queen

[arabaliozian]

Re: queen

MEMOIRS:
FRAGMENT I
************************************
After reading about Zarian and the abuse
he suffered in both the Homeland and Diaspora,
I knew I didn’t have a chance,
my fate was sealed,
my goose cooked,
and in modern parlance,
I was f***ed.
*
FRAGMENT II
*************************
The Greek slum, in which I was born and raised
In time of war, looks like heaven today
when compared to the cold, dehumanized
Canadian suburb where I now live.
*
MORE ON THE 1%
*******************************
There are two kinds of people:
the faceless and anonymous
who live on the margins of society and history,
and the “pillars” the “movers and shakers,”
the 1%, the scum of the earth,
and the source of all evil.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: queen

NOTES / COMMENTS
**********************************
Unlike most of my fellow countrymen,
I was not born smart.
I was the quintessential dupe
who believed everything he was told.
Whatever I know, which is not much,
I learned the hard way.
*
When I speak of idiots and jackasses,
I speak from experience.
When I speak of swine
I mean men who adopt a morally
and intellectually superior stance.
*
And when I speak of victims and victimizers
I have in mind not just Armenians and Turks,
but also Armenians and Armenians.
*
We say we are smart
because we are too cowardly to admit we are not.
*
To divide a small nation
is to compound a felony.
*
I say these things not because I am smart
but because somewhere along the line
I decided to respect facts more
than propaganda,
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: queen

WHAT IS HISTORY?
*********************************
History is not a narrative
whose aim is to flatter our collective ego,
but a confrontation with reality
and a challenge.
*
Anything that flatters our collective ego
is not history but propaganda.
*
After World War II
the French confronted the challenge
of deciding who was a hero
(or a resistance fighter)
and who a zero (or collaborator with the enemy).
To their credit they decided Petain
(a hero of World War I) was a collaborator
guilty of treason.
*
How do we classify Zohrab and Mikoyan?
Collaborators or heroes?
We have been too busy bragging
about Mikoyan’s celebrity status and
Zohrab’s subtle analysis of female psychology
to confront the challenge of of answering
that key question.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: queen

NOTES / COMMENTS
*******************************
Whenever we say
we are small and weak,
we should teach ourselves to add
“We had something to do with it.”
*
You want to enhance your understanding
of human nature? Try humility.
*
To a megalomaniac,
life must be a long list of failures.
*
One way to explain what happened to us
in the Ottoman Empire is to say
we lived among burglars
but did not bother locking our front door.
*
Of the 1% we can truly say:
The higher they rise,
the lower they sink.
#