notes / comments

[arabaliozian]

dec/14

Sunday, December 11, 2005
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CRIME STORIES
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In thrillers, or mystery, suspense and crime novels the question is who is the murderer? In psychoanalysis, what is the complex? The question historians try to answer is, what happened and why? In philosophy, what is the meaning of life, or why things exist?
*
In his old age, Bertrand Russell used to read a crime novel a day (by judiciously skipping descriptive passages whose sole aim is to lend an air of authenticity to the plot and character, it can be done).
*
In his memoirs Sartre writes that he prefers reading crime novels to Wittgenstein, perhaps because the answers provided by even the ablest philosophers are never as certain as those to be found in crime fiction.
*
Propaganda has this in common with Hollywood movies and bad fiction in general: it divides characters into good and bad guys. It has been said that in a good play or work of fiction, as in life, the line between decent folk and villains is blurred.
*
In his efforts to explain the Armenian Genocide, Toynbee advanced the theory that the source of evil is in all of us and it is called original sin. Given the right or wrong combination of circumstances, we, all of us, are capable of behaving like Turks; or, as Puzant Granian once put it more bluntly, "There is a Turk in all of us."
*
My fascination with crime fiction began with Edgar Alan Poe and Conan Doyle. Some of the most unforgettable titles in the genre that I have read and sometimes reread are:
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT by Dostoevsky,
THE KILLERS, by Hemingway,
DEAD YELLOW WOMEN by Dashiell Hammett,
FAREWELL MY LOVELY by Raymond Chandler,
A COFFIN FOR DIMITRIOS by Eric Ambler,
THE GOUFFE CASE by Joachim Maass,
NOCTURNE by Ed McBain,
POINT BLANK by Richard Stark, and
GRIEVANCE by K.C. Constantine.
#
Monday, December 12, 2005
***********************************
PARANOIA
*******************
Once more I have been accused of being a denialist. Under Stalin this type of baseless and irresponsible accusation landed countless innocent people into the Gulag.
*
I ceased being a proud Armenian on the day a proud Armenian insulted me in the name of Armenianism.
*
When Descartes said, "I think therefore I am," he shifted human consciousness from god-centered (theocentric) to man-centered (humanist) and in doing so he ushered in the Age of Enlightenment. In the Middle or Dark Ages a statement like "I think therefore I am" would have been unthinkable. Medieval philosophy, or rather theology, explained everything by invoking the name of god. I think and I am because god created me with a brain. The sky is blue because blue is god's favorite color. The earth is the center of the solar system, not to say the universe, because man is god's favorite creature.
*
When one of our weeklies of 19 pages publishes 16 articles and commentaries on Turks (I am not counting the letters to the editor), an objective observer would have no choice but to conclude that Armenian consciousness in the 21st Century has become Turco-centric -- a development that we owe to our massacrists (genocide scholars), hai-tahd peddlers, dime-a-dozen pundits and editorialists.
*
To have a Turco-centric consciousness means to have a consciousness that wallows in self-pity, hatred, and rage against an unjust world. It follows, in the same way that a paranoiac sees enemies lurking in every dark corner, a Turco-centric Armenian sees denialists everywhere and he does so with the unshakable conviction that he is discharging his patriotic duty.
#
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
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XENOPHOBIA
**************************
"Xenophobia assassinates life," writes Carlos Fuentes in his latest book, THIS I BELIEVE: AN A TO Z OF LIFE (New York, Random House, 331 pages, 2005). For us, the quintessential alien is the Turk. But as far as I can see, after 600 years of cohabitation, the only discernible difference between them and us is that we are not guilty of genocide.
*
What motivated the Turks to exterminate us was xenophobia, and they were afraid of us because they thought we (as opposed to a small and non-representative group of revolutionaries), together with Kurds, Greeks, Russians, and the Great Powers of the West, threatened the integrity of their homeland.
*
Fuentes goes on: "The lesson of our unfinished humanity is that when we exclude we are made poorer, and when we include we are made richer."
*
If xenophobia is assassination, our xenophobia of Turks may be said to be a bloodless genocide.
*
We cannot exorcise the Turk within us by hating him or by refusing to acknowledge his existence. He is there and he has been there all along, and he will continue to be the dominant factor in our collective existence until we come to terms with the fact that the reason why we are not guilty of genocide is rooted not in moral superiority but in military inferiority.
#
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
****************************************
Faith is the greatest deceiver. To say "I believe therefore it's true" has been the biggest and most dangerous lie ever invented by man.
*
Why did Toynbee change his mind? Why is it that after writing several books on the tyranny of the Turks and the Armenian massacres he became a Turcophile? Even so, it should be noted, repeated, and emphasized that he at no time went as far as denying the reality of the Genocide. On the contrary - very much on the contrary - he went on saying and repeating in nearly every other book he wrote that the Armenian Genocide and the xxxish Holocaust were the two greatest crimes of the 20th Century.
*
I like these lines from THIS I BELIEVE by Carlos Fuentes: "There are more idols than realities in this world of ours, and convictions have a tendency to be prisons."
