MJ

Azeri, Armenian presidents to resume talks in June By Jane Sutton KEY WEST, Fla., April 6 (Reuters) - The presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia made excellent progress in peace talks over the Nagorno-Artsax region which ended in Florida on Friday, international mediators said. "We are much closer to peace than we were before this conference," said Ambassador Jean-Jacques Gaillarde, who headed the French mediating team at the talks in Key West. "We achieved more progress here than we had expected," said Special Ambassador Carey Cavanaugh, who headed the U.S. delegation to the talks. The mediators said a new round of talks would be held in Geneva in June. They refused to discuss specifics except to say Azeri President Haydar Aliyev and Armenian President Robert Kocharyan were committed to "mutual compromise" and to strengthening the fragile cease-fire agreement reached in 1994 in the oil-rich Nagorno-Artsax region at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. The U.S., French and Russian mediators, acting under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), are preparing "a new comprehensive proposal for peace" to be discussed in Geneva, Cavanaugh said. Aliyev and Kocharyan will leave on Sunday for Washington, where they will meet separately with President George W. Bush, the mediators and the White House said. A senior administration official said Bush invited the presidents of the two former Soviet states to Washington to "show our respect for their efforts." Aliyev and Kocharyan have met more than a dozen times in two years to hammer out a resolution to the conflict. The Key West meeting at the "Little White House" where President Harry Truman vacationed marked the first time the three OSCE mediators had met with both presidents in the same place. The format, which included separate meetings with the two presidents around Truman's mahogany poker table, proved so successful it will be repeated in Geneva, the negotiators said. "This format that we have launched here is a prescription for advancement that has never existed before in this conflict," Cavanaugh said. "We are farther along today on an agreement for a possible peace than we have ever been." Nearly 35,000 people have died and 800,000 have been displaced in the conflict over the Nagorno-Artsax territory, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but controlled by ethnic Armenian separatists since the late 1980s. War broke out in 1988 when the region tried to secede from Azerbaijan and unite with Armenia. A truce was agreed in 1994 but about 200 people are killed each year by land mines and snipers, destabilizing Azerbaijan, a country the United States hopes will become a major oil source for Western markets. Items on the table during the Key West talks included the presence of Armenian forces in the disputed region, trade blockades that have crippled the region's economy, the resettlement of refugees left homeless by the war, and how much autonomy the Nagorno-Artsax region should have. "There is still a lot of work to do before we have a peace agreement," Gaillarde said at the close of the talks.

quote:Originally posted by Sulamita: Oh Martin, self-confidence is not what I lack Its just that sometimes I find the "Armenian" and the "Homosapian" inside me going head to head But things are improving with time ... its a constant maturation process Thanx for the offer though Dear Aneta, When the "Armenian" and the "Homo Sapian" in you go head-to-head, let the "Homo Sapian" prevail. Keep processing mature constancy. P.S. By the way, from the way it sounds, it seems like "Homo Sapian" is Armenian, too. What's the problem? [ April 06, 2001: Message edited by: MJ ]

Bush to meet Azeri, Armenia leaders Monday WASHINGTON, April 6 (Reuters) - The leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia, in Florida this week for peace talks over the war-torn Nagorno-Artsax region, will meet U.S. President George W. Bush next week, the White House said on Friday. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush would meet Azeri President Haydar Aliyev and Armenian President Robert Kocharyan separately at the White House on Monday afternoon. Fleischer did not say what the president hoped to accomplish in the meetings, or if they were related to the peace talks. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell traveled to Key West on Tuesday to launch the latest bid for peace in the remote Nagorno-Artsax region. U.S., French and Russian negotiators said on Wednesday they had serious and open meetings with Aliyev and Kocharyan, although they would not go into any details of the talks. Aliyev and Kocharyan have met more than a dozen times in two years to hammer out a peaceful resolution to the conflict in the oil-rich region at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. The summit in Florida was organized by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is chaired by the United States, Russia and France. Nearly 35,000 people have died and an estimated 800,000 have been displaced in the conflict over the Nagorno-Artsax territory, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but controlled by ethnic Armenian separatists since the late 1980s. A truce was agreed in 1994 but about 200 people are killed each year by land mines and snipers, destabilizing Azerbaijan, a country the United States hopes will become a major exporter of oil to Western markets.

