notes / comments

[arabaliozian]

aug. 7

Thursday, August 05, 2004
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CRITICISM AND HATRED.
WHY IS ISRAEL PRO-TURKISH?
A REVERSAL OF ROLES.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF NATIONS.
THE IRRELEVANCE OF LITERATURE.
*******************************************
The difference between being critical of American politics and being anti-American is that, Michael Moore's FAHRENHEIT 9/11 is critical, whereas Muslim fanatics are anti-American.
*
Something similar could be said of anti-Armenianism and of being critical of Armenian politics. Movses Khorenatsi, Yeghishe, Raffi, Baronian, Odian, Zohrab, Zarian, Massikian, Shahnour and many others were critical of Armenian politics, but Sultan Abdulhamid II and Talaat were anti-Armenian.
*
Perhaps one reason the Israelis are pro-Turkish is that they would like to do to Palestinians what the Turks did to us. And I cannot help wondering what would have happened had the Ottoman Empire been an Armenian Empire and the Turks our "Armenians." One guess: We would have done to them what we did to the Azeris in Karabagh (more or less), and having done so we would brag about it; and when asked to admit responsibility or guilt we would accuse our accusers of anti-Armenianism sure in the knowledge that we would have the support and understanding of all imperial powers who at one time or another had been in our position.
*
Like individuals, nations too have their psychological complexes. This is not a secret. Anyone in a leadership position knows this but it is to his advantage to exploit these complexes rather than to analyze them, if only because analyzing them may expose him as a wheeler-dealer whose number one concern is number one but who must pretend otherwise by parading as a selfless and humble servant of the nation.
*
Sartre is right. Literature solves nothing and helps no one. Our history is very clear on this point. Writing for Armenians is a waste of time. But I go on because Armenianism has been hijacked by rascals and standing by and saying nothing is as difficult as witnessing a gang rape and assuming a passive stance. So what if everything I have said so far doesn't even amount to a whisper on a deserted street in the middle of the night?
#
Friday, August 06, 2004
********************************
DEFINING PROPAGANDA.
POWER STRUCTURES AND DISSIDENTS.
ARMENIAN HISTORY 101.
********************************************
One Way to define propaganda is to say that it is anything and everything that a power structure tells you.
*
If a common crook or a pathological liar tells you 2+2=4, believe it. But if a power structure tells you the same thing, believe it not.
*
To recycle propaganda means admitting two things at once: "I am a dupe," and "I hate to think for myself."
*
Power structures are not monolithic entities; rather, they have internal fissures and divisions with constantly shifting alliances. A smart Armenian who wants to survive in our environment must sooner or later associate himself with and be subservient to either a boss, bishop or benefactor, all of whom unite only against a common adversary, dissidents. That may explain why Armenian dissidents are an extinct species today.
*
The French beheaded their king, the Russians executed their czar, and the Italians hanged Mussolini. Our leaders have managed to survive because they brainwashed us to believe we owe our survival to them.
*
"When the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch," the Bible tells us. Our history in a nutshell.
*
When the blind leads the blind and the inevitable happens, should we call that leading or misleading?
*
When the blind lead the blind and if both are Armenian, they will brag about their survival even as they lament over their shattered bones.
#
Saturday, August 07, 2004
*********************************
THE USES AND ABUSES OF PATRIOTISM.
DEFINING HOMELAND.
WHAT IS CULTURE?
MEMO TO A CRITIC.
**********************************************
Why is it that some Armenians are not emotionally and intellectually equipped to disagree without engaging in verbal abuse? And to think that more often than not they are the very same Armenians who reject the label "Ottomanized." And then there are Armenians who think there is nothing wrong in hating a fellow Armenian or an entire class of them so long as it's in the name of patriotism; and their definition of patriotism is so narrow that any other definition is dismissed as treason.
*
What is patriotism? Let's see if we can define it or at least take a step in the right direction. If we say it is love of country (in the sense of homeland) then we shall have to define country: is it the real estate? -- the mountains, lakes, rivers and valleys? Is it the Armenian people as a whole? Is it the present regime or the administration of justice? Is it the culture? Things, as you may begin to suspect, are not as simple as they may appear to be at first sight.
*
If by country we mean the land, then we must ask the question: In what way Armenian mud is different from Turkish mud?
If it is the people: Does that mean you are less of a patriot if you hate or disagree with even a single fellow Armenian?
If it is our culture: What is culture? Or, who is qualified to define it? - a politician (whose central concern is power), a priest? (whose business is saving souls), or a writer (whose aim is to understand reality by separating fact from propaganda)?
*
If, on the other hand, we adopt Goethe's definition of homeland ("Wherever a man is allowed to work and provide for his family") we may have to agree that Armenians of the Diaspora and Armenians in the Homeland who wish to emigrate (and I am told everyone except policemen and politicians does), Armenian patriotism might as well be an oxymoron.
*
It took me about three decades to figure out what's what and who's who in our environment. Instead of calling me names or identifying me as an enemy of the people, I suggest you give yourself a little more time before you jump to conclusions - unless of course you happen to be one of our dime-a-dozen geniuses or self-appointed experts on any given subject born with superior powers of observation and understanding. In which case you should get busy sermonizing and speechifying in an effort not only to convert skeptics like me but also to re-interpret the work of many of our ablest writers who at one time or another adopted a critical stance.
#

[arabaliozian]

