notes and comments

[KanadaHye]

Re: elegy

there is healthy debate among yankee academics as there are conflicting interests.
among armenians, no one would ever dare to say benefactors are philistines who have bastardized our culture.

Oddly enough, when I see 2 Armenians argue, there are usually 3 viewpoints.

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Thursday, January 27, 2011
********************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
************************************************** **
All our organizations (be they political, cultural, or religious)
have a HUAC (House Un-Armenian Activities Committee)
and a McCarthy of their own whose job it is
to separate the sheep from the goats,
the (brain)washed from the unwashed,
the dupes from those who can think for themselves,
the kind who drop their pants and say thank you
from the kind who for some unfathomable reason of their own
refuse to do so.
*
Dissidents are not born but made,
and what makes them are self-satisfied, power-hungry idiots
who pretend to know better.
One such specimen once promised a goodly sum
if I consented to write portraits of ADL leaders,
to which I could only say,
I didn't know any,
I had never heard of one,
and I wasn't even aware of their existence.
*
Some great men believed in Big Lies
for the same reason that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
of Sherlock Holmes fame believed in ghosts.
*
No job can be as demanding
as a job that any nonentity can perform.
That's because nonentities can be easily replaced
by other nonentities and the world is full of them.
*
Charlie Chan: “Truth, like football – receive many kicks
before reaching goal.”
#
Friday, January 28, 2011
********************************************
ACADEMICS
************************************************** **
Academics operate in a dog-eat-dog environment.
The competition is stiff.
The unspoken rules and commandments outnumber the spoken ones.
In what follows I have made an attempt
to share my knowledge and understanding
of their character, values, and worldview.
*
Violations of human rights in both the Homeland and Diaspora
is a subject they avoid discussing
because it may question the integrity of individuals
on whose goodwill they depend.
*
Our historians study history
not to learn from it but to hone their skills
of their favorite sports, namely the blame-game.
Their unspoken message is:
(one) there is nothing wrong with us;
(two) we never had it so good;
(three) we are in the best of hands.
*
In a Western-style democracy
some of the most ferocious anti establishment critics
(like Bertrand Russell and Arnold J. Toynbee in England)
were themselves members of the aristocracy.
We don't have an aristocracy.
What we have are the offspring of victims
shaped by famine, poverty, and slum-life,
that is to say, individuals whose greatest ambition in life
is a steady income and a suburban existence.
*
In the 19th century we produced fearless intellectuals
like Raffi, Baronian, and Odian
who exposed the corruption and greed
of our establishment figures -- that is, bosses, bishops, and benefactors.
Even under Stalin we had intellectuals
who placed dedication to ideals and principles above their self-interest.
Today we have only academics
who live in fear of their own shadows.
To paraphrase an old Turkish saying:
Among ten Armenian academics
eleven are sure to be brown-nosers.
*
Their favorite topics of expertise are
Middle Ages, massacres, and anything else that is removed
from our present state of decline, degeneration, and disintegration.
*
During the Soviet era when they published their travel impressions of Yerevan,
they never dared to criticize anyone above hotel waiters.
*
They operate on two levels:
privately they are full of venom;
publicly they are all sugar and spice.
Their greatest enemy is neither intolerance nor corruption,
neither authoritarianism nor Ottomanism,
but the competition – anyone, that is,
who may be perceived as a threat to their position of eminence.
#
Saturday, January 29, 2011
********************************************
CONTRADICTIONS
************************************************** **
An Armenian prefers his own ignorance
to someone else's knowledge.
*
If an idea flatters his vanity,
he will make it his own.
*
Tell a coward he comes from a long line of proud warriors
and he will bare his teeth and growl
next time he faces a mirror;
and when he slices a watermelon,
he will imagine it's a Turk.
*
Since he cannot defeat the Turk
he will exploit, insult, and humiliate a fellow Armenian.
You want proof?
Read a history of Armenian literature.
*
He is self-righteous, therefore infallible.
*
He is smart but he can't tell the difference
between a synonym and an antonym.
Neither can he tell the difference
between an insult and a compliment.
Example: “It takes seven xxxs to fool an Armenian.”
And the synonymous assertion:
“After shaking hands with an Armenian,
count your fingers.”
*
He stresses the irrelevant at the expense of the essential.
Case in point:
He does his utmost to avoid asking questions like:
Has a thousand years of subservience to alien tyrants
changed our DNA?
If the answer is “It has not,”
how do we explain the contradictions outlined above?
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Oddly enough, when I see 2 Armenians argue, there are usually 3 viewpoints.

