ara baliozian

Wednesday, January 23, 2002 ******************************** 1. Since theologians have so far (after two millennia) failed to reach a consensus, it is safe to assume that only God is qualified to speak about God. 2. I don't trust the judgment of partisans, politicians, and anyone with political ambitions. In my eyes they might as well be in cahoots with the devil. 3. Most Armenian controversies boil down to: "My lies are better than your truth!" 4. From a distance, difficult to distinguish paper dragon from the real thing – if you believe in dragons. 5. Almost every other Armenian writer alive today has been my friend – until I failed to translate or review his latest masterpiece. 6. What if the spotted owl survived because the dinosaurs didn't? 7. An Armenian will demand your agreement (meaning subservience) even when he contradicts himself. 8. Armenian saying: "It is easy to lust for fame, much harder to achieve greatness." 9. The evil is not Turkish, German, Italian, or Russian fascism; but fascism, period! including Armenian fascism.

SEMI-INTELLECTUALS ***************************** If an Armenian pundit or academic wants to be published in the ARF press he must be very careful to say nothing remotely critical about the ARF’s past, present and future. The same applies to the ADL, AGBU, AAA and the rest of our alphabet soup organizations, power structures, bureaucracies and their satellite cultural institutions. This is one reason why our academics specialize in putting the blame of all our problems on others (Turks, Americans, the opposition, and so on) thus giving the inexperienced reader the impression that our bosses can do no wrong and we are in good hands. Speaking of these academics, Zarian once called them semi-intellectuals. A semi-intellectual may thus be defined as one who specializes in telling only one half of the story not because he doesn't know the other half but because he has no desire to acquire the status of a pariah or a non-person. As Brecht put it once: "Grub first, then ethics."

LATER / January 21, 2002 *********************************** 1. People don't speak of sweet truths and soft facts but of harsh truths and hard facts. Which may explain why some of my tender-hearted readers wish to silence, starve, and even shoot me: that’s their way of expressing a preference for sweet illusions and soft lies. 2. Only fools brag. Decent men are, as a rule, too busy trying to maintain their decency in a crooked world to have any time left to brag. I don't remember to have met a single decent Armenian who bragged about his Armenianism. But I have met quite a few windbags with single-digit IQs who bragged about their moral and intellectual superiority. 3. He who brags will insult and threaten. The secret ambition of every windbag is to be a fire-breathing dragon. 4. Why is it that whenever one of our eminent authors writes an honest book he is eager to inform everyone that it will be published only posthumously?

Monday, January 21, 2002 ***************************** 1. The worst mistake an Armenian can make is to confuse Turkish venom with Armenian voki. 2. What stands between us and solidarity has nothing to do with Armenianism and everything to do with Ottomanism. 3. Men of reason may compromise and reach a consensus. Reason has at no time played a central role in Armenian affairs. 4. To have been victimized by the enemy does not justify victimizing your brother. 5. What if Armenianism as understood and practiced by our bosses and bishops is nothing but sugarcoated Ottomanism? 6. Prejudices are stonewalls erected to obstruct the path of reason. 7. Give an Armenian enough rope and he will cut your throat before he hangs himself.

Sunday, January 20, 2002 *********************************************** 1. A writer's function is to explore the human psyche (beginning with his own) and to expose its frailties. As for singing its many virtues: for everyone who dares to speak the truth, there will be hundreds willing to parrot seductive clichИs in exchange of 30 pieces of silver. 2, Every time a man speaks the truth he makes a thousand enemies; that's because for every bitter truth there are a thousand sweet lies and as many dupes who hate to give up their illusions. 3. An Armenian may tolerate himself more readily if he thinks of himself as a man of principle who loves God and Country, rather than as a fanatic who uses his chauvinism as a license with which to hate anyone who dares to question his infallibility.

INSULTS ************************* The reason why I don't always reply to insults is that, that’s how some of my role models behaved when I insulted them as a teenager; and I have every reason to suspect that’s how those who insult me today will behave too when twenty or thirty years from now they are themselves insulted by smart-ass, loud-mouth, know-it-all hoodlums. To those who say, "I did not insult you, yet you ignored me," I say: Some of the worst insults are unintentional. Such as, when a total ignoramus, and not always a teenager, sincerely believes that he knows better and is thus in a position to disagree with you.

