Latest from writer Ara Baliozian

February 16, 2005

Sunday, February 13, 2005

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THROUGH THE EYES OF THE WORLD

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Henry Brooks Adams, American historian (1838-1918): "Politics has always been the systematic organization of hatred."

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We had the sympathy of the world in 1915, and we may still have it today, 90 years later. But let us not ask for more lest we are thought of as beings whose greed knows no bounds.

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"Truth shall set you free," we are told. If true, what shall lies, propaganda, and hatred lead us into?

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Wars are blunders. World War I was a colossal blunder. The blunders and crimes of World War II on both sides are too many to catalogue here.

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If our genocide has become a controversial topic today it may be because we emphasize what happened to us, and the Turks concentrate on why they did what they did. We say they slaughtered us by the million, and they say we were guilty of treason because we supported the enemy and even fought side by side with the Russians and the French. And, in time of war, treason is a capital offense.

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I remember to have read somewhere that some Armenians in Istanbul cheered openly whenever news of Russian victories reached the capital, in the same way that Palestinians cheered on 9/11.

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We say our victims number two million. The Turks say their own victims number more than that. The Turks further assert we made territorial demands on a dismembered and moribund empire.

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Consensus may be reached only if both sides compromise and admit that in time of war objective thinking, reason, common sense and decency become obsolete commodities.

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This much said, let me also mention the fact that there were many decent and distinguished Armenians who opposed the actions and policies of our revolutionaries. Artin Dadian, an important player in the Ottoman administration, begged them repeatedly not to engage in acts of terrorism. General Antranik warned them not to cooperate with the Young Turks. They were both ignored.

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As for the people in general: most of them, especially those in the interior provinces, were functional illiterates who lacked political awareness. Others considered the Ottoman Empire as their only homeland. Still others (mostly merchants and the upper classes) were against the revolutionaries. To complicate matters even more, many others (no one quite knows the percentage) were the offspring of mixed marriages. And when I say mixed marriages, I don't just mean Armenians and Turks, but also Armenians and Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians, Armenians and Kurds, Armenians and Jews, Armenians and Circassians, and so on,

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In this connection I should also cite the cases of Krikor Zohrab and Roupen Sevag, the first a lawyer, writer, editor, and political leader, and the second a doctor and author. Zohrab trusted the Turks to such a degree that he saved Talaat's life by risking his own. The second, when asked by his German wife to quit Istanbul and emigrate to Europe because she did not like the Turks, reassured her by saying deep down Turks were nice folk and she had no reason to mistrust them. Both were slaughtered by the Turks.

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Confused? So is the world, except perhaps those who are in the business of organizing hatred.

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It is not that the world doesn't know the truth, the world doesn't even care to know or listen. The world has problems of its own and it can't be bothered with old tribal feuds and "ancient history."

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Speaking for myself, I say: As we lecture the world on our genocide in 1915, let us not ignore the two genocides or "white massacres" that are taking place today, even as I write these lines: namely, the exodus from the Homeland and assimilation in the Diaspora.

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Monday, February 14, 2005

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ON THE PERPLEXITY OF EVIL

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Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) American political philosopher: "Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core."

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The knowledge that I now have faithful readers willing to scold me whenever I stray from the straight and narrow allows me to relax and write with greater freedom.

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I write not as an Armenian but as a member of the human family, and what is even more to the point, I don't consider that an act of treason.

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For every truth there are a thousand lies, for every propaganda line there is another that contradicts it, and the world is a mess because the majority of mankind prefers a convenient lie to an inconvenient truth.

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From Arnold J. Toynbee I learned that an incompetent leadership can make a bad situation worse.

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From Louis de Bernieres I learned that the Turks victimized their Christian minorities in Turkey because as Muslim minorities in the Balkans they had been victimized by Christians.

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From Tatyana Tolstoy I learned that, given the right combination of circumstances, an Armenian will behave like a Turk. Or, as Puzant Granian once put it more bluntly: "There is a Turk in all of us."

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Tatyana Tolstoy, Arnold J. Toynbee, and Louis de Bernieres do not deny the reality of the Genocide. What they do perhaps is make the perplexity of radical evil less incomprehensible.

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The problem with ideologues and partisans is that their arguments convince no one but themselves and members of the club.

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Long before the Genocide, Raffi urged Armenians to get out of the Ottoman Empire because, he explained, the Turks had no respect for human life. (Remember that the sultans had their male offspring, except one, strangled with silk cords to avert civil war).

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Shortly before the Genocide, Krikor Zohrab urged Armenians to get out because, he explained, this time around, the Turks were planning a campaign of total extermination. "Zohrab effendi is exaggerating," they said.

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In retrospect, exodus from the Ottoman Empire would have been the preferred course of action, as it is today from the Homeland.

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Our partisans lament the fate of our silenced writers in the Ottoman Empire and the USSR even as they themselves silence anyone who refuses to recycle their propaganda line.

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If an Armenian ignores the Turkish side of the story, in what way is he different from a Turk who is brainwashed to ignore the Armenian side of the story?

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Tuesday, February 15, 2005

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Anonymous: "There should be no enmity among seekers after truth."

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You cannot engage in dialogue with someone who thinks good manners to not apply to him because he speaks in the name of God and Country.

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We will not reach a consensus with the Turks so long as we call them Asiatic barbarians, cold-blooded murderers, and bloodthirsty savages. Diplomacy requires a different vocabulary.

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On the subject of vocabulary: Do we have a word for consensus? If we do, when was the last time you saw it in print? Why is it that there is so much talk of "corruptsia" and so little of consensus? Is it because we have an abundance of the first and a scarcity of the second?

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To qualify as an Armenian writer you need the skin of a crocodile, the obstinacy of a mule, and the lifestyle of an ascetic.

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Where the human rights of dissidents and minorities are not respected, the tyranny of the majority can be as ruthless as the tyranny of sultans.

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"There is a Turk in all of us." You want proof? Follow a discussion in an Armenian forum.

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Our partisans alienate two, brainwash one, and call it preserving the Armenian identity.

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In an environment of philistines who view literature as a waste of time and a matter of complete indifference, to have a reader's scorn and to be exposed to his venom must be seen as a step in the right direction.

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When it comes to understanding the past, it is better to begin with doubts than with certainties.

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A monologue cannot lead to consensus.

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Our partisans think to question the partisan line or to deviate from it even by a fraction of an inch is an act of treason.

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It is said, "all men naturally desire to know." But history tells us most men persecute those who may know something they don't know.

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Wednesday, February 16, 2005

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Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) American writer: "HISTORY. An account of events brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools."

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It is also written: "History is made by hoodlums and written by dupes."

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Turks view history as the propaganda of the victor. We view it as the consolation of the loser - the idea that the whole world is rotten to the core except us. Some day both Turks and Armenians may realize that history ought to be an objective account of the past, which means, devoid of all partisan, patriotic, nationalist prejudices, fallacies, distortions, and misconceptions.

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Today a Turkish historian who dares to be critical of Turkish conduct at the turn of the last century is called a "pro-Armenian bastard." And any Armenian who questions the wisdom of Armenian actions is vilified as a " pro-Turkish hireling." The (verbal) massacre continues…

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Our revolutionaries did not ask the people if they wanted a revolution. Neither did the Turks ask them if they wanted deportation and massacre. That's the problem with authoritarian rulers. They think the people are sheep and they the shepherds who sometimes also double as butchers.

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If Armenian cannot agree with Armenian, how will he ever manage to agree with a Turk?

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I have committed many blunders in my life, probably many more than there are stars in heaven, and I will continue to commit them until the day I die. I understand blunders and the ease with which they are made. What I find difficult to understand are self-assessed morally superior individuals whose conduct has been, continues to be, and will ever be beyond criticism and reproach.

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We will be more credible in the eyes of the world (who may or may not give a damn one way or the other) if we claim to be only 99% right. If, on the other hand, we paint ourselves all white and our enemies pitch black, we may succeed only in raising doubts in the minds of the jury.

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We don't judge a man by his opinion of himself. Why should we judge a nation by its propaganda?

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Some day if I ever compile a list of common fallacies, I will begin with this one: "To think that what you believe must be true."

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I have no interest in convincing or converting anyone. I am neither a preacher nor a propagandist; I am simply writing down thoughts that I would have been afraid to confide even to myself ten years ago.

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February 19, 2005

Thursday, February 17, 2005

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FOOLS AND KNAVES

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George Villiers (1628-1687), English writer: "The world is made up for the most part of fools and knaves, both irreconcilable foes to truth."

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ON TRUTH IN HISTORY

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Gerald Brenan (1894-1987), British author: "You can't get at the truth by writing history; only the novelist can do that."

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MEMO TO A READER

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I never said Armenians are the scum of the earth - only Armenians who have assessed themselves to be as infallible as the Pope, as Magnificent as Suleiman, as wise as Socrates, and as invincible in argument as David Anhaght.

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FREE SPEECH - ARMENIAN STYLE

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Our partisans believe in free speech provided it freely consents to recycle their propaganda line.

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FIRST CHRISTIAN NATION

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Our religion teaches us to love our enemies. Not being a preacher or a hypocrite (but I repeat myself), I would never go as far as advocating love. I would only suggest that we think of them as fellow human beings, or, if we must think of them as bloodthirsty savages, let us at least take care to feel, think, and speak like civilized beings. And if we can't do that either, let us not brag about being the first Christian nation, or a Christian island in an infidel sea. Let us allow the possibility that we too, like the rest of mankind, are capable on occasion to give in to the temptation of speaking with a forked tongue.

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Friday, February 18, 2005

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ON BEING A GOOD CHRISTIAN

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Only after we learn to love our enemies, we may learn to love our friends. As for loving our fellow Armenians: that may take a little longer.

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GENOCIDE GENESIS

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600 years ago we gave up the struggle and said to them: "We surrender our destiny into your hands. Henceforth you shall be our masters. You may do with us what you will." And they did. And they are now outraged when we reject their version of the story. After all, who has ever heard of a slave calling his master a liar, especially if the master happens to be one?

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ANOTHER MYTH EXPOSED

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We had the pen and they had the sword. The question we must ask is how many lives did our pen save?

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CONFESSION

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God may not always be on the side of big battalions, but in 1915 He was. Some say it was not God but the Devil. But as a disoriented skeptic myself, may I confess that I cannot always tell one from the other.

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DEFINITIONS

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An expert has been defined as one who knows more and more about less and less. By contrast, a charlatan may be defined as one who knows more and more about everything.

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF

MODERN ARMENIAN LITERATURE

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Modern Armenian Literature has been a blood sport whose survivors may be counted on the fingers of an unarmed leper.

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SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW?

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Helder Camara (1909-1999), Brazilian priest: "When I give food to the poor they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food they call me a communist." That's the way it has always been. Say "Yes, sir!" and you are a good boy. Ask questions and you are the lowest scum on earth.

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AN UNFORGETTABLE LINE

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Albert Camus (1913-1960), French playwright, novelist, essayist and winner of the Nobel Prize: "Everyone insists on his innocence, even if it means accusing the rest of the human race and heaven."

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APOLOGIA PRO VITA SUA

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When I speak of dupes and charlatans I speak of myself. I was a dupe once and like all dupes I engaged in charlatanism - in the name of patriotism, of course. Perhaps everything I write today is a confession and an apology.

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Saturday, February 19, 2005

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CONFESSION

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As a boy I was taught to brag about our cunning. I know now that where there is cunning, there will be dupes, and I had been one.

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DUPES

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We like to say and repeat that the West deceived us. We don't say we were taken in because we were dupes, and we were dupes because, unlike our enemies, we were inexperienced in the jargon of international diplomacy and we allowed our wishful thinking to control our judgment.

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DISAGREEMENT

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Gutter is not the best place for it, neither is censorship the only answer.

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PATRIOTISM - ARMENIAN STYLE

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Nicolas-Sebastien Chamfort (1741-1794), French writer: "Be my brother, or I kill you."

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CENSORSHIP

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It has been said that great countries produce great saints. One could also say that small countries produce petty internecine feuds. Our textbooks don't mention this because if they did they would be banned.

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BAN THIS

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After visiting Turkey, a friend of mine (a well-known Armenian-American poet) wrote me a letter saying he had been surprised to discover that Turks too qualified as members of the human race and that he had found them to be more likeable than Armenians.

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February 23, 2005

Sunday, February 20, 2005

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Chinese saying: "Those who make idols, don't believe in them."

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Who believes in TV commercials? Surely, not the gentlemen on Madison Avenue.

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Propaganda is the language of politics, dissent that of honesty.

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Who believes in partisan propaganda? Not even members of the party. Remember Hitler's famous remark that people will believe in a big lie more easily than in small ones.

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In my encounters with high-ranking members of our parties, they have exposed more dirt than all our dissidents combined.

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Because I speak against lies and propaganda, I am called anti-Armenian, as if lies and propaganda were an integral part of the Armenian ethos.

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Jingoism will always find a receptive audience among jingoes.

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It is a thankless task to argue against someone who defends views that you held twenty years ago. Time was my refutation. Let time be his.

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One of the most liberating discovering in life is the sudden realization that you are no longer dependent on the opinions of others, you no longer feel the need to impress anyone, and life until that moment has been no better than self-imposed slavery.

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All arguments that make us feel better are arguments that flow from the go, and therefore false.

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We brag about our superior intelligence, resourcefulness, and adaptability that allowed us to survive, but we never ask the question: "What if we were meant to be a nation of a hundred million?"

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Monday, February 21, 2005

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We have writers, critics, critics of critics, and commissars.

Writers write, critics criticize, critics of critics criticize the critics, and commissars silence. In such an environment, everyone should be united against the commissars because if they violate the human right of a single writer, they may violate the human right of critics, critics' critic, and members of the community at large.

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If a writer is wrong, he can be corrected. Infallibility is not a precondition of free speech. If it were only the Pope of Rome would enjoy the privilege. But who will correct the commissar?

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I for one am not surprised that the most celebrated Armenian literary work is titled LAMENTATION.

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When asked why he was begging for alms from a statue, Diogenes is said to have replied: "To get practice in being refused."

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Writing for Armenians has enhanced my understanding and loathing of all authoritarian power structures, commissars, and censorship.

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"United we stand." If after centuries of defeat, degradation, and suffering, this simple message has failed to penetrate the thick skulls of our leaders, one is justified to question not only their competence and integrity but also, and above all, their sanity.

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Tuesday, February 22, 2005

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SOLUTIONS

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All human problems have human solutions.

If so far we have failed to solve our problems it may be because they are beyond our income bracket. Consider the following as only a handful of examples:

Less arrogance, more humility.

Less propaganda and more objectively assessed facts.

Less jingoism, more moderation.

More understanding and tolerance, less insults and venom.

More compromise, less intransigence.

More whispering, less shouting, screaming, yelling, barking, bellowing and braying.

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I don't agree with most Armenians because I don't agree with my younger self. I don't mind admitting that I was wrong yesterday, I may be wrong today, and I may never know the truth in the future. Neither do I believe God has ever been or will ever be on my side.

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Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), American former slave and civil rights campaigner: "The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous."

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Before we hope to reason together, we must learn to moderate our emotions. In practical terms this means: whenever you feel like slaughtering a fellow Armenian, force yourself to send him a declaration of love. The most effective way to prove you are a civilized being is to behave like one.

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Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born theoretical physicist: "Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race."

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If the Turks are unwilling to consider our side of the story, let us not emulate them. Let us consent to listen to their side of the story. To listen is not to believe. But it is not quite true to say that they are not willing to listen to our side of the story, since they have already translated and published Dadrian's book without cuts.

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God save me from the Turk on the warpath and the self-righteous Armenian in defense of his prejudices.

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Wednesday, February 23, 2005

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To those who search for meaning in the past, may I remind them of Gibbon's definition: "History is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind."

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A propagandist's unspoken slogan: "It doesn't matter if a lie is small, medium, or jumbo as long as it flatters the vanity of the collective ego and it makes us look good in the eyes of the world."

Men love old clichés and familiar platitudes for the same reason than they find old carpet slippers more comfortable than new boots. The sad truth is, we are more easily taken in by our own propaganda than the world.

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If Turkey can be more useful to the West, the West will be on Turkey's side.

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To rely more on our reason means to rely less on our emotions, sometimes even to be against our emotions.

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Hatred cannot solve problems, it can only create new ones.

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If hatred were taxable, we would be the poorest people on earth and our state the richest.

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To remember the massacres means to continue being massacred every day in a dark corner of our psyche.

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We should question the existence of truth as frequently as we question the existence of God, and after we establish its existence, we should wonder if it cares to be on anyone's side.

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"You are no better than Asiatic barbarians and bloodthirsty savages! You should burn in hell for massacring two million innocent women, children, and old men!"

That's not the language of diplomacy.

The language of diplomacy goes something like this:

"We share 600 years of history, coexistence and cooperation. Let us make an honest effort to find out what it was that went wrong at the turn of the last century in order that we may enter another period of coexistence and cooperation that will be to our mutual benefit."

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February 26, 2005

Thursday, February 24, 2005

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Lord Halifax (1633-1695), English politician and essayist: "The best [political] party is but a kind of conspiracy against the rest of the nation."

