notes and comments

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Thursday, April 21, 2011
*******************************************
POLITICIANS
***********************************************
To say, “Our politicians don’t lie”
is as transparent a falsehood as saying
“I owe my birth to immaculate conception.”
Even if you believe it,
you may have some trouble convincing others.
*
Reality (or God) tells us all men are brothers.
Politicians tell us the only good enemy is a dead enemy.
*
Even those who agree that all politicians lie
see nothing wrong in allowing them
to control our educational system.
*
The average dupe – and it makes no difference
whether he is Russian or Prussian,
Hottentot or Patagonian, Armenian or Turk –
would rather go to war and kill or die
rather than give up his infantile beliefs.
This may suggest that all wars
are clashes between two figments
created by habitual liars.
*
Where God and patriotism enter,
reality exits.
*
To be against free speech is to be for liars.
*
Two synonymous sentences:
Once upon a time barbers were surgeons.
Once upon a time politicians led nations.
#

Friday, April 22, 2011
*******************************************
DO THE MATH
***********************************************
Did you know that there are more Armenians today
than there Mongols, Libyans, and Icelanders combined?
– and I am not counting half of Turkey
which is half-Armenian.
You don’t believe me?
Look it up and do the math.
*
Solutions?
We have no use for them.
What we need – what we really need today
is not solutions but someone with Kemalist ambitions.
Solving problems is a language we don’t speak.
*
To justify our unwillingness to solve our problems
we count our liabilities the way others count their assets:
we are few,
we are landlocked,
we are surrounded by bloodthirsty barbarians…
As for political and religious dogmatism,
intolerance, divisions, censorship,
violations of human rights, corruption, and incompetence:
we ignore them as if they were irrelevant factors
beyond our control.
*
The Armenian character is not a poorly defined abstraction
but an expression of how we treat one another.
#

Saturday, April 23, 2011
*******************************************
ROLE MODELS
***********************************************
Where would Christians be without Jesus,
or Muslims without Mohammed,
or Communists without Marx,
or Catholics without the popes,
or Protestants without Luther?
The men at the top matter.
A divided leadership will spawn a divided community.
Where the leadership is mediocre,
excellence will be outlawed.
Under a dishonest leadership,
charlatanism will be the common currency.
*
“You are consistently negative.”
All criticism and dissent is – including your own.
There are ten negatives in the Ten Commandments.
If I am negative it may be because
I have the Good Lord as my guide and role model.
But if you prefer positive,
read my book on Armenian history and culture
which could be subtitled “A Thousand and One Positive Things
About Armenian History and Culture.”
*
“You repeat yourself!”
So do Panchoonies:
“Mi kich pogh oughargetsek”
(Send us a little money).
Even the Good Lord repeats Himself:
“Where there is no vision the people perish.”
“Where the blind lead the blind,
both shall fall into the ditch.”
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Ara

a very important point!

did the greatest Armenian minds prefer the promises
of Young Turk leaders instead of looking at the anti-Armenian
campaigns of lower ranking party activists ?

in the same way that Armenian media today likes to
publish pro-Armenian resolutions but ignores statements
or actions sympathetic to adversaries?

always good to know that someone out there agrees with me = "out there" = the armenian wilderness.

