notes / comments

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, October 23, 2005
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GUARD DOGS AND DISSIDENTS
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Intellectuals may be divided into two categories: defenders of the status quo (or, in the words of a French philosopher "guard dogs") and dissidents. It goes without saying that the guard dogs enjoy the full support of those in power, and the dissidents are ostracized, alienated, and, whenever possible, silenced, starved, poisoned, or shot.
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The history of our literature is rich in dissidents. But when guard dogs compile anthologies and textbooks they tend to cover up the dissent and emphasize the patriotism and nationalist propaganda. Writers like Raffi, Baronian, Odian, and Avedik Issahakian, who were merciless critics of our leaders, are misrepresented as patriotic versifiers, historical novelists or comedians. Many others (Voskanian, Massikian) are relegated to the status of non-persons.
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Was Narekatsi a guard dog or dissident? Hard to say. He was quintessentially non-political. He concentrated on himself as a sinner. He blamed no one but his own evil inclinations. If he were a contemporary and if he took it upon himself to write about our genocide, my guess is he wouldn't even mention the Turks. He would have said what a born-again, Bible-thumping, fundamentalist friend of mine in his 80s once said to me: "Armenians were massacred because they were evil and they deserved to be punished by God."
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Were Khorenatsi and Yeghishe, two of our greatest historians of the Golden Age, guard dogs or dissidents? It is true that most of our medieval chroniclers were propagandists of a prince with dynastic ambitions. In order to fulfill their duties they had no choice but to attack political adversaries and expose corruption in high places. In so far as they did that, they too may be said to have been dissidents.
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What about Sylva Kaputikian? When the USSR collapsed she declared herself to have been a proud member of the Communist Party, the very same Party that had systematically eliminated some of our ablest intellectuals. Shortly thereafter she also published an autobiographical book in which she portrayed herself as a dissident. If true, she must be the only Soviet dissident who was awarded the Stalin Prize.
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Monday, October 24, 2005
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RELIGIOUS TRUTHS ARE BIG LIES
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In a recent interview published in a learned French periodical, a Muslim scholar proves to his complete satisfaction that Islam is a better religion than Christianity, and the only reason Christians outnumber Muslims is that Christianity is six centuries older. In the next six centuries, he goes on, Islam will surpass all other organized religions in popularity. That is one of the central problems with all men of faith: they think they know better and they are closer to God even when they behave like swine. And you may have noticed by now that it is not the good and the honest who assert moral superiority but charlatans and riffraff. "If I am no good," they seem to be saying, "the least I can do is pretend to be better even if it means engaging in double-talk and lies."
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The world will be a better place on the day scholars concentrate their efforts in exposing the shortcomings of their own belief systems and the blunders of their own tribes instead of asserting moral and intellectual superiority with arguments that convince no one but themselves and their dupes.
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If the Pope doubts his faith seven times every day, as Italians are fond of saying, let him say so if only because in matters of faith doubt is more civilized than certainty.
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And if God is infallible, why has He created an imperfect world in which man's inhumanity to man is a constant and war and massacre are routine occurrences? To those who say wars and massacres are men's doing, not God's, because God has given man free will that allows him to choose between good and evil; I say, the free will argument may apply to the victimizer, not the victim. Given the choice, who would freely choose to be the victim of fanatic butchers?
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Tuesday, October 25, 2005
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A headline in our local paper today reads: "Rosa Parks' defiance changed a nation." What it does not say, or what it covers up, is that the compliance of millions of others perpetuated an unjust, not to say, an evil system.
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If in crime it's cherchez la femme, in all verbal communications it's cherchez the unsaid or the covered up - there it is, step on of deconstruction 101.
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To believe a nation's own version of its past amounts to believing a criminal's plea of not guilty.
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If a ruthless serial killer were to write his memoirs, you can be sure of one thing: he would portray himself as a victim rather than a victimizer.
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Every nation thinks of itself as a role model among nations.
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Propaganda may also be defined as emphasizing the positive in us and the negative in our enemies.
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To believe in an Armenophile's version of Armenian history makes as much sense as believing in a Turcophile's version of Turkish history.
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The history of our literature is rich in writers who, like Rosa Parks, defied the status quo. But their voices have been silenced so effectively that whenever they are quoted or paraphrased, our propagandists are scandalized. I speak from experience.
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Wednesday, October 26, 2005
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So far we have been emphasizing our status as victims or extensions of someone else's will, be they foreign aggressors, tyrants, denialists, revisionists, Turcophiles, and ultimately our own mini-sultans and neo-commissars. How do we liberate ourselves from that mindset? There are no easy answers. But we could start by seeing things as they are.
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One of the functions of leadership is to convince the people that their leaders know better even when they don't. That's because all leaders prefer sheep to wolves. If the German nation had followed Hitler to the end, it would have committed suicide and that would have been the end of their story. Something similar could be said of the Japanese.
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Leaders may pretend to know better, but they don't. Our status as perennial victims and losers is a result of foreign barbarism and domestic incompetence. All other explanations are propaganda whose sole aim is to mislead us into thinking that patriotism consists in allowing ourselves to be an extension of our leaders's will, in other words, to adopt the mindset of sheep.
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[axel]

