notes / comments

[arabaliozian]

9/11

Thursday, September 09, 2004
***********************************
CREDIBILITY CANYON.
A QUESTION OF RELEVANCE.
PARTISAN VERSIONS OF THE PAST.
ARMENIAN SHAMANISM.
*******************************************
Just because I don't believe anything Turks tell me, it doesn't necessarily follow that I am willing to swallow everything Armenians tell me. I have been fooled by so many Armenians on so many occasions that, if an Armenian were to tell me my mother loves me, I would want to double-check his source.
*
If you think my attitude towards my fellow Armenians is negative, I say, I assure you, my friend, my attitude might as well be irrelevant on grounds of insignificance. Who after all gives a damn what a minor scribbler says? Any idiot can contradict him, any hooligan can insult him, and any imbecile can silence him. What is infinitely more relevant and significant is Armenian treatment of writers and, by extension, their fellow Armenians.
*
To put it as elegantly and as diplomatically as I can, collectively, Armenians have behaved like swine towards their writers. No need to take my word for it. Read any history of Armenian literature. But don't expect Bolsheviks, or for that matter, any member of any party to expose its own criminal conduct. When a partisan writes about his party, he operates on the assumption that its leadership has been infallible, therefore beyond reproach.
*
If you want to know how misleading an Armenian can be, read a Communist on Tashnaks and vice versa: a Tashnak on fellow travellers. Once, when I was young and naïve, I published an interview with a prominent Tashnak only to be informed by a prominent Ramgavar that every line in my interview contained a minimum of two lies.
*
Two reasonable men may disagree, but not if one of them is an Armenian.
*
When a reader does not agree with me, he says, "I don't agree with you." But when an Armenian does not agree with me, he calls me an idiot, probably because he believes in shamanism and thinks if he calls me an idiot a few times, I will grow long ears and bray like an ass.
#
Friday, September 10, 2004
*******************************
TOYNBEE'S ANSWER.
GANDHI'S SOLUTION.
GRUB FIRST, THEN ETHICS.
*************************************
When, in the final volume of his STUDY OF HISTORY, Toynbee attempted to combine all religions into a single belief system, because he saw no other alternative to mutual tolerance, universal brotherhood and peace, he was dismissed as a charlatan by humanists and as a blasphemer by men of faith. Result? Mankind continues to be at the mercy of frauds and their dupes, who persecute, kill and die in the name of a truth, which is a lie.
*
Religious leaders would agree with the above assertion provided they and their followers are excluded, of course!
*
Jews believe the Pope and his followers and all Christians in general believe in a false messiah. Christians believe, by rejecting the only true messiah, Jews are destined to burn in hell. Mullahs view Christians as infidels, and Buddhists are convinced anyone who speaks of gods, holy ghosts, messiahs, prophets, angels, devils, and virgin births inhabits a world of non-existent shadows and empty illusions.
*
A humanist believes trying to reconcile two religions is like trying to reconcile two sets of lies. You cannot reconcile 2+2=5 with 2+2=22. How can you reconcile the existence of God with his non-existence? Easy, Gandhi said. If we replace the word God with the word Truth, he explained, even atheists become believers in so far as they believe the non-existence of god to be the truth.
*
Like Toynbee's answer, Gandhi's verbal solution has been ignored, perhaps because it does not take into account theologians and their dogmas, for the sake of which countless men have shed their blood.
*
If a universal religion continues to be a utopian dream today, it's because for every Toynbee and Gandhi, there are thousands of bishops, mullahs and rabbis, who make a comfortable living by peddling nonsense; and between a useless, not to say dangerous, nonsense and a useful truth, man will invariably choose the nonsense.
*
Call it original sin, call it the crocodilian fraction of the human brain, call it human perversity, call it what you will, history is clear on this point: if we view the future as an extension of the past, we are destined to be at the mercy of frauds and their dupes who value superstition above truth, brotherhood and peace.
#
Saturday, September 11, 2004
***********************************
MORE ABOUT RELIGION.
THE POSITIVE AND THE NEGATIVE.
FROM GIBBON TO MARX &
FROM HEGEL TO RAFFI.
***************************************
One of my critics informs me that I tend to emphasize the negative at the expense of the positive. This pattern, he writes, is evident also in my treatment of all organized religions. When I write about Christianity, for instance, I completely ignore its many positive contributions.
*
Let me expand on some of the points in my previous post:
There is no evidence to suggest that mankind has made any moral progress after the advent of Christianity. The last century, for instance, has seen more senseless bloodshed than at any other time in the history of mankind.
*
During the last two thousand years, Christianity has legitimized authoritarianism, monarchy, imperialism, colonialism, intolerance, racism, anti-Semitism, fascism, the persecution and torture of heretics, wars and massacres. Remember Voltaire's dictum: "Since it was a religious war, there were no survivors."
*
After the Golden Age of Greek culture, Christianity ushered in a thousand years of Dark Ages during which scientists were forced to accept the word of the Old Testament as the ultimate authority on all branches of knowledge.
*
Some of the greatest historians and thinkers of the West (from Edward Gibbon to Marx and Nietzsche) have written at considerable length about the negative, not to say, sinister, role of the Church in the West.
Hegel summed up the role of Christianity in the West when he said "the Christian frees himself from the human Master only to be enslaved by the divine Master." Our own Raffi echoed the same sentiment when he wrote: "As for our clergy: they have always been against individual freedom."
*
Speaking of Roman persecution of Christians, Gibbon writes in his DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE: "Christians have inflicted far greater severities on each other than they had experienced from the zeal of infidels." The number of Protestants "executed in a single province and a single reign far exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three centuries and of the Roman Empire."
*
For more on this subject, see DOUBT: A HISTORY by Jennifer Michael Hecht (New York, 2003. 551 pages. Index. Bibliography).
#

[arabaliozian]

