as i see it - Pt. IV

[Takoush]

my other advice is: never force yourself to read a book if you don't enjoy every line of it.

sometimes timing is essential -- by that i mean, when or at what age or after which experience you read a book.

 

i meant Toynbee's volume xii ( 12) rather than vii (7). if i made a mistake i apologize.

 

another point: i prefer borrowing books from the library rather than buying them because i must return library books after 3 weeks. my bookcases are full of half-read or non-read books....

 

P.s.

 

Try Tolstoy's HADJI MURAD

and Lesley Blanch's THE SABRES OF PARADISE. / Ara

Ara; some of these books I had to read them and quickly for my English, English Literature and my Philosophy classes; because I had to write essays on them, answering essential critical, core defining and core searching questions asked by my professors. We had to do this to pass a test, you see? But believe you me, while reading these wonderful books I enjoyed them immensely. They have uplifted my spirits and my intellect, and I have learned a great deal from them. I loved it, as I love both literature and philosopy.

 

And thanks for the recommendations. /anahid

Edited January 8, 2006 by Anahid Takouhi

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, January 08, 2006

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We say we are smart. We also say we need solutions to our problems. We never ask, if smart people can’t solve their problems, who can? Are we then smart only when it comes to selling Oriental rugs?

*

State a problem clearly and its solution becomes obvious to all except certified morons.

*

Problem: our leadership is authoritarian.

Solution: democratization, beginning with respect for fundamental human rights, and above all that of free speech. I mention this solution first to point out the fact that it won’t cost a single penny.

*

The solution to our tribalism? The brotherhood of all Armenians and ultimately of all men -- another solution that will not make any demands on our budget.

*

The solution to our Turco-centrism? A shift in focus – (ditto).

*

When Zarian said, “Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another,” he clearly implied the solution, namely, vegetarianism (provided of course both cannibalism and vegetarianism are seen as metaphors).

*

Speaking of Zarian: when I started publishing my translations, writers from both sides of the Iron Curtain informed me that I was wasting my valuable time on a mediocrity. Mischa Kudian, our foremost translator, joined the chorus by telling me I was on the wrong track leading to a dead end.

*

Am I an Armenian writer if I write in English? I do not consider that a problem, and to those who do, I say, if I challenge anyone’s power and prestige I might as well be a Turk in the eyes of our Turco-centric cannibals.

#

[ara baliozian]

Monday, January 09, 2006

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INTERVIEW

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

Q: Your favorite genre of reading matter?

A: Brief interviews with celebrities – I find them compulsively readable even if consistently disappointing.

Q: The funniest book you read last year?

A: THE COMPLETE CARTOONS OF THE NEW YORKER.

Q: What annoys you the most?

A: People who speak like morons because they think everyone else is a lesser moron.

Q: Do you believe in god?

A: Not in the god of priests, mullahs, and rabbis.

Q: What’s your own god like?

A: He is an absentee landlord – distant, incomprehensible, and indifferent.

Q: Your greatest regret?

A: Arguing with individuals who were not prepared to lose an argument.

#

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

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ON POLITICS AND POLITICIANS

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

When a doctor makes a mistake, more often than not his mistake is buried and forgotten.

I once knew a bus driver who after killing a pedestrian he was forced into retirement, became an alcoholic, and died an early death.

When a businessman makes a mistake, he may lose a fraction of his capital or he may even go bankrupt.

But when a politician makes a mistake, thousands and sometimes even millions may die. That’s why politicians find it impossible to admit mistakes and to learn from them. That is also why they rewrite history and become masters of the blame-game.

A politician’s worst enemy is neither his opposition nor the enemy, but the truth. Politicians propagandize, misrepresent, and lie because they must pretend to know better and to be morally superior even when they know nothing and they are the scum of the earth.

That may explain why in a democracy most people don’t vote or if they do they don’t vote for the right man but for the lesser evil, and even then they are disappointed.

#

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

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THE IRRELEVANCE OF LITERATURE

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

Christians trust their clergymen, Muslims their mullahs, and Jews their rabbis not because these gentlemen are wiser or more honest, but because they were in a position to brainwash them.

