notes / comments

[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Saturday, April 21, 2007
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WHY I WRITE THE WAY I WRITE
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Whenever I see someone’s two cents’ worth on my monitor, I am provoked into posting my own one-cent’s worth. If that’s vainglorious, I plead guilty as charged.
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There are many good Armenians, concerned readers remind me once in a while, but I keep harping on the bad ones thus projecting a bad image. Image is a PR concern and I have no desire to muscle in their territory. My concern is elsewhere. My concern is the nation’s direction. If you read our writers from Khorenatsi (5th century) to Zarian (20th) you may notice they too were concerned with the same thing.
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Good Armenians exist in the same way that good Turks do. But these good men are not represented in Yerevan and Ankara. There may even be good bosses, bishops, and benefactors, but they are as much at the mercy of their bad counterparts as the rest of us who are in no position to change the direction of our collective destiny.
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Those who oppose the war in Iraq today are convinced the Bush administration is ego-driven, misinformed, and wrong, in addition to being corrupt and incompetent. That doesn’t mean everyone in the executive branch is rotten. None of us can predict the future. If tomorrow or next month or year the Middle East is democratized, I am sure everyone will rejoice – everyone, including those who oppose the surge today. Likewise, if one of these days or before I drop dead, our leaders see the light and change direction, I will be the happiest Armenian alive. But until then I will continue to be critical of our charlatans and dupes who in the name of misguided patriotism try to convince us we are in good hands and Turks are the source of all evil.
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Finally, I don’t write against anyone. I write against the self-centered, prejudiced ignoramus that I was, and according to some of my gentle reader, I still am.
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Because I speak of tolerance I am accused of being intolerant. Because I speak against the knee-jerk anti-Turkism of our Turcocentric pundits, I am accused of being anti-Armenian. That’s not criticism. That’s infantile nonsense. And remember: bad leaders have ruined empires; bad writers – in addition to being unreadable -- have harmed no one but themselves.
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[arabaliozian]

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Friday, April 20, 2007
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AN ESSAY THAT COMES WITH A WARNING
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In what follows I speak only for myself and all those who brought me up to hate Turks. Repeat: none of the sentiments and thoughts expressed here applies to our Turcocentric pundits and miscellaneous baloney artists who, very much like all baloney artists, speak with a forked tongue when they say they hate no one, they only ask for what is theirs.
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What does it take to understand a nation? The jury of historians and psychologists is out on that one, because, like individuals and human nature in general, nations are bundles of contradiction. They harbor within them the best and the worst. It is the easiest thing in the world to love or hate them by selecting and cataloguing their crimes or selfless heroic deeds and triumphs over adversity – an academic field of enquiry favorite by nationalist historians.
It may be flattering to our vanity to divide mankind into two, the good (us and our friends) and the bad (our enemies and their partisans). But how objective or valid is it? If we paint ourselves all white and our enemies all black, we shouldn’t be surprised if they do the same. Do we judge Germans by Bach and Beethoven or by Hitler and the Holocaust?
By repeating ad nauseam as we do that we are the victims and they are the victimizers, we may eventually end up convincing ourselves that we can do no wrong even as we behave like swine.
Zohrab observes somewhere that there are as many kinds of Armenians as there are environments in which they live. So that an Ottomanized Armenian and a Frenchified Armenian are as different from one another as a Turk is from a Frenchman – assuming of course there is such a thing as a typical Turk or Frenchman.
“Betrayed by an Armenian, he was saved by a Turk.” I remember to have heard or read this sentence somewhere in reference to Gomidas (Komitas) Vartabed. To make sure my memory is not deceiving me, I consult a recent biography, where I read the following: “Komitas’s opponents [among them Patriarch of Istanbul Ghevont Turian] contacted the Turkish secret police and falsely accused him of including politically subversive songs in his concert program.” (Rita Soulahian Kuyumjian, ARCHEOLOGY OF MADNESS: KOMITAS – PORTRAIT OF AN ARMENIAN ICON [Princeton, NJ], Gomidas Institute, page 74.)
Speaking of religious faith, Sartre says somewhere: “We believe that we believe, but we don’t believe. Likewise, we may believe that we understand Turks and Armenians, but we don’t.
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[arabaliozian]