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Whenever the word "massacre" came up, I would think: "Turks, Turks, Turks!" I still do, but I also think: "Bad planning, poor strategy, incompetent leadership."

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There are those who think I should be silenced because what I say matters. But I doubt if people who don't matter are in a position to determine what matters.

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To hate the Turks is one thing, but to hate a fellow Armenian because he does not share your hatred is another.

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Whenever an Armenian tells me his brand of Armenianism is superior to mine, I am reminded of Southern bigots who portray themselves as the sole defenders of Anglo-Saxon values, which, in their view, consists mainly in hating Blacks, Catholics, and Jews.

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I question the values promoted by worthless people.

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Criticism is an extension of concern, not an expression of hatred. But leave it to simple-minded readers who can see things only in terms of black and white, to ignore the gray areas, and to project their inner blackness onto others in the hope they will be perceived as all white.

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Friday, February 25, 2005

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TAKES TWO TO TANGO

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Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), German novelist and essayist: "If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us."

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Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), English philosopher: "True and False are attributes of speech, not of things. And where speech is not, there is neither Truth nor Falsehood."

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I wouldn't negotiate with a Turk -- too much dirt. Neither would I negotiate with an Armenian - too much garbage. I would ask an odar to represent me. Let's face it: we are poor diplomats and lousy negotiators. Whenever I have tried to negotiate with a fellow Armenian, disagreement has degenerated to dislike, dislike to hating, and hating to verbal massacre.

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We may not care to negotiate with Turks, but negotiate we must because it is in our interest to avoid a confrontation from which we are bound to emerge the losers for the third time, thus certifying our status as perennial losers.

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We must negotiate, that's a certainty. We must compromise, that's another certainty. And who do you think should do most of the compromising -- the elephant or the frog?

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This much said, let me add that I have never been to Turkey and I am not personally acquainted with any Turk. But in my readings I have met a good number of Turks who no longer believe in their own propaganda. I have also met Armenians who treat the Genocide as if it were a religious doctrine and anyone who dares not to echo their sentiments and thoughts to the letter as a heretic who should burn at the stake.

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Saturday, February 26, 2005

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Not all Armenians speak Armenian, but they are all fluent in disagreement, criticism, and contradiction.

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I don't always agree with what I say, but I hope some day to acquire the wisdom….

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When we allow the Genocide to determine our present and future, our unspoken slogan becomes "Genocide uber alles!"

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To say that the Genocide is the most important event in our history is to imply that the past of the nation is more important than its future.

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Sometimes I hesitate to criticize my critics, especially if they happen to

be my most faithful readers. Beggars can't be choosers. I don't have too many readers and the few that I have I cherish, even when they are too young and immature to understand everything they read.

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I question the value of preaching hatred of Turks in a world where for every Armenian there are more than ten of them willing and eager not only to preach hatred but also to practice it by means of massacre and dispersion (in the past) and blockade in the present and future.

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To hate your enemy means to provoke him to hate you even more.

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To love your enemy also means to disarm him. I am not preaching love of Turks to Armenians who have trouble loving even their fellow Armenians. What I am suggesting is that we change our tactics because so far our tactics have led us to failure.

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We don't have to tell the Turks "We understand why you behaved as you did." But we can pretend to understand them. Who knows, by pretending to understand them, we may end up understanding not only them but also our fellow Armenians, and ultimately ourselves and the world in which we live.

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March 2, 2005

Sunday, February 27, 2005

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Horace (65-8 BC), Roman poet: "Whatever madness their kings commit, the Greeks take the beating."

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Armenian translation: When the leaders blunder, the people are slaughtered, after which they (the leaders) spend the rest of their lives putting the blame on the world at large and portraying themselves as white as the driven snow. The problem with this propaganda line is that nobody believes it, not even our "genocide uber alles" types.

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Perhaps I take after my father. Though himself a survivor of the Genocide, I don't remember him saying anything remotely unkind about the Turks. Call it Oriental fatalism. What's done is done. Kismet. It was God' will. Not that he was a believer. Or, if he was, he was not the church-going kind. Besides, he was too busy trying to survive in an alien and hostile environment. As for as he was concerned the massacre never ended, it only moved on another level - as it has in my case.

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It is written: "To know what to overlook is also an art form."

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Since all of us claim to use our common sense, eventually we are bound to meet in the same destination, even if some of us advance on a straight line and others on a meandering, zigzag path.

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If you write what you think, you will discover there are others who don't think as you do, and some of them are nasty enough to qualify as Turks on the warpath. Or, as Zarian put it in his inimitable way: "An Armenian's tongue can be sharper than a Turk's yataghan." The massacre must go on….

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Monday, February 28, 2005

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A Canadian academic by the name of Victoria Rowe has just published a book on Armenian women writers. There are about a thousand Armenian academics on this continent who are either alienated or assimilated, which also means they prefer to write about non-Armenian subjects. The very few who write about Armenian subjects prefer to stress the Middle Ages or the Genocide. I call them medievalists and massacrists who are addicted to either brag (about our past glories) or lament (about our recent victims).

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If you want to acquire a better understanding of Armeno-Turkish relations, avoid Armenian and Turkish academics. Read instead Irish and English writers.

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Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973), British author born in Ireland on Anglo-Irish relations: "Each turned to the other a closed, harsh, distorted face - a face that their lovers would hardly know."

Elsewhere: "I could wish that the English kept history in mind more, that the Irish kept it in mind less."

On collective guilt: "The innocent are so few that two of them seldom meet - when they do, their victims lie strewn around."

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I have vegetarian as well as carnivorous readers. I prefer the first but I find the second more stimulating.

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Love of truth is more important than hatred of Turks.

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If you want to be a popular writer among Armenians, it helps if a foreign tyrant murders you.

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Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), English critic and essayist: "In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness."

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The overwhelming and irresistible temptation of pretending to know more than one does…

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Turks are fond of quoting statistics to prove that in an area where there were only one million Armenians, they couldn't have massacred two million of them. They neglect to mention the fact that statistics in the Ottoman Empire were outrageously unscientific and inaccurate. Whenever enumerators moved into a village, daughters were hidden and sons ran away - the first to avoid concubinage, the second to avoid military conscription.

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Understanding is an asset that grows in value when it is shared.

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Tuesday, March 01, 2005

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Karl Kraus (1874-1936), Austrian satirist: "Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read."

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Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999), American film director: "The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes."

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The only reason diplomats and historians don't say as much is "grub first, then ethics" (Brecht).

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A Turk that relies only on Turkish sources and an Armenian who relies only on Armenian sources are like defendants willing to face their accusers in a court of law only if the judge, jury and prosecution are on their side.

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If you don't understand something, concentrate on it until you do. It may well be your blind spot and the key to a whole set of new realms of perceptions and ideas.

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"He who speaks does not know," except when he speaks to expose the charlatanism of speechifiers, sermonizers, and propagandists.

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The criminal and his victim may well be the least qualified to be objective about the crime.

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Patriotism and propaganda might as well be Siamese twins.

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Wednesday, March 02, 2005

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For a long time I thought honesty was only an attribute. I know now that it is also a struggle.

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As an Armenian writer, I can't afford a better class of enemies. The lowest of the low is as far as I can go.

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Our slogan should be, DISAGREEMENT, YES! HATRED, NO! And this applies not only in our dealings with the Turks, but also, and above all, in our dealings with fellow Armenians.

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In case of jihad, do we condemn the man or the religion? If the religion, do we condemn all religions or only his religion?

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Insults cannot strengthen a weak argument; they can only expose lack of breeding.

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Writing and writing for Armenians are two distinct activities as different as swimming and drowning.

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Don Marquis (1878-1937), American poet and journalist: "Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo." There you have it, a brief history of Armenian literature from the origins to the present day.

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Karl Marx once bragged that the aim of his philosophy was not just to understand the world but to change it. He forgot to add that all change looks better on paper.

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Advice to a young Armenian writer: "Deal in clichés, received platitudes, propaganda, and verbal crapola. That's all they care about. But if you decide to write what you think, watch your back and have an escape route."

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March 9, 2005

Sunday, March 06, 2005

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What do you think happened to the Nazis in Germany and the Fascists in Italy after Hitler committed suicide and Mussolini was shot and hanged? I will tell you what did not happen: they did not disappear. They adapted to the new order by assuming a new identity, role, and ideology.

*

You will never hear an Armenian admit today that his father was a commissar. But don't think for a single moment that our commissars and their offspring have vanished from the face of the earth. If nothing much has improved in our Homeland after independence, it may be because power continues to be in the hands of former members of the Party; and where there is power, there will be oppression.

*

"Writers are dreamers, soldiers deal with reality," a reader reminds me.

*

In the 19th century Raffi warned Armenians that the Ottoman Empire was no place for them. He was ignored.

*

Our revolutionaries promised freedom and a Greater Armenia, and the result was the needless slaughter of two million innocent victims. You may now be in a better position to identify the dreamers and the nightmares they foist on their dupes.

*

Throughout history all revolutions have promised freedom, equality, and fraternity but delivered terror and a more ruthless tyranny than the one they toppled. That's because power speaks with a forked tongue.

*

I once received the following message by e-mail: "I am a proud Armenian!" Signed "Anonymous." When asked why, if he was proud of his national identity, he was not equally proud of his personal identity, he replied: "Because I don't want to get into trouble with some Armenians." Short answer, "Fear."

*

Whenever an anonymous reader attacks me, I want to know what is it exactly that he is afraid of. And if he is afraid of his fellow Armenians, wouldn't he be doubly justified in fearing the foreign tyrant even more? And how far would he go to save his own skin? Collaboration and the oppression of his fellow countrymen in the name of law and order, perhaps even patriotism and the survival of the nation?

*

In the 1920s Zarian warned his fellow countrymen of the dangers of Soviet tyranny and was ignored. Result: some of our ablest intellectuals were ruthlessly slaughtered by our commissars or dealers with reality. The irony here is that after being silenced in the Homeland and forced into exile by our commissars, he was also silenced by our revolutionaries in the Diaspora and forced to return to the Homeland, where he was once more silenced and eventually murdered by our own commissars or their henchmen. The massacre must go on…

#

Monday, March 07, 2005

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

Omniscience comes easily to a self-assessed pundit.

*

There is something fundamentally wrong with the kind of patriotism that emphasizes love of country at the expense of love of fellow countrymen, and ultimately love of fellow men.

*

History deals with facts as well as states of mind, and we will never understand the first if we ignore the second.

*

After spending several generations dehumanizing their adversaries, Armenian and Turkish leaders must now confront the difficult task of humanizing them.

*

We are brought up to believe there are just and unjust wars. But if you ask any nationalist historian, be he a Turk, Kurd, Armenian, or Zulu, he will tell you that his nation has never fought an unjust war and that the bad guys are always on the other side of the border.

*

Compromise is an essential ingredient in all conflicts, and refusal to compromise on principle is also refusal to deal with reality.

*

One should not judge a nation by its criminals, including war criminals.

*

One man's freedom fighter, we are told, is another's terrorist. Likewise, one nation's war criminal is another's statesman.

*

We live in a world where not only beauty but also morality and justice are in the eye of the beholder.

#

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

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

A.J.P. Taylor (1906-1990), British historian: "Human blunders, usually, do more to shape history than human wickedness."

*

To how many of my hostile readers I could say: "In the Soviet era you would probably be a commissar and I would certainly be an inmate of the Gulag."

*

I disagree with the notion that hating Turks makes us better Armenians. Surely, hating Armenians did not make Turks better Turks. Hatred improves no one. Which is why, when I want to understand Turks, I read odar writers. I am myself not particularly prone to love, but I consider that to be a liability and not an asset to be promoted, encouraged, and shared with others.

*

MEMO TO A READER

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

I don't expect you to agree with what I say. All I ask is that you learn to consider opinions that differ from yours, and in doing so to learn and to practice the difficult and un-Armenian art of tolerance, and to come to terms with the notion that, since you are human, you too may be fallible.

*

When a partisan speaks, we don't hear a man speaking but a party propagandizing.

*

A writer has only one duty: to be readable. He should leave popularity to poets. Prose should be ruthless.

*

I am not a proud Armenian. I am a humble Armenian. Pride leads to arrogance. Humility provides more accurate coordinates of our place in the world.

*

MEMO TO A READER WHO

DOES NOT LIKE MY IDEAS,

MY STYLE, AND MY MANNERS

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

Why waste your valuable time reading me if you can make yourself far more useful by discussing the ideas of those Armenian writers whose ideas, style, and manners meet with your approval?

#

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

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

Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978), English writer: "The stupid have so much more industry and energy to expend on hating. They build it up like coral insects."

*

Simone Weil (1909-1943), French philosopher: "I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more or less pronounced according to the play of circumstances."

*

Laymen, who would not dare to tell a bus driver or plumber what to do, feel fully qualified to tell a writer how to think, feel, live, and write.

*

To say that being oppressed and massacred improves a nation's character is like saying being run over by a truck improves a man's health.

*

If oppression and massacre have improved our character, then, by all means, let us be grateful to the Turks.

*

The majority of Armenians today live outside Armenia, and the majority of them are either alienated or assimilated, or on their way there. It is a mistake to dismiss these Armenians as second-class citizens. As an alienated Armenian myself, may I confess that nothing offends my soul more than the spectacle of a scumbag parading as a noble specimen of humanity and preaching patriotism to the rest of us.

*

One reason I speak of considering the Turkish side of the story is that it may make us more receptive to the criticism of those among us who see no future in Armenianism. Because if nothing is done and the present trend continues, we may end up as a tiny and insignificant ethnic minority whose survival may not be of interest to anyone, including ourselves.

*

I say these things not to be negative but to make an objective assessment of our situation. We cannot solve a problem if we refuse to acknowledge its existence.

#

March 12, 2005

Thursday, March 10, 2005

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

MEMO TO A TURKISH READER

WHO DENIES THE REALITY

OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE

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

No nation in the history of mankind has ever invented or imagined a genocide and believed in it for a hundred years.

*

Also to be noted: Armenia is not alone in asserting the reality of the Genocide. There are a number of other Western nations that at no time have questioned or doubted its reality.

*

A serial killer becomes a serial killer exactly because, after killing his first victim, he fails to come forward and confess his crime. If Sultan Abdulhamid II had come forward after the first massacres of the Armenians in 1894 and admitted to the world that he Ottoman Empire had been guilty of crimes against humanity, he would have changed the profile of the Turkish people far more effectively and radically than Ataturk with his superficial reforms (the elimination of the fez and the adoption of the Latin alphabet); and in doing so he (the Sultan) would have prevented the Genocide, with the result that Turks would now enjoy all the rights and privileges of members of the European Union, instead of being what they have become: rejects of their own country, garbage collectors of Europe, and unwanted candidates of the EU.

*

Hitler would not have admitted the Holocaust if he had won the war. As long as Stalinists were in power, they at no time admitted the existence of the Gulag. By denying the Armenian Genocide, Ankara is tacitly admitting to being the legitimate heir and successor of the despotism of the Sultanate and the fascist regime of the Young Turks.

*

As for the suggestion that it was the Armenians who committed genocide against the Turks: throughout history genocides have been committed only by armed majorities against unarmed minorities and civilians. Within the Ottoman Empire, Armenian communities were only "tiny islands in a Turkish sea" (Oshagan) and most of the victims were women, children, and old men. To say otherwise is to demonstrate an appalling ignorance of world history and a total absence of common sense.

*

I will not speak of common decency and fair play because these have never been attributes of despotic regimes.

*

History, it has been said, is the propaganda of the victor. It has also been said that the aim of propaganda is to deceive friends, not enemies. If Israel and the United States speak today of the Armenian Tragedy (as opposed to the Armenian Genocide), they do so not because they are dupes of Turkish propaganda, but because they happen to need Turkey more than they need Armenia. And if Europe has so far rejected Turkish membership in the EU, it's because it is against its own interest to have an underdeveloped and backward nation that may end up as a heavy burden on its resources.

*

On the positive side, not all Turks are dupes of state propaganda. Some of their most progressive intellectuals and historians are now willing to concede that if Turkey wants to take a step in the right direction towards civilization and democracy and away from Asiatic despotism, it has no choice but to accept Germany as its role model, which means coming to terms with its dark past by admitting its crimes against humanity.

#

Friday, March 11, 2005

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

OF LAMBS AND WOLVES,

FROGS, ELEPHANTS, AND TIGERS

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

When Zarian said "An Armenian's tongue can be sharper than a Turk's yataghan," and "Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another," I have every reason to suspect he had Ottomanized Armenians in mind.

*

Aldous Huxley's definition of civilization: "A systematic withholding from individuals of certain occasions for barbarous behavior."

*

Some of my readers resent the fact that I dare to speak of our problems. If we are to believe them, all nations have problems, except us. And if we have problems it's because the world outside (the savage Turks and the deceitful West) has foisted them on us. It follows, I should concentrate on exposing and solving the world's problems and leave ours alone. Disagreement with this mindset is perceived as treason, betrayal, and collaboration with the enemy.

