notes / comments

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Sunday, April 02, 2006
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The last century has claimed more victims than any other century in the history of mankind; or man uses technological progress not as a blessing but as a curse.
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Literature may influence isolated readers here and there, now and then, but not the majority and definitely not those who shape history.
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If God allowed His only child to be crucified, why should He be more considerate towards the rest of us?
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In my next life I hope to have beautiful faces as sources of inspiration instead of ugly Armenians.
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I get two kinds of reports from visitors to the Homeland: (one) Yerevan is another Florence; and (two) the men at the top are bloodsuckers. The only way to explain this contradiction is by saying that, when it comes to politics, some people might as well be color-blind and tone-deaf. Their “we are in good hands,” translates as “we are in deep doodoo.”
*
We may be as good as Turks on the day Turks start emigrating to Armenia.
#
Monday, April 03, 2006
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Some readers write to me only to point out a mistake in spelling or grammar. That’s their way of asserting superiority. They seem to be blissfully unaware of the facts that (one) a need to assert superiority is the surest symptom of inferiority, and (two) to write is to confess.
*
Most people are not particularly fond of the English and the French. But there are Anglophiles and Francophiles and they are the ones who write the books. Likewise, there are Armenophiles and Turcophiles, and when they write they don’t do so under oath.
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In one of our partisan weeklies today I read a commentary about the Ottomanization of the Armenian psyche. I call this development a clear-cut case of an idea whose time has come.
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Faith is a rare gift, granted, but only if it is not misunderstood, and it almost always is.
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In John Mortimer’s delightful little book, WHERE THERE’S A WILL, I read the following: when advised by a Victorian doctor that masturbation leads to blindness, a bright child is alleged to have asked, “Can I just do it until I’m short-sighted?”
#
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
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REV. MORGAN
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Montaigne: “None but fools are certain and resolute.”
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Our town is blessed with a retired Anglican minister by the name of Rev. Morgan who contributes a weekly column on religious themes to the local daily. He is a white-haired, elegant, and friendly gentleman in his eighties whom I meet at least once or twice a week during my walks. We exchange greetings and the occasional comment on the weather. Judging by the range of quotations in his commentaries, Rev. Morgan is well read and has mastered the art of using his common sense and logic. And yet, he is the perennial target of abusive letters to the editor by right-wing fundamentalist fanatics.
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It never fails: speak of tolerance and love and you will be hounded by narrow-minded and intolerant haters who pretend to know better.
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To know better is not necessarily to know. We owe wars, revolutions and massacres to people who pretend to know better and who seem to be unaware of the possibility that what they don’t know may exceed what they know.
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An angry reader once said to me, “Your kind of wisdom is available to anyone with a library card.” Which may suggest that some people prefer to rely on their own charlatanism rather than on Plato’s philosophy.
#
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
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Some Armenians born and raised in Turkey tell me I don’t or I can’t understand Turks as well as they do. I may not be personally acquainted with Turks but I know Armenians who have no respect for human rights. I know Armenians who operate on the assumption that violating my free speech is their patriotic duty. I know Armenians who make no effort to understand what they read, which also means they prefer to rely on their own ignorance than on someone else’s knowledge and understanding. And I understand these Armenians because I was one of them myself. So much so that when I first read about Toynbee’s pro-Turkish sentiments I was so outraged that I wrote a critique of his work titled THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND THE WEST.
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In short, I know Ottomanized Armenians and if you know Ottomanized Armenians you don’t need to be personally acquainted with Turks to understand them.
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And speaking of understanding: the aim of understanding is not to promote intolerance but its exact opposite. If your understanding leads you to more intolerance, and intolerance not only of Turks but also of fellow Armenians who don’t parrot your sentiments and thoughts, you should begin suspecting that perhaps what you have in your possession is not understanding but something more akin to misunderstanding.
*
More on understanding: There is human understanding, which is limited, and there is divine understanding, which is without limit – and I evoke the concept of god here only as a point of reference, the way mathematicians use the concept of infinity in their equations. It follows, none of us can claim to know and understand everything, and to understand not only others but also ourselves.
*
More about Armenians born and raised in Turkey: not all of them think alike. I count among my friends several Armenians from Istanbul who think of Turks not as bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians but as fellow human beings as good or as bad as the rest of us. Does that mean they are lesser Armenians or second-class citizens? Ottomanized Armenians may think so. I don’t!
#

[TomServo]

Re: notes / comments

More about Armenians born and raised in Turkey: not all of them think alike. I count among my friends several Armenians from Istanbul who think of Turks not as bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians but as fellow human beings as good or as bad as the rest of us. Does that mean they are lesser Armenians or second-class citizens? Ottomanized Armenians may think so. I don’t!
#

It's not only "Ottomanized" Armenians who think so.

