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Thursday, December 16, 2004
****************************************
TRANSLATION FROM RAFFI
***************************************
"Subservience has become second nature with us. We are brought up to believe it is useless to resist tyranny and it is God's will that we accept our fate as an inevitable and unalterable fact of life. As for our priests: they were successful in convincing us that life is ephemeral and that the more we suffer in this world, the greater the rewards in the next one."
*
ON BEING UNDERSTOOD
***********************************
How difficult it is to be understood by people you don't understand! It's like trying to communicate in Latin (which you don't speak) with someone who speaks only Chinese (which you don't understand).
*
A CHICKEN AND EGG PROBLEM
*************************************
We are told, when dogs bite, it's their trainers who should be penalized. Others maintain, dogs will be dogs and as dogs they will bite. This may well be one of those chicken-and-egg problems that cannot be resolved. But if eggs were to start biting, we would use them only to breed roosters.
*
HOW TO RECOGNIZE A FOOL
************************************
Man is a bundle of contradictions. Only fools are consistent and predictable.
*
ON EMPIRES
*************************
All empires are warlike. There has never been a pacifist empire. A pacifist empire might as well be a contradiction in terms. A pacifist empire would cease being an empire before you can say Jack S. Avanakian. That's because an empire is like an attractive wench: everyone wants a piece of the action, and if she doesn't resist, she becomes a woman with a past and no future, and in today's parlance, history.
*
WHY I WRITE
************************
"You are a fool to write for Armenians," I am told once in a while by friends. I don't write for Armenians. I settle scores with those who brainwashed me and I expose those who are now busy brainwashing you, your children and your grandchildren - regardless of nationality. What could be more universal?
#
Friday, December 17, 2004
*********************************
ARMENIAN HISTORY IN A NUTSHELL
*********************************************
Arpiar Arpiarian (1851-1908): Prominent Armenian writer, editor, translator and literary critic. He was active in Istanbul, Cairo, London, Paris, and Venice (where he was also educated). Because he wrote against oppression, he was persecuted by both Turks and Armenians. Imprisoned by the Sultan, he was assassinated by a member of an Armenian political party -- identified as "a terrorist" by a number of Armenian reference works.
*
ORIGINAL SIN
*********************
My definition - in the sense of its being at the origin of most crimes and transgressions: allowing religious leaders to define good and evil, or political leaders to define right and wrong.
*
We expect the world to agree with us even as we engage in verbal massacre.
*
A favorite Armenian school of criticism: not deconstruction but demolition - Ottoman style.
*
VERSIONS OF THE PAST
*******************************
When it comes to different versions of the past, the trick is not convincing ourselves (which amounts to preaching to the choir) but others, and more particularly, the opposition.
*
COMMISSARS
*********************
To those who would like to see me silenced, may I remind them not everyone disagrees with me, or agrees with them, which also means that to ignore me is to ignore a fraction of reality. You may fool most people most of the time, you may even fool all the people all the time, but you cannot fool reality. Turn your back on reality and reality is sure to bite your ass.
*
Confronting reality is like confronting an adversary, and to underestimate an adversary's strength is to lose.
#
Saturday, December 18, 2004
*************************************
TRANSLATION FROM ARPIAR ARPIARIAN
*************************************************
"Criticism paralyzes the weak and stimulates the strong."
*
ARMENIAN PROVERB
*****************************
"Don't try to hurl a stone you cannot lift."
*
TRANSLATION FROM RAFFI
***********************************
"Humility and patience cease to be virtues in a world that subscribes to the law that says 'an eye for an eye'…"
*
EITHER/OR
******************
Readers with an either/or mindset think, just because I am tough on Armenians, I will be soft on Turks. As a matter of fact, I am neither. Rather, I am against all propagandists and their dupes; that is to say, individuals who cannot speak for themselves because they cannot think for themselves and must therefore parrot the nonsense put out by a group with a specific agenda and vested interests.
*
DO I REPEAT MYSELF?
*******************************
If you think I do, why waste your valuable time reading me when, for the same money, you can read writers who don't repeat themselves?
*
QUOTATIONS FROM SARTRE
************************************
"The introduction of terror is the necessary price for cohesion of the group, but it is the individual who pays that price, since if the group is essential, he becomes unessential."
*
"In a society which reserves its women for the old and rich, [sex] is the first pain of a poor young man with a premonition of his future enemies."
*
CHARLATANS AND THEIR DUPES
*****************************************
They have always been in the majority. That's the only way to explain the power and popularity of Talaat, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Idi Amin Dada, Paul Pot, Saddam…to mention only a handful of sadists and serial killers parading as charismatic statesmen. And here, I shall refrain from making a much longer list of their victims….
#
FRIENDS, THERE ARE NO FRIENDS
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
There are those who plan, execute, and terminate friendships as if they were military operations. I remember, after I published my first book reviews and translations I was bombarded with gifts, invitations, offers of friendship and promises of honors, titles, and even banquets by bosses, bishops, benefactors and their assorted flunkies. Being naïve and uninitiated, it never even occurred to me to question their motives. But now that I know better, I am left alone. Months go by without a single letter or phone call. To which I can only say: "Peace, is wonderful!"
