ara baliozian Posted March 19, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2011 Thursday, March 17, 2011********************************************THE NATIVES ARE RESTLESS****************************************** …And this is of great concern to the West because where there are Arabs there is oil. Where there are Armenians, however, there are only rocks and unsettled scores. We are less than useless to the West; we are a nuisance. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are pundits today who think Turks should have done a more thorough job on us. I once met a born-again Armenian in his eighties who said as much, adding the Genocide had been God’s way of letting us know that we don’t deserve to live.*And speaking of God:The side with bigger guns in Libya is winning. This may suggest that God doesn’t like to interfere in human affairs.*We say God is great in the hope He will be flattered and manipulated into supporting our cause.*The status quo does not represent the will of God. The reason Ben Ali and Mubarak fell is that no regime is endless. The regime in Yerevan will last for as long as the regime in Moscow does and no more.*We know and understand a great deal except what is unknowable and incomprehensible beside which what we know and understand might as well be as nothing.#Friday, March 18, 2011********************************************CORRECT ME, IF I AM WRONG****************************************** After every comment I make, I would like to add: “Correct me, if I am wrong.”*In a world where everyone is proud to be a Turk, Kurd, Jew, or Armenian I prefer to be a humble human being if only because humility is a virtue and pride leads to arrogance.*A reader writes: “The only thing I know about Armenian history is that we were a great nation and God was on our side.”*Insults are verbal massacres. To insult a fellow Armenian or anyone else for that matter is to use words as yataghans.*Tell me who brainwashed you and I will tell you who you are.*To our superpatriots I say: Patriotism and respect for human rights are not mutually exclusive concepts. Homeland is where a man is allowed to work and express his views freely. I have nothing but contempt for the kind of patriot who treats free speech as an invention of the corrupt and degenerate West. That’s not patriotism but Ottomanism, Sovietism, and fascism.#Saturday, March 19, 2011******************************************** QUESTION / ANSWER****************************************** Criticism is not enemy action; dissent is not a capital offense; human rights are not inventions of the degenerate West. Question: Why is it that I was not taught these truths?Answer: Because I had an Armenian education.*I was not brainwashed. I was trained like a parrot.*Dehumanization comes naturally to a nation that has lived under brutal regimes for a thousand years.# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted March 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 23, 2011 Sunday, March 20, 2011******************************************* TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW****************************************** You don’t like criticism and dissent?Get over it. Get used to it. Get real. Even God has His share of critics and dissenters. You prefer yes-men? May I remind you that all power structures, including the most corrupt and criminal, rely on yes-men. Hitler and Stalin had them. So did Genghis Khan and Timur the Lame. Massacres and genocides are unthinkable without them. And if, like every Tom, Dickhead and Harry, you say you prefer those who are with you to those who are against you,may I ask in what way are you different from the rest of mankind? Tell me something I don’t know. So what else is new? What matters is not on whose side we are but how we define good and evil. When asked to define good and evil, an African tribal chieftain is quoted by C.G. Jung to have replied: “When I steal my enemy’s wives, it’s good. When he steals mine, it’s bad!” If, on the other hand, you say you prefer patriots to traitors, consider what happened to German patriots when Hitler lost World War II, and what will happen to Gadhafi and his henchmen after his regime collapses. Today’s patriot may be tomorrow’s traitor and today’s dissenter may be tomorrow’s hero and role model. And if you think you are never wrong in your judgment of your fellow men, I say, every misguided fool thinks so too.#Monday, March 21, 2011******************************************* SELF-DECEPTION****************************************** “My people love me!” declared Gadhafi the other day even as he was slaughtering a fraction of them. Did he believe in his own lie? The more relevant question is: Can power and honesty coexist? *If Gadhafi is a compulsive liar, what about popes, imams, and rabbis? What could be more absurd than to say, all political and religious leaders lie except our own? *Because truth is beyond men’s reach, they will believe in a thousand lies even after these lies have been exposed. *Mine is not a David-and-Goliath confrontationbut rather that of a horse-fly and a horse – make it,a jackass.#Tuesday, March 22, 2011******************************************* ON ARMENIAN ANTI-ARMENIANISM****************************************** All our problems have solutions. If we pretend otherwise it’s because we have no use for them. What we want, what we need more than anything else is revenge. It’s understandable. What motivates a nation that has been degraded, abused, and slaughtered throughout most of its historic existence is not reason but thirst for blood. What drives us is not what’s good for us but what’s bad for our enemies -- beginning with Armenians who disagree with us. If only because these Armenians, unlike our real enemies, are within reach, defenseless, and in no position to retaliate.*Armenian anti-Armenianism: not exactly an original insight that one. Granted. Rather, it’s an idea as old as Khorenatsi and Yeghishé (historians of the 5th century). According to Zarian, a more recent witness: “Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another.” And in case you ascribe that view to an isolated and non-representative intellectual, allow me to quote the lyrics of a popular song: “One Armenian eats one chicken, Two Armenians eat two chickens, Three Armenians eat each other.” *As for our political parties whose job it is to solve our problems:all they do is legitimize dogmatism, intolerance, and ultimately cannibalism. After which they voice one of their favorite mantras: “What we need is not criticism but solutions.” And if you believe that, you’ll believe anything!#Wednesday, March 23, 2011******************************************* “YOU REPEAT YOURSELF”****************************************** We all do. There is nothing new under the sun. Why single me out? Am I saying something you don’t want to hear? “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” “Of the gods we know nothing!” I wonder why is it that the charge of repetition is never leveled against propagandists who repeat not ideas – because they have none – but slogans, clichés, inanities, and lies. What drives them? A thirst for justice? What about the injustice of violating someone’s free speech? *Nothing works as planned. They must have known this. Why else did they have a Plan B only for themselves? Their heart was in the right place? What about their brain? Where was their brain? Out to lunch?# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted March 26, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 26, 2011 Thursday, March 24, 2011******************************************* LAMENTATION****************************************** Let others recycle propaganda. I will continue to use my reason and common sense because I believe them to be valuable tools even when they make me vulnerable to charges of treason and betrayal by Ottomanized and Sovietized dupes. *If the scriptures, to which we all pretend to believe to be the word of God, clearly and unequivocally states “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” I shall have no choice but to call our leaders the architects of our own destruction. And if you say, all rules have exceptions, I say, greed for power, incompetence, stupidity, and corruption that lead to defeat, massacre, and dispersion are consequences not of rules but of aberrations. *No one is perfect? I suggest, that idea does not justify dishonesty. As imperfect beings we have made our share of mistakes, granted. Let us therefore begin by being honest enough to admit them, instead of brainwashing generations of children to believe we never had it so good because we are in the best of hands. *Best of hands? I have every reason to suspect, it’s the worst of hands: bishops who fornicate, bosses with secret fascist agendas, benefactors who harbor royalist ambitions, and academics willing and eager to kiss any posterior for a regular income. Amot!#Friday, March 25, 2011******************************************* LAMENTATION / II****************************************** “We have the leaders we deserve.”“We are ungovernable.”“Where there are two Armenians there will be three opinions.”*We are all familiar with the story of the two shipwrecked Armenians on a desert island who build three churches. When asked by their rescuers why a third church, they reply: “That’s the one we don’t go to.”* I am not convinced. To blame the people is to victimize the victim all over again. Solidarity is a function of the leadership not of the masses.If we remain divided today it’s because there are among us deceivers willing to place their careers above the welfare of the nation. To that end they fabricate ideological and theological reasons (reasons that most Armenians neither know nor understand, and if they know and understand, they don’t remember) and call their opponents heretics or infidels.*Mighty empires begin as a collection of tribes. It takes a charismatic leader with vision to unite them into a single force. This is as true of the Athenian Empire as it is true of all empires from the Roman to the Ottoman.*Even our monastic orders with identical belief systems and aims like the Mekhitarists are sooner or later divided and consigned to the dustbin of history. *It was Raffi who once described us as a flock without a shepherd. It would be more accurate to say we are several flocks with as many wolves as shepherds – wolves in sheep’s clothing. “Mart bidi ch’ellank!”#Saturday, March 26, 2011************************************* WRITERS ****************************************** A reader writes: “When someone speaks plainly I sort of go into shock and get somewhat disoriented.” If I write plainly it’s because I want to be honest, objective, and accessible. I have nothing to hide, no interests to defend, and no prejudices to legitimize. Our writers today cater to a variety of readers with specific demands. They treat bishops as men of God (therefore untouchable), bosses as infallible(therefore beyond criticism), and benefactors as sacred cows(therefore gifts from god). As for objectivity and honesty: they might as well be skunks at a garden party.# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted March 30, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 30, 2011 Sunday, March 27, 2011******************************************** WE NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD!************************************ An article in the travel section of our local paper informs me that Estonians now have a museum dedicated to the atrocities committed against the people by the Soviet regime. Do we have one? If no, when are we going to have one? Can we be really “azad” and “ungakh” -- free and independent -- as long as we are ruled by two sets of former KGB agents – theirs and ours?#Monday, March 28, 2011******************************************** WE ARE IN GOOD HANDS************************************ God has given us a brain but our educational system teaches us not to use it.