as i see it

[arabaliozian]

delish!

Sunday, June 29, 2008
******************************************
ON COMMISSARS AND RELATED ATROCITITIES
************************************************** ********
The following notes and comments contain coarse language and mature subject matter. Parental guidance is advised.
*
When I speak in the name of common decency and use my common sense, they call it philosophy, and they think the aim of philosophy is to confuse and mislead law-abiding, tax-paying, and patriotic citizens like themselves. They seem to be unaware of the fact that philosophy is a Greek word that simply means love of wisdom, and the alternative to philosophy is therefore philomoronism.
*
Our revolutionaries at the turn of the last century and myself today share similar ambitions: we are both like frogs trying to rape an elephant. The elephant in their case was an empire. In my case it is the lies of propaganda. And of the two, it is hard to say which is the mightier adversary. But then, if I lose, I have only wasted my time. No harm done. Not a single innocent civilian will be lost, and forever after I will not condemn myself to play the blame-game.
*
Whenever I am asked a question, more often than not it is not an honest question but a loaded one, or in legal parlance, a leading one, which in a court of law would be immediately followed by the triad, “Objection,” “Sustained,” “Withdrawn.”
*
Dishonesty comes so naturally to us that even in our search for knowledge and understanding we manipulate reality in such a way as to certify our illusions. So that, if I were to quote the celebrated dictum “Truth shall set you free,” one of our ubiquitous Jack S. Avanakians is sure to stand on his hind legs and bray: “So you think you know the truth?” -- meaning of course “You arrogant s.o.b!” My usual answer to that leading question is: “No, I don't know the truth. Only God (if He exists) knows the truth. But I can recognize a lie when I hear one; and I can also recognize a self-appointed commissar of culture when I see one.”
*
It must be painfully frustrating, perhaps even humiliating to our commissars that we live in a democratic America rather than in a totalitarian USSR, where they would not only be free to cross-examine their victims but also put a bullet in their brain. Unmask these dealers in patriotic slogans and expose an executioner.
#
Monday, June 30, 2008
******************************************
DELISH!
***************************
Anything that's worth saying is worth repeating. I, for one, never get tired of rereading and quoting the delicious lines that follow, if only to remind myself what I am against. Enjoy!
*
From a popular Armenian song:
“One Armenian eats one chicken,
Two Armenians eat two chickens,
Three Armenians eat each other.”
*
Gostan Zarian: “Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another.”
*
Anonymous mantra:
“Mart bidi ch'ellank.”
*
Yeghishé (5th-century historian): “Solidarity is the mother of good deeds, divisiveness of evil ones.”
*
Shahan Shahnour: “The enemy is not theTurk but us.”
*
THE PROBLEM
**************************
“The problem of who speaks for the Armenians is still acute,” writes Charles King in his THE GHOST OF FREEDOM: A HISTORY OF THE CAUCASUS (page 11). That may be because our chiefs outnumber our Indians.
*
CONFESSION
******************************
Some of my gentle readers tell me I disappoint them whenever I fail to come up with a new or original or creative idea that will save the nation and usher in a new Renaissance or Golden Age. I am flattered of course that they think me capable of performing such a miracle. I am afraid I shall have to disappoint them again by admitting that I am nothing but an overworked and underpaid shit-disturber, and if their desire is to see the nation saved, they should get themselves a messiah, which should not be difficult because Armenian messiahs are a dime a dozen.
#
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
**************************************
SITUATION / SHITUATION
****************************************
Those who know how to think for themselves probably see me as someone who is doing his best to emulate them. It is those who cannot think for themselves that resent me and would like to see me silenced, and if possible, massacred; and they are my most faithful readers. If I ever become a best-selling author, I will owe it to them.
*
I don't write against my critics and detractors. I write against myself when young, naïve, ignorant, brainwashed, self-satisfied, and a loud-mouth smart-ass know-it-all.
*
My sole aim in life now is to be readable. As long as they read me, I have them by the short hair. As for saving the nation: the nation and I swim in the same soup. We are both dependent on the charity of swine. On the day I save myself, saving the nation will be the number one item on my agenda.
*
Whenever a reader makes a specific demand on me, I am tempted to ask: “And how would you like your pizza – with or without anchovies?”
*
If an Armenian disagrees with you, he will not say “I disagree with you.” He will call you a fool, an idiot, and a pro-Turkish bastard who should be tarred, feathered, and driven out of town on a jackass. The trouble with us is not that we don't know how to agree with one another but that we don't even know how to disagree.
*
We like to explain the massacres as politically motivated actions. But what if they are also expressions of visceral hatred, the kind that I seem to provoke in some of my readers, and vice versa?
#
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
******************************************
SECRET PLEASURES
********************************
We all have our secret pleasures.
One of mine is needling windbags.
*
In order to reach XYZ
we must begin with ABC
and we haven't yet begun.
*
If in crime it's cherchez la femme
in political blunders it's cherchez the dividers.
*
Why do you think a small island in Europe
was successful in colonizing an Asiatic subcontinent?
Simply because the English were united and the Indians divided.
*
The Holocaust may be traced back to what happened 2000 years ago when the Jewish leaders divided the people into those who believed Jesus to be the Messiah and those who believed him to be a blasphemer.
*
Nations are divided by leaders who cannot reconcile their differences because they speak in the name of God. When God enters in an argument, the Devil is sure to follow.
*
Theology: the science of the Unknown and the Unknowable.
*
For many centuries we were subservient to foreign despots from sultans to commissars. Today we are subservient to the lies of our own propaganda. Vicious circle or downward spiral?
#

[arabaliozian]

comments

Thursday, July 3, 2008
*************************************
IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE
************************************************** *
Armenians who find me unreadable are my most faithful readers. Figure that one out if you can. My only explanation is that like all perennial losers, they have accumulated so many unsettled scores against the world that they take it out on anyone that is available, provided of course he is defenseless and therefore in no position to retaliate.
*
When asked why I bother writing for readers who hate me, I say, the challenge is not writing for civilized and intelligent readers who may well be ahead of me, but for barbarians who are infatuated with their own limitations. Another reason is that once in a while I receive a phone call or an e-mail apologizing for having been rude to me in the past. Which proves that, like the worst Turks, the worst Armenians are first and foremost human beings and as such not beyond redemption. Besides, it has been the fate of all Armenian writers to be verbally abused by their fellow Armenians. Some of our most celebrated medieval historians, among them Yeghishé and Khorenatsi, have been called hirelings of warlords with dynastic ambitions. Some of our greatest poets and writers, among them Siamanto and Zarian, have been called plagiarists. Accused of nationalism, Charents was betrayed to Stalin's thugs and committed suicide in his cell.
*
There is nothing typically Armenian about this phenomenon. In times of crisis the scum rises to the top and speaks with the approval of the dominant minority. The verbal abuse hurled against such writers as Sartre in France, Thomas Mann in Germany, Solzhenitsyn in Russia, Kazantzakis in Greece, and more recently Pamuk in Turkey, are cases in point that come readily to mind. If giants like these have been maligned and insulted, why should midgets like me be spared? In a way, I am even tempted to be flattered for being singled out.
*
Perhaps I should also point out that not all Armenians hate me or disagree with me. If they are afraid to express their agreement openly it may be because they don't relish the prospect of being targeted by hooligans. Finally, to those who say the reason why I call those who disagree with me losers, barbarians, and hooligans, is that once upon a time I was no better. I have always maintained that as products of the same historic conditions and experiences, all Armenians are brothers under the skin, and all analyses begin with self-analysis. If I understand losers it's because I am one. If I understand resentment and venom, it's because “Bovary c'est moi.”
#
Friday, July 4, 2008
***************************************
ONE-LINERS
*********************************
As long as Armenians and Turks are educated by their own historians, justice, understanding and consensus will elude them.
*
Propagandists cannot define good and evil in the same way that compulsive liars cannot define truth.
*
Ideologies and orthodoxies teach us to think that we are thinking.
*
“There are better writers than you here,” a reader informs me. I consider that cause for celebration if only because misery likes company.
*
I have learned about us more from odar sources than our own. So much so that I no longer believe anything I am told by Armenians.
*
Whenever I speak about our failings, I am told all nations have them. With one important difference however. We hate discussing ours, and whenever someones dares to do so we silence him, and failing that, we bury him beneath an avalanche of verbal manure.
*
To prove that he is civilized, an Armenian will behave like a barbarian. He will become intolerant in defense of tolerance and fascist in defense of freedom; and all with the self-confidence and unawareness of an inborn moron who is convinced of his superior intellect.
*
Patriotism means supporting one group against another. The opposite of patriotism is not treason but “all men are brothers.”
*
When Raffi said wealthy merchants are the lowest scum on earth, a wealthy merchant proved him right by hiring a Kurdish assassin.
#
Saturday. July 5, 2008
***************************************
FAMOUS LAST WORDS
********************************
“Once upon a time we shed our blood for freedom. We are now afraid of free speech.” After discovering this terrifying truth, Hagop Garabents (Jack Karapetian) spent the rest of his life avoiding it by writing love stories, which made him a darling of our establishment figures. Shortly before he died, he is quoted as having said: “I die alone.”
*
Those who brag about our survival should be reminded once in a while that our best and brightest did not survive. The massacre goes on....
*
We speak of pride to cover up the fact that we have many more reasons to speak of humility.
*
To undertake the impossible is another way of doing nothing.
*
There is something fundamentally wrong in a community where the old are radicalized and the young entrenched in the status quo.
#