MAXIMS & REFLECTIONS ##################################### The ambition of every Armenian dunghill is to be Mt. Ararat. ### Some people fail only after they achieve success. ### When midgets are in charge, giants become outlaws. ### Memoirs by survivors and novels inspired by the massacres: I am beginning to see them as atrocities by other means. ### The torch of truth burns many asses. ### Someday, a solution that creates more problems will be known as an "Armenian solution." ### What is the penalty for being wrong? If nothing, anyone can say anything he wants. ### To ignore or cover up our problems is also to reject in advance all possible solutions. ### The rich are swine. Even as I curse my fate, I thank God for making me poor. ### Rude people are easily offended by imagined insults. ### In a democracy, truth is not a source of terror because it can be easily buried beneath an avalanche of harmless half-truths and pleasant lies. ### We will mature as a nation only when we take ideas as seriously as money. ### To be easily satisfied with one’s own arguments is an unmistakable symptom of mediocrity compounded by narcissism.. ### I like to read a writer who is not infatuated with the sound of his own voice. ### Here is a good subtitle for a book on the history of Armenian literature: "From Casting Pearls Before Swine to Sticking Pins into Swollen Egos." ### A man who is his own worst enemy cannot be anyone’s friend. ### From nature’s point of view, chastity is a far more dangerous sexual perversion than all the others put together. ### Emigration, alienation, assimilation, assassination: they too may be said to be manifestations of criticism and dissent. ### At this point in our career as a nation we have a choice between two sets of leaders: the bloodsuckers and the charlatans. Let’s hope and pray we will make the right choice. ### Show me a man who is an expert on any given subject and I will show you an Armenian.

Armenian Quotations ----------------------------- Anonymous: "The less you speak the more you hear." *** Arshak Chobanian: "Leaders with a warm heart and a cool head: that’s what we need; that’s what all nations need." *** Raffi: "If you want to save your fellow men you must be prepared to be crucified by them." *** Hovannes Toumanian: "You must burn in order to enlighten." *** Daniel Varoujan: "The fuller the pocket the emptier the heart." *** Djivani: "Solidarity can move mountains." *** Raffi: "There is a school of thought that asserts our identity has a better chance to survive in a land of backward barbarians. There is some truth in that. Savages exterminate by massacre. Civilized people employ more civilized means to achieve the same end." *** Anonymous: "You can always count on a rich man’s head to be as empty as an honest man’s pocket." *** Khachik Ishkhanian: "Why climb to the top if what awaits you is the abyss?" *** Anonymous: "A thousand friends are too few, one enemy is too many." *** Raffi: "Even those among us who have taken it upon themselves to educate the people are nothing but uneducated ignoramuses." *** Krikor Zohrab: "Oppression corrupts everything it touches, including the highest moral virtues." *** Yeznig Palig: "A hungry vegetarian can be as dangerous as any carnivore." *** Derenik Demirjian: "Every Armenian has another Armenian whom he considers his mortal enemy." *** Anonymous: "The drowning man has no fear of rain." *** Ruben Ter-Minassian: "Our cultural achievements and intellectual abilities may be superior to those of our neighbors, but without solidarity we are bound to be defeated, victimized, and exterminated." *** Anonymous: "Sugar may be sweet but bread is better." *** Yeghishe: "Solidarity is the mother of good deeds, divisiveness of evil ones." *** Neshan Beshigtashlian: "Suicide: the brave deed of a coward." *** Puzant Granian: "We have many national benefactors but not a single national writer." *** Anonymous: "In his own home a mouse is a lion." *** Anonymous: "Patience is a tough tree that bears sweet fruit." *** Avedik Issahakian: "The rich reap the fruit, the poor pluck the thorn." *** Hagop Baronian: "Shamelessness: A crossroads that will take you anywhere." *** Anonymous: "A clear conscience is a soft pillow." *** Yeghia Demirjibashian: "Ethics: Thou shalt not have two homes and two faces." *** Vahram Papazian: "The greater your worth the greater the pleasure of the worthless to tear you down." *** Anonymous: "Little men take pleasure in inflating little things to big things." *** Yeznik Palik: "Church: a shop that sells soap for sins." *** Vahram Papazian: "To be indifferent to crime is to conspire with criminals." *** Anonymous: "The avaricious person is tormented by greed for more and fear of less." *** Anonymous: "Trust a new friend as much as you would trust an old enemy." *** Anonymous: "Only God gives without expecting anything in return." *** Anonymous: "If you say what you want to say, you will hear what you don't want to hear."