*A system may be foolproof but not crook-proof. *Our endless controversies and divisions have nothing to do with right and wrong, or orthodoxies and heresies. If they disagree it’s because permanent disagreement is to their advantage and the only way they know how to defend and protect their powers and privileges. As for the people they are meant to serve: Let them eat cak(e).*The Arab revolutions that we are witnessing today are organized and carried out by the young. An Arab-style revolution in Armenia is unthinkable because the regime in Yerevan encourages the young to emigrate, and the young have done so by the million. The buggers think of everything!* If an Armenian works for a boss, bishop, or benefactor it goes without saying that he will be critical only of Turks. Shaw is right: it’s a waste of time arguing against a man’s source of income.#Tuesday, March 29, 2011******************************************* IN THE NAME OF PATRIOTISM************************************ Patriotism does not mean love of homeland and everything in it, including the regime, the secret police and its violations of human rights. *To accept the status quo as an inevitable fact of life might as well be synonymous with treason if only because it supports the victimizer and ignores the victim; in the same way that those who deny the Genocide do so in support of the victimizer at the expense of the victim.*There is an executioner in every dedicated patriot.*Unmask an Armenian and come face to face with a Turk.*It has happened to me more than once that I became irrationally angry at the sight of someone who reminded me of someone else though I could not remember who. This may suggest that the gut has a longer memory than the brain.*There is a great deal that is hidden from us.*We are encouraged not to think for ourselves on the ground that our “betters” are paid to do our thinking for us. The question is: Who pays them to think as they do?*Under authoritarian regimes to think is defined as not to think. Remember Napoleon’s dictum: “A man with an idea is my enemy.”*I repeat myself, granted. But never as often as propagandists who not only repeat themselves but also brainwash other to do so, and all in the name of patriotism.*Dissent is useful if only because it makes us aware of the fact that not everyone thinks alike, and where everyone thinks alike no one thinks.*Some days I receive so many hostile emails that I have no choice but to conclude my most faithful readers are my critics.#Wednesday, March 30, 2011******************************************* THE REST IS PROPAGANDA************************************ Like every Armenian dead or alive I too have experienced on my own skin the inhumanity and contempt that an Armenian has for another Armenian. No one can convince me that we are civilized, intelligent, and compassionate. It took history a thousand years to shape our identity and it may take another thousand for us to be born again as human beings. What matters, however, is not our destination but the road on which we choose to travel. In the meantime it is important that we keep in mind some facts about ourselves:We are our own worst enemies.There is more fiction than fact in our history books.The higher an Armenian rises the deeper his contempt for his fellow Armenians. We are a Christian nation in name only: unmask an Armenian and expose the Turk or the atheist for whom democracy and human rights are alien and degenerate verbiage. The rest is propaganda.# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted April 2, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 2, 2011 Thursday, March 31, 2011******************************************* OBSERVATIONS************************************ The hardest thing in writing is the search for the simplest words.*A lie that flatters will be more popular than a truth that hurts.That’s why propaganda is more popular than dissent.*It took me thirty years to realize I had been brainwashed.*If you don’t think you have been brainwashed, you have been.#Friday, April 01, 2011******************************************* COWBOYS AND INDIANS ************************************ Today’s champions of human rights, Americans were yesterday’s champion violators who probably claimed more victims than Genghis Khan, Suleiman the Magnificent, Talaat, and Stalin combined. As for their victims (both Indians and Africans):in their endless tribal wars and massacres before the white man appeared on the scene, they were champion victimizers in their own right.*History is not written but rewritten and it is not white man alone who speaks with a forked tongue.*Speaking of the European conquest of America, Toynbee writes: “As soon as they had accomplished their murderously romantic historical mission of clearing the North American barbarians out of the way, they themselves were swiftly sucked back into the prosaic Main Street of a pullulating Middletown. The culture of this Middletown had lapsed into a conspicuous vulgarity and barbarism in the realm of Art.”*When two sets of barbarians clash, the result will not be a new civilization – though historians will be assigned the task of misrepresenting it as such.*Turks rewrite history? Don’t we? We do worse: We pretend to care about the past to the point of obsession in order to avoid thinking and assessing our present and future. We have replaced Ottomanism with Turcocentrism. What’s the difference? Don’t ask me because I don’t know.*A question that our historians consistently avoid raising: What has been our contribution to our own history -- besides providing victims to victimizers?# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted April 9, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 9, 2011 Thursday, April 07, 2011******************************************* FRIENDS************************************ The tribal Muslims of the Middle East and North Africa are ahead of us. They have finally discovered that their greatest enemies are neither Jews nor Americansbut their own corrupt, incompetent, and authoritarian leaders who portray themselves as father figures and role models. *For daring to say as much a few years ago, I lost several close friends from the Middle East. This may suggest that even well-educated Armenians are predisposed to believe recycled enemy propaganda and reject the judgment of a brother.*I call Muslims our enemies if only because after a thousand years of coexistencethey have contributed nothing but misery to our collective existence and blind subservience to authority to our character as a nation.#Friday, April 08, 2011******************************************* WHY DO YOU WRITE?************************************ When asked that question, I make it short and harmless by saying writing has become a habit and habits are easier to keep than to give up. *Why do I write?I write because as a teenager I fell in love with the 19tn-century Russians.I write because I like to share my understanding of reality.I write to expose deceivers.To achieve immortality?Why should I care what happens to me after I am dead and buried?*Why do I write?There may be many other reasons.There is always a difference between what we say and what we really think.I write because I cannot do anything else.I write because I have done many others things and I have failed in all of them.I write because I hate to work for money.#Saturday, April 09, 2011******************************************* THE UGLY ARMENIAN************************************ We have many problems which we will never solveif we don’t teach ourselves to separate fact from fiction. Like the rest of mankind we are not as lovable as we think we are. Saroyan’s “stylized” Armenians (his own qualifier) may be cute and lovable but according to the published memoirs of his wife and son, Saroyan himself was far from lovable. To the Russians we are known as “cowards.” To the Greeks as “Turkish gypsies.” To the French as “filthy.” To the Italians as smarter than Jews – meaning, worse than Jews and thus to be avoided in the marketplace. To the Americans, as Middle-East variants of their native Indians.*The truth is, as poor and homeless displaced peoplewe were welcome nowhere, including our own homeland. Armenian survivors of World War II who repatriatedwere not only called “aghber” but also treated like garbage. Not that our Sovietized brothers and sisters treated one another more humanely. If they had, several generations of our ablest men would have survived successive waves of Stalinist purges. *When I am expected to believe Arabs of the Middle East welcomed survivors of the Genocide with open arms, forgive me if I find that hard to believe. We are told many Armenian orphans were adopted and treated kindly by their new parents. What we are not told how many of them were abused and raped. We are told 97% of the population in Armenia is Armenian. What we are not told Why is it that minorities are practically non-existent there? Is it because we are intolerant, unfriendly, clannish, tribal, and hostile to all outsiders? I will let you answer that question. And if you think I write as I do because I am driven by self-hatred, please don’t tell me you are one of those narcissistic Armenians who have been brainwashed to believe since we are beyond criticism we can do no wrong.# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted April 13, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 13, 2011 Sunday, April 10, 2011******************************************* HOW TO JUDGE A POLITICAL LEADER*********************************************** In John Buchan’s GREENMANTLE (1916) the Young Turks are described as “a collection of Jews and gypsies.”True or false?I don’t know and I don’t care.What matters here is not their family tree but the fact that some of our greatest intellectual and political leaders trusted them.*It is not my intention to convince anyone to think as I do, but only to show that (one) recycling enemy propaganda is not the only way to think, and (two) just because someone speaks in the name of patriotism, nationalism or some other noble cause, it doesn’t necessarily follow he is right. *All enemies of democracy speak in the name of an ideology. No fascist has ever declared himself to be anti-nationalist or anti-patriotic. On the contrary,* some of the most celebrated proponents of patriotism have been foreign intruders and outsiders. Napoleon was not a Frenchman, Stalin was not a Russian, Hitler was not a German, and one of our greatest symbols of patriotism and heroism, Vartan Mamigonian, was not an Armenian.*Moral of the story: what matters about a political leader is not his dedication to a noble cause but his respect for human rights, free speech, and democracy. The rest is enemy propaganda.#Monday, April 11, 2011******************************************* IN AN UNDEMOCRATIC ENVIRONMENT THE SCUM RISES TO THE TOP*********************************************** “If you speakyou are kesh.If you don’t speakyou are esh.”*I came across this charming haiku in an Armenian website the other day. I have been called both kesh and esh by readers Who have somehow managed to convince themselves they are better and wiser.*With age comes wisdom, except when your aim is power, in which case with age comes more greed, prejudice, ignorance, and intolerance.*We tend to look up to our bosses, bishops, and benefactors on the grounds that they have more money and power. In this context we consistently avoid asking the question, What have these gentlemen done for us so far except to divide, deceive, and lead us to massacre, exile, and subservience? *Now then, I ask you ladies and gentlemen (if you will forgive the overstatements) what have our dissidents done except trying to enhance our solidarity and share their understanding with us. Why should solidarity, tolerance, and understanding be treated as failings or vices and divisiveness, dogmatism, and intolerance as desirable patriotic duties and virtues? *What makes you think your bishop knows better than someone else’s pope, imam, or rabbi?