Latest from writer Ara Baliozian

April 17, 2004

Thursday, April 15, 2004

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We live in a world where everyone is proud of his ethnic origin - his language, his culture, his traditions, his cuisine, and so on. Result? Even la crème de la scum think they are la crème de la crème.

What's wrong with self-esteem? you may well ask. I suggest self-esteem is a euphemism and in time of crisis it may degenerate to chauvinism and ultimately racism, which allows a man to behave like swine and to assert intellectual and moral superiority.

If you know who and what you are, if you have acquired the ability to be honest and objective about yourself and your fellow men, why this need to feel better even when you should feel worse?

Canada is considered to be one of the most tolerant of countries and tolerant to the point of making multiculturalism an integral part of its national identify. And yet, whenever we speak Armenian in public we are subjected to disgusted looks and such clearly audible comments as, "They live in Canada and they should have the decency to speak in English."

The Greeks, surely one of the most civilized nations on earth, called all foreigners barbarians. I have yet to meet an East-Armenian who does not consider West-Armenian an inferior and a bastardized dialect.

Even people with mixed blood, like most Canadians or, for that matter, present-day Greeks, project the image of pure-blooded patriots with a single loyalty.

The problem with ethnic pride is that it tends to promote xenophobia (a Greek word that means fear of foreigners) and xenophobia alienates and dehumanized everyone who is not a member of the tribe -- that is to say, the overwhelming majority of mankind. Which is why I would prefer to live in a world where what is promoted is not ethnic pride but ethnic humility, perhaps because I believe in the brotherhood of all men, including Turks and Armenians.

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Friday, April 16, 2004

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Historians publish only a fraction of what they know, and by the time what they publish filters down to the average layman, it is reduced to either a cliché or a slogan.

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Arrogance may well be at the root of all blunders. If true, it follows that humility is the only practical way of avoiding making an ass of oneself.

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If you ask the wrong question or too many questions, some doctors, I am told, walk out on you, thus asserting their right to choose their patients. One of the drawbacks in writing is that this option is not available: a writer is in no position to accept or reject his readers.

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Fanatics are as a rule more vocal than moderates. So that, if you are in favor of moderation, don't be surprised if the shouts of fanatics drown the whispers of the moderates.

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One does not have to be an insurance broker to know that heroes have a shorter life span than cowards.

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If we don't know why things exist, what can we really know?

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There is one thing on which I agree with all partisans: their mutual contempt.

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If you aim at success and you fail, you are a failure. But if you aim at failure and you fail, you are a success.

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Success is not an easy concept to define. There is a saying in Hollywood: "Success is relative: the closer the relative, the greater the success." The relative values of success has wider applications. Consider the case of President Bush: he may be a success in the eyes of fellow Republicans, a failure in the eyes of Democrats, and a disaster in the international press. "The higher I rise in the eyes of my fellow men," Tolstoy once said, "the lower I sink in my own."

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Saturday, April 17, 2004

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Big talk impresses only the bigger talker.

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There is one sure way of knowing if you have advanced in your thinking: to realize that you were not just mistaken or misinformed but totally and catastrophically wrong, and so wrong that the ground beneath your feet was nothing but a cloud of fallacies, illusions and prejudices.

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The destiny of the hater and the hated is to become reflections of each other.

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One difference between rich and poor countries is that in rich countries, if you want to kill someone, you hire a killer. In poor countries you do your own killing.

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Murder Inc. is a capitalist phenomenon. Under communism murder becomes a monopoly of the state.

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Doubt can be an asset and certainty the worst of liabilities. Try to explain this to a fanatic if you can.

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Sometimes I am criticized for never admitting error. What utter nonsense! On more than one occasion I have identified myself as a walking blunder. I am an Armenian writer.

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A culture that produces commissars might as well be synonymous with barbarism.

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Armenians may sometimes agree on Turks but they agree on nothing else. Whatever national solidarity we have we owe it to the Turks.

Our murderers have become are our benefactors.

LeoMins · April 18, 2004

Fadei

Zer voch hayeren@, voch el ruseren@ haskanli chen. Groghin qnnadateluc araj grel (ev erevi kardal) sovoreq.

Fadei · April 19, 2004

Tikin LeoMins, vidimo, u vas problemi s angliiskim i vi chitali tol'ko moi soobsheniya i vam pokazalas' nespravedlivoi kritika, odnako ya khochu chtob vi znali:

1. Ya ne kritikuyu, ya sporyu

2. Fakt togo, chto vi ne ponyali moi russkii ili armyanskii, govorit chto vi nedalekii chelovek, ne vnikayushii v sut' slov.

3. Bez sprosa vrivatsa v moyu besedu s drugim chelovekom v 100 raz grubee chem vse chto ya pisal daveche.

Vi mojete vesti svoyu besedu s paron Ara, no radi boga ne opuskaetes do urovnya pustikh vozglasov, ne blagodarnoe eto delo

Edited April 19, 2004 by Fadei

LeoMins · April 19, 2004

http://www.bnagir.am/?go=readers&r_work=273

LeoMins · April 19, 2004

Oriord Fadei

Այստեղ դուք հասարակական ֆորումում եք և յուրաքանչյուր մասնակից կարող ե մասնակցել ձեր զրույցին: Եթե դուք դա չեք ցանկանում, ապա զրուցեք PM-ոով:

Ձեր հայերենի խիստ սահմանապակ իմացությունը ձեր սեփական խնդիրն է: Իսկ ինձ և այլ հայերի համար վիրավորանք է տեսնել ձեր "հայերենով գրված" տեքստերը:

LeoMins · April 19, 2004

ev aystegh

http://www.bnagir.am/?go=readers&r_work=271

Fadei · April 20, 2004

Tikin, akh ev arajin es TGHAMARTEM,isk ekrord es tsavaktsumem dez.

Im haereny gitelikner@, da vochte im problemne, ail im hbartutyunne. Gutse shat lav chgitem haeren, baits nuin hajoghutyamp im akhqad haerenov djvar chi lini asel nuyn@ dzer hayereny masin!!!

Pravila etiketa po-vashemu rasprostranyayutsa tolko na vizual'noe obshenie?!

Kogda proiskhodit spor mejdu kem-nibud' schitaetsa derevenskim tonom vrivatsa v razgovor i, kak pridumanii sudya, delet' zamecheniya v gruboi forme. Edinstvennoe chego vam bilo pozvolitel'no eto virazit svoe mnenie po suty spora, a ne o sporyashikh.

Tikin para bi znat' elementarnie azi etiketa, a esli vam ne terpitsa s v perepalku vstupit', to vi ne na togo napali. Psikhologi v vashikh sluchaykh sovetuyut narisovat na bumage ob'ekt vashego gneva i bit' po etoi bumage. Poprobuite mojet pomojet.

Jelayu udachi!

Edited April 20, 2004 by Fadei

LeoMins · April 21, 2004

Psikhologi v vashikh sluchaykh sovetuyut narisovat na bumage ob'ekt vashego gneva i bit' po etoi bumage. Poprobuite mojet pomojet.
Jelayu udachi!

Oriord Fadei

У вас тонкая психология, нечего сказать. :lol:

У меня нет времени чтобы терять на чтение ваших перлов. :wow:

April 24, 2004

Thursday, April 22, 2004

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Ever since the Romans crucified an innocent Jew with the connivance of the Jewish authorities, the Middle East has become a vipers' nest of unsettled scores and tribal conflicts. No matter what one does or doesn't do there, one is bound to make more enemies than friends.

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Where there is ignorance, there will be those eager to exploit it to their advantage. In such an environment, knowledge will be perceived as undesirable and even unpatriotic.

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If ignorance is open to exploitation and knowledge is not, there will always be those willing to promote ignorance and call it education.

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Please note that my critical remarks are not aimed at those who are beyond criticism but at ordinary mortals like myself with their share of blind spots; and when I speak of individuals who are beyond criticism I have in mind our bosses, bishops, benefactors and their assorted flunkies, hangers-on, brown-nosers, dupes, and anyone else who speaks in the name of God and Capital.

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Some of my readers think I say strange, unorthodox, unpatriotic things because they have not read our writers. It is almost as if they were equating Armenianism with total ignorance of Armenian literature. They remind me of Catholics who are not encouraged to read the Bible lest they misunderstand it.

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Friday, April 23, 2004

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I don't write for readers who know better - that is to say, every other Armenian; I write for readers who are as confused and angry as I am but for reasons of their own prefer to keep silent probably because they don't have as much time to put into words what they feel and think. I write in the hope that by comparing notes we may be in a better position to understand what's being done to us in the name of this or that noble cause. Because, as everyone knows by now, one should not believe everything one reads in the papers; not all politicians are honest; and a great many sermonizers are no better than serial child molesters.

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Some readers can't take criticism not because they disagree with it but because they cannot endure it from an inferior, and who would be more inferior in their eyes than a fellow Armenian?