[arabaliozian]

riffraff

Sunday, July 6, 2008
************************************
THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL
********************************************
We begin by lying to ourselves, after which we see nothing wrong in deceiving others. A jihadist believing he will spend eternity deflowering virgins; Hitler believing in the superiority of the Aryan race; the Pope believing in his own infallibility in matters of faith: all lies. One could go as far as saying that faith is the root of all evil. As for money: it too could be the root but only if you believe it can solve all your most important problems.
*
No one can be as dumb as he who believes to be smart. I think of Armenians who believe Armenians like me are the source of all evil. So much so that if I were slightly older they would pin the Genocide on me or wish I had been one of the victims. When told I am a writer, this type of reader becomes even more abusive. If I were to ask these readers to name their favorite contemporary Armenian writer, I have every reason to suspect they would fail to come up with a single name. That's because they have been “educated” to believe by our bosses (believers in their ideology), bishops (believers in God and capital, make it Capital and god), and benefactors (believers in the Almighty $) that dissent or freedom of thought are anathema and anyone who dares to speak against their faith is an enemy of the people, a Turk in disguise, and a liar who is condemned to spend eternity burning in hell, as opposed to deflowering virgins or an equally ill-defined delightful activity. And if you believe that, you will believe anything!
#
Monday, July 7, 2008
********************************************
MEMO
**********************
Whenever two or more readers gang up on me, I feel it is my duty to remind them, if they lie down with dogs they are liable to get up with fleas.
*
QUESTIONS
*********************************
Can there be progress where there is no respect for fundamental human rights? Can there be free speech in a totalitarian environment? Is dialogue possible with a fascist, a concrete wall, an Armenian?
*
CONTRADICTION
******************************
Why is it that the vocabulary of Armenians who preach constructive criticism and love seldom rises above the gutter?
*
A NOTEWORTHY DISTINCTION
**********************************************
A famous French actress who slept with Germans during the Occupation is quoted as having said: “My heart is French, but my ass is international.” A noteworthy distinction that. By contrast, when we sleep with the enemy, we surrender our body as well as soul. Hence such unfortunate phenomena as Armenians under Talaat and Stalin betraying their fellow Armenians.
*
ON A RELATED TOPIC
*********************************
I wonder how many of my readers, dealers in chauvinist crapola, and holier-than-thou sanctimonious pricks are aware of the fact that until very recently the wealthiest woman in Turkey was an Armenian. When the Turkish government awarded her a prize for paying more taxes than anyone else, her line of work was not known to the bureaucrats. When the master of ceremonies was informed that she was a bordello madam, he wanted to recall the medal, but it was too late. She was no longer in the audience. An obvious case of “arav-pakhav” (grab-and-run).
*
THE MORAL OF THE STORY
****************************************
To emphasize the positive and cover up the negative could be another definition of propaganda and I leave propaganda to our bureaucrats. I prefer to speak of reality in order to make the blind see. If so far I have failed, it may be because, like most of my predecessors, I am not a miracle worker.
#

Tuesday, July 8, 2008
******************************************
RIFFRAFF
******************************
“Bullying: Conduct designed to embarrass, humiliate or belittle someone.”
*
“I don't read you because you are an idiot!” a reader (make it, a non-reader) writes. A clear-cut caste of a bully in action.
*
The memory of all those I offended when I was young, brainwashed, and self-righteous has been a thorn in my conscience. But I have learned from our bullies to be more tolerant of my youthful self. Which proves that, if you are disposed to learn, you may learn even from riffraff.
*
If you think for yourself, you can't be self-righteous because, in thinking, doubts always outnumber certainties. Only the brainwashed assert infallibility, and in doing so they compound problems instead of solving them.
*
There is a type of Armenian who gages your patriotism by how much you hate Turks. “Who is your favorite Armenian writer?” I once asked such an Armenian who also happened to be one of our notorious Turcocentric ghazetajis. “I don't have any,” he replied. “How many have you read?” I asked next. “None!” was his answer. Armenians who are brainwashed to hate avoid ideas because they don't want the purity of their hatred to be contaminated.
*
Knowledge can be a painful acquisition because it may expose our failings and blind spots. Hence the saying: “Ignorance is bliss.”
*
We don't burn books or starve writers. We ignore them. It amounts to the same thing. If they are with us, writers are redundant. If they are against us, they should be silenced or ignored.
*
Ideas are assaults against ignorance. Hence the favorite tactic of the ignorant: “Attack is the best defense.” But how does one go about defending an absence or a vacuum? It can't be done. That's when bullying comes in. When you can't defend your ignorance, attack, threaten, or bully. And if you are a coward -- and all bullies are – try to do so from a safe distance and anonymously. The greater the distance, the better.
#
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
*****************************************
ON TURCOCENTRIC GHAZETAJIS
************************************************** *
They are dangerous charlatans
who wallow in massacres and self-pity.
They appeal to our baser instincts
by creating a climate of resentment, hatred, and intolerance.
They refuse to engage in dialogue
with their own fellow countrymen,
let alone the opposition.
They have nothing but contempt for free speech
and fundamental human rights
and by extention, literature and culture.
They at no time admit that
it was a blunder to gamble
with the lives of innocent civilians
by relying on the assistance of the West and Russia –
nations that have themselves massacred their own kind
in the name of political expediency.
They portray themselves as defenders of our interests
and the fact that they are believed
proves only that we are a nation of dupes.
By thinking only in terms of victims and victimizers,
they cover up the fact that
we have been and continue to be
double victims of foreign oppression
as well as domestic corruption and incompetence.
#

