MJ

http://www.ftenergyusa.com/images/fte_logo.gif Energy Economist June 25, 2001 For the record Iraq has announced it is holding talks with Turkey on a gas pipeline from Northern Iraq to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Çeyhan. Baghdad's al-Rafideen weekly newspaper quoted Oil Ministry senior undersecretary Taha Humud Musa as saying the talks were "promising" and that "this strategic project will have great economic benefit to the two countries". In 1996, Turkey's then Islamist Refah Party-led government signed a memorandum of understanding for development of a 10 bcm/y gasline. The Foreign Ministry (which did not come under Refah auspices), discovered subsequently that the agreement did not include the usual clause that such a line would only be built once sanctions were lifted, although, during subsequent non-Islamist governments, Turkish officials have told FT Energy that they would only pursue the project after sanctions were lifted - or if they secured the necessary changes in the sanctions regime to permit such a project. Copyright © 2000

quote:Originally posted by aurguplu: ...he [Ozal]would be ready to make peace with the armenians if it weren't for the nagorno-karabagh issue. and do not forget that the world unanimously regards armenia as the aggressor in this conflict. Dear Ali, I'd like to express my disagreement with your statement about Armenia's being of an agressor in the eyes of the whole world. There is no single country in the world, except Turkey and Azerbaijan, which has qualified Armenia as an agressor in the Karabagh ordeal.

Thanks, Steve. let us know when you you have materials at yur disposal, and we would bring together a text.

Dear Rouben, I think the reason you don't get overwhelming reply is that most of the people here don't have the software background or Webhosting background you expect. Those who have, I suspect are in a dire need of help themselves, since they maintain many other sites.

quote:Originally posted by Boghos: Patriotism for me, as nice as it sounds just masks a nationalist, a sort of travsestite nationalist in apparently respectful clothing. Dear Boghos, I agree that, frequently, nationalists may wear a mask of patriotism, however there is such legitimate and noble category as patriotism, distinct from nationalism. Aaron, I agree with most of your statements (except the dividing line between the legal age ones and the older ones ). However, I look forward to the rest of your promised material. Naira? Where are you? You have become silent? Anything wrong? [ June 22, 2001: Message edited by: MJ ]

Since we have opened a thread on Turkish Nationalism (in our International forum), I felt compelled to also open a thread on Armenian Nationalism. I am convinced that the Armenian nationalism, much like it has been in the last quarter of the 19th and the first quarter of the 20th centuries, remains the gravedigger of the future of Armenia. In my view nationalism is not characteristic to the Armenian essence and psyche, but is artificially planted in the some Armenians, which has resulted in blurring of the dividing line between nationalism and patriotism. This implantation of nationalistic sentiment has created a state of duality in the Armenian mass psyche, moreover, in the psyche of the ruling circles, and has, in my view, resulted in lose of perspective. As paradoxical as it may sound from the onset, I think that the nationalism and patriotism are two very different categories – one invites disgust, the other one invites admiration. The driving force of nationalism is the hate towards other nations (adversaries or enemies). The one for patriotism is the love for one’s own nation and country. Armenian nationalism, as any other nationalism, by in large drinks from the spring of hate. On such capacity, this feeling doesn’t necessarily imply patriotism. As a matter of fact, the nationalists, as a rule, wouldn’t give damn about our country, as long as Turkey (and Azerbaijan) go to hell. According to my observations, nationalism is more characteristic to the Armenian Diaspora, rather than the population of Armenia. It is resulted from a significant identity crisis among some significant segments of Armenian Diaspora. I recall a statement made in a speech few years ago, on April 24th, by an otherwise moderate Armenian young man, a sociologist, a university Professor, son of a family of renowned Armenian writers for a couple of generations. He said: “Our identity as Armenians derives from the Genocide.” Later in the evening I approached him (our children used to maintain relationship at the time), and told him that my identity as an Armenian derives from the Armenian soil and heritage, and having my ancestors perished equally with his ancestors in the hands of the Ottomans, I don’t define my identity through the Genocide, and I would readily associate my identity with the future of Armenia, rather than its past. However, I thought there was something very symptomatic in his statement.

It seems to me that the discussions of this thread have significantly departed from its original subject. Why not to transfer the unrelated issues to a new thread?

Gayane, where are you? There is a question for you, here.

