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[Guest arabaliozian]

Monday, September 30, 2002********************************There is a type of argument so transparently absurd that it provokes not a counter-argument but an insult. I call it "an Armenian argument." Its aim: to produce silence in the adversary – a silence born of despair and disgust.*It is easy to declare war and after losing it to blame it on others. It is done all the time. If it were up to nationalist historians, all military defeats are moral victories.*There are people – or should I say cultures – that think killing is the only way to settle differences. And then there are those who preach peace, brotherhood and love because they are in no position to kill. But perhaps I am describing the human race.PRIVATE THOUGHTS VERSUS PUBLIC PERFORMANCE**************************************The Pope may doubt his faith and infallibility seven times every day (according to an old Italian saying) but publicly he must pretend otherwise. "We believe that we believe," Sartre tells us, "but we don't believe." A bishop or a mullah may praise Allah publicly but privately he may prefer to serve the devil. We all praise the truth but we find it more pleasant to live a lie. Unlike an honest man, charlatans will assert their honesty again and again to convince others as well as to brainwash themselves. When I hear an adult repeating the nonsense that I was taught as a child I cannot help thinking that what we have here is a case of arrested development. A fool may deserve our sympathy but not a fool who thinks he is mart and certainly not a fool who thinks he is smarter than anyone else. To lie, to defend a lie, and to justify the defense of a lie gets progressively difficult. Hence the old saying: "If you are in a hole, stop digging."Tuesday, October 01, 2002*******************************Why I think we should be grateful to our country of adoption: Because it allows us to make a living and to provide for our families – two simple operations which we take for granted but which we were not allowed to perform at the turn of the century in the Ottoman Empire and at the turn of the millennium in our beloved homeland.*Yerevan. A man enters a department store and asks one of the salesmen: "Comrade, do you sell razors?" "No!" The man exits. Another salesman says: "You know #### well we sell razors, why did you say no to him?" "He called me comrade: let him go and shave himself with a sickle."*Two politicians meet in Yerevan and one of them says: "What’s the matter?" "Nothing is the matter, why?" "You look depressed." "Me? No! I just spent a fabulous month in the Virgin Islands, bought my daughter a Mercedes as a wedding gift and built myself a villa which cost me a fortune. I feel great!" "Maybe so, but you don't look your usual cheerful self." "That maybe because I worry about the people and their standard of living – it’s been going down steadily…."Wednesday, October 02, 2002*******************************It’s not easy writing for readers who know and understand everything. It is even more difficult writing for readers who read only to assert their superior wisdom.*Our revolutionaries could not predict the Genocide. Isolated massacres here and there, now and then, yes; but not the million and a half. But since they operate on the assumption that they did nothing wrong they must now place all the blame on others. Politicians are not prophets, granted; but neither should they be charlatans who pretend to be infallible.*Partisan papers don't print me any more; but they printed everything I wrote twenty years ago – that’s when I knew and understood less.*All wars have an end, but the war against fools is endless.*An Armenian will trust more his doubts than your certainties, his suspicions more than the evidence and your sworn testimony. For many years I could not convince my partisan friends and relatives that I was not a member of the opposition. And yet, we express shock and outrage when odars refuse to accept our version of the past to the exclusion of all others.*You can always rely on an Armenian to overestimate his charm, cunning, and powers of persuasion.