notes and comments

[lampron]

Re: elegy

Like every Armenian dead or alive
I too have experienced on my own skin
the inhumanity and contempt that an Armenian has
for another Armenian.
No one can convince me that
we are civilized, intelligent, and compassionate.
The higher an Armenian rises
the deeper his contempt for his fellow Armenians.
We are a Christian nation in name only:

Ara

You have touched on a fundamental problem that probably many Armenians
recognize (but do not discuss openly), and most Armenian media fail to confront!

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Thursday, March 31, 2011
*******************************************
OBSERVATIONS
************************************
The hardest thing in writing
is the search for the simplest words.
*
A lie that flatters
will be more popular
than a truth that hurts.
That’s why propaganda
is more popular than dissent.
*
It took me thirty years to realize
I had been brainwashed.
*
If you don’t think you have been brainwashed,
you have been.
#
Friday, April 01, 2011
*******************************************
COWBOYS AND INDIANS
************************************
Today’s champions of human rights,
Americans were yesterday’s champion violators
who probably claimed more victims
than Genghis Khan, Suleiman the Magnificent,
Talaat, and Stalin combined.
As for their victims (both Indians and Africans):
in their endless tribal wars and massacres
before the white man appeared on the scene,
they were champion victimizers in their own right.
*
History is not written but rewritten and
it is not white man alone
who speaks with a forked tongue.
*
Speaking of the European conquest of America,
Toynbee writes:
“As soon as they had accomplished their murderously romantic historical mission of clearing the North American barbarians out of the way, they themselves were swiftly sucked back into the prosaic Main Street of a pullulating Middletown. The culture of this Middletown had lapsed into a conspicuous vulgarity and barbarism in the realm of Art.”
*
When two sets of barbarians clash, the result will not be a new civilization – though historians will be assigned the task of misrepresenting it as such.
*
Turks rewrite history?
Don’t we?
We do worse:
We pretend to care about the past to the point of obsession
in order to avoid thinking and assessing our present and future.
We have replaced Ottomanism with Turcocentrism.
What’s the difference?
Don’t ask me because I don’t know.
*
A question that our historians consistently avoid raising:
What has been our contribution to our own history --
besides providing victims to victimizers?
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Ara

You have touched on a fundamental problem that probably many Armenians
recognize (but do not discuss openly), and most Armenian media fail to confront!

Good of you to see this. some refuse...

[lampron]

Re: elegy

It took me thirty years to realize
I had been brainwashed.
*
If you don’t think you have been brainwashed,
you have been.
#

Ara

Is brainwashing made easy because many people find it easier to believe that
outside forces beyond our control have caused all our tragedies?

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Sunday, April 03, 2011
*******************************************
GRAFFITI
************************************
If anyone out there is planning to publish a volume of graffiti,
I submit the following candidates for his consideration.
*
“Stay in school and learn to read and riot.”
*
“Aunt Jemima is an Uncle Tom.”
*
“No Easter this year – they found the body.”
*
“Old soldiers never die -- just young ones.”
*
“Hugh Hefner is a virgin.”
*
“War is good business – invest your sons.”
*
“Be realists, demand the impossible.”
*
“Watch out, ears have walls.”
*
“Chastity is its own punishment.”
*
“Support free enterprise -- legalize prostitution.”
*
“Wear contraceptives – the unborn will bless you.”
*
“James Baldwin eats watermelon.”
#
Monday, April 04, 2011
*******************************************
HEROES
************************************
Every nation has its heroes
who are invariably outnumbered by its cowards,
and we are no exception.
*
Speaking for myself:
I have at no time identified myself as a hero.
On the contrary, on more than one occasion
I have declared myself to be an orthodox coward.
*
To those who insult me anonymously
and from a safe distance, I say:
Why do you hide your identity?
Is it shame or cowardice?
Shame of who you are?
Fear of retaliation?
If fear, I assure you, you have nothing to fear.
I have no interest in harming anyone.
I am not your enemy.
Harming you would amount to killing someone
who is committing suicide.
I suggest you have more reasons to fear yourself
because by behaving as you do,
you expose yourself as a shameless coward.
*
Zarian once said,
“An Armenian’s tongue can be sharper than a Turk’s yataghan.”
With one difference:
whereas Turks use the yataghan against their enemies,
we use it against ourselves.
As for those who expect me to believe
those who insult me are motivated by patriotism
and nothing else, I ask:
What could be more useless
than the patriotism of a shameless coward
who is afraid of his own shadow?
Why can’t we see this as clearly
as anyone with an average IQ?
The obvious answer is:
Because our average collective IQ
hovers somewhere between single-digit and negative.
*
Finally, allow me to share a professional secret with you.
The most lethal wound a reader can inflict on a writer
is not reading him.
#
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
*******************************************
DIARY
************************************
Saw a classic of French cinema,
Robert Bresson’s AU HASARD BALTHAZAR.
Most of the characters in it are nasty, even sadistic,
the acting is wooden,
the script clumsily put together,
the camera-work average.
What makes the film memorable are the central character
(a donkey, that after being repeatedly abused
is hit by a stray bullet and bleeds to death in the middle of nowhere)
and the music (Schubert).
*
I see so many parallels between Balthazar’s life
and our history – with one significant difference:
Balthazar is an adorable, saintly creature…
Which may suggest that survival comes at a price,
and it is not always the best that survive.
*
A system that develops a bureaucracy
is a system on its way to the devil.
That’s because in all bureaucracies
it is the ruthless and the cunning – that is to say,
the scum – that rises to the top.
*
The aim of comedy is to make us forget that
life is a tragedy.
*
“I love to read but I don’t have the time.”
The words of a self-satisfied imbecile
infatuated with his own ignorance.
*
Old age replaces desire with guilt.
#
Wednesday, April 06, 2011
*******************************************
WRITERS AND EDITORS
************************************
When asked why he no longer publishes me,
one of our partisan editors is quoted as having said:
“Because he writes garbage.”
*
I write about life as I have experienced it.
I write about my fellow men as I have known them.
To do otherwise –
to speak of my feelings and thoughts
based on what others have seen, experienced, and understood,
would be derivative and, in my view,
inadmissible because based on hearsay.
*
It is different with editors.
All editors have an editorial policy
set by the publisher or
whoever happens to be in authority.
If our bosses, bishops, and benefactors are unanimous
in thinking I write garbage,
an editor has no choice but to echo their views.
There are dissenting writers.
There are not and cannot be dissenting editors.
*
Nations that have won or lost wars
think victory and defeat have taught them valuable lessons.
In reality all they have learned
is either arrogance or subservience:
arrogance towards the defenseless,
subservience towards authority figures.
*
Am I saying anything you don’t already know?
I doubt it.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Ara