*
Perhaps Toynbee knew something we don't know, one of which is that history is nothing but an endless catalogue of atrocities, truth is our common enemy, and politicians, regardless of race, color, creed, or tribe, speak with a forked tongue.
*
Toynbee probably agreed with Pascal when the latter said: "What a chimera then is man! What a novelty, what monsters! Chaotic, contradictory, prodigious, judging everything, mindless worm of the earth. Storehouse of truth, cesspool of uncertainty and error; glory and reject of the universe!"
*
Please note that I am not questioning the innocence of our victims. What I would like to question however is the motives of our politicians and the integrity of historians who recycle the party line, any party line. And whenever I think of our politicians I remember Gostan Zarian's dictum: "Our political parties have been of no political use to us; their greatest enemy is free speech." And they have every reason to be afraid of free speech because free speech may expose their blunders.
*
No man exposes his shortcomings as transparently and surely as the man who adopts a holier-than-thou stance.
#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, December 15, 2005
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There seems to be an unspoken law among us that
says, “If you disagree with me, you are my
enemy.” Result? We have three sets of enemies:
Turks, the corrupt West, and a fraction of our
fellow Armenians. Whoever first said “Mart bidi
chellank” (We will never acquire the status of
human beings) fully qualifies as one of our major
prophets.
*
To say or to imply “If you contradict me you are
my enemy,” is a fallacy based on another fallacy,
namely, “I know and understand all I need to know
and understand,” which happens to be the unspoken
assumption of all tyrants and fascist dictators.
It follows, all dissidents and critics are
enemies of the people and they don’t deserve to
live.
*
People who say they know and understand all they
need to know and understand, usually rely on
someone else’s knowledge and understanding, which
means that their knowledge is inadmissible
because based on hearsay.
*
Stalin relied on Marx and completely ignored
Marx’s statement “I am not a Marxist.” He also
ignored one of Marx’s central pillars of thought,
that of dialectic, which means dialogue, and
dialogue is possible only when contradiction (or
antithesis) is allowed to follow assertion (or
thesis). And because Stalin ignored that aspect
of the Marxist system, his empire collapsed and
the Soviets “mart cheghan.”
*
There are two approaches to our genocide: to
ascribe it (one) to pure evil, and (two) to
historic, social, and cultural conditions. When
Toynbee first wrote about the Genocide he
ascribed it to pure evil. But when he studied the
Turkish side of the story by making Turkish
friends and learning the Turkish language, he
realized the Genocide was an occurrence that
could be explained and understood. However, he at
no time said or implied that to explain is to
justify – which is where we tend to go wrong.
Whenever someone tries to explain the Genocide we
accuse him of being a denialist (among us, the
lowest form of animal life). And worse, we call
him an enemy, and in doing so we condemn
ourselves to have three sets of enemies, in other
words, to be perennial losers.
*
If we call the Turks Asiatic barbarians, what do
we call the Nazis? European barbarians? What do
we call Americans (in relation to their treatment
of natives and blacks)? American barbarians? What
do we call Stalin (a next door neighbor)? A
Caucasian barbarian? What do we call Mao,
compared to whom, Stalin was only an amateur
serial killer, (according to a recent
biography).
*
The list of crimes against humanity is endless
and they all begin in the convolutions of the
brain, and to call a fellow Armenian an enemy,
and worse, to silence him – as our “betters” do –
is the mother of all crimes against humanity.
#
Friday, December 16, 2005
**********************************
Whenever I express an honest opinion I make an
enemy, as if honesty were anti-Armenian.
*
Whether we like it or not, we are all in the
business of recycling a party line because none
of us knows the whole truth. We may know a
fraction of the truth but never the whole truth.
But a fraction of the truth is how propaganda is
defined.
*
I too recycle a party line, and more specifically
the party of Baronian, Voskanian, Zarian, and
Massikian; the party of Socrates and
Solzhenitsyn; the party of Toynbee and Pamuk, who
went on trial today not because he spoke the
truth – only the Good Lord knows the whole truth
– but because he expressed an honest opinion; and
it’s not that honesty is anti-Turkish, rather it
does not recognize any specific religion,
ideology, and power structure that speaks in the
name of god or truth.
*
I have said this before and it bears repeating:
god and truth have generated more victims than
the most diabolical big lies invented or imagined
by man.
#
Saturday, December 17, 2005
***********************************
EXCUSE MY FRENCH
**************************
E.M. Forster, the author of some of the very best books on England and India, in a letter to a friend: "Most Indians, like most English people, are xxxxs."
*
I was born and raised in a ghetto near Athens that looked like an oversized gypsy encampment. Greeks called us "Turkish gypsies" and treated us like xxxx.
*
At the age of twenty I came to Canada and tried to make a living working at minimum-wage jobs in factories and department stores. That's when I discovered that even the best among them are capable of behaving like xxxx when dealing with white trash.
*
I lived in Italy for a number of years and I found it difficult to resist their charm. But whenever I use that word I am reminded of Albert Camus. "Charm," Camus once said, "is xxxx." When I think of Mussolini and his Fascists I cannot help agreeing with Camus.