Title: History of the Nagorno-Artsax Conflict Date Released: March 30, 2001 Source: U.S. Department of State In the late l8th century, several khanates, including Artsax, emerged in the south Caucasus to challenge the waning influence of the Ottoman Empire. After the Russian Empire eventually took control over the region in 1813, Azerbaijani Turks began to emigrate from Artsax while the Armenian population of mountainous (nagorno)Artsax grew. With the 1917 Russian Revolution, Azerbaijan and Armenia each declared independence and sought control over Artsax during the Russian Civil War. In 1923, after the Bolshevik takeover of the Caucasus, Nagorno-Artsax (NK) was made an autonomous region within the Azerbaijani Soviet Republic. Soviet control temporarily quieted ethnic tensions. By the 1980s, NK's population was about 75% ethnic Armenian, with most Azerbaijanis living in the district and city of Susha. During the glasnost of the late 1980s, there was a push for a change in NK's status. In 1988, Armenian demonstrations against Azerbaijani rule broke out in both NK and Armenia, and the NK Supreme Soviet voted to secede from Azerbaijan. In 1990, after violent episodes in NK, Baku, and Sumgait, Moscow declared a state of emergency in NK, sent troops to the region and forcibly occupied Baku. In April 1991, Azerbaijani militia and Soviet forces targeted Armenian paramilitaries operating in NK; Moscow also deployed troops to Yerevan. However, in September 1991 Moscow declared it would no longer support Azerbaijani military action in N-K. Armenian militants then stepped up the violence. In October 1991, a referendum in N-K approved independence. The violence increased dramatically after the withdrawal of Soviet troops. Over 30,000 people were killed in the fighting from 1992 to 1994. In May 1992, Armenian and Artsaxi forces seized Susha (the historical, Azerbaijani-populated capital of the region) and Lachin (thereby linking NK to Armenia). By October 1993 Armenian and Artsaxi forces eventually succeeded in occupying almost all of NK, Lachin and large areas in southwestern Azerbaijan. As Armenian and Artsaxi forces advanced, hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijani refugees fled to other parts of Azerbaijan. In 1993 the UN Security Council adopted resolutions calling for the cessation of hostilities, unimpeded access for international humanitarian relief efforts, and the eventual deployment of a peacekeeping force in the region. The UN also called for immediate withdrawal of all ethnic Armenian forces from the occupied territories of Azerbaijan. Fighting continued,however, until May 1994 when Russia brokered a cease-fire.

REDNECK FATHER AND SON A redneck family from the hills was visiting the city and they were in a mall for the first time in their life. The father and son were strolling around while the wife shopped. They were amazed by almost everything they saw, but especially by two shiny silver walls that could move apart and then slide back together again. The boy asked, "Paw, What's 'at?" The father responded, "Son, I dunno. I ain't never seen anything like that in my entire life, I ain't got no idea'r what it is." While the boy and his father were watching with amazement, a fat old lady in a wheel chair rolled up to the moving walls and pressed a button. The walls opened and the lady rolled between them into a small room. The walls closed and the boy and his father watched the small circular numbers above the walls light up sequentially. They continued to watch until it reached the last number and then the numbers began to light in the reverse order. Then the walls opened up again and a gorgeous, voluptuous 24-year-old blonde woman stepped out. The father, not taking his eyes off the young woman, said quietly to his son, "Boy, go git yo Momma...."

