Latest from writer Ara Baliozian

June 23, 2004

Sunday, June 20, 2004

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History tells us Sultan Abdulhamid II and Hitler were spectacular failures. What if our own leaders were no better than mini-sultans and crypto-fuehrers whose paltry failures harmed no one but their own people?

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We are told we have been the blameless victims of ruthless and bloodthirsty nations. If so, what have our leaders done to defend us against our enemies? Or, if their defensive measures were ineffective, should we not classify their performance as an unqualified fiasco?

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What can I say that hasn't been said before by far better men than myself? Is there anything anyone can say or do to convince someone who has been brainwashed to believe he is la crème de la crème that he is in fact no better than la crème de la scum? Can the combined wisdom of a Plato and the Old Testament prophets convince a self-styled Savior of the Nation that he and his kind are in fact its gravediggers?

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Faulkner may have been right when he said: "Compared with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, we are all failures." And what if Sartre is also right when on the final page of his memoirs stated: "Literature saves no one." Which raises the question: In what way a superior Russian literature could have prevented Stalin? And why is it that the mighty impetus of 19th-century German philosophy could not block the rise of Hitler?

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Perhaps the only reason I go on writing is that after thirty years and as many books writing has become a habit I cannot kick. Or, paradoxical as this may seem, I am encouraged to persevere by my critics. Surely, if such mighty intellects like them consider me worth reading and criticizing, I must be worth something.

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Monday, June 21, 2004

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A reader writes: "Your ideas are not nuanced enough." By that I suspect he means, if I were to nuance them the way he thinks I should nuance them, I may have a better chance to agree with one of his own nuanced ideas.

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I am reminded of an exchange between two Jewish merchants who meet on a road somewhere in Russia at the turn of the last century:

"Where are you going?"

"To Minsk."

"Minsk, you say, so that I will think you are going to Pinsk, but you see, I happen to know you are going to Minsk. Why must you always lie to me?"

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In the corridors of power an honest man's chances of survival are as slim as those of a sardine in a pool of hungry sharks.

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Kiss me, I am Armenian.

Be kind to animals.

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When the going gets tough, an Armenian assimilates. In the eyes of our chauvinists (who are very probably the reason why he opts for assimilation) he is a quitter. In his own eyes, he is a born-again human being.

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Not all Armenians are liars. But when an Armenian decides to speak the truth, our charlatans will call him a Turkish scumbag.

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David Shields: "Hunters make better lovers: they go deeper into the bush - they shoot more often - and they eat what they shoot."

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Tuesday, June 22, 2004

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Jews are ahead of us. This has been said before, many times, but it bears repeating. Consider the following passage written by a Nobel-Prize winner Jewish writer (I.B. Singer) about his fellow Jews, (in a short story titled "Shadows on the Hudson"): "Why should it matter to me if they massacre types like these or burn them in ovens?…The tragedy is that they destroyed the good ones and left the trash behind." Why is it that Armenian writers are incapable of producing such lines - except perhaps in their posthumously published (if at all) diaries and private correspondence? Even Armenian writers with fat bellies write like hungry orphans forever dependent on the charity of swine, careful to offend no one but Turks.

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To be narrow-minded means to reduce the universe into a tiny room, to constantly rearrange the few items in it and to confuse this routine operation with thinking. Thinking, real thinking, is an open-ended operation, very much like the universe whose beginning and end are shrouded in mystery.

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The very same people who silence me, expect me to be their co-conspirator by covering up our violations of fundamental human rights on the grounds that a good Armenian does not expose our dirty linen in public.

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Wednesday, June 23, 2004

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They say I repeat myself as if the repetition of the blunders I write about were less important than the repetition of my words.

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It takes a charlatan to fool a charlatan, because a dupe is also a charlatan who pretends to understand more than he does.

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The Greeks discovered dialectic or dialogue 2500 years ago. Whenever I am silenced by one of our editors I cannot help reflecting that it may take us more than a generation or two to catch up.

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What if the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming missile with a nuclear warhead?

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The ambition to succeed has deformed so many of my contemporaries that it makes more sense to aim at failure.

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Truth may be beyond our reach but lies are within us; all we have to do

is recognize, name, and reject them.

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June 26, 2004

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Friday, June 25, 2004

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Almost everything we know is based on hearsay. When we disagree, it is our sources that disagree; and it goes without saying that a chauvinist will invariably select sources that flattery his ego.

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Intolerance is a reptilian response.

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Optimism has a shorter life span than pessimism.

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I am willing to concede that nothing I say about Armenians is original. What I prefer to do is expand, illustrate and provide footnotes to writers that I have myself interviewed or translated. (For more details, see my DICTIONARY OF ARMENIAN QUOTATIONS.)

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A good question raises more questions.

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Saturday, June 26, 2004

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Some egos are so large that they eclipse the universe.

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We all have our blind spots. The blind spot of a smart-ass is his IQ.

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"A shadow," Leonardo writes in his NOTEBOOKS, "is not visible to its source of light." Something similar could be said of complexes: namely, that they are not visible to its consciousness. Hence Freud's dictum: "The aim of civilization is to make the unconscious conscious."

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A good critic exposes contradictions.

A bad critic exposes his own complexes.

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June 30, 2004

Sunday, June 27, 2004

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It doesn't take much for an Armenian to transfer his hatred of the Turks onto his fellow Armenians. A misplaced comma will do as readily as a misunderstood semicolon.

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Some of my readers from the Middle East hate me unto death because I refuse to share their affection for Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and assorted imams, ayatollahs and mullahs.

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I am personally acquainted with an Armenian who oozes hatred from every pore in his body - he oozes it like an active volcano oozes lava, and he breathes it like a dragon breathes fire - but asserts that Armenians are incapable of hatred - he asserts it and he believes it and, astonishing as this may seem, he is believed by others, perhaps because to the insecure, befuddled, and vulnerable mind, flattery, no matter how absurd, is always welcome, and what could be more flattering than assertions of moral superiority?

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I know something now that I didn't know before: genocide is a double crime: it also drives the survivors nuts. And to think that it took me several decades to see this obvious fact which must be clearly visible to all outsiders. The implications of this abnormality can be alarming indeed. Because, if we can no longer tell love from hatred and, by extension, Armenianism from Ottomanism, neither can we tell right from wrong. Which may explain why our partisan ideologues preach patriotism (love of country) and practice hatred of fellow countrymen.

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Now I understand why people who believe in a "compassionate and merciful Allah" murder innocent women and children in the name of the same Allah. Now I also understand why the very same descendants of Armenians who were massacred by Muslim extremists at the turn of the last century are now capable of defending and supporting jihadists and cold-blooded killers of innocent civilians: notwithstanding their assertions of moral and intellectual superiority, they have lost the faculty of telling right from wrong, and truth from lies.

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Monday, June 28, 2004

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If you write against cannibalism, cannibals will conspire against you because they hate to starve.

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If I were to hate everyone who hates me, I would be so busy hating that I would have no time for any other activity. And now consider the amount of time and resources we invest on documenting our hatred of Turks.

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There is a difference between movies and real life: life is slower and takes longer.

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You cannot reason with an ego.

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Egos are numberless, reason only one.

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Reason and hate are mutually exclusive.

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Reason has 20/20 vision, the ego is blind.

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The easiest two assumptions an Armenian makes: "I know better," and "I am smarter." One could go as far as saying that all our defeats and tragedies are direct results of these two false assumptions.

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Consider the two false assumptions made by Dikran the Great when viewing the Roman legion advancing towards him: "If they come as ambassadors, they are too many. If they come as soldiers, they are too few."

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When it comes to writing fiction, a believable style matters more than believable characters.

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A believable style makes even unbelievable characters real.

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Tuesday, June 29, 2004

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Once in a while one of my gentle readers enjoys reminding me that he feels nothing but raw hatred for me. Why should I be surprised? It has been the destiny of all Armenian writers to be hated by a fraction of their readers. Narekatsi may be an exception perhaps because he dealt only with God and he spent all his life in a monastery. But even Narekatsi has had his share of critics, among them Zohrab, Zarian, and Shahnour. This too should surprise no one. There has not been a single issue on which Armenians have been successful in developing a consensus.

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Shortly before he died, Mischa Kudian asked the following two rhetorical questions during an interview: "Who is an Armenian? What is an Armenian?" I may now have a tentative answer: A good Armenian is first and foremost a good human being. It follows, an Armenian who behaves like swine in the name of patriotism or Armenianism is a fraud.

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Director Ettore Scola in his eulogy of actor Nino Manfredi: "He was the quintessential little man born to be victimized but never a victim because of his rich inner life." In other words, a victim consents to be a victim by starving his inner life.

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Perhaps to be truly creative means not excelling in a particular art form or genre but inventing a new genre.

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Men of faith are convinced they have a monopoly on truth and their faith or God is the only true one. This mindset promotes and even legitimizes prejudice, arrogance (that masquerades as humility), intolerance of other faiths and heretics, and contempt, not to say hatred, for fellow men (that parades as love of God or truth). All this becomes evident when we study not the faith itself or its scriptures but its history and its relations with other faiths.

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P.S. on men of faith: Prejudice and intolerance promote ignorance. Which is why we owe the Dark Ages to men of faith. Which is also why some of the most backward and barbaric societies today are deeply religious.

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Holy scriptures are more like political platforms and propaganda whose aim is to mislead rather than to enlighten; and he who relies too much on quotations from the scriptures to justify himself is a man who either cannot decipher or is unwilling to read his own real feelings and thoughts.

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Thucydides tells us every historic event has as many meanings as its participants: the defeat of one will be a victory for the other. Something very similar has been said about tragedy and comedy: tragedy when it happens to you, comedy when it happens to someone else.

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Wednesday, June 30, 2004

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What could be more revealing of doubletalk than a style dripping with venom and promoting love and tolerance?

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Being human means, if anything, being fallible. Remember all the great scientists and their certainties: how many of these certainties have withstood the test of time?

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Like most men I too have my limitations, blind spots, prejudices, and false assumptions some of which may well be hidden from my own awareness. Which means that everything I say, think and write has a foundation of uncertainty and a penumbra of doubt, and therefore open to criticism and correction - but not by individuals who parade as role models, paragons of virtue, unerring judges of their fellow men, and more Catholic than the Pope, more Bolshevik than Stalin, and more Magnificent than Suleiman.

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Anyone who considers himself infallible cannot be right even when right. By that I mean that, an arrogant fool is in no position to dispense wisdom.

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I do not advocate silence but dialogue. When two uncertainties meet, a near-certainty may emerge. As for certainties: Let's leave them into the hands of skinheads, men of faith, mullahs, imams, and jihadists….

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To question certainties can be a risky business because it creates a credibility gap between those in power and their victims - the brainwashed masses.

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Style should be like life - unafraid of repetition, clichés, and vulgarisms. It should surprise and shock but always with a sense of inevitability. Inevitability is very probably a style's greatest asset.

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Inevitability: Can it be taught? Can it be acquired?

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Faith justifies nothing.

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July 3, 2004

Thursday, July 01, 2004

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ARMENIANS, PATAGONIANS AND TURKS.

CRITICISM AND PROPAGANDA.

VOLTAIRE ON THE WRITING LIFE.

PASCAL ON FLATTERY.

A DEFINITION OF SUCCESS.

INVISIBLE MEN AND THE SCUM OF THE EARTH.

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"What will odars think of us if they read you?" I am asked once in a while. If you want an answer to that question, begin by asking: "What will I think if I read a Patagonian critic writing about his fellow Patagonians?" I suspect the first thing you will think is: "Who the hell are these Patagonians?" And the second: "Whoever they are, they are not much different from us." Even better, suppose you were to read a Turkish critic writing about his fellow Turks: What will you think? The chances are you will think, not all Turks are dupes willing and eager to recycle chauvinist crapola. Not all Turks read only Turkish newspapers and pundits; and if they read them, they don't always believe what they say. Some Turks, you may further think, believe in democracy and in their fundamental human right of free speech, which is available not only to those who are experts on any given subject and never wrong, but also to those who are ordinary human beings and, as such, fallible. You may also think, not all Turks are dumb enough to go on digging when they find themselves in a hole. Not all Turks believe they are the only good people living in an evil world. Finally you might even think: "At last, a Turk who does not pretend to be better than he is," or, "It is such a relief to meet a Turk who is not afraid to look himself in the mirror and to describe what he sees there, warts and all, rather than what he wishes others to see."

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To be read even by people who hate you: Can there be better praise?

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Voltaire once remarked to a friend: "In literature, if you fail, they look down at you with contempt; if you succeed, they hate you." Judging by the amount of hate mail I get, I must be going places.