*God is with us? That was one of Hitler’s favorite slogans too. Why is it that where God enters intolerance follows, and with intolerance, heresies, persecution, and death? – the death of the spirit if not the body. *The scum rises to the top even in democratic environments. That’s because, as Plato explains somewhere: honest men will use only honest means to achieve their goals, unlike crooks who will use both honest and dishonest means.#Tuesday, April 12, 2011******************************************* SYSTEMS*********************************************** We are brought up to think all belief systems are wrong except our own. All politicians are crooks except our own. All historians lie except our own. Terrorists? We never had them. Ours were freedom fighters.All our wars were defensive wars.All our defeats were moral victories.This may suggest that the aim of propaganda is not to inform but to brainwash, and the aim of educational systems is not to educate but to moronize.#Wednesday, April 13, 2011******************************************* MEMORIES AND REFLECTIONS*********************************************** As a child I thought of war, starvation, and homelessness (all of which I experienced) as inevitable facts of life. I was brought up to believe in God who in His infinite wisdom had a plan for me. What exactly had been His plan for those who did not survive?That was a question I did not ask. In my infantile eyes Almighty God made the decisions and men had no choice but to say “Thank you, Lord!”* When as a teenager I met an adult who spoke as I write today, my initial impression was that he must be nuts. How dare he question God’s wisdom? I know now that what he was questioning was not God’s wisdom or even His existence but the judgment of those who speak in His name –popes, imams, and rabbis who in another era would condemn one another to death as frauds, heretics, and blasphemers.# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted April 16, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 16, 2011 Thursday, April 14, 2011******************************************* FRIENDS AND ENEMIES*********************************************** If we define friends as those who agree with us, and enemies as those who disagree, we shall have to conclude that some of our best friends are Turks, and some of our worst enemies are Armenians.*Our greatest enemy is not the Turk but free speech.*Where free speech is the enemy there will always be men at the top who pretend to know better. They may not be historians, economists, or philosophers, but they will pretend their understanding of history, economy, and philosophy to be superior to anyone else’s, and there will always be others willing to agree with them.*Even mighty empires are afraid of words.*Tyrants rule by inspiring fear in others but they are themselves afraid of words. *In undemocratic environments men are ruled by cowardly fools.#Friday, April 15, 2011******************************************* THREE QUESTIONS,THREE ANSWERS, & TWO MORALS *********************************************** If the Americans refuse to recognize the reality of our genocide, what are our chances of some day convincing the Turks to do so?My guess is: 1 in 1,5 million.*If Americans who like to identify themselves as champions of democracy, free speech and human rights are afraid to use the “g” word, what are our chances that some day in the near or distant future the Turks will include that word in their dictionaries, encyclopedias, and textbooks? This time I will let you do the guessing.*Third question: What do Americans stand to lose in this context? A friend in the Middle East? What about Turks themselves? What do they stand to lose? The obvious answer is: billions in reparations (money they don’t have) and an important fraction of their real estate which they stole from us 600 years agoas, more recently, Yanks stole America from the Indians,“fair and square.”*At the turn of the last century, our revolutionaries promised freedom and historic Armenia but delivered death and pestilence.*Moral I: If you make a promise you can’t deliver your credibility is bound to sink lower than a snake’s belly full of buckshot. *Moral II: You fooled me once, shame on you. You fooled me twice, shame on me.*You find what I say depressing? Don’t blame me. Blame reality. I deal in facts, not fiction. If you prefer fiction, read romances with happy endings.#Saturday, April 16, 2011******************************************* IS GOD A FASCIST?*********************************************** Who hates writers? Fascists. Where fascists enter writers are silenced. If you don’t believe me it may be because you suffer from amnesia. I suggest you refresh your memory by reading a book on fascism or a history of our literature. *In both the Ottoman Empire under Talaat and the USSR under Stalin our writers were the first victims. And if you say, “So you dare to think of yourself as a writer?” I will reply: “I don’t speak as a writer. I speak as a witness who refuses to be a dupe and to recycle the propaganda of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors who speak in the name of God and capital (make it, Capital and god); and I speak as I do because I refuse to believe God is a fascist. Fascists are afraid of free speech because they want everyone to believe they are infallible and they hate to be exposed as frauds. God, by contrast, is afraid of nothing. This may suggest that God, unlike the god of popes, imams, and rabbis, is neither a fascist nor a fraud, and because I say so it doesn’t necessarily follow that I am in league with the Devil.# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted April 20, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 20, 2011 Sunday, April 17, 2011******************************************* TRUST*********************************************** True patriotism consists in being honest with oneself and one’s fellow countrymen, not in saying “Yes, sir!” to those who pretend to know better but who have been consistently wrong in the past. A citizen is not a soldier. But after World War II even soldiers are not compelled to say “Yes, sir!” to all orders. *Politics is not an exact science. In a democracy, everything a politician saysis open to criticism and contradiction. That is why for every politician who says one thing there will be another who will say the opposite. *Readers who accuse me of hating my fellow Armenians and myself never mention the deep contempt they themselves have for anyone who dares to disagree with them. Do they speak of hatred because they feel unloved?And if they are unloved, do they ever ask whether or not they deserve anyone’s love? *All our misfortunes may be traced to misplaced trust. We trusted the Turks as our masters for 600 years. We trusted them so much that they called us their “most faithful millet [ethnic minority]” That “most faithful” bothers the hell out of me. Why couldn’t we have been like all the others – Greeks, Arabs, Jews, Assyrians, Bulgarians, Albanians, and Kurds – among others? Why did we have to be their “most faithful” bitch? We trusted Talaat, Stalin, and Hitler. We trusted the Great Powers of the West as we trusted our own leaders who were not there when we needed them most. They had a plan B only for themselves. *In America today we trust any presidential candidate who promises to recognize the reality of our genocide even when after they are elected they refuse to use the “g” word. And now, our leaders expect us to trust them again when they rewrite history and represent themselves as statesmen of vision who can do no wrong.#Monday, April 18, 2011******************************************* A COMEDY OF ERRORS*********************************************** When the USSR collapsed Stalinists were unanimous in blaming it on Solzhenitsyn, as if a single or, for that matter, a thousand unarmed civilians could challenge and defeat a military colossus. *The USSR collapsed because the lies of the Kremlin were exposed; and when lies are exposed, the reality principle asserts itself.*If so far we have survived it’s because the lies of our enemies are bigger than our own. We have nothing to brag about. God is not on our side. We are not as smart as we think we are. Our history is a disaster area and our leadership is a farce.#Tuesday, April 19, 2011******************************************* ANOTHER WITNESS*********************************************** If you think I am an eccentric with whose opinionsvery few responsible Armenians would agree, allow me to quote a witness that may well be less vulnerable to similar charges.“Our teachers are self-satisfied ignoramuses. Our clergy love commerce more than learning. Our leaders behave more like wolves than shepherds.”I am paraphrasing from memory a few lines from the “Lamentation” of Khorenatsi,a historian of the 5th century when Armenia was at the apex of its Golden Age as opposed to the nadir of its decline and disintegration.*More recently, a friend writes: “Our community is dying. It’s a case of cold-blooded murder and the killers are the very same individuals who parade as our saviors.”*Another correspondent informs me: “Ours is a case of terminal cancer.”*If you say, “We survived Khorenatsi and we will survive you and your gloom-and-doom friends and correspondents,”all I can say is: Yes, in the Ottoman Empire we survived as slaves for 600 years; and we are surviving today as dupes. I call that kind of survival worse than death.#Wednesday, April 20, 2011******************************************* BEING POSITIVE*********************************************** Turks and Armenians disagree on many things but they agree on one thing – that the other is an infidel dog. We could build on that!# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted April 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 23, 2011 Thursday, April 21, 2011*******************************************POLITICIANS *********************************************** To say, “Our politicians don’t lie” is as transparent a falsehood as saying “I owe my birth to immaculate conception.” Even if you believe it, you may have some trouble convincing others.*Reality (or God) tells us all men are brothers. Politicians tell us the only good enemy is a dead enemy. *Even those who agree that all politicians lie see nothing wrong in allowing them to control our educational system.*The average dupe – and it makes no difference whether he is Russian or Prussian, Hottentot or Patagonian, Armenian or Turk – would rather go to war and kill or die rather than give up his infantile beliefs. This may suggest that all wars are clashes between two figments created by habitual liars.*Where God and patriotism enter, reality exits.*To be against free speech is to be for liars. *Two synonymous sentences: Once upon a time barbers were surgeons. Once upon a time politicians led nations.# Friday, April 22, 2011*******************************************DO THE MATH*********************************************** Did you know that there are more Armenians today than there Mongols, Libyans, and Icelanders combined? – and I am not counting half of Turkey which is half-Armenian.You don’t believe me?Look it up and do the math.*Solutions?We have no use for them.What we need – what we really need today is not solutions but someone with Kemalist ambitions. Solving problems is a language we don’t speak.*To justify our unwillingness to solve our problems we count our liabilities the way others count their assets: we are few, we are landlocked, we are surrounded by bloodthirsty barbarians…As for political and religious dogmatism, intolerance, divisions, censorship, violations of human rights, corruption, and incompetence: we ignore them as if they were irrelevant factors beyond our control.*The Armenian character is not a poorly defined abstraction but an expression of how we treat one another.