*

To the average Soviet citizen a commissar had more credibility than the entirety of Russian literature; and intimidation and fear had nothing to do with it. Young Muslim insurgents kill themselves today not because they are driven by fear but by conviction.

*

The collapse of the USSR had nothing to do with its dissenters who were more like canaries in a mine: they only detected the economic bankruptcy and the moral degeneration that preceded the collapse.

*

In an authoritarian environment anyone in a position of authority, be he a boss, bishop, or benefactor and their countless hirelings, hangers-on, and brown-nosers, will enjoy more credibility than Socrates, Gandhi, and Solzhenitsyn, all three of whom were treated like common criminals by their respective power structures.

#

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, January 12, 2006

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

UNDERDOGS

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

Has anyone ever seen an underdog rejecting on moral grounds the opportunity to become a top dog? If the secret ambition of an underdog is to become a top dog, in what way he may be said to be different or morally superior?

*

SHITHOUSE READERS

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

Once upon a time I had as many as fifty thousand readers: that’s when our partisan as well as non-partisan editors in Canada, the United States and the Middle East printed everything I wrote. So what if most of these readers were of the (what’s known in the business as) “shithouse” variant? – that is, they read me in the john. A reader is a reader even if he does his reading while engaged otherwise. And now that our editors have conferred upon me the status of non-person, how many readers do I have? Hard to say. A dozen? Two? It doesn’t really matter. I can always console myself by repeating the old Chinese proverb: “If you think the right thoughts, you will be heard thirty thousand miles away.”

*

ON WRITING

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

The most important thing to remember is the less art the better. Be brief. Write 100 pages, reduce them to one page, squeeze that page into a single paragraph, and discard it into the wastepaper basket.

Be honest. Forget all about the crap you have been exposed to by sermonizers and speechifiers. Speak from your own experience and testify on what you have observed with your own eyes. Do these things and you’ve got it made, which in our environment means making the maximum number of enemies.

*

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

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

If I had a choice between dealing with a proud Armenian and a humble Turk, I would choose the Turk.

*

MEMO

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

I have said this before and it bears repeating: the problem with hating Turks is that inevitably and before the end of the story the hatred spills over on fellow Armenians.

*

THE LAST CHAPTER

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

In a biography I am less interested in the subject’s birthplace and schooling and more in the manner of his death. I may skip the first chapters but never the last.

#

[ara baliozian]

Friday, January 13, 2006

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

Man’s infinite capacity for blunder (including my own) never ceases to amaze me. Which may explain why my favorite mantra is: “So what if in a less than perfect world I am myself less than perfect?”

*

What do the Old Testament and MEIN KAMPF share in common? The absurd and ultimately self-defeating need to assert moral superiority.

*

I write with some authority on absurd assertions because at one time or another I have myself subscribed to them.

*

According to Heidegger, “When we are considering a man’s thoughts, the greater the work accomplished the richer the unthought-of element in that work.” In other words, the more you understand, the more aware you become of that which eludes your understanding. Or, in religious terms, the closer you get to god, the less you understand him.

*

Sartre’s version of this phenomenon: “Man is not the sum of what he has, but the totality of what he does not yet have, of what he might have.”

*

Awareness of ignorance is, therefore, also knowledge.

#

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, January 14, 2006

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

THE POSITIVE AND THE NEGATIVE

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

Baronian and Odian did not speak about Ottomanized Armenians in Istanbul at the turn of the last century, but about human nature. Honorable beggars and Panchoonies continue to be with us today. The reason some of us remain unaware of their existence is that those whose task it is to enhance our perception of reality believe in emphasizing the positive and covering up the negative.

*

THE FRUITS OF SUPERSTITION

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

In their efforts to kill the devil, 363 Muslims in Mecca kill one another. Like so much else in life designed to make us feel good, superstitions too come with a price.