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Some of my critics tell me I express all the negative aspects of our identity without ever mentioning the positive ones. If that's what I do, if, that is, by reading me you recognize some of your own failings, then I can truly say mission accomplished. Besides, to stress the positive and to cover up the negative is not the function of a critic but that of a propagandist and a flatterer.

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Pascal: "To speak beautiful words is to have an ugly character." Or, "Flatterers speak with a forked tongue."

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Ever since we were massacred by the Turks and no one came to our rescue, it is as if we were invisible to the rest of the world. It is this invisibility that allows our leaders to behave as though they were totally indifferent to world opinion.

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Some Armenians are infatuated with their status as perennial losers and victims simply because it allows them to assert moral superiority by saying: We have victimized no one, but the whole world has victimized us. We are truly the Chosen sharing the planet with the scum of the earth.

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But what if we have victimized no one (except one another, of course) because we don't have the tools? What if, to paraphrase Churchill, if we ever acquire the tools, we would not hesitate to finish the job?

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Friday, July 02, 2004

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PROFILING IN CONTEXT.

AN INVITATION FROM A PARTISAN.

TWO QUESTIONS.

WRITERS AND MADNESS.

DUPES AND THEIR LIES.

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Muslims living in the West are angry because they say they are being profiled by government agencies. Now they may be in a better position to understand Armenian anger over what happened to them a hundred years ago in the Ottoman Empire. Just because non-representative militant groups of Armenians engaged in isolated acts of terrorism, nearly two million innocent civilians were profiled, deported into the desert, starved, burned alive, raped, and massacred. Now they may even be in a better position to understand the anti-Mulsim bias that animates the West after 9/11, the endless series of terrorist acts in Israel, Iraq, Spain and elsewhere, which are all clear-cut cases of profiling too: but with one important difference: when Muslims profile, they murder; when they are profiled, they are only interrogated.

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"Instead of criticizing us, you should join us!" I have been told by partisans on more than one occasion. First they silence me, then they want me to be one of them in order that I too may silence anyone who refuses to be their dupe.

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The question that I ask myself again and again is: What makes an Armenian hate a fellow Armenian as much or even more than he hates Turks? Another question: Why is it that an Armenian writer enjoyed more freedom of expression under the Red Sultan in Istanbul at the turn of the last century than today in the land of the brave and the free and under the watchful eye of our mini-sultans who run cultural foundations and parade as supporters and promoters of Armenian literature? Is it conceivable that we are as guilty of profiling as Muslim terrorists?

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Writers are sometimes described as mental cases. That's because they bare their souls. Which is not something that is required of garbage collectors, dentists, politicians, or lawyers.

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He who is never wrong, never learns. Example: our bosses, bishops, benefactors and their assorted flunkeys and dupes.

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I don't want to change the world or anyone in it. I just want to change myself so that I will no longer care about forked tongues, venomous fangs, and fools pretending to be wise.

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A dupe is also one who believes in his own lies, and after saying "I hate no one," he uses that line as a license to hate everyone with an easy conscience (assuming of course he has one).

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Saturday, July 03, 2004

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WRITERS AND READERS.

THE POVERTY OF FAITH.

SEMANTIC HELLS.

OUR GENOCIDE INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX.

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I may improve the quality of my writing but I cannot improve the quality of understanding in my reader. There is only one way to please a Nazi reader and that is by recycling MAIN KAMPF. Something similar could be said of Bolsheviks, mullahs and their dupes, racists and chauvinists. Doubt and anxiety are an integral part of the human condition, and those who think they can dispel both by adopting a religion or a closed system of thought are like alcoholics who permanently damage their physical health for an ephemeral sense of well-being. In their search of heaven the can find only a hell of illusions, prejudices and lies.

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When the complexities of life are reduced to a problem by means of a verbal formula, it becomes relatively easy to find a verbal solution. Only when the solution fails to do its job do we realize its inadequacies and erroneous assumptions. "At the beginning was the word" only because it was God's word. By contrast, man's word is as imperfect a tool as his understanding.

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This may explain why what can rightly be called our "genocide industrial complex" (historical studies, memoirs, commentaries, articles, editorials, speeches, sermons, plays, movies, documentaries, art works, monuments, requiems) has so converted no one but members of the congregation.

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July 10, 2004

Thursday, July 08, 2004

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ON GOD AND UNDERSTANDING.

A CRITIQUE OF ANTI-AMERICANISM.

SERIAL KILLERS AND THEIR DEFENDERS.

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"They think when I say God, I mean God rather than the idea of God." These words by C.G. Jung remind me of Sartre's "We believe that we believe but we don't believe," and Hegel's famous last words: "No one understood me except one, and even he didn't understand me." To be on the safe side, we should question everything and after we get an answer, doubt the answer.

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Anti-Americanism is not a political stance but a psychological complex like inferiority complex, and very much like inferiority complex it may be said to be an expression of inadequacy in relation to a superior political system and culture.

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The difference between a functional and a dysfunctional system is that the first comes to grips with its problems and the second pretends it has none.

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"We survived because we were divided," an imbecile once told me, thus implying that our numberless victims were an undeniable proof of our success as a nation.

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After an imbecile assesses himself as smart he will also assume he is wise even when he behaves like a certified moron with a single-digit IQ.

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Anti-Americanism is not the same as being critical of America. All Americans have been critical of America at one time or another. Anti-Americanism in its extreme form views America not only as an evil empire but also as the source of all evil in the world. A genuine anti-American will go as far as believing that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was a CIA agent.

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Anti-Americanism has its source in pro-Sovietism, pro-Arabism and anti-Semitism - three politically and morally bankrupt belief systems (except to their crypto-adherents, of course). Anti-Americanism has little or nothing to do with America itself and everything to do with concepts alien to it. It's almost like hating chemistry because you love, sociology, music and poetry.

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Even a dog's fleas have fleas. That's the only plausible explanation as to why serial killers like Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, Milosevic, and Bin Laden have their defenders.

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Friday, July 09, 2004

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PASSION AND FANATICISM.

MY SOURCES OF INSPIRATION.

FOOLS ARE INVINCIBLE.

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"He who loses himself in his passion, loses less than he who loses his passion." When Saint Augustine wrote these words, he knew nothing about suicidal fanatics. Times change, ideas evolve (or devolve) and timeless truths become dangerous lies. The Greeks knew better when they espoused moderation in all things and when Socrates said: "Ignorance is the source of all evil." Next question: What is the value of the passion of a dupe or a fanatic?

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I use my enemies as sources of inspiration, and they use me as a target for their poison arrows. I immortalize them even as they try to kill me.

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Andre Labarrere: "I doubt and question everything, but I have faith all the same."

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The answers exist even if we may never find them in this life. As for finding them in the next one: that's in the lap of the gods (if they exist).

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In the battle between wisdom and folly, the fools are destined to emerge the victors because they outnumber the wise a thousand to one. As if that weren't enough, whenever a wise man appears (from Socrates and Jesus to Gandhi and Martin Luther King) the fools kill him. But the opposite never happens: the wise have at no time conspired to silence, let alone kill, anyone, least of all a fool.

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When he turned seventy and there were no banquets to celebrate the momentous occasion, a disappointed and disgusted Armenian writer confided to me: "No one gives a damn!" I was tempted to tell him: You were left alone. You survived to a ripe old age unharmed. What more could you possibly want? Consider yourself the luckiest man on earth. How many of our writers can say as much?

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Saturday, July 10, 2004

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BUSH AND HIS CRITICS.

ANTI-AMERICANISM, AMERICAN CRITICS, AND PRAVDA.

MICHAEL MOORE AND HIS CRITICS.

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You may have noticed by now that anti-Bush partisans share one important feature with Bush: his dogmatism and a stance that says: "You are either with me or against me."

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To justify their anti-Americanism, foreign observers and pundits tend to rely on American critics, which is also what PRAVDA did during the Soviet era. Its anti-American propaganda section was handled by a single young woman in a tiny office the size of a cubicle. During an interview with 60 MINUTES, she explained that her job consisted in reading the NEW YORK TIMES and some other American publications and selecting all the negative articles, thus giving readers the impression that most Americans were either unemployed, homeless, or members of a criminal gang, the rest being mercilessly overworked and underpaid factory hands, cigar-chomping and blood-sucking capitalists and corrupt politicians.

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Now, about Michael Moore and his FAHRENHEIT 9/11, let me begin by saying that I share and even admire his left-wing, anti-establishment, and liberal worldview. But may I remind those who take his documentary at face value, that Moore himself has conceded that his facts have been carefully selected and edited. Which means there may well be an equally valid selection of other facts which may contradict his thesis. Even Richard Clark, one of the most severe critics of the Bush Administration, has dismissed some of Moore's central assertions as absurd. Furthermore, the French press, whose hostility towards Bush is no secret, has attacked Moore for his bias that sometimes borders on the absurd.

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July 14, 2004

Sunday, July 11, 2004

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Being a writer means living with rejection - by editors, publishers, critics, and readers. I doubt if there is a single reader alive today who has read and enjoyed all of Shakespeare, Homer and the Bible. Last week I tried to read the final pages of EXODUS and the first pages of LEVITICUS and may I confess that I found them to be just about the most boring things I have ever read, and when I say boring I mean designed to bore the reader slowly to death -- the esthetic equivalent of the Chinese water torture.

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This much said let me also admit that I have learned more from my critics and enemies than from my friends and fans. By reinforcing our prejudices, our friends succeed only in certifying our limitations. Friendship can be a risky business and fans can be lethal. By contrast, criticism and rejection can be instructive as well as challenging, even if painful, provided, of course, one sees them for what some of them may well be - expressions of incompatibility, prejudice, ignorance, and envy.

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Another reason why I admire J.S. Bach is that even when he is monotonous and boring (as in the seldom performed Organ Toccata and Fugue in F) he goes about his business with the self-assurance of a mighty river without giving a damn what anyone may think. That's because he knows God or all the forces of the universe are on his side. If this be arrogance, it is fully justified and well-earned arrogance.

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There is only one way to avoid rejection in life and that is by saying and doing nothing, by being, in other words, a living corpse.

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Monday, July 12, 2004

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ON THE DESTINY OF GREAT MEN.

HOW TO JUDGE AN IDEOLOGY.

PHONY TACTICS.

SCHOPENHAUER ON HUMAN NATURE.

PRO-ARABISM OR ANTI-SEMITISM?

ON KNOWING ONESELF.

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On a planet that has consistently rejected its best men -- among them Socrates, Jesus, and Gandhi - it is safer to be on the side of the rejects. To those who say Socrates, Jesus and Gandhi may have been rejected by a tiny gang of fanatics, but they are now accepted by the overwhelming majority, I say, it's the old story that an Armenian popular saying aptly sums up as: "Get lost, drop dead, and I'll love you."

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When it comes to judging ideologies, the first question we should ask is: "Who is the ideologue?" Because it is safer to judge an ideology by its history than by its political and economic merits. May I remind those who are not convinced that the 20th Century was shaped by ideological idiots and their dupes.

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The problem with dupes and their dogmas is that, the more untenable their position, the more dogmatic they become. Common sense seems to make them even more irrational. They behave like captains who, as they go down with the ship, they start breaking the deck chairs. Remember Hitler and his thousand-year Reich. Remember too Saddam and his financial support of suicidal terrorists, knowing full well that some of the most important players in Washington are Jews.

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Your average phony has been so successful in convincing himself that in a world of phonies he is less of a phony that he might as well qualify as an honest man.

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Since self-deception begins in the subconscious, one could say that victim and victimizer are one.

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Human nature, Schopenhauer tells us, has "a fund of hatred, anger, envy, rancor, and malice, accumulated like venom in a serpent's tooth, and waiting only an opportunity of venting itself and then, like a demon unchained, of storming and raging."

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Speaking of venom: There are those who say they are pro-Arab because they are afraid to say they are anti-Jewish. What if they work for an institution controlled by Jews? What if by identifying themselves as enemies of the tribe they run the risk of being demoted or even fired?

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A fanatic views moderates as a bunch of degenerates and himself as a man of integrity who refuses to compromise on cherished principles.

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On detecting a defect in himself, a phony will use a euphemism to describe it. Envy, for example, he will call the competitive spirit, he will thus convert a vice into a virtue. I once knew a woman in her eighties who was friendless because she had the habit of insulting anyone who came near her and she described this habit as "love of truth."

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When the Greeks adopted the slogan "Know thyself," what they probably meant to say was: "You are not what and who you think you are."

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Tuesday, July 13, 2004

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ENIGMA VARIATIONS

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"The Armenian is an enigma that refuses to be solved."

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Every analysis begins with self-analysis. When I speak of Ottomanized Armenians, I speak of myself. Much worse than an Ottomanized Armenian willing to identify himself as such is the Armenian who adopts a holier-than-thou attitude and considers himself a superior patriot, a paragon of virtue and a role model to future generations blissfully unaware of the blind forces raging within him.