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Thursday, April 06, 2006
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There is an unspoken Armenian theory (to which I subscribed for many years) that says: “The angrier you get, the more you raise your voice in outrage, the closer to the truth you are.” It took me many years to see the wisdom in the old Chinese proverb: “He who loses temper has wrong on his side.”
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In NEWSEEK magazine today an American politician running for office is quoted as having said: “It’s hard to have a debate when you have to debate a bunch of morons!” I can’t imagine an Armenian saying that about fellow Armenians, can you?
*
Since not all of nature is comprehensible to us, we tend to call phenomena that we can’t explain miracles, Aldous Huxley writes in one of his essays after witnessing a “miracle” (a weeping statue) in an Armenian church in Beirut. As a child I remember someone telling me that Jesus did not change water to wine, which would amount to legitimizing alcoholism. He just had water added to the remaining wine and the guests were by then too drunk to notice the difference in taste. And in our paper today I read that according to an Israeli scientist Jesus did not walk on water but on a patch of ice. If you are interested in this subject I suggest you read Thomas Mann’s THE TABLES OF THE LAW where many other Biblical miracles are explained scientifically.
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If I had a say in the matter, I would make tolerance (beginning with tolerance of Turks and their side of the story) the most important subject for study in our schools. One benefit of tolerance: it may lower the barriers that divide us thus enhancing our chances of survival as a nation.
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The very same people who have been blabbering endlessly about massacres demand that I change my tune and say something new.
#
Friday, April 07, 2006
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On more than one occasion I have been told to Armenianize my surname. To what end? To cover up 600 years of Ottoman subjection? Can it be done? I think of Malcolm X who changed his name but was murdered by his own kind anyway. Besides, the root of my surname is not Ottoman but Venetian. “Bailo” in Venetian dialect means ambassador. Among other words that the Turks borrowed from the Venetians are “piazza” and “maranga” (carpenter).
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Was one of my ancestors an ambassador? I don’t know and I care even less. Unlike some of my fellow Armenians who trace their ancestry all the way back to Vartan Mamikonian (of Chinese descent) or the Bagratunis (xxxish), on a good day I can trace mine all the way back to my father, who was born in Sivrihisar, a town famous only as the birthplace of Nasreddin Hodja – a detail that I discovered only very recently on the Internet.
*
Some of my readers may not be aware of the fact that for several centuries Venice and Constantinople were in constant touch as allies, competitors, and more often as rivals.
*
When Sultan Mehmet II (1429-1481) wanted his portrait painted, he asked the Doge of Venice to send him a good painter. The Doge chose Gentile Bellini. The Sultan approved Bellini’s portrait and he commissioned him to paint the head of John the Baptist, who it seems is venerated as a prophet by the Muslims. When the work was done the Sultan had one minor objection. The neck of the prophet was too long, he said, and explained that when a man is beheaded the muscles in the neck contract and the neck shrinks. When Bellini seemed unconvinced, the Sultan had one of his slaves beheaded in Bellini’s presence to prove his point. Bellini was so horrified and scared that something similar might happen to him if he displeased His Majesty that he hastened his return to Venice under cover of darkness.
*
It is to be noted that some of these superpatriots who urge me to change my name are so proud of their own that they write under assumed names that are anything but Armenian. As Zarian says somewhere, “even their filth has not been picked up from our own streets but from alien gutters.”
#
Saturday, April 08, 2006
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Whenever told he repeats himself, Saroyan would recount the story of the cellist who played the same note over and over again. When asked why he did that, he would reply, “Other cellists play different notes because they are looking for the right one. I have found it.”
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To the untrained ear all Bach’s fugues (and he wrote hundreds of them) sound alike. One could also say that all of literature, from THE ILIAD and THE SONG OF SONGS to MADAME BOVARY, ANNA KARENINA, and LOLITA, is about women.
*
A few years ago when a Holocaust denier by the name of Zundel was jailed in Canada, one of our elder statesmen wrote me an angry letter saying it was wrong to jail a decent man for exercising his fundamental human right of free speech. And now, he and his kind are doing exactly the same thing when they refuse to listen to the Turkish side of the story on the grounds that the Turks are denialists.
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To verbally abuse someone on the Internet from a safe distance and anonymously is to compound insolence with cowardice. The question to be asked at this point is: What kind of idiot would make himself vulnerable to these charges? If I have said this before, it bears repeating.
#

[Anonymouse]

Re: notes / comments

A few years ago when a Holocaust denier by the name of Zundel was jailed in Canada, one of our elder statesmen wrote me an angry letter saying it was wrong to jail a decent man for exercising his fundamental human right of free speech. And now, he and his kind are doing exactly the same thing when they refuse to listen to the Turkish side of the story on the grounds that the Turks are denialists.

Quoted for truth.

