notes and comments

[Ethnography]

Re: elegy

When someone says something wrong and destructive, it needs to be pointed out. Please stop with the relativism crap. He has been on a tirade against Armenians for the better part of 30 years. Do you not think it is rather pathetic for him to be posting his 'thoughts' on an Armenian forum? Could he not use a blog or better yet keep the drival to himself?

I completely agree that people should be held responsible for their actions and words that are hurtful and damaging. No, I don't believe it is pathetic for him to posts his thoughts here, but I do feel he should have at least created some blog for himself by now so that those who are interested could go and read his thoughts if they want too. Though, he has a tendency to never reply or discuss his opinions continually with people, and labels things as "Armenian" problems and not just individual problems. I'm not saying what he is doing is right, I'm just saying there are better ways of dealing with such people.

Maybe I am wrong.....oh, well!

[Odar]

Re: elegy

Indeed, these are universal problems, that concern every society (though some can suffer them in a worse way than others).

Criticizing - even mercilessly - is OK, but the good muleteer alternates between stick (criticism) and carrot (solutions)

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Sunday, February 20, 2011
********************************************
WRITERS: A LAMENTATION
**************************************************
What is a writer deprived of free speech?
Worst than a gagged and hogtied Mideast Arab
at the mercy of corrupt potentates
so fearful of being exposed for what they really are
that they are willing to slaughter their own people.
*
As an Armenian writer – that is to say,
as an unemployed and unemployable misfit –
I respect everyone except those
who make no effort to earn my respect
not so much as a writer but as a human being;
and when I speak as an Armenian writer,
I do not speak of myself alone
but of all those who came before me
and were misunderstood, rejected,
betrayed to the authorities and
murdered in cold blood.
Armenian writers have been perennial scapegoats
of our Ottomanized and Sovietized leaders
and their brainwashed dupes.
*
In his efforts to explain and justify this state of affairs,
one of our elder statesmen once said to me:
“You speak as though you were the only writer
who has been unfairly treated.”
To which I had no choice but to reply:
“That is why I speak with the strength of many.
My question to you is: On whose side are you?”
I never heard from him again.
Shortly thereafter he died.
May God have mercy on his soul, if he had one.
#
Monday, February 21, 2011
********************************************
NUTS
**************************************************
“He is nuts!”
I once overheard one of our elder statesmen
say of another – both members of the same political party.
Which may suggest we are not just divided but also subdivided.
Even our divisions have divisions.
*
Armenian politics:
I can't imagine a more depressing subject.
Does anyone know or remember
when was the last time we had a single king
or head of state who was not the puppet
of an alien power structure?
*
If our elder statesmen have a low opinion of one another,
what is their opinion of the people?
“Sh*ts” and “assh*les” according to two friends
quoting two of our “statesmen.”
*
The Armenian equivalent of “cherchez la femme”
is “cherchez le Panchoonie” -- that is,
the bureaucrat who makes a comfortable living
by parroting someone else's propaganda line.
Which reminds me of Zarian's celebrated line:
“Even our garbage has not been picked up
from our own streets!”
#
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
********************************************
ON UNDERSTANDING
**************************************************
We all agree that as Turks they behaved like Turks,
and as Armenians we behaved like Armenians.
Turks behaving like Turks we understand.
But what do we really mean when we say
Armenians behaving like Armenians?
Did we believe in our own propaganda?
Did we underestimate
the ruthless determination of the opposition
and God's indifference?
Did we confuse our wishful thinking or illusions with reality?
By emphasizing Turkish motives and responsibility
and ignoring or covering up our own,
we condemn ourselves to understand nothing.
*
Can we understand ourselves
without understanding others
and the world in which we live?
*
Whenever I speak with a member of a political party
I assume at least a fraction of what he says
is recycled propaganda, that is to say, a shameless lie.
*
No matter how deep runs my contempt
for some of my fellow Armenians,
it will never be as deep and venomous
as their contempt for all selfless intellectual labor.
#
THREE POEMS
TRANSLATED INTO FRENCH
BY GEORGES FESTA
************************************************** ***
The Human Condition
********************************
We walk like apes
Eat like cannibals
Talk like parrots
Fight like dragons
And call ourselves
Civilized human beings.
==============================
La condition humaine
*****************************
Comme les singes nous marchons
Comme les cannibales nous mangeons
Comme les perroquets nous parlons
Comme les dragons nous nous battons
Et nous osons nous dire
Des êtres humains civilisés.
==========================================
Haiku
**************************
Little toadstools
On the lawn:
Reminders of Hiroshima.
=====================================
Haïku
*******************************
De petits champignons vénéneux
Sur la pelouse :
Rappels d’Hiroshima.
========================================
Dreams/Nightmares
***********************************
When dreams
Come true/They turn
Into nightmares.
============================
Rêves/Cauchemars
****************************
Lorsque les rêves
Se réalisent/Ils se transforment
En cauchemars.
=========================================