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Sunday, April 24, 2011
*******************************************
HERITAGE
***********************************************
The Turkish take on the Genocide:
“We taught them a lesson they will never forget.”
A crime against humanity?
Hell no!
An exercise in promoting wisdom?
Damn right!
*
What a book one could write
on the dangers of self-assessment!
*
Another case in point:
They view Ottomanism as a progressive and civilizing force
even after they themselves rejected every aspect of it –
from the fez and the shalvar
to the alphabet and the power structure.
That’s the trouble with all brainwashed dupes:
they can’t tell the different between making sense
and making asses of themselves.
*
We share with them
an intolerance of dissent and contradiction –
an obvious part of our common heritage.
*
It is easy to remove the tangible;
much more difficult to reform the invisible.
#
Monday, April 25, 2011
*******************************************
REFLECTIONS
***********************************************
The more I write
the less I hope to change anything.
*
The USSR did not collapse
because of what Solzhenitsyn,
among many others, wrote,
or because of what the Pope of Rome or
President Reagan said or did.
The USSR collapsed because it was rotten.
Nations and empires are not killed,
they commit suicide.
*
The Albanians have survived
and very probably will continue to survive.
That’s not what matters.
What matters is, who gives a damn
whether they survive or not?
The Albanians maybe, but who else?
*
A nation is judged not by its past but by its future;
and more precisely,
by what it can contribute to mankind.
#
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
*******************************************
NOTES & COMMENTS
***********************************************
There are two kinds of people:
those who help you to live
and those who help you to die.
*
When the Turks first set foot on Armenian soil
they numbered less than 140,000.
*
Only one Armenian in ten thousand knows our history
and we meet him every day.
*
Nationalist historians adapt facts to their ideology.
A fact that cannot be adapted is discarded.
*
A midget can defeat two giants
if the giants are divided; all he has to do is
wait until the giants wear each other out
and bleed to death.
*
Question: Do I have to read ten thousand books
in order to know all there is to know
about our history and culture?
Answer: No. Just take a good look at yourself in the mirror.
*
If you are kind, they will love you and ignore you.
If you are mean, they will hate you and remember you.
If you are honest, they will crucify you,
#
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
*******************************************
NOTES & COMMENTS
***********************************************
It should be obvious by now that autocratic rulers
don’t have much respect for their subjects.
It would be even more accurate to say that
they don’t give a damn about them.
*
The trouble with our brown-nosers is that
they wear the brown on their nose
as if it were a certificate of loyalty
and a badge of honor.
*
Do you have to be brave to be a hero?
No, just honest.
*
If Armenia is a puppet of Russia today,
it is up to our leadership to convince the Russians
that a free and independent Armenia
will be in a much better position to make a contribution
to their welfare.
*
The real scandal is not that Armenian political parties
have no respect for free speech
but that no one, not even our pundits and academics,
who ought to know better, give a damn,
as if it were fire on the other side of the river.
*
You spend half a lifetime to figure out your fellow men
and the other half in avoiding them.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Sunday, April 24, 2011
*******************************************
HERITAGE
***********************************************
The Turkish take on the Genocide:
“We taught them a lesson they will never forget.”
A crime against humanity?
Hell no!
An exercise in promoting wisdom?
Damn right!
*
What a book one could write
on the dangers of self-assessment!
*
Another case in point:
They view Ottomanism as a progressive and civilizing force
even after they themselves rejected every aspect of it –
from the fez and the shalvar
to the alphabet and the power structure.
That’s the trouble with all brainwashed dupes:
they can’t tell the different between making sense
and making asses of themselves.
*
We share with them
an intolerance of dissent and contradiction –
an obvious part of our common heritage.
*
It is easy to remove the tangible;
much more difficult to reform the invisible.
#
Monday, April 25, 2011
*******************************************
REFLECTIONS
***********************************************
The more I write
the less I hope to change anything.
*
The USSR did not collapse
because of what Solzhenitsyn,
among many others, wrote,
or because of what the Pope of Rome or
President Reagan said or did.
The USSR collapsed because it was rotten.
Nations and empires are not killed,
they commit suicide.
*
The Albanians have survived
and very probably will continue to survive.
That’s not what matters.
What matters is, who gives a damn
whether they survive or not?
The Albanians maybe, but who else?
*
A nation is judged not by its past but by its future;
and more precisely,
by what it can contribute to mankind.
#
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
*******************************************
NOTES & COMMENTS
***********************************************
There are two kinds of people:
those who help you to live
and those who help you to die.
*
When the Turks first set foot on Armenian soil
they numbered less than 140,000.
*
Only one Armenian in ten thousand knows our history
and we meet him every day.
*
Nationalist historians adapt facts to their ideology.
A fact that cannot be adapted is discarded.
*
A midget can defeat two giants
if the giants are divided; all he has to do is
wait until the giants wear each other out
and bleed to death.
*
Question: Do I have to read ten thousand books
in order to know all there is to know
about our history and culture?
Answer: No. Just take a good look at yourself in the mirror.
*
If you are kind, they will love you and ignore you.
If you are mean, they will hate you and remember you.
If you are honest, they will crucify you,
#
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
*******************************************
NOTES & COMMENTS
***********************************************
It should be obvious by now that autocratic rulers
don’t have much respect for their subjects.
It would be even more accurate to say that
they don’t give a damn about them.
*
The trouble with our brown-nosers is that
they wear the brown on their nose
as if it were a certificate of loyalty
and a badge of honor.
*
Do you have to be brave to be a hero?
No, just honest.
*
If Armenia is a puppet of Russia today,
it is up to our leadership to convince the Russians
that a free and independent Armenia
will be in a much better position to make a contribution
to their welfare.
*
The real scandal is not that Armenian political parties
have no respect for free speech
but that no one, not even our pundits and academics,
who ought to know better, give a damn,
as if it were fire on the other side of the river.
*
You spend half a lifetime to figure out your fellow men
and the other half in avoiding them.
#