And if, on top of that, Yanks discover the fact that some Armenians harbor anti-Israeli and pro-Arab sentiments, then you can kiss acknowledgement of the Genocide goodbye.

With statements such as these you lose all moral standing as an "intellectual".

PS: please do not use the word "dissident". you are not a Solzhenitsyn, you are an André Glucksmann.

[Baron Dants]

To say that Baronian and Odian are viewed as comedians is highly exaggerated...I've known that they were critical of our leaders and society by the time I was 10 or something.
Same goes for Raffi. No one I know fails to point out his criticisms of our leaders.

I mean, I understand what you're trying to do, but be honest at least.

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, October 27, 2005
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If you compare the contents of your local daily with those of an Armenian weekly, you may notice that odar papers cover an encyclopedic array of subjects and issues, while the Armenian weeklies seem to be obsessed with Turks. Today, for instance, after counting thirteen headlines on Turks in the latest issue of an Armenian weekly of 16 pages, I gave up in disgust. Focusing on Turks also means (a) reinforcing our image as victims, and (b) ignoring or covering up our own present problems of which we have more than our share.
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Even when, on those rare occasions, we focus on a specific Armenian problem, we do so monomaniacally. During the last couple of months, for instance, I have been reading a veritable eruption of articles, commentaries, and letters to the editor about a couple of Armenian-American benefactors who were cheated by a crook in Yerevan and abused by a thoroughly corrupt or inept justice system.
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My question is: Why is it that some Armenians who have been fully aware of corrupt practices in the Homeland from day one are heard from only when they are personally stung by them? Don't they know that by keeping silent they actively legitimize the very same system whose victims they now claim to be? What about the countless other victims, who cannot afford lawyers, are in no position to make headlines, and whose sole alternatives are either emigration or prostitution?
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Friday, October 28, 2005
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In what we think and believe we are all dependent on experts and we tend to forget that experts, very much like Armenophile and Turcophile historians, seldom agree on anything. They may be able to reach a consensus in another planet or life, but in this one, never! If it were up to laymen like us, we would continue to think the earth is flat.
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In the eyes of laymen, televangelists and ayatollahs, or for that matter, popes and bishops are more trustworthy than Socrates.
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In our belief systems we resemble parrots, and in our defense of these belief systems, we behave more like cannibals.
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No one has ever killed or died in defense of the flat-earth theory, but millions have been massacred in the name of a fictitious god.
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All wars and massacres may be said to be consequences of laymen and dupes (but I repeat myself) placing their trust in the judgment of preachers and politicians, whose very survival depends on their self-assessed expertise to rewrite history.
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Religious leaders not only rewrite history but also the word of god, to the point that a god of love, compassion, and mercy becomes a god of prejudice, intolerance, hatred, and murder. Figure that one out if you can.
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Saturday, October 29, 2005
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Armenians come in all sizes and shapes and not all of them are what they pretend to be. Some look like Germans, others like Mongols, Arabs, xxxs, and Indians. I even know an Armenian whose name is Kurdoghlanian (literally, son of a Kurd). Speaking of myself: since, on a clear day, I can trace my ancestry all the way back to my father, I could be a combination or permutation of several dozen tribes in all the colors of the rainbow. When I was a little boy, I remember, two neighborhood Greek girls nicknamed me Hirohito.
Raffi may have been wrong when he said "treason and betrayal are in our blood." What is in our blood may well be divided loyalties and in such a situation to be loyal to one side means to betray the other. And those who want to be loyal to humanity, as opposed to a fraction of it, may have to betray two or more sides.
Something similar could be said of Turks. Since intermarriage (to be politically correct about it) was practiced for centuries in the Ottoman Empire, identifying oneself as a Turk today may serve some vague political classification but is not and cannot be a racial or national or tribal designation.
What about Canadians and Americans? I will never forget the answer of an unbelievably attractive teenager when I asked for her nationality. "Canadian," she replied; and when I pressed for more details, she said: "Polish, German, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Indian, French…."
The Turks maintain what they did to us at the turn of the last century can't be called genocide because it had nothing to do with race; it was civil war. Which raises the question: Does civil war justify indiscriminate fratricidal massacre?
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[arabaliozian]

