as i see it - Pt. IV

[phantom22]

Reminds me when the local Der Hayr informed me that as a HYE Pochcagan I was not welcome to participate in the activites of a young person's group that happened to meet in the church basement unless I joined the church. Mind you, I was not an officer or seeking to be of this organization. It was an organization for young adults and I was participating in this social group. Edited August 3, 2005 by phantom22

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, August 04, 2005

************************************

“I am in love and I want to marry him,” my daughter tells me.

“Who is the unlucky fellow?” I ask.

“He is a writer, like you,” she replies.

“An Armenian writer?”

“That’s right.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, are you crazy, demented, insane, in need of a shrink?”

“Daddy, he is a good writer, some people have called him a genius.”

“Some people? Who, for instance – if I may be so bold as to inquire?”

“Literary critics.”

“Armenian literary critics?”

“That’s right.”

“We don’t have them.”

“What have you got against writers anyway?”

“We are not talking about writers here. We are talking about Armenian writers, an entirely different kettle of fish.”

“Please, daddy, don’t be like that.”

“I am trying to help you here.”

“Help I don’t need. Support, I do.”

“Support for what? Your funeral?” I ask.

“How can you say that? You don’t even know him,” she says with tears in her eyes.

“An Armenian writer as my son in law? No way! And cut out the water works. My decision is final!”

“What’s wrong with being an Armenian writer, anyway?”

“What’s right?”

“I love him, daddy, and that’s good enough for me.”

“You want to marry a loser, go ahead. But don’t ask for my blessing. I want nothing to do with it. And I want nothing to do with you and him either.”

“You are not going to disown me, are you?”

“Watch me.”

“But I am your only daughter.”

“You are nothing of the kind.”

“Then who am I?”

“A figment of my imagination.”

*

Perhaps the wisest thing I have done as an Armenian writer is to remain a bachelor.

*

With the diplomatic finesse that Armenians exercise when dealing with fellow Armenians, one of my gentle readers once demanded to know: “Why aren’t you married? Are you a homosexual?”

#

[ara baliozian]

Friday, August 05, 2005

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AXIOMS

**************

Judging by the number of religious wars and massacres, man is not made better or wiser by faith.

*

One should judge a religion not by its theology but by its history, which also means, by its crimes against humanity.

*

“Crime against humanity” is not a religious but a political concept. To a man of faith, a heretic or an infidel does not qualify as a member of the human race.

*

Judging a religion by its theology is the same as judging a political party by its propaganda or a nation by its own version of history.

*

In theory, religion is meant to civilize; but in practice what it does is legitimize barbarism.

*

To acquire a faith is not the same as to see the light.

*

All religions should come with the warning: “Faith can be a hazard to your moral health.”

*

What I said about religions applies to ideologies. It follows all sermonizers and speechifiers speak with a forked tongue when they emphasize theology at the expense of history.

*

The aim of all religions and ideologies is to make you say “Yes, sir!”

*

There is an old Chinese saying: “Makers of idols do not believe in them.” There is also an Italian saying: “Even the Pope doubts his faith seven times every day.” Which may suggest that not all sermonizers and speechifiers believe in their own speeches and sermons.

*

Where there are religions and ideologies, there will also be victims and victimizers, that is to say, crimes against humanity.

*

There are just and unjust wars. But according to nationalist historians, their nation has never been guilty of declaring an unjust war. It follows, either all wars are just or all nationalist historians are liars.

#

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, August 06, 2005

*********************************

Some of my gentle readers keep reminding me that I am a bad Armenian and a worse writer. And yet, I continue to be read by good Armenians with mighty intellects. Figure that one out if you can.

*

To those who know better, I wish they would share their knowledge with dunces like me instead of saying and repeating ad nauseam how bad Turks are and how good we are.

*

If we are survivors, why is it that millions of us did not survive? I should like to read a book by our genocide scholars that emphasizes our failings. We study history to learn, not to lament and blame.