Quotations From Karekin Nejdeh (1886-1957) *************************************************** 1. The morally depraved can also voice noble principles. 2. Life is constant and endless renewal. Only the morally irresponsible refuse to understand this. 3. Without renewal, a nation dies every hour, every minute. Our political parties either don't understand this or they have no desire to understand it. 4. A nation that fails to do what it can and must do has no right to expect foreign assistance. 5. Nations that are unwilling to defend their own interests condemn themselves to death. 6. When dealing with foreign powers and issues, our press adopts a permissive, forgiving, and subservient tone. With our own internal problems, however, it becomes arrogant, vindictive, vicious. 7. Life is endless renewal. Where there is no renewal there will be spiritual paralysis and a slow death. 8. It is the height of ignorance for a political party to think that it can deny the value of morality in its own conduct and maintain moral integrity within its ranks. 9. To struggle in defense of what is right is not a calamity but a blessing. 10. Undermining the morality of a nation amounts to undermining its strength.

From Gostan Zarian's Notebooks, Diaries, & Conversations ************************************************* Beirut / April 1954 Rain. Went to Antelias with Father Shahen and Shahan Berberian. I told them, the Armenian church has become another shop. April 6, 1954 Dinner with Shahen Vartabed and Shahan Berberian. Old memories, new hopes. Shahan understands a little of everything. Generally speaking, the Armenian atmosphere is stifling. Salzburg / December 12, 1956 Everywhere Mozart, Mozart, Mozart. He has become a source of revenue, he who was buried in a paupers’ grave. Vienna / March 14, 1957 For a number of years now, we have been living like monks. Once in a while a play or a concert, nothing else. I don't see any Armenians, which is no great loss. Vienna / April 5, 1957 We must oppose the concept of art as entertainment. Art must be a mission and a destiny. One must be more than an artist. Florence / November 26, 1957 Dinner with Mrs. Mann-Borgese [Thomas Mann’s daughter]. Long conversations about literature and her father. I didn't know that Thomas Mann’s mother was a Brazilian and he had thus a dual sensibility: German and Latin. Mrs. Mann-Borgese is herself a talented woman and the author of many essays. She can't be said to be a great beauty, but is endowed with qualities far superior to beauty: a graceful bearing and a high degree of intelligence *** Five months now that I have not seen a single Armenian newspaper. So much the better. The only thing that connects me to my fellow Armenians is the language. April 1958 We always forget that what interests us is not the nation itself but our conception of it. (My case.) Yerevan / 1961-1969 God created the world, but the Dutch created Holland. Armenians would have done the same if they had not relied too much on others. *** With us, the emphasis is on cunning: a character trait of slaves, devoid of creative impetus, never a source of strength. *** Dante once wrote to a friend: "I found the prototype of my Inferno right here where I now live." *** "The world is an opinion," Marcus Aurelius tells us. *** We are like the stars, divided by infinite spaces. By obliterating the physical dimension, death (and here is its beauty) obliterates these spaces too. *** It has been the destiny of all great men to be belittled by little men. *** Greater wisdom imposes a greater strain upon a man. *** For an authentic writer nothing can be as easy as being difficult; and nothing can be as difficult as being easy. "Make it simple," Oscar Wilde once wrote to a friend from jail, "otherwise I will think you have nothing to hide." That which is simple has many layers of meaning. Simplicity is like the skin that covers muscles, nerves, and all the other secrets of the body. That which is difficult has nothing to say. When you finally unravel its mysteries you discover it is devoid of all sense. And those who praise this kind of writing are either simple-minded dupes or cunning operators whose hidden motives have nothing to do with literature. *** It has been observed that persecuted minorities tend to cling to second-hand verities and to consider material possessions as the greatest boon. *** The Armenian communities of the Diaspora are dominated by shopkeepers, pseudo-intellectuals, and clergymen. A miscellaneous crew of rascals with fat bellies and swollen egos. There you have the nucleus around which our collective existence revolves. This indeed ought to be the central issue of our literature of the Diaspora.

Thursday, January 17, 2002 *********************************** 1. If I repeat myself, what about our sermonizers and speechifiers? When was the last time anyone heard them deliver a single original line? 2. In Herman Melville I come across a new word: "sultanism," meaning the exercise of authority with a touch of sadistic pleasure. 3. Nothing nauseates me as much as hearing someone repeating the very same lies that I believed in twenty or thirty years ago. 4. When one of Moliere's characters first delivered the line "A knowledgeable fool is a greater fool than an ignorant!" he no doubt alienated several members of the audience. That's the problem with good lines: they tend to alienate self-satisfied jackasses. 5. To those who find me unreadable, I say: "You obviously have a problem which I will be happy to solve: stop reading me." 6. After silencing our ablest writers and promoting partisan mediocrities, these very same mediocrities are encouraged to publish articles in which they blame the decline of our literature on an indifferent public. 7. A mediocrity will be subservient to any regime or power structure that gives him a regular salary, or a title, or a uniform, or the license to persecute better men than himself there it is: the root of our sultanism.

