ara baliozian

Sunday, March 31, 2002 ******************************* # Ottoman crimes: we have published hundreds of books and thousands of articles about them. Perhaps what we now need is a little book about our own blunders. # The Turks quote me? What nonsense! Some of their ablest scholars are Armenians. # The greatest distance in the universe is that which exists between an Armenians words and his actions. # If your line of work is being a scourge of humbugs and a nemesis to baloney artists, you will never join the ranks of the unemployed. # There is a difference between what works and what sounds good, and what sounds good seldom works. # It never fails: as soon as I run out of things to say, God sends me a hostile reader whose arrogance and stupidity illustrate and dramatize everything I have been saying and which stimulates me to keep buggering on. # And then there is the Armenian who thinks his patriotism allows him to call your mother a whore. And let’s not forget the former Stalinist who calls West-Armenian scholars "filth." Verbal venom as a form of exorcising the demons of Ottomanism and Bolshevism: a virgin field pregnant with possibilities!

SOMEDAY, SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE ****************************************** Someday, someone, somewhere will write an objective history of Armenia, but until then I will trust our version of our past as much as I trust the Turkish version of their own past, or, for that matter, the Palestinian, Israeli and Patagonian versions of their own past. Someday historians will view historiography neither as propaganda of the victor nor as the consolation of the loser. But until then I will view all historians as prejudiced witnesses – all except dissident historians: those who adopt a critical stance towards their own official version of history, and critical to the point of being labeled hostile by their own peers – historians like Spengler and Toynbee ("anti-West) and Gibbon ("anti-Christian"). Someday I would like to read a book on Armenian history in which no effort is made to flatter our collective ego, because flattery promotes arrogance and arrogance, by overestimating our own powers and underestimating those of the opposition, may be said to be the source of all political blunders, military defeats, massacres and genocides.

IFS AND WHYS ****************************** If I were to recycle crap, who would be remotely interested in my product except perhaps dealers in horse manure? Why would I join a chorus of braying jackasses if I can sing solo? If I were to sermonize like a bishop or speechify like a boss, would anyone take me seriously? If I were to echo your sentiments and thoughts, why would you waste your time reading me? If I were to say "Yes, sir!" to whatever our mini-sultans and neo-commissars say, who would have any use for another brown-noser?

ENIGMA ************************ To explain and justify his hatred of some Armenians, one of our elder statesmen (a Ph.D.) once confided in me: "Some Armenians are not Armenians but Turks." "You mean they are Ottomanized Armenians," I said. "No! I mean Turks. Pure-blooded Turks. Turks on both sides. Turkish agents. Professionals who identify themselves as Armenians, who speak Armenian fluently, who know more about us than we do, and who occupy key positions in our organizations." "What organizations?" I wanted to know. "All kinds – religious, cultural, political, philanthropic –" "Philanthropic too? Whatever for?" "To undermine their integrity, their ultimate goal being the destruction of the Armenian Diaspora.? "Do you know these people, can you identify them?" "Of course!" "Why don't you expose the bastards?" "And who will believe me? Do you?" "I am not sure. Some hard evidence would help…." "What kind of evidence? Documents? They can forge all the documents they need and by the time they are through they may prove I am a Turk." Maybe so, I remember to have thought. But what if these gentlemen are in fact Armenians without a single drop of Turkish blood in their veins? How to explain their Ottomanized ways? Their cynicism, opportunism, greed, venom, their feuds and suicidal policies that might as well be formulated in Ankara? Neshan Beshigtashlian’s answer is as good as any, I guess: "An Armenian is an enigma that refuses to be solved." But what if Beshigtashlian too was a Turk?