With statements such as these you lose all moral standing as an "intellectual".

PS: please do not use the word "dissident". you are not a Solzhenitsyn, you are an André Glucksmann.

i don't pretend to be anyone but myself! / ara

[arabaliozian]

To say that Baronian and Odian are viewed as comedians is highly exaggerated...I've known that they were critical of our leaders and society by the time I was 10 or something.
Same goes for Raffi. No one I know fails to point out his criticisms of our leaders.

I mean, I understand what you're trying to do, but be honest at least.

About Baronian, Odian, and Raffi:
obviously you are much wiser than i am or was at your age.
as for being honest: i do my best but it is not always easy satisfying everyone in the audience -- especially those who are far ahead of me in wisdom and honesty. / ara

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, October 30, 2005
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In my dealings with most Armenians I have discovered that being an Armenian is not an asset but a liability. As a friend of mine who grew up among Armenians and Turks in Cyprus is fond saying, "Armenians treat Turks with greater respect than fellow Armenians."
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In the eyes of our Oriental carpet dealers and philistines in general, writers are no better than potential beggars to be avoided at all cost. I have met only one Oriental carpet dealer and one national benefactor who sought me out and were eager to shake my hand: the first wanted me to translate his memoirs into English, and the second wanted me to help him write his memoirs.
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The aim of all power structures is either to kill you or tell you what to think.
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The more benevolent a despot, the more ruthless his underlings and henchmen.
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The best practical advice I have had from a Canadian writer: "Never serve chicken salad to chicken xxxx." If I am a failure, it may be because like most Armenians I have tendency to ignore good advice.
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Whenever I am accused of hating my fellow Armenians, I remember an eminent English critic's description of Jane Austen's fiction: "regulated hatred." Hatred of what or whom? Hatred of the aristocracy, of course. Or, as my wise Canadian friend would say, hatred of chicken xxxx who pretend to be chicken salad.
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Monday, October 31, 2005
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In a recent issue of HARATCH (Paris) I read a lengthy review by an Armenologist (Mutafian) of a textbook on Armenian history by another Armenologist (Mahe). If Mutafian is to be believed, almost every other paragraph in Mahe's opus contains an error. That's the way it is with experts: their best efforts go into exposing the misconceptions and inaccuracies of the competition.
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A sociologist published a book recently in which he proves that crowds act more wisely than individuals.
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If laymen are wiser than experts, it may be because laymen are like members of a jury, in a position to compare the testimony of experts (who, as a rule, contradict one another) and to reach a consensus (which experts are unable or unwilling to do).
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Experts are seldom independent operators or objective observers. Rather, they are products of specific cultural and political environments or schools of thought; they work for institutions, serve vested interests, elites, or regimes. Very much like lawyers, they defend a set of ideas and question the validity of all ideas or witnesses that may introduce doubts into their assertions of certainty.
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When crowds misbehave, as they tend to do in time of war and revolution, it is because they are misled by leaders with personal stakes and conflicting goals. If it weren't for the Sultan or the Young Turks and our revolutionary leaders, the chances are there would have been no massacres and Turks and Armenians would now be living side by side in peace.
