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  • Re: elegy

    Thursday, April 25, 2013
    *************************************
    VARIATIONS ON A FAMILIAR THEME
    ************************************************
    After behaving like swine
    they assert moral superiority.
    This is as true of nations and tribes
    as it is of empires;
    as true of the Ottoman Empire
    as it is of our own political parties and mafias.
    *
    When a fanatic says “God is on my side,”
    you can be sure of one thing:
    he can’t tell the difference
    between God and the Devil.
    *
    All belief systems are perversions.
    *
    Not to expose lies means
    being subservient to liars.
    #
    ONLY IN AMERICA
    ****************************
    In America if you fail as a writer
    you can make a comfortable living
    as a teacher of creative writing.
    *
    I don’t know what they do in Armenia
    but in the Diaspora you make yourself
    as invisible as possible – not to be the bud of jokes
    as a vodanavorji or a medavoragan
    (freely translated as versifier and assh*le).
    *
    ONLY IN ARMENIA
    ************************
    Where idiots are in charge,
    the smart will be persecuted.
    *
    Ours is a nation whose lunatic fringe
    is the dominant minority.
    *
    Literature is to the mind as water is to the thirsty
    and bread to the hungry.
    But some people experience neither thirst nor hunger
    because they are walking cadavers.
    *
    Politicians create enemies to cover up the fact that
    they are the real enemies.
    #
    ON EVIL
    & RELATED ATROCITIES
    *******************
    The only way to understand evil
    is to recognize it within us.
    Which is why the judgment of the self-righteous
    cannot be trusted – and who could be
    more self-righteous
    than bishops, imams, and rabbis
    who speak in the name of god?
    *
    One man’s god
    may be another’s devil.
    *
    To be diplomatic, tolerant, and civilized means
    to say the opposite of what you think and feel.
    *
    After I make an assertion
    I am haunted by its contradiction.
    *
    To be a writer means
    to be a re-writer.
    #

    Comment


    • Re: elegy

      Originally posted by arabaliozian View Post
      After I make an assertion
      I am haunted by its contradiction.
      *
      To be a writer means
      to be a re-writer.
      #
      Oh god, I can relate.

      Comment


      • Re: elegy

        Thursday, May 02, 2013
        *********************************
        AS I SEE IT (XXXIII)
        *****************************
        Things are looking up.
        At this rate our dissidents will outnumber our dupes.
        *
        Has any one of our vodanavorjis ever written a sonnet titled
        “Yes im anoush commissarneri”?
        *
        Some of our Diasporan leaders
        are Turks who speak Armenian fluently,
        I was informed once by one of our elder statesmen.
        What about our oligarchs in the Homeland?
        Are they human beings?
        *
        The secret ambition of all ass-kissers
        is to be ass-kickers.
        *
        To cover up blunders is
        to promote and legitimize future disasters.
        The blame-game is a dead end and
        our role models are the scum of the earth.
        #
        PERVERSIONS
        ****************************
        Some people agree with one another
        because they place the strength of unity and consensus
        above the weakness of discord.
        We are different.
        First and foremost we are men of principle
        and the principle we believe in and practice
        more than any other is self-destruction.
        *
        If you are judged by your inferiors
        you will be found guilty on grounds of superiority.
        *
        The greater the incompetence of a regime,
        the greater the number of its victims.
        #
        ZERO
        ********************
        The greater the distance between
        what you think of yourself
        and what others think of you,
        the greater the number of conflicts
        between you and the world.
        *
        Paraphrasing Gandhi,
        if you reduce yourself to zero
        your conflicts will be zero.
        *
        If you think of yourself as the center of the universe,
        you will be wrong even when you are right.
        *
        If you think God is on your side,
        both God and the Devil will conspire against you.
        *
        And if you think you belong to a nation
        that is God’s chosen,
        you will be torn to shreds by the scum of the earth.
        This is neither theory nor speculation,
        neither prediction nor metaphysics,
        but historic reality.
        #