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Unawareness is the real enemy. It poisons and perverts every idea and principle we hold dear to such an extent that what we preach and what we practice become direct contradictions, and what we think we are the exact opposite of what we really are - a devil who parades as an angel. Hence the phenomenon of the Armenian who turns into a cannibal in defense of tolerance.

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"Even the Good Lord could not make up his mind what to make of the Armenian," writes Neshan Beshigtashlian (1898-1972). " First He made him an angel, then turned him into a devil, after which He changed His mind again. But the Armenian retained deep within him angelic as well as diabolic traits."

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And speaking of preachers, role models, and educators, allow me to quote Beshigtashlian again: "Priests wear black because they are in perpetual mourning, and what they mourn is the death of the human being within them."

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I am willing to concede that I must be just about the lousiest judge of human character there is. Some of my best former friends are now my worst present enemies who would love to get drunk on my blood.

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One way to define an Armenian is to say, he is one who identifies himself as a Christian but who hates like a Muslim fanatic.

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What do Armenians and Arabs share in common? Centuries of Ottoman oppression, which means that Turks have been successful in recreating both in their own image.

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If I were a Jew-hater and if I believed they were planning to take over the world, I would convert to Judaism in order to avoid being once more on the side of the losers, especially after considering the fate of recent Jew-haters - KKKs, Nazis, Stalinists, Muslim fanatics, skinheads and fascists: in short, the zoo department of mankind.

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Bush-basing has become an American sport. The difference between an American and an Armenian Bush-basher is that an Armenian does it in the name of Saddam and bin Laden.

*

Speaking of my former friends: Are they masters of deception? I wouldn't be surprised. After all, for six hundred years we successfully deceived the Turks (themselves masters of cunning and deception) into believing we were the most loyal millet (ethnic minority) in the Empire. When deception is adopted as a survival tactic, it is no longer thought of as a moral failing but as a biological asset. That is why it is no longer thought of as deception but as a necessary condition of life - provided of course it is aimed at the oppressor and the enemy. An Armenian who deceives his fellow Armenian is no better than a cannibal.

#

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

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

No one can be as transparent as an idiot who thinks he is smart.

*

Why is it that among some Armenians disagreement is thought of as a capital offense?

*

Those in power judge a writer not by the usefulness of his ideas or the accuracy of his analyses but whether "he is with us or against us." In that sense, they'd rather go to hell on their own than be saved by an outsider, especially one engaged in exposing their blunders. As for blunders that resulted in defeats and disasters that resulted in the death of thousands, sometimes even millions: they plead not guilty by placing the blame on others or on conditions and forces beyond their control thus admitting that their own powers are limited and not equal to the challenges they face.

*

In our environment, ignorance and prejudice have more friends than knowledge and objective judgment.

*

How do you reply to the hiss of a viper?

*

My respect for editors went down one notch on the day a Canadian editor confused my prose with verse simply because I had typed my story on a page with wide margins.

*

July 17, 2004

Thursday, July 15, 2004

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

ON OUR DIRTY LINEN

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

Whenever I am urged not to expose our dirty linen in public, I take it to mean, I should join our charlatans in covering up their lies.

*

There are those who think, just because they have been successful in deceiving and misleading our dupes, they will have the same luck with odars.

*

There are top dog and underdog nations. To top dogs, underdogs are an open book if only because they were reduced to their underdog status by the manipulation of top dogs - divide-and-rule being as old as human history.

*

The world may be divided into open and closed societies. Democratic societies, unlike their authoritarian counterparts, are, as a rule, open. The Americans discuss their shortcomings and shenanigans publicly (think of Watergate, Iran-Contra, and Clinton-Lewisnky) without worrying what others may think of them, perhaps because they know their failings are human and that to pretend otherwise means denying their humanity. The Soviets, by contrast, hid everything behind a cloak of secrecy: so much so that for a long time the Gulag was dismissed by left-wing pundits in the West as anti-Soviet propaganda.

*

Closed societies hide their dirty linen because they don't like who and what they are, but neither are they willing to make an effort to change. Open societies are progressive because they are not afraid to face reality and to deal with it.

*

By covering up their contradictions, closed societies dig their own graves because they end up at the mercy of charlatans and criminals. History is very clear on this point, and only simpletons pretend not to see what is visible to all except perennial dupes and victims.

*

Exposing our dirty linen is not the real problem we face today, neither is the fact that our shortcomings are known by others. The real problem is that nobody gives a damn, not even ourselves; because if we did care, we would do something about it as opposed to promoting and legitimizing dishonesty and double-talk thus adding another sin to our previous list of vices.

#

Friday, July 16, 2004

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

CONVENTIONAL WISDOM.

TYRANTS, FASCISTS, AND FANATICS.

ON FAME.

GENTLE READERS AND VULGARIANS.

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

Unless your views contradict conventional wisdom, why even bother expressing them? Any average person can voice an average opinion that will elicit the agreement of the masses.

*

Tyrants are not satisfied with subservience. They also demand gratitude and adulation from their subjects because they consider the absence of gratitude and adulation as the probable presence of discontent and dissent. It is the same with the fascist mindset: it demands total agreement as well as affection and admiration. And consider the conduct of fanatics: not only do they insist on acting against their own interests by doing the wrong thing but also doing it in the name of Allah, ideology or something, anything, that is higher than themselves perhaps because they sense the fact that their own status is lower than a snake's belly full of buckshot.

*

A reader writes: "I disagree with everything you say!" But if you disagree with one key issue, why even bother reading everything I write? Unless of course, like all mortals who happen to be fallible, deep inside somewhere you harbor uncertainties and doubts.

*

Between fame and indifference, I would choose indifference any day. Fame implies dependence on others; whereas indifference is self-reliant, self-sufficient, free from all ties, and as such, invulnerable.

*

When asked why, at the age of 76, he continues to write, A French writer is quoted as having said: "To expose things that annoy the hell out of me, and above all, vulgar conduct. Whenever I deal with my fellow men, I have the impression that most of them fart with their mouth."

I should have said that myself. My style. Crude.

#

Saturday, July 17, 2004

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

DEATHBED CONVERSIONS.

OF GOD, GODS, AND THEIR ABSENCE.

TOO LITTLE TOO LATE?

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

If you are brought up on lies and you hear the truth, something peculiar happens. Even if you reject it, the truth will penetrate your very bones and it will not be shaken off. And the more violently you reject it, the deeper into your subconscious it will penetrate, to resurface at the last hour of your life in the guise of a deathbed conversion.

*

I use the word truth the way Jung used the word God, as a point of reference rather than an attainable verbal formula. I see truth as a rejection of all lies, and reality as an onion with layers upon layers of lies and half-truths and at its center an absence rather than a presence accessible to our perceptions.

*

What Socrates said about gods is as true today as it was 2500 years ago: "Of the gods we know nothing." Which may explain why some religions believe in one god, others in many, and still others (like Buddhism) in none.

*

What are theologians if not bald-headed men fighting over a non-existent comb?

*

There are opinions that are based on hearsay and there are opinions that are based on the experience of a lifetime. The first are sterile and therefore worthless even when closer to the truth.

*

Silva Kaputikian accepted the Stalin Prize but rejected the Mesrop Mashdots Medal: a clear-cut case of too little too late or a probable case of better late than never?

#

July 17, 2004

What kind of people are we? What kind of

leadership is

this? Instead of compassion, mutual contempt.

Instead of

reason blind instinct. Instead of common sense,

fanaticism.

They speak of the cross and nail us to it again

as

they

speak.

ANTRANIK ZAROUKIAN

(1912-1989)

Poet, novelist, critic, editor.

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

All our religious, political, and cultural

institutions

share a single aim, the survival of the nation.

If

the nation perishes, neither Echmiadzin nor

Antelias,

not

even God in his heaven, can be of any help to us.

SIMON VRATSIAN

(1882-1969)

Statesman. Last Prime Minister of the Republic

of

Armenia

(1918-1920).

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

We Armenians are products of the tribal mentality

of

Turks

and Kurds, and this tribal mentality remains

stubbornly

rooted even among our leaders and elites.

NIGOL AGHBALIAN

(1873-1947)

Statesman, literary scholar, educator.

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

A familiar figure in our collective existence is

the

prosperous and arrogant community leader who, by

obstructing the path of all those who wish to

reform

and

improve our conditions, perpetuates a status quo

whose

sole

aim is his own personal profit and

aggrandizement.

LEVON PASHALIAN

(1868-1943)

Athor, editor.

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

The Armenian Diaspora is losing its character.

Our

language, our literature, and our traditions are

degenerating. Even our religious leaders have

abandoned

their calling and turned into cunning

wheeler-dealers.

Our

publications thrive on meaningless controversies.

I see charlatanism and cheap chauvinism

everywhere

but not

a single trace of self-sacrifice

and dedication to principles and ideals. What's

happening

to us? Where are we heading?

Quo vadis, O Armenian people?

SHAVARSH MISSAKIAN

(1884-1957)

Author, editor, critic.

Armine B. · July 18, 2004

Ara Baliozian:'Partadrel en hpartanal nayev 1000 u mi banov, ayd tvum yev amenits shat goyatevelu mer batsarik taghandov. Yete anmegh zoher@ khosein mi or, inchov khpartanayin, sadist mongholoid tkhmarnerin zoher matutselu mer hancharov? Miain apush@ karogh e hpartanal ir korustov.'

Hargeli Ara, hpartanal e petq nranov, vor pstik azg@ korstits heto karoghanum e vergtnel iren u khaghagh jamanakum goyatevel mets azgeri mech, voronts anterberutyun@ pakas tseghaspan che, qan 'sadist mongholid tkhmarneri' khist voroshaki tseghaspan qayler@. Miayn apush@ karogh e chtesnel, kam yete tesnum e, chgnahatel pstik azgi es metsutyun@.

July 21, 2004

Sunday, July 18, 2004

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

THE ART OF MAKING ENEMIES.

FRIENDSHIP AMONG ARMENIANS.

GENERAL ANTRANIK AS A ROLE MODEL.

GOOD TURKS AND BAD ARMENIANS.

BARONIAN AND HIS GENTLE READERS.

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

Truth will expose liars, honesty will hurt the dishonest, and knowledge will offend the ignorant: which may explain the number of my enemies.

*

We have all heard the line, "Some of my best friends are Jews." But has anyone ever heard someone say, "Some of my best friends are Armenian"? Speaking for myself, I can truly say, "Some of my worst enemies are Armenian!" and when I say enemies I mean Armenians with an endless store of venom accumulated during six long centuries of Ottoman oppression, or, to paraphrase Zarian: not even Armenian venom but venom harvested from Turkish vipers.

*

Sometimes I am accused of being a Turk-lover in the spirit in which Southern bigots were in the habit of calling white liberals "nigger lovers." I have also been described as an Armenian-hater by hateful Armenians as if every Armenian deserves another Armenian's love on ethnic grounds. I have said this before and it bears repeating: I am for good men and against bad people regardless of national origin, very much like General Antranik who said he was for all underdogs regardless of nationality.

*

It is a well-documented fact that some Armenians were saved by Turks. It is also a well-documented fact that many Armenians, among them the 254 intellectuals who were arrested and butchered by Talaat on April 24, were betrayed by their fellow Armenians. And to those who think this may well be a historic aberration, may I remind them that the same scenario was played out in the USSR under Stalin: writers like Charents, Bakounts, Zabel Yessayan, and many others, were betrayed and sometimes even tortured and shot by their fellow Armenians.

*

To be for Armenians, all Armenians, does not and should not mean being for treason and betrayal; in the same way that being against Turks should not mean being against self-sacrifice and heroism - because that's what it took to save Armenians during the Genocide.

*

I said above 254 intellectuals. On second thought it may have been 278, perhaps even 283. But what the hell! What's a couple of dozen Armenian victims more or less, especially if they happen to be intellectuals who happen to be a dime a dozen among us.

*

But if you think Armenians betraying Armenians is a thing of the past, think again. I once read an Armenian-American academic in one of our prestigious literary periodicals saying something to the effect that Armenians in Istanbul were justified in betraying Hagop Baronian to the Turkish police because Baronian had insulted them by portraying them as ignorant, greedy, vain and stupid. Baronian, this academic went on to explain, must have been very naïve to think that he could insult his fellow Armenians and get away with it without paying a price. There you have it: a contemporary well-educated and progressive Armenian-American willing to explain and justify treason by implying Baronian was wrong and those who betrayed him right.

*

You can take an Armenian out of the Ottoman Empire but you can't take the Ottoman Empire out of an Armenian.