Textes extraits de :
Armenian-American Poets: A Bilingual Anthology,
éd. et trad. Garig Basmadjian
(Détroit, Michigan: Alex Manoogian Cultural Fund of the Armenian General Benevolent Union, 1976).
___________
Source : http://armenian-poetry.blogspot.com/...ra%20Baliozian
Traductions : © Georges Festa – 02.2011

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Indeed, these are universal problems, that concern every society (though some can suffer them in a worse way than others).

Criticizing - even mercilessly - is OK, but the good muleteer alternates between stick (criticism) and carrot (solutions)

stick: solidarity
solutions: honesty

i can solve 99% of our problems with a single word: honesty!

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Sunday, February 27, 2011
*************************************
THINGS THAT ARE HIDDEN FROM US
**************************************************
Cross-breeding is one of the benefits of being defeated and conquered by multiple races, and cross-breeding may well be at the root of our survival.
*
They Ottomanized us to the same degree that we Armenianized them.
The same could be said of Romans, Greeks, Persians, Mongols, Tatars and Arabs among others.
*
In the Armenian ghetto where i was born and raised,
Armenians came in all sizes and shapes --
hook-nosed, large-headed, dark-skinned, beady-eyed...
*
It is said of Genghis Khan that he had so many wives and concubines
that according to English geneticists
his direct descendants today number sixteen million.
Add to that the descendants of his generals, lieutenants, and soldiers,
and the number may reach closer to a billion.
For more on this subject, see Ian Frazier, TRAVELS IN SIBERIA,
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010, page 122).
*
Cross-breeding may also explain our endless internecine conflicts.
We are not a collection of tribes but races.
Solidarity is not in our DNA.
Like cats and dogs we are driven less by reason and more by biology.
To brag about our survival therefore makes as much sense
as to brag about the fact that we are neither kangaroos nor worms.
*
These things are hidden from us because
no one wants to be the bearer of bad tidings.
But I believe it is by confronting the dark side of things
that we may see the light. In the same way that
to treat a disease you need a correct diagnosis.
You cannot cure cancer by pretending it's insomnia.
#
Monday, February 28, 2011
*************************************
DEAD MEN WALKING
**************************************************
What triggered the Arab uprising in North Africa and the Middle East
was not the ideas of a philosopher or the words of a poet
(ideas promoting democracy and words praising freedom
have been around for thousands of years)
but the self-immolation of a poor and unknown Tunisian street vendor.
Which may suggest that criticism and dissent do not overthrow tyrants.
Ideas move in a metaphysical realm that has no point of contact with reality.
Writers are not prophets but at best only canaries in a mine.
Rousseau and Voltaire did not convince the French to rise
and behead their king and queen, hunger and humiliation did.
Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov did not end or
even initiate the disintegration of the USSR
but the incompetence and lies of the commissars did.
Subservience to tyrants may not be an ideal condition
but people appear to have an astonishing degree of tolerance for it.
Whether I fall silent or go on writing
will make no difference in the long run.
To my critics and to our editors who have classified me
as an enemy of the people and a traitor to the cause, i say:
"Relax! I am not a threat to anyone.
Our destiny is not dependent on what I or anyone else writes
or what you print because we are all dead men walking."
#

