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Guest arabaliozian

Sunday, February 01, 2004

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THE POWER OF FOUR: A VISION FOR THE MIDDLE EAST by Onnig Kardash and others (unpaginated, $15.00, order from [email protected]) is a book in cartoons (no words). The one-page preface in seven languages (Armenian, English, Arabic, Kurdish, Hebrew, Turkish, and Farsi) informs the reader that the mythical and timeless story that follows is about a David-like hero who slays a Goliath-like ogre. Its aim, we are further told, is to promote peace and harmony; but the subtext seems to be saying: Peace will reign only if the enemy is slain.

Perhaps what we need today is a new myth in which the hero travels to the four corners of the world in search of his enemy, does not find him, and returns home only to discover that the enemy is himself.

*

What is more Armenian? --

our feuds or the struggle to end them?

*

To join a party and to view the opposition as the source of all evil must be an irresistible temptation to all simple-minded dupes.

*

On the day we stop learning,

there should be an obituary in the papers

announcing the death of a brain.

*

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Monday, February 02, 2004

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The trouble with prejudice is that by raising walls between the world and us, it narrows our horizons, damages our powers of perception, and reduces a complex reality to a black-and-white, or Cain-and-Abel, or David-and-Goliath, or Turk-and-Armenian, or ARF-and-ADL caricature.

*

Contradictory views are useful only when they move towards a synthesis. Contradictory views that remain frozen, are driven not by reason but by prejudice. To put it bluntly: we are in deep doodoo because the collective IQ of our partisans is mighty low.

*

Among us, it is not at all unusual to run into a Judas with messianic ambitions.

*

I am not getting old; it's the world that's getting younger and more gullible.

*

Ignorance and arrogance, wisdom and humility: they might as well be twins.

*

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Tuesday, February 03, 2004

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Speaking of -isms: nationalism, communism, capitalism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Ottomanism…: history tells us all movements sooner or later end the in the gutter.

*

In his memoirs titled MY TEACHERS, Moushegh Ishkhan discusses Oshagan, Zarian, Shant, and Adonts, among others. At one point he quotes Adonts to the effect that Siamanto was a far greater poet than Varoujan: "There will come a time," Adonts is quoted as having predicted, "when Varoujan may be forgotten but Siamanto's worth will be enhanced."

Poor Adonts and poor Ishkhan. It probably never even dawned on them that there may come a time when such controversies will be abandoned, forgotten, ignored and buried never to rise again.

*

If one is willing to learn, one can learn even from one's enemies.

*

I love this quote by John Milton and if I could I would place it at the beginning of everything I write and on the walls of all our editors and managers of book distribution centers:

"Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself."

*

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Wednesday, February 04, 2004

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In a biography of Churchill I read today that

one of his favorite mottoes when in trouble was:

KBO = Keep Buggering On.

Perhaps that's what I have been doing all along too

but didn't know what to call it.

*

Christ and Marx: no one questions their good intentions, wisdom and honesty. And yet, consider the abuses of the Papacy and Stalinism.

*

I don't write to achieve literary immortality or, for that matter, popularity. My aim is much more modest. I write to be a pain in the perforation, and judging by the kind of feedback I get, I am a brilliant success.

*

Hungarian proverb: "A puff of wind and popular praise weigh alike."

*

To beg for favors is not to pray.

If you believe in God and if you have a friend in Him,

what else could you possibly want?

*

A short list of unemployable misfits:

An amputated ballet dancer,

a deaf music critic,

a blind taxi driver,

an honest politician,

an Armenian writer….

*

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Ara es inch e ays mard@ esqan internet-tught pchatsnum e? Inch e uzum asel?

Sa ira andznakan oragir@ che ayl ham@ndhanur haylkakan forum.

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Guest arabaliozian

Thursday, February 05, 2004

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An eleventh commandment for Armenians:

"Thou shalt not confuse the dunghill on which you perch with Mount Ararat."

*

When two men speak in the name of God and contradict each other, it is safe to assume that at least one of them speaks in the name of the Devil.

*

Some of my editors have been good enough to show me letters written by several of our gray-eminence wheeler-dealers denouncing me as an enemy who should be silenced.

Until I read those letters I thought of myself as a voice in the wilderness and a stranger in a strange land, ignored by all, and not taken seriously by anyone, including myself.

I now have second thoughts. What I say may indeed matter -- but only in so far as it contains particles of truth, in which case it is not I that matters but the lies that my words expose.

*

Vahram Papazian: "To be indifferent to crime is to conspire with criminals."

*

Avedik Issahakian: "The rich reap the fruit, the poor pluck the thorn."

*

Between an unjust democracy and a just despotism I will always be on the side of democracy because I can rely on its checks and balances and on its free play of conflicting interests to restore some semblance of justice. Whereas justice under despotism is bound to be an ephemeral and unpredictable luxury that may vanish without warning at the caprice of a single individual accountable to none.

*

Goethe: "The world goes forward only because of those who oppose it."

*

Friday, February 06, 2004

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"We don't have literary critics," Zarian has said. "What we have instead are meddlers with derivative criteria gathered from here and there - amateurs who have made of literary criticism an arid field of dismal mediocrity."

Oshagan Sr., our foremost literary critic and a contemporary of Zarian, retaliated by saying Zarian didn't have a single original idea in his head.

Oshagan Jr. echoed his father's words when he wrote in ARARAT Quarterly (Autumn 1994): "Zarian's ideas have grown old prematurely. Of course, Zarian's thought is vulnerable and his ideas and his intuitive truths cannot resist five minutes of serious examination."

There you have it, deconstruction Armenian style: demolition!

*

Ideological truths become lies when they justify violations of human rights, the first of which is always freedom of speech. Where there is censorship of ideas there will be censorship of lives. Next time you promote censorship, ask yourself this question: "Do I really want to legitimize murder in the name of God or Country?"

*

A reader accuses me of being an enemy agent and a hireling of the Canadian government, thus implying Canada harbors hostile or even imperialist ambitions against our beloved homeland.

And now, imagine the following scenario: this reader and I live in Stalin's USSR. What would happen next? I would be shot and he would be promoted…until he too is accused of being a foreign agent by a disgruntled neighbor or acquaintance. There are no happy endings under fascism.

*

C.G. Jung: "It is a weakness of the method of explanation that it succeeds only with sensitive persons who can draw

independent moral conclusions from their understanding of themselves."

*

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

*

I will never understand people who feel the need to support one side against the other. If I can loathe both sides, I don't feel compelled to choose; and when asked to choose, I quote Dr. Johnson's celebrated dictum: "Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea."

*

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Saturday, February 07, 2004

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On Canadian radio this morning, an Afghan chef bragging about his shish-kebab: "Our civilization is 2500 years old…." At the end of the interview, when asked if he is satisfied with his present life in Canada, he replies: "Yes, very. At least we are not killing anyone here."

What kind of civilization is it that makes good shish kebab but promotes murder? Is it "our civilization" or "our brand of barbarism"?

*

If you disagree with me, it may be because you are right and I am wrong.

If you disagree with me consistently,

it may be because I am always wrong and you are always right.

If you agree with me so far, it may be because I too may be capable of being right and your sense of infallibility may be an assessment made not by your reason but by your ego.

*

As solitary creatures, Armenian writers have been perennial victims of political parties and their satellite institutions, all of which have a tendency to divide their fellow Armenians into friends and enemies or yes-men and dissidents. As for dialogue: who has ever heard of such a thing in an Ottoman or Soviet environment, or, for that matter, in a crypto-Ottoman or neo-Stalinist context?

*

All power structures - from the most advanced democracies to the most ruthless fascist states - generate a lunatic fringe, with one significant difference: under fascist power structures, the lunatic fringe rises to the top.

*

Antonina Vallentin: "Like so many people who are troubled by their own origin, he was a nationalist, ill at ease in an international atmosphere."

*

A pervert is also someone who perverts the meaning of what he reads.

*

After I told him I don't like to travel, a fellow Armenian sent me a ticket for a round trip to Washington, DC. And after publishing several essays in which I expressed my loathing of all partisan politics, a Ramgavar boss commissioned me to write biographical sketches of Ramgavar leaders; and when I told him I didn't even know the names of these leaders, he went around saying: "We offered to support him but he insulted us!"

*

I began my career as a shameless chauvinist until I met a poet I had praised. I have committed many major blunders in my life but these two (praising him and going out of my way to meet him) I rank among the top ten. Since then I have discovered Armenian poets to be the least poetic of creatures. I now see more poetry in a spider's web and a dung-beetle's ball of dung.

*

Man: an evolutionary success story but a moral disaster area.

*

When a fool convinces another fool,

he assumes the majority is on his side.

When an Armenian convinces himself,

he thinks the world should be on his side.

*

Among us, politics (the art of the possible) is confused with ideology (the art of the impossible), and inevitably, ideology is confused with theology (the art of the incomprehensible), and theology is confused with pathology.

Some day, in a future progressive and enlightened Armenian democracy, if our partisans are arrested and put on trial, they will be absolutely right in pleading not guilty by reason of insanity.