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Sunday, April 09, 2006
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THE WISDOM OF NASREDIN HOJA
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Nasredin Hoja was fixing his roof when a passerby asks him to come down. When Nasredin Hoja climbs down, the man identifies himself as a beggar and says, “Give me some money.” “Come on up to the roof with me,” Nasredin tells the man; and when they both go up to the roof the beggar says, “Where is my money?” To which the Hoja replies: “I have no money for you.”
*
I am afraid something similar may happen to us on the day the Turks admit the reality of the Genocide: they may ask us to climb to the roof with them. As for allowing us to annex historic Armenia: I doubt if the regime in Yerevan will want to assume the additional responsibility of depopulating it.
*
To those who disagree with me, let me recount another Hoja story. When a dying man asks Nasredin to teach him a prayer that will ease his passage to the next world, the Hoja says, “Say, God help me and Devil help me.” “That’s crazy!” the dying man says. “Not so, my dear fellow,” replies the Hoja. “You are in no position to reject anyone’s help.” Translated into idiomatic English: “Beggars can’t be choosers.” And when it comes to wisdom, who among us will dare to say he is not a beggar?
#
Monday, April 10, 2006
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We speak of books only when they are written and published. What about books that are never written because the author is convinced they will be rejected by editors, or suppressed by censors, or ignored by an intolerant, hidebound, brainwashed, or philistine public?
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In an environment where even written books are ignored, why should anyone bother to mention unwritten ones?
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We may not have a contemporary literature but we do have publishers whose function appears to be to see that only politically correct trash gets into print. We also have well-paid editors by the dozen whose number one priority is to be on good terms with bosses, bishops, and benefactors not because they know better but because they have God and capital (make it Capital and god) on their side.
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Unlike Hitler and Stalin we don’t build concentration camps, but we have become experts on how to alienate, isolate, and silence. I speak as an inmate.
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We tend to confuse our spirit of contradiction with intelligence or erudition. As a child I had an overdeveloped spirit of contradiction and an underdeveloped brain. Any moron can contradict, that doesn’t make him a genius, only a nuisance.
#
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
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Very often in life that which is most obvious is ignored. Or, in Cocteau’s own words: “Nothing is more easily ignored than the essential.” The following Nasredin Hoja story illustrates this brilliantly.
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In his youth the Hoja amassed a vast fortune by dealing in contraband. Everyone knew this but no one could figure out what he was smuggling, not even the border guards who would search him and his mule thoroughly. Years later when one of the guards met the Hoja and wanted to know what was it that he used to smuggle, the Hoja replied: “Mules.”
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When it comes to the Genocide, the question that gets ignored is this: Why is it that after 600 years of coexistence the Turks suddenly decided to exterminate their most loyal subjects? The answer I was brought up to believe is, “Because they are bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians.” Why did these barbarians, after managing an empire that lasted much longer than most empires (including our own under Dikran the Great) suddenly decide to act against their own interests? If we say “mass hysteria,” we give the Turks an out by allowing them to plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
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Speaking of insanity: what could be more insane than to surrender our destiny into the hands of barbarians and to serve them loyally for 600 years?
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Why did the Turks try to exterminate us? The short answer is, we don’t know. Not even the Turks know. That’s because none of us is equipped to understand and explain the incomprehensible, and a great deal about human conduct remains incomprehensible.
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Speaking for myself, I can’t even explain the crimes committed in my own neighborhood by people I know. Also, I can’t always explain why I behaved as I did. I can only repeat Toynbee’s explanation in reference to the Genocide: given the right (or wrong) combination of circumstances we are all capable of committing unspeakable acts.
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I may not be sure about many things, but I am sure of this: there will come a time, and the sooner the better, when both Turks and Armenians will do what’s best for themselves by deciding to coexist in peace, and this time not as masters and subjects but as equals. However, this time may never come if we think of them as bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians.
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Allow me to conclude with another Nasredin Hoja story. A man once found a mirror. He picked it up, took a close look at it, didn’t like what he saw, and reasoning that if it was discarded by its original owner it must be useless, he threw it away. Isn’t that what we do too whenever we don’t like what we read about ourselves?
#
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
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TOPICS FOR FUTURE SERMONS
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Faith becomes a liability when, instead of enhancing our understanding, tolerance, and compassion, it legitimizes our need to judge, condemn, and assert moral superiority.
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Stress the negative in yourself and you may succeed in enhancing your credibility. Speak well of yourself and run the risk of projecting the image of a self-satisfied jackass.
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We either advance towards the truth even if it means a fraction of an inch in our lifetime or we sink deeper into lies.
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When it comes to politicians, vote for the lesser of two evils, adopt a wait-and-see attitude, and prepare yourself to be disappointed.
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If you want to understand a country, read its dissidents and critics, not its propaganda. Read its propaganda only if you want to gauge the magnitude of its illusions.
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I may not be a candidate for literary immortality but I think I have a chance of getting there someday because even those who hate me read me (judging by the number of nasty e-mails I get) and I’d rather be read and hated than loved and ignored.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Thursday, April 13, 2006
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No one in his right mind now questions the fact that the attacks of 9/11 were planned and executed by Al Qaeda terrorists. Many books have already been written on the subject. But increasingly now books are also being written about the failures of the Bush administration to prevent it. In one of them, titled FOG FACTS: SEARCHING FOR TRUTH IN THE LAND OF SPIN by Larry Beinhart (New York, 2005) I read: “The standard excuse for having ignored the warnings is that such attacks were unimaginable.”
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Was our Genocide unimaginable? Not if you consider the warnings that preceded it in 1894, 1895, 1896, and 1909.
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For every ten or even a hundred books on the Genocide we need at least one that will document the failures of our own leadership. If so far our academics have ignored that aspect of the Genocide it may be because our leadership does not relish the idea of being investigated, in the same way that no one within the Bush administration wanted an investigation, because, writes Larry Beinhart, “the kindest thing that could be said about them was that they had been asleep at the wheel.”
*
Four days ago, not far from here, eight members of a motorcycle gang were massacred by fellow members. At the funeral of one of them, the rabbi is quoted as having said this in his eulogy: “He was the sort of guy who could manage to get reservations at a restaurant when nobody else could.” My first thought: Is that something to brag about? My second thought: I will be more than happy if in my eulogy (assuming there will be one) a priest says: “He was the sort of guy who would never eat in a restaurant that required reservat