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Rosa Parks was not a historian, a sociologist, or a political leader. She was the quintessential anonymous face in the crowd. She used her common sense, did the right thing, and changed the course of history. What we need, what mankind needs, are more individuals like Rosa Parks and fewer experts and academics with axes to grind.
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Any one of us may change history if he uses his common sense, does the right thing, and ignores the sophistries of academics and the rhetoric of political leaders.
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A nationalist historian who believes in his own version of history has a dupe for a reader.
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Tuesday, November 01, 2005
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What happened I know. Ever since I was a child I have known. As an adult I want to know why. The conventional explanation repeated ad nauseam (Asiatic barbarians, degenerate West) might satisfy a dupe but not an adult who has acquired the ability to think for himself.
As an Armenian I don't feel morally superior to anyone and I consider all assertions of moral superiority bogus. Only xxxs believe they are the Chosen People and only Nazis believed they belonged to a Superior Race. An Armenian who asserts moral superiority convinces no one but himself and his fellow dupes. I don't have to engage in academic double-talk or philosophical gobbledygook to reach this conclusion. All I have to do is exercise the minimum degree of common sense and objectivity.
Many readers have questioned my judgment simply because I dare to question racist slogans and nationalist propaganda - the very same mental aberrations whose victims we have been. To say or imply that Asia is populated by barbarians and the West by degenerates is to dehumanize mankind, and to dehumanize is stage one of all man's inhumanity to man, including genocide.
If we are no better than the rest of mankind, it follows all men are brothers and deserve our understanding. To understand Turks is not the same as denying the reality of the Genocide. It only means that no matter how hard we try we are not equipped to understand everything.
If God exists, He may be infallible in His judgments. But as human beings we can only hope to understand today something we did not understand yesterday. If that's being a denialist, then I say the English language is not our common medium of communication.
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Wednesday, November 02, 2005
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Whenever I read a book I learn a few things even when the subject is a familiar one; and since there are thousands of books that I have not read, what I don't know far exceeds what I know.
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If I have learned one thing so far it is to reject all dogmas and to question all certainties, especially dogmas and certainties in the name of which millions have killed or died. I have learned this not only from books but also from personal experience.
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When as a boy someone suggested that what I had been taught until then had been stuff and nonsense, I was not outraged. On the contrary, I immediately assumed I was dealing with an eccentric who should be humored and ignored. It was very gradually that I became aware of my status as a thoroughly brainwashed dupe.
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If dogmas and certainties are more popular it is because they are supported and actively promoted by power structures. Benefactors, for instance, know that money is no better than excrement (and Freud agrees) unless it is used to acquire power and prestige. Something similar could be said about religious, political leaders and their propaganda.
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"Makers of idols don't believe in them," says an old Chinese proverb, and if Italians are to be believed, "Even the Pope doubts his faith seven times every day."
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Propaganda pays, philosophy starves. Because Socrates said, "Of the gods we know nothing," he was condemned to death. If history, our own history, teaches us anything, it is this: all ideologies and religions are no better than bloodthirsty idols.
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[arabaliozian]