comments

Sunday, August 08, 2004
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THE NATIVE TONGUE.
*********************************
In the Greek ghetto where I grew up the old folks spoke in Turkish among themselves and the kids spoke in Greek. Once when urged to speak in Armenian by the old, I asked my dad: "You speak in Turkish, and yet you insist that we speak in Armenian, why?" My father explained: "We speak in Turkish because the Turks used to threaten to cut out our tongues if they caught as speaking in Armenian." Armenians must have been an obedient bunch, I remember to have thought, because there were no Armenians in the ghetto of several thousand (all of them refugees from the Ottoman Empire) with missing tongues or any kind of speech impediment.
*
The question we should ask at this point is: If it was Ottoman policy to cut out tongues, why is it that they allowed Armenian writers to write and publish hundreds of books and dozens of newspapers, periodicals, and calendars in Istanbul? Unless of course cutting out tongues was a policy implemented only in the interior provinces. But then, even in remote villages there were Armenian churches and schools and most of our writers were educated in such provincial schools.
*
Consider what is happening in the Diaspora today: most Armenians cannot or don't want to speak in Armenian even though no one is threatening to cut out their tongues if they choose to do so. And most Armenians prefer to assimilate perhaps because they instinctively see no future in keeping their identity, culture and traditions - except perhaps when it comes to shish-kebab and pilaf.
*
The thought now occurs to me that perhaps when our elders reminisce about the "old country" they do not always speak the truth.
*
Cutting out tongues is a barbaric custom and it is against the law in all civilized countries, including America. But in what way silencing a writer is not cutting out his tongue? And of what possible use is the fundamental human right of free speech if it is employed only to recycle propaganda or to engage in verbal vandalism? -- which consists in doing to civilized discourse what the Turks did to us.
*
Perhaps what I am trying to say here is that, if you ever want to assert your Armenianism, do not behave like a Turk, and when someone points that out to you, do not pretend not to see it.
#
Monday, August 09, 2004
*********************************
RAFFI'S THEORY.
A 19TH-CENTURY FALLACY.
INFANTILE CRITICISM.
WHAT IS MORAL COMPASS?
I PROPOSE AN EXPERIMENT.
***************************************
Raffi once ascribed all our defeats to treason, which, he said, "is in our blood." The conception of "blood" as the source of racial traits or national character is, of course, a 19th-century fallacy. Instead of blood, we now speak of convolutions of the brain, or environmental conditioning, or collective unconscious. Raffi's theory is not without merit, however, even if it requires some terminological updating.
*
In my view, all our misfortunes may be ascribed not to blood or fate or an extension of powers beyond our control or comprehension, but to a certain type of individual or rather meddler (and here we can borrow Odian's terminology by calling him a Panchoonie) who, in today's parlance, would be described as a loud-mouth smart-ass with the moral compass of a certified moron, by which I mean an inherent inability to tell the difference between patriotism and fascism, or between Armenianism and Ottomanism (or Sovietism). When such a type preaches tolerance, he means tolerance only of his own ideas. As for free speech, dialogue, compromise, consensus, and democracy: he dismisses them all as Western aberrations. In his view, the West is morally bankrupt, and Armenianism (meaning Ottomanism) is a superior brand of ideology, mindset, or system of thought. And if you were to ask him how does he know these things or what has been his experience in the field, he will either call you names or ascribe his wisdom to his racial inheritance or blood.
*
Because I have written again and again against dogmatism, intolerance, authoritarianism, all forms of fascism and racism, I have been called dogmatic, intolerant, authoritarian, fascist and racist - among other things. I call this type of criticism infantile or bounce criticism, because it doesn't require any thinking: it simply bounces back the criticism to the critic; and infantile because that's exactly how we reacted when we were kids: when someone called us a liar, we replied: "You are the liar!"
*
To those who say writers are unreliable because they are eccentrics, sometimes even unstable, I suggest the following experiment: ask any alienated or assimilated Armenian (and there are millions of them): "Why? Why are you alienated?" or "What motivated you to opt for assimilation?" and don't be surprised if his reasons are variants of the very same ideas that I have been expounding here.
#
Tuesday, August 10, 2004
*******************************
ARMENIAN HISTORIANS AND THEIR COUNTERPARTS.
A MATTER OF CREDIBILITY.
HOW TO RECONCILE THE IRRECONCILABLE.
WHO WAS ARTIN DADIAN?
************************************************** ******
Even though Armenian pundits and historians don't always agree with one another and notwithstanding the fact that I have myself been exposed to a great deal of nonsense by them, I have been brought up to believe they are fundamentally more honest than their Turkish counterparts. The problem is, most Turks have also been brought up (or brainwashed, if you prefer) to believe their own historians are more honest than their Armenian counterparts. How to reconcile these two opposite camps?
*
I am told some Armenian historians, among them our foremost Genocide authority, Vahakn Dadrian, are now available in Turkish. On the day we translate and publish Turkish historians into Armenian, we may be in a better position to see the light at the end of the tunnel. But I for one am not holding my breath. Armenians refuse to publish even their own writers who refuse to recycle a certain brand of crapola.
*
How many of my readers, I wonder, are familiar with the name of Artin Dadian? - a prominent member of the Ottoman Administration under Sultan Abdulhamid II, who wrote the following letter to our revolutionaries in 1898:
"I suggest that today we exercise nothing but patience and tolerance. First, Europe shows complete indifference and says there is no Armenian question as far as they are concerned. Second, the threat of the complete annihilation of the Armenian nation has not yet entirely passed, and third, the people are tired of revolutionary deeds and are ready to patch up their differences with the government in order to remain safe from further terrible events as have almost wiped out our people from the face of the earth. Fourth, various organizations are fighting different causes, each in their own way, and in the middle of all this stands one pitiful Artin Dadian, who on the one hand begs the Sultan for mercy by telling him that this would be the best thing for his empire and on the other hand fights base individuals who in order to attain their selfish aims are even willing to sell their nation. I believe it will be proper, as I have mentioned countless times before, for our people to patch up their differences with the Sultan."(*)

************************************************** *********
(*)See THE ROLE OF THE DADIAN FAMILY IN OTTOMAN, SOCIAL, ECONOMIC, AND POLITICAL LIFE by Pars
Tuglaci (Istanbul, 1993).
#
Wednesday, August 11, 2004
***********************************
VARIETIES OF PATRIOTISM.
FREE SPEECH AND ITS DEFENDERS.
DO I REPEAT MYSELF?
DISSENT AS TREASON.
**************************************
Patriotism has several meanings, including some that are downright unpatriotic. Patriotism is unpatriotic when it consists in supporting and defending a corrupt or incompetent leadership whose ultimate if unstated aim is the destruction of the homeland. Cases in point: Italian and German patriotism under Mussolini and Hitler, or, for that matter, under any form of power structure that views dissent (or free speech) as treason.
*
Like patriotism, free speech too has more than one definition, and under all authoritarian regimes it means only one kind of speech and one kind of ideas, any other kind being a manifestation of hostility that should be suppressed.
*
I remember to have read only one editorial in defense of free speech in our partisan papers -- that's when Levon Der Bedrossian banned the ARF press in Armenia.
*
No doubt some of my readers will think I am expressing these views because I have been silenced by our press. "What if you have been silenced because you are wrong?" they may even demand to know. Free speech and the possibility of being wrong are not mutually exclusive and might as well be synonymous. If we say free speech is a privilege accorded only to the wise and the infallible, who among us would qualify? Or who among us would admit to being unwise and foolish?
*
Have I said all this before? Probably. Do I bore you with my obsession with a limited number of ideas? If yes, do yourself a favor and stop reading me. No doubt you will find more variety and entertainment in the kind of talk that says we were the first nation to convert to Christianity and the first nation to suffer a genocide in the 20th century, the implication being, we owe our Christianity to our enlightened, progressive and far-sighted kings and our massacres to the barbarism of the Turks and the hypocrisy of the West; which also means that our leaders (unlike all other leaders) can do no wrong and anyone who says otherwise is an enemy.
#

[arabaliozian]