# Saturday, April 23, 2011******************************************* ROLE MODELS*********************************************** Where would Christians be without Jesus, or Muslims without Mohammed, or Communists without Marx, or Catholics without the popes, or Protestants without Luther? The men at the top matter. A divided leadership will spawn a divided community. Where the leadership is mediocre, excellence will be outlawed. Under a dishonest leadership, charlatanism will be the common currency.*“You are consistently negative.”All criticism and dissent is – including your own.There are ten negatives in the Ten Commandments.If I am negative it may be because I have the Good Lord as my guide and role model. But if you prefer positive, read my book on Armenian history and culture which could be subtitled “A Thousand and One Positive Things About Armenian History and Culture.”*“You repeat yourself!”So do Panchoonies: “Mi kich pogh oughargetsek” (Send us a little money).Even the Good Lord repeats Himself:“Where there is no vision the people perish.”“Where the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted April 27, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 27, 2011 Sunday, April 24, 2011******************************************* HERITAGE*********************************************** The Turkish take on the Genocide: “We taught them a lesson they will never forget.” A crime against humanity? Hell no! An exercise in promoting wisdom? Damn right! *What a book one could write on the dangers of self-assessment! *Another case in point: They view Ottomanism as a progressive and civilizing force even after they themselves rejected every aspect of it – from the fez and the shalvar to the alphabet and the power structure. That’s the trouble with all brainwashed dupes: they can’t tell the different between making sense and making asses of themselves. *We share with them an intolerance of dissent and contradiction – an obvious part of our common heritage.*It is easy to remove the tangible; much more difficult to reform the invisible.#Monday, April 25, 2011******************************************* REFLECTIONS*********************************************** The more I write the less I hope to change anything.*The USSR did not collapse because of what Solzhenitsyn, among many others, wrote, or because of what the Pope of Rome or President Reagan said or did. The USSR collapsed because it was rotten. Nations and empires are not killed, they commit suicide.*The Albanians have survived and very probably will continue to survive. That’s not what matters. What matters is, who gives a damn whether they survive or not?The Albanians maybe, but who else?*A nation is judged not by its past but by its future;and more precisely, by what it can contribute to mankind.#Tuesday, April 26, 2011******************************************* NOTES & COMMENTS*********************************************** There are two kinds of people: those who help you to live and those who help you to die.*When the Turks first set foot on Armenian soil they numbered less than 140,000.*Only one Armenian in ten thousand knows our history and we meet him every day.*Nationalist historians adapt facts to their ideology. A fact that cannot be adapted is discarded.*A midget can defeat two giants if the giants are divided; all he has to do is wait until the giants wear each other out and bleed to death.*Question: Do I have to read ten thousand books in order to know all there is to know about our history and culture?Answer: No. Just take a good look at yourself in the mirror.*If you are kind, they will love you and ignore you. If you are mean, they will hate you and remember you. If you are honest, they will crucify you,#Wednesday, April 27, 2011******************************************* NOTES & COMMENTS*********************************************** It should be obvious by now that autocratic rulers don’t have much respect for their subjects. It would be even more accurate to say that they don’t give a damn about them.*The trouble with our brown-nosers is that they wear the brown on their nose as if it were a certificate of loyalty and a badge of honor.*Do you have to be brave to be a hero? No, just honest.*If Armenia is a puppet of Russia today, it is up to our leadership to convince the Russians that a free and independent Armenia will be in a much better position to make a contribution to their welfare.*The real scandal is not that Armenian political parties have no respect for free speech but that no one, not even our pundits and academics, who ought to know better, give a damn, as if it were fire on the other side of the river.*You spend half a lifetime to figure out your fellow men and the other half in avoiding them.# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted April 30, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2011 Thursday, April 28, 2011******************************************* NOTES & COMMENTS*********************************************** Because I try to understand Turks as human beings as opposed to bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians, I am accused of justifying the Genocide. Nothing and no one can justify the murder of a single innocent human being. To understand and explain is not to justify. If an Almighty and All-loving God allows such a murder to take place, it is up to us to understand it.*Arabs today are as angry with their own corrupt, autocratic, and incompetent leaders as with their own past subservience and cowardice. My dissent has similar roots. I write less against our leadership and more against my own cowardly conformism.*Nations lie as surely as compulsive liars.*Nationalist historians rewrite history to cover up past blunders and to legitimize future ones.*Wars represent the triumph of the gut over the brain.#Friday, April 29, 2011******************************************* WISDOM***********************************************True wisdom begins on the day you say to yourself: “I thought I understood everything. I know now that I understand nothing!”*To understand politics, read a book on organized crime.*Politics has created more criminals than the Mafia.* If brainwashing were declared a crime against humanity, as it should be, which one of our speechifiers, sermonizers, and ghazetajis would escape hanging?#Saturday, April 30, 2011*************************************** ENEMIES OF MANKIND***************************************** We have inherited two sets of contradictory ideas: the ideas that animate our literature – from Khorenatsi and Naregatsi to Raffi and Zarian -- and the ideas of our dividers, namely sermonizers and speechifiers who speak in the name of God and capital (make it Capital and god).*Our bosses, bishops, and benefactors make a comfortable living, thank you very much. Our writers are unemployed and unemployable misfits.*Our writers maintain unity is strength. Our dividers agree but only during the day; at night they turn into grave-diggers.*Once during a heated argument with a self-righteous member of the party, I heard him say: “Mistakes? Sure we have made them. We don’t claim to be infallible. We are human beings.” What he failed to add is that like all human beings their first instinct is to cover up their mistakes and to silence anyone who dares to expose them.*Talk of God has been around for millions of years, but it is only recently that popes, imams, and rabbis assert monopoly on the subject, and doing so they divide mankind as surely as our leaders divide the nation. Some day all dividers will be seen as the true enemies of mankind.# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted May 4, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 4, 2011 Sunday, May 01, 2011*********************************** LEADERS************************ The difference between a democratically elected leader and an autocratic one is that the first are endlessly cross-examined by the press and the opposition, and the second surrounds himself with yes-men and brown-nosers. *Freedom to an autocratic leaders means the freedom to oppress, silence, and murder defenseless civilians. *Closer to home: our leaders divide the nation not because they are men of principle who place ideals above the interests of the people; they divide because they love their own powers and privileges above all else. *If we have leaders who lie to us, why shouldn’t we have writers willing to speak the truth? I am not saying all writers are honest men. What I am saying is that most of our ablest writers were murdered, exiled, and silenced by autocratic regimes. *Leaders behave like criminals because they can get away with it, or rather, because the people allow them to get away with it. *Most of our misfortunes are rooted in subservience. Dissent increases independence in others. Dissent is positive. Subservience is negative.#Monday, May 02, 2011**************************************** TO MY SWEET ARMENIA****************************************** When his genocide book was unanimously ignored by our academics, a friend (a career diplomat) referred to them as “our Genocide mafia.” Who would have thought that some day the Genocide would become a “territory” (in organized crime parlance) and anyone who dares to muscle in it would acquire the status of a non-person.*I am a stranger in a strange land, and I feel more so among my fellow Armenians. Last time I visited an Armenian community center I promised to return in twenty-five years. Now I have another reason not to live that long.*When the USSR collapsed and Armenia’s borders opened up, Armenians poured out by the thousand and by the million. *“Yes im anoush Hayastani…” It is not generally known that Charents wrote that line inspired not by Armenia’s "sweetness" but by a similar poem on Russia by Pushkin.#Tuesday, May 03, 2011********************************************** REFLECTIONS**************************************No French king or Russian czar or Bolshevik commissar or fascist dictator, or pope, imam, and rabbi has ever declared publicly that he is in the business of moronizing innocent civilians. Don’t expect our own leaders to do so.*Did any one of our revolutionaries at the turn of the last century ever ask himself the following question: “If we carry on as we have been, what are the chances that the people may suffer?”*The only reason Osama bin Laden did not behave like Genghis Khan, Hitler, and Stalin is that he didn’t have their power.*Solutions are not inventions or discoveries like the theories of Newton or Einstein that revolutionized physics and cosmology. Solutions begin with the realization that we have been on the wrong track; and we can solve a problem only when we understand it; and it is up to us whether to use our brains or to run around like a chicken whose neck has been cut off. *All you need to do is allow reality to be your guide, not the empty rhetoric of speechifiers and sermonizers.*A kind reader once called me a philosopher. I am nothing of the kind. I am only a scribbler. You don’t need a Ph.D. to be honest with yourself and your fellow men.*The idea that we are few is linked to the fact that most Armenians do not care to be identified as Armenians.#Wednesday, May 04, 2011************************************* AS I SEE IT************************** Several friends have urged me to change my name. I have not done so because I don’t think of myself as a commercially viable commodity.*What shapes our worldview is less an objective study of reality and more the educational system within which we were brought up.*Literature is a waste of time. No writer has ever changed a damn thing. Marx? If he did change things he made them worse. The same could be said of all prophets and reformers. *What has our literature changed? As long ago as the 5th century AD our writers (among them Khorenatsi and Yeghishé) exposed the dangers inherent in a divided kingdom. A millennium and a half later,After many military defeats, and a series of massacres and a genocide,we continue to stand divided.*Why do I write?The more relevant question is: Why do they divide?