as i see it

[arabaliozian]

Wednesday, December 05, 2007
*******************************************
VISIBLE & INVISIBLE ARMENIANS
**************************************************
You cannot argue with someone who is in a position to silence you. He has much more to lose than an argument. He stands to lose his infallibility. And no one can make an ass of himself as surely as he who thinks himself to be infallible.
*
I have said this before and it bears repeating: the need to assert superiority is the surest symptom of inferiority.
*
The only way for the inferior to come to terms with himself is to think he is better than others; and the only way to reach that objective is by being his own dupe. The problem with dupes is that they feel justified in deceiving others, as if to say, if deception is good enough for me, it should be good enough for you too.
*
To confuse visible Armenians (fund-raisers, speechifiers, ghazetajis, wheeler-dealers) with their invisible counterparts would be like confusing la crème de la scum with la crème de la crème. I know many hard working, decent Armenians who have never delivered a speech or made a headline in any one of our papers; Armenians who do not pretend to know and understand more than they do; Armenians who have not written a single line for publication.
*
It is better to do nothing than to do the wrong thing. It is better to know nothing than to know the wrong thing.
#
Thursday, December 06, 2007
************ ********* ********* ********* *******
OF JACKASSES
************ ********* *********
In America the higher your rise on the greasy pole the more of your posterior you expose. The average American today probably knows more about the Clintons than about his next-door neighbors. What do I know about our own leaders? Just their names and sometimes not even that. “I once called the Catholicos in Etchmiadzin,” a friend tells me, “and it was the KGB that answered.” When a Ramgavar semi-boss once promised to pay me a goodly sum if I undertook the task of writing profiles of prominent Ramgavars, I informed him I didn’t even know who they were, neither was I interested to know. Speaking of bosses, I am reminded of another incident with one of our national benefactors – let’s call him Jack S. Avanakian – who wanted me to translate his father’s youthful diary. “I translate only literary works,” I explained and added: “I am not aware of anyone by the name of Avanakian who has written a single line worth translating.” On the subject of jackasses: Did you know that our writers refer to one another as “boys”? I once heard an 80-year old writer say about Zarian: “I knew him – he was a good degha!” This was at a convention of Armenian writers (my first and last) during which I heard another writer refer to a national benefactor as “baron.” “Baron Jack S. Avanakian would not be interested in supporting such a project,” said he. I was a newcomer then and the thought occurred to me that I had landed not only on a different continent but also on another planet.
#
Friday, December 07, 2007
*********************************************
FROM THE NOTEBOOKS
OF A PESSIMIST
************************************
The two most incompatible things in the world: dishonesty and sunlight.
*
You ask me if I would be willing to die for my country. Allow me to introduce my answer by saying, the only reason my country has not yet killed me is that I have been beyond its reach.
*
In an English literary magazine I read a book review by a historian that ends with the words: “How many policy-makers know their history well enough to learn from its lessons?” I should like to see such a sentence produced by one of our dime-a-dozen pundits who are masters of the blame-game.
*
“I heard you have become a pessimist,” an old friend whom I have not seen for fifty years tells me. And I reflect that where illusions and lies are dominant, truth and reality will be anathema. When Krikor Zohrab predicted the Genocide, they said, “Zohrab effendi is exaggerating.” And because I question the honesty of our pundits and propagandists, I am thought of as a pessimist.
#
Saturday, December 08, 2007
******************************************
DEFENDERS OF THE FAITH
************************************************
Propaganda is cunningly tailored to have (i) mass appeal, (ii) to be accessible to the average dupe, and (iii) to flatter his ego. By contrast, understanding reality or getting at the truth is an infinitely more demanding and sometimes even painful enterprise. Consider as a case in point the word survival as used by our propagandists. The nation survived, granted, but its best brains did not; neither did the best part of our own critical faculties. That is why when someone like Zarian, Shahnour, or Massikian tries to explain what really happened to us, we turn against him. That is also why I have trouble reaching Armenians who confuse ideology with theology, or politics with religion. Faith or a closed system of thought cannot be shaken by common sense and logic. Faith can only be replaced by another faith or closed system of thought. To put it differently, explanations work only with people with open minds. Hence the sorry spectacle of a sanctimonious prick or dealer in chauvinist crapola parading as a leader of men, defender of the faith, and savior of the nation.
#

[arabaliozian]

xii/12

Sunday, December 09, 2007
******************************************
THE 11TH COMMANDMENT
**************************************
Organized religions are popular for the same reason that Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini were: people hate to think for themselves. Shaw once said that he has made a fortune and enjoys an international reputation as a clever man because he takes the trouble to think for himself once or twice a year.
*
Everything that is popular is based on a misconception, which is also why astrology is popular too.
*
Organized religions contradict one another – Christians and Muslims believe in an Almighty God; Buddhists don’t. That doesn’t mean one is right and the other wrong. That only means, if God exists, you must live your life as if He didn’t, because God will not do your thinking for you for the simple reason that He has given you a brain, which happens to be a valuable piece of equipment that is a miracle of design as mysterious and incomprehensible as the universe itself.
*
The hardest thing about writing is convincing philistines that you are worth listening to.
*
Because I refuse to be a fool among fools I am called all kinds of nasty names, including infidel and atheist.
*
Once upon a time we trusted our destiny on dividers, sultans, commissars, and charlatans (both foreign and domestic) and when things started going wrong we blamed it on bloodthirsty neighbors, bad location, and the Almighty Himself, never on our brainless leaders and their dupes, namely ourselves.
*
My favorite 11th commandment: Thou shalt be self-reliant.
*
God does not sermonize or speechify; mullahs, priests, and charlatans do that.
*
We have become a bunch of whiners -- compliments of our nationalist historians and Turcocentric pundits who are masters of the blame game.
*
Thou shalt not ask God to do your thinking for you.
#
Monday, December 10, 2007
**********************************************
QUESTIONS / ANSWERS
***************************************
Q: Do you classify yourself as a good Armenian?
A: Frankly, I am so busy trying to be an honest man that I don’t even think about being an Armenian, let alone a good one.
Q: What do you say to readers who are outraged by what you write?
A: I say, Relax! We have survived centuries of oppression by brutal tyrants, countless wars, massacres, deportation, destitution, life in alien slums…we can survive the opinions of a minor scribbler who may well be, in your own estimation, a misguided fool.
Q: What it’s like writing for Armenians?
A: A butcher delivering a lecture to an audience of brain surgeons may be in a better position to answer that question.
Q: Do you think you have had any influence on our policy-makers?
A: Hell no! Even if I were a thousand times smarter and lived as long as Methuselah I doubt if I could change the mind of a single dupe who is brainwashed to believe he is too smart to be deceived.
Q: What’s the hardest thing about being honest?
A: Trying not to give in to the temptation of being dishonest and remembering all those instances in the past when I failed.
Q: Any projects?
A: Many.
Q: Such as?
A: A dictionary of Armenian misconceptions, which I will never write because it may well be as long as WAR AND PEACE and THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV combined.
#
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
************************************************
THE TRAGEDY OF OEDIPUS
*********************************************
If Armenians and their endless petty little problems bore you, join the club. If I go on writing about them it’s not because I am overly fond of them or would like to solve their problems (no one can do that except themselves) but because I want to understand my fellow men. To be bored with Armenians means to be bored with mankind, and ultimately with oneself.
*
We are a microcosm. If we are a failure as a nation, so is mankind. The history of mankind is a disaster area because the average man is a dupe at the mercy of megalomaniacal, self-satisfied frauds who will say and do anything in defense of their powers and privileges. The list of sultans, kings, presidents, popes, and chief executive officers who abused their positions of trust or preached virtue and practiced vice stretches to infinity.
*
Athens executed Socrates, Florence exiled Dante, Russia excommunicated Tolstoy, India assassinated Gandhi. You may now draw your own conclusions.
*
When charlatans and dupes conspire, they end up praising honesty and burying honest men.
*
To say that God punishes men for their transgressions is to misrepresent reality. It is man that punishes himself. The real tragedy of Oedipus is not that he killed his father and had sex with his mother but that he thought by blinding himself he could avoid seeing reality.
#
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
*************************************************
CONFESSIONS OF A LIBERAL
****************************************
In one of his books Ben Bagdikian says that conservatives like Murdoch, Conrad Black, and Buckley control most of the media in America, and yet they bitch about the liberal media. Something similar could be said about our own pro-establishment right wingers, who control not only our media but also our community centers, schools, university chairs, and institutions. Hence the misconception that we never had it so good because we are in good hands. As for the one or two minor problems, like our mafia democracy in the Homeland: they will fix themselves in twenty or thirty years. What about dissenting voices? What dissenting voices? I don’t hear them. They don’t hear them because they have been ruthlessly and systematically silenced.
*
There is a tendency in America to exaggerate the importance of words spoken in anger – Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic tirade when arrested for drunk driving, for instance. When angry we say things we don’t always mean. I have myself said many harsh things in anger even about my mother whom I love very much. That doesn’t make me anti-motherhood or for that matter, God forbid, anti-apple pie.
*
Speaking of motherhood: some Armenians look down at fellow Armenians who cannot speak their mother tongue. To them I ask: What’s the use of speaking Armenian if the sentiments you express are Ottoman?
*
I have been called a variety of names, none of them remotely close to honest. And yet, that has been my sole aim in life: to be an honest witness.
*
If you think you are a better Armenian, it is of course your privilege to do so and I will say nothing to disabuse you -- only warn you: if you expect all Armenians to agree with you, be prepared to be disappointed and end your days as a bitter old man.
*
As for our ultra-conservative Turcocentric pundits and their ubiquitous, predictable, and cliché-ridden commentaries: the only way to describe them is to say they are ideal instances of diarrhea of words and constipation of ideas.
*
As Brahms used to say on his way out from a party: “I apologize to anyone I may have neglected to offend.”
#