*

THE TROUBLE WITH HONEY

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

Some of my readers accuse me of using too much vinegar and not enough honey. "Honey," they like to remind me, "catches more flies." To them and to everyone who believes in the wisdom of the ages, there is a Spanish proverb that says: "Haceos de miel, y os comeran las moscas" (Make yourself honey and the flies will eat you).

*

CONTRADICTIONS

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

I am read by readers who find me unreadable. I am hated by Armenians who tell me Armenians are loving people. I am called a jerk by individuals who consider themselves noble specimens of humanity. I am torn to shreds by chauvinists who tell me I should be more constructive. I am called son of a whore by individuals who have assessed themselves as paragons of virtue. I am told to go to hell by born-again Christians. If anyone were to ask me now: "What is the most terrible curse you can think of?" I would reply: "May your offspring choose Armenian literature as a career!"

#

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, January 15, 2006

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

A writer is first and foremost a national nuisance. On the day he achieves popularity he has outlived his usefulness.

*

There are as many explanations of the past as there are perspectives. God’s perspective is the only one that matters. But since a worm cannot have the perspective of an eagle, to speak in the name of god must be just about the surest symptom of charlatanism.

*

If you are brought up to believe you are right, you can be sure of only one thing: that’s the worst kind of being wrong.

*

To sum up: We may not be dumb but we are far from smart, and in politics our performance has been an unmitigated fiasco. Our leaders may be compared to a driver without a license who keeps having head-on collisions but is allowed to go on driving. And the source of our poor performance has been and continues to be intolerance of dissent, which also means a total inability or stubborn unwillingness to engage in dialogue.

*

To those who ascribe my views to 20/20 vision, I say it doesn’t take the expertise of a political scientist or the foresight of a historian to guess that a tribal revolution against an empire, and a wounded empire at that, has the chance of a snowball in hell. And a refusal to admit this is also a rejection of history as a source of understanding.

#

[ara baliozian]

Monday, January 16, 2006

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

Most of my thinking goes into exposing what they are thinking.

*

Propaganda works because it flatters the go; criticism doesn’t for the opposite reason.

*

If you ignore the ignorance factor in human affairs a great many things remain unexplained or they are ascribed to so-called “unforeseen factors beyond our control.”

*

The past is a seamless web and everything is connected with everything else. Understanding consists in connecting two apparently unconnected dots.

*

If anyone ever dares to criticize one of our bosses, bishops or benefactors, an entire chorus of brown-nosers, parasites, hangers-on, flunkies and yes-man rise to his defense. But if a dissident is silenced, it’s like a tree that falls in the middle of a distant and uninhabited forest.

#

[Armen]

If you ignore the ignorance factor in human affairs a great many things remain unexplained or they are ascribed to so-called “unforeseen factors beyond our control.”

 

Hmmm... interesting. In natural science there are many theories that use a similar phraze: "other things equal".

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

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

I don’t believe in the moral superiority of the victim if his secret ambition is to be a victimizer.

*

My conception of great distances: that which exists between what politicians know when they speechify and what they don’t know when they are accused of an offense or a blunder.

*

If the average Armenian doesn’t much care about the integrity and competence of his leadership, why should the world give a damn?

*

If I were to identify the most repellent facet of our collective existence today, it would have to be the blatant opportunism and cowardice of our academics that jabber endlessly about the Middle Ages and the Genocide as if our present degrading conditions were of no concern to anyone.

*

We talk too much about God and Country and not enough about honesty. It should be the other way around. Only then may we count on God’s cooperation.

*

I shall attain wisdom on the day I give up writing. But as long as I think by writing I can change things or anyone’s mind I am condemned to remain an obstinate fool.

#

[ara baliozian]

#

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

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

Whenever our editors see a positive story about Armenians and a negative one about Turks they print it to reinforce the by now familiar propaganda line that says Armenians are good and Turks evil. As an Armenian I find this editorial policy prejudicial and embarrassing. In the name of tolerance, objectivity and fair play I should like to see more stories about the thousands of Armenians who live happy lives as Turkish citizens and at least one story about a happy Turk in Yerevan. To those who say "We are not guilty of genocide, they are!" I say I have every reason to suspect, for the same reason that I would hate to be identified with any Armenian political party or regime, there are many Turks today with a similar disposition, and they may turn out to be our best friends, or at least much better friends than countless other people who know little or nothing and care even less about what happened to us at the turn of the last century.