9/15

Sunday, September 12, 2004
************************************
FAITH, RELIGION, POLITICS AND POWER.
ORWELL, HUXLEY, TOYNBEE, GANDHI.
CRITICIZING THE CRITIC.
BELIEF SYSTEMS AND THEIR CRITICS.
************************************************** *****
Faith is something that happens in the hearts, minds, and souls of men. What I criticize is not faith but organized religions and the power they wield; and power is power regardless of its physical or metaphysical content.
*
Faith may be beyond criticism, but organized religions, politics and power are not.
*
George Orwell: "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
*
Those who oppose criticism engage in criticism in so far as they criticize dissent on the grounds that their convictions are beyond criticism, especially if there is no positive proof that their convictions are true.
*
Every belief system is also a critique as well as a rejection of all other belief systems.
*
Critics and dissidents are not popular because those who speak in the name of God or Truth don't like being exposed as dealers in "pure wind."
*
Christians called their critics heretics and burned them at the stake. Bolsheviks called theirs Trotskyites, bourgeois reactionaries and counter-revolutionaries and shot them. Muslims called theirs infidel dogs and blasphemers and exterminated them.
*
Even religious leaders who preach love, hate to give up their claim of monopoly of truth, to the same degree that their followers hate to give up their sense of superiority, that allows them to see themselves as the Chosen, and the rest of the world as second-class citizens, or even morally inferior trash.
*
In that sense, one could say that all belief systems are in the business of dehumanizing their fellow men. To flatter the collective ego of a minority (and all religions are minorities) they dehumanize the majority.
*
Efforts to reconcile belief systems, like those made by Aldous Huxley in his book, PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY, and by Toynbee in the final volume of his 12-volume STUDY OF HISTORY, have been ignored, sometimes even ridiculed. Who remembers today Gandhi's noble, even if only semantic, effort to elevate the status of atheism from the opposite of religion to that of religion?
*
As for the positive contributions religions have made: consider the fate of a respectable citizen who has done nothing but serve his fellow men for many years, but as a result of unforeseen circumstances, or confluence of emotional experiences, he commits a criminal act. He is caught, arrested, tried, found guilty and punished. His standing within the community is wrecked. He is disgraced. He becomes a pariah. And now consider the case of the Catholic Church and its many corrupt popes: what has happened to the institution of the papacy? What has happened to Christianity and Islam after their countless crimes that have claimed millions of innocent victims?
*
To those who say, the abuses of individuals should not be ascribed to their institutions, I ask, What if these abuses were committed in the name of these institutions? Should we continue to assert these institutions can do no wrong or they are beyond criticism, and anyone who exposes these abuses is a blasphemer, an idiot, a lunatic, whose ideas are dangerous, negative and anti-social?
#
Monday, September 13, 2004
************************************
A TURKISH NOBELIST.
A TURCOPHILE HISTORIAN ON TURKS.
ANKARA'S ROLE IN WORLD HISTORY.
PROPAGANDA WAR.
TOYNBEE'S VERDICT.
************************************************** *
In the August 30, 2004 issue of the NEW YORKER (New York) John Updike reviews a novel titled SNOW by Orhan Pamuk, a contemporary Turkish writer, several of whose books have already been translated into English and published in the U.S. and England. After comparing the author with Marcel Proust, Thomas Mann, and Dostoevsky, Updike writes: "Pamuk, relatively young as he is, at the age of fifty-two, qualifies as that country's most likely candidate for the Nobel Prize."
It is to be noted that the novel takes place in the city of Kars and the Armenian massacres are not mentioned in the lengthy review.
*
In the August 21 issue of the SPECTATOR (London) David Pryce-Jones opens his review of Andrew Mango's THE TURKS TODAY with the words: "Mustapha Kemal, otherwise Ataturk, took the corpse of the Ottoman Empire and reanimated it as Turkey. Breaking both the old sultanate and the hold of Islam, he laid the foundation of a democratic state. It was an extraordinary achievement, not to be witnessed again until Mikhail Gorbachev broke the Soviet Union and the hold of the Communist party - and that was more by accident than design." Armenians are not mentioned in the review.
*
In the August 19 issue of LE POINT (Paris) there is an interview with Semih Vaner, identified as a French expert on the Middle East, who is quoted as having said: "Ankara can play an essential role between the West and the Muslim world." And: "It is time to view the Muslim world in all its diversity. Turkey has a parliamentary system that is competitive and democratic."
Again, Armenians are not mentioned.
*
Is there an Armenian military leader comparable to Ataturk? General Antranik comes to mind. But he might as well be a non-person to the world at large, thanks to our own political leadership that rejected him in mid-career.
*
Did we ever produce a writer who could have qualified as a candidate for the Nobel Prize? The answer is, yes, certainly, many. But we silenced all of them. I have in mind not only writers of the Soviet period that were systematically purged by our commissars, but also writers of the Diaspora, like Zarian, Shahnour, and Massikian, who were rejected and silenced by our own political and literary establishments.
*
If we are losing the propaganda war, whose fault is it? Is it because the world has a short memory? Or is it because we have allowed our destiny to fall into the hands of mediocrities whose number one enemy is excellence?
*
I am reminded of Toynbee's dictum: "Nations and civilizations are not killed, they commit suicide."
#
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
***********************************
Persian proverb: "Adam and Eve spoke in Persian, and the angel who drove them out of Paradise spoke Turkish."
*
I have heard it said that poets are useless, writers deal in verbiage, intellectuals are addicted to words, and you cannot cook pilaf with words. I have also heard it said that man does not live by pilaf alone; and if the man happens to be an Armenian, he will also want some shish kebab.
*
Churchill, not exactly a daydreaming poet, once said: "Jaw-jaw is better than war-war."
*
Ludwig Wittgenstein: "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world." It follows, to silence writers means limiting our options, and with them, our chances to survive and to achieve excellence, both of which are interconnected. To survive in the jungle, you need all your faculties.
*
Where critics are starved, crooks, charlatans and liars grow fat. Hence the old saying: "Priests have seven stomachs."
*
You say I complain too much, but isn't that what you are doing too?
*
"Every concept is in itself an exaggeration," Jose Ortega y Gasset tells us. So that if you say I exaggerate, you are saying I deal in concepts, to which I can only reply, I don't know any other way to express my thoughts, and I refuse to apply fig leaves to them.
*
Zarian was right. We don't have literary critics. What we have are petty meddlers and frustrated commissars of culture who, given the chance, will gladly put a bullet in the neck of anyone who dares to disagree with them.
*
According to Shaw, "A thought is an assault on the unthinking." Every unfamiliar thought is therefore bound to violate our inner balance and thus put us on the defensive. Our first impulse is not to understand it, but to reject it and to silence the thinker.
*
The hardest thing about being Armenian is to disagree with a friend without losing him, and to win an argument without making a mortal enemy.
*
By concentrating on someone else's criminal conduct (which is what we have been doing) we learn nothing. But by exposing our own blunders we may learn not to repeat them.
#
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
**************************************
VERSIONS OF THE PAST.
HISTORY AS THE PROPAGANDA OF THE VICTOR.
ON THE MEDIOCRITY OF OUR WRITERS.
THE NUMBER TWO IN NATURE.
************************************************** *****
To appreciate the absurdities of history as taught to millions of unsuspecting children, consider a Turk's version of Armenian history. I once heard a Turkish historian say that there has never been such a thing as an Armenian nation. Christian Turks, maybe. Armenian nation, never! It follows; to speak of the Armenian genocide is to speak of the Genocide of a non-existent entity.
*
In his book, THE DA VINCI CODE, Dan Brown exposes the dark side of Christianity. When told by readers that his book contradicts everything they have been taught, he replies that history has always been written by the "winners (societies and belief systems that conquered and survived)." So that, in gauging what is true, we should ask: "How historically accurate is history?"
*
Hindus treat their cows with greater respect than their Untouchables. I should like to see a history of Hinduism written by an Untouchable, or a history of the United States written by an American Indian or a Negro. Unless of course you say the testimony of an American racist is more valid than the testimony of a Negro.
*
Even belief systems whose central idea is mercy can be merciless against their critics.
*
After silencing and starving our ablest writers, our commissars of culture say: "Our writers are mediocrities."
*
A hooligan once said to me: "Books speak about the past. I am more interested in the future." He is thinking of his next screw, I thought.
*
Nature seems to be partial to the number two: we have two eyes, two ears, two arms, two legs, and a forked tongue.
#