[arabaliozian]

as i see it

Thursday, December 13, 2007
************************************************
CAIN’S ANSWER
*********************************
Political lies have been with us for a long time. Even Plato discusses them in his Dialogues, which where written 2500 years ago.
*
No one lies as surely as he who speaks in the name of truth or God. In the Bible we read that God asked Cain where Abel was, the implication being that Cain knew something God did not. And Cain replied: “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9).
*
Speaking of lies, murder, and brotherhood: Our Turcocentric ghazetajis tell us they don’t hate Turks. Their sole aim, they say, is justice. But justice, like truth, is an abstraction. No one has ever laid eyes on it. Instead of abstractions, let’s speak of reality. The truth about reality is that we cannot speak about it, only fractions of it. That’s because we have only a limited number of words and reality has an infinite number of levels and complexities. That’s one reason why when we speak we lie.
*
Does that mean Cain did not kill Abel? No. Of course not! It only means we don’t know why Cain became a murderer. Was it envy? Why should envy lead to murder? What is envy? What has made us capable of envy? Or rather, who has instilled envy in man? For what purpose? The infinite number of complexities generates an equal number of questions until the final one, which is also Cain’s: We don’t know because we are not God’s keeper.
#
Friday, December 14, 2007
****************************************
FRAGMENTS
***********************************
When nine out of ten are unanimous in believing one thing, go with the tenth, for believing and thinking are mutually exclusive concepts.
*
I disagree with anyone who holds views that were mine thirty years ago; and if I don’t stand on ceremony with them it may be because I don’t stand on ceremony with myself.
*
The man who views the world and his fellow men in black and white terms, as opposed to shades of gray, will invariably classify himself as all white even when he is pitch black.
*
If character is destiny, as the ancient Greeks thought, the question we should ask is: To what extent our character as a nation has been shaped by 600 years of Ottoman oppression followed by 60 years of Bolshevik tyranny? If this question has so far gone unanswered it may be because our nationalists and masters of the blame-game have done their utmost to ignore or cover up that aspect of our identity.
#
Saturday, December 15, 2007
***********************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
****************************************
Where charlatans are in charge,
honest men will be silenced.
Where ignoramuses are in charge,
knowledge will be outlawed.
Where the blind are in charge,
the one-eyed will be blinded.
*
I don’t tell you things I already know.
I tell you things that I discover as I write.
*
Why should I trust the judgment of underdogs whose sole ambition in life is to be top dogs so that they will have the pleasure of stepping on underdogs, even when the underdogs happen to be their brothers?
*
The worst mistake we can make is to assume that Comrade Panchoonie is a character in a satirical novel by Yervant Odian written a century ago. Every other day I get a letter from him that ends with the word “mi kich pogh…” something similar could be said of Hagop Baronian’s “honorable beggars.” Characters in great literary works live much longer than their creators. Or rather, great writers achieve immortality through the characters they create.
*
Our standards have fallen so low that every panchoonie, honorable beggar, and ghazetaji parades as a defender of the faith and the savior of the nation.
*
What if I am wrong? There is always that possibility, of course. In my defense I will say that if only the infallible were allowed to speak, the only voice would be that of the Pope of Rome, we would all be Catholics, and Latin would be the most widely spoken language in the world.
*
I.B. Singer: “I am not a vegetarian for the sake of my health, but for the health of the chickens. For animals, every day is Treblinka.”
#

[arabaliozian]

more...

Sunday, December 16, 2007
********************************************
THE DEATH OF SOCRATES
************************************************** ******
When the Greeks executed Socrates, they did not just kill a man but someone who represented the very best in Greek wisdom. To silence a thinker is like burning down a library.
*
The difference between an editor violating someone’s human right of free speech and a head of state ordering a massacre is one in degree. In both instances power is being abused at its maximum. Promote the editor (or a forum moderator) to head of state, and vice versa, demote a head of state to editor, and they will behave the same way.
*
Stalin or Hitler saying they have no use for intellectuals is the same as an architect saying he has no use for higher mathematics. The result will be buildings that collapse as surely as Stalin’s USSR and Nazi Germany did.
*
Hitler had no use for Jewish scientists. As a result, he lost to America some of Germany’s ablest minds, including Einstein. Had he been less of a racists, he would have won World War II and I would now be writing this in German. Toynbee is right: civilizations and empires are not killed, they commit suicide.
*
What our critics were saying about Levon Der Bedrossian and Robert Kocharian, they are now saying about each other; and if what they say is true, they both deserve the hangman’s noose.
*
Those who declare wars have a better chance to survive them than those who do the actual fighting.
#
Monday, December 17, 2007
********************************************
ILLUSIONS
******************************
“Nothing you say makes sense!” a reader writes; and another: “Tell us something we don’t know.” These two contradictory comments suggest that I may well be on the right track. But perhaps I am deluding myself.
*
I understand illusions. I have quite a few of them myself, as a matter of fact. I believe reason matters. I believe common sense is transferable. I believe explanations work. I think I may be able to make a difference. I like to hope where far better men than myself failed, I may succeed. Call it optimism run riot. Call it hubris. Whatever it is, it allows me to go on.
*
“You repeat yourself,” I am reminded once in a while. So do our Turcocentric pundits. So do our sermonizers who quote the Scriptures from hundreds of pulpits every Sunday. Has anyone ever dared to stand up and accuse them of repeating themselves? Once when I said as much in a commentary, the secretary of an archbishop wrote an angry letter to the editor in which she said: “How dare you, sir, comparing the trash you dish out [I am now abridging and paraphrasing] with the Holy Scriptures which happen to be the word of God?” My answer: Almost everything I write may be considered a paraphrase or variation on the Biblical dictum “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
*
Scratch a defender of the status quo and expose a hireling for whom the establishment is manna.
*
There are no new ideas, only subtle adjustments of old ones.
*
I should like to meet an Armenian whose first impulse is to understand rather than to dismiss as absurd that which he makes no effort to understand.
#
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
********************************************
TYRANNY VERSUS DEMOCRACY
************************************************** *****
A community or a nation is not a congregation that will sing the same tune in unison. There will always be discordant voices. Get used to them. Our degree of tolerance and civilization depends on the manner in which we handle dissent.
*
I have been rereading Herodotus. What a great storyteller he was! Speaking of a certain Greek city-state, he writes that its citizens preferred tyranny to freedom. Impossible, I thought. Who in his right mind would choose tyranny when he can live in freedom? And then I thought of my fellow countrymen and remembered the words of our progressive and enlightened citizens (self-assessed of course) who tell us we are not yet ready for democracy. If by “we” they mean our leaders, they may be right. If they mean a fraction of the people that have been brainwashed, ditto. But I have no doubt whatever in my mind that, given a choice, the overwhelming majority will choose to live in a democracy. You want proof? Consider Armenians in the United States and Canada who did not immigrate en masse to Armenia under Stalin.
*
After centuries of oppression we have accumulated vast stores of resentment, anger, and bitterness. Our leaders are aware of this. That is why they channel this suppressed fury in the direction of the Turks. What motivates them to do that is self-preservation.
*
The chances of the unthinkable happening will be diminished if we think about it. If the unthinkable did happen it is because those who thought about it were ignored. “Zohrab effendi is exaggerating,” they said…
*
There is a type of critic (make it, kibitzer) who is so blinded by his own brilliance that he does not mind making an ass of himself. But he is smart enough to do so anonymously and dumb enough to add cowardice to narcissism.
#
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
*****************************************
EITHER / OR
*******************************
If we are unique, that’s because every individual, tribe, nation, or for that matter, snowflake and grain of sand is unique. Whether this uniqueness is an asset or a liability I will let you decide, provided you don’t adopt one of our ubiquitous dealers of chauvinist crapola as your guide. Speaking for myself, I will say that our uniqueness is not what concerns me. What concerns me is our problems and there is nothing – repeat, nothing -- unique about them. Corruption, incompetence, divisiveness, authoritarianism, prejudice, and intolerance are as old as mankind. So is unawareness of them or self-deception. We either confront our shortcomings and make an honest effort to overcome them or we pretend there is nothing we can do because they are an integral part of the human condition. Again, speaking for myself, I am all for calling a spade a spade, a charlatan a phony and a wheeler-dealer not a man of vision or a noble specimen of humanity but a low-life and a bottom feeder.
#