*

Long before Baronian, Raffi stated: "Treason and betrayal are in our blood." But leave it to our Ottomanized charlatans to follow their animal instincts and to dismiss Raffi and Baronian as Armenian-haters who deserve to die.

*

Some of my gentle readers appear to be unaware of the fact that before criticizing a writer, they must read him, and before they decide to read him, they must learn how to read. To those who are too lazy or impatient to go through these stages, I have got bad news: sorry, there are no short cuts!

#

Monday, July 19, 2004

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

FOOD FOR THOUGHT.

IDENTITY AND POWER.

GOOD TURKS.

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

There are those who think a writer should behave like a waiter in a posh restaurant: serve only food to their specifications, move about like a dancer, and wear a friendly smile thus indicating his desire to please and his dependence on their generosity.

Even though I keep serving cold soup, warm beer, tough steaks and wilted salads with an unfriendly expression that says "You know what you can do with your tip, you lousy skinflints!" they keep coming back for more. I wonder why. For the pleasure of bitching afterwards? Gluttons for punishment? In search for an excuse to discharge their Ottoman venom? Warped imbeciles who don't know what's good for themselves?

*

When asked if he is a historian or a philosopher, Michel Foucault is quoted as having said: "I am a warrior whose aim is to destroy. I am not for destruction. Rather, I am for progress and the tearing down of walls that obstruct its path. Think of my books as explosive devices. I want my words to penetrate walls, to shatter locks, and to open windows."

On identity: "Identity is an extension of the power structure within which it is formed. It is a trap from which we must extricate ourselves."

On truth: "There is power in truth. It produces practical as well as political results."

On power: "What remains to be discovered is not that which is alienated in us or remains hidden in our unconscious, but the many subtle ways in which power insinuates itself and adjusts us to its demands."

*

In his recently published book ON THE ROAD FOREVER: MARYAM AND DUDU - TWO WOMEN FROM CHENGILER (Toronto, 2004) Hagop Yeramian writes in his dedication: "A very special thanks to the kind gendarmes with whose help many Armenians survived."

#

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

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

AN ARAB DISSIDENT.

ARMENIANS AND ARABS.

WHEN THE IMPOSSIBLE BECOMES INEVITABLE.

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

K. Abourish (a Palestinian) introduces his recent biography, NASSER: THE LAST ARAB, with the words: "The insulting treatment the Arabs are getting from Bush is deserved." Elsewhere we read that nothing divides Arabs more than talk of Arab unity.

*

Another thing we share in common with the Arabs is nostalgia for the Middle Ages, when they had an Empire and we had our "historic lands."

*

Historians study the past in order to establish regularities and to be thus in a better position to predict the future. But, according to Michel Foucault, what really matters is that which is unpredictable and on the other side of all regularities, and sometimes it is the impossible that becomes the inevitable. A good point.

*

Consider our revolutionaries and the Genocide: after establishing a successful outcome to past revolutions (the American, French, Greek, Bulgarian, and so on) our revolutionaries assumed defeat would be impossible. What they failed to take into consideration were such minor details as the advent of World War I and the resulting inability or failure of the Great Powers to intervene on our behalf.

#

Wednesday, July 21, 2004

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

ABOUT TRIBALISM.

MODERATES AND FANATICS.

GOOD AND BAD ARMENIANS.

CRITICISM ARMENIAN STYLE.

LAST WORDS.

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

Tribalism is like any other ism - it divides mankind into believers and infidels or enemies.

*

Where tribalism is the norm, hatred of infidel dogs will be a religious commandment.

*

Where there is tribalism there will also be inter-tribal divisions.

*

We all agree there are good and bad Armenians. Where we disagree is in identifying them.

*

Every bad Armenian will identify himself as good and if you dare to disagree with him he will call you an Armenian-hater.

*

In a tribal environment, every word and idea is given a tribal definition.

*

Between war and peace, a fanatic will invariably choose war.

*

Where there are fanatics, there will also be moderates because, according to Descartes, common sense is a universal faculty and anyone with the minimum amount of it will agree that fanaticism, like crime, doesn't pay if only because a house divided against itself cannot stand.

*

One could also define a fanatic as a moderate who has become the dupe of a fanatic at a time when he had not yet acquired the ability to think for himself; or, to put it differently, fanatics are not born but made.

*

In the absence of Turks, some Armenians will assume their role.

*

Criticism Armenian style: It is not enough to criticize someone's style, ideas or views, he must also be personally attacked, insulted, degraded, dragged through the mud, kicked to death (metaphorically if literally is against the law), shot, hanged, buried, dug up, stoned, drowned and cannibalized. All of which proves once more that Armenians were indeed the first nation to accept Christianity as their state religion.

*

Axel Bakounts's last words scratched on the wall of his prison in Yerevan shortly before he was shot: "They are tearing me to shred like wild beasts."

#

July 24, 2004

Thursday, July 22, 2004

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

ASSERTIONS OF SUPERIORITY.

MODERATE ARABS AND FANATICS.

ALLAHU AKBAR.

DISORIENTED ARMENIANS.

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

All assertions of moral superiority are made from the gutter.

*

We are never as transparent as when we pretend to be morally or intellectually superior.

*

Superiority is more persuasively asserted between the lines and with body language than with words.

*

The louder the words, the less convincing the argument. Hence the old Chinese proverb: "He who loses temper has wrong on his side."

*

Moderate Arabs may admit their failings but leave it to a clueless pro-Arab Armenian (and I have had the misfortune of meeting several of them) who are more pro-Arab than bloodthirsty Arab fanatics - all in the name of tolerance, of course.

*

What could be more transparently perverse than to disguise one's murderous hatred with such abstractions as love of justice, or obedience to the scripture, or tolerance.

*

In a non-tribal environment, like Canada and the U.S., Jews and Arabs, Armenians and Turks, Hutus and Tutsis, believers and infidels, may live side by side without feeling the need to massacre one another. Where tribalism is legitimized by the power structure, murder becomes a patriotic or religious duty.

*

A brainwashed Arab teenager on TV: "When I kill it is not I who kills but the Prophet." Another teenager identified the killer as "Allah."

*

How can an Armenian justify his hatred of fellow Armenians? If you were to ask a disoriented Armenian that question, he is sure to answer it by bouncing the question back to you or say, "It is you who hates Armenians."

*

I once knew a bewildered Armenian who would use the sentence "I hate no one!" as a license to hate anyone who dared to disagree with him.

*

Dialogue Armenian style: If you can't convince them, intimidate them; if they refuse to be intimidated, insult them and continue to insult them until they give up in disgust; and if they refuse to give up, massacre them - verbally, of course! All in the name of Armenianism!

*

A definition of a disoriented Armenian: One who cannot tell the difference between Armenianism and Ottomanism.

#

Friday, July 23, 2004

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

THE QUINTESSENTIAL OXYMORON.

THE ABC OF ETIQUETTE AND LOGIC.

PATRIOTISM OR TREASON?

WHAT IS DISAGREEMENT?

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

The first example of oxymoron that comes to mind is Armenian consensus.

*

Many obstacles stand between us and consensus, the first being total ignorance of the basic rules of etiquette. The problem is, how to teach these rules to adults some of whom are themselves educators, and the rest think of themselves as role models to future generations.

*

We are a people with many unsettled scores, and because so far we have been unable to take it out on our enemies, we victimize one another and, having done so, we think we have taken a step in the right direction, rather than the exact opposite.

*

Not only must we learn the ABC of etiquette but also the fundamental principles of logic, one of which is: victimizing our fellow Armenians is more akin to treason than to patriotism.

*

Disagreement is a necessary ingredient in all dialogue. But in our context it is more akin to a declaration of war.

#

Saturday, July 24, 2004

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

THEM AND US.

TURKS AND ARMENIANS.

TUTSIS AND HUTUS.

AS OTHERS SEE US.

AS WE SEE OTHERS.

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

"The internet is a wide open medium and odars may read you too," I am warned once in a while by overly concerned readers: "You should be more careful of what you say."

In other words: propaganda is in, criticism and dissent out!

I have got news for these readers. The world cares about us as much as we care about the world.

*

What do Hutus and Tutsis know about us? And what do we know about them? May I confess that I still don't know if it was Tutsis who massacred Hutus or Hutus who massacred Tutsis? And I remember the words of a Canadian friend: "Turks say you massacred them, and you say they massacred you, and I say, let bygones be bygones."

*

Until very recently most Canadians that I dealt with had never even heard of Armenians and whenever I identified myself as one I was taken for a Romanian or an Aramaean. On only one occasion I met an older Canadian who remembered "the starving Armenians" mentioned by her parents at the dinner table.

*

As an Armenian, what do I really know about Algerians, Libyans, and Rhodesians - or is it Zimbabweans?

*

What does the average Armenian know about America? I have heard smart Armenians dismiss all of the West as a civilization of whores and pimps, and America as a continent obsessed with money and sex. It is naïve to think that just because we have brainwashed our dupes and ourselves into believing we are morally and intellectually superior beings surrounded by swine, we can also fool the world.

#

July 24, 2004

Ara Baliozian:'Partadrel en hpartanal nayev 1000 u mi banov, ayd tvum yev amenits shat goyatevelu mer batsarik taghandov. Yete anmegh zoher@ khosein mi or, inchov khpartanayin, sadist mongholoid tkhmarnerin zoher matutselu mer hancharov? Miain apush@ karogh e hpartanal ir korustov.'

Hargeli Ara, hpartanal e petq nranov, vor pstik azg@ korstits heto karoghanum e vergtnel iren u khaghagh jamanakum goyatevel mets azgeri mech, voronts anterberutyun@ pakas tseghaspan che, qan 'sadist mongholid tkhmarneri' khist voroshaki tseghaspan qayler@. Miayn apush@ karogh e chtesnel, kam yete tesnum e, chgnahatel pstik azgi es metsutyun@.

we keep saying we are a weak, small, and an underdog nation and we should be proud that we survived....

why don't you ask yourself why is it that we became weak, small, etc. and we were victimized by the million?

the answer is, because we were divided and instead of admitting our contradictions and weaknesses and vices, we bragged about them.

another answer: and whenever one of our critics (from Movses Khorenatsi and Raffi to Baronian, Shahnour, Massikian, Zohrab, Zarian and many others) pointed out our weaknesses we either silenced or ignored them.

Armine B. · July 27, 2004

we keep saying we are a weak, small, and an underdog nation and we should be proud that we survived....

why don't you ask yourself why is it that we became weak, small, etc. and we were victimized by the million?

the answer is, because we were divided and instead of admitting our contradictions and weaknesses and vices, we bragged about them.

another answer: and whenever one of our critics (from Movses Khorenatsi and Raffi to Baronian, Shahnour, Massikian, Zohrab, Zarian and many others) pointed out our weaknesses we either silenced or ignored them.

I know our reasons for being weak, small etc. I do agree with you.

BUT...

How many powerful nations (our neigbouring nations) have disappeared ?! We have gone through the most awful tragedies the world has ever seen; have experienced the biggest amount of victimes and betrayals 'thanks to' vasak syunis and others. After all this we keep on existing. This phenomenon of existing is what I consider admirable.

What are the reasons for our existing after all this?

I will be waiting for your answer.

July 28, 2004

Sunday, July 25, 2004

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

MOUNT ARARAT AND ARMENIAN IDENTITY.

AN AUTOBIOGRPHICAL ASIDE.

HOW TO RECOGNIZE A BAD ARMENIAN.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF ARMENIAN LITERATURE.

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

We all agree that Mount Ararat is the quintessential Armenian symbol with which every Armenian identifies himself. But Mount Ararat has been a captive of the Turks for a number of centuries now. Perhaps something very similar could be said about our identity and voki.

*

Originally I wanted to be a short story writer, a novelist and a playwright. But somewhere along the line I discovered that the best short stories, novels and plays had already been written by Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Thomas Mann, Shaw, Simenon and Nabokov. That's when I decided to do what nobody else was doing: to write about Armenians as I saw them -- as opposed to how they would like to be seen; the reality, not the image; the substance not the shadow. But very soon it was made abundantly clear to me that between propaganda and truth, Armenians have a marked preference for propaganda.

*

"If you don't like Armenians," writes a gentle reader, "why don't you assimilate?" I may not yet be assimilated but I am on my way there. I am an alienated Armenian (and alienation is the first step in the direction of assimilation) who, during the last thirty years, has consistently refused to be a member of any congregation, political party, or cultural organization (make it, pseudo-cultural or semi-political mafia: because all our so-called cultural organizations are satellites of political parties).