*

There is only one way to learn, and that's by analyzing our deficiencies. He who brags (hubris) is punished by wallowing in his own self-pity and ignorance (nemesis).

*

If I have learned anything from life is that no one get away with anything. If your enemy doesn't get you, your conscience will.

*

We have two options: 20/20 hindsight or the blind leading the blind.

*

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist: "Art is never chaste. It ought to be forbidden to ignorant innocents, never allowed into contact with those not sufficiently prepared. Yes, art is dangerous. Where it is chaste, it is not art."

#

[sen_Vahan]

Thursday, August 04, 2005

************************************

“I am in love and I want to marry him,” my daughter tells me.

“Who is the unlucky fellow?” I ask.

“He is a writer, like you,” she replies.

“An Armenian writer?”

“That’s right.”

“Are you out of your mind?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, are you crazy, demented, insane, in need of a shrink?”

“Daddy, he is a good writer, some people have called him a genius.”

“Some people? Who, for instance – if I may be so bold as to inquire?”

“Literary critics.”

“Armenian literary critics?”

“That’s right.”

“We don’t have them.”

“What have you got against writers anyway?”

“We are not talking about writers here. We are talking about Armenian writers, an entirely different kettle of fish.”

“Please, daddy, don’t be like that.”

“I am trying to help you here.”

“Help I don’t need. Support, I do.”

“Support for what? Your funeral?” I ask.

“How can you say that? You don’t even know him,” she says with tears in her eyes.

“An Armenian writer as my son in law? No way! And cut out the water works. My decision is final!”

“What’s wrong with being an Armenian writer, anyway?”

“What’s right?”

“I love him, daddy, and that’s good enough for me.”

“You want to marry a loser, go ahead. But don’t ask for my blessing. I want nothing to do with it. And I want nothing to do with you and him either.”

“You are not going to disown me, are you?”

“Watch me.”

“But I am your only daughter.”

“You are nothing of the kind.”

“Then who am I?”

“A figment of my imagination.”

*

Perhaps the wisest thing I have done as an Armenian writer is to remain a bachelor.

*

With the diplomatic finesse that Armenians exercise when dealing with fellow Armenians, one of my gentle readers once demanded to know: “Why aren’t you married? Are you a homosexual?”

#

style_images/master/snapback.png

 

This is sort of sad, isn't it? I find this strange that in the democratic society armenians give nothing compared to what they gave in the Ottoman Empire: Paronyan, Otyan, etc. What do you think is the reason for this?

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, August 07, 2005

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BEFORE AND AFTER

***************************

Because by the age of fourteen I had read the 19th-century Russians, I thought I knew all I needed to know about human nature. I thought, like all Armenians, I was smart, sensitive, good, tolerant, blameless, and so on. Whenever evidence to the contrary presented itself, I thought I should make allowances for a people that have experienced an extensive array of misfortunes imposed on them by conditions, circumstances, and forces beyond their control.

*

My initial intentions might as well have been utopian. I was going to be kind with the uncivil and reasonable with the preposterous. I was not going to make any enemies. I went further: I propagandized with the propagandists, and I kissed posteriors with the brown-nosers. I compromised, or so I thought, in the hope that eventually common sense and decency would prevail.

*

I ignored the lessons of history because I operated in a dream world. I confused wishful thinking with hope, betrayal with concession, reality with Hollywood movies.

*

Disagreement and criticism I understand, insults and threats I don’t. One must be deaf, dumb, and asinine not to see that by insulting and threatening anonymously one exposes oneself as a coward and a bully.

*

I am not an elitist. I don’t feel the need to be for underdogs simply because I have always been one of them. As the offspring of Ottoman refugees I was born and raised in a Greek ghetto that looked like a gypsy encampment. Greeks used to call us “Turkish gypsies.” Southern rednecks would have called as white trash.

*

My prose is not academic or scholarly. It makes no demands on the average reader. And yet, some smart (self-assessed, of course) readers pretend to misunderstand me perhaps because they understand me too well but are too craven to see themselves as they really are.

