notes / comments

[arabaliozian]

july 14

Sunday, July 11, 2004
********************************
Being a writer means living with rejection - by editors, publishers, critics, and readers. I doubt if there is a single reader alive today who has read and enjoyed all of Shakespeare, Homer and the Bible. Last week I tried to read the final pages of EXODUS and the first pages of LEVITICUS and may I confess that I found them to be just about the most boring things I have ever read, and when I say boring I mean designed to bore the reader slowly to death -- the esthetic equivalent of the Chinese water torture.
*
This much said let me also admit that I have learned more from my critics and enemies than from my friends and fans. By reinforcing our prejudices, our friends succeed only in certifying our limitations. Friendship can be a risky business and fans can be lethal. By contrast, criticism and rejection can be instructive as well as challenging, even if painful, provided, of course, one sees them for what some of them may well be - expressions of incompatibility, prejudice, ignorance, and envy.
*
Another reason why I admire J.S. Bach is that even when he is monotonous and boring (as in the seldom performed Organ Toccata and Fugue in F) he goes about his business with the self-assurance of a mighty river without giving a damn what anyone may think. That's because he knows God or all the forces of the universe are on his side. If this be arrogance, it is fully justified and well-earned arrogance.
*
There is only one way to avoid rejection in life and that is by saying and doing nothing, by being, in other words, a living corpse.
#
Monday, July 12, 2004
*******************************
ON THE DESTINY OF GREAT MEN.
HOW TO JUDGE AN IDEOLOGY.
PHONY TACTICS.
SCHOPENHAUER ON HUMAN NATURE.
PRO-ARABISM OR ANTI-SEMITISM?
ON KNOWING ONESELF.
************************************************** *
On a planet that has consistently rejected its best men -- among them Socrates, Jesus, and Gandhi - it is safer to be on the side of the rejects. To those who say Socrates, Jesus and Gandhi may have been rejected by a tiny gang of fanatics, but they are now accepted by the overwhelming majority, I say, it's the old story that an Armenian popular saying aptly sums up as: "Get lost, drop dead, and I'll love you."
*
When it comes to judging ideologies, the first question we should ask is: "Who is the ideologue?" Because it is safer to judge an ideology by its history than by its political and economic merits. May I remind those who are not convinced that the 20th Century was shaped by ideological idiots and their dupes.
*
The problem with dupes and their dogmas is that, the more untenable their position, the more dogmatic they become. Common sense seems to make them even more irrational. They behave like captains who, as they go down with the ship, they start breaking the deck chairs. Remember Hitler and his thousand-year Reich. Remember too Saddam and his financial support of suicidal terrorists, knowing full well that some of the most important players in Washington are Jews.
*
Your average phony has been so successful in convincing himself that in a world of phonies he is less of a phony that he might as well qualify as an honest man.
*
Since self-deception begins in the subconscious, one could say that victim and victimizer are one.
*
Human nature, Schopenhauer tells us, has "a fund of hatred, anger, envy, rancor, and malice, accumulated like venom in a serpent's tooth, and waiting only an opportunity of venting itself and then, like a demon unchained, of storming and raging."
*
Speaking of venom: There are those who say they are pro-Arab because they are afraid to say they are anti-Jewish. What if they work for an institution controlled by Jews? What if by identifying themselves as enemies of the tribe they run the risk of being demoted or even fired?
*
A fanatic views moderates as a bunch of degenerates and himself as a man of integrity who refuses to compromise on cherished principles.
*
On detecting a defect in himself, a phony will use a euphemism to describe it. Envy, for example, he will call the competitive spirit, he will thus convert a vice into a virtue. I once knew a woman in her eighties who was friendless because she had the habit of insulting anyone who came near her and she described this habit as "love of truth."
*
When the Greeks adopted the slogan "Know thyself," what they probably meant to say was: "You are not what and who you think you are."
#
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
********************************
ENIGMA VARIATIONS
*****************************
"The Armenian is an enigma that refuses to be solved."
************************************************** *****
Every analysis begins with self-analysis. When I speak of Ottomanized Armenians, I speak of myself. Much worse than an Ottomanized Armenian willing to identify himself as such is the Armenian who adopts a holier-than-thou attitude and considers himself a superior patriot, a paragon of virtue and a role model to future generations blissfully unaware of the blind forces raging within him.
*
Unawareness is the real enemy. It poisons and perverts every idea and principle we hold dear to such an extent that what we preach and what we practice become direct contradictions, and what we think we are the exact opposite of what we really are - a devil who parades as an angel. Hence the phenomenon of the Armenian who turns into a cannibal in defense of tolerance.
*
"Even the Good Lord could not make up his mind what to make of the Armenian," writes Neshan Beshigtashlian (1898-1972). " First He made him an angel, then turned him into a devil, after which He changed His mind again. But the Armenian retained deep within him angelic as well as diabolic traits."
*
And speaking of preachers, role models, and educators, allow me to quote Beshigtashlian again: "Priests wear black because they are in perpetual mourning, and what they mourn is the death of the human being within them."
*
I am willing to concede that I must be just about the lousiest judge of human character there is. Some of my best former friends are now my worst present enemies who would love to get drunk on my blood.
*
One way to define an Armenian is to say, he is one who identifies himself as a Christian but who hates like a Muslim fanatic.
*
What do Armenians and Arabs share in common? Centuries of Ottoman oppression, which means that Turks have been successful in recreating both in their own image.
*
If I were a Jew-hater and if I believed they were planning to take over the world, I would convert to Judaism in order to avoid being once more on the side of the losers, especially after considering the fate of recent Jew-haters - KKKs, Nazis, Stalinists, Muslim fanatics, skinheads and fascists: in short, the zoo department of mankind.
*
Bush-basing has become an American sport. The difference between an American and an Armenian Bush-basher is that an Armenian does it in the name of Saddam and bin Laden.
*
Speaking of my former friends: Are they masters of deception? I wouldn't be surprised. After all, for six hundred years we successfully deceived the Turks (themselves masters of cunning and deception) into believing we were the most loyal millet (ethnic minority) in the Empire. When deception is adopted as a survival tactic, it is no longer thought of as a moral failing but as a biological asset. That is why it is no longer thought of as deception but as a necessary condition of life - provided of course it is aimed at the oppressor and the enemy. An Armenian who deceives his fellow Armenian is no better than a cannibal.
#
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
*********************************
No one can be as transparent as an idiot who thinks he is smart.
*
Why is it that among some Armenians disagreement is thought of as a capital offense?
*
Those in power judge a writer not by the usefulness of his ideas or the accuracy of his analyses but whether "he is with us or against us." In that sense, they'd rather go to hell on their own than be saved by an outsider, especially one engaged in exposing their blunders. As for blunders that resulted in defeats and disasters that resulted in the death of thousands, sometimes even millions: they plead not guilty by placing the blame on others or on conditions and forces beyond their control thus admitting that their own powers are limited and not equal to the challenges they face.
*
In our environment, ignorance and prejudice have more friends than knowledge and objective judgment.
*
How do you reply to the hiss of a viper?
*
My respect for editors went down one notch on the day a Canadian editor confused my prose with verse simply because I had typed my story on a page with wide margins.
*