3 viewpoints
and a minimum of 4 swearwords -- like pezeveng!

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

2010 EDITION, CANADIAN WHO'S WHO
UTP, 10 St. Mary Street, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4Y 2W8
Tel: (416) 978-2239 x 244 Fax: (416) 921-6353
***********************************************
Ara BALIOZIAN
************************************************** **
BALIOZIAN, Ara; writer; b. Athens, Greece 10 Dec. 1936; d. Avedis and Araxi (Ghougassian) B.; e. Coll. Armeno Moorat-Raphael 1954; Univ. of Ca Foscari 1955; WRITER 1974−PRESENT; author The Armenians: Their History & Culture (2 edns.) 1975, 1981, Armenia Observed: An Anthology 1979, The Armenian Genocide & the West (Jerusalem) 1985, Zohrab: An Introduction 1985, The Greek Poetess & Other Writings (fiction and essays) 1986, Fragmented Dreams: Armenians in Diaspora 1987, Voices of Fear 1989, Perseverance (with Lawrence Terzian) 1990, Intimate Talk: Autobiographical & Critical Writings, Conversations, Letters & Translations from the Armenian 1991, Armenian Wisdom: A Treasury of Quotations & Proverbs (2 edns.) 1992, 1994, That Promising Reality 1992, Undiplomatic Observations 1995, Pages From My Diary 1996, Conversations (with Nazeli Bagdasarian) 1997, Unpopular Opinions 1997, Definitions 1998, Dictionary of Armenian Quotations 1999, The Horrible Silence & Other Writings (in Russian) 2008, Pertinentes Impertinences (in French) 2008; pub. 25 books and transl. 6 Armenian classic authors; contbr. articles & poems to encyclopedias & anthologies, to World Literature Today (Oklahoma) and to other publ. in Canada, U.S.A., Middle East, Armenia; works transl. into French, German, Greek, Spanish, Dutch, Russian, Armenian, Roumanian & Danish; non-practicing Catholic; languages spoken: English, Armenian, Greek, Italian, French; languages written: English, Armenian; recreations: music, astronomy, playing the piano and church organ; Home: 124 Peter St., Kitchener, Ont. N2G 3K2.

[jgk3]

Re: elegy

I still think you'd like reading Nichanian. He investigates with uncompromising scrutiny the nature of what it is to "speak and write Armenian". A language, both literary and vernacular, sporting the myths we identify with, and eventually (in the 19th century), becoming the very basis of "Armenian identity", sporting ideological leanings that hitherto did not exist, during a bad place at a bad time.

As much as you hate (Armenian) academics for just appeasing their patrons (which is not a new phenomenon at all, Yeghishe for example writing about the Bagrats in utmost esteem.), sometimes you might overlook the fact that a handful, like you, are after the truth, and exhibit an attitude towards Armenian patriotic emotionalism that seems more dry and stolid, and yet all the more illuminating about the historic facts he's analyzing, than what an odar writer who might be carried away with pitiness for us, might exhibit.