#

[ara baliozian]

This is sort of sad, isn't it? I find this strange that in the democratic society armenians give nothing compared to what they gave in the Ottoman Empire: Paronyan, Otyan, etc.  What do you think is the reason for this?

style_images/master/snapback.png

 

my guess is, the sultans were more tolerant than our bosses, bishops, and benefactors. / ara

[ara baliozian]

Monday, August 08, 2005

**********************************

Whenever as a boy I would make outrageous assertions, adults would smile at me, and I would think they were smiling at my brilliance. I know now that their smile had nothing to do with admiration and everything to do with sarcasm tinged with pity. “No use explaining things to him,” it said. “Obviously he is not open to reason.”

*

The question I ask myself today is “Who taught and encouraged me to make wild assertions thinking they were brilliant?” The only answer is: I must have been emulating my elders – schoolteachers, parish priests, partisans, panchoonies, charlatans…all of whom dealt in certainties and considered doubt as unpatriotic or unchristian.

*

There are positive and negative role models. With one or two exceptions mine have been negative.

*

The Romans were wrong when they fed Christians to lions, but they were right when they punished the parents for the misdeeds of the child.

*

Bolsheviks under Stalin, Fascists under Mussolini, Nazis under Hitler, Americans under McCarthy: sometimes entire nations experience insanity as surely as individuals.

#

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

**********************************

If you believe in the evidence of your own eyes and use your common sense, you shall have to conclude that the earth is flat, and the sun and the moon are about the same size. It is this type of “logic” that leads some Armenians to believe that the West is corrupt, the Turks Asiatic barbarians and bloodthirsty savages, and Armenians the only truly civilized, smart, progressive, and Christian people.

*

To understand only one side of a story that may have more than one side is to misunderstand it.

*

Some of my readers have been generous in sharing their Ottoman venom. I look forward to the day when they will be equally generous in sharing their Armenian wisdom – assuming of course they can tell the difference between one and the other, which is assuming a great deal.

*

Civics is not a subject we like to talk about. I had an Armenian education and I don’t remember anyone mentioning it. I was taught all about authority and obedience but not about fundamental human rights. I was taught about power but not about abuses of power. I was taught to sing songs about freedom but I was told nothing about free speech.

#

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

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ENVY

*********

Whenever as a boy I heard rumors to the effect that Jews support Jews but Armenians do not always support Armenians, I dismissed them as exaggerations made by disgruntled failures. I know better now.

*

An Armenian-American composer once told me: "I no longer expect Armenian support. I will be grateful if I don't get Armenian hostility."

*

Nothing comes more naturally to an Armenian than to say, "If he is Armenian, he is bound to be a mediocrity."

*

Speaking of Arshile Gorky, one of our elder statesmen once told me: "When he was alive, no Armenian every bought a single painting of his."

*

In his ISLAND AND A MAN, Zarian ascribes this Armenian peculiarity to envy. And true enough, most of his contemporaries either ignored or denigrated him.

*

Did Sultan Abdulhamid II's mother (who was Armenian) say anything in support of her fellow Armenians to him? Or was she the type who rationalized her silence by saying she did not want to get involved in politics?

*

"I don't want to get involved in politics," one of our eminent editors (may the good Lord have mercy on his soul) once told me when I raised questions central to our ethos and survival as a nation. He preferred to publish stories about grandmothers and Armenian celebrities who had made it in the odar world - Armenians like Arshile Gorky, Michael Arlen Sr. (who warned his son to stay away from Armenians) and Michael Arlen Jr. (who concludes his PASSAGE TO ARARAT by saying there is no such thing as Armenian culture).

#

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, August 11, 2005

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In some cultures military defeat is worse than death; in others it is moral victory.

*

The only time some Armenians think they are discharging their patriotic duty is when they are at each other’s throat.

*

There is a type of tourist who goes to Florence for the pizza.

*

I have observed that anonymous critics tend to be more aggressive.