*
There are two drawbacks in being an Armenian writer: you work for less than minimum wage and whenever you refuse to recycle someone's party line you are treated like xxxx.
*
If some of my readers are to be believed - and I for one do not feel qualified to question their honesty -- I am myself a first-class xxxx.
*
Perhaps the only difference between tyrants and the rest of us is that tyrants have the means to deal with the xxxxs whereas all we can do is resort to name-calling.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Sunday, December 18, 2005
*************************************
Sometimes I repeat myself because I find it extremely difficult to ignore questions by new readers. Some recent questions follow.
*
Q: Why do you write the way you do? What is your real aim?
A: To understand and explain, not because understanding and explaining will make me a happier man but because I am tired of being deceived and manipulated by frauds whose number one concern is number one.
Q: Do you have anyone in particular in mind?
A: Almost everyone who is in a leadership position.
*
Q: Don't you feel it is one of your duties as a writer to encourage the next generation of writers?
A: As things stand, what the nation needs more than writers is readers.
*
Q: Who is the most important Armenian writer today?
A: I can't think of anyone. The ones I know write about the massacres, as if that were the most important issue we confront today.
Q: Isn't it?
A: No!
Q: Why not? Is not defending our rights important?
A: They may want you to think they are defending our rights but in reality all they are doing is promoting miserabilism.
Q: If recognition of the Genocide is not an important issue today, what is?
A: Corruption, incompetence, exodus from the Homeland, assimilation in the Diaspora, divisiveness, which also means waste of resources and personnel, spineless academics who kow-tow to our bosses, bishops, and benefactors, charlatans who parade as pundits…
Q: That's quite a list!
A: That's quite a mess we are in.
#
Monday, December 19, 2005
***************************************
When enemies disagree, they agree on nothing. When friends disagree they agree at least on one thing: they agree to disagree. And where there is agreement on one thing, there will be hope for agreement on two or more things. Let us therefore be friends with the Turks. Even more important, let us begin by being friends with fellow Armenians who disagree with us.
*
All major historical events have two or more interpretations. This is true of World War I and World War II, as it is of the American, French, and Russian Revolutions. It all depends on which side of the fence you find yourself.
*
Whenever I take a walk with a friend I notice that he sees things that I don't see. Four eyes are better than two, they say, and when it comes to understanding reality, dialogue is better than monologue. In a political environment where dissent is stifled, understanding is diminished, and the ability to deal with reality is impaired.
*
If we want to understand ourselves and the world in which we live, we must also try to understand the Turkish side of the story. And we must do this for purely selfish reason.
#
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
**************************************
ERROR MANAGEMENT
*******************************
On the radio today an interview with an Australian professor whose field is error management that consists in predicting, preventing, minimizing and compensating for errors. At one point, the good professor said mankind is divided into two categories: "people who have made mistakes and people who will make mistakes." But like all rules, this one too has its exceptions, namely Armenian leaders.
*
Armenian leaders are such masters of assigning blame that they have no use for error management. Result? Since they could not predict, prevent, and minimize the damage of the "Red" massacres of 1915, they have been doing the same with the "White" massacres (exodus from the Homeland and assimilation in the Diaspora). The first massacres they blame on the Turks and the degenerate West, the second massacres on historic, social, economic, and cultural factors beyond their control.
*
What do they mean by "cultural factors"? The answer must be obvious to everyone except themselves: the vacuum of our own culture, because that's what happens to a culture when the best and the brightest are systematically alienated, silenced, and starved.
*
Speaking of the blame game: perhaps the source of all our problems is our geography. As a landlocked country we have no use for ships and captains and for a tradition that says the captain goes down with the ship. Our captains survive and go on to sink other ships, and the more ships they sink the merrier.
#
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
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ON PROPAGANDA
*************************
No nation on earth is as good as its propaganda. Moreover, by emphasizing the positive and covering up or ignoring the negative, propaganda impairs our understanding of reality. Our revolutionaries in the Ottoman Empire were dupes of the West because they were dupes of their own propaganda.
*
ON CAPITALISTS
**************************
Raffi (Hagop Melik-Hagopian: 1835-1888): "They are the most corrupt and degenerate members of the community. Nothing good can come out of them. These people worship only money. They are men without a country. They belong to no nation on earth. Profit is their only homeland."
*
K.C. Constantine in BOTTOM LINER BLUES (New York, 1993): "They got no nationality. Their only nationality is money."
*
For more on this subject see the sections on Ken Lay (page 171) and Dennis Kozlowski (page 172) in Bernard Goldberg's 100 PEOPLE WHO ARE SCREWING UP AMERICA (New York, 2005).
*
HISTORY AND REAL ESTATE
***************************************
Eric Hobshawn in ON HISTORY (London, 1997): "Denmark does not claim the large part of eastern England which was settled and ruled by Danes before the eleventh century, which continued to be known as the Danelaw and whose village names are still philologically Danish."
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Thursday, December 22, 2005
************************************
Smart Armenians who have made it in the odar world are as a rule not as clannish as the rest of us. I was reminded of this fact last week when I introduced myself to a young doctor as a fellow countryman and I could not help observing that the expression on her face changed as if she had stepped on a pile of cow dung. And I imagined the following exchange with her mate later that evening:
Something wrong?