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Sunday, January 30, 2011
********************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
************************************************** **
When I was young I was exposed to the wisdom of our elder statesmen.
Now that I am old I am exposed to the insults of the young.
But I shouldn't complain.
Compared to many others I have been the luckiest of men.
Very few Armenian writers were lucky enough to live past the age of forty;
and those who did, spent a good number of years in fear
of Siberian exile or starvation.
*
To the poor everyone is generous with advice, my mother used to say.
“Write more like Saroyan.”
“Be as critical as you can provided
you also amuse and entertain your readers, like Mark Twain.”
“Be more positive and constructive.”
The implication of this final line is that so far Armenian literature
has failed in its mission because Armenians remain as divided today
as they were a thousand years ago.
But I believe Armenians remain divided today
not because Armenian writers have failed
but because the dominant mindset of our leadership has been self-interest.
If it's good for me, my family, my party, or my tribe,
it must be good for the nation.
Even when they preach patriotism
they legitimize treason by dividing the nation into tribes.
They confuse nationalism with tribalism,
and ultimately Armenianism with Ottomanism.
No amount of sermons, speeches, editorials, and commentaries
can alter this fact and the only Armenians who cannot see this clearly
are the ones who have been so thoroughly brainwashed
that they have lost all ability to see, think, and speak for themselves.
#
Monday, January 31, 2011
********************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
************************************************** **
There are Armenocentric Turkish ghazetajis
as surely as there are Turcocentric Armenian ghazetajis.
These gentlemen (if you will forgive the overstatement)
operate on the assumption that
they discharge their patriotic duty
whenever they emphasize the criminal conduct
and lies of the opposition.
On the day they fall silent,
Armenians and Turks may have a better chance
to reach a consensus and establish peaceful coexistence
that may well be of benefit to both.
*
One of our elder statesmen once wrote me a letter
in which he said that I had a better chance
to achieve fame and fortune as a writer
if I were to accept his advice on what to write and how to write it --
one such advice being, “Write more like Saroyan.”
Shortly before he died he informed me
that he had 43 unpublished manuscripts to his credit
and asked me if I would be willing to edit and revise them.
Moral of the story:
After shaking hands with an Armenian
willing to share his wisdom
count your fingers.
*
I have noticed that Armenians who have met Saroyan
on even one occasions
never call him Saroyan but Bill.
#
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
********************************************
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
************************************************** **
A private blessing, religious faith becomes a collective nightmare
when it acquires a leader, dogmas,
commandments, rituals, and mumbo jumbo.
*
Where there is a leader
there will be power and authority.
Where there is power there will also be greed for more power.
This is as true of emperors, kings, and dictators
as it is of popes, imams, and rabbis.
And where there is greed for power
there will be wars and massacres.
This is not theory or anti-religious bias
but historic reality.
*
Historians speak of holy wars but not of holy massacres.
And yet, when Voltaire said,
“Because it was a religious war, there were no survivors,”
he knew what he was saying.
*
If you know the right words, even if you are blind,
you can lead men with 20/20 vision into the ditch.
The trick is to ascribe your words not to yourself
or to any man dead or alive,
but to God.
*
Faith moves mountains, we are told.
What we are not told is that
it can also slaughter millions
with a clear conscience.
*
Everything I say is open to error
because I speak as a man
and all men are prone to error.
But if I were to speak in the name of God
I would become infallible by proxy.
*
God does not contradict Himself.
But men do. And when men who speak in the name of God
contradict one another, it is safe to assume that
they speak not in the name of God but in the name of the Devil.
#
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
********************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
************************************************** **
According to an American pundit,
Americans are such “know-nothings” that
some of them quote lines from Marx's Communist Manifesto
thinking they are quoting the Constitution of the Unites States.
Even their congressmen and senators, it seems,
can't tell the difference between the Declaration of Independence
and the Constitution.
What about us?
Do we have a Constitution?
And if we do, who takes it seriously?
Can you quote a single line from it?
Is there a paragraph in it in defense
of the fundamental human right of free speech?
Why is it that whenever I am silenced
by an editor or forum moderator,
no one raises an objection?
Why is it that these editors and moderators
consider censorship a patriotic duty?
Is it some kind of conditioned reflex
that we acquired during a thousand years
of blind obedience to alien and brutal tyrants?
Do you have answers to these questions?
If yes, please let's have them.
Because I don't!
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

I still think you'd like reading Nichanian. He investigates with uncompromising scrutiny the nature of what it is to "speak and write Armenian". A language, both literary and vernacular, sporting the myths we identify with, and eventually (in the 19th century), becoming the very basis of "Armenian identity", sporting ideological leanings that hitherto did not exist, during a bad place at a bad time.