Tuesday, March 01, 2011
********************************************
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE...
************************************************** *
An Arab-style Armenian uprising is unlikely
because we have been so thoroughly and effectively
scattered, alienated, mongrelized, and some would say, moronized
(if you will forgive my French) that to paraphrase Mark Twain,
consensus is something we all like to talk about
but nobody does a damn thing.
*
Another negative factor:
We don't confront a single Ben Ali, Mubarak, or Gadhafi
but a host of nameless and faceless bureaucrats
who work behind the scenes and are thus unidentifiable and inaccessible.
Our future leaders will probably spring from their ranks,
which means, even if things change they will stay the same.
O how I wish I were wrong!
*
What did really change after our revolution in the Ottoman Empire?
Instead of being massacred by Talaat
we were purged by Stalin.
Different players, same results.
*
Why is it that we know the number of victims in the Ottomine Empire
but not in the USSR?
Why should a Soviet tyrant be different from an Ottoman tyrant?
Or, for that matter, an Armenian tyrant?
An Ottomanized or Sovietized Armenian may well be
more Ottoman than the Sultan,
and more Stalinist than Stalin.
Lenin once said:
"A bourgeois is a bourgeoi regardless of nationality."
So is a tyrant.
#
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
********************************************
ON TURCOCENTRISM
AND RELATED ATROCITIES
************************************************** *
Our Turcocentric ghazetajis have reduced our recent history
to the chronicle of an unsettled score.
Not a single spark of creativity!
Like people who are said to be more Catholic than the Pope,
they are more victims than survivors of massacres.
I was born and raised among survivors
and though most of them were illiterate,
they knew better than to blabber endlessly
about reparations and recognition.
*
When wise men speak
you search for wisdom even in their banalities.
When a fool speaks the exact opposite happens:
even if what he says contains a pearl of wisom,
you have eyes only for the banalities.
*
Revolutions fail because they kill the dog
but not the dog's master.
*
An Armenian uprising?
It may come -- if it comes -- via China and Russia...
*
Life after death?
If there is one, it may be so different from life as we know it
that we may fail to see any connection between the two.
*
Why is it that inter-tribal conflict have a longer lifespan
than warfare between nations?
Some day Turks and Armenians may be friends but
Armenians and Armenians?
#

[Odar]

Re: elegy

i can solve 99% of our problems with a single word: honesty!

Which is exactly why they can't be solved. If a drug/device/method was invented, that makes everyone honest, it'd be outlawed and its inventor would "mysteriously" disappear

[KanadaHye]

Re: elegy

Which is exactly why they can't be solved. If a drug/device/method was invented, that makes everyone honest, it'd be outlawed and its inventor would "mysteriously" disappear

Or the patents would be bought and stored on the shelf and only used in certain situations never to fall into public hands.