Nothing I can't handle.
What happened?
Met a member of the tribe today.
What did he say?
Nothing much.
What did you say?
Ditto.
So what's the problem?
I just don't like the idea of running into them, that's all; and they have a way of popping up when you least expect them.
Have you thought of changing your name?
More than once.
What's stopping you?
My folks.
They are against it?
We haven't discussed it but my guess is my dad won't like it.
Daddy's little girl doesn't want to hurt the old man?
Well, if it wasn't for him this little girl wouldn't be where she is. Don't you think he deserves a little consideration?
Then I guess you'll have to grin and bear it.
*
I am told whenever she was introduced to a fellow Armenian, Krikor Zohrab's daughter in New York (may the Good Lord have mercy on her soul) behaved as though she was about to be attacked by a rattlesnake.
*
I am also told Taniel Varoujan's daughter lives all by herself in the middle of nowhere and as far away from her fellow Armenians as the State of New York will allow it.
#
Friday, December 23, 2005
************************************
Understanding is not a single faculty but many. It is an illusion to think that just because you understand one thing well, you are also equipped to understand many other things. To say that just because you understand the market place you also understand history, or politics, or literature amounts to saying that just because you understand Swahili you also understand Japanese, Hungarian, and Urdu.
*
There are even people who understand nothing and think they understand everything. I know such people exist because I was one of them. The older I grow the more I realize what a damn fool I have been most of my life.
*
If history is an endless catalogue of disasters, blunders, crimes, and miscalculations it may be because it is shaped by individuals who are not in the habit of questioning their perception of reality or understanding; and the only reason they enjoy popular support is that they simplify complex issues in order to make them more comprehensible to the majority.
*
Between a simple explanation and a complex one, the simple explanation will invariably be more popular, especially among yokels and fanatics.
*
Turks massacred us because they are evil, bloodthirsty, Asiatic barbarians. There is no other explanation. Anyone who says otherwise is a denialist. The irony here is that it is the very same Armenians who dehumanize Turks who expect them to behave like decent human beings by pleading guilty as charged.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Saturday, December 24, 2005
***************************************
The most important question we should ask about our history is neither what happened nor why, but where did we go wrong. We already know what happened and why, or we think we do, because we have been told we do. There are probably hundreds, not to say thousands of textbooks, memoirs, articles in encyclopedias, monographs, studies, and essays on the subject. But as far as I know very few that tell us where we went wrong, so few in fact that most of us are convinced our conduct has been flawless and beyond criticism.
*
Where did we go wrong? The reason I consider this to be the most important question is that it may change the line of our destiny. But instead of asking where did we go wrong we ask where did they go wrong, thus implying our sole contribution to our history has been victims.
*
To ask where we went wrong also means asking what we are doing wrong. A hundred years ago we were at the mercy of Turkish brutality and foreign meddling and manipulation. What has really changed? Today we are victims of Turkish intransigence and economic and cultural factors beyond our control, or so we claim. Beyond our control also means our only option is to adopt a passive stance and contribute more victims. Which of course is dangerous nonsense.
*
There is a great deal we can do to combat and minimize these negative factors by demanding accountability from our leaders and promoting our culture. By promoting our culture I don't mean supporting or helping our writers - a repellent concept in itself, as if writers were beggars in need of handouts. By promoting our culture I mean emphasizing the importance of ideas, practicing dialogue, and being receptive to dissent as opposed to dealing in chauvinist propaganda, practicing censorship, delivering speeches and sermons, and publishing commentaries and editorials replete with clichés, platitudes, and verbal crapola.
#
Sunday, December 25, 2005
**************************************
MYSTICISM AND LOGIC
*******************************
Speaking of the gravedigger, Hamlet says, "How absolute the knave is! We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us."
*
The language of mystics is an incomprehensible medium full of equivocations, paradoxes, and contradictions because its aim is to make us understand that god or truth resides in a realm of meanings beyond our reason, common sense, and logic. And because I first came across this idea in Zen Buddhism, I thought of Christianity as an inferior religion. It is not. All religions have produced mystics and all mystics speak the same language regardless of nationality. (For more on this subject, see Aldous Huxley's PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY.)
*
Most failures in communication occur when one speaks the language of mystics and the other of logic.
*
Great writers like Tolstoy and Shaw make writing seem easy because they have the ability to simplify complexities, and when we read them, we see only the result, not the labor that preceded it, and the labor consists in making the invisible visible, and the incomprehensible accessible. Tolstoy was an atheist who believed in Christ, and Shaw was an agnostic who believed in the Holy Spirit.
*
If I were to reduce our problems to a single formula, I would have to say that we are good at thesis, better at antithesis, but lousy at synthesis.
*
To make of thesis and antithesis permanent stages (as opposed to one that is transitory) also means to arrest progress.