reflections

Thursday, August 12, 2004
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A MATTER OF SEMANTICS
*******************************
It is wrong to say "The Turks massacred us." We should say instead, "Some Turks massacred us." Not all Turks were bloodthirsty savages. Had they been, there would have been no survivors.
*
When we ascribe the crimes of a few on the many, we do to civilized discourse what the Turks did to us - make it, "what some Turks…." As you can see, habit is an irresistible force and it requires a vigorous and sustained program of re-education.
*
Though I can say these things on a conscious level, there is something within me or deep in my subconscious that wants to cry out: "To hell with semantics! Turks are butchers and barbarians, and no amount of logic can alter their image or minimize the enormity of their crimes against humanity!"
*
It has been said that to generalize is the original sin of the mind. When Turkish and Turcophile historians today try to explain and justify the Genocide by accusing Armenians of disloyalty or acts of terrorism, they generalize too and are therefore abysmally wrong. Most Armenians - the overwhelming majority - within the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the century were law-abiding citizens who lacked political awareness. The revolutionaries were only a handful of misguided agitators who represented no one but themselves.
*
We know that under Stalin, some Armenians tortured and killed fellow Armenians - and they did this to their best and the brightest. We also know that members of the Armenian bureaucracy today are thoroughly corrupt. It doesn't necessarily follow that all Armenians are sadists, executioners, and bloodsuckers. On the contrary, most Armenians - and again, the overwhelming majority - are victims of Ottomanized partisans and Stalinized bureaucrats who represent no one but themselves.
*
Somewhere we read in the Bible that it is hateful not to hate evil. By all means, let us hate all criminals regardless of nationality, but let us also support and befriend those who are on our side - regardless of nationality - including Turks. To those who say, Turks will never be our friends, I ask: How does one explain the fact that thousands of Armenians today prefer to live in Turkey rather than in Armenia?
#
Friday, August 13, 2004
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HUBRIS AND NEMESIS
******************************
Something very strange happens when an Armenian calls a fellow Armenian an idiot - he turns into one. And there is a reason for that.
The Greeks believed that arrogance (hubris) is sooner or later punished by the gods (Nemesis). One could therefore say that, he who brags about his superior IQ will be punished by the gods who will turn him into a blabbering idiot. Who says there is no justice in this world?
*
When I speak of superior IQ, I speak of Armenian arrogance and inability of Armenians in general and our leaders in particular to admit and learn from their blunders. Why admit blunders if we can blame all our defeats, catastrophes and misfortunes on outside agencies?
*
And now, from the general to the specific. Whenever a reader calls me an idiot, he condemns himself to spend the rest of his life trying to prove that I am an idiot, not because he cares to prove who or what I am - after all, what would be the possible merit in proving that an idiot is in fact an idiot? - but because he wants to prove to himself that he is smart.
*
Calling a fellow Armenian an idiot simply because you disagree with him is doing to civilized discourse what the Turks did to us. This point needs to be repeated and emphasized until it sinks in.
*
I don't preach a strange cult; neither do I promote a new ism. What I do is express my views as honesty as I can by using my common sense. Instead of calling me names, show me in what way your common sense is different from mine. If you can prove me wrong, why go down into the gutter thus besmirching your own status as a civilized human being and proving once more that "one Armenian eats one chicken; two Armenians eat two chickens; and three Armenians eat each other."
*
I don't believe in covering up bad manners in the name of patriotism. If an Armenian does the wrong thing, he should be exposed because ignoring bad manners today may lead to covering up criminal conduct tomorrow.
*
Like all Armenians I too was brought up to condemn Turkish crimes against humanity and Western hypocrisy. But neither Turkish crimes nor universal hypocrisy justifies our intolerance towards and contempt for fellow Armenians. And what could be more contemptible than hurling insults at someone simply because he fails to echo our sentiments and thoughts? And what could be more arrogant than to assert infallibility?
*
If we operate on the assumption that we are smart and we can do no wrong, we condemn ourselves to learn nothing and to remain fixed in our state of total ignorance. If scientists adopted that stance, mankind would now believe the earth is flat and at the center of the universe.
#
Saturday, August 14, 2004
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THE ART OF LEARNING.
HOMO IGNORAMUS.
ON REPETITION.
ARE WE SMART?
THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION OF ALL.
******************************************
If you don't learn from your friends, you will learn from your enemies - provided of course you survive the lesson.
*
The older I grow the more I realize that reality isn't merely different from anything I know, but different from anything I can imagine.
*
When I compare what I knew as a child with what I know today, and what I know today with what I don't know, I am more than willing to identify myself not as homo sapiens but as homo ignoramus.
*
It has been said that man cannot create a single worm, yet he has created ten thousand gods, and not only believed in them, but also fought, killed and died in their name.
*
Have I said that before? Very probably yes. Do I repeat myself? Certainly. What's wrong with repetition? Readers who criticize me for repeating myself are not themselves against repetition per se. On the contrary. They love repetition to the point of addiction - provided of course what's being repeated is in their favor, such as "Armenians are smart." I have at no time heard an Armenian complain that after being exposed to that line ten thousand times, he has had enough of it. Only once, I remember, many years ago, when I repeated that cliché in the presence of an assimilated Armenian who happened to be a professor at a prestigious American university, he became agitated, almost lost his temper, mumbled some disconnected and incomprehensible words, and gave up in disgust. My guess is, what he tried to say was that being smart in the marketplace does not necessarily translate to being smart in politics; I also know now that when it comes to politics, our collective IQ might as well be single-digit, if not downright negative.
*
And what is even more astonishing (and I can see why the good professor gave up on me in disgust) is that we have consistently refused to learn from our critics, beginning with Movses Khorenatsi and Yeghishe in the 5th century AD to Raffi, Baronian and Voskanian in the 19th century. And because we refused to learn from them, we were taught a harsh lesson from the likes of the Sultan and Talaat.
*
The question we must ask at this point is: What have we learned from our massacres? Reread Khorenatsi and Yeghishe, reread Raffi, Baronian, and Voskanian, and they might as well be our contemporaries. Nothing has changed. Or, as the French are fond of saying: "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme merde."
#

[arabaliozian]