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Thursday, March 03, 2011
********************************************
MEGALOMANIACS
************************************************** *
They brag about our heroes but they are afraid of free speech.
They hate to be called cowards but they don't mind behaving like gutless worms
on the assumption that if the people are stupid enough to believe in their propaganda
they will be stupid enough not to see their cowardice.
That's the way it is with all autocratic regimes:
they demand heroism in action and cowardice in thought;
and what is even more astonishing, they get it.
350,000 Armenians died in World War II.
How many dared to raise their voice against Stalin and his commissars?
*
Armenians who say they are for democracy
and Turks who refuse to recognize the Genocide
are dupes who believe all politicians are liars except their own.
They believe it is their duty as good citizens
to believe what they are told,
especially if what they are told flatters their vanity.
It is this kind of aberration that allows
the Ben Alis, Mubaraks, and Gadhafis of this world
not only to hang on to power long after they have outlived their usefulness
but also to establish dynasties like the Bourbeons and Romanovs
and to rule their nation to the end of time.
#
Friday, March 04, 2011
********************************************
MEMO TO EDITORS
************************************************** *
To be for democracy and to be against free speech is a contradiction.
If you can't see this you must be blind...and
when the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch.
*
MEMO TO FORUM MODERATORS
****************************************
As a critic I am willing to admit that I can be wrong
because I am only a human being.
If you think as a moderator you can assert infallibility
you must be an arrogant fool.
*
MEMO TO OUR RULERS
***************************
Turks ruled by intimidation and got away with it for 600 years.
Are Turks your role models?
*
MEMO TO FUND-RAISERS
****************************
Do you know
(a) who will handle the distribution and
(b) what is his cut?
*
MEMO TO MY CRITICS
*********************************
If you have a closed mind
your criticism is without merit.
#
Saturday, March 05, 2011
********************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
************************************************** *
In today's paper I read Russians are more afraid of the police than of criminals.
The situation in Armenia is not mentioned
probably because no one gives a damn about Armenians,
not even Armenians.
*
My quarrel is not with God Whom i neither know nor understand,
but with the god of popes, imams, and rabbis.
*
Truth may also be defined as a lie that you believe in.
*
Stalin, Mao, and Franco died in bed.
Gadhafi ruled for 43 years.
Those who are in power today cannot tell with any degree of certainty
how long they are going to last.
But they will never forget the wisdom of the old Chinese saying:
"No banquet under heaven is endless."
*
The central preoccupation of Armenian intellectuals today
is how to get closer to the money tree and
to obstruct the path of those with similar ambitions.
I remember once when I insulted one of our national benefactors
in the presence of several academics,
there was a stunned silence as though I had a committed a capital offense.
The Turks say, "Among ten men nine or sure to be women."
I suspect in our case eleven would be a more accurate esdtimate.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Which is exactly why they can't be solved. If a drug/device/method was invented, that makes everyone honest, it'd be outlawed and its inventor would "mysteriously" disappear

honesty does not mean truth -- which is our common enemy -- but to travel in its direction...or simply, not to recycle lies and propaganda. / ara

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Sunday, March 06, 2011
********************************************
PHOBIAS...AMONG OTHER THINGS
************************************************** *
Is Islamophobia -- that is, fear of Islam -- as irrational as say
agoraphobia (fear of open spaces) or homophobia (fear of gays)?
What about fear of child molesters, fear of organized crime,
or fear of serial killers?
Why is it that they do not qualify as phobias
in need of psychiatric treatment?
Who in his right mind would befriend
a serial killer, a mafioso, or a child molester
in the name of tolerance or political correctness?
Now then, if Muslims have killed many more innocent civilians
than serial killers,
why should Islamophobia be thought of as
neurotic, irrational, unjustified, or, for that matter, politically incorrect?
I look forward to the day when political correctness
will be seen as semantic fascism.
*
Everyone has a book in him, we are told.
What we are not told is that
most books remain unpublished,
and if published unread,
and if read forgotten.
*
Men who don't understand themselves call women incomprehensible.
*
More and more frequently now i find myself saying,
"I don't remember."
If it's the onset of Alzheimer's, it is more than welcome
because my unpleasant memories far outnumber the pleasant ones,
and nothing would give me more pleasure than to erase them.
Whoever defined happiness as a "bad memory"
knew what he was talking about.
#
Monday, March 07, 2011
********************************************
REFERENCES
************************************************** *
In eveything I read I see direct or hidden references to Armenians.
The situation in Lybia, for instances, reminds me of the fact that
no matter how corrupt and incompetent a leader,
he will have loyal supporters willing to kill and die for him.
I am also reminded of the fact that Sylva Kaputikian,
winner of the Stalin Prize,
even after the collapse of the USSR
openly declared pride in having been a member of the Communist Party.
*
While reading a review of Alan Riding's
AND THE SHOW WENT ON: CULTURAL LIFE IN NAZI-OCCUPIED PARIS,
dealing with French collaboration with Nazis
and the purges that followed under De Gaulle,
I reflect that we were at no time de-Ottomanized or de-Stalinized.
As a result there are still Armenians today who believe
Russians to be our Big Brothers notwithstanding the fact that as a nation
we could be their grand-grandfathers.
*
In the latest issue of the NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
I read a review of Carol Edgarian's THREE STAGES OF AMAZEMENT
and another of David Livingstone Smith's
LESS THAN HUMAN: WHY WE DEMEAN, ENSLAVE, AND EXTERMINATE OTHERS,
whose subtitle reads:
"A philosopher argues that dehumanization is necessary
for genocide, slavery and slaughter to take hold."
According to Smith,
"dehumanization is rooted in human nature, not culture."
Which simply means, Turks massacred us
not because they are bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians,
but because they are human beings, like the rest of us.
Toynbee would agree.
In one of his many references to Turks and Armenians
he writes that under certain conditions
even the most civilized people on earth
will behave like Turks -- that is,
if they follow their instinbct and ignore their reason.
*
In the review of Carol Edgarian's novel,
we are reminded that her first book, published 17 years ago,
is titled RISE THE EUPHRATES.
#
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
********************************************
ON IDENTITY
************************************************** *

