notes / comments

[arabaliozian]

more............

Sunday, June 12, 2005
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WHAT IF?
********************
When, on his first official visit to Ankara, Raffi Hovannisian raised the question of the Genocide, the Turks reacted by saying, "This man hates us - we can't deal with him." And sure enough, our president agreed with them and dismissed Raffi from his post.
*
There are Armenians to day who say they don't hate Turks, they only ask for justice. But I for one find it extremely difficult to believe that it is possible to accuse someone of rape, plunder, and murder, and not hate him.
*
Do we hate Turks? An irrelevant question. If the Turks think we hate them, it is up to us to find a way of convincing them otherwise. How? -- you may well ask. We could begin by accusing them not of murder one (premeditated) but two (manslaughter). There is a big difference.
*
If all talk of genocide is taboo in Turkey, all talk of their side of the story is taboo among us. But if we say we don't hate them, we are obliged to treat them not as dehumanized killing machines but as fellow human beings who were as much dupes of their own incompetent and corrupt leadership as we were.
*
They behaved like dupes when their leaders spread the word that the giaours (Greeks, Russians, the Great Powers, and Armenians) were out to exterminate them and that many innocent Turkish civilians were being massacred in the Balkans, in Van, and a number of villages near the Russo-Turkish border.
*
It is common knowledge that in time of war rumors of false atrocities provoke real atrocities. Politicians are fully aware of this and they exploit it whenever they want to unleash the dogs of war. During World War I rumors of German atrocities in Belgium and, more recently, during the Gulf War, rumors of Iraqi atrocities in Kuwait (later proved to be fabrications) made headlines in the international media.
*
What if isolated, false, and exaggerated rumors of Christian atrocities together with the prospect of annihilation drove the Turks to commit counter-atrocities?
*
An explanation is not a justification. I do not justify atrocities; but neither do I cover up or ignore or justify the lies of propaganda. Our leaders promised to lead us to the Promised Land. Instead they led us to the slaughterhouse. What if the two million were double victims? What if our own leadership bears part of the responsibility?
#
Monday, June 13, 2005
***********************************
DIARY
**************
A former Arab jihadist in a radio interview this morning: "Our leaders sent teenage boys on suicide missions but they send their own sons to be educated in America."
*
Last night on NBC's DATELINE something very similar was said about Mourad Topalian, an Armenian political leader. Accused of aiding and abetting Armenian terrorists in the United States and elsewhere in Europe, he was arrested, tried, found guilty, and sent to prison for 35 months.
*
When conventional wisdom and propaganda line are one and the same, it is safe to assume they are both extensions of Big Lies.
*
There is a type of Armenian who thinks being civil is a symptom of weakness; and if he is morally superior he is allowed to go down into the gutter with impunity.
*
Doctors are exposed to cancer, divorce lawyers to adultery, policemen to crime, and Armenian writers to readers eager to share their superior brand of wisdom, expertise (on any given subject), and understanding of human affairs in general and Armenian history, culture, and politics in particular - carcinogenic agents for short.
*
I have no illusions about my fellow men. I have fewer illusions about my fellow Armenians. A good man is hard to find; a good Armenian is even harder. If I come across one once a year I feel privileged indeed. I have been writing now for 25 years and I can count my friends on the fingers of a one-armed leper; but my enemies are legion. Is it because I am a nasty sonofaxxxxx? -- as my detractors like to say. Or is it because honesty is as popular among us today as it was among Greeks in the time of Diogenes?
#
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
***********************************
NOTES AND COMMENTS
**********************************
An Armenian doesn't disagree. He prefers to settle scores. Whenever I am exposed to the venom of a reader, I cannot help reflecting that it contains 600 years of subservience to the brutal authority of the Sultan.
*
A wise man once said, "I reject all -isms, except alcoholism."
*
Environments and cultures do not announce their values and rules, probably because they take them for granted. But to an outsider these values and rules come as a shock, hence the term "cultural shock." Most Armenians are products of different cultural environments. Which may explain why when two Armenians meet, they might as well be odars to each other.
*
Will Rogers: "We can't all be heroes because someone has to sit at the curb and clap as they go by."
*
Marriage is a miracle that changes a blind lover to a husband with 20/20 vision.
*
A Muslim marrying a Christian: the triumph of libido over religion.
*
Publishers today prefer to publish bad books by bad people (serial killers, bordello madams) that will make good money rather than good books by good writers that may lose money.
*
I don't know if Talaat ever said "Some of my best friends are Armenians," but he could have. After all, Zohrab saved his life.
*
Carl Van Doren: "The race of men, while sheep in credulity, are wolves for conformity."
*
Konrad Lorenz: "Human beings today succumb to barbarism because they have no more time for cultural interests."
*
The only legitimate form of censorship is not reading.
#
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
************************************
STRANGE BIRDS
***************************
Whenever in my salad days I read a book favorable to Armenians, I thought of it as still another proof of the irrefutable fact that we are loveable. This illusion was unmasked when I discovered that favorable books have been written about all nations and tribes, including Turks, Kurds, Zulus, Gypsies, and Pygmies.
*
It is a sign of abysmal insecurity to see ourselves as our friends see us and to ignore the testimony of many others who may be less favorably disposed. For every Armenophile there are probably two or more writers (among them Armenians) who have made it abundantly clear that we are as good (or as bad) as the rest of mankind and worse than some. I have myself compiled a dictionary of quotations by Armenian as well odar writers who have been extremely critical of us. If you think this is a result of the controversy between Armenophile and Turcophile writers, consider the case of Byzantine emperors of Armenian descent none of whom was particularly fond of Armenians.
*
Here is Emperor Maurice (582-602) in a letter to the King of Persia: "Armenians are troublemakers of the worse kind. I am going to collect and drive them to Thrace. I don't care what happens to them there. If they kill, they will kill my enemies. If they die, they will die as enemies. In either case, I will live in peace. But if I allow them to go on living within the Empire, I shall have no peace."
*
If you think the case of Emperor Maurice is an aberration, consider our superpatriotic Armenians who believe Armenians to be loveable (beginning with themselves, of course). If you ever dare to disagree with this type of Armenian you will acquire an enemy for life who will hate you unto death.
*
After dealing with a good number of our superpatriots, I have reached the conclusion that their sole ambition in life is to reduce their fellow Armenians into a bunch of brown-nosing parrots. Strange birds, these Armenians.
#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, June 16, 2005
********************************
ON BRAINWASHING AND RELATED ATROCITIES
************************************************** *********
Brainwashing provides two benefits to leaders and all power structures in general: (one) it creates a class of individuals willing to carry out orders without questioning them; and (two) it legitimizes a non-critical approach to life and politics. Hence the tendency of our partisans and superpatriots to silence intellectuals and to view dialogue and dissent as anti-Armenian.
*
As an Armenian, I don't believe everything an Armenian tells me, not because I am smart and I can see through him; rather, the exact contrary: because I was naïve, credulous, and foolish, especially when dealing with our "betters" - namely, bosses, bishops, benefactors, and their dupes and hirelings.
*
I remember once many years ago when I defended the integrity of a fellow Armenian on the grounds that he was a bishop, I heard one of our elder statesmen say: "They are the worse crooks!" I thought he was exaggerating (as some Armenians tend to do) to make a point. I know better now.
*
If as an Armenian I don't believe everything an Armenian tells me, how can we expect odars or, for that matter enemies, to believe us even when we say the sun rises in the east or 2+2=4?
*
To those who say one may deceive isolated individuals or groups now and then, here and there, but not an entire people, may I remind them of the Fascists who were successful in brainwashing their people (Spaniards, Italians, Germans) and Communists entire continents.
*
All power structures rely on their educational system to divide mankind into friends and enemies. Even Christians and Muslims who believe in love and compassion divide mankind into believers and heretics or infidels, after which they have no trouble in brainwashing their dupes to believe that murdering innocent civilians is their patriotic and religious duty.
*
P.S.
Gentle reader, if you say, "I am not brainwashed because no one can brainwash me," remember that only one class of individuals is in a position to make such an assertion: the brainless.
#
Friday, June 17, 2005
***********************************
If you think today as you thought five years ago, and if you believe in the next five years you will not change your mind, it may be because you happen to be brain dead. Either that or you are convinced you already know everything you need to know and what you know is the truth, and anyone who dares to disagree with you must be either an ignoramus or a liar.
*
Once upon a time I wrote as an Armenian. I now do my utmost to write as a human being. What really matters about an idea is not its nationality but its universality. If I reject Armenian nationalism it's because I reject all nationalism. We contradict ourselves when we say yes to Armenian nationalism and no to Turkish nationalism; and it makes little sense to say Armenian propaganda deals with facts and Turkish propaganda deals with fabrications.
*
When it comes to the study of history, there are an infinite number of facts and there is no merit in cataloguing them. Facts acquire a meaning only when selected and interpreted. Facts matter but what matters even more are the criteria of selection and interpretation.
*
None of us will ever know everything there is to know about the past, which is why historiography is not a science but an art.
*
As Armenians the challenge we confront today is not gaining the trust of our fellow Armenians but of our adversaries. We succeed only in compromising our commitment to justice by calling anyone who disagrees with us an ignoramus and a liar, or, for that matter, an Asiatic barbarian, even if deep down we believe Turks to be liars, ignoramuses, rapists, and cold-blooded murderers of two million innocent civilians.
#
Saturday, June 18, 2005
**************************************
Reasonable men defend what in the eyes of other reasonable men is indefensible because they are convinced they base their defense on irrefutable facts. What they may not be aware of is that these facts may have been carefully selected by unconsciously acquired criteria determined by peer pressure, education, environment, culture, religion, self-interest and so on.
*
Throughout history man has hated in the name of love, committed injustices in the name of justice, and professed dedication to truth in the name of a Big Lie. Which is why after centuries and millennia Jews and Christians, Protestants and Catholics, supporters and opponents of capital punishment, abortion, and war, have failed to resolve their differences.
*
There are eminent Catholic theologians today who don't believe in the infallibility of the Pope and, my guess is, they have counterparts in all belief systems.
*
If some day man learns to live in peace with his fellow men, it will be because of the courage and integrity of dissidents. But until then these dissidents will be seen as renegades, pariahs, heretics, and enemies.
*
Having said this I will now be accused of being a denialist by Armenians who confuse explaining with justifying, and understanding with condoning.
#

