notes / comments

[zourna]

Re: notes / comments

Saturday, August 18, 2007
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ON BEING A PROUD ARMENIAN
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What’s wrong with being a humble Armenian?
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We're not that great!

And I would most probably deal with those infatuated proud ones; they always tend to be dumb and ignorant. The humble ones have the scales off of their eyes. Hard to make a profitable deal in this case.

When does life end and death begins?! We're made of stardust, energy. Energies don't die out; they propagate and create new energies. Scientists will be able to amplify Hitler’s speeches in the future (at least in theory). Sound is lost because of low amplitudes it doesn’t extirpate.
Are we going to die? I don't think so, that of course if we are not zombies in the first place.

[zourna]

Re: notes / comments

No!
Again, am not speaking of regimes or "entities" as you mentioned.
I'm rather generalizing the human-society relation.

There is no such thing as good person, be it Armenian, German... We are all survivals, and in that sense, we are constantly (subconsciously) calculating the odds of every move we make.
So a member in the Nazi party would rather be an opportunist than a good or bad German.

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Societies are made to protect the individuals within that are seeking refuge and protection...and in return individuals contrive, in the name of honor, patriotism, to preserve that ideal. To the extent of personnel sacrifices...
Aforesaid, it's not really a matter of ignorance nor submissiveness. And I personally wouldn't go on in the details of different entities and concepts. Besides, Isolating "entities" as per (regime) to either support and oppose would seem absurd in the bigger picture. It's like a chain; brake a link, you'll end up loosing it all.
I'd say patriotism is a good business provided that the two concerned parties remain "faithful" to each
other. Citizens and societies, neither can persist without the other.

As for "Armenian patriotism" regarding the Diaspora. It's more of a puzzle.
A Citizen as in Dictionary.com is a native or naturalized member of a state or nation who owes allegiance to its government and is entitled to its protection
What are we? where lies our allegiance?
The exclusiveness of these "entities", would make sense here. (True only amongst Armenians that's what they say!
But is it healthy to choose different "entities" from different "Homelands" to end up with a mix that sets our eccentricity?!

sorry, i don't follow you.
are you saying under Hitler a good german would be a member of the nazi party and under stalin a good armenian would be a stalinist perhaps even a commissar of culture and an executioner?
i hope not!/ara

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Saturday, August 18, 2007
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ON BEING A PROUD ARMENIAN
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What’s wrong with being a humble Armenian? To each his own, of course. Speaking for myself, I prefer humility to pride.
*
If you had a choice between dealing with a proud Frenchman or Russian or Greek, and a humble one, which would you choose?
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When does pride end and arrogance begin? I don’t know. I hope you do, because arrogance or hubris is universally acknowledged not as an asset but as a liability.
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Is god proud of the fact that he created the universe? As a matter of fact, he is so humble that even the Pope of Rome doubts his existence seven times every day, or so Italians are fond of saying.
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When an Armenian identifies himself as a proud Armenian, how much of it is reality speaking and how much illusion? We all have illusions, of course – most of them about ourselves. But the older we grow, the more illusions we shed. Perhaps absence of illusions would be another definition of wisdom.
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Speaking of god and the universe, I read the following quotation by Christopher Morley in today’s paper: “My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed.”
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[zourna]

Re: notes / comments

Societies are made to protect the individuals within that are seeking refuge and protection...and in return individuals contrive, in the name of honor, patriotism, to preserve that ideal. To the extent of personnel sacrifices...
Aforesaid, it's not really a matter of ignorance nor submissiveness. And I personally wouldn't go on in the details of different entities and concepts. Besides, Isolating "entities" as per (regime) to either support and oppose would seem absurd in the bigger picture. It's like a chain; brake a link, you'll end up loosing it all.
I'd say patriotism is a good business provided that the two concerned parties remain "faithful" to each
other. Citizens and societies, neither can persist without the other.

As for "Armenian patriotism" regarding the Diaspora. It's more of a puzzle.
A Citizen as in Dictionary.com is a native or naturalized member of a state or nation who owes allegiance to its government and is entitled to its protection
What are we? where lies our allegiance?
The exclusiveness of these "entities", would make sense here. (True only amongst Armenians that's what they say!
But is it healthy to choose different "entities" from different "Homelands" to end up with a mix that sets our eccentricity?!