[arabaliozian]

propaganda etc.

Thursday, September 16, 2004
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To speak of the wisdom of propaganda is like speaking of the shadow of a non-existent object in a dark room.
*
Fascists make good speechifiers, but I see more eloquence in the braying of an ass.
*
Two individuals from two different cultural environments do not speak the same language even when they speak the same language.
*
Confucius: "Clever talk and a pretentious manner are seldom found in the Good."
A variant translation: "A garbage-mouth cannot harbor a golden tongue."
*
I am not in the business of changing anything. I am in the business of understanding, and whenever I am allowed, to share my understanding.
*
When a reader tells me he hates what I write, I make an effort to be more hateful. I don't write to entertain, amuse, and flatter.
*
All censors are cowards because they are afraid of ideas, especially ideas that will expose them as cowards.
*
Judge a tree by its fruit, a man by his ideas, and a belief system by its history.
*
To say nothing is better than to call someone an ignoramus, especially if he is one.
*
An easy riddle: "What does an Armenian with an opinion have in common with the Rock of Gibraltar?"
#
Friday, September 17, 2004
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AGAINST TURKISH MEMBERSHIP IN THE EU.
ON THE ORIGINS OF PROVERBS.
WAS KOMITAS A TURK?
THE FALLACY OF CENSORSHIP.
************************************************
In an interview published in LE POINT (Paris, August 12, 2004) Pierre Moscovici, a member of the European Parliament, cites the following three reasons why Turkey cannot be admitted into the European Union: "The role of the military on the margins of the regime;
the rights of minorities, notably that of the Kurds; and
the recognition of the Armenian genocide - this final point is for me decisive."
*
If "to kill with words is also murder" (German proverb), who among us will dare to plead not guilty to the crime of massacre?
*
Anonymous: "Let not your tongue cut your throat."
*
More and more frequently now, in English-language books of quotations, Armenian proverbs are identified as Turkish. Since no one has ever come forward and said: "I was there when this proverb was first spoken," I suppose, any nation can identify a proverb as its own. The same applies to the origin of dishes and folk tunes.
*
I remember to have read somewhere that in some Turkish reference works Komitas is identified as a Turkish musician, I suppose, in the same way that Mikoyan and Khachaturian are identified as "Soviet," Saroyan as "American," and Adamov as "French." But since present-day Turkey has disassociated itself from its Ottoman past and its many crimes against humanity, it would be more accurate to use the qualifier "Ottoman" in reference to Armenian proverbs and personalities who were active in Istanbul before World War I.
*
By silencing a writer and suppressing his testimony, censorship attempts to arrest the advance of time, but the best it can do is to slow it down and to postpone the final catastrophe.
*
Whenever I reflect that a fellow Armenian, who insults me or bans me from a forum, would have betrayed me to the authorities or put a bullet in my neck in a different time, place, and regime, I feel like celebrating.
*
To how many of my Armenian critics I could say: "Your aim is not to contradict but to murder with words."
#
Saturday, September 18, 2004
***********************************
ON PROPAGANDA AND
RELATED ATROCITIES.
*********************************
Propaganda is the enemy of literature because literature is the enemy of propaganda.
*
Speechifiers and sermonizers are not used to being contradicted.
*
One of our elder statesmen once told me: "Why do you bother replying to your readers? F*** them!" To which I remember to have replied: "No, I refuse to adopt our leaders as my role models."
*
I write brief sentences to fit the attention span of my readers. To write long paragraphs would be like serving gourmet dishes to addicts of junk food.
*
When a jackass brays he does not expect to have the applause of his audience. But if the jackass is an Armenian he is sure to think his braying is as good if not better than an aria from DON GIOVANNI or THE BARBER OF SEVILLE.
*
I grew up among survivors of the massacres who spoke Turkish among themselves. They had no illusions about their fellow men regardless of nationality. They may have been functional illiterates but they had an instinctive understanding of the role of destiny in human affairs. They didn't make a career of hatred and a full-time job of the massacres. If someone had said to them, by writing books, newspaper articles and letters to the editor, or by delivering speeches and sermons we may be able to persuade the Turks to apologize, they would have looked at him in silent astonishment as if to say: "Of the forty-four types of insanity I have heard about, this must be one of them."
#