        Comment


        • Re: elegy

          Wednesday, May 08, 2013
          *******************************
          READING
          ********************
          There is a new book out on bankers and politicians titled
          xxxxxxxS: A THEORY. If it is as good as its title
          will be a best-seller.
          *
          After having sex with his wife, Tolstoy wrote in his diary:
          “It was so disgusting; I felt I had committed a crime.”
          *
          Gorky on Tolstoy and God:
          “They sometimes remind me of two bears in a den.”
          Thomas Mann is right: Gorky’s REMINISCENCES OF TOLSTOY
          is the best thing he ever wrote.
          *
          Chekhov and Zarian agreed on one thing about writing:
          Leave something to the imagination.
          No need to explain and describe everything.
          Delete the first and last paragraphs.
          *
          In Saul Steinberg’s biography. I note so many parallels:
          childhood in the Balkans (Romania for him, Greece for me)
          education in Italy (Milan/Venice),
          life in the New World (U.S./Canada),
          favorite contemporary writers (Nabokov, Bellow).
          *
          Elia Kazan believed his “method” created Brando.
          In his DIARY Richard Burton asserts
          Brando was ruined by Kazan.
          At one point he identifies him as the British Brando.
          Burton hated acting.
          His ambition was to be a writer.
          To the end he remained a voracious reader.
          #
          ON PATRIOTISM (VII)
          *********************************
          To say or imply or suggest that Armenian patriotism
          is better than Turkish, American or
          any other kind of patriotism is like saying
          cancer in one nation is better cancer in another.
          *
          I would like to meet an Armenian
          whose speech is not contaminated by patriotism,
          whose understanding of our past
          has not been shaped by our own historians,
          and whose values are not tribal or parochial but universal.
          *
          Patriotism may be defined as collective narcissism.
          But whereas individual narcissism is treated
          as a psychological aberration,
          collective narcissism is thought of
          as a sacred civic duty.
          And why?
          Because the ruling classes everywhere need individuals
          willing to kill and die in defense of their powers and privileges.
          *
          To say we live in a world where wars are inevitable
          amounts to saying all human disagreements and conflicts
          must end with murder or suicide.
          *
          If most individual conflicts are resolved
          without the death of either or both parties,
          why not collective conflicts?
          #
          READING
          RICHARD BURTON’S DIARY
          **************************************
          On Reagan:
          “--dangerously stupid.”
          *
          On Nixon:
          “I dislike drunkards and he was drunk as the devil
          the last time I saw him.”
          *
          On film directors:
          “I don’t remember anything they said except idiocies
          which I ignored.”
          *
          On Laurence Olivier:
          “…he really is a shallow little man
          with a very mediocre intelligence.”
          *
          On Mussolini:
          “Fundamentally he was a weak but decent man.”
          *
          He rates Spengler above Toynbee because he hates the English –
          totally unaware of the fact that Toynbee hated the English
          more than he did.
          #
          THE UNBEARABLE WEIGHT
          OF REALITY
          ********************************************
          It is not history or
          social, economic, cultural and geographic conditions
          beyond our control that have divided us
          and keep us divided today;
          rather, it is the gradual and cold-blooded development
          of a system – a system of cunningly formulated
          prejudices, dogmas, and lies – that favors
          the dividers among us and penalizes the proponents
          of solidarity and unity.
          In short: our problems are ours;
          they are not enemy action,
          and if they are, the enemy is within.
          *
          Speaking the truth is easy;
          what’s hard is to make it
          palatable, comprehensible, and bearable.
          *
          Perennial victims are not and cannot be
          morally superior.
          *
          I agree with those who assert
          we are the real Chosen People – chosen to be
          the targets of bloodthirsty barbarians,
          both foreign and domestic.
          #

