notes and comments

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Friday, August 14, 2009
*******************************************
MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL
************************************************** *
If American presidential candidates promise to recognize the Genocide and when elected they recant, it may be because they are exposed to the other side of the story and recognize themselves in Turks.
*
The expression “Young Turks” does not have a sinister connotation in English. It means enthusiastic or single-minded dedication to a cause or policy that may be unpopular in some quarters.
*
I remember, the first time I heard an Armenian say “The Turks won because they were better organized,” I was outraged. That's when I knew only one side of the story.
*
To know only one side of the story is more dangerous than to know nothing.
*
Empires do not speak the same language as tribes. Americans and Turks understand one another better than Armenian understands Armenian.
*
When our “betters” divide us, they do so with the certainty their real motives will never be uncovered, and so far they have been right but only with an increasingly diminished fraction of the people.
*
We blindly trust those who make us believe, no matter how absurd the belief system, even when they have done nothing to earn our trust.
*
It pleases us to think what others believe is a lie, and what we believe is not.
*
I began to recover my Armenian identity on the day I became aware of the Turk within me.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Saturday, August 15, 2009
*******************************************
WAS THE GENOCIDE INEVITABLE?
************************************************** *
A survivor: “Turks are nice people provided you don't step on their tail.”
*
Roupen Sevag, prominent author and victim, in a letter to his German fiancée. “The Turks are nice people if you get to know them.”
*
An Armenian: “Our revolutionaries were no better than a frog trying to rape an elephant.”
*
General Antranik: “Our revolutionaries should hang from the nearest tree.”
*
Philip Mansel, author of CONSTANTINOPLE: CITY OF THE WORLD'S DESIRE (London, 1995): “Some Armenians hoped for a massacre in the belief that it would provoke the intervention of the great powers.”
*
Christopher J. Walker, English historian: “Anyone who has studied the history of the Armenians will know that perhaps the single most dangerous illusion that the Armenians entertained was that 'Christendom' (meaning France and Britain; Italy, Germany or Russia didn't quite count) would come and rescue them.”
*
Artin Dadian, Armenian diplomat who in 1896 was appointed by the Sultan president of a commission to resolve the conflict between the Empire and the Armenian revolutionaries, in a letter to Tashnak leaders: “First, Europe shows complete indifference and says there is no Armenian question as far as they are concerned. Second, the threat of the complete annihilation of the Armenian nation has not yet entirely passed, and third, the people are tired of revolutionary actions and are ready to patch up their differences with the government in order to remain safe from further reprisals such as have almost wiped out our people from the face of the earth. Fourth, various organizations are fighting different causes, each in their own way, and in the middle of all this stands one pitiful Artin Dadian, who on the one hand begs the Sultan for mercy by telling him that this would be the best thing for his empire and on the other hand fights base individuals who in order to attain their selfish aims are willing to sell their nation.”
*
Philip Mansel again: “In 1895-6 both the Sultan and the Armenian revolutionaries treated the Armenians of Constantinople as pawns without regard for human life.”
#

[Eddo211]

Re: elegy

....General Antranik: “Our revolutionaries should hang from the nearest tree.”........

He was refering to certain few.......you are taking it out of context.

[KanadaHye]

Re: elegy

WAS THE GENOCIDE INEVITABLE?

Philip Mansel, author of CONSTANTINOPLE: CITY OF THE WORLD'S DESIRE (London, 1995): “Some Armenians hoped for a massacre in the belief that it would provoke the intervention of the great powers.”

Christopher J. Walker, English historian: “Anyone who has studied the history of the Armenians will know that perhaps the single most dangerous illusion that the Armenians entertained was that 'Christendom' (meaning France and Britain; Italy, Germany or Russia didn't quite count) would come and rescue them.”

Yeah, instead we were used by the other powers to divide and conquer the Ottoman Empire. The plan worked.

[Lucin]

Re: elegy

He was refering to certain few.......you are taking it out of context.

What do you think he is doing most of the time? And if you notice the 'style' he has chosen for his writings - a phrase or two followed by *- contributes greatly to this purpose (i.e.: taking sayings out of context to prove his empty point).