[arabaliozian]

on god, etc.

Thursday, July 15, 2004
*******************************
ON OUR DIRTY LINEN
*****************************
Whenever I am urged not to expose our dirty linen in public, I take it to mean, I should join our charlatans in covering up their lies.
*
There are those who think, just because they have been successful in deceiving and misleading our dupes, they will have the same luck with odars.
*
There are top dog and underdog nations. To top dogs, underdogs are an open book if only because they were reduced to their underdog status by the manipulation of top dogs - divide-and-rule being as old as human history.
*
The world may be divided into open and closed societies. Democratic societies, unlike their authoritarian counterparts, are, as a rule, open. The Americans discuss their shortcomings and shenanigans publicly (think of Watergate, Iran-Contra, and Clinton-Lewisnky) without worrying what others may think of them, perhaps because they know their failings are human and that to pretend otherwise means denying their humanity. The Soviets, by contrast, hid everything behind a cloak of secrecy: so much so that for a long time the Gulag was dismissed by left-wing pundits in the West as anti-Soviet propaganda.
*
Closed societies hide their dirty linen because they don't like who and what they are, but neither are they willing to make an effort to change. Open societies are progressive because they are not afraid to face reality and to deal with it.
*
By covering up their contradictions, closed societies dig their own graves because they end up at the mercy of charlatans and criminals. History is very clear on this point, and only simpletons pretend not to see what is visible to all except perennial dupes and victims.
*
Exposing our dirty linen is not the real problem we face today, neither is the fact that our shortcomings are known by others. The real problem is that nobody gives a damn, not even ourselves; because if we did care, we would do something about it as opposed to promoting and legitimizing dishonesty and double-talk thus adding another sin to our previous list of vices.
#
Friday, July 16, 2004
*****************************
CONVENTIONAL WISDOM.
TYRANTS, FASCISTS, AND FANATICS.
ON FAME.
GENTLE READERS AND VULGARIANS.
********************************************
Unless your views contradict conventional wisdom, why even bother expressing them? Any average person can voice an average opinion that will elicit the agreement of the masses.
*
Tyrants are not satisfied with subservience. They also demand gratitude and adulation from their subjects because they consider the absence of gratitude and adulation as the probable presence of discontent and dissent. It is the same with the fascist mindset: it demands total agreement as well as affection and admiration. And consider the conduct of fanatics: not only do they insist on acting against their own interests by doing the wrong thing but also doing it in the name of Allah, ideology or something, anything, that is higher than themselves perhaps because they sense the fact that their own status is lower than a snake's belly full of buckshot.
*
A reader writes: "I disagree with everything you say!" But if you disagree with one key issue, why even bother reading everything I write? Unless of course, like all mortals who happen to be fallible, deep inside somewhere you harbor uncertainties and doubts.
*
Between fame and indifference, I would choose indifference any day. Fame implies dependence on others; whereas indifference is self-reliant, self-sufficient, free from all ties, and as such, invulnerable.
*
When asked why, at the age of 76, he continues to write, A French writer is quoted as having said: "To expose things that annoy the hell out of me, and above all, vulgar conduct. Whenever I deal with my fellow men, I have the impression that most of them fart with their mouth."
I should have said that myself. My style. Crude.
#
Saturday, July 17, 2004
**************************************
DEATHBED CONVERSIONS.
OF GOD, GODS, AND THEIR ABSENCE.
TOO LITTLE TOO LATE?
**************************************
If you are brought up on lies and you hear the truth, something peculiar happens. Even if you reject it, the truth will penetrate your very bones and it will not be shaken off. And the more violently you reject it, the deeper into your subconscious it will penetrate, to resurface at the last hour of your life in the guise of a deathbed conversion.
*
I use the word truth the way Jung used the word God, as a point of reference rather than an attainable verbal formula. I see truth as a rejection of all lies, and reality as an onion with layers upon layers of lies and half-truths and at its center an absence rather than a presence accessible to our perceptions.
*
What Socrates said about gods is as true today as it was 2500 years ago: "Of the gods we know nothing." Which may explain why some religions believe in one god, others in many, and still others (like Buddhism) in none.
*
What are theologians if not bald-headed men fighting over a non-existent comb?
*
There are opinions that are based on hearsay and there are opinions that are based on the experience of a lifetime. The first are sterile and therefore worthless even when closer to the truth.
*
Silva Kaputikian accepted the Stalin Prize but rejected the Mesrop Mashdots Medal: a clear-cut case of too little too late or a probable case of better late than never?
#

[arabaliozian]

quotes

What kind of people are we? What kind of
leadership is
this? Instead of compassion, mutual contempt.
Instead of
reason blind instinct. Instead of common sense,
fanaticism.

