notes and comments

[arabaliozian]

Re: catastrophe

DEFINITIONS
***************************
There are two kinds:
dictionary or academic
and down to earth.
An example of the second follows:
“Leader: A jerk who pretends to know better
but don’t know xxxx.”
*
THE SECRET OF OUR SURVIVAL
*******************************************
Balzac: “Love and hatred are sentiments
that feed on themselves
and of the two, hatred has a longer lifespan.”
*
ARMENIAN DNA?
*****************************
Can survivors of countless wars and massacres
have a clearly identifiable DNA?
*
MORE BALZAC
************************
“The fate of the house
hangs on the wedding night.”
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

ON LIFE & DEATH
*****************************
Life is fiction;
death, non-fiction.
*

Fanatics don’t hate;
they just believe the world will be a better place
without Turks.
*
An authentic anti-Semite believes
the War of Troy was a Zionist conspiracy.
*
A writer’s greatest enemies are phony patriots.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

ON XENOPHON
***************************
About Xenophon I read today:
“As a historian he is sometimes guilty of taking sides.”
This may suggest that when a writer or speaker
takes sides he sacrifices his objectivity to propaganda
and his honesty to charlatanism.
*
ON FREE SPEECH
*******************************
Free speech is a blessing to some,
a curse to others.
*
ETIQUETTE
************************
It’s bad manners to speak of ropes
in the house of a hangman.
*
ON GENOCIDE
******************************
Genocide is a routine occurrence in a rotten empire
on the verge of disintegration.
*
BLOOD
******************
We are told both Sultan Abdulhamid II and Talaat
were part Armenian.
I challenge a Turk, any Turk, to identify himself
as someone who doesn’t have a single drop
of Armenian blood in his veins
or on his conscience.
*
ON COWARDS
***************************
There are many forms of cowardice;
fear of free speech is one of the most transparent.
*
MUSSOLINI & KEMAL
**************************************
In the same way that Italian children
were taught to say “Mussolini ha sempre ragione”
(Mussolini is always right)
Turks of all ages are taught to think
“Kemal can’t be wrong.”
This type of conditioning works only in countries
where subservience to authority is seen as a civic virtue
and critical thought as a liability.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

REFLECTIONS ON GENOCIDE
***************************************
Epictetus: “No bad man is free.”
*
Tacitus: “It is characteristic of the human mind
to hate the man one has injured.”
*
Propaganda is the mother tongue
of all political and religious leaders.
*
All declarations of war
contain a hidden assertion of moral superiority.
Even Hitler adopted the slogan
“Gott mit uns” (God with us);
and the favorite slogan of all terrorists is
“God is great.”
*
It is easy to assert moral superiority;
to prove it, that’s different.
*
In theory we are all for love, peace,
and the brotherhood of all men.
In practice, we prefer bloodshed.
*
All assertions of moral superiority
are rooted in self-flattery.
*
The 1% have more tricks up their sleeves
than the 99% have fleas.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes and comments

SITUATION / xxxxUATION
*************************************
The most important decisions in my life
were made not by me
but by men I knew nothing about
and they knew even less about me.
*
Am I a good or a bad Armenians?
Make it: As an Armenian,
do I qualify as a member of the human race?
*
We cannot be right
if we contradict one another.
*
Power corrupts; weakness destroys.
*
According to Empedocles
(5th century Greek philosopher):
“Hatred is the source of all divisions.
(I am now quoting a French dictionary of philosophy.)
*
The Romans used powdered crocodile dung
as a cosmetic
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes and comments

BARBARIANS
*********************
Man is born with the instincts of a savage beast.
Civilization is only a mask.
*
ON BENEFACTORS
************************
If their contribution is financial
and their values tribal,
they should be classified
as carcinogenic agents.
*
A PLACE IN THE SUN
*************************
I don’t hang our dirty linen in public.
I worship the sun.
*
TWO BUTCHERS
**************************
Under Talaat and Stalin
two generations of writers
were betrayed to the authorities.
The worst that can happen to me
is a bad report and no raise in salary.
But since my regular salary is zero,
That won’t make much difference
to my income bracket.
*
THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE
********************************
To survive as an Armenian writer
means to be dependent on the charity of swine.
*
ON SURVIVAL
*********************
Survival of the fittest?
Nonsense!
The triumph of the unprincipled?
That’s different.
*
ON OUR 1%
******************
Like all carnivores,
they survive on the blood of their victims.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes and comments

ON WARS & MASSACRES
*************************************
The Genocide generation understood nothing.
The post-Genocide generations understand even less.
*
In a friendless world you don’t have to go
out of your way to make enemies.
*
To live in an anti-intellectual environment
means to be at the mercy of men
who know nothing and care even less
about the nature and function of ideas.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes and comments

An honest man’s options in a crooked world are limited: if it's not the hemlock it's the cross.

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

What if God exists but wants to remain anonymous, inaccessible, and incomprehensible?