#

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, January 19, 2006

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Learning from history is a special faculty: some people have it and some don’t. If an entire generation of smokers were to die of cancer tomorrow, they would be replaced by a new generation of smokers. Something similar could be said of thieves, drunk drivers, sexual molesters, prostitutes, johns, pimps, and corrupt politicians who go on about their business as if they were immune to prosecution.

*

Speaking of smokers, I read the following in the paper this morning: “Doctors worry about face transplant patient because she is using her new lips to take up smoking again which could interfere with her healing and raise the risk of tissue rejection.” Obviously what this patient needs more than a new face is a brain transplant.

*

Are corrupt politicians obstinate ignoramuses who view history as a meaningless succession of chance occurrences? I am not sure. I suspect greed or power deprives them not only of their moral compass but also of their reason.

#

[ara baliozian]

Friday, January 20, 2006

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THOMAS MANN

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MANN ON MANN

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“The creative genius must first become a world in itself, in which only discoveries and not inventions, remain to be made.”

*

He could write about medicine with the competence of a physician (see THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN), about music with the expertise of a composer (DOKTOR FAUSTUS), and about ancient Egypt with the authority of an Egyptologist (JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS).

*

MANN IN MY LIFE

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

It was at the age of 14 or 15 and in Venice that I first read DEATH IN VENICE in an Italian translation. Failed to make contact. Found his fictional characters cold and distant. But I persevered. I went on to read ROYAL HIGHNESS and TONIO KROEGER. Again nothing happened. Then, in my early twenties I read CONFESSIONS OF FELIX KRULL, CONFIDENCE MAN, his last unfinished novel, in an English translation, and that’s when I got religion.

*

MANN AND NABOKOV

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

Notwithstanding the fact that LOLITA and DEATH IN VENICE share a common theme (the morbid and obsessive infatuation of an adult for a minor – an American girl and a Polish boy respectively -- that ultimately ends in the early death of both men) Nabokov loathed Mann with the contempt of an aristocrat for the bourgeois. Mann’s international popularity and Nobel Prize were no doubt two more contributing factors to Nabokov’s hostility.

*

MANN AND SARTRE

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

As a bourgeois, Mann lacked Sartre’s ferocious hatred of the bourgeois and a clearly defined political line. In the words of a critic: “He was always both conservative and radical, thoroughly proper and deeply demonic.” His fictional characters (like Naphta and Settembrini in THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN) argue endlessly about all the central political and philosophical issues of the day without reaching any apparent conclusion. As a youth, and unlike his brother Heinrich, Mann was seduced by German nationalism, but when it evolved into Hitler’s National Socialist (or Nazi) Party, he rejected it violently (see below). His attitude towards the United States, where he lived for a number of years during World War II and after, changed from admiration for FDR’s New Deal to outrage and disgust for the abuses of McCarthyism.

*

LUKACS ON MANN

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

“There is in Mann’s writing that now vanishing sense of bourgeois dignity which derives from the slow movement of solid wealth.”

*

MANN ON HITLER

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

“A brother – a rather unpleasant and mortifying brother. He makes me nervous, the relationship is painful to a degree. But I will not disclaim it. For I repeat: better, more productive, more honest, more constructive than hatred is recognition, acceptance, the readiness to make oneself one with what is deserving of our hate.” And,

“Thanks to his own baseness, he has indeed succeeded in exposing much of our own.”

*

Hitler attempted to have him assassinated but failed. Hitler’s antagonism was not just political. He resented the fact that THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN sold more copies than MEIN KAMPF.

#

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, January 21, 2006

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

The first paragraph of a front page article in one of our weeklies today reads: "A top leader of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) renewed late Thursday calls for President Robert Kocharian to take tough action against widespread corruption and other manifestations of 'injustice' in Armenia."