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Sunday, August 16, 2009
*******************************************
CROSS-EXAMINATION
************************************************** *
Q: You have been saying some very strange things lately.
A: Are you going to quote me now? I hate to hear my own words thrown back at me.
Q: In that case I will paraphrase you.
A: Much better, much better!
Q: Are Turks smarter than Armenians?
A: Smarter? Probably not. Luckier? Certainly.
Q: Luckier, in what way?
A: Better leadership. Or, if you prefer, more disciplined, more experienced, more professional leaders.
Q: Was the Genocide justified?
A: Justified? Certainly not! Explainable, maybe.
Q: What's the difference?
A: To explain is not to justify. You may explain a volcano. You may explain cancer. You may even explain a war. But you don't necessarily justify them.
Q: Does that make the crime of genocide less evil or the Turks less responsible?
A: No, certainly not. It may however make our leadership more incompetent.
Q: So you agree that the Turks behaved like bloodthirsty savages.
A: The few criminals among them did, yes, certainly. Did they represent the nation? I don't think so. Did Talaat represent the will of the people? Of course not. He was not democratically elected. But then, neither were our revolutionaries. The overwhelming majority of Turks were not guilty or responsible for what was done in their name, in the same way that the overwhelming majority of Armenians did not deserve their fate.
Q: Is it possible that I have misunderstood you on all these points?
A: Either that or, as one of my critics once pointed out to me, I don't know how to write.
Q: Which is it -- my fault or yours?
A: Hard to say. What I write, what you read, what you understand, and what you remember are four different things. And sometimes to read can be more challenging than to write. It took me several decades to write as I do. It took you a few minutes to read me. You cannot expect to cover the same ground that I covered in, say, thirty years in thirty seconds. If I write objectively and you read me emotionally, the twain shall never meet.
Q: Some of your readers are convinced you are anti-Armenian and pro-Turkish. True or false?
Q: I have also been accused of being in the pay of the Turkish government. My answer is an old one: My poverty is proof of my honesty. I don't judge people by their nationality. There are good Turks as surely as there are bad Armenians. My quarrel is with leaders and their dupes – regardless of nationality.
Q: If true, why do you criticize Armenians more than Turks?
A: Because Turks have their own critics. How many critics do we have? We have countless accounts of our recent history in which Turkish criminal conduct is described in great detail. Can you name a single book written by an Armenian that exposes the blunders of our own leadership?
Q: ...
A: That's what I thought.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Monday, August 17, 2009
*******************************************
UNDERSTANDING ARMENIANS
************************************************** *
“I know all I need to know.”
The words of a self-satisfied ignoramus who had an ignoramus as a teacher.
*
“The universe is comprehensible,” Einstein said.
So are Armenians. And we won't need an Einstein to explain them.
*
We like to say – it pleases us to say – it flatters our vanity to say, we were harmless prey and they were bloodthirsty predators; we were civilized herbivores and they were carnivorous barbarians. Which, in addition to being racist talk, is nonsense. Our ancestors, the Urartians, though inferior in numbers and military might, never surrendered to the Assyrians, the most formidable carnivores and bullies in the block.
In the Middle Ages, Armenian mercenaries were the most feared and expensive fighters money could hire.
Our Byzantine emperors and their Armenian generals were quintessential predators of Napoleonic dimensions (Spengler).
If we became prey it may be because we picked the wrong fight with the wrong enemy at the wrong time and place. And as if that weren't enough, we were divided against a united enemy.
*
More on divisions:
Imagine Prince Hamlet confronting the Fool.
Hamlet has a large variety of the most advanced weapons at this disposal, and the Fool only a club, but since he cannot make up his mind which weapon to use, he is clubbed to death.
Or consider the case of two retards confronting two smart operators with genius-level IQs who cannot decide on their strategy and end up fighting each other. Who wins?
*
Empires, civilizations, and nations are not killed, they commit suicide.
*
To those who say I quote things out of context, I suggest they read the books I cite; they will get all the context they need and more.
Begin with Toynbee's STUDY OF HISTORY and Philip Mansel's CONSTANTINOPLE. Both are big books but both also come with an index. Which means, no need to read them from beginning to end, just those pages in which Armenians are discussed. Needless to add, those who already know all they need to know, need not apply.
*
It never pays to sling mud hoping some of it will stick. That's not an argument but a tactic worthy of a self-satisfied ignoramus.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Tuesday, August 18, 2009
*******************************************
ON TRIBALISM
************************************************** *
Nikol Aghbalian: “We Armenians are products of the tribal mentality of Turks and Kurds, and this tribal mentality remains stubbornly rooted even among our leaders and elites.”
*
When it comes to understanding our history and the forces that went into shaping our identity, we might as well be at the Neanderthal stage.
*
No one can be as naïve (a euphemism for stupid) as a self-assessed smart Armenian, if only because he believes in his own assessment of himself.
*
When we speak of solutions, we think of a paragraph or even several numbered paragraphs of verbal formulas that, after convincing us we are on the wrong path, will lead us to the right one. Whereas I think there are no paragraphs, or books, or even entire libraries that can convince a deceiver that deception is wrong or a dupe that he is a dupe. Mankind has been blessed with a large number and variety of reformers, messianic figures, prophets, thinkers, philosophers, and teachers none of whom appears to have had any discernible effect on deceivers, including our own. But if you insist on numbered paragraphs, I submit what follows for your consideration.
*
1.
Our problems are national but our loyalties are tribal.
*
2.
Loyalty to the tribe and loyalty to the nation are mutually exclusive concepts.
*
3.
When a tribal leader speaks, he is believed by his tribe, and a tribal leader will never say tribalism is wrong.
*
4.
Tribalism is wrong because it divides the nation thus making it more vulnerable to foreign aggression.
*
5.
What's uppermost in the minds of tribal leaders is not the welfare of the nation but their own powers and privileges.
*
6.
Tribal leaders would gladly sacrifice the nation in defense of their powers and privileges.
*
7.
Tribal leaders may concede that as human beings they have made mistakes but they will never admit that their greatest mistake is their own continued existence.
*
8.
Even when they speak the truth, tribal leaders do so in defense of a big lie.
*
9.
Politics favors deceivers but not all deceivers and not all the time.
*
10.
We will begin to solve our problems on the day we drive tribal leaders out of business.
*
11.
Neanderthal man was tribal.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Wednesday, August 19, 2009
*******************************************
ARMENIANISM
************************************************** *
Eliminate all traces of Ottomanism and Sovietism from Armenianism – what's left? A blind man looking for a black hat in a dark room.
*
It has been the destiny of Armenian writers to write for Armenians and to be read by fools.
*
Don't get me wrong.
I don't write against you.
I write against myself.
I was a liar.
I was worse than a liar.
I was the dupe of liars.
I trusted my “betters.”
On what grounds?
I no longer remember.
I was too young and ignorant to need grounds.
I needed a lawyer at a time when I didn't even know lawyers existed.
*
If what I say is wrong and you correct me, where's the harm?
*
I write what I think for readers who want to read what they feel.
*
Just because no one writes as I do, it doesn't mean no one thinks as I do. It only means they have given up on us.
*
Armenians excel in one field of creativity: misunderstanding simple sentences in the English language.
*
I was brought up to believe three things:
The world is a rotten place. (It is).
I am smart. (I am not).
My betters know better. (They do not).
*
To resurrect the dead is easy.
To resurrect the living more difficult.
To resurrect the brain-dead, impossible!
*
You need the combined strength of Hercules, Atlas, and Samson to open a closed mind.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: elegy