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When I was young I was told many things that I did not know and most of them were lies.

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The hardest people to convince are those who pretend to know better; but they are also the most vulnerable because they, more than anyone else, are aware of the discrepancy that exists between shadow and substance, and between appearance and reality.

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One of the functions of criticism is to remind us

that no matter how you slice it, propaganda is recycled crap, and just because two million, or for that matter,

twenty or two hundred million people believe in

it and are willing to die or kill for it,

that doesn't make it true - think of organized

religions and the crimes that have been committed in their

name. The reason why critics are not popular

is that no one likes to be told what he believes in is crap.

#

Saturday, April 24, 2004

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According to our Prime Minister, what the Turks did to us was a Tragedy and not Genocide. One must therefore conclude that as far as our Prime Minister goes, the credibility of the Turks is not to be questioned - unlike the credibility of the Armenians and his own Members of Parliament, not to mention the testimony of a cloud of foreign eyewitnesses, diplomats, scholars, and historians.

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There are those who edit, revise and rewrite history to suit their narrow aims; there are also those who recreate it. Leave it to lawyers and politicians to see things that aren't there and to ignore things that are in full view.

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Such a pity no politician or lawyer was around to inform the victims that they were living a Tragedy rather than experiencing a Genocide. Who knows, maybe that would have made them feel better.

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Moral I: The civilized West was not civilized enough then and is not civilized enough now to recognize an injustice when it sees one.

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Moral II: There is no such thing as moral progress. Technological progress, yes! But even technological progress come with a heavy price, the price being computerized weapons of mass destruction.

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Moral III: It never pays to rely on the common sense and decency of others, because self-interest will invariably be their number one concern. So it has been in the past and so shall it be in the future. And if some day the civilized West and Turkey itself recognize the obvious fact that what happened to us in 1915 was a Tragedy as well as a Genocide, it will not be in the name of justice, objective judgment, common sense and decency, but in the name of self-interest.

April 28, 2004

Sunday, April 25, 2004

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In good writing the suspense is not in the plot or the dialogue but in the style. One reads it not to know what will happen next but what's happening now.

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When someone else makes the rules, you can never be sure if you are right or wrong. We have always lived by someone else's rules.

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The first step in solving a problem is to recognize it. The second step is to apply the solution if there is one. In our case, we know the problem (divisiveness or tribalism) and we know the solution (solidarity or nationalism). If so far we have failed to solve our problem it's because our tribal leaders refuse to give up a fraction of their power. In other words, they care more about their ego than the welfare of the nation. As for the nation: it has lived under despotic rulers for so many centuries that subservience has become second nature.

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Until I read Lesley Blanch's SABERS OF PARADISE, I had an Armenocentric view of the Caucasus. Lesley Blanch brought home the painful realization that Armenia was only one tribe among many others with their own rich history and traditions; and Armenia as seen by others was not the same as Armenia as seen by Armenians.

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Once when I reviewed a book by someone called Cazamian thinking he was an Armenian, immediately I was corrected by an academic in a letter to the editor. But when one of our tribal leaders makes a mistakes, lives a mistakes or is a mistake, he can always rely on a chorus of lawyers, academics, and loyal partisans to prove that there is no mistake and the mistake is with those who want to correct it.

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Monday, April 26, 2004

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History can teach us many things but not everything. When Ford said "history is bunk!" he was probably reacting to so-called experts who used history to obstruct his path.

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"The only thing we learn from history is that man learns nothing from history." There is some truth in that.

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We are all familiar with Marx's dictum: "History repeats itself, first time as tragedy, second time as comedy." Sometimes the genres are reversed. First time as farce….

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History can teach us a great deal about human nature and the workings of reality, but history cannot provide us all the answers. If it did, historians would be prophets.

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Sometimes what we need to solve a problem is neither history nor psychology but common sense. One does not have to have a Ph.D. to know that a leader with an oversized ego cannot be an effective public servant.

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I remember once, after reading Solzhenitsyn's observation that tyrants don't support major writers, only minor ones, I published a commentary in which I said that none of our national benefactors had ever supported any one of our major writers, and I made a list of major writers in which I included Shahnour's name. Immediately, the secretary of one of our national benefactors wrote me an angry letter saying I was dead wrong and that his boss had indeed supported Shahnour. In my reply I said that Shahnour's life was an open book and everyone knew that he had lived a solitary, miserable existence far below the poverty line. Years later, when I met Shahnour's biographer I asked him about this and he said, the benefactor in question was an ignoramus who didn't even know who Shahnour was; his secretary was a wheeler-dealer who didn't know what he was talking about; and that the so-called financial support of the multimillionaire benefactor consisted of such an insignificant amount that Shahnour had returned the check.

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A chapter in Joe Eszterhas's memoirs, HOLLYWOOD ANIMAL, is subtitled "Me and Anastas Mikoyan," where Mikoyan is identified as a nasty-tempered Armenian and "the Butcher of Budapest." We are further told that when Mikoyan visited the U.S., the author, then a boy, joined a Hungarian demonstration and threw a rotten egg and "hit Anastas Mikoyan on the side of his butchering dirty Commie-rat face."

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Tuesday, April 27, 2004

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There is misguided patriotism as surely as there is misguided love. Under Hitler, Germans loved not German culture (they rejected and drove into exile some of their best intellectuals and artists) but German might. Something very similar happened in the Soviet Union under Stalin. One could therefore say that fascist patriotism is more akin to treason.

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A patriotism that does not recognize or respect such fundamental human rights as free speech and the right to dissent is not and cannot be love of country but hatred of one's fellow men.

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Nothing could be more naïve than to say there are good men and bad men everywhere except among Armenians; or, all politicians are liars and crooks except Armenian politicians; or, a great many priests are no better than fornicators and serial child molesters but Armenian priests, very much like Caesar's wife, are above suspicion.

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To say, everyone who agrees with me is good and everyone who disagrees with me is bad amounts to saying, we have no use for dialogue because we are fascists who believe "Mussolini ha sempre ragione!" (Mussolini is always right!)

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There are two kinds of disagreement: honest (that leads to dialogue) and fascist (a dead end).

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Wednesday, April 28, 2004

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Some tear their words from their guts; others gather them like pebbles from the beach and use them to pelt the opposition. They engage in an act of vandalism and call it writing.

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To our vandals parading as patriotic Armenians, I say: Your apathy would be your greatest act of vandalism. Which is why I prefer your insults to your silence.

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We are not as incomprehensible to others as we would like to be. We may even be more transparent to them than we are to ourselves. Perhaps because our body language speaks louder than our words.

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Perhaps the greatest crime of the Turks is not the Genocide but their recreation of us in their own image. This fact may well be as difficult for us to accept as the Genocide is for the Turks.

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Sartre tells us, the function of literature is to "unveil to readers their own situation in order that they themselves may assume its responsibility." It is not to lull them into thinking they live in the best of all possible worlds

and they are in good hands. In that sense, the purpose of literature is not "the enjoyment of the reader but his torment."

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Where the blame game is played, responsibility is shifted.

The Turks behaved like bloodthirsty barbarians, granted. The so-called civilized West engaged in double-talk, also granted. But what about us? If we are as smart as we pretend to be, why did we behave like ignorant dupes?Wednesday, April 28, 2004

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Some tear their words from their guts; others gather them like pebbles from the beach and use them to pelt the opposition. They engage in an act of vandalism and call it writing.

*

To our vandals parading as patriotic Armenians, I say: Your apathy would be your greatest act of vandalism. Which is why I prefer your insults to your silence.

*

We are not as incomprehensible to others as we would like to be. We may even be more transparent to them than we are to ourselves. Perhaps because our body language speaks louder than our words.

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Perhaps the greatest crime of the Turks is not the Genocide but their recreation of us in their own image. This fact may well be as difficult for us to accept as the Genocide is for the Turks.

*

Sartre tells us, the function of literature is to "unveil to readers their own situation in order that they themselves may assume its responsibility." It is not to lull them into thinking they live in the best of all possible worlds

and they are in good hands. In that sense, the purpose of literature is not "the enjoyment of the reader but his torment."

*

Where the blame game is played, responsibility is shifted.

The Turks behaved like bloodthirsty barbarians, granted. The so-called civilized West engaged in double-talk, also granted. But what about us? If we are as smart as we pretend to be, why did we behave like ignorant dupes?

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May 1, 2004

Thursday, April 29, 2004

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The so-called Canadian recognition of the Armenian Genocide boils down to this scenario: I go to court and claim that my house was burned down and my parents brutally murdered by a gang of bloodthirsty savages. The jury agrees with me but the judge rejects the verdict on the grounds that what happened to me, my family and our property was an act of God and that the perpetrators were not a gang of criminals but a legitimate army going about their business of protecting and defending the territorial integrity of the State. In short: the Turks did to us what the white men did to the natives in Canada. If the Turks are guilty of genocide, who are we (Canadians) to cast the first stone?

