insanity

[arabaliozian]

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

[arabaliozian]

Re: insanity

Sunday, August 24, 2008
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SUNDAY SERMON
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When it comes to learning from history, we appear to know what others should have learned. As for ourselves: we don't feel the need to learn anything because, it is common knowledge that, as the smartest people on earth, we already know all we need to know and then some.
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We know that to commit genocide is a crime against humanity. What we don't know and what we have consistently refused to learn is that to divide a nation, thus making it more vulnerable to genocide, and ultimately to genosuicide, is not one of the functions of leadership.
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All religions are false because they divide mankind into believers and infidels. Holy books are not holy. A book that legitimizes war and massacre is an abomination and not the Word of God.
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The quintessential oxymoron favored by all morons: Holy War.
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Where disagreements cannot be reconciled, the leadership has failed and might as well be in alliance with the Devil.
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Everything is connected to everything else. To divide a nation and to commit genocide or to allow others to do so, are not two separate actions but as interdependent as cause and effect.
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Our heritage, our culture, our character and identity: it is a mistake to think of them as valuable possessions. Human beings are a bundle of contradictions and complexes, and so is the culture they produce. If we can't separate the positive from the negative, or the useful from the useless, or that which is good from that which is evil, we condemn ourself to learn nothing.
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It is written, “If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” It is also written, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” It follows, those who divide us are men without vision; and those who are subservient to them are blind.
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Martin Amis: “If God existed, and if he cared for humankind, he would never have given us religion.”
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Monday, August 25, 2008
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UNDERGROUND NOTES
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Tashnaks, Ramgavars, and Chezoks are unanimous in their agreement to silence me. That at least proves that, (one) I am not in their pay, (two) I refuse to recycle their propaganda, and (three) I am un-Armenian in so far I choose to be honest, objective, and to think for myself.
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What if I am wrong and they are right? I for one value my own humanity too much to assert divine infallibility. Let others make an ass of themselves by doing so.
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The arrogance of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors is such that in their eyes refusing to be a brown-noser is seen as a capital offense.
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The trouble with psychoanalysis, or criticism for that matter, is that the very people who could profit from it most – from tyrants to serial killers – refuse to be analyzed. They prefer their own brand of insanity to any other alternative. Which amounts to saying, the very same people who suffer from the most dangerous infectious diseases reject medical care. As for blunders in history: those who could profit the most from learning from them are too busy repeating them to have any time left to learn.
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I challenge anyone to read my critics and not to agree with everything I say about Armenian filth. Zarian said, “Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another.” He should have added, “and themselves.”
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If those I criticize had a single shred of decency left in them, they would commit suicide. If they don't, it may be because on some higher level, they have already done so. Silencing the voice of one's conscience: is that not the surest way of dehumanizing oneself?
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He who criticizes and he who rejects all criticism on the grounds that he is beyond criticism, that is to say, he is infallible in judgment: who is the loser?
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If I am wrong I hurt no one but myself. But if they are wrong, millions suffer.
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Tuesday, August 26, 2008
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OUR MANDARINS
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According to prof. George Bournoutian in a recent televised interview, the world doesn't know enough about us. That is why his central concern has been to introduce our rich history and culture to the world, beginning with American academics who appear to be more interested in blacks and xxxs.
If American academics are more interested in blacks and xxxs it may be because most of them are blacks and xxxs.
How many academics do we have?
About thirty years ago I remember to have read a study in which it was stated that there were at least a thousand Armenian academics in the United States alone. How many of our academics, who must number over two thousand by now, are interested in our history and culture?
If the overwhelming majority of our academics prefer to churn out works on odar subjects, why should odar academics be any different?
Even more to the point, why should the world be interested to know more about us?
What have we done to deserve their interest?
What have we contributed to the world except victims?
Do we really want the world to know that we are a nation whose leadership has collaborated with some of the most criminal regimes in the history of mankind? Or a nation whose tribal rulers have succeeded only in dividing the people thus making them more vulnerable to foreign aggression?
I have no doubt whatever in my mind that there are Untouchable academics in India today, perhaps even in the United States, who believe they too have a rich history and deserve to be better known to the world. To prof. Bournoutian I ask: How much do you know or are interested to know about the Untouchables?
More questions:
If the world knew more about us, would that be to our advantage or disadvantage?
Do we really want the world to know that even after independence our so-called democracy in the Homeland is no better than a farce?
Do we really want anyone to know that after nearly a century in America, our leaders on this continent are no better than benevolent sultans?
How many of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors have been freely elected by the ppeople?
How many of them have the right to say they represent the people?
How many of us can even name these leaders?
Last but not least:
How much have we ourselves learned from our history?
I say to prof. Bournoutian, before we introduce our history to the world, let's introduce it to ourselves, and when I speak of history I mean an account of the past that is both honest and objective, which means, it does not shrink from exposing our failings. Because it is only by acknowledging our blunders and learning from them that we may be worthy of universal interest.
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Wednesday, August 27, 2008
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NOTES & COMMENTS
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Anonymity makes a woman sound like a man, and a man like a woman. Which reminds me of the Turkish saying, “Among ten men nine are sure to be women.”
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Subservience to a corrupt and incompetent leadership has nothing to do with patriotism and everything to do with cowardice, and cowardice comes naturally to people who for 600 years were subservient to the Sultan.
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My detractors are my most faithful readers because they know I write about them and, as narcissists, nothing fascinates them more than themselves, no matter how bad and ugly. As for what they say about me: I don't have to read it to know. What could be more predictable than criticism or analysis motivated by revenge? When the gut speaks, the brain is silenced.
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The aim of nationalist historians is to legitimize amnesia in so far as everything that is negative is covered up and forgotten, and everything that is positive is exaggerated or, like the Battle of Avarair, invented.
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Somewhere Primo Levi remarks that if Italians are ashamed of being Italian it may be because they have failed to produce a political class that represents the people. Does that ring a bell?
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