notes / comments

[Armenian]

Re: notes / comments

So...let me get this straight...you would have opted to live under the "governance" of the Ottoman Empire and later, the Turkish Republic?

You being the most fanatical-ultra-nationalist here I am dumb founded that you are even bothering to talk to the most infamous self-hating pseudo-intellectual in the Armenian diaspora... Any way, to answer your question, the type this troubled individual represents was very happy and content living as "Christian Turks" in the Ottoman Empire. These filth primarily blame Armenian revolutionaries for the genocide. And it was due to these filth that the Turks were able to exterminate the Armenian presence from within Anatolia.

[crusader1492]

Re: notes / comments

to a man of faith, common sense and logic will be less than obvious.
i am not a believer. i trust only my common sense and i appeal to the common decency of those who take the trouble to read me...as opposed to those who are so busy reading themselves that they can only project their confusions onto others. / ara

...Socrates has nothing on you Ara.

[Virgil]

Re: notes / comments

Finally, I urge you to consider the case of revolutionaries who rise against an empire they cannot topple and as a result of their failure millions of innocent civilians die...

So...let me get this straight...you would have opted to live under the "governance" of the Ottoman Empire and later, the Turkish Republic?

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Thursday, December 06, 2007
************ ********* ********* ********* *******
OF JACKASSES
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In America the higher your rise on the greasy pole the more of your posterior you expose. The average American today probably knows more about the Clintons than about his next-door neighbors. What do I know about our own leaders? Just their names and sometimes not even that. “I once called the Catholicos in Etchmiadzin,” a friend tells me, “and it was the KGB that answered.” When a Ramgavar semi-boss once promised to pay me a goodly sum if I undertook the task of writing profiles of prominent Ramgavars, I informed him I didn’t even know who they were, neither was I interested to know. Speaking of bosses, I am reminded of another incident with one of our national benefactors – let’s call him Jack S. Avanakian – who wanted me to translate his father’s youthful diary. “I translate only literary works,” I explained and added: “I am not aware of anyone by the name of Avanakian who has written a single line worth translating.” On the subject of jackasses: Did you know that our writers refer to one another as “boys”? I once heard an 80-year old writer say about Zarian: “I knew him – he was a good degha!” This was at a convention of Armenian writers (my first and last) during which I heard another writer refer to a national benefactor as “baron.” “Baron Jack S. Avanakian would not be interested in supporting such a project,” said he. I was a newcomer then and the thought occurred to me that I had landed not only on a different continent but also on another planet.
#

Of all fears, fear of free speech is the most cowardly.