*

"Why don't you assimilate?" - meaning, of course: "Why don't you drop out, shut up, and get lost!" I understand these Armenians who have no stomach for a dose of reality. I also understand their need to alienate and silence dissenting voices. I too am in the business of alienating Armenians -- with one important difference however: whereas they alienate good Armenians, I try to alienate bad ones, without much success, may I add. They are better at it than I am. As Zarian points out somewhere: the bad are always better organized. Which may explain why they outnumber the good ten to one.

*

Why do bad Armenians alienate good ones? The answer must be obvious. By alienating the good and silencing the honest, they can have the innocent dupes all to themselves to propagandize, deceive, mislead, brainwash, and exploit.

*

How to recognize bad Armenians? Two ways:

(one) they blame all our defeats, disasters, and catastrophes on outside agencies and never on their own blunders, ignorance, stupidity, arrogance, incompetence, greed, absence of vision, and above all, intolerance and the resulting inability to engage in dialogue with the opposition;

(two) they send out letters with Odian's celebrated Panchoonie punchline: "Mi kich pogh oughargetsek" (Send us a little money).

*

There is money and power in being bad. There is only starvation and death in being good. Consider the life and death of our foremost writers - from Abovian (a suicide) to Zarian (a non-person silenced and ignored by all).

*

Abovian and Zarian: two giants among midgets. That's the way it has been with us: the giants have been successfully silenced and driven out by a lynch mob of midgets.

#

Monday, July 26, 2004

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

KINGS AND THE RULES OF GRAMMAR.

PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC.

PATRIOTISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS.

ON REPETITION.

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

Even kings must obey the rules of grammar. No one can say the rules of logic do not apply to our arguments; or the fundamental principles of civilized conduct are not for us. Because the rejection of these principles might as well be a tacit declaration of our status as barbarians who will gladly massacre their fellow men - provided of course they have the laws of the land or a sultan on their side.

*

An Armenian who justified his perversions in the name of patriotism is no different from the very same Turks who massacred our ancestors in the name of Allah.

*

There are those who think by silencing me they are defending and protecting values higher than myself. But what if, by violating my fundamental human right of free speech they are also violating principles that are higher than all of us? Is it possible to achieve noble ends by ignoble means?

*

There are limits to free speech, yes, of course. But what system of logic authorizes you or anyone else to set these limits?

*

Why is it that Armenians who believe they are better than Turks make no effort not to behave like them? - as if by asserting moral superiority they automatically place themselves beyond all rules of conduct, common sense and decency.

*

Have I said this before? Probably. Do I repeat myself? Most likely. My question to you is: Why do you repeat the mistake of reading me again and again when you have the option not to read me?

*

If we are going to set Turks as our role models, why not choose good Turks (by helping our fellow Armenians) as opposed to bad Turks (by crapping on them)?

*

Overheard: "Ninety percent of everything is humbug!"

#

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

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

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.

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

Repetition becomes routine, routine becomes a habit, and habit becomes destiny. That's the way it is with individuals as well as nations.

Again and again I am accused by proud Armenians of not being one of them -- that is, another proud Armenian. Again and again I have explained that I see no merit in national pride because national identity is not a personal achievement but an accident of birth. We are Armenian for the same reason that a zebra is a zebra, a kangaroo is a kangaroo, and a jackass is a jackass.

But that's not the only reason why I am not a proud Armenian.

I am not a proud Armenian because I see no advantage in being a proud Armenian in a world of proud Turks, Kurds and Jews, or proud Greeks, Germans, Afghans, Americans and Arabs.

I'd much rather be a humble human being who views all such labels as suspect, even dangerous.

Because my life, very much like our history, has been a nightmare, I dream of sharing my brief existence on this planet with fellow human beings who view all labels as sources of prejudice and intolerance. I dream of living in a world of human beings who consider brotherhood and peace infinitely more desirable and important than hatred, war, and massacre.

#

Wednesday, July 28, 2004

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

ON HONESTY AND DISHONESTY IN HUMAN AFFAIRS.

A NEW PROPOSAL.

WHY PEOPLE AND NATIONS LIE.

ON BLUFFING.

HOPING FOR A MIRACLE?

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

Sometimes the unspoken line against me seems to be: "How dare you be honest in a dishonest world? Who authorized you? What makes you think you are ahead of us?"

A brief backward glance and common sense tell me dishonesty may work for others, but so far it has not been of any use to us. Let's therefore try a different approach.

*

People lie only when they are afraid of the truth, or when they have something to hide, or when truth is against them. We have consistently asserted to the world at large that truth is on our side, we have nothing to hide or cover up - unlike our enemies who are compulsive liars and cunning manipulators. We are therefore innocent and they guilty.

*

Speaking of cunning manipulation: bluffing may be one such manipulation. When at the turn of the last century we rose against the Ottoman Empire, we were, in a manner of speaking, bluffing. But bluffing has a chance to work only when the state of mind of the opposition and the rules of the game are known. Life or reality is not a game with set rules. There is an element of unpredictability in all human affairs, and sometimes what matters is not the state of mind of the opposition but that of one's own partners. One reason we bluffed is that we thought we had the support of the Great Powers and the international community. What we didn't know is that in diplomacy verbal or moral support does not always translate to military support. The Turks knew this. We didn't. Which is why our bluff failed to the tune of two million lives.

*

Which is also why I suggest we quit all forms of deception (from propaganda to bluffing) and see what happens. If things don't improve, we can always revert to our tried and familiar ways and hope for a miracle - provided, of course, we do this with the full awareness that hope is not a policy, or if it is, it is the policy of the impotent.

#

July 28, 2004

I know our reasons for being weak, small etc. I do agree with you.

BUT...

How many powerful nations (our neigbouring nations) have disappeared ?! We have gone through the most awful tragedies the world has ever seen; have experienced the biggest amount of victimes and betrayals 'thanks to' vasak syunis and others. After all this we keep on existing. This phenomenon of existing is what I consider admirable.

What are the reasons for our existing after all this?

I will be waiting for your answer.

should we be proud of the fact that we have survived or should we be humble of the fact that many of us -- perhaps even most of us -- did not survive? i do hope you will agree with me when i say that a quick death is better than the death of a thousand cuts. / ara

Armine B. · July 29, 2004

should we be proud of the fact that we have survived or should we be humble of the fact that many of us -- perhaps even most of us -- did not survive? i do hope you will agree with me when i say that a quick death is better than the death of a thousand cuts. / ara

You put the question in a 'provocative' way!

I'll try to answer...We have been refusing to die. One needs courage to make such a decision. What we should be proud of is that endless courage.

No, Ara, I don't agree with your claim unless it concerns a patient. I am against any nation's dying. Why should we consider this option?! We have tons of dreams and unsolved questions.

Armine

July 31, 2004

Thursday, July 29, 2004

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

ON SURVIVAL.

FLIES AND DINOSAURS.

GIANTS AND MIDGETS.

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

As a child I was brought up to brag about the fact that we had survived as empires around us had collapsed and bitten the dust, until I heard someone remark that flies and mosquitoes had also survived as dinosaurs had become fossils - you don't hear them brag about it.

*

Survival in and of itself is nothing to brag about, especially if the best have perished and the worst have survived. What if after being systematically silenced, starved, betrayed to the enemy, alienated, forced into exile and assimilation, the best and the brightest have been eliminated and the collaborators, charlatans and the neo- and crypto-commissars have survived?

*

Why is it that instead of another generation of Baronians, Odians, Voskanians, Zohrabs, Zarians, and Massikians (who fearlessly exposed and ridiculed our wheeler-dealers and bloodsuckers) we now have nothing but spineless academics who write only about the Middle Ages and the massacres? And what have these gentlemen accomplished except to teach us to lament about our countless victims and to brag about our survival?

#

Friday, July 30, 2004

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

WRITERS AND TYRANTS.

WRITING AND UNDERSTANDING.

ON ALIENATION AND ASSIMILATION.

ON ARMENIAN FRIENDS.

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SONG IN THE WORLD.

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

To those who say, "Words are cheap and writers a dime a dozen. Who cares what they say?" I ask: Why do you think the first victims of tyrants are writers? And how do you explain Napoleon's words: "He who has an idea is my enemy."

*

If I can change someone's mind with my thoughts, am I not a man of action?

*

If understanding me means admitting to have misunderstood everything, it goes without saying that some readers will prefer not to understand me.

*

If there are two sides to a question, choose the third by being objective. That way you will always have more enemies than friends.

*

After informing me that he can't figure out what I am driving at, a reader takes it upon himself to explain in some detail what I should think and write.

*

If we are responsible for our actions, should we not be held responsible for our inaction? May I therefore ask: What exactly have we been doing about our "white massacre? - that is, alienation and assimilation. In case you didn't know, for an alienated Armenian, the Armenian identity or life among Armenians is something to be avoided at all cost as if it were an infectious disease. And for an assimilated Armenian, the Armenian identity is something to be discarded and buried very much like the cadaver of a mad dog.

*

Before you make an Armenian friend, ask him the following question: "Will you still be my friend if once or twice a year I fail to echo your sentiments and thoughts?"

*

If you have not yet heard Beniamino Gigli singing "Quanto spunta la luna a Marechiar," I envy you, because you can now look forward to the thrill of listening to one of the most beautiful songs in the world sung by one of the greatest tenors that has ever lived.

#

Saturday, July 31, 2004

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

ARMENIAN TYPES.

MEMO TO OUR COMMISSARS.

LEADERSHIP AND CHARLATANISM.

WHAT IS LUCK?

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

There are those who disagree with me violently, others who don't take me seriously, and still others who ignore me. I don't let that bother me because history tells us just because some ideas are rejected or ignored is no proof against their validity.

*

Armenians tend to be either brazenly loud and rude or morbidly sensitive and touchy; and whenever these two extreme types meet, it is the gutter that triumphs.

*

As long as I am a threat to our charlatans, they will do their utmost to silence me, and whenever they fail to silence me, to insult me. After several decades of such treatment, I have learned to use insults as sources of stimulation. On the day they stop insulting me, I will know I have become irrelevant.

*

If you trust a man simply because he identifies himself as a man of God, you may consider yourself an advanced case of arrested development. Something similar could be said of a politician who parades as a selfless servant of the nation. Millions of innocent men, women and children have been slaughtered because homo sapiens is not sapiens enough to question the integrity or judgment of charlatans with messianic ambitions.

*

A wise man once said: "The harder I work, the luckier I get."

#

July 31, 2004

You put the question in a 'provocative' way!

I'll try to answer...We have been refusing to die. One needs courage to make such a decision. What we should be proud of is that endless courage.

No, Ara, I don't agree with your claim unless it concerns a patient. I am against any nation's dying. Why should we consider this option?! We have tons of dreams and unsolved questions.

Armine

on the day we act on our dreams (as opposed to being subservient to scum) we shall be worthy of our status as survivors.

if our history so far is an endless catalogue of defeats and tragedies with countless innocent victims it is because our leaders have had no vision (or dreams) and "where there is no vision, the people perish!" / ara

Armine B. · August 2, 2004

on the day we act on our dreams (as opposed to being subservient to scum) we shall be worthy of our status as survivors.

if our history so far is an endless catalogue of defeats and tragedies with countless innocent victims it is because our leaders have had no vision (or dreams) and "where there is no vision, the people perish!" / ara

You should not underestimate our leaders. They've been having a clearly stated vision known all over the planet : to make Russia feel happy at any cost. This is a very dear vision to our leaders. I spare myself the details: their vision costs us our present and future.

Armine

August 4, 2004

Sunday, August 01, 2004

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

Yesterday I decided to take a summer break. This morning I realized I had things to say that could not wait. As for tomorrow - all I can say today is that tomorrow is another day.

*

There is a type of reader whose understanding is limited but whose critical faculties are limitless. The less he understands, the more he attacks. I call this the "mad dog" school of criticism. If you are thinking, "It takes one to know one," let me warn you, my friend, that compared to Baronian, Odian and Massikian, I don't even qualify as a pussy cat.

*

Because I don't criticize Turks I am sometimes mistaken for a half-Turk or pro-Turkish. The reason I don't criticize Turks (though I have done so in the past - see my ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND THE WEST) is that we have developed a veritable industry of anti-Turkish criticism; so that for every Armenian who dares to criticize Armenians, there are a hundred willing and eager to verbally massacre Turks. But history tells us Turks have been invulnerable to our criticism and criticizing them amounts to barking up the wrong tree. As for criticizing Turks in order to influence international diplomacy: I suggest international diplomacy is interest- driven, not truth-driven, and an Armenian who pretends not to know this is too naïve to get involved in world affairs or to entertain political ambitions - except that of a dog-catcher in a village of three, two of whom are idiots.

*

Some readers accuse me of being a bitter, disappointed old man who stresses the negative and ignores the positive. To them I say: "If you are used to reading cheerful, upbeat writers who spread joy and contentment with every line they write, you should welcome me for no other reason than variety is the spice of life, and by being exposed to the dark side of things, you may appreciate the light even more."