*

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are you a mongoloid bully?

you sure look like one!

Paron Balizoyan.

"bully" bar@uni tarber imastner, ev hetaqrqir e vor imastov eq duq ayn gortsatsum. Hamenayndeps, es chem patrastvum ichnel minchev andznakan viravoranqneri, ev ayd patcharov chem pataskhanum dzer viravoranqin.

Hishetsnum em dzez, vor sa ham@ndhanur haykakan forum e, ev voch te dzer andznakan oragir@. Andznakan on-line oragreri kayqegh@ gtnvum e http://www.livejournal.com/ hastseyov.

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Guest arabaliozian

QUOTATIONS FROM KAREKIN NEJDEH (1886-1957)

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Selected and translated by Ara Baliozian

The morally depraved can also voice noble principles.

Life is constant and endless renewal. Only the morally irresponsible refuse to understand this.

Without renewal, a nation dies every hour, every minute. Our political parties either don't understand this or they have no

desire to understand it.

A nation that fails to do what it can and must do has no right to expect foreign assistance.

Nations that are unwilling to defend their own interests condemn themselves to death.

When dealing with foreign powers and issues, our press adopts a permissive, forgiving, and subservient tone. With our own internal problems, however, it becomes arrogant, vindictive, vicious.

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Guest arabaliozian
Paron Balizoyan.

"bully" bar@uni tarber imastner, ev hetaqrqir e vor imastov eq duq ayn gortsatsum. Hamenayndeps, es chem patrastvum ichnel minchev andznakan viravoranqneri, ev ayd patcharov chem pataskhanum dzer viravoranqin.

Hishetsnum em dzez, vor sa ham@ndhanur haykakan forum e, ev voch te dzer andznakan oragir@. Andznakan on-line oragreri kayqegh@ gtnvum e http://www.livejournal.com/ hastseyov.

i think you need a new face.

the face you now have does not belong to an armenian forum.

have you ever thought to contribute to a mongol forum?

i am sure you will be more welcome there.

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i think you need a new face.

the face you now have does not belong to an armenian forum.

have you ever thought to contribute to a mongol forum?

i am sure you will be more welcome there.

My face is well enough in my oppinion and I've no plans to change it.

You must be think that mongols aren't permitted to access Armenian forums? Have you ever heard, that such ideas always has been called "racizm".

And d'you realy think that in Armenian forums are welcomed people without any face at all?

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Guest arabaliozian

Sunday, February 08, 2004

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Speaking of events that preceded the Genocide, Sarkis Izmirlian writes: “What occurred was not revolution but suicide.” (JUDGMENTS CONCERNING OUR HUNDRED-YEAR-OLD REVOLUITION, page 5.)

He goes on to cite and document a series of blunders committed by our revolutionaries with the warning that these in no way justify or mitigate Turkish guilt.

*

By calling the Genocide a civil war, the Turks treat history as the propaganda of the victor. It is to Izmirlian’s credit that, unlike most of our historians (especially those who enjoy the imprimatur of our revolutionaries), he refuses to treat history as the consolation of the loser.

*

“We had revolutionaries,” writes Izmirlian, “but we didn’t have a revolution.”

*

We are imperfect beings living in a less than perfect world. If you keep that in mind, life becomes less incomprehensible.

*

Nothing comes easier to an Armenian than to assume

Armenians are smart except the fools

who refuse to be taken in by his brand of recycled verbal crap.

*

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Monday, February 09, 2004

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When I was young, my knowledge exceeded my ignorance. It’s the other way around now. Every passing day, every new experience raises more questions and doubts, as opposed to providing answers and certainties.

*

Confronted with the choice

between changing the world and changing themselves,

members of the lunatic fringe will invariably choose

to re-create the world in their own image.

*

If familiarity breeds contempt,

how does one explain the popularity of slogans?

*

Some of my critics remind me of the fact

that in medieval times Armenian mercenaries were the most ferocious fighters money could buy.

*

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Tuesday, February 10, 2004

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What if human as well as all other forms and degrees of consciousness are God’s way of experiencing reality and its myriad manifestations?

*

Our partisans would rather see not only the nation but also their own party go down the drain rather than admit error; perhaps because their errors are so unforgivable that admitting them would amount to political suicide.

*

Don’t talk to me about dedicated partisans with ethics.

Power does not corrupt; rather, it is the corrupt who lust for power. Trying to reason with them

is like trying to cross a Brazilian river

teeming with ravenous piranhas.

If you reach the other shore weighing half as much,

you should thank God and count your blessings.

*

Where religious love enters,

political hatred follows.

*

Why would anyone in his right mind

would want to read a writer

who echoes his sentiments and thoughts?

Why would anyone in his right mind

take a human parrot seriously?

*

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Wednesday, February 11, 2004

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Anonymous: “There are men with a heart of stone, and there are stones with a heart.”

*

A typical Armenian paradox: We don’t take one another seriously but we expect the world to take us seriously.

*

Don’t think of me as a writer, a critic, or dissident. Think of me as a witness who is doing his utmost not to perjure himself.

*

Even if you disagree with everything I say,

you must agree that I speak in defense of something

that is infinitely more important than you and me:

namely, free speech.

*

Some day organized religions and ideologies

will be exposed for what they are:

nests of bigots, homicidal maniacs, and child molesters.

*

Arthur Koestler, one of the most intensely political writers of our time, gave up writing on politics in the second half of his life and concentrated on psychology and biology.

His aim: to investigate what is it exactly

that transforms a decent, law-abiding citizen

into a homicidal maniac.

His tentative conclusion:

the evolution of man is incomplete.

Objective thinking is not the norm but the exception.

In his own words:

“Detached, rational thought is a new and fragile acquisition; it is affected by the slightest irritation of the old brain which, once aroused, tends to dominate the scene.”

By “old brain” Koestler means our primitive, crocodilian instincts, of which we remain unaware because,

in the words of a biologist (MacLean):

“The visceral brain is not at all unconscious

but rather eludes the grasp of the intellect

because its animalistic and primitive structure

makes it impossible to communicate in verbal terms.”

#

To explain why fanatics, homicidal maniacs,

and the lunatic fringe in general

lack a sense of humor, Koestler writes:

“Laughter makes a man equally unable to kill or to copulate.”

*

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Guest arabaliozian
My face is well enough in my oppinion and I've no plans to change it.

You must be think that mongols aren't permitted to access Armenian forums? Have you ever heard, that such ideas always has been called "racizm".

And d'you realy think that in Armenian forums are welcomed people without any face at all?

Tell me, my friend: Why is it that you are proud of your Mongol face and ashamed of your Armenian name?

Why do you brag about something you are not and hide that which you really are?

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Tell me, my friend: Why is it that you are proud of your Mongol face and ashamed of your Armenian name?

Why do you brag about something you are not and hide that which you really are?

Let him go Ara,

for being an armenian this young fellow almost died in the mob attack in Moscow a few days ago... let him go

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Tell me, my friend: Why is it that you are proud of your Mongol face and ashamed of your Armenian name?

Why do you brag about something you are not and hide that which you really are?

As far as I remember, I have never been your frend, and even I've never had a pleasure to meet you.

It is silly to think that I ever hide my origin, in this forum or in real life.

I'm proud of my REAL Armenian face and my REAL Armenian name. I'm proud of being an Armenian. And, judjing from your postings, these words can't been applied to you.

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Guest arabaliozian

Thursday, February 12, 2004

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"Almost all controversy would cease," Descartes tells us, "if there was agreement between philosophers as to the meaning of terms." If philosophers have so far failed to develop a consensus, what chance do we have?

*

More often than not our disagreements are not between two conflicting ideas but between an idea and nothing, and I consider recycled propaganda or double-talk less than nothing.

*

Perhaps the secret of producing a good line is to write a thousand of them, reject all but two, and end with one.

*

"That which doesn't kill me makes me stronger."

If true, we should speak not of the death of a thousand cuts but of strength through 999 cuts.

*

Shmavon Hovsepian: "A jury of tigers, crocodiles, wolves, and hyenas is not qualified to condemn to death a cat guilty of killing a mouse."

*

Martyros Saryan: "Ignorance tends to be more assertive than learning."

*

An Armenian's most highly developed faculty is his spirit of contradiction: he cherishes it, he nourishes it, and he gets drunk with it; he seduces himself with it, but above all, he makes a nuisance of himself with it and expects to be admired for it.

*

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Friday, February 13, 2004

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Anonymous: "The drowning man has no fear of rain."

*

Puzant Granian: "We have many national benefactors but not a single national writer."

*

Gostan Zarian: "A man is rich to the degree that he has enriched life. A man is creative to the degree that he has made a contribution to the re-creation of the universe."

*

What if existence, life, death, space and time are only a handful of concepts among countless others which our mind is not equipped to grasp?

*

Had our heroes survived, they would have discovered that dying for one's countrymen is easier than living with them.

*

A man gets lucky to the degree that he refuses to rely on luck.