8/18

Sunday, August 15, 2004
********************************
DECLINE AND FALL
OF THE ARMENIAN EMPIRE
************************************************** *****
If at the beginning was the word and if the world is a mess today, it must be because the word has no effect on hooligans; and hooligans come in all sizes and shapes, including professors and schoolteacher as well as political and religious leaders. History is very clear on this point.
*
If patriotism is the last refuge of rascals, hooliganism is the first; and one way to define hooliganism is to say what it is not: it is not a system of thought because its upholders cannot think. Destruction is its sole aim. Which is why it must assume another identity and adopt noble vestments, and what could be more noble and more universally accessible than love of God or homeland? There you have the source of all our miseries: not just Turkish savagery and Western double talk, or for that matter, Assyrian, Persian, Arab, Mongol, and Russian hordes. But hooligans regardless of national origin. This is why the written word has had no effect on our leaders and no writer in the entire history of our literature has ever made a difference, except perhaps Naregatsi, who taught us to grovel in the dust and to repent our countless sins because in the eyes of the Almighty we are no better than the scum of the earth - what a heartless lesson to teach to perennial victims!
*
And consider Zarian, for whom Armenianism was a form of messianism. Dostoevsky believed it was Russia's manifest destiny to be the messiah of nations. In Zarian's eyes, Dostoevsky was a charlatan. It was Armenia's manifest destiny to be the messiah of nations. Zarian believed this with every fiber in his body. It took him several decades and near the end of his life to realize that Armenianism was a mask of hooliganism and Armenians survived by "cannibalizing one another."
#
Monday, August 16, 2004
******************************
VARIETIES OF QUESTIONS.
PROMISES AND PREDICTIONS.
PUNDITS AND APOLOGISTS.
CHARLATANS AND RIFFRAFF.
***************************************
Everything I write and everything I have written so far is an answer to some specific question raised at one time or another. Whenever I fail to answer a question it may be because, unlike some of my fellow Armenians, I don't have all the answers. Another reason: Some of the questions I am asked are not genuine questions but what's known in the business as loaded or phony questions, such as: "Did your mother enjoy being a concubine in a Turkish harem?" or, "If you are single, is it because you are a homosexual?" But more often than not, I am asked questions whose answers are already known to the interrogator.
*
A wise man once said, we cannot predict the future if we don't understand the present. This, needless to add, does not apply to men of faith and ideologues, who will tell you they may not have the answers to such petty questions as those dealing with the weather or the stock market, but they do have all the answers to questions that matter or are vital to our welfare as a nation.
*
As a child, I was taught to believe if I did this, that or the other, or rather, if I refrained from doing certain things (for more details see the Ten Commandments) I would go to heaven and live in eternal bliss. Any mullah will tell you today if you die while killing infidel dogs (even if they happen to be innocent women and children), Allah will reward you with 73 virgins.
*
At the turn of the last century we were told by our ideologues that if we rise against the Ottoman Empire we will be rewarded with our historic lands. That dream turned into a nightmare but there are still dupes who believe our partisans were right and reality (in the shape of Turkish savagery and Western double-talk: was there a time when the Turks were civilized and the West honest?) wrong, and if we continue the struggle, sooner or later Mount Ararat will be ours.
*
At this point someone will no doubt remind me that all politicians make promises they have no intention of keeping, and that in politics lies and promises might as well be synonymous. Why make unreasonable demands on our own politicians?
*
As you can see, we are blessed with an abundant supply of self-appointed pundits who have all the answers, and anyone who dares to remind us that truth or reality may not fit in our straight-jacket view of life is a spoil-sport, a cynic, an enemy, and very probably a Turk parading as one of us.
*
The world continues to be at the mercy of charlatans and riffraff who will never run out of dupes, or as Zarian once put it, "of cripples in search of a crutch."
#
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
*********************************
THE PATIENCE OF A CORPSE.
THE ORIGIN OF OUR STATUS AS UNDERDOGS.
TO EACH HIS OWN.
A PASSAGE FROM A RECENT HISTORICAL NOVEL.
THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE.
************************************************** *
What happens when a Ramgavar dies in a predominantly Tashnak town with a single priest? A Ramgavar priest is imported for the occasion from the nearest city, of course. This is exactly what happened in our town last week, but since the out-of-towner had to travel on a busy highway where accidents and delays are daily occurrences, he was three hours late. Inconvenient? Not to the corpse, it wasn't.
*
We like to say and repeat: "We are a small nation. We are weak." What we avoid asking is, Why? Is it because God or the sinister forces of the universe conspired to will it so, or is it an inevitable consequence of our penchant for dividing and subdividing ourselves? Even the mightiest empire in the world would become a perennial victim if it kept dividing and subdividing itself. And now that we know the reason, will we change? One can always dream, of course.
*
Once, recently, when I wrote something to the effect that Armenians and Turks, Jews and Palestinians live side by side in the United States and Canada without feeling the need to slaughter one another, a reader shot back: "That's because Americans and Canadians are too obsessed with money and sex to think of anything else!" thus implying, massacre is morally superior to sex and dollars.
*
And speaking of Armenians and Turks, I read the following in a review of a recent book titled BIRDS WITHOUT WINGS by Louis de Bernieres: "The story is set in a small coastal town in the Ottoman Empire before the Great War. There, Muslims and Christians (mostly of Greek background, a few Armenians) lived peacefully together. Everyone spoke Turkish and was loyal to the Sultan."
*
The uncertainty principle in physics also applies to human thought. Which means that no matter how competent a writer is, he will not be able to express his views with mathematical precision. As a result, his ideas will have a penumbra of doubt and uncertainty, and they will be open to misinterpretation. On the day man acquires the ability to express himself with mathematical precision, questioning the validity of his views will be like questioning the existence of the atom after Hiroshima.
#
Wednesday, August 18, 2004
********************************
THE USES AND ABUSES OF NATIONALISM.
ATATURK, HITLER, AND…SIBELIUS.
MUSIC AND POLITICS.
WAS KHACHATURIAN A NATIONALIST COMPOSER?
************************************************** ******
At one time or another I have been accused of being against everything and everyone, including Mount Ararat, Lake Sevan, motherhood, apple pie, and, the other day…believe it or not…Sibelius. Why Sibelius? Because he is a nationalist composer and I am against nationalism.
*
For the record, I have nothing against Sibelius and nationalist music in general if only because it is not easy being against someone or anything that means no harm to anyone. If I am against political nationalism it's because it is one of the three pillars of fascism - the other two being racism and anti-intellectualism (that is, dissent, free speech, dialogue and consensus) and because it (nationalism) has been the cause of many wars, massacres, and genocides, including our own.
*
To say our nationalism is good but our enemy's nationalism is bad is to voice the very same propaganda line that emanated from the likes of Ataturk and Hitler.
*
To those who say our nationalism cannot be compared with Turkish or German nationalism because we are not guilty of genocide, and all our wars have been defensive wars, is to imply that we belong to a morally superior race (which happens to be racist nonsense). If we have not victimized millions it may because ours has been the nationalism of underdogs, and because we were vastly outnumbered by our enemies.
*
More on Sibelius: I love his music. He happens to be one of my favorite composers. I love not only his symphonic poems, symphonies, and Violin Concerto (with its Gypsy and Slavic interludes) but also his seldom performed piano music. One of the very first things I did when I became gainfully employed in a department store was to acquire a complete set of his seven symphonies under Karajan (please note: not of Armenian but of Greek descent- real name, Karayannis, literally Blackjohn).
*
More on nationalist music. All music speaks a universal language even when it employs local or native folk melodies; and it uses these melodies for the same reason that a Hungarian speaks Hungarian, a Romanian speaks Romanian, and an Armenian speaks Armenian. Sibelius used Finnish folk music not because it is superior to Greek or Russian folk music but because he was exposed to Finnish folk songs at an early age. This may explain why Khachaturian did not use exclusively Armenian folk tunes (he was born and raised in Georgia) but also Georgian, Azeri, Abkhazian, and Chechen folk tunes and rhythms. In music, unlike in politics, there is no such thing as enemy folk tunes or rhythms. Good music is accessible to all of mankind, and in that sense, its massage emphasizes the universal brotherhood of all men.
#

[arabaliozian]

8/21

Thursday, August 19, 2004
********************************
BELIEF SYSTEMS AND HERESIES.
A PROBLEM AND ITS SOLUTION.
THE SHORTEST BOOK IN THE WORLD.
REVERSE BOLSHEVISM.
*************************************************
In the eyes of a man with deep religious and political convictions, all disagreement will be seen as heresy, and as everyone knows, the only way to deal with heretics is to burn them at the stake, because they will burn in hell anyway. Likewise, to a fanatic Muslim, all non-Muslims are infidel dogs and killing them is no sin. To my gentle readers who disagree with me, I ask: If in your eyes I am no better than an infidel dog, in what way are you yourself different from those who at the turn of the last century massacred our forefathers?
*
If disagreement makes you unhappy, here is a solution to your problem: Gather around yourself like-minded men, start a forum or a club of mutual admiration, and live happily ever after.
*
There are many ways to prove that you are a better man or, for that matter, that you are right, perhaps even infallible, and going down into the gutter is not one of them. This may be elementary to Dr. Watson but not to Jack S. Avanakian.
*
If a writer were to think like everyone else, of what possible use could he be to anyone? - unless of course you say that the best writer is a useless writer, perhaps even a dead writer.
*
If every dissenting voice in our environment had been silenced, the history of our literature would be the shortest book in the world.
*
I never argue with someone who has all the answers or speaks in the name of God, because to disagree with him would be like disagreeing with God.
*
On the day you begin to think for yourself, you may be astonished to discover that some received ideas are no better than self-evident lies.
*
Jean-Francois Kahn: "What we are witnessing today may best be described as reverse Bolshevism. Instead of the USSR we have the USA. Instead of anti-Sovietism we have anti-Americanism. And instead of struggle for socialism we have struggle for democracy."
#
Friday, August 20, 2004
******************************
HISTORIOCENTRISM.
VERSIONS OF THE PAST.
THE CASE OF ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE.
THE WHOLE TRUTH OR A FRACTION OF IT?
************************************************** **
A friend recently observed that Armenians are historiocentric. I suspect what he meant is that we are massacrocentric, or obsessed with the Genocide, or perhaps even that, we operate on the assumption that, since the past is one, our version of it is the only valid one and all other versions should be dismissed as lies, distortions and propaganda based on the testimony of hostile or perjurious witnesses.
*
It goes without saying that, as an Armenian, I trust Armenian historians more than I trust Turkish historians. The trouble is, Turks too trust their own historians more than ours; and also, very much like us, they too operate on the assumption that their own version of the past is the only valid one. It follows that, our Genocide must be a figment of our collective imagination.
*
The problem we face is not a new one. There are and have always been as many histories as there are historians with their own unique perspectives, memories, ideologies, vested interest, religions, and set of prejudices and blind spots. Consider the recent invasion of Iraq, which ought to be, by all accounts, an open book. Don't even try to reconcile the Muslim with the American position, or, for that matter, the pro-Bush with the anti-Bush position.
*
History may also be divided between that of victors and that of their victims, such as the native-American or Indian version of American history, and history as taught in American educational institutions.
*
To complicate our own case even more, there are Turkish historians critical of Turkish conduct, as there are Armenian historians whose understanding and interpretation of the Genocide is such that they have been accused by their peers of revisionism and treason.
*
Even more confusing is the case of the eminent British historian Arnold J. Toynbee, who after writing several books on Turkish brutality and their Armenian victims, wrote several more books in which he said Armenian territorial claims at the turn of the last century (claims that had provoked Turkish reprisals) had been unjustified and unreasonable.
*
Will there ever come a time when historians of all nations and persuasions will develop a consensus? Don't hold your breath. In the meantime it is safe to assume that (one) by emphasizing some aspects of the past and ignoring or covering up others, all historians give us only a partial or distorted view of the past, (two) only God is in a position to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and (three) mortal man is destined to know only part of the truth -- which, by the way, happens to be one definition of propaganda ("part of the truth").
*
In case you think I am trying to whitewash Turkish crimes against humanity and to question the reality of our Genocide, let me emphasize that even pro-Turkish historians like Toynbee and Bernard Lewis have at no time denied the Genocide. What they tried to do is to explain (which does not mean to justify) why certain things happened and why men behave as they do.
#
Saturday, August 21, 2004
*******************************
ON BEING FALLIBLE.
OTTOMAN TACTICS.
ON REPETITION.
AN ARMENIAN MISCONCEPTION.
**************************************
To be fallible means to think "I could be wrong," even when you are sure to be right. Remember, some of the most catastrophic blunders in the history of mankind were made by individuals who were so sure they were right that they were willing to risk the lives of millions of innocent women and children.
*
It is not at all unusual to come across an Armenian today who pretends to be 100% right on the assumption that his fellow Armenians are too backward, ignorant, or impressionable to dare to question his authority; and they are the very same Armenians who become abusive whenever they confront a fellow Armenian who is neither timid nor impressionable enough to be bullied into silence. Zarian was absolutely right when he said some Armenian do with their tongues what the Turks did with their yataghans.
*
To those who say I repeat myself, I say: You may ignore my words, but can you ignore our blunders? - especially when they are repeated.
*
In writing, whenever you try to please everyone, you please no one; and even when you try to please one person, you succeed only in poisoning your well.
*
A typical Armenian misconception: Free speech is a fundamental human right that applies only to those who agree with us or are willing to recycle our propaganda line.
*
To think that, just because you understand an idea, you can also explain reality, is like thinking you can guess another's thoughts by observing the outline of his shadow.