[arabaliozian]

killers

Sunday, September 19, 2004
*********************************
SCHOOLS OF ARMENIAN CRITICISM.
*******************************************
Armenian critics come in all sizes and shapes. A tentative classification follows.
*
The Partisan: Every word he utters is a result of conditioning.
*
The Hooligan: He slings mud on a windy day and he is too dumb to know that the mud will boomerang.
*
The Kibitzer: A smart-ass whose sole ambition in life is to appear better informed rather than to know or understand better.
*
The Fanatic: His brain is so narrow that he is incapable of entertaining more than one idea at a time, and the idea he entertains is either a prejudice or a fallacy.
*
The Garbage-mouth: Imagine a skunk with bad breath that insists on getting up-close and personal.
*
The Parrot: One who operates on the assumption that if he repeats what his daddy, schoolteacher, or parish priest told him when he was a little boy, he can't be far out.
*
The Pontiff: He can say or do no wrong because he knows better; and he knows better because he is better; and he is better because he is in constant touch with the Holy Ghost.
*
The Stalinist: A frustrated commissar of culture who puts a bullet in your neck and calls it dialectic.
*
The dogmatist: He believes every inanity he utters is the alpha and omega of human thought from the ancient Greeks to the present.
*
The Born-again: He has made a religion of patriotism and believes faith can move mountains even though so far he has done nothing to move the dunghill in his backyard.
*
The Phony: He recycles a line from the morning editorial and expects to be taken for a pundit.
*
The Hypocrite or the Forked-tongue: He believes as long as he says the opposite of what he really feels and thinks, he will be on safe ground.
*
The Fundamentalist: He identifies his verbal crapola with Holy Writ.
*
Question: Is it a waste of time reading these critics?
Answer: No, if you want to understand why our past and present are a disaster area and why the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train with a toxic cargo.
*
To those who say, "If you want your readers to respect you, you should respect them." I say, I am not in the business of respecting the irrational, the irresponsible, the phony, the pretentious, and the dishonest. I am in the business of exposing them.
*
And if you were to say, "Why is it that you are the only writer who has such a negative and pessimistic view of our reality?" I will say: No, I am not, not by a long shot! Three generations of Armenian writers before me were brutally cut down before they had a chance to sound the alarm: first time in the Ottoman Empire by Talaat, second time in Soviet Armenia by Stalin, and third time in the Diaspora by our partisans. So much so that I have heard even our chauvinists admit that we have no more literary giants, only contemptible midgets.
*
But in all fairness to our lost writers, many of them predicted the coming catastrophe and were ignored whenever they were not murdered. Shahnour and Massikian come to mind; and Zarian, who said: "Our political parties have been of no political use to us. Their greatest enemy is free speech"; and "Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another." Also to be noted: Zarian ended a chapter in his TRAVELLER AND HIS ROAD , written in the 1930s, with the words, "Vdank, vdank, vdank!" (Danger, danger, danger!) If that's not an S.O.S., I should like to know what is.
#
Monday, September 20, 2004
************************************
ANALYZING FANATICS.
INSURANCE CLAIMS OF GENOCIDE VICTIMS.
LIES THAT FLATTER AND TRUTHS THAT HURT.
************************************************** ****
To understand some Armenians it helps to read Muslim pundits on their fellow Muslims, because fanatics are fanatics regardless of national origin.
According to Chahdortt Djavann, an Iranian writer and author of a book titled WHAT DOES ALLAH THINK OF EUROPE? "Islam is a closed system that excludes non-Muslims and condemns to death all apostates…. In the Muslim world, Islam has confiscated all thinking. There is no such thing as a thought that is not religious…. [Muslim intellectuals are silent] because the alternative would be to question the legitimacy of the Koran…. Islamists know how to convert the frustrations of the young to religious energy," (LE POINT, Paris, August 26, 2004).
*
On the subject of reparations and insurance claims, I read the following in the CHICAGO TRIBUNE: "The international Commission of Holocaust Era Insurance Claims offered victims $41.5 million in settlements while lavishing more than $40 million in expenses on itself. Neal Sher, head of the commission's Washington office, resigned after an investigation found that he has misappropriated funds. He was later disbarred." Had he been an Armenian, I thought, he would have run for office and would now be the Armenian minister of foreign affairs, perhaps even the prez."
*
To some Armenians the word "kind" might as well be a four-letter word in a foreign tongue.
*
An Armenian says, "Turks are evil and Armenians good." A Turk says, "Armenians are evil and Turks good." Both are believed by millions of their fellow countrymen because a lie that flatters will always enjoy more popularity than a truth that hurts; and because I refuse to be a brown-noser, I have acquired many enemies who would like to see me silenced permanently.
*
But I shouldn't complain because if it weren't for my enemies I would probably have no faithful readers and a steady source of inspiration. As for readers who agree with me: I wouldn't be in the least surprised if I bore them to death. I too would be bored with a writer who tells me nothing I don't already know.
#
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
********************************
A FAILED EXPERIMENT?
DOUBLE UNDERDOGS.
INDIANS AND FORKED TONGUES.
*************************************
"Armenia is a failed experiment," a friend keeps telling me, "and writing for Armenians a waste of time." Is he right? I am not sure. One reason I continue to write for Armenians is that, as an underdog, I prefer to write for underdogs - make it, as a double-underdog, I prefer to write for double-underdogs. Because, if you didn't already know, we happen to be underdogs not only of Turkish barbarism and Western hypocrisy but also of our own incompetent leadership.
*
Consider our revolutionaries at the turn of the last century: they knew massacres to be a strong possibility, and yet, they didn't have a plan B. They may have had a plan B for themselves (as in the Ottoman Bank caper) but not for the civilians. And they should have had not only a plan B, C, D, and E but also X, Y, and Z. But the fact remains: they did not. And what was bound to happen, happened.
*
And consider our present situation. What's their plan B, or, for that matter, plan A, to arrest the exodus from the Homeland and the assimilation in the Diaspora ? - two ongoing processes that have been described as "white massacres." Again, they may have a plan B for themselves, as they did the first time around…and having survived the massacres, they published copious memoirs in which they portrayed themselves as heroes and dedicated servants of the nation. How to explain their failures? Elementary, my dear Watson. They blamed the West for its double talk (as if there ever was a time in recorded history when the West had not spoken with a forked tongue) and the Turks for their bloodthirsty disposition (as if that came as a surprise too).
*
Speaking of forked tongues: that's how American Indians described all white men long before our massacres. Which may suggest that our own leaders did not know what Indians knew before them. Why should we be surprised if a high-ranking Turkish diplomat is quoted as having said to Bush Sr. during a visit to the White House: "Armenians are our Indians." Thus implying, "If you tried to exterminate your Indians, why shouldn't we exercise the same right when it comes to our own?" And, "If you can speak with a forked tongue, why can't we?"
#
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
***********************************
NATURAL-BORN KILLERS.
SOCRATES ON GODS.
THE NEGATIVE AND THE POSITIVE.
ARMENIAN POLITICS.
********************************************
An Armenian is a natural-born verbal killer. Zarian put it best when he said, "An Armenian's tongue is sharper than a Turk's yataghan." Who among us will dare to plead not guilty to the charge of verbal massacre?
*
When an Armenian from Lebanon and an Armenian from Iran (or anywhere else for that matter) converse in English, nuances are bound to collide, explode, and maim innocent bystanders.
*
Socrates, who has been described as "the big-bang of Western philosophy," once said what needs to be said of all religions: "Of the gods, we know nothing." (See Plato, CRATILUS). Which is why, when it comes to religions, we should have more questions than answers. Which is also why, he who speaks in the name of God should be declared a certified charlatan, a pathological impostor, and a fraud.
*
Everything has been said before. There is nothing new under the sun. Originality now consists in saying, or rather quoting, the right word at the right time and place.
*
Patriotic sentiments spring from the gut and appeal to the gut without a detour to the brain. Unless, of course, you say, "My patriotism is good, but my enemy's patriotism is evil."
*
To those who accuse me of negativism, I ask: "If to expose charlatanism is positive and to cover it up negative, are you not the negative one?"
*
I remember, whenever I would submit an essay dealing with our present situation to the late editor of ARARAT Quarterly, he would reject it with the words, "I don't want to get involved in Armenian politics," as if Armenian politics were a pestilential swamp better left alone than drained.
#