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, June 19, 2005
******************************
CONFESSIONS AND OBSERVATIONS
*********************************************
Armenians are brought up to believe Turks are nasty folk and Armenians la crème de la crème. Then they meet an Armenian like me and they begin to have second thoughts about some Armenians, never about themselves and Turks.
*
An Armenian pundit projects the image of someone who understands all men, except his fellow Armenians.
*
Between carbon copies of himself and human beings, an Armenian will invariably choose the carbon.
*
I am willing to concede that all my observations on Armenians are also confessions.
*
An Armenian has two sets of enemies, Turks and Armenians, and of the two, he hates Armenians more.
*
Eventually all thinking Armenians will have to ask the question: What if it is not God at whose right hand we sit but the Devil?
*
An Armenian would rather shoot the messenger than understand the message.
*
When I was young I thought I had all the answers. But even after I realized not only the answers but also the questions were wrong, I went on pretending I had all the answers.
*
What if some of my readers hate me because they hate being unmasked even more?
*
When Zarian said, "An Armenian's tongue can be sharper than a Turk's yataghan," what he meant was that an Armenian uses words as murder weapons.
#
Monday, June 20, 2005
**********************************
Since I have never been a member of any party, club, bureaucracy or power structure, I agree with Toynbee that institutions are "moral slums." And they are moral slums because they classify and dehumanize man by thinking in terms of "you either qualify or you don't," or "you are either with us or against us."
*
Notwithstanding the fact that I have published hundreds of book reviews and commentaries in which I have asserted the reality of our genocide, I am classified by some of my readers as a "denialist" only because I want to understand Turks, and I know that my only chance of understanding them is by treating them as fellow human beings as opposed to dehumanized killing machines.
*
By treating Turks as human beings I also hope to treat my fellow Armenians as human beings because if I don't, I will reach the same conclusion as an 81-year old born-again, Bible-quoting friend of mine who believes God allowed the massacre of the Armenians because "Armenians are evil." My good friends thinks so because, like the rest of us, he has witnessed and experienced instances of Armenian dogmatism, intolerance, arrogance, greed, double-talk, and fanaticism - failings that may be universal, but so is the temptation to see them as manifestations of evil.
*
One could say that, by classifying Armenians as evil, my born-again friend, whose favorite slogan is "Jesus loves you," commits the very same blunder as our partisans who classify Armenians in terms of "you are either with us or against us," or "you are either a good Armenian by dehumanizing Turks, or a denialist by suggesting that Turks deserve to be understood and treated as fellow human beings."
*
Whenever I read still another nasty commentary on Turks in one of our weeklies, I am reminded of Oscar Wilde's definition of fox hunting: "The unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable." And whenever a reader insults me because I don't share his prejudices I am tempted to quote one of Zarian's final reflections in his posthumously published notebooks: "Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another."
#
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
**********************************
THE BIRTH OF DENIAL
****************************
A Turk sees a corpse with a knife in his belly. He assumes the killer to be an Armenian and cries: "The giaours are out to exterminate us." The rumor spreads like wildfire. Where there is prejudice and hatred, massacre becomes counter-massacre, retaliation, justifiable homicide, self-defense, tribal justice, and denial. All because, very much like Armenians, Turks too believe everything they read in their own papers.
*
I have a friend who reads books only to make a list of the misprints. That's how he gets his kicks. Perversions come in all sizes and shapes.
*
American celebrities have stalkers. I have them too even though I am not a celebrity. That's the problem with being an Armenian writer: you get all the disadvantages and none of the advantages.
*
Once upon a time we were subservient to their sultans. We are now subservient to our own mini-sultans. As the French say: "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme xxxx."
*
Knowledge is like light: once you have seen it, you cannot be thrust back into ignorance.
*
Self-assessed good people make bad company because they expect everyone to be as phony as they are.
*
It has been scientifically proved that laughter is the best cure for whatever ails you, including constipation, hypertension, cancer, and Armenian venom.
#
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
***********************************
ON THE ORIGINS OF CONTROVERSIES
**********************************************
For millions of years men thought the earth was flat until scientists came along and said otherwise. Even so, there are people today who continue to subscribe to the flat-earth theory because they rely more on their perception of reality and less on the gobbledygook of eggheads.
*
Even when propaganda deals in facts it is a Big Lie because it ignores other facts.
*
Understanding consists in becoming aware of a set of facts that until then had been invisible.
*
To mystics, men of faith, and some philosophers (among them Plato and his followers) reality is an illusion, a shadow, and a mirage.
*
"If the Turks believed they were carrying out the will of God, can they be said to be guilty?" Some years ago when I asked this question to one of our eminent genocide scholars, he refused to reply.
*
Behind the facts there are always other facts and, more often than not, disagreements arise not because one side supports the truth and the other supports a lie but because both sides support a different set of facts.
*
To men of faith God is the only reality.
*
When we say our victims are proof of our genocide, they say, their religion (which sanctions the killing of infidels) is proof of their innocence.
*
Again, I am not justifying anything. I am trying to understand and explain. If you have a better explanation, I am more than willing to consider it.
#