Adamov, Arthur Encyclopædia Britannica Article born , Aug. 23, 1908, Kislovodsk, Russia died March 16, 1970, Paris, Fr. avant-garde writer, a founder and major playwright of the Theatre of the Absurd. In 1912 Adamov's wealthy Armenian family left Russia and settled in Freudenstadt, Ger. He was subsequently educated in Geneva, Mainz, and Paris, where, having mastered French, he settled in 1924, associating with Surrealist groups. He edited a periodical, Discontinuité, and wrote poetry. In 1938 he suffered a nervous breakdown, later writing L'Aveu (1938–43; “The Confession” , an autobiography that revealed his tortured conscience, delving into a terrifying sense of alienation and preparing his personal, neurotic stage for some of the most powerful of all Absurdist dramas. He spent almost a year of World War II in the internment camp of Argelès, Fr. A severe depression followed. Strongly influenced by the Swedish dramatist August Strindberg—with whose own mental crisis Adamov identified—and by Franz Kafka, he began writing plays in 1947. Believing that God is dead and that life's meaning is unobtainable, Adamov turned to a private, metaphysical interpretation of Communistic ideals. His first play, La Parodie, features a handless clock that looms eerily over characters who are constantly questioning one another about time. The world of the play is a parody of man, whom Adamov saw as helplessly searching for life's meaning, which, although it exists, is tragically inaccessible to him. In L'Invasion, he attempted to depict the human situation more realistically; it impressed André Gide and the director Jean Vilar, and, under Vilar's direction, it opened in Paris in 1950, with his third play, La grande et la petite manoeuvre. The latter reveals the influence of his friend, Antonin Artaud, theoretician of the “theatre of cruelty.” Le Professeur Taranne (performed 1953) was about a university professor unable to live up to his public role; though the play is dictated by the absurd logic of a dream, the construction and characterizations are firm and clear. In his best known play, Le Ping-pong (performed 1955), the powerful central image is that of a pinball machine to which the characters surrender themselves in a never-ending, aimless game of chance, perfectly illustrating man's adherence to false objectives and the futility of his busy endeavours. Adamov's later plays (Paolo Paoli, 1957; Le Printemps 71, 1961; La Politique des restes, 1963) embodied radical political statements, though his interest in dramatic experimentation continued. Finally admitting that life was not absurd but merely difficult, he committed suicide. In a preface to Théâtre II (1955), his second volume of plays, Adamov describes his attitudes toward his work and comments on his career. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?eu=3694 [ June 20, 2001: Message edited by: MJ ]

Dear Karine and Armine, What Naira was trying to convey in her material was that the material about smuggling Armenian artifacts out of Armenia by the Jewish organizations was a forged one. The original text of the article in France Press contains no such allegations. Apparently, the paragraph related to Armenia referenced above is fabricated either by the translator of the article or by those who have demonstrated excessive creativity out of whatever considerations. Hope this clarifies. No need to be alarmed.

Hovik, You have your first Warning.

ara baliozian Member Member # 271 posted June 14, 2001 11:54AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WRITERS / CRITICS ******************************* If writers were to echo their readers’ sentiments and thoughts, they would be called echoes not writers. Once upon a time I was dependent on readers’ reactions. Not any more. I suppose with age comes apathy which we like to think of as wisdom. Be that as it may, hell for me is no longer a place populated by readers who disagree with me. And speaking of hell: I have every reason to suspect there is a special place there reserved for gullible people who are easily hoodwinked, flimflammed and bamboozled with simple explanations, such as: "An infidel deserved to die because it is pleasing in the eyes of Allah," or "A soldier’s first and most important duty is to follow orders because his superiors know best," or again, "Patriotism consists in supporting those in authority even when they happen to be undemocratic, corrupt, tribal, incompetent and crypto-fascist." I have no interest in gullible dupes, but I go on writing about them only because they echo the sentiments and thoughts of our tribal speechifiers and sermonizers. If I knew how to pray, I would say: Please, God, give me readers who have acquired the ability to think for themselves. And then there is the critic who is more like a head-hunter: he is out to get me, no matter what, and wear my shrunken head as a trophy. Reasoning with him is as difficult as converting a cannibal to vegetarianism. Our literature and 1500 hundred years of dissent have made no impact on him. He goes on recycling chauvinist crap as if it were rose-jam. May God have mercy on his soul – if there is a God and he has a soul. -------------------- ara baliozian

