notes / comments

[crusader1492]

Re: notes / comments

Actually, Armenian's posts are very informational and descriptive... and the "redundancy" is probably because there are some people on this forum, who can't understand something when it is explained to them once.

Re-read my post. I was not refering to Armenian - I was refering to Ara B.
Kabish?

[Էլիա]

Re: notes / comments

I second what Armenian posted.
This Ara B guy is a not only a cheap copy of an intellectual, he is also a non-entity. In fact, the only reason I know of him is because he obsesively spams every Armenian forum with redundant and self absorbed posts, that signify nothing.
In short Mehmet, don't get your hopes up...

Actually, Armenian's posts are very informational and descriptive... and the "redundancy" is probably because there are some people on this forum, who can't understand something when it is explained to them once.

[crusader1492]

Re: notes / comments

Hello Armenian, I think the poet addressed people like you with the notion of Turcocentrism.

I second what Armenian posted.
This Ara B guy is a not only a cheap copy of an intellectual, he is also a non-entity. In fact, the only reason I know of him is because he obsesively spams every Armenian forum with redundant and self absorbed posts, that signify nothing.
In short Mehmet, don't get your hopes up...

[exfo]

Re: notes / comments

Turkoglu, if you think that this senile, self-hating, pseudo-intellectual represents Armenians as a whole you are sadly mistaken. His only audience are pathetic turds like you, not to mention the self-hating vermin found within the Armenian community.

BTW: I only come into this thread to read the replies this so-called "poet" without an audience gets. I guess my work here can be described as - damage control.

Hello Armenian, I think the poet addressed people like you with the notion of Turcocentrism.

[Armenian]

Re: notes / comments

Turcocentrism, an intelligent explanation to the obsession of Armenians towards Turks. Good.

Turkoglu, if you think that this senile, self-hating, pseudo-intellectual represents Armenians as a whole you are sadly mistaken. His only audience are pathetic turds like you, not to mention the self-hating vermin found within the Armenian community.

BTW: I only come into this thread to read the replies this so-called "poet" without an audience gets. I guess my work here can be described as - damage control.

[exfo]

Re: notes / comments

Saturday, May 05, 2007
******************************************
QUESTIONS
***************************
Who are we?
Where do we come from?
Where are we going?
Is there a single belief system that can answer these questions to the satisfaction of all?
Is it necessary to have answers to these questions in order to lead a productive or creative life?
Did our medieval ancestors have the answers to these questions?
Did they, for that matter, ask them?
What is the place of Turcocentrism in our psyche?
Can Turcocentrism contribute anything positive to our identity?
What if Turcocentrism threatens to turn us into pillars of salt?
What if identity consists not in answering these questions but in the honesty and commitment with which we search for their answers?
What if our identity, like the solution to all our problems, is not a verbal formula accessible to a select few, but a process that consists in rejecting everything that is dishonest, corrupt, and mediocre?
#

Turcocentrism, an intelligent explanation to the obsession of Armenians towards Turks. Good.

