVE

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

I once heard a Jewish comedian say, he did not care for the Ten Commandments because they stressed the negative.

*

Why were Charents and Bakounts tortured and killed by our commissars? Because they were perceived as a negative influence on Soviet society.

*

Hagop Baronian was betrayed to the Turkish authorities by his fellow Armenians in Istanbul because he too was perceived as negative.

*

Freud saw in Christianity "a distorted form of obsessional neurosis," and Karl Marx as "the legitimator of exploitation." They did not much care for the Ten Commandments either.

*

What's positive and what's negative? It depends on where you stand. My enemy is negative, my friend positive, and my enemy's enemy is my friend because two negatives make a positive. To paraphrase the African chieftain quoted by C.G. Jung in his memoirs: "If I steal my enemy's wives, it's positive. If he steals my wives, it's negative."

*

When I sit down to write, it never even occurs to me to choose between being negative or positive…especially if my house is on fire.

*

At the height of the British Empire, Matthew Arnold wrote: "The world, which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams, [contains] neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain." As far as I know, no one has ever accused Arnold of stressing the negative at the expense of the positive.

*

A CRITIC'S JOB

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

I read the following in Kenneth Tynan's posthumously published diaries: "A critic's job is to make way for the good by demolishing the bad."

*

A PARABLE

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

Once upon a time there was a man who lived in a beautiful house on a hill. Upon his return from work one day, he saw from a distance that his house was on fire. On noticing a passerby with a cell phone, he said: "Please, call 911 for me." And the passerby said: "Why should I?" "Because my house is on fire," said the other. "That's the bad news," said the passerby. "What's the good news?"

Much later the man, whose house had gone up in smoke, found out that the passerby with a cell phone was an Armenian.

*

AN ARMENIAN DECALOGUE

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

I. Thou shalt not confuse the god of our priests with God.

II. Thou shalt not consider intolerance a virtue.

III. Thou shalt not blame foreigners for all our misfortunes.

IV. Thou shalt not entertain the ambitions of a commissar of culture.

V. Thou shalt not resent those who expose the Turk in you.

VI. Thou shalt not practice or promote Ottomanism in the name of Armenianism.

VII. Thou shalt not believe every word you utter as if it were the word of God.

VIII. Thou shalt not pretend to be as infallible as the Pope of Rome, as fearsome as Stalin, and as magnificent as Suleiman.

IX. Thou shalt not parade your ignorance as if it were the latest word in wisdom.

X. Thou shalt not reject the validity of these Commandments on the grounds that they stress the negative and ignore the positive.

#

Friday, October 29, 2004

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

ON THE POSITIVE SIDE

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

It has been said that reality is often stranger and more brutal than any fiction. But in reality, whenever a door is closed, there may be ten or even a hundred other doors waiting to be opened. Just because we cannot see these doors, it does not mean they are not there. Very often, that which is nearest to us is also the least visible.

*

ON NATIONALIST HISTORIANS

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

It is not at all unusual for a nationalist historian to be objective when it comes to other nations and turn into a pathological liar when it comes to his own. This is true not only of Turkish historians but of all historians in general. I wish I were in a position to say that our own historians are an exception to this rule.

*

THE RED AND THE WHITE

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

The difference between a "red" and a "white" massacre is that, a red massacre is perpetrated by wolves and jackals, and a white massacre is perpetrated by sheepdogs and shepherds.

*

QUESTION / ANSWER

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

Why is it that under the repressive, not to say, murderous, regimes of the Red Sultan and Stalin we had literary giants, and under our own bosses, bishops, and benefactors, we don't even have midgets. My guess is: a combination of ignorance, prejudice, intolerance and envy can be more deadly than an army of jihadist imams and commissars with a license to kill.

*

A THOUSAND AND ONE DOUBTS,

ONLY ONE CERTAINTY

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

Unlike some of my self-righteous and chauvinist detractors, I am more than willing to concede that nothing I say is certain and the chances that I may be wrong are very high. I am willing to go further and say that I may even be wrong 99% of the time. But on one point I can assert 100% certainty: namely, in my defense of free speech. I wonder, how many of our self-appointed neo-commissars, who have at one time or another advocated silencing me, have had anything remotely favorable to say about free speech, which happens to be a fundamental human right.