They speak of the cross and nail us to it again
as
they
speak.

ANTRANIK ZAROUKIAN
(1912-1989)
Poet, novelist, critic, editor.

*******************************************

All our religious, political, and cultural
institutions
share a single aim, the survival of the nation.
If
the nation perishes, neither Echmiadzin nor
Antelias,
not
even God in his heaven, can be of any help to us.

SIMON VRATSIAN
(1882-1969)
Statesman. Last Prime Minister of the Republic
of
Armenia
(1918-1920).
***********************************************

We Armenians are products of the tribal mentality
of
Turks
and Kurds, and this tribal mentality remains
stubbornly
rooted even among our leaders and elites.

NIGOL AGHBALIAN
(1873-1947)
Statesman, literary scholar, educator.

************************************************** *

A familiar figure in our collective existence is
the
prosperous and arrogant community leader who, by
obstructing the path of all those who wish to
reform
and
improve our conditions, perpetuates a status quo
whose
sole
aim is his own personal profit and
aggrandizement.

LEVON PASHALIAN
(1868-1943)
Athor, editor.

**************************************************

The Armenian Diaspora is losing its character.
Our
language, our literature, and our traditions are
degenerating. Even our religious leaders have
abandoned
their calling and turned into cunning
wheeler-dealers.
Our
publications thrive on meaningless controversies.
I see charlatanism and cheap chauvinism
everywhere
but not
a single trace of self-sacrifice
and dedication to principles and ideals. What's
happening
to us? Where are we heading?
Quo vadis, O Armenian people?

SHAVARSH MISSAKIAN
(1884-1957)
Author, editor, critic.

[arabaliozian]