PREGNANCY Q & A Q: Should I have a baby after 35? A: No, 35 children is enough. Q: I'm two months pregnant now. When will my baby move? A: With any luck, right after he finishes college. Q: What is the most common pregnancy craving? A: For men to be the ones who get pregnant. Q: What is the most reliable method to determine a baby's sex? A: Childbirth. Q: The more pregnant I get, the more often strangers smile at me. Why? A: 'Cause you're fatter than they are. Q: My wife is five months pregnant and so moody that sometimes she's borderline irrational. A: So what's your question? Q: My childbirth instructor says it's not pain I'll feel during labor, but pressure. Is she right? A: Yes, in the same way that a tornado might be called an air current. Q: When is the best time to get an epidural? A: Right after you find out you're pregnant. Q: Is there any reason I have to be in the delivery room while my wife is in labor? A: Not unless the word "alimony" means anything to you. Q: Is there anything I should avoid while recovering from childbirth? A: Yes, pregnancy. Q: Do I have to have a baby shower? A: Not if you change the baby's diaper very quickly. Q: Our baby was born last week. When will my wife begin to feel and act normal again? A: When the kids are in college.

Thanks for the topic, Raffi. Let me start from the most innocent part, please. Armenian names/surnames are too long and hard for the foreigners to pronounce. Additionally I, personally, don't find long names/surnames esthetically appealing. When my children were born, I had not even a slightest thought that I may some day move out of Armenia. But before the birth of our children, my wife and me have been searching for a month or so as to find short names for our coming children. Eventually, the only names that we found, which could be spelled in four letters (no cynical remarks from the fellow American- Armenians, please ) no matter in what language and the sound of them would esthetically satisfy us, were outside the Armenian realm. So our children are named with names which might be considered universal by some measures. This comment of mine is just a side note for the topic raised. As I know, you are pursuing explanations of other dimensions of the observed phenomenon. [ April 06, 2001: Message edited by: MJ ]

Ara, this is an incredibly correct observation. However, it is good, in my view. It raises the plank. Imagine that the "local" appreciation was enough. In that case, the entire Armenian Art would've reduced to painting Mt. Ararat, the entire Armenian poetry and literature would've reduced to "Menk kich enk baits hay enk," etc. Hovhanness Toumanyan writes in one of his publicistic articles that "If Ayvazovski had lived in Armenia, under the best scenario he would've become a local precinct teacher (giughakan themi varzhapaet)." By "living in Armenia" I don't think it has to be understood geographically, but embracing and limiting to the local set of values and and criteria. The same concerns Diaspora. Spending most of my life in Armenia, I have found that indeed "No one is prophet in his own country," which is good. This is a challenge to meet, and this is a vehicle of progress. However, the negative part of it, as also observed by you above, is that with all this, everybody else looks "barbarian" to us, and we find that "when we had theater, others were walking on the trees." This is the troubling part of Armenian upbringing. The two approaches, in fact, contradict to each other. No surprise, right? We are controversial people, in general. We forget that the entire Armenian Culture is a derivative of the eastern and western cultural mix. We forget that even Mesrop Mashtots had to spend few years in Alexandria, so that to invent our alphabet. We forget that the crux of the Golden Age of Armenian Culture is a mere Armenization of the Hellenic Philosophical Thought. There is nothing wrong with being a derivative culture. That's what most of the cultures are. The problem is the ignorance, and the problem is the absolutisation of the mediocrity. Now imagine that it was not the case that you had to be recognized by the "odars" first, so that to be recognized by the fellow Armenians. The result would've been such garbage in the areas of Armenian Art, Science, and Culture, in general.