LATER [16 January, 2002] *********************************** 1. All Armenians are my brothers but only in the sense that all men are my brothers but only in the sense that Cain was Abel's brother. 2. Faith can remove only those mountains that were raised by our own fears, ignorance, and prejudices. 3. Never judge an Armenian as an Armenian but as a human being. As a rule, Armenians who insist on being judged as Armenians use the flag to hide their true colors. 4. Identity is revealed not only in what we say, but also in what we choose not to say. To the discerning ear, silence can speak louder than a thousand speeches delivered by a thousand stentorian speechifiers. 5. Great nations need big lies; small nations need bigger lies. 6. There are many kinds of dupes, but the worst are those who are easily seduced by the strength of their own arguments. 7. There is common sense and there is common humbug and it is not always easy to tell them apart.

Wednesday, January 16, 2002 *********************************** Speaking of the coup that toppled him, Gorbachev had this to say in a recent interview: "They did it because their time was up, and they couldn't agree to that. They wanted to prolong being in power and keep it." This is what all ideologies boil down to: lust for power. On the one hand you have Marx who had no power and harmed no one; and on the other, Stalin who murdered millions in the name of Marxism. It is the same with religions. First comes Jesus. Then the Inquisition, religious wars, and the Pope saying no to contraceptives. Imagine Jesus getting involved in the bedrooms of the nation. We are told he befriended whores. Can you imagine the Pope inviting whores to the Vatican? Signing a concordat with Hitler, yes! Shaking hands with a whore, never! And now closer to home, consider our own divisions: our bosses and bishops will tell you that their disagreements are ideological or doctrinal, and there will always be naОve souls who will believe them. But I for one feel fully justified in calling them charlatans whose number one concern is "to prolong being in power and keep it," and to hell with the welfare of the community and the integrity of the nation.

LATER / 15 January, 2002 ****************************** 1. After reading one of my things, an old friend writes: "I am glad you continue to be a patriotic Armenian." I don't have the heart to tell him that I loathe patriotism. I love honest men and loathe charlatans regardless of nationality; and some of the worst charlatans I have met are Armenian patriots. 2. I have several patriotic readers who operate on the assumption that I am always wrong and they are always right, but they continue to read me for the simple pleasure of asserting their infallibility. 3. There are those who think that which is (or the status quo) has been defined by powers beyond our control (God, history, the invisible forces of the universe), and our only option is to understand and accept it as an inevitable fact of life, very much like death and taxes. Whereas I think the status quo is a colossal blunder committed by sadistic morons and incompetent fools and our only option is to correct it.

Tuesday, January 15, 2002 ******************************* 1. I am not paid to lie. Would I lie for 30 pieces of silver? That remains to be seen. But if I ever change my tune, please feel free to doubt my honesty. 2, Their holocaust produced many brilliant humorists. Our Genocide only one or two. 3. Imagine a sardine in a pool of sharks. Imagine an honest partisan. 4. After making himself as hateful as he possibly can, an Armenian will accuse you of hating Armenians. 5. My father was a law-abiding citizen. He never said a word against anyone. No, not even Turks. He kept to himself. He kept his distance. He didn't see anything wrong in that. Neither did I. Subservience comes naturally to all Armenians. But they don't call it subservience. They call it good citizenship. They call it respect for authority.

PARTISANS AND PREACHERS ************************************** 1. We are afraid of the unknown, so we invent a god whom we call our father; and when things go wrong, we put the blame on ourselves √ or rather: those who make a living by preaching the word of god, blame it on man▓s sinful disposition and loss of faith. A win-win situation for the preachers; a lose-lose situation for the victims. 2. In a recent issue of HORIZON (an Armenian-language ARF publication in Montreal), I read the following (I quote/translate from memory): "No one denies that Armenian literature of the Diaspora is in deep crisis, and what▓s even worse, this is not seen as a subject worthy of discussion┘.The loss of our literary and cultural profile must be seen as a symptom of other losses, among them, the loss of our identity." The writer of these lines is a member of the ARF whose survival depends on asserting the infallibility of the Party. But a member of the ARF writing about the demise of Armenian literature is equivalent to a member of the Communist Party writing about the decline of Russian literature in the Soviet era. 3. Elsewhere, in the same issue of HORIZON, I read: "We must not lose faith in man and that which is divine in man." There you have it: the identification of a partisan with a preacher. 4. According to our partisans: the decline of our literature must be seen as a result of our loss of faith in that which is divine in man, and not in their contempt for free speech and dissent. Writers are to blame, not the Party.