Now then, should we celebrate a moral victory or lament a legal defeat?

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I once met a professor from Yerevan who bragged about the fact that he was incorruptible and that unlike all other professors he never took bribes from his students. Later, I was informed that he was the hungriest man-eating shark on the campus.

Never trust an Armenian who brags because he brags to cover up.

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Whenever after reading me an Armenian feels less comfortable with himself, he blames it on me rather than himself. In other words, whenever I fail to harmonize reality to suit his image, he thinks I am a bad Armenian who doesn't deserve to live.

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We like to believe we live in a forest. But history tells us it is a jungle.

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The more skilled the charlatan the more honest the mask. The greater the power or wealth the more impenetrable the skull. The deeper the Ottomanization the more strident the patriotism.

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Friday, April 30, 2004

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The pen may be mightier than the sword but, whenever presented with a choice, we have allied ourselves with the sword and ignored the pen.

In the 19th century we adopted nationalism because it was promoted by the Great Powers of the so-called civilized West. Result? A series of massacres, genocide, dispersion, exile, and assimilation (white massacre).

In the 20th century we adopted Communism. Result? Civil war, occupation, oppression, purges, corruption and degeneration in all facets of our collective existence.

Whenever our writers gazed inwards and attempted to analyze our failings, they were ignored, sometimes even silenced and persecuted. This is true even today.

Whenever I quote a critical remark by Raffi or Zarian, I am invariably reminded by some readers that I don't know what I am talking about, I hate Armenians, and that, unlike me, both Raffi and Zarian loved Armenians and have said many positive things about us, and by emphasizing the negative, I misrepresent their work and distort their central message, which is, I assume, we are the chosen and even when wrong we are right. It follows: we have no use for critics and we prefer the kind of mumbo jumbo that says we never had it so good and we are in good hands. Result? The more things change, the more they remain the same. Or: Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme merde!

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I reply to all my critics except when the criticism is unreadable, incomprehensible, or it is the kind that I have already replied ten times. I wouldn't mind replying for the eleventh time were it not for the fact that I would then be open to the charge of repeating myself.

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Writing for Armenians is a thankless task and writing on Armenian issues is a labyrinth without an exit. But I keep on writing. Don't ask me why because I have no answer. When I decided to be a writer I wanted to write short novels, hundreds of them in the manner of Simenon. But unlike Simenon I also wanted to write brief accessible introductions on such influential and fascinating figures as Bach and Hegel, if only because everything I had read about them had been academic and impenetrable to the average layman.

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Give me a critic whose criticism is not ego-driven and I shall be eternally grateful to him.

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Saturday, May 01, 2004

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"In this country, a man is innocent until proven guilty," one of my Armenian-American readers reminds me after reading a comment in which I accuse our leadership of incompetence and corruption. This reader would be right if this forum were a court of law and I the prosecution.

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History is full of criminals who were never proven guilty in an American or any other court of law - from Cain and Judas to Jack the Ripper and Saddam. What about the Sultan and Talaat? Or for that matter, Hitler and Stalin? Are we to assume they were all innocent?

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If our leaders have not yet been proven guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt it may be because our justice system (assuming we have one) is not designed to catch crooks but to legitimize criminal conduct. Likewise, our press is not designed to expose injustice but to cover it up.

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"Four of my investigative reporters were beaten to a pulp and my office was trashed," an editor from Yerevan once told me. This happened under Levon Der Bedrossian's administration. Have things improved since then?

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Has anyone ever calculated how many million dollars we spend every year on our churches and clergy? Why is it that when it comes to investigative reporters, we say we can't afford them?

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An insider once told me: "Did you know that the Catholicos of Etchmiadzin sits on a throne of gold?" He was not accusing, he was bragging.

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If those who rise to the defense of our leaders are deeply concerned about the welfare of the nation, I would like to know what else have they done to express their concern? - in addition to criticizing critics.

May 5, 2004

Sunday, May 02, 2004

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In his monumental new book ART: A NEW HISTORY (777 pages, Illustrated, Notes. Index. Bibliography. New York: Harper Collins. 2003), Paul Johnson writes that Armenian churches "have proved difficult to destroy completely or even to reduce to ruin. They were built by a sturdy race, one of the great survivors of history, and most still stand today erect and proud in their conical caps." And: "No ancient race, except the Egyptians, paid more attention to stone quality than the Armenians." Further down: "The Armenians have been persecuted as often, if not quite so long, as the Jews."

Though he discusses many modern painters, Johnson ignores Sarian and mentions Arshile Gorky's name only once in passing. He calls Ivan Aivazovsky (1817-1900) "Russia's finest marine painter…[who] next to storms at sea, loved moonlight, because it produced a fresh set of dramatic circumstances which could be carried to the limits of credibility."

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About the Russian painter Levitan, Johnson tells us, though he was a close friend of Chekhov's, he did not paint a portrait of the writer. That's because, he explains, Levitan was infatuated with the Russian landscape and painted nothing else.

It is to be noted, Aivazosky too was acquainted with Chekhov but he too left no portrait of the writer.

I suspect both Aivazovsky and Levitan were criticized for repeating themselves.

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Whenever I am accused of repeating myself I remember the Saroyan story about the cellist who played the same note over and over again on his cello. When asked why, he is said to have replied: "All cellists search for the right note and they never find it. I have found it."

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When criticized of repeating himself, Sartre replied: "We should not be afraid of repetition." I suppose, to some degree all writers and artists in general have their favorite theme or monomania.

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The question that I ask myself again and again is: Why do people who consider themselves smart allow relative morons to rule them?

One possible answer: They may not be as smart as they think they are.

Another answer: They may be smart in business but certified single-digit morons in politics.

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Are Armenians unique in that respect? Not at all. The average German or Russian may be as smart if not smarter than the average Englishman or American, but their history suggests that they have been a disaster in politics. As for the Arab tribes in the Middle East: the less said about them the better….

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Monday, May 03, 2004

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Unlike physics, chemistry and mathematics, history is not an exact science. There is no such thing as English chemistry, French physics, or German mathematics. Mathematics, unlike history, is one.

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The past is one too but historians differ in their interpretations of it because

a)they are products of specific experiences, traditions, values, and interests, all of which may be summed up with a single word, namely, bias; and

b) none of them can claim to know everything there is to know.

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The power structure within which a historian functions will support and promote only those historians whose bias is in agreement with its interests. An objective historian who ignores the interests of the state will be labeled a dissident and treated like an outcast, a renegade, and an enemy of the people.

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Patriotic history has as much validity as patriotic chemistry, physics, or mathematics.

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All patriotic historians who are convinced their version of history is the only right one should be reminded that their patriotism makes them prime targets of nationalist propaganda and manipulation.

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A patriotic historian who is convinced there is one and only one version of the past will have no difficulty in convincing his compatriots because preaching to the converted is easy. What's hard is convincing the opposition.

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If so far Turkish historians have failed to convince Armenians, and vice versa, it is because both Turks and Armenians are brought up to be slaves to their own bias and limitations.

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If some day Turkish and Armenian historians reach a consensus it will be because the dissidents on both sides will be classified not as enemies of the people but as friends of the truth.

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Tuesday, May 04, 2004

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If I were to choose the most dangerous sentence ever devised by men, it would be: "I believe in one God" - the implication being that He is the only true God and all believers in other gods are heretics or infidels, that is to say, misguided inferior dupes who are destined to burn in hell.

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If mankind ever ushers in a universal Golden Age, the 20th Century will be known as the Dark Ages of Nationalism and all national historians will be classified as enemies of mankind because they infected the minds of people with the deadly virus of racist propaganda.

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The purpose of nationalist historians is to cover up moral failures, to misrepresent defeats as moral victories, and to declare the nation to be God's chosen.

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The only way to promote universal brotherhood and peace is to eliminate all traces of propaganda and lies from history textbooks.

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Whenever I read one of my youthful critics, I cannot help reflecting that as a boy I too would have reacted the same way had I read someone like me.

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As a boy I too viewed the world through patriotic eyes. But was I really a patriot or did I pretend to be one for purely one-upmanship reasons? I was brainwashed. What does a brainwashed person really know about anything since his awareness is that of a parrot who speaks but does not know what he says.

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Wednesday, May 05, 2004

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Speaking of textbooks on history: I should like to read one in which one man's terrorist is not another's freedom fighter, and a military defeat is what it says it is, a defeat rather than a moral victory. I just find it difficult to believe that anyone has a right to draw an invisible semantic line in his imagination and to assert that if a word crosses that line it is defined as its own contradiction.

*

I cannot trust a historian who asks me to respect his judgment by suspending mine. Objectivity and honesty are extremely rare commodities. I am willing to accept the objectivity and honesty of an Armenian historian only if he is also respected by honest and objective non-Armenian historians.