[arabaliozian]

zoo

Thursday, September 23, 2004
**********************************
DISAGREEMENT - ARMENIAN STYLE.
THE LANGUAGE OF PROPAGANDA.
FOUR RULES WITHOUT EXCEPTIONS.
***********************************************
There is a type of reader who disagrees with me long before he has read the first word of the first line. Such a reader is a critic only in the sense that a cobra is a critic of a mongoose and vice versa. Some cases in point follow.
*
"You don't always mention your sources. Is it because you have none to back up your ridiculous assertions and theories?"
More often than not my sources are anonymous readers like yourself whom I sometimes identify as Jack S. Avanakian.
*
"None of your explanations makes sense to me. Why do you insist on wasting your time and ours?"
Perhaps you would like to share your wisdom with us, and if you have none to spare, perhaps you would care to mention another writer we could all read with profit. I hate to think I am the only game in town. Surely, our people deserve better than that.
*
To the gentle reader who tells me, "Haven't you got anything better to do than produce a steady flow of waste matter every day?" I can only say: What's a major intellect like you reading a minor scribbler like me?
*
It has been the destiny of Armenian writers to live among foreigners who don't give a damn about Armenian literature, and Armenians who care more about the false certainties of propaganda and less about the honest uncertainties of literature.
*
Power can speak only one language, that of propaganda. This is true of political as well as religious power. And propaganda and truth are as mutually exclusive as fire and water.
*
My source about the above assertion: life in three different countries - the first predominantly Orthodox (Greece); the second Catholic (Italy) and the third Protestant (Canada) all claiming to have a monopoly on truth, and when asked for proof, all pleading faith, the way cold-blooded murderers plead insanity.
*
All rules have exceptions, except the following four:
Where there are laws, they will be broken.
Where there are principles, they will be corrupted.
Where there is an ideological movement, it will be confiscated by power-hungry cynical manipulators whose number one concern will be number one.
And (I owe the following to Toynbee): Where there are chosen people, they will have been chosen by no one but themselves.
#
Friday, September 24, 2004
********************************
WARNING.
ENFER DE MERDE.
THE LESSONS OF HISTORY.
PUNDITS & DUPES.
ON INFALLIBILITY.
************************************
In order not to be misunderstood, one must express the same thought in different ways, and the more ways, the narrower the gap open to misinterpretation.
*
What I am about to say you may have heard or read before. Feel free not to read what follows.
*
The world is an enfer de merde or a cesspool of conflicting interests and belief systems because, (one) only historians learn from history; (two) they invariably draw contradictory lessons; (three) they don't have the power to put into practice what they have learned; and (four) if they had the power, the world would be in a worst mess.
*
We are all authorities on at least one subject: what's good for us, and more often than not, we are dead wrong.
*
Where there is disagreement, either one or, more often than not, both sides are wrong, because any dupe can say, "my side is right," and have a counterpart in the opposition who says the same thing.
*
If we agree that what we don't know far exceeds what we know, or "of the gods we know nothing" (Socrates), or "we cannot answer the most important questions" (Chekhov), it follows, to assume being consistently right or infallible must be just about the surest symptom of being consistently wrong. This must be true not only of Muslims who speak in the name of Allah, but also of Catholics who speak in the name of the Pope, or partisans who speak in the name of the Party, or dupes who at one time or another spoke in the name of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Saddam, and countless others who pretended to know better.
*
If millions, perhaps even billions, have been wrong in the past, who among us will dare to pretend to be right or to know better?
#
Saturday, September 25, 2004
***********************************
FROM AN AFRICAN NOVEL.
MORE ON WRITERS AND COMMISSARS.
ON ARMENIAN IDENTITY.
THE VOICE OF THE PEOPLE.
OUR PANCHOONIE RACKET.
GOD, OUR FATHER.
************************************************
From a contemporary African novel: "as ugly and dirty as a hyena's anus."
*
No one and nothing can be as contemptible as a writer in an environment dominated by commissars of culture. Which is why I prefer to identify myself as a concerned citizen. And if, on occasion, I have committed the unforgivable blunder of calling myself a writer, it has been only in the sense of one who uses the written word as a means of communication - as in "the writer of this memo."
*
If you chart the family tree of a commissar of culture, you are sure to find at least two hangmen, three cold-blooded murderers, several career criminals, and a minimum of a dozen jailbirds.
*
In a non-democratic environment one cannot speak of the voice of the people ("vox populi") which has been identified in the past with the voice of god ("vox dei"). One can speak only of the voice of an elite or a power structure, which is more akin to the voice of the Devil. And now, consider the fact that throughout our millennial history we have at no time experienced democratic rule. Even in democratic environments like the United States, France and Canada, we are dominated by non-representative cliques that are as representative as exclusive clubs. As for the so-called democracy in Armenia today: it is as representative as a criminal gang or a mafia.
*
An Armenian born and raised in the United States will share more in common with his fellow Americans than with an Armenian born and raised in the USSR. Most Armenians today might as well be foreigners to one another. But whereas the laws of the land promote solidarity in America (which is also populated by foreigners), the absence of similar laws or values in our case moves us in opposite directions, namely, mutual mistrust, alienation, and assimilation.
*
The only time an Armenian will speak of brotherhood is when he goes into the business of raising funds, which I like to call our "Panchoonie racket."
*
I am willing to concede that even if god doesn't exist, we should live as though he did, otherwise we may end up slaughtering one another. But man, it seems, is so predisposed to slaughter that he will slaughter even in the name of a merciful and compassion god.
*
The aim of propaganda, it has been said, is to deceive your friends, not your enemies. Imagine, if you can, a Turk falling for our chauvinist crapola….
*
After being verbally abused by our commissars and partisans (but I repeat myself) I can truly testify to the fact that an Armenian's tongue can be "sharper than a Turk's yataghan" (Zarian) and uglier than a hyena's anus.
#