*

Readers who accuse me of hating Armenians, should ask themselves: "Am I lovable?" or, "If I am a loud-mouth phony, do I deserve anyone's love?"

#

Monday, August 02, 2004

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

THE FEEL GOOD FALLACY.

EXPLOITING THE MASSACRES.

TURKISH CRIMES AND ARMENIAN IRRESPONSIBILITY.

ZARIAN'S VERDICT.

SHISH-KEBAB AND CROCODILE TEARS.

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

A recent episode: I am invited to join a new Armenian discussion forum. Shortly thereafter I am warned by the moderator that "this is a feel-good forum," and that I should not engage in negativism and sarcasm.

Yes, I thought, we are a feel-good people even when history keeps reminding us again and again with a swift kick in the belly that we have nothing to feel good about.

And then I thought: If we are in fact a feel-good people, how do we explain our obsession with the massacres and the popularity of books on the subject? How do we manage to feel good by reading again and again that the Turks butchered two million innocent women and children? The only answer I could come up with is that we emphasize Turkish crimes in order to cover up our own incompetence, and yes, stupidity. We will never say, "We were bluffing when we challenged the might of the Ottoman Empire and when they called our bluff, we lost." Or, "We miscalculated when we relied too much on the verbal support of the Great Powers" -- as if Great Powers also meant Superior Morality.

Our political leaders will consistently refuse to admit that which has been clearly visible to outside observers: they were guilty of using civilians as human shields. Which is why, to make us feel good, our academics, amateur historians and dime-a-dozen phony pundits will continue to publish books and commentaries in which they will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Turks are as guilty as hell (which they are, of course; no one with any self-respect and integrity denies that, not even such pro-Turkish historians as Toynbee and Bernard Lewis) and that the Great Powers were no better than cynical manipulators (a routine charge leveled against all politicians and regimes) and that our own political leaders were selfless statesmen of vision, humble servants of the nation, and men of integrity and courage willing to sacrifice their lives for freedom (compared to our present bosses, they may well have been, which doesn't mean a hell of a lot, of course).

But I prefer Zarian's final verdict: "Our political leaders have been of no political use to us. Their greatest enemy is free speech."

Also Garabents's dictum: "Once upon a time we were willing to die for freedom. We are now afraid of free speech."

And I cannot help thinking that feel-good Armenians are no better than a bunch of brainwashed dupes who confuse Armenianism with eating shish-kebab and pilaf and once or twice a year shedding crocodile tears over our victims.

#

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

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

SUMMING UP.

THE GENOCIDE AND ARMENIAN IDENTITY.

ARMENIAN MANIFESTO.

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

About readers who say they don't understand me: I am never sure if they really don't understand me or they only pretend not to understand me, because admitting that they understand me would also mean agreeing with me, and agreeing with me would mean acknowledging the fact that they have been wrong not only about one or two things, but about everything, including who they are, what made them who they are, and who they want to be. It is as if they were facing a mirror and suddenly their mask is torn off and they have trouble recognizing themselves. Because what I have been saying is that there is more to being Armenian than hating Turks, and there is more to Armenianism than the Genocide.

*

Hating Turks is a dead end. We cannot change the past and no amount of compensation or apology can resurrect a single victim. If we must hate, let's hate instead what the Turks have done to our identity, to our collective unconscious, to our character as a people by recreating us in their own image during six hundred years of subservience.

*

If this sounds depressing to you, it may be because you don't see the exit from the labyrinth - namely, the prospect of being reborn as a human being as opposed to remaining a dehumanized dupe and a perennial loser driven to wallow in self-pity, lamentation, and thirst for revenge.

*

To those who say, "Speak for yourself, because you sure as hell are not speaking for me!" I say: You are right: I can only speak for myself and I am neither qualified nor authorized to speak for you or anyone else. I can only suggest that if you see anything useful in what I am saying, you may have it without charge, and if, on reconsideration, you discover that even that which you thought of some use, on closer inspection, to be of no value, you may return it and your money shall be cheerfully refunded. You have nothing to lose but the chains of your Ottomanism.

#

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

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

TWO KINDS OF REACTIONS.

PAINFUL ADMISSIONS.

WHAT IS OTTOMANISM AND SOVIETISM?

VERBAL MASSACRE.

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

If you voice an opinion that is your own as opposed to being regurgitated chauvinist crapola, you will get two kinds of reactions from Armenians: those who are civilized or born-again human beings will say: "I disagree with you," after which they will proceed to explain why. The Ottomanized Armenians, by contrast, will call you names - jerk, moron, idiot, Turk…and even ask you such questions as, "Was your mother a concubine in a Turkish harem?" As you may have guessed by now, I speak from experience.

*

Six hundred years, even sixty years, is a long time, and whether we like it or not, we have all been to some degree Ottomanized or Sovietized or both.

*

Where there is an ism there will also be an anti-ism, namely (in our case) anti-Ottomanism and anti-Sovietism. One reason I stress the Ottomanism and Sovietism in some Armenians is that I have developed an allergy towards these aberrations that have made of us a nation of frauds who speak with a forked tongue and legitimize treason in the name of patriotism and subservience in the name of freedom.

*

Authoritarianism is another symptom of our Ottomanism and Sovietism, and authoritarianism creates an environment where the liars at the top are free to lie and those who dare to speak the truth are rudely and unceremoniously interrupted and, whenever possible, silenced. Which is why an opinion that springs from personal observation and experience and does not bear the seal of approval of a boss, bishop or benefactor provokes verbal abuse, gutter disapproval, and sometimes even verbal massacre.

#

August 7, 2004

Thursday, August 05, 2004

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

CRITICISM AND HATRED.

WHY IS ISRAEL PRO-TURKISH?

A REVERSAL OF ROLES.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONS.

THE IRRELEVANCE OF LITERATURE.

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

The difference between being critical of American politics and being anti-American is that, Michael Moore's FAHRENHEIT 9/11 is critical, whereas Muslim fanatics are anti-American.

*

Something similar could be said of anti-Armenianism and of being critical of Armenian politics. Movses Khorenatsi, Yeghishe, Raffi, Baronian, Odian, Zohrab, Zarian, Massikian, Shahnour and many others were critical of Armenian politics, but Sultan Abdulhamid II and Talaat were anti-Armenian.

*

Perhaps one reason the Israelis are pro-Turkish is that they would like to do to Palestinians what the Turks did to us. And I cannot help wondering what would have happened had the Ottoman Empire been an Armenian Empire and the Turks our "Armenians." One guess: We would have done to them what we did to the Azeris in Karabagh (more or less), and having done so we would brag about it; and when asked to admit responsibility or guilt we would accuse our accusers of anti-Armenianism sure in the knowledge that we would have the support and understanding of all imperial powers who at one time or another had been in our position.

*

Like individuals, nations too have their psychological complexes. This is not a secret. Anyone in a leadership position knows this but it is to his advantage to exploit these complexes rather than to analyze them, if only because analyzing them may expose him as a wheeler-dealer whose number one concern is number one but who must pretend otherwise by parading as a selfless and humble servant of the nation.

*

Sartre is right. Literature solves nothing and helps no one. Our history is very clear on this point. Writing for Armenians is a waste of time. But I go on because Armenianism has been hijacked by rascals and standing by and saying nothing is as difficult as witnessing a gang rape and assuming a passive stance. So what if everything I have said so far doesn't even amount to a whisper on a deserted street in the middle of the night?

#

Friday, August 06, 2004

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

DEFINING PROPAGANDA.

POWER STRUCTURES AND DISSIDENTS.

ARMENIAN HISTORY 101.

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

One Way to define propaganda is to say that it is anything and everything that a power structure tells you.

*

If a common crook or a pathological liar tells you 2+2=4, believe it. But if a power structure tells you the same thing, believe it not.

*

To recycle propaganda means admitting two things at once: "I am a dupe," and "I hate to think for myself."

*

Power structures are not monolithic entities; rather, they have internal fissures and divisions with constantly shifting alliances. A smart Armenian who wants to survive in our environment must sooner or later associate himself with and be subservient to either a boss, bishop or benefactor, all of whom unite only against a common adversary, dissidents. That may explain why Armenian dissidents are an extinct species today.

*

The French beheaded their king, the Russians executed their czar, and the Italians hanged Mussolini. Our leaders have managed to survive because they brainwashed us to believe we owe our survival to them.

*

"When the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch," the Bible tells us. Our history in a nutshell.

*

When the blind leads the blind and the inevitable happens, should we call that leading or misleading?

*

When the blind lead the blind and if both are Armenian, they will brag about their survival even as they lament over their shattered bones.

#

Saturday, August 07, 2004

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

THE USES AND ABUSES OF PATRIOTISM.

DEFINING HOMELAND.

WHAT IS CULTURE?

MEMO TO A CRITIC.

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

Why is it that some Armenians are not emotionally and intellectually equipped to disagree without engaging in verbal abuse? And to think that more often than not they are the very same Armenians who reject the label "Ottomanized." And then there are Armenians who think there is nothing wrong in hating a fellow Armenian or an entire class of them so long as it's in the name of patriotism; and their definition of patriotism is so narrow that any other definition is dismissed as treason.

*

What is patriotism? Let's see if we can define it or at least take a step in the right direction. If we say it is love of country (in the sense of homeland) then we shall have to define country: is it the real estate? -- the mountains, lakes, rivers and valleys? Is it the Armenian people as a whole? Is it the present regime or the administration of justice? Is it the culture? Things, as you may begin to suspect, are not as simple as they may appear to be at first sight.

*

If by country we mean the land, then we must ask the question: In what way Armenian mud is different from Turkish mud?

If it is the people: Does that mean you are less of a patriot if you hate or disagree with even a single fellow Armenian?

If it is our culture: What is culture? Or, who is qualified to define it? - a politician (whose central concern is power), a priest? (whose business is saving souls), or a writer (whose aim is to understand reality by separating fact from propaganda)?

*

If, on the other hand, we adopt Goethe's definition of homeland ("Wherever a man is allowed to work and provide for his family") we may have to agree that Armenians of the Diaspora and Armenians in the Homeland who wish to emigrate (and I am told everyone except policemen and politicians does), Armenian patriotism might as well be an oxymoron.

*

It took me about three decades to figure out what's what and who's who in our environment. Instead of calling me names or identifying me as an enemy of the people, I suggest you give yourself a little more time before you jump to conclusions - unless of course you happen to be one of our dime-a-dozen geniuses or self-appointed experts on any given subject born with superior powers of observation and understanding. In which case you should get busy sermonizing and speechifying in an effort not only to convert skeptics like me but also to re-interpret the work of many of our ablest writers who at one time or another adopted a critical stance.

#

August 11, 2004

Sunday, August 08, 2004

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

THE NATIVE TONGUE.

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

In the Greek ghetto where I grew up the old folks spoke in Turkish among themselves and the kids spoke in Greek. Once when urged to speak in Armenian by the old, I asked my dad: "You speak in Turkish, and yet you insist that we speak in Armenian, why?" My father explained: "We speak in Turkish because the Turks used to threaten to cut out our tongues if they caught as speaking in Armenian." Armenians must have been an obedient bunch, I remember to have thought, because there were no Armenians in the ghetto of several thousand (all of them refugees from the Ottoman Empire) with missing tongues or any kind of speech impediment.

*

The question we should ask at this point is: If it was Ottoman policy to cut out tongues, why is it that they allowed Armenian writers to write and publish hundreds of books and dozens of newspapers, periodicals, and calendars in Istanbul? Unless of course cutting out tongues was a policy implemented only in the interior provinces. But then, even in remote villages there were Armenian churches and schools and most of our writers were educated in such provincial schools.

*

Consider what is happening in the Diaspora today: most Armenians cannot or don't want to speak in Armenian even though no one is threatening to cut out their tongues if they choose to do so. And most Armenians prefer to assimilate perhaps because they instinctively see no future in keeping their identity, culture and traditions - except perhaps when it comes to shish-kebab and pilaf.

*

The thought now occurs to me that perhaps when our elders reminisce about the "old country" they do not always speak the truth.

*

Cutting out tongues is a barbaric custom and it is against the law in all civilized countries, including America. But in what way silencing a writer is not cutting out his tongue? And of what possible use is the fundamental human right of free speech if it is employed only to recycle propaganda or to engage in verbal vandalism? -- which consists in doing to civilized discourse what the Turks did to us.

*

Perhaps what I am trying to say here is that, if you ever want to assert your Armenianism, do not behave like a Turk, and when someone points that out to you, do not pretend not to see it.

#

Monday, August 09, 2004

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

RAFFI'S THEORY.