reflections

Sunday, July 18, 2004
******************************
THE ART OF MAKING ENEMIES.
FRIENDSHIP AMONG ARMENIANS.
GENERAL ANTRANIK AS A ROLE MODEL.
GOOD TURKS AND BAD ARMENIANS.
BARONIAN AND HIS GENTLE READERS.
************************************************** ****
Truth will expose liars, honesty will hurt the dishonest, and knowledge will offend the ignorant: which may explain the number of my enemies.
*
We have all heard the line, "Some of my best friends are Jews." But has anyone ever heard someone say, "Some of my best friends are Armenian"? Speaking for myself, I can truly say, "Some of my worst enemies are Armenian!" and when I say enemies I mean Armenians with an endless store of venom accumulated during six long centuries of Ottoman oppression, or, to paraphrase Zarian: not even Armenian venom but venom harvested from Turkish vipers.
*
Sometimes I am accused of being a Turk-lover in the spirit in which Southern bigots were in the habit of calling white liberals "nigger lovers." I have also been described as an Armenian-hater by hateful Armenians as if every Armenian deserves another Armenian's love on ethnic grounds. I have said this before and it bears repeating: I am for good men and against bad people regardless of national origin, very much like General Antranik who said he was for all underdogs regardless of nationality.
*
It is a well-documented fact that some Armenians were saved by Turks. It is also a well-documented fact that many Armenians, among them the 254 intellectuals who were arrested and butchered by Talaat on April 24, were betrayed by their fellow Armenians. And to those who think this may well be a historic aberration, may I remind them that the same scenario was played out in the USSR under Stalin: writers like Charents, Bakounts, Zabel Yessayan, and many others, were betrayed and sometimes even tortured and shot by their fellow Armenians.
*
To be for Armenians, all Armenians, does not and should not mean being for treason and betrayal; in the same way that being against Turks should not mean being against self-sacrifice and heroism - because that's what it took to save Armenians during the Genocide.
*
I said above 254 intellectuals. On second thought it may have been 278, perhaps even 283. But what the hell! What's a couple of dozen Armenian victims more or less, especially if they happen to be intellectuals who happen to be a dime a dozen among us.
*
But if you think Armenians betraying Armenians is a thing of the past, think again. I once read an Armenian-American academic in one of our prestigious literary periodicals saying something to the effect that Armenians in Istanbul were justified in betraying Hagop Baronian to the Turkish police because Baronian had insulted them by portraying them as ignorant, greedy, vain and stupid. Baronian, this academic went on to explain, must have been very naïve to think that he could insult his fellow Armenians and get away with it without paying a price. There you have it: a contemporary well-educated and progressive Armenian-American willing to explain and justify treason by implying Baronian was wrong and those who betrayed him right.
*
You can take an Armenian out of the Ottoman Empire but you can't take the Ottoman Empire out of an Armenian.
*
Long before Baronian, Raffi stated: "Treason and betrayal are in our blood." But leave it to our Ottomanized charlatans to follow their animal instincts and to dismiss Raffi and Baronian as Armenian-haters who deserve to die.
*
Some of my gentle readers appear to be unaware of the fact that before criticizing a writer, they must read him, and before they decide to read him, they must learn how to read. To those who are too lazy or impatient to go through these stages, I have got bad news: sorry, there are no short cuts!
#
Monday, July 19, 2004
*******************************
FOOD FOR THOUGHT.
IDENTITY AND POWER.
GOOD TURKS.
**********************************************
There are those who think a writer should behave like a waiter in a posh restaurant: serve only food to their specifications, move about like a dancer, and wear a friendly smile thus indicating his desire to please and his dependence on their generosity.
Even though I keep serving cold soup, warm beer, tough steaks and wilted salads with an unfriendly expression that says "You know what you can do with your tip, you lousy skinflints!" they keep coming back for more. I wonder why. For the pleasure of xxxxxing afterwards? Gluttons for punishment? In search for an excuse to discharge their Ottoman venom? Warped imbeciles who don't know what's good for themselves?
*
When asked if he is a historian or a philosopher, Michel Foucault is quoted as having said: "I am a warrior whose aim is to destroy. I am not for destruction. Rather, I am for progress and the tearing down of walls that obstruct its path. Think of my books as explosive devices. I want my words to penetrate walls, to shatter locks, and to open windows."
On identity: "Identity is an extension of the power structure within which it is formed. It is a trap from which we must extricate ourselves."
On truth: "There is power in truth. It produces practical as well as political results."
On power: "What remains to be discovered is not that which is alienated in us or remains hidden in our unconscious, but the many subtle ways in which power insinuates itself and adjusts us to its demands."
*
In his recently published book ON THE ROAD FOREVER: MARYAM AND DUDU - TWO WOMEN FROM CHENGILER (Toronto, 2004) Hagop Yeramian writes in his dedication: "A very special thanks to the kind gendarmes with whose help many Armenians survived."
#
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
********************************
AN ARAB DISSIDENT.
ARMENIANS AND ARABS.
WHEN THE IMPOSSIBLE BECOMES INEVITABLE.
************************************************** **
K. Abourish (a Palestinian) introduces his recent biography, NASSER: THE LAST ARAB, with the words: "The insulting treatment the Arabs are getting from Bush is deserved." Elsewhere we read that nothing divides Arabs more than talk of Arab unity.
*
Another thing we share in common with the Arabs is nostalgia for the Middle Ages, when they had an Empire and we had our "historic lands."
*
Historians study the past in order to establish regularities and to be thus in a better position to predict the future. But, according to Michel Foucault, what really matters is that which is unpredictable and on the other side of all regularities, and sometimes it is the impossible that becomes the inevitable. A good point.
*
Consider our revolutionaries and the Genocide: after establishing a successful outcome to past revolutions (the American, French, Greek, Bulgarian, and so on) our revolutionaries assumed defeat would be impossible. What they failed to take into consideration were such minor details as the advent of World War I and the resulting inability or failure of the Great Powers to intervene on our behalf.
#
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
*******************************
ABOUT TRIBALISM.
MODERATES AND FANATICS.
GOOD AND BAD ARMENIANS.
CRITICISM ARMENIAN STYLE.
LAST WORDS.
***************************************
Tribalism is like any other ism - it divides mankind into believers and infidels or enemies.
*
Where tribalism is the norm, hatred of infidel dogs will be a religious commandment.
*
Where there is tribalism there will also be inter-tribal divisions.
*
We all agree there are good and bad Armenians. Where we disagree is in identifying them.
*
Every bad Armenian will identify himself as good and if you dare to disagree with him he will call you an Armenian-hater.
*
In a tribal environment, every word and idea is given a tribal definition.
*
Between war and peace, a fanatic will invariably choose war.
*
Where there are fanatics, there will also be moderates because, according to Descartes, common sense is a universal faculty and anyone with the minimum amount of it will agree that fanaticism, like crime, doesn't pay if only because a house divided against itself cannot stand.
*
One could also define a fanatic as a moderate who has become the dupe of a fanatic at a time when he had not yet acquired the ability to think for himself; or, to put it differently, fanatics are not born but made.
*
In the absence of Turks, some Armenians will assume their role.
*
Criticism Armenian style: It is not enough to criticize someone's style, ideas or views, he must also be personally attacked, insulted, degraded, dragged through the mud, kicked to death (metaphorically if literally is against the law), shot, hanged, buried, dug up, stoned, drowned and cannibalized. All of which proves once more that Armenians were indeed the first nation to accept Christianity as their state religion.
*
Axel Bakounts's last words scratched on the wall of his prison in Yerevan shortly before he was shot: "They are tearing me to shred like wild beasts."
#

[arabaliozian]