Thursday, November 03, 2005
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One good thing about Naregatsi: he consistently refused to play the blame-game card; and one good thing about our naming him our greatest writer, "our Shakespeare," is the unspoken admission that our admiration may well be an extension of the fact that we collectively lack his honesty and courage.
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If Turks are Asiatic barbarians, what does that make us? What kind of moral and political standards were we able to acquire as slaves of Asiatic barbarians during six centuries of subservience?
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An explanation that implies moral superiority is a convenient explanation; and such an explanation is bound to be biased if only because all claims of moral superiority are false.
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Conformism is also a form of subservience. To repeat a version of the past that enjoys the approval of a power structure is also a symptom of slave mentality,
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If the average Turk or Armenian is willing to recycle state propaganda, it may be because Ottomanism continues to shape his perception of reality.
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When it comes to our perception of reality, Ottomanism can be as misleading as Americanism or Armenianism. That's because reality is neither Ottoman nor American or Armenian. Mountains and rivers, lies and truth, love and hate, honesty and dishonesty do not recognize national boundaries.
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Friday, November 04, 2005
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ON BIAS
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Bias, like the force of gravity, is everywhere, as invisible as an abstraction and as concrete as a ton of bricks or an avalanche. Even when we speak of facts and nothing but facts, bias enters into their selection.
Like lawyers, historians know that by carefully selecting facts and documents they can prove anything, even the innocence of a ruthless serial killer. In several recent editions of the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, for instance, Talaat is described as "an idealist and a man of integrity."
What I said about lawyers and historians also applies to religious leaders and theologians. When Hemingway said a good writer should be equipped with a reliable "xxxx-detector," he was talking about the ability to detect bias.
Whenever you express an opinion, ask yourself the following question: "If I can't trust bishops, popes and ayatollahs, or rabbis and gurus who speak in the name of God or Truth, why should I trust politicians who speaks in the name of power? -- knowing full well that politicians and their propaganda have played a central role in all wars and massacres?"
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I put my trust only in men who speak against their own interests. Or, in the words of Jean-Paul Sartre on the final page of his memoirs: "I depend only on men who depend on God and I don't believe in God."
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Saturday, November 05, 2005
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A genocide begins with the murder of a single innocent being simply because he belongs to a specific ethnic or religious group.
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Genocide has nothing to do with number of victims. If an Armenian kills a Turk because he is a Turk, that's a crime against humanity.
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A Turk once said to me: "My grandfather was killed by an Armenian. What do I do about it?" If true, and I have no way to prove otherwise, we owe this Turk an apology.
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If Turks refuse to apologize, why should we? Because it is the right thing to do and because to say it is not is to accept Turks as role models of moral conduct.
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We should not wait for the Turks to ask for an apology. Neither should we coerce the Turks to apologize. A coerced apology is a meaningless gesture. If I owe someone an apology and I refuse to apologize until my arm is twisted, that's not an apology but a maneuver to avoid pain.
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[arabaliozian]