#
Monday, December 26, 2005
****************************************
Ignorance is bliss, they say, and knowledge is power. If knowledge is power it is also the power to understand, and to understand means above all to be able to see what's on the other side of the hill. It was because he lacked the power to understand his own brother that Abel became Cain's victim; and he did not understand his brother because he did not want to understand him. It never even occurred to him to ask: "What's eating you, bro?"
*
Adam and Eve lived in bliss in the Garden until they ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge. What followed was shame, exile, hard labor, pain, and murder, that is to say, history.
*
For 600 years we lived in ignorance under the Turks. Then our revolutionaries ate the fruit from the tree of freedom, whereupon history fell on us like a thief in the night: deportation, starvation, massacre, civil war, destitution, envy, divisiveness, corruption, alienation, exodus.
*
How much of this we have understood? The answer must be, nothing, because we prefer to live in blissful ignorance.
#
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
***********************************
According to a news item on the radio this morning, Viagra doesn't work with 30% of patients suffering from erectile dysfunction. I could not help reflecting that if they ever discover a Viagra-like pill that combats intolerance, it may not work with 90% of Armenians, and the chances are 99% of them will have no use for it because they don't think of themselves as intolerant.
*
The first time someone called me a racist, I dismissed him as a politically correct fascist. A racist, I thought, is someone who lynches Negroes, massacres innocent women and children, or incinerates xxxs in ovens. Since I had done none of these things, I could not qualify as a racist. I know better today.
*
I know now that whoever it was that called me a racist understood me better than I did. And now that I know better, I find it extremely difficult to be tolerant, and I suspect most people who sermonize and speechify against intolerance today are hypocrites whose favorite medium is double-talk.
*
If others are sometimes better judges of ourselves than we are it may be because objectivity is a rare virtue, especially among those who have been brainwashed at an early age to believe that they are good Christians and possess all those virtues unique to Christianity, among them love, compassion, and tolerance.
#
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
**************************************
THEM AND US
************************
They have fascist ideologues.
So have we. We even brag about our "tseghagrons," or partisans who elevated race to the status of religion.
*
They massacred indiscriminately defenseless women and children. So did we. Ask any Tashnak who is remotely acquainted with the history of his party and he will tell you General Antranik was expelled from the Party because he massacred indiscriminately. To this day Azeris think of him the way xxxs think of Hitler.
*
For everyone we massacred, they massacred ten. That's because they outnumbered us ten to one.
*
What happens to a second-generation Armenian-American?
He behaves more like an American than an Armenian - assuming an authentic Armenian exists and we know his code of conduct.
*
What happened to a 24th-generation Ottoman-Armenian? Was he less Ottoman and more Armenian? Or was it the other way around?
*
Speaking for myself, I am neither a fascist nor a killer of innocent civilians; and I would resent it like hell if someone identified me with an Armenian in a leadership position. Which is a mistake we make when we identify the people with the regime. It is not the people who deny the Genocide, it is the regime. Likewise, it is not the people who adopted and implemented a genocidal policy but the leadership, which was not elected by the people and cannot be said to have represented them.
*
By identifying the people with the regime we succeed only in alienating the people, our best friends and greatest allies.
#[/U][/I][/B]

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Thursday, December 29, 2005
**************************************
LOVE AND HATE
************************
"When the rich fight, it is the poor who die."
*
Power begins with the power to redefine words by perverting their meaning.
*
Patriotism redefined means to hate your enemy's patriotism.
*
In time of war the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" becomes "Thou shalt kill!"
*
The poor are brainwashed to die in the name of patriotism. The rich are educated to lie and deceive in defense of their powers and privileges.
*
A hero is one who dies in the name of a Big Lie.
*
When I use the word hate in a political or religious context it also means to hate unto death.
*
To believe in your god also means to question and reject the existence of all other gods.
*
To love god also means to hate those who do not share your love.
#
Friday, December 30, 2005
***********************************
"Was Santa good to you?" I asked an old xxxish friend in Texas. "Santa is an anti-Semite," he replied. "He never visits xxxish homes."
"You Armenians are lucky," this same friend once told me, "Only Turks are after your ass. The whole world is after ours!" Poor old overworked Santa too?
*
Because I use my common sense and make an honest effort to be objective, dupes call me a cynic, a charlatan, a hostile witness, an enemy, a denialist, and a number of other unprintable names. Questioning the validity of illusions can be a dangerous career move.
*
Armenians who portray themselves as victims sometimes forget the ruthlessness with which they victimize fellow Armenians who refuse to recycle their favorite brand of crapola.
*
Sheep and wolves can be easily identified.
Wolves in sheep's clothing can be exposed.
But sheep whose secret ambition is to be wolves can be as slippery as Turkish olive-oil wrestlers or used condoms.
*
Armenians: the most unassailable argument against Intelligent Design.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Saturday, December 31, 2005
*******************************************
PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION
**************************************
THE IDIOT
***************
To how many of my fellow men I could say, I was dead wrong to think of you as an idiot, and you were absolutely right to think of me as one.
*
THE POET
****************
It happened about twenty years ago. The distinguished white-maned poet was reading one of his poems dealing with our tragic past, the martyrdom of Mother Armenia, and victims of massacres, when suddenly an old man in the audience sprang to his feet and hollered, "Enough, for heaven's sake, enough! What are you trying to do to us? Our heart is already broken!"