[arabaliozian]

as i see it

Thursday, December 20, 2007
************************************************** *
Just when I think I am done with Armenians and their problems, a new one comes up or an old one that demands a novel approach. Who gives a damn about Armenians and their problems, anyway? Not even Armenians, it seems. I dream of the day when I will exhaust the subject and start writing love stories, adventure yarns, and murder mysteries. I love murder mysteries. I have read hundreds of Simenons…
*
We all have our cross to bear. The smaller the nation, the heavier the cross.
*
If you want to convince a civilized man to behave like a barbarian, you tell him barbarians are at the gate even if there is no one there, and if there is one, he is either the gatekeeper or a harmless pilgrim.
*
Whenever I feel depressed, I console myself by saying that even those who hate me read me. Writers have this is common with women: they want to be irresistible.
*
Since there are no final answers, not even in science, every assertion is open to debate, provided of course the rules imposed on us by reason, common sense, common decency, and grammar are followed. And no one will ever succeed in convincing me that reason, common sense and decency, and grammar are anti-Armenian.
*
When I wrote flattering commentaries, I was published. When I wrote critical commentaries, I was published too. But when I started getting at the truth, I was silenced. Truth was my undoing.
*
I write for readers with an open mind. Not even the Good Lord can reach brainless idiots or, for that matter, brainy bastards. Consider the influence of the New Testament on the likes of Stalin (a seminarian) and his countless dupes, among them some very smart Armenians, like our own Anastas (ditto).
#
Friday, December 21, 2007
*******************************************
NAREGATSI
*********************************
He is one of those writers everyone praises but no one reads, except our academics who are unanimous in naming him our Dante and Shakespeare combined. But whereas every Italian and Englishman is brought up to learn a few lines from Dante and Shakespeare by heart, I have yet to meet the Armenian who can quote a single line from Naregatsi.
*
One reason Naregatsi is not a popular writer is that he cannot be said to be a cheerful fellow. His LAMENTATION is an endless catalogue of sins, failings, and vices. A typical passage reads: “I constantly have recourse to lies, / Never uttering the truth…/ I am diligent in malignant acts of ribaldry; / I am ever active in satanic inventions.”
*
In his INFERNO, Dante speaks of hell as if it were a real place. Naregatsi has a more modern, not to say, existential view on the subject. “Hell is me,” he seems to be saying. And if “hell is other people” (Sartre) it’s because there is a “me” in all of us. It follows, in the eyes of our holier-than-thou propagandists, Naregatsi is bad news. Because if we are as bad as Naregatsi tells us, then perhaps we deserved our fate. But Naregatsi does not write to promote self-loathing and despair. His final message is one of hope. Salvation is yours, he tells us, provided you plead guilty as charged and repent. Not exactly a condition that will be welcome by our charlatans who parade as paragons of virtue.
*
TWO FACTS
***********************
Naregatsi wrote in krapar (classical Armenian) but he is now available in both ashkharapar (the spoken idiom) and English (in an excellent translation by Mischa Kudian).
*
Naregatsi lived a thousand years ago, long before we were Ottomanized and Sovietized.
*
NARCISSISM
*******************************
One way to define our holier-than-thou sanctimonious pricks and dealers in chauvinist crapola is to say, they are jackasses who believe, when they bray, they sound better than Pavarotti singing “Nessun dorma.”
#
Saturday, December 22, 2007
**************************************************
MER HAIRENIK
TSHVAR, ANDER
***********************************
How much of what I say is right? As a prejudiced observer I cannot be a reliable judge. You tell me! But instead of asking whether I am right, say, How right are those I quote and paraphrase, beginning with the Biblical dictum (“A house divided against itself cannot stand”) and Toynbee’s (“Civilizations are not killed, they commit suicide”).
*
As masters of the blame-game, our denialists assert they had nothing to do with our misfortunes, which amounts to saying, they reject all responsibility in shaping our tragic destiny, thus implying their role in our history has been that of nonentities or absentee landlords.
*
Writing in the 5th century, Movses Khorenatsi speaks of our divided and corrupt leadership (see his LAMENTATION, not to be confused with Naregatsi’s, which was written in the 10th century). Writing in the 20th century we have two distinguished witnesses who support Khorenatsi’s verdict: Avedik Issahakian (“our brainless leaders”) and Zarian (“Our political parties have been of no political use to us. Their greatest enemy is free speech.”) In our own days, listen to what Kocharian and Levon Der Bedrossian are saying about each other.
*
If I repeat myself, it’s because I don’t have a phobia of repetition. If you do, I suggest you see a shrink. If you can’t afford one, stop reading me. Never say I speak of problems without suggesting any solutions. But if you reject my solution to your problem and continue to read me, I thank you. Have a nice day.
#

[arabaliozian]