*

A nation that has produced some of the smartest businessmen in the world is in no position to plead not guilty by reason of political naïveté. Likewise, a nation with a millennial history cannot plead innocent by reason of inexperience.

*

Overheard: "Why do your own barking if you have a dog?"

*

Armenians who think the world will be a better place without Jews have no business accusing Israel of denying the Genocide.

*

To know better is not the same as to know. To know better may also mean not to know.

*

If you have not yet met the Armenian who has made you curse the day you were born an Armenian, consider yourself the luckiest white man alive.

*

It is the ambition of every fanatic Muslim today to do to the West and every giaour in it what the Turks did to us at the turn of the century in the Ottoman Empire. And if you say, the Muslims today have a very good reason, may I remind you that to this day the Turks too think they had a very good reason.

*

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Saturday, February 14, 2004

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Never judge an Armenian as an Armenian

but as a human being. As a rule,

Armenians who insist on being judged as Armenians

use the flag to hide their true colors.

*

Baruir Sevak: "It is better to be a good reader than a bad writer."

*

Karekin Nejdeh: "When a man falls down and doesn't have the will to stand up, no amount of help will be of any use to him. It is the same with a nation that does nothing but complain, lament, and beg."

*

The less a man knows, the more easily he can convince himself to be right.

*

Why are most Armenian patriots phonies?

Because if you contradict them they turn into Turks.

*

Since I have never felt threatened by an idea, I find it difficult to understand censorship, or fear of ideas, or cowardice in the face of verbal formulas or abstractions.

*

Hazlitt: "If a person has no delicacy,

he has you in his power."

*

Understanding is not a purely intellectual act but a disposition of the heart and mind working in harmony.

*

I don't write for fools and fanatics but for reasons of their own they keep reading me.

*

If you are honest, all you may succeed in doing is uniting all the charlatans, fanatics, and crooks against you.

*

Because all systems of thought attempt to elevate a suspicion or a hunch to the level of certainty, they are wide open to criticism and even rejection.

*

Homo sapiens? Obviously not sapiens enough if you think of the millions who have died in the name of a Big Lie.

*

A good Armenian is one who loves his country but is not taken in by the distortions of nationalist historians, the propaganda of partisans, and the double talk of commissars.

*

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Guest arabaliozian

Sunday, February 15, 2004

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I only put into words that which is felt and thought by many. If you say, that's a lie, I suggest a more receptive frame of mind. People hesitate to express their innermost thoughts and feelings to self-righteous imbeciles on the warpath.

*

Some of my critics operate on the assumption that if they accuse me of Ottomanism, stupidity, ignorance, racism and all kinds of other transgressions, they will be immune to the same charge. This is less criticism and more cretinism; less logic and more mumbo jumbo, abracadabra and hocus pocus.

*

And if you were to ask: "What's the difference between you and your critics on the one hand, and on the other, you and those you criticize (bosses, bishops, benefactors)?"

My answer is: I reply to my critics; they silence theirs. They shape our collective existence; I only expose contradictions.

*

Some of my critics who go down into the gutter are not aware of the descent perhaps because that's where they feel more at home.

*

May I confess that I don't always read my critics.

It is painful to the extreme reading thoughts

that I entertained as a child but rejected as an adult.

*

We don't know the truth; only fractions of it.

We don't know the past; only versions of it.

Propaganda has been defined as a fraction of the truth.

In that sense, we are all victims of half-truths.

*

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Monday, February 16, 2004

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

Gostan Zarian: "If a thought cannot be expressed in a few words it cannot be worth expressing."

*

I like to repeat famous Armenian quotations because I want them to become familiar Armenian quotations.

*

Gostan Zarian: "Sharper than a Turk's yataghan is an Armenian's tongue."

*

Two of my greatest disappointments: the severity of Canadian winters and the hooliganism of my Armenian critics.

*

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Tuesday, February 17, 2004

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I have only one line of defense against those who insult me and that's making fun of them.

*

I am willing to listen to anyone with an honest disagreement, but I don't think a brainwashed partisan or a loud-mouth chauvinist is inherently capable of honesty.

*

Turks and Armenians share in common a reluctance to admit error. Consider the conduct of our political parties: after silencing, starving, even killing fellow Armenians, they have so far failed to admit error. Will they ever apologize? If we adopt past conduct as our sole index for future conduct, I don't think so.

*

Raffi: "A man willing to admit his mistakes is thought of as eccentric. People feel more comfortable in the presence of those who lie and cover up. They hate a man who speaks the truth."

*

In the Bible we read:

"If God be for us, who can be against us?" (ROMANS, 8:31) A Jew would reply: "The whole world";

and an Armenian: "Turks and Armenians."

*

In a dictionary of philosophy:

"Generally speaking megalomania is a reaction to failure.

The megalomaniac represents himself as he would like to be but as he is not. Megalomania may also be a symptom of the decline of one's critical faculties."

*

On dogmatism:

"It stands in direct contradiction to criticism, skepticism, empiricism, and realism. It fosters intolerance and fanaticism."

*

Do not grasp a knife by the blade.

Do not call an Armenian a friend.

*

To be read by friendly readers: nothing unusual in that.

To be read by hostiles: That's where the money is,

because it means being allowed the opportunity

to introduce thoughts where none exists.

*

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Wednesday, February 18, 2004

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

Philostratos: "Gods perceive the future, mortals perceive the present, and the wise perceive the imminent."

Problems proliferate when fools pretend to be wise and the semi-wise or self-assessed wise pretend to be gods.

*

Armenians are smart, good, nice, lovable, I am reminded once in a while by our chauvinists who do not hesitate to make themselves nasty, ugly and hateful and are too stupid to perceive the contradiction.

*

A wise man has twice as many doubts as a fool has certainties.

*

Arabic proverb: "Silence is golden and the word silver."

*

Sometimes I cannot help thinking that what divides us has nothing to do with ideas and ideologies but with etiquette and common courtesy.

*

"Write more like Saroyan!" I am told again and again.

Poor Saroyan, who began his literary career by loving all of mankind (and feeling sorry for the Turks) and ended it by

hating his own children.

And poor, poor Zarian! He began his literary career

by declaring Armenians to be the real Chosen People and ended it by calling them cannibals.

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Thursday, February 19, 2004

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Church unity and Genocide recognition: two issues that so far have succeeded only in reinforcing our image as perennial losers.

*

Who would benefit if I were silenced?

The people or those in power?

*

German proverb: "A bad cause requires many words."

*

Goethe: "When ideas fail, words come in very handy."

*

An enemy who stimulates or inspires is a friend.

*

Can we learn from our past blunders without admitting them first?

*

Where the ego enters, lies are sure to follow.

*

If a bigot is not yet a killer, it may be because history has not yet given him a chance to act out his convictions.

*

I criticize with words. The people are much tougher - they criticize with their feet. I can be contradicted - and I am, every day. But can anyone contradict the people?

*

War, according to Leonardo da Vinci, is "pazzia bestialissima" (the most brutal insanity).

It follows, war-makers belong to the lunatic fringe of mankind.

*

Every Armenian should carry a sign with the warning: "Contradict me and make an enemy for life!"

*

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Friday, February 20, 2004

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As a child I was taught obedience. What I was not taught is the difference between obedience and subservience.

*

Jules Renard: "All violent arguments should end with the words: 'Someday we will all be dead.'"

*

You say you are free but all I see when I look at you

is the invisible ring in your nose and the harness on your back.

*

If you are going to act, common sense and decency demand that you be aware of the consequences of your actions, especially if others may suffer as a result of them. In politics ignorance has never been a valid excuse perhaps because wrong policies are invariably implemented by the wrong people who prevail by silencing or ignoring the right people. Which is why all nations, political parties, and power structures re-write history: to cover up or justify their blunders by putting the blame on others, thus preparing the ground for repeating them.

*

Ignorance is a luxury only the very lucky can afford.

*

The more logical the brain the more irrational the heart.

*

Our dividers never say it is a good thing to divide the nation. What they say is: "We are for unity; it's the other side that divides." And to think that these are the kind of people who say Armenians are smart.

*

Our partisans behave as though they had the mandate of heaven, thus implying the opposition has the mandate of hell.

*

Every time a man speaks the truth he makes a thousand enemies; that's because for every bitter truth there are a thousand sweet lies and as many dupes who hate to give up their illusions.

*

"Vengeance is mine, said the Lord."

By that it is not meant that God

keeps an account of every transgression down below,

but that in His infinite wisdom

He has inserted a punishment in every transgression.

So that, when a fool makes an ass of himself in public,

his punishment is exactly that:

making an ass of himself in public.

No use trying to reason him out of his foolishness,

which would amount to being an instrument of his salvation.

*

One of the worst things that could be said about a man

is that his most highly developed organ is his ego.

*

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

Saturday, February 21, 2004

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

When wolves and jackals rise to the top,

herbivores have no choice but to avoid them.

Hence, our high rate of assimilation.

*

There is an old saying:

"What bread really is, only the hungry knows."

