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[ara baliozian]

Thursday. June 26, 2008
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IT COMES WITH THE TERRITORY
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To write for Armenians means to share your thoughts and experiences with readers who are better and smarter than you. But since their superiority is self-conferred, it cannot be objective, or honest, or real. It may even be pure fiction and fantasy, and more precisely, a shameless lie.
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It is not at all unusual for an Armenian to think that, if he identified himself as a patriot or uses patriotism as a shield, he becomes invulnerable to charges of fascism and hooliganism. He may even utter all kinds of nonsense and get away with it. To such an Armenian I say, if you view patriotism as a noble sentiment, why this need to make an ass of yourself?
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The sad truth is, there are no safe ideas, ideals, and ideologies. Consider what happened to the ideals of the French Revolution in the Terror, or to Marxism in Stalin's USSR, and to the Word of God in the sermons of American televangelists and Armenian bishops.
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It is not enough to voice lofty principles. One must earn the right. For myself, I shall always be grateful to Judas for not writing an ode to loyalty. But as an Armenian, I am used to reading editorials on tolerance by fanatics and listening to sermons on chastity by fornicators. As they say, it comes with the territory.
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Friday, June 27, 2008
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MANY QUESTIONS, ONE ANSWER
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We all want the same thing: to improve matters.
We all agree we have problems.
We are unanimous in admitting we need reforms.
It's amazing the number of things we agree on.
It's the solutions we don't agree on.
It's when we start discussing solutions that the crap hits the fan.
Our Turcocentric ghazetajis want to begin by reforming the Turks, which is easier said than done.
Others want to democratize our mafias in the Homeland. Ditto.
Still others want to deliver sermons to our bishops to show them the path leading to church unity.
All these projects boil down to a single word: honesty.
How do you introduce honesty in a dishonest environment?
How do you convince a brainwashed dupe that he is not as smart as he thinks he is? How do you convince a crook that in the long run and for all concerned (including himself, especially himself) honesty is better than dishonesty?
How do you convince a bishop that “a house divided against itself cannot stand”? How do you convince a boss that an ideology that divides the nation does more harm than good?
How do you convince a benefactor that by supporting institutions that legitimize divisions he may not be doing us a favor?
Finally, how do you reform a reformer?
Let me rephrase the question:
How do you teach the value of humility to a megalomaniac with messianic ambitions?
How do you convince a sanctimonious prick that uttering pious platitudes does not make him an admirable specimen of humanity, and that patriotism means love of country as well as fellow countrymen?
To say my solution is better than yours is to imply you have a better chance to succeed where far better men than yourself failed.
What is the answer?
Is there one?
Isn't there anything I can do?
Do I give up?
Hell no!
You begin by reforming yourself.
And that, my friend, is a project that may keep you busy for the rest of your life.
I speak from experience.
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Saturday, June 28, 2008
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OF APES AND MEN
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The most effective way to moronize a nation is (a) by brainwashing the people to think they are smart; ( by introducing nationalism in a multicultural or bastardized environment, and © by dividing them into mutually hostile groups or tribes.
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For biological as well as cultural reasons, the offspring of mixed marriages (which I was brought up to think as bastards) are smarter, healthier, and more tolerant, if only because they are products of two or more worldviews, traditions, and values. But they are also more vulnerable to charges of disloyalty and treason. This may explain why, once upon a time people of the Middle East were the smartest and the most progressive in the world. But gradually and as a result of tribal and religious divisions and power struggles, they allowed themselves to be bullied, brainwashed, and intimidated by power hungry megalomaniacs with the horizons, moral compass, and IQ of apes.
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We will never have any peace as long as we think we are better than Turks and vice versa. The same applies to all our internecine tribal, ideological, and denomination divisions.
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The more underdeveloped the brain, the more easily it is brainwashed.
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I can't imagine anything more cowardly than verbally abusing someone anonymously and from a safe distance. It is no wonder that in Russia Armenians are known as “cowardly.” And I agree with Gandhi when he said, “A coward has no right to identify himself as a member of the human race.”
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Speaking of cowardly Armenians, you may be interested to know that in Greece Armenians are known as “Turkish gypsies,” and in France as “filthy.” I am now beginning to suspect these offensive labels have as much merit as our own self-assessment of ourselves as smart, progressive, and civilized.
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If you don't like what I write, stop reading me. I assure you, that's the most effective and civilized way of silencing a writer. To verbally abuse him or trying to silence him because he dares to say things that you don't like reading is to prove him right.
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[ara baliozian]

Thursday, December 4, 2008
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ON SPEECHIFIERS, SERMONIZERS,
AND RELATED ATRCOTITIES
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If you want to understand the soul of a nation, read its writers.
If you want to know the way people deceive themselves, read a collection of political speeches.
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You may ignore writers, but you cannot ignore the voice of your conscience. That is why the first thing tyrants do is silence writers.