ara baliozian Member Member # 271 posted June 09, 2001 07:48AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ON REASON *************************** Reason is [must be] open to reason. In real life, however, reason is almost always contaminated by prejudice, faith, mystical insight or some other irrational component (such as fear or hope) of whose existence we may be totally unaware. When two reasonable men disagree, it may be because either one or both are allowing the irrational component within them to guide their reason. But that amounts to saying that these two men are no longer men of reason. ON CULTURES ***************** Anthropologists divide societies and cultures into two groups: hot and cold; the hot ones (those of the West) are analytical, rational, progressive; the cold ones are primitive tribes, static, ritualistic, superstitious. By rejecting intellectuals, we reject analysis, and by accepting the authority of the boss and the bishop (or political or religious leadership) we subscribe to superstition and propaganda. It is a fact that intellectuals have played a marginal role in our history; their ideas (unlike the ideas of Rousseau and Voltaire who prepared the grounds for the French Revolution) never penetrated the consciousness of the masses; and the reason for that is that the masses in the Ottoman Empire were enslaved by the tyranny of the sultan and his representatives (our patriarchs and amiras). The situation is the same today: our intellectual class has been systematically exterminated by our bosses and bishops and the Armenian people continue to be at the mercy of God and capital (make it, Capital and god), superstition and propaganda. ON LOVE *********** The message of love has been with us for 2000 years! It isn’t fail-safe; you cannot teach love to Talaat, Hitler, Stalin and their successors. A favorite French philosopher of mine (Merleau-Ponty) once said that the challenge we confront today is unmasking deceivers. I don’t see any contradiction in these two attitudes (loving and unmasking); let each go about his business and if they succeed in loving or unmasking, mankind is bound to be the ultimate beneficiary! -------------------- ara baliozian

ara baliozian Member Member # 271 posted March 20, 2001 11:06AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AN ANECDOTE ************************* "Why do you complain so much?" one of our high-ranking bureaucrats once demanded to know. "Do you think you are the only writer who has been treated badly?" "No, of course not!" I replied. "That is why I speak with the strength of many." He said nothing, but I could sense that he would have preferred if I had kept my mouth shut, dug a hole in the ground, crawled into it, and buried myself alive. Moral: No one likes to be told "You are wrong!" If you are right, you get angry. If you are wrong and didn’t know it, you get angrier. And if you were wrong and knew it, you want to kill the bastard who dared to expose you. -------------------- ara baliozian

ara baliozian Member Member # 271 posted May 31, 2001 11:50AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ON THE LABYRINTH OF THE ARMENIAN MIND ******************************************************** -the cunning manipulation of disconnected details into a coherent but totally false theory; -the paralyzing inability to see someone else’s point of view no matter how valid; -the blind acceptance of clichés and flatteries and the savage rejection of any assessment that may be remotely objective or critical; -the futile effort to cover selfish aims beneath a transparent veil of altruistic or patriotic principles; -the absurdly Quixotic notion that the noble profile of Mt. Ararat above can obliterate the unbearable stench of filthy latrines below. -------------------- ara baliozian

ara baliozian Member Member # 271 posted June 08, 2001 06:37AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ARMENIAN TYPES ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Some day I may write a little book about Armenian types, an updated gallery of rascals and flim-flam artists, or, if you wish, contemporary variants of characters that have already made appearances in Baronian (HONORABLE BEGGARS), Odian (COMRADE PANCHOONIE), and Massikian (DOWNPOUR). Preliminary sketches follow: THE MASSACRIST After reading a book on the Genocide he thinks he has exhausted the subject of Armenian history, culture, and identity. THE PUNDIT His so-called expertise is based on the assumption that, since most Armenians are functional illiterates and hidebound dupes, they are bound to look up to him as an authority on any given subject. THE COMMISSAR OF CULTURE After acquiring a worthless title in a two-bit political party, organization, or club, he feels fully qualified to tell much better men than himself what to think, feel, and sometimes even how to live. THE ACTIVIST A wheeler-dealer who refuses to do what he can today but promises to do what he cannot tomorrow. THE GENIUS After convincing himself or his floozy that he is one, he thinks his problems are over, he has got it made, and he has nothing to worry about because, as an immortal, he fears nothing and no one, not even death. THE SPEECHIFIER A loud-mouth verbal swindler who is his own most consistent and faithful dupe. -------------------- ara baliozian