*

We are told we were massacred because we were like lambs at the mercy of wolves. And the irony here is that, to prove this point, our lambs turn into a pack of wolves.

*

I once heard one of our Ramgavar elder statesmen (in his eighties, bald, mustache, fluent in Russian) say: "We were like frogs trying to rape an elephant."

*

On another occasion, I heard an old lady, a survivor of the massacres, say: "The Turks are nice people if you don't step on their tail."

*

William Saroyan: "Turks are like any other people, as good or as bad as Greeks, Jews, Russians, and Germans."

*

Zabel Yessayan: "Not all Turks are bad."

*

And I reflect that if they were wolves, they must have been vegetarian wolves because they did not devour us for 600 years.

*

When I am told that we had no hand in shaping our destiny as a nation, that our conduct throughout the centuries and millennia has been beyond reproach, and our character as a nation is beyond criticism, I feel justified in wondering if I am dealing with reasonable men or inmates of an asylum for the incurably insane.

*

And now, allow me to ask some rhetorical questions:

*

When was the last time we had a leadership that was accountable to the people?

*

Why is it that some of our ablest writers - from Raffi, Baronian, and Odian to Shahnour, Zarian, Avedik Issahakian, and Baruir Massikian, among many others, were critical of our political and religious leadership?

*

Why is it that Naregatsi, our most revered writer who has been called "our Shakespeare," is willing to identify himself as one of the vilest creatures on earth? - "a wicked and slothful servant; an abusive contradicter; an ass's foal, intractable, wild, and uncouth; the broken lock on a door; the useless coin buried beneath the soil; ever active in satanic inventions; slow in mine observance of promises; diligent in malignant acts of ribaldry…" and so on and so forth.

*

A suggestion: If you decide to contradict what I have said above, take care to do so more like a lamb and less like a wolf. Behave more like your definition of an Armenian and less like your idea of a carnivorous Turk.

*

I am reminded of Anton Chekhov, who, when asked what was his message, replied: "Gentlemen, let's behave more like gentlemen!"

#

Saturday, March 12, 2005

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

Being an adult means assuming responsibility for one's thoughts and actions; which also means questioning all received ideas, especially ideas dealing with God and Country. This is not as easy as it sounds. Billions of adults today profess belief systems simply because when they were children and unable to think for themselves, they trusted the judgment of an authority figure.

*

I don't trust everything Armenian propaganda tells me. That does not mean I will be taken in by Turkish propaganda. On the contrary. Very much on the contrary!

*

If we agree that not all Turks are bad, it follows, we should speak about them in such a manner as not to alienate the good, who may well be on our side.

*

The quintessential dupe is he who will believe anything that flatters his vanity.

*

When a sermonizer or speechifier tries to convince you that your God is the only true God and your country is better than any other country, you can be sure of one thing: he is either a dupe or a liar.

*

Some readers complain that they find my ideas depressing. But I see myself as a bearer of good tidings. If I were to sum up my message, it would be: We are now free citizens in a free world. Both the Sultan and Stalin and their empires have been consigned to the dustbin of history. Armenians of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your Ottoman and Bolshevik chains.

*

To readers who try to re-create me in their own image, I say: It is a writer's function to say what must be said, a reader's right to ignore him, and a moderator's or editor's privilege to silence him. Meddlers, kibitzers, and commissars have no place in this equation.

*

I suspect there are more frustrated commissars or control freaks in a democracy than real commissars in a totalitarian regime.

#

March 16, 2005

Sunday, March 13, 2005

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

ON PATRIOTISM

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

There is nothing wrong with patriotism, provided patriots on both sides settle their differences without involving civilians.

*

Perhaps I take after my father. Was he a patriot? I am not sure. I don't know. I don't remember him ever using the word. I suspect he was too busy trying to survive in a hostile environment to have any time or inclination to speechify. He was the quintessential underdog, and for the underdog the difference between war and peace might as well be invisible to the naked eye.

*

I wonder how many of our fire-breathing Bush-league patriots would be willing to confront their counterparts in a field of honor?

*

Consider how many massacres would have been prevented in a world without patriotism.

*

Our understanding of the past is dependent on our choice of sources. And when I speak of sources, I don't mean sources of propaganda.

*

Is a patriot capable of delivering a single objective sentence, especially if he considers objectivity unpatriotic?

*

Has anyone ever been successful in convincing a man in love that the woman he loves, far from being the most beautiful woman in the world, is just a woman, like countless other women?

*

"When the rich fight, it is the poor who die."

#

Monday, March 14, 2005

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

War-makers are never wrong, or so they expect us to believe. If they win, they consider themselves beyond criticism. If they lose, they call it moral victory. In either case, the men at the top, if they want to stay at the top, must at all times project infallibility. Which means, anyone who dares to question their conduct must be seen as an enemy of the people - please note: not a critic of policy-makers, but an enemy of the people, who had nothing to do with the formulation and implementation of the policy.

*

Whenever I make an honest effort to introduce some degree of objectivity in our perception of the past, I am accused of ignorance, and worse, of blaming the victim. Since I have consistently maintained the people to be double victims - victims of foreign aggression first, and victims of domestic incompetence second - I dismiss the second charge as the kind that consists in slinging mud hoping some of it will stick. As for being ignorant: I am more than willing to concede that, unlike my critics, I neither know nor understand everything. Which is why I ask questions. And I ask questions because I have doubts about our propaganda line.

*

If our revolutionaries are blameless, as their dupes expect us to believe, why is it that General Antranik blamed the massacres on them and at one point publicly declared that, if it were up to him, they would be crucified.

*

More questions: Why did Zarian say, "Our political parties have been of no political use to us. Their greatest enemy is free speech." Why free speech? What are they afraid of? What are they hiding?

*

If our revolutionaries are without blame, why did Hagop Oshagan say: "Our revolutionaries lost because they formed only tiny islands in a Turkish sea." Did we have to be massacred by the million for our revolutionaries to make that obvious discovery?

*

If our revolutionaries are without blame, why were they taken in by the double-talk of the West and the Young Turks?

*

Somewhere Toynbee tells us civilizations, empires, and nations are not killed, they commit suicide. Perhaps the question I have been asking is: What if we are not an exception to this rule?

#

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

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

C.G. Jung (1875-1961), Swiss psychiatrist: "Our blight is ideologies - they are the long expected Antichrist."

*

Patriotism makes sense only if we place love of mankind and the world above love of country and countrymen. Unless patriotism fulfills this condition, it runs the risk of degenerating to the ideology of nationalism, and eventually to war and massacre.

*

The ultimate aim of censorship is to suppress the free speech of a few in order to oppress the many.

*

Propaganda is poison and freedom of speech its only antidote.

*

MEMO TO READERS

WHO WOULD LIKE TO SEE ME SILENCED

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

If you are right, prove it.

If you are wrong, admit it.

If you are not sure, be more flexible.

If you have a closed mind, open it.

If you are a fanatic, teach yourself to question your belief system. It is said that even the Pope of Rome questions his faith seven times every day.

If you are a man of faith, always keep in mind that faith justifies nothing. If it did, it would justify the jihadist Turks who massacred millions of innocent infidels in the name of Allah.

I would go even further and suggest that, if you make an assertion in the name of faith, it is sure to be false because to believe means to believe that which cannot be proved to the satisfaction of skeptics and non-believers, that is to say, the majority of mankind.

But if you decide to be abusive, identify yourself. Nothing can be more cowardly than to insult someone anonymously and from a safe distance.

*

C.G. Jung: "Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism."

#

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

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

Milan Kundera (b. 1929), Czech author: "Hate traps us by binding us too tightly to our adversary."

*

Saroyan once said that he felt sorry for the Turks, thus proving that even a victim can be compassionate towards his victimizer.

*

Our religion does not teach us to hate our enemies. Our religion teaches us to love them, even if they happen to be our victimizers.

*

This is not a sermon on love and compassion. Like most of my fellow Christians, I am not a good Christian. But I wish I were. Neither do I agree with Saroyan. But I wish I did.

*

I was brought up to hate Turks. I still do. With one difference. I no longer see my hatred as an asset but as a liability.

*

I know now that hatred has so far failed to raise a single victim. Neither has it banished a single Turk. Hatred has not solved a single problem because hatred itself is a problem and the root of many other problems, mutual intolerance and divisiveness being only two of them.

*

We begin by hating Turks and end by hating fellow Armenians simply because they refuse to echo our sentiments and thoughts. We dehumanize Turks as surely as we dehumanize fellow Armenians by demanding that they behave like parrots.

*

If we view life as an endless experiment, we shall have to agree that hatred has failed. And if we view reality as infinitely more complex than algebra, we shall have no choice but to question the wisdom and integrity of our self-appointed pundits and elites who claim to understand everything and to know what must be done.

#

March 19, 2005

Thursday, March 17, 2005

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

Philip Larkin (1922-1985) British poet: "I search myself for illusions like a monkey looking for fleas."

*

East and West, white men and black men, Jews and Palestinians, Armenians and Turks: these are only labels, and as such, can be misleading. The only legitimate labels I recognize are top dogs and underdogs, and I write in defense of underdogs because I come from a long line of underdogs; or, if you prefer, perennial losers and victims -- 600 years of subjection to tyrants, followed by massacres, dispersion, and slum life in an alien and hostile environment.

*

I write as an underdog and against top dogs in the full knowledge that the secret ambition of underdogs is to be a top dog, and once upon a time all top dogs were underdogs. Confused? So am I.

*

Reality is infinitely more complex than advanced algebra is to a child. Only the simple-minded simplify by hanging a label on a fellow man and expect us to believe they have him figured out.

*

As the offspring of survivors on both sides, I resent it like hell when some anonymous whippersnapper comes along and wants to prove to me that the Genocide is real and it is not, as the Turks maintain, a figment of our collective imagination. What I don't understand, and what needs to be explained, is the sudden eruption of evil. And what makes no sense to me is our claim over historic Armenia, which I find as absurd as Comanche claims over historic America.

*

Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), Canadian media analyst: "It is the weak and confused who worship pseudo-simplicities."

#

Friday, March 18, 2005

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

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), British author: "Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing his mind."

*

One of our partisan pundits has taken it upon himself to interpret my ideas to an audience of laymen. I am flattered. Since as a layman, I write for laymen, I never thought I was in need of an interpreter. But after reading his interpretation I can truly say that I am now in a better position to understand how Salman Rushdie must have felt after being interpreted by the Ayatollah.

*

Our revolutionaries expect us to believe what's uppermost in their

minds is the welfare of the nation. But I suspect they are very much like the rest of us: they care much more about money and fornication. Which is good, because if they cared more about the nation, we would now be in deeper doodoo. Think about it.

*

This much said, let me add that I am more than willing to concede that our revolutionaries are selfless, dedicated, idealistic gentlemen with good intentions, provided they agree with me that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

*

To hate is human. But to preach, promote, and legitimize hatred is something else. The difference between one and the other is as vast as that which exists between wishing someone dead and killing him.

*

In the eyes of our revolutionaries the Genocide is a belief system that must be accepted and broadcast to the four corners of the world. To suggest or imply in any way that it is a historic fact that can be analyzed and understood amounts to being that lowest form of animal life known as a denialist.

*

Whenever we confuse history with religion and politics with theology, we do more harm than good to our cause because by legitimizing a religion of hate and a theology of revenge, we appeal only to a minority. As for justice, lawyers and judges will tell you there is no such thing as a court of justice, only courts of law.

*

Remember, the maxim "less is more" applies not only to architecture but also to many other fields of human endeavor.

*

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), American writer and critic: "A man of faith is one who has lost (or never had) the capacity for clear and realistic thought. He is not a mere ass: he is actually ill."

#

Saturday, March 19, 2005

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

NOTES / COMMENTS

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

If the Jews can claim Israel as their own after 2000 years, why can't Armenians claim historic Armenia after 600 years?

Next question: How many Armenians would be willing to fight 70 million Turks and Kurds?

No further questions, your Honor.

*

Jews have many enemies, granted. But they also have many friends. We have only enemies. We can't even count on the support of our fellow Armenians.

*

The world did not conspire to make us irrelevant. The world had our full cooperation.

*

During World War I, we had the sympathy of the Great Powers.

Moral: Not only sympathy isn't worth a sh**, it can also be misleading, dangerous, sometimes even lethal.

*

Once, when I said Armenians are smart in the presence of an alienated Armenian-American professor, he lost his temper. I did not understand it then, but I do now.

*

Writing for Armenians: Trying to make sense of the incomprehensible to the unspeakable.

*

Nothing can be as dangerous as the consensus of charlatans, and that's the only kind of consensus we have been able to reach so far.

*

You cannot solve a problem if you don't acknowledge its existence.

*

When we call a military defeat a moral victory, we pervert the meaning of words, and perverting the meaning words is the greatest obstacle to understanding.

*

Religion, nation, ideology: it's impossible to speak about them without bias. If you want to understand Armenians, if you want to be objective about them, you must teach yourself to think like an odar.

*

Bias can't be justified. Because if you justify your bias, you justify all bias, including your enemy's.

*

The difference between Turkish inhumanity to Armenian, and Armenian inhumanity to Armenian is that the first is history, the second an ongoing occurrence. Even God, it has been said, cannot change the past. And if we cannot change ourselves, what can we change? Think about it.

#

March 23, 2005

Sunday, March 20, 2005

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

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), British author: " Suffering makes men petty and vindictive."

*

The easiest way to deceive a man is to convince him he is so smart that no one, not even the devil himself, can deceive him. This has been the modus operandi of our leadership. To cover up the fact that they behaved like dupes, they say Armenians are just about the smartest people on earth.

*

There is bias in everything we think, feel and say about ourselves. One way to explain the collapse of Communism in the USSR, Nazism in Germany, and Fascism in Italy is by saying that they refused to acknowledge this fact and whenever a dissident dared to point it out, they silenced him.

*

Truth will not set a man free if he prefers being a slave to lies.

*

Only a deranged Armenian Saddam Hussein would contemplate a war against Turks and Kurds.

*

I don't write to be popular. I write to understand my fellow men (regardless of race, color, and creed) and the world in which I live. To write in order to achieve popularity is no better than prostitution.

And I write brief sentences and paragraphs because I am not paid by the word.

*

Writing for Armenians means being abused by charlatans, misunderstood by fools, and insulted by wheeler-dealers. I go on because I am a writer by curse.

*

I believe in being diplomatic with Turks but not with Ottomanized Armenians; and I call an Armenian Ottomanized when he does with this tongue what the Turks did with their yataghans.

*

If you tell me I too use my pen like a yataghan, I will say that I use my understanding as a means to expose my illusions, not to cover them up. My options are limited: I either lie and spend the rest of my life covering up my lies, or I speak the truth as I see it and damn the consequences.

*

As for entertaining my audience, I leave that to our comedians. And speaking of comedians: do we have them? Why is it that suffering has enhanced Jewish humor and extinguished ours?

#

Monday, March 21, 2005

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

Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953), American playwright: [Members of the State Department] are trained to be conspirators, card sharps, double-crossers and secret betrayers of their own people."

*

George Orwell (1903-1950), British author: "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible."

*

We are all assassins in the sense that if we are not legally guilty of murder, we are morally guilty of wishing someone dead.

*

When it comes to the Genocide, we agree on one important point with the Turks: if it weren't for the meddling of the West, it wouldn't have happened. It follows, the West too owes us an apology.

*

Life is a bundle of contradictions because people are bundles of contradictions. We may understand fragments of it but never all of it. And the fragments we understand do not form a synthesis or even the fragment of a synthesis but another contradiction.

*

Politicians who claim to know what must be done because they have grasped the meaning of a situation are no better than charlatans.

*

The function of literature is to expose the lies of speechifiers and sermonizers and to remind them that there are more contradictions in life than they are dreamt of in their propaganda.

*

Some of the most dangerous lies come to us as religious and ideological truths, sometimes even as undeniable facts.

*

There will come a time when people will reject all religions and ideologies simply because imams and commissars believe in them.

#

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

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

ON OPTIMISM

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

Nothing works as planned.

*

Dreams may come true sometimes, but daydreams seldom, and the pipe dreams of perennial losers, never.

*

American presidential candidates like to be introduced as "the next president of the United States," even when their audience is fully aware of the fact that there is a 50/50 chance they will lose.

*

Prisons are full of criminals who thought they would not get caught. Unfounded optimism is another thing criminals share with politicians.

*

Like politicians and criminals, I too am an incurable optimist. I continue to write as if I were in a position to change the mind of a single Armenian.

*

As a child I too was exposed to countless speeches and sermons whose honesty it never even occurred to me to question.

*

The only people who think they will never change their mind are people who don't do much thinking to begin with.

*

To how many of my readers I could say, "I understand you. I was there once. I continue to write in the hope that some day in the near or distant future (hopefully not too distant) you will understand me too.

*

And now, if I knew how to pray, I would go down on my knees and say: "Our Father, Who art in heaven…."

#

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

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

ON SPEECHIFIERS AND SERMONIZERS

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

Ever since David slew Goliath, every self-assessed David thinks he can do the same. Turkey is the Goliath of our gung-ho revolutionaries; charlatanism is mine. The questions we should ask at this point are: What if David is destined to slay Goliath only once every four thousand years? And what if, the rest of the time he is lunch, as we were at the turn of the last century? Think about that.