*

ZARIAN AND GARABENTS

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

The two authorities I would like to quote at this point are Zarian and Garabents.

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

Garabents (Jack Karapetian): "Once upon a time we fought and died for freedom. We are now afraid of free speech."

*

ON THE NEGATIVE SIDE

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

If, in an Armenian environment, a door is closed, you can be sure of one thing: a trap door will open beneath your feet.

*

MEMO

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

Expect the worst and you will not be disappointed.

#

Saturday, October 30, 2004

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

BUSHWHACKED

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

We are a people like any other people, I am reminded repeatedly, "with our own share of honest men and charlatans." If true, consider some of the insults, slogans, headlines, and graffiti directed at Bush, only a small fraction of which are quoted in BUSHWHACKED: LIFE IN GEORGE W. BUSH'S AMERICA, by Molly Ivins and Lou Debose (New York: Random House, 347 pages, 2003).

*

BUSH IS PROOF THAT EMPTY WARHEADS CAN BE DANGEROUS.

*

LET'S BOMB TEXAS, THEY HAVE OIL TOO.

*

IF YOU CAN'T PRONOUNCE IT, DON'T BOMB IT.

*

ONE THOUSAND POINTS OF LIGHT, AND ONE DIM BULB.

*

WAR IS NOT A FAMILY VALUE.

*

$1 BILLION A DAY TO KILL PEOPLE -WHAT A BARGAIN.

*

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ME AND GOD? HE MIGHT FORGIVE BUSH, BUT I WON'T.

*

SMART WEAPONS, DUMB PRESIDENT.

*

PEACE TAKES BRAINS.

*

IT'S NUCLEAR, NOT NUCULAR, YOU IDIOT!

*

Because I have been paraphrasing and expanding on these slogans in reference to our own leadership, I am perceived as a hostile witness and an enemy that should be silenced. My question is, if you disapprove of our leaders, what have you done to expose their blunders? But if you approve of them, what right do you have to tell me to recycle your own particular brand of pro-establishment crapola?

*

CRITICS, MEDDLERS, AND COMMISSARS

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

After criticizing me, a reader writes: "I am not a critic." Zarian is right. "We don't have critics. What we have are meddlers." And more often than not, may I add, meddlers with the ambitions of commissars of culture who miss the good old days when they had a license to kill.

*

EMPEROR MURPHY

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

If the massacres can be blamed on the bloodthirsty disposition of the Turks and the double talk of the Great Powers; if the exodus from the Homeland and the high assimilation rate in the Diaspora can be blamed on social and economic conditions beyond our control; the question we must ask is: What the hell do we need leaders for? If so far they have been of no use to us when we needed them most, why don't we get rid of them and consider ourselves perennial subjects of Murphy and his inflexible law, that says: "If things can go wrong, they will go wrong at the worst possible time."

*

IN PRAISE OF HUMILITY

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

In a book of Anatolian travel impression by Lord Kinross (who is also the author of a mammoth biography of Ataturk), I remember to have read about his encounters with old Turks who bragged to him on having taught the Armenians a lesson they will never forget.

They brag about having massacred us, and we brag about our survival. May I suggest the world would be a far better place if we, all of us, realize we have nothing to brag about and a great deal to be humble about. Besides, if we brag about our survival, what do we do about the millions who did not? Do we plead amnesia? Do we ignore them? Do we pretend, out of sight, out of mind?

#

November 3, 2004

Sunday, October 31, 2004

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

BUGGERING ON.

FAITH, RELIGION, AND IDEOLOGY.

MASTERS OF THE BLAME GAME.

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

Very early this morning I opened my eyes with the words: "Many have tried before me and failed. When they were not silenced, they gave up in despair. Why go on?"

And here I am again, "unwashed, unshaved, unshat" (Auden), "buggering on" (Churchill).

*

What matters about an idea is not whether it is positive or negative, or pro-this or anti-that, but how accurately it explains a situation. Which is why, whenever we approach reality with preconceived notions and prejudices, it blows in our face. Our recent history provides us with so many instances of this occurrence that we, or rather, our political parties, have become masters of the blame game in order to avoid all responsibility for their miscalculations.

*

An argument between a commissar without a license to kill and a writer without an audience is like a fight between two bald-headed men over a comb.