Sunday, November 06, 2005
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All professions are conspiracies against the laity, Shaw said, and he wrote plays with long prefaces (longer than the plays themselves) to prove it. Americans say something very similar when they ask, "What's your racket?"
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Dialogue may lead to consensus but endless contradictions (Armenophile and Turcophile academics being cases in point) lead nowhere but to a dead end; and, as it is to be expected, laymen prefer to believe the side that's to their own interest. But self-interest driven by chauvinist sentiments is an unreliable guide that leads not to truth but to lies.
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Writes E.H. Gombrich in his LITTLE HISTORY OF THE WORLD: "Children must learn from history how easy it is for human beings to be transformed into inhuman beings." If children learn that, they will know something adults to no.
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I no longer ask myself if the enemy is a savage beast. I ask instead, "Does that make me a role model of compassion and understanding? And if I allow my enemy to dehumanize me, am I not a far more dangerous beast to myself than he is?"
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Monday, November 07, 2005
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THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY
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Until about a year ago I did not know and I did not care to know the other side of the story because I was brought up to believe savage beasts do not deserve a side. I know better now. But before I set out to present a brief sketch, please remember that truth is the first casualty of war.
The Great Powers and Russia were dismembering the Empire and had designs on the carcass. Only Germany was on their side and Germans had problems of their own.
It was at this very critical time when rumor spread that giaours in the Balkans were raping and crucifying Turkish girls. True or false? It makes no difference. As I said at the outset and it bears repeating, truth has always been the first casualty of all wars.
The rape and crucifixion of helpless and innocent Turkish girls by infidels, who also massacred indiscriminately all Turks in their midst, provoked and in their eyes justified retaliation of the worst kind.
Call it propaganda. Call it a Big Lie. Call it what you will, but while you are doing that remember that Big Lies and propaganda are not uniquely Turkish aberrations. Neither is genocide.
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Tuesday, November 08, 2005
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To dehumanize Turks is subliminal genocide, or to do to them in the abstract what they did to us in the flesh.
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In my encounters with Armenians in the public eye I have noticed that their public assertions seldom match with their private comments. One could say that double-talk is another attribute we share with the rest of mankind.
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We are so unused to using our brains that anyone who dares to think for himself is branded as a dispenser of unmitigated b.s.
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Wednesday, November 09, 2005
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Journalism identifies wolves and sheep. Investigative reporting exposes wolves in sheep's clothing. Literature tries to understand and explain why wolves, sheep, and wolves in sheep's clothing behave as they do. One could also say that the aim of literature is to make the incomprehensible comprehensible.
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Whenever something goes wrong, I begin by analyzing my own motives and conduct. I ask myself, "Where did I go wrong?" That's because I have a far better chance to change myself than the world or my enemy. It is different with politicians and killers, who begin by pleading not guilty, and when the evidence says otherwise they plead either extenuating circumstances or insanity. That's because both politicians and killers belong to a different species. They are lesser homo sapiens. They may even be the missing link.
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If I blame all the world's problems on politicians and criminals, do I absolve the rest of mankind? I do, except for dupes who by surrendering their intelligence to someone that doesn't have much of it himself, become co-conspirators.
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Thursday, November 10, 2005
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If you want to see beauty you can see it everywhere. For thousands of years artists have been observing beauty in the most unlikely places and they have not run of places yet. And if you want to see ugliness, you can see it everywhere too, beginning with your own heart. I speak from experience.
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Americans love to quote their critics, including foreign critics.
Quoting them has become part of their entertainment industry.
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Writing for Armenians amounts to making yourself a target for their poison arrows. That's why I keep it short - to present a smaller target. Were I better writer, I would keep it shorter.
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The unspoken message of most comments: "I am smarter than you," and not "I have something to add."
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[arabaliozian]

xi/12

Friday, November 11, 2005
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We study history to learn from it. As junkies of medievalism and massacrism, the only thing our historians have taught us is to brag or lament.
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According to a well-know maxim, "No one wins a war," and since all war-makers operate on the assumption that they will be the victors (because no one in his right mind goes to war to lose it), it follows, all war-makers are wrong.
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Armenians make great emperors (Basil I), politicians (Deukmejian), and diplomats (Mikoyan), but only outside Armenia. In Armenia and Armenian environments in Diaspora they produce nothing but second-rate bunglers who either brag or lament with the full support of our academics, brown-nosers, and dime-a-dozen know-it-all pundits. We have been and continue to be at the mercy of mediocrities whose number one enemy is excellence and whose number one concern is number one.
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A headline in our local paper today reads: "Canadians increasingly cynical about government." The article goes on to explain that only one in four Canadians trust their politicians. My guess is, only one in 400 or perhaps even 4000 Armenians trust theirs.
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Saturday, November 12, 2005
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What's the use of writing if nothing changes?
But if perceptions change, reality may follow.
One can always hope, of course.
Yes, provided one does not confuse hope with wishful thinking.
But what if hope is another word for wishful thinking?
One must go on if only because the alternative is silence and despair.
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In today's editorial cartoon a war veteran is reading his daily paper with headlines on the front page about political scandals, indictments, and wheeling-and-dealing, as he muses: "My comrades and I fought for this?" And as I scan the headlines about Turks and Turkey (19 of them) in the latest issue of an Armenian weekly (16 pages) I cannot help wondering: "Did our writers work and die for this?"
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Strange country, stranger people! They utter a cliché or a platitude and call it a philosophy. In a land devoid of philosophers, everyone is a philosopher.
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