[arabaliozian]

more........

#
Thursday, June 23, 2005
*********************************
If you want to understand Turks and Turkish history, read a Turkish or a Turcophile historian to get all the positive aspects, an Armenian historian to get all the negatives and, say, an English or French historian (provided neither is a Turcophile or Armenophile) to get a more balanced view. The same applies to the history of all nations, including Armenia. But if you really want to understand history, or why things happen as they do and when they do, read a metahistorian or a philosopher of history.
*
Metahistorians are to nationalist historians what Elvis and Madonna are to Mozart and Brahms. This much said, however, let me warn the reader that, like scientists, psychologists, economists, and cosmologists, metahistorians do not provide final answers. What they do is take a step in the right direction. They advance human understanding.
*
After reading metahistorians like Spengler and Toynbee, for instance, you may not understand everything there is to understand about the past but you may understand many things that you did not understand until then, the most important being the way in which propaganda motivates, influences, and shapes all nationalist historians.
#
Friday, June 24, 2005
**********************************
The Germans have pleaded guilty to the charge of genocide. Why can't the Turks do likewise? Two reasons: the Germans pleaded guilty under duress - they were defeated and they declared unconditional surrender. And it was not the perpetrators (the Nazis) who pleaded guilty but their opposition.
*
A biography of Homer? It would be less than a page long: He trudged from village to town and from town to city retelling stories he had heard as a boy.
*
I was an obedient son, a good student, a law-abiding citizen, and a hard-working employee. Only when I started writing for Armenians did I become a heretic, a renegade, an enemy, a traitor, a rat, and a scumbag.
*
Our weeklies publish such a steady and predictable stream of anti-Turkish commentaries that I suspect if our editors were to define Armenianism, they would say it consists in hating Turks. And to think that these are the very same people who criticize me on the grounds that I repeat myself and I am consistently negative.
#
Saturday, June 25, 2005
**************************************
Once you know the truth, you cannot bury it and the more you try to bury it, the more it buries you.
*
I think it was Verdi who once observed that sometimes your enemies are a better source of publicity than your friends.
*
An Armenian controversy is massacre without bloodshed.
*
The message of all dissidents of all ages may be abridged thus:
The emperor has no duds, no xxxx, no balls, and no brains.
#
In Julien Green's diary I read that bullfights were popular in Spain because the people identified the bull with the government.
*
Victor Hugo once compared Notre-Dame de Paris to a donkey's ears.
*
During a theatrical intermission De Gaulle and his Minister of Culture (Andre Malraux) retire to the man's room, and while they are busy at the urinals, Malraux tries to make conversation by commenting on the play: "It's a great piece," he says. And de Gaulle replies: "Look elsewhere!"
*
There are atheists because there are believers who behave like swine.
#.