*

Armenians speechifying on hatred and war against Turkey remind me of Toynbee's dictum that nations are not killed, they commit suicide.

*

Heroes and martyrs do not, as a rule, speechify or sermonize on heroism and martyrdom.

*

All fanatics are infatuated with their own infallibility.

*

It has been said that there are two kinds of ignorance: natural and artificial. The artificial ignoramus we owe to propaganda.

*

I have always suspected Armenians who speechify on hatred and war against Turkey from their comfortable suburban homes thousands of miles away from Armenia, in the full knowledge that if blood is shed, it will not be theirs.

*

Propaganda is designed to appeal to the gut, not to the brain.

*

All speechifiers and sermonizers speak with a forked tongue.

*

A writer cannot make readers think, he can only hope to underline their secret thoughts, thus letting them know there are others who think as they do.

#

Vigen · March 25, 2005

Ara Baliozian

http://www.arabaliozian.org/

* * *

После того, как они окружают себя да-людьми,

Они думают, что они правы, потому что каждый соглашается с ними.

Комментарий: принцип матрицы (печати) власти на земле – голосуй, а то…

Иногда хочется просто тишины… Без этих печатей на лбу и руке. Часовые на вышках концлагеря спят.

Вывод: кому бы ты ни отдавал свой голос, он достанется шулерам, через подставных лиц (кукол)…

* * *

ВОСТОЧНАЯ МУДРОСТЬ

Избегать печали, конфликта, страдания и страдания.

Не делайте ничего и ничего не произойдет (нирвана отечества).

Или просто, подражайте мертвым.

Но так как жизнь - только чрезвычайно крошечный миг света, в вспыхивающий в темноте (являющийся), то это должно быть столь же отлично от смерти, как только мы можем это сделать. Даже если в процессе мы испытываем безутешность и страдание.

* * *

Предполагаемые места – не подчинены погодным условиям (состояниям /обстоятельствам).

* * *

Все мы нуждаемся в критиках. Я имею моего, и вы имеете вашего. И если Вы говорите, что Вы не имеете ни одного, я говорю: вы были очень удачливы пока. Но не ожидайте, что ваша удача удержится навсегда, особенно, если вы двигаетесь в пределах армянской окружающей среды.

* *

ВДОХНОВЕНИЕ ПРОТИВ ВОЗБУЖДЕНИЯ

Вдохновение - скорее случайное посещение

Свыше откуда-то. Для контраста,

Можно, конечно, возбудиться строчкой или чьей-то памятью

Но это все равно, что столкновение или подслушанное кем-то замечание…

* * *

ОБНАЖЕНИЕ С ПОЛНЫМ РАЗОБЛАЧЕНИЕМ

Соберите вместе десять или двадцать самых маститых.

В мире сегодня есть ученые, художники, композиторы -

И среди них станет совершенно неизвестная молодая особа

С парой невероятных ног в нейлонах и спросите себя:

"Кто или что было бы в центре внимания

В этом групповом портрете? "

И всякий ответил бы с уверенностью, что обнаженное тело женщины.

И он оказажется прав.

* * *

ЛИЧИНКА СНАЧАЛА

Тогда как я говорю в терминах здравого смысла, идущего от благопристойности,

я удивляюсь, когда искушенные читатели, -

среди них есть и академики, - противоречат мне.

И они противоречат мне не потому, что они не согласны со мной,

Но прежде всего потому, что они не желают моего доброжелательного расположения.

Но как раз используя их недоброжелательность по отношению ко мне, я их и критикую.

Брехт был прав: " Личинка сначала, потом этика".

* * *

Я продолжаю жить с дурацкой надеждой, что однажды

Я получу письмо, которое сделает меня счастливым

На всю оставшуюся жизнь.

* *

/ Из журнала Ренарда

" Когда я начал изменять моей жене, я чувствовал себя настолько виноватым, что я захотел признаться ей в этом. И я рассказал ей, обратив это в шутку. Она не поверила мне. Теперь я обманываю с ясной совестью."

* * *

Нет ничего хуже медицинской энциклопедии болезней, вызывающей в нас чувство отвращения к жизни.

* * *

Как можете вы ожидать что-либо от человека, который не возвысил голоса, чтобы дорасти до гения…

* * *

Я - один из тех свободных мыслителей, который не стал бы возражать против присутствия в моей жизни хорошего окружного священника как друга.

* * *

Будучи глухим, он делает противоречивые замечания. Вероятно, что никто не может услышать и его.

* * *

Ключ в замочной скважине с внешней стороны двери не подразумевает, что вам следует входить. Но не стоит особо беспокоиться у входа, потому что за дверью вы не сможете ничего взять для себя.

* * *

Счастье может быть выражено любыми первыми словами, которые прийдут на ум.

Нежность требует более осторожного выбора словаря.

Серьезные слова подвержены риску оказаться фальшивыми.

Счастливые слова ожидает та же участь, но им не привлечь большого к себе внимания.

* *

ИНТЕРНАЦИОНАЛ

В впечатлениях Пьетро Кусюкяна от путешествия по Ближнему Востоку

я натолкнулся на следующую заметку:

Согласно Лорду Байрону: " Клянитесь по-турецки, ведите переговоры по-английски, занимайтесь любовью по-французски, отдавайте распоряжения по-немецки, пойте по-итальянски, молитесь по-армянски."

* * *

Если армянин не может писать поэзию, он организует новую политическую партию.

* * *

Вы начинаете побеждать, когда вы больше не заботитесь о том, выиграете ли вы или проиграете.

* * *

ДО И ПОСЛЕ

В один из дней прошедшей недели я вспоминал, что в возрасте двадцати лет -

перед моей операцией зрения - я классифицировался как "выходящий за пределы обыкновенной слепоты". Я видел мир глазами живописца-импрессиониста (больше Монэ,чем Ренуара).

Я теперь вижу это через глаза фотожурналиста эры Депрессии.

* * *

Мусульманский ученый в Канаде написал книгу, критическую к исламу, и теперь живет в опасении убийства.

* * *

Фанатики думают их кишечниками.

Они настроены, чтобы критиковать других (что очень легко легко), и никогда себя (что намного тяжелее).

* * *

Никогда не жалуйтесь к кому-то, кто может иметь большее количество проблем, нежели вы.

Вместо симпатии вы можете получить презрение и насмешку.

* *

" Мы предпочитаем продвигать наш собственный", - как сказал, – цитирую - один из приверженцев наших лидеров. Что им прийдет в голову, то они и выдают, как это им кажется правильным сегодня.

Они оплакивают или они поздравляют себя с успешным устранением интеллектуального класса?

* * *

Наиболее красивое зрелище, которое я когда-либо созерцал, было восходом солнца от седьмого госпитального окна. И надо полагать, что смысл его и состоит в том, чтобы наделить человека красотой.

* * *

Мужчины воспринимают женщин также, как заключенные ощущают свободу.

Но всякий свободный человек знает, что внутренняя свобода имеет собственные стены

намного большие, нежели в тюрьме.

* * *

Муллы обещают 73 девственницы воинствующим подросткам. Что они обещают девственницам? Сотни альфонсов?

* * *

“От атомной структуры вещей к отдаленным галактикам” - все мы соглашаемся с таким принципом организации во вселенной. И мы не договариваемся о цели такого принципа организации вселенной. И мы даже не можем объяснять, почему вещи существуют.

И при рассмотрении кредо экзистенциалистов, что жизнь является абсурдной, возникает вопрос: является ли этот принцип организации подвластным их собственным противоречиям?

* * *

Наиболее интересный человек в мире скучен себе. Следовательно, право старинное армянское высказывание: "Marte martov g'ella". Человек сделан другим. [Является частью другого.][Человеку нужен Человек.]

* * *

Критика и желание смерти взаимно исключают друг друга.

Критику приводит в движение ненависть.

Ненависть же подрывает обоснованность критики.

* *

Почему те, кто требуют нашего доверия по отношению к ним, не доверяют друг другу в справедливости суждений и правосудия?

* * *

Наши неграмотные, истощенные и растерянные родители (безумной войной, резней, высылкой, изгнанием и нищетой) могли бы иметь лучшую долю. И все же, я всегда им буду благодарен, что они не сделали из нас шарлатанов и мошенников.

* * *

ДВА ШАМАНА

Я уважаю, и Маркса и Фройда, как пионеров в соответствующих областях.

Но рассмотрим их различия.

Маркс имел бы все основания обвинить Фройда за использование псевдонауки его собственного изготовления, направленной на то, чтобы приспосабливать индивидуума к несправедливому, дегуманизированному и, по существу, несущему зло социальный порядку.

В свою очередь, Фройд обвинил бы Маркса, исходя из из еврейского мессианства, в полной неспособности последнего предсказать последствия его собственных теорий, которые обречены были стать весьма опасными и смертоносными, и несущими зло еще более, нежели критика капитализма, как таковая.

Ирония еще та, и оба были бы правы.

* * *

Если грубые ошибки не ведут к мудрости, они будут повторяться до конечной катастрофы.

* *

Рост означает приобретение увеличивающегося понимания природы других.

Но независимо от того, на сколько мы продвинулись в своем познании их, они остаются второразрядными гражданами.

И в нашем сознании, если мы не поднимаем их значимости, то мы уменьшаем нашу собственную.

* * *

Если однажды мы произведем на свет объективного историка, то он он должен будет заключить, что отчужденные и ассимилируемые армяне (начиная с имперских династий Византии) сделали больший вклад в развитие человечества, нежели так называемые подлинные.

Вопрос, который мы должны задать в связи с этим: чем же является такая окружающая среда, что инфицирует нас в посредственности?

* * *

И быть обманутым большой пропагандой еще хуже, нежели неполное знание о таящейся опасности.

* * *

Если Вы верите в идеологию, религию или любую закрытую систему мысли, то вы относите к ее критикам и диссидентам всех, выходящих за пределы пропаганды.

Потому что пропаганда имеет много общего с последовательными убийцами, которые неизменно не признают себя виновными.

* * *

Вот - некоторые афоризмы Антонио Порчиа (1886-1968)

Некоторые вещи, ставшие настолько полностью нашими собственными, что мы забываем их.

Они будут говорить, что вы находитесь на неправильной дороге, в то время, как это и есть ваш путь.

* *

В своем притяжении других сердец человек не растрачивает впустую свое обаяние.

* * *

Я неуклюж с инструментами. Всякий раз, когда я пробую что-либо установить в доме, я наношу при этом большой урон. Однажды, чтобы повесить картину, я попытался вбить в стену гвоздь, при этом я повредил стену, разбил стекло в раме, попал по большому пальцу, и вдобавок, молоток, слетел с своей ручки…Прибавьте ко всему этому погнутый гвоздь. Теперь, всякий раз, когда члены моего семейства видят меня с молотком в моей руке, они рассеиваются в панике. То же самое я чувствую всякий раз, когда один из наших вождей претендует на то, чтобы найти выход из всех наших проблем.

* * *

Моя мать любит разговаривать с ее цветами. Моя мать имеет лучшую долю с ее растениями, нежели я с моими читателями.

* * *

Говорить, что требуется от последующих поколений, чтобы изменить существующий порядок вещей, – это все равно, что отказаться от нашей ответственности за то, что нам надлежит делать сегодня, поскольку все изменения должны начинаться здесь и теперь.

И ничего не изменится, доколе один из наших вождей или церковных бонз в государстве утверждает: “Я ухожу в отставку ради единства”. Эти господа (простите за преувеличение) вцепились в власть и паразитируют в ней, пока могут нейтролизовывать (демонизировать) какое-либо возражение. По сути, это уголовное преступление – проецировать в чьем-либо сознании образ (матрицу) своего самоотверженного и патриотического служения народу.

* * *

Если Вы хотите казаться интеллектуальными, не произнесите пустоты.

Если Вы хотите казаться цивилизованными, не участвуйте в хулиганстве.

* * *

Только идиоты хвастают об их показателях интеллекта ( IQs [счетчики] их форумов). Как правило, мы хвастаем о вещах, в которых мы испытываем недостаток.

* *

Когда армянин говорит: "армяне проявляют терпимость к другому мнению”, я спрашиваю: "насколько вы проявляете терпимость к любому, кто говорит, что армяне нетерпимые?"

Когда армянин, говорит: "армяне сильны", я спрашиваю: "насколько сильным может быть армянин по отношению к тому, кто терпит только мнению того, кто соглашается с ним?"

* * *

ЭКСГИБИЦИОНИЗМ

" Вы сообщаете нам, король гол! "

Нет, я заявляю, что король - не король, но самозванец, который разоблачен, и разоблачается снова и снова, но по причинам, выходящим за пределы человеческого понимания, продолжает наслаждаться обществом карликовых и неприметных душ.

* * *

Нет ничего более оптимистичного и наивного, чем полагаться на здравый смысл и самообразование наших людей.

* * *

Понижаясь в весе с вашим противником, вы вынуждены согласиться более с его словами, нежели с путем его жизни.

* * *

Мы имели так много в истории, ти[а]ранившей наши горла, что мы даже не имели шанса, чтобы переварить это. Мы - нация, страдающая от хронического запора.

* * *

КРАЕУГОЛЬНЫЙ КАМЕНЬ

(V ряд элементов периодической таблицы структуры цивилизаций )

Цивилизация в своем построении заключает отвержение всех предыдущих достижений цивилизаций. Греки отклонили культ личности и идеал смерти, на котором была основана цивилизация Египта. Но греки же и отвергли некоторых из наиболее талантливых людей, без чьего влияния греческая цивилизация стала oxymoron. В этом заключен элемент варварства в развитии цивилизации.

* *

Возможно, Господь по своей милости и в Его бесконечной мудрости вложил в нас старение, чтобы оно напоминало нам, что плотские желания - не единственная цель в жизни.

* * *

В своей бесконечной хитрости и нашем без/по/граничном легковерии (безумии), наши вожди называют нас сильными, только для того, чтобы выжать как можно больше дивидендов для себя из нашей доверчивости.

* * *

VI ЭЛЕМЕНТ

До недавнего времени нам, как членам армянской диаспоры не разрешали знать про пристрастия наших политических лидеров, и теперь, когда нам открылось их истинное лицо, мы понимаем, почему они предпочитают оставаться анонимными.

* * *

Как можно повысить уровень п/ст/раха, только погружаясь все ниже в болоте?

* * *

Кто жаждет богатства и власти, те поддерживают религию… проповедуют бедность (равенство), и верх достоинства – что это будет вознаграждено в загробной жизни (в небытие).

* * *

"Наша проблема состоит в том, что мы не имеем никаких образцов для подражания", - как сказал однажды один из наших ученых мужей. Я бы поправил его так: "отклонив все образцы для подражания, мы не остались ни с одним из них".

* * *

Если они имеют таких ослов, как их вожди, самые сильные люди на земле будут побеждены самым глухим.

* * *

Замечательно сказал один человек о тупиках прогресса.

"Вы не можете изменить человеческую природу. Никто никого не слушает. Никто не проклинает. Вы тратите ваше время впустую".

* *

Если бы Иуда написал его мемуары, я подозреваю, что это был бы постоянный бестселлер в Армении.

* * *

" Мы не нуждаемся в критиках", - является первой половиной предложения, другой половиной является: "Мы пойдем к дьяволу на наш собственный манер".

* * *

Ваша ситуация станет действительно безнадежной, только после армянского пожелания вам удачи.

* * *

Римляне знали, что наиболее предохранительный метод владельцев племенной среды состоял в том, чтобы содержать одно племя против другого и не позволять им обращаться с грубым материалом. Бесчисленные поражения, катастрофы и трагедии еще не преподали нам ценность представления объединенного фронта врагу. Каковы шансы, что однажды в следующих двух тысячелетиях наши вожди увидят свет?

* * *

VII ЭЛЕМЕНТ

С тех пор один из наших наиболее почитаемых авторов диаспоры написал книгу о денежном небытии в обмен на тридцать серебряников, я имею некоторое затруднение при объяснении даже моим друзьям, почему я скорее предпочел бы переводить автора, которого я не уважаю, нежели посредственность за деньги.

* * *

Американская пословица гласит: "Чем больше споров вы выигрываете, тем меньшее друзей у вас остается". Аналогично, тем большему ущербу вы себя подвергаете.

* * *

Отделите армянина от армян, и вы можете иметь приличного француза, очаровательного итальянца, скачущего верхом испанца, даже цивилизованного турка; но оставьте его среди армян, и он будет выращивать рога, копыта и хвост скорпиона.

* * *

Если короли были бы казнены, над царями был приведен в исполнение приговор, диктаторов довели до самоубийства или повесили, а султанов принудили бы к сложению полномочий, мог ли любой чувствовать себя неуязвимым в своем лидерстве?

* *

Действительность обращает наши мечты в пепел, но мы продолжаем мечтать…и мечтаем, находясь в прошлом, хорошо зная, что единственная вещь, которую мы можем изменить - это восприятие прошлого. Что касается настоящего и будущего: мы живем с иллюзией, что все в надежных руках, где нет места фантазиям, но есть забава, рождающая желаемые размышления.