[arabaliozian]

armenians

Thursday, July 10, 2008
***************************************
UNDERSTANDING ARMENIANS
************************************************
If you want to know more about Armenians, the worst thing you can do is read a book about them written by an Armenian. Since I have written one myself, let me tell you how it is done. You read a few books on the subject. You select, paraphrase, and quote the positives and discard the negatives on the grounds they were written by Turcophile scumbags. The result is bound to be a best-seller. Mine was. Four printings and all sold out within months.
But if you really want to understand Armenians, here is what you do: you enter an Armenian discussion forum on the Internet and post an honest, objective, and self-evident statement -- something like, say, two plus two equals four, or the sun rises in the East -- and see what happens. I will tell you what happens. You will come face to face with Armenians who believe, as the offspring of victims of massacres, they are justified to verbally massacre anyone who refuses to recycle their favorite brand of propaganda.
What have the Armenians learn from history beside adopting Turks as their role models? You may well ask. Don't get me wrong. We probably have as many moderates as extremists. But like all extremists everywhere, ours too are better organized and loud. So much so that they appear to represent the majority even when they are a minority that suffer from acute verbal diarrhea, which happens to be a common malady among us.
#
Friday, July 11, 2008
**************************************
HOW NOT TO SOLVE PROBLEMS
************************************************** ***
Because I am not a prophet, they want my head on a platter.
*
The only reason we engage in verbal massacre is that the real thing is against the law.
*
They tell me they are all for free speech, but not for idiots like me, and they define idiot as anyone who disagrees with them.
*
Like the kingdom of god, the solution to our problems is within us. But if we are to believe our Turcocentric ghazetajis, the solution is in Ankara.
*
When I was a fascist I justified myself by saying, how can I, a victim of fascism, be a fascist? I now have the answer to that question: the secret ambition of all victims is to victimize.
*
It is written: “If you have an Armenian friend, you don't need enemies.”
*
The solution to our problems is not a verbal formula. But if you insist on a verbal solution, abracadabra is as good as any.
*
When nations lack critics, it means they are not worthy of them.
*
To those who say the nation will be better off without Armenians like me, I say, you are now in an excellent position to understand them because that's exactly how they felt about us at the turn of the last century.
*
Only after we de-Ottomanize ourselves we may begin the search for solutions. Until then we will continue to think of genocide as the only viable solution.
#
Saturday, July 12, 2008
**************************************
STRAIGHT TALK
********************************
Some Armenians write anonymously on the Internet because, I am told, they are afraid of Turkish retaliation. I invite these Armenians to answer the following questions. How many Armenians have Turks killed during the last fifty years? How many Turks have Armenians killed in the same period? And last but far from least: How many Armenians have been killed by Armenians?
Turks, moreover, have welcomed thousands of Armenians in Turkey. How many Turks have we welcomed in our homeland and communities in the Diaspora? “Dzour nesdink, shidag khossink.”
*
Anyone who thinks he knows and understands everything he needs to know and understand should be declared a certified case of arrested development or a mindset that consists in mindlessness.
If space can't be infinite, where does it end? What's on the other side of the line or wall? Why things exist? These are questions no scientist or philosopher has ever been able to answer. Now then, go ahead and pretend to know and understand all you need to know and understand when what you know may not even be a drop in the ocean of knowledge.
#

[arabaliozian]

solutions

Sunday, July 13, 2008
**************************************
FINAL SOLUTION
***********************************
You want solutions to our problems?
Read the Bible.
And if you think you are smarter than God,
find your own goddamn solutions.
If you say the solutions in the Bible are dated
and therefore useless, then I suggest
the only solution is putting in an order
for a new God, a new Bible, a new Messiah,
and a new Lord's prayer:
“Give us this day our daily shish kebab and pilaf,
and lead us not into massacres.”
Do you really think
our bosses, bishops, and benefactors
are in need of your solutions?
How many letters have you received from them
so far asking for solutions?
How many letters have you received from them
so far asking for your “moral and financial support?”
These gentlemen have no use for your two cents' worth.
They want your bucks.
The bigger the buck the better.
Instead of statesmen we have panchoonies
whose favorite punch line is “Mi kich pogh.”
If you haven't understood that much about Armenians,
what, pray tell, have you understood?
A rhetorical question.
No need to answer.
Because the answer is obvious:
nil, nada, nothing,
vochinch, rien, zero, zilch!
#
Monday, July 14, 2008
************************************
MEMOS:
TO MY FELLOW ARMENIANS
*************************************************
If no one flatters you
do not flatter yourself
but if you do
do not confuse your lies
with articles of faith
straight out of Holy Writ.
*
If a fellow Armenian
refuses to parrot
your sentiments and thoughts
don't accuse him of being a Turk
who hates not only you
but also Mount Ararat
and Lake Sevan.
*
If a fellow Armenian
disagrees with you
don't insult him;
but if you do
and he returns the compliment
don't spend the rest of your life
trying to get even.
*
If you are in a hole
stop digging as if
you aimed to reach China.
*
If you bray like an jackass
don't compare yourself to Pavarotti.
*
If you look like a mongoloid
walk like a retard
speak like an inbred moron
don't brag about your genius.
*
If you begin to suspect
no one wants to touch you
with a ten-foot pole
the very least you can do
is not to pretend
the sun shines
out of your backside.
#
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
*****************************************
OBSERVATIONS
*********************************
All our publications are subsidized by bosses, bishops, and benefactors. Which means you can say nothing against God, Capital, and the Party; only Turks. This may explain why our Turcocentric ghazetajis are our most prolific, ubiquitous, and popular writers. Next time you hear about an Armenian who was awarded a literary prize, you can be sure of one thing: he is a Turcaholic.
*
Armenian criticism: Revenge by other means.
*
I have never heard a decent Armenian say we need solutions, only dupes and crooks who will reject any solution that threatens to expose them.
*
The only time I question the truth of the dictum, “No one is beyond redemption,” is when I visit an Armenian discussion forum on the Internet.
*
To ignore Armenian writers is to exterminate them by other means. There is a micro-Talaat and mini-Stalin in all of us.
*
An Armenian once said to me: “When I stay away from Armenians, I am a vegetarian. In their company I become a carnivore.”
*
Some writers, among them Gabriel Garcia Marquez, write for their friends. I write against my enemies. My ideal reader is one who reacts to my things with profanities, but after a while – say, in 9 or 99 years – he begins to suspect I may not be as hopeless a case as he thought I was, and someday, with his guidance, I may even begin to see things his way.
#

[arabaliozian]

rondo

Thursday, July 17. 2008
**********************************
ILLUSIONS
*****************************
A headline in our paper this morning reads: “Saudi king calls for unity and reconciliation.” If kings can entertain illusions, why not Armenian scribblers?...
*
Some Armenians believe if they lower Turks, they will raise themselves. Like most beliefs, this too is an illusion. People don't judge you by how much you hate your enemies, but by how well you treat your friends.
*
What is the difference between an Armenian who uses his tongue like a yataghan and an executioner? The executioner thinks of himself as a law-and-order man. The Armenian believes his superior brand of patriotism allows him to engage in verbal massacre – the real thing being against the law...
*
It is said that shortly before he died, Zohrab's assassin dictated an apology. He may have – he was a Kurd.
*
Writing for a hostile audience can be more stimulating than writing for a friendly one. But nothing beats writing for Armenians.
*
Speaking of Kurdish assassins: When a wealthy Armenian merchant hired a notorious Kurdish assassin to kill Raffi, the Kurd refused to carry out his assignment when he found out his target was only a harmless scribbler. Had the Kurd been an Armenian, I suspect the story would have had a different ending.
#
Friday, July 18, 2008
**************************************
AS I SEE IT
*************************
Empires are not born but made. Once upon a time all empires were a single obscure little tribe in some remote corner of the map. It takes a thousand right policy decisions for a tribe to become an empire, and it takes an equal number of wrong decision for a tribe to remain a tribe.
Whenever this subject comes up, I hear someone say, “We Armenians are peace-loving people, not greedy and bloodthirsty empire builders.”
Such an Armenian speaks with a forked tongue. I believe nothing he says because he does not speak, he parrots hearsay evidence. Such an Armenian will believe anything that flatters his vanity. In another context this very same Armenian will boast about the empire of Dikran the Great.
Don't get me wrong. I am not here to extol imperialism. I am only trying to understand and explain reality as objectively as I can without allowing the propaganda of politicians to contaminate my reason.
All politicians lie, including our own. Nothing unusual in that. Our historians, like most historians, lie too, and they lie to earn their pay. We hate to admit this for a number of reasons. We hate to admit that subservience has entered our bloodstream and rearranged our DNA. For many centuries we were subservient to foreign despots. We are now subservient to the lies of our wheeler-dealers even when they tell us they had nothing to do with our misfortunes. It was all written. Kismet. God is great, and God in His wisdom has willed it thus and so.
It has been said that Christianity replaced the human master (or king) with the divine master, and God is a king who doesn't have to exist in order to rule.
Again and again I am told to be more positive and to provide solutions. Does that mean lies are positive and truth negative? Does that mean objective judgment is suspect and propaganda patriotic?
A critic's job is not to kiss ass and say it smells like roses, but to expose contradictions, and more particularly, the lies of charlatans.
As for solutions: Do you then think all our writers have been doing during the last 1500 years is engage in mental masturbation? If you think that, all I can say is: May God have mercy on your soul, if there is a God and you have a soul.
#
Saturday, July 19, 2008
**********************************************
RONDO
***************************
The biggest mistakes are the easiest to make.
*
Even when historians agree on the facts or physics (time, place, numbers) they may disagree on the metaphysics (values, ethics, religious commandments). Some Muslims are brought up to believe killing infidels is not a crime against humanity but a religious duty. They may thus plead not guilty by reason of religious conviction, belief system, or metaphysical insanity.
*
The rule is, if a politician and historian agree, they must be both wrong.
*
Losing wars is not a crime. It can happen to the mightiest empires (remember the Yanks in Vietnam and the Soviets in Afghanistan). Peace-loving and civilized people may be enslaved by warlike barbarians. That too is not a crime. What is a crime, and a serious one, is, in legal parlance, dropping your pants and bending over. To the sultans we were their most loyal millet, and to the Bolsheviks we betrayed our ablest men. But that's not our greatest blunder either. Our greatest blunder,which is worse than a crime, is treating our own leaders as if they were sultans and commissars.
*
Habits die hard. It may take more than a century to shake off habits acquired during millennia. For more on this subject, read Baronian and Odian – two men with cojones who spoke the truth as they saw it. Baronian was betrayed to the police and Odian died an alcoholic. And finally, consider the case of Gomidas Vartabed whose sole ambition in life was to revive our ancient melodies and harmonies. He too was betrayed to the authorities and eventually took refuge in insanity.
#