[arabaliozian]

more...

Sunday, June 26, 2005
*********************************
Life is so complex, men so incomprehensible, and so many things remain half-said or unsaid that it is only the naïve and the brainwashed who think everything that needs to be said has been said and the only thing that remains to be done is to repeat and recycle.
*
In your efforts to justify your prejudices, take care not to expose your blind spots and limitations.
*
Mount Ararat is a bad choice of symbols. A filthy old harbor would have been much more useful to us than ten Ararats.
*
HAIKU
**************
After old man Noah
Ararat has been of use
To no one.
*
I am not suggesting we should forget the Genocide, but neither should we be reminded of it 24/7, to the point that Turks become carcinogenic agents and are thus allowed to commit genocide for the second time, and this time around with our full cooperation.
*
There is no such thing as a literary work that bears the seal of approval of a bureaucracy. Such a seal would be the kiss of death.
*
Decent Turks and Armenians both have so much to criticize about their own respective leadership that they have every reason to leave one another alone.
#
Monday, June 27, 2005
****************************************
I'VE BEEN READING
*****************************
"There is no lavatory here. You have to answer the call of nature in front of nature, in ravines and under bushes. My arse has been bitten all over by mosquitoes." I am quoting from ANTON CHEKHOV: A LIFE IN LETTERS, edited and translated by Rosamund Bartlett (London, 2004). Until very recently all such passages were omitted from Chekhov's published letters to preserve his image as a refined gentleman. We meet the real Chekhov here -- a man who enjoyed visiting xxxxxhouses and writing about his observations and experiences there in some detail to friends.
*
Chekhov on Aivazovsky: "If you suggest to him that he might like to read something, he replies, 'Why should I read when I have opinions of my own?'" Such a typical Armenian reply!
*
Ever since I discovered Stuart Woods I have been reading a minimum of two of his mysteries every week and I am about to run out of them - a depressing prospect. His central characters are like 007 - Bond, James Bond -- who know all about wines, cars, planes, boats, guns, and women's erogenous zones. His plots are suspenseful, implausible and believable at the same time. His gallery of rogues is colorful and expertly depicted. The dialogue is witty and street-smart.
*
Understanding is like science. As soon as a theory of relativity is established, someone else is bound to come along and refine it, amend it, and eventually reject it.
*
If, according to my critics, I am a bad Armenian, then use me as a warning or a negative role model. As for positive role models: we have an abundance of bosses, bishops, benefactors, and superpatriots you can choose from.
*
There is no such thing as an ideology whose aim is to weaken the nation, especially a nation that has already been weakened by centuries of brutal oppression. And yet, by dividing us, what our ideologies have done is add a few more cuts to our death of a thousand.
#
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
*********************************
FRAGMENTS
*********************
Like the Turks, we are a nation in denial. They deny the Genocide, we deny our shortcomings. We go further, we think our shortcomings are our virtues and our liabilities our assets.
*
We don't understand ourselves because our psyche was shaped by suppressed experiences. When we think of our character and worldview, how many of us take into account 600 years of subservience?
*
I don't expect my readers to enjoy reading me. I am not in the entertainment business. Let them get angry. Let them even hate me as long as they recognize themselves in what I say.
*
Since I have spent most of my life in the company of books, my memoirs - if I ever write them - will be a narrative of states of mind. In that sense, everything I write may be seen as an autobiographical fragment.
*
Solzhenitsyn once said: "No regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones." He should have said: No regime has ever loved literature, only recycled crap. Or even better: No tyrant has ever loved honest men, only subservient brown-nosers.
#
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
**************************************
ON NATIONALISM
**************************
On The radio this morning I heard Callas singing Puccini and Richter playing Rachmaninov: a Greek and a German Jew interpreting Italian opera and Russian music respectively. And I think of the three ablest interpreters of J.S. Bach: a Polish Jew (Wanda Landowska), a Spaniard (Pablo Casals) and a Canadian (Glenn Gould). In other fields, we have a Corsican (Napoleon), who inspired the word "chauvinism," and who spoke French with an Italian accent; a Georgian (Stalin) in whose version World War II became "the Patriotic War;" an Austrian (Hitler), the most notorious "nationalist" German leader. In literature we have an Irishman (Joyce) and a Russian (Nabokov), the two most brilliant English stylist of 20th century; and let's not forget the three founders of the Absurdist Theater in French literature: Adamov (an Armenian), Beckett (an Irishman), and Ionesco (a Romanian).
*
To be satisfied with easy explanations is a symptom of single-digit IQ. To be satisfied with explanations that are recycled propaganda is a symptom of no IQ. And to be satisfied with explanations that flatter one's vanity is a symptom of negative IQ.
*
The longer I live the more doubts I have. I miss the good old days when I knew everything I needed to know and I had all the answers.
*
Speak the truth and all the liars of the world will unite and say: "How dare you, sir, utter such nonsense?"
#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, June 30, 2005
**********************************
There is a familiar type of Armenian who wouldn't dare to tell a bus

driver how to drive a bus, or an insurance salesman how to sell

insurance, or a dog-catcher how to catch dogs, but who feels fully

qualified to tell a writer what to write, not because he has had a

radically different set of experiences but because he has been

brainwashed to believe he is smart and that he is so far ahead of you

that even if he is wrong he knows better.
*
I speak from experience. I too was brainwashed to believe I was so far

ahead of the competition that no matter how fast they ran, they would

never catch up with me. It took me many years to think not as a

loud-mouth, self-righteous Armenian dupe but as a born-again human

being whose knowledge and understanding were limited, whose assertions

contained uncertainties, and whose infallibility was a figment of his

own febrile imagination.
*
I know now that repeating what I was told as a child does not qualify

as thinking, learning consists in unlearning all the nonsense I was

taught as a child, and there is no merit in emphasizing the positive

and covering up or ignoring the negative.
*
I know now that the only way to understand myself and others is to face

facts as they are and not as I would like them to be, and the only way

to do that is by being honest and objective even if I am forced to

reach conclusions that may be painful to my vanity.
*
To those of my readers who have had an Armenian education, I ask: Do

you know the Armenian words for honest and objective? Do they exist?