#
****************************************
TRANSLATION FROM RAFFI
***************************************
"Subservience has become second nature with us. We are brought up to believe it is useless to resist tyranny and it is God's will that we accept our fate as an inevitable and unalterable fact of life. As for our priests: they were successful in convincing us that life is ephemeral and that the more we suffer in this world, the greater the rewards in the next one."
*
ON BEING UNDERSTOOD
***********************************
How difficult it is to be understood by people you don't understand! It's like trying to communicate in Latin (which you don't speak) with someone who speaks only Chinese (which you don't understand).
*
A CHICKEN AND EGG PROBLEM
*************************************
We are told, when dogs bite, it's their trainers who should be penalized. Others maintain, dogs will be dogs and as dogs they will bite. This may well be one of those chicken-and-egg problems that cannot be resolved. But if eggs were to start biting, we would use them only to breed roosters.
*
HOW TO RECOGNIZE A FOOL
************************************
Man is a bundle of contradictions. Only fools are consistent and predictable.
*
ON EMPIRES
*************************
All empires are warlike. There has never been a pacifist empire. A pacifist empire might as well be a contradiction in terms. A pacifist empire would cease being an empire before you can say Jack S. Avanakian. That's because an empire is like an attractive wench: everyone wants a piece of the action, and if she doesn't resist, she becomes a woman with a past and no future, and in today's parlance, history.
*
WHY I WRITE
************************
"You are a fool to write for Armenians," I am told once in a while by friends. I don't write for Armenians. I settle scores with those who brainwashed me and I expose those who are now busy brainwashing you, your children and your grandchildren - regardless of nationality. What could be more universal?
#
Friday, December 17, 2004
*********************************
ARMENIAN HISTORY IN A NUTSHELL
*********************************************
Arpiar Arpiarian (1851-1908): Prominent Armenian writer, editor, translator and literary critic. He was active in Istanbul, Cairo, London, Paris, and Venice (where he was also educated). Because he wrote against oppression, he was persecuted by both Turks and Armenians. Imprisoned by the Sultan, he was assassinated by a member of an Armenian political party -- identified as "a terrorist" by a number of Armenian reference works.
*
ORIGINAL SIN
*********************
My definition - in the sense of its being at the origin of most crimes and transgressions: allowing religious leaders to define good and evil, or political leaders to define right and wrong.
*
We expect the world to agree with us even as we engage in verbal massacre.
*
A favorite Armenian school of criticism: not deconstruction but demolition - Ottoman style.
*
VERSIONS OF THE PAST
*******************************
When it comes to different versions of the past, the trick is not convincing ourselves (which amounts to preaching to the choir) but others, and more particularly, the opposition.
*
COMMISSARS
*********************
To those who would like to see me silenced, may I remind them not everyone disagrees with me, or agrees with them, which also means that to ignore me is to ignore a fraction of reality. You may fool most people most of the time, you may even fool all the people all the time, but you cannot fool reality. Turn your back on reality and reality is sure to bite your ass.
*
Confronting reality is like confronting an adversary, and to underestimate an adversary's strength is to lose.
#
Saturday, December 18, 2004
*************************************
TRANSLATION FROM ARPIAR ARPIARIAN
*************************************************
"Criticism paralyzes the weak and stimulates the strong."
*
ARMENIAN PROVERB
*****************************
"Don't try to hurl a stone you cannot lift."
*
TRANSLATION FROM RAFFI
***********************************
"Humility and patience cease to be virtues in a world that subscribes to the law that says 'an eye for an eye'…"
*
EITHER/OR
******************
Readers with an either/or mindset think, just because I am tough on Armenians, I will be soft on Turks. As a matter of fact, I am neither. Rather, I am against all propagandists and their dupes; that is to say, individuals who cannot speak for themselves because they cannot think for themselves and must therefore parrot the nonsense put out by a group with a specific agenda and vested interests.
*
DO I REPEAT MYSELF?
*******************************
If you think I do, why waste your valuable time reading me when, for the same money, you can read writers who don't repeat themselves?
*
QUOTATIONS FROM SARTRE
************************************
"The introduction of terror is the necessary price for cohesion of the group, but it is the individual who pays that price, since if the group is essential, he becomes unessential."
*
"In a society which reserves its women for the old and rich, [sex] is the first pain of a poor young man with a premonition of his future enemies."
*
CHARLATANS AND THEIR DUPES
*****************************************
They have always been in the majority. That's the only way to explain the power and popularity of Talaat, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Idi Amin Dada, Paul Pot, Saddam…to mention only a handful of sadists and serial killers parading as charismatic statesmen. And here, I shall refrain from making a much longer list of their victims….
#
FRIENDS, THERE ARE NO FRIENDS
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
There are those who plan, execute, and terminate friendships as if they were military operations. I remember, after I published my first book reviews and translations I was bombarded with gifts, invitations, offers of friendship and promises of honors, titles, and even banquets by bosses, bishops, benefactors and their assorted flunkies. Being naïve and uninitiated, it never even occurred to me to question their motives. But now that I know better, I am left alone. Months go by without a single letter or phone call. To which I can only say: "Peace, is wonderful!"
#