Thursday, April 13, 2006
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No one in his right mind now questions the fact that the attacks of 9/11 were planned and executed by Al Qaeda terrorists. Many books have already been written on the subject. But increasingly now books are also being written about the failures of the Bush administration to prevent it. In one of them, titled FOG FACTS: SEARCHING FOR TRUTH IN THE LAND OF SPIN by Larry Beinhart (New York, 2005) I read: “The standard excuse for having ignored the warnings (of the 9/11 holocaust) is that such attacks were unimaginable.”
*
Was our Genocide unimaginable? Not if you consider the massacres that preceded it in 1894, 1895, 1896, and 1909.
*
For every ten or even a hundred books on the Genocide we need at least one that will document the failures of our own leadership. If so far our academics have ignored that aspect of the Genocide it may be because our leadership does not relish the idea of being investigated, in the same way that no one within the Bush administration wanted an investigation, because, writes Larry Beinhart, “the kindest thing that could be said about them was that they had been asleep at the wheel.”
*
Four days ago, not far from here, eight members of a motorcycle gang were massacred by fellow members. At the funeral of one of them, the rabbi is quoted as having said this in his eulogy: “He was the sort of guy who could manage to get reservations at a restaurant when nobody else could.” My first thought: Is that something to brag about? My second thought: I will be more than happy if in my eulogy (assuming there will be one) a priest says: “He was the sort of guy who would never eat in a restaurant that required reservations.”
#
Friday, April 14, 2006
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WHY I WRITE THE WAY I WRITE
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I write as I do because if you don’t know what went wrong, you can’t fix what’s going on.
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CARCINOGENIC AGENTS
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It is a well-known fact that many illnesses have psychosomatic origins. Norman Mailer may have been justified is describing a certain type of nasty characters as “cancer.” I remember to have read somewhere that no inmate of an insane asylum has ever died of cancer. After writing for Armenians for more than three decades I am tempted to ascribe my present cancer-free state to a miracle, and I don’t believe in miracles.
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STATISTICS
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Victims of tuberculosis, terror, treason, neglect, starvation, and miscellaneous carcinogenic agents, the average lifespan of Armenian writers has been about 31. The average lifespan of bosses, bishops, and benefactors, about 89. I have a theory about that….
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POLLYANNA’S GLAD GAME
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When teenagers insult me, I think, “They read me because I am accessible.” When adults insult me, I think, “I must have exposed a raw nerve.” When a moderator silences me, I think, “He is a yellow-belly fascist afraid of free speech.” When I meet a wall of silence, I think, “They are afraid to make asses of themselves by contradicting the obvious,” even as I suspect the cause may well be apathy.
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IN PRAISE OF SLUMS
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One good thing about being a slum-dweller is that you will never have a lawyer as a neighbor.
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Saturday, April 15, 2006
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A TURKISH EDITOR
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Whenever Armenians are discussed in odar circles these days it is in connection with the Genocide. Take away the Genocide and the chances are we will be reduced to the status of an anonymous displaced minority on its way to extinction. On the radio an interview with someone identified as “a Turkish editor in France.” The subject, you guessed it -- the Genocide. “The only way to solve our differences is by engaging in dialogue,” the Turkish editor says, and goes on: “I understand Armenians…their feelings, their frustrations. I am myself an Armenian….”
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THE GREAT ONES
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There are only passing references to the Genocide in Antranik Zaroukian’s gossipy and compulsively readable last book, THE GREAT ONES…AND THE OTHERS (Beirut, 1992), a memoir of such contemporaries as Oshagan, Zarian, Shant, Aghbalian, Chobanian, and Shavarsh Missakian. In the chapter on Oshagan, Zaroukian quotes an Armenian hotel owner in Aleppo saying, Oshagan can stay in his hotel for as long as he likes free of charge, because “Oshagan is a great man, and that’s the least I can for him.” Zaroukian comments: “Mihran effendi [the owner] was an illiterate man, and for him anyone who had written a book was a great man. One day, after being informed that I had published a critical article about His Holiness Ardavast, he reprimanded me with the words, “That will not do, my boy – criticizing His Holiness…the man has written three books.”
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THE OTHERS
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I look around in search of a “great one” today and I only see pundits and academics who write as if they were interchangeable units. And what do they write about? Turkish barbarism.
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CONFESSIONS
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I point out contradictions in others because I have observed the same contradiction in myself. In that sense my criticism is also a confession. But perhaps all criticism is. I ask our forum moderators and editors, whose favorite subject is Turkish barbarism: “What is the difference between silencing a writer and cutting his tongue out?”
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Sunday, April 16, 2006
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ANOTHER HOJA STORY
