notes / comments

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Tuesday, October 30, 2007
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VERSIONS OF THE PAST
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In his PAST IMPERFECT (New York, 2004) Peter Charles Hoffer explains that the official version of American history is essentially that of its dominant WASP minority, which means, Indians, women, immigrants, Catholics, xxxs, and Blacks are marginalized to the point of irrelevance. The result, he goes on, is more fiction than fact, and more fraud than honest narrative. To further illustrate and expose the dishonesty of pro-WASP and pro-Establishment historians, Hoffer discusses at considerable length the works of, among others, Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin, both of whom were also accused of plagiarism.
What Hoffer says of American historians could be said of all nationalist historians, or for that matter, anyone who approaches his task with a belief system or ideology. To see the amount of fiction and fraud that has gone into a history of, say, Christianity by a Christian, read Edward Gibbon’s DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. For more details on this subject, see also GOD’S FUNERAL by A.N. Wilson (New York, 1999).
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CIVILIZATION AND BARBARISM
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To be civilized also means to disagree in a civilized manner. One does not have to be a prophet to predict that those who disagree like barbarians will have more enemies than friends, and since it is impossible to agree on everything, the chances are they will make enemies even of their friends.
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ENDS AND MEANS
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In the final analysis, everything we say leads either to tolerance or intolerance, to love or hatred, to peace or war. If those who are partisans of intolerance, hatred, and war knew they would have to confront the enemy in a field of honor, I suspect they would think twice before spewing their venom.
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ARMENIANS IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
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“Since very few Muslims had traveled in Europe or commanded its languages, Ottoman and Iranian rulers often relied for their dealings with European states on agents who were drawn from their Christian minorities, Greek or Armenian.” From AFTER TAMERLANE: THE GLOBAL HISTORY OF EMPIRE by John Darwin (London, 2007), page 204.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Monday, October 29, 2007
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THE SOURCE
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At the source of all divisions there is a dogma, that is to say, a charlatan who asserts infallibility by speaking in the name of god or ideology. The hidden message of all dogmas is: “No need to think for yourself. We will do the thinking for you. All you have to do is give us your consent, trust, and support” (which, in our context, means taxation without representation). After centuries of subservience to sultans and commissars, nothing comes more easily to us than to say, “Yes, sir!” to our bosses, bishops, and benefactors (“Woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation”).
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PORTRAIT OF A LEADER
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After ASSessing himself as a good Armenian, he expects everyone to think as he does. But when it comes to thinking, to accede to preconditions is to conform, to parrot, to echo. When thinking surrenders its freedom, it ceases to be thinking and Homo sapiens ceases to be sapiens, he becomes a robot, a slave, a sheep whose destiny is the slaughterhouse.
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MAILER SPEAKS
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Norman Mailer in a recent interview published in a French magazine: “The tentative title of my next book is ALL PRIESTS ARE LIARS.”
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CLASSY VERBAL ABUSE
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When a 19th-century English scholar by the name of Seely published a book about Jesus, a contemporary reviewer described it as “the most pestilential book ever vomited from the jaws of hell.” The book became a best-seller.
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PRIORITIES
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Our future is more important than our past. That doesn’t mean let bygones be bygones and amnesia. It only means rearranging our priorities.
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POLYBIUS SPEAKS
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Somewhere Polybius explains that good constitutions and laws make good citizens. In a just society, he writes, “vice will not readily spring nor will men be easily overcome by their enemies.” Except of course when they have been shaped by laws enacted by their enemies – in our case, Ottoman and Soviet constitutions and laws.
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ON AMERICAN POLITICS
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In this morning’s paper, the Dalai Lama on American politics: “No matter what the intentions, methods become unrealistic. So instead of solving the problem, they increase the problem.”
Whenever I hear an Armenian say that this or that boss, bishop, or benefactor (Woe!) is a good man with good intentions and as such beyond criticism, I am reminded of the American cliché: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” And whenever I am told I am wasting my time, I say, “I am gathering the material for a book.”
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

what could be more cowardly
than to insult a fellow armenian anonymously
and from a very safe distance? / ara