[lampron]

Re: elegy

*
The Albanians have survived
and very probably will continue to survive.
That’s not what matters.
What matters is, who gives a damn
whether they survive or not?
The Albanians maybe, but who else?
*
A nation is judged not by its past but by its future;
and more precisely,
by what it can contribute to mankind.
#

Where are the Armenian "think tanks" to chart Armenian strategy?

300 years ago Armenians were apparently great international traders
from Amsterdam to Venice to Madras, Singapore, Jakarta

If in 300 years someone is tasked with an article on "the Armenian
contribution in early 21st century", what could he say?

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Thursday, April 28, 2011
*******************************************
NOTES & COMMENTS
***********************************************
Because I try to understand Turks as human beings
as opposed to bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians,
I am accused of justifying the Genocide.
Nothing and no one can justify
the murder of a single innocent human being.
To understand and explain is not to justify.
If an Almighty and All-loving God
allows such a murder to take place,
it is up to us to understand it.
*
Arabs today are as angry with their own
corrupt, autocratic, and incompetent leaders
as with their own past subservience and cowardice.
My dissent has similar roots.
I write less against our leadership
and more against my own cowardly conformism.
*
Nations lie as surely as compulsive liars.
*
Nationalist historians rewrite history
to cover up past blunders and
to legitimize future ones.
*
Wars represent the triumph of the gut over the brain.
#
Friday, April 29, 2011
*******************************************
WISDOM
***********************************************
True wisdom begins on the day you say to yourself:
“I thought I understood everything.
I know now that I understand nothing!”
*
To understand politics,
read a book on organized crime.
*
Politics has created more criminals than the Mafia.
*
If brainwashing were declared a crime against humanity,
as it should be,
which one of our speechifiers, sermonizers, and ghazetajis
would escape hanging?
#
Saturday, April 30, 2011
***************************************
ENEMIES OF MANKIND
*****************************************
We have inherited two sets of contradictory ideas:
the ideas that animate our literature –
from Khorenatsi and Naregatsi to Raffi and Zarian -- and
the ideas of our dividers,
namely sermonizers and speechifiers
who speak in the name of God and capital
(make it Capital and god).
*
Our bosses, bishops, and benefactors
make a comfortable living, thank you very much.
Our writers are unemployed and unemployable misfits.
*
Our writers maintain unity is strength.
Our dividers agree but only during the day;
at night they turn into grave-diggers.
*
Once during a heated argument
with a self-righteous member of the party,
I heard him say:
“Mistakes? Sure we have made them.
We don’t claim to be infallible.
We are human beings.”
What he failed to add is that
like all human beings
their first instinct is to cover up their mistakes
and to silence anyone who dares to expose them.
*
Talk of God has been around for millions of years,
but it is only recently that popes, imams, and rabbis
assert monopoly on the subject, and doing so
they divide mankind as surely
as our leaders divide the nation.
Some day all dividers will be seen
as the true enemies of mankind.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

think-tanks?
we can't afford them.
we have a thousand academics but not a single intellectual.
our academics survive by brown-nosing our bosses, bishops, and benexxxxtors.