Understanding The Incomprehensible Hagop Oshagan says somewhere that no one understands the Turks as well as we do because no one has shared their existence for six centuries as we have. But do we really understand the Turks? Can we be objective about them? Can a victim be objective about his tormentor? Though I have not myself been victimized by the Turks, I am the offspring of survivors and for every line that says Turks are nice folk (written mostly by Turcophiles and tourists), I have been exposed to ten thousand lines saying they are bloodthirsty savages. I suspect Oshagan was wrong? We may know the Turks better than anyone else but we dont understand them; and we dont understand them because we dont even understand one another. Oshagan himself conceded as much when he said (speaking of Gostan Zarian): "East-Armenians will never understand us!" (and by us he meant Istanbulized or Ottomanized Armenians); and to think that these two (Oshagan and Zarian) were close friends who collaborated on many projects together, among them the publication of a literary periodical. Do we understand the Turks? Can we understand them? Is our hatred of them racist? Speaking for myself, I dont mind pleading guilty as charged with extenuating circumstances. Let me dramatize this point by recalling a conversation I once had with a Jewish friend. "I may have six million reasons to hate the Germans," he said, "but I dont hate them. I may hate the erpetrators but not the German nation as a whole; neither am I prejudiced against German culture which I consider as one of the greatest achievements of mankind". To which I remember to have replied: "Suppose the Germans said the Holocaust never happened and it is a figment of your imagination. Suppose they went further and said it was the Jews who tried to exterminate the Germans. And suppose too they said Hitler and Himmler were great heroes and they raised monuments to their memory in Berlin. How would you feel about them and their culture?" He said nothing. End of conversation; and, alas, end of friendship too. Don't get me wrong. I am all for negotiating with the Turks. I am all for compromising too if it leads to coming to terms with them. I am for these things even if it means disqualifying myself as a negotiator. Yes, by all means, if I had any say in the matter, I would prefer an outsider to represent me in all future talks. If we want to understand the Turks, we must be objective about them. If we want to be objective, we must shed our image as victims. Likewise, if we want to come to terms with them, we must negotiate. But we cannot negotiate as long as we call them Asiatic barbarians. Instead, we must view them as fellow human beings, the way we view Americans, Russians and Germans, all of whom adopted and implemented genocidal policies towards helpless and innocent minorities. We must do these things for another and a far more important reason than coming to terms with the Turks, and that is, coming to terms with one another and ultimately with ourselves. Only then may we emerge from our stage of tribal stagnation and achieve national solidarity. I suggest what has prevented us from understanding the Turks so far is the fear of discovering that we are not much different from them; and given the chance, we would have done to them what they did to us. When someone said to Hemingway, "The rich are different from us", he replied: "Yes, they have more money". Perhaps the only difference between the Turks and us is power: the power to commit genocide and the power to cover it up. Perhaps one reason we have failed to come to terms with the Turks so far is that, what we have been looking for is a "power" solution: as victims, our first and most important priority has been getting even, revenge, justice, call it what you will. And since we are powerless to do the job, we keep hoping the Russians or the Americans or both will be converted to seeing things our way and will say to the Turks: "You either accede to all Armenian demands or we isolate and strangle you". At the turn of the century, we relied on the West to save us. At the turn of the millennium, we are singing the same refrain. The question we must ask at this point is: "What have we learned?" Because even as I write, we are experiencing another genocide on two fronts (exodus from the Homeland and assimilation in the Diaspora). Does the world care? What are the Russians and Americans doing? Do they care? Even more to the point: Do we care? As always, I have more questions than answers. Ara Baliozian