And if they do, when was the last time you heard them spoken by any one

of our bosses, bishops, benefactors and their flunkies and dupes?
#
Friday, July 01, 2005
**********************************
On the radio this morning Turks were in the news again. It seems a good

number of European countries do not endorse their human rights record

and their chances of joining the EU are slim. The Armenian genocide was

not mentioned but I expect it may be in future installments. Not that

it matters. In politics a month is a lifetime. Another major terrorist

attack in Paris, Rome or Berlin and the balance may shift in favor of

Turks. The great powers played us like football in the past and they

will do it again when it suits them. It would be a mistake on our part

to take anyone's alliance or sympathy seriously. No one takes us

seriously, not even most of us.
*
The Middle East is a tinderbox and notwithstanding the pontifications

and predictions of our self-appointed pundits, no one is in a position

to see what lies on the other side of the hill, let alone beyond the

horizon.
*
I was wrong when I said no one takes us seriously. I should have said,

"no one but our dupes…"
*
Words are a writer's tools. I can recognize the words of a dupe from

the words of one who has been deprogrammed. I can recognize them for

another reason. Once upon a time I too was brainwashed. But after many

painfully disappointing experiences I was successful in deprogramming

myself. I can afford being honest and objective, that is to say, being

labeled as an enemy of the people by our crypto-commissars and

mini-sultans.
#
#
Saturday, July 02, 2005
********************************
THE LESSONS OF HISTORY
****************************************
When it comes to trusting either politicians or men who dedicate themselves to selfless intellectual labor, mankind has exhibited a
pronounced predilection to choose politicians.
*
Greeks in the 5th Century BC trusted the judgment of their politicians and condemned Socrates to death as if he were a criminal guilty of a
capital offense. More recently, when Germans had a choice between Goethe and Goebbels, they chose Goebbels.
*
Man calls himself homo sapiens, behaves like an asinus ignoramus, and sees neither inconsistency nor contradiction.
*
When Socrates exposed the ignorance of his contemporaries he was accused of negativism by his executioners, who by killing him saw
themselves as respectable, law-abiding citizens making a positive
contribution to the community.
*
When the Nazis went about their murderous task of exterminating the Jews, they too believed they were making a positive contribution to mankind.
*
That's the way it is with politicians. Before they start murdering innocent people, they brainwash themselves and their dupes into
believing they are doing mankind a favor.
#