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Thursday, April 19, 2007
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THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION
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We have become such compulsive players of the blame-game that it doesn’t even occur to us to ask the most important of all questions: Where did we go wrong? Were we justified in trusting the Russians, the Great Powers, and the Young Turks? Was our trust in them based on historic precedent or propaganda? Was our optimism a result of objective analysis or wishful thinking?
My purpose in raising these questions is not to find fault with our past conduct – after all, what’s done is done and cannot be undone – but to ask, how justified are we when we predict the future by saying such things as, it will take two or three generations for our bloodsuckers to see the light and behave like servants of the people? Or, how justified are we in sinking millions on our anti-Turkish campaign in the hope that, since historic Armenia was ours 600 years ago, it will be ours again in the near or distant future because a fraction of the civilized world is with us? Or again, how justified are we in placing our trust in the verbiage of our bosses, bishops, benefactors, and Turcocentric baloney artists?
Another reason I ask these questions is that, if we want to convince the Turks to behave with some degree of honesty and decency, we must first put our own house in order. If we want to educate that fraction of the so-called civilized world that is not with us, we must begin by educating ourselves. If we want others to do the right thing, the least we can do is refrain from doing the wrong thing.

[arabaliozian]

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Tuesday, April 17, 2007
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THE SABERS OF PARADISE
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The best way to resist temptation is to wait patiently until you are wise enough or old enough not to have them – though old age is more reliable than wisdom.
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And speaking of longevity: Could the Ottoman Empire become a success – if we measure success by might and longevity – without assimilating Greeks, Armenians, xxxs, Assyrians, Kurds, Arabs, Iranians, Albanians, Georgians, Avars, Ingushi, Chechens, and a number of other Caucasian tribes (forty-five of them, according to some estimates) that were ruthlessly exterminated and driven out of their ancestral homes by the armies of Imperial Russia during a war that lasted several decades in the 19th Century? It is reasonable to assume that it was survivors of these Muslim tribes from the Caucasus that had settled in Anatolia that played a key role in carrying out Talaat’s policy of extermination in 1915.
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And now, let’s consider Imperial Russia: to what extent was it Russian? Or rather, what were the contributions of non-Russians like Greeks, xxxs, Georgians, Armenians, Germans, Tartars, Cossacks, and Ukrainians among others? All empires are mosaics, and it is no exaggeration to say that Armenians contributed equally to both the Ottoman and Russian Empires. Next question: what was the role of Armenians in the defeat, extermination, and exodus of the above-mentioned Caucasian tribes? Quite significant, according to SABERS OF PARADISE by Lesley Blanch, who is also the author of a biography of the French Turcophile novelist, Pierre Loti. Unlike Loti, however, Lesley Blanch was not an Armenian-hater. Neither was she anti-Russian because she also wrote several favorable books on Russia. According to her, the Russo-Caucasian war was also a religious war, which may explain the ferocity with which it was executed -- which brings to mind Voltaire’s celebrated dictum: “Since it was a religious war, there were no survivors.”
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Anyone who wants to know more about the role of Armenians in this jihad is urged to read SABERS OF PARADISE, a fascinating book that I have read three times and plan to read again.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Monday, April 16, 2007
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ON A VARIETY OF THINGS
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Fanatics take over only when moderates let them. If fanatics are guilty of actions, moderates are guilty of inaction. We are all assassins.
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Their side believes in solutions by massacre and denial, our side believes in solutions by verbiage. After writing an anti-Turkish commentary or letter to the editor, my guess is, a Turcocentric pundit thinks he has hammered still another imaginary nail on their metaphorical coffin that contains their collective metaphysical cadaver made entirely of his wishful thinking. And as Vonnegut (may he rest in peace) used to say, “And so it goes.”
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There was a time when editors rejected my things because they were too long; now because they are not long enough. Some day I hope to master the art of writing by measuring tape.