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Everything I have been saying could be reduced to a single sentence: “Something is rotten in the State of Denmark.”
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I repeat myself only to the same degree that our sermonizers paraphrase the Scriptures.
I remember once when I said as much, the secretary of a bishop wrote an angry letter to the editor saying in effect, how dare I compare myself to the prophets of the Bible?
If our sermonizers paraphrase prophets, I paraphrase Plato; and as far as I know, no one in his right mind has ever dared to suggest that Jewish prophets are greater thinkers than Greek philosophers.
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Deception and self-deception are favorite themes of the Scriptures.
Adam and Eve allowing themselves to be taken in by the Serpent who, according to my anti-American friends from the Middle East, was an agent of the CIA in disguise.
Moses thinking he can take a short leave of absence without losing his grip on the people.
Consider the case of the muscleman/ judge Samson and his nemesis/barber Delilah. And Goliath laughing at his puny but technologically more advance challenger armed with a stick.
God Himself fooling poor old man Abraham into thinking that He wants him to butcher his own son Isaac.
Last but not least, consider the present economic crisis hatched by the very same financial and political leaders whose responsibility it is to protect the interests of the people, and afterwards making demands on taxpayers' money for a bailout, thus trying to defraud the people for the second time.
Now then, go ahead and try to convince me that our own bloodsuckers are morally superior to their counterparts in the West.
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Friday, December 5, 2008
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MYSTICISM AND PRAGMATISM
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Like most people, Armenians too are easily satisfied with one side of the story. I once had the following conversation with a Tashnak friend, a woman in her fifties. When after reading an exposé on Tashnak shenanigans I mentioned it to her, she wanted to know where I had read it.
“In one of our weeklies,” I said.
“Ramgavar?”
“No, chezok.”
“Lies.”
“Its main source is a former high-ranking Tashnak.”
“A turncoat.”
“Don't you want to read it?”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“A waste of time.”
“What if it's true?”
“I don't think so.”
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In politics I am a liberal, but once in a while I enjoy reading conservative pundits because I learn there things that I would never learn in the liberal press.
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I am a great admirer of Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann, and Sartre, but I find it stimulating reading critics like Koestler and Nabokov (whom I also admire) willing to speak of the dark side of the moon.
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One reason I love rereading Toynbee's RECONSIDERATIONS (volume 12 of his STUDY OF HISTORY) is that in it he quotes all his critics – except Trevor-Roper – and on occasion is willing to plead guilty as charged. And the reason he doesn't quote Trevor-Roper is that Trevor-Roper didn't just disagree with him; he wanted him tarred and feathered on the grounds that he (Toynbee) had strayed from the straight and narrow path of empiricism and pragmatism into the vague and amorphous realm of mysticism by saying the only way to establish permanent peace in the world was by uniting all religions into a single universal religion. Recent events have proved Toynbee more right than wrong, and Trevor-Roper more wrong than right. Establishing one universal religion may seem Utopian, but it doesn't necessarily follow mankind cannot move in that direction by being less dogmatic and more tolerant. After millennia of conflict and two world wars, who would have thought some day European Union would become a reality in our own time?
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At the center of all our problems stands a Trevor-Roper who would like to see anyone who doesn't agree with him tarred and feathered or branded as a liar and an enemy.
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Saturday, December 6, 2008
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CLINGING TO THE WRECKAGE
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You cannot solve a nation's problems the way you solve mathematical, scientific, medical, or philosophical problems. Power is not open to reason or common sense and decency. Those in power will not give it up without a bloody fight, Hegel says somewhere, and so it is.
A friend of mine, a philosopher, tried to expose the roots of our problems in a philosophical treatise of over 500 pages. Now he is not allowed to enter Armenia. Long before my friend, a Greek philosopher tried to convince Athenian politicians that they cannot discharge their duties as rulers if their ideas are based on false definitions, and we all know what happened to him: he was arrested, tried, found guilty, and condemned to death.
Marx came very close in his efforts to prove with mathematical precision that capitalism is a dead man walking, and yet, it took bloody revolutions everywhere from Russia, China, and Cuba to convince those in power to give it up.
Where there is free speech, you may speak truth to power (whether power will listen remains to be seen). But in an authoritarian or corrupt environment, the only result of speaking truth to power from a safe distance will be making the speaker feel morally or intellectually superior.
Do you want to end prostitution, corruption, incompetence, and violations of human rights in our beloved homeland? Go ahead and write an essay, a letter to the editor, a declaration signed by a hundred or even a thousand names, but don't be disappointed if nothing happens.
At this point you may well ask: “Why do you go on writing then?” My answer is a simple one: habit – and habits, as everyone knows, are easier to keep than to give up. Add to habit the satisfaction of seeing a pompous ass deflated, a charlatan ridiculed, and a liar exposed. Last but not least, I write because irreverence where irreverence is due is a virtue, and I have so few of them that I cling to those I have like a drowning man clings to the wreckage.
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