Key West peace talks called serious, open By Jane Sutton KEY WEST, Fla., April 4 (Reuters) - U.S., French and Russian negotiators said on Wednesday they had serious and open meetings with the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan during a Florida summit to work toward peace in the war-torn Nagorno-Artsax region. "The talks are taking place in a good atmosphere of openness, of seriousness," said Ambassador Jean-Jacques Gaillarde, the head of the French delegation. "I think the discussions today have been very concrete," said Ambassador Carey Cavanaugh, who leads the U.S. delegation. But the substance of the peace talks, in their second day on the subtropical island at the southern tip of Florida, was kept strictly confidential. The negotiators vaguely described meetings that lasted until 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday, then resumed on Thursday, spreading through every room of Harry Truman's "Little White House" and spilling into the gardens of the former presidential retreat, where the talks are taking place. Azeri President Haydar Aliyev and Armenian President Robert Kocharyan have met more than a dozen times in two years to hammer out a peaceful resolution to the conflict in the oil-rich region at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. They are meeting again in Florida under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is chaired by the United States, Russia and France. Nearly 35,000 people have died and around 800,000 have been displaced in the conflict over the Nagorno-Artsax territory, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but controlled by ethnic Armenian separatists since the late 1980s. A truce was agreed in 1994 but about 200 people are killed each year by land mines and snipers, destabilizing Azerbaijan, a country the United States hopes will become a major exporter of oil to Western markets. COMPROMISES NECESSARY TO ACHIEVE PEACE Cavanaugh said the face-to-face meetings of the two presidents had made it increasingly clear to them that they will have to make compromises to achieve peace, something their populations may not be ready to accept. Though the mediators have played a growing role in the negotiations, they were adamant that no solution could be imposed. Russia, which has a defense relationship with Armenia, "is not going to use any kind of arm-twisting tactics," said Viacheslav Trubnikov, first deputy foreign minister and head of Russia's delegation. "The keys to the solution of the conflict are in the hands of Azerbaijan and Armenia," Trubnikov said. The two leaders took some time off to sample Key West's recreational offerings. Aliyev was spotted sipping a pina colada at the Havana Docks lounge in the Pier House hotel where he is staying. Kocharyan was briefly seen strolling Duval Street, the island's main thoroughfare. A sunset cruise around the harbor was planned, and one of the presidents asked to visit a shipwreck museum displaying artifacts and golden treasures recovered from a Spanish galleon that sank off the Florida Keys in the 1600s.

Gamavor, It's good to know that you are around. But why is it that we didn't have much positive experiences throughout history? And what do you think the scale of assimilation has been? Is it compareble to the loses in the Genocide, is it less, is it much more?

Ara, I know you have done extensive work on Zarian. Is it possible for you to post some of your work here, so that we learn more about Zarian? Is it also possible to have some of Zarian's oroginal work posted in this thread? Thanks. Martin

THINGS ONLY A MOM CAN TEACH My Mother taught me about ANTICIPATION ... "Just wait until your father gets home." My Mother taught me about RECEIVING ... "You are going to get it when we get home!" My Mother taught me to MEET A CHALLENGE ... "What were you thinking? Answer me when I talk to you ... Don't talk back to me!" My Mother taught me LOGIC ... "If you fall out of that swing and break your neck, you're not going to the store with me." My Mother taught me MEDICAL SCIENCE ... "If you don't stop crossing your eyes, they are going to freeze that way." My Mother taught me to THINK AHEAD ... "If you don't pass your spelling test, you'll never get good job." My Mother taught me ESP ... "Put your sweater on; don't you think I know when you're cold?" My Mother taught me HUMOR ... "When that lawn mower cuts off your toes, don't come running to me." My Mother taught me how to BECOME AN ADULT... "If you don't eat your vegetables, you'll never grow up." My Mother taught me about SEX ... "How do you think you got here?" My Mother taught me about GENETICS ... "You're just like your father."

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED ***************************************** Also, no good quality: if you are wise, you will be insulted by fools; if you are honest, you will be hounded by charlatans; if you promote tolerance, you will be torn to shreds by bloodthirsty fanatics; and if you are objective, you will be buried alive by chauvinists. Our failings are human failings; so are our problems. All human problems have human solutions. To assert uniqueness in order to underline the unique complexities of our problems has the double demerit of being dishonest and cowardly. Cowardly because it is a symptom of fear: fear of facing facts, and fear of confronting reality. -------------------- ara baliozian

THE PHANTOM OF STALIN ********************************** It was bound to happen sooner or later and, in retrospect, I am surprised it did not happen sooner. It took our partisan editors more than ten years to silence me. It is almost as if an invisible Stalin had picked up the phone and said to them: "Drop the bastard, he is not one of us!" After being published regularly for more than a dozen years in ARF (Tashnak), and ADL (Ramgavar) weeklies in the United States, Canada, and the Middle East, I suddenly acquired the status of a non-person. I am not complaining. On the contrary! Think of what would have happened to me in the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the century (I would have been denounced to the Sultan’s secret police) or in the Soviet Union in the 1930s (shot). This may explain why I am tempted to go down on my knees every morning, noon, and night and thank the Lord (in whose existence I don’t believe) for allowing me to live among people who don’t just brag about being civilized but behave in a civilized manner by respecting my fundamental human right of free speech. -------------------- ara baliozian