Monday, January 14, 2002 ********************************* 1. Perhaps I should warn my readers that I don't write as a writer, or as an Armenian, or for that matter, as that most contemptible of all beings: an Armenian writer. Once upon a time I did write as an Armenian writer -- a nightmarish experience I wouldn't wish on a Turk. I write instead as a human being who happens to be an Armenian √ a condition and an identity imposed on me by circumstances beyond my control. 2. Again and again I have to deal with Armenians (and I don't mean average joes but doctors, lawyers, and academics) who insult, threaten, and bully me and call it criticism. To how many of them I could say: "I have worked for Armenians long enough to know the difference between a critic and a commissar of culture, or, for that matter, between a commissar of culture and an executioner; and you, my good friend, are neither a critic nor a commissar!" And to those who blame it all on our Ottoman or Soviet background, I say: "My own experience tells me, there are no good guys and bad guys, only bad guys, worse guys, and their victims. If you want to change the world, begin with yourself and may the Good Lord (if He exists) have mercy on your soul (if you have one). Amen!"

SUNDAY AFTERNOON [13 January, 2002] *********************************************** 1. People who ignore good advice have no right to say "What was bound to happen, happened!" or "It was written!" or "It was God's will!" 2. It is an unfortunate fact that some people tend to confuse kindness and civility with weakness. I hate rude people and I hate being rude. But what I hate even more is being intimidated or shouted down by morally superior scumbags and smart-ass imbeciles. 3. Patriotic poetry has as much appeal to me as patriotic music, patriotic art, and patriotic science. Frankly, I'd rather watch a TV commercial than read our patriotic poets at least TV commercials seldom last more than a few seconds. 4. There is money in flattering idiots, especially wealthy idiots. There is no money in calling them idiots. That's why Socrates bragged about his poverty. 5. I wish I were a good actor so that I could drive my enemies nuts by pretending to love them.

Sunday, January 13, 2002 ***************************** We are all brought up (I prefer, brainwashed) to believe either God, reason, or the majority is on our side. What we are not told is that we can't all be right and it is much more probable that we are all wrong. Even a so-called majority (when real) may be ephemeral or based on an illusion or misconceptions. Think of the Romans versus Christians, Nazis versus inferior races, Stalinists versus dissidents. And closer to come, consider the situation of our revolutionaries in the Ottoman Empire who thought they had reason, God, and the Great Powers on their side. And consider the situation of the ARF today: a member of the ARF or any other political party for that matter is brought up to believe reason is on his side. He reads the ARF press, he frequents ARF community centers and participates in ARF activities, he is exposed to the ARF version of our recent past, and is thus convinced the majority is or should be on his side and anyone who disagrees with him is at best a second-class Armenian, perhaps even an enemy that should be silenced, and whenever political conditions permit it, shot. In short: the world is populated by morally superior scumbags and smart-ass imbeciles who oppress and murder in the name of God, Truth, Reason, and a majority that is only a projection of their own arrogance and stupidity. To those who say: What about you? Are you always right? My answer is: I have spent the second part of my life proving the first half wrong, and I can only hope that there will never come a time when I will say ignorance is better than knowledge, or violations of human rights morally superior to respect for human rights, or fascism is better than democracy.

Saturday, January 12, 2002 *********************************** In a recent interview in the NEW YORK TIMES, and speaking of the characters of his latest film, THE TOWN IS QUIET, Robert Guediguian is quoted as having said: Most of them have no real concept of the world. They go step by step, struggling, without thinking of the big picture. They have lost their sense of direction and their beliefs. But how can one live without some plan, some sort of hope for the future?" To those who accuse me of spreading despair, I say: only at the spectacle of those who accept the status quo as an inevitable fact of life and those who have become virtuosos in the performance of the blame game: they blame the massacres on the Turks, the exodus on the earthquake and the war in Karabagh, and our high alienation/assimilation rate on socio-cultural-historical conditions beyond our control. As for our tribalism, Philistinism, dogmatism, and above all, contempt for free speech and selfless intellectual labor: we don't even like mentioning them and those who do are dismissed as enemies.