* * *

Много лет я даже не знал того, что я пишу не то, что я действительно чувствую и думаю, - только то, что ожидали от меня. Даже, когда я думал, что свободен, я жил и думал подобно рабу.

* * *

У Германа Мелвилла я натолкнулся на новое слово:

"султанизм", что значит осуществление власти под влиянием садистского удовольствия.

* * *

И все-таки когда-нибудь мы должны прийти к соглашению с собственными ограничениями, осознав, что мы - не дети, и мир - не наша мать, которая будет нас любить, даже если мы ведем себя подобно свинье.

* * *

Жизнь - постоянное и бесконечное возобновление. Только нравственно безответственный отказываются понимать это.

* * *

Без возобновления, мы умираем каждый час, каждую минуту.

* * *

Человек, который не делает того, что может и должен делать, не не может рассчитывать на помощь и поддержку. “А у неимеющего отнимется и то, что даже думает иметь”.

* * *

У Жан-Поль Сартра находим: "Мы полагаем, что мы верим, но мы не верим". В словаре человекознания вера-диалог определена как монолог.

* * *

Люди веры рассматривают всех людей, как на потенциально обращаемых. Но они не имеют никакого интереса ко всему, что не поддается их намерениям, - к мысли и опыту, - всему тому, что есть жизнь.

* * *

Отношения требуют храбрости, и храбрость - другое слово для сердца.

/ Эрик Фрэнсис /

* * *

Страдание любит компанию.

* * *

Люди ненавидят неправды, но они ненавидят правду даже больше.

* * *

Капитал дегуманизирует (обесценивает душу) не только рабочего, сказал Маркс, но также и капиталиста и общества в целом. Тот же самое можно сказать о национализме - что это дегуманизирует не только врага, но и также националиста непосредственно, а также нации и мир в целом.

* * *

ЭГО КЛОНИРОВАНИЕ

Мир – расширение не только нашего эго, но и другого…

“В мире властвует гравитатор,

Сила взаимного притяженья…”

3D-преображение сперматазоида

Силиконовая долина: силиконовая грудь, силиконовые мозги …

* * *

Карл Маркс: "История имеет больше воображения, чем те, кто делают /имеют/ ee”.

* * *

Леонардо пишет в его “ЗАПИСНЫХ КНИЖКАХ", - тень не видима на пути к источнику света…"

Воскресенье, 13 февраля 2005

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ЧЕРЕЗ ВЗГЛЯД В МИР

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Генри Брукс Адамс, Американский историк (1838-1918): "Политика всегда являлась системой организации ненависти".

*

"Мир отдал нам свою симпатию в 1915 году, и мы можем до сих пор чувствовать его расположение даже сегодня, 90 лет спустя. Но позвольте нам не давать больше никому повода, чтобы о нас думали как о существах, чей жадность превосходит всякие границы."

*

"Истина сделает вас свободными", - говорят нам. Есть ли такая истина, которая не станет ложью, в которую нас введут пропаганда и ненависть?"

*

"Войны - это цепь заблуждений. Первая мировая война была колоссальнейшим заблуждением. Грубые ошибки и преступления Второй Мировой Войны с обеих сторон слишком велики, чтобы их перечислять здесь".

*

Если наш геноцид стал спорной темой сегодня, то может быть потому, что мы придаем особое значение тому, что случилось с нами, а турки акцентируют внимание на том, что делали они и почему они это делали.

*

Мы заявляем, что они вырезали у нас миллион, а те отвечают, что мы были виновны в измене, потому что поддержали врага и даже боролись рядом с русскими и французами. А во время войны измена - это преступление, которое карается смертной казнью.

*

Всякий раз, когда я читаю где-нибудь, что какие-то армяне в Стамбуле в очередной раз приветствовали - не скрывая своей радости - приходяшие в столицу новости о российских победах, соответственно, и палестинцы точно также торжествовали 11 сентября, но уже от новостей, пришедших из Соединенных Штатов.

*

Мы говорим, что наши жертвы достигли двух миллионов. Турки же нам отвечают, что их собственное число превосходит наше. К тому же они утверждают, что мы предъявили территориальные претензии к раздробленной и умирающей империи.

*

Согласие может быть достигнуто только в том случае, если обе стороны придут к компромиссу и признают, что во время войны объективное восприятие, целесообразность, здравый смысл и благопристойность становятся вещами, вышедшими из употребления.

*

Так много сказано, что позвольте мне еше раз упоминать о фактах, красноречиво свидетельствующих, что все же было много приличных и выдающихся армян, которые стремились противодействовать политике и акциям наших революционеров.

*

Арчи Дадьян, важная фигура в администрации Оcманской империи, неоднократно просивший не принимать участия в проведении терроризма. Генерал Андраник также предупреждал о последствиях сотрудничества с неуравновешенной частью турок. Оба игнорировались.

*

Что касается людей вообще: большинство их, особенно во внутренних областях, были малограмотные, и не имели достаточного понимания того, что происходило в то время в политике. Другие рассматривали Османскую империю как свою родину. В тоже время другие (главным образом торговцы и высшие слои общества) отвергали действия революционеров. Усложняло реальное восприятие действительности даже то, что немалое число от других представителей общества (никто просто не знает точного соотношения) составляли потомки смешанных браков. И когда я говорю смешанные браки, я не подразумеваю только армян и турков, но также армян и греков, армян и сирийцев, армян и курдов, армян и еврев, армян и черкесов и т.д.

*

В этой связи я должен также привести в свидетельство истории Григора Зухраба и Рубена Шаважа. Первый был адвокатом, писателем, редактором и политическим деятелем, второй - доктором и мыслителем. Зухраб доверял туркам до такой степени, что спасал жизнь Талаата, рискуя его собственный. Второй, когда его попросила жена /немка по происхождению/ покинуть Стамбул и эмигрировать в Европу, - потому что она не любила турков, - он заверил ее, что глубоко уверен в том, что турки - это прекрасный народ, и она не имела причин для недоверия. Оба были вырезаны турками.

*

Все запутано? Таков уж мир, исключая, возможно, тех, кто извлекает для себя выгоду от организации ненависти среди остальных.

*

Не то, чтобы мир не знает правды, мир даже не заботится ее знать или слушать. Мир имеет его собственные проблемы, и его не волнуют старые племенные распри и их "древняя история".

*

От себя я хочу сказать следующее: поскольку мы не перестаем говорить миру о нашем геноциде с 1915 года, позвольте еще не забыть о другом геноциде - "невидимой резне", которая имеет место и поныне. Вот почему я пишу эти строки: а именно, о массовом бегстве с Родины и последующем растворении в диаспоре.

#

Понедельник, 14 февраля 2005

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В ЛАБИРИНТАХ ЗЛА

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Ханна Арендт (1906-1975) американский политический философ: "Только преступление и преступник, воистину, представляют нам личину агрессивного зла, но только лицемер действительно гниет изнутри".

*

Осознание того, что я теперь имею преданных читателей, изъявляющих желание ругать меня всякий раз, когда я отклоняюсь от прямого и правильного курса, рождает во мне чувство умиротворения и придает силы писать еше с большей свободой.

*

Я пишу не как армянин, но как член единой человеческой семьи, что по сути, несомненно, ближе ко мне, что я даже не рассматриваю это как акт измены.

*

На каждую правду приходится тысяча измышлений, для каждой строки пропаганды находятся другие, которые противоречат этим, и мир - это хаос, потому что большая часть человечества предпочитает приятную ложь взамен неудобоваримой правде.

*

От Арнольда Дж. Тойнби я узнал, что необоснованная претензия на лидерство может сделать из херовой ситуаци еще худшую.

*

От Луи де Берньереса я узнал, что турки преследовали свои христианские меньшинства только потому, что мусульманские меньшинства на Балканах подвергались гонениям со стороны местных христиан.

*

От Татьяны Толстой я узнал что, в порядке вещей считалось, если армянин вел себя как турок, или, как однажды выразился более прямо Пазант Граньян: "турок сидит в каждом из нас”.

*

Татьана Толстая, Арнольд Дж. Тойнби, и Луи де Берньерес не отрицали реальности геноцида. Но что они дейcтвительно сделали, так это то, что лабиринты проявления зла стали чуть менее запутанными.

*

Проблема идеологов и их приверженцев состоит в том, что их аргументы не убеждают никого, кроме как самих идеологов и членов их тусовки.

*

Еще задолго до геноцида, Раффи убеждал армян выйти из Османской империи, потому что, как он разъяснял, турки не имели никакого уважения к человеческой жизни. (Достаточно вспомнить, что султаны желали иметь из всего их мужского потомства только одного, остальные давились с шелковыми шнурками, чтобы предотвратить гражданскую войну).

*

Не задолго до геноцида Григор Зухраб убеждал армян, в том, чтобы выйти из империи, - потому что, как он объяснял, турки в последствии планировали кампанию полного истребления. " Зухраб эффенди преувеличивает, " - отвечали они ему.

*

Взгляд в прошлое приводит нас к тому, что массовое бегство из Османской империи заложило в сознании людей доминирующий курс, как это проявляется ныне в бегстве уже с нашей Родины.

*

Наши приверженцы скорбят о судьбе наших авторов, которых заставили замолчать в Османской империи и в СССР; и даже когда они заставляли себя молчать, находился кто-то, который отказывался переваривать их пропагандисткие строки.

*

Если армянин не принимает историю, как ее принимает турок, то в чем его отличие от турка, которому промывают мозги, чтобы отвергать взгляд армянина на ту же историю?

#

Вторник, Февраль 15, 2005

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Неизвестный: "не должно быть никакой вражды среди ищущих после торжества правды".

*

Вы не можете участвовать в диалоге с кем-то, кто думает, что хорошие манеры не подходят ему, потому что он говорит от имени Бога и Страны.

*

Мы не достигнем согласия с турками, пока мы будем причислять их к азиатским варварам, хладнокровным убийцам, и кровожадным дикарям. Дипломатии требуется больший словарный запас.

*

На примере словаря - имеем ли мы слово для согласия? И если мы что-то делали для этого, то когда вы видели его в печати в последний раз? Почему - кругом так много разговоров о "коррупции" и так немного согласия? Не потому ли мы имеем изобилие первого и дефицит второго?

*

Чтобы достигнуть такого же качества, как армянский автор, вы нуждаетесь в коже крокодила, упрямстве мула, и в образе жизни отшельника.

*

Где человеческие права диссидентов и меньшинств не уважаются, тирания большинства может быть столь же безжалостна, как и тирания султанов.

*

"Турок сидит во всех нас”. Вы хотите доказательства? Следуйте за обсуждением на армянском форуме /радио/.

/Русский за рубежом – лучше – хуже - татарина/

*

Наши приверженцы вызывают отчуждение двоих, промыв мозги одному, и это они называют сохранением армянской идентичности.

*

В среде обывателей, - где рассматривают чтение литературы как пустую трату времени, - в среде по сути полного безразличия, - иметь выражение презрения от читателя и быть подвергнутым его яду, - должно восприниматься - как шаг в правильном направлении.

.

*

Когда входишь в понимание прошлого, лучше быть в сомнении, чем с неоспоримыми аргументами.

*

Монолог не может вести к согласию.

*

Наши приверженцы полагают, что подвергая сомнению линию приверженца или отклоняясь от нее даже на доли дюйма, - это уже свидетельствует об акте измены.

*

Как говорится: "все люди по своей природе желают познавать". Но история говорит нам, что большинство в сообществе преследует тех, кто может знать что-то, чего не знают они.

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Среда, Февраль 16, 2005

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Амброуз Бьерс (1842-1914) Американский автор: " ИСТОРИЯ. По большому счету - это события, вызываемые правителями, главным образом валетами и солдатами, по сути - дураками".

*

Также написано: "История сделана хулиганами и написана жертвами обмана ".

*

Турки рассматривают историю как пропаганду победителя.

Мы рассматриваем это как утешение проигравшего - весь мир прогнил, кроме нас. Однажды и турки и армяне cмогут осознать, что историю следует принимать без субъективных притязаний на счет прошлого, что означает, удаление от всего фанатического, патриотического, националистических предубеждений, ошибок, искажений, и заблуждений.

*

Сегодня турецкого историка, который смеет быть критичным к турецкой политике прошлого столетия, называют "про-армянским ублюдоком". И любой армянин, кто подвергает сомнению мудрость армянских деятелей, поносится не иначе как "про-турецкий наемник". Словесная резня продолжается.

*

Наши революционеры не спрашивали людей, хотели ли они революцию. Ни один турок не спросил их, хотели ли высылку и резню. Это - проблема с авторитарными правителями. Они думают, что люди – овца, а они пастухи, которые иногда также удваиваются как палачи.

*

Если Армянин не может согласиться с армянином, то как он может прийти когда-либо к соглашению с турком?

*

Я сделал много грубых ошибок в моей жизни, вероятно, намного больше, чем есть звезд в небесах, и я продолжу их делать до дня, когда я умру. Я понимаю грубые ошибки и непринужденность, с которой они сделаны. Но вот что я нахожу трудным для принятия, так это самооцененку своего нравственного превосходства у индивидуумов, чье поведение было и будет продолжать оставаться вне достижения критики и упреков.

*

Мы будем все более поднимать доверие в представлениях мира по отношению к нам (Кто может или не может проклинать себя или других), если мы утверждаем, что правы только на 99 %. И с другой стороны, если мы красим себя в белое, а наших врагов представляем черными как смоль, мы можем преуспеть только в усилении сомнений в умах жюри.

*

Мы не судим человека по его мнению в отношении себя. Почему мы должны судить нацию по ее пропаганде?

*

Однажды, если я когда-либо соберу список всеобщих ошибок, то начну с такой: " Думать, что то, что вы задумали, является истинным ".

*

Я не имею никакого интереса убедить или обратить в свою веру кого-либо.. Я не являюсь ни проповедником, ни пропагандистом; я просто записываю мысли, которым я боялся бы довериться еще каких-то десять лет назад. назад.

#

Четверг, 17 февраля 2005

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ДУРАКИ И ВАЛЕТЫ

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Джордж Вилльерс (1628-1687), английский писатель: "мир главным образом состоит из дураков и вальтов, двух противоречивых противников истины".

*

КУДА ПРОРАСТАЮТ КОРНИ

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Джеральд Бренан (1894-1987), британский писатель: " Вы не можете докопаться до истины в истории; только романист /2-го и 3-го Рима/ может сделать это".

*

ПАМЯТКА ЧИТАТЕЛЮ

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Я никогда не говорил, что армяне - нечистоты земли, только являлись армяне, которые оценивали себя столь же безошибочными как римский папа, столь же великолепными как Соломон, столь же мудрыми как Сократ, и столь же неукротимыми в споре как Давид Анхагт.

*

СВОБОДА СЛОВА - АРМЯНСКИЙ СТИЛЬ

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

Наши приверженцы верят в свободу слова, понимая под этим свободу соглашаться с их мнением, чтобы выработать их линию пропаганды.

*

ПЕРВАЯ ХРИСТИАНСКАЯ НАЦИЯ

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

Наша религия учит нам любить наших врагов. Не являясь ни проповедником или лицемером (и я обращаюсь прежде всего к себе), я никогда не вышел бы за пределы любви. Я только предположил бы, что мы можем думать о них либо гуманно, либо как о кровожадных дикарях; но позвольте нам, по крайней мере, стремиться к тому, чтобы чувствовать, думать, и говорить подобно цивилизованным существам. И если мы не можем достигнуть этого, то позвольте уж не хвастаться о том, что мы являемся первой христианской нацией, или островом Христианства в море безверия. Дайте нам шанс поверить в возможность того, что мы тоже, подобно остальной части человечества, являемся способными при случае противостоять такому искушению взлетом нашего духа.

#

Пятница, 18 февраля 2005

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

НЕ ЯВЛЯЮЩИЙСЯ - ХОРОШИМ ХРИСТИАНИНОМ

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

Только после того, как мы научимся любить наших врагов, мы можем научиться любить наших друзей по истине. Что касается проявления любви в наших армянах: то еще утечет не мало воды горечи...

*

ПРОИСХОЖДЕНИЕ ГЕНОЦИДА

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

600 лет назад мы уступили борьбе и сказали им: "Мы вручаем нашу судьбу в ваши руки, и впредь вам надлежит быть нашими владельцами, и вы можете делать с нами все, что вы пожелаете". И они делали. И для них теперь оскорбительно, когда мы отвергаем их версию истории. В конце концов, кто-то когда-нибудь слышал о рабе, обвиняющем владельца во лжи, особенно, если владелец все тот же?

*

РАЗВЕНЧАННОЕ МИФОТВОРЧЕСТВО

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

У нас было перо, а они имели меч. Вопрос, который мы должны задать: сколько жизней сохранило наше перо...

*

ПРИЗНАНИЕ

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

Бог может не всегда быть на стороне больших батальонов, но в 1915 Он был. Некоторые говорят, что это не был Бог, но дьявол. Но мой дезориентированный скептицизм не всегда идет мне на пользу, и я могу признаться, что не всегда могу отличить одного от другого.