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The following Nasredin Hoja story is my own version based on what I heard many years ago as a child. Like all truly wise men, the Hoja didn’t write a single line for publication. As a result there are as many versions of his stories as there are tellers. Most so-called Hoja stories, moreover, are not even his stories but counterfeits. In his anthology, THE SUBTLETIES OF THE INIMITABLE MULLA NASRUDING (London, 1973) Idries Shah, the foremost authority in the English language, includes even stories about the Hoja in an airplane, and another on a psychoanalyst’s couch, and still another about Hoja in London. I wouldn’t be in the least surprised, therefore, if an expert writes to say that the story that fellows does not belong to the canon. The only reason I am recounting it here is that “Se non vero, ben trovato” (freely translated: if untrue, it’s as good as true, because it’s good”).
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When on his way home late one night Nasredin Hoja sees a man bent over looking for something, the following exchange takes place: “What did you lose?” “My gold ring.” “Where did you lose it?” “In the barn over there.” “If you lost it in the barn, why are you looking for it in the street?” “Because there is more light here.”
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This story has several morals, among them:
(i)Most people pretend to solve a problem because pretending is easier even if completely useless. (ii) Before men hit on the right solution, they will try all the wrong ones first.” (iii) Common sense is the least common of all faculties. (iv) Before you act, consider your motives and the consequences of your actions. (v) Action without contemplation is meaningless.
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Monday, April 17, 2006
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JESUS AND HITLER
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According to scholars who have studied the underlined passages and marginalia of Hitler’s private library, one of the subjects that interested him the most was, “Where did Jesus derive the power that has held his followers for all eternity?” For more on this subject see, EVERY BOOK ITS READER: THE POWER OF THE PRINTED WORD TO STIR THE WORLD by Nicholas A. Basbanes (New York, 2005).
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POETRY
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I don’t read much poetry, especially that of our vodanavorjis, whose number probably exceeds that of our self-appointed pundits, but I love these lines by Salvatore Quasimodo: “Your eyes have seen my depths / Unto the darkness of my bowels.”
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THE LIFE AND DEATH OF A FORUM
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Some years ago I was a member of an Armenian discussion forum whose moderator did not allow four-letter words, abusive language, and aliases. Any member that did not abide by his rules was immediately and unceremoniously removed. As a result, after dwindling from over a hundred members to only one, the forum was terminated. Moral: Armenians are better at sharing insults than ideas.
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TOLERANCE, ARMENIAN STYLE
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A fascist thinks he is being tolerant when he allows the free exchange of fascist ideas. Tolerance of anti-fascist ideas he equates with treason.
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JESUS AND TURKS
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In his memoirs, Zaroukian quotes the following two lines from an unidentified Armenian poet: “The Turk did not yet exist / When Jesus said, Forgive your enemy.”
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Tuesday, April 18, 2006
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ACADEMIC MAFIAS
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After publishing a genocide-related book, a friend of mine complained that no one had bothered to review it. “I know something I didn’t know before,” he went on. “We have a genocide mafia that treats non-members as interlopers.”
*
EGO TRIP
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In his memoirs, Zaroukian writes that Nikol Aghbalian not only contributed scholarly essays to an Armenian academic periodical but also paid his annual subscription fee. When asked why he did that, he is said to have replied: “This is one of those publications whose sole subscribers are its contributors. If we don’t pay, it will cease to exist.” There you have a typical failing of our academics: instead of educating the masses, they try to impress one another with their erudition.
*
I REMEMBER
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When I write about mafias, fascists, and dupes, I write about myself. I imagine nothing. I guess even less. I only remember.
*
Z/Z
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Zarian’s fans outnumbered his detractors; but whereas his fans were silent, his detractors were not, probably because he was an outsider, an interloper – an Armenian from Karabagh among Armenians from Istanbul and Yerevan. He could never qualify as a member of the club. Anywhere else he would have been a best seller. Among Armenians, his status continues to be marginal. For every positive statement that Zaroukian makes in his memoirs of Zarian, there are more than a dozen negative ones. Had I known Zarian only through Zaroukian’s, or for that matter, Oshagan’s writings, I wouldn’t even have bothered to read him.
#
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
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MORE ON ZAROUKIAN
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One of the most astonishing aspects of Antranik Zaroukian’s memoirs is the degree of seriousness he and his contemporaries took themselves. Their internecine tempest-in-a-teacup disagreements and quarrels are treated as if they were historic events with serious repercussions. Case in point: When the three political parties agree to sign a document, the argument that erupts is about whose signature will appear on top. The wisest words in the book are spoken by a gifted poet who, when asked why he has quit writing, replies: “To write what? To what end?”
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I REMEMBER
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Once upon a time when I was young, naïve, and ignorant, I too treated our elder statesmen with some respect and believed what they said. But when in time I decided to rely more on my own observations and experiences, the Tashnaks assumed I was a Ramgavar, the Ramgavars assumed I was a Tashnak, our bishops assumed I was an atheist, and our capitalists, or rather their flunkeys, assumed I was a communist. It never even occurred to these gentlemen that one could be anti-partisan, anti-clerical, and anti-capitalist and be a decent human being able to have one’s own thoughts and to be independently poor by surviving on bread and books.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Thursday, April 20, 2006