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Saturday, May 05, 2007
******************************************
QUESTIONS
***************************
Who are we?
Where do we come from?
Where are we going?
Is there a single belief system that can answer these questions to the satisfaction of all?
Is it necessary to have answers to these questions in order to lead a productive or creative life?
Did our medieval ancestors have the answers to these questions?
Did they, for that matter, ask them?
What is the place of Turcocentrism in our psyche?
Can Turcocentrism contribute anything positive to our identity?
What if Turcocentrism threatens to turn us into pillars of salt?
What if identity consists not in answering these questions but in the honesty and commitment with which we search for their answers?
What if our identity, like the solution to all our problems, is not a verbal formula accessible to a select few, but a process that consists in rejecting everything that is dishonest, corrupt, and mediocre?
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Friday, May 04, 2007
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RE-WRITING HISTORY
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Where politics enter, propaganda is sure to follow; and where propaganda enters, truth is bound to be the first casualty. Turks re-write history. So do we. So does everyone else. Imagine, if you can, a history of the United States written from the perspective of native Indians. A Mekhitarist scholar and the foremost Armenian medievalist once told me the Battle of Avarair, the most famous battle in our history, never happened. It’s not just propaganda but pure fabrication by a pro-Mamikonian chronicler. True or false? Draw your own conclusions (or confusions). Speaking of our more recent past: we have as many versions of it as we have political parties. In the eyes of Ramgavars and Bolsheviks, Archbishop Ghevont Tourian was a dedicated patriot, a martyr, and a saint. In the eyes of the opposition he was a cowardly rascal, an unprincipled opportunist, a womanizer, a Stalinist, and a traitor.
*
We like to say that if and when the Ottoman archives are opened we will have access to the truth. A Turkish friend tells me the same about Tashnak archives. It seems the Tashnaks have consistently refused to open their archives to scholars. True or false? I plead ignorance. I wasn’t even aware of the existence of these archives.
*
Whenever I mention Tourian’s role in Smyrna, my credibility is questioned. About twenty years ago an angry reader threatened to expose my lies by checking with Marjorie Housepian, the foremost authority on the subject. I am still waiting to hear from him. The SOVIET-ARMENIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA states that Tourian was active in “Istanbul, Smyrna, and Manchester,” before his transfer to the U.S. in 1931 “where he attempted to bring together the Armenian-American community under Etchmiadzin.”
*
Was Ghevont Tourian Bedros Tourian’s brother? According to the ENCYCLOPEDIA their real name was not Tourian but Zembayan and they were both born in Istanbul. In saying all this I do not claim infallibility on behalf of my sources, let alone myself. I welcome facts that will contradict or question the accuracy of my sources. History is not a belief system but an investigation. If you place your belief system above facts, you contaminate both with prejudice and propaganda.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Thursday, May 03, 2007
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IN SEARCH OF AUTHENTICITY
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Who is an authentic Armenian? I don’t know. No one does.
*
During World War I, when Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were being transported from one place to another “for their own safety” (in the Turkish version of the story), Thomas Mann was busy writing a big book, titled REFLECTIONS OF A NON-POLITICAL MAN, in which he attempted to define “the authentic German.” When the book was published, Heinrich Mann, his brother, himself a writer, disagreed with it. Sometime later Thomas Mann himself recognized it as dangerous.
*
In his magnum opus, BEING AND NOTHINGNESS, written during World War II, Sartre tells us, men cease to be authentic when they adopt an identity imposed on them by society, and play the part for the rest of their lives. In another book, ANTI-SEMITE AND THE xxx, he advances the theory that the xxx is a creation of the anti-Semite, the way, one might say, the Ottomanized Armenian is a creation of Turks, and the Sovietized Armenian is a creation of the Soviet system.
*
Long before Mann and Sartre, Karl Marx explored the concept of dehumanization, which may be said to be the opposite of authenticity. Capital, he said, dehumanizes not only the worker, but also the capitalist, society as a whole, and all social relations. Capital is the real Leviathan.
*
At all times and everywhere we are pressured by forces, that are as invisible and omnipresent as the force of gravity, to be not who we are or what we would like to be, but what others want us to be.
*
The headline of the editorial in our local paper today reads: “Free people need a free press.” A free press is unthinkable, we read here, “if journalists are restricted from seeking and reporting facts – particularly facts that are embarrassing to someone who is powerful.” And: “People cannot make good decisions if they do not have good information. A democracy cannot exist in an information vacuum.”
*
Speaking of our press, one of our Ottomanized benefactors (let’s call him Jack S. Avanakian) and their role models, the Sultan, an editor once recounted the following to me: “He promised to subsidize our paper on condition that I print an article about him with a photo in every issue.” I no longer get that particular weekly but I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if an article with a photo of Jack S. Avanakian appears regularly in every issue. As Brecht used to say: “Grub first, then ethics.”
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Wednesday, May 02, 2007
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TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
******************************************
Gentle reader:
If you have had enough of my nonsense, please feel free to spam or block me. It’s easy – all it takes is a fraction of a second. No need to ask me to remove your name from my address book when your name has at no time been there to begin with. Nothingness cannot be removed. Thank you! / ara
*
ON THE ROLE OF INTELLECTUALS
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Where fascists enter, intellectuals exit.
*
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Everyone is familiar with this line from the Bible. It’s not only common knowledge, it’s also common sense – the least common of all faculties, it has been said. For 1500 years our intellectuals have been trying to convince our leadership that “solidarity is the mother of good deeds, divisiveness of evil ones” (Yeghishe). And yet, we stand as divided today as we were in the 5th Century. This may explain why even our-dime-a-dozen pundits are smart enough to concentrate their efforts on reasoning with Turks: deep down they know they have a better change with them than with our own.
*
The role of intellectuals? Sound and fury signifying nothing. I rest my case. Nothing further, your honor!
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A final question: Why go on writing when the written word will change nothing? Can anyone in his right mind be megalomaniacal enough to entertain the hope that what he says or writes matters in our environment? Has anyone of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors ever come close to admitting to have been on the wrong track or to have behaved not as a servant of the people or of God but as a Master accountable to none but himself?
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The role of intellectuals? Unmask the swindlers and even if you give them insomnia for a fraction of a second, consider your mission accomplished.
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I quoted Yeghishe (circa 410-470 AD) above. Allow me to quote him again if I may:
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“We may not be allowed to question the integrity of princes, but neither should we praise men who pit themselves against the Will of God.”
*
“In the same way that a man cannot serve two masters, a nation cannot have two kings. If a nation is ruled by two kings, both the kings and their subjects will perish.”
#