*

The difference between faith and religion is that faith unites and religion divides. Religion divides not only in relation to other religions but also within itself - Sunni and Shi'a, Catholic and Protestant, sometimes even Catholic and Catholic, and Protestant and Protestant. The same applies to ideologies, like Marxism or Communism (Stalinist and Trotskyites) and nationalism (Tashnak and Ramgavar).

*

When religions and ideologies divide, they declare their moral and political bankruptcy by ignoring the central message of their faith (love, compassion, tolerance and mercy) or the interests of the nation (strength in solidarity). Because without solidarity, a nation makes itself more vulnerable to the enemy or to social, political and economic forces "beyond its control" - or so the political leaders say in obedience to the rules of the blame game.

#

Monday, November 01, 2004

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

THE ALIENATED,

THE ASSIMILATED,

AND THE FORGOTTEN.

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

The Armenian critic or dissident may not be the rule, but neither is he the exception we may think he is. Just because we silence critics, it does not mean they cease to exist. And just because we alienate our fellow Armenians, it does not mean they cease being Armenian.

*

The alienated Armenian is not a second-class citizen. Rather, he is a reflection of our own cult of intolerance and hatred.

*

An alienated Armenian means what he says and he says it with his feet. And what he says is what I have been saying: our institutions are run by charlatans who legitimize Ottomanism in the name of Armenianism.

To forget, or to ignore, or to dismiss them as defective Armenians is to compound the felony. They are as much our victims as our parents were of Turkish atrocities, and like our victims of the massacres, they number in the million.

*

The alienated Armenian is our responsibility. Not to recognize this is nothing but an Armenian variation on a Turkish theme.

*

Let us not emulate our leaders who have become such masters of the blame game that they see themselves as infallible role models whose every word has the authority of Holy Writ.

*

Imams and bishops may pretend to speak in the name of God, but all politicians, regardless of nationality, will behave like pathological liars for the sake of expediency and whenever it is in their own interest.

#

Tuesday, November 02, 2004

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

A new idea will be a source of dread only to the man who is infatuated with his own ignorance.

*

The purpose of an Armenian argument is not thesis-antithesis-synthesis (or consensus) but "You are full of s***! that's who I am."

*

As perennial victims, our only chance to achieve top-dog status is in verbal vitriol.

*

Nothing illustrates our Ottoman heritage better than an exchange of views.

*

For every insecure Armenian who needs to assert superiority in argument, there will be another who has developed strategies to avoid confrontation.

When asked which church he goes to, a friend of mine is in the habit of replying: "I am with the good guys."

Another friend has trained himself never to say, "I disagree with you." Even when he disagrees with a fellow Armenian violently he says, "You may be right."

*

In an argument, our unstated aim in not consensus but the total destruction of the adversary.

*

If our bishops, who speak in the name of the Almighty (Who knows everything) cannot agree, why should we?

*

Two people disagree because neither knows the whole truth.

*

When we disagree, we cling to our partial knowledge the way a drowning man is said to cling to anything, including a venomous serpent.

*

To think to know everything is as bad as to know nothing.

*

The only reason some people think they know everything they need to know is that their standards are mighty low and their demands minimal to the point of non-existence.

*

He who cannot tell the difference between knowledge and information is a complete ignoramus even when he is well informed.

#

Wednesday, November 03, 2004

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

To understand another you must walk a hundred miles in his moccasins. To know him, to really know him, you must share his beliefs, superstitions, prejudices and misconceptions.

*

I understand Armenians because I grew up in an Armenian ghetto; I had an Armenian education; and I have spent most of my life working for them. I could write a dictionary of Armenian fallacies, clichés, misconceptions, and prejudices, all of which have been mine at one time or another.

*

When we silence dissent, we cease to have a balanced view of ourselves, and an unbalanced view of ourselves might as well be the initial stage of insanity. To those who say, individuals may go insane, but not nations, may I remind them of what happened to the Italians under Mussolini, the Germans under Hitler, and the Soviets under Stalin. (And today, I am tempted to add: the Americans under Bush.)

*

What could be more ridiculous, not to say absurd, than to suggest that a nation that has endured six centuries of brutal oppression, a series of massacres, dispersion, and destitution in alien environments, can be threatened by the criticism of a single minor scribbler?