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, July 03, 2005
*******************************
Philippa Scott in a recent issue of the SPECTATOR: "For centuries in the Caucasus women sang to their daughters: 'Live among diamonds and splendor as the wife of the Sultan.'" I remember when a couple of years ago I paraphrased the lyrics of this lullaby, one of my gentle readers called me "son of a Turkish xxxxx!"
*
To brag is to lie. Chauvinism is a symptom of inferiority, and I don't mean inferiority complex or feelings of inadequacy but moral decay.
*
The question I am beginning to ask myself is: What if so far all I have done is flatter our vanity if only by implying that we are not yet beyond reason? What if by suggesting that we may still hope I have done nothing but recycle nationalist propaganda, that is to say, the very thing whose evil I have been trying to expose?
*
Whenever a friend wants to make me feel better, he tells me "the pen is mightier than the sword," or "at the beginning was the word." I know now that the dollar is mightier than the pen, and at the beginning may have been the word because neither the sword had been forged nor the dollar minted. What if literature is a waste of time, poets are no better than birds serenading the moon, and thinkers nothing but mental masturbators?
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Monday, July 04, 2005
*********************************
REASON AND INSTINCT
************************************
What separates us from animals is reason, not instinct. Animals have instinct too, and they may even have a far more developed and refined version of it that allows them to foresee earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis.
*
To follow the dictates of instinct (or gut feelings) means to ignore the voice of reason, which also means to behave in an unreasonable manner.
*
Where reason tries to understand, instinct arouses fear and hatred, among other emotions; and emotions, according to Sartre, "are attempts to change the world by quasi-magical means."
*
War and massacre, and violence in general, are extensions of instinct as surely as fear and hatred. Whenever instinct is not modified by reason the result is bound to be personal tragedy or collective catastrophe.
*
To say "I have a gut feeling" might as well be synonymous with "I am probably wrong."
*
When our revolutionaries rose against the Turks at the turn of the last century they followed their gut feelings. When the Turks reacted by trying to exterminate us, they committed the same blunder. And if we hate the Turks today it's because we allow our gut to paralyze our brain.
*
Please note that I am not preaching love (I leave that to our dime-a-dozen sermonizers) but understanding.
*
When a fanatic contradicts a man of reason, it only means that he has succumbed to the dictates of his gut at the expense of his brain. And when a fanatic convinces himself that he has reason on his side, it only means that he is driven to do so not by reason but by instinct.
*
Fanatics do not reason, they rationalize, and to rationalize means "to make something irrational appear rational or reasonable."
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Tuesday, July 05, 2005
********************************
AXIOMS AND COROLLARIES
*****************************************
If your enemy is united and you are divided, even if you are the mightiest empire on earth, you are destined to be defeated by the weakest of nations.
*
To assert that we were divided on account of our geography is to imply that we were not masters of our mountains and valleys but their slaves. Which also means that we allowed unthinking factors to shape our thinking and, by extension, our destiny.
*
Once upon a time we were subservient to mountains and valleys. Then we became subservient to Romans, Persians, Byzantine Greeks, Arabs, Turks, and Russians. Subservience has become second nature with us. So much so that even when we live in free democracies we continue to be subservient to our bosses, bishops, benefactors, and their hirelings. Which also means that we are not just slaves but slaves of former slaves.
*
We behave like slaves of former slaves when we allow our present masters to brainwash us into believing that we continue to be dependent on Turks and their goodwill, when we say the only way for an Armenian to achieve closure or inner balance is acknowledgment of the Genocide. What we really mean by inner balance, I suspect, is freedom, which raises the question: When was the last time we were truly free? Were we ever free under the Ottomans or the Soviets, two of the most tyrannical systems in the history of mankind?
*
We may be the slaves of former slaves but we are past masters in one field - that of the blame game. We ascribe all our blunders, miscalculations, and misfortunes on others. If it's not the bloodthirsty disposition of Asiatic barbarians it is the morally degenerate West.
*
As for being the first nation to convert to Christianity, allow me to quote Hegel: "The Christian frees himself from the human Master only to be enslaved by the divine Master…" Not that we ever went as far as freeing ourselves from human masters…
*
Writes Hagop Garabents (1925-1996): "Once upon a time we fought and shed our blood for freedom. We are now afraid of free speech." Censorship is a convenient tool for people who refuse to face reality.
*
We silence dissenters in the same way that our former masters silenced us. Because a slave's role models are not free men but masters, and according to Hegel once more, "Everything that the Slave does is an activity of the Master."
*
It is true that we only silence our dissenters, we don't cut out their tongues, Ottoman style, not because we are more civilized than our former masters but because cutting out tongues is against the law. But the result is the same.
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Wednesday, July 06, 2005
**********************************
Our organizations outnumber our population, and yet we remain the least organized of nations -- with the probable exception of Kurds and Gypsies. This is known as the "many chiefs and no Indians" syndrome.
*
It is impossible to agree on solutions with someone who rejects the existence of problems.
*
I am not against God and capital (make it Capital and god), or, for that matter, religions and ideologies in general, but I do have second thoughts about what's being done in their name.
*
Anonymity is a mask and sometimes a mask reveals more than it hides.