David Hume on history:
"Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human natur."
It follows, to identify Turks as bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians
and ourselves as progressive, Christian, Westernized, civilized, and so on...
is as valid as to speak of superior and inferior races,
or Germans and xxxs as defined by the Nazis.
*
In a review of ERNEST GELLNER: AN INTELLECTUAL BIOGRAPHY
by John A. Hall, I read:
"Gellner seems to have regarded his xxxish identity
as an obstacle to be overcome rather than an inheritance to be cherished."
Something similar could be said of our identity.
*
Gellner on tradition:
"...bullsh*t, servility, vested interests, arbitrariness, empty ritual" --
in short: mumbo jumbo.
*
What we need more than anything today
is an objective assessment of our reality and not
more Turcocentrism, lamentation, and blame-game.
We don't need bosses, bishops, and benefactors to tell us
who we are and what to think.
As long as we look up to them for guidance
we are no better than dogs who know their master
but not their master's master.
*
Our identity is not a set of assets handed down to us by our ancestors
(who may have been more confused than we are)
but a garbage dump of liabilities.
Now then, go right ahead and think I am wrong
because I refuse to flatter your vanity.
*
There is a misprint in "In God We Trust."
The letter "l" in "God" has been inadvertently deleted.
#
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
********************************************
THEM AND US
************************************************** *
When accused of sleeping with German soldiers during World War II,
a French actress is reported to have declared:
"My soul is French but my ass is international."
My answer to those of my readers who accuse me
of being anti-Armenian and even pro-Turkish, I say:
"My soul is Armenian but i write
(please note, i am not saying "my pen is")
... but I write as a human being.
I refuse to apply for membership
in a club, cabal, party, or organization
for the simple reason that i refuse to be coerced into writing
what someone else wants me to write.
Anyone is free to disagre with me on the grounds that
he is a better Armenian
and some of the most thoroughly Ottomanized and Sovietized Armenians have done so.
*
I have yet to see an Armenian willing to concede to another Armenian
that he is not a superior specimen who knows better.
*
It has been said that ideologies attract the best as well as the worst.
In our case, the worst far outnumber the best, alas!
*
Our men at the top know their business.
They choose their hirelings carefully.
They take a nobody, brainwash him,
give him a regular salary and a title,
and watch him turn into a parrot
who will repeat what he is told.
*
Speaking of World War II and Germans:
Hitler began his political career by blaming Germany's problems on xxxs,
and he ended it by blaming the Germans.
That's the way it is with fascists:
they will blame everyone but themselves.
They are never wrong because they are infallible.
I will never forget the elder statesman
who blamed all our problems on "non-partisan Armenians."
When informed I was, like my father before me, a non-partisan, he said:
"I thought you were one of us."
And that was the end of our friendship.
#