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The role of god in history? He has converted countless law-abiding citizens into lynch mobs and killing machines.
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When Confucius was asked to discipline a lazy disciple, he said: “Rotten wood cannot be carved, a wall of dung won’t hold plaster; what’s the use of reproving him?”
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Sunday, April 15, 2007
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LOGIC AND OPTIMISM
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Overheard:
“Optimism is good for the soul.”
“So is logic.”
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Whenever a policy fails, it is safe to assume it was probably formulated by optimists. Examples that come readily to mind: Vietnam, Iraq, and our “revolution” in the Ottoman Empire.
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Optimism: what is it exactly? One tentative answer would be, overestimating the positive in us and the negative in the opposition. It astonishes how often we use reason to lead us to unreason. What would be more reasonable than to think, if the great powers of the West, imperial Russia, and God Almighty Himself are on our side, there is no way we can lose. And yet, lose we did, and lose in the most tragic, catastrophic, and horrible way. And we lost not because logic was not on our side but because we underestimated the opposition. Somewhere in his 12-volume STUDY OF HISTORY, Toynbee says, one should never underestimate the will to live even of a corpse. That may not be the logic of the human brain, but it is the logic of life (or the prospect of death), which becomes visible only after the fact.
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Rules of logic: who makes them? Who else but man, and man being fallible, his rules are bound to be full of holes. What an environment dominated by optimists needs more than anything else is not more logic but pessimism. That’s because the danger in optimism is not in optimism itself but rather in the kind of optimism that is not open to dialogue. Intolerant and dogmatic optimism ceases being logical if only because it asserts infallibility. That’s when hubris (arrogance) invited nemesis (retribution).
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When you think right and reason are on your side and you have life by the short hair, that’s when you need to consider the possibility of being not just wrong, but catastrophically, tragically, horribly wrong.
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If one has been catastrophically wrong in the past, is there anything that will prevent him from being catastrophically wrong again? I will let you answer that question.
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“I know what I know and I don’t need your two cents’ worth!” The words of a loudmouth ignoramus flirting with disaster.
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In the Confucian ANALECTS we read: “Who sins against heaven has nothing to pray to.”
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According to Ezra Pound, Confucius did not say, “If you see a good man, emulate him; if you see a bad man, examine your own heart.” What he said instead was: “See solid talent and think of measuring up to it; see the un-solid and examine your own insides.”
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To my Turcocentric brothers I say: “Whenever you think of Turkish criminal conduct, examine your own insides!” – which, needless to add, cannot be an option for the gutless.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Saturday, April 14, 2007
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ON SCIENTISTS, THEOLOGIANS,
MEN OF FAITH, AND OTHER RASCALS
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Gods are a dime a dozen.
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Once when Einstein said something to the effect that god did not play at dice, another physicist said: “Einstein, stop telling god what to do.”
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Theologians are people who hate to say I don’t know, I don’t understand, and I don’t know what I am talking about.
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Someone once wrote a book titled GOD IS AN ENGLISHMAN, which is a big lie. Everyone knows god is an Armenian.
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I don’t know much about Islam but I know that in the eyes of the average Muslim I am no better than an infidel dog.
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I am acquainted with several Turcocentric fascists and I know that in their eyes I am worse than an infidel dog.
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Had I been Moses’ editor, the Decalogue would have only one commandment: “Thou shalt not allow yourself to be brainwashed.”
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If I were a dictator, I would order theologians to stop dealing with abstractions and start dealing with facts by counting the number of victims god has claimed on earth.
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[arabaliozian]