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Sunday, October 28, 2007
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WHO IS A FASCIST?
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People may think, feel, and speak like fascists but they object strenuously to being identified as such. How to recognize a dyed-in-the wool, real McCoy fascist? Easy! Follow the instructions below.
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THE THREE PILLARS OF FASCISM
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They are nationalism, anti-intellectualism, and anti-Semitism.
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NATIONALISM
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Not only are we nationalists, we also brag about it. We wear our nationalism like a badge. We look down on anyone who dares to say anything against it. We may even cover him with verbal abuse. I speak from experience.
How do we define nationalism? Answer: Love of country, contempt for fellow countrymen.
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ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM
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Read a history of our literature and draw your own conclusions. But if you are too busy to read books of no interest to you, take my word for it: our treatment of intellectuals has been a disaster area and we could easily qualify as one of the most anti-intellectual people on earth. We lost two generations of intellectuals under Talaat and Stalin, and both “purges” (to use a euphemism) with the cooperation of our philistines. But the worst was yet to come. Where Talaat and Stalin failed, our bosses, bishops, and benefactors (“Woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation!”) succeeded. Our intellectual class today has been so thoroughly marginalized that it might as well be extinct. The very few who exist, if at all, have gone underground, sometimes literally.
Oh! don’t get me wrong. We love and venerate poets who sing the eternal snows of Mount Ararat and the “sunripe flavor” of our language (whatever the hell that means) but we prefer to speak English in America, French in France, Greek in Greece, Turkish in Turkey, and with a forked tongue with one another.
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ANTI-SEMITISM
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Anecdotal evidence: after visiting New York City, an old schoolteacher of mine came to see me. “We saw a lot of xxxs there,” said he. “They are people like us, don’t you know. They dress like ordinary folks, they walk like ordinary folks, and they look like the rest of us. Zarmatsa mnatsi!”
What about xxxs who are pro-Turkish and anti-Armenian? Speaking for myself, I do not see them in terms of pro and anti, and if I were cornered to do so, I would say they are pro-themselves, and they have every right to be, and more power to them. Why are we surprised (like my senile schoolteacher) to learn that xxxs are like everyone else, not to say, like us? So what if after millennia of persecution they have learned the hard way to place their own survival above the survival of others (who may or may not be anti-Semites)? When was the last time we placed the survival and welfare of other nations above ours?
Speaking of Armenians and survival, allow me to conclude by quoting Zarian, one of the greatest connoisseurs of the Armenian psyche: “Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another.”
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P.S. ON NATIONALISM
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After writing these lines, I read a long article-interview with Serge Tankian, leader of System of a Down, who is identified as an Armenian from Beirut and “a thoughtful, erudite man…a fervent social crusader with a special interest in the Armenian genocide.” We are further told he espouses the thesis that “nationalism” is one of the three evils that haunt mankind, the other two being “greed” and “indifference.”
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[Armenian]

Re: notes / comments

Ignoring the "writer" in question is the best thing you can do. Since his only left glory are the objections to his constant insults for attention.

Levon jan, if this deranged self-hater kept to himself within this board I would have just pitied him and left it at that. However, he goes around in Turkish and J-e-wish discussion boards disseminates his garbage about Armenians. As a result, he is somewhat of an attraction here. I personally feel as if sometimes I have to make some noise.

For example: Ara B keeps referring to something called "gazetajeez." I wanted to find out what it meant, so I did a Google search. I did not find the meaning of the word but I did came up with was several J-e-w-ish and Turkish discussion boards he posts his crap in.

Ara is obviously a disgruntled person with a lot of self-hate and disillusion.

This comment about him from Narek:

Ara Baliozian is one of the most controversial Armenian contemporary writers, but unfortunately most Armenians do not know about him or his works. He has published close to 20 books over the last 20 years and is acclaimed highly by the foreign media, like Gosdan Zarian and Shahan Shahnour before him, which goes to prove that our anti-establishment writers are not rejected because of the literary quality of their works, but only because of their ideas and their criticism of the Armenian establishment. Armenian papers used to publish his commentaries/book reviews, but lately he has been ignored by most of them (Armenian Life Weekly and New Life [Nor Gyank] which had been publishing his writings for years, among other papers, have been turning down his works lately).