ara baliozian Member Member # 271 posted June 02, 2001 07:28AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTES / COMMENTS ******************************** Why should I be surprised if in the land of instant coffee they demand instant solutions to our millennial problems? And if you fail to deliver them first thing tomorrow morning, they call you a whiner, a malcontent, and someone who does nothing but bitch. Bad guys tend to have a longer life span than good guys because they are tougher, more resilient and adaptable, and with many more tricks up their sleeves than the good, the innocent, and the honest. As Plato explains somewhere, the crooks of this world are more successful because they employ both crooked and honest means to get what they want, unlike the honest who employ only honest means. To those who tell me there is no light at the end of the tunnel and mine is a battle in a war that was lost a thousand years ago, may I confess that I agree with them at least seven times every day, which is said to be the number of times a pope doubts his faith every day. Very often patriotism boils down to the absurd statements: "My lies are better than yours"; "my fallacies are better than your truths"; or even "my ignorance is better than your knowledge." -------------------- ara baliozian

ara baliozian Member Member # 271 posted March 18, 2001 11:14 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DISSIDENTS & HISTORY **************************************** The USSR collapsed not because of the evil influence of dissidents like Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov as Stalinists like to assert) but because the policies adopted and implemented by the Kremlin were wrong. History does not take orders from dissidents. Dissidents don’t shape history. They have no power over the destiny of a nation: all they do is interpret its direction. Our medieval historians predicted our downfall long before it happened. Again and again they warned our kings and warlords that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. But they were ignored. They continue to be ignored today. As for our tribal leaders: repeated failure does not seem to faze them; it is as though they had raised an invisible Chinese Wall between themselves and reality. They recycle the same old propaganda line and they can always count on a tiny band of faithful followers whose critical faculties have been atrophied. As for the alienated majority: they no longer count because they are part of that reality that is on the other side of the invisible Chinese Wall. -------------------- ara baliozian

naira Member Naira Member # 397 posted May 29, 2001 12:06 PM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To how many Armenians I could say: "As long as there are people like you in this world, we will have wars and massacres." --- IMHO. Actualy this sounds more like a compliment, Maestro! Originally posted by Naira

posted May 29, 2001 10:52 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTES / COMMENTS ******************************** Tribalism in action: In a single day I once received four reactions to one of my essays: in the first I was dismissed as a "moron"; in the second as a "racist"; in the third I was described as "an honest observer who is not afraid to speak his mind"; and in the fourth as "the most intelligent Armenian alive today." A painful discovery: To make a Turkish friend these days is almost as easy as to make an Armenian enemy. Only the abysmally naïve confuse realism with pessimism. When a man speaks, it is easy to guess whether he is parroting his schoolmasters’ sentiments or expressing his own thoughts. Don’t talk to me about dedicated partisans with ethics. Power does not corrupt; rather, it is the corrupt who lust for power. Trying to talk to them is like trying to cross a Brazilian river teeming with ravenous piranhas. If you reach the other shore weighing half as much, you should thank God and count your blessings. It is only when you try to change the status quo that you acquire a better understanding of the powerful forces that hold it together. To how many Armenians I could say: "As long as there are people like you in this world, we will have wars and massacres." It is not the best who brag about their identity, but the worst. When I think of the kind of people who succeed these days, failure appears as a more interesting alternative. -------------------- ara baliozian

posted June 13, 2001 06:54 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- QUESTIONS / ANSWERS +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Q: You speak of our problems but you don't provide solutions. Why? A: Solutions don't come in the shape of verbal formulas. Solutions demand hard work, struggle, sacrifice, planning, dedication, concerted action, and even more important, an awareness of the problem itself. Q: We all agree that divisions are a problem. How do we go about solving it? A: We don't all agree. I have heard many Armenians say that we owe our survival to our divisions, or what I prefer to call, our tribalism. Q: Suppose we succeed in convincing all Armenians that tribalism is a problem. Then what? A: The old saying, "Where there is a will there is a way," applies here. History provides us with many models. All we have to do is choose: the way of the Kurds, Arabs, and gypsies, or the way of the Italians, the British, and the Americans. No nation ever achieved nationhood overnight. Even the Americans had to fight one of the bloodiest civil wars in the history of mankind. Q: In one of your books you write: "Living among Armenians or even in their proximity can be hazardous to your health, unless you have the constitution of a horse, the skin of a crocodile, the strength of a water buffalo, and the aroma of a skunk." My question is: Why do you dislike your fellow Armenians? A: I don't. But I do loathe racists, fascists, and loud-mouth charlatans, and I refuse to view their Armenian identity as a mitigating factor. Ethnicity is not a form of insanity and it should not be used as an extenuating circumstance. Q: Why are you a cynic? A: I am not, but I may react as one when confronted with naïve souls, who, very much like our activists at the turn of the century in the Ottoman Empire, are convinced if they have God or Truth on their side, they have nothing to fear -------------------- ara baliozian