A 19TH-CENTURY FALLACY.

INFANTILE CRITICISM.

WHAT IS MORAL COMPASS?

I PROPOSE AN EXPERIMENT.

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

Raffi once ascribed all our defeats to treason, which, he said, "is in our blood." The conception of "blood" as the source of racial traits or national character is, of course, a 19th-century fallacy. Instead of blood, we now speak of convolutions of the brain, or environmental conditioning, or collective unconscious. Raffi's theory is not without merit, however, even if it requires some terminological updating.

*

In my view, all our misfortunes may be ascribed not to blood or fate or an extension of powers beyond our control or comprehension, but to a certain type of individual or rather meddler (and here we can borrow Odian's terminology by calling him a Panchoonie) who, in today's parlance, would be described as a loud-mouth smart-ass with the moral compass of a certified moron, by which I mean an inherent inability to tell the difference between patriotism and fascism, or between Armenianism and Ottomanism (or Sovietism). When such a type preaches tolerance, he means tolerance only of his own ideas. As for free speech, dialogue, compromise, consensus, and democracy: he dismisses them all as Western aberrations. In his view, the West is morally bankrupt, and Armenianism (meaning Ottomanism) is a superior brand of ideology, mindset, or system of thought. And if you were to ask him how does he know these things or what has been his experience in the field, he will either call you names or ascribe his wisdom to his racial inheritance or blood.

*

Because I have written again and again against dogmatism, intolerance, authoritarianism, all forms of fascism and racism, I have been called dogmatic, intolerant, authoritarian, fascist and racist - among other things. I call this type of criticism infantile or bounce criticism, because it doesn't require any thinking: it simply bounces back the criticism to the critic; and infantile because that's exactly how we reacted when we were kids: when someone called us a liar, we replied: "You are the liar!"

*

To those who say writers are unreliable because they are eccentrics, sometimes even unstable, I suggest the following experiment: ask any alienated or assimilated Armenian (and there are millions of them): "Why? Why are you alienated?" or "What motivated you to opt for assimilation?" and don't be surprised if his reasons are variants of the very same ideas that I have been expounding here.

#

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

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

ARMENIAN HISTORIANS AND THEIR COUNTERPARTS.

A MATTER OF CREDIBILITY.

HOW TO RECONCILE THE IRRECONCILABLE.

WHO WAS ARTIN DADIAN?

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

Even though Armenian pundits and historians don't always agree with one another and notwithstanding the fact that I have myself been exposed to a great deal of nonsense by them, I have been brought up to believe they are fundamentally more honest than their Turkish counterparts. The problem is, most Turks have also been brought up (or brainwashed, if you prefer) to believe their own historians are more honest than their Armenian counterparts. How to reconcile these two opposite camps?

*

I am told some Armenian historians, among them our foremost Genocide authority, Vahakn Dadrian, are now available in Turkish. On the day we translate and publish Turkish historians into Armenian, we may be in a better position to see the light at the end of the tunnel. But I for one am not holding my breath. Armenians refuse to publish even their own writers who refuse to recycle a certain brand of crapola.

*

How many of my readers, I wonder, are familiar with the name of Artin Dadian? - a prominent member of the Ottoman Administration under Sultan Abdulhamid II, who wrote the following letter to our revolutionaries in 1898:

"I suggest that today we exercise nothing but patience and tolerance. First, Europe shows complete indifference and says there is no Armenian question as far as they are concerned. Second, the threat of the complete annihilation of the Armenian nation has not yet entirely passed, and third, the people are tired of revolutionary deeds and are ready to patch up their differences with the government in order to remain safe from further terrible events as have almost wiped out our people from the face of the earth. Fourth, various organizations are fighting different causes, each in their own way, and in the middle of all this stands one pitiful Artin Dadian, who on the one hand begs the Sultan for mercy by telling him that this would be the best thing for his empire and on the other hand fights base individuals who in order to attain their selfish aims are even willing to sell their nation. I believe it will be proper, as I have mentioned countless times before, for our people to patch up their differences with the Sultan."(*)

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

(*)See THE ROLE OF THE DADIAN FAMILY IN OTTOMAN, SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, AND POLITICAL LIFE by Pars

Tuglaci (Istanbul, 1993).

#

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

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

VARIETIES OF PATRIOTISM.

FREE SPEECH AND ITS DEFENDERS.

DO I REPEAT MYSELF?

DISSENT AS TREASON.

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

Patriotism has several meanings, including some that are downright unpatriotic. Patriotism is unpatriotic when it consists in supporting and defending a corrupt or incompetent leadership whose ultimate if unstated aim is the destruction of the homeland. Cases in point: Italian and German patriotism under Mussolini and Hitler, or, for that matter, under any form of power structure that views dissent (or free speech) as treason.

*

Like patriotism, free speech too has more than one definition, and under all authoritarian regimes it means only one kind of speech and one kind of ideas, any other kind being a manifestation of hostility that should be suppressed.

*

I remember to have read only one editorial in defense of free speech in our partisan papers -- that's when Levon Der Bedrossian banned the ARF press in Armenia.

*

No doubt some of my readers will think I am expressing these views because I have been silenced by our press. "What if you have been silenced because you are wrong?" they may even demand to know. Free speech and the possibility of being wrong are not mutually exclusive and might as well be synonymous. If we say free speech is a privilege accorded only to the wise and the infallible, who among us would qualify? Or who among us would admit to being unwise and foolish?

*

Have I said all this before? Probably. Do I bore you with my obsession with a limited number of ideas? If yes, do yourself a favor and stop reading me. No doubt you will find more variety and entertainment in the kind of talk that says we were the first nation to convert to Christianity and the first nation to suffer a genocide in the 20th century, the implication being, we owe our Christianity to our enlightened, progressive and far-sighted kings and our massacres to the barbarism of the Turks and the hypocrisy of the West; which also means that our leaders (unlike all other leaders) can do no wrong and anyone who says otherwise is an enemy.

#

August 14, 2004

Thursday, August 12, 2004

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

A MATTER OF SEMANTICS

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

It is wrong to say "The Turks massacred us." We should say instead, "Some Turks massacred us." Not all Turks were bloodthirsty savages. Had they been, there would have been no survivors.

*

When we ascribe the crimes of a few on the many, we do to civilized discourse what the Turks did to us - make it, "what some Turks…." As you can see, habit is an irresistible force and it requires a vigorous and sustained program of re-education.

*

Though I can say these things on a conscious level, there is something within me or deep in my subconscious that wants to cry out: "To hell with semantics! Turks are butchers and barbarians, and no amount of logic can alter their image or minimize the enormity of their crimes against humanity!"

*

It has been said that to generalize is the original sin of the mind. When Turkish and Turcophile historians today try to explain and justify the Genocide by accusing Armenians of disloyalty or acts of terrorism, they generalize too and are therefore abysmally wrong. Most Armenians - the overwhelming majority - within the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the century were law-abiding citizens who lacked political awareness. The revolutionaries were only a handful of misguided agitators who represented no one but themselves.

*

We know that under Stalin, some Armenians tortured and killed fellow Armenians - and they did this to their best and the brightest. We also know that members of the Armenian bureaucracy today are thoroughly corrupt. It doesn't necessarily follow that all Armenians are sadists, executioners, and bloodsuckers. On the contrary, most Armenians - and again, the overwhelming majority - are victims of Ottomanized partisans and Stalinized bureaucrats who represent no one but themselves.

*

Somewhere we read in the Bible that it is hateful not to hate evil. By all means, let us hate all criminals regardless of nationality, but let us also support and befriend those who are on our side - regardless of nationality - including Turks. To those who say, Turks will never be our friends, I ask: How does one explain the fact that thousands of Armenians today prefer to live in Turkey rather than in Armenia?

#

Friday, August 13, 2004

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

HUBRIS AND NEMESIS

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

Something very strange happens when an Armenian calls a fellow Armenian an idiot - he turns into one. And there is a reason for that.

The Greeks believed that arrogance (hubris) is sooner or later punished by the gods (Nemesis). One could therefore say that, he who brags about his superior IQ will be punished by the gods who will turn him into a blabbering idiot. Who says there is no justice in this world?

*

When I speak of superior IQ, I speak of Armenian arrogance and inability of Armenians in general and our leaders in particular to admit and learn from their blunders. Why admit blunders if we can blame all our defeats, catastrophes and misfortunes on outside agencies?

*

And now, from the general to the specific. Whenever a reader calls me an idiot, he condemns himself to spend the rest of his life trying to prove that I am an idiot, not because he cares to prove who or what I am - after all, what would be the possible merit in proving that an idiot is in fact an idiot? - but because he wants to prove to himself that he is smart.

*

Calling a fellow Armenian an idiot simply because you disagree with him is doing to civilized discourse what the Turks did to us. This point needs to be repeated and emphasized until it sinks in.

*

I don't preach a strange cult; neither do I promote a new ism. What I do is express my views as honesty as I can by using my common sense. Instead of calling me names, show me in what way your common sense is different from mine. If you can prove me wrong, why go down into the gutter thus besmirching your own status as a civilized human being and proving once more that "one Armenian eats one chicken; two Armenians eat two chickens; and three Armenians eat each other."

*

I don't believe in covering up bad manners in the name of patriotism. If an Armenian does the wrong thing, he should be exposed because ignoring bad manners today may lead to covering up criminal conduct tomorrow.

*

Like all Armenians I too was brought up to condemn Turkish crimes against humanity and Western hypocrisy. But neither Turkish crimes nor universal hypocrisy justifies our intolerance towards and contempt for fellow Armenians. And what could be more contemptible than hurling insults at someone simply because he fails to echo our sentiments and thoughts? And what could be more arrogant than to assert infallibility?

*

If we operate on the assumption that we are smart and we can do no wrong, we condemn ourselves to learn nothing and to remain fixed in our state of total ignorance. If scientists adopted that stance, mankind would now believe the earth is flat and at the center of the universe.

#

Saturday, August 14, 2004

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

THE ART OF LEARNING.

HOMO IGNORAMUS.

ON REPETITION.

ARE WE SMART?

THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION OF ALL.

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

If you don't learn from your friends, you will learn from your enemies - provided of course you survive the lesson.

*

The older I grow the more I realize that reality isn't merely different from anything I know, but different from anything I can imagine.

*

When I compare what I knew as a child with what I know today, and what I know today with what I don't know, I am more than willing to identify myself not as homo sapiens but as homo ignoramus.

*

It has been said that man cannot create a single worm, yet he has created ten thousand gods, and not only believed in them, but also fought, killed and died in their name.

*

Have I said that before? Very probably yes. Do I repeat myself? Certainly. What's wrong with repetition? Readers who criticize me for repeating myself are not themselves against repetition per se. On the contrary. They love repetition to the point of addiction - provided of course what's being repeated is in their favor, such as "Armenians are smart." I have at no time heard an Armenian complain that after being exposed to that line ten thousand times, he has had enough of it. Only once, I remember, many years ago, when I repeated that cliché in the presence of an assimilated Armenian who happened to be a professor at a prestigious American university, he became agitated, almost lost his temper, mumbled some disconnected and incomprehensible words, and gave up in disgust. My guess is, what he tried to say was that being smart in the marketplace does not necessarily translate to being smart in politics; I also know now that when it comes to politics, our collective IQ might as well be single-digit, if not downright negative.

*

And what is even more astonishing (and I can see why the good professor gave up on me in disgust) is that we have consistently refused to learn from our critics, beginning with Movses Khorenatsi and Yeghishe in the 5th century AD to Raffi, Baronian and Voskanian in the 19th century. And because we refused to learn from them, we were taught a harsh lesson from the likes of the Sultan and Talaat.

*

The question we must ask at this point is: What have we learned from our massacres? Reread Khorenatsi and Yeghishe, reread Raffi, Baronian, and Voskanian, and they might as well be our contemporaries. Nothing has changed. Or, as the French are fond of saying: "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme merde."

#

August 18, 2004

Sunday, August 15, 2004

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

DECLINE AND FALL

OF THE ARMENIAN EMPIRE

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

If at the beginning was the word and if the world is a mess today, it must be because the word has no effect on hooligans; and hooligans come in all sizes and shapes, including professors and schoolteacher as well as political and religious leaders. History is very clear on this point.

*

If patriotism is the last refuge of rascals, hooliganism is the first; and one way to define hooliganism is to say what it is not: it is not a system of thought because its upholders cannot think. Destruction is its sole aim. Which is why it must assume another identity and adopt noble vestments, and what could be more noble and more universally accessible than love of God or homeland? There you have the source of all our miseries: not just Turkish savagery and Western double talk, or for that matter, Assyrian, Persian, Arab, Mongol, and Russian hordes. But hooligans regardless of national origin. This is why the written word has had no effect on our leaders and no writer in the entire history of our literature has ever made a difference, except perhaps Naregatsi, who taught us to grovel in the dust and to repent our countless sins because in the eyes of the Almighty we are no better than the scum of the earth - what a heartless lesson to teach to perennial victims!