[sleuth]

Sunday, June 20, 2004
*****************************


Truth may be beyond our reach but lies are within us; all we have to do
is recognize, name, and reject them.
#

I really do like your writings,but i bet i read this one before.

*Truth may be beyond our reach but lies are within us; all we have to do
is recognize, name, and reject them.* Mikhail Bakunin

[arabaliozian]

notes

Sunday, September 26, 2004
**********************************
INFORMATION AND WISDOM.
LITTLE BOYS AND BIG BOYS.
ON THE COMPLEXITIES OF LIFE.
ON LOSING AN ARGUMENT.
ON FICTION.
****************************************
There is a natural tendency in all of us to overestimate the wisdom of someone who knows something we don't know, or to confuse information with wisdom.
*
Everyone knows something no one knows, even if what he knows is about himself and his experiences.
*
Little boys brag about things they haven't done or cannot do. Big boys brag about things they neither know nor understand, all the while hoping no one can tell if they are bragging.
*
In life, the crucified do not always rise on the third day.
*
A bishop will never lose an argument if losing it would mean defrocking himself. Neither will a born-again lose an argument if losing it would mean being dead again.
*
Reality or life is a succession of false starts, vicious circles, and dead-ends. Faith or a belief system allows us to think otherwise by reducing life to a one-dimensional operation in which all questions have answers, the end is predictable, and man is subject to rigid laws. In other words, a belief system is a program and a believer is one who constantly programs himself in order to eliminate the uncertain, the irrational, and the incomprehensible by means of prayer and ritual, also known as incantation and mumbo jumbo.
*
There is a visible as well as an invisible universe. Great many questions about the visible universe remain unanswered. As for the invisible: we know nothing about it. We don't even know if it is an extension of the visible. To believe means to reduce the mystery of reality by assuming that since we know the Creator, we need all we need to know about His creation. I am somewhat simplifying things, but not as much as a man of faith simplifies reality.
*
Every novel has a central theme or thesis, which can be expressed in a single sentence or brief paragraph. I speak only of themes because I have a horror of boring my readers with imaginary characters, landscapes and dialogue. When I was a child, words like "Once upon a time," were pure magic. But I am no longer a child, and dark forests, castles, palaces and beautiful princesses no longer exercise the same spell on me. And it is beyond me why anyone would be interested to read such an opening sentence as "The bell rang and I went to the front and opened the door," or "It was on my wanderings that I first met my beloved."
*
Fine sentiments and thoughts should be expressed either in a fine style or with the utmost simplicity, because even a hint of pretentiousness may expose the writer as a counterfeit.
*
It has been observed that even when our words have wings they may fly in unpredictable directions.
#

Monday, September 27, 2004
*************************************
WHEN BELIEF SYSTEMS CLASH.
PREACHING TO THE CONVERTED.
HOW TO JUDGE A NEW IDEA.
REALITY AND PROPAGANDA.
EXPLOITING DUPES.
******************************************
It is a mistake to judge a belief system on its own terms. It is only when it clashes with other belief systems that it arouses the irrational and the crocodilian in man.
*
If I had a choice between a hundred readers who don't agree with me and ten readers who do, I would choose the hundred for the very simple reason that there is no merit in preaching to the converted.
*
One of the worst mistakes we can make is to approach a new idea with the question: "Is it for us or against us?" We should ask instead: Does it make sense? Does it appeal to our reason or to our emotions? Is it consistent with established facts?
*
Whenever a reader writes that he enjoys reading me, I cannot help reflecting that I must be doing something wrong. I don't write for anyone's enjoyment.
*
The best way to see the discrepancy between reality and propaganda is to study history and compare what happened with what was said by politicians on both sides of the conflict.
*
The astonishing ease with which most people believe their side of the story and the ruthless cynicism with which leaders on both sides exploit this human weakness.
*
Islam says, "If the enemy is an infidel, he deserves to be slaughtered." Christianity says, "If Almighty God is on our side, we can't lose." The clash of these two belief systems resulted in the senseless slaughter of nearly two million Armenians. I am not saying religion was the main cause of our genocide, but I hope no one will disagree with me if I say it was a contributing factor.
#
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
**********************************
ON THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER.
A MONUMENT TO HUMAN DEGRADATION.
THE AIM OF CRITICISM.
***********************************************
As a child I was brought up to believe all prayers are eventually answered. If we assume that to be true, we must also assume that the millions of innocent civilians who were senselessly slaughtered during two world wars did not pray hard enough; and they did not pray hard enough probably because their faith in God was not of sufficient strength to meet God's standards. Which also means that in some minimal way, they contributed to their own demise. This type of thinking is another proof of the fact that organized religions, and men of faith in general, are first and foremost in the business of dehumanizing not only their fellow men but also diminishing God. Because, if you think about it, what kind of God would allow children to be slaughtered simply because He was disappointed in the quantity and quality of their prayers? But then, what kind of God would ask a decent father to butcher his own son (see GENESIS) to test his loyalty? Can God be so insecure as to be in need of a poor mortal's loyalty? And if He knows everything, shouldn't he already know the answers to His own questions?
*
The most underdeveloped countries are also the most religious. Two cases in point: Mexico and India. Where religion plays a central role, there will also be poverty, disease, corruption, prejudice, ignorance, and overpopulation. Are we to assume Mexican and Indian children deserve their fate because their parents did not pray hard enough?
*
If Armenians were slaughtered because they more or less deserved it, does that mean the Turks did what they did with God's consent? Or perhaps Sultan Abdulhamid II and Talaat were His messengers?
*
I read in today's paper that Taj Mahal (described as "a monumental love nest" and "India's most famous monument") was built 350 years ago. When I think of Taj Mahal I do not consider its beauty but the degradation of poor anonymous laborers who worked on its constructions to memorialize the love of two individuals who should have been hanged from the nearest tree for their arrogance and greed for immortality.
*
Only the abysmally ignorant view criticism as an expression of hostility rather than concern.
#
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
************************************
FATHERS AND CHILDREN.
MUD IS MUD.
IN PRAISE OF MODERATION.
**************************************
As children we trust our elders and accept their simple answers to our questions. As adults we continue to behave like children when we are told patriotism or nationalism is good only when it is ours; or the word "homeland" is sacred only when it refers to our own homeland; or again, our mud is better than someone else's.
*
Silence contains the worst lies as well as the best truths.
*
The difference between a fanatic and a moderate is that a moderate suspects there are two sides to every question and if he is honest and objective he may have a better chance to understand reality.
*
If a writer cannot change our perception of reality, he might as well identify himself as an entertainer.
*
Never insult an Armenian writer: being one is insult enough.
#