HOOLIGANS ******************************* # "Why Armenian massacres?" a young Armenian-American academic once asked me: "Did the Armenians commit the massacres?" A strange question, I thought, coming from an Armenian. But is it? After all the Ottoman Empire wasn't wholly Ottoman in view of the fact that Armenians and half-Armenians (among them Sultan Abdulhamid II) played a central role in it as soldiers, administrators, advisers, educators, architects, and so in…. # Our conscious memory is different from our subconscious memory. Which means that when we do things that we don't quite understand, we may be reacting to events that our conscious mind buried in our subconscious. # Nobody has ever won an argument with commissars because arguing with them is a one way street at the end of which stands a killer (where commissars are commissars) or a barrage of insults (where ex-commissars are hooligans). # It has been said that forgiveness can be a spiritual victory. I am not sure about that. Forgiving commissars can also mean legitimizing hooliganism. # Some of my friends think I am wasting my time writing against hooligans, and that if I were to translate more works of Armenian literature into English I would be enhancing our prestige in the eyes of the English-speaking world. But I have every reason to suspect that even a thousand Armenian literary masterpiece translated into English will enhance nothing so long as our hooligans remain in charge of our destiny.

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar." -- Julius Caesar

ON THE HUMAN CONDITION *********************************** Honest men don't need to join a movement to do the right thing in the same way that the wise don't need an -ism to justify their thoughts and actions. # Christ and Marx: no one questions their good intentions, wisdom and honesty. And yet, consider the abuses of the Papacy and Stalinism. # Speaking of -isms: nationalism, communism, capitalism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Ottomanism…: history tells us all movements sooner or later end the in the gutter. # There are honest men and there are crooks, and the crooks will always outnumber the honest, in the same way that fools will outnumber the wise, and the sheep will outnumber the wolves but both will be outnumbered by wolves in sheep’s clothing. # It makes no difference if the sheep are protected against the wolves by the shepherd and his sheepdogs, their end will be the same. # All violence purports to be counter-violence in the same way that all hooligans represent themselves as reactions against the hooliganism of the opposition, with the result that the majority will be doubly victimized. # Armenians have been as much victims of Ottomanism as Armenianism. That’s because (to paraphrase Lenin on the bourgeois) hooligans will be hooligans regardless of national identity.

Wednesday, March 27, 2002 ******************************* On the day one of our hooligans agrees with me it will be because either a miracle has taken place and he has seen the light or I am on the wrong path. But since miracles are extremely rare occurrences in our context and when they happen they are invariably of the negative variant – that is: a minor individual blunder turns into a major collective disaster (like the Ottoman Bank caper at the turn of the century in Istanbul which resulted in the massacre of 5000 innocent civilians), the chances are, if a hooligan agrees with me, it will be because I have taken the wrong turn. Which is why I feel much more comfortable when our hooligans disagree with me; I feel even better when they go down into the gutter because that’s exactly where they belong.

REQUIEM *********************** A nation whose merchants are kings and whose poets are paupers is a nation in league with the devil. A community that glorifies its men of action and ignores its men of contemplation might as well be brain dead. There is only one thing to be said about a tribe whose Oriental carpet dealers and hooligans speak as if they were princes and whose philosophers… what philosophers? Make it: whose last philosopher lived and died more than a thousand years ago – a philosopher, moreover, none of whose ideas or lines is quoted or discussed…: there is only one thing to be said about such a tribe, and that’s Der Voghormia, Der Voghormia, Der Voghormia.

P.S. (ON JINGOISM) **************************** To prove their pure-blooded Armenian DNA, some of our nationalist leaders, it seems, among them elder statesmen, who ought to know better, trace their family trees all the way back to the Bagratunis (Jews), Mamikonians (Chinese) and Ardrzunis (Assyrians). It is with some degree of pride therefore that I hereby announce that on a clear day I can trace my family tree all the way back to my father.

ON NATIONALISM **************************** 1. Nationalism has been defined as "an infantile disease." It’s worse than that. It’s a swindle. 2. Nationalists emphasize the negative in other nations and the positive in one’s own. The worldview that emerges is bound to be false, and any policy based on false assumptions will result in disaster – military defeat, massacre, genocide. 3. Without checks and balances nationalism has a natural tendency to degenerate to fascism and racism, which also means contempt for all those with mixed blood, who may outnumber those who consider themselves pure-blooded (another concept worthy of swindlers). 4. Nationalism is motivated less by love and more by hatred and hatred not only of the enemy but of one’s own countrymen. Hence the frequency and ferocity of civil wars. In our case, civil war might as well be a state of mind as opposed to isolated episodes or chapters in our history. 5. Nationalism in our context is another way of legitimizing our hatred of our fellow men with particular emphasis on fellow Armenians. Next time you speak to an Armenian nationalist, observe that there will be more hostility in his sentiments and thoughts than friendship. 6. Subtract the articles, references, and commentaries on Turks and Azeris from our media and there will be little or nothing left, and that little will be worse than nothing.