*

Success is as difficult to handle as failure.

*

I analyze myself to understand others; and I analyze others to understand myself.

*

An honest man is a charlatan’s worst nightmare.

*

To how many of my fellow Armenians I could say:

Recover your humanity, you have nothing to lose but your Ottomanism.

*

It’s not easy dealing with Armenians, but it helps if you are deaf to their insults and blind to their defects.

#

[phantom22]

Ara,

 

Your lastest post brought something to mind. My most successful cousin, who travels in the circles of American CEOs avoids her fellow Armenians like the plague and claims that she is of French extraction.

Edited August 12, 2005 by phantom22

[phantom22]

When are WE going to start being supportive of one another? When are we going to emulate the Jews when it comes to assisting one's own? When are we going to stop punishing other Armenians?

 

My cousin dropped out because of what she experienced, not out of shame of being an Armenian.

Edited August 12, 2005 by phantom22

[ara baliozian]

Friday, August 12, 2005

**************************************

An in-depth study of contemporary Armenian literature in the Diaspora would be the shortest book in the world and it would say: Armenians in the Diaspora spend more money on pilaf and shish kebab than on books.

*

Authoritarian environments offer no incentive for growth because questioning and doubting dogmatic assertions are not allowed.

*

Take away Turks and the ego of some of our self-assessed, self-appointed, and self-satisfied pundits will collapse like a perforated balloon.

*

Like Armenians, Turks too come in all sizes and shapes and some Turks have been so thoroughly brainwashed that only the ghost of Ataturk can reach them.

*

A dogmatist is one who has been conditioned never to disagree with himself.

*

Unlike fools, the smart know their limitations.

*

The surest index of the future is not the promises of politicians or the rhetoric of charlatans but reality as assessed by objective historians.

*

Dealing with filth is an inevitable part of life and it makes no difference what you do for a living. Understand this and many incomprehensible things about the human condition became less unbearable.

#

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, August 13, 2005

************************************

Like most Armenians I was raised with a forest of prejudices. Which is why I am not surprised when teenage readers hurl insults at me as if I were a pro-Turkish traitor.

*

Armenians of the Diaspora like to say that it will take two or even three generations for Armenians in the Homeland to be thoroughly de-Sovietized as if they themselves were in no need of being de-Ottomanized.

*

We divide foreign historians into Armenophiles and Turcophiles. We don't have a category for objective historians because we assume Armenophiles to be more objective than Turcophiles. No doubt Turks make a similar assumption about Turcophiles.

*

A Turkish reader writes: "We will never apologize!" Thus implying that even if they do they will not mean it. Which amounts to saying that they will never accept the so-called values of the so-called civilized West, which has been the source of more evil than all the other continents combined. The irony here is that Armenians and Turks agree on viewing the West as thoroughly corrupt and hypocritical.

*

The German government may have apologized to the Jews but many Germans as well as anti-Semites of all nations and tribes, including, alas, Armenians, think the Holocaust is a gigantic hoax.

#

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, August 14, 2005

*********************************

I repeat myself? For two thousand years our sermonizers have been repeating and recycling the very same message from the very same book to the point that it would come as a shock if they did not repeat themselves.

*

My ambition is to expose the absurd by means of clichés and platitudes so that no one can accuse me of muddying my waters in order to appear deep.

*

The enemies of reason don’t reason, they denigrate, ridicule, and insult.

*

Politicians are cunning deceivers. Sometimes they will even use the truth to mislead the people.

*

When asked how it felt to have so many enemies, Richelieu is said to have replied: “I don’t have enemies. France has enemies.” I too could say that I don’t have critics. Armenians have critics and some of their most vicious critics are fellow Armenians.

*

You can learn a great many things from books but not everything, and especially not the most important things.

*

Some of my critics behave on the assumption that if they are right they don’t have to be civil; they can even behave like barbarians. If you think about it, is not the Genocide an extension of this same principle?

