notes / comments

[gmd]

Re: notes / comments

Try harder next time. I could not even finish reading this through to offer you a coherent insult. I am not your friend and I am starting to see why your friends (if you have any) may call you boring.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006
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NOW THANK WE ALL OUR GOD
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Siamanto (real name Adom Yerjanian: 1878-1915) poet and victim of the Genocide: “Our perennial enemy, the enemy that will eventually destroy us, is not the Turk but our own complacent superficiality.”
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If our misfortunes are not our fault but must be ascribed to factors and circumstances beyond our control, such as bloodthirsty neighbors, geographic position, and the Good Lord Himself, it follows: literature lies, propaganda speaks the truth.
Political leaders are honest men, writers enemies of the people.
Which also means, our politicians have been consistently right and our writers consistently wrong.
Let us therefore trust our leaders and ignore our writers, and whenever possible, silence and starve them. They deserve no better.
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Since our problems are not our problems but someone else’s, there isn’t much we can do except adopt a passive stance and wait until our bloodthirsty neighbors see the light and turn into vegetarians, our mountains and valleys yield oil or gold or some other valuable mineral, and the Good Lord takes pity on us.
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Yeghishe was dead wrong when he said, “Solidarity is the mother of good deeds, divisions of evil ones.” Solidarity is for wolves. We prefer to live as divided sheep because we are morally superior to wolves.
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Raffi was wrong when he said we have no future in Turkey. Mass exodus from Turkey in the 19th century would have been a tragic mistake. As for mass exodus from Armenia today (a million and a half so far): that must be seen only as a temporary minor setback in the aftermath of war and earthquake (those damn carnivorous neighbors and cursed geography again).
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To conclude: we have nothing to worry about because we are in the best of hands. Let us therefore go down on our knees and give thanks to the Lord and His representatives on earth (our bosses, bishops, and benefactors), and count our blessings.
Amen.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Wednesday, November 22, 2006
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MEMO
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To readers who find my comments disturbing enough to foam at the mouth: In Hollywood, to put things into perspective, even when there are reputations and millions of dollars at stake, they say, “It’s only a movie.” And I say to you, “Relax, it’s only one man’s opinion.” There is no law that says only the right opinion by wise men may be voiced. None of us, not even you, can claim to be consistently right and wise. Only the abysmally ignorant and arrogant think their way of thinking is the only right one and all others should be ignored, and whenever possible, silenced. When I was young and foolish I too thought there were only a very limited number of ideas and worldviews and my familiarity with all of them allowed me to know which were right and which wrong. I was a fascist and I didn’t know it. I had no doubt whatever in my mind that all Turks were rapists and butchers, it was the patriotic duty of all Armenians to hate them, and the only good Turk was a dead Turk. It took me many years to appreciate the advantages of living in a multicultural and multiracial democracy and enjoying the fundamental human right of free speech. I wonder how many of my readers, be they bosses, bishops, benefactors, editors, and publishers of weeklies and periodicals suspect that treating someone who disagrees with them as an enemy is neither patriotic nor Armenian but fascist. This indeed may well be one of our most dangerous blind spots: namely, our tendency to confuse an Ottomanized and Sovietized brand of fascism with Armenianism. Speaking on this very same subject, Zarian has this to say in his TRAVELLER AND HIS ROAD: “They are spitting on Raffi. They are spitting on Aharonian. They are spitting on Derian. And that with the borrowed, consumptive spittle of Muscovite ‘masters.’ Even their filth is second hand. Even their trash has not been picked up from our streets but from foreign gutters. Danger, danger, danger!”
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[gmd]

Re: notes / comments

Wednesday, November 22, 2006
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MEMO
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To readers who find my comments disturbing enough to foam at the mouth: In Hollywood, to put things into perspective, even when there are reputations and millions of dollars at stake, they say, “It’s only a movie.” And I say to you, “Relax, it’s only one man’s opinion.” There is no law that says only the right opinion by wise men may be voiced. None of us, not even you, can claim to be consistently right and wise. Only the abysmally ignorant and arrogant think their way of thinking is the only right one and all others should be ignored, and whenever possible, silenced. When I was young and foolish I too thought there were only a very limited number of ideas and worldviews and my familiarity with all of them allowed me to know which were right and which wrong. I was a fascist and I didn’t know it. I had no doubt whatever in my mind that all Turks were rapists and butchers, it was the patriotic duty of all Armenians to hate them, and the only good Turk was a dead Turk. It took me many years to appreciate the advantages of living in a multicultural and multiracial democracy and enjoying the fundamental human right of free speech. I wonder how many of my readers, be they bosses, bishops, benefactors, editors, and publishers of weeklies and periodicals suspect that treating someone who disagrees with them as an enemy is neither patriotic nor Armenian but fascist. This indeed may well be one of our most dangerous blind spots: namely, our tendency to confuse an Ottomanized and Sovietized brand of fascism with Armenianism. Speaking on this very same subject, Zarian has this to say in his TRAVELLER AND HIS ROAD: “They are spitting on Raffi. They are spitting on Aharonian. They are spitting on Derian. And that with the borrowed, consumptive spittle of Muscovite ‘masters.’ Even their filth is second hand. Even their trash has not been picked up from our streets but from foreign gutters. Danger, danger, danger!”
#