A MATTER OF TRADITION ************************************ "I don't understand you!" an angry reader writes, after which he undertakes a detailed analysis of my ideas and rejects them all as results of ignorance, inexperience and prejudice. Gentle reader: You and I are Armenians and who has ever heard of two Armenians agreeing on anything or, for that matter, making an honest effort to understand each other? Nowhere does it say that a fanatic should agree with a moderate or a fool with the wise. Please note that I am not implying here that I am the moderate and the wise. It may well be the other way around. My final question is: If a moderate and wise Armenian (and all our bosses and bishops maintain to be both) cannot agree with their counterparts, what are the chances that you and I will ever compromise and reach a consensus? If none, let us therefore agree to disagree, and if that’s too much to ask, let us ignore each other thus carrying on our tribal tradition of eternal dissent and conflict.

A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious, but it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly, but the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. —Marcus Tullius Cicero, 42 BC

ARMENIANS AND JEWS ********************************* Are Jews or Zionists wholly or partly responsible for the Armenian Genocide? If they are, it must be to the same degree that they are also responsible for the decline of Germany under Hitler, the corruption of Russia under Stalin, the degeneration of the American South under the KKK, and the decadence of Uganda under Idi Amin Dada. It seems to me a far more fertile field of investigation would be the degree of responsibility of Armenians themselves in their Genocide, German responsibility in the collapse of Germany, Russian responsibility in the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and so on. In this context to speak of Jewish or Zionist responsibility is a clear-cut case of scapegoatism and total abdication of responsibility. I suspect if some day hell freezes over, some Armenians will blame it not on the poor management of the devils but on Jews. It is to be noted that some of the most brilliant German, Russian and Armenian minds married Jews (Thomas Mann, Vladimir Nabokov, and William Saroyan – and in Saroyan’s case, twice to the same woman). Also to be noted, some of the ablest ARF leaders were also married to Jews – and Jews who spoke Armenian fluently. I don't mention ADL leaders because, though I have heard of their existence, I have at no time seen one in the flesh. A final note: I doubt very much if there is a single Zionist or Jew today who hates Armenians as much as members of the ARF hate members of the ADL and vice versa.

IF… ********************** If I am wrong, (and I hope to be), it means only one thing: we are in good hands (more or less), our problems are being solved, conditions are about to improve, and we may even look forward to another golden age; or silver, or nickel. Nickel is good. Nickel is better than garbage. But I suspect (and I am afraid) I may be right because some of our ablest academics agree with me, even if only privately. Also, I have heard our bosses, bishops, and benefactors refer to one another (not about the opposition but the competition) as egomaniacs, liars, hooligans (sriga), embezzlers, and assassins. To those who say, this sort of thing goes on everywhere. Bad apples will be bad apples. But what if we are not talking about isolated rotten apples here and there but the whole orchard? The Turks quote me? Let them. Maybe they will have a better chance to reform our rascals. One can always hope, of course. And isn't writing an act of hope and optimism?

ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM IN ARMENIAN LIFE ************************************************* Sometimes I am called a "poet" (meaning a daydreaming imbecile) by our hooligans, and an "intellectual" (meaning a mental masturbator). I should be angry but I am not – especially when I think of the brilliant career opportunities these hooligans missed in the Gestapo or the KGB. # One of the worst mistakes I have made in my life is treating some of my fellow men as if they were human. # If you know how to read, a written lie can be as transparent as a spoken confession. # As solitary creatures, Armenian writers have been perennial victims of political parties and their satellite institutions, all of which have a tendency to divide their fellow Armenians into friends and enemies or yes-men and critics. As for dialogue: who has ever heard of such a thing in an Ottoman or Soviet environment, or, for that matter, in a crypto-Ottoman or neo-Stalinist context?