july 24

Thursday, July 22, 2004
*******************************
ASSERTIONS OF SUPERIORITY.
MODERATE ARABS AND FANATICS.
ALLAHU AKBAR.
DISORIENTED ARMENIANS.
***************************************
All assertions of moral superiority are made from the gutter.
*
We are never as transparent as when we pretend to be morally or intellectually superior.
*
Superiority is more persuasively asserted between the lines and with body language than with words.
*
The louder the words, the less convincing the argument. Hence the old Chinese proverb: "He who loses temper has wrong on his side."
*
Moderate Arabs may admit their failings but leave it to a clueless pro-Arab Armenian (and I have had the misfortune of meeting several of them) who are more pro-Arab than bloodthirsty Arab fanatics - all in the name of tolerance, of course.
*
What could be more transparently perverse than to disguise one's murderous hatred with such abstractions as love of justice, or obedience to the scripture, or tolerance.
*
In a non-tribal environment, like Canada and the U.S., Jews and Arabs, Armenians and Turks, Hutus and Tutsis, believers and infidels, may live side by side without feeling the need to massacre one another. Where tribalism is legitimized by the power structure, murder becomes a patriotic or religious duty.
*
A brainwashed Arab teenager on TV: "When I kill it is not I who kills but the Prophet." Another teenager identified the killer as "Allah."
*
How can an Armenian justify his hatred of fellow Armenians? If you were to ask a disoriented Armenian that question, he is sure to answer it by bouncing the question back to you or say, "It is you who hates Armenians."
*
I once knew a bewildered Armenian who would use the sentence "I hate no one!" as a license to hate anyone who dared to disagree with him.
*
Dialogue Armenian style: If you can't convince them, intimidate them; if they refuse to be intimidated, insult them and continue to insult them until they give up in disgust; and if they refuse to give up, massacre them - verbally, of course! All in the name of Armenianism!
*
A definition of a disoriented Armenian: One who cannot tell the difference between Armenianism and Ottomanism.
#
Friday, July 23, 2004
******************************
THE QUINTESSENTIAL OXYMORON.
THE ABC OF ETIQUETTE AND LOGIC.
PATRIOTISM OR TREASON?
WHAT IS DISAGREEMENT?
**********************************************
The first example of oxymoron that comes to mind is Armenian consensus.
*
Many obstacles stand between us and consensus, the first being total ignorance of the basic rules of etiquette. The problem is, how to teach these rules to adults some of whom are themselves educators, and the rest think of themselves as role models to future generations.
*
We are a people with many unsettled scores, and because so far we have been unable to take it out on our enemies, we victimize one another and, having done so, we think we have taken a step in the right direction, rather than the exact opposite.
*
Not only must we learn the ABC of etiquette but also the fundamental principles of logic, one of which is: victimizing our fellow Armenians is more akin to treason than to patriotism.
*
Disagreement is a necessary ingredient in all dialogue. But in our context it is more akin to a declaration of war.
#
Saturday, July 24, 2004
******************************
THEM AND US.
TURKS AND ARMENIANS.
TUTSIS AND HUTUS.
AS OTHERS SEE US.
AS WE SEE OTHERS.
*********************************
"The internet is a wide open medium and odars may read you too," I am warned once in a while by overly concerned readers: "You should be more careful of what you say."
In other words: propaganda is in, criticism and dissent out!
I have got news for these readers. The world cares about us as much as we care about the world.
*
What do Hutus and Tutsis know about us? And what do we know about them? May I confess that I still don't know if it was Tutsis who massacred Hutus or Hutus who massacred Tutsis? And I remember the words of a Canadian friend: "Turks say you massacred them, and you say they massacred you, and I say, let bygones be bygones."
*
Until very recently most Canadians that I dealt with had never even heard of Armenians and whenever I identified myself as one I was taken for a Romanian or an Aramaean. On only one occasion I met an older Canadian who remembered "the starving Armenians" mentioned by her parents at the dinner table.
*
As an Armenian, what do I really know about Algerians, Libyans, and Rhodesians - or is it Zimbabweans?
*
What does the average Armenian know about America? I have heard smart Armenians dismiss all of the West as a civilization of xxxxxs and pimps, and America as a continent obsessed with money and sex. It is naïve to think that just because we have brainwashed our dupes and ourselves into believing we are morally and intellectually superior beings surrounded by swine, we can also fool the world.
#

[arabaliozian]