*

If you take things seriously, happiness for you is taking nothing seriously, not even death.

*

I love this sentence by Saint-Simon: "My self-esteem has always increased in direct proportion to the damage I was doing to my reputation."

#

November 6, 2004

Thursday, November 04, 2004

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

FOUR MORE YEARS

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

I feel like a Jew in 1933.

*

The Christian Right in America may stand for love, mercy, and compassion, but not for tolerance. It views tolerance as un-American, therefore, anti-Christian.

*

Dozens of books have been published by highly reputable scholars and investigative reporters in which Bush's lies, inconsistencies, contradictions, and dirty tricks are exhaustively exposed and documented, but Bush was re-elected because the average born-again hillbilly trusts televangelists more than intellectuals.

*

In 1933 Germans trusted Hitler more than Thomas Mann. Marx is right. History repeats itself, first time as tragedy, second time as farce.

*

A Nazi is also one who, after hanging a label on a fellow human being, sees only the label.

*

In 1915 we were the Jews of the Turks. And today, I am the Jew of our own bosses, bishops, and benefactors.

*

All organized religions preach love, but after hanging a label on a fellow human being (heretic, anti-Christ, infidel, giaour, Untouchable) practice intolerance and hatred.

*

All power structures speak with a forked tongue. Where there is power, there will also be pathological liars and dupes.

*

We have all been Jews and Nazis at one time or another. "Jew" and "Nazi" are labels, granted, but only in the sense that "victim" and victimizer" are labels. To label another is not the same as to assume to have a license to kill.

*

My ambition as an Armenian is to be able to criticize Armenians and to be perceived not as a good Armenian (that would be too much to ask), or even as an Armenian, but as a concerned fellow human being.

#

Friday, November 05, 2004

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

VERSIONS OF THE PAST

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

When it comes to the past, every major historian will have his own version of it. Which version do we teach our children? Not a difficult question to answer: the version that is most flattering to our collective ego, provided it bears the seal of approval of a regime or power structure, of course.

*

Elementary schoolteachers don't teach history, they recycle propaganda. This may explain Mark Twain's celebrated dictum: "I have never let schooling interfere with my education."

*

SELF-KNOWLEDGE

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

We are products of history. To understand history is to understand ourselves. Hence, Herder's description of history as the education of the human race.

*

THE REASON BEHIND THE REASON

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

What if the reason, the real reason, why we were massacred, was our ignorance of the world?

*

QUESTION

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

Was Napoleon a great man, a military genius, a spectacular loser, a hero, a tyrant, a bloodthirsty monster? Even French historians don't always agree. What if, by occupying Germany, he stimulated German nationalism, which resulted in Hitler?

*

THE STERILITY OF LITERATURE

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

After Shaw wrote, "One fashionably dressed woman may cost the life of ten babies," did the number of fashionably dressed women go down?

*

IN PRAISE OF SOLIDARITY

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

Chinese proverb: "To hunt tigers one must have a brother's help."

*

WAR AND PEACE

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

"Islam is a religion of peace," according to an imam quoted in our paper today, "but like all religions, it is open to misinterpretations." Which may be why Socrates, Buddha and Jesus did not write a single line. But then, Marx, who wrote copiously and in exhaustive detail in order to avoid misunderstanding, created the nightmare of Stalinism.

#

Saturday, November 06, 2004

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

THE TAO TE CHING ON NATIONS

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

"A great nation is like a great man,

When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.

Having realized it, he admits it.

Having admitted it, he corrects it.

He considers those who point out his faults

As his most benevolent teachers.

He thinks of his enemy

As the shadow that he himself casts."

(A lesson that the Chinese are in the process of relearning and we have yet to learn.)

*

VOLTAIRE ON THE ORIGIN OF RELIGIONS

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

"…From the meeting of the earliest scoundrel with the very first fool."

*

PAUL VALERY ON EDUCATION

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

"Education in depth consists in undoing one's first education."

(In other words, if you want to understand the world, forget what you were taught by your elementary schoolteachers and learn to think for yourself.)