*

No historian has ever asserted that he is infallible and he knows everything there is to know in his field, and the fact that he enjoys the support of a regime or political party with its own ideology that is in direct conflict with other ideologies should be seen as a liability rather than an asset by anyone who values objectivity and honesty above self-interest and patriotism, if only because some of the most horrible blunders and crimes in the history of mankind have been committed in the name of ideology, patriotism and self-interest.

May 8, 2004

Thursday, May 06, 2004

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

Name the greatest living Armenian playwright! You don't know? Well, no need to feel bad about it because neither do I. How about the greatest living Armenian novelist? Or the greatest short story writer, poet, essaying, literary critic or philosopher?

*

There is a World War II American joke that goes something like this: "What is the title of the shortest book in the world? A list of Italian heroes." I suspect a list of great contemporary Armenian writers, or for that matter, painters, composers, actors and directors, would make an even shorter book with a single blank page.

*

Lucky for us no one cares much about Armenians to make a joke of our literature, not even Armenians. We escape ridicule through ignorance (odar) and apathy (Armenian).

*

Now then, if I were to ask the name of the richest Armenian alive, I would have better luck in getting the right answer if only because our national benefactors make regular headlines in our press, perhaps because in our environment or culture, money is in, ideas out. The first words of our bible have been amended to: "At the beginning was the $…."

*

More questions: Who is the greatest political thinker or leader, or the greatest historian (the massacres don't count because they cover only two decades of our millennial history), or the greatest scientist?

*

Perhaps one reason we are drowning in a sea of mediocrity is that we are so obsessed with what the Turks did to us that we don't give a damn about anything else. As Zarian would say: "Danger, danger, danger!"

#

Friday, May 07, 2004

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

"There is a Turk in all of us," Puzant Granian once told me. The thought suddenly occurs to me: What if it's the other way around? What if what's buried within us is not a Turk but an Armenian - and buried in a grave that's not just six feet under but 600 years deep? What if our loud and coarse assertion of patriotism is nothing but an effort to cover up this fact? And when I speak of the buried Armenian, I have in mind an authentic Christian who doesn't just brag about his Christianity but practices it: an Armenian who turns the other cheek and an Armenian who forgives as well as loves his enemy. Granted that a good Christian is hard to find among odars too, but unlike us, they don't brag about their Christianity as insistently as we do.

Speaking for myself, the Armenians I have met and dealt with are the kind who insult you whenever you refuse to share their lies and illusions and, given the chance, will kick you when you are down. And the more patriotic the Armenian, the more ruthlessly Ottoman his assertions of Armenianism. It is as if he were using his patriotism as a license to verbally massacre anyone whom he identifies as an enemy.

#

Saturday, May 08, 2004

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

The older I grow, the less I know, and the more doubts I have about everything, including myself.

*

There may be two sides to every story but we are destined to know only one. The rest will be guesswork. But there will be guesswork even for our side of the story because none of us can claim to be fully aware of all the unconscious drives that motivated us to act as we did.

*

Michel Tournier on death: "To die for me means to return to the state that preceded my birth. I couldn't have been nothing since I became something. In dying I will probably trace the road in the opposite direction."

On Proust: "He bores me. His social environment bores me. Closed worlds fascinate as well as repel me. The Thomas Mann of THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN fascinates me. So does Saint-Simon's Versailles. But Proust's Saint-Germain I find oppressive."

*

Jean-Francois Revel: "Terrorism has become a means of ruling foreign nations, especially democracies, from a distance. Dictatorships are better equipped to neutralize terrorists….A war against terrorism is a war in which the enemy is everywhere and invisible - he doesn't wear a uniform and he doesn't kill other soldiers but random civilians. The democracies of Europe have not yet devised a strategy to deal with this kind of enemy."

On Western anti-Americanism: "A triumph of Islam."

*

Bernard Henri-Levy on terrorism: "This is undoubtedly a strange war. A war without battlefields. A war without a front line, a war in which each one of us is suddenly thrust on some kind of front line….Al-Qaeda's enemy is not America but democracy."

May 12, 2004

Sunday, May 09, 2004

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

If we knew everything, reality would be predictable. It follows, the larger the area of our ignorance, the more unpredictable reality will be.

*

Organized religions are popular because they seek to make reality predictable by forging an alliance with the Almighty who happens to be in charge of reality.

*

Islam is not pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel, or for that matter, anti-West or even anti-America or anti-democracy, but anti-modern and anti-progress, that is to say, against the advance of time or reality. Its aim is to return to the Middle Ages because it is in the Middle Ages that its imperial power reached its apex.

*

What a sad book one could write on the subject of wishful thinking in the history of nations!

#

Monday, May 10, 2004

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

The greater the distance between man and war, the more warlike the man.

*

Patriotism may be useful when it comes to getting votes and making war; but when it comes to understanding reality and making the right decision, every patriot should recuse himself.

*

If you are for patriotism, does that also mean you are for your enemy's patriotism? And if you say: "My side is right and the enemy's side wrong," I ask: What if the enemy too is educated or brainwashed to think the same way?

*

No one questions Hitler's patriotism, but had he been less patriotic and more objective in his judgment of men and events, there would have been no concentration camps, no World War II, and no millions of victims and casualties.

*

I have been exposed to so much patriotic nonsense that whenever I meet a patriot I immediately dismiss him as either a dupe (if he is young) or a phony (if he is old).

*

Patriotism is preached by the old and believed by the young.

*

A good lawyer knows the law, a smart lawyer knows the loopholes.

#

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

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

To pretend to be wise when foolish is a common aberration among us. The wise do not pretend. The wise do not feel the need to pretend. The wise do not feel the need to impress others with their wisdom.

*

How to hate the Turks without becoming a Turk? Or rather: Is it possible to hate Turks without becoming one?

*

We are imperfect beings living in an imperfect world and we like to believe we deserve better because we are better.

*

To say I am better is to dehumanize others as inferiors, and to dehumanize others is at the root of all criminal conduct.

*

The more ignorant a man is the more narrow the boundaries of knowledge will be for him.

*

The problem begins when a patriot is brought up to think in terms of war and victory. If he were to think in terms of war and defeat he would be less of a patriot.

*

Pascal: "The final act is always bloody, however fine the rest of the play is."

#

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

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

"We may not have a Shakespeare in our literature but we have one of the greatest Shakespeare translators of all time!" an Armenian scholar once bragged to me, as if to say, we are one up on the English.

*

Some of my readers are offended when I criticize Armenians. In their view we are beyond criticism and the function of a writer to be a brown-noser. Stalin and Hitler thought so too. So did the sultans. Unmask any one of our role models and expose a mini-sultan.

*

I think it was either Freud or Jung who said, fanatics are happier and healthier people than moderates because they have no doubts, anxieties, uncertainties, complexes and phobias; they don't waver, hesitate, rationalize, explain and justify. They know not only what they want but also how to get it.

*

Misery likes company, they say. That may well be one reason why I would like to convert fanatics. I can't stand their smug self-satisfaction, their misplaced self-esteem, their infatuation with their own intellectual prowess, and their arrogant dogmatism based on the totally absurd assumption that they have all the answers. Call it envy!

*

I could be the happiest man on earth were it not for the delusion that

it is reasonable to reason with my fellow Armenians.

*

Cyril Connolly: "If attacked by a lion thrust your arm down his throat. This takes some practice."

*

May 15, 2004

Thursday, May 13, 2004

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

Three of our eminent academics cannot decide whether Zarian's TRAVELLER AND HIS ROAD is a diary, a work of fiction or a memoir. I read a detailed and carefully annotated essay on this controversy in a recent issue of HARATCH (Paris). A controversy? Make it, a tempest in a tea cup. Instead of discussing the meaning of the work (and there is so much to discuss there!) these gentlemen argue about its classification, which amounts to discussing the size and color of the envelope and completely ignoring the contents of the letter within. And to think that these are the very same people who complain that the new generation has no interest in Armenian studies. There is an American expression that sums up this type of exercise in futility: "Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." Or, as the Russians would put it: "Bald men fighting over a comb." This type of academic gives literature a bad name by glorifying irrelevance and reducing thinking to the level of mental masturbation. One of the most dangerous aspect of some forms of perversity is its total absence of awareness. Some perverts assume their perversity to be the norm and they go about their business on the assumption that if the whole world doesn't share it, it should. And when someone comes along and identifies it as a perversity they are outraged and dismiss him as a pervert. I am reminded of a friend of mine, a diplomat, who once observed that even our academics have mafias, and the aim of mafias, as everyone knows, is to legitimize criminal conduct - it is worth remembering that the original meaning of the word mafioso is "man of honor."