This to me is a typical instance of empty verbiage compounded by double-talk. There is only one way to combat injustice and corruption in high places and that's by strengthening the judiciary. Because without an independent and co-equal judiciary, the executive branch is bound to run amok. Sometimes even with an independent judiciary (as in a well-established democracy like the United States) the executive branch has a tendency to abuse its powers.

And now the question we should ask is did we in the Diaspora ever have anything resembling an independent judiciary? And if we by a miracle acquired such an institution tomorrow, how many of our leaders would escape impeachment on grounds of corruption, abuse of power and incompetence?

##

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, January 22, 2006

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If you think my contempt of our leaders is exaggerated, ask one of them what he thinks of the opposition.

*

All analysis is self-analysis of the old self by the new self.

*

I have had many unforgettable encounters and experiences but I did not think of them as unforgettable until much later.

*

Whenever we are understood better than we understand ourselves we think we have been misunderstood.

*

When I was a boy I thought I could achieve anything I wanted. I had the appetite of a giant. But as I grew older I began to resign myself to the fact that one cannot afford to have the appetite of a giant with the stomach of a midget.

*

You cannot step into the same river twice because countless imperceptible changes have taken place within us as well as in our surroundings, including the position of the planets and stars.

*

Nothing can be as vulgar as the need to prove oneself smarter than others.

#

[ara baliozian]

Monday, January 23, 2006

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BOOK REVIEW

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ESTABLISHMENT: STORIES, ARTICLES, POEMS, TRANSLATIONS. By Vahe Avetian (290 pages, Yerevan, 2005).

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

In her review of Vahe’s first book, INDEPENDENCE ARMY (Yerevan, 2005) Ashkhen Keshishian said it was “the best thing that could happen to our otherwise gray and moribund literary scene.” Another reviewer went further and called it “a volcanic eruption.” In his second book, ESTABLISHMENT, Vahe continues his struggle against ignorance and intolerance, the twin sources of most of our problems.

When told by hostile readers – make it, psychoanalyzed by phony Freudians – that his criticism is a result of a suppressed childhood trauma and a way of settling personal scores with unidentified adversaries, he explains he is only introducing critical criteria established in the West. At best, he goes on, “I only translate and paraphrase for readers who may not be familiar with foreign languages.”

Elsewhere he writes: “The consensus about me seems to be that I am a megalomaniac and a self-centered egoist because I speak incessantly about myself. It follows, as night follows day, that those who speak in the name of the nation and mankind are humble altruists.” I find this type of scorching sarcasm irresistible. If others find it unsettling, so much the better.

A word of warning: Vahe’s style is colloquial, direct and deliberately crude. If you are easily ruffled by unbuttoned exuberance or provoked by unleashed fury this book is not for you. But if you like to be exposed to the testimony of an honest witness, if you prefer your vodka straight, and if you are not afraid to shake the hand of an hombre whose grip is bone-crushing, Vahe is your man!

#

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

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

One reason I enjoy writing for my fellow Armenians is that it allows me to play Pollyanna’s glad game and say, “I am glad we don’t live in the USSR and my readers are in no position to denounce me anonymously to a commissar of culture.”

*

If 1% of the charges leveled against me were true, I would not wait to be tried and found guilty by a jury of my peers. I would hang myself from the nearest tree.

*

There is a type of prejudiced individual who thinks by saying, “I am not prejudiced,” he absolves himself of all prejudice. That’s what I call confusing abracadabra with thinking.

*

Some of my readers are disappointed, even angry, when I refuse to join the chorus of our sermonizers and speechifiers in order to make it unanimous. It doesn’t even occur to them how ridiculous, not to say absurd, their position is. Unanimity among us is like Mark Twain’s weather, everyone talks about it but nobody does a damn thing – nobody, especially those who are in a position to do something…such as bishops. Why do we need two bishops within the same city and neighborhood? The answer must be obvious: if we needed only one, the other one will have to be discarded, or even worse, relegated to number two position; and in case you didn’t know, number two is the most hated number among Armenians, especially those who have achieved number one status.