          Comment


          • Re: elegy

            Thursday, May 09, 2013
            ***************************************
            MEMO TO MY CRITICS
            ***************************
            If what you say is right,
            obviously I can’t be worth reading
            and you would be more justified in criticizing yourself
            for wasting your valuable time on me.
            *
            You want to know the difference
            between an honest and a dishonest writer?
            Easy!
            A dishonest writer flatters.
            An honest one is a thorn in the flesh.
            *
            Of how many potential dissidents we could say
            because they were bullied by idiots,
            they fell silent.
            *
            I understand my critics.
            Thirty ears ago I was one of them.
            *
            National historians:
            the intellectual equivalents of empty suits.
            *
            What makes our ruling classes so arrogantly
            and ruthlessly stupid?
            The answer must be:
            experience, reality, history, or the fact that
            they have been fooling us for centuries
            and no one ever said
            off with their heads.
            #
            THE WRITING LIFE
            ******************************
            Literature:
            I leave that to our creative writers, scholars, and academics.
            *
            Love stories: I stopped writing them on the day I realized
            their true aim is to entertain the bourgeoisie.
            I now write to expose deceivers.
            *
            When in a letter to the editor many years ago
            a reader said he felt terrorized by my words,
            I was flattered rather than offended.
            *
            We are tired of being sheep in a world of wolves.
            That’s why an Armenian is another Armenian’s wolf.
            He has to start somewhere.
            *
            In the words of an American comedian:
            “I take my lion to church every Sunday.
            He has to eat.”
            *
            If you are not thirsty it makes no difference
            if the glass is half-empty or half-full.
            *
            Silence has no need for translators.
            # MEMOS
            TO MY TURKISH READERS
            ***************************************
            Do you want to understand Armenians?
            Think of them as a people that for 600 years
            had Turks as their role models.
            *
            There are no Armenians
            and there are no Turks:
            only people who speak Armenian and Turkish.
            *
            MEMOS
            TO MY FELLOW ARMENIANS
            *******************************************
            To confuse patriotism with loyalty or subservience
            to liars and crooks: I can’t imagine
            anything more cowardly and idiotic.
            *
            Divisions are popular with us
            because we are not popular with one another.
            *
            We are not a work in progress;
            we are a dead end.
            *
            A common Armenian allergy:
            other Armenians.
            *
            Hatred of Turks is our opium.
            *
            A nation that hates together
            stays together.
            #

            Comment


            • Re: elegy

              Sunday, May 12, 2013
              *************************************
              CONFESSIONS
              **************************
              At the beginning was the Word
              and the Word was a Big Lie.
              *
              God created heaven and earth.
              It was Man who created Hell.
              *
              I am an atheist only in the sense that
              I don’t believe in the God of
              rabbis, imams, and bishops.
              *
              The dead are replaced by the living
              and worlds are replaced by other worlds.
              What if, even as I write these lines,
              in another world Cain is murdering Abel
              and Nietzsche is announcing the death of God?
              *
              I am not an atheist.
              For thirty-five years I was a church organist,
              my favorite composer is J.S. Bach,
              and my favorite quotation is
              by Santa Teresa of Avila:
              “Never submit your intelligence to someone
              who doesn’t have enough of it himself.”
              *
              The Catholic priest who hired me as his organist
              (may the Good Lord have mercy on his soul)
              once said to him: “Organ music makes people feel holier.”
              When informed I was an atheist, he said:
              “God is in everything that is beautiful
              and you love music…”
              #
              WHAT IF…
              *****************************
              What if I am not consistently wrong
              and you are not consistently right?
              What if once or twice a year
              I may be right and you may be wrong?
              What makes you think you are better
              than the fellow in the Vatican
              who thought he was doing God’s work
              even when he authorized the torture of heretics?
              *
              In the eyes of our Turcocentric ghazetajis, academics,
              and dealers in chauvinist crapola
              I am only an Armenian Turks love to quote.
              *
              Fanatics may be defined as individuals
              who place prejudice and hatred above understanding.
              *
              A tolerant and balanced view is one
              in which assertions are modified by their contradictions.
              *
              It is safe to assume that our enemies
              may not always be wrong
              because our friends may not always be right.
              *
              The God of fanatics is the Devil.
              *
              To say we have the leadership we deserve
              is like saying countless innocent civilians
              deserved to be slaughtered
              when it was only their leaders
              who should have been hanged
              (I am now paraphrasing General Antranik
              as quoted by Mahari in his autobiography).
              *
              If the Sultan was replaced by Talaat,
              the Czar by Lenin and Stalin,
              The German Monarch by Hitler,
              the Spanish King by Franco,
              (I could go on)
              what makes you think our own revolutionaries
              were men of integrity and statesmen of vision?
              I am not making assertions
              or casting aspersions,
              just asking a question.
              #
              ELEMENTARY
              *****************************
              After saying “We all make mistakes,”
              we should ask:
              “How many of them were avoidable?”
              *
              After saying “There are divisions everywhere,”
              we should ask:
              “How many of them are necessary or justifiable?”
              *
              After saying “Armenians are smart,”
              we should ask:
              “Why is it that we have been
              consistently victimized by
              Mongoloid barbarians,
              inbred morons,
              and bloodthirsty savages?”
              *
              After bragging about our celebrities,
              we should ask: “How many of them
              ever bragged about their Armenian identity?
              Mamoulian? Gulbenkian? Mikoyan? Jack S. Avanakian?”
              *
              You can’t pretend to seek solutions
              if you don’t acknowledge the existence of the problem.
              Neither can you have the right answer
              if you don’t even bother to ask the right question.
              #
              SWINE
              *************************
              From IT HAPPENED IN NAPLES, an old Italian film:
              SOPHIA LOREN (angry): You are not a lawyer. You are a pig!
              VITTORIO DE SICA (with disbelief): But a man can be a lawyer and a pig at the same time.
              *
              You can tell right from wrong?
              That means you have discovered the recipe for an unhappy life.
              *
              I am all for forgiving my enemies,
              but only after they die.
              *
              Everything I write has autobiographical roots.
              *
              I have behaved like a pig
              and I have behaved like a human being:
              I can tell the difference.
              *
              All power structures, belief systems, and regimes
              depend on a class of highly paid individuals
              who specialize in deception or the invention of big lies.
              In other words, people not only need to be deceived
              but also want to be deceived,
              so much so that they are more than willing
              to pay good money to their deceivers.
              *
              I have behaved like a deceiver
              and I have behaved like a dupe.
              I can tell the difference.
              #