#

Friday, May 14, 2004

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

World War II was the best thing that happened to me. I was four years old when a German bomb reduced to rubble everything we owned. From that day on, my parents became so involved in the harsh business of survival in an alien environment that they had neither time nor inclination to teach me the rules of the game and the important role double-talk plays in human affairs, perhaps because the rules they themselves had been taught were no longer valid and they, as adults, were as confused as I was. This may explain why, when at the beginning of my career as a writer I tried to recycle chauvinist propaganda and engage in double-talk I was so dissatisfied with the results that, had I kept it up, I would have died of cancer within two or at most three years. Which is why I maintain a touch of honesty may be as important to your health as all the vitamins put together - from ABC to XYZ.

*

Saturday, May 15, 2004

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

There are those who study the past like lawyers in order to defend their side of the story. They forget that sooner or later a lawyer must confront not only the prosecution and its witnesses but also a judge and a jury, and the verdict may not always be in their favor.

*

When it comes to our political partisans and their fellow travelers, my motto is similar to that of the American pundit who said: "I never vote: it only encourages them."

*

Our genocide is a fact that no one can dispute.

Here is another fact: it has been disputed not only by Turkish and Turcophile historians but also by such progressive and enlightened democracies as Israel and the United States.

That's easy to explain, of course: both Israeli and American politicians are cynical opportunists whose number one concern is number one.

The two questions we should ask at this point are: is there a single state in the world today whose leaders are motivated by altruism? And, will mankind ever experience a golden age in which international diplomacy will be guided by principles of justice and fair play?

Even more to the point:

What about our own political leaders and historians: in what way are they different from their odar counterparts? If, for every historian who documents the genocide, we had another who took it upon himself to document our own blunders, perhaps we would have a better chance to abandon our tribal ways and become a nation.

I say to my fellow Armenians: If you want to change the world, begin with yourself; and if you want to teach ethics to odar political leaders, start with your own and don't be surprised if your efforts are not crowned with instant success.

#

May 22, 2004

Sunday, May 16, 2004

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

We should remind ourselves once in a while, and the more frequently the better, that we are imperfect beings living in an imperfect world and anyone who asserts or suggests or implies that he may well be an exception to this rule is one who cannot bear the weight of his imperfections and the dishonor of his blunders.

*

One mark of civilization is the ability to disagree without resorting to verbal abuse. In that sense, we have among us, perhaps even we are at the mercy, of barbarians who try to cover their barbarism with the flag by projecting the image of superpatriots. They operate on the false assumption that their chauvinism justified their conduct and they completely ignore the fact that the means they employ to express themselves belong to the jungle.

In other words, they are no better than Turkish gypsies who identify themselves as Armenians, and since their awareness is that of barbarians, this contradiction escapes their consciousness. Their aim is to prove they are better Armenians but they succeed only in proving they are both wicked and stupid.

*

To those who are eager to point out that I too on occasion engage in verbal abuse, I say: by proving that I too am a Turkish gypsy you reinforce my argument, which is, we all harbor a Turk within us, and the first step in rediscovering our true identity is to be born again as human beings.

#

Monday, May 17, 2004

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

You can recognize an Armenian by his inability to handle disagreement, and Armenian disagreements come in a large variety of shapes, shades and sizes.

There are academic disagreements over irrelevant, petty abstractions completely divorced from reality.

There are disagreements in defense of an ideology or orthodoxy whose sole aim is to prove that one side is always right and the other wrong.

There are disagreements which are extensions of egos rather than brains ("I known better because I am smarter," - or rather, louder, and when that fails, more abusive).

And then there are fascist disagreements that are motivated by lust for power and in defense of a propaganda line.

How to reconcile these disagreements?

The Armenian who discovers a fail-safe method to do that deserves to be called the greatest leader in our millennial history, perhaps even a miracle worker of messianic dimensions.

#

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

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

An often asked question: Should we forgive the Turks?

A seldom asked question: Have they ever asked for our forgiveness?

*

An environment that values patriotism will breed phony chauvinists; and a culture that values wealth will beget wheeler-dealers and bloodsuckers some of whom will surround themselves with brown-nosers and will parade as national benefactors.

#

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

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

There can be dialogue only between two honest men with two different sets of experiences or perspectives. Two propaganda lines cannot engage in dialogue because propaganda and honesty are mutually exclusive. Propaganda cannot be honest even when honestly believed in. Faith may move mountains but it cannot change a lie to truth.

#

Thursday, May 20, 2004

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

He who says my God is the only true God and my faith the only true faith, carries within him the seeds of countless wars and massacres even when his God is one of peace and even when his religion is based on mercy, compassion and love.

*

We have become so obsessed with the issue of genocide recognition that we completely ignore the fact that once more we have placed ourselves at the mercy of the Turks and we continue to be dependent on their sense of justice and fair play.

#

Friday, May 21, 2004

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

You want to make an Armenian friend? Recycle his favorite propaganda line. You want to make him an enemy or expose the Turk in him? Speak your mind.

*

If an odar criticizes us, we dismiss him as pro-Turkish. If an Armenian criticizes us, we call him an enemy of the people. We have no use for critics because we assume to be beyond criticism, and nothing makes us more vulnerable to criticism than this false assumption.

*

Mikael Nalbandian: "It is high time that Armenians learn the manly art of telling black from white."

*

Leo Alishan: "To be aware of our failings is smart; to ignore them is the height of stupidity."

#

Saturday, May 22, 2004

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

Once upon a time but not so long ago I used to be younger than anyone else. Now I am almost always the oldest. Today, a conversation with a much older man who turns out to be five years younger than I. Either I am well preserved, I think, or he has made a mess of his life; and sure enough, he mentions three catastrophic illnesses and a nasty divorce that almost reduced his status to that of a homeless panhandler. But then, who is to say if writing for Armenians is not as painful an experience as terminal cancer combined with a nightmare divorce from a gold-digging shrew from hell?

*

People hate lies, but they hate the truth even more . I can't say I speak the truth because I don't know the truth; but I plead guilty to the charge that I speak honestly about what I think and feel.

*

Conducting a civilized discussion is not exactly an Armenian art form. Here is a practical suggestion: state the facts as objectively as you can and let them speak for themselves. No need to engage in verbal abuse because insults cannot strengthen a weak case. On the contrary, they may expose it as untenable.

May 26, 2004

Sunday, May 23, 2004

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

Capital dehumanizes not only the worker, said Marx, but also the capitalist and society as a whole. The same could be said of nationalism - that it dehumanizes not only the enemy but also the nationalist himself, also nations and the world as a whole.

*

"I think therefore I am," said Descartes, but he couldn't explain why people think differently about the very same subject even when they claim to use their common sense.

*

The world is not an extension of our ego but the other way around. At every moment of our lives we are dependent on countless invisible forces beyond our control. We don't choose our parents, religion, nation or tribe. A Turk thinks and feels as he does because he was born a Turk, he had a Turkish education, he reads Turkish newspapers and books.

*

To what extent what a man feels and thinks depends on where he was born? What if geography rather than common sense shapes our perception of reality.

*

For every Armenian pundit who says his version of the past is the only true one there is a Turkish pundit who says the opposite. Do these pundits believe in what they say? And if they do, does it ever occur to them that it is where they were born and raised that shapes their thinking more than the rules of logic and common sense?

#

Monday, May 24, 2004

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

Is freedom of thought possible in a world where at a very early age and at a time when we can neither think nor judge for ourselves we are exposed to ideas that are not our own?

*

A Turk is brought up to believe Armenians are infidels, therefore less human than they and less deserving of fundamental human rights. Whose fault is that? Their God and their religion? Or rather, their interpretation or understanding of their God and religion? If a guilty man can plead not guilty by reason of insanity, can he also feel justified in pleading innocent by reason of his belief

#

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

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

If religion legitimizes murder in the name of God, in what way is it different from insanity? - at least, as far as the victims go.

To those who say, "My religion does not legitimize murder," may I quote Voltaire's unforgettable dictum: "Since it was a religious war, there were no survivors."

And if you say: "You are talking about the past and I am talking about the present," I will say: A man of faith is a man of faith regardless of national origin or orthodoxy.

*

Religions are closed systems of thought and they all begin by legitimizing intolerance and dehumanizing heretics and infidels.

"This may apply to Islam today but not to Christianity." That's because Christians are top dogs. If some day their status is reduced to that of underdogs, who is to say we will not behave like jihadists?

*

Let us not confuse technological progress with moral progress. If anything, the 20th Century has been bloodier and more barbaric than the Middle Ages. Machines may change but man stays the same.

God may have created man but it is man who keeps recreating God in his own image and adapting Him to his own needs.

Islam has its fundamentalists and fanatics as surely as Christianity and in troubled waters scum invariably rises to the top.

#

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

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

It may be morally superior to be a victim than a victimizer but how many wolves would prefer to be sheep?

*

There is nothing wrong in being a pessimist if you work like an optimist.

*

It is not easy reasoning with a moron who calls you a moron.

*

The only thing that I have learned from my Armenian critics is the law of the jungle.

*

Life has a way of searching out and locating your weaknesses in order to cause maximum damage.