*

And consider Zarian, for whom Armenianism was a form of messianism. Dostoevsky believed it was Russia's manifest destiny to be the messiah of nations. In Zarian's eyes, Dostoevsky was a charlatan. It was Armenia's manifest destiny to be the messiah of nations. Zarian believed this with every fiber in his body. It took him several decades and near the end of his life to realize that Armenianism was a mask of hooliganism and Armenians survived by "cannibalizing one another."

#

Monday, August 16, 2004

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

VARIETIES OF QUESTIONS.

PROMISES AND PREDICTIONS.

PUNDITS AND APOLOGISTS.

CHARLATANS AND RIFFRAFF.

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

Everything I write and everything I have written so far is an answer to some specific question raised at one time or another. Whenever I fail to answer a question it may be because, unlike some of my fellow Armenians, I don't have all the answers. Another reason: Some of the questions I am asked are not genuine questions but what's known in the business as loaded or phony questions, such as: "Did your mother enjoy being a concubine in a Turkish harem?" or, "If you are single, is it because you are a homosexual?" But more often than not, I am asked questions whose answers are already known to the interrogator.

*

A wise man once said, we cannot predict the future if we don't understand the present. This, needless to add, does not apply to men of faith and ideologues, who will tell you they may not have the answers to such petty questions as those dealing with the weather or the stock market, but they do have all the answers to questions that matter or are vital to our welfare as a nation.

*

As a child, I was taught to believe if I did this, that or the other, or rather, if I refrained from doing certain things (for more details see the Ten Commandments) I would go to heaven and live in eternal bliss. Any mullah will tell you today if you die while killing infidel dogs (even if they happen to be innocent women and children), Allah will reward you with 73 virgins.

*

At the turn of the last century we were told by our ideologues that if we rise against the Ottoman Empire we will be rewarded with our historic lands. That dream turned into a nightmare but there are still dupes who believe our partisans were right and reality (in the shape of Turkish savagery and Western double-talk: was there a time when the Turks were civilized and the West honest?) wrong, and if we continue the struggle, sooner or later Mount Ararat will be ours.

*

At this point someone will no doubt remind me that all politicians make promises they have no intention of keeping, and that in politics lies and promises might as well be synonymous. Why make unreasonable demands on our own politicians?

*

As you can see, we are blessed with an abundant supply of self-appointed pundits who have all the answers, and anyone who dares to remind us that truth or reality may not fit in our straight-jacket view of life is a spoil-sport, a cynic, an enemy, and very probably a Turk parading as one of us.

*

The world continues to be at the mercy of charlatans and riffraff who will never run out of dupes, or as Zarian once put it, "of cripples in search of a crutch."

#

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

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

THE PATIENCE OF A CORPSE.

THE ORIGIN OF OUR STATUS AS UNDERDOGS.

TO EACH HIS OWN.

A PASSAGE FROM A RECENT HISTORICAL NOVEL.

THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE.

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

What happens when a Ramgavar dies in a predominantly Tashnak town with a single priest? A Ramgavar priest is imported for the occasion from the nearest city, of course. This is exactly what happened in our town last week, but since the out-of-towner had to travel on a busy highway where accidents and delays are daily occurrences, he was three hours late. Inconvenient? Not to the corpse, it wasn't.

*

We like to say and repeat: "We are a small nation. We are weak." What we avoid asking is, Why? Is it because God or the sinister forces of the universe conspired to will it so, or is it an inevitable consequence of our penchant for dividing and subdividing ourselves? Even the mightiest empire in the world would become a perennial victim if it kept dividing and subdividing itself. And now that we know the reason, will we change? One can always dream, of course.

*

Once, recently, when I wrote something to the effect that Armenians and Turks, Jews and Palestinians live side by side in the United States and Canada without feeling the need to slaughter one another, a reader shot back: "That's because Americans and Canadians are too obsessed with money and sex to think of anything else!" thus implying, massacre is morally superior to sex and dollars.

*

And speaking of Armenians and Turks, I read the following in a review of a recent book titled BIRDS WITHOUT WINGS by Louis de Bernieres: "The story is set in a small coastal town in the Ottoman Empire before the Great War. There, Muslims and Christians (mostly of Greek background, a few Armenians) lived peacefully together. Everyone spoke Turkish and was loyal to the Sultan."

*

The uncertainty principle in physics also applies to human thought. Which means that no matter how competent a writer is, he will not be able to express his views with mathematical precision. As a result, his ideas will have a penumbra of doubt and uncertainty, and they will be open to misinterpretation. On the day man acquires the ability to express himself with mathematical precision, questioning the validity of his views will be like questioning the existence of the atom after Hiroshima.

#

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

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

THE USES AND ABUSES OF NATIONALISM.

ATATURK, HITLER, AND…SIBELIUS.

MUSIC AND POLITICS.

WAS KHACHATURIAN A NATIONALIST COMPOSER?

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

At one time or another I have been accused of being against everything and everyone, including Mount Ararat, Lake Sevan, motherhood, apple pie, and, the other day…believe it or not…Sibelius. Why Sibelius? Because he is a nationalist composer and I am against nationalism.

*

For the record, I have nothing against Sibelius and nationalist music in general if only because it is not easy being against someone or anything that means no harm to anyone. If I am against political nationalism it's because it is one of the three pillars of fascism - the other two being racism and anti-intellectualism (that is, dissent, free speech, dialogue and consensus) and because it (nationalism) has been the cause of many wars, massacres, and genocides, including our own.

*

To say our nationalism is good but our enemy's nationalism is bad is to voice the very same propaganda line that emanated from the likes of Ataturk and Hitler.

*

To those who say our nationalism cannot be compared with Turkish or German nationalism because we are not guilty of genocide, and all our wars have been defensive wars, is to imply that we belong to a morally superior race (which happens to be racist nonsense). If we have not victimized millions it may because ours has been the nationalism of underdogs, and because we were vastly outnumbered by our enemies.

*

More on Sibelius: I love his music. He happens to be one of my favorite composers. I love not only his symphonic poems, symphonies, and Violin Concerto (with its Gypsy and Slavic interludes) but also his seldom performed piano music. One of the very first things I did when I became gainfully employed in a department store was to acquire a complete set of his seven symphonies under Karajan (please note: not of Armenian but of Greek descent- real name, Karayannis, literally Blackjohn).

*

More on nationalist music. All music speaks a universal language even when it employs local or native folk melodies; and it uses these melodies for the same reason that a Hungarian speaks Hungarian, a Romanian speaks Romanian, and an Armenian speaks Armenian. Sibelius used Finnish folk music not because it is superior to Greek or Russian folk music but because he was exposed to Finnish folk songs at an early age. This may explain why Khachaturian did not use exclusively Armenian folk tunes (he was born and raised in Georgia) but also Georgian, Azeri, Abkhazian, and Chechen folk tunes and rhythms. In music, unlike in politics, there is no such thing as enemy folk tunes or rhythms. Good music is accessible to all of mankind, and in that sense, its massage emphasizes the universal brotherhood of all men.

#

August 21, 2004

Thursday, August 19, 2004

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

BELIEF SYSTEMS AND HERESIES.

A PROBLEM AND ITS SOLUTION.

THE SHORTEST BOOK IN THE WORLD.

REVERSE BOLSHEVISM.

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

In the eyes of a man with deep religious and political convictions, all disagreement will be seen as heresy, and as everyone knows, the only way to deal with heretics is to burn them at the stake, because they will burn in hell anyway. Likewise, to a fanatic Muslim, all non-Muslims are infidel dogs and killing them is no sin. To my gentle readers who disagree with me, I ask: If in your eyes I am no better than an infidel dog, in what way are you yourself different from those who at the turn of the last century massacred our forefathers?

*

If disagreement makes you unhappy, here is a solution to your problem: Gather around yourself like-minded men, start a forum or a club of mutual admiration, and live happily ever after.

*

There are many ways to prove that you are a better man or, for that matter, that you are right, perhaps even infallible, and going down into the gutter is not one of them. This may be elementary to Dr. Watson but not to Jack S. Avanakian.

*

If a writer were to think like everyone else, of what possible use could he be to anyone? - unless of course you say that the best writer is a useless writer, perhaps even a dead writer.

*

If every dissenting voice in our environment had been silenced, the history of our literature would be the shortest book in the world.

*

I never argue with someone who has all the answers or speaks in the name of God, because to disagree with him would be like disagreeing with God.

*

On the day you begin to think for yourself, you may be astonished to discover that some received ideas are no better than self-evident lies.

*

Jean-Francois Kahn: "What we are witnessing today may best be described as reverse Bolshevism. Instead of the USSR we have the USA. Instead of anti-Sovietism we have anti-Americanism. And instead of struggle for socialism we have struggle for democracy."

#

Friday, August 20, 2004

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

HISTORIOCENTRISM.

VERSIONS OF THE PAST.

THE CASE OF ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE.

THE WHOLE TRUTH OR A FRACTION OF IT?

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

A friend recently observed that Armenians are historiocentric. I suspect what he meant is that we are massacrocentric, or obsessed with the Genocide, or perhaps even that, we operate on the assumption that, since the past is one, our version of it is the only valid one and all other versions should be dismissed as lies, distortions and propaganda based on the testimony of hostile or perjurious witnesses.

*

It goes without saying that, as an Armenian, I trust Armenian historians more than I trust Turkish historians. The trouble is, Turks too trust their own historians more than ours; and also, very much like us, they too operate on the assumption that their own version of the past is the only valid one. It follows that, our Genocide must be a figment of our collective imagination.

*

The problem we face is not a new one. There are and have always been as many histories as there are historians with their own unique perspectives, memories, ideologies, vested interest, religions, and set of prejudices and blind spots. Consider the recent invasion of Iraq, which ought to be, by all accounts, an open book. Don't even try to reconcile the Muslim with the American position, or, for that matter, the pro-Bush with the anti-Bush position.

*

History may also be divided between that of victors and that of their victims, such as the native-American or Indian version of American history, and history as taught in American educational institutions.

*

To complicate our own case even more, there are Turkish historians critical of Turkish conduct, as there are Armenian historians whose understanding and interpretation of the Genocide is such that they have been accused by their peers of revisionism and treason.

*

Even more confusing is the case of the eminent British historian Arnold J. Toynbee, who after writing several books on Turkish brutality and their Armenian victims, wrote several more books in which he said Armenian territorial claims at the turn of the last century (claims that had provoked Turkish reprisals) had been unjustified and unreasonable.

*

Will there ever come a time when historians of all nations and persuasions will develop a consensus? Don't hold your breath. In the meantime it is safe to assume that (one) by emphasizing some aspects of the past and ignoring or covering up others, all historians give us only a partial or distorted view of the past, (two) only God is in a position to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and (three) mortal man is destined to know only part of the truth -- which, by the way, happens to be one definition of propaganda ("part of the truth").

*

In case you think I am trying to whitewash Turkish crimes against humanity and to question the reality of our Genocide, let me emphasize that even pro-Turkish historians like Toynbee and Bernard Lewis have at no time denied the Genocide. What they tried to do is to explain (which does not mean to justify) why certain things happened and why men behave as they do.

#

Saturday, August 21, 2004

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

ON BEING FALLIBLE.

OTTOMAN TACTICS.

ON REPETITION.

AN ARMENIAN MISCONCEPTION.

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

To be fallible means to think "I could be wrong," even when you are sure to be right. Remember, some of the most catastrophic blunders in the history of mankind were made by individuals who were so sure they were right that they were willing to risk the lives of millions of innocent women and children.

*

It is not at all unusual to come across an Armenian today who pretends to be 100% right on the assumption that his fellow Armenians are too backward, ignorant, or impressionable to dare to question his authority; and they are the very same Armenians who become abusive whenever they confront a fellow Armenian who is neither timid nor impressionable enough to be bullied into silence. Zarian was absolutely right when he said some Armenian do with their tongues what the Turks did with their yataghans.

*

To those who say I repeat myself, I say: You may ignore my words, but can you ignore our blunders? - especially when they are repeated.

*

In writing, whenever you try to please everyone, you please no one; and even when you try to please one person, you succeed only in poisoning your well.

*

A typical Armenian misconception: Free speech is a fundamental human right that applies only to those who agree with us or are willing to recycle our propaganda line.

*

To think that, just because you understand an idea, you can also explain reality, is like thinking you can guess another's thoughts by observing the outline of his shadow.

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