xii/27

Sunday, December 23, 2007
**********************************************
HUMBUG
*****************
One of my gentle and anonymous readers, whose spelling leaves something to be desired, takes me to task for my ignorance of our history. “Armenian history,” he reminds me, “is an extremely complex topic,” and since I obviously do not know as much as he does, I should shut up about it. I am more than willing to concede that I don’t know all there is to know on the subject. But then who does, beside the Good Lord Himself, who so far has consistently refused to publish His version. As far as I know, no human being has ever dared to claim that after a lifetime of study he is now prepared to assert that he knows all there is to know about Armenian or any other history.
*
When after a lifetime of study Toynbee published his monumental ten-volume STUDY OF HISTORY, he was attacked and sometimes even verbally abused by an international array of historians who questioned the accuracy of his facts and the reliability of his conclusions. Dutch historians criticized him for his ignorance of Dutch history; Jewish historians tore him to shreds because he had dared to call Jews “fossils”; English historians dismissed him as a megalomaniacal mystic and charlatan; and Soviet historians treated him as a heretic because he did not share their faith in Marxism. It would be no exaggeration to say that both Spengler and Toynbee, the two greatest historians of the 20th century, have more critics than fans among their fellow historians.
*
Even when they deal in facts and nothing but facts, nationalist or ideologically committed historians lie because they select only those facts that support their particular thesis, and since the number of facts, documents, and eyewitness accounts is nearly infinite, they can do this without much difficulty.
*
Who takes nationalist historians seriously? Only themselves, their dupes, and the power structure within which they operate.
*
What matters about history is not how much we know or how many facts, documents, and eyewitness accounts we have at our disposal, but what have we learned from it. What have our nationalist or patriotic historians learned from our past? The very same thing that Turkish historians have learned: namely, to paint themselves all white and their adversaries all black.
*
History does not have to be the propaganda of the victor or the consolation of the loser. Our sympathies may be with the losers but that does not make their version of events more honest, objective, and impartial.
*
The aim of nationalist historians is not to learn but to teach. But teaching that is not preceded by learning is at best propaganda and at worst conditioning or brainwashing. Politics and history don’t mix. To allow politics or ideology to contaminate the study of history amounts to prostituting the past.
*
A final note on our revolutionaries: history judges us not by our intentions (remember the old adage: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”) but our actions; and actions have consequences. It follows, we should judge our revolutionaries not by their intentions but by the tragic consequences of their actions.
#
Monday, December 24, 2007
*************************************************
“I AM NOT A CROOK”
****************************************
If bad things happen to good people, let us ask ourselves:
How good are we?
How good are our “brainless leaders”? (Avedik Issahakian).
How good are their dupes who believe we never had it so good because we are in good hands?
How good are the alienated who stay away from Armenian affairs?
How good are the assimilated who have given up on us?
How good are our “best and brightest” who so far have failed to convince the world that our genocide is not a figment of our collective imagination?
How good are our intellectuals from Khorenatsi and Yeghishe (5th century) to Zarian and Massikian (in our own days) who have been unanimous in saying our leaders can’t even lead a dog to the nearest fire hydrant?
How good are our intellectuals and why should we believe them?
Well, what choice do we have? It’s either them or our politicians?
Are politicians capable of speaking the truth when they speak about themselves?
By the way, I don’t agree with Avedik Issahakian. Our leaders are not brainless. After all, they were brainy enough to have a plan B for themselves.
Believe in God, if you must, but believe no one else. Use your brain instead (if you will forgive the overstatement), and may the Good Lord have mercy on your soul (if you have one).
#
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
*********************************************
NOTES & COMMENTS
****************************************
To those of my readers who disagree with me, sometimes violently, I say: I hear you. I feel your pain. Once upon a time I too was brainwashed to think, or rather to feel, as you do. To learn to think, to think for oneself, which also means to think against oneself, is a painfully slow process. It takes time. Be patient with yourself and tolerant with those who try to reason with you. Evolution is a law of nature. Never say therefore you will not change, for that way lies stagnation, degeneration, and death.
*
Instead of saying, the great powers deceived us, we should ask, why did we behave like dupes? Instead of saying the Turks massacred us, we should ask ourselves, why did we surrender our fate into their hands for 600 years?
*
A man who is convinced he knows everything he needs to know is a case of arrested underdevelopment.
*
The more you deceive yourself the more transparent you become to others.
*
If you know 100 things and claim to know 101, sooner or later someone is sure to expose you as an ignoramus.
#
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
*********************************************
ANALYSIS
************************************
If you prefer fiction to fact, don’t read what follows because I plan to speak of reality, and reality in our case is seldom pretty.
*
If we are angry we have every right to be. Throughout our millennial history we have been ruled by foreign ruffians and domestic riffraff. My disagreement with my fellow Armenians begins when they take out this anger on fellow Armenians, and this without provocation -- unless you call a minor semantic or political disagreement a provocation – as if, throughout our long and happy existence we have known nothing but peace, harmony, and brotherhood among ourselves.
*
One does not have to be a combination of Sherlock Holmes and Freud to understand what I have said so far and what follows, namely that this vast store of accumulated resentment is not directed against our victimizers but against fellow victims, for the simple reason that our victimizers are either beyond our reach or, when within reach, they are invulnerable. This has been said by far better men than myself but it bears repeating: An Armenian’s worst enemy is not an odar but an Armenian, and this “other” Armenian is none other but himself.
*
On more than one occasion I have been told I have no right to speak of our problems unless I also propose a solution. This, needless to add, is a cheap rhetorical maneuver whose message is “Shut up!” To those of my readers who have not yet given up reading me so far, my suggested solution to the problem outlined above is a simple one: awareness. Because awareness of a problem is almost a solution.
*
If I were to describe an Armenian in a single sentence, I would say he is one who knows everything but understands nothing. As a result, his degree of awareness is that of a dinosaur. This may explain why Toynbee in his 10-volume STUDY OF HISTORY calls us “fossils,” like Jews. But whereas Jews were outraged and promptly rejected the label (see Maurice Samuel’s THE PROFESSOR AND THE FOSSIL), as far as i know, none of our professors rose to our defense. Is it because they secretly agreed with Toynbee? Either that or our professors are not in the habit of sharing their understand with us, probably because they know the torrents of verbal abuse that will be unleashed against them by our riffraff and their brainwashed dupes. Perhaps our real tragedy is not that we don’t understand but that we don’t want to understand, and that, I regret to say, is a problem that has no solution.
#
Thursday, December 27, 2007
**************************************************
POLITICS 101
*****************************
A regime, any regime, even a regime of swine, will have its supporters.
*
In America today only 50% of the people vote. When asked why he doesn’t vote, a wise man once replied: “I don’t believe in encouraging them.”
*
One thing I have learned about my fellow Armenians and myself: We are human beings like the rest of mankind. Anyone who says we are better is either a brown-noser or a damn fool.
*
Propaganda teaches us to overestimate ourselves and to underestimate our adversaries, which promotes the view that our leaders are shepherds and their leaders butchers. But then, where would butchers be without shepherds?
*
If we are what we have become it’s because of liars whose favorite sport is the blame-game.
*
Self-assessed smart Armenians will never agree with me because agreeing with me would amount to admitting they are fools who have been taken in by liars.
*
After calling them “enemies of the people,” fascist leaders silence their critics. It is always the same story. After confusing fact with fiction they commit unspeakable crimes against humanity with the full support of their dupes. This may explain why there are people today (not all of them Turks) who believe Talaat was a great leader and his victims traitors who deserved their fate. This may also explain why some of the greatest butchers in the history of mankind, from Caligula and Nero to Stalin and Hitler, had their supporters.
#

[arabaliozian]

xii/29

Friday, December 28, 2007
*************************************************
THEORY & PRACTICE
***********************************
The combined wisdom of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle has been wasted on Greeks. Greek history is a disaster area. The divided city-states of Greece were at each other’s throats for centuries until they were conquered and mongrelized by, among others, the Turks.
What remains of Buddha’s wisdom in countries like India, China, Korea, and Japan? Mostly superstition and ritual (for more details, see Arthur Koestler’s THE LOTUS & THE ROBOT).
Individual wisdom does not always translate to political know-how for a very simple reason: the pursuit of wisdom and greed for power are mutually exclusive concepts and antagonistic movements from which greed for power will invariably emerge the winner.
*
Because I share my understanding, I have become an enemy. A fool will reserve his agreement for men who tell him what he already knows and understands. That’s because, as a fool, he doesn’t understand that knowledge is an endless search.
*
If straight talk offends you, who is to blame but your ego?
*
Speaking of theory and practice, I read the following headline in our paper this morning: “Hindu Hardliners burn Christian churches, Christians retaliate and burn Hindu homes.”
#
Saturday, December 29, 2007
************************************************** *
FEEDBACK
********************************
“If genocide means the systematic extermination of a nation, how come you are still around?” a Turkish reader wants to know.
No matter how systematic and efficiently carried out, a genocide is seldom successful. Even the Germans, the most efficient and systematic of nations, failed to exterminate Jews and Gypsies.
*
Another Turkish reader writes: “The Turks are too sloppy a people to have organized and carried out a policy of systematic extermination.”
It is equally true that Armenians are too divided to agree on anything. And yet, not only they agree on the reality of the genocide, they have also been successful in convincing an important fraction of the world to agree with them.
*
My quarrel with our genocide pundits is not that they misrepresent reality but that they live in the past. “Let the dead bury their dead,” we are told, especially at a time when the living are dying.
*
To speak of Armenians only in the context of massacres: is that not a misrepresentation? Or, as Gramsci points out somewhere: Why would anyone care about a people known only as victims?
*
It is easy to make enemies, much more difficult to make friends. Our challenge is to convert our enemies to friends, and not to convert our brothers to enemies.
*
Civility and patriotism are not mutually exclusive concepts. Rules of civilized conduct apply even to superpatriots. So do rules of logic, common sense and decency. To say otherwise is to equate patriotism with barbarism.
#

[arabaliozian]