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Wednesday, December 05, 2007
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VISIBLE & INVISIBLE ARMENIANS
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You cannot argue with someone who is in a position to silence you. He has much more to lose than an argument. He stands to lose his infallibility. And no one can make an ass of himself as surely as he who thinks himself to be infallible.
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I have said this before and it bears repeating: the need to assert superiority is the surest symptom of inferiority.
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The only way for the inferior to come to terms with himself is to think he is better than others; and the only way to reach that objective is by being his own dupe. The problem with dupes is that they feel justified in deceiving others, as if to say, if deception is good enough for me, it should be good enough for you too.
*
To confuse visible Armenians (fund-raisers, speechifiers, ghazetajis, wheeler-dealers) with their invisible counterparts would be like confusing la crème de la scum with la crème de la crème. I know many hard working, decent Armenians who have never delivered a speech or made a headline in any one of our papers; Armenians who do not pretend to know and understand more than they do; Armenians who have not written a single line for publication.
*
It is better to do nothing than to do the wrong thing. It is better to know nothing than to know the wrong thing.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Tuesday, December 04, 2007
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MY PARTISAN FRIEND AND I
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“You call us dividers as if that’s all we have done,” an angry friend tells me during a recent telephone conversation, and goes on: “Why don’t you ever mention the many positive contributions we have made to the community and the nation?”
I say nothing. I have learned never to contradict an angry Armenian.
Dear friend, if you are reading these lines, I would invite you to consider the case of the butler who after serving his master faithfully for fifty years, he poisons him. At his trial and in his defense he says to the judge: “Your Honor, the prosecution and its witnesses speak of me as if I were a murderer. I suggest that is a gross distortion of my character.”
Or consider the case of a surgeon who kills a patient in a botched operation. When taken to court he says: “I have performed many successful operations. There are hundreds of people alive today because of me. And here I am being treated as a common criminal.”
What I am trying to say is that we all have a role to play in the community. We all make a living for our positive contributions. No one gets a raise or a medal for his blinders or crimes. And when a man, after being a law-abiding citizen all his life, breaks the law, he has no choice but to pay the penalty.
I don’t believe in capital punishment but I would gladly make an exception in the case of a political boss whose number one concern is number one. As for a political leader who declares a war he cannot win, I say impeachment is too good for him. I believe the only honorable course of action for such a leader is to follow Hitler’s example and shoot himself. Finally, I urge you to consider the case of revolutionaries who rise against an empire they cannot topple and as a result of their failure millions of innocent civilians die...
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Monday, December 03, 2007
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DENIALISM
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Those who are at the root of our problems will at no time admit we, or rather they, have problems, and if they have them, they can be solved, and if they can be solved it is up to them to solve them. Denialism is a favored word of ours provided of course it’s of the Turkish variant. As for Armenian denialism: we don’t even acknowledge its existence.
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THE FASCIST AND THE PHILOSOPHER
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The Fascist general who drove Miguel de Unamuno out of his university at gunpoint in 1936 is said to have screamed “Death to Intelligence,” and “Long live Death.” Shortly thereafter Unamuno had a heart attack and died.
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OTTOMAN WISDOM
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Ours is the wisdom of former slaves whose secret ambition is to emulate their former masters.
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ON APOLOGY
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It’s easy to apologize after you step on someone’s foot. But how do you apologize for leading a million and half innocent human beings to the slaughterhouse? That’s why neither their leadership nor ours will ever apologize to the people.
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NATIONALISM (i)
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My land, my people, my home, my rivers, my lakes, valleys and mountains, my backyard, my chickens. But never – never! – my blunders.
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NATIONALISM (ii)
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They brag about our victories and blame our defeats on others. If it were up to our propagandists, we would be the only nation on earth that has never committed a blunder or lost a single war.
#

[Virgil]

Re: notes / comments

Aznavour in a recent interview published in PARIS MATCH on his “Benetton family”:
“We are of all colors and creeds. My daughter’s husband is Muslim, I am Gregorian, my wife is Protestant. With such a family one is in a better position to understand other people’s problems. To have many cultures is great!”

The irony, his parents escaped Islam, they fled to a foreign land, thus, in the process his marginalization was a product of Islamic radicalism and Turkish nationalism. And yet his daughter and grandchildren willing accepted Islam. One wonders, one truly wonders at the idiocy of the Armenian people.

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

I agree, Ara half the time I don't understand your objective? What is the message? By the way, under nationalism and capitalism, there exists no world citizens, states are always in a perpetual state of war.

With regards to your idea that "Armenians should unite", no, this is another lie, Armenians don't need to "unite", they have a state that is "united", they need to move back to the state instead of treating the state as their personal caged pet.

Let me reiterate, the idea of "uniting" is a redundacy, what the hell are you uniting under? Furthermore, not all Armenians have the same viewpoints and in my opinion, this idea of "uniting" fails here. I would never support any liberally minded Armenian, I mistrust liberal Armenians more than Turks, they are the reason we are in such a state of depression, they are naive, weak, and useless to the state. I personally am a moderate, but I would pick any diehard conservative Armenian over a liberally minded Armenian.

consensus does not mean agreement, and solidarity does not mean unity.
they mean working together, advancing in the same direction.
the mightiest empire that is divided will fall prey to the weakest tribe, because the tribe does not even have to fight the empire to defeat it; all it has to do is wait until both side within the empire wear each other out.
If the United States is the mightiest empire today it's because it fought a bloody civil war to stay united. and not every american agrees with every other american. but they have developed a mechanism whereby they take votes and make decisions = consensus.
unlike us whose slogan seems to be, every jack s. avanakian for himself and to hell with what everybody else thinks.

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Wouldn't it be better to be up front with your thoughts in the first place? "Reading in between the lines" is not only an inefficient way of facilitating diolauge, but it also gets stale after a while - especialy when what you are trying to say is less than obvious.

to a man of faith, common sense and logic will be less than obvious.
i am not a believer. i trust only my common sense and i appeal to the common decency of those who take the trouble to read me...as opposed to those who are so busy reading themselves that they can only project their confusions onto others. / ara