*

Writing is a pleasure with only one drawback:

you cannot choose your readers.

*

The human condition: We are all uninvited guests in search of an invisible host who may or may not exist.

*

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

*

History is not a succession of inevitable occurrences or

the will of God unfolding. If it were, we would have to agree that the Armenian Genocide was the Will of God.

May 29, 2004

#

Thursday, May 27, 2004

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

Whenever I use my common sense and objectivity I am accused of being pro-Turkish. I suppose the same thing happens to an honest Turkish writer. Perhaps because all honest men swim in a sea of humbug.

*

Propaganda works only when the leaders say what the people want to hear. It is a conspiracy between cunning operators and dupes who are too lazy to think for themselves.

*

On the day mankind discovers a way to detect and eliminate all propaganda, all politicians will be exposed as compulsive liars.

*

If you expose lies, all liars will conspire against you.

*

In America, the rich think God is on their side; in our own circles, they are treated as if they were Gods by their circles of brown-nosers.

*

Jules Renard: "The saddest moments: those in which we realize wisdom is also a fraud."

*

I understand so well those who hold views that I held thirty years ago and their anger when their infallibility is questioned.

#

Friday, May 28, 2004

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

If you want to project the image of a good Christian, do not speak like a bloodthirsty infidel.

If you want to be thought of as a patriotic Armenian, do not speak like a Turk on the warpath.

If you want to misrepresent yourself as a tolerant and civilized man, the very least you can do is not to curse like a rude and uncouth barbarian.

Remember, unawareness of contradictions is the surest symptom of instinctive or animal behavior, that is to say, beastly conduct.

A typical example: "No four-letter words here, please! We don't go for that shit!"

And finally, to our Muslim brothers and sisters, I say: If you speak in the name of a "merciful and compassionate Allah," do not murder innocent women and children. For actions speak louder than words, and the wages of sin is death.

#

Saturday, May 29, 2004

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

Trying to understand reality and promoting hatred (or war propaganda) are mutually exclusive enterprises.

*

I can think of nothing more despicable than the war propaganda of old men, civilians, and faceless and nameless bureaucrats who operate on the assumption that they will never come face to face with the enemy and someone else will do the fighting and dying for them. I would trust the judgment of these individuals as much as the patriotism of someone high on drugs. But perhaps to some people patriotism and hatred of the enemy provide a kind of high which they need as much as an alcoholic needs his bottle of booze.

*

All cowards are brave when they know their cowardice will not be exposed on the battlefield.

#

June 2, 2004

Sunday, May 30, 2004

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

Whenever I raise the subject of Armenians and racism I am invariably attacked by our racists as anti-Armenian and even pro-Turkish - because anything remotely critical of Armenians is thought of as pro-Turkish in our environment.

Are Armenians racists?

Let me begin by asking: Am I a racist?

I was brought up as a racist.

I hated all Turks.

I hated Greeks too (because they called us "Turkish gypsies").

I thought of the offspring of mixed marriages as bastards.

I thought of the West as morally inferior and of Americans as a bastardized nation.

Because Shahan Shahnour's grandfather was Greek, his patriotism and Armenianism were questioned again and again by our pure-blooded partisans, he was even physically assaulted, and his character vilified with such intensity in our press that he eventually assumed a new name (Armen Lubin) and gave up writing in Armenian.

I have relatives in the U.S. (and I don't mean Alabama or Mississipi) who believe Blacks are inferior and all interracial couples degenerates.

Once a good friend of mine, whose mother is an Azeri, was called a "Turkish bitch" by one of our dedicated partisans.

Are we racists?

Let the evidence speak for itself.

Are we justified in being racists? No, because our racism alienates friends, and we have friends everywhere - among Americans, Greeks, Kurds, Jews, and even Turks (half of whom may well be half-Armenian).

#

Monday, May 31, 2004

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

In a world where "it takes all kinds," it is impossible to be "all things to all men." No matter how selfless and noble your belief system, there will be those who will label you as an infidel, a heretic, a fool, or an enemy. That's because instinct (our animal side) speaks louder than reason (an extremely recent evolutionary development). To hope that things will change in our lifetime or even a thousand years hence might as well be an empty illusion. Consider the number of statesmen of vision, philosophers, prophets and messianic figures who have dedicated their lives to the service of their fellow men and were poisoned, crucified, assassinated, and exiled into the desert. Failure has been and continues to be the destiny of all men of goodwill whose sole aim in life is to promote universal peace and brotherhood. I am fully aware of this but I go on because the only way to justify pessimism is to work like an optimist; and defeatism makes sense only if you soldier on as if victory were inevitable. Don't ask me to explain this because I don't understand it myself.

#

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

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

If, instead of simply stating "I disagree with you," you let loose a barrage of personal insults or profanities, you can be sure of one thing: you are an oreo Armenian = Armenian on the outside, Ottoman on the inside. So that, in your case, hating Turks might as well be synonymous with hating yourself.

Since I am myself sometimes tempted to use profanities (as opposed to turning the other cheek) I am more than willing to concede that I too harbor a Turk within. But this phenomenon of two contradictory or Jekyll/Hyde beings coexisting within the same body is not a specifically Armenian aberration but a universal condition. Even Americans use the expression "Young Turks" in reference to ambitious politicians (Gingrich being a recent example) who are eager to introduce radical reforms in order to change the balance of power.

According to C.G. Jung "the relation between conscious and unconscious is compensatory." Translated into everyday parlance this means that man is constantly torn between two opposite tendencies one of which remains hidden from his own awareness. So that, the more an Armenian tries to project a patriotic image, the stronger the Turk within. Or, the more he protests or defends his Armenianism, the harder he tries to cover up his Ottomanism.

To those who say "I can't harbor a Turk because I have harmed no one," I say: if "at the beginning was the word," all bloody massacres begin with verbal massacres. One reason you have harmed no one is that you live in an environment in which killing or harming fellow human beings is against the law.

#

Wednesday, June 02, 2004

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

Shahan Shahnour: "To have intellectual humility and to express with some degree of candor what one really thinks: these are two features that have been tragically absent in some of our partisan writers."

*

All understanding proceeds from self-awareness. I have at no time criticized an Armenian aberration or failing that I have not detected in myself. Once upon a time I too was a holier-than-thou charlatan whose central concern was engaging in one-upmanship and I resented anyone who dared to express an opinion that differed from mine without first obtaining my seal of approval.

*

An Armenian critic has no future and an Armenian brown-noser has no self-respect.

*

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.

#

June 5, 2004

Thursday, June 03, 2004

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

"Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are." Not quite. Even Jesus was taken in by Judas.

"Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are." This saying is contradicted by another: "There is no accounting for tastes."

"Tell me the words you use more frequently and I will tell you who you are." That's much better.

My most frequently used (or rather thought) words are: "This is not what I had in mind."

*

Our intolerance is such that we even refuse to tolerate any mention of it.

*

In an intolerant society, writes Melvin J. Lasky, the late editor of ENCOUNTER, "manuscripts will be banned, and writers and readers will once again be sitting in concentration camps for having thought dangerous ideas or uttered forbidden words."

We don't yet have concentration camps for people, but we do have them for ideas; and where books remain unpublished and unread, burning them becomes redundant.

*

I remember to have read somewhere in Shahnour (I am now quoting from memory): "The best way for a writer to serve his nation is by producing works that live. Whether these works are positive or negative should be of no concern to anyone."

#

Friday, June 04, 2004

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

The problem with overestimating yourself is that forever after you are condemned to live up to your image; and that's a race you are destined to lose.

*

If whiskey tasted as sweet as a cola it would be popular with children too -- with predictable results. I write for adults, not children or retards who are taken in by propaganda.

*

It is extremely difficult to convince intolerant people that they are intolerant. That's because they speak in the name of God or Truth - the implication being that anyone who disagrees with them speaks in the name of lies and the devil.

*

On an atomic level we existed since the beginning of time and we shall continue to exist until the end. The immortality of the atom is a fact; it's the immortality of the soul that is speculation.

*

You may have noticed that Charents's best known poem is titled "To my sweet Armenia," and that as far as I know he never wrote a poem titled "To my sweet fellow Armenians." That's because mountains and valleys are easier to love than Armenians.

#

Saturday, June 05, 2004

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

To assert your Armenianism it is not necessary to adopt Ottoman means. When Zarian said, "An Armenian's tongue can be sharper than a Turk's yataghan," he was referring to this aberration.

*

To assert their respect for democratic principles, our partisans and ideologues think nothing of violating such fundamental human rights as free speech - which amounts to saying, "I believe in free speech but only in my own, not yours, especially if yours contradict mine."

*

What is the value of a view if it only parrots someone else's? Is dialogue possible between two robots who are in complete agreement with each other because that's how they have been programmed?

*

Contradicting yourself and insisting that you are right amounts to adding arrogance to stupidity.