[arabaliozian]

Brazil

Sunday, July 20, 2008
*********************************
FASCISTS AMONG US
********************************************
Once upon a time I was a fascist and didn't know it. The first time someone pointed that out to me, I thought,what the hell does he know? There is a tendency in all of us to believe that which is to our advantage and to disbelieve or ignore that which is against us. If someone tells us we are smart, we think, sure, why not? But if someone tells us we are dumb or even not as smart as we think we are, that's when the excrement hits the ventilator.
*
Can a victim of fascism be a fascist, or the victim of a racist be a racist? When a Canadian critic with a German name, in his review of my first book, called me a racist, I thought, the damn fool is projecting.
*
If you can't trust your father, or schoolteacher, or parish priest, whom can you trust? Very probably this misconception or misplaced trust has created more fascists than Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, and Idi Amin Dada combined.
*
Can a victim of fascism be a fascist? As nationalists, we don't think of ourselves as victims of fascism. We think of ourselves as victims of Turks, Kurds, Russians, or Azeris. But a fascist is a fascist regardless of nationality, in the same way that “a bourgeois is a bourgeois regardless of nationality” (Lenin), a Neanderthal is a Neanderthal, a skinhead is a skinhead, a hoodlum is a hoodlum, and a dealer in chauvinist crapola is a dealer in verbal manure, and the fact that the ordure happens to be of Armenian origin doesn't make its stench more bearable.
*
How to recognize a fascist? If you express an honest opinion and you are verbally abused, he is a fascist. Whenever that happens to me, I count my blessings. In another time and place, I think, he would have me shot or do the shooting himself, and get a medal for it, or a raise in pay “for services rendered to the Fatherland.” Heil Hitler! Mussolini ha sempre ragione (Mussolini is always right). Gott mit uns (God with us). Finally, if he speaks in the name of God only to legitimize his ignorance, intolerance, hatred, and criminal conduct, he is a fascist.
#
Monday, July 21, 2008
*****************************************
A ROUTINE OCCURRENCE
***********************************************
In his effort to assert his brand of superior patriotism, he exposes himself as a scumbag, and he is too full of himself to realize what's happening – and when I say too full of himself I mean of course too full of something else...
*
DEFINITIONS OF PATRIOTISM
******************************************
A bishop will define it as a belief system in which God and His representatives on earth play a central role. A benefactor will define it as a system in which Capital is God. A political boss will define it as a system in which the Party (namely, himself) is both God and Capital. It follows, in the eyes of some we will all be guilty of treason and deserve to fry.
*
THE ART OF WAR
****************************
If in doubt be assertive on the grounds that the average dupe or ignoramus judges the reliability of an opinion by the degree of assertiveness it is made. If you suspect your adversary knows better, be aggressive on the grounds that if he is half as smart he will have enough sense not to tangle with you.
*
ON BENEFACTORS, BROWN-NOSERS,
FUND RAISERS, & PANCHOONIES
**********************************************
Raymond Chandler: “Where the money is, so will the jackals gather.”
#
Tuesday,July 22, 2008
********************************************
MORE ON ARMENIAN FASCISM
************************************************** *****
May I take the liberty to remind some of my not-so-gentle readers that dialogue consists in assertion or thesis, contradiction or antithesis, and synthesis, and not – repeat, not!, definitely verboten – in kicking in the balls of your adversary, gouging his eyes out, and dancing on his grave.
*
If I ever decide to write a book on Armenian fascism, all I have to do is visit an Armenian discussion forum on the Internet and quote from it by way of illustration.
*
The hardest thing for an Armenian to understand is that supporting a regime of bloodsuckers has absolutely nothing to do with patriotism and everything to do with cowardly and blind subservience.
*
There is talk here in Canada about passing a law against anonymous bullying on the Internet. If that happens, most Armenian discussion forums will go out of business, and I for one will not mourn their passing.
*
Since as an Armenian writer I work for nothing, there are those who think I would be more than willing to work for minimum wage, and they are taken aback when I insult them.
#
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
************************************
BRAZIL
**************************
When no one comments on what I write, I feel ignored, dejected, depressed.
When even a single reader takes it upon himself to verbally abuse me,
I feel much better.
When, on those very rare occasions,
two or more readers insult me,
I think I've got it made
and any better I couldn't stand.
*
Writing for Armenians is a sensation
akin to swimming in a Brazilian river
teeming with toothless piranhas.
*
They may be toothless
but they have the memory of elephants.
*
ARMENIAN SAYINGS
*********************************
A toothless dog barks from a distance.
*
If you have a choice between fighting
a fully-armed knight on horseback
and a loud-mouth woman,
choose the knight.
*
When you go to war, pray once.
When you cross the ocean, pray twice.
When you take a wife,
pray three times.
*
A coward takes revenge by slicing a watermelon.
*
He who speaks the truth bears many scars.
#

[arabaliozian]

homage

Thursday, July 24, 2008
**************************************
VARIATIONS ON FAMILIAR THEMES
************************************************** ***
If you have a choice
between fighting a sumo wrestler
and a motor-mouth wench,
choose the fat Jap.
*
The difference between a garden-variety idiot
and an Armenian idiot is that
the Armenian will think of himself as a genius.
*
Of how many brainwashed dupes one could say,
he may shave and wear pants
but his brain is still in diapers.
*
If you are for honesty,
crooks will unite against you.
If you are for free speech,
commissars will gang up on you.
If you are for democracy,
fascists will verbally massacre you.
It has been my misfortune
to have riffraff as critics.
*
If no one wants you dead,
you can't be a writer.
A brown-noser, yes.
A writer, no!
*
Nothing can be as repellent
as the rottenness of a mediocrity
or the self-satisfaction of a total ignoramus
who parades as an expert on any given subject
and becomes so vulgar and aggressive when contradicted
that no one wants to tangle with him –
a fact which he invariably misinterprets as a victory.
#

Friday, July 25, 2008
*******************************************
HOMAGE TO MY MUSES
************************************************
Ever since some years ago I called one of my not-so-gentle readers an “inbred moron,” he has done his utmost to prove me right. More recently the same thing happened when I called two of my less-than-gentle readers a “fishwife” and a “garbage-mouth scumbag” respectively.