jan/3

Sunday, December 30, 2007
**********************************************
DAVID ANHAGHT
*********************************
As children we were taught that Armenian philosopher David Anhaght (6th century AD) was called “Invincible” because he never lost an argument. What were the central ideas of his philosophy? Did he support freedom or obedience to authority? Who gave him that sobriquet – his students or disciples? Why is it that he is not mentioned in any text on the history of philosophy – not even in a footnote? What was his favorite method of winning arguments -- quoting Plato, Aristotle, and the Scriptures? Raising his voice? Attacking his adversary’s ideas or person? Finally and most important of all: what’s the merit in winning an argument in defense of false ideas?
*
An organized religion becomes idolatry when obedience to God evolves to subservience to men who speak in His name?
*
If a messiah were to appear among us today, I suspect one of his most important messages to the world will be: “Verily I say unto you: When a man speaks in the name of God, it is the words of the Devil that issue from his mouth.”
#
Monday, December 31, 2007
************************************************
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
ON TURKISH DENIALISM
& RELATED ATROCITIES
****************************************
Q: How should we treat Turkish denialism?
A: With understanding. We should not speak of them as if they were bloodthirsty savages.
Q: But isn’t genocide a quintessentially bloodthirsty crime against humanity?
A: Yes, of course. But we should ascribe that crime where it belongs, namely, to their share of ruffians and cutthroats…and I hope you will agree with me when I say that all nations, including the most civilized, have their share of rapists and serial killers.
Q: Isn’t it equally true that not all nations deny their crimes against humanity?
A: Let us not confuse nations with regimes, and regimes with the people. We should not ascribe Turkish denialism to the nation or the people but to the foreign policy and educational system of the present regime. If many Turks reject the charge of genocide, it may be because most Turks, like most people, are dupes whose worldview is shaped by propaganda as opposed to rules imposed on us by objective judgment.
Q: If I understand you correctly, you are saying, Turks may plead not guilty by reason of ignorance?
A: What I am also saying, collective ignorance or patriotic bias is not an exclusively Turkish aberration.
Q: You also seem to be saying all nations and all people are more or less alike. In which case I must ask, how do we explain the fact that Turks are guilty of genocide but Armenians are not?
A: We explain it by saying, that is not a result of moral superiority but of military inferiority.
Q: On a related topic: you speak of Ottomanized Armenians. Could you define Ottomanization for us?
A: I would define it as the assimilation of Ottoman cultural values, such as the adoption of extreme views, even when these views are against our own interests. Case in point: our refusal to engage in dialogue with those who disagree with us, or to interpret disagreement as an expression of hostility or even hatred. Another case in point would be our painting Turks all black and Armenians all white thus undermining our own credibility in the eyes of the world. No one in his right mind believes Armenians are or could ever be all white for the simple reason that even saints are not all white.
Q: Final question: How do we go about de-Ottomanizing ourselves?
A: That’s almost like asking how do we de-programme a brainwashed person? There are no easy answers or methods. Education would be one way. Etiquette would be another. Suppose you believe in something with every single fiber in your body but you are not sure if your interlocutor shares your belief. If you make an assertion based on your belief and introduce or end it with the qualifier, I may be wrong about this, you may consider yourself de-Ottomanized as well as de-Stalinized.
Q: Why is it that a great many Armenians disagree with you?
A: If they do, it may be because I am wrong.
Q: Practicing what you preach?
A: That’s the very least I can do.
Q: I wish you a happy and creative New Year.
A: Thank you, and all the best to you too.
#
Tuesday, January 01, 2008
*****************************************
IT IS WRITTEN
***********************************
Fools who think they are smart: they are the curse of mankind. I am not surprised therefore when on rereading THE PROVERBS in the Old Testament, I notice that almost every other proverb deals with fools. God loves the poor, it is said, that is why He has created so many of them. If we assume that to be true (which I doubt), why then did He create so many fools when He obviously has nothing but contempt for them (if we assume the Scriptures to be His word)?
*
“Like a dog that returns to his vomit, is a fool that repeats his folly,” reads one proverb.
*
“Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself,” reads another.
*
More random samples follow:
“A whip for the horse, a bridle for the ass, and a rod for the back of fools.”
*
“A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man quietly holds it back.”
*
“A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.”
*
“A fool’s lips bring strife, and his mouth invites a flogging.”
*
“A fool’s mouth is his ruin, and his lips are a snare to himself.”
*
Questions:
Is a fool capable of admitting to being one?
What could be more foolish than trying to reason with fools?
While reading THE PROVERBS, has a fool ever thought, “It is about me that the Good Lord speaks.”
#
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
*********************************************
WHY WE DISAGREE
*********************************
Most Christians are Christians because they were born in a Christian country. The same applies to Muslims and Hindus. Environment plays a key role in determining our belief system. Different environments, educational systems, parents, experiences, role models, and encounters mean different worldviews. Most Tashnaks had Tashnak parents, likewise most Ramgavars and Communists. My father lost everything he owned in two separate occasions, World War I in Turkey and World War II in Greece. He was too busy trying to survive in an alien environment to have any time for politics. This may be only a partial explanation as to why I am suspicious of all political parties and ideologies. This may also be why I don’t expect anyone to agree with me, especially if agreement means recycling the same propaganda line. I am not in the business of recycling propaganda. If anything the opposite applies: I have made it my business to expose the lies of propaganda, the very same lies that are at the root of our internecine conflicts and divisions, not to say dogmatism and authoritarianism. Disagreement is both inevitable and natural; what is not natural is the implication that the neighborhood in which you were born and raised is better than someone else’s, which is almost as absurd as the suggestion that those who brainwashed you were better men than their counterparts on the other side of a mountain, river, sea or some other imaginary line. In my view brainwashing is a criminal offense and no good man would ever engage in such a nefarious activity. Since truth is destined to remain beyond our reach, let us agree that more often than not disagreements are clashes not between a truth and a lie but two half-truths and sometimes even two big lies.
#

[arabaliozian]

as i see it

Thursday, January 03, 2008
************************************************
ASKING QUESTIONS, GETTING ANSWERS
************************************************** ******
If you want to know the truth about the Catholic Church, don’t ask the Pope. This inevitably raises the question: If you can’t trust the Pope, whom can you trust? The answer is and must be: No one with power.
*
If you want to know more about Armenians, don’t ask an Armenian, who may know much more about Armenians than most odars. That’s because quantity of knowledge does not always translate to quality, or objectivity, reliability, and honesty. If you want to know the truth about Turks, would you ask a Turk?
*
If you want to know more about nationalism, the worst mistake you can make is to ask a nationalist. Ask instead the victims of nationalism, and if you are an Armenian, you don’t have to look for one. Ask yourself. Armenians have been the first major victims of nationalism in the 20th century.
*
John Stuart Mill: “No one but a fool, and only a fool of a peculiar description, feels offended by the acknowledgement that there are others whose opinion is entitled to a greater amount of consideration than his.” Translated into dollars and cents, this means: All men are created equal, but their opinions are not.
*
Speaking of the Pope and Christianity, I read the following question in a recent issue of THE SPECTATOR: “Where would Christianity be if Jesus had got 8 to 15 years with time off for good behavior?”
#
Friday, January 04, 2008
************************************************
AN ABYSMALLY NAÏVE MISCONCEPTION
************************************************** *****
In life we take many things for granted, beginning with life itself, and after life, the abysmally naïve misconception that our “betters” are better and what they say is more or less true because they are more or less honest men. In this context, however, when we speak in terms of more or less, the emphasis should be on less. To cover up the less and stress the more, leaders, all leaders, political as well as religious, like to speak in the name of God and Country, two entities that cannot speak for themselves.
*
Speaking of honesty and politicians: it is said that there is nothing as dark as the prospects of an honest politician, in the same way that nothing invites violence as surely as talk of non-violence.
*
Power, propaganda, deception, and violence or the threat of violence, are inseparable. As for speaking in the name of God: Who would dare to suggest that God is capable of contradicting Himself? And yet, all organized religions contradict one another.
*
Greed for power is a malady and an addiction much more dangerous than all other addictions combined because it affects not a single person but the nation and sometimes even the world. Which is why one is fully justified in saying that our “betters” far from being better may well be our worst. Which is also why the only good thing about political elections is that the losers outnumber the winners.
#
Saturday, January 05, 2008
************************************************
ON FAITH & RELATED ATROCITIES
************************************************** ***
The hardest thing in life is to separate the real from what is not. To a believer, faith is more real than reality. By introducing meaning into our lives, faith makes us blind to reality. That’s one way to explain the ruthless and sadistic persecution of heretics, religious wars (one of which lasted a hundred years) and suicidal terrorists who think they will be rewarded with 72 virgins.
*
The best things in life are not always free. And sometimes we pay most for the things we get for nothing.
*
A dogmatist is one who thinks only God can tell him he is wrong, and he says this in the full knowledge that he is not important enough for the Good Lord to descend from the clouds in order to contradict him.
*
A fool knows that the best way to win an argument is to be so irrational, offensive, and vulgar that no one in his right mind would consider getting involved in his verbal filth. Never underestimate the cunning of fools. Since they have been fools all their lives they have developed all kinds of strategies of survival.
*
It is written: “Let a men meet a she-bear robbed of her cubs, rather than a fool in his folly.”
*
“An Armenian’s tongue can be sharper than a Turk’s yataghan,” Zarian tells us. In what way are we different from them if we do with our tongues what they did with their yataghans?
*
To recognize the fool that resides in all of us is the beginning of all wisdom.
#

[arabaliozian]