*

Arrogance combined with stupidity: there you have it, the source of all our defeats, tragedies, and catastrophes.

June 9, 2004

Sunday, June 06, 2004**************************** Dogs attack to protect you. Critics attack to expose you as a phony. That's why dogs are more popular than critics.*If a thousand people agree with you and only one disagrees, that one will make a disproportionately deeper impact; and if he makes sense, the result may be deadly. Which is why tyrants silence, exile, jail or even murder dissidents, and they do so in the name of self-defense. They consider themselves the victims rather than the victimizers.*It is the destiny of an Armenian writer to starve, and no one can be as vulnerable to bribe as a starving beggar. That's why we have an overabundance of scribbling brown-nosers and a scarcity of writers willing to criticize benefactors or reject the worship at the altar of the Almighty Dollar. The names that come to mind are Raffi, Baronian, Zarian, Massikian - strike Massikian: he was not a beggar but a successful lawyer. But as far as our multimillionaires go, even one critic in every generation is too many; hence their view of all writers as potential ingrates. The irony here is that all writers, including the brown-nosers, are indeed ingrates because they are not treated as the best but as one among equals. The greed of our capitalists is exceeded only by the vanity of our mediocrities.#Monday, June 07, 2004****************************** He who cannot yet think for himself cannot be educated; he can only be brainwashed.*At a very early age I was taught to brag about Mt. Ararat and Lakes Van and Sevan. I was even taught to brag about the fact that Armenians had been the first nation to suffer a genocide in the 20th Century. I was also taught to brag about a thousand other things including, and above all, our talent for survival.*If our dead could speak, what would they brag about? Our genius for contributing victims to sadistic Mongoloid morons?*Only idiots brag about their failures.*We are not smart if only because we have been and continue to be at the mercy of idiots - if it's not Ottoman or Soviet idiots, it's our own.*To be at the mercy of idiots means being lesser idiots.*Just because something is never said it does not mean it is not thought; and just because something is not thought it does not mean it cannot be true.*There may be more truth in what is covered up than what it is proclaimed from the rooftops. Contrary to what roosters may believe, it is not their crowing that makes the sun rise.*"Armenians are smart!" A statement that consists in 99% wishful thinking and 1% cunning in the marketplace.#Tuesday, June 08, 2004**************************** From Avedik Issahakian's posthumously published notebooks:* "Armenia labors under three curses: bad geographic location, bloodthirsty neighbors, and dumb leaders."*"Contrary to Soviet propaganda, the Revolution does not change men into angels but into beasts of prey."*"We owe to the 20th Century two great discoveries: the disintegration of the atom and the disintegration of the soul. The first discovery was made by Europe, the second by the Russians."*"Socialism is the enemy of culture." (And I cannot help reflecting: If one were to add socialism Russian style, or Sovietism, to Ottomanism, the result would be an idiot who brags about how smart he is.)*"Ah! If only life lasted as long as death!"*"The eye cannot see that which the mind cannot perceive."*"If only men were born and died like the stars: part mortal, part immortal."#

June 12, 2004

Wednesday, June 09, 2004

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

Karl Marx: "History has more imagination than the men who make it."

*

The French Revolution promised "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," and it delivered the Terror. Ditto with the Russian Revolution. Closer to home: at the turn of the century we demanded our historic lands. History delivered only a fraction of what we wanted, plus a series of massacres, a genocide, dispersion, alienation and assimilation. The plots of history don't always have a happy ending.

*

To ignore the past or the history of an idea or ideology is to indulge in wishful thinking and daydreams, and history or reality has a way of turning daydreams into nightmares.

*

After reading one or two, or at most three books by Armenian historians subsidized by Armenian political parties or satellite cultural institutions, the average Armenian thinks he knows everything there is to know about Armenian history. It goes without saying that this misconception is shared by people of all national groups, including Turks.

#

Thursday, June 10, 2004

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

It is the destiny of all movements (be they political, religious or utopian) to be confiscated by men of greed whose understanding of history or the complexities of reality is limited to the point of blindness.

*

Even idealists and political leaders with a pure heart and noble intentions may end up leading a nation to hell - hence, the old saying: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

*

No matter how expensive the wine, its destiny is to become urine. No matter how noble the ideology, the destiny of its Party line is to become a downward spiral.

No matter how admirable the -ism, its destiny is to degenerate from charlatanism to gangsterism.

#

Friday, June 11, 2004

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

If we don't understand ourselves (as Freud, Jung and Adler tell us) whom and what can we possibly understand?

If we don't know why things exist, what can we possibly know? -- except perhaps to question the judgment of those who pretend to know better and who, based on that false assumption, make a mess of things for the rest of us. And then there are those who don't know whether they are coming or going but who insist on dragging us there with them and they invariably find a mob eager to follow them.

*

Just because millions believe in something, it doesn't make it true. Millions believed in the divine rights of kings and many more millions believe in astrology, the papacy…and Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao. The more absurd a belief system, it seems, the more followers it will attract.

*

Mankind may be divided into those who pretend to know and their dupes.

*

When I knew nothing, I was eager to believe; and when I believed, I had no doubts - none whatever!

*

More men are seduced by verbal crapola than by reason and common sense.

*

Man does not live by bread alone, he also needs propaganda.

*

The truth is one, but the lies that are spoken in its name are many.

#

Saturday, June 12, 2004

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

America as that "shining city on a hill." A popular metaphor. A dazzling image. It combines myth with wishful thinking. And even more to the point: it ignores or covers up the ruthless and systematic extermination of twenty million natives.

*

About the recent prisoner-abuse scandal in Iraq, we are told, it does not show "the real face of America." But what if it bares its soul?

*

Will America ever recognize our genocide? If they do it will not be because they are on the side of the underdog and the victim, or because they believe in justice for all, but because it is in their own interests. Some day even the Turks may recognize it for the same reason. There is no friendship, love, compassion or justice between nations, only common interests.

*

A Turkish diplomat in the White House on the subject of our genocide: "Armenians are our Indians."

*

The victimizer and his victim speak two different and mutually incomprehensible languages even when they speak the same language. Americans and Turks understand each other even when one speaks in Turkish and the other in English.

*

And what about us? Are our hands clean? If we have victimized no one, is it because we are the first nation to accept Christianity? Is it because we are full of love for all our fellow men regardless of race, color, and creed? Or is it because we have been perennial underdogs and victims?

*

We have victimized no one - no one! except our writers, the most defenseless, vulnerable and innocent members of the nation; and we have victimized them because they dared to bare our soul, shatter our myths, and expose our chauvinist charlatans as compulsive liars.

*

I once had the following exchange with one of our partisans:

MYSELF: "Did it ever occur to you to consult the people whether or not they wanted a revolution at the turn of the century in the Ottoman Empire?"

PARTISAN: "The people? But the people are like sheep. Shepherds know better what's good for them."

Yes, but when the wolves devour the sheep, whom do we blame? The wolves or the shepherds?

June 16, 2004

Sunday, June 13, 2004

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

A racist divides mankind into two fractions in order to classify himself as superior and to believe that this superiority allows him to behave like swine and get away with it.

*

Nationalism is nothing but a variant of racism. A nationalist too believes the fraction of mankind to which he belongs to be superior, and that this superiority legitimizes criminal conduct. Both racists and nationalists are no better than the scum of the earth who, secretly or unconsciously aware of this fact, create an imaginary world order in order to place themselves at the top of the food chain.

*

Anti-Semitism is popular because it allows even skinheads with single-digit IQs to assert moral and intellectual superiority.

*

That which racists ascribe to their race and nationalists to their nation, tribalists ascribe to their tribe, and aristocrats to their class.

*

The Greeks did not have a word for racist or nationalist. They simply divided mankind into Greeks and barbarians. But they had another word: hubris (pride or arrogance) which was invariably brought low by Nemesis.

In that sense, all men of faith are guilty of hubris too when they assume their faith to be the only true faith.

#

Monday, June 14, 2004

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

One reason I am against nationalism is that we were massacred by nationalists in the name of nationalism.

If we are going to adopt an -ism, let it be something better than or different from nationalism.

*

For an Armenian to be a nationalist amounts to a victim of a serial killer being for serial-killerism.

*

To say, my nationalism is good but my enemy's nationalism is bad is to echo the African chieftain's definition of good and evil as quoted by C.G. Jung in his memoirs: "When I steal my enemy's wives, it's good; when he steals mine, it's bad."

*

In the 19th Century nationalists conducted wars of liberation against imperial powers; in the 20th Century against one another. And whenever nationalists run out of foreign enemies, they take it out on their own countrymen. Hence the frequency of civil wars.

*

Like all fanatics, nationalists divide people into those who are with them and those who are against them, and those who are against them tend to outnumber those who are with them.

*

Fanaticism is a minority aberration that sometimes infects the majority, which is what happened during World War I in Turkey and during World War II in Germany, Italy, and Spain.