*I share my ideas the way a beggar shares the few crusts of bread cast in his direction by fat men.# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted May 7, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 7, 2011 Thursday, May 05, 2011**************************************** GOD AND COUNTRY***************************************I am not in the business of changing anyone’s mind, only expressing agreement with those who have already changed theirs by successfully discarding their prejudices and superstitions.*God and Country: if we judge a tree by its fruit, why is it wrong to judge faith and patriotism by their number of innocent victims?*To be honest in our case means to reject all assertions that flatter our collective image.*Anyone can change water into wine if he waits until the guests are so drunk that they can’t tell the difference between one and the other. Likewise, anyone can change military defeat to moral victory if he first convinces the people that God is on their side and God is invincible.*When military and religious leaders speak in the name of God and Country, they lie.*We understand many things but not everything, especially not the most important things.*To expose lies is not the same as to know the truth.* A lie is a lie and dying for it will not make it less of a lie.*There is nothing new under the sun. Everything I have said so far has been said before if not by Greek philosophers than by Zen masters.#Friday, May 06, 2011**************************************** VARIATIONS ON A FAMILIAR THEME*************************************** Because we have nothing to brag about we brag about our survival. We have survived, yes. So have our divisions and divisions are weapons of mass destruction.*Dinosaurs perished but scorpions survived. The only reason they don’t brag about it is that they are not brainwashed to do so. *How do you deprogram a nation?You can’t! Our writers have been trying for fifteen hundred years and they have failed. *Between literature and propaganda we have always chosen propaganda for the same reason that a fool prefers to believe he is smart. *A long series of defeats, massacres and centuries of subservience to alien scum have taught us nothing. Even on the eve of the Genocide our leadership was divided. *Our leaders are our gravediggers. *Solidarity is not in our DNA. Which is why we must be born again as a different species – namely, human beings. *You think I am wrong and you are right? You may have our bosses, bishops, and benefactors on your side but I have fifteen hundred years of our literature on mine.#Saturday, May 07, 2011**************************************** HUMBUGGERY*************************************** Free and independent Armenia is a hoax and as empty an illusion as the brotherhood of nations under the Soviets.*Under the Soviets undesirables were sent to Siberia. Today they lead an anonymous existence in a suburb of Paris, Los Angeles, and Istanbul.The more things change…*Our editors publish an endless series of anti-Turkish polemics that so far have produced not a single red cent in reparation or a single square inch of our historic homeland; and they refuse to publish me on the grounds that I write “polemics,” and publishing polemics, they tell me, is against their editorial policy.*The captain goes down with the ship?Not always. In our case the captain is the first to abandon ship.# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted May 11, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 11, 2011 Monday, May 09, 2011 **************************************** WHAT IF? *************************************** What if I am wrong? That is always a possibility. On the day I assert infallibility, then I will be not just wrong, but catastrophically wrong! * If you like to speculate, here is another “what if” question that is much more serious and universal: What if the comforts organized religions and faith provide are exposed as empty illusions? * After centuries of oppression and authoritarian rule millions of Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa have suddenly discovered the benefits of democracy: Would anyone dare to ask “What if they are wrong?” Because in the final analysis that’s all I have been asking for my fellow countrymen: democracy, free speech, and respect for human rights. * Here is another “What if”: What if the incompetence and dishonesty of our own leadership have done as much harm to the integrity of the nation as the criminal conduct of our former alien masters? * About free speech: it can be abused, yes, certainly. So can censorship, the manipulation of the media and the educational system. #Wednesday, May 11, 2011**************************************** GUESSES*************************************** Some questions don’t have answers, only guesses.*Even when writers realize they can change nothing, they continue to write. Why? *If a pebble can start an avalanche, why can’t the right word at the right time and place start a revolution? *If they can lie for no good reason at all, why can’t I speak the truth for a good reason? *Why did God create the world? To break the monotony of silence, boredom, and nothingness? *If they know what must be done, why don’t they do it*Do they hate to admit they have been wrong out of fear they may not be forgiven?*Unlike Raskolnikov, not all murderers go down on their knees and confess – this is especially true of career criminals and If they can get away with it – and so far they have – they will continue to lie, abuse, mislead, and deceive.# Tuesday, May 10, 2011**************************************** FASCISTS*************************************** Authoritarian rulers – fascists for short – view free speech as a crime against humanity and state-sanctioned murder of defenseless civilians as law and order.*Fascism may also be defined as a declaration of war by a regime against its own people.*In a fascist environment intellectuals are like canaries in a mine. Where there is a scarcity of canaries there will be an abundance of chickens, toads, and rats.*Turks are the favorite subject of our editors and academics. Our leadership is a subject they avoid discussing perhaps because it is not easy speaking of a bordello madam as if she were a virgin.*It is safe to assume that the number of moral victories in a nation’s history is equal to the number of military defeats.*Where criminals are in charge the law of the jungle will be the law of the land.#Message flagged Sunday, May 8, 2011 11:56:48 AMSunday, May 08, 2011**************************************** TRUE OR FALSE?*************************************** Organized religions teach us to believe there is more life in death.*A heroic death is infinitely more admirable than a degraded life. Remember this next time you brag about survival.*The world is too preoccupied with its own welfare and survival to care much about our own. I doubt if the death of the last Armenian will make a single headline anywhere.*Lenin and Stalin served as role models to many more Armenians than Tolstoy and Solzhenitsyn. There is more Sultanism in our leadership than Armenianism.*For every Armenian who knows better there will be at least two who know best and four who know all there is to know. In such an environment, writers will be useless and literature irrelevant – except for such trashy lines as “Forget your mother / But do not forget your mother tongue.” (I did not plan to quote this line on Mother’s Day. Call it pure coincidence.)# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted May 14, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 14, 2011 Thursday, May 12, 2011**************************************** FROM MY NOTEBOOKS*************************************** “Be more positive,” means “Cover up the negative.”*We all have doubts except the brainwashed.*Every boss, bishop, and benefactor is for solidarity but only under his own leadership.*In our environment you can tell how honest a man is by the number of crooks that are ganged up against him.*One man’s arsenic is another’s elixir. The absence of financial and institutional support may paralyze others but it stimulates me.*In his novel, A PARTISAN'S DAUGHTER (New York, 2008) Louis de Bernieres writes about “an emperor who blinded all his prisoners except for one in every hundred, who was supposed to lead the others home, and when the opposing king saw what had happened to his troops, he died of the shock.” What he doesn't say is that both the emperor (Basil II Bulgaroktonus [bulgar-slayer]) and the Bulgarian king (Czar Samuel) were of Armenian descent. For more details, see my book, THE ARMENIANS: THEIR HISTORY AND CULTURE (New York, 1981).#Friday, May 13, 2011**************************************** FROM MY NOTEBOOKS*************************************** Nothing is more alien and incomprehensible to an Armenian than his own identity. *It would have been nothing short of a miracle if after long centuries under ruthless tyrants we had maintained a single trace of our original identity. *Our ancestors are as distant from us as Zulus and Neanderthals. *I say things that thirty years ago I would have been afraid to think. *After they make enough money they think they can buy immortality as if it were a product on the market. *“I am a very serious man,” Donald trump asserted in a recent televised interview. I can’t imagine a serious man making such a claim. *A man with heart problems to his cardiologist: “Why do you always insist on speaking about my heart? What about my stomach, liver, lungs, and pancreas? Why don’t you emphasize the positive for a change?”#Saturday, May 14, 2011**************************************** FROM MY NOTEBOOKS*************************************** Everybody can be brainwashed. A high IQ is no defense. It is almost as if evolution had instilled in us a predisposition for lies.*The brainwashed are unreachable. Their first instinct is to brainwash you – that is to say, to re-create you in their own image.*At the root of all deception is the absurd idea that we are the center of the world.*If no one deceives us, we deceive ourselves.*Am I saying we are as bad as Turks? No. What I am saying is: Let us not confuse military inferiority with moral superiority.# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted May 18, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 18, 2011 Sunday, May 15, 2011**************************************** NOBODY’S BITCH*************************************** A writer is nobody’s bitch.*It could be said of us that the best stay away and the worst stick around; and if I stick around it’s because we deserve it.*People who say “I don’t read fiction,” fail to realize that the greatest fiction of all is their conception of reality.*Democracy is not just a political system or power structure; democracy is a way of life.*To spend a lifetime serving an arrogant and cruel master means to assume that both arrogance and cruelty are not only an integral part of the human condition but also desirable qualities in a man of authority.*It is a writer’s duty to remind those who speak in the name of God and capital (make it, Capital and god) that they are first and foremost public servants.#Monday, May 16, 2011**************************************** THE PROSTITUTION OF THE PRESS************************************************ If an Armenian is dumb enough to think he can survive as a writer, he must be in need of advice, or so I have been given to understand by concerned “friends” and elder statesmen on more than one occasion. What kind of advice? Elementary, my dear Watson. Instead of kicking ass, he should learn to kiss it. The penalty for refusing to do so is alienation and unemployment.*Once upon a time our vodanavorjis wrote odes to the Sultan. It is an illusion to think that the Sultan is dead.*A hundred years ago Krikor Zohrab spoke of the prostitution of our press.Our bosses and benefactors rely on the press to publicize their good deeds but are too dumb to see that by prostituting it they foul their own nest.