[arabaliozian]

reflections

Sunday, August 22, 2004
******************************
IN PRAISE OF SKEPTICISM.
**********************************
If you doubt and question everything I write, I say, you are indeed on the right path and you have understood the moral of my story, which is: Question everything you are told, not only by Turks but also by everyone else, including fellow Armenians.
*
None of us lives in a vacuum. We all have an ax to grind. The ax may be well hidden, but it's there all the same: look for it hard enough and you will find it.
*
My own ax to grind is against those who dished out all kinds of half-truths and lies to me when I was a child and had not yet acquired the ability to think for myself. Case in point: For many years I was led to believe Armenia had been a Christian island in a Muslim sea, until someone pointed out the obvious fact that Georgia to our north had been a Christian nation too, which made of us not an island but a peninsula.
*
For many years I was also led to believe our revolutionaries had been heroes and the Ottoman Bank takeover at the turn of the last century had been a brilliant exploit worthy of universal admiration, until someone raised the obvious question: "Was it worth 5000 innocent lives?" What kind of heroes make a separate deal with the enemy, secure free passage abroad for themselves, and abandon their defenseless people at the mercy of an enraged and vindictive tyranny not widely known for its compassionate and fair treatment of its subjects?
*
History, it has been said, is the propaganda of the victor. What if our version of history is nothing but the consolation of the loser?
*
I was taught to believe ignoring the lessons of history means repeating past blunders. Isn't that what we do whenever we divide and subdivide ourselves, or whenever we fail to question the competence and integrity of those who pretend to know better, and based on that false assumption, proceed to draw the line of our destiny?
*
If our revolutionaries had learned to question and doubt the verbal support of the Great Powers, would they have behaved as they did? What if our central problem is neither being an island nor having bloodthirsty barbarians as neighbors, but being naïve dupes of charlatans who promise heaven and deliver hell?
#
Monday, August 23, 2004
******************************
THE NORMAL AND THE ABNORMAL.
THE ABNORMAL AS A THREAT TO THE NORMAL.
THE LYNCH-MOB INSTINCT.
WHAT IS GENOCIDE?
BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG.
************************************************** **
If you are honest, all the crooks will conspire against you. Likewise, if you speak the truth, liars will retaliate because they will feel exposed and threatened.
*
At all times and everywhere the majority takes it upon itself to set the rules of conduct and to view dissent or divergence as a threat. The majority may tolerate the existence of a minority so long as the minority adopts a subservient role. But in times of crisis, when the majority feels threatened, minorities will be suppressed, persecuted, and sometimes even eliminated.
*
The lynch-mob or gang-rape instinct is not peculiar to a single race, color, or creed; it is a universal phenomenon.
*
Genocide has nothing to do with number of victims. Killing even a single person on grounds that he belongs to a different race, religion, or ethnic group is genocide.
*
In my efforts to raise consciousness, sometimes it seems, I lower it. That may be because, after centuries of conditioning, some of my readers don't know whether they are rising or falling. It is as though their sense of gravity had been permanently damaged beyond repair.
*
In everything I write I describe the evolution of a damaged consciousness from subservience to liberation. But where subservience is a millennial condition, it becomes second nature and liberation is seen as a deviation, perhaps even an aberration.
*
It has been observed that when the blind acquire vision, they take refuge in dark rooms.
*
Some of my partisan friends are shocked when I tell them the greatest statesman in the world is not qualified to tell even the worst scribbler in the world what to feel, think, and write.
*
In the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we read: "Every individual is equal before the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination."
*
It may be safer to assume you are always wrong with extenuating circumstances if only because the alternative - that you are always right - is too absurd to merit serious consideration.
#
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
*******************************
REPLIES TO MY CRITICS
*********************************
To those of my readers who at one time or another have questioned my qualifications as a writer, or, for that matter, as a concerned citizen (which is how I prefer to identify myself), I say: If you speak as a commissar of culture and your secret god is Stalin, you live at the wrong time and in the wrong place, and I have every reason to suspect, before things get better for you, they will get worse. Prepare yourself for a minimum of seven more lean years.
*
I define a dupe anyone who is taken in by propaganda; and because I have criticized dupes, regardless of national origin, I am described as an Armenian-hater by our dupes, who it seems, are so hungry for love that they can't stand anyone who fails to flatter their ego. To them I say: You are not the only game in town, my friends. Unlike you, there are many others who have mastered the ability to think for themselves. I will go further and say that, the overwhelming majority of Armenians (especially the assimilated and alienated) are not dupes. I count among my friends members of the Party who reject the Party's propaganda line. The only reason they continue to be members is that they come from a long line of partisans and membership in the Party has become a family tradition. Their loyalty is motivated more by nostalgia than ideological commitment.
*
Criticism in defense of a propaganda line is not criticism but cretinism.
*
To those of my critics who write under a false identity, I ask: Does anonymity make you behave in a more responsible or irresponsible manner? If irresponsible, don't you think there is more merit in being responsible? And if everyone were to behave irresponsibly, would we be better off or worse off?
*
A final question: How honest are political leaders in whose version of the past they have done nothing wrong, they are blameless and beyond criticism, and all their utterances must be treated as if they emanated from the Vatican?
#
Wednesday, August 25, 2004
********************************
If all human utterances have a margin of error, dogmatic assertions can't be right.
*
On the subject of our genocide, when I attempted to explain the Turkish side of the story, an outraged reader countered: "Some stories have only one side!" thus echoing a sentiment first expressed by Albert Camus (who was himself, be it noted, in the eye of several controversial firestorms). But isn't that what the Turks are saying too? - that their side of the story is the only true one and all others must be lies? Is it not inconsistent of us to repeat a line or to adopt a mindset of people whom we consider bloodthirsty savages?
*
No one's version of the story is Holy Scripture. And even if it were, not all of us are fundamentalists.
*
There is an entire library of writings (poetry, prose, criticism, fiction, drama, epic poem, moral treatise, dialogue, etc.) that consists in telling "the devil's side of the story." Three literary masterpieces that come readily to mind: Milton's PARADISE LOST, Goethe's FAUST, and more recently, Thomas Mann's DOKTOR FAUSTUS.
*
Speaking of Thomas Mann: during World War II he published an essay on Hitler (who had tried to assassinate him) titled "A Brother."
*
I doubt if there will ever come a time when Armenians will develop Mann's degree of detachment and call Turks their brothers, but consider some of the arguments in its favor: For six centuries we were their most loyal millet (ethnic group), and since intermarriage was a common practice, it is not at all unreasonable to suggest that a good fraction of Turks today, perhaps even half of them, may well be our half-brothers.
*
If this is bad news to some of my readers, blame historic reality, blame facts, blame statistics, blame even God (as some of our poets have done) but do not kill the messenger, because if you do, you may run the risk of being a Turk's brother not only in thought but also in deed.
*
Even an august institution like the Catholic Church finds the concept of the devil's advocate useful. If we are to the right of the Vatican, can we be too far off the left of Genghis Khan? That may be a comfortable position for some, but not for others, among them myself.
#