*
THE BROWN-NOSER
*************************
He is popular because his explanations flatter our collective ego. But to reject an explanation simply because it does not flatter us amounts to self-inflicted lobotomy.
*
THE SAINT
******************
When I refused to deal with one of our bishops, he sent me his young secretary to inform me that he was a saint. Shortly thereafter he was exposed as a serial fornicator.
#
Sunday, January 01, 2006
************************************
HAPPY NEW YEAR, INSHALLAH!
****************************************
You may have noticed that Turcocentric Armenians, that is, Armenians who think more about Turks than their fellow Armenians, or Armenians who hate Turks more than they love their fellow Armenians, sooner or later end up hating a fraction of their fellow Armenians too.
*
In the same way that man tames wild animals, imperial powers divide and rule. Victims may think they are smarter than their victimizers but victimizers know better.
*
If you are honest and speak the truth as you see it, your enemies will outnumber your friends, that's because fools, dupes, liars and crooks have at all times and everywhere outnumbered honest men.
*
Overheard: "I don't see movies because they are trash, and I don't read books because if they are any good they will be made into movies."
*
Last time I visited my family doctor, I noticed a big book on his desk titled THE HEART by N. Boyadjian.
*
Speaking of our problems I sometimes use the word "internecine." Some of my readers may not know that one definition of this word is "bent on mutual destruction."
#
Monday, January 02, 2006
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The execution of Socrates, the crucifixion of Christ, the excommunication of Tolstoy, the imprisonment of Gandhi, yesterday's best-seller list, countless wars and massacres: so much for conventional wisdom, the judgment of the mob, the establishment, and the rule of law.
*
As an alienated Armenian, I speak in the name of alienated Armenians everywhere, which means I speak in the name of the vast majority, and my message is as follows: Those who alienated us may consider themselves as representatives of the nation but they are nothing of the kind: what they are is a trashy collection of bunglers, windbags and wheeler-dealers who have been successful only in dividing the nation and alienating the majority.
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My ideas are not mine; they belong to the world of ideas, some of which are as old as mankind. If they seem strange to you it may be because you have not allowed them to register on your consciousness.
*
Never insult someone on the grounds that you are invulnerable. The thirst for revenge can be a great source of inspiration and creativity.
*
As an Armenian I have seen many of my friends turn into enemies, and when I say enemies I don't mean the garden but of the mortal variety, but I have yet to witness the miracle of an enemy turning into a friend, and if I ever read a work of fiction in which this happens, I won't believe a word of it.
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Tuesday, January 03, 2006
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During a radio interview with former Prime Minister of Canada Kim Campbell I heard the following definition of democracy: "A mechanism whose aim is to defend good people from bad people." By extension, tyranny may be said to be a mechanism whose aim is to allow bad people to abuse good people with impunity.
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Since I reject everything I believed as a dupe, I disagree with all dupes.
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Most Soviet citizens under Stalin did not feel oppressed or threatened by the regime.
Something similar could be said of Armenians under the sultans, if one is to believe writers like Krikor Zohrab. It is in their treatment of dissent that a tyrant exposes his real face.
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As a boy I was exposed to many sermons and speeches and believed every word of it, perhaps because I had a Platonic view of life. Words and ideas, I thought, had an independent existence in an abstract dimension, and reality was only a transitory stage of ephemeral importance. What mattered about a sermonizer or speechifier were his words. And when I grew up and became aware of inconsistencies and contradictions I ignored them. In short, I was a dupe.
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For a long time it never even occurred to me to ask: Why is this man saying what he is saying? In whose name is he speaking? Whose interests is he defending? Or, as Yanks are fond of saying: "Follow the money."
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To sum up my situation: when I was a dupe I was popular with fascists. I am now persona non grata. That's what I call progress.
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Wednesday, January 04, 2006
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Why did it take me twenty years to learn from my mistakes?
Because I refused to acknowledge them.
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Why is it that our leaders persist in dividing us?
Because by confusing intolerance with non-negotiable principles, they refuse to acknowledge their blunders.
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"Democracy," the former Prime Minister of Canada also said in her interview yesterday, "is a work in progress." I quote this line for those readers who are fond of saying it may take two or three generations to democratize Armenia. I suggest it may take much longer if we think it is only a matter of time and does not require our participation.
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Most men are potential fascists because they prefer power to service. Left to their own devices and in the absence of checks and balances, a politician will prefer to assume the role of leader as opposed to that of public servant.
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Checks and balances mean the rule of law and the fundamental human right of free speech, without which the press becomes an instrument of fascist propaganda.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Thursday, January 05, 2006
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In Cormac McCarthy's ALL THE PRETTY HORSES I read the following: "Those who have suffered great pain of injury or loss are joined to one another with bonds of a special authority."
If only! I thought.
Further down: "What is constant in history is greed and foolishness…and this is a thing that even God seems powerless to change."