The same could be said of freedom

("What freedom really is, only the oppressed knows")

but not of knowledge.

That's because more often than not,

the ignorant not only appear to be

satisfied with their own ignorance

but also resent those who try to enlighten them.

World literature provides many instances of this:

from Socrates to Solzhenitsyn;

and in our own case, from Abovian to Zarian.

*

Oshagan said:

"Our revolutionaries didn't have a chance because they formed only tiny islands in an Ottoman sea."

My question is:

Did we have to suffer a genocide to make that earth-shaking discovery?

*

Zarian said:

"Our political parties have been of no political use to us."

We have been blabbering about Hai Tahd and historic Armenia for the last hundred years without annexing a single inch of soil.

What are our chances that in the next hundred years

the world will see the light and say:

"Historic Armenia belongs to Armenia!" and the Turks will agree?

*

If I know my Armenians, they will never come to terms with their enemies: too much blood. Hell, they will never even come to terms with their fellow Armenians: too much bad blood!

*

I wish I were a good actor so that I could drive my enemies nuts by pretending to love them.

*

So many phonies have spoken in the name of God and Country that one must be slightly unbalanced to take sermonizers and speechifiers seriously.

*

Karekin Nejdeh: "Instead of criticizing one another and the enemy, our political partisans should get busy educating themselves."

*

Arnold Toynbee: "But, of course, the value of one's work is a question on which one's own judgment is worth little more than zero." (RECONSIDERATIONS, page 599.)

If only our partisans thought so too.

*

Because I am anti-humbug,

I am described as anti-Armenian

by Armenians engaged in humbuggery.

*

If you insult with lies

you will be mortally wounded by the truth.

Morality and justice are not human inventions.

Rather, they are extensions of reality

and its inflexible laws.

*

Karekin Nejdeh: "It is the height of ignorance for a political party to think that it can deny the value of morality in its own conduct and maintain moral integrity within its ranks."

*

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Guest arabaliozian

Sunday, February 22, 2004

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

Nothing comes easier to a man with more money than to assume he knows better. But the truth is, the only thing he knows better is what's good for number one, which amounts to saying, he knows less about everything else.

*

On the subject of false assumptions, mine consists in thinking that common sense and decency plus enlightened self-interest and objective judgment present a more convincing argument than that provided by ignorance, prejudice, ideology or ego.

*

Alexander Dumas fils: "I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest."

*

If "education is the cheap defense of nations" (Edmund Burke), brainwashing must be the surest symptom of moral bankruptcy.

*

To contradict not out of conviction but for the pleasure of contradicting: I call this a quintessential Armenian aberration.

*

Totalitarian regimes silence dissidents not because they are afraid of them (imagine a Stalin or Hitler commanding vast armies and a ruthless secret police being afraid of defenseless scribblers!) but because they are afraid of the truth, and more precisely, because they don't want to be exposed for what they really are: criminal gangs. And when these regimes collapse it's not because of what the dissidents wrote or said but because sooner or later reality is bound to assert its inflexible laws, two of them being: you can't fool even fools all the time, and you can't intimidate even cowards forever.

Now then, ask yourself this question: Why is it that our own political parties find it necessary to silence dissent?

*

You cannot speak of dialogue, compromise, and consensus with a skinhead who threatens to silence you whenever you refuse to accept his prejudices and share his bigotry.

*

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

Monday, February 23, 2004

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

Derenik Demirjian: "Every Armenian has another Armenian whom he considers his mortal enemy."

*

Anonymous: "Trust a new friend as much as you would trust an old enemy."

*

Voicing morally superior sentiments is not the same as being morally superior. If it were, every sermonizer would be a saint.

*

Let the Turks deny our genocide all they want, but let us not deny the humanity of our fellow men (including Turks) because that would be genocide by other means.

*

The smaller the brain, the bigger the mouth.

*

This being a free country, you may subscribe to the lie of your choice.

*

To the man who tries to achieve excellence, nothing should be more alarming than the approval of the mediocre.

*

It's in the nature of mediocrity to want to drag the rest of mankind down to its own level.

*

The validity of an idea my also be gauged by the number of fools who conspire to reject it.

*

We are brainwashed against our will but we remain brainwashed by consent.

*

To those who accuse me of misleading the naïve and the uninformed, I say: Armenians are smarter than that.

They can spot a phony when they see one.

Don't worry about them.

Worry instead about yourself and your false sense of superiority in thinking you are invulnerable to the lies of propaganda.

*

In many traditional tales, legends and myths,

he who looks back turns into stone or a pillar of salt.

Perhaps we are too obsessed with the past

to focus on our present problems.

In some perverse way the Turks continue to be in charge of our destiny. We have not yet emancipated from our Ottoman phase.

*

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

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

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

In a court of law you may get a unanimous verdict in your favor, but in life, never! Even if you are perfectly innocent, some people will find you guilty as hell.

*

Jorge Luis Borges: "The best way to be free of an error is to have professed it."

*

To say "I am better," to believe in it, and to be the only one who believes in it must be just about the surest symptom of inferiority.

*

Nothing I say is original.

When I promote solidarity , all I am doing is recycling the biblical dictum "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Or rather, I am reminding those who make a comfortable living by delivering sermons on self-sacrifice and speeches on dedication to principles that the very least they can do is make an effort to practice a tiny fraction of what they preach - if, that is, they don't want to be exposed as grave-digging charlatans.

*

At least once a day, we should remind ourselves that we may not be as smart or as good as we think we are and that we may even be as bad as the rest of mankind.

*

To understand the enemy

it is necessary to be objective about ourselves.

*

A 17th-century American writer once observed that,

just because a man is not bought and sold

it doesn't follow that he is not a slave.

Likewise, just because we silence critics

it doesn't follow that we are not vulnerable to criticism.

*

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

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

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

Again and again I am accused of having a low opinion of my fellow Armenians. Nonsense! I have a low - make it, very low - opinion of charlatans, brown-nosers and parasites (regardless of nationality). I loathe all lies, half-truths and propaganda.

As for being a proud Armenian: In a world of proud Gypsies, Kurds and Turks, I have no use for pride.

I should like to see a world inhabited by humble men.

I should like to see my fellow Armenians reflect and meditate on our collective failures as opposed to bragging about our individual successes (Mikoyan, Saroyan, Gulbenkian, Mamoulian…), or at least to refrain from using our celebrities to cover up our shortcomings, and if that's too much to ask, may Mt. Ararat forgive me.

*

Patriotism may well be abolished on the day an enlightened mankind catalogues all the crimes that have been committed in its name.

*

Our version of Ottoman history is as important or relevant in the eyes of the world as the Afro-American or American- Indian version of American history.

*

The fool is happy in his ignorance

and the wise is tormented by his wisdom.

*

Mankind has always been at the mercy of better organized fools.

*

It was Kant who said that very often

ignorance is nothing but cowardice in the face of knowledge.

*

Something to remember and repeat:

Self-criticism is not unpatriotic. Silencing criticism is.

*

"Armenianism is what I say it is!"

There you have it, the source of all our disagreements, controversies, and divisions.

*

"The starving Armenian" has become a cliché in the West.

We reinforce that cliché when we stress the Genocide

or when we reduce Armenianism to anti-Turkism.

*

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Thursday, February 26, 2004

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

The latest edition of LE PETIT LAROUSSE 2003, the most widely read French-language reference work, defines GENOCIDE as: "(from the Greek, genos=race, and Latin caedere=to kill). A crime against humanity that attempts to destroy all or part of an ethnic, national, racial or religious group. The term genocide was coined in 1944 to describe the extermination of Jews and Gypsies perpetrated during World War II by the Nazis. It was retroactively applied to the massacres of Armenians in Turkey in 1915."

In the entry on Armenia we read: "1,500,000 Armenians were victims of the genocide perpetrated by the Young Turk government."

A number of Armenians are discussed in separate entries but not all of them are identified as Armenian. Aram Khatchatourian is identified as Soviet, Charles Aznavour as French, Arthur Adamov, Nina Berberova and Gary Kasparov as Russian, and Saroyan as American.

Among those identified as Armenian are Calouste Gulbenkian, Arshile Gorkey, Manouk Mekhitar (founder of the Mekhitarist order in Venice), Victor Ampartsoumian, and Sergey Paerajanov.

It is interesting to note the closing sentences on Talaat ("He was assassinated by an Armenian"), Jemal ("he was assassinated") and Enver ("he died in battle in Central Asia").

*

Vassilis Vassilikos: "Think not only about what you have known in the past and what you know today, but also what will come after you but which you will never know."

*

Logic may apply to math and philosophy but not to human affairs. You cannot say: "If you admit this, you must also admit that," or "If you believe this, you must also believe that." Life is a puzzle and men are bundles of contradictions. Hence the sayings: "Politics makes strange bedfellows"; "It takes all kinds"; "S/he is beyond me";

"Wo/men are unpredictable"; "Love is blind" (and hate isn't?); and "The Armenian is an enigma that refuses to be solved" (Neshan Beshigtashlian).