*

PANAIT ISTRATI ON ARMENIANS

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

In his book of Armenian travel impression, Denis Donikian quotes the following passage from Panait Istrati: "The Armenian is a fellow I know as well as I know the Greek and the Jew. I like all three a lot, notwithstanding their defects, the most obvious being their conviction that, if the sun were to set forever, they would be the first to adapt to the new reality."

*

CLAUDE IMBERT ON BUSH

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

"A president that consults God before breakfast will always enjoy the support of a good half of his fellow Americans."

*

"America under Roosevelt defeated fascism. America under Reagan defeated communism. Two planetary triumphs that confirm America's mission to fight evil [i.e. jihadist Islam]."

*

WITTGENSTEIN ON THE ART OF TEACHING

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

"My aim is to teach you to pass from a piece of disguised nonsense to something that is patent nonsense." (Or, from charlatanism, whose sole aim is to deceive and mislead you by flattering your vanity, to transparent nonsense that cannot obstruct your understanding of the world and arrest your mental development.)

#

November 10, 2004

Sunday, November 07, 2004

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

We are addicted to bragging and lamenting. But whereas what we brag about (such as Dikran's ephemeral empire) is known, as a rule, only to ourselves, what we lament about (the massacres) is more widely known. Another peculiarity of ours: what we brag about we credit to ourselves, but what we lament about we debit to foreign accounts, i.e. the hypocrisy of the West and the barbarism of bloodthirsty Turkish fanatics.

*

As a child I too was brainwashed to brag until it dawned on me that most people didn't give a damn about us, or they cared about us as much as we cared about the triumphs and tragedies of countless other nations and tribes throughout history.

*

As a child I was taught about the fact that at a time when the French and the English lived in caves and forests like wild beasts, we enjoyed a Golden Age, our translation of the Bible was called "the queen of translations," and our literary works were universally acknowledge masterpieces; until I realized that the overwhelming majority of Armenians couldn't even name a single one of these so-called literary masterpieces.

*

The question that I was never taught to ask is, if we were civilized fifteen centuries ago, why is it that we have today the political awareness of children, that is to say, barbarians living in caves and forests? So much so that, the average Armenian considers anyone who fails to flatter his vanity by recycling chauvinist crapola is a hostile witness and an enemy who should be silenced.

*

To Armenians addicted to bragging, I suggest the following: Brag all you want, provided you do so in the privacy of your own homes and within the confines of your own club of mutual admiration, of which we have many more than a dog has fleas. But if you insist on bragging in public, do so in such a manner as not to be a source of embarrassment to decent Armenians.

*

I define a decent Armenian anyone who is aware of our collective failings, has acquired a more or less objective view of our past, and is thus in a position to decipher the writing on the wall. This type of Armenian may be rare, but he exists. As a matter of fact, I happen to be personally acquainted with some of them myself.

*

Finally, a warning: One of the worst mistakes an Armenian can make is to view our past through the eyes of our own historians. Imagine, if you can, a law that says, when it comes to character witnesses in a court of law, only mothers are qualified to testify for their sons.

#

Monday, November 08, 2004

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

FROM A LETTER TO THE EDITOR

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

"Bush and bin Laden need each other to stay in power."

*

THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE

COMPLEXITIES OF REALITY

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

Reality keeps combining factors (of which there may well be an infinite number) constantly. It is impossible to catch up with it or to guess the next permutation.

*

TWO WELL-KNOWN MYSTERIES

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

Why did God, who could have created a perfect world, create an imperfect one?

*

Why do smart people submit their destiny into the hands of dumb leaders?

*

WHAT DO WOMEN WANT?

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

As a rule, this question is asked by men, who neither know nor understand themselves, when they are in pursuit of women, who know and understand themselves even less.

In this context, what could be more reductionist (to the point of contradiction) than the Biblical expression "to know"?

*

WHAT ABOUT MEN?

WHAT DO THEY WANT?

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

Writes La Bruyere: "Women have no moral sense, they depend for their behavior upon the men they love."

As for men: they lose whatever sense they may have had at the sight of a well-filled pair of nylons on high heels.

*

A BRIEF HISTORY

OF ARMENIAN LITERATURE

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

In an environment where everyone lies at the top of his lungs, those who whisper the truth will be ignored.

*

Latest from writer Ara Baliozian

Recommended Posts

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Days

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post

Share on other sites

Guest arabaliozian

Link to post