*

ОПРЕДЕЛЕНИЯ

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

Эксперт, по определению, тот, кто узнает все больше в узкой свое специализации.

И от обратного, шарлатан - это тот, кто узнает все больше обо всем.

*

КРАТКАЯ ИСТОРИЯ

СОВРЕМЕННОЙ АРМЯНСКОЙ ЛИТЕРАТУРЫ

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

Современная армянская литература была спортом на крови, в котором оставшихся в живых можно персчитать по пальцам невооруженного прокаженного.

*

ТАК ЕСТЬ ЛИ ЧТО-ТО НОВОЕ?

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

Хельдор Камара (1909-1999), бразильский священник: "Когда я подаю нищим на пропитание, они зовут меня святым. Когда же я спрашиваю, почему бедные не имеют никакой пищи, они в негодовании называют меня коммунистом. "Так было всегда. Скажите: "Да, сэр! " И вы - хороший мальчик. Задайте вопросы, и вы - сама непотребность этой на земле".

*

НЕЗАБЫВАЕМАЯ ЛИНИЯ

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

Альберт Камю (1913-1960), французский драматург, романист, эссеист и обладатель Нобелевской премии: "Каждый настаивает на своей невиновности, даже если для этого потребуется обвинить остальную часть человеческой расы и небеса".

*

ПРИЗНАНИЕ ЖИЗНИ

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

Когда я говорю о лжецах и шарлатанах, я говорю прежде всего о себе. Я когда-то обманывался, и подобно всем обманывающимся я использовал шарлатанство - и выступал под личиной патриотизма, как само собой разумеющееся. То, что я пишу об этом сегодня - является моим признанием и извинением.

#

Суббота, 19 февраля 2005

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

ПРИЗНАНИЕ

**********

В детстве мои преподаватели превозносили нашу хитрость, теперь я знаю, к кому входит хитрость, там поселяется обман.

*

ОБМАНЩИКИ

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

Мы любим говорить и повторить, что запад обманул нас. Но мы не говорим, что нас обманули потому, что мы сами были лжецами. Потому что в отличие от наших врагов, мы были неопытны в жаргоне международной дипломатии, и позволили нашим желаниям контролировать наши суждения.

*

РАЗНОГЛАСИЕ

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

Трущобы - не лучшее место для этого, и едва ли цензура может дать тот единственный ответ.

*

ПАТРИОТИЗМ - АРМЯНСКИЙ СТИЛЬ

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

Николас-Себастьян Чемфорт (1741-1794), французский писатель: "Стань моим братом, или я убью тебя".

*

ЦЕНЗУРА

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

Говорят, что великие страны дают великих святых. Можно также с уверенностью сказать, что маленькие страны производят мелкую междоусобную вражду. Наши учебники не напоминают об этом, потому что, в таком случае они просто были бы запрещены.

*

ТАБУ

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

После посещения Турции, мой друг (известный армянско-американский поэт) написал мне письмо, в котором он сообщил, что он был приятно удивлен, открыв для себя турков - как весьма полнокровных представителей человеческой расы, и что он нашел их более симпатичными, чем армяне.

#

Karmir · March 26, 2005

Слушай, этот старый недоумок возомнивший себя писателем тут спамит тихо в своей теме, это ещё ничего. Но зачем ещё и темы открывать тут, посвящённые этому "писателю"?

Тут уже достаточно говорилось о том что это за тип и что это за литературные "творения".

Vigen · March 26, 2005

Слушай, этот старый недоумок возомнивший себя писателем тут спамит тихо в своей теме, это ещё ничего. Но зачем ещё и темы открывать тут, посвящённые этому "писателю"?
Тут уже достаточно говорилось о том что это за тип и что это за литературные "творения".

←

почему ты так о нем?

что случилось? дай мне знать о нем. Вроде бы он нормальные вещи пишет.

Karmir · March 26, 2005

Ничего себе нормальные :down:

Прямо-таки паталогически не любит армян, "опускает" армян и Армению, поёт дифирамбы туркам. Ты хотя бы читал что этот козёл там пишет ай тха? :angry:

Это всё тут сто раз обсуждали. Вот ссылка на его "нетленные шедевры" и отзывы о нём форумчан:

http://forum.hayastan.com/index.php?showtopic=6700&st=40

Edited March 26, 2005 by Karmir

Aksel.V · March 26, 2005

почему ты так о нем?
что случилось? дай мне знать о нем. Вроде бы он нормальные вещи пишет.

←

Виген, а что у него нормального? То, что по одной строчке выдергивает от каждого мыслителя одну фразу, не очень умело перефразирует, а между этими фразами впихает уже свои убогие проповеди о том, что одна нация лучше другого? В данном случае именно тут, последние строки его бреда, копировать не буду, это будет честь для него, доказательство тому, что это убогий и трусливый человек, тот факт, что он именно тут говорит, о каком то известном армянско - американском поэте, которого кроме него никто не знает.

Ты знаешь о коком поэте он говорит?

Ты понимаешь, что под это название можно ввести любого спюркского поэта?

Ты понимаешь, что он из нас хочет делает идиотов?

Ты понимаешь, что он сеет рознь между творческими людьми армянского происхождения?

Ты понимаешь, сколько зла несет в себе этот вор чужих высказываний?

Ты понимаешь, что ему наплевать как на армян, так и на турок?

Ты понимаешь, что это просто сволочь?

March 26, 2005

Thursday, March 24, 2005

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

IMAMS AND COMMISSARS

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

All religions and ideologies produce their share of imams and commissars whose ultimate aim is not the truth but power.

*

An imam or a commissar may be defined as one who cannot tell the difference between truth and propaganda, or believes propaganda to be the only truth.

*

To a man of faith, his sermonizer is not a propagandist but a messenger of God. The same applies to a partisan and his speechifier.

*

Loyalty to the party is not the same as patriotism. The party is not the people. Neither is it the brain of the people.

The ARF is not Armenia.

The Communist Party is not Russia.

Neither the Democratic nor the Republican Party in America speaks for the American people, only a fraction of it.

*

To a commissar, his party is not just a political organization but a religion.

*

To a born-again fundamentalist (be he Christian or Muslim) to even suggest that his religion is just a religion, like any other religion, is the height of blasphemy, and as such, a capital offense. In that sense, in the eyes of some fundamentalist, we are all infidels, giaours, and the scum of the earth.

*

Propaganda is to truth what snake oil is to medicine.

*

When it comes to understanding the past, any version that is not objective, will be contaminated by propaganda. The maxim "Less is more" applies here: less propaganda means more truth.

*

The function of a dissenter or critic is to expose the lies of propaganda.

*

Recent Russian history as seen through the eyes of men like Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn will be more objective than the version provided by commissars. Which is why, I find the version of our recent past provided by such witnesses as Gostan Zarian, General Antranik, and Arnold J. Toynbee (all of whom were in the loop) more accurate than that provided by our commissars.

#

Friday, March 25, 2005

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

There are Armenians who believe Turks to be bloodthirsty savages and Asiatic barbarians. There are also Armenians who believe, with Saroyan, Turks are people like any other people - Greeks, Jews, Germans, and Russians. Now, suppose we were to allow both camps to negotiate with them, which camp do you think will have a better chance to reach a consensus first?

*

It is the height of non sequitur to call Turks savages and to demand justice from them.

*

Our pundits are graduates of the Humbug & Flimflam school of punditry.

*

Our forefathers lived among the Turks for six centuries. I doubt if I could last six minutes among our imams and commissars.

*

There is no jungle in the whole of Africa and the Amazon like the jungle of an Armenian discussion forum.

*

If our imams and commissars ever take charge of the nation, it will be like lunatics taking charge of the asylum.

*

To use hatred of Turks to justify hatred of fellow Armenians is to compound a felony.

*

It is worth remembering as well as reminding our partisans that they don't speak in the name of history, reality, god or truth, but only in the name of the party - that is to say, not even in the name of the nation or the people, only in the name of a fraction of the people.

*

I know what it feels like being hated by Turks; I have been hated by Armenians.

*

I see nothing wrong in being an imam or a commissar as long as they don't use dupes to do their killing and dying for them.

#

Saturday, March 26, 2005

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

I grew up in an ARF neighborhood. I was educated in an environment where the ARF wasn't even mentioned. As an adult I met friends and relatives in whose eyes the ARF was a terrorist organization. I know now that, instead of leading us to the Promised Land, our "betters" led us to the slaughterhouse, and our choice today is between 20-20 hindsight and the blind leading the blind. We must think about this.

*

Charles King in THE BLACK SEA: A HISTORY (New York, Oxford University Press, 2004): "In Turkey, one can now purchase books on the Hemshin [Armenians], Laz, and other peoples of the Pontic coast, something that was unthinkable only a few years ago, when literature on ethnic minorities was practically nonexistent."

*

Some readers have accused me of entertaining prophetic ambitions. If I am a prophet, I am one only in the sense that when I plant radishes in my backyard, I don't expect to harvest beets.

*

The truth is an adversary we all share. Our only hope is to advance towards it rather than in the opposite direction.

*

It took me a long time to realize that the -ian ending was not a guarantee of nobility.

*

If we had the power, would our enemies escape total extinction?

*

Perhaps what I am trying to say is that it is possible to think about Turks without turning into one.

*

Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973), American politician: "You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake."

#

Unregistered - M · March 27, 2005

"Турок сидит во всех нас”. Вы хотите доказательства? Следуйте за обсуждением на армянском форуме .

М-да. Виген, а если честно, вы его читали?

Karmir · March 28, 2005

Ты думаешь он читал посты сектанта-Николая когда пожелал нашему народу побольше таких сыновей?

Де мер Вигенна эли

p. s. Виг джан чнеханас ахпер ханкарц :victory:

March 30, 2005

Sunday, March 27, 2005

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

A SCI-FI SCENARIO

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

Imagine the following scenario: the Ottoman Empire is an Armenian empire and the time is at the turn of the last century. The Empire is in deep trouble, surrounded as it is by powerful enemies from without, and from within, hostile tribes with territorial ambitions. The Empire has already been amputated and is about to lose its intestines to hyenas like Turks, Kurds, and Greeks.

*

Next, imagine you are the Minister of the Interior and Defense and you have two options: You either issue an order that says: "Exterminate anyone who threatens the territorial integrity of our beloved homeland," or, "Treat everyone within our borders, including Turks, with the same consideration and compassion that you would treat members of your own family."

*

Speaking for myself as an Ottomanized Armenian, I would not hesitate to issue an order of extermination, not because I hate Turks, but because I love my fellow Armenians too much and I have taken an oath to defend and protect the territorial integrity of the nation. On the other hand, I also have no trouble whatever imagining a nice, tenderhearted Armenian minister, like most of my critics, adopting a different, and a more civilized approach.

*

It takes all kinds and I am willing to concede that I am not, and I have never thought of myself as being, a role model and an authentic Christian who takes the central message of his religion, (which is love, including love of enemies) literally. It is not that I could never love Turks. The truth is, I can't even stand fellow Armenians who disagree with me. And in this, I am different from my critics, all of them, needless to say, authentic Christians who love and forgive not only their enemies (including Turks) but also fellow Armenians who sometimes refuse to behave like parrots by echoing their sentiments and thoughts.

#

Monday, March 28, 2005

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

We will enhance our credibility in the eyes of the world on the day we show a willingness to admit that the Turks are not as bad as we say they are, and we are not as good as we would like to appear.

*

When we say everything the Turks say is a lie, and everything we say is the truth, the only people we succeed in convincing are ourselves.

*

If I were to identify myself as a morally superior person to you, would you believe me? My educated guess is you would laugh at me. You would insult me. And you would be right. What makes anyone think that if we identify ourselves as morally superior to any other nation, including Turks, odars will be favorably disposed to accept our own assessment of ourselves as true?

*

And if you were to say, we are morally superior if only because we are not guilty of genocide, I will say, neither are Gypsies, Estonians, Latvians, Patagonians, and many other nations and tribes. That's because, as a rule, genocides are committed by nations that have the military might to do so.

*

By the way, and in passing, if you ask Azeris, you will be told in no uncertain terms that Armenians too have been guilty of ethnic cleansing (which happens to be a more recent synonym of genocide).

*

The truth is no one likes to be told he is morally inferior to anyone; and to brag about moral superiority is the surest way of provoking universal contempt, and what's even worse, of forfeiting all credibility.

*

I trust my judgment. But I trust the judgment of better men than myself even more. When someone like Toynbee, Zarian, General Antranik, and Saroyan express an opinion that contradicts mine, my first reaction is not to say they are wrong but to question my own dogmatism, and dogmatism is something that should always be questioned.

*

No one disputes the facts that (one) 9/11 happened, and (two) Muslim fanatics from the Middle East were responsible. Even so, the U.S. Government held exhaustive hearings to determine the failures on the part of its own agencies.

*

We all agree that (a) the Genocide happened and (b) the Turks were responsible. What we don't know is where we went wrong. Why did General Antranik say ARF leaders should be crucified? What did Zarian mean when he said our political parties had been of no political use to us? Why did Toynbee say our territorial demands had been unjustified? After visiting Turkey, why did Saroyan say Turks are people like any other people?

*

As long as these questions remain unanswered, we will know only a fraction of the truth -- and "a fraction of the truth" happens to be one definition of propaganda.

#

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

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

To hate Turks is wrong because it means hating the guilty as well as the innocent, Turks as well as half-Armenians.

*

After reading my first book, half of which was about the Genocide, a Canadian friend said: "I have a Bulgarian friend who hates Turks too," thus implying no one else does. That came as a complete surprise to me. Born and raised among Greeks (who also hate Turks) I was under the impression the world was unanimous in sharing our hatred.

*

What does the average Canadian know about Turks? Next to nothing. What does he know about Armenians? Even less. But a Canadian knows something we don't know. Hating is wrong, and hating a nation is racist. A Canadian has also inherited the Anglo-Saxon mindset that says, "We don't have enemies, only interests."

*

Opinions are only opinions. They are not articles of faith. Opinions may change, but articles of faith, like diamonds, are forever.

*

I know how to argue against opinions, but not against articles of faith, or against mullahs and bishops.

*

Faith I respect even when I don't share it. But faith in slogans and clichés I consider being symptoms of primitive thinking worthy of jungle dwellers.

*

For 600 years we were colonized, ruled, and oppressed by "bloodthirsty barbarians." What does that make us?

What if the Turks colonized our subconscious too?

What if we feel and think like Turks and we don't even know it?

What if to justify our hatred of Turks we turn into Turks?

What if Turks are ahead of us because they no longer feel and think like Turks?

What if hatred is to the soul what cancer is to the body?

What if to hate Turks means allowing them a permanent place in our psyche?

Please note that I am not asserting articles of faith, only asking questions.

#

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

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

ON WAR

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

May I remind our promoters of hate and war that we live in the kind of world where big fish eats little fish, which means that a sardine cannot eat a shark.

*

I don't trust politicians in general. I trust Armenian politicians even less. I happen to be of the opinion that if Swiss hotel managers ran our country and our political parties in the diaspora, we would be better off.

*

Our history is one long episode of defeat and degradation because our political leadership has shown itself to be incapable of learning from its blunders. Some of them even think the best way to deal with blunders is by not admitting them.

*

Ideologies of hate and violence end up doing more harm than good: think of Sultan Abdulhamid II and the Ottoman Empire, Mussolini and Italy, Hitler and Germany, Stalin and the USSR, Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

*

Luckily mankind has also produced partisans of non-violence - the Buddha, Socrates, Christ, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, who were not idealistic daydreamers living in the clouds, but infinitely more pragmatic than their counterparts who relied on violence to realize their grandiose fantasies.

*

When we promote hatred we operate on the false assumption that if we treat our enemies the way they treated us, we will acquire the keys of the kingdom.

*

He who hates must be constantly on guard not to allow himself to feel, think, and behave like his enemy.

*

If some day an Armenian Talaat were to succeed in defeating and exterminating the Turkish nation, I for one would be ashamed to identify myself as an Armenian.

#

April 2, 2005

Thursday, March 31, 2005

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

BOOK REVIEW

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

CORRESPONDENCE. Volume 2. LETTERS TO GOURGEN MAHARI AND ANTRANIK ANTREASSIAN. By Shahan Shahnour. Collected, edited, and annotated by Krikor Keusseyan. 227 pages. Boston: Mayreni Publishing (50 Watertown St., Watertown, MA 01472). 2005.

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

In his preface, Krikor Keusseyan writes: "The CORRESPONDENCE is a mosaic of opinions and judgments on art, literature and politics." What makes these opinions eminently readable is their objectivity. Obviously, they were not meant for publication. If they have been published it's because of Krikor Keusseyan's steadfast admiration of Shahan Shahnour. But let the author speak for himself.

*

On Siamanto: "A plagiarist who translated Maeterlinck's verse word by word and passed it on the unsuspecting reader as his own. No one is aware of this, and it was by pure chance that I stumbled on it."

*

On Simon Simonian: "There is about him the odor of the shopkeeper."