*

Race, color, creed, national origin, sexual orientation, DNA, and the rest are things of no interest to me.

Character and moral integrity are universal concepts and they cannot be seen under a microscope. There are good men and bad men, and given the right combination of circumstances even good men will sometimes behave like swine.

That's all there is to be said on the subject and that's all that needs to be said. Anything else beyond that is speculation at best, racist nonsense at worst.

*

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

*

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

*

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

Friday, February 27, 2004

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

"Our problems are human problems," I am reminded again and again: "You will find divisions, corruption and intolerance everywhere. I dare you to name a single nation that is immune to these aberrations."

My answer: "And I dare you to name a single newspaper in any language that says, since incompetence and corruption are universal and as old as mankind, we will no longer publish editorials, commentaries and letters to the editor dealing with these subjects."

And now, imagine a police force that says: "Since rape and murder are as old as mankind and every nation has its share of rapists and murderers, we shall no longer arrest anyone guilty of these crimes!"

*

The very same people who raise the same phony questions again and again also accuse me of repeating myself whenever I take the trouble to answer them.

*

To Armenians who demand solutions from me and choose to ignore the solutions advanced by our historians and writers from Khorenatsi and Yeghishe in the 5th century AD to our own days, I can only say: As long as there are Armenians like you, our problems will remain insoluble.

*

People who ignore good advice have no right to say "What was bound to happen, happened!" or "It was written!" or "It was God's will!"

*

Victims and victimizers; deceivers and dupes: that's how I see the world; and I write as a victim in defense of other victims; and I write against deceivers because as a child I was taken in by their lies.

I was told writing was a noble profession.

It is not.

It is more like an obstacle course that stretches to infinity.

The average reader wants to be flattered; the partisan who believes in his party's propaganda line as if it were holy writ demands subservience; bishops and benefactors consider themselves as representatives of two of the most powerful entities known to man: God and capital (make it, Capital and god).

In such an environment literature (or for that matter, truth and honesty) have as much chance to survive as a sardine in a pool of hungry sharks.

*

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

Saturday, February 28, 2004

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

There are people out there - and I mean highly trained professionals - whose main job consists in introducing complexities where none exists. One could say that they are trained to take a simple straight line and to make of it a maze so intricate that even a mouse of genius could not extricate himself from it even if he tried for a thousand years. Which is where we come in. We might as well be that mouse at the mercy of professional charlatans who have created such a complex and serpentine maze around us that we have failed again and again to emerge from our tribal stage and establish our place in the sun as a nation.

The enigma of our destiny?

What nonsense! Understand this and consider the enigma (which was never there to begin with) solved.

*

Those of my critics who attack my words but ignore catastrophic policies remind me of the hunter who ignored the charging rhino and concentrated all his efforts on killing a mosquito.

*

To some of us, it seems, literature is only a means to an end, the end being fame and fortune. The ideas of a celebrity (no matter how trashy) may be worth considering, but the ideas of an obscure scribbler (no matter how valid) might as well be trash. Which is why I am told again and again: "You want to serve your country? Be another Saroyan!" The implication being, writers from Abovian to Zarian might as well be trash because none of them achieved success in an odar environment.

*

There is nothing new under the sun. I belong to the critical tradition in the same way that those who support the status quo belong to the "yes-man" tradition.

Even in the Golden Age of our literature (1500 years ago) we had critics and fat-assed princes whose number one concern was taking care of number one; and these princes had their share of fat-assed lackeys, hangers-on, and brown-nosers whose line is recycled today by their successors, who outnumber the dissidents because self-interest is a more universally shared motivation than self-sacrifice.

*

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

*

Why is it that recycling propaganda is patriotic and exposing lies is "cheap talk"?

*

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

*

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Sunday, February 29, 2004

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

To those who accuse me of pessimism, I say: To write is to hope, and to hope is an expression of optimism.

*

It is a serious blunder to confuse cunning

(which is motivated by greed) with intelligence (which is rooted in objective judgment).

*

Rumor has it that writers, and artists in general, are unreliable and solitary eccentrics - unlike political and military leaders who deceive, oppress, exploit, declare wars and commit massacres. In an abnormal world the normal is seen as an aberration.

*

To those who recycle Vahan Tekeyan's familiar line, "We need self-esteem as we need air and water," I say: Self-esteem can be an asset only when it is an extension of real ability; when it is based on illusions, lies, and propaganda, it can be a dangerous liability.

*

Faith and dialogue are incompatible concepts. Men of faith are not so much unwilling as unable to engage in dialogue: they prefer to preach, propagandize and proselytize.

*

Once in a while I am told I am too tough on those who disagree with me. That may be because an Armenian who has made up his mind about something, anything, including things about which he knows little or next to nothing, turns into an immovable object that not even an irresistible force may budge. Perhaps my toughness or impatience or irritation is not with these immovable objects but with my own sense of total inadequacy.

*

As for the accusation that I corrupt the young: I have yet to meet a fellow Armenian who said to me: "After reading one of your books or essays ten or fifteen years ago I decided to assimilate."

Long before I was born, entire Armenian communities in Eastern Europe assimilated and, as far as I know, none of them put the blame on the critical writings of Khorenatsi or Raffi or Baronian.

Those in power will never say critics should be silenced because "they undermine our legitimacy," or "they expose our charlatanism," but because "they corrupt the young."

*

Anyone with the minimum of common sense and decency will be his own toughest critic and judge.

*

Some leaders behave like shepherds: first they fleece, then they butcher. I have at no time thought of our leaders as my friends, let alone as my servants, but as my enemies.

*

The ego is our Achilles' heel. But perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we are heels in search of an Achilles.

*

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

Monday, March 01, 2004

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

Identity is revealed not only in what we say, but also in what we choose not to say. But to the discerning ear, silence can speak louder than a thousand speeches delivered by a thousand stentorian speechifiers.

*

A good idea never dies, but a bad idea has a longer lifespan.

*

It is an unfortunate fact that some people tend to confuse kindness and civility with weakness. I hate rude people and I hate being rude. But what I hate even more is being intimidated or shouted down by garbage-mouth bullies.

*

Nothing can obstruct one's vision as effectively as a bloated ego.

*

On several occasions readers have pointed out to me that Armenians have many reasons to distrust Jews, one of them being that the Young Turks were Jews from Salonica. According to T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia, author of THE SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM: "The shallow and half-polished committee of the Young Turks were descendants of Greeks, Albanians, Circassians, Bulgars, Armenians, Jews - anything but Seljuks or Ottomans." I suppose this may also explain why Armenians have more than one reason to distrust their fellow Armenians in view of the fact that Sultan Abdulhamid II was half-Armenian on his mother's side.

To my anti-Semitic friends I say: Lust for power is thicker than blood. If you want to distrust a category or group, distrust, even loathe and hate, politicians or partisans who are motivated not by the need to serve their fellow men but to satisfy their lust for power.

*

Between fame and indifference to fame, I consider the second as the greater and more valuable possession.

*

If we cannot change reality, the least we can do is try to understand it. To try to change it without understanding it is an enterprise that is bound to backfire. Case in point: our revolutionaries at the turn of the century.

*

Zarian thought a writer could be truly creative only in his own homeland; and yet, his most productive years were spent in Istanbul, Paris, Venice, Milan, New York and Beirut, and his most unhappy and arid years in Yerevan.

*

Anonymous: "A friend in need is history."

*

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

Tuesday, March 02, 2004

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

Why is it that some Armenians, after assessing

themselves as good Armenians, take this assessment at

face value but totally ignore someone else's

assessment of himself as a good Armenian?

Why is it that, with this type of Armenian,

self-assessment is valid only when administered by

himself and no one else?

*

Why is it that we are so eager to prove to the world

an established fact (Turkish responsibility for the

Genocide) but totally unwilling to assume any degree

of responsibility for contributing to its two white

variants? - assimilation in the Diaspora and exodus in

the Homeland.

Can the Genocide Recognition Bill bring back to life

a single victim?

How many thousand Armenian lives may be saved if we slow down or arrest the rate of assimilation and

exodus?

*

No one has ever said to me "After reading Odian I realized I was a Panchoonie," or "After reading Baronian I realized I was an honorable beggar," or "After reading Charents I realized our dividers are our gravediggers."

Speaking for myself: after publishing thirty books and more than three thousand commentaries, I have succeeded in only one endeavor: making enemies who hate me unto death.

What have we learned from our literature?

Nothing!

What have we learned from our former lords and masters?

Everything! -- and above all how to hate.

Which may suggest that, those among us who preach Armenianism prefer to practice Ottomanism.

*

Yiddish proverb: "A fool is his own informer."

*

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

Wednesday, March 03, 2004

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

The brain may compromise but the gut, never!

*

To be a success in literature you must be a source of income to your publisher. In its millennial history, Armenian literature has not been a source of income to anyone. A reliable and unfailing source of disappointment, disease, and early death, yes!