[arabaliozian]

8/28

Thursday, August 26, 2004
*****************************
THE ART OF DIPLOMACY.
ON ARMENO-TURKISH RELATIONS.
THE RIGHT AND THE WRONG WAY.
A MODEST PROPOSAL.
A CRIME AND A TRAGEDY.
LOGIC AND EMOTIONS.
*********************************************
One of the first things Raffi Hovannisian did when he went to Turkey as a minister of foreign affairs was to say to the Turks: "You must recognized the Genocide." The Turks responded by saying: "This man hates us and we cannot deal with a man who hates us."
*
One way to define diplomacy is to say that it consists in dealing with the adversary in such a manner as to make him see your side of the story in order to consider its merits. Obviously, so far and after nearly a century of trying, we have failed in that endeavor. We must therefore be more versatile and less stiff-necked and dogmatic in our approach.
*
Before they are condemned, Turks want to be understood because they know instinctively that to be hated precludes understanding, or for that matter, objectivity, fair play and justice.
*
The need to be understood is universal. But we can't understand someone we hate. The alternative is not to love him (only saints can love their enemies) but to try to understand him on his own terms, if understanding him on our own terms means hating him.
*
Henceforth, we should concentrate our efforts on humanizing the Turks as opposed to dehumanizing them, if only because we cannot make any moral demands on a dehumanized entity.
*
If a wolf kills a sheep, is he guilty of murder? In a way, when we reduce Turks to the level of bloodthirsty beasts, we also enter a plea of not guilty on their behalf -- a plea similar to that of insanity. Because if they are no better than animals, they cannot be held responsible for their actions. It is therefore to our advantage not to dehumanize but to humanize them. In other words, to think of them as we think of all other nations that have at one time or another committed genocide and other unspeakable crimes against humanity - that includes Germans and Americans.
*
Our genocide is not just a crime against humanity but also a tragedy, and tragedy, as defined by the Greeks, consists in the downfall or destruction of a being who, as a result of a weakness (as pride, envy, etc.) breaks a divine law or moral precept that leads to terror and catastrophe.
*
I don't always agree with what I write, but if logic dictates, I follow, hoping in the near or distant future my emotions will catch up.
#
Friday, August 27, 2004
*****************************
AN ENIGMA & A BUNDLE OF CONTRADICTIONS.
THE BEST AND THE WORST.
THEM AND US.
ABDICATION OF RESPONSIBILITY.
************************************************** ****
Writers who have analyzed the Armenian temperament agree that an Armenian is an enigma and a bundle of contradictions. Writes Derenik Demirjian: "An Armenian curses God and the Church constantly. But behold the magnificent cathedrals he has built!" And Neshan Beshigtashlian: "Even the Good Lord could not make up his mind what to make of the Armenian. First He made him an angel, then He turned him into a devil, after which He changed His mind again." His conclusion: "The Armenian is an enigma that refuses to be solved."
*
But then, one could say (with Freud and Jung) that all men are to some degree, bundles of contradictions and enigmas even to themselves. Our situation or the Armenian enigma, if you wish, is an integral part of the human condition. Hence the spectacle of the worst parading as the best.
*
Some cases in point from the last century: Fascists in Italy, Germany and Spain; Stalinists in the USSR, and before them, Southern racists in the U.S. before the Civil War, all of whom pretended to be la crème de la crème, but were in fact la crème de la scum.
*
There is however a significant difference between them and us. Whereas racists, fascists and Stalinists have been exposed, and militarily defeated or politically consigned to the dustbin of history, ours continue to be in charge of our destiny. If that's progress, it's more like the progress of a terminal disease.
*
As for those who say it will take at least two generations for things to improve in Armenia, it seems to me, they lack the common sense and decency to see that, by adopting and promoting a passive stance, they are not only abdicating their responsibility as citizens but also legitimizing criminal conduct by supporting a corrupt and incompetent crypto-fascist and racist power structure in both the Homeland and the Diaspora.
#
Saturday, August 28, 2004
********************************
THE TURKS AND US.
THE ARMENIAN WAY AND THE RIGHT WAY.
TURKS AS UNDERDOGS AND VICTIMS.
THE SULTAN'S COMPLAINT.
************************************************** ****
May I confess that when it comes to Turks and us, more often than not I agree with my critics on an emotional level. But I also know that in diplomacy, politics, and life in general, it is preferable for emotion to be subservient to reason. There is an old saying that I heard again and again as a child: "Why stand up in anger if you are going to sit down the loser?" Isn't that what we did? We rose in anger and most of us didn't even have a chance to sit down.
*
With the slogan, "We have no enemies, only interests," the British built an empire. Consider our status as perennial losers, underdogs and victims to theirs….
*
And since we have been stressing our status as perennial losers, underdogs and victims by constantly reminding ourselves and the world of the massacres, the cynical manipulation of the Great Powers, and the bloodthirsty conduct of the Turks, it never even occurs to us to think of Turks as underdogs and victims. And yet, that's exactly how they saw themselves - and victims not just of a single ruthless adversary but victims of the whole world, beginning with the Russian colossus to the North, the Great Powers to the West, the United States and Australia from across the oceans, and from within their own borders, Arabs, Greeks, Kurds, and Armenians.
*
Listen to the Sultan: "By taking Greece and Romania, the Great Powers cut off the feet of the Turkish state. By taking Bulgaria, Serbia and Egypt they cut off our hands. Now, by stirring up trouble among the Armenians they are getting close to our vital organs and want to cut out our intestines. This is the beginning of mass destruction."
*
With a disintegrating empire and surrounded by enemies on all sides like vultures ready to feast on its carcass, the Turks made the mistake of allowing their emotions to dictate their actions. They were told repeatedly by foreign diplomats and observers that not all Armenians were their enemies, but as a victimized minority, they did what felt right, not what reason told them to be right.
*
It is only very recently that I read that in a single battle at Gallipoli, the Turks had lost 350,000 men to the Allies. But I still don't know the total number of Turkish dead during World War I. I wonder, does any Armenian? Or is it: "The only good Turk is a dead Turk"? Why should we be surprised if the Turks adopted that slogan too? "The only good Armenian is a dead Armenian."
#