              Comment


              • Re: elegy

                Saturday, May 18, 2013
                *************************************
                AS I SEE IT
                ************************
                The average Turk is totally unaware of the fact that
                Talaat and Kemal were fascists;
                and the average Armenian has nothing but contempt
                for “bourgeois democracy” – in case you thought
                Armenians are smarter.
                *
                In our circles, as in all autocratic circles,
                refusing to kiss ass is thought of as a serious offense.
                *
                The only way to understand Armenians
                (or anyone else for that matter) is to work for them
                or to be dependent on their goodwill.
                *
                I have dealt with too many crooks
                who pretended to be honest men
                to be taken in by cheap rhetoric.
                I am anti-Armenian only in the sense that
                I am anti -myself, which I believe to be
                a more useful stance that being pro-myself.
                #
                FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
                *******************************
                Once upon a time I had all the answers.
                That’s when I was a dupe.
                *
                To speak of an honest politician
                is like praising a vegetarian cannibal.
                *
                Some Armenians owe their life to Turks
                and some Armenian writers owe their death to Armenians.
                My ambition in life:
                to write a cheerful book about death.
                #
                IT TAKES TWO TO TANGO
                *********************************
                They behaved like bloodthirsty savages
                and we behaved like illiterate idiots
                who could not decipher the writing on the wall.
                *
                If our leaders emphasize the first (savages)
                and cover up the second (idiots)
                it’s because this cunning maneuver allows them
                to preside over another genocide (sbidak chart)
                and put the blame on economic, political,
                social, and cultural forces beyond their control.
                *
                But competent leadership consists
                in confronting and overcomin invisible historic forces
                that when left unchallenged
                can destroy not only tribes and nations
                but also empires as surely as
                bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians on the warpath.
                #