After reading that Charents had committed suicide by banging his head against the wall of his Yerevan jail, a reader suggests that I do the same – that is, bang my head against a wall until I am dead. I have every reason to suspect that if this reader were to bang his head against a cement wall, he would pulverize the wall long before he manages to do any discernible damage to his skull. Perhaps there lies the secret of our survival -- not inner strength, versatility, and cunning (as we have been brainwashed to believe) but an indestructible skull.
*
Judging by their concentrated venom, some readers hate me so much that all I have to do to get even with them is to stay alive.
*
One of the advantages of being an Armenian writer is the knowledge that all it takes to acquire a mortal enemy, a faithful reader, and an endless source of inspiration (all three for the price of one) is to come up with the right word at the right time and place.
*
Some poets are inspired by noble sentiments or heroic deeds, others by picturesque landscapes or sunsets or the eternal snows of Mount Ararat, still others by a lovely face. All I need is an ugly Armenian and I don't even have to look for them. They come to me gift-wrapped and free of charge. I can truly say therefore that when it comes to muses, my cup runneth over niagarally.
#
Saturday, July 26, 2008
****************************************
ALL IN A DAY'S WORK
********************************************
The struggle between truth-seekers and liars is as old as mankind, and if it ever comes to an end, you can be sure of one thing: it won't be in our lifetime.
*
A headline in our Op-Ed page today reads: “Junk science tactics are designed to confuse the public and the policy-makers.”
*
Kings are beheaded, presidents assassinated, generals killed, chief executive officers are exposed as crooks, writers are silenced, rejected, betrayed, starved, sometimes even butchered or shot by commissars and their many pseudo- and neo-successors. It's all in a day's work. It comes with the territory. It is an integral part of the human condition. A routine occurrence in the history of mankind.
*
I like to say that some of my worst detractors who write anonymously are either bishops or sons of bishops because when I wrote for the weeklies, one of the nastiest letters to the editor against me was written by the secretary of a bishop – probably dictated by him.
*
“To write as you do, you must have some big balls!” a reader tells me. No. Not really. As a matter of fact, whenever I visit my dentist, I remind him of the fact that I happen to be an Orthodox Coward. If I appear brave to some it may be because I am surrounded by yellow-belly dupes with the guts of a mouse who are afraid of their own shadow.
*
And then there is the motor-mouth fishwife and the garbage-mouth imbecile who expects me to believe that I am always wrong and s/he is always right. There is only one infallible person on this planet and we meet him every day in an Armenians discussion forum.
*
Since they write anonymous(e)ly, most of my detractors think no one will ever know who they are. No one except themselves; and they may run from themselves but they can't hide.
#

[arabaliozian]

opinions

Sunday, July 27, 2008
******************************************
WHO LOVES ARMENIANS?
*************************************************
Not even Armenians.
Am I saying something you don't know?
Is it conceivable to say anything to an Armenian that he doesn't already know?
*
There is no cure for stupidity and patriotism, surely, the most lethal combination in the history of mankind.
*
Whenever there is talk of literature and Armenians, I am reminded of the Turkish saying: “Eshek khoshavdan ne annar?” (freely translated: “What the hell does a jackass know about stewed raisins?”)
*
Called “Asshole” by a farmer, Chirac is said to have extended his hand and replied: “Pleased to meet you. My name is Chirac.”
Compare this story to what happened in a Yerevan nightclub when a probably tipsy Armenian greeted Kocharian in a too friendly manner: he was dragged out by Kocharian's bodyguards and beaten to death in the washroom.
*
In our Soviet phase, our commissars said, “If we can shoot them, by bother sending them to Siberia?” In the Diaspora today they say: “If we can silence or insult them, why bother saying we disagree with them.”
*
A house divided is not a home.
*
Next time someone tells you we need solutions, ask him: “If I give you one, what will you do with it?”
*
Never speak in the name of God or patriotism if you can speak in the name of common sense and decency.
*
The most widespread fallacy among Armenians, “Those in authority know better.”
*
A question an Armenian never asks: “What if I am wrong?”
#
Monday, July 28m 2008
******************************************
DO I SPEAK THE TRUTH?
***************************************
No, of course not.
Truth is God's territory, not ours.
We, poor mortals, can speak only of what we have experienced, seen, and understood, which means only a tiny fraction of reality, and tiny to the point of being almost invisible to the naked eye.
*
If we disagree, it may be because our experiences are different. I could never say I will ignore my own experiences and adopt yours.
*
If what you have experienced, seen, and understood is different from mine, so much the better. It is by assembling as many eyewitness accounts as we can that we may have an approximate version of our collective experience. But if you say only the positive should be accepted and the negative rejected, then the result is bound to be not an objective and balanced version of the story but one that is more akin to fiction and propaganda.
*
If you say, “Armenians are not as bad as you paint them,” then I am fully justified in saying “Neither are they as good as they claim to be.” After all, who in his right mind lends any credence to the self-assessment of a self-satisfied jackass or to the boasts of a megalomaniac?
*
One way to judge a nation is by the manner in which it treats its writers, which also means, ideas in general, and free speech, that is to say, human rights. To understand a nation, read the history of its literature.
*
Every Armenian pretends to be a better Armenian. As for the alienated and assimilated: they pretend to be better human beings, and who can blame them?
*
They tell me, as a writer I should inspire rather than denigrate. A writer? Me? No! I am only a witness among many. A witness who thinks we either seek wisdom or wallow in our ignorance. That may not be the truth. But neither is it a lie. Let us agree to call it an approximation.
#
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
*************************************
OPINIONS
************************
An opinion is just an opinion. It is not and it should not be treated like a paragraph in a belief-system.
*
To contradict an opinion with a belief system is like trying to kill a butterfly with a sledgehammer.
*
To me, our genocide is less about Turkish barbarism and more about Armenian weakness. To emphasize the first and ti ignore the second is to miss the point.
*
With some Armenians, patriotism is a word that allows them to either insult their fellow Armenians or to get their money.
*
There are times when writing for Armenians feels like engaging in mortal combat.
*
We ask for a solution to our problems, and when someone gives it to us, we ignore it. Case in point: In the 19th century Raffi said, “the Ottoman Empire is no place for Armenians.” Had we acted on his advice, there would have been no genocide. Whenever I mention this fact, outraged readers tell me: “Are you suggesting we should have abandoned our 'babenagan' (ancestral) homes and emigrated en masse? That's crazy!”
Well, was it sane being driven out forcefully into the desert and dying of thirst and starvation by the million?
*
Long before Raffi, Yeghishé (5th century AD) said: “Solidarity is the mother of good deeds, divisiveness of evil ones.”
You may now draw your own conclusions.
#
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
******************************************
ARMENIANS AND ARMENIANS
**************************************************
I keep writing in the full knowledge that on the day I die I will look back and think it has all been a waste and that I could have been of more use to my fellow men had I been a plumber or carpenter.
*
Jesus was a carpenter. I wonder why more Christians are not encouraged to go into carpentry. An Armenian friend of mine, a born-again in his eighties, who knows the Bible inside out, is an amateur carpenter. He hates Turks not because they tried to exterminate us but because they didn't finish the job. Judging by the kind of e-mails I get and comments on Armenian discussion forums, this born-again friend of mine is not a rare case among us.
*
It is easy to sermonize about love and patriotism (which is also love – love of country and countrymen) but much more difficult to practice what one preaches.
*
If two Armenians cannot share their Armenianism, neither it seems can they share their humanity. Why this should be so is beyond me. If you have an answer, please let me have it.
*
To be fair, not all Armenians hate Armenians. Armenians can be excellent friends provided they live on different continents, share the same belief system, and their grand-grandparents were born and raised in the same obscure little village in Anatolia.
*
What if the so-called superior brand of Armenianism of Ottomanized Armenians is nothing but an inferior brand of Ottomanism?
*
Armenian and Armenian is like cat and dog, or cobra and mongoose, or chicken and fox, or Armenian and Turk.
#