[arabaliozian]

more comments

Sunday, August 29, 2004
************************************
ON TRIBALISM.
GUT REACTIONS.
ARTICLES OF FAITH.
TABLE MANNERS.
********************************
One way to explain our tribalism is to say that our bosses, bishops, and benefactors see the nation as an extension of themselves and not the other way around. It's the tail-wagging-the-dog routine. Unlike Louis XIV, they don't even feel the need to say "L'etat c'est moi," (I am the state) because they assume it must be obvious to everyone with the minimum of sense.
*
There are some disagreements that come straight from the gut. And when gut meets brain, brain is bound to lose. I speak from experience. Once upon a time I too had gut reactions. I still do, but when I do I use my brain to cross-examine and x-ray my gut, and sure enough, I invariably detect an infection in the form of an ingrained childhood prejudice or a youthful misconception.
*
When you believe in a propaganda line it ceases being propaganda and is automatically elevated to the status of an article of faith, which also means that anyone who doesn't agree with you must be an infidel dog.
*
A dupe is one who believes his propaganda line is Scripture and someone else's religion is verbal trash. That's one reason why dialogue is un-Armenian.
*

Other possible reasons, according to Shant Avedissian:
"Our instinct for survival drives us to gobble up food
but to scorn table manners;
to get married and establish families but to neglect love;
to accumulate wealth but not to share it;
to erect churches but to be indifferent to matters of faith;
to build cultural centers but to have no interest in culture;
to construct schools in order to teach Armenian to our children but to despise the true meaning of words.
In short, we have mastered the art of survival but not the art of living…."
*
On second thought, have we really mastered the art of survival when most of us, and very probably the best and the brightest, have not survived?
*
Have we really mastered the art of survival if we are, even as I write, witnessing two ongoing genocides: exodus from the Homeland and Assimilation in the Diaspora.
*
When asked about the exodus, an Armenian political leader is quoted as having said: "If they want to leave the Homeland, let them!" That's what I call an answer worthy of a Talaat. With public servants like that, who needs sultans and Stalinists?
#
Monday, August 30, 2004
********************************
WHY BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE.
TWO QUESTIONS.
THE UGLY ARMENIAN.
QUEEN MAMIKONIAN.
******************************************
Bad things happen to good people.
Everyone knows that.
And smart people do dumb things.
Everyone knows that too.
What is less well known is that there may be secret and underground connections between these two incongruities.
*
Why do smart people do dumb things?
Because they are never as smart as they think they are.
*
I have received nasty e-mails from both Turks and Armenians, and it is astonishing how similar in style, tone, and vocabulary they are. So similar in fact that they might as well have been written by the same person or identical twins.
*
Nobody is perfect, of course. So what if smart people sometimes do dumb things, and dumb people dumber things? That's not a tragedy. Our tragedy or the tragedy of our condition is that we have been and continue to be at their mercy.
*
Why is it that in their efforts to prove they are smarter and better, some Armenians see nothing inconsistent in writing like dumb Turks? Another question: Is it conceivable that the cradle of civilization has spawned gravediggers of civilized discourse?
*
Behind every alienated Armenian there is an ugly Armenian who thinks, since he is smarter and better, he can do no wrong and self-criticism is self-hatred and therefore unpatriotic.
*
If being honest means admitting a major blunder and thus committing political suicide, an ambitious leader will invariably choose survival at all cost and forever after brag about his personal integrity.
*
Who can trust a politician who says "I can do no wrong and I am therefore beyond criticism"? And yet!
*
The only reason some politicians admit minor miscalculations is to cover up major blunders.
*
Only a certified dupe will say, "All politicians lie except ours." And only a fanatic will say, "My party is always right and the opposition always wrong."
*
Sometimes when two Armenians disagree, I cannot help wondering: Is the disagreement between two Armenians or is it between an Armenian and a Turk?
*
Sophie Audouin Mamikonian on Armenians (in a recent issue of PARIS-MATCH): "They don't have enough to eat but they want to crown me Queen of Armenia. When I refused to ascend the throne, these monarchists threatened to abduct my children. We were placed under police protection."
#
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
********************************
CLICHÉS AND SLOGANS.
THE BLISS OF IGNORANCE.
THE SHEEP AND THE WOLVES.
*********************************
Knowledge is power? What nonsense! No one can tell me the Ottoman Empire, one of the mightiest empires in the history of mankind that lasted six centuries, was based on knowledge.
*
Unmask a slogan or a cliché and you may see more truth in its contradiction. One way to explain the popularity of slogans or clichés is to say that they satisfy a deep-seated need in all of us to simplify the fathomless complexities of life in our favor.
*
If you think, "ignorance is bliss," remember the last time you were manipulated by someone who knew you did not know what he knew.
*
"Power corrupts," we are told. What we are not told is that lack of power or subservience corrupts even more. Are we as a people today more or less corrupt than Turks and Russians, our former masters?
*
A reader, who subscribes to the slogan "The only good Turk is a dead Turk," demands to know: "If good Turks existed, why didn't they stop the genocide?" It doesn't even occur to him to ask, "Where were our revolutionaries - the future leaders of our historic homeland? Why is it that they had a Plan B for themselves but not for the people? We have all heard about our heroes and martyrs and we know the number of our martyrs, but does anyone know the number of our heroes? - or perhaps there were so many of them that no one bothered to count them. If there were many and they were our shepherds, why did they abandon the sheep to the wolves?
#
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
**********************************
AMERICA AND THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE.
RAFFI, ZOHRAB AND SIAMANTO.
THE WISDOM OF THE MASSES.
TWO WARNINGS.
THE MAMIKONIAN PALACE.
SLOBO'S DEFENSE.
************************************************** **
It is not enough being right; one must also be right at the right time and place.
*
Trying to convince Americans to recognize our genocide is like arguing against capital punishment in a hangman's house.
*
Long before the massacres, Raffi said the Ottoman Empire was no place for Armenians because Turks had no respect for human life. He was ignored.
*
Shortly before the Genocide, Krikor Zohrab urged Armenians to get out of Turkey because, he explained, "this time around they will exterminate all of us." He too was ignored. "Zohrab effendi is exaggerating," they said.
*
When Roupen Sevag's German fiancée urged him to leave Istanbul because, she said, the Turks were nasty folk, Sevag replied: "You don't know these people. I do. Deep down they are nice. Take my word for it. I know what I am saying. I have lived with them all my life." And what was bound to happen, happened. Zohrab, Sevag and Siamanto (who couldn't get used to life in America and returned to Istanbul) were among the first victims of the Genocide.
*
Today, no one is urging Armenians to leave Armenia but they are leaving anyway…by the million. I am told everyone wants to leave - everyone except politicians and policemen. Unhappy is the land whose only happy inhabitants are legislators and law enforcers.
*
An English sociologist published a book recently in which he proves crowds are wiser than individuals. There may be some truth in it. "Two heads," they say, "is better than one."
*
When I was young, my elders misled me; and now that I am old, the young misunderstand me.
*
Everything I write should come with two warnings: "Not for children," and "I could be wrong." On the day I say or imply I can't be wrong, you can be sure of one thing: you are dealing with a morally and intellectually bankrupt charlatan.
*
Sophie Mamikonian: "The Armenian monarchists showed me a picture of my palace in Armenia: the wall of a ruin with three crows on top."
*
Accused of genocide, Slobodan Milosevic is pleading not guilty on the grounds that "Croatia, the United States, Europe, Muslim fundamentalists and terrorists, the Vatican…in short, the international community" had conspired to destroy Yugoslavia, and all his actions had been in defense of the territorial integrity of his homeland.
Sounds familiar?
#

