notes / comments

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Sunday, April 29, 2007
****************************************
THAT WHICH MAKES US WHAT WE ARE
************************************************** ******
Being a human being is a privilege as well as a responsibility. Being a member of a group – be it club, party, tribe, nation, or race – promotes a herd mentality, which means, it allows one to behave like swine with a clear conscience.
*
We have been divided, conquered, and ruled so often and for such a long time that dividing ourselves has become part of our behavioral DNA to such a degree that most of us see nothing wrong or remotely questionable in it. Even when no one divides us, we divide ourselves. I will know things are about to change only when we reverse this trend. Until then I will consider all talk of progress as empty verbiage whose sole intent is to deceive the deaf, blind, and stupid.
*
Explanations may be transferable, understanding is not.
*
For everyone who says one thing, there will be another who says something else or the exact opposite. Next time you meet a boss, bishop, or benefactor, ask him why he belongs or prefers to support group A rather than group B. You may notice that he will parrot received ideas and clichés. That’s one reason why I suspect anyone who places his nationality or ideology ahead of his humanity.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Monday, April 30, 2007
*************************************
PROFILE OF A GOOD ARMENIAN
***********************************************
The more patriotic an Armenian, the more clearly defined his views on what it means to be a good Armenian; and no one can be as intolerant as an Armenian with clearly defined black-and-white views who believes truth and God to be on his side.
*
An intolerant Armenian is a dogmatic and self-righteous Armenian of the you-are-either-with-me-or-against-me variant; and if you are against me you might as well pro-Turkish. Such an Armenian is a divider. His nationalism is disguised tribalism, and his patriotism a sham. And here is the irony: an intolerant Armenian is an Ottomanized Armenian, and an Ottomanized Armenian is an oxymoron (emphasis on the last two syllables). Which simply means, he is neither Armenian nor Ottoman. He is as programmed and fixed in his views and reactions as a robot. When he thinks, he doesn’t feel; and when he feels, he doesn’t think.
*
An authentic Armenian is also an authentic human being. Think of the profound humanity, even universality, of our folk songs, liturgical music, and religious architecture that date back to a time when we were free and not yet contaminated by Ottoman venom and Levantine filth.
*
When asked by English friends if he was really an Armenian, Michael Arlen is quoted as having said (I quote from memory): “Who would want to identify himself as an Armenian [or make such a painful admission] if it weren’t true?”
*
The thought that comes naturally to all Armenians: “If he is Armenian, he is sure to be second rate.” Or, “If he is one of us, he is bound to be a loser and a mediocrity.” Which may explain why someone of Oshagan’s stature dismissed Zarian as a plagiarist without providing a single shred of evidence. And when Shahnour, quoting chapter and verse, proved Siamanto to be a plagiarist and Zartarian a second-rater, he was accused of being anti-Armenian and at one point publicly thrashed by superior type patriots. That’s what I call Ottomanism in action.
*
Please note that everything I have said so far is based on self-analysis. If it doesn’t apply to you, feel free to consider yourself a good Armenian, an exemplary human being, and a role model.
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Tuesday, May 01, 2007
****************************************
THE PUNCH LINE
*****************************
If you want to know what it means to be an Armenian, read our writers, the explorers of our psyche. As for the sermons of our bishops and speeches of our bosses and their assorted hirelings, they all lead to the same predictable punch line, “mi kich pogh oughargetsek” (send us a little money).
What happens to the money after they get it? Only they know. Accountability is not in our DNA. Once, when an editor in Los Angeles exposed the corruption within one of our political parties, he was beaten within an inch of his life.
I wonder how some of my readers would react if I were to add that punch line to everything I write. My guess is, they will tell me to shut up, mind my own business, and leave them alone. They are saying as much now, when it hasn’t even crossed my imagination to make any demands on them. In their view, there is only one thing wrong with our community life, namely, malcontents like me who have an eye only for the negative.
Corruption? Sure, we have our share of it, who doesn’t?
Incompetence? Ditto.
Critics? Well, yes, they too are everywhere, but we’d rather not have them, you see. We’d rather not be reminded we are people like any other people. We’d much rather be told we are special, we are unique, and we have nothing to worry about because we are in good hands.
When on the eve of the Genocide, Krikor Zohrab predicted the coming catastrophe, he wasn’t believed. “Zohrab effendi is exaggerating,” they said. If the Great Powers of the West and the Good Lord are on our side, what could possibly go wrong?
The support of the Great Powers was of course only verbal, and the Good Lord has at no time shown any inclination to interfere in our affairs, but we prefer to be brainwashed to believe otherwise and to ignore, and whenever possible, to silence the pessimists who see only the dark side of things.
Please note that, seven years after the Genocide, history repeated itself. Armenians of Smyrna were brainwashed by their bishop to believe they had nothing to worry about and that Ataturk was a friend. And what was bound to happen, happened.
Who was that particular bishop and what happened to him? As they say, thereby hangs a tale. He was none other then the very same Ghevont Tourian (1879-1933), (brother of poet Bedros Tourian) who had betrayed Gomidas Vartabed to the Turkish secret police. In the SOVIET-ARMENIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA (volume 3, page 462) we read the following: “Because of his patriotic activities, Tourian was persecuted by members of the ARF (Tashnagtsoutiun) and knifed to death on 24 December 1933 in the Holy Cross Church of New York.”
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Wednesday, May 02, 2007
****************************************
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
*************************************************
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!
*
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?
*
The role of intellectuals? Unmask the swindlers and even if you give them insomnia for a fraction of a second, consider your mission accomplished.
*
I quoted Yeghishe (circa 410-470 AD) above. Allow me to quote him again if I may:
*
“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.”
#

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Thursday, May 03, 2007
*********************************************
IN SEARCH OF AUTHENTICITY
****************************************
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

Friday, May 04, 2007
***************************************
RE-WRITING HISTORY
********************************
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

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?
#

[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.

[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

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.