Speech is never free, there is always a price for exercising it. Just as there is a price for silence. Therefore we both have a duty to speak out and be damned for it.
Keep up the good work Ara. Reading your work has boiled my blood and sense of nationalism that was buried for far too long.

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

November 23, 2006
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REFLECTIONS
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Let others speak of Armenian pride. I prefer to speak of Armenian courage, the kind that allows us to take an objective look at ourselves and assess the damage that centuries of oppression has done to our psyche.
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One of the hardest things in life is to convince an Armenian idiot that he is not a genius. I did not say that. One of my gentle readers did. And he was talking about me.
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Dialogue is an unArmenian activity, and if you can insult someone from a safe distance, why stand on ceremony?
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There is a type of reader who reads to have his views confirmed. The only way to please such a reader is to find out what he thinks about a specific subject and repeat it to him. As for good manners: I guess that’s making too many demands on victims of massacres.
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There is something about me that Armenians don’t like. But perhaps it would be more accurate to say that there is something about Armenians that Armenians don’t like. Is it because they see reflections of themselves?
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Friday, November 24, 2006
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Even as children in the ghetto we used to quote a Turkish saying that, if memory serves, went something like this: “Chok ghareshterma, bokhou chekar” – freely translated: “Don’t stir things too much, you may expose the xxxx.”
Listen to a German philosopher (Herbert Marcuse) saying almost the same thing: “Remembering the past may be a source of dangerous intuitions, which is why an established society has reason to fear the subversive contents of memory.”
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Speaking of simplifications, I remember to have read somewhere the following assertion by a Turkish diplomat to an American politician: “Why all the fuss about Armenian massacres? We did to them what you did to your Indians. Think of Armenians as our Indians.”
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Perhaps my mistake consists in not allowing my patriotism to direct and shape my analysis. But if I were to value my patriotism over my objectivity, I would do what our enemies do and say, in effect, even at our worst we are better; or, even our crap is better than their rose-jam.
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I believe in Armeno-Turkish dialogue, but I also believe before we tackle that challenge, we should learn to engage in Armeno-Armenian dialogue.
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I prefer a tolerant Turk to an intolerant Armenian.
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Everyone writes these days: politicians, singers, actors, directors, Popes, Oriental carpet dealers (at least three of them wanted me to translate their memoirs into English), bordello madams, and serial killers… When my plumber found out I was a writer, he said he too was writing a book.
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Why would anyone who knows anything about Armenians and Armenian literature choose to be an Armenian writer? I wish I knew. As for success: I shall consider myself a success if I survive…and so far so good.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Saturday, November 25, 2006
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HISTORY-MAKERS AND HISTORIANS
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It is an undeniable fact that history is not always made by the best and the brightest. Think of the abysmal mediocrity of most kings and political leaders. It would be more accurate to say that more often than not history is made by the worst and the dumbest. Think of fascist dictators and their countless dupes and victims. To judge a nation by its history sometimes means judging a people by its criminals. Consider Armenians and Turks as cases in point. No doubt the majority of Armenians and Turks were peace loving decent folk lacking in political awareness and incapable of harming anyone. And yet, most Armenians and Turks today judge each other by the very few criminals who took it upon themselves to act in the name of their respective nations. Instead of combating this misconception, most historians legitimize and promote it. To them the average law-abiding, harmless citizen is ahistorical, therefore of no interest. In other words, instead of promoting mutual understanding, historians legitimize prejudice, and ultimately hatred. In the books written by royalist historians, for instance, the French Revolution is seen as a colossal blunder instigated and perpetrated by bloodthirsty agitators who committed many unspeakable crimes against humanity. In the eyes of anti-Bonapartist historians Napoleon is seen as the devil incarnate, and in the eyes of their adversaries as an agent of progress and enlightenment. We may not all be fanatics and chauvinists, but I suspect even the least patriotic and partisan among us carries within him traces of narcissism that leads him to say, “My country (or my ideology, or religion) right or wrong!” Perhaps the only way we will make any progress towards tolerance and peace is to teach ourselves to think and feel not in terms of countries, nations, tribes, and races, but in terms of human beings and humanity. And that’s where historians have failed us. What mankind needs is not patriotic historians but unpatriotic ones who will dare to emphasize the blunders and misdeeds of their own political leaders, because true patriotism consists in promoting self-examination and understanding as opposed to asserting moral superiority, because there are no such things as morally superior tribes, nations, and races, only morally superior human beings who do not, as a rule, brag about their moral superiority.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Sunday, November 26, 2006
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ON SELF-KNOWLEDGE
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Of the many forms of ignorance the worst is ignorance of the self. If you don’t know yourself you don’t know where you are going, and once you get there you may even discover it was a big mistake getting there. If you don’t know yourself, what else can you possibly know and understand?
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My troubles begun on the day I decided I was smart. That’s when life went into action and devised a thousand ways to prove that I was a damn fool.
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On the day you close your mind, life will start opening it, and the longer you resist and keep it shut, the harder and more painful the operation will be.
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For a long time I didn’t see any practical benefit in using my imagination until I realize that reality has so many layers that the only way to penetrate them is by using my imagination.
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Memo to readers who find me depressing:
Read our great writers instead and if you find them even more depressing, have the courage and honesty to admit you are what the pigswill of our propaganda has made you, “a compulsive liar drunk with the folly of deceptive wine” (Gregory of Narek).
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Monday, November 27, 2006
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CRIME STORIES
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My kind of writing is not my favorite kind of reading. May I confess that I have never been able to read Montaigne's ESSAYS from beginning to end. I prefer crime is the only Hemingway story I have read three times. Chandler’s FAREWELL, MY LOVELY I have read four times with undiminished excitement for its poetic use of slang. No other story given me as much pleasure as Hammett’s DEAD YELLOW WOMEN. I love these writers not so much for the suspense they provide as for their wit, humor, and dialogue. If I could, I would write crime stories. But my experience with cops and killers is next to nil. I have been inside a police station only once, many years ago, when I reported a roaming German shepherd attacking pedestrians. The cop at the desk didn’t even bother to look at me, he simply grabbed the phone on his desk and I didn’t wait long enough to hear what he said.
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My fascination with crime stories began with Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle of Sherlock Holmes fame, and Dostoevsky’s CRIME AND PUNISHMENT. And my fascination with Simenon (the most prolific of them all, over 600 titles) began with Andre Gide’s JOURNALS, where he describes at considerable length his own fascination with Simenon.
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There are some crimes stories in which the guilty party is neither the butler nor any of the usual suspects, but the narrator himself. On second thought, perhaps I too write crime stories when I focus on the origins of our complexes and contradictions, and instead of naming the obvious suspects (bloodthirsty neighbors and cynical West) I cross-examine myself.
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A headline in this morning’s paper reads: ISTANBUL: ALMOST 25,000 PROTESTERS DENOUNCE POPE BENEDICT. Nothing astonishes me more than the self-righteousness of the guilty. Instead of denouncing Muslim extremists, terrorists, insurgents, and jihadists, they protest against a remark made by a Christian emperor a thousand years ago. Figure that one out if you can.
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Speaking of self-righteousness: One of Simenon’s favorite themes is the guilt of the victim. In many of his stories, Simenon explains and to some extent justifies the criminal by exposing his victim’s insensitivity and unawareness of the consequences of his actions. And that’s what I am after too – our past and present unawareness, which at times assumes criminal dimensions.
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[TomServo]