*

When I was a little boy growing up in a crowded ghetto, I loved reading about distant exotic places. Later, when I discovered literature, I enjoyed most of all reading writers with whom I shared nothing in common. To this day, I love reading about experiences and ideas outside my narrow orbit.

Which is why I cannot understand those of my readers who wish to re-create me in their own image, and I have every reason to suspect, on the day they succeed, they will give up reading me. Because, if you think about it, who wants to talk to his own shadow or eat regurgitated food?

*

Only writers who consider themselves immortal can afford to write for posterity. I feel privileged if what I write today is read tomorrow, even if it is forgotten the day after.

*

A couple of weeks ago my next-door neighbor was arrested for growing marijuana in his basement. A day later another neighbor (a devout Catholic) was arrested for sexually molesting twenty minors (among them two of his own daughters). To those who pretend to be experts on Armenia simply because they were born and raised there, I ask: How much did you really know about your next-door neighbors?

*

Before you attain greatness you must achieve honesty,

and of the two, achieving honesty

may well be the more demanding enterprise.

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

We are all born with a bias inherited from our parents, teachers, early experiences, religion, culture, community and so on. To be objective in our judgment means to conduct an endless struggle against this bias whose depth we may never be able to fathom.

And what is the source of this collective bias?

Doubt, fear, anxiety, and above all, an inability to face reality on its own terms.

*

Leonardo da Vinci called war "pazzia bestialissima" (the most beastly madness). Did he make an effort to investigate its source? I am not sure.

*

What's so bad about a little bias? you may well ask. If the purpose of bias is to legitimize intolerance, hatred, war and massacre, it is pazzia bestialissima.

*

Do I repeat myself? If anything is not worth rereading, it can't be worth reading.

*

"Be more moderate in your criticism," I am told once in a while. Yes, yes, I know all about the vinegar versus the honey school of criticism and Armenian literature has produced both kinds of critics, all of whom have been consistently ignored. I have at no time heard a boss, bishop or benefactor say: "As a result of this or that critic's moderate criticism, I have decided to introduce the following reforms." The only reforms these gentlemen introduce is more efficient ways of silencing their critics. Consider the fates of writers from Abovian to Zarian. Speaking for myself: I have no idea what moderate criticism is. A critic is either honest or he is not. If a leader is corrupt or incompetent, an honest critic has no choice but to state the facts as he sees them.

What if he is wrong?

So what if he is?

Only God is infallible. And if we were to make a rule that says: "A critic may express his views only after he establishes his infallibility," I would say: Apply this rule to our leaders and none of them would escape the hangman's rope.

*

The Armenian character or our collective unconscious has been shaped more by sultans than by Armenian literature. That's because, in Machiavelli's words, "fear never relaxes," whereas love of literature may well be an absent factor. In the ghetto I grew up I don't remember anyone quoting a single line by an Armenian poet.

*

I don't make an effort to be a good Armenian.

I don't even know what that means;

and I doubt if there are two Armenians

who agree on what constitutes Armenianism.

Trying to be an honest human being keeps me so busy

that I have no time for any other enterprise.

*

It is the easiest thing in the world

to establish moral superiority by one's own code of ethics.

*

One of the functions of criticism is to remind us

that some of our most fundamental assumptions

may be based not on fact but on fiction.

*

Turks seems to be the central concern of our partisan papers. If you don't believe me try the following experiment: next time you get hold of a partisan paper, separate the headlines that refer to Turks and Azeris from those that refer to Armenians and don't be surprised if the first outnumber the second.

*

I grew up in a ghetto populated by

survivors and refugees from the Ottoman Empire.

There was less talk of massacres then

than there is now, perhaps because

these survivors knew better than anyone else

what it means to trust their destiny

into the hands of ambitious meddlers.

*

Our conscious memory is different from our subconscious memory. Which means that when we do things that we don't quite understand, we may be reacting to events that our conscious mind buried in our subconscious.

*

Some of my friends think I am wasting my time writing against charlatans, and that if I were to translate more works of Armenian literature into English I would be enhancing our prestige in the eyes of the English-speaking world. But I have every reason to suspect that even a thousand Armenian literary masterpieces translated into English will enhance nothing so long as our charlatans remain in charge of our destiny.

*

Semantics rule the world.

We say "genocide," they say "dispersion."

I say "the enemy is us," and I am told,

"the enemy is you."

*

A disgruntled reader in the Ottoman Empire or the USSR could easily silence a writer by denouncing him to the police. All those who miss the good old days, please raise your right hand!

*

When asked to encourage Catholicism in Russia by way of conciliating the Pope, Stalin is quoted as having said: "The Pope! How many divisions has he got?"

On hearing of Stalin's death in 1953, Pope Pius XII is reported to have said: "He is now counting my divisions."

I read this in Julien Green's diary: VERS L'INVISIBLE: JOURNAL 1958-1967 (Paris: Plon, 1967). Green is an American who lives in Paris and writes in French. He is also a devout Catholic and mentions God on almost every page of his diary.

He quotes a musicologist friends of his who once said to him: "Mozart is sometimes absent from his music, but Bach is always present in his."

He quotes a phrase from the German to the effect that man is dust but he is also light.

"When man tries to make a paradise for himself," he observes, "the result is a dismal failure. He is much better at making a hell for those who will follow him?"

I also learn that Cortot didn't have a good memory. Once in the middle of a Beethoven recital, he stopped, couldn't go on, turned to the audience and asked if anyone had the score with him, and on being handed the score he went back and continued with the recital.

The only Armenian Julien Green has mentioned so far (page 119) in his diary is Basil II Bulgaroktonus ("Bulgar-slayer" in Greek), the Byzantine Emperor who blinded 15,000 Bulgarian prisoners of war. Green does not identify him as an Armenian however. He also fails to mention the fact that on seeing his blinded army, the Bulgarian Czar Samuel is said to have had a stroke and died on the spot (hangarzamah yeghav, in Armenian). Another curious fact that Green doesn't mention is the fact that Czar Samuel was himself an Armenian-- his mother's name was Ripsima or Hripsime, which happens to be an exclusively Armenian name.

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NOTES / COMMENTS

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

We are misunderstood as well as understood on someone else's terms, never our own. So that there is some degree of misunderstanding even in understanding.

*

It is astonishing the number of justifications, explanations and theories one can come up with if one chooses to ignore the facts, which amounts to saying: if you choose to move in your own realm of fantasy and imagination.

*

Propaganda is not literature and to propagandize is not to think but to recycle someone else's ideas, or rather, misconceptions and prejudices.

*

To those who say Iraqis, or Arabs in general, or even Armenians are not yet ready for democracy because it is an alien concept to their culture, I say: A culture, any culture, that does not recognize the fundamental human rights of all its citizens cannot consider itself civilized. Such a culture is no better than barbarism that will think nothing of implementing a policy of indiscriminate massacre to solve its internal problems. It is true that Armenians, unlike Iraqis and Turks, have not yet engaged in ethnic cleansing, but they have allowed the exodus of over a million of their own countrymen as if it were an inevitable fact of life imposed on them by force majeure. And consider the victims of the Earthquake. It is true, earthquakes are acts of God, but buildings are not. And earthquakes don't kill people, buildings do. The question we should ask ourselves is: What right do we have to call ourselves a civilized and progressive nation when we think of corruption, incompetence, and the death of thousands not as our responsibility but as results of historic forces beyond our control?

*

Not all our revolutionaries were heroes but all our victims were martyrs. It has been our sad destiny to produce more martyrs than heroes.

*

It is a waste of time criticizing our political parties. When it comes to criticizing one another, they do a far better job than any objective non-partisan observer.

*

If I were a member of a party, I would say it is the best party even if it were the worst. If I were employed by one of our organizations, I would say it is the least corrupt even if it were run by the Corleones. Which is why I see more merit in being a slum-dwelling unemployed and unemployable misfit than in being the hireling of one of our bosses, bishops or benefactors.

*

After attending a lecture on present-day conditions in Armenia and its corrupt leadership, a fellow Armenian approaches me and makes the following comment: "Armenian leaders have always been corrupt and indifferent to the fate of their subjects. Nothing new in that."

*

When on the wrong side of an argument, an Armenian is unbeatable.

*

A man who cannot admit error cannot accept his humanity.

*

To hate means creating a devil who on closer inspection

may be only a reflection.

*

We can't solve our problems as long as we think of them as entities that exist outside as opposed to within.

*

One of the advantages of being an Armenian writer is that no one overestimates you. On the contrary, they go out of their way to underestimate and even insult you; they even reduce you to dust and like dust you have no choice but to rise.

*

If you use your common sense and common decency you can't stray too far from the path. You would think that to be good advice. Well, yes, it is, provided you keep in mind that common sense is the least common faculty in the world and common decency flies out the window when self-interest enters.

*

It has been said that empires behave like gangsters and oppressed nations like pimps: yes, but pimps whose secret ambition is to be gangsters.

*

I once met an Armenian lawyer from Istanbul who berated me for my lack of patriotism but he did so in Turkish.

*

In a market economy and an environment controlled by business, where even the Vatican has investments in contraceptives, I consider being unmarketable one of the cardinal virtues.