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CHOBANIAN
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When Arshak Chobanian, a foremost writer of the last century, visited Beirut, Antranik Zaroukian writes in his memoirs, one of his first questions to friends was: “Where do we stand with our struggle against the Tashnaks?”
*
DIVIDE AND RULE
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Zaroukian discusses and dissects many struggles, almost all of them internecine. Another proof of the fact that we have accepted the divide-and-rule tactic of our oppressors as if it were a fait accompli imposed on us by force majeure.
*
ANSWERS AND QUESTIONS
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We either agree with someone else’s answers or we ask questions of our own. If we choose someone else’s answers, let us at least make sure that his secret agenda does not conflict with our own.
*
FRIENDS AND ENEMIES
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We are better at making enemies than friends. It has happened to me more than once that in my efforts to make a friend, I have succeeded only in making an enemy.
*
A BIG LIE
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In a contest between a pleasant lie and an unpleasant truth, the lie will always win. Ideology is theology is one of those pleasant lies that have poisoned and Talibanized our collective existence.
*
PHILOSOPHERS AND CAPITALISTS
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He who hires and fires knows better than he who is hired and fired. It follows a benefactor is wiser than a philosopher. All a philosopher does is deal in “philosophical gobbledygook,” whereas a benefactor deals in dollars. Only an idiot would refuse to see the uselessness of the philosopher and the necessity of the benefactor. Conclusion: philosophers are idiots, benefactors lovers of wisdom (which is what “philosopher” means in Greek – a lover of wisdom).
#
Friday, April 21, 2006
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CONTRADICTIONS
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During the Soviet era, Armenians of the Diaspora were divided into those who supported the Homeland on the grounds that the regime was only an ephemeral phase, and those who declared it was our inalienable right and patriotic duty to resist tyranny. Two questions that were avoided and continue to be avoided today: Does supporting the Homeland also mean covering up or ignoring its abuses of power and crimes against humanity? Does resisting tyranny justify violating the fundamental human right of free speech of all dissenters?
*
UNSPOKEN MOTTOS
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Better a dishonest somebody than an honest nobody.
*
Better a fat idiot than a hungry philosopher.
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MORONS AND OXYMORONS
************************************************** ***********************
An honest politician.
A tolerant partisan.
A pious bishop.
A humble benefactor.
A selfless academic.
*
QUESTION
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Have I ever said anything you did not already know or suspect?
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MAXIM
****************
The easiest way to expose one’s ignorance is by pretending to know more than one does.
*
MEMO
****************
In my formative years the man whose judgment I respected the most was a Stalinist. Moral: Trust no one so completely as to paralyze your own judgment.
#
Saturday, April 22, 2006
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FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS
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A dupe is one who thinks it is his patriotic duty to believe what his elders tell him. Millions were deceived because they thought Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao knew better. Many others believed in the slogan “Mussolini ha sempre ragione” (Mussolini is always right). What is even more astonishing is that among these countless faceless and anonymous mobs were also some of the most intelligent men of the last century – H.G. Wells, Shaw, Heidegger, Knut Hamsun, Gide, Koestler, Silone, Sartre… Never say therefore for whom the bell tolls.
*
CONFESSION
***********************
I have committed my share of transgression, probably many more than I should have. But I have never felt the need to legitimize my intolerance by joining a political party. If I hate a fellow Armenian to the point of wishing him dead, I do so on purely personal grounds without feeling the need of a boss to convince me that by hating him I am discharging my patriotic duty. If I hate Ottomanized and Sovietized Armenians it’s because I see traces of both in myself.
*
MASSACRISM
***************************
A man who is obsessed with the past cannot ask himself, Where am I? Where am I going? Where will I be tomorrow or next year? Remembering our victims, yes; letting them turn us into pillars of salt, no!
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Sunday, April 23, 2006
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DEFINING A GOOD ARMENIAN
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If a Ramgavar were to tell me a good Armenian is one who hates Tashnaks, I would be tempted to retort, “If we assume hatred to be a defining factor, then I must be a better Armenian than you because I hate both Tashnaks and Ramgavars for adopting and implementing the divide-and-rule tactics of our oppressors.”
*
If an Armenian were to tell me it is our patriotic duty to hate Turks, I would react by saying, “I must be a better Armenian than you because I hate not only Turks but also Germans, Russians, Americans, Patagonians or any other people you care to mention that at one time or another raped and massacred innocent human beings in the name of an ideology or religion based on a Big Lie whose ultimate aim is to label and dehumanize a fraction of mankind.”
*
How to define a good Armenian? It can’t be done. Every boss, bishop, and benefactor will have his own definition. But they will all agree on one thing: an assimilated Armenian cannot be a good Armenian because he is of no use to them.
*
What about the average Armenian? How does he define a good Armenian? No need to ask him. Watch his feet. If he can’t work and provide for his family in the Homeland or if he finds himself at the mercy of intolerant activists or corrupt operators in the Diaspora, he will say to hell with definitions and he will give up his identity before anyone can say Jack S. Avanakian.