#

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

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

You cannot separate politics from literature. Everybody, including tyrants, know this except our dime-a-dozen pundits who analyze our present problems (some of which are as old as our history) without first reading our major writers (all of whom wrote about them).

*

If you cannot separate politics from literature, neither can you separate literature from politics. The Mekhitarists thought they could do that and they condemned themselves to irrelevance. The Vienna branch has been reduced to an empty library and the Venice branch to a museum.

*

Some of our pundits don't even write about Armenian politics. They write about Turkish politics of which they know and understand even less.

*

And what do our pundits know about our history beyond the usual clichés - first nation to convert to Christianity and first nation to be subjected to wholesale massacres in the 20th Century? At best they may also know about the Tourian assassination in New York in 1933. What else? And they know whatever they know from a nationalist and partisan perspective, which means their judgment has been polluted with recycled propaganda.

*

To sum up: we continue to be at the mercy of dupes who succeed only in covering up the blunders of our corrupt and incompetent leadership and reinforcing our image as perennial victims. They thus end up doing more harm than good. So what else is new?

#

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, January 26, 2006

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

Underdogs interest me much more than top dogs because I am myself the offspring of a long line of underdogs, and the question I ask myself again and again is: What makes some people underdogs and others top dogs? One possible answer: an underdog or a slave (to use Hegelian terminology) becomes a slave because fear prevented him to fight unto death against his future master. In other words, a slave is a slave because he values survival over death.

*

Like most Armenians, I was not educated by Hegelians. I was taught to believe we became underdogs because we faced an adversary that was much more powerful than we were. As a tiny, civilized, and peace-loving nation we were overwhelmed by countless hordes of barbarians from the East. This of course is not history but propaganda designed to explain, justify and console our bruised collective ego.

*

When 600 years ago we surrendered our destiny into the hands of our enemies and said in effect “You may do with us what you will,” we were a majority and they a tiny minority. Our military architecture was one of the most advanced in the world. What we lacked was not strength but unity, solidarity, national consciousness. Every valley and every mountain was more or less autonomous with its own tribal chief, prince or nakharar.

*

We may be the first nation to convert to Christianity but to this day we choose to ignore one of the most important and much-quoted ideas in the Scriptures, namely, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

*

I could probably fill an entire volume of quotations from our own writers stressing this failing in us. Here is a sample from Raffi (1835-1888): “The prevalent mentality among us is every man for himself. As long as I am left alone, why should I give a damn about anyone else?”

*

I have every reason to suspect that our pundits with their Turco-centric worldview are fully aware of this fact as Raffi was more than a hundred years ago, but they are afraid to mention it because it may prevent them from playing the blame-game, our favorite national sport.

#

[phantom22]

Ara,

 

You have distilled the essence of our perpetual failure. (see bolded passage below.)

 

Thursday, January 26, 2006

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

Underdogs interest me much more than top dogs because I am myself the offspring of a long line of underdogs, and the question I ask myself again and again is: What makes some people underdogs and others top dogs? One possible answer: an underdog or a slave (to use Hegelian terminology) becomes a slave because fear prevented him to fight unto death against his future master. In other words, a slave is a slave because he values survival over death.

*

Like most Armenians, I was not educated by Hegelians. I was taught to believe we became underdogs because we faced an adversary that was much more powerful than we were. As a tiny, civilized, and peace-loving nation we were overwhelmed by countless hordes of barbarians from the East. This of course is not history but propaganda designed to explain, justify and console our bruised collective ego.

*

When 600 years ago we surrendered our destiny into the hands of our enemies and said in effect “You may do with us what you will,” we were a majority and they a tiny minority. Our military architecture was one of the most advanced in the world. What we lacked was not strength but unity, solidarity, national consciousness. Every valley and every mountain was more or less autonomous with its own tribal chief, prince or nakharar.