[arabaliozian]

wisdom

Thursday, July 31, 2008
*********************************************
THE DARK SIDE
**********************************
Politicians belong to a different species. What they hate most is projecting the image of losers. That's why when they lose, they claim victory on some other level; and what's even more astonishing, they are believed. Turks believe Talaat was a great statesman, and we believe all our misfortunes must be ascribed not to our kings, princes, warlords with dynastic ambitions, nakharars, and bosses, but to our geography, to our bloodthirsty neighbors, and I once even heard one of our eminent poets – a notorious brown-noser parading as a fearless critic – blame the Good Lord Himself.
*
About the fearless critic: He was fearless towards defenseless underdogs, vodanavorjis like himself, and lowly priests, but at no time did he dare to publish a single line against any one of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors. There is a saying in German: “Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.”
*
If you want to understand politicians, don't read their dime-a-dozen hirelings and partisans. That would be like reading a former member of the Communist Party in order to understand our Soviet era. The very same people who say, “Who in his right mind would do that?” read Tashnak ghazetajis to understand Tashnaks, Ramgavar wheeler-dealers to understand Ramgavars, and Armenian nationalist historians to understand Armenian history. And when Turks do the same , they call them dumb.
*
“After reading you I feel ashamed of being an Armenian,” writes a reader; and he feels ashamed not because he is exposed as a dupe, but because I expose the dark side of the moon and because I dare say there is something rotten in the State of Denmark. I don't write to promote shame. I write to challenge readers to confront the forces of darkness that have shaped and continue to shape our destiny as a nation.
#
Friday, August 1, 2008
*************************************
THE WISDOM OF DIOGENES
*************************************************
Once upon a time when I was gainfully employed first as a stock boy in a department store and later as a clerk in an insurance company, they would ask me: “Do you like your job?” and I would lie and say, “Yes, like it very much.” I wonder, has anyone ever asked a garbage collector if he likes his job? Another question that is seldom or never asked: Where would civilization be without garbage collectors?
*
So far no one has ever bothered to ask me if I enjoy writing for garbage. But I shouldn't complain. In all fairness, I should mention the fact that I also have a handful of civilized readers who, whenever they disagree with me, they say “I disagree with you,” as opposed to calling me a senile old man who should commit suicide by banging his head against a wall.
*
To be hated by an Armenian is to have a foretaste of immortality. My friends may forget me, but my enemies never will. Among us, hatred has a longer lifespan than any other emotion. Like Pollyanna, I see a blessing even in a curse.
*
To my friends who criticize my critics, I say, “Please, be gentle with them. They are my bread and butter. I need them the way a garbage collector needs garbage.”
*
On entering the home of a wealthy Greek and warned not to spit on the floor, Diogenes is said to have spat on his host's face saying he couldn't find a meaner receptacle. I dare anyone not to love such a man!
#
Saturday, August 2, 2008
*****************************************
THE ARMENIAN WAY
********************************
If they can't see what you see, their first instinct is to gouge your eyes out.
*
We know the names of the writers who were shot by our Stalinist commissars. What we don't know are the names of the commissars. That's the way it is with executioners – they prefer to be faceless and anonymous. They are probably dead by now, but I suspect their offspring are among us and they speechify as superpatriots, sermonize as defenders of the faith, and parade as role models.
*
If a future scholar writes a history of contemporary Armenian literature, I suspect it will be the shortest book in the world and it will bear the subtitle “The Age of Commissars.”
*
There is a commissar in every boss, bishop, benefactor, and their dupes who recycle their propaganda in the name of patriotism.
*
There are two ways of committing suicide, by killing the body and by poisoning the mind. He who cannot think for himself is a walking cadaver.
*
An insult is a silent cry for flattery.
*
There is no prejudice, lie, misconception, or absurdity that was not at one time or another part of my belief system. Neither Armenianism nor Ottomanism is a terminal condition. We can overcome! (And they say I am consistently negative!)
#

[arabaliozian]

charm

Sunday, August 1, 2008
*****************************************
FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE
********************************************
For a thousand years we dreamed of freedom but we at no time asked ourselves if we are worthy of freedom. For a thousand years we dreamed of free speech, and now that we have it, we rant, bluster, curse, and reduce our discussion forums into cesspools of verbal abuse. We brag about survival but we don't know how to live. How long before we are born again as human beings as opposed to being bundles of mutual contempt, intolerance, and hatred?
*
The very same Armenians who brag about out heroes, hide their identity behind false names as if they were important enough to be targeted for assassination; and to make sure no one will locate them, they pretend to live in remote corners of the globe. And what do they do with their newly acquired sense of invulnerability? They hurl insults and profanities at anyone who dares to question their infallibility...
*
Some people learn from their mistakes. We cover up ours or pretend we never made them. It was all someone else's fault, beginning with Turks; and armed with that conviction we behave like Turks. Even in a civilized country, when Armenian meets Armenian, it's the Ottoman Empire all over again.
*
If you say I am wrong, I say, sure why not? But if you say you are infallible, all I can say is, go ahead, make an ass of yourself.
*
“Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty I am free at last to make an ass of myself!” Is that all there is to freedom? You want solutions to our problems? Make yourself worthy of freedom, and then we will exercise our human right of free speech and talk. Until then we are not the cradle of civilization but its grave.
#


Monday, August 4, 2008
*********************************************
METAPHYSICS
**********************************
Whenever I lose a critic – in our context, a euphemism for an enemy who is out for blood – whenever I lose a vampire, I also lose a source of inspiration. The only solution to that problem is to enter a new Armenian discussion forum, and bingo! presto! – it never fails: before you can say Jack S. Avanakian, I run into half-a-dozen new avanaks.
*
The best way to combat depression is to count your blessings. I do that all the time and it never fails. Things could be much worse, I say to myself. I could be a Chinese living in China, or a Russian living in Stalin's USSR, or an Armenian in America before the advent of the Internet.
*
When I was silenced by the editors of our weeklies, two friends sprang to my defense: one, an employee of IBM in San Jose, sent me a computer; the other from Toronto, sat down with me and with great patience taught me how to use it.
*
I believe God created my friends, and the Devil created my enemies. I also believe God created man and the Devil created woman. For it takes a diabolical imagination to think of all those curves and secret interstices that will reduce any man to an irrational bundle of desires, urges, and drives.
*
If God created man, who then created Talaat, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and Mussolini? Good question. My tentative answer: nobody. They were not creations but reincarnations of the Devil.
*
Finally, which came first, the chicken or the egg? It was the rooster, of course!
#
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
*********************************************
ON THE IRRESISTIBLE CHARM OF ARMENIANS
************************************************** ********
“You are a pessimist,” a friend tells me, and goes on: “The only predictable thing about life is that it is unpredictable. We don't know what's going to happen next.
I for one will not be astonished if we enter another Golden Age. Our literature enjoyed a Renaissance in Istanbul at the turn of the last century. Why not another Renaissance in the Homeland or Diaspora or both?”
“Cultures, civilizations, empires, nations – once dead, they stay buried,” I explain. “Consider the history of such empires as the Roman, the Ottoman, and more recently, the Soviet. To think that a new Alexander the Great will be born and raise the Macedonian Empire from the grave is an impossible dream, an illusion, a plot for a science fiction novel... To speak of another Golden Age of Armenian literature and culture in our context is not optimism but megalomania run amok. Let us therefore be more realistic, shall we? Let us aim at common sense and decency.”
*
Because I write against dividers, they call me a divider. Because I write against fanaticism, they call me a fanatic. And because I make fun of sermonizers, they call me a sermonizer.
*
Until I visit Armenia, I do not qualify as an Armenian, a reader tells me. To him I say, “If Armenians in Armenia are as nasty as you are, telling me to go to Armenia amounts to telling me to go to hell. To which I can only say, no, thanks. I prefer to stay in my own gulag.”
*
If a man is both ignorant and stupid, he will also be stupid and ignorant about all the evidence against his self-assessed status as a genius.
*
In his novel, A PARTISAN'S DAUGHTER (New York, 2008) Louis de Bernieres writes about “an emperor who blinded all his prisoners except for one in every hundred, who was supposed to lead the others home, and when the opposing king saw what had happened to his troops, he died of the shock.” What he doesn't say is that both the emperor (Basil II Bulgaroktonus [Bulgar-slayer]) and the Bulgarian king (Czar Samuel) were of Armenian descent. For more details, see my book, THE ARMENIANS: THEIR HISTORY AND CULTURE (New York, 1981).
#

"Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right." Arthur Schopenhauer




Wednesday, August 6, 2008
*****************************************
ON ARMENIAN PECULIARITIES AND PARADOXES
************************************************** *************
Most of my readers are Armenian and they read me not to enhance their understanding or to consider a worldview different from their own, but to settle a score with me.
*
After insulting me daily for several years in an Armenian discussion forum, a reader called to apologize – that's another Armenian peculiarity: insulting publicly, apologizing privately. His apology was so verbose and disarming that I believed him. I completely ignored the old saying, “If you hear a mountain has moved, believe it. If you hear a man has changed, believe it not.” And sure enough, shortly after his apology, this reader reverted to his old ways and he is still at it.
*
The Armenian paradox: Even as he behaves like swine, he considers himself a superior being, and he believes the only way to assert his superiority is by looking down at his fellow men.
*
It happened in Athens at the end of World War II and at the beginning of the Greek Civil War. Very early one morning the rumor spread that there were three corpses in a ditch less than a block from our house. I was eight or nine then, and I joined the small crowd to view the unusual sight. Later we were told both the victims and their killers had been members of rival Armenian political gangs.
*
There is a dark side to our story, and the older I grow the larger the darkness grows. And the prevalent misconception among us is that it is the duty of every patriotic Armenian to cover up this darkness and to pretend it doesn't exist.
*
I am constantly attacked for being a defective or bad Armenian, a Turk in disguise, a traitor to the Cause, and so on; even though on several occasions I have stated in no uncertain terms that my ambition in life is not to be a good Armenian (whatever the hell that means) but a decent human being, and to think of others (including Turks) not as members of a different nation or tribe but as member of the human race.
#

"Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right."

[arabaliozian]

insults

Wednesday, August 13, 2008
*********************************************
AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF INSULTS
************************************************** ****
If you want to enhance your understanding of human nature, the urban jungle, and what's goes on in Armenian discussion forums on the Internet, read THE DEVIL'S GUIDE TO HOLLYWOOD by Joe Eszterhas (New York, 2006), which could be subtitled “An Encyclopedia of Insults” by individuals whose work has shaped several generations of people around the world.
Some typical entries follow:
*
Marlon Brando to Zsa Zsa Gabor: “A man can do only one thing with you, Zsa Zsa – throw you down and f*** you!”
*
An insider on two of my favorite directors: “Sam Peckinpah is a prick and Robert Altman is a cunt.”
*
A director to a starlet who is offering him a blow job for a bit part: “What's in it for me?”
*
“Angry at Roman Polanski, Faye Dunaway peed in a coffee cup and threw it into his face.” (We are not told where she did her peeing: in the loo or in his presence?)
*
Anna Magnani to Marilyn Monroe: “Putana!”
#

"Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right." Arthur Schopenhauer

[arabaliozian]

interview

August 14, 2008
************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKIS
***********************************************
Empires may rise and fall but the loud-mouth idiot who thinks he is smart is indestructible.
*
The Armenian who verbally slaughters his fellow Armenian does not have the right to say he does not harbor homicidal feelings towards the Turks.
*
It is difficult to doubt, question, or dislike someone who tells you what you like to hear. Hence, the popularity of political charlatans.
*
Russian saying: “The heart of another is a dark forest.”
*
If a Jew says anything remotely critical about his fellow Jews, he is accused of Antisemitism. If a Turk dares to agree with an Armenian, he is accused of insulting Turkishness. If an Armenian says anything that is honest and objective, he is accused of insulting Armenishness. Now then, in what way are we different from them?
*
It is an unfortunate fact that my ideal reader no longer cares to identify himself as an Armenian not because he is a bad Armenian but because he is a decent human being.
*
The more unwavering a man’s commitment to his own self-interest,
the more altruistic the principles he pretends to espouse.
*
The words of an honest man don’t need definitions; but the commas of a crook should be carefully examined under a microscope.
*
Even when our predictions come true, they do so in such an unexpected manner or context that their accuracy becomes irrelevant.
#
August 15, 2008
****************************************
INTERVIEW
***************************
QUESTION: Is it true that your enemies outnumber your friends?
ANSWER: If they do, it may be because I don't write to make friends. As for aiming at best-sellerdom: There is no such thing as a best-selling Armenian writer.
Q: How do you explain that?
A: We don't have independent publishers or, for that matter, a competitive literary marketplace. All our publishers and book distribution centers are in the hands of political and religious institutions with their own sets of dogmas -- which means their own walls of censorship.
Q: What made you decide to become a writer under these conditions?
A: A combination of ignorance and hubris. Plus the fact that I happen to be an unemployable misfit.
Q: You are tough on yourself and tougher on your critics, why?
A: Critics? You mean kibitzers. We don't have critics, only meddlers who insult me.
Q: And you insult them back?
A: On occasion, yes. Why not? You may not be aware of the fact that writing for Armenians is a blood sport. In the 20th century alone, two generations of our ablest writers were betrayed to the authorities by their fellow Armenians and slaughtered by fascist regimes. Also, in our environment, good manners is sometimes confused with weakness and rudeness with strength. I think it was Bismarck who said, “With a gentleman I am a gentleman, with a pirate, a pirate-and-a-half. But there is still another reason why I don't hesitate to insult those who insult me. Sometimes, that's the only way to acquire a faithful reader. Armenians hate to read. They believe they are too smart to need the two cents' worth of a scribbler. That's why they have consistently starved their writers. Not that I enjoy insulting people and being hated by them. But for a writer, to be hated is preferable to being ignored. Luckily, most of my readers are not aware of this fact.
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August 16, 2008
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THE ARMENIAN WAY
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History teaches us that fascists lose even when they win. No one has ever said military victories are moral triumphs, or censorship and violations of human rights promote consensus and progress.
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If you say anything that is worth saying, you will be attacked by those who speak a great deal but avoid saying anything.
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It is not easy for an Armenian to say “I disagree with you.” “Fool” and “idiot” come more naturally to him. I have even been called a “coward” by readers who write anonymously and from a safe distance.
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How to express your patriotism? Verbally abuse anyone whom you deem less patriotic than you. That's the Armenian way.
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Like all tribal people, when we say nation, what we really mean is tribe – my political party, my church, my backyard, my chickens.
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To be an Armenian writer is to be a perennial loser. And yet, compared to my predecessors, I am just about the luckiest of them all. Most Armenian writers never made it past forty.
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It is silly for an Armenian or Turk to justify the actions and policies of their respective political leaders. Politicians are a species apart for the simple reason that those with power and those without it share nothing in common.
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There was a time when I would wonder what kind of Armenian would betray his fellow Armenians to the enemy. I now have my answer: the kind of Armenian we meet every day on our discussion forums – dogmatic, self-righteous, brainwashed, infallible, with the ego of a giant, the brain of a midget, and the moral compass of a whore.
*
Once upon a time I thought to understand the past, you must study eyewitness accounts, official documents, novels of the period, statistics, biographies of key players, and so on. But I know now that the best key to the past is the present, that is to say, human nature. Times may change, fashions may change, names may change, but some things never change.
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[arabaliozian]