*We may think we live in America but in reality we continue to be subjects of the Ottoman Empire. Have I said this before? Never mind. If anything is worth saying it’s worth repeating. Besides, I happen to be an addict of reiteration and habits are easier to keep than to give up.#Tuesday, May 17, 2011**************************************** THE SCUM OF THE EARTH************************************************ It is not the best who seek power, privilege and prestige but the worst. Elites are the scum of the earth.*My targets are not Armenians but dupes of all nations. *There is no business like the brainwashing business compared to which organized crime is an amateur enterprise in addition to being a risky proposition.*One reason why Turks are a popular subject in our press is that they can be discussed without reference to our bosses, bishops, and benefactors. But discussing Armenians without mentioning bosses, bishops, and benefactors is like discussing the Napoleonic wars without Napoleon.*Only people who say nothing don’t repeat themselves – but then, one would be justified in asserting that nothing is what they repeat.*Make no mistake about it:there is a Ben Ali, Mubarak, Assad, and Gadhafi in all undemocratic leaders, including our own.#Wednesday, May 18, 2011**************************************** A DANGEROUS ILLUSION ************************************************ To cover up a crime is a crime. To repeat a lie is a lie. To be afraid of free speech is cowardice. *During the televised Watergate hearings I remember the following exchange with a Soviet citizen: “What’s Watergate about?” “The president lied.” “So what? They lie to us all the time.” *Some of my most devastating lines – lines like “There is a Turk in all of us.” “Some of our leaders are Turks.” “Subservience is in our blood.” – are not mine but verbatim quotations from our elder statesmen.*Secrecy is totalitarian. The concentration camps under Hitler and the Gulag under Stalin were exposed long after the damage was done. And when I say damage I have in mind both the suffering inflicted on the victims and the disintegration of the regime. *It’s a dangerous illusion to think we can solve our problems by brainwashing the next generation and suppressing dissent. *Sometimes I am accused of hating Armenians and myself, when in fact I hate only cowards who are afraid of free speech; I loathe only fools who pretend to know better; and I have nothing but contempt for dupes who believe everything they are told.# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted May 21, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 21, 2011 Thursday, May 19, 2011**************************************** ANSWERS************************************************ The only way to make progress in one’s thinking isby constantly questioning one’s most fundamental assumptions. It’s because most Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and Christians assume their belief system to be the only true one that they feel morally justified in massacring the competition.*Reality has countless layers of meaning. By carefully selecting a handful of them one can prove anything.*After we die we shall have all the answers, provided we consider the total absence of answers also an answer.#Friday, May 20, 2011**************************************** NOTES AND COMMENTS************************************************ A fatally flawed assumption: If God knows everything, it follows, those who speak in His name know better.*All men of authority lie when they pretend to know that which is unknowable. If believers outnumber non-believers it's be because crooks outnumber honest men.*Those who disagree with us are not always wrong.*To be powerless is an open invitation to abuse.*The more ignorant the people the more authoritarian and blind the leadership. *The longer I live the more truth I see in the saying: “Once upon a time we were slaves. We are now slaves of former slaves.”*Even the Turks are ahead of us if only because they have internationally recognized dissidents and all we have are Turcocentric ghazetajis by the dozen who know how to break eggs but so far have failed to serve a single decent omelet.#Saturday, May 21, 2011**************************************** FROM MY NOTEBOOKS************************************************ The Arab Spring must be a source of dread to our leaders. It can’t be pleasant to contemplate one's own demise. You can’t fool all the people all the time. No banquet under heaven is endless. *Speaking of funerals: My favorite funeral marches are the slow movement of Beethoven’s Eroica, the first movement of Mahler’s 5th Symphony, and Siegfried’s funeral in the final act of Wagner’s RING (which was also Hitler’s favorite) besides which the orgasmic crescendo in TRISTAN UND ISOLDE is sentimental hogwash. *One of the most unforgettable lines in Italian poetry is Ungaretti’s “Ed a subito sera” (And suddenly it’s evening) meaning, old age and death.*It has been observed that what holds us together is the Genocide. Does that mean on the day the Genocide is recognized the glue that holds us together will dry up?# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted May 24, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 24, 2011 Sunday, May 22, 2011**************************************** DIARY************************************************ Last night I started watching THE LARK FARM by the Taviani brothers, based on the novel by Antonia Arslan, but could not finish it. Gave up after the first beheading. Too violent. Too close to home. Violence in American films doesn’t bother me in the least. I have even enjoyed Tarantino’s KILL BILL. But the violence in THE LARK FARM I found unbearable. Now I know why some well-meaning and decent Turks deny the reality of the Genocide. Too painful to admit it. The Holocaust was a much more impersonal, almost bureaucratic operation. By contrast those who carried out the Genocide were personally acquainted with their victims in the same way that Talaat knew Zohrab who at one point even risked his own life to save him from the secret police of the Sultan. There is another point effectively captured by the Taviani brothers. The extermination of the Armenians must be thorough and include the children; otherwise they will come back for revenge. The fear of Armenian terrorism is present today in every Turk who ventures abroad. They scattered us to the four corners of the world and now they are faced with the possibility of sudden death without warning. I will never forget my first encounter with a Turk who identified himself as a Cypriote but did so with so much hesitation that he left no doubt as to his real identity.#Monday, May 23, 2011**************************************** WHAT MUST BE DONE************************************************ The solutions to our problems are not hidden from us. To state a problem clearly means to have its solution staring back at us. *We are divided: Solidarity is the solution.We are weak: There is strength in unity. Our divisions are rooted in ancient dogmas and prejudices: Teaching tolerance should be a priority in our schools. We are at the mercy of corrupt and incompetent leaders: It is our duty to hold them accountable and to question their competence and integrity in letters to the editor, phone calls to their secretaries, hirelings, assorted brown-nosers and hangers on;and most important of all, to withhold our support by returning all letters that end with Panchoonie’s punch line: “Mi kich pogh oughargetsek” (Send us a little money).*Turning the other cheek to someone who is morally irresponsible is a waste of time. *To say God is great and to do the Devil’s work is to blaspheme. God is great exactly because He has endowed us with a brain with which to think for ourselves. *The Decalogue of a contemporary Moses would repeat ten times the commandment: “Thou shall not be a dupe.”#Translations from JULES RENARD’S JOURNALS: 1887-1910 (Paris: NRF, 1965, 1424 pages)**********************************Why should I give a damn about a thinker who can’t explain the universe to me?*A talented honest man is as rare as a man of genius.*What happens to all the tears that we don’t shed?*A fat man parading his belly as if it were a wind instrument.*"This will be enough to pay for your cigarettes." "Yes, but only because I don’t smoke."*I hesitate to walk behind a woman afraid she may think I am following her.*In the garden I lower my eyes not to scare the bird in the nest.*Migraine: this must be what Christ meant when he spoke of his crown of thorns.*It’s so very easy for a woman to make herself desirable. No need to be attractive or very young. All she has to do is extend her palm in a certain manner and a man will be more than happy to place his heart there.*"How are you today?""Much better, thank you." "You weren’t feeling well?" There I was, pretending to be concerned about the health of a fellow whose obituary would have barely registered on my consciousness.*My sister is proud of the fact that unlike her brother she is a believer.*He is for freedom but he happens to be such a nonentity that I for one would prefer to share my life with slaves.*To write is almost always to lie.*I don’t disturb the cat sleeping on my desk. Instead, I go out for a walk.*If I acquired everything I ever wanted, immediately I would feel as though I had nothing.*Patriotism: The bull from one village refuses to look in the direction of a petite cow from another village.*"That fellow over there is sure tough.""Oh! Why?" "He never says a thing." *I can’t imagine living in a world in which there are no mysteries and surprises. If God exists, he must be very bored.# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted May 28, 2011 Author Report Share Posted May 28, 2011 Thursday, May 26, 2011***************************** FROM MY NOTEBOOKS*************************************** I am predictable? So is our propaganda. On the day our propagandists become unpredictable, so will I. However, if your aim is to silence me, I suggest you come up with a less predictable line.*Shahnour was a photographer, Hamasdegh a shoemaker, Oshagan a schoolteacher, Nartuni a doctor…and they were the lucky ones. Many others were betrayed to the authorities and slaughtered. By contrast, our academics make a comfortable living and our imams are millionaires. Who says crime doesn’t pay? *All that talk about cultural, political, and economic factors beyond our control is hogwash. We are control freaks and we have been brainwashed to dig our own grave.*We are told “Earthquakes don’t kill people, buildings do.” Question: How many of our masterbuilders were charged with manslaughter? *We are told “Treason and ebtrayal are in our blood” (Raffi). If so far none of our traitors has been arrested, tried, found guilty, and hanged, it may be because they continue to be in charge of our institutions, including our justice system.#Friday, May 27, 2011***************************** WHAT MOTIVATES REVOLUTIONS****************************************** To understand history one must deal not only with the visible but also with the invisible world – that is, what goes on inside the human mind, which is the source of all conflict and violence. Historians now know that to understand history It is not enough to know what happened. It is also important to know “the unstated (and sometimes unrecognized) reasons why people do the things that they do.” (HISTORY: A BRIEF INSIGHT by John H. Arnold, page 132.) *What did Armenians want at the turn of the last century in th Ottoman Empire? Respect for their fundamental human rights, which the Turks took for treason – a crime punishable by death. To say that Armenians were punished because they made territorial demands is nonsense. Revolutions are not fought out of greed for more acreage but for human rights – case in point: the Arab Spring today.*And speaking of territorial integrity and Homeland: Today even Turks are more than willing to abandon their birthplace and live abroad where they are allowed to work and make a living (which is also a fundamental human right); in the same way that many Armenians are more than willing to emigrate (some even to Turkey) for the same reason.