*
Do I hate my fellow Armenians? I am not sure. I hate all liars and manipulators regardless of race, color, and creed, and if some Armenians lie and manipulate I do not see why I should love them.
*
We cannot face today's reality with yesterday's illusions.
*
Rock singers today think they can end poverty in Africa with money. Others think money will only prop up corrupt regimes. Who is right? I am not sure. But I am sure of one thing: there is no wisdom in money--but try to explain that to the wealthy.
*
What if an exposed Big Lie is immediately replaced with two or even twenty-two little lies?
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[arabaliozian]

Thursday, July 07, 2005
*******************************
SHISH-KEBABING A SACRED COW
*********************************************
In an essay titled "William Saroyan's Unchained Ego," Brooke Allen writes: "Saroyan was self-destructive on an epic scale, a monster of narcissism who let his outsize ego blight and finally devour his life."
*
Further down: "Saroyan wrote blistering escoriations of phoniness [but] he had very little to offer in place of phoniness except for an idealized innocence that is sometimes pretty phony in its own right."
*
Allen further quotes from the memoirs of Saroyan's wife, Carol Matthau: "Because he had gone on record on loving humanity, he didn't have to be nice to the people in his life." Comments Allen: "'Didn't have to be nice' is a wild understatement. Saroyan was a world-class, king-sized, copper-bottomed xxxx with a capital S."
*
I quote these lines from Allen's essay because they epitomize some of our collective failings, among them our chauvinism (or narcissism), our divisions and fragmentation promoted and legitimized by our ego-driven bosses, bishops, and benefactors (self destructive urges), and finally, our addiction to clichés, slogans, double-talk, and propaganda (i.e. phoniness).
*
As I see it, our choice is between believing our own positive assessment of ourselves or considering the merits of the testimony of more objective and impartial witnesses no matter how negative or hostile.
*
For more on Saroyan, see ARTISTIC LICENSE: THREE CENTURIES OF GOOD WRITING AND BAD BEHAVIOR by Brooke Allen (Chicago, 2004).
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Friday, July 08, 2005
**********************************
BOOK REVIEW
********************
INDEPENDENCE ARMY: STORIES. By Vahe Avetyan. 294 pages. (Stockholm, 2005). (In Armenian).
************************************************** *
In this collection of anecdotes, encounters, dialogues, reflections, comments, autobiographical fragments, and poems, Vahe tells it like it is. If you don't like blunt talk, this book is not for you.
*
"Show me an intellectual who praises political leaders and I will show you a BROWN-NOSER," he writes.
*
"I am not a writer," he declares at one point. Yet, he writes with the spontaneity of a volcanic eruption.
*
"My teacher of political science once told me, 'Vahe, remember that politics is not necessarily prostitution. It becomes one only when xxxxxs engage in it.'"
*
"I don't remember a single lesson about loving mankind, but about loving one's country, as many as you like. And it is in the name of this love that we were taught to hate."
*
On the prospects of the Armenian diaspora: when asked about it, an activist friend in Buenos Aires replies: "If we start thinking about our prospects, we will stop acting."
*
"On rereading what I have written, I am astonished at my own genius, but I am also willing to concede that in a few years, when I reread these lines, I shall have to admit that I am no better than a jackass."
*
On one level this is an intensely Armenian book, but on another it is also anti-Armenian -- or rather the anti-Ottomanized and anti-Sovietized version of Armenianism.
*
If I were to summarize Vahe's central message, it would be: You have to die as an Armenian to be reborn as a human being, and only after you are reborn as a human being, may you hope to be a good Armenian. Or: "To renounce your self you must first have a self."
*
As long as we have writers like Vahe Avetyan among us, we may think about our prospects with renewed hope.
*
P.S. After reading Vahe's book, I started reading Umberto Eco's ON LITERATURE (New York, 2004), in which I came across the following paragraph: "If one maintained that all myths, all revelations in every religion, were nothing but lies, then, since belief in gods, of whatever kind, has shaped human history, we could only conclude that we have been living for millennia under the rule of falsehood."
*
If to "belief in gods" one were to add all kinds of ideologies, from nationalism and communism to many other isms (with the possible exception of alcoholism), one could divide writers into two broad categories: those who justify and perpetuate falsehoods and those who expose and ridicule them. Vahe belongs to the second category, for which reason he deserves our admiration and gratitude.
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Saturday, July 09, 2005
**************************************
HISTORIANS: A DIALOGUE
******************************************
QUESTION: If you needed the services of, say, a lawyer, an architect, or a doctor, would you choose a professional or an amateur?
ANSWER: I would choose a professional, of course!
Q: Between a layman's version of the past and a historian's, whose version would you trust more?
A: I would trust the historian's.
Q: Why?
A: Because, unlike a layman, a historian has spent a lifetime studying the past and he knows and understands more than any layman.
Q: If you trust a historian more and a layman less, does that mean you trust all historians more?
A: In relation to all laymen, yes.
Q: As an Armenian, and on the subject of our genocide, would you trust a Turkish historian more than an Armenian layman?
A: No, I wouldn't.
Q: Why not?
A: Because I know better and i have read Armenian historians.
Q: Even though you are a layman and the Turk a professor of history?
A: Yes.
Q: Then, would you agree with me when I say that some laymen or amateurs are more trustworthy than some professionals?
A: On some subjects, yes.
Q: So that even when a historian knows much more than a layman, his lack of honesty and objectivity may make his knowledge worthless?
A: It would appear so, yes.
Q: And when it comes to history, honesty and objectivity are far more important criteria than acquaintance with facts and documents?
A: Again, it would appear so, yes.
Q: Nothing further.
#