*

We may be the first nation to convert to Christianity but to this day we choose to ignore one of the most important and much-quoted ideas in the Scriptures, namely, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

*

I could probably fill an entire volume of quotations from our own writers stressing this failing in us. Here is a sample from Raffi (1835-1888): “The prevalent mentality among us is every man for himself. As long as I am left alone, why should I give a damn about anyone else?”

*

I have every reason to suspect that our pundits with their Turco-centric worldview are fully aware of this fact as Raffi was more than a hundred years ago, but they are afraid to mention it because it may prevent them from playing the blame-game, our favorite national sport.

#

Edited January 26, 2006 by phantom22

[ara baliozian]

Friday, January 27, 2006

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When an Armenian queen in the Middle Ages was about to die, she divided her kingdom (queendom?) into two equal parts for her two sons. She even ordered the construction of a church and had her deed carved into stone above the gate.

What did the Ottoman sultans do when they had two sons? They had one of them strangled with a silk cord (because it was against the law to shed royal blood) in order to avoid the possibility of a future civil war.

What the Armenian queen did was of course much more humane, but in the long run disastrous to the future of the state.

What the sultans did dramatizes the fact that states and empires are not born but made, and they are made by the adoption of policies that require discipline, self-abnegation, forethought, and even Biblical sacrifice.

*

The main function of a state, we are told, is the conciliation of interests that are irreconcilable on a tribal level. I cite this definition to illustrate another point, and more specifically, the statement of a Turkish diplomat during a visit in the United States: “There has never been such a thing as an Armenian nation-state.”

*

After centuries of subservience to alien and sometimes ruthless and bloodthirsty tyrants, to say that we have emerged from the experience unscathed amounts to saying that after being spread by a skunk we smell like roses.

*

Is what I am saying true or only a stage towards the ultimate truth, which I will never know and which, if it exists, may contradict everything I have been saying?

*

When I was young I had as many certainties as I have doubts today.

#

[Takoush]

[quote)

Is what I am saying true or only a stage towards the ultimate truth, which I will never know and which, if it exists, may contradict everything I have been saying?

*

When I was young I had as many certainties as I have doubts today.

#

[unquote]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Ara:

 

The reason is because you were born with idealisms that was nurtured into you and not through your nature. When you have gained life experience you realised that idealisms usually are overdramatized and there's much more to it if you go in depth into the idealisms that was inititially nurtured into you. Then you realised that they don't really work for your own thoughts and ultimate feelings; because those idealisms can or even have become disastrous to your people. That's why you had certainties then and yet you have as much doubts today.

Edited January 28, 2006 by Anahid Takouhi

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, January 28, 2006

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

Once upon a time there was an Armenian discussion forum that instead of welcoming new members removed anyone on more or less flimsy and arbitrary grounds. Inevitably its membership dwindled to a handful…and then there was none. Moral of the story: a policy of exclusion might as well be a death warrant.

*

On more than one occasion I have been informed by Armenian writers and academics that I do not qualify as an Armenian writer because I write in English. Whether I am an Armenian or a Guatemalan or Hottentot writer is of no concern to me. Why should it be of concern to anyone else? - unless of course it's meant to satisfy an instinctive need to exclude, expel, and excommunicate.

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There are in contemporary French literature many writers who are not French but Romanian, Jewish, Algerian, Irish, Czech, and even Armenian. Some of the greatest and most popular writers in America today are Jewish. That's because both France and the United States have adopted a policy of inclusion. I challenge anyone to name a single Armenian writer of foreign extraction. In a few years my question may well be: I challenge anyone to mention a single Armenian writer.

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To those who say you can't compare big France and America to little Armenia, I say, at a time when we had a golden age neither France nor the United States existed. What made them what they are today is a policy of inclusion. And what has reduced us to irrelevance is a policy of exclusion.

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It is our policy of exclusion that has reduced us to the status of perennial victims and underdogs dependent on the goodwill of others and forever subservient to them. It is our intolerance, which is at the root of our instinct to exclude, that continues to justify our tribalism. And to be tribal in a world dominated by imperial powers is to condemn ourselves to irrelevance.

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