#Saturday, May 28, 2011***************************** FANATICS****************************************** Call me a human rights fanatic. I’d rather live in hell where my human rights are respected than in a fascist paradise.*There are three kinds of writers: pro-establishment, anti-establishment, and academics who write about subjects like grammar, village life in the 18th-century, and the Middle Ages. In that sense they may be classified as the mules of our ecology.*One of our most dangerous misconceptions: the idea that divisions in the name of tribal loyalty are motivated by patriotism.*To those who say I have been silenced because my ideas are subversive and dangerous, I say: So were the ideas of our revolutionaries a hundred years ago; so much so that they claimed 1,5 million victims.*Only in an Ottomanized and Sovietized environment talk of human rights is seen as unpatriotic or subversive.*Tell them what they want to hear and they will agree with you. Prove them wrong and they will tear you to shreds.*How easy it is to deceive millions. How hard it is to reason with a dupe.#MEMO TO A DENIALIST TURK******************************************************** like all brainwashed chauvinist dupes you like to believe in the infallibility of your leadership.which is a belief not shared by your own leaders. that's why the Young Turks overthrew the Sultan;that's why Kemal overthrew the Young Turks;that's why Kurds hate you today;that's why many Turks have left Turkey and survive as garbage collectors in Europe; andand that's why you don't qualify as members of the EU. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted June 1, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 1, 2011 Sunday, May 29, 2011***************************** LET US REASON TOGETHER****************************************** Nations and empires need dupes more than they need dissidents.*If “the Kingdom of God is within you,” it follows loyalty to a power structure or regime or authority figure is treason.*To “give unto Caesar” does not mean to trust or to believe in Caesar.*If to expose our contradictions is negative, does that mean to speak of massacres is positive?#Monday, May 30, 2011***************************** LIES AND LIARS****************************************** Until he was ousted by the Young Turks, the Sultan was the supreme religious leader of the Muslim world as well as the political leader of the Ottoman Empire. He thus combined the power of the Pope and that of the President of the United States. Now then, imagine if you can, a pope or a president saying he needs a harem of a thousand concubines to better serve God and the people. Why should we be surprised if Turkish denialists believe all politicians lie except their own, all academics are for hire except their own, and all propagandists deceive the people except their own?*Turkish children are brought up to believe in lies for the simple reason that if they admit the facts, Turkey stands to lose several Armenian provinces, billions of dollars in repratations, and their mask as a civilized and progressive nation. The threat of even one of these three prospects would make a compulsive and a habitual liar out of an honest man.*Because the Serbians arrested Ratko Mladic, a war criminal who massacred 8000 Muslims, “the European prospects of Serbia are now brighter than ever,” according to a WASHINGTON POST editorial.To my Turkish readers I say: Let that be a lesson to you.#Tuesday, May 31, 2011***************************** HOW TO REASON WITH A TURK****************************************** It can't be done.Don't even try!It's a waste of time.*A Turk believes he can defeat reason, common sense, reality itself with the same daring that his ancestors defeated their adversaries. He chooses to ignore the fact that the Ottoman Empire is dead, buried, and cannot be resurrected.*There are two easy ways to win an argument alla Turca:by ignoring the arguments of the opposition,and by repeating the same argument even after it has been exposed as untenable, outgrageous irrational, and absurd.*It is a mistake to think that Armenians were punished because they revolted against the Turks. The undeniable fact is, the central authority was so rotten that everyone within the Empire, including Turks themselves, revolted against it.*Armenians were selected for speciasl treatment simply because they were there and they made themselves an easy and convenient target.*To disagree with a Turk is to understand where Armenian fanatics come from.*Kemal’s fallacy: The idea that by eliminating the fez and the shalvar The Turk could be de-Ottomanized. Which amounts to saying, what goes on inside a man’s mind is an extension of his wardrobe. No psychologist has ever dared to advance such an insane theory. If he did, he would be exposed as a charlatan and his licence would be immediately revoked.#Wednesday, June 01, 2011***************************** NOTES AND COMMENTS****************************************** We befriended the Turks under Talaat and we called the Russians our big brothers under Stalin. Now then, go ahead and say something positive about our leadership. *If you have the majority on your side, it makes no difference whether you are right or wrong. This indeed is the rock on which stand both democracy and fascism. *Nothing can be more fragile and unpredictable than life. And yet, we take its permanence for granted. Something similar could be said of the infallibility of authority figures who are more prone to error than the rest of us; and I don’t means errors like marrying the wrong partner or making a bad investment. I mean errors in which thousands and millions die.*They massacred the Indians, they enslaved millions of Africans, they murdered one another in one of the bloodiest civil wars in the history of mankind, they allowed the rich to exploit the poor mercilessly, they went to war and killed countless natives in all four corners of the world, and now they educate their children to be proud Americans.*I have been deceived so many times that I no longer trust even my own judgment.# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted June 4, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 4, 2011 Thursday, June 02, 2011***************************** MEMO TO MY TURKISH READERS****************************************** It doesn’t take much courage to massacre defenseless old men, women, and children. But it take courage to admit it. Not only Turks have failed on that score for nearly a century but they could also qualify as just about the most cowardly people on earth.*At all times and everywhere dupes outnumber those who can think for themselves. That’s because as children we are brought up to believe what our elders and betters tell us. But you are no longer children. That extenuating circumstance is no longer available to you.*The aim of all slogans is to simplify complexities in order to convince the simple-minded. The slogan “Turkey for Turks” immediately raises the questions: Who is a Turk? Does he exist? Take a good look at yourself in the mirror: if you don’t look like a Mongol you don’t qualify. You don’t have to be a historian or a genealogist to know that your family tree has representatives of as many races, nations, and tribes as your ancestors vanquished and raped. You are probably more Kurd, Arab, Greek, Serbian, Albanian, Egyptian, Hungarian, Assyrian, and Armenian than Turk. No need to take my word for it. Have your DNA checked.*If Europe were to adopt the slogan “Europe for Europeans,” Turkey would be saddled with many more garbage collectors than it needs; and providing for them would probably bankrupt your economy, assuming it is not already bankrupt. *All is not lost however. You have a choice between being an authentic human being or a bastardized phony Turk and a dupe who believes what he is told by politicians, nationalist historians, and propagandists, that is to say professional charlatans whose first and more important priority is their own power.#Friday, June 03, 2011***************************** A CITY SET ON A HILL****************************************** These days no one pleads guilty to murder one. Instead they plead “not guilty” by reason of insanity, or even self-defense and a myriad other extenuating circumstances. Faced with a charge of genocide, Turks go one better by accusing their accusers of the very same crime on the grounds that they may succeed in raising a reasonable doubt in the mind of a single member of the jury who may well be a Turcophile or even a murderer. So far this tactic has worked. The question is: can it work forever? At this point three apposite quotations come to mind: “No banquet under heaven is endless;” “You can’t fool all the people all the time;” and “A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.”#Saturday, June 04, 2011***************************** THE MORE THINGS CHANGE…****************************************** When I posted comments critical of Armenians I acquired several Turkish readers and friends. When I gave the Turks the same treatment I lost all of them. Easy come, easy go.*When we served Turkish interests, we were their “most loyal subjects.” When we asserted our human rights, we became their mortal enemies and were targeted for extermination.*Today they abuse the human rights not only of Kurds but also Turks -- among them Pamuk (a Nobel-Prizer winner) and Akcam (an internationally respected historian), all in the name of Kemal Ataturk, thus exposing him for what he really was – a typical product of his time and a fascist no different from Mussolini and Hitler. But whereas Italy and Germany have renounced their past and are now democracies, Turkey continues to cling to its moreally bankrupt and criminal values, principles, ideology, and methods. The fez and shalvar have been outlawed but Ottomanism continues to rule. The Sultan is dead. Long live Sultanism. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme sh*t.# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted June 8, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 8, 2011 Sunday, June 05, 2011***************************** FROM MY NOTEBOOKS****************************************** To a sensitive person life is a traumatic experience.*A line from a film (I no longer remember which): “Mortal wounds don’t hurt.”*Three arguments against nationalism:(1)“I only know the skin of the earth / And that it has no name” (Pablo Neruda).(2) If God is our Father, all men are brothers.(3)The alternative to nationalism is war and the massacre of defenseless civilians.*Because I refuse to say “Yes, sir!” they call me arrogant. It never even occurs to them to consider the possibility that arrogance may also be defined as a need to hear the words “Yes, sir!” when the more appropriate response would be “No, sir!”*Just remembered the source of the line about mortal wounds: Otto Preminger’s EXODUS.#Monday, June 06, 2011***************************** ON LEADERSHIP***************************** Where others say “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition,” we say “Lord have mercy and drop your pants.”*If the majority rules and the majority is dumb – I will let you draw your own conclusions.*The regime in Yerevan cannot be toppled because it has Russian support. The regime in the Diaspora is so diffuse and fragmented that it survives as a shadow – visible but untouchable. *Like all authoritarian structures, both regimes share one important feature in common: they are intolerant of dissent. They have systematically alienated and silenced the intellectual class to such a degree that even the Turks are ahead of us in literary achievements. *Even the Turks! I can’t imagine a worse insult to our diginity as a nation. As for our foreign policy: it can be summed up in three monosyllables: Turks, Turks, and Turks.