comments

Sunday, January 06, 2008
*********************************************
CROSS-EXAMINATION
*****************************************
Socrates, Jesus, Galileo, Solzhenitsyn -- there are several important and revealing parallels in their lives:
They were right, their accusers wrong.
Their accusers outnumbered their defenders.
They were honest men and their accusers charlatans or ignoramuses.
They wanted to share their understanding of truth or reality, their accusers acted in defense of authority, dogma, and power.
All they asked for is tolerance. What they got was is the threat of torture, exile, and death.
Next time you disagree with someone, ask yourself:
Am I on the side of power or truth?
Do I speak as I do because I represent the majority?
Do I consider dissent a capital offense?
Am I for tolerance or intolerance?
Am I on the side of executioners?
Deep inside somewhere, do I harbor a killer?
#
Monday, January 07, 2008
************************************************** ***
CONTRIBUTION
*******************************
Perhaps my sole contribution to society has been my success in annoying some of our charlatans -- judging by the frequency and intensity of their insults.
*
MY EPITAPH
************************
“Here lies a man who may have been the cause of a few moments’ insomnia to a handful of loudmouth hooligans parading as superpatriots.”
*
DISAGREEMENT
************************************
Does disagreement justify insulting and alienating a fellow Armenian? If we use our past as an index: yes. And therein lies the source of all our misfortunes. It follows, the only way to change the line of our destiny is to replace that yes with a resounding NO! A disagreement, be it religious or ideological, should not be seen as an end but only as the beginning of a dialogue leading to compromise and consensus (which does not mean agreement but a willingness to advance in the same direction). He who says disagreement and consensus are mutually exclusive concepts becomes an agent of the enemy and his divide-and-rule tactics.
To those who assert everything I write is an insult to the nation, I say, why should reason and common sense be an insult to anyone but a deranged mind? And to those who say I should ignore the words of hooligans, I suggest our hooligans echo the sentiments and thoughts of our dividers, that is to say, the propaganda of our bosses and bishops – I don’t include benefactors because their only source of authority is the bottom line.
*
Somewhere Paul Valéry speaks of man’s primitive belief in explanations. Any explanation, no matter how absurd, is better than no explanation, he tells us. Hence the undying popularity of astrology, and after astrology, the universal appeal of propaganda.
*
AN EXPLANATION
******************************
When an old Indian once predicted a bad winter, he was asked how he knew. His reply: “White man make big wood pile.”
#
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
*************************************************
ON PATRIOTISM
************************************
Some of the e-mails I read are so abusive that I have no choice but to conclude they were written under the influence of an illegal substance. Cannibals and butchers have no business in a convention of vegetarians; likewise garbage-mouth dupes in a controversy.
*
On the day a man decides he knows all he needs to know (this is always true of dupes) he dies. He may continue to breathe, walk, eat, and copulate, but he is brain-dead. Knowledge is not an end with a STOP sign, but a beginning with no end in sight.
*
A dupe is one who cannot think for himself, no doubt as a result of six centuries of brutal subjection. Habits can shackle a man as surely as chains and ropes.
*
Ask a dupe to define free speech and he will say it consists in the freedom to recycle his favorite brand of propaganda.
*
We don’t believe in free speech. We think of it as an invention of the degenerate West, the very same West that looked the other way while we were being butchered.
*
We don’t know how to deal with disagreement even though we have had plenty of practice, because dissent is in our blood as surely as “treason and betrayal” (Raffi).
*
Every dupe speaks in the name of patriotism, or so he wants us to believe. What he doesn’t seem to be aware of is that there are strings attached to his particular and peculiar brand of patriotism. During the Soviet era, I remember, one of our white-haired chic Bolshevik elder statesmen (may he rest in peace) wrote me an abusive letter because I had dared to mention violations of human rights in Armenia. In his view, all Armenians owed a debt of gratitude to our Big Brothers, the Russians; and scribblers like me should keep their traps shut.
*
During World War II we had two brands of patriotism locked in mortal combat: the patriotism of Armenians (under Stalin) brainwashed to believe they were fighting in defense of the Homeland; and the patriotism of diasporan Armenians (under Hitler) who fought to liberate the Homeland.
*
Dupes are easy to identify. They write as if their readers were functional illiterates and Mongoloid retards. Their patriotism is akin to the venom of vipers that paralyzes the brain. Patriotism is not a dogma that legitimizes intolerance. Patriotism means love of country (not hatred of fellow countrymen), and love is first and foremost acceptance, understanding, compassion, and solidarity. Disagree with me if you must, but do not think of me as your enemy.
#
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
********************************************
PARALLELS
****************************
Flavius Josephus of Jerusalem (37-100 AD), the Jewish historian of the Judaeo-Roman war, makes the following comment on “the misfortunes of my country.” “She fell,” he writes, “because she was a house divided against itself.” He goes on: “The hands of the Romans were forced by the tyrannical leaders of the Jews, and the fire was called down upon the Holy Temple by their doing.”
*
ON NATIONALISM
************************************************** *****
Yeghishe Charents (1897-1937): “‘Homeland,’ ‘pure love,’ ‘oblivion and dreams’: these are the germs of our literary tuberculosis which gives birth to nationalism, romanticism, pessimism, and symbolism.”
*
General Antranik (1865-1927): “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed.”
#

[arabaliozian]

from my notebooks

Thursday, January 10, 2008
*******************************************
THE ART OF READING
*************************************
There are three rules for being a good pianist: practice, practice, and practice. There is only one very easy rule for being a good reader: stop reading when the book bores you -- stop reading even if the author is the Good Lord Himself, and I dare anyone to read the final pages of EXODUS and the first pages of LEVITICUS without yawning.
*
DEMOCRACY RUN AMOK
**************************************
The Internet is a great invention. It allows everyone an equal opportunity to express himself. A garbage-mouth teenage hooligan and a white-haired elder statesmen may post on the same forum, and what is even more astonishing, to reach an agreement. That’s what happens in an environment where closed systems of thought are dominant and free speech anathema. Writes Lance Morrow: “Sometimes it is the faithful of the churches and the mosques who need policing most of all.” Also commissars parading as editors, publishers, and forum moderators.
*
ON POPULARITY
*********************************
Ever since it dawned on me that the ambition of every scribbler is to be popular, I have done my utmost to be unpopular – an enterprise easily achieved by calling a spade a spade and by writing what you see as opposed to what you pretend to see what isn’t there.
*
ON BEING POSITIVE
*********************************
To expose and analyze the ugly and the incomprehensible in us may well be the most positive form of criticism. What could be more cowardly, and therefore negative, than to cover up or ignore the fact that we, as human beings, have our share of failings and that these failings have contributed mightily to our misfortunes.
*
WRITERS
*************************
Most Armenian writers today write for odars in odar languages. Some say this is a curse of our smallness. I disagree. It is rather the curse of a nation ruled by philistines for whom esthetic values and free speech are unpatriotic concepts. As recently as seventy years ago we had giants like Oshagan and Zarian who wrote in Armenian for Armenians. We don’t even have midgets today.
#
Friday, January 11, 2008
*****************************************
MEMO TO A TURKISH FRIEND
*************************************************
Turks are warlike, and proud of the fact. Only warlike people become masters of a great empire and run it for six centuries. But are they magnanimous in victory? That is the unanswered question. To fight in defense of the territorial integrity of the Homeland may be a noble enterprise, and to emerge victorious a glorious achievement, but to do so with gallantry, that is the mark of a truly civilized nation. If the Armeno-Turkish conflict during World War I was a “war” which the Turks won, then it is up to them to have the nobility of character and generosity of spirit to admit that if in the heat of battle innocent civilians perished, they are willing to discuss the matter with their defeated adversaries and to negotiate terms with the benevolence that is becoming in a victor. Then and only then will they prove to the world that, as truly civilized people, they more than deserve to join the European Union and be seen as an integral part of the West.
#
Saturday, January 12, 2008
******************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
**************************************
Nothing bores me as much as talk of Jewishness, Turkishness, Armenishness, or any other kind of --ishness whose sole intent is to make its adherents feel good by emphasizing the positive and covering up the negative thus certifying their perennial status as dupes.
*
No one can be as dangerous as the brain-dead who believes his convictions are his.
*
To think and to think you are thinking are two entirely different activities.
*
To our superpatriots I ask: What do you say to fellow Armenians whose favorite mantra is “Mart bidi ch’ellank”?
*
Let Yanks speak of the American Dream. For us it’s the Armenian Nightmare without end and without closure (to use one of their favorite neologisms) compliments of our Turcocentric pundits.
*
To reduce life to the point that one can think only of massacres: I can’t imagine anything more narrow, negative, and ultimately hateful.
*
Organized religions are like loaded guns. Harmless in themselves but lethal in the hands of irresponsible people, and like drunk drivers, irresponsible people are everywhere.
*
It is said that Laurence Oliver used to stand behind the curtain muttering at the audience over and over “You bastards.” Exactly my frame of mind when I take pen in hand. I am not complaining. Our bastards are my bread and butter. If it weren’t for them I would run out of inspiration and fall silent.
#

"Intellect is invisible to the man who has none."
Arthur Schopenhauer

[arabaliozian]

more...