                Comment


                • Re: elegy

                  Sunday, May 19, 2013
                  ************************************
                  HAVE A NICE DAY
                  *************************** *********
                  As a child I was taught there are
                  two kinds of “nahadags” or martyrs:
                  regular nahadags and “esh (jackass) nahadags.”
                  A regular nahadag is one who dies
                  in the name of a cause he believes in.
                  A jackass nahadag, by contrast,
                  dies in the name of a lie someone else pretends to believe in;
                  or, in Sartre’s words, someone
                  who “believes that he believes but he doesn’t.”
                  *
                  There is no such thing as an undeserved defeat
                  or a moral victory. Both are fabrications of propagandists.
                  Only the thoroughly and systematically moronized
                  believe what their politicians tell them.
                  *
                  Patriotism is not an ideology
                  but an intellectual disease or mass moronism.
                  *
                  Example of Turkish moronism:
                  After engaging in the wholesale massacres of civilians,
                  they plead self-defense.
                  *
                  Example of Armenian moronism:
                  After dividing the nation
                  or digging its grave
                  they preach self-sacrifice, heroism, and martyrdom;
                  and they are believed by systematically moronized dupes
                  who have been brainwashed to believe they are smart.
                  *
                  Have a nice day.
                  #
                  BALONEY ARTISTS
                  ***********************************
                  Whenever I say our history has been
                  a succession of blunders and catastrophes
                  and we have been and continue to be
                  at the mercy of traitors and collaborators with the enemy,
                  I am asked: “What would you have done in their place?”
                  My standard answer to that question is:
                  “Very probably what they are did
                  and having done so
                  I would live in shame and degradation forever after.
                  I wouldn’t parade as a role model to future generations
                  I wouldn’t adopt a holier-than-thou stance;
                  I wouldn’t delivery lectures and speeches
                  on patriotism, dedication to ideals and principles,
                  self-sacrifice and heroism;
                  and I wouldn’t attack insult those
                  who dare to speak the truth.
                  *
                  One of our academics once said to me:
                  “I agree with everything you say
                  and I promise I too will speak the truth after I retire.”
                  This happened about thirty years ago
                  when he was in his sixties.
                  But as far as I know he has at no time
                  published a single word of dissent,
                  and I doubt if he ever will.
                  That’s because when you work
                  for an Armenian political party, organization or bureaucracy
                  you sign an oath of confidentiality or secrecy.
                  In effect you promise not to divulge inside information.
                  Break your promise and you get no more retirement money.
                  It’s all legal and above board.
                  Our buggers sure know how to cover their ass.
                  #
                  CELEBRITIES
                  ******************
                  Richard Burton on John (MALTESE FALCON) Huston:
                  “Huston is a simpleton. But believes himself to be a genius.
                  And a self-aggrandizing liar. Cunning at it.”
                  A “cunning” “simpleton?”
                  *
                  One reason I enjoy reading books by celebrities is that
                  every other celebrity is treated like xxxx.
                  *
                  If you like malicious gossip I recommend
                  CONVERSATIONS WITH TRUMAN CAPOTE.
                  I forget the writer’s name – he has also written
                  CONVERSATIONS WITH MARLON BRANDO.
                  *
                  Speaking of Capote and Brando:
                  the best thing I remember to have read about Brando is Capote’s
                  “The Duke in His Domain.”
                  After reading it Brando wanted to kill him.
                  #
                  AS I SEE IT
                  ***************************
                  QUESTION: What kind of revolutionaries
                  rely on foreign support?
                  ANSWER: Armenian revolutionaries.
                  *
                  A question we avoid asking:
                  What possessed us to trust Turks, Russians,
                  and today our own bosses, bishops, and benefactors?
                  *
                  I believe in god
                  but not in the god of
                  rabbis, imams, and bishops
                  Where their god enters
                  propaganda is sure to follow;
                  and where propaganda enters
                  can a big lie be far behind?
                  *
                  Throughout our history,
                  god (or our faith in him)
                  has been the least reliable source
                  of strength and support.
                  *
                  When it comes to god
                  what matters is not how we define him
                  but how our enemies define him –
                  especially if they have bigger battalions.
                  #

                  Comment


                  • Re: elegy

                    Thursday, May 23, 2013
                    **************************************
                    CHEKHOV
                    *********************
                    In one of his short stories Chekhov writes
                    (I quote/paraphrase from memory):
                    “You are saying man is the architect of his own happiness
                    and I am saying if you had a toothache
                    and a shrew as a mother-in-law
                    you would sing a different tune.”
                    *
                    DANTE AND SHAKESPEARE
                    *****************************************
                    There is a type of writer whose every statement
                    needs a footnote
                    whose every footnote needs a commentary,
                    and whose every commentary
                    needs an explanation.
                    And then there is a type of writer
                    whose statements mean what they say
                    preferably in monosyllables,
                    like “To be or not to be.”
                    *
                    WHAT IS LITERATURE
                    ********************************
                    The function of a writer, I was brought up to believe,
                    is to make the reader feel good and proud of his identity.
                    I know now that a writer is neither a comedian
                    nor an entertainer.
                    *
                    KURDISTAN
                    *****************************
                    The projected map of a future Kurdistan
                    looks surprisingly like Armenia
                    only twice as big.
                    *
                    OPTIONS
                    *********************
                    Between a past we cannot change
                    and a present we can change,
                    we have allowed our Turcocentric ghazetajis
                    and genocide academics to turn us into pillars of salt.
                    #
                    THE WRONG MAN
                    ******************************
                    If I can explain one little thing
                    that you didn’t understand before,
                    I have done my part.
                    If you read me with the hope to be enlightened,
                    you’ve got the wrong man for the job.
                    The world, the people in it,
                    God above and the Devil below
                    are a mystery to me too.
                    *
                    And speaking of people:
                    A hundred years ago they were in the business
                    of slaughtering innocent civilians
                    and creating refugees by the million.
                    They are now busy welcoming them from Syria.
                    Times change, people change, conditions change
                    and charity is thrust on some
                    as greatness is on others.
                    #
                    THE GOOD AND THE BAD
                    ************************************
                    Good Turks and Armenians exist
                    but they are outnumbered by the brainwashed.
                    *
                    All wars and massacres begin
                    in the classrooms of the nation.
                    *
                    They teach intolerance, hatred, and murder
                    and call it education and patriotism.
                    And because I say these things
                    I am thought of as an enemy.
                    #