*

On Arshak Chobanian: "He is an untrustworthy, self-centered careerist."

*

On Hagop Oshagan: "He is incapable of writing an accessible, clear sentence."

*

On his fellow Armenians: "I will not comment on my adversaries. As for my so-called friends: if you only knew the acts of stupidity, cowardice, and duplicity that I have witnessed."

*

On Gostan Zarian: "He describes nature well. The problem is, the principal subject of literature is not nature but man."

I disagree with Shahnour here. Zarian's portrait of Charents in his BANCOOP AND THE BONES OF THE MAMMOTH has Dostoevskian penetration. There are, moreover, unforgettable portraits and sketches in all his works - Martiros Saryan in THE TRAVELLER AND HIS ROAD, Zabel Yessayan in the WEST, Lawrence Durrell in THE ISLAND AND A MAN are three that come readily to mind.

*

Shahnour was born in Istanbul but spent most of his life in French hospitals, sanatoria, and retirement homes. In a letter to Mahari he has this to say about his fellow French-Armenians: "They are all well off now, but they can no longer be said to be Armenians. Which is why all that talk of repatriation in the Yerevan press strikes me as so much empty verbiage."

*

At one point in his career, Shahnour adopted the pseudonym Armen Lubin and published several critically acclaimed volumes of prose and verse in French. In another letter to Mahari he writes: "I have heard it said that I write in French to make a little money. What nonsense! Writing poetry has at no time been a source of income to anyone, be it in France or anywhere else for that matter."

*

About himself: "I have committed many thoughtless acts in my life, or so they tell me, but no one can testify that these acts have been to the detriment of the nation, only to myself and my reputation, both of which are of no consequence to anyone else but me."

*

On our dime-a-dozen pundits: "Shopkeepers drop in on me out of nowhere and take it upon themselves to deliver lectures. What do they know about conditions of life in France? What do they know about literature? To learn and to know are two different things. They have learned some things but they lack intuitive knowledge. What am I supposed to do with them? Tell them to shut up? But that's against my temperament."

#

Friday, April 01, 2005

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

BOOK REVIEW

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

LA VIE COMME ELLE EST (Life as it is): Short stories. By Krikor Zohrab. Translated into French by Mireille Besnilian. 110 pages. Marseilles. Editions Parentheses. 2005.

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A highly respected lawyer, politician, editor, and author, Krikor Zohrab (1861-1915) is remembered today as one of our ablest short story writers. Writes Hagop Oshagan: "Zohrab is one of those rare individuals who do the work and live the lives of eight or ten men and excel in each. He is the most brilliant, accomplished and enduring figure in the Realistic movement of our literature."

According to Mesrob Janashian: "Zohrab viewed conservatives as hidebound obscurantists. He attacked the Armenian establishment of Constantinople - the Church as well as the bosses. He constantly urged the youth to adopt progressive Western ideas. Even when he went to extremes, he at no time passed the bounds of reason and common sense."

In American terms he might best be imagined as a hybrid of President Kennedy (Zohrab was likewise assassinated at the height of his powers), and Hemingway - though as a short story writer he is more like Guy de Maupassant in his subtle depiction of feminine psychology, and Anton Chekhov in his sympathetic treatment of the lower classes.

The collection under review contains some of his most widely admired stories. Their translation is so elegantly executed that they read as though they were originally conceived and written in French.

*

The recent study of Armenian women writers by the Canadian academic Victoria Rowe, and now this translation by Mireille (not an Armenian) Besnilian, may suggest that odars are more interested in our literature than our academics and pundits from the Middle East, most of whom happen to be fluent in half-a-dozen languages (or so they tell us), who are, it seems, too busy with far more important projects to have any time left for translating our writers, a great deal of whose works remain terra incognita not only to odars but also to the overwhelming majority of Armenians in the Diaspora who cannot read Armenian.

#

Saturday, April 02, 2005

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QUOTATIONS FROM

SHAHAN SHAHNOUR'S

CORRESPONDENCE, VOLUME II.

Collected, edited, and annotated by Krikor Keusseyan.

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On Vazken Shoushanian:

"I have read only one book by him, an epistolary novel, which is a definite failure because it happens to be a youthful work. Has he written anything better? I asked this question to an associate of his, Nartuni, who answered: "He is a worthless man. He will write nothing of any value."

I don't accept this verdict at face value because these two Tashnaks can't stand each other."

*

On Antranik Zaroukian:

"When he was young, he was a fanatic Tashnak. And more. He confused swearing with reasoning. He is wrong if he thinks I hold a grudge against him. No, never! Even if he had remained an obstinate partisan I could not have harbored vengeful thoughts in his direction, only pity and scorn."

*

About the shenanigans of the Jerusalem Monastery:

"Among other thing, Nartuni told me all about the wheeling-and-dealing in Jerusalem and the scandalous conduct of our Holy Fathers there - their alcoholism, contrabandism, womanizing, gambling, thievery…He knows them well having spent some time in their company. He tells me these high-ranking ecclesiastics are themselves former orphans [survivors of the massacres] gathered from the desert. Alas!"

*

On our press:

"In order for our press to play a useful role in our social and political life, there must be such things as public opinion and collective memory, in whose absence blunders will be forgotten and incompetent leaders glorified."

*

On the literary scene in the Diaspora:

"Our literary market place is now in the hands of senior citizens - Vratsian, Chobanian, Oshagan - individuals who don't have to work for a living and they have all the time in the world to write and write…Let them write so long as they don't give us a headache with their endless arguments and senile problems."

*

In my recent review of this book I neglected to mention that half of it consists of endnotes, that can be read as a brief introduction to 20th-century Armenian history and culture. In addition to being a dedicated fan of Shahnour, Krikor Keusseyan is a meticulous scholar whose comments are as informative as Shahnour's observations and insights.

#

April 6, 2005

Sunday, April 03, 2005

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It happened twice last week. To settle an argument in their favor, two readers (both parading as authentic and patriotic Armenians) quoted Ottoman sayings, in Turkish too! Figure that one out, if you can.

*

Armenianism as it is understood and practiced today is simply Ottomanism by other means - the same unquestioning reverence to mini-sultans (instead of a single Sultan), and the same contempt for the fundamental human right of free speech.

*

You either live the way you think or the way someone else thinks. If you choose the second option, make sure that someone else is not your enemy.

*

Some readers approach my writings as lovingly as a starving cannibal spicing a fat missionary.

*

Commissars and mullahs are philistines, that is to say, killers who adopt an ideology or religion to legitimize their killer instincts.

*

In his travel impressions of the Caucasus, Alexandre Dumas pere (of THE THREE MUSKETEERS fame) says something to the effect that, Armenians have a reputation of being untrustworthy. When I first read this a few years ago, I thought, "What an anti-Armenian bastard!" But after being hoodwinked, flimflammed, and bamboozled by a number of Armenian wheeler-dealers, including an archbishop, I have been reconsidering my position.

*

Who cares what a minor Armenian scribbler thinks? My tentative answer: Only readers who cling to major lies.

*

If I have achieved immortality in the minds of some readers, it's because I have insulted them. An injured Armenian has the memory of an elephant and the venom of a Turkish viper.

#

Monday, April 04, 2005

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Our knowledge is limited and our ignorance infinite. Only fools and fanatics forget this.

*

Writing for Armenians sometimes feels like swimming across a Brazilian river teeming with piranhas.

*

I am beginning to think of death as liberation. Writing for Armenians may have something to do with this.

*

If an Armenian has a choice between reading the lines and reading between the lines, he will invariably choose the latter even if what he reads there has nothing to do with what is written.

*

Armenians who say Armenians are smart get on my nerves. I can imagine what they do to odars. Because to say we are smart is to imply the rest of the world is less smart.

*

As for being smart in the marketplace, frankly, like most people around the world, I prefer to deal with honest men. I have dealt enough with smart ones to know the world would be a better place without them. And I look forward to the day when Armenians will be known not as smart in the marketplace but as honest everywhere. Call me an incurable optimist. Call me a fool.

*

There is a big difference between being the right man at the right time and the wrong man at the wrong time. Being an Armenian writer means being the wrong man at the wrong time everywhere and at all times.

#

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

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The first time I met an honest Armenian who made sense, I thought he was crazy. That's how thoroughly brainwashed I was. It took me a number of years to realize this.

*

An assertion and its contradiction are only two steps on a road that stretches to infinity. But in an Armenian context, they might as well be dead ends leading to a cul de sac.

*

Armenians may be divided into two camps: the alienated and those who alienated them (fools and fanatics, charlatans, chauvinists, and panchoonies). It is my ambition to alienate the alienators. But after twenty years of trying, I find this uneven battle to be similar to that of a sardine against a school of sharks.

*

Intolerance is quintessentially Ottoman. We should teach our children to be intolerant only of Ottomanism.

*

Happiness consists in choosing your brand of misery, accepting it as an inevitable fact, and getting used to it.

*

Against a dismembered and disintegrating Ottoman Empire, we had Russia, the Great Powers, and God on our side. We thought we were invulnerable. And we were dead wrong! What have we learned from this blunder? After thinking, 'Who could be more harmless than a minor Armenian scribbler?' some readers go out of their way to verbally abuse me on the assumption that I am in no position to retaliate.

*

We can truly say of the brainwashed: "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they say because they understand nothing and they know even less."

*

Writes Shahan Shahnour in a letter to a friend (I am now translating and paraphrasing from memory): "Blind faith has been the source of our downfall. What we need most today is the kind of common sense that can discriminate right from wrong, and good from evil. What we don't need is the empty verbiage of partisan rhetoric. In the words of Arpiar Arpiarian, 'if we can't be useful to this nation, let us at least refrain from doing it any harm'."

*

The headline of a recent article in LE POINT (Paris, March 10, 2005) reads: "Is Prime Minister Erdogan a successor of Ataturk who wants to make of Turkey the first secular Muslim state, or is he a Muslim head of state who wants to introduce Islam into Europe?" Further down we read: "Of the 2 million Armenians in Turkey, 1,5 million were exterminated in the 1915 genocide. There are no more than 40,000 or 50,000 Armenians left in Turkey today." The article goes on to speak of the desecration of 5th-century Armenian churches in Kars.

#

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

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Every other Armenian I meet these days is convinced he is the only authentic Armenian who knows what's best for the nation and everyone else is at best a disoriented second-class citizen who should assume a passive stance and follow his guidance. Which is why I refuse to write as an Armenian. Instead, I write as a human being or, to be more precise, as a former Armenian who is trying very hard to recover his humanity. And if you think I am being too critical of my fellow Armenians, I suggest you stop speechifying and start listening.

I have an 81-year old born-again Armenian friend (whose every other sentence is a quotation from the Scriptures) who believes Armenians were massacred because they were evil.

"Now that I have placed a safe distance between myself and my fellow Armenians, I feel much better," writes another friend from his deathbed.

I could go on, but I rest my case.

And to those who love to quote Ottoman sayings in order to settle an argument in their favor, I ask: "Did you know that the most frequently quoted saying among Armenians is not in Turkish but in Armenian, and it is: "Mart bidi ch'ellank!" (We will never acquire the status of human beings, or, We will never recover our humanity.)

To our partisans (in whose eyes the Party can do no wrong), dime-a-dozen flimflam pundits, and loud-mouth panchoonies, I say: Next time you open your mouth, ask yourself: "Will my words alienate a fellow Armenian?" And if alienation leads to assimilation and assimilation is "white massacre," please feel free to rephrase the question.

#

April 9, 2005

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

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

The first time I met an honest Armenian who made sense, I thought he was crazy. That's how thoroughly brainwashed I was. It took me a number of years to realize this.

*

An assertion and its contradiction are only two steps on a road that stretches to infinity. But in an Armenian context, they might as well be dead ends leading to a cul de sac.

*

Armenians may be divided into two camps: the alienated and those who alienated them (fools and fanatics, charlatans, chauvinists, and panchoonies). It is my ambition to alienate the alienators. But after twenty years of trying, I find this uneven battle to be similar to that of a sardine against a school of sharks.

*

Intolerance is quintessentially Ottoman. We should teach our children to be intolerant only of Ottomanism.

*

Happiness consists in choosing your brand of misery, accepting it as an inevitable fact, and getting used to it.

*

Against a dismembered and disintegrating Ottoman Empire, we had Russia, the Great Powers, and God on our side. We thought we were invulnerable. And we were dead wrong! What have we learned from this blunder? After thinking, 'Who could be more harmless than a minor Armenian scribbler?' some readers go out of their way to verbally abuse me on the assumption that I am in no position to retaliate.

*

We can truly say of the brainwashed: "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they say because they understand nothing and they know even less."

*

Writes Shahan Shahnour in a letter to a friend (I am now translating and paraphrasing from memory): "Blind faith has been the source of our downfall. What we need most today is the kind of common sense that can discriminate right from wrong, and good from evil. What we don't need is the empty verbiage of partisan rhetoric. In the words of Arpiar Arpiarian, 'if we can't be useful to this nation, let us at least refrain from doing it any harm'."

*

The headline of a recent article in LE POINT (Paris, March 10, 2005) reads: "Is Prime Minister Erdogan a successor of Ataturk who wants to make of Turkey the first secular Muslim state, or is he a Muslim head of state who wants to introduce Islam into Europe?" Further down we read: "Of the 2 million Armenians in Turkey, 1,5 million were exterminated in the 1915 genocide. There are no more than 40,000 or 50,000 Armenians left in Turkey today." The article goes on to speak of the desecration of 5th-century Armenian churches in Kars.

#

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

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

Every other Armenian I meet these days is convinced he is the only authentic Armenian who knows what's best for the nation and everyone else is at best a disoriented second-class citizen who should assume a passive stance and follow his guidance. Which is why I refuse to write as an Armenian. Instead, I write as a human being or, to be more precise, as a former Armenian who is trying very hard to recover his humanity. And if you think I am being too critical of my fellow Armenians, I suggest you stop speechifying and start listening.

I have an 81-year old born-again Armenian friend (whose every other sentence is a quotation from the Scriptures) who believes Armenians were massacred because they were evil.

"Now that I have placed a safe distance between myself and my fellow Armenians, I feel much better," writes another friend from his deathbed.

I could go on, but I rest my case.

And to those who love to quote Ottoman sayings in order to settle an argument in their favor, I ask: "Did you know that the most frequently quoted saying among Armenians is not in Turkish but in Armenian, and it is: "Mart bidi ch'ellank!" (We will never acquire the status of human beings, or, We will never recover our humanity.)

To our partisans (in whose eyes the Party can do no wrong), dime-a-dozen flimflam pundits, and loud-mouth panchoonies, I say: Next time you open your mouth, ask yourself: "Will my words alienate a fellow Armenian?" And if alienation leads to assimilation and assimilation is "white massacre," please feel free to rephrase the question.

#

Thursday, April 07, 2005

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When a Turk says something bad about Armenians, I reject it as the opinion of a brainwashed hostile witness. But when an Armenian says something critical about his fellow Armenians, I examine my own heart on the grounds that nothing Armenian is alien to me.

*

Propaganda is the medium of all power structures, ideologies, and political parties, and its aim is not to enhance tolerance and understanding, or to promote cooperation and peace, but to mislead the masses by appealing to their emotions. Propaganda is designed to lobotomize the brain.

*

I am not one of those who say Armenian propaganda is good and Turkish propaganda bad, which is close to an African chieftain's definition of good and evil as quoted by C.G. Jung in his autobiography ("When I steal my enemies' wives, it's good. When he steals mine it's bad"). I say all propaganda - regardless of race, color, and creed - is either bad or worse.

*

I don't expect to be popular with someone after I tell him he may not be as loveable as he thinks he is, which is what I have been doing with my fellow Armenians, some of whom think they are cute characters in a Saroyan story, as opposed to one in a Baronian novel. We know now that even Saroyan was not Saroyanesque.

*

The problem with our partisans and propagandists in general is that they operate on the assumption that if they repeat a slogan often enough, no one will dare to question it.

*

I began by believing that Armenians can do no wrong and ended by believing they can do nothing right. I do hope some day I will also believe they are as good or as bad as the rest of mankind, including Turks.

*

There are those who think if a writer wants to be popular, he should entertain popular ideas. But popularity thus achieved is no better than prostitution.

*

We make ourselves ridiculous if, as the offspring of men who survived centuries of brutal oppression and massacres, pretend to be too fragile to handle the views of a minor scribbler. I have said this before, more than once, but it bears repeating, for "to know is to remember" (Socrates).

*

Perhaps my quarrel is not with readers but with myself, my younger self, when I was innocent and naïve and therefore an ideal target for manipulators.

#

Friday, April 08, 2005

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Shahan Shahnour to a partisan: "You search for the enemy without; I search for him within."

*

Love is incomprehensible, but hatred can be defined, explained, legitimized, and promoted. Which is why nations declare war, not love.

*

After a lifetime of unceasing labor Socrates declared himself to be ignorant. After being exposed to partisan propaganda, an Armenian thinks he is Socrates.

*

Armenian political controversies: harlots quarrelling in public to prove their virginity.

*

If you write a hundred lines, an Armenian will find a word with which he will disagree and ignore the rest.