Thursday, August 20, 2009
*******************************************
USEFUL IDIOTS
************************************************** *
Hegel is right. Those in power will never give it up without a bloody fight.
My critics call me anti-Armenian and pro-Turkish.
They say I am damaged goods in need of psychiatric care.
They say I collect everything negative that has ever been said about us and I quote out of context.
They say my knowledge of history, unlike theirs, is one-sided and defective, my judgment untrustworthy, and my sense of fairness perverted.
And now, consider what's happening in America today.
They go to town-hall meetings armed with guns.
They call Obama a Nazi.
If Obama is a Nazi, so were FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton, because all of them were for comprehensive and universal health care.
If being critical of the status quo were pro-Turkish, then all of our writers, from Khorenatsi and Yeghishé to Zohrab and Zarian were pro-Turkish. Which is not just wrong but absurd in view of the fact that both Khorenatsi and Yeghishé (5th century) lived and wrote at a time when Turks had not yet appeared on the horizon.
To paraphrase Lenin, a dupe is a dupe, and a useful idiot is a useful idiot regardless of nationality. The average Armenian, very much like the average American, is brainwashed to believe he knows all he needs to know and armed with that conviction and with the blessings of his “betters” (which in our case, are no better than wheeler-dealers, and in the case of Americans, private insurance companies, all 1300 of them, each with its own chief executive officer and fat annual bonus) demonize the opposition, sling mud hoping some of it will stick, and entertain the illusion that since this tactic has worked in the past, it may work again.
#