july 28

Sunday, July 25, 2004
*******************************
MOUNT ARARAT AND ARMENIAN IDENTITY.
AN AUTOBIOGRPHICAL ASIDE.
HOW TO RECOGNIZE A BAD ARMENIAN.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF ARMENIAN LITERATURE.
************************************************** ****
We all agree that Mount Ararat is the quintessential Armenian symbol with which every Armenian identifies himself. But Mount Ararat has been a captive of the Turks for a number of centuries now. Perhaps something very similar could be said about our identity and voki.
*
Originally I wanted to be a short story writer, a novelist and a playwright. But somewhere along the line I discovered that the best short stories, novels and plays had already been written by Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Thomas Mann, Shaw, Simenon and Nabokov. That's when I decided to do what nobody else was doing: to write about Armenians as I saw them -- as opposed to how they would like to be seen; the reality, not the image; the substance not the shadow. But very soon it was made abundantly clear to me that between propaganda and truth, Armenians have a marked preference for propaganda.
*
"If you don't like Armenians," writes a gentle reader, "why don't you assimilate?" I may not yet be assimilated but I am on my way there. I am an alienated Armenian (and alienation is the first step in the direction of assimilation) who, during the last thirty years, has consistently refused to be a member of any congregation, political party, or cultural organization (make it, pseudo-cultural or semi-political mafia: because all our so-called cultural organizations are satellites of political parties).
*
"Why don't you assimilate?" - meaning, of course: "Why don't you drop out, shut up, and get lost!" I understand these Armenians who have no stomach for a dose of reality. I also understand their need to alienate and silence dissenting voices. I too am in the business of alienating Armenians -- with one important difference however: whereas they alienate good Armenians, I try to alienate bad ones, without much success, may I add. They are better at it than I am. As Zarian points out somewhere: the bad are always better organized. Which may explain why they outnumber the good ten to one.
*
Why do bad Armenians alienate good ones? The answer must be obvious. By alienating the good and silencing the honest, they can have the innocent dupes all to themselves to propagandize, deceive, mislead, brainwash, and exploit.
*
How to recognize bad Armenians? Two ways:
(one) they blame all our defeats, disasters, and catastrophes on outside agencies and never on their own blunders, ignorance, stupidity, arrogance, incompetence, greed, absence of vision, and above all, intolerance and the resulting inability to engage in dialogue with the opposition;
(two) they send out letters with Odian's celebrated Panchoonie punchline: "Mi kich pogh oughargetsek" (Send us a little money).
*
There is money and power in being bad. There is only starvation and death in being good. Consider the life and death of our foremost writers - from Abovian (a suicide) to Zarian (a non-person silenced and ignored by all).
*
Abovian and Zarian: two giants among midgets. That's the way it has been with us: the giants have been successfully silenced and driven out by a lynch mob of midgets.
#
Monday, July 26, 2004
*******************************
KINGS AND THE RULES OF GRAMMAR.
PRINCIPLES OF LOGIC.
PATRIOTISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS.
ON REPETITION.
*********************************************
Even kings must obey the rules of grammar. No one can say the rules of logic do not apply to our arguments; or the fundamental principles of civilized conduct are not for us. Because the rejection of these principles might as well be a tacit declaration of our status as barbarians who will gladly massacre their fellow men - provided of course they have the laws of the land or a sultan on their side.
*
An Armenian who justified his perversions in the name of patriotism is no different from the very same Turks who massacred our ancestors in the name of Allah.
*
There are those who think by silencing me they are defending and protecting values higher than myself. But what if, by violating my fundamental human right of free speech they are also violating principles that are higher than all of us? Is it possible to achieve noble ends by ignoble means?
*
There are limits to free speech, yes, of course. But what system of logic authorizes you or anyone else to set these limits?
*
Why is it that Armenians who believe they are better than Turks make no effort not to behave like them? - as if by asserting moral superiority they automatically place themselves beyond all rules of conduct, common sense and decency.
*
Have I said this before? Probably. Do I repeat myself? Most likely. My question to you is: Why do you repeat the mistake of reading me again and again when you have the option not to read me?
*
If we are going to set Turks as our role models, why not choose good Turks (by helping our fellow Armenians) as opposed to bad Turks (by crapping on them)?
*
Overheard: "Ninety percent of everything is humbug!"
#
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
*******************************
PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.
********************************
Repetition becomes routine, routine becomes a habit, and habit becomes destiny. That's the way it is with individuals as well as nations.
Again and again I am accused by proud Armenians of not being one of them -- that is, another proud Armenian. Again and again I have explained that I see no merit in national pride because national identity is not a personal achievement but an accident of birth. We are Armenian for the same reason that a zebra is a zebra, a kangaroo is a kangaroo, and a jackass is a jackass.
But that's not the only reason why I am not a proud Armenian.
I am not a proud Armenian because I see no advantage in being a proud Armenian in a world of proud Turks, Kurds and Jews, or proud Greeks, Germans, Afghans, Americans and Arabs.
I'd much rather be a humble human being who views all such labels as suspect, even dangerous.
Because my life, very much like our history, has been a nightmare, I dream of sharing my brief existence on this planet with fellow human beings who view all labels as sources of prejudice and intolerance. I dream of living in a world of human beings who consider brotherhood and peace infinitely more desirable and important than hatred, war, and massacre.
#
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
********************************
ON HONESTY AND DISHONESTY IN HUMAN AFFAIRS.
A NEW PROPOSAL.
WHY PEOPLE AND NATIONS LIE.
ON BLUFFING.
HOPING FOR A MIRACLE?
************************************************** ***
Sometimes the unspoken line against me seems to be: "How dare you be honest in a dishonest world? Who authorized you? What makes you think you are ahead of us?"
A brief backward glance and common sense tell me dishonesty may work for others, but so far it has not been of any use to us. Let's therefore try a different approach.
*
People lie only when they are afraid of the truth, or when they have something to hide, or when truth is against them. We have consistently asserted to the world at large that truth is on our side, we have nothing to hide or cover up - unlike our enemies who are compulsive liars and cunning manipulators. We are therefore innocent and they guilty.
*
Speaking of cunning manipulation: bluffing may be one such manipulation. When at the turn of the last century we rose against the Ottoman Empire, we were, in a manner of speaking, bluffing. But bluffing has a chance to work only when the state of mind of the opposition and the rules of the game are known. Life or reality is not a game with set rules. There is an element of unpredictability in all human affairs, and sometimes what matters is not the state of mind of the opposition but that of one's own partners. One reason we bluffed is that we thought we had the support of the Great Powers and the international community. What we didn't know is that in diplomacy verbal or moral support does not always translate to military support. The Turks knew this. We didn't. Which is why our bluff failed to the tune of two million lives.
*
Which is also why I suggest we quit all forms of deception (from propaganda to bluffing) and see what happens. If things don't improve, we can always revert to our tried and familiar ways and hope for a miracle - provided, of course, we do this with the full awareness that hope is not a policy, or if it is, it is the policy of the impotent.
#

[dusken]

I would like to see Ara Baliozian attack all labels instead of one, since they all have the same relative importance. Since all of them use propaganda and all of them alienate they are all equally deserving of the critic who uses the whole to justify argument against the one. That would be a more dynamic read.