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Sunday, May 01, 2011
***********************************
LEADERS
************************
The difference between
a democratically elected leader
and an autocratic one is that
the first are endlessly cross-examined
by the press and the opposition,
and the second surrounds himself
with yes-men and brown-nosers.
*
Freedom to an autocratic leaders means
the freedom to oppress, silence, and murder
defenseless civilians.
*
Closer to home:
our leaders divide the nation
not because they are men of principle
who place ideals above the interests of the people;
they divide because they love their own powers and privileges
above all else.
*
If we have leaders who lie to us,
why shouldn’t we have writers
willing to speak the truth?
I am not saying all writers are honest men.
What I am saying is that
most of our ablest writers
were murdered, exiled, and silenced
by autocratic regimes.
*
Leaders behave like criminals because
they can get away with it, or rather,
because the people allow them to get away with it.
*
Most of our misfortunes are rooted in subservience.
Dissent increases independence in others.
Dissent is positive.
Subservience is negative.
#
Monday, May 02, 2011
****************************************
TO MY SWEET ARMENIA
******************************************
When his genocide book was unanimously ignored
by our academics, a friend (a career diplomat)
referred to them as “our Genocide mafia.”
Who would have thought that some day
the Genocide would become a “territory”
(in organized crime parlance)
and anyone who dares to muscle in it
would acquire the status of a non-person.
*
I am a stranger in a strange land,
and I feel more so among my fellow Armenians.
Last time I visited an Armenian community center
I promised to return in twenty-five years.
Now I have another reason not to live that long.
*
When the USSR collapsed
and Armenia’s borders opened up,
Armenians poured out by the thousand
and by the million.
*
“Yes im anoush Hayastani…”
It is not generally known that
Charents wrote that line
inspired not by Armenia’s "sweetness"
but by a similar poem on Russia by Pushkin.
#
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
**********************************************
REFLECTIONS
**************************************
No French king or Russian czar or Bolshevik commissar or fascist dictator, or pope, imam, and rabbi has ever declared publicly that he is in the business of moronizing innocent civilians. Don’t expect our own leaders to do so.
*
Did any one of our revolutionaries at the turn of the last century ever ask himself the following question: “If we carry on as we have been, what are the chances that the people may suffer?”
*
The only reason Osama bin Laden did not behave like Genghis Khan, Hitler, and Stalin is that he didn’t have their power.
*
Solutions are not inventions or discoveries like the theories of Newton or Einstein that revolutionized physics and cosmology. Solutions begin with the realization that we have been on the wrong track; and we can solve a problem only when we understand it; and it is up to us whether to use our brains or to run around like a chicken whose neck has been cut off.
*
All you need to do is allow reality to be your guide, not the empty rhetoric of speechifiers and sermonizers.
*
A kind reader once called me a philosopher. I am nothing of the kind. I am only a scribbler. You don’t need a Ph.D. to be honest with yourself and your fellow men.
*
The idea that we are few is linked to the fact that most Armenians do not care to be identified as Armenians.
#
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
*************************************
AS I SEE IT
**************************
Several friends have urged me to change my name.
I have not done so because I don’t think of myself
as a commercially viable commodity.
*
What shapes our worldview is less
an objective study of reality and more
the educational system within which we were brought up.
*
Literature is a waste of time.
No writer has ever changed a damn thing.
Marx?
If he did change things he made them worse.
The same could be said of all prophets and reformers.
*
What has our literature changed?
As long ago as the 5th century AD
our writers (among them Khorenatsi and Yeghishé)
exposed the dangers inherent in a divided kingdom.
A millennium and a half later,
After many military defeats,
and a series of massacres and a genocide,
we continue to stand divided.
*
Why do I write?
The more relevant question is:
Why do they divide?
*
I share my ideas
the way a beggar shares the few crusts of bread
cast in his direction by fat men.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Thursday, May 05, 2011
****************************************
GOD AND COUNTRY
***************************************
I am not in the business of changing anyone’s mind,
only expressing agreement with those
who have already changed theirs
by successfully discarding their prejudices and superstitions.
*
God and Country:
if we judge a tree by its fruit,
why is it wrong to judge faith and patriotism
by their number of innocent victims?
*
To be honest in our case means
to reject all assertions that flatter our collective image.
*
Anyone can change water into wine
if he waits until the guests are so drunk
that they can’t tell the difference between one and the other.
Likewise, anyone can change military defeat to moral victory
if he first convinces the people that
God is on their side and God is invincible.
*
When military and religious leaders speak
in the name of God and Country, they lie.
*
We understand many things
but not everything, especially not
the most important things.
*
To expose lies is not the same as to know the truth.
*
A lie is a lie and dying for it will not make it less of a lie.
*
There is nothing new under the sun.
Everything I have said so far has been said before
if not by Greek philosophers than by Zen masters.
#
Friday, May 06, 2011
****************************************
VARIATIONS