*

We are failures in so far as we have failed to civilize the barbarians; and the barbarians are successes in so far as they have been successful in dragging us down to their level.

*

Two thousand years of the same message from the same book: the question is, do they understand the message, and having understood it, do they practice it?

What about me?

Do I practice what I preach?

If only I could.

Life is like playing a musical instrument. I am a lousy pianist because I practice only half an hour every day, instead of five or more hours. But I can recognize a good pianist when I hear one. A musical critic does not have to know how to play all the instruments of an orchestra in order to review the performance of a symphony.

#

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

***********************************

I too had nothing against hypocrisy when I was a hypocrite. As for double-talk or propaganda: I thought if everybody engages in it, why shouldn’t we?

*

I know the answer to that question now: because it hasn’t been working for us. Propaganda seems to favor winners; for losers it is more akin to consolation and cover up, and you cannot solve problems by covering them up. Problems must be exposed, faced, and dealt with in the open air beneath the rays of the sun.

*

Our favorite way of solving problems is to pretend they don’t exist, or if they, to justify them by saying all nations have them, why shouldn’t we?

*

Writing for Armenians is not a pleasant or profitable line of work. One writes not with ink but with sweat and tears – tears of shame and rage.

*

Only people who can’t earn respect, demand respect.

*

Ideas are either useful or useless. It makes no sense to be afraid of them or to get angry at them. If useful, use them. If useless, discard them.

*

I reject the notion that only a dupe and a fascist may qualify as an authentic Armenian.

*

The Ten Commandments are inadmissible because based on hearsay.

#

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

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"Fear, anger and an aroused patriotism can undermine sound judgment" leading to over-reaction, the suppression of individual liberties and the "mutilation of public discourse." I am quoting and paraphrasing from PERILOUS TIMES: FREE SPEECH IN WARTIME, by Geoffrey R. Stone (Norton, 730 pages, 2005). Stone goes on to explain that cynical politicians tend to exploit fear and hatred "to serve their partisan ends" and to consolidate their own power by tarring their opponents as disloyal.

*

The question that I ask myself again and again is: Why is it that we have so many scholars, pundits, partisans and propagandists pushing the Genocide issue, but as far as I know, not a single voice or even a whisper defending free speech?

*

Political blunders are the most expensive luxuries in the world that not even the wealthiest nations can afford.

*

If I can't say it as I see it, who am I? What am I? No better than a politician's echo, or a charlatan's shadow, or a parrot without a beak.

*

If you haven't read the writers who were silenced by Talaat and Stalin, on whose side are you?

#

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, August 18, 2005

**************************************

OPIUM

*********************

You don’t have to agree with Plato, Hegel or Freud to profit from their wisdom. To formulate their grand theories, these thinkers, and all thinkers in general, rely on the achievements of their predecessors. To reject them amounts to rejecting the wisdom of the West.

*

Christianity and religions in general have been called the opium of the masses, and Marxism has been called the opium of the intellectuals; the implication being that opium will always be more popular than truth, perhaps because it will make fewer demands.

*

In the 19th Century nationalism was our opium, in the 20th communism. Result? Massacres, dispersion, purges, and the systematic destruction of our moral fiber.

*

In the diaspora today, Genocide recognition has become our opium, and those who push it to the exclusion of all other issues, would like you to believe that on the day Turks acknowledge responsibility, all our problems will come to an end.

*

I have always suspected the myth of closure to be a Big Lie whose tacit aim is to distract the nation from its many other problems.

*

When confronted with a difficult problem, ostriches bury their heads in the sand, or so we are told. Men are smarter: they don’t bury their heads, they bury the problem…even if it means burying themselves in the process.

#

[ara baliozian]

Friday, August 19, 2005

**************************************

Notwithstanding the fact that I have dedicated an important fraction of my life translating and annotating Armenian writers, I am sometimes accused of being anti-Armenian by readers who know nothing and care even less about Armenian literature.