*

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Guest arabaliozian

NOTES AND COMMENTS (March 11, 2004)

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

About God and theology in general, my two favorite quotations are:

"Man cannot create a worm but he has created ten thousand gods."

And:

"Anyone can speak in the name of God, and millions have, but who can act with His wisdom?"

*

Critics are sometimes accused of exposing our dirty linen to the world at large; but if they didn't, who would benefit? The wolves or the sheep?

*

"If Armenians are as bad as you think they are," I am told once in a while, "how do you explain the existence of so many odar Armenophiles?"

For every Armenophile, I could name two Turcophiles. What would that prove? That Turks are wonderful folk worthy of universal affection?

*

Hegel says somewhere that when words are not followed by action they become empty verbiage and meaningless noise. A great thought. An admirable observation. Wonderful advice. Except for one thing: it was adopted by fascists.

*

Friday, March 12, 2004

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

In our environment, when money whispers, even the stone deaf hear and obey.

*

Fascists silence writers because they know in the realm of ideas they are destined to lose. Censorship is an admission of defeat.

*

When a democratically elected leader commits a blunder, his successors correct it; but when a tyrant makes a blunder he builds more monuments, palaces, and underground bunkers.

*

I was visiting a friend when I heard eerie screams from the upstairs apartment.

"Someone being tortured to death?" I wanted to know.

"Newlyweds" my friend replied.

Same occurrence, two diametrically opposed interpretations. It's the same in politics.

*

It has been said that not reading books is worse than burning them.

*

I will never understand our fear of dissent. Dissenters mean no harm and they have harmed no one. They have often been killed but they have killed no one.

*

You can't reason with fanatics. Zohrab tried it with Talaat and we all know what happened to him. We also know what happened to Talaat. Which may suggest that fanaticism is not always a guarantee for a long and happy life.

*

United States of America could also be called United Races, Colors, and Creeds of the World. America represents the world and mankind as a whole more than any other nation on earth. To hate America is to hate mankind.

Saturday, March 13, 2004

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

Being right can be a risky business if one does not take care in choosing the right time and place, not to say style and context. History provides us with many instances that illustrate this point. Consider the fates of Socrates, Jesus, and our own revolutionaries at the turn of the century.

*

When the lunatics run the asylum, being sane can be dangerous.

*

I will never be a popular writer among readers who cannot discriminate thinking for themselves from recycling someone else's propaganda.

*

During the controversy surrounding Darwin's theory of evolution, an English clergyman insulted a scientist

by calling his ancestors apes, to which the scientist replied:

"Better an honest ape than an ignoramus and a charlatan like you."

*

All cultures have their Dark Ages. Ours is at its apex today.

*

All leaders assume they are smarter than the people

until they are thrown out of office, assassinated, or beheaded.

*

In his memoirs, Yervant Odian uses the word "hairenapaghtsoutiun" (nostalgia or longing for the homeland) not in reference to

Armenia but to the Ottoman Empire

and more particularly Istanbul.

He mentions the case of an Armenian writer in Alexandria

whose longing became so irresistible that

he returned to Istanbul where we was warned

he would be arrested and jailed,

and he was arrested and jailed.

*

Our failings are human failings; so are our problems. All human problems have human solutions. To assert uniqueness in order to underline the unique complexities of our problems has the double demerit of being dishonest and cowardly. Cowardly because it is a symptom of fear: fear of facing facts, and fear of confronting reality.

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Guest arabaliozian

Sunday, March 14, 2004

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

If you live in a dream world, prepare yourself to wake up in a nightmare.

*

The greatest asset of a pundit is the ignorance of his readers.

*

It takes a lifetime to produce a good sentence and it takes a moron less than a minute to reject it.

*

The secret ambition of every Armenian writer is to be treated like a janitor: to have a steady job, to work for minimum wage, and not to be publicly humiliated if his performance is less than perfect.

*

A nation that values janitors but not writers does not have to suffer a genocide in order to be consigned to the dustbin of history.

*

In the latest edition of the OXFORD CONCISE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS, Saroyan is not included but Cher is ("If grass can grow through cement, love can find you at every time in your life").

*

Monday, March 15, 2004

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

All nations from the most primitive to the most advanced engage in some form of propaganda. Armenians and Turks are no exceptions. Turkish propaganda is aimed at Turks and Armenian propaganda is aimed at Armenians. Propaganda works because it relies on willing dupes. Nothing is as easy as deceiving those who want to be deceived.

*

I have seen fat bishops and fat political bosses. I have even seen fat schoolteachers. But I have never seen a fat Armenian poet.

*

What Dante says about his Inferno could also be said of Armenian literature: "LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA VOI CH'ENTRATE!" (Abandon all hope you who enter here!)

*

I would have given up writing for Armenians twenty years ago, were it not for a letter by an old lady (who died shortly thereafter-may Allah have mercy on her soul, if she had one) who happened to be a pillar of the Armenian-American community. In this letter she accused me of corrupting the young and of changing the tone of Armenian-American journalism. Whenever she now read any one of our weeklies, she said, she invariably came across articles, commentaries, and letters to the editor expressing views similar to mine. All her life, she went on, she had done her utmost to be positive about Armenian affairs and there I was, demolishing her good work.

Perhaps I should explain that before writing that particular letter she had written another and a much more "positive" one in which she praised my dedication and promised to organize a banquet in my honor. To which I remember to have said that I was not in the habit of traveling several hundred miles for lunch and that I preferred to have a cheese sandwich with a cup of coffee in my own kitchen.

*

Tuesday, March 16, 2004

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

To write that which your readers will enjoy reading is not literature but literary prostitution.

*

Computers can't think: neither do most men who use them.

*

When a man tries to convince me that he is important, I begin to think of all those reasons why he is not. Which is why I don't hesitate to declare myself unimportant.

*

Sometimes the only way to win a battle is to convince your adversary to underestimate your strength.

*

Whenever an Armenian agrees with me, he makes it abundantly clear that he is delighted to see me catching up with him.

*

Americans welcome criticism and they cherish their dissidents because they know America is bigger than all its critics. Only the abysmally insecure think they can be demolished by a handful of paragraphs.

*

Some Armenians love Turkish music. That's all right. Nothing wrong in that. None whatever. To each his own. Live and let live. What I find slightly suspicious however is when this type of Armenian has no interest in any other kind of music, including Armenian music. He may even think Turkish music is Armenian music.

*

Wednesday, March 17, 2004

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

We all agree that if we want to understand the past and reality in general we must separate fact from fiction and objective assessment from propaganda. And one way to define propaganda is to say that it is a political party's, regime's or power structure's assessment of its own performance.

*

If we were to allow writers to assess their own works, we would have not one but a thousand and one Nobel Prize winners every year.

*

I will believe in divine justice on the day sheep produce a generation of carnivores capable of devouring wolves.

*

To a nationalist historian, his nation is always the good guy and its enemies the bad guys.

*

When nationalist historians disagree, it is safe to assume that they can't all be right and, the chances are, they are all wrong.

*

When a publisher decides to accept or reject a manuscript, he does so by using not literary but financial criteria. This is especially true in the case of publishers who operate on the edge of bankruptcy.

*

Don't believe anyone who says "I love mankind!" A man will say anything to make a favorable impression, especially when he doesn't have to prove what he says. Speaking for myself, I am not particularly fond of my fellow men and, more often than not, the only thing I love about them is the distance that separates us. The greater the distance, the deeper my affection.

*

If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, we all live in mortal peril and on the edge of the abyss.

*

All your average, decent, law-abiding citizen needs to turn into a killer is a leader who spouts clichés and mumbo jumbo.

*

I welcome criticism. I find it stimulating even when it is wrong; especially when it is wrong. What I can't stand is a dog taking me for a lamp-post and pissing on me, and calling it criticism hoping the difference will escape notice.

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Thursday, March 18, 2004

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

11th Commandment: Thou shalt not commit acts of cowardice.

12th Commandment: Thou shalt not be a dittohead or someone who repeats someone else's ideas because he has none of his own, or because he is too lazy to think for himself, or because he prefers to repeat only those ideas that justify and legitimize his own misconceptions, fallacies, and prejudices.

*

COMBATING TERRORISM WITH BOMBS AND TOMAHAWK MISSILES IS NOT THE WAY TO BEAT TERRORISM, reads a headline in my morning paper today. And what is the alternative? To negotiate with them? If that ever happens we will read another set of headlines, such as: TERRORIST DEMANDS UNREASONABLE, and TERRORISTS THREATEN TO UNLEASH A NEW WAVE OF SUICIDE BOMBERS IF THEIR DEMANDS ARE NOT MET.

*

I am always astonished at the amount of venom a patriotic Armenian is prepared to discharge on a fellow Armenian who refuses to echo his sentiments and thoughts.

*

And speaking of Armenian tolerance: I shiver to think what would happen to me if I were at the mercy of my adversaries.

*

If you want to know how smart, progressive and civilized Armenians are, visit an Armenian discussion forum on the internet.