*
Speaking of foolishness, once in a while a reader takes it upon himself to inform me that I am not an Armenian writer because I write in English, as if my sole aim in life were to be mentioned or discussed in a future text on Armenian literature.
*
If I write about Armenian problems, if I say what must be said, or if I say what matters, even if I take a fraction of a step in the right direction, does it matter if I am a member of this or that tribe?
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I write in English because had I chosen to write in Armenian I would have been ignored as well as starved. Because I write in English I was awarded a series of literary prizes and grants that allowed me to devote my full time to writing and to publish thirty books half of which are translations from the Armenian.
*
What happened to Zarian who chose to write in Armenian? He was ignored in the Diaspora, silenced in the Homeland, and ended his days thinking, "Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another."
*
What happened to Baruir Massikian who also wrote in Armenian? How many Armenians read him today because he was an Armenian writer?
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On the subject of our problems, of which we have more than our share: one that I have discussed on several occasions is the academic or self-appointed pundit who operates on the assumption that he can cover his foolishness beneath a cloak of patriotism on the grounds that his readers are even more ignorant than he is.
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Friday, January 06, 2006
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ON A COMMON ABERRATION
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Arrogance is based on two fallacies: (one) that one knows better, and (two) that others know less. The first is based on self-assessment (a notoriously unreliable index), and the second on ignorance (no one is in a position to know with any degree of certainty what others know).
*
Sooner or later arrogance is punished not because the gods feel challenged (as the Greeks believed) but because men hate to be short-changed by a self-satisfied bastard.
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The antidote to arrogance is the formula "from dust to dust." We are all born with the certainty that we are the center of the universe, but gradually life drives home the realization that we are no better than inanimate particles at the whim of the winds.
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Saturday, January 07, 2006
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"Poverty breeds crime," reads a headline in our paper today, and I think of Ken Lay, Koslowsky, Abramoff, and Co. I also think of Talaat, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Idi Amin Dada, and Genghis Khan…
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Once upon a time I knew an Armenian so rude in argument and so eager to go down into the gutter that very few wanted to follow him there, so that after a while he thought of himself as a 20th-century reincarnation of the famous medieval Armenian philosopher David Anhaght ("Invincible") so called because he is said to have been invincible in argument.
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To say that in one or two generations conditions will improve in Armenia is not just nonsense but Ottomanized and Sovietized rubbish, because it means only one thing: we will adopt a passive stance because doing so comes naturally to us after 600 years in the Ottoman Empire and 70 years in the Soviet Union.
*
I am wide open to all arguments except ones that I would have voiced myself as a dupe.
*
It has been said that forgiveness can be a spiritual victory. I am not sure about that. Forgiving commissars and fascists can also mean legitimizing criminal conduct.
##

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Sunday, January 08, 2006
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We say we are smart. We also say we need solutions to our problems. We never ask, if smart people can't solve their problems, who can? Are we then smart only when it comes to selling Oriental rugs?
*
State a problem clearly and its solution becomes obvious to all except certified morons.
*
Problem: our leadership is authoritarian.
Solution: democratization, beginning with respect for fundamental human rights, and above all that of free speech. I mention this solution first to point out the fact that it won't cost a single penny.
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The solution to our tribalism? The brotherhood of all Armenians and ultimately of all men -- another solution that will not make any demands on our budget.
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The solution to our Turco-centrism? A shift in focus - (ditto).
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When Zarian said, "Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another," he clearly implied the solution, namely, vegetarianism (metaphorically speaking, of course).
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Speaking of Zarian: when I started publishing my translations, writers from both sides of the Iron Curtain informed me that I was wasting my valuable time on a mediocrity. Mischa Kudian, our foremost translator, joined the chorus by telling me I was on the wrong track leading to a dead end.
*
Am I an Armenian writer if I write in English? I do not consider that a problem, and to those who do, I say, if I challenge anyone's power and prestige I might as well be a Turk in the eyes of our Turco-centric cannibals.
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Monday, January 09, 2006
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INTERVIEW
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Q: Your favorite genre of reading matter?
A: Brief interviews with celebrities - I find them compulsively readable even if consistently disappointing.
Q: The funniest book you read last year?
A: THE COMPLETE CARTOONS OF THE NEW YORKER.
Q: What annoys you the most?
A: People who speak like morons because they think everyone else is a lesser moron.
Q: Do you believe in god?
A: Not in the god of priests, mullahs, and rabbis.
Q: What's your own god like?
A: He is an absentee landlord - distant, incomprehensible, and indifferent.
Q: Your greatest regret?
A: Arguing with individuals who were not prepared to lose an argument.
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Tuesday, January 10, 2006
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ON POLITICS AND POLITICIANS
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When a doctor makes a mistake, more often than not his mistake is buried and forgotten.
I once knew a bus driver who after killing a pedestrian he was forced into retirement, became an alcoholic, and died an early death.
When a businessman makes a mistake, he may lose a fraction of his capital or he may even go bankrupt.
But when a politician makes a mistake, thousands and sometimes even millions may die. That's why politicians find it impossible to admit mistakes and to learn from them. That is also why they rewrite history and become masters of the blame-game.