THEORY AND PRACTICE *********************************** An Armenian is a polyglot who will make an ass of himself in five languages. After bragging about how smart Armenians are he will dismiss his fellow Armenians as jerks and idiots. After boasting about Armenian erudition, he will denigrate the ablest Armenian scholars as hopeless dupes and ignoramuses. An Armenian will demand to be treated with respect but will treat his fellow Armenians with utter contempt and disgust. It must be obvious by now that when an Armenian brags about Armenians, he brags only about himself and he assumes the most convincing way of asserting his superiority is by putting down the competition, meaning everyone else. That’s because if there is only one legitimate king, the rest must be exposed as usurpers. And please note that I am not now talking about our hooligans, of whom we have our share, but our elites, the best and the brightest, la creme de la creme, but only in theory: in practice, la creme de la scum.

A SERMON ON TOLERANCE ************************************ I don't expect agreement from our self-appointed commissars of culture, only tolerance: the kind of tolerance that is accorded to all citizens of a democracy. As for those who accuse me of corrupting the young and misleading the uninformed: if our bosses and bishops have been successful in silencing some of our ablest intellectuals (from Abovian to Zarian), they can have minor scribblers like me for breakfast any time they feel like it; and if so far they have failed to silence me, it may be because they have not yet discovered a way to control the internet. In the meantime, they can always rely on their hirelings and dupes to tear everything I write to shreds and to question my patriotism and sanity.

an intellectual is defined as someone whose aim is to understand reality. the Establishment is defined as those whose aim is to maintain and whenever possible to increase their power. In other words: an intellectual's aim is the truth and a politician's aim is power. Now, power and truth are incompatible concepts. which is why intellectuals have been systematically exterminated under totalitarian regimes. And by the way, just because someone says he is an intellectual it doesn't mean he qualifies as one. Any crook can say i am an honest man and even the devil can quote the Scriptures.

ROLE MODELS ******************************* In America they have their 9/11 heroes and Enron bloodsuckers. We in the Diaspora have our Enron-style bloodsuckers who also happen to be our heroes, national benefactors and role models. # I don't write for friends (no merit in preaching to the converted) but against enemies. Neither do I write against Turks (no merit in promoting hatred of which we have enough not only for Turks but also for fellow Armenians). # In his JOURNAL, Gide quotes a French writer (Jacques Riviere: 1886-1925) as having said: "I was born to write very beautiful things that everyone will hate and no one will want to read." Speaking of himself, Gide writes: "I don't write for the next generation but the one after it." # The famous final words of a comedian to his audience: "I apologize to all those I did not insult." # In the 1992 edition of the LAROUSSE, Narses and Gulbenkian are identified as Armenians, but Saroyan is identified as an "American writer," Adamov as a "French playwright of Russian origin," and Aram Khachatourian as a "Soviet composer." The entry on Talaat ***** ends with the line: "He was assassinated by an Armenian." There is no mention of the Genocide. In the entry on Ataturk (Mustafa Kemal) we read the following: "After his victories over the Armenians, Kurds and Greeks (1920-1922) the Allies recognized the borders of Turkey (1923)."

Wednesday, March 20, 2002 ********************************** 1. I grew up in a ghetto populated by survivors and refugees from the Ottoman Empire. There was less talk of massacres then than there is now, perhaps because these survivors knew better than anyone else what it means to trust their destiny into the hands of ambitious meddlers. 2. To expose a chauvinist as a potential Turk from hell and a self-assessed genius with messianic ambitions as a phony may not be a pleasant task, but someone has to do it. 3. The problem with so-called "good" Armenians is that they think whatever they say, they will have the support and agreement of other good Armenians. What they seem to ignore is that every good Armenian has his own definition of what’s good and evil; every good Armenian is not as good as he think he is, and (3) because he seems to be unaware of these two points, he may even be a damn fool. 4. Whenever an Armenian takes a dislike at another Armenian, he calls him a Turk. It never even occurs to him to ask if Turks would even consider accepting him as one of their own. 5. Confucius says: "Forget injuries; never forget kindness." Armenian translation: "Forget Turks; forget Armenians; be grateful to odars."