*

Nationalism is one of the three pillars of fascism - the other two being anti-Semitism and anti-intellectualism.

*

To a nationalist, a man with mixed parentage is a man with divided loyalties. It follows, he views a fraction of his own countrymen with suspicion.

*

It is to be noted that some of our most ardent nationalists (from Abovian to Zarian) married odars. Also to be noted: Zarian began his literary career as an impassioned nationalist and ended it by saying: "Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another." If you want proof of this assertion, visit an Armenian discussion forum on the internet.

*

The word chauvinism was coined in France after a soldier by the name of Chauvin who is said to have been blindly loyal to Napoleon.

*

Like Napoleon (a Corsican) most political leaders tend to be either foreigners or of mixed parentage. The Mamikonians were of Chinese descent, the Bagratunis claimed to be Jewish, many Greek-Byzantine emperors were Armenian, Hitler was an Austrian, Stalin a Georgian, English and Greek kings were German, the Young Turks were anything but Turkish, and Sultan Abdulhamid II was half-Armenian.

*

The universal brotherhood of all men may be a utopian daydream but the only alternative is hatred, war, massacre and ethnic cleansing - a euphemism for genocide.

#

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

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

When a chauvinist says, "My country, right or wrong!" what he really means is: "Myself, right or wrong." But a chauvinist who relies on his own judgment is like a dog who knows his master but not his master's master, who may be his worst enemy.

*

During World War II Armenians fought for Hitler as well as Stalin because they were told (led to believe…misled…brainwashed) they were killing and dying to liberate or in defense of the Sacred Homeland.

Did they have a choice?

The Armenians on Hitler's side were volunteers.

The Armenians on Stalin's side believed the Catholicos of Etchmiadzin when he said they were fighting a patriotic war.

Writes Manuel Sarkisyanz in his MODERN HISTORY OF TRANSCAUCASIAN ARMENIA: "The Communist regime needed the Church to endorse its war effort." He goes on: "A number of churches previously closed were now reopened. Some Armenian priests previously deported to Siberia were now returned." And because the Catholicos cooperated by accepting to be an arm of the Soviet propaganda machine, "the Soviet authorities permitted the reopening of the theological seminary in Etchmiadzin." Result? 350,000 Armenian boys died fighting not a patriotic war but a war between two fascist regimes. They trusted their master, but did not know their master's master, who happened to be one of the most ruthless and murderous tyrants in the history of mankind.

#

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

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

General Antranik: "I am not a nationalist. I am on the side of the underdog regardless of nationality." Translated into dollars and cents this simply means that he would have risen to the defense of a Turk against an Armenian if he had perceived the Turk to be an Armenian's victim.

*

We are a Rip Van Winkle nation and our slumber as Ottoman and Soviet subjects lasted over six centuries, and whenever our intellectuals attempted to wake us, they were silenced, buried and forgotten. Which may explain why whenever I quote or paraphrase one of them I get a pro-Ottoman reply or a comment worthy of a commissar. Zarian is right: "An Armenian's tongue can be sharper than a Turk's yataghan," and a yataghan laced with cobra's venom.

*

To say that we need solutions more than criticism is to imply that our intellectuals from the Golden Age (5th century AD) to the present either serenaded the moon or engaged in mental masturbation.

*

By the time a solution is found, the problem may no longer exist. And I suspect by the time our bosses, bishops and benefactors decide to listen to our intellectuals (as opposed to silencing them) it may be too late.

*

A hundred years ago, our partisans demanded freedom from tyranny (a demand that cost us countless innocent victims), and now that they have it, what are they doing with it?

*

Assertions of infallibility have a subtext that says: "Even when wrong, I am right!" But if you speak the truth or make sense - such as: "two plus two make four," or "the sun rises in the east and sets in the west" - no one will contradict you and all assertions of infallibility will be redundant. But if you say, "There is only one God and I speak in His name!" millions of Buddhists (who don't believe in God), atheists and agnostics will disagree with you and a thousand assertions of infallibility by ten thousand popes, ayatollahs and rabbis will not influence their thinking. Which may also suggest that assertions of infallibility are meant only for dupes who will believe in anything. And to think that millions of innocent people died because they dared to question the nonsense uttered by self-righteous, holier-than-thou nonentities.

chachanak · June 16, 2004

Tikin LeoMins,...

Oriord Fadei...

Tikin, akh ev arajin es TGHAMARTEM

еслиб вы знали как громко (ни чуть не приувеличиваю) я смеялась на работе когда прочитала этот диалог ... :lool: все смотрели на меня как на сумасшедшую...

А Фадей так и не понял кто есть кто :lol: :lol: :lol:

Edited June 16, 2004 by chachanak

June 19, 2004

Thursday, June 17, 2004

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

Can an Armenian and a Turk engage in dialogue?

Not if either one or both are brainwashed.

*

Can two Armenians engage in dialogue?

I have to see it to believe it.

*

Dialogue is possible only between two enlightened people. To a brainwashed Armenian, an enlightened Armenian might as well be a Turk. I speak from experience….

*

Once upon a time I too was brainwashed, so much so that I could write a book titled MEMOIRS OF A BRAINWASHED CHAUVINIST. That's when I had a counter-argument for every contradiction. That's when I was as invincible as David Anhaght and David of Sassoun combined - or so I convinced myself to believe in the hope that others would believe it too. And whenever my arguments bordered on the absurd I raised my voice; and when that didn't work I did not hesitate to go down into the gutter - anything to make the opposition give up in disgust and quit the field. I was a motor-mouth running an automatic. I did not think for myself because far better men had done the thinking for me. Every word I spoke was based on hearsay. I had the judgment of a parrot and the objectivity of a ventriloquist's puppet. I recycled propaganda and I didn't know it. I delivered platitudes and convinced no one, not even myself. Because no one believes what a brainwashed person says, not even the brainwashed person himself, but they allow him to speak out of embarrassed sympathy.

*

How many enlightened Armenians do I know? Quite a few, as a matter of fact, but most of them are either marginalized or alienated; and those who work for Armenian organizations speak one way in public and another in private. Speaking with a forked tongue has become second nature with us. So much so that we see nothing morally questionable in it.

*

For me, to argue with a brainwashed chauvinist would be like contradicting views that I held thirty years ago - a painfully embarrassing exercise in one-upmanship…or is it one-uphoodlumship?

#

Friday, June 18, 2004

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

We all swim in a sea of doubts and uncertainties. Not to be aware of this is a dangerous illusion. To cling to false certainties is to confuse a snake with a lifesaver.

*

To say, "I don't give a damn what others may have said," amounts to saying: "What I think represents the alpha and omega of human understanding," and "I prefer my own ignorance to someone else's wisdom," or "I am too infatuated with my own tribal and personal limitations to have any desire to explore in the infinite fields of human knowledge and understanding."

*

For a partisan to say, "I believe what my party leadership tells me and I reject what anyone else may say on the subject" is fascist b.s., ayatollah rubbish, and fuehrer baloney. What really matters is not what your leader tells you but what you think, and what you think begins on the day you decide "not to submit your intelligence to someone who may not have much of it himself" (Santa Teresa of Avila).

*

To read a writer means to open the gates of your perceptions to his ideas. Even when your conscious mind rejects these ideas, your subconscious may embrace them if only because the subconscious is not equipped to reject or censor ideas no matter how unorthodox. What it does instead is store them for future reference.

*

I don't write for readers who agree with me. I write for those who disagree and I am happy to note that they are my most faithful readers.

*

Speaking for myself, I live and work with the hope that tomorrow I will know something I don't know today, and this new knowledge will change the way I think. I also hope when that happens I will have taken a step in the right direction - forward and not backward.

#

Saturday, June 19, 2004

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

The greater the difference between what you know and what you pretend to know, the greater the ignorance.

*

If knowledge is power, it is also a responsibility and a burden, not something to brag about. Only the loud-mouth impostor, whose ignorance exceeds his knowledge, brays like an ass to impress other asses.

*

An educational system that enjoys the support of a political party, religious institution, or power structure, is contaminated with propaganda, hence the dictum: "Learning begins with unlearning."

*

I had two kinds of schoolteachers: honest ones and charlatans, but even the honest engaged in some form of charlatanism. In Brecht's unforgettable phrase: "Grub first, then ethics."

*

When a nation engages in violence, it calls it counter-violence. To this day the Turks see nothing morally questionable in the Genocide because they say their very existence was being threatened by the Great Powers (including the U.S. and Australia), Russia, and from within, Kurds, Greeks, and Armenians.

*

Every nation engages in propaganda; but even the most brutal regime (Hitler's and Stalin's are two recent examples) have had their share of critics and dissidents. It is up to us to decide whether or not we want to be on the side of the executioners or their victims.

*

Every power structure lies, yes; but one cannot help wondering what life would be like in a world where a spade is called a spade, and a lie a lie.

#

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