                    Comment


                    • Re: elegy

                      Wednesday, May 29, 2013
                      *********************************
                      A PROPOSAL
                      **************************
                      The Allah of Turks and the God of Armenians
                      may not recognize each other when they meet;
                      but the God of Catholics, Protestant,
                      Etchmiadznagans and Anteliassagans is one and the same.
                      The least we can do is worship Him
                      from a single church thus saving millions
                      for the poor, the sick, and the unemployed.
                      *
                      I am not asking our bishops to give up
                      their cherished dogmas, prejudices, secretaries,
                      accountants, and fund-raisers.
                      Only the address from which they operate.
                      *
                      You say it can’t be done?
                      I say where there is a will there is a way;
                      and where there is no will
                      there are men whose number one concern
                      is number one and to hell with common sense and decency.
                      *
                      As for those who want to solve the problems of the Homeland,
                      I say to them: Start with your own backyard.
                      Deal with your own bishops, vartabeds and derders –
                      they may be more amenable to reason and compromise
                      than our crypto-Stalinist neo-commissars in the Homeland.
                      *
                      You say I repeat myself?
                      I say sometimes with unruly children you have to.
                      #
                      MEMORANDA
                      *******************************
                      No writer has ever silenced a tyrant.
                      *
                      In my formative years
                      I could not recognize a big lie when I saw one.
                      *
                      “Most theoretical ideas turn out to be wrong.”
                      *
                      When I steal I am plagiarized.
                      *
                      In Dante’s INFERNO our Turcocentric monomaniacs
                      will be condemned to write about Armenians
                      without mentioning Turks.
                      #
                      THE POSITIVE
                      AND THE NEGATIVE
                      **********************************************
                      Let others count their positives;
                      I prefer to count my negatives
                      beginning with the fact that
                      I am an Armenian who compounded the felony
                      by choosing to be a writer.
                      *
                      My father was born in Sivrihisar,
                      birthplace of Nasreddin Hodja.
                      that’s my only positive I can think of.
                      *
                      When I was a brown-nosing
                      and cowardly yes-man,
                      I thought of myself as a loyal, obedient patriotic Armenian.
                      inferiority complex or objective assessment?
                      *
                      Whenever a reader says something remotely positive about me,
                      I think: What if he is deceived?
                      What if I have achieved excellence only in deceiving others?
                      *
                      After each positive assessment
                      I think of its contradiction and see more sense in it.
                      *
                      We were subservient to Turks for 600 years.
                      Did anyone ever identify that fact as a negative?
                      #
                      ON WARS AND REVOLUTIONS
                      ********************************************
                      All wars and revolutions are driven by lies and illusions.
                      *
                      Our revolutionaries thinking
                      with God and the great powers on their side
                      they couldn’t lose.
                      *
                      Palestinians thinking as the offspring of empire builders,
                      Allah and Arab oil on their side they couldn’t lose.
                      *
                      Thinking is more like an orchestral performance
                      and less like a solo recital.
                      Many factors must be carefully and objectively assessed.
                      *
                      What a book one could write
                      on the role of wishful thinking in human affairs!
                      *
                      To how many of my patriotic readers I could say,
                      to prove you are a good Armenian
                      it is not necessary to behave like a bad Turk.
                      *
                      Censorship and propaganda are Siamese.
                      *
                      As a nation we are not guilty of genocide;
                      only in creating conditions in such a way
                      as to make genocide possible.
                      *
                      You cannot reason with a man who is blinded
                      by his own greed for power.
                      #

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