ON A FAMILIAR THEME
***************************************
Because we have nothing to brag about
we brag about our survival.
We have survived, yes.
So have our divisions
and divisions are weapons of mass destruction.
*
Dinosaurs perished but scorpions survived.
The only reason they don’t brag about it is that
they are not brainwashed to do so.
*
How do you deprogram a nation?
You can’t!
Our writers have been trying for fifteen hundred years
and they have failed.
*
Between literature and propaganda
we have always chosen propaganda
for the same reason that a fool
prefers to believe he is smart.
*
A long series of defeats, massacres and
centuries of subservience to alien scum
have taught us nothing.
Even on the eve of the Genocide our leadership was divided.
*
Our leaders are our gravediggers.
*
Solidarity is not in our DNA.
Which is why we must be born again
as a different species – namely, human beings.
*
You think I am wrong and you are right?
You may have our bosses, bishops, and benefactors on your side
but I have fifteen hundred years of our literature on mine.
#
Saturday, May 07, 2011
****************************************
HUMBUGGERY
***************************************
Free and independent Armenia is a hoax
and as empty an illusion as the brotherhood of nations
under the Soviets.
*
Under the Soviets undesirables were sent to Siberia.
Today they lead an anonymous existence
in a suburb of Paris, Los Angeles, and Istanbul.
The more things change…
*
Our editors publish an endless series of anti-Turkish polemics
that so far have produced not a single red cent in reparation
or a single square inch of our historic homeland;
and they refuse to publish me
on the grounds that I write “polemics,”
and publishing polemics, they tell me,
is against their editorial policy.
*
The captain goes down with the ship?
Not always.
In our case the captain is the first to abandon ship.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Monday, May 09, 2011
****************************************
WHAT IF?
***************************************
What if I am wrong? That is always a possibility. On the day I assert infallibility, then I will be not just wrong, but catastrophically wrong!
*
If you like to speculate, here is another “what if” question that is much more serious and universal: What if the comforts organized religions and faith provide are exposed as empty illusions?
*
After centuries of oppression and authoritarian rule millions of Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa have suddenly discovered the benefits of democracy: Would anyone dare to ask “What if they are wrong?” Because in the final analysis that’s all I have been asking for my fellow countrymen: democracy, free speech, and respect for human rights.
*
Here is another “What if”: What if the incompetence and dishonesty of our own leadership have done as much harm to the integrity of the nation as the criminal conduct of our former alien masters?
*
About free speech: it can be abused, yes, certainly. So can censorship, the manipulation of the media and the educational system.
#
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
****************************************
GUESSES
***************************************
Some questions don’t have answers, only guesses.
*
Even when writers realize they can change nothing, they continue to write. Why?
*
If a pebble can start an avalanche, why can’t the right word at the right time and place start a revolution?
*
If they can lie for no good reason at all, why can’t I speak the truth for a good reason?
*
Why did God create the world? To break the monotony of silence, boredom, and nothingness?
*
If they know what must be done, why don’t they do it
*
Do they hate to admit they have been wrong out of fear they may not be forgiven?
*
Unlike Raskolnikov, not all murderers go down on their knees and confess – this is especially true of career criminals and
If they can get away with it – and so far they have – they will continue to lie, abuse, mislead, and deceive.
#
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
****************************************
FASCISTS
***************************************
Authoritarian rulers – fascists for short –
view free speech as a crime against humanity
and state-sanctioned murder of defenseless civilians
as law and order.
*
Fascism may also be defined
as a declaration of war by a regime
against its own people.
*
In a fascist environment
intellectuals are like canaries in a mine.
Where there is a scarcity of canaries
there will be an abundance of chickens, toads, and rats.
*
Turks are the favorite subject of our editors and academics.
Our leadership is a subject they avoid discussing
perhaps because it is not easy speaking of a bordello madam
as if she were a virgin.
*
It is safe to assume that the number of moral victories
in a nation’s history is equal
to the number of military defeats.
*
Where criminals are in charge
the law of the jungle will be
the law of the land.
#
Message flagged
Sunday, May 8, 2011 11:56:48 AM
Sunday, May 08, 2011
****************************************
TRUE OR FALSE?
***************************************
Organized religions teach us to believe
there is more life in death.
*
A heroic death is infinitely more admirable
than a degraded life.
Remember this next time you brag about survival.
*
The world is too preoccupied
with its own welfare and survival
to care much about our own.
I doubt if the death of the last Armenian
will make a single headline anywhere.
*
Lenin and Stalin served as role models
to many more Armenians than Tolstoy and Solzhenitsyn.
There is more Sultanism in our leadership
than Armenianism.
*
For every Armenian who knows better
there will be at least two who know best
and four who know all there is to know.
In such an environment,
writers will be useless
and literature irrelevant –
except for such trashy lines as
“Forget your mother /
But do not forget your mother tongue.”
(I did not plan to quote this line on Mother’s Day.
Call it pure coincidence.)
#