[arabaliozian]

B/b

I really do like your writings,but i bet i read this one before.

*Truth may be beyond our reach but lies are within us; all we have to do
is recognize, name, and reject them.* Mikhail Bakunin

If Bakunin said that, he was the first to say it.
i am thrilled to know that Bakunin and I share something in common!/ ara

[arabaliozian]

assassins

Thursday, September 30, 2004
**********************************
BUDDHA, SOCRATES, JESUS.
THE SEMANTICS OF RELIGION,
PHILOSOPHY, AND MYSTICISM.
GOOD AND EVIL.
GOD AND THE DEVIL.
************************************************** **
Abandon old habits of thought. Do not even think in terms of good and evil, or right and wrong. Forget what you were taught. Get rid of all preconceptions: that's the only way to grasp reality. This indeed is the central message of Buddhism.
*
Now compare this with Christianity's "Love your enemy," - an idea so new, so strange, and so much against the grain that after two thousand years of countless sermons in countless churches it has yet to penetrate our crocodilian brain. The only way to understand it is by abandoning all definitions, because (according to the recent academic discipline of semantics) words and their definitions are at the root of all our misconceptions and prejudices.
*
Abandoning all definitions: that's also the mantra adopted by Socrates. In his dialogues Socrates begins by stating that he knows nothing and ends by proving that his interlocutors know even less. And who are his interlocutors? Generals, statesmen, philosophers - in short, la crème de la crème of Athenian society at the peak of its Golden Age. As the dialogues unfold, Socrates makes it abundantly clear that the commonly accepted definitions of such terms as justice, goodness, beauty, and courage are full of inconsistencies and contradictions.
*
What I am trying to say here has been said before by far better men than myself, among them Aldous Huxley in his PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY, and Arnold Toynbee in the 10th volume of his STUDY OF HISTORY. The aim of all religions, schools of philosophy and mysticism is the same. It is only when religions acquire a power structure, a hierarchy and bureaucracy, rituals and mumbo jumbo that they betray the original intent of their founders and become instruments of the devil by legitimizing intolerance, fallacies, prejudice, hatred, war and massacre.
#
Friday, October 01, 2004
******************************
ON FANATICS
**********************
Fanatics are not born but made, and what makes them are fanatics in the opposite camp. Armenian fanatics exist today because Turkish fanatics existed yesterday; and Turkish fanatics will exist tomorrow because Armenian fanatics exist today. Fanaticism is an endless cycle and if allowed to prevail, the world is bound to drown in blood.
*
When fanatics fight, it is the defenseless and the innocent who die.
*
All fanatics operate on a number of false assumptions or illusions, among them: (one) they are the only answer to a very important question; (two) they are not fanatics but realistic moderates who understand the nature of the adversary; (three) they are instruments of a noble principle or even messengers of God; and (four) they are la crème de la creme (rather than la crème de la scum).
*
One reason the Bible is a perennial best seller is that there is something for everyone in it. Good men will find many passages that speak of compassion, mercy, forgiveness, tolerance, and love, and bad men will find many more lines that justify criminal conduct, including the massacre not only of enemy tribes, including their women and children, but also their cattle. Hence Shakespeare's dictum: "Even the devil can quote the Scriptures to his advantage."
*
One of my born-again critics - make it, crypto-commissars or frustrated executioners parading as devout Christians - writes: "There was a time when we burned blasphemers like you at the stake."
*
If "a bourgeois is a bourgeois regardless of nationality"(Lenin), so is a fanatic. A Muslim fanatic and a Christian fanatic might as well be interchangeable, faceless units that share the same ambition: to drag the world back to the Middle Ages and to hell with such degenerate Western concepts as democracy, human rights, free speech, and the separation of church and state.
*
For every proud Armenian, there are probably ten or more proud Turks. In a battle of prides, we don't have a chance. Which is why I prefer to identify myself as a humble human being that has no use for pride.
*
Where there is chauvinist pride, there will also be self-righteous arrogance, intolerance, hatred, fanaticism, and inevitably bloodshed.
#
Saturday, October 02, 2004
******************************
WE ARE ALL ASSASSINS
********************************
From an interview with Yan Moix, a contemporary French author: "There is only one reason that prevents us from behaving like animals: the laws of the land. Without laws we would behave like wild beasts in the jungle." (LE POINT, September 2, 2004).
*
Where there is power, it will be abused. This might as well be one of those rare rules that have no exceptions.
*
Knowledge is power. But so is phony knowledge, which can be even more dangerous than abysmal ignorance. By phony knowledge I have in mind the kind that we ascribe to religious leaders, be they popes, ayatollahs or gurus.
*
Think of the countless heretics who were persecuted, tortured and killed by the Church on the grounds that church leaders knew God's will or the workings of the divine mind better than their victims.
*
Closer to home: consider the ease with which we verbally abuse one another on the Internet simply because the computer gives us the power to do so.
*
I remember the title of a 1952 French film directed by Andre Cayatte, NOUS SOMMES TOUS DES ASSASSINS (We Are All Assassins) that became a widely used slogan. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that a fraction of our brain is crocodilian, (students of anatomy tell us this to be literally true), and it will seize the flimsiest excuse to take over our "human" brain.
*
If a Pope of Rome and a Stalin can behave like ruthless killers in the name of a religion of love or an ideology based on the brotherhood of all men, who among us will plead not guilty or pretend that his brain has no crocodilian fraction?
*
The Turks massacred us because they had the power to do so. Does that mean we wouldn't have done the same to them if our positions had been reversed? To put it differently: Is the crocodilian fraction of the Turkish brain bigger than ours? Or, are all men assassins except us?
#