*Speaking of leadership:The stupidity of Turkish leadership is surpassed only by its cruelty.*Turks deny the reality of the Genocide even as they violate the human rightrs of the Kurds. And having done so they expect the European Union to believe they are a democracy. Which may suggest either their IQ is negative or they don’t know the meaning of the word. #Tuesday, June 07, 2011***************************** THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION********************************************* In the Old Testament, God orders the Jews to exterminate not only their enemies but also the cattle that belongs to them. (For more on this subject, see Bertrand Russell’s WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN.)*After agreeing that God is our Father, “people of the Book” (Jews, Christians, and Muslims) proceed to massacre one anotherin the name of God. Explain that to me, if you can.*Peguy was a devout Catholic and Sartre a dogmatic atheist. I love both for their honesty. Honest men can also disagree and even contradict one another.*Chekhov said he did not know the answer to the most important question, and if he said he did he would be fooling his readers.*Talk of God or gods has been around for much longer than organized religions, all of which assert a monopoly on the subject.*Nietzsce said organized religions are based on myths very similar to those of ancient civilizations.*“Men cannot create a single worm, yet he has created ten thousand gods.” I no longer remember the source of this quotation which I consider to be one of the most insightful observations on the subject.*A thousand Gothic cathedrals and as many golden-domed mosques or temples do not and cannot prove the existence of God, only the powerful hold that myths have on the minds of men, and the overwhelming need to unbderstand and explain that which is destined to remain incomprehensible*Myths are neither lies nor truths. At best they may be said to be half-lies or half-truths;and in that sense they are an expression of man’s insatiable hungerand blind acceptance of propaganda.#Wednesday, June 08, 2011***************************** ON MIRACLES********************************************* As children we are brought up to rate tribal loyalty above honesty,and bias above objectivity.Who believes what a Turk says about Turks?Only another Turk.Who believes what an Armenian says about Armenians?Only another Armenian. To an Armenian, a Turk appears as the offspring of bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians.To a Turk, an Armenian appears as the lowest form of animal life.To expect or hope that some day Turks and Armenians will come to terms with one another is to believe in miracles.I write as I do because I believe in miracles.I believe both Turks and Armenians are capable of rating truth over lies, honesty above dishonesty, loyalty to the human race above loyalty to the tribe, and justice over injustice.It may take a thousand years but it will happen. It will happen if only because peace is better than war, and life is better than death.# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted June 11, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 11, 2011 Thursday, June 09, 2011***************************** ON TURKS (I)********************************************* Armenians are not Christian Turks. Neither are Kurds Mountain Turks. Armenians and Kurds have been around much longer than Turks. And the chances are they will be around long after. *Freedom is a fundamental human right. It is the right and duty of all oppressed people to rise against their oppressors. Which is what the Kurds are doing today; and which is what Armenians and Turks themselves did (together with several other nations)at the turn of the last centuryin the Ottoman Empire.*At a critical point in their history, however, Turks made the wrong decision by adopting the slogan “Turkey for Turks,” which in reality meant sultanism without the sultan, fascism instead of democracy, and massacre instead of compromise. *Had the Turks chosen multiculturalism as opposed to monoculturalism, they would now be a superpower and a dominant force in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Because they went in the opposite direction they are now vulnerable to Kurds who will eventually bleed them to death so that even a kick will be enough to scatter the bones of the Ottoman skeleton. *Kemal may be the Father of modern Turkey but he is also its gravedigger.*Moral I: Every idea has its contradiction and sometimes the contradiction is closer to the truth.*Moral II: Free speech matters because it exposes fallacies and it doubles our options, thus allowing us to make the better of two choices.*Moral III: Even the best ideas become destructive when implemented in the name of consistency.*Moral IV: Tolerance and flexible moderation are preferable to inflexibe fanatcicism and intolerance.#Friday, June 10, 2011***************************** ON TURKS (II)********************************************* Because they betrayed us, they accuse us of betraying them. Because they massacred us, they accuse us of massacring them.Who believes them?Only their own brainwashed dupes.*At the turn of the last century both Turks and Armenians agreed on the fact that Sultan Abdulhamid II was neither a representative of Allah on earth (as he pretended to be) nor a benevolent dictator, but a ruthless, degenerate tyrant who oppressed Turks and subjected Armenians to successive waves of massacres.*With the full agreement and cooperation of the Armenian political leadership, the Young Turks deposed and exiled the Sultan, after which they betrayed the Armenians by adopting and implementing a policy of extermination on the grounds that Armenians (including unarmed women, children, and old men) were a threat to the territorial integrity of the Empire.*Now then, go ahead and accuse Armenians of betrayal and massacre, and while doing so try to keep in mind that Turks outnumbered Armenians forty to one.#Saturday, June 11, 2011***************************** ON TURKS (III)********************************************* Has anyone ever bothered to see how many times the expression "human rights" or "free speech" occurs in the many speeches delivered by fascist leaders?*If you think today what you thought ten years ago, or if you still believe everything your schoolteacher or imam taught you, you can be sure of one thing: the last ten years of your life have been a waste of time because you have learned nothing.*Where disagreement and dissent are classified as criminal offenses, the men at the top will be serial killers.*Wars, revolutions, and massacres are also expressions of dissent and criticism.*The insane outnumber the sane because reasonable men are in no position to violate anyone's human right of free speech.*Where indoctrination is identified with education, recycling propaganda will be identified with thinking.*No matter how corrupt, incompetent, and stupid, a power structure will always have its defenders, supporters, and dupes.*Whenever I am criticized by a brainwashed dupe, I can only think of the Turkish expression: “Yedii boka bak!” – if you will forgive my French.# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ara baliozian Posted June 15, 2011 Author Report Share Posted June 15, 2011 Sunday, June 12, 2011***************************** TRAVELS IN SPACE AND TIME********************************************* That’s the title of a book by Dr. Noubar Janoyan:(Jamportoutiun Jamanagi yev Daradsoutian michov).Does anyone know him?I would like to have his e-mail address in order to let him know how much I am enjoying it.The book was published by Grakan Etalon in Yerevan.It’s a collection of stories, anecdotes, and encounters with fellow Armenians in the Homeland and the Diaspora.It does not shrink from exposing the dark side of our collective existence.It is written in East Armenian. I suspect Dr. Janoyan had it translated from his West-Armenian (he was born in Iraq and now lives in Glendale).The prose is eminently readable and accessible.It deserves to be a best-seller.#Monday, June 13, 2011***************************** IDEAS THAT HAVE ENHANCED MY AWARENESS OF REALITY********************************************* The following quotations are from Toynbee who was a historian as well as a metahistorian – that is, a philosopher of history.***************************************************** *“…authorities are not to be taken at their word, as if they were infallible oracles of gospel truth.”*“Society is the total network of relations between human beings. The components of society are thus not human beings but relations between them.”*“When prophets disagree, are we to give credit to either of their opposing voices?”*“When top-dog sees a heaven, under-dog will see a hell.”*“…the orthodoxy that they idnetified with their own faith and a heresey that they identified with the ideology of their adversaries.”*“The apotheosis of the community spells slavery for individual beings.”*“Man is not an angel, and in seeking to be one, he deprives himself of something that is essential to his being.”*“A monument in a museum is one that has been desecrated and sterilized.”*“A reputation for scholarliness is expendable, and it is a scholar’s duty to risk it.”*“In art, in illuminating antithesis to practical life, there is more to be made out of failure than out of success.”*“There is no such thing as a human organization that can be established securely through being made weather-proof against the all-disintegrating action of time.”#Tuesday, June 14, 2011***************************** CORRECT ME,IF I AM WRONG********************************************* Monkeys, we are told, have three enemies: pythons, leopards, and eagles; and according to recent studies, they have a distinctive alarm call for each.Men, by contrast, have developed a much more sophisticated communication system, but they have lost the ability to recognize an enemy when they see one.*Murder in one dimension means suicide in another. By committing genocide, Turks lost the ability to tell the difference between truth and lies, right and wrong, anddemocracy and fascism – hence, their apotheosis of Kemal.*In a recent commentary I incorrectly stated that Turks outnumbered Armenians 40 to 1. One of my gentle Turkish readers took it upon himself to question the accuracy of my math and even the existence of my sources. I am now willing to reconsider my figures. *If we take into account only Armenian revolutionaries versus the perpetrators of the Genocide (namely, the regime and the regularly army augmented by Kurds and criminals released from prison for the occasion) the ratio would be closer to 400 to 1. I say this because no one, not even the most loyal and fanatic Turkish nationalist would dare to suggest that unarmed civilians – women, children, and old men – could be thought of by any stretch of the imagination as posing a threat to the terrirotial integrity of the nation or the stability of the regime, which was the rationale for the Genocide as well as the context in which the 40 to 1 ratio was stated. Correct me if I am wrong.#Wednesday, June 15, 2011***************************** THEM AND US********************************************* We may never succeed in convincing Turks that they are guilty of genocide. We may, however, have better luck in convincing them that there is no such thing as a Turk and that many so-called Turks have Armenian blood. One reason this aspect of their identity has been ignored or not emphasized enough is that it is repellent to both them and us who like to proceed on the false assumption that explanations are good only when they flatter our collective ego.*The discovery of DNA is the most convincing argument against nationalism.*All talk of pure blood is impure nonsense.*Translation is a difficult art to master because every culture creates its own semantic atmosphere in which words carry their own baggage.# Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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