[arabaliozian]

from my notebooks

Thursday, September 02, 2004
***********************************
MIKOYAN'S ROLE IN THE STALINIST PURGES.
TOLSTOY, DOSTOEVSKY AND SHAKESPEARE.
GREGORIAN CHANT.
WHAT IS ARMENIANISM?
*************************************************
A number of Sovietologists have identified Anastas Mikoyan as the main architect of the Stalinist purges in Armenia. If he was, he was a reluctant one, writes Simon Montefiore. In his recently published book, STALIN: THE COURT OF THE RED TSAR, based on interviews with the children of survivors, post-Soviet studies, and newly opened archives, he writes that Stalin chose Mikoyan for that grim task to test his loyalty. “In late 1937,” we read here, “Stalin tested Mikoyan’s commitment by dispatching him to Armenia with a list of three hundred victims to be arrested. Mikoyan signed it but he crossed off one friend. The man was arrested anyway.”
*
While in Siberia, Dostoevsky read some stories by a writer who signed himself “L.T.” Dostoevsky liked the stories but he said, “I believe he will write very little,” adding, “but perhaps I am wrong.” He sure was! “L.T.” stood for Leo Tolstoy, one of the most prolific writers of all time.
*
Though contemporaries, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky avoided each other. But the last book Tolstoy read shortly before his death was Dostoevsky”s BROTHERS KARAMAZOV, perhaps because his home situation, from which he was running away, was more Dostoevskian than Tolstoyan.
*
Tolstoy and Dostoevsky shared one thing in common: they didn’t much care for Shakespeare.
*
Readers sometimes complain that I don’t always answer questions. The truth is everything I write is an answer to a specific question, even when the questioner is anonymous and even when the question is disguised verbal vandalism and hooliganism. Case in point: on a number of occasions I have been asked if my mother was a concubine in a Turkish harem. My mother became an orphan at the age of one and was brought up by French Catholic nuns in Lebanon. Instead of lullabies she sang Gregorian chant to me, which to this day is my favorite kind of music – music in its purest form: simple, accessible, melodic, incandescent, with none of the technical fireworks of J.S.Bach or the rhetoric of Beethoven.
*
Whenever I read an ugly e-mail from an Armenian, I cannot help wondering: what if in our case the concept of survival of the fittest should be replaced with the concept of survival of the nastiest?
*
There are open minds and closed minds, but when an Armenian decides to close his mind, he locks it with seven rusty keys.
*
Why is it that some Armenians use the massacres as a license to do to civilized discourse what the Turks did to us? And more often than not, they are the very same Armenians who demand our unconditional love on grounds of Armenianism.
*
Writes Denis Donikian: “At one time or another we have all been victims of Armenianism.” Perhaps because no one has yet defined what Armenianism is and every Armenian thinks his own brand is the only true one.
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Friday, September 03, 2004
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BAYROU ON TURKS.
MONTEFIORE ON MIKOYAN.
AXIOMS.
MEMO TO MY CRITICS.
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Francois Bayrou, identified as the President of the UDF, in a recent interview published in LE POINT (August 5, 2004): “Turkey’s geography, history, and sociology are not European. Its anthropology is not the same as ours. During a recent conversation with Turkish Prime Minister Nayyip Erdogan, he said: ‘For us, Europe must be a place where different civilizations meet and coexist,” thus conceding that our civilizations are indeed different. In order to qualify as a member of the European Union, Turkey must meet certain criteria. Even the recognition of the Armenian genocide, an indispensable condition in our eyes, is open to negotiation and compromise. That’s not the real stumbling bloc. The real stumbling bloc is the question: Is Turkey’s membership compatible with the political unity of Europe? My answer is, No.”
*
Simon Montefiore on Anastas Mikoyan: “This Armenian who had studied for the priesthood like Stalin himself, was slim, circumspect, wily and industrious, with black hair, moustache and flashing eyes, a broken aquiline nose and a taste for immaculate clothes that, even when clad in his usual tunic and boots, lent him the air of a lithe dandy. Highly intelligent with the driest of wits, he had a gift for languages, understanding English, and, in 1931, he taught himself German by translating DAS KAPITAL.” (And to think that most people can’t understand DAS KAPITAL even when they read it in their mother tongue).
*
We know what we think and how we feel. It is only by knowing what others think and feel that we may acquire a better understanding of our fellow men, and by extension, of the world in which we live – that is to say, reality.
*
Can we really understand ourselves if we don’t understand others? And if we don’t understand others, what can we really understand?
*
Understanding of reality is a seamless web. Partial understanding might as well be misunderstanding, and action based on misunderstanding is bound to fail.
*
Memo to my anonymous critics: “The merit of a criticism is diminished when the critic is too afraid to identify himself.”
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Saturday, September 04, 2004
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THE ORIGIN OF WISDOM.
SOCRATES AND ERASMUS.
PERVERTED PATRIOTISM.
ARMENIAN-HATERS.
**********************************
All wisdom begins with the realization that what we know is only a very small fraction of knowledge, and very often so small that it would be more accurate to admit, like Socrates, that all we know for certain is that we don’t know.
*
And speaking of Socrates: there are people who reject ideas simply because they are new ideas. Whenever in history great men, like Socrates, have been persecuted, you can be sure of one thing: the persecution was organized by such people, namely, the scum of the earth who, in the words of Erasmus, prefer “the smell of their excrement,” simply because they are familiar with it.
*
Where hooligans are allowed to hijack the word “patriotism,” love of country becomes hatred of fellow countrymen.
*
To those who at one time or another have accused me of being an Armenian-hater, I say: You have no idea what you are saying. A real Armenian-hater is one who hates Turks not because they massacred us, but because they didn’t do a more thorough job; and I happen to be personally acquainted with such an Armenian, and he happens to be a genuine, bona fide, dyed-in-the wool born-again Christian whose every other line is a quote from the Bible. And he feels as he does because he is convinced Armenians are evil and the Turks massacred them because they were following orders from God – not their Allah, be it noted, but our God who can do no wrong. And if you were to say, I should be ashamed to admit that I have such friends, I will reply: I have made it my business to understand all kinds of Armenians and not just a fraction of them.
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[arabaliozian]

am i cain?

Wednesday, September 08, 2004
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WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN.
WHO IS CAIN?
FROM PALACES TO CRAP.
VERBAL SOLUTIONS AND PIZZAS
WITH MUSHROOMS AND ANCHOVIES.
************************************************** ******
In 1957 Bertrand Russell published a book titled WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN, which contains quotations from the Old Testament that legitimize prejudice, racism, and massacre - and massacre not only of women and children but also cattle.
We now have two recent books titled WHY I AM NOT A MUSLIM by Ibn Warraq and WHY I AM NOT A HINDU by Ramandra Nath.
In the first we read: "As soon as I was able to think for myself, I discarded all the religious dogmas that had been foisted on me. I now consider myself a secular humanist who believes that all religions are sick men's dreams, false - demonstrably false - and pernicious."
In the second: "Though I agree with Buddhism in its rejection of god, soul, infallibility of the Vedas, still I am not a Hindu even in this broad sense of the term Hindu, because as a rationalist and humanist, I reject all religions."
If the world is saved it will not be by ayatollahs, mullahs, bishops, popes, televangelists and rabbis but by enlightened men like Bertrand Russell, Ibn Warraq and Ramandra Nath, who refuse to divide their fellow men into believers and infidel dogs.
*
When I went into this business, I made a solemn promise to myself never to lose my temper, to answer all criticisms and questions, to ignore all insults, and to think of my critics not as my enemies but as my brothers. I kept this promise until I realized that one of the worst things that can happen to a man is to have a brother like Cain. I am not saying or implying that my critics are a bunch of Cains; rather, that they assign to me the role of Cain and to themselves that of Abel.
*
The Bible tells us to love our neighbor. It does not tell us to love him only if he agrees with everything we say no matter how uninformed, narrow-minded, and unchristian.
*
Goethe once said that every young writer thinks he can build palaces, but with experience he learns the best he can do is shovel crap.
*
I am reminded of an American plumber's advertising slogan: "Your crap is my bread and butter."
*
As for those who demand instant solutions to all our problems, I ask two questions: (a) What possible use are or have been verbal solutions? and (b) What has been your own contribution to our welfare as a nation, in addition to ordering solutions like a patron in a pizza parlor ordering a pizza with mushrooms and anchovies?
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