QUESTIONS / ANSWERS *********************************** Q: What does it take for a nice Armenian to turn into a Turk from hell? A: Sometimes only a petty misunderstanding or a silly disagreement. Q: What does an Armenian want from another Armenian? A: Speaking for myself, only a touch of civility and the freedom to express my views, which cannot even qualify as demands but are inalienable rights. Q: What did Armenians want from Turks at the turn of the century? A: Armenians together with Greeks, Kurds, Arabs, Russians and the Great Powers of the West wanted the total destruction of the Empire and the partition of all its possessions and territories. Q: How did the Turks react? A: Very much like a nice Armenian who disagrees with a fellow Armenian – except that instead of sharp tongues they used yataghans. Q: How would a nice Armenian react if a fellow Armenian made unreasonable demands on him? A: Like a Turk from hell. Q: Are you saying there is no difference between Armenians and Turks? A: No. I am saying, every nation, even the most civilized, produces its share of fanatics and criminals. To say we are an exception to this rule is racist nonsense.

PATTERNS *********************** At the turn of the century the oppression of the people became an international diplomatic football. Result: the massacre of millions. Now, the massacre itself has become another international diplomatic football. Result: another massacre (white). As politicians (not excepting our own) speak of truth in history and other noble principles and ideals in the name of patriotism, the people perish. That’s the way it has always been and that’s the way it continues to be. Where politicians enter, lies follow, and where patriotism is preached, millions are victimized. And I refuse to believe that there are smart Armenians out there, educated Armenians, Levantine wheeler-dealers and erudite historians who cannot see this.

INTELLECTUALS AND ACADEMICS ****************************************** At the turn of the century we had an intellectual class and no academics; we now have an academic class and no intellectuals. Why this distinction? Allow me to elaborate. Intellectuals are as a rule anti-establishment; by contrast, academics, especially those who are financially dependent on the establishment, are not. Result #1: our academics, or those I call massacrists (Genocide scholars) and medievalists spend more time attacking the competition rather than defending the people’s interests by exposing the incompetence and corruption within our power structures. Intellectuals at the turn of the century and in the decades following the Genocide, including those who were active in politics (like Aghbalian and Vratsian), not to say poets (like Siamanto and Avedik Issahakian), novelists and essayists (like Zohrab and Zabel Yessayan) and humorists (like Odian and Massikian) were much more anti-establishment than our academics today. Result #2: Our hooligans assume the role of commissars of culture, our Oriental carpet dealers wear the mantle of statesmen, and our grandmothers acquire the status of role models, as the people, left to their own devices, opt for exodus from the Homeland and assimilation in the Diaspora (a double "white" massacre), and as our leadership…strike that! What leadership? I search our national horizon and all I see is a no-man’s land of opportunists and their loyal brown-nosing midgets whose central concern is (in the words of Levon *****lian: 1868-1943) "obstructing the path of all those who wish to reform and improve our conditions and thus perpetuate a status quo whose sole aim is their own personal profit and aggrandizement." I should like to see one of our academics produce such a sentence!

DEALING WITH DOUBLE-TALK ************************************** The ultimate message of all our Genocide scholars (be they young, middle aged, old, or more or less competent) is one and the same: to demand honesty from all Genocide deniers by emphasizing the fact that what prevents them (be they Turks, Jews, or Americans) to accept the legitimacy of our Genocide is not ignorance of the facts but dishonesty motivated by self-interest. So far so good. The trouble begins when these very same scholars, after demanding honesty from others, proceed to question the honesty of the competition. My question is: If so far they have failed to reform their fellow Armenians, what are their chances that they will succeed with the world? Can a dozen or even a thousand Dadrians change the mind of a single dishonest Turk, Israeli, or American whose number one concern is number one? Speaking for myself: I have been exposed to so much Armenian double- and sometimes even triple-talk that I no longer believe anything an Armenian tells me.