As much as you hate (Armenian) academics for just appeasing their patrons (which is not a new phenomenon at all, Yeghishe for example writing about the Bagrats in utmost esteem.), sometimes you might overlook the fact that a handful, like you, are after the truth, and exhibit an attitude towards Armenian patriotic emotionalism that seems more dry and stolid, and yet all the more illuminating about the historic facts he's analyzing, than what an odar writer who might be carried away with pitiness for us, might exhibit.

i doubt if you can persuade a single armenian teenager to study armenian by preaching the gospel of the armenian language according to an entire army of our academics.
eliminate double talk, introduce honesty, stop recycling propaganda and brown-nosing our bosses, bishops, and benefactors
and you may even succeed in convicning odars to study armenian.

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Thursday, February 3, 2011
********************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
************************************************** **
In a commentary on recent political developments in Egypt
an Arab pundit writes:
“Entire generations of Arab children are raised to believe
that good citizens are measured by their loyalty to government
and that critical thinking is treasonous.”
To put it more bluntly:
Arabs are smart but they are systematically moronized
by their leadership.
So are we.
*
Elsewhere I read:
“Critics are measured more by their courage to be disliked,
by their capacity for dishing it out and taking the inevitable backlash.”
Or, “Tell me who your enemies are and I will tell you how good you are.”
And if you were to tell me you have no enemies,
I shall have no choice but to conclude that
you must be a person of great charm,
which, in Albert Camus' definition, is “sh*t.”
#
Friday, February 4, 2011
********************************************
Q/A
************************************************** **
Q: Not many people like you. Why is that?
A: I am in no position to employ and compensate anyone. What I say has no cash value, and our dominant mindset is grub first than ethics.
Q: Would you describe yourself as a believer? If yes, what exactly do you believe in?
A: I believe there is an element of wishful thinking in all belief systems, and I believe where wishful thinking enters, reality exits. I believe truth and power to be mutually exclusive concepts. That's because where there is power there will also be a big lie and a big liar: this is as true of emperors, kings, and dictators as it is of popes, imams, and rabbis.
Q: What about a democratically elected head of state?
A: People vote for a politician on the basis of his promises; and in politics, promises and lies might as well be synonymous.
Q: What about an honest politician who makes an honest promise?
A: Promises deal with a future which is unpredictable. An honest politician knows this. That is why when he makes a promise, he lies.
Q: You have said you are in the business of exposing contradictions and lies. Do you believe by doing so you will solve our problems?
A: No, of course not. I believe solving problems is not and cannot be a one-sided process. If the will to solve problems is not there even a messiah will be useless.
Q: Are we doomed?
A: I don't know because I don't know if death is an end or a new beginning.
Q: Where was God before the Big Bang?
A: The same place we were before we were born.
Q: What is your aim in life?
A: To understand and explain reality knowing full well that the most important questions are unanswerable.
#
Saturday, February 5, 2011
********************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
************************************************** **
When I say we are a people like any other people,
I don't just mean the so-called civilized nations of the West,
but also Russians, Turks, Kurds, and Gypsies.
And when I say Russians I don't mean
Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov and their fictional characters
but Bolsheviks.
*
When I say Turks I think of one of our elder statesmen
who once said to me:
“Some key players in our organizations are not Armenians but Turks.
They may speak Armenian fluently
and they may know more about us than we do,
but take my word for it, they are Turks.”
I also think of Puzant Granian,
a prolific writer, critic, poet, and activist,
who once said to me:
“There is a Turk in all of us.”
*
Speaking of Gypsies:
In Greece, where I grew up, we were called Turkish Gypsies.
You say we need solutions?
Two words: de-Ottomanize and de-Stalinize!
*
Sometimes I am urged to get an agent.
Allow me to explain why I don't have one:
No one in his right mind would be interested in earning
10% of nothing.
*
The difference between the Pope of Rome
and the average brainwashed Armenian:
the Pope is infallible and the Armenian is never wrong.
*
Where there is no vision
there will be a total absence of ideas – and worse –