And this one by a Shant Norashkharian:

Ara Baliozian is one of the greatest Armenian contemporary writers, but unfortunately most Armenians do not know about him or his works. He has published close to 20 books over the last 20 years and is acclaimed highly by the foreign media, like Gosdan Zarian and Shahan Shahnour before him, which goes to prove that our anti-establishment writers are not rejected because of the literary quality of their works, but only because of their ideas and their criticism of the Armenian establishment. Armenian papers used to publish his commentaries/book reviews, but lately he has been ignored by most of them (Armenian Life Weekly and New Life [Nor Gyank] which had been publishing his writings for years, among other papers, have been turning down his works lately). He is sixty years old, and lives in seclusion and poverty in Ontario, Canada.

[Azad]

Re: notes / comments

Ignoring the "writer" in question is the best thing you can do.
Since his only left glory are the objections to his constant insults for attention.

[Armenian]

Re: notes / comments

Lucin jan, these people are the filth in our society. This zourna character, whoever he/she is, exemplifies just of how out of touch and disillusioned diasporan Armenians are. These kinds of people are off-springs of Turkified Armenians and petty Anatolian wh-ores that somehow survived the Armenian Genocide and reproduced. Sadly, they seem to be permanent fixture in our society. Most of our extended families have this type of self-hating Armenians, including mine. On the good side, this kind tends to assimilate very fast. And in times of war they will be dealt with accordingly. If you read the biographies of Armenian war heroes such as Drastamat and Andranik, you will see that on many occasions they had to eliminate these types of Armenians to ensure the safety of others.

The good Armenian amongst us, I'm afraid, is a minority. Majority of Armenians today, the average Armenian, is useless and worthless as Armenians. And the psychologically disturbed low-lives such as Ara B that go around speaking to the world in our name are longterm dangers to our national aspirations. During ottoman times the fate of senile self-haters like Ara B would have been one of the following two:

Complete Turkification, the fate suffered by many "peace loving" Ottoman Armenians

Murdered by Turks, the fate suffered by most "peace loving" Ottoman Armenians.

[Lucin]

Re: notes / comments

What you fail to understand, Lucin and the like, is that the WRITER in question is inspired indeed by our aversions towards other races, our compatriots and even ourselves!

I don't understand. What "aversion" are you talking about? LOL, Do you expect me to go and cuddle every time I see a Turk? And which races are you talking about?

but I often see myself in character in many of his writings.

Oh really? Do you, for instance, see yourself in Ali Agca or in Talaat??

May be the man speaks for himself, Armenian,

He speaks for himself? Fine, then I would sugggest him not spew his "speakings" everywhere or replace the words Armenia by 'Planet Earth' and Armenian by a 'citizen of planet earth'. ( as he is one)


Never ever in my whole life, I had seen such a 'yerevuyt'; someone spewing nonsense about his own people, ridiculing them, bashing them sickly and morbidly on a daily basis, on the Net or in books. Name me please, just one writer or critic who is mud-slinging his own people the way he does? Nobody objects him for healthy criticism but his depressive, nihilistic writings have no sense of objectivity.
He is someone with a morbid imagination and obsession.

[zourna]

Re: notes / comments

What you fail to understand, Lucin and the like, is that the WRITER in question is inspired indeed by our aversions towards other races, our compatriots and even ourselves!
May be the man speaks for himself, Armenian, but I often see myself in character in many of his writings.
And oh boy would I see you playing the leading role...

[Armenian]

Re: notes / comments

You are indeed the Turcocentric, a deranged one of course... Harts e tsagum te inchi masin eir grelu yete trker@ (ko amenakarevor nersh'nchumnerits) ch'linein?

The "writer" in question is a self-hating deranged lunatic. I have observed his garbage for the past fifteen-twenty years. He was repulsive throughout his life, and now in his senior years he is a lowly angry soul suffering from senility. As anyone can see from his written crap, the depth of his self-hate, delusion and ignorance is bottomless. I come into this thread to observe the kind of psychological damage Armenian diasporans suffer from. I suggest individuals here to make periodic posts to show the unsuspecting reader, be it Armenian, J-e-w or his favorite Turk, that this person in question speaks only for his deranged self and no one else.