*
If you were to ask me, I will say the most important thing in life is not to be a good Armenian but a better human being by making a contribution to the welfare of your fellow men. It follows, a Turk who does that is far superior to an Armenian whose number one concern is number one.
*
Wars and massacres are instigated not by good men but by charlatans who recycle a propaganda line based on a Big Lie. To an Armenian who believes he is god's chosen and his brand of Armenianism is the only true one, and anyone who disagrees with him is a second-class citizen, perhaps even a traitor to the cause, I say, “I hope and pray you and your kind assimilate and are not heard from again, because the world will be a better place without your kind of bully.”
#
Monday, April 24, 2006
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ZAROUKIAN ON ARMENIANISM,
OTTOMANISM, AND SOVIETISM
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The only reason some of my young readers are shocked, perhaps even outraged by my views is that they are not interested in Armenian literature and the chances are they have not read a single Armenian writer, except perhaps Saroyan (about whom see below). As a result, their so-called patriotism does not go beyond such clichés and slogans as “first nation to convert to Christianity.” I say this to stress the fact that none of my ideas is original. I only select and emphasize.
*
Today, for instance, I come across the following passage in Antranik Zaroukian’s THE LAST INNOCENT (Beirut, 1980). “Armenianism is one but Armenians are not. Some Armenians value freedom above everything else, others have Turkish souls, still others Bolshevik brains.”
*
Speaking of a certain type of Armenian leader, he further writes: “He was the kind of judge who pronounces a guilty verdict first then looks for a crime that will fit the verdict. And…he finds it.”
*
AGEE ON SAROYAN
*******************************
“Saroyan is an entertainer of a kind overrated by some people and underrated by others – a very gifted schmalz-artist. In the schamlz-artist strength and weakness are inextricably combined – the deeply, primordially valid, and the falseness of the middle-aged little boy who dives back into the womb for pennies.”
*
Elsewhere: “Saroyan’s brand of Christian anarchy I find about equally genuine, sympathetic, professional, and muddled.” For more on Saroyan, see James Agee, FILM WRITING AND SELECTED JOURNALISM (748 pages. Illustrated. Index. New York, 2005).
*
MEMO TO A REVOLUTIONARY
****************************************
Never start a fight you can’t win. But if you do, fight to the end. Do not abandon defenseless women and children at the mercy of the enemy you know to be bloodthirsty, racist, and ruthless. But if you do, have the decency not to wash your hands afterwards, absolve yourself of all responsibility, and spend the rest of your life blaming others, because that would be the height of cowardice.
#
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
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The difference between my generation of writers and the one that preceded it is that we no longer think in terms of “occupying an immortal page in the history of Armenian literature” – an expression and similar ones pop up frequently in Antranik Zaroukian’s writings. Zaroukian’s generation took themselves seriously. We are more realistic. We take nothing seriously except the Genocide. Everything else we view as irrelevant and ephemeral.
*
Myself against our bosses, bishops, benefactors, and their assorted hirelings: it is as uneven a confrontation as that of our revolutionaries against the Evil Empire. But in my case, at least, I can always console myself by saying that no one but myself will suffer for my blunders, assuming of course I am on the wrong path and my “betters” on the right one.
*
What we say is not always what we believe, especially when it comes to saying what we really believe or our credo; and more often than not “we may believe that we believe, but we don’t believe” (Sartre).
*
We have two kinds of best-selling books: cookbooks and massacre books. The offspring of the starving Armenian now have fat bellies – too much pilaf, shish kebab, and baklava.
*
Russian proverb: “With cunning you can capture a lion; with force you can’t even catch a cricket.”
*
What am I doing to encourage the next generation of writers, I have been asked on one or two occasions. My answer: “What the nation needs more than writers is readers.”
*
Somewhere in his THE LAST INNOCENT Zaroukian sums up his philosophy thus: 5% of men are born good and will die good; 5% are evil and no power on earth will change them (“they are born to crawl not to fly”); the remaining 90% can go either way depending on conditions and circumstances. What he fails to add is that the evil ones are better at organizing themselves because lies and greed are more popular than self-sacrifice and truth.
#
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
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ON READING
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A question that comes up once in a while: “If I can read Plato and Dostoevsky, why should I bother reading Armenian writers who comparatively speaking are no better than second-raters?”
The answer: Plato and Dostoevsky may teach you a great many things about human nature but they will tell you nothing about our situation.
*
Had our revolutionaries read less Plato and more Raffi they would have known that reliance on others (the West in our case) was wrong, and that mass exodus from the Empire (similar to what we see today in the Homeland) would have been a more realistic solution than isolated acts of terrorism and revolution.
*
Had they read less Hegel and more Baronian they would have known that after 600 years of subjection to the Sultan, the average Armenian was not about to shed his sheep’s clothing and turn into a wolf.
*
Had they read less philosophy and more history they would have known that without popular support a revolution couldn’t succeed.
*
They say, “Two pairs of eyes are better than one.” They also say, “None of us knows everything and everyone knows something we don’t know.” The aim of both sayings is to emphasize the importance of solidarity, consensus, and awareness -- three essential commodities we lack.
*
I am not saying reading Armenian writers will solve all our problems, but I believe it may promote an intellectual and political climate in which fewer disastrous decisions are made.
#