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Friday, August 17, 2007
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THE SIMPLICITIES OF THE SIMPLE-MINDED
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The simple-minded simplify, and when they speak of patriotism or the homeland, they ignore the fact that they are not speaking of a single entity but of several and sometimes mutually exclusive concepts. Consider the word homeland, as a case in point: does it refer to (a) the real estate (mountains, lakes, rivers, valleys), (b) the regime, (c) the people, (d) the culture? If the regime is corrupt, do we support it or oppose it? If the people have adopted a passive stance (as a result of centuries of subservience to ruthless alien tyrants) do we accept their subservience as an inevitable fact of life or do we expose it as a symptom of Pavlovian conditioning? If such alien excrescences as American materialism, Ottoman authoritarianism, and Soviet contempt for fundamental human rights have contaminated our culture and traditional values, do we pretend our identity and values have not been perverted? I remember one of our patriotic dupes saying: “Even if 1% of the money we send there finds its way to those who need it, we have done some good.” But what if the 99% that goes into the wrong pockets reinforces and prolongs a regime of kleptocrats and bloodsuckers? What if by helping 1% of the population we prolong the misery of the 99%?
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

PORTRAIT OF AN ARMENIAN
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“Mutual intolerance, divisiveness, envy, betrayal, and a thousand other vices have built permanent nests in our hearts.”

Couldn't agree more.

Portrait of the Armenian race
Mutual agreement towards a common goal. Like any other race we Armenians are doomed. As Hobbes states: The condition of man...
is a condition of war of everyone against everyone.

You mentioned in one of your posts; those who are given power will use it for their own sake. I believe so, that is how we are conceived.
Being Armenian isn't any different; we would've done the same.
Yes we had betrayers in the past and we will have in the future. That's their choice, made either by "free will" or constraint.
I wouldn't judge them, who am I to judge anyway?!
Where our interests converge, we make a hell of unison. Even wolves hunt in packs.

Interesting thoughts you have, I may not be able to read them all though.
Keep up the good work

And for those damn braggers out there stop poking your noses in this thread if you're not cool with it.
Or just present counter arguments and discuss.

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AMEN to that! / ara

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Thursday, August 16, 2007
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HOW TO BE A BETTER ARMENIAN
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If you think you are a better Armenian, think of it only as a possibility rather than a certainty. Most of our problems would be solved if we were to adopt a less dogmatic stance.
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The very best way to prove your superiority as an Armenian is by being more tolerant of your fellow men, including Armenians.
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Whenever you disagree with a fellow Armenian, remind yourself that Armenians have disagreed with one another since time immemorial and the chances are they will continue to do so as long as they exist.
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If you think those who disagree with you are lesser men, perhaps even Turks in disguise, consider the possibility that what you think of them, they think of you.
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Above all, never use the Genocide as a license with which to verbally assault and abuse others, be they Armenians or Turks. In this connection, Saroyan may indeed be right: we should speak of Turks and massacres not with self-righteous outrage but with sorrow, and sorrow for both the victims as well as their victimizers. Why victimizers? Because they are either human beings like us (in which case they must bear a heavy burden on their conscience) or animals (in which case, they have shed all traces of that most valuable of all human attributes: their humanity).
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Wednesday, August 15, 2007
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WONDERS NEVER CEASE
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At one time or another I have been accused of working for Ankara, the KGB, the CIA, the Mossad, the ARF, and the ADL. On several occasions I have also been accused of living in an ivory tower. Suspicious buggers, these Armenians. In the 20th century alone they were taken in by some of the worst crooks in the history of mankind – among them, Talaat, Hitler, and Stalin – but they are now suspicious of a harmless scribbler whose sole ambition in life is to be an honest and impartial witness. The truth is, I was born and raised in a Greek slum and I now live in a Canadian slum; and as far as I know, ivory towers don’t grow in slums; and even a retard wouldn’t consider risking his life working for less than minimum wage for half-a-dozen international spy agencies.
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Now I know why the children of famous Armenian writers share a common preference for living as far away from Armenian community centers as possible.
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The trouble with having a sharp tongue is that sooner or later you end up by stabbing yourself.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Tuesday, August 14, 2007
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THE TWIN CONCEPTS OF
TURKISHNESS AND ARMENISHNESS
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A Turk who dares to mention the Armenian Genocide in Turkey is accused of insulting Turkishness; and an Armenian who says anything remotely critical about our collective existence is accused of insulting Armenishness. How can anyone insult an abstraction that is not even defined but used as an umbrella under which prosecutors and self-appointed commissars of culture feel authorized to assert their superior patriotism or morality and to hurl insults at their fellow countrymen?
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It never ceases to amaze me – the unbelievable arrogance, ease and speed with which an Armenian hooligan or skinhead assumes to be an infallible judge of Armenishness, point a finger at you, and hiss, “Admit it, you work for Ankara!”
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When they can’t stand on their own two feet, they invoke Armenishness, or even God and Country, in the hope these mighty abstractions will fill their darkness with light and their brand of paranoia and insanity with reason.
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Below four recent anonymous comments on my writings:
“I spit on you,”
“Everything you say is garbage,”
“You make me puke,”
“What you write is sh**!”
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In their defense of Armenishness, some of my gentle readers do not hesitate to expose their Turkishness as defined by Turkish prosecutors who, in their efforts to defend Turkish culture and identity, do not hesitate to adopt fascist means – that is to say, to behave like barbarians.
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