posted June 15, 2001 07:06 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A PAGE FROM MY DIARY *************************** Defeat and suffering may ennoble a man; but oppression and subservience degrades him. I wish I could say we are an exception to this inflexible rule. As long as they say and repeat over and over again that we are victims of Western hypocrisy and Turkish barbarism, I will go on saying and repeating we are also victims of our own tribal and incompetent leadership, and let my critics go on saying and repeating I am beginning to sound like a broken record…. I love books written by old men near the end of their lives. I love above all the resignation, the serenity, and the painfully acquired realization that if life is a gift, so is death; as for failure and success, let me quote Tolstoy: "The more I succeed in the eyes of the world, the more I fail in the eyes of God," and I have my doubts about God. More inflexible rules: When a political party with a clearly defined ideology and agenda gets involved in education, its aim is not to educate but to brainwash. In an authoritarian environment any writer who refuses to recycle the propaganda of the dominant class is sooner or later either silenced or starved. Politics or the pursuit of power is like a virus that contaminates everything it touches. -------------------- ara baliozian

FROM MY DIARY ************************** I remember to have read somewhere: "By saying NO sometimes we prepare the ground for a bigger YES." It has been said that there are two kinds of socialism: the socialism of ideologues and the socialism of pickpockets…and the tragedy of the human condition is such that sooner or later the pickpockets are destined to triumph over the ideologues: from Jesus Christ to American televangelists, and from Marx to Brezhnev…. MEMO: Always remember to be a truth-seeker not a point-maker. "If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" demands Shakespeare’s Shylock. The best answer to this question is provided by an old Arab proverb: "If you wait long enough at your window you will see your enemy’s funeral pass by." The whole world knows that the official designation of Armenians in Turkey is "Christian Turks" – the whole world except, it seems, some Armenians in Turkey. Why am I surprised? I spent the first twenty years of my life in Greece and I didn’t know that the Greeks called us "Turkish gypsies" – with some justification, may I add: the Armenian ghetto near Athens looked like a gypsy encampment. It is only very recently that I read about this in an English-language reference work on ethnic slurs. It’s the old story of the husband being the last man to discover that his wife is being unfaithful to him. To how many of my critics (make it, kibitzers) I could say: "Obviously you and I have nothing further to say to each other. Please ignore my things and I promise to ignore yours." Men see women as sex objects because in homo sapiens instinct speaks louder than reason. On the day reason conquers instinct mankind will enter a new Golden Age, wars and revolutions will become obsolete, all contradictions will be resolved rationally, and the lion shall lie down with the lamb…and if the carnivores of this world cannot survive on salad greens, I for one will not mourn their extinction. -------------------- ara baliozian

posted March 13, 2001 07:36AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE DARK SIDE OF SELF-ESTEEM ******************************************* Exploiting the poor comes naturally to the rich. They don’t see themselves as blood****ers but as benefactors and providers of jobs without which the poor would starve. It is the same with the Turks: they don’t admit the Genocide (or perhaps I should say, they can’t) because they don’t see themselves as bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians but as guardians of the Sacred Homeland and defenders of the Faith against infidel dogs. So what if the majority of these "infidel dogs" happened to be innocent women and children without any political involvement or even awareness? Has there ever been a war without innocent victims? And now closer to home: After a brief face to face encounter with one of our bosses, bishops, benefactors or partisans and panchoonies, don’t be surprised if you emerge with the distinct impression that they view themselves as selfless servants of the community and dedicated patriots motivated only by noble principles whose sole aim is the welfare of the nation. -------------------- ara baliozian

posted March 14, 2001 06:55 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UNDERSTANDING REALITY ********************************** Reality is not pretty; neither is it fair. Reality supports the mihgy and massacres the weak. I don’t support reality; but I want to understand its secret intentions. I want to know its schedule and where it will strike next. Organized religions and closed systems of thought are popular because they promise a better reality, sometimes even a utopian heaven on earth, thus legitimizing our wishful thinking: the weak shall inherit the earth, they tell us, the oppressed shall be liberated, and the lamb shall lie down with the lion. Maybe so. But for the time being, I have no desire to make friends with the lion, unless his teeth and claws are pulled out or he is converted to vegetarianism. And if I cannot be a dragon in a world of lions, then I want to know all I can about his territory, habits, and feeding schedule so that I may avoid being his lunch. -------------------- ara baliozian