[arabaliozian]

july 31

Thursday, July 29, 2004
***********************************
ON SURVIVAL.
FLIES AND DINOSAURS.
GIANTS AND MIDGETS.
**********************************
As a child I was brought up to brag about the fact that we had survived as empires around us had collapsed and bitten the dust, until I heard someone remark that flies and mosquitoes had also survived as dinosaurs had become fossils - you don't hear them brag about it.
*
Survival in and of itself is nothing to brag about, especially if the best have perished and the worst have survived. What if after being systematically silenced, starved, betrayed to the enemy, alienated, forced into exile and assimilation, the best and the brightest have been eliminated and the collaborators, charlatans and the neo- and crypto-commissars have survived?
*
Why is it that instead of another generation of Baronians, Odians, Voskanians, Zohrabs, Zarians, and Massikians (who fearlessly exposed and ridiculed our wheeler-dealers and bloodsuckers) we now have nothing but spineless academics who write only about the Middle Ages and the massacres? And what have these gentlemen accomplished except to teach us to lament about our countless victims and to brag about our survival?
#
Friday, July 30, 2004
*****************************
WRITERS AND TYRANTS.
WRITING AND UNDERSTANDING.
ON ALIENATION AND ASSIMILATION.
ON ARMENIAN FRIENDS.
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SONG IN THE WORLD.
*************************************************
To those who say, "Words are cheap and writers a dime a dozen. Who cares what they say?" I ask: Why do you think the first victims of tyrants are writers? And how do you explain Napoleon's words: "He who has an idea is my enemy."
*
If I can change someone's mind with my thoughts, am I not a man of action?
*
If understanding me means admitting to have misunderstood everything, it goes without saying that some readers will prefer not to understand me.
*
If there are two sides to a question, choose the third by being objective. That way you will always have more enemies than friends.
*
After informing me that he can't figure out what I am driving at, a reader takes it upon himself to explain in some detail what I should think and write.
*
If we are responsible for our actions, should we not be held responsible for our inaction? May I therefore ask: What exactly have we been doing about our "white massacre? - that is, alienation and assimilation. In case you didn't know, for an alienated Armenian, the Armenian identity or life among Armenians is something to be avoided at all cost as if it were an infectious disease. And for an assimilated Armenian, the Armenian identity is something to be discarded and buried very much like the cadaver of a mad dog.
*
Before you make an Armenian friend, ask him the following question: "Will you still be my friend if once or twice a year I fail to echo your sentiments and thoughts?"
*
If you have not yet heard Beniamino Gigli singing "Quanto spunta la luna a Marechiar," I envy you, because you can now look forward to the thrill of listening to one of the most beautiful songs in the world sung by one of the greatest tenors that has ever lived.
#
Saturday, July 31, 2004
*******************************
ARMENIAN TYPES.
MEMO TO OUR COMMISSARS.
LEADERSHIP AND CHARLATANISM.
WHAT IS LUCK?
**********************************************
There are those who disagree with me violently, others who don't take me seriously, and still others who ignore me. I don't let that bother me because history tells us just because some ideas are rejected or ignored is no proof against their validity.
*
Armenians tend to be either brazenly loud and rude or morbidly sensitive and touchy; and whenever these two extreme types meet, it is the gutter that triumphs.
*
As long as I am a threat to our charlatans, they will do their utmost to silence me, and whenever they fail to silence me, to insult me. After several decades of such treatment, I have learned to use insults as sources of stimulation. On the day they stop insulting me, I will know I have become irrelevant.
*
If you trust a man simply because he identifies himself as a man of God, you may consider yourself an advanced case of arrested development. Something similar could be said of a politician who parades as a selfless servant of the nation. Millions of innocent men, women and children have been slaughtered because homo sapiens is not sapiens enough to question the integrity or judgment of charlatans with messianic ambitions.
*
A wise man once said: "The harder I work, the luckier I get."
#

[arabaliozian]

labels

I would like to see Ara Baliozian attack all labels instead of one, since they all have the same relative importance. Since all of them use propaganda and all of them alienate they are all equally deserving of the critic who uses the whole to justify argument against the one. That would be a more dynamic read.

all nations have their share of critics who take care of their own.
i am taking care of mine and i already have my hands full! / ara

[arabaliozian]