Friday, January 11, 2002 ***************************** 1. Once in a while I am tempted to remind my fellow Armenians that there is more, much more, to being Armenian than Turks and massacres. 2. One reason why I prefer to write more about Armenians than Turks is that Turks are beyond my reach. But I am beginning to realize that the more I write about Armenians the greater the distance grows between us; and I can already see the day when that distance will be almost the same as that which exists between Turks and me. 3, More often than not our disagreements are not between two conflicting ideas but between an idea and nothing, and I consider recycled propaganda less than nothing. 4. When you voice an idea to someone who doesn't have any of his own, he is sure not only to disagree with you but also to resent you. 5. To a philistine, the aim of an idea is to act as a placebo, and the aim of a writer is to be a source of reassurance. Any idea or writer that upsets the carefully arranged apple cart of recycled crap should be silenced and starved, and whenever possible, beheaded or shot. 6. We blabber so much about the Ottoman massacres that we completely ignore our own massacre of ideas.

Thursday, January 10, 2002 ********************************** 1. In his NAKED LUNCH, William Burroughs quotes a doctor saying: "Baboons always attack the weakest party in an altercation. Quite right too. We must never forget our glorious simian heritage." 2. A biologist friend once said to me: "You don't need psychology, philosophy, sociology or anthropology to understand and explain Armenians: all you need is zoology." 3. In his efforts to explain the actions of a philandering husband (I read in today's paper) a lawyer is said to have made references to man's "primal instincts, comparing his actions to animal behavior." 4. What undermines the integrity of Oshagan's work is the fact that he could be very critical, even merciless, towards his fellow writers -- "in his presence, young writers trembled with fear," I was told once by an octogenarian -- but as far as I know, he never wrote a single critical line against our bosses, bishops, benefactors, or anyone else who could be a potential source of income. To rationalize Oshagan's conduct by saying, as a product of his time and place, he couldn't have done otherwise, I say: What about writers like Raffi, Voskan, Baronian, Odian, Zarian, Shahnour and Massikian, among others, who resisted the temptation of behaving like baboons and chose instead to behave as human beings even if it meant paying a heavy price for their honesty.

CURSES *********************** 1. May you be the only wise man in a crowd of smart-ass loud-mouth know-it-alls. 2. May you be the only vegetarian in a village of hungry cannibals. 3. May you be the only sane man in an asylum for the insane. 4. May you be the only honest man in a gang of crooks. 5. May your son (or daughter) be an Armenian poet. 6. May your son (or daughter) be an honest Armenian writer! 7. May you have only one friend and may that friend be an Armenian.

LATER / ............ ******************************************** 1. Anyone who has any power over another will use it; and anyone who uses power will abuse it. If there are any rules without exceptions, this must surely be one of them. 2. Ignorance is a luxury only the very lucky can afford. 3. Love your enemy? Impossible. Force yourself to love that which you hate and you will end up hating even yourself. 4. The higher you climb the more anatomy you expose, and the more vulnerable you become. What could be easier than rising to the top? What could be harder than staying there? 5. The more logical the brain the more irrational the heart. 6. When it comes to our partisans, my motto is similar to that of the American pundit who said: "I never vote: it only encourages them." 7. Have you noticed that an Armenian who is a faithful member of a political party feels fully qualified to criticize everything under the sun, including the Good Lord Himself, but not – never! -- his own party? 8. My epitaph: "Here lies a born loser who wasted his life writing for perennial losers whose favorite illusion was to think of themselves as morally invincible."

Wednesday, January 09, 2002 *********************************** Armenian literature has been doubly oppressed by foreign sultans and commissars as well domestic bosses, bishops, benefactors and their flunkies. In America, foreign oppression has been replaced with American apathy, which can be as deadly as any yataghan or bullet in the neck. Knowing this our partisans and panchoonies have done nothing to counteract it. On the contrary, they have used it as another weapon in their arsenal. Their unspoken but unmistakable message: "You either kiss ass or we let you twist slowly in the wind of American apathy." Hence the sudden decline, not to say death, of Armenian literature. At the turn of the century in Istanbul we had Baronian, Odian, Varoujan, Oshagan, Zabel Yessayan, Indra, Arpiarian, Medzarents, Roupen Sevag, Siamanto, Chobanian, Zarian, and many others. And now, we don't even have a single writer born and raised in America who can even write a single decent sentence in the Armenian language. What the Turks failed to do in six centuries our own gravediggers succeeded in doing in less than six decades.