Is brainwashing made easy because many people find it easier to believe that
outside forces beyond our control have caused all our tragedies?

that is only one reason;
the other: brainwashing begins when we are not yet equipped to think for ourselves.
that's why people born in christian countries are christian,
and people born in muslim countries are muslim.

[KanadaHye]

Re: elegy

that is only one reason;
the other: brainwashing begins when we are not yet equipped to think for ourselves.
that's why people born in christian countries are christian,
and people born in muslim countries are muslim.

Really? So Armenians in Iran are Muslim?

[gkv]

Re: elegy

Hello Ara

that is only one reason;
the other: brainwashing begins when we are not yet equipped to think for ourselves.
that's why people born in christian countries are christian,
and people born in muslim countries are muslim.

If I may add to Kanada's inquiry, how about jews? let's take one prominent figure... Rav Steinsaltz

http://www.steinsaltz.org/learning.php?pg=Essays&articleId=2086

http://www.steinsaltz.org/learning.php?pg=Essays&articleId=1890

Would you say he is not equipped to think for himself or is your statement to be circumscribed (i was tempted to write another word) to christians & muslims only?

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Thursday, April 07, 2011
*******************************************
FRIENDS
************************************
The tribal Muslims of the Middle East and North Africa
are ahead of us.
They have finally discovered that
their greatest enemies are neither xxxs nor Americans
but their own corrupt, incompetent, and authoritarian leaders
who portray themselves as father figures and role models.
*
For daring to say as much a few years ago,
I lost several close friends from the Middle East.
This may suggest that even well-educated Armenians
are predisposed to believe recycled enemy propaganda
and reject the judgment of a brother.
*
I call Muslims our enemies
if only because after a thousand years of coexistence
they have contributed nothing but misery
to our collective existence
and blind subservience to authority
to our character as a nation.
#
Friday, April 08, 2011
*******************************************
WHY DO YOU WRITE?
************************************
When asked that question,
I make it short and harmless by saying
writing has become a habit
and habits are easier to keep than to give up.
*
Why do I write?
I write because as a teenager
I fell in love with the 19tn-century Russians.
I write because I like to share
my understanding of reality.
I write to expose deceivers.
To achieve immortality?
Why should I care what happens to me
after I am dead and buried?
*
Why do I write?
There may be many other reasons.
There is always a difference between what we say
and what we really think.
I write because I cannot do anything else.
I write because I have done many others things
and I have failed in all of them.
I write because I hate to work for money.
#
Saturday, April 09, 2011
*******************************************
THE UGLY ARMENIAN
************************************
We have many problems which we will never solve
if we don’t teach ourselves to separate fact from fiction.
Like the rest of mankind
we are not as lovable as we think we are.
Saroyan’s “stylized” Armenians (his own qualifier)
may be cute and lovable
but according to the published memoirs of his wife and son,
Saroyan himself was far from lovable.
To the Russians we are known as “cowards.”
To the Greeks as “Turkish gypsies.”
To the French as “filthy.”
To the Italians as smarter than xxxs – meaning,
worse than xxxs and thus to be avoided in the marketplace.
To the Americans, as Middle-East variants of their native Indians.
*
The truth is, as poor and homeless displaced people
we were welcome nowhere, including our own homeland.
Armenian survivors of World War II who repatriated
were not only called “aghber”
but also treated like garbage.
Not that our Sovietized brothers and sisters
treated one another more humanely.
If they had, several generations of our ablest men
would have survived successive waves of Stalinist purges.
*
When I am expected to believe
Arabs of the Middle East welcomed survivors
of the Genocide with open arms,
forgive me if I find that hard to believe.
We are told many Armenian orphans were adopted
and treated kindly by their new parents.
What we are not told
how many of them were abused and raped.
We are told 97% of the population in Armenia is Armenian.
What we are not told
Why is it that minorities are practically non-existent there?
Is it because we are intolerant, unfriendly, clannish,
tribal, and hostile to all outsiders?
I will let you answer that question.
And if you think I write as I do
because I am driven by self-hatred,
please don’t tell me you are one of those
narcissistic Armenians who have been brainwashed to believe
since we are beyond criticism we can do no wrong.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Really? So Armenians in Iran are Muslim?

armenians born in armenian families are christians; in the same way that muslims in america are muslims. mine was a general rule. i could rephrase it as: "generally speaking..."