insanity

Sunday, August 17, 2008
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INSANITY
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A friend tells me, one of our partisan academics was heard stating recently that consensus and solidarity should not be seen as key ingredients in our collective existence. The only way to explain such an assertion is by quoting an Armenian saying that predates Freud, Jung, and Adler: “There are 49 kinds of insanity.” Make it 50.
*
No one can be as transparent as he who is not in the habit of questioning his motives. And when such a one is analyzed, he feels as naked and vulnerable as an earthworm after a rainfall.
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Only readers who know little or nothing about Armenian literature, and the little they know is filtered through anthologies and textbooks subsidized by political or religious institutions accuse me of harboring anti-Armenian sentiments.
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One way to define a commissar is to say that he knows better what you should write and how you should write it though he has himself published not a single line.
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Memo to those who verbally abuse one another on the Internet:
Ask yourself the following question and for once in your life try to be honest: What weight does the word of a coward have when delivered anonymously and from a safe distance?
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Monday, August 18, 2008
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UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
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Had Charents known someday he would be betrayed by his fellow Armenians and die an early and harrowing death in a Yerevan jail, would he have written “Yes im anoush Hayastani” (To my sweet Armenian)?
Was his patriotism based on deception and false assumptions?
What about the patriotism of our speechifiers, sermonizers, and partisan propagandists?
To what extent our own patriotism is based on misinformation?
If we knew all there is to know about our leaders, their motives, and sentiments, would we still be patriots or, like so many of our compatriots, we would choose to be born again as human beings and hit the road leading to assimilation?
Why is it that both Siamanto and Totovents found life in America so unbearable that they returned to Istanbul and Yerevan respectively only to be slaughtered like sheep?
Why is it that when warned not to return to Istanbul by his German fiancée, Roupen Sevag told her, in effect, she didn't know what she was saying and that deep down Turks were wonderful folk, only to go back to Istanbul and share the fate of Siamanto, Zohrab, Zartarian, Daniel Varoujan, among many others?
What about Zabel Yessayan, one of our most sophisticated, Sorbonne-educated writers? Why is it that she chose to ignore Zarian's clear warnings, establish herself in Yerevan only to disappear in the Gulag shortly thereafter?
If you say Marxism deceived some of the greatest intellectuals of the West, among them Arthur Koestler, Ignazio Silone, Antonio Gramsci, André Gide, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, the question we must ask then is: What about Ottomanism? How many intellectuals of the West were taken in by Talaat's Ottomanism?
Also to be noted: not all our intellectuals were taken in by Kremlin's Stalinism parading as Marxism. Zarian and Bakounts saw clearly its aberrations and dangers, but their warnings fell on deaf ears.
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Tuesday, August 19, 2008
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FASCISTS AMONG US
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There are many ways to violate someone's fundamental human right of free speech,
from a bullet in the neck and the Gulag to censorship and a steady barrage of insults. In the case of insults: if you fall silent as a result of them, they win. If you continue to exercise your right of free speech, they lose.
*
Free speech allows fascists to expose themselves as fascists. That's one of the many beauties of democracy. Free speech allows even a garbage-mouth inbred moron with a negative IQ to parade as a genius (self-assessed of course) and to bray like a jackass pretending all the while to be Pavarotti singing “Nessun dorma.” Have I said this before? Probably. What else can I say to a fascist except that he is a fascist and that his days are numbered as surely as those of his predecessors.
*
For a long time I couldn't understand why Germans had embraced Nazism, Italians fascism, and Soviets (including my fellow Armenians) Stalinism. How could ordinary law-abiding, decent citizens, I would ask myself, allow themselves to be taken in by the belief system of thugs, sadists, and cold-blooded-murderers? I have my answer today. There is a killer in all of us. The post-World War II French slogan “Nous sommes tous des assassins” (We are all assassins) could also be rephrased as “We are all fascists.” Only in a society ruled by laws, rather than men, that is to say, only in a democracy, our inner killer or fascist is exposed and checked. Which is why I say “God bless America!” As for Armenia and Armenians: may all our fascists (of which we have more than our share even in America), I say, “May they all go to the Devil!”
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Wednesday, August 20, 2008
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WHY I WRITE THE WAY I WRITE
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Writing for Armenians is a waste of time, I am told.
I agree. But I don't write for Armenians.
Neither do I write about them.
I write for human beings some of whom happen to be Armenian.
I write about intolerance and violations of human rights.
I write about ignorance parading as knowledge.
I write about slaves whose ambition in life is to enslave.
I write about propaganda and its dupes.
I write about victims who victimize.
I write about the death of a thousand cuts that until the 999th it's called survival.
I write about power and its abuse.
I write about speechifiers and sermonizers who speak in the name of God and do the Devil's work.
I write about readers who have been so thoroughly moronized by propaganda that they believe honesty and objectivity to be unpatriotic.
In short, I write about things that transcend racial, national, tribal, and partisan barriers.

[arabaliozian]

victimistan

Thursday, August 21, 2008
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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
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What do Georgians and Armenians have in common? They both thought they were invulnerable because they had the verbal support of the great powers of the West, which they mistook for military alliance.
*
I was born and raised in a ghetto where it was common knowledge that books drove men mad. It was said of the local idiot that in his youth he spoke seven languages.
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Whenever I speak of tolerance I am told in no uncertain terms that we Armenians are in no need of lectures on the subject. Armenians can be very intolerant in their defense of their own tolerance.
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If it were up to theologians, lawyers, and the average Armenian know-it-all, everything that is written can be interpreted to mean the opposite of what it says.
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It has been calculated that a good Armenian speechifier can produce more manure in an hour than ten circus elephants in a month.
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If you ask any one of our dividers why he supports divisions, you will be told that he is for solidarity, it's the opposition that is for divisions.
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“You should write more like Mark Twain,” I have been told on more than one occasion. To which I can only say: How many American problems did Mark Twain solve? How many Armenian problems did Baronian, Odian, and Massikian (our three most brilliant humorists) solve? In a world where messiahs are crucified, recrucified, or dismissed as blasphemers, who can save the damned?
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Friday, August 22, 2008
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WRITERS AND COMMISSARS
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An e-mail informs me today that I am a repellent nonentity because I refuse to adopt Nelson Mandela as my role model. That's the trouble with our commissars: they don't read to understand what's being said; they read to recreate you in their own or someone else's image.
*
A writer has no choice but to negotiate from a position of weakness. Reason, common sense and decency are his only weapons – weapons that throughout history have proved to be unequal to the challenges of unreason, greed, ignorance, prejudice, and power.
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There is a type of Armenian who pretends to speak in the name of all Armenians when in fact he speaks only in the name of a loud-mouth idiot, a self-satisfied jackass, or a gutless brown-noser.
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To put it as elegantly as I can: A nation whose commissars outnumber its writers is in very deep sh**.
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We should speak less of genocide and more of genosuicide if only because the first is history and the second an ongoing policy implemented by corrupt and incompetent leaders whose number one concern is not the welfare of the people but their own powers and privileges.
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Saturday, August 23, 2008
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VICTIMISTAN
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The publication of every book by an Armenian is cause for celebration because it has little or nothing to do with reality. On the day an Armenian writer publishes a book that speaks of our reality, it will be cause for lamentation rather than celebration.
*
Ordinary people have differences of opinion. Armenians have Ottomanized differences, which means, the only way to settle them is by slaughtering the opposition – if not in deed than in thought.
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The easiest thing in the world is to lose an Armenian friend; the hardest thing is to make an Armenian enemy a friend.
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It is difficult to be on the side of underdogs who are also dupes – who, that is, allow themselves to be brainwashed and manipulated by fund-raising panchoonies for whom the welfare of the people rates far below that of their own powers and privileges.
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If I am an authority on dupes it's because I have been one most of my life.
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If there is one thing that is harder than making an Armenian enemy a friend is deprogramming a brainwashed Armenian.
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Victims of foreign despots, victims of domestic wheeler-dealers, victims of our own narcissism, we are citizens of Victimistan.
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