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Friday, April 13, 2007
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REVOLUTIONARIES, COMMISSARS,
CHIC BOLSHEVIKS & TURCOCENTRIC PUNDITS
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At the turn of the last century we had revolutionaries who thought they could do no wrong because the civilized world was on their side. During the Soviet era we had commissars in the Homeland and chic Bolsheviks in the Diaspora who believed the Soviet Union was here to stay for a thousand years and the Russians could do no wrong because they were our Big Brothers (in the non-Orwellian sense of these words). And now we have Turcocentric pundits who believe they know all there is to know about Turks. How? On what grounds? By projection, of course!
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After projecting the worst in themselves on Turks, these charlatans believe they know all there is to know about them and they thus qualify as experts on Armeno-Turkish relations. They seem to be unaware of the fact that understanding by projection is a notoriously unreliable method of perceiving not only others but also themselves, if only because by projecting the worst in themselves they may think they have also exorcised the Turk within.
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Understanding and exorcising by projection: If only life were that simple!
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There are good Armenians and there are good Turks, and if it were up to them, all our differences would have been resolved many years ago to the satisfaction of both sides. But to hope that from the confrontation of two sets of charlatans something good may emerge is to believe in miracles, and I for one am no longer big on miracles.
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A final note on our revolutionaries, commissars, chic Bolsheviks, and Jack S. Avanakians: Have you ever heard any one of them apologize for misleading the nation? Are they capable of admitting error? Last but far from least: In what way are they different from their counterparts?
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Thursday, April 12, 2007
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ON TURCOCENTRISM
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Turcocentrism is a pathological condition that should be analyzed and studied like any other psychological aberration, objectively and on a tabula rasa.
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The central tenet of Turcocentrism is the proposition that Genocide recognition is the most important issue in our collective existence today. It follows, all our other problems, such as exodus from the Homeland, assimilation in the Diaspora (two ongoing “white massacres”), divisiveness, corruption, and incompetence within our tribal power structures, can be safely ignored or covered up on the grounds that if ignored they will go away.
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Like most primitive societies, we tend to confer on an opinion the status of a belief system, and like all belief systems, Turcocentrism has become an orthodoxy with its own heresies (about which see below).
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A Turcocentric newspaper is one in which every other headline has the word Turk in it.
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Turcocentrics believe as long as Turks refuse to recognize the Genocide, we shall have no peace, no inner balance, no closure (whatever that may mean), no other concerns, and no other initiatives.
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A Turcocentric Armenian is an “oreo” Armenian – that is, he is Armenian on the outside, Turkish on the inside. Which is why, the Armenianism of Turcocentrism is more akin to Ottomanism.
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Turcocentric Armenians divide the community by asserting, “You are either with me or against me,” and “If you are against me, you are against the Cause,” and “If you are against the Cause you are a traitor.” On more than one occasion I have myself been accused of being a foreign agent who gets his marching orders from Ankara.
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Turcocentric Armenians are more dependent on Turkish goodwill today than their forefathers in the Ottoman Empire were on the goodwill of the Sultan.
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The Turcocentric Armenian has a counterpart among Turks – the Armenocentric Turk who believes there is an Armenian assassin lurking behind every bush, Kurds are Armenians in disguise, and Ocalan is an “Ermeni pij” (an Armenian bastard).
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Like all primitive belief systems, Turcocentrism has its devils – two of them, as matter of fact: (one) denialist Turks, and (two) Armenians who dare to suggest that, very much like the kingdom of god, the kingdom of the devil is within us.
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[arabaliozian]

Re: notes / comments

Wednesday, April 11, 2007
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FROM MY DIARY
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To those who want to know how many times I have been to Armenia, I say: “Why should I travel all the way there to starve when I can just as well starve here?”
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When a charlatan calls me a charlatan, I conclude that (a) he is smart enough to know the meaning of the word, and (b) he is too dumb to know he is one.
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We think of temptation as a negative word; but it can also be used in a positive context, as when one is tempted to be honest, to speak the truth, to do the right thing if one operates within a power structure where deception is the norm.
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In the editorial of our local paper today I read: “A bush league is a minor, often second-rate sports organization that, like fungus, grows most successfully away from the biggest crowds and brightest light.” A good definition of our leadership.
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On the same page, a letter to the editor suggests the only way to end wars is to let the politicians do the fighting. You may have noticed that the most ardent patriots among us happen to be speechifiers, sermonizers, and editorializers, that is to say, charlatans whose chances of going to war are nil.
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Elsa Triolet: “Always and never – one is as long as the other.”
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Pierre Reverdy: “Barriers are the best and surest bonds between people.”
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Victor Hugo: “Half a friend is half a traitor.”
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