Sunday, January 13, 2008
************************************************
DISCRIMINATION
***********************************
One reason we find it difficult to come to terms with reality is that our reality is grim. Hence our tendency to take refuge in propaganda, which is as real as a castle in the air. As an Armenian, the hardest thing for me to stomach was the fact that I came from a long line of people whose masters were Turks.
If we like to brag about our celebrities it may be because, unlike us, they were successful in breaking their Ottoman mold and emerging as individuals who did not allow their past to shape their future. In Biblical terms, they ceased being pillars of salt and were born again as human beings.
Nothing can be more misleading than to judge a nation by relying on the words of their politicians. And yet this is what the average Armenian and Turk do. To the average Turk, Armenians are “infidel bastards,” and Turks “the most civilized people on earth.” To the average Armenian, Turks are bloodthirsty savages who will never change their ways as Asiatic barbarians. It is now time that we abandon our respective brands of nationalist fundamentalism and allow the moderates to be heard. Let us follow the world’s example and learn to discriminate Germans from Hitler’s Nazis, and Turks from Talaat’s butchers.
#
Monday, January 14, 2008
*********************************************
A SCI-FI SCENARIO
**************************************
Let’s suppose for the sake of argument that a future pro-Armenian Democratic administration in Washington convinces a moderate Turkish regime in Ankara to accede to all our financial and territorial demands. Will that be the end of the story or the beginning of another dark chapter?
Here is what I suggest will happen: The moderate regime in Ankara will be toppled by a coalition of angry fundamentalists, ultra-nationalists, and displaced Turks and Kurds, and Armenia will become the target of terrorist attacks or even wars on three fronts: Azeris, Kurds, and Turks. In short, Armenia will become another Israel.
That’s not all. To recover the money depleted on reparations, the not-so moderate and definitely not-so pro-Armenian regime in Ankara will tax the Armenians within Turkey, whose life will become so unbearable that they will emigrate to foreign lands – anywhere but Armenia, the source of all their troubles.
Who will come to our aid this time? Who can? Only the Good Lord; and if we adopt the past as our guide, He has at no time shown an inclination to do so.
*
To speak of actions and to ignore their backlash is the very same mistake our revolutionaries made at the turn of the last century. We are brought up to believe we are smart, but I suggest to follow the dictates of our gut and to ignore the warnings of our brain is just about the dumbest thing we can do.
*
Let me conclude this excursion into science fiction with a quotation from Shahan Shahnour, who was born and raised in Istanbul and knew Turks better than all our present-day Turcocentric pundits combined: “We may think of Turks as backward slobs, but make no mistake about that: when it comes to Armenians, they can be very, very calculating and methodical.”
*
There is an old saying: “When dreams come true they turn into nightmares,” and another about answered prayers, which I can’t remember at the moment…
#
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
*********************************************
BETWEEN WAR AND PEACE
********************************************
It may not happen in our lifetime but sooner or later it will happen. No doubt about that. Africa will follow Europe’s example and realize that coexistence leading to union is better than endless internecine conflict, tribal wars, revolutions, counter-revolutions, coups, massacres, and genocide. Closer to home: what about the Middle East? Does anyone think people in the Middle East are so backward, bloodthirsty, fanatical, and irrational that they will opt for endless conflict? And if they do so, who will be the beneficiary? Does anyone think Turks will go on calling Armenians infidel bastards and Armenians will reciprocate by calling them Asiatic barbarians? How much more blood will have to be shed before political leaders in Africa and the Middle East realize that peace is better than war, coexistence and cooperation are more civilized than mutual hostility, and in the long run economic barriers and protectionism protect no one. Next time you think of Turks try to think of them less as past enemies and more as future friends. Think of them too as part Armenian because that’s what in fact they are. Turks and Armenians, Palestinians and Israelis, Syrians, Iraqis, Iranians, and Kurds: they will choose to follow either Europe’s or Africa’s example; and who in his right mind will say the morally superior and more progressive role model is Africa?
*
All wars are blunders. No one wins a war. Consider the recent case of two mighty empires fighting and losing a war against two tribal nonentities – Vietnam in the case of the United States and Afghanistan in the case of the USSR. We like to say the Allies won World War I and World War II, and we would like to forget about the fate of Armenians and Jews. What kind of victory is it when the innocent victims number in the million? This is clearly seen and understood by anyone with the minimum of common sense and decency, except some political leaders and our own ubiquitous Turcocentric pundits.
#
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
********************************************
NOTES / COMMENTS
********************************************
“The stranglehold of bureaucracy is becoming unbearable, the battle against corruption has yet to start. The authorities are not doing enough to fight organized crime.” That’s Gorbachev speaking of present conditions in Russia. If any one of our panchoonies (“Mi kich pogh oughargetsek”) were to speak like that, his sources of income would dry up.
*
What does the average Armenian know about our millennial history beside the Genocide? My guess is, the names of a handful of kings, most of whom were not even Armenian, and Vartanants, which, according to some historians, never happened.
*
Common sense and decency are not marketable products because everyone thinks he already has more than enough of both.
*
Truth and politics are mutually exclusive concepts. The closer to the truth a politician gets, the more dupes he alienates.
*
To be consistently positive about Armenians and consistently negative about Turks is the most effective way of undermining our credibility.
#

[arabaliozian]

comments

Thursday, January 17, 2008
**********************************************
SMOKE & MIRRORS
***************************************
Nigoghos Sarafian (1905-1973): “Our history is a litany of lamentation, anxiety, horror, and massacre. Also deception and abysmal naiveté mixed with the smoke of incense and the sound of sacred chants.”
*
In the Preface to his ANECDOTA or SECRET HISTORY, the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesaria (500-565 AD) writes that, by exposing past blunders, historians warn future leaders not to repeat them in the hope their incompetence will never be exposed and their reputation will remain unblemished. If it weren’t for historians, he goes on, we would never have known about “the dissolute career of Semiramis and the frenzy of Sardanapalus and Nero…”
*
Nothing comes more naturally to a blundering leader than to cover up his incompetence and to misrepresent his liabilities as assets, and his military defeats as moral victories. To this type of frauds parading as statesmen, and to their hirelings and dupes, honest observers will be branded as hostile witnesses and even enemy agents to be silenced, ostracized, and persecuted.
*
If you listen carefully to our sermonizers, speechifiers, and dime-a-dozen pundits, you will notice that their central message is always the same, namely, we are in good hands -- our leaders have done nothing wrong – it’s all someone else’s fault – the West betrayed us and the Turks are bloodthirsty savages, thieves, rapists, and liars. Hitler blamed the Jews. We blame the world, after which we expect its sympathy and support.
*
After experiencing centuries of oppression and degradation under ruthless alien despots, we cling to the absurd notion that God is on our side, there is justice in this world, and sooner or later victory will be ours. All we have to do is trust the judgment of our bosses and bishops, and support them by sending “mi kich pogh.”
*
Where there is leadership without accountability there will also be taxation without representation.
#
Friday, January 18, 2008
************ ********* ********* ********* ********
AMOT!
************ ********* ******
“I love mankind,” Baronian once said, “but I hate men.” Born and raised in the Ottoman Empire, Baronian was in an excellent position to know that men are either executioners or victims, masters or slaves (Hegel), exploiters or workers (Marx); and the secret ambition of all underdogs is to be top dogs, exploiters, masters, or executioners. He also knew that when victims cannot victimize their executioners, they victimize one another. Baronian did not live long enough to be victimized by Turks, but he was betrayed to the Turkish police and victimized by his fellow Armenians.
*
We love literature but we hate writers. No, not quite. If truth be told, it’s much worse. We don’t give a damn about writers and what we really hate is free speech. And we hate free speech because it threatens to expose us as potential executioners not of our enemies but fellow Armenians who dare to disagree with us. I speak from experience.
*
Like all nations we have our share of skinheads, philistines, and hooligans, with one difference: they are now our masters. Or, in the words of a wiser man than myself: “Once upon a time we were slaves. We are now slaves of former slaves.”
*
To silence someone whose sole intent is to share his understanding of reality is to choose to be on the side of executioners, assassins, and some of the worst serial killers in the history of mankind – Hitler and Stalin being two recent cases in point.
*
To our hooligans I say: For once, reality is against you because we live on a continent where free speech happens to be a fundamental human right. You have two options: get out or stop reading, or if you can’t give up reading, read only chauvinist crapola, partisan editorials, and our dime-a-dozen Turcocentric pundits. But if you insist on reading me, it may be because deep down somewhere – assuming such depths exist – you find truth irresistible. Either that or you are fed up with your own lies which are not even yours but that of our crème de la scum parading as our crème de la crème.
*
Only people who can’t tell the difference between literature and propaganda assert truth is on their side. Only fanatics who can’t tell the difference between god and the devil dare to assert god is on their side.
#
Saturday, January 19, 2008
***********************************************
WRITERS & POLITICIANS
******************************************
Hagop Baronian (1842-1891): “Truth is a language that if not spoken is forgotten.”
*
Derenik Demirjian (1877-1956): “Every Armenian has another Armenian whom he considers his mortal enemy.”
*
Shahan Shahnour (1904-1974): “For my generation of Armenians, the enemy is not the Turk but us.”
*
The pen is mightier than the sword? Our writers and poets were Talaat's and Stalin’s first victims.
“Writers are the architects of the soul,” one of our bosses once said to me and I believed him, until I read a similar statement by Stalin.
*
We are all born dupes but inevitably we run across another dupe who stands in direct contradiction to us. At which point we wonder: How can anyone be so wrong and so sure of himself? What if he is right and I am wrong? What if we are both wrong? Why would anyone lie to us?
*
We either believe our politicians or our writers. I am not saying all writers speak the truth and all politicians are compulsive and habitual liars. What I am suggesting is that, when it comes to lying, politicians are better at it because they have had more practice.
*
I don’t write against Armenians. I write against charlatans and dupes. Only readers who can’t tell the difference between one and the other accuse me of being anti-Armenian.
*
Shirvanzadeh (Alexander Movsessian: 1858-1935): “The narrow partisan propaganda line that is espoused by our press is the enemy of all literature.”
*
Siamanto (Adom Yerjanian: 1878-1915): “Our perennial enemy – the enemy that will eventually destroy us – is not the Turks but our own complacent superficiality.”
*
Hagop Garabents (Jack Karapetian: 1925-1996): “Once upon a time we fought and shed our blood for freedom. We are now afraid of free speech.”
#