[arabaliozian]

diary

Sunday, October 03, 2004
************************************
FROM THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION
TO THE GRAVEYARD OF BARBARIANS
***********************************************
What if Saddam Hussein understands his own people better than the ablest American expert advising Bush? What if the only way to govern Iraq is by being a ruthless dictator willing to conduct genocidal war against unruly tribes? What if this is true of all tribal people, including Armenians? Hence the often-heard line: "We are not yet ready for democracy." Is it conceivable that the cradle of civilization prefers a political system worthy of murderous barbarians?
*
In his book on Stalin, Montefiore writes that Mikoyan once delivered a speech in which he said: "Every citizen of the USSR should be an NKVD [later KGB] agent."
*
Censorship is book burning without smoke and fire.
*
The only way to make money as a writer, Flaubtert once said, is by flattering the public. Zohrab put it more bluntly when he said, anyone can engage in prostitution, including lawyers (he was a lawyer). Which reminds me of the American joke: "Please, don't tell my mother I am a lawyer. She thinks I am a pimp."
*
An authentic charlatan knows instinctively that if he wants to deceive others, he must begin with himself. In other words, he consents to being his own first victim.
*
The incomprehensible nonsense of a charlatan will be the highest wisdom to another charlatan.
*
Charlatans operate on the assumption that they can fool all the people all the time. This false assumption limits their horizons, condemns them to mediocrity, and leads them to disappointment and defeat when they are finally and inevitably exposed.
*
When I write about charlatans I don't expect their agreement; and sure enough, out come the cloven hooves.
#
Monday, October 04, 2004
************************************
SOLUTIONS.
ON POLITICS AND POLITICIANS.
WHAT IS HAPPINESS?
A PROBLEM OF IDENTITY.
**********************************
As for solutions to our problems, it is not easy finding solutions in a tribal environment dominated by jihadist leaders who will automatically reject all solutions that do not require the unconditional surrender of the opposition.
*
Do you really know what I think of politicians? I think the world would not be a much worse place if it were run by cab drivers and barbers.
*
I suspect the honesty of chauvinists whose patriotism finds expression only in verbal abuse.
*
About the word happiness: I consider it to be an untrustworthy word. Happiness for a sadist means someone he can torture. The problem is, what if, unable to find a masochist, he victimizes someone who may not be in a position to defend himself?
*
To think in terms of, "If he agrees with me he is smart, and if he disagrees with me he is a fool," is to condemn oneself to learn nothing from others.
*
The search for identity, about which one hears a great deal today, is a luxury only people with full bellies can afford. To the hungry, there is only one legitimate search, that for food. The hungry may find what he is looking for but I doubt if a man without identity will ever find one, perhaps because you can find only that which exists.
*
There is a type of Armenian whose primary concern is to prove he is a better Armenian, as if Armenianism were a contest that he must win at all cost.
#
Tuesday, October 05, 2004
*******************************
FROM MY DIARY
*********************************
On the Bush/Kerry debate, a Canadian pundit comments: "Kerry made more sense but I would vote for Bush. Kerry is an intellectual who seems to be talking down to people. Americans are suspicious of intellectuals. They prefer presidents who are more like themselves." What about Wilson, FDR, JFK, and LBJ? It seems to me, what one expects from a leader, or for that matter, a doctor, a lawyer, or any professional, is not companionship but competence.
*
On the radio, the haunting slow movement of Elgar's Cello Concerto, which deserves to be heard as often as Dvorjak's and Haydn's. And I don't even remember when was the last time I heard Khachaturian's Cello Concerto. Was it ten or twenty years ago?
*
When asked if she had ever considered divorce, an English lady is said to have replied: "No, never. Murder several times, but divorce, never." I read this in Jeffrey Archer's PRISON DIARY, not a masterpiece but eminently readable.
*
Why is it that a silent woman looks wise, but a silent man dumb?
*
Unbelievable but true: Suleiman the Magnificent once wrote a poem in praise of a contemporary Turkish poet.
*
Is the word mogul related in any way to the word Mongol?
#
Wednesday, October 06, 2004
*************************************
ANOTHER PAGE FROM MY DIARY
***************************************
Overheard: "Lost my wife ten years ago. Run over by a car. Best thing that happened to me."
*
Nothing gives me more pleasure than a volume of good cartoons. A definition of heaven for me would be a set of good cartoons that stretch to infinity; and a definition of hell, a set of bad translations of German metaphysical philosophers.
*
Schnabel playing Beethoven: He makes even the most tedious passages (and there are so many of them in the G Major Sonata) interesting.
*
Perhaps one reason we feel guilty when accused of a crime we did not even contemplate committing is that, at one time or another, we have probably committed the most unspeakable crimes in our dreams, most of which we may not remember.
*
At the funeral of an elder relative I am introduced to quite a few out-of-town Armenians, one of whom tells me: "Your name sounds vaguely familiar." I am reminded of an old English joke that goes something like this: Two Englishmen meet in a pub.
"My name is Porter," says the first.
"Mine is Shakespeare," says the other.
"A familiar name," comments the first.
"It should be," replies the second. "I have been delivering milk in these parts for 35 years."
*
Is it possible to be a political or religious leader and not to engage in some form of propaganda? -- which also means, to mislead people into believing that half-lies are whole-truths?
#