IT COMES WITH THE TERRITORY ************************************* To be a writer means to make oneself vulnerable to misunderstanding and insults, not to say unemployment and slum-life. But then, even in the most favorable environment, thinking and expressing one’s thoughts honestly can be a very risky business. Consider Socrates who lived in the Golden Age of Greek civilization. Socrates, a harmless drudge who dedicated his life to answering the question, "What is the right way to live?" Socrates, now revered as one of the most important philosophers of all time: arrested like a common criminal, dragged to court, tried, found guilty by a jury of his peers, condemned to death, and executed. What can I, an extremely minor scribbler, ever hope to expect from my fellow Armenians whose Golden Age belongs to the distant and irrevocable past – make it 1500 distant…. I have been allowed to live. What more could I possibly want? Am I not one of the luckiest men between heaven and earth? There are days when I wish I believed in God so that I could thank Him! -------------------- ara baliozian

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS ********************************* You cannot trust the solution of a problem to those who created the problem or to those who profit by the problem. The first will never admit the existence of the problem and the second will never do anything against their own interests. An eye for an eye is a legal principle that can be enforced only among equals. When a tyrant deals with a dissident or an empire with an unfriendly minority, it’s more like an eyebrow for both eyes, ears, limbs, lungs, liver, heart, and a few other vital organs thrown in for good measure. Tyrants neither explain nor reason. They lie and threaten. Even when they say nothing they lie. Even the blank spaces between their lines and words are menacing. Even their punctuation marks thirst for blood. The world provides us today with many examples of nations and tribes in all stages of development, decline, and degeneration. My guess is, in terms of international prestige, we stand somewhere slightly above the Gypsies and Kurds and below the Turks. Where dissent is silenced, a fraction of the people are also silenced; in the same way that where books are burned, people will also be burned. A fanatic is one who thinks if he screams loud enough no one will notice the total absence of meaning from what he says. An Armenian writer has as much of a future in an Armenian environment as a sardine in a pool of hungry sharks. The more successful the charlatan the more honest the mask. The greater the power or wealth the more impenetrable the skull. The deeper the Ottomanization the more strident the patriotism. A partisan defending a fellow partisan is like a wolf defending another wolf to an audience of sheep. After witnessing forty years of steady decline and degeneration I find it extremely difficult to be optimistic. The best I can do is being a pessimist who has lost his faith in miracles, but not quite yet. -------------------- ara baliozian

ON A POSITIVE NOTE ******************************** Some writers are inspired by a beautiful sunset, others by a mysterious smile, still others by a noble idea – heroism, courage, virtue, self-sacrifice…me, I am a ****er for insults. Call me perverse, call me what you will; but I just can’t turn the other cheek. And it never fails: whenever I run out of things to say, one of my readers takes it upon himself to insult me to prove he is smarter or more patriotic than I, and that gives me enough energy to carry on for another month or two. We were made for each other – my readers and I. At this rate, and if things go on as they have been during the last two decades, I will never run out of inspiration even if I live to be as old as Methuselah. -------------------- ara baliozian

CHAMELEONS **************************** From an angry young man I am on my way to becoming an angrier old man. No one can accuse me of inconsistency. Which reminds me, or, as they say, thereby hangs a tale. I once met an Armenian academic who, during the Soviet era, had been a professor of atheism in a Yerevan university. When the regime collapsed, he emigrated to America, promptly saw the light, became a born again Evangelical minister, and now makes a comfortable living as a teacher of theology. There is one thing our charlatans will never run out of, and that’s dupes, the kind who believe everything they read in the papers. As for the rest – the smart ones who have the ability to recognize a charlatan when they see one: they prefer to keep their distance because they have reached the painful conclusion that they can no longer maintain their self-esteem as human beings by sharing their existence with filth, and who can blame them? -------------------- ara baliozian