*

One of my initial ambitions was to edit and translate brief introductions to fifty important Armenian writers. When I outlined this project to a number of our cultural organizations, editors, and publishers, none of them was interested, perhaps because our cultural bureaucracies are staffed by writers who believe they are the only ones who deserve to be translated and read by English-speaking readers.

*

“You are a bad translator,” one of my gentle readers once said. When asked if he had read any one of my translations, he replied, “I have not and I don’t intend to because you are a bad writer, a worse translator, and the writers you have translated aren’t worth a sh**!”

*

Mischa Kudian was one of our foremost translators. When he could not find publishers for his translations, he published them himself. He could afford doing that because he was a dental surgeon by profession. I met him once. To put it as diplomatically and delicately as I can, he was not favorably disposed towards his fellow Armenians. It would be no exaggeration to say that he was one of the most disappointed and bitter men I have had the displeasure of meeting.

*

A partial list of the writers I have translated into English: Gostan Zarian, Avedik Issahakian, Zabel Yessayan, Krikor Zohrab, Puzant Granian, Charents, Baruir Massikian, Raffi, and Hagop Baronian. Only for of these translated writers have so far been published in book form.

*

Some of my critics sound like disgruntled ex-wives. Only men who have been through an ugly divorce will know what I am saying.

*

Most of life consists in taming the insanity within us or covering it up in order to appear harmless to others. Armenians are good at this game except when they deal with fellow Armenians anonymously and from a safe distance. That’s when the fiddler on the roof turns into Hitler in the soul.

*

Friends sometimes want to know why I waste my time writing about fools and dupes. My answer, because they represent a significant fraction of the nation. But this is true of all nations. Consider the number of Italians who supported Mussolini, Germans who idolized Hitler, Russians (not to say Armenians) who were taken in by Stalin, and Gringos who voted for Bush. Besides, Comrade Panchoonie is not exactly a smart Armenian, neither are Baronian’s or Massikian’s characters.

#

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, August 20, 2005

**************************************

OUR BETTERS

***********************

Once when I published an interview with a Tashnak leader (Puzant Granian), a Ramgavar leader (Antranik Antreassian) wrote a letter to the editor (Leo Hamalian) in which he tore the interview to shreds. When the Tashnak replied, his reply was heavily edited because the publication (ARARAT Quarterly) was said to be non-partisan, which in our environment means anti-Tashnak.

*

It's astonishing how many Armenians believe in labels, especially labels whose intent is to confuse and mislead the average dupe.

*

I have heard it said that the AGBU (sometimes also identified as KGBU) is a non-partisan organization. I have also heard it said that it is controlled by Ramgavars, and some of these Ramgavars happen to be former Tashnaks.

*

It is common knowledge that some of our key players hide their partisan affiliations and loyalties in order to enhance their credibility as non-partisan objective observers.

*

For a long time my Ramgavar friends thought I was a Tashnak, and vice versa, my Tashnak friends thought I was a Ramgavar.

*

Zarian published some of his greatest masterpieces in a Tashnak periodical, whose editor once wrote in a letter to a friend: "If we handle him right, he may come to our side," or words to that effect. When Zarian emigrated to Soviet Armenia, the Tashnaks accused him of being a KGB hireling.

*

"An Armenian's tongue can be sharper than a Turk's yataghan." (Zarian).

*

Whenever a Tashnak accused a Ramgavar of wallowing in Bolshevik mud, Ramgavars dismissed him as a puppet of the CIA.

*

After the collapse of the USSR, a high-ranking KGB operative published a memoir (duly translated into English) in which he said some ARF leaders were in fact KGB plants.

*

One of our pundits once confided to me that some of our community leaders are not only agents of Ankara but also Turkish nationals who speak Armenian fluently. On more than one occasion, I have myself been identified as a Grey Wolf - whatever the hell that is.

*

Sometimes I am also accused of washing our dirty linen in public, which raises the question: Why should our betters be thought of as "dirty linen?"