an opposition to all ideas.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Sunday, February 6, 2011
********************************************
TO BE A GOOD ARMENIAN
************************************************** **
To be a good Armenian it is not necessary to hate all Turks
including the dead and the unborn.
Likewise, patriotism does not mean to love all Armenians,
including crooks, liars, bloodsuckers,
and fornicators who preach chastity.
*
In politics and human affairs in general,
words are used to cover up the true intent of actions.
Under capitalism and communism,
to cover up exploitation and abuses of power respectively.
*
In Egypt today there is talk of an orderly transition
following thirty years of disorderly conduct.
*
I have been deceived and misled so many times by my “betters”
that I no longer trust anyone, including the trustworthy.
*
Divided we were defeated and massacred,
and divided we stand today.
Who says experience is a good teacher?
*
Germans were a disappointment to Thomas Mann
as Armenians were to Zarian,
as the French were to Sartre,
and as Greeks were to Kazantzakis –
the very same Greeks who shat on his grave.
Sartre loathed his fellow Frenchmen (including De Gaulle)
to such a degree that he embraced Stalin, Mao, and Castro.
In his diary of the 1930s Mann quotes a German bishop
who looked up to Hitler as a messianic figure.
*
I have been awarded several Canadian literary prizes and grants
but not a single Armenian one.
If I am ever awarded an Armenian prize I will say,
“I accept the cash but I reject the honor.”
#
Monday, February 7, 2011
********************************************
TO BE A BAD ARMENIAN
************************************************** **
As long as I wrote what was expected of me,
I was published in over a dozen Armenian newspapers
in Canada, United States, and the Middle East.
Sometimes I was even compensated for my work –
always less then minimum wage, of course,
but enough to cover a fraction of my expenses
such as stationery, postage stamps, and typewriter ribbons.
But on the day I decided to write what I wanted to write
and say what needed to be said,
I became an abominable no-man.
Newspapers sponsored by political parties
turned against me because I was against them.
Non-partisan papers turned against me
because their owners are capitalists
in whose eyes I am a Bolshevik.
And Bolsheviks in the Homeland classified me
as a reactionary hyena with a fountain pen.
*
Recently when asked
how much I would charge for reviewing a book,
I said “a million dollars.”
No one laughed. No one even smiled.
Money is a deadly serious subjects with us,
especially with those who have a great deal of it.
*
I write a page a day with my morning coffee in the kitchen
when I am alone and it is dark outside.
*
For many years I thought I was the only Ara Baliozian on the continent
until another Ara Baliozian in California made headlines in the papers
by murdering his wife.
Ever since then whenever my name comes up in some circles,
I am told, I am identified with the murderer.
When asked by a woman where I live,
I said I live in Ontario, Canada
(there is another Ontario in the United States)
and informed her that I was not related to the wife-killer.
I never heard from her again.
This woman knew instinctively what took me years to find out:
Never trust another Armenian,
especially when he assesses himself;
and if you think the worst of him,
you will be closer to the truth.
*
If Adam and Eve had been Armenian,
it would be said of Eve that she was a nymphomaniac,
of Adam that he was an adulterer,
and of the Serpent that he was
a writer who wrote not what was expected of him
but what he thought needed to be said.
#
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
********************************************
A DEFINITION OF TREASON
************************************************** **
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
It follows: a patriotism that divides is treason.
*
When exposed, traitors identify themselves
as patriots of a superior brand.
*
Our dividers never say it is a good thing to divide the nation.
What they say is:
“We are for unity; it’s the other side that divides.”
And to think that these are the kind of people
who accuse me of repeating myself.
*
The spirit of contradiction in some Armenians
is so highly developed that
if you were to agree with them
they would disagree with you.
*
May I confess that I don’t always read my critics.
It is painful to the extreme reading thoughts
that I entertained as a child but rejected as an adult.
*
A religion that emphasizes dogma
at the expense of love, is an invention of the devil.
#
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
********************************************
DEMOCRACY
************************************************** **
“Egypt is not ready for democracy,” some say.
I have heard the same thing said about us:
“We (Armenians) are not ready for democracy.”
A nation with a long history of subservience
to ruthless and bloodthirsty tyrants
has no use for freedom and human rights?
*
The difference between a schoolyard bully
and someone like Mubarak is that
the bully is too smart to say,
“I do what I do as a favor to my victims.
They enjoy being bullied.
They love it.
It enhances their self-esteem.
It is the best solution to all their problems.”
*
When asked if it's true that Mubarak has amassed
a fortune of 70 billion dollars,
a Middle-East Pundit in Canada said:
“Much more than that. Much, much more!”
*
Hegel is right: “No one gives up power without a bloody fight.”
*
Armenians are not ready for democracy?
If they have brainwashed us to believe
we never had it so good
because we are in the best of hands,
they have a good chance to brainwash us to believe
freedom and human rights are inventions
of the corrupt and degenerate West
and anyone who speaks of democracy and free speech
is an enemy of the people.
This is what Ottoman sultans believed.
This is what Soviet commissars believed.
And this is what our bosses, bishops, and benefactor believe today.
“Armenians are not ready for democracy.”
*
If we are not ready for democracy,
why don't they educate us?
Why waste their time and our money
by trying to convince us they will get even with the Turks?
If you have answers to these questions,
I would like to have them.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Thursday, February 10, 2011
********************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
************************************************** **
Silvio Berlusconi: “Never in my life have I paid for sex.
I find it degrading to do so.”
He is right, of course. But only literally. Or is it legally?
People in his income bracket have “people”
who deal with the questionable aspects of transactions.
*
Give an honest man a title and a regular salary
and he will be as loyal to his boss as a dog to his master,
but a dog, who like all dogs,
knows his master
but not his master's master.
*
As a boy I had more friends than enemies.
As an adult I have many enemies and very few friends.
But whereas most of my former friends and present enemies
have titles and a regular salary,
I have been and remain an unemployed and unemployable misfit,
all because I speak more of human rights and less of massacres.
Among us talk of massacres is in,
all mention of human rights is out.
What's done and cannot be undone is in.
As for what's being done:
why mess with perfection?
*
Nothingness is the only perfection we will ever know.
#
Friday, February 11, 2011
********************************************
FLATTERY
************************************************** **
For most of my life I thought, felt, spoke, and wrote as a dupe.
I know first hand how easy it is to be taken in by flattery.
“Superior race.”
“The Chosen People.”
“First nation...”
*
Bias is popular because it flatters.
*
Bias and lies are as close as bum and pants.
So are propaganda and prejudice.
*
Education is a hidden tool of oppression.
*
Flattery does not need proof.
*
Propaganda is not free speech,
but a license to lie.
*
Propaganda is as carefully premeditated and planned
as cold-blooded murder.
*
The rules of the game have changed.
Mubarak has now been exposed as a tyrant.
A violent crackdown would further expose him
as a bloodthirsty fascist guilty of crimes against humanity.
In which case he may run the risk of losing
both his freedom and his wealth.
He is between a rock and a hard place.
To put it more elegantly:
He is in deep sh*t and he knows it.
He also knows everybody else knows it.
*
Sooner or later and inevitably
all dictators must contemplate the following two questions:
Will I be shot and hanged like Mussolini?
Will I be cornered into committing suicide like Hitler?
#
Saturday, February 12, 2011
********************************************
WHAT'S NEXT?
************************************************** **
“No one knows what's going to happen next in Egypt,”
according to an editorial in today's paper.
Pundits who write editorials may not know, but historians do.
In the French Revolution the beheading of the king and queen
was only step one.
Like rats abandoning a sinking ship,
Mubarak's cronies will start their exodus –
unless of course they made a deal with the junta.
*
Revolutions only replace replace one set of rascals with another.
This is well known to historians but not to the masses
who are now too busy celebrating their victory –
probably on the grounds that a hollow victory
is better than a catastrophic defeat.
*
In Turkey 133 military officers have been arrested.
About 1600 Tunisians have landed on a tiny Sicilian island –
rats abandoning ship?
*
My only hope is hat “people power” will act like a virus
and infect not only Arab regimes in Africa and the Middle East
but also in China, Russia, and Armenia,
even if it means their victory will be hollow, as it is bound to be.
#