[arabaliozian]

notes / comments

Thursday, April 27, 2006
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RUSSIAN PROVERBS
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“A wounded falcon will be pecked to death even by a crow.”
*
“Every day is different from another: one day it’s cold, next day freezing.”
*
“To a sinking boat all winds are in the wrong direction.”
*
LIONS AND FLIES
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The unfairness of life is never as evident as when you are insulted by someone because he thinks he is invulnerable or you are in no position to retaliate. In such moments it is useful to remember that every Achilles has his heel and even a fly can drive a lion crazy.
*
WHO’S WHO
**********************
Because I refuse to drop my pants and bend over, I am thought of as an unpatriotic non-conformist.
Very probably I am more conservative, patriotic, and traditionalist than our so-called revolutionaries. A hundred years ago they challenged the might of the Sultan. I am now challenging the might of our mini-sultans. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you may now decide who’s who and what’s what.
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Friday, April 28, 2006
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“The British are a tolerant people,” I read in a commentary this morning. My first thought: When, O when they will say this about us?
*
In Antranik Zaroukian’s NEW ARMENIA, NEW ARMENIANS (Beirut, 1983) I read the following story: In Moscow they didn’t know what to do with Stalin’s body. They asked the French if they would like to have it and the French said no. They asked the Germans, Italians, Greeks, Spaniards, and a few other people, and they all said no. Finally Israel said, “We’ll have it. Send it over.” The Russians said, “No way. We will never send Stalin’s body to Israel.” “Why not?” the Israelis wanted to know. “Because,” the Russians replied,” “in your land there is the possibility of resurrection.”
*
We desperately need pundits who will tell us things we don’t know, instead of reminding us over and over again that Turks are butchers and liars, and we are their victims.
*
When asked for a favor, a friend tells me, an Armenian academic is reported to have said, “What’s in it for me?”
*
The more I live among men, the more I prefer the company of dead writers.
*
You may know a thousand things he doesn’t know, but if you don’t know that single thing he knows, forever after he will think of you as an ignoramus.
*
One reason I can’t stand idiots is that I have been one all my life, and I continue to be one today. How else to explain my illusion that if I share my understanding with my fellow Armenians, I may make myself useful to them.
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Saturday, April 29, 2006
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It is said that when the Buddha ignored an insult by a passerby, one of his disciples wanted to retaliate. The Master stopped him with the words: “When someone offers me a bowl of rice and I am not hungry, I don’t eat it.”
*
Anonymous: “Sometimes what matters is not who you are but where you are.”
*
A question to our editors and pundits: If a member of your family is molested or raped, do you feel the need to speak of molesters and rapists every time you open your mouth? Why do you discuss Turks whenever you put pen to paper? Doesn’t the nation deserve the same degree of consideration as members of your own family?
*
During the last few days I have read three books by Antranik Zaroukian, a survivor. Does he mention Turks? I don’t remember. Maybe once or twice, and only in passing. But I am not sure. As lawyers say when they are through cross-examining a witness, “Nothing further, your Honor.”
*
What could be easier than making mistakes? What could be infinitely more difficult than admitting them? I don’t say this in reference to Turks, or for that matter, to Armenians who have committed their share of blunders, but about myself.
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