Re: notes / comments

Cool. I enjoy Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as well. After reading Nazeli Bagdasarian's Conversations with Ara Baliozian, he might just be the only thing we agree on.

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Tuesday, November 28, 2006
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WRITERS AND CRITICS
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The Catholic novelist and winner of the Nobel Prize (1952) Francois Mauriac (b. 1885) gave up writing fiction after Sartre, (b. 1905), a relative newcomer on the French literary scene and an atheist to boot, published an essay critical of his work. This may suggest that a competent critic has the power to deconstruct, demolish, and reduce to silence even a universally admired great writer.
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I look forward to the day when someone with average or even below average intelligence will give me a similar treatment and I will quit writing this stuff and go back to writing fiction. But so far I haven’t had much luck in my critics. If they are not brainwashed partisans or brown-nosing self-appointed Turcocentric pundits, they are intellectually challenged skinheads whose insults I find stimulating rather than wounding.
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Are we heading in the direction of a new renaissance or are we on our way to the devil? If you answer this question by resorting to chauvinist clichés and platitudes, then we have nothing to look forward to.
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I grew up with the notion that there was more truth in an Armenian lie than in an odar truth. It took me many years to realize that a lie is a lie and it makes no difference whether it is spoken in Zulu, Turkish, or Armenian. The same could be said of propaganda.
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