*

What's the use of being right when those who are in a position to change things don't give a damn!

*

I don't believe in God but sometimes I wish He existed so that I could go down on my knees and thank Him every day for all my blessings, the greatest being that I live in a democracy that respects my fundamental human right of free speech. I have said this before and I will say it again and again the way others repeat the Lord's Prayer: In another time and place our fanatics would have betrayed me to the Ottoman police or to the KGB -- all in the name of patriotism, of course -- and I would now be a dead man.

*

Friday, March 19, 2004

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

It is a mistake to identify a nation with its political leadership especially if the leadership is undemocratic and therefore non-representative. This is the mistake the Turks made when they massacred nearly two million Armenians at the turn of the century. This is also the mistake we make when we identify Turks (half of whom may well be half-Armenian) with Sultan Abdulhamid and Talaat.

*

"A newspaper is a nation talking to itself," Arthur Miller says somewhere. If true, we are a bunch of monomaniacs stuck on Turks. And if newspapers are all about news, I will be damned if I see anything new about the Turks and their crimes against humanity.

*

There is no religious commandment that says "Thou shalt not be a dupe." Perhaps because without dupes there would be no organized religions. Dupes are a religion's bread, butter, and oxygen. And to those who say "This may apply to all other religions except mine!" I say "That's what they all say."

*

No need to hate tribal people - they hate one another even more.

*

On the day a husband begins to notice that his wife cannot cook like Julia Child and tend the garden like Martha Stewart, he has ceased to love her.

*

It is not easy writing for an audience that cannot tell the difference between literature and propaganda.

*

Enemies have longer memories than friends.

*

Men are vain animals. They will even brag about their humility.

*

Movies are misleading. They show a great deal of violence but seldom permanent damage; also, a lot of sex and not enough pregnancy.

*

As for Mel Gibson and his PASSION: to those who say it is not an objective or accurate depiction of events: may I reminded them that the Gospels, as they have come down to us, would not even be admissible in a court of law because they are based on hearsay.

Saturday, March 20, 2004

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

After delivering a lecture in Yerevan, a friend of mine was approached by a member of the audience who told him: "You failed to give the Communists their due. After all, this very hall in which we stand was built by Communists!" To which my friend replied: "I am sorry for the omission. You see, I was under the impression that it was built by Armenians."

*

In our environment, freedom of the press consists in saying two plus two make five. If you say four, you are in deep doodoo.

*

When politicians speak, they do their utmost to say what their audience wants to hear. Writers are of the opposite disposition.

*

If you are wrong about the present, you can't be right about the future.

*

Once when I said that we have no word for honest, I was told I was dead wrong and that we do have a word for honest and it is "oughamid." Which raises the question: When was the last time you heard an Armenian use that word in reference to a fellow Armenian?

*

Not being much of a traveller, I haven't met too many people. But I have met people who have met people. Once I even met someone who had met one of Rasputin's assassins.

*

Some of my readers attack my opinions not because they disagree with them but because they have none of their own and they resent my right to think for myself. That's the way it is with some folks. If it weren't for them, fascism and all forms of despotism would be unthinkable.

*

When I first heard of Armenians going out of their way to avoid fellow Armenians, I was shocked. I couldn't understand them. I do now. In a year or two I may even join their ranks.

*

Americans love to quote their critics, including foreign critics. Quoting them has become part of their entertainment industry. Armenians, on the other hand….

*

Writing is a pleasure with only one drawback: you cannot choose your readers.

*

One reason there are atheists is that there are believers who behave like swine.

*

Winston Churchill [when told his fly was open]: "No matter. The dead bird does not leave the nest."

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Sunday, March 21, 2004

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

To those of my readers who insult me because I refuse to recycle their favorite brand of crapola, I say: Only a confirmed coward insults someone anonymously and from a safe distance, and only a certified moron views this type of conduct as admirable and considers himself a credit to his race as opposed to a disgrace to mankind.

*

The only way to make a living in the kind of world we live in is by providing a real service to one's fellow men. In that sense, a writer provides a disservice because he exposes illusions, lies, prejudices, and fallacies. Hence, his dependence on the charity of swine.

*

The dream of every selfish man is to be perceived as a Good Samaritan. Likewise, the secret ambition of every fool is to be perceived as wise.

*

Homelessland is the name of my homeland.

*

We have all met the Armenian who has been so thoroughly Ottomanized or Stalinized that he considers democracy an aberration, intolerance (which he thinks of as inflexible adherence to noble principles) a virtue, and human rights an evil concept invented by the corrupt West whose ultimate aim is drag the rest of the world down to its own level of moral decline and degeneration.

Whenever I confront such an Armenian I cannot help thinking that these are not his ideas but those of a parish priest (whose prejudices have been blessed by a bishop) or a schoolmaster (whose ignorance has been legitimized by a boss…all in the name of God and Country, of course, and to hell with reason, common sense and decency).

And I write not because I want to change anyone's mind but because I am not old and wise enough to reconcile myself to silence, and even as I go on writing I look forward to the day when I will no longer feel the need to write….

*

Monday, March 22, 2004

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

There is nothing new in what I have been saying. Sometimes I feel as though I were speaking about the elephant in the room, and I am surprised when I hear some of my readers asking: "What elephant? What room?" It is for these readers that I go on writing.

*

To some of my hostile readers who go down into the gutter and expect me to follow them, I say: "You cannot defend a nation's honor, a principle, or a noble cause with verbal manure."

*

An Armenian writer is condemned to have more enemies than readers and all his readers might as well be potential enemies.

*

Literature is a matter of collective life and death. A nation that abuses its writers will be abused by history.

*

The law of the jungle is a double-edged sword.

*

What else can I say that hasn't already been said?

Ever since I read one of my own cherished ideas brilliantly expressed by a Greek philosopher who lived 2500 years ago, I can never be sure of the originality of any idea. I say this to emphasize the fact that there may not be any new ideas or new solutions, and the solutions to all our problems may well be out there already, if not in the Bible than in Plato; and those who pretend we need new and original ideas, know little or nothing about what has been said before.

Case in point: if we were to discard the mumbo jumbo from our religion and retain its central message, we would solve most of our problems; because what divides us is not our religion but mumbo jumbo, and a bishop who pretends otherwise fully qualifies as the Pope of all Charlatans.

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

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

At the turn of the century we dreamt of our historic lands and we were massacred. We now dream to have our massacres recognized by the perpetrators as genocide and we are accused of massacring them. Reality keeps turning our dreams to ashes but we keep on dreaming…and dreaming about the past too, knowing full well that the only thing we can change about the past is perceptions of it. As for the present and the future: we live with the illusion that we are in good hands - which is not a dream but a daydream born of wishful thinking.

*

I rewrite more than I write. One cannot be clear and concise enough. If one of my sentences cannot be understood at first reading, no need to reread it because I plan to rewrite it.

*

For many years I wasn't even aware of the fact that I wrote not what I really felt and thought but what was expected of me. Even when I thought I was free, I lived and thought like a slave.

*

The only unpredictable element in stupid people is their degree of stupidity against which, it has been said, even the gods cannot compete.

*

In Herman Melville I come across a new word:

"sultanism," meaning the exercise of authority with a touch of sadistic pleasure.

*

A mediocrity will be subservient to any regime or power structure

that gives him a regular salary, or a title, or a uniform,

or the license to persecute better men than himself.

There you have it: the root of our sultanism.

#

Wednesday, March 24, 2004

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

Because our standards have fallen and because I dare to say so, I am accused of hating Armenians. The only way to explain this phenomenon is to say that it is a symptom of abysmal inadequacy coupled with greed for love. The irony here is that it is not the lovable who are as a rule greedy for love but the hateful.

*

Sooner or later we must all come to terms with our limitations and realize that we are not children and the world is not our mother who will love us even if we behave like swine.

*

It is easy to persuade those who are on your side or are members of the same club of mutual admiration.

*

The Good Samaritan was probably good all his life and he performed many acts of kindness but achieved immortality for a single random act all because someone took the trouble to write about it.

*

Divided by clannish warlords of Chinese (Mamigonian), Jewish (Bagratuni) and Assyrian (Ardzruni) descent, defeated and oppressed by nations whom we view as our inferiors, subservient to Turks for six hundred years, massacred, dispersed to the four corners of the world, ours cannot be said to be the past of a proud and great nation. But the worst of it is that, to cover up this fact we have invented a series of big lies and myths which few of us dare to question - myths such as first nation to accept Christianity, the hypocrisy of the West (as if we ourselves were models of honesty and integrity), and the savagery of the Turks (as if savagery were an invention or monopoly of the Turks)….

*

To those who say, if we have survived, we must be doing something right, I say: Why not ask instead: if we have a high mortality rate we must be doing something wrong?

I am saying these things to drive home the fact that we cannot solve our problems by singing patriotic songs and recycling chauvinist crap, or, for that matter, organizing banquets and delivering speeches. To do these things is simply to add hypocrisy and fear of reality to our previous list of vices.

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