YANKEE GO HOME! ***************************** Criticizing Americans or for that matter Turks I now consider a total waste of time and an exercise in futility. I know what I am saying because after 30 books and 3000 critical commentaries, I have failed to enlighten a single dupe, expose a single charlatan, and reform a single Panchoonie. To those who say, "That’s because you are a bad writer and a worse critic," I ask: "What has been Odian’s influence on our Panchoonies?" To be an Armenian these days means to be a constant target of phony reports by Panchoonies whose favorite punch line is "Mi kich pogh oughargetsek" (Send us a little money). In the words of a fellow writer: "The only time my fellow Armenians remember I exist is when they want my money." Now I know why some benefactors prefer to remain anonymous and others, after hiring press secretaries or creating committees, use them as shields against rapacious wheeler-dealers and professional bloodsuckers…but even then they are taken in, again and again and again! -------------------- ara baliozian

ON COLLABORATION ****************************** If you read the testimony of French collaborators (the very same collabos who were condemned to death after the Liberation), you will discover that they did whatever it is that they did in the name of God and Country; if it weren’t for them, things would have been worse. In short, they were heroes and the nation should be grateful to them. But the nation was not grateful: it found them guilty of treason and condemned them to death! And because we have at no time tried to de-Ottomanize and de-Stalinize ourselves, we now swim in a sea of corruption, incompetence, pseudo-Ottomanism and crypto-Stalinism. ON CHARLATANS ************************* An honest man expresses his disagreement honestly. By contrast, a charlatan does so with passion. That’s because it is not his views that he defends but something much more important: his self-esteem, his prestige and power, perhaps even his source of income. Yes, he has every reason to be furious in the name of God and Country. Give such a man a friendly regime and a machine gun and he will gladly terrorize and massacre to prove his loyalty to the Leader. Am I talking about Turks and Germans? No, my friends, I am talking about homo sapiens and I am saying we don’t belong to a different species. -------------------- ara baliozian

A TOTALLY UN-ARMENIAN PROPOSAL ******************************************* If I have had a series of negative experiences, what I write is bound to be negative. And if you have had a series of positive experiences, what you write is bound to be positive. It would be absurd of me to write as if I have had your experiences and vice versa. Instead of calling each other names, let us learn from each other’s experiences. If we insult each other, we both lose. But if we learn from each other, we both profit. You may now guess which of these options is favored by Armenians. -------------------- ara baliozian

FROM THE AMEN CORNER ************************************ Again and again I have to deal with Armenians (and I am not talking about 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!" -------------------- ara baliozian

MEMO: TO MY GENTLE READERS ************************************ To those who know better: Why waste your valuable time reading a minor scribbler like me when there are so many literary masterpieces waiting to be read in your nearest public library? I don’t write for you, neither do I care to be read by you. I write only for readers willing to add someone else’s experiences and perspective on their own in order to develop a more balanced view of reality. To my partisan and chauvinist readers whose secret ambition is to be a commissar of culture in a future fascist Armenia: You remind me of dung beetles to whom a herd of animals defecating is the most welcome sight: which reminds me of the Turkish saying (probably of Armenian origin): "What does a jackass know about rosejam?" -------------------- ara baliozian

QUESTIONS *************************************** One of my problems is that I am asked questions only by individuals who are in no position to change anything; and those who are in a position to change things never ask questions because even when they don’t know the answers they must pretend not only to know but also to know better; and no one, especially not an extremely minor scribbler like myself, is in a position to tell them anything. To those who demand solutions from me, I say: The solution to all our problems consists in convincing our dividers that they are our problem. Sometimes I am asked: "Why waste so much time on political morons?" My answer: Because we are at their mercy. -------------------- ara baliozian