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, July 10, 2005
**********************************
THE SWAN SONG OF A JACKASS
******************************************
That's the tentative title of my memoirs, if I ever write one. Swan song because it will probably be my last book, and jackass because only a jackass would write for Armenians.
*
When a self-appointed Armenian pundit - that is to say, the average Armenian reader -- assumes he knows and understands more, he will also assume you know and understand less. That is why his arguments are nothing but disguised insults.
*
Writing for Armenians is a waste of time. Even an Armenian with a single-digit IQ assumes he is smarter and knows better than all our writers (past, present, and future) put together.
*
I have met many self-assessed smart Armenian who are no better than damn fools, and there is a very simple explanation for that. Only damn fools believe in their own assessment of themselves.
*
When one thousand people agree on a lie, it is no longer a lie but state-sanctioned and legitimized propaganda.
*
We may fool ourselves with our rhetoric and propaganda, but the first thing an outsider does is detect and discard both.
*
A brainwashed person is as subservient as a slave, even when he thinks he is free. His thoughts and actions are not his but those of his masters, even when he thinks he has none.
*
An honestly written meaningful line is like music; it can comfort, excite, astonish, and thrill. But in the same way that even the most beautiful music has no effect on the tone deaf, good writing has no effect on philistines and phonies. Hence, their contempt for writers and literature in general.
*
At a time when I thought political commitment was a good thing in a writer, because without it he would be condemned to write about such frivolous subjects as "the mutual torments of love" (Sartre), I was told by one of our elder statesmen: "In our environment, literature and politics are mutually exclusive concepts." I know now that what he meant was partisan politics, and our partisans today are more interested in the past than in the present and future, because they have more blunders to cover up and more scores to settle than Sicilian famiglias.
#
Monday, July 11, 2005
**********************************
Sometimes conventional wisdom is no better than collective insanity.
*
In America even philomoronism is thought of as a school of philosophy. What a country!
*
You cannot reason with someone who believes God Almighty is on his side.
*
Literature is incompatible with big business, religion, and ideology. In other words, where bosses, bishops, and benefactors enter, literature exits, or rather, it is given the bum's rush. Writers know this. Law-abiding citizens couldn't care less.
*
There is something fundamentally wrong in an environment where adults think like children and where children are taught to contradict their elders.
*
Patriotism preaches love but practices hatred.
*
Don't raise your voice to stress the validity of an argument. Loudmouth eloquence is an oxymoron.
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Tuesday, July 12, 2005
************************************
DIARY
**************
Woke up this morning with the overture of Mozart's "Magic Flute," and remembered his unforgettable quote, "I write music with the same ease that a pig piddles." And I thought of our pundits who also write with the same ease but what they produce is no better than a pig's piddling. As they say in polite society, forgive my French; and as they say in Washington, if you don't like blunt talk stay away from the kitchen.
*
The Jews are fond of saying that whenever the goyim want to solve their problems, they start killing Jews…and we start silencing writers. The defenseless make the best scapegoats.
*
Political parties that are mistakes don't make mistakes.
*
People who have nothing to brag about brag about nothing.
*
Under Hitler the Gestapo knew better, and under Stalin the KGB. When the men at the top are hoodlums, hoodlums will assume to know better.
*
We are bad talkers and worse walkers.
*
You may have noticed that some of our academics write as if Armenian history began with the massacres and ended with Turkish denial.
*
Political leaders try to recreate the nation in their own image, and whenever the nation cooperates disaster is bound to follow.
*
Devil's advocates I can deal with, but devils, that's different.
*
Serial killers, rapists, and child molesters: they are not mankind but a fraction of it. Likewise, perpetrators of massacres are not the nation but a fraction of it. To hate a nation makes as much sense as to hate mankind.
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Wednesday, July 13, 2005
*************************************
The first thing fascists do when they assume power is to systematically exterminate intellectuals -- remember Talaat and Stalin. And when they can't kill, they silence; and when they can't silence, they trash.
*
"How dare you criticize bishops?" an angry reader once demanded to know. "Even if they are bad men, they are still men of God!"
*
"Our benefactors have been rebuilding the Homeland," another gentle reader points out. "What the hell have you been doing?"
*
I remember a neighbor in the ghetto, a survivor and a dedicated member of the Party, speaking of a fellow Armenian who came to a bad end: "He wasn't all there, you see. He actually criticized the Party. Imagine that if you can. Criticizing the Party! Unheard of [chelesvads pan]! You can't criticize the Party!"
*
An old friend of the family: "On your own, you can do nothing. As a member of the Party - that's different!" Translation: As an honest writer you are bound to starve. As a brown-noser, you may go places. Or, in the words of Carol Matthau, Saroyan's ex-wife, in her memoirs: "There is a saying in Armenian: 'When I say la, you must understand lalabloo."
*
You want to survive as an Armenian? Learn to say "Yes, sir!" We all know what happened to us when we stopped saying "Yes, sir!" to the Sultan. Learn from history! Be subservient!
*
One of our partisan flunkeys who is also an imam of genocide recently dismissed my work as "philosophical gobbledygook."
*
An uncle twice or thrice removed and a retired cab driver in his eighties: "How much do they pay you for each article you publish in the papers? Nothing? Has it ever occurred to you that they pay you nothing because what you write is worth nothing?" I am grateful to this uncle. It was from him and his kind that I learned the art of blunt talk.
*
Perhaps I am on the wrong path. I should learn to say these things with some degree of detachment, irony, and style. But then, why should I give a damn when no one else does? Bishops speak in the name of god, benefactors in the name of Capital, and bosses in the name of power, the mob, and the imperative of history. What do writers to? They deal in verbal manure and what they say can't be worth a fly's fart.
#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, July 14, 2005
*************************************
In our environment those who can't understand the present predict the future.
*
Unhappy is the nation whose prophets mouth the slogans of charlatans.
*
Ours is a democracy modified by corruption, incompetence, and assassination.
*
Our charlatans tell us it may take anywhere from 15 years to two generations (half a century) for things to improve. That's because, they explain, it is not easy to de-Ottomanize and de-Stalinize a nation.
*
But Armenians are smart, enterprising, and adaptable. To survive they emigrate. They emigrate even to Siberia and Turkey where they hope to get a better deal. And our "betters" encourage emigration because they know if the number of the unemployed and destitute goes up, so will general discontent which may lead to riots and, inevitably, to embarrassing headlines in the international press.
*
The solution, according to our charlatans, patience -- a euphemism for subservience, namely, that which our Ottoman and Soviet masters taught us.
*
Our charlatans expect us to believe that our "betters" know better. What they don't tell us is that our "betters" may well be our worst.
*
What if patience and subservience in our case mean passive acceptance of corruption, thievery, abuses of power, prostitution, and crime in high places? No matter. We are expected to believe that our men at the top know their business. Yes, maybe. But what if their business is taking care of number one and emasculating the nation?
*
Our charlatans tell us our bosses, bishops, and benefactors know better because they speak in the name of god and Capital, and when god and Capital speak, scribblers should shut up and listen; and if they don't, they should be silenced, that is to say, they should have their tongues cut out, Ottoman style.
#
Friday, July 15, 2005
*************************************
THE IRRESISTIBLE CHARM OF CAPITAL.
RICHELIEU AND PROUST.
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.
************************************************
Capitalists think money is a blessing from God. Their hirelings have no wish to bite the hand that lays the golden egg; and their brown-nosers live with the hope of some day being the beneficiaries of their largess.
*
Richelieu: "If you give me six lines written by the most honest man, I will find something in them to hang him."
Marcel Proust: "People know more about us than we think."
So you thought you could hide your true face behind a mask?
*
Though in its brief span of existence on earth homo sapiens has invented ten thousand gods, men of faith continue to believe that their god is the only true god. There is nothing wrong with the idea of god, of course. What is wrong is the mental paralysis it seems to induce in some men. This paralysis may be said to be the source of all fanaticism and evil. I am afraid Turks and our massacres have a similar effect on our genocide imams.
*
Every sin, crime, or aberration carries hidden within it its own punishment. Mental paralysis is a fanatic's punishment.
#.
Saturday, July 16, 2005
***********************************
Freedom of speech is a writer's most valuable possession. Take it away from him and you might as well cut out his tongue.
*
Our literature is a cemetery of silenced voices. To our publishers and editors I ask: When was the last time you published an editorial in defense of free speech? If you don't defend free speech, who will? And even more to the point, can you de-Ottomanize or de-Stalinize a community by adopting Ottoman and Stalinist methods?
*
I have heard a number of Armenians say, "I can't write freely about Turks because I have relatives in Turkey," but I have never heard of an Armenian in Turkey who suffered on account of what someone said in Australia, America, or Brazil.
*
Even Jewish writers who wouldn't dream of denying the Holocaust are willing to concede that "the Holocaust has been exploited and even distorted." (See Christopher Hitchens, LOVE, POVERTY, AND WAR: JOURNEYS AND ESSAYS, page 262). Don't expect such an admission from our genocide imams - they are not mature enough, or objective enough, or honest enough.
*
There are decent Armenians as there are decent Turks, Kurds, Gypsies, Arabs, and Zulus. All my efforts are concentrated on making honesty and decency more acceptable in our environment.
*
When a deceiver speaks of tolerance, he means tolerance of deception, and he can always count on the support of his dupes.
*
If it weren't for religion, Napoleon once remarked, the poor would butcher the rich. That's where our bishops come in. Our benefactors build churches and our bishops anoint them Princes of Cilicia, Kings of Armenia, and Emperors of Transcaucasia.
#