*

There is a type of Armenian who cannot accept the fact that not all Armenians think as he does. There it is, the source of our intolerance and divisiveness.

*

I repeat myself? So does propaganda. Complain about that, if you can.

*

Most Armenians don't even speak Armenian. Others are alienated. Still others are so tribalized that they might as well be foreigners to one another. "In our diversity is our strength!" say Canadians. Our unspoken slogan: "In our diversity is our weakness."

*

To argue with an Armenian means to reinforce his prejudices and misconceptions in addition to acquiring a new enemy for life.

*

We become transparent when we take refuge behind clichés, slogans, and predictable platitudes.

*

The American government recently announced that it has a "Department of Disinformation," that is to say, a department of lies. Somewhere in his memoirs Chateaubriand writes that every political leader "has the power to annihilate truth." Ask one of our partisans and you will be informed that such despicable conduct is foreign to the ethos of our leadership.

#

Saturday, April 09, 2005

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CONFESSION

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

May I confess that I am not equipped to deal with the kind of critic who, after cutting you down to size, moves in and slits your throat to make sure you got the message. Then there is the critic who thinks he can bury you beneath an avalanche of infantile platitudes on the assumption that all Armenians are retards like himself. I am not sure which is the kind of critic that I find more offensive to the point of paralysis.

*

THE THREE PILLARS OF FASCISM

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The list of our blunders is so long that to admit even one would mean setting in motion a chain reaction. Hence our tendency to blame all our problems on outsiders and to cover up the prophetic warnings of our intellectuals. Hence, too, our anti-intellectualism, nationalism and anti-Semitism.

*

SPENGLER AND TOYNBEE

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What I find fascinating in Spengler and Toynbee are not the grand theories about the cyclical (Spengler) or non-cyclical (Toynbee) nature of history, but the gems of penetrating observations that are scattered throughout their works.

*

FROM TOYNBEE

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"If the predestinarian really believed in Predestination in his heart of hearts, he would turn quietist - which he does not - instead of turning rampant as he does."

*

"Our hope lies in our recognition that love and righteousness have an absolute spiritual value and therefore an absolute claim on our allegiance, whatever their prospects may be."

*

"The reproach of conscience is formidable - and this even for a hardened sinner - because our conscience speaks to us with an absolute authority from which there is no appeal."

*

FROM SPENGLER

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"When we use the risky word 'freedom' we shall mean freedom to do, not this or that, but the necessary or nothing."

*

"All genuine historical work is philosophy, unless it is mere ant-industry."

*

ARMENIAN PHILOSOPHY

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Is there such a thing? David Anhaght? I have not seen his name mentioned in any history of philosophy. And what do we know about him and his ideas? Or rather, what do I know about him -- except that he was invincible in argument. But then, so is, or thinks he is, every other charlatan, partisan, and dime-a-dozen flimflam pundit.

#

April 13, 2005

Sunday, April 10, 2005

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SUNDAY SERMON

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It seems to me, the only way to convince the Turks to change their tune about the Genocide is to make them an offer they can't refuse by holding a gun to their heads. But since Americans are not willing to do that, and in view of the fact that we are in no position to threaten or blackmail them, I suggest the following maneuver out of this impasse.

*

We say to them: We know you are lying and we also know you too know you are lying, but we understand. After all, political thinkers and leaders from Plato to Machiavelli, and from Hitler to Leo Strauss agree that sometimes it is necessary to lie in the interests of the nation. We understand that and we want you to understand too that we cannot simply say, let bygones be bygones.

We therefore have the following proposal: Let us for the time being postpone the resolution of our differences and cooperate in all other matters whenever cooperation is to our mutual interests. We have nothing to lose but our feud.

May we remind you that if the Ottoman Empire lasted six centuries it's because our best brains served in its administration, our boys shed their blood in its defense, and our girls gave birth to members of its political, diplomatic, and military elites.

Let us therefore declare a moratorium on name-calling. Perhaps in time we may be able to erode our differences and to reach a settlement that will be to our mutual advantage.

Let us adopt the British motto "We have neither enemies nor friends, only interests." But if the British model is alien to our natures, let us refer to the examples contained in the Old Testament which the Koran paraphrases.

We have there two sets of brothers, one of which (Cain and Abel) ends in tragedy for both, and the other (Joseph and his brothers) in forgiveness and consensus.

It is up to you to decide which sets of brothers we adopt as our role models. And while we are reflecting on this choice, let us ask, which course of action would be more pleasing to your "merciful and compassionate" Allah and to our Lord Jesus Christ, who shed his blood for our sins and taught us to love our enemies.

*

Oremus!

#

Monday, April 11, 2005

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An Australian philosopher on the radio this morning: "Judging by our newspapers, we don't like to think

And I reflect: Judging by our weeklies, we love to think, but only about Turks.

*

When one of our weeklies advertises or reviews a book, the chances are it will be about the massacres.

*

Whenever I read still another reference to the massacres, my hatred of Turks is enhanced; so is my image of myself as a perennial victim, and my view of the world as a cynical place populated by swindlers who care much more about money and power and less about principles, ideals, and truth.

*

The more we think about the moral failures of the world, the less time is left to reflect on our own. Hence, the tendency of some of us to believe they are la crème de la crème.

*

Philosophy in Greek means literally love of wisdom. But if I were to define philosophy today, I would say it consists in an attempt to introduce sanity in an insane world.

*

The irresistible charm of money and power: Imagine if you can a Jacqueline Kennedy or a Maria Callas falling in love and marrying an unemployed and slum-dwelling Onassis.

*

An Armenian clings to what he was taught as a child the way a drowning man is said to cling to anything, including a snake.

*

Chauvinism: When a damaged ego brags, all I hear is the rattle of bones.

*

To say we did nothing wrong is to condemn ourselves to learn nothing from our blunders. To say we did nothing right means to have a better chance to rise from the ashes.

*

A reader once wasted a thousand words to explain that I had nothing to say.

*

Julian Barnes (b. 1946), English writer: "The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously."

*

Samuel Beckett (1906-1989), Irish playwright and novelist: "There's man all over for you, blaming on his boots the fault of his feet."

#

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

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Unhappy is the nation whose martyrs outnumber its heroes.

*

Our generation is lost. We grew up with too much hatred and we cannot imagine a world without it. Our task is now to educate the next generation to think in terms not of hatred but of interests.

*

One of my critics agreed with me today. I must be on the wrong path.

*

There is a familiar type of Armenian who thinks he is settling a score with Turks whenever he insults a fellow Armenian or slices a watermelon.

*

Maya Angelou (b. 1928), U.S. poet: "Life is a bitch. You've got to go out and kick ass."

*

Jean Anouilh (1910-1987), French playwright: "Every man thinks God is on his side. The rich and powerful know He is."

*

To be dehumanized also means allowing newspaper headlines and propaganda to shape your identity.

*

Sometimes the death of a nation is so gradual that it may easily be confused with survival.

*

It is a thankless task to inform readers that they are not as good as they think they are and that their so-called wisdom is nothing but a byproduct of blind spots, prejudices, limitations, fallacies, and misconceptions.

*

To speak of reality to individuals who live in a dream world means being the bearer of bad tidings.

*

We don't need political leaders. We need public servants. Did we ever have them?

#

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

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One reason I don't trust those in power is that, whenever I had the power (an extremely rare occurrence that may have happened once or twice in my life), I behaved as ruthlessly as a Turk. I consider myself a more or less harmless person but I shiver to think what would happen if some day I acquired the power of, say, a sultan or a Talaat.

*

There are many Armenians who would like to say what I have been saying but they keep their peace because they don't relish the prospect of being verbally abused by their fellow Armenians.

*

To have a more balanced view of ourselves, we must also see as others see us, and by others, I don't just mean friends but adversaries. An Armenian who believes only in the judgment of Armenophiles is no different from a Turk who believes only in Turcophiles.

*

When I wrote what they expected to read, they called me a genius. When I wrote what must be said, I acquired the status of a non-person. When they called me a genius, I was not flattered; and as a non-person today I am more than ever aware of my personhood.

*

It is better to fail in a moral enterprise than to succeed in an immoral one.

*

Progress: For a number of years I worked for philistines; now, I am only insulted by them.

#

April 16, 2005

Thursday, April 14, 2005

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ON UNDERSTANDING THE ENEMY

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

We will never understand an enemy if we dehumanize him, which is what politicians or politically motivated writers do. Understanding is a more demanding enterprise: it requires avoiding all labels, using the brain and ignoring the gut. When it comes to understanding Turks, we were brought up to use our gut.

*

TOYNBEE, LEWIS, DE BERNIERES

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Historians and writers like Toynbee, Bernard Lewis, and Louis de Bernieres are ahead of us in the understanding department because they can afford being objective. This doesn't mean they are denialists. They are not. They only appear to be to us because we have made of the Genocide a theology, which means that anyone who refuses to agree with us to the letter is labeled an infidel who should be condemned to burn at the stake.

*

BERNARD LEWIS

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

In one of his first major works, titled THE EMERGENCE OF MODERN TURKEY, Bernard Lewis clearly states that 1,500,000 Armenians were slaughtered in Turkey during World War I. If he hesitates to call it a genocide it's because unlike Americans and Germans (in their treatment of Blacks and Jews respectively) Turks were not racists since they practiced intermarriage and allowed Armenians as well as Greeks, Jews and other minorities to rise in the administration of the Empire. It should be remembered that semantics plays a key role in the life of academics and lawyers whose function is to defend a thesis or a client.

*

TOYNBEE

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

As one of the two greatest historians of the 20th century (Spengler being the other) Toynbee had no interest in defending a faction. Furthermore, as an anti-nationalist, he was even against all efforts to divide mankind into fractions based on race, color, and creed. His aim was to understand and explain the workings of the past, and his unspoken motto was "nothing human is alien to me." The criminal actions of the Turks were therefore explainable even if not justifiable. To explain the Genocide it is necessary to see it as a perfect storm in which a number of factors - such as the territorial ambitions of the Great Powers, Russians, Greeks, Kurds, and Armenians, the decline, fall, and dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, and World War I - a number of factors combined to trigger one of the most unspeakable crimes against humanity. It should be noted that unlike Bernard Lewis, Toynbee at no time hesitated to call it genocide even after he learned the Turkish side of the story.

*

LOUIS DE BERNIERES

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

De Bernieres's emphasis in BIRDS WITHOUT WINGS is on individual Turkish, Greek, and Armenian lives. Number of victims, though he cites quite a few of them only to dismiss them as irrelevant, do not matter to him to the same degree that they do to Toynbee and Lewis. Instead he dramatizes and illustrates the manner in which political decisions affect individual lives. He is neither for nor against this or that faction. To him Turks as well as Armenians and Greeks are fellow human beings who should be judged as individuals and not as impersonal collective entities.

#

Friday, April 15, 2005

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Once in a while I am reminded that our failings are universal failings. Yes, of course, I agree, in the sense that all nations produce their share of wheeler-dealers, charlatans, and white trash, and I see no reason why we should be an exception to this rule.

*

To criticize Armenians is neither anti-Armenian nor Ottoman, but intolerance of criticism may well be both.

*

Diplomacy consists in saying "You may be right," to someone who is an ass with a negative IQ.

*

Not to admit any blunders is to assert infallibility.

*

The blame game is a dangerous game because it stresses our dependence on others at the expense of our free will.

*

Overheard on the radio: "Propaganda is effective only if it is interesting," -- provided it also flatters our vanity.

*

All ideologies and religions are based on one big truth and a thousand little lies.

*

Youth is a time of certainties, middle age of doubts, and old age of unanswered and unanswerable questions.

*

Francis Picabia (1878-1953), French painter: "My ass contemplates those who talk behind my back."

*

We are not a nation apart; we are a fraction of mankind. Our language, our religion, our music, art and literature: if you subtract foreign influences and borrowings, you may end up holding an empty bag. But this is true of all nations, civilizations and cultures.

#

Saturday, April 16, 2005

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THEN AND NOW

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

We speak about what's done because we don't want to think about what's being done.

*

PROPAGANDA AND REALITY

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

Compared to the incomprehensible complexities of reality, propaganda is more like a collection of traffic signs designed by simple-minded wheeler-dealers whose aim is to flatter our collective ego in order to achieve popularity and power. By contrast, reality is a foreign tongue whose meaning we can only guess.

*

THEM AND US

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

Speaking of Ottoman tyranny and misrule: my guess is, more Armenians quit Armenia in six years than from the Ottoman Empire in 600 years. There was a devastating earthquake and a war in Armenia, granted. But there were earthquakes and wars in the Empire too; and again, my guess is, more Armenian boys died in defense of the Empire than in defense of Karabagh.

*

UNDERSTANDING REALITY

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

What matters, what really matters, is not what propagandists say but how the people vote with their feet. And the most important thing about a power structure or a country is not its ethnic origin, justice system, religion, traditions, values, or degree of tolerance and freedom, but grub - the ability to work and provide for one's family, even if a fraction of one's family is sometimes forcibly taken from us and compelled to serve alien houses and interests.

*

PAST AND PRESENT

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

We speak about the past because we can do nothing to change it; but we avoid speaking about the present because being passive, doing nothing, saying "Yes, sir!" and sitting on our butts come naturally to us. We may live in free and democratic countries but we continue to behave like citizens of the Ottoman Empire.

Lord have mercy.

Kyrie eleison.

Der voghormia.

#

April 23, 2005

Thursday, April 21, 2005

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

The West sees the Middle East today as a jungle of tribal feuds with no end in sight. If we want to be perceived as a positive, civilizing force, we must rise above this malaise and work for reconciliation and peaceful coexistence. No one is interested in explanations whose aim is to legitimize prejudice, hatred, and violence. If, on the other hand, we behave like another tribe with unsettled scores, we should not be surprised if the West turns its back on us.

*

I once read a memoir by an Armenian survivor dedicated to the Turk who had saved his life. I should like to see more dedications like this one.

*

The Ottoman Empire collapsed because it adopted hatred as a policy towards its minorities and dissenters. Fascists in Italy, Nazis in Germany, and Bolsheviks in the USSR repeated the same blunder. An ideology of hatred destroys itself.

*

Marie Curie: "Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood."

*

Niels Bohr: "Every sentence I utter must be understood not as an affirmation but as a question."

*

It is not my intention to silence anyone. We live in a free country where free speech is a fundamental human right. I believe in free speech. I believe everyone has an inalienable right to make an ass of himself in public.

*

If my readers have learned from me as much as I have learned from them, it has all been a waste of time.

*

In an Armenian discussion forum I read the following exchange recently between a Turk and an Armenian.

TURK: "The Armenian Genocide is a controversial issue that should be discussed in a civilized manner by open-minded Armenians and Turks."

ARMENIAN: "Kiss my ass!"

*

Because truth is on his side, he thinks he can behave like a barbarian. I see something Ottoman in this.

#

Friday, April 22, 2005

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

Edward Thorndike: "Colors fade, temples crumble, empires fall, but wise words endure."

*

Life is not fair. We know that but sometimes we forget it, and by forgetting we hope against all hope that next time it will be a little less unfair.

*

All the money in the world will not resurrect a single victim; and so far, millions, not to say, billions of words have failed to annex a single inch of territory to our homeland. I am not advocating resignation. Neither am I implying we should say let bygones be bygones. Hell no! What I am suggesting is that sometimes by concentrating all our energies in a single direction, we may ignore many other more promising directions.

*

Turkish acknowledgment of our genocide, monetary and territorial restitution: these are worthy, even noble, goals. But so are a homeland and a diaspora whose leaders are men of integrity.

*

I for one would have no use for a homeland twice or even ten times its present size that is oppressed by a corrupt regime and plagued by chronic unemployment, poverty, and forever dependent on foreign help.

*

History is very clear on this point: a corrupt power structure is a millstone around the neck of the people, and it makes no difference if the millstone is Turkish, Soviet, or Armenian. An Armenian mini-sultan or crypto-commissar can be as dangerous to the survival of the nation as an Ottoman sultan or a Stalinist commissar.

*

Of what possible use will be monetary restitution to us if the money will disappear in the deep pockets of a kleptocracy? Of what possible use would be ten more towns and fifty more villages if their inhabitants will emigrate to Los Angeles, Moscow, Sofia, and Istanbul?

*

Thomas Mann: "War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace."

#

Saturday, April 23, 2005

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

Howard W. Newton: "The thoughtless are seldom wordless."

*

Because I wrote in praise of peace and coexistence, a reader once accused me of treason.

*

I understand fanatics because I was one.

I understand fools too for the same reason.

*

Some of our self-appointed genocide pundits take themselves so seriously that they think humor is pro-Turkish.

*

Tone deafness and color blindness have their moral and political equivalents: individuals who cannot tell the difference between honesty and charlatanism, or democracy and fascism.

*

Arguing with an Armenian is like arguing with a bishop or a commissar: afterwards you feel slightly excommunicated or executed.

*

Dario Fo (winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize for Literature) writes: "People who are up to their necks in shit walk with their heads held high."

When, O when will we produce writers capable of writing such lines?

#

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