aug. 4

Sunday, August 01, 2004
*********************************
Yesterday I decided to take a summer break. This morning I realized I had things to say that could not wait. As for tomorrow - all I can say today is that tomorrow is another day.
*
There is a type of reader whose understanding is limited but whose critical faculties are limitless. The less he understands, the more he attacks. I call this the "mad dog" school of criticism. If you are thinking, "It takes one to know one," let me warn you, my friend, that compared to Baronian, Odian and Massikian, I don't even qualify as a xxxxx cat.
*
Because I don't criticize Turks I am sometimes mistaken for a half-Turk or pro-Turkish. The reason I don't criticize Turks (though I have done so in the past - see my ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND THE WEST) is that we have developed a veritable industry of anti-Turkish criticism; so that for every Armenian who dares to criticize Armenians, there are a hundred willing and eager to verbally massacre Turks. But history tells us Turks have been invulnerable to our criticism and criticizing them amounts to barking up the wrong tree. As for criticizing Turks in order to influence international diplomacy: I suggest international diplomacy is interest- driven, not truth-driven, and an Armenian who pretends not to know this is too naïve to get involved in world affairs or to entertain political ambitions - except that of a dog-catcher in a village of three, two of whom are idiots.
*
Some readers accuse me of being a bitter, disappointed old man who stresses the negative and ignores the positive. To them I say: "If you are used to reading cheerful, upbeat writers who spread joy and contentment with every line they write, you should welcome me for no other reason than variety is the spice of life, and by being exposed to the dark side of things, you may appreciate the light even more."
*
Readers who accuse me of hating Armenians, should ask themselves: "Am I lovable?" or, "If I am a loud-mouth phony, do I deserve anyone's love?"
#
Monday, August 02, 2004
********************************
THE FEEL GOOD FALLACY.
EXPLOITING THE MASSACRES.
TURKISH CRIMES AND ARMENIAN IRRESPONSIBILITY.
ZARIAN'S VERDICT.
SHISH-KEBAB AND CROCODILE TEARS.
**********************************
A recent episode: I am invited to join a new Armenian discussion forum. Shortly thereafter I am warned by the moderator that "this is a feel-good forum," and that I should not engage in negativism and sarcasm.
Yes, I thought, we are a feel-good people even when history keeps reminding us again and again with a swift kick in the belly that we have nothing to feel good about.
And then I thought: If we are in fact a feel-good people, how do we explain our obsession with the massacres and the popularity of books on the subject? How do we manage to feel good by reading again and again that the Turks butchered two million innocent women and children? The only answer I could come up with is that we emphasize Turkish crimes in order to cover up our own incompetence, and yes, stupidity. We will never say, "We were bluffing when we challenged the might of the Ottoman Empire and when they called our bluff, we lost." Or, "We miscalculated when we relied too much on the verbal support of the Great Powers" -- as if Great Powers also meant Superior Morality.
Our political leaders will consistently refuse to admit that which has been clearly visible to outside observers: they were guilty of using civilians as human shields. Which is why, to make us feel good, our academics, amateur historians and dime-a-dozen phony pundits will continue to publish books and commentaries in which they will prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Turks are as guilty as hell (which they are, of course; no one with any self-respect and integrity denies that, not even such pro-Turkish historians as Toynbee and Bernard Lewis) and that the Great Powers were no better than cynical manipulators (a routine charge leveled against all politicians and regimes) and that our own political leaders were selfless statesmen of vision, humble servants of the nation, and men of integrity and courage willing to sacrifice their lives for freedom (compared to our present bosses, they may well have been, which doesn't mean a hell of a lot, of course).
But I prefer Zarian's final verdict: "Our political leaders have been of no political use to us. Their greatest enemy is free speech."
Also Garabents's dictum: "Once upon a time we were willing to die for freedom. We are now afraid of free speech."
And I cannot help thinking that feel-good Armenians are no better than a bunch of brainwashed dupes who confuse Armenianism with eating shish-kebab and pilaf and once or twice a year shedding crocodile tears over our victims.
#
Tuesday, August 03, 2004
********************************
SUMMING UP.
THE GENOCIDE AND ARMENIAN IDENTITY.
ARMENIAN MANIFESTO.
**************************************************
About readers who say they don't understand me: I am never sure if they really don't understand me or they only pretend not to understand me, because admitting that they understand me would also mean agreeing with me, and agreeing with me would mean acknowledging the fact that they have been wrong not only about one or two things, but about everything, including who they are, what made them who they are, and who they want to be. It is as if they were facing a mirror and suddenly their mask is torn off and they have trouble recognizing themselves. Because what I have been saying is that there is more to being Armenian than hating Turks, and there is more to Armenianism than the Genocide.
*
Hating Turks is a dead end. We cannot change the past and no amount of compensation or apology can resurrect a single victim. If we must hate, let's hate instead what the Turks have done to our identity, to our collective unconscious, to our character as a people by recreating us in their own image during six hundred years of subservience.
*
If this sounds depressing to you, it may be because you don't see the exit from the labyrinth - namely, the prospect of being reborn as a human being as opposed to remaining a dehumanized dupe and a perennial loser driven to wallow in self-pity, lamentation, and thirst for revenge.
*
To those who say, "Speak for yourself, because you sure as hell are not speaking for me!" I say: You are right: I can only speak for myself and I am neither qualified nor authorized to speak for you or anyone else. I can only suggest that if you see anything useful in what I am saying, you may have it without charge, and if, on reconsideration, you discover that even that which you thought of some use, on closer inspection, to be of no value, you may return it and your money shall be cheerfully refunded. You have nothing to lose but the chains of your Ottomanism.
#
Wednesday, August 04, 2004
************************************
TWO KINDS OF REACTIONS.
PAINFUL ADMISSIONS.
WHAT IS OTTOMANISM AND SOVIETISM?
VERBAL MASSACRE.
*********************************************
If you voice an opinion that is your own as opposed to being regurgitated chauvinist crapola, you will get two kinds of reactions from Armenians: those who are civilized or born-again human beings will say: "I disagree with you," after which they will proceed to explain why. The Ottomanized Armenians, by contrast, will call you names - jerk, moron, idiot, Turk…and even ask you such questions as, "Was your mother a concubine in a Turkish harem?" As you may have guessed by now, I speak from experience.
*
Six hundred years, even sixty years, is a long time, and whether we like it or not, we have all been to some degree Ottomanized or Sovietized or both.
*
Where there is an ism there will also be an anti-ism, namely (in our case) anti-Ottomanism and anti-Sovietism. One reason I stress the Ottomanism and Sovietism in some Armenians is that I have developed an allergy towards these aberrations that have made of us a nation of frauds who speak with a forked tongue and legitimize treason in the name of patriotism and subservience in the name of freedom.
*
Authoritarianism is another symptom of our Ottomanism and Sovietism, and authoritarianism creates an environment where the liars at the top are free to lie and those who dare to speak the truth are rudely and unceremoniously interrupted and, whenever possible, silenced. Which is why an opinion that springs from personal observation and experience and does not bear the seal of approval of a boss, bishop or benefactor provokes verbal abuse, gutter disapproval, and sometimes even verbal massacre.
#