A politician's worst adversary is neither his opposition nor the enemy, but the truth. Politicians propagandize, misrepresent, and lie because they must pretend to know better and to be morally superior even when they know nothing and they are the scum of the earth.
That may explain why in a democracy most people don't vote or if they do they don't vote for the right man but for the lesser of two or more evils, and even then they are disappointed.
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Wednesday, January 11, 2006
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THE IRRELEVANCE OF LITERATURE
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Christians trust their clergymen, Muslims their mullahs, and xxxs their rabbis not because these gentlemen are wiser or more honest, but because they were in a position to brainwash them.
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To the average Soviet citizen a commissar had more credibility than the entirety of Russian literature; and intimidation and fear had nothing to do with it. Young Muslim insurgents kill themselves today not because they are driven by fear but by conviction.
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The collapse of the USSR had nothing to do with its dissenters who were more like canaries in a mine: they only detected the economic bankruptcy and the moral degeneration that preceded the collapse.
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In an authoritarian environment anyone in a position of authority, be he a boss, bishop, or benefactor and their countless hirelings, hangers-on, and brown-nosers, will enjoy more credibility than Socrates, Gandhi, and Solzhenitsyn, all three of whom were treated like common criminals by their respective power structures.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Thursday, January 12, 2006
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UNDERDOGS
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Has anyone ever seen an underdog rejecting on moral grounds the opportunity to become a top dog? If the secret ambition of an underdog is to become a top dog, in what way he may be said to be different or morally superior?
*
xxxxHOUSE READERS
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Once upon a time I had as many as fifty thousand readers: that's when our partisan as well as non-partisan editors in Canada, United States and Middle East printed everything I wrote. So what if most of these readers were of the (what's known in the business as) "xxxxhouse" variant? - that is, they read me in the john. A reader is a reader even if he does his reading while engaged otherwise. And now that our editors have conferred upon me the status of non-person, how many readers do I have? Hard to say. A dozen? Two? It doesn't really matter. I can always console myself by repeating the old Chinese proverb: "If you think the right thoughts, you will be heard thirty thousand miles away."
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ON WRITING
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The most important thing to remember is the less art the better. Be brief. Write 100 pages, reduce them to one page, squeeze that page into a single paragraph, and discard it into the wastepaper basket.
Be honest. Forget all about the crap you have been exposed to by sermonizers and speechifiers. Speak from your own experience and testify on what you have observed with your own eyes. Do these things and you've got it made, which in our environment means making the maximum number of enemies.
*
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
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If I had a choice between dealing with a proud Armenian and a humble Turk, I would choose the Turk.
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MEMO
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I have said this before and it bears repeating: the problem with hating Turks is that inevitably and before the end of the story the hatred spills over on fellow Armenians.
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THE LAST CHAPTER
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In a biography I am less interested in the subject's birthplace and schooling and more in the manner of his death. I may skip the first chapters but never the last.
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Friday, January 13, 2006
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Man's infinite capacity for blunder (including my own) never ceases to amaze me. Which may explain why my favorite mantra is: "So what if in a less than perfect world I am myself less than perfect?"
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What do the Old Testament and MEIN KAMPF share in common? The absurd and ultimately self-defeating need to assert moral superiority.
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I write with some authority on absurd assertions because at one time or another I have myself subscribed to them.
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According to Heidegger, "When we are considering a man's thoughts, the greater the work accomplished the richer the unthought-of element in that work." In other words, the more you understand, the more aware you become of that which eludes your understanding. Or, in religious terms, the closer you get to god, the less you understand him.
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Sartre's version of this phenomenon: "Man is not the sum of what he has, but the totality of what he does not yet have, of what he might have."
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Awareness of ignorance is, therefore, also knowledge.
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Saturday, January 14, 2006
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THE POSITIVE AND THE NEGATIVE
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Baronian and Odian did not speak about Ottomanized Armenians in Istanbul at the turn of the last century, but about human nature. Honorable beggars and Panchoonies continue to be with us today. The reason some of us remain unaware of their existence is that those whose task it is to enhance our perception of reality believe in emphasizing the positive and covering up the negative.
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THE FRUITS OF SUPERSTITION
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In their efforts to kill the devil, 363 Muslims in Mecca kill one another. Like so much else in life designed to make us feel good, superstitions too come with a price.
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THE TROUBLE WITH HONEY
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Some of my readers accuse me of using too much vinegar and not enough honey. "Honey," they like to remind me, "catches more flies." To them and to everyone who believes in the wisdom of the ages, there is a Spanish proverb that says: "Haceos de miel, y os comeran las moscas" (Make yourself honey and the flies will eat you).
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CONTRADICTIONS
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I am read by readers who find me unreadable. I am hated by Armenians who tell me Armenians are loving people. I am called a jerk by individuals who consider themselves noble specimens of humanity. I am torn to shreds by chauvinists who tell me I should be more constructive. I am called son of a xxxxx by individuals who have assessed themselves as paragons of virtue. I am told to go to hell by born-again Christians. If anyone were to ask me now: "What is the most terrible curse you can think of?" I would reply: "May your offspring choose Armenian literature as a career!"
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