#

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, August 21, 2005

************************************

It is not anti-Armenian to suggesting that if Turks are human beings they deserve our understanding.

*

Because I speak for understanding, tolerance, and dialogue, I am accused of denying the Genocide. I see no connection there, but I see a connection between being perennial losers and perennial ignoramuses.

*

I am against hatred not because I love murderers and rapists but because hatred limits our ability to function at our full potential.

*

Freedom of speech does not mean my freedom is more important than yours is because I am right and you are wrong. It means the freedom to be wrong, that is to say, to be fallible, that is to say, to be human.

*

Armenians are a misunderstood, unappreciated, and ignored people, and ignored not only by odars but also by Armenians.

*

Authoritarianism, intolerance, and charlatanism: I see them as three different facets of the same aberration.

*

Any idea that remotely resembles what I thought twenty years ago as a dupe is repellent to me today, as it may well be twenty years hence to our dupes today.

*

As long as there are Armenians who are not Armenophiles and Turks who are not Turcophiles, we may hope for reconciliation, coexistence, and peace.

#

[ara baliozian]

Monday, August 22, 2005

**********************************

I am for dissent and against propaganda regardless of race, color, and creed. Between a Turkish dissident and an Armenian propagandist I will be on the side of the dissident; and I refuse to believe that agreement with a dissident Turk and disagreement with an Armenian propagandist is a capital offense.

*

The sentence, “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do,” could also be rephrased as, “Forgive them, Father, for they have been brainwashed.”

*

The only way to agree with a propagandist is to allow him to brainwash you.

*

Where benefactors play a central role, there will be rule by flunkies and brown-noses parading as intellectuals and statesmen. When asked to name the greatest influences in his life, one of these so-called statesmen-intellectuals is quoted as having named one of our national benefactors.

*

After subsidizing the construction of a museum dedicated to Armenian history and culture, one of our benefactors is said to have offered his old desk as an exhibit. What a book one could write on the megalomania of our benefactors!

*

Until she died a couple of years ago, the wealthiest woman in Turkey is said to have been a bordello madam by the name of Manoogian. At her death even our weeklies in the diaspora published long obituaries.

#

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

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There are two kinds of people, those who say, “Let us reason together” and mean it, and the others. It is to the “others” that we owe all wars and massacres.

*

As long as I have the agreement of moderates on both sides, why should I care about the others? To put it more bluntly: as long as I have the agreement of reasonable men, why should I give a damn about the disagreement of jackasses?

*

My greatest ambition in life: to make my readers smile even when I write about said things.

*

More often than not I do nothing but paraphrase our writers (see my DICTIONARY OF ARMENIAN QUOTATIONS). Our jackasses are not aware of this fact because they don’t read Armenian writers. Their ignorance thus allows them to parade as good Armenians even as they voice views that are neither good nor Armenian.

*

The Turks say, “We are not guilty of slaughtering Armenians,” and our political parties say, “We are not guilty of leading the nation to the slaughterhouse.” Nothing new in that. All significant historic events have their defenders and critics. Napoleon is a hero to some, a villain to many others. The American, French, and Russian Revolutions have their apologists as well as critics. Notwithstanding their countless victims, Stalin and Hitler have their defenders. Even Hiroshima has been Rashomonized.

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Like all moderates, I believe silencing or exterminating the opposition is not the only legitimate way of settling differences.

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[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, August 24,2005

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Speaking as a layman, I say if our political parties and their pundits have so far failed to convince me, they have also failed to convince many others. The reason of our high alienation and assimilation rate (or "white massacre") must be sought in this failure rather than in "historic, social, cultural, and environmental factors beyond our control."

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If you are like myself a man of limited knowledge and understanding, you will have many adversaries among those who know and understand everything.

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Preaching to the converted is one of the most popular and profitable commercial enterprises in the world.

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After meeting a nice Turk and a nasty Armenian you are bound to question many other assumptions.

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Armenian writers survive only by writing for an odar audience. The culturally starved Armenian will only starve them.

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