[arabaliozian]

crocodiles

Sunday, January 20, 2008
***********************************************
CROCODILES
*********************************
Readers who disagree with me and engage in verbal abuse are not my enemies. They are enemies of free speech, and enemies of free speech are fascist bullies who have no place in civilized discourse for the simple reason that they are against discourse.
I did not create free speech. Free speech has been around for a long time. So have been its opponents and victims, of course. Greeks, who 2500 years again disagreed with Socrates, also rejected the concept of free speech and dialogue by silencing him permanently. We have come a long way since then. Heidegger, one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, was also a Nazi, and as a Nazi he deserved the hangman’s noose. But he was left alone, probably because Americans, like Armenians, don’t think highly of philosophers because they favor philomorons, like Senator McCarthy, Kennedy’s “best and brightest” of Vietnam fame, Bush and his gang of neo-cons, and televangelists and their “moral majority.” As for Russians, our “Big Brothers”: they are worse. My guess is, Russians have silenced, exiled, and exterminated more intellectuals (including our own) than all other nations combined. Chekhov was right when he predicted that 20th-century Russia would be at the mercy of “crocodiles,” that, unlike their jungle counterparts, would engage in cannibalism.
#
Monday, January 21, 2008
*******************************************
THE LAMENT OF A WRITER
****************************************
“I am ashamed to call myself an Armenian,” Vahé Oshagan is reported to have said when one of his books was given a negative reception in our weeklies. Once upon a time I too identified myself with my fellow Armenians to such an unreasonable degree that I was embarrassed when any one of them behaved badly. I know now that Armenians, all Armenians without exception, are first and foremost individuals before being members of a tribe or nation; and as individuals, they should be judged as individuals. If an Armenian chooses to make an ass of himself in public, so be it, that is his choice, not mine or anyone else’s. If, as an individual he is free, so am I, and I freely choose not to be responsible for his actions.
*
Only dumb people assess themselves as smart, believe in their own assessment, and brag about it. And it doesn’t take much to be a victim. It takes even less to wallow in victimhood. Now then, go ahead and say, I am proud to be an Armenian because I am smart and because I come from a long line of perennial victims who have harmed no one but themselves and one another.
*
Whenever odars are given the opportunity or care enough to judge us, they will do so not by what we say about ourselves but our history; and no matter how you slice it, our history is a sad one, or, to put it more bluntly, it is nothing to brag about. If we have anything to brag about, it is our literature. But who reads Armenian writers these days? Not even Armenians. If Vahé Oshagan were alive today, I would tell him he has nothing to be ashamed of. After all, his book was read and reviewed by a handful of Armenians, which means, he was better off than most of our classics.
#
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
**********************************************
MEMO TO OUR PUNDITS
*************************************
Being popular by writing what the people want to read means pandering to the lowest common denominator, and as such it is to be avoided because it is the surest symptom of unprincipled mediocrity.
*
To speak of massacres is to relive them, and to speak of Turks means to reassert them as our masters even if the assertion is made in a remote corner of our subconscious. Our aim ought to be recovering our humanity and with it our creative impetus, which will allow us to make contributions to the welfare of our fellow men regardless of race, color, and creed. Then and only then we may deserve universal support.
*
Our writers are not our enemies, and yet this is how we have treated them. Being the offspring of victims does not justify us victimizing one another, especially those among us who dare to speak honestly and objectively about our failings. We all sympathize with victims, but if they insist on it day in day out, compassion fatigue may set it and sympathy may turn to annoyance and irritation.
*
To our Turcocentric pundits I say, it is now time that you downsize your Turcocentrism and emphasize Armenianism by writing more about our present problems and contradictions, of which we have more than our share.
#
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
********************************************
HISTORY AS THE PROPHETESS OF TRUTH
& WELLSPRING OF PHILOSOPHY
************************************************** *******
Diodorus of Sicily (first century B.C.), Greek historian: “Even the entirely fictitious legend of Hell is a mighty instrument for turning the hearts of men to righteousness and the fear of God. How much greater, therefore, must we conceive to be the potential ennobling influence upon character of History, the prophetess of truth and the wellspring of philosophy?”
*
Nothing stays the same. Suppose in a future post-global warming and post-World War III America the Constitution is amended and the laws of taxation re-written, so that instead of collecting taxes from ethnic minorities, bureaucrats from the IRS visit homes and collect our children – boys for the army, and girls for “comfort,” that is, legalized prostitution. How long before we emigrate? It took us 600 years to get out of the Ottoman Empire and even then we had to be driven out at the point of a yataghan. Our pundits are unanimous in saying Turks are butchers, rapists, thieves, and liars. I wonder, why is it that it took us 600 years to figure that out? If my better-informed readers know the answer to that question, why is it that so far they have kept it to themselves? At least let us have the honesty to admit that we may not be as smart as we think we are, and our greatest deceivers have not been the Great Powers of the West but our own speechifiers and sermonizers parading as statesmen and pundits.
*
Once upon a time we were free. Then we ceased to be free. We forgot what freedom meant. We had to be taught what freedom meant by the West, and we are still learning. Some day we may even begin to appreciate the value and importance of free speech.
*
Samuel Butler (1835-1902), English author: “Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.”
#

[arabaliozian]

notes/comments

Thursday, January 24, 2008
************************************************
FROGS
************
Speaking of our revolutionaries, one of our elder statesmen once compared them to “frogs trying to rape an elephant.”
*
Save the nation? Part the Red Sea? Change water to wine? Raise the brain-dead? I leave these things to better men than myself. I write. That’s the only thing I do because that’s what all writers, including our own, have always done. I write to express my thoughts and sentiments as honestly and objectively as I can. Let others do what they will with them.
*
Where honesty and objectivity are equated with self-hatred and betrayal, free speech will be violated in the name of God and Country.
*
To say my country, right or wrong, is less nationalism and more narcissism, and as such, less ideology and more pathology.
*
Our pundits are more interested in settling old scores than in the welfare of the nation. Perhaps because, in Einstein’s words: “The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them.” Or, frogs cannot solve problems created by elephants.
*
Instead of trying to solve problems created by others, let us begin with problems created by us, such as: respecting one another’s fundamental human right of free speech, engaging in dialogue, and developing a consensus. I wonder why is it that these problems are ignored by our “betters.” Is it because they don’t require any capital investment and no letters that end with their favorite mantra, “mi kich pogh…”
#
Friday, January 25, 2008
*********************************************
DEFINING FASCISM
************************************************** ****
One reason why I write about our problems is that I don’t know much about Eskimo and Patagonian problems. As for Canadian problems: once, when I dared to say something on the subject, I was told to go back where I came from. That put an abrupt end to my career as a Canadian critic.
*
We are all born fascists. But whenever we confront another fascist unwilling to relinquish his infallibility, we are given a chance to reconsider our political convictions.
*
I once asked a Turcocentric pundit if he had read a single Armenian writers and he said he had not, after which he advised me to write more about Turkish atrocities. I didn’t ask him to define patriotism, but if I had, my guess is he would have said “hatred of Turks,” which may suggest there is more Ottomanism and less Armenianism in his worldview.
*
Bad things happen to good people because when bad people do bad things to bad people, they don’t give a damn about collateral damage. That’s how Turks see the Genocide – as collateral damage, which is something that happens in every war, beginning with Homer’s ILIAD.
*
We have a better chance to reach a consensus with the Turks if we tell them, we understand why they did what they did and we would like them to understand us when we say what they did was not right.
*
Our bosses, bishops, and benefactors are convinced they are saying what must be said and doing what must be done, and they resent usurpers like me who try to muscle in their territory.
*
It would be a mistake to underestimate the power of our hoodlums. They may seem to be a harmless and non-representative minority, but all they need to become a murderous majority is someone like Hitler and Stalin.
*
“Hoodlumism in the name of patriotism,” is as good a definition of fascism as any.
#
Saturday, January 26, 2008
***********************************************
ALIEN TRASH
********************************
You cannot tell people what to think and how to feel. You can only speak of your own thoughts and feelings and all the mud that is flung in your direction by dupes simply because you refuse to subscribe to their lies, which are not even theirs; or, as Zarian puts it: “even their trash is picked up from alien streets.”
*
I cannot adapt. I cannot change colors like a chameleon. Call it an evolutionary failure. My kind may well be headed for extinction. That doesn’t mean I will exit in silence.
*
To how many of my critics (if you will forgive the overstatement) I could say: When I was your age – and it makes no difference if you are nine or ninety – I too pretended to know and understand things that I didn’t, and succeeded only in making an ass of myself.
*
No man can be said to be an authority on his fellow men, let alone himself, because most of our real self is buried in our subconscious. We can only speak of unverified and unverifiable theories and guesses.
*
No need to contradict someone who lives in a world of illusions because reality will be his most effective and persistent contradictor.
#