as i see it - Pt. IV

[ara baliozian]

Monday, September 26, 2005

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To understand reality also means to want to change it, but whereas fools aim to change others, never themselves, the wise concentrates on themselves. The wise have a better chance to succeed.

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Schopenhauer observes somewhere that women have been carefully designed to make asses of men. That is something worth thinking about.

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If you are going to pretend to know better, first make sure how much the other knows.

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A rule without exceptions: Those who think they sit at the right hand of god, sit at the left hand of the devil.

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According to Nejdeh, "Hye lineluts araj, petk a mard linel!" Roughly translated: "If you want to be an Armenian start by being a human being." And according to a frequently quoted Armenian motto: "Mard bidi ch'ellank!" Roughly translated: "We will never qualify as human beings." Figure that one out if you can.

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If some of my readers don't like what I say it may be because "the torch of truth burns many asses."

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You become a success when you no longer care if others see you as a failure.

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Before you decide to assess yourself as smart, make sure you know the difference between smart and smartass.

#

[Takoush]

Ara Baliozian:

 

In answer to your recent writings/scribbles/posts you can check my writings under the heading of Genocide; "Armenians Presumed Dead Have Been Proven Alive". It will interest you and enlighten you, please read it.

 

Anahid Takouhi

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

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Changing the world has never been my ambition, only sharing my understanding with my fellow Armenians. I now suspect I bet on the wrong horse. I had a better chance to succeed if I had aimed at changing the world.

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When two brainwashed dupes contradict each other, it is not themselves that do the contradicting but their respective propaganda lines.

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Gresham’s Law, names after the 16th-century English merchant Sir Thomas Gresham, states, “Bad money drive out good money,” meaning: adulterated gold drives out pure gold, for the simple reason that it is cheaper. By extension, opportunists drive out men of principle, and mediocrities drive out those who seek to achieve excellence.

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An extension of Grisham’s Law says: “Evil knows how to organize itself because it appeals to the selfish instincts of the majority.”

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Likewise, recycled crap drives out objective judgment, and hoodlums and their verbal abuse drive out dialogue.

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There is more to Armenian history than the massacres. To focus on the massacres and to ignore centuries of subservience, divisiveness, intolerance, dogmatism, betrayal, abuse of power, incompetence, and anti-intellectualism is to misrepresent and misunderstand the historic significance of the massacres.

*

One reason our dime-a-dozen pundits concentrate on the Red Massacre is to cover up and ignore its White variant.

*

What’s done is done and not even God can change the past. We are in a far better position to change the present. If we prefer to lament, adopt a passive stance, and deceive ourselves into thinking we are in good hands because our bosses, bishops, and benefactors know better, it may be because after centuries of subservience to foreign tyrants, subservience to our own mini-sultans, neo-commissars, and pseudo-ayatollahs comes naturally to us.

*

If I repeat myself it may be because our blunders keep repeating themselves and not repeating myself would amount to either giving up or covering up.

#

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

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CONFESSIONS OF A FAILURE

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If I repeat myself it may be because I have run out of ideas. Which may explain why I am a slum-dwelling failure. Which may also explain why any writer who decides to write for Armenians is destined to be a failure, Saroyan being the sole exception that confirms this rule. But many literary critics see even Saroyan as a failure. If he continues to be admired by Armenians it may be because Armenians have been successful in ignoring and silencing their critics. They don't mind tolerating brown-nosers, but critics they treat the way Turks treated Armenians at the turn of the last century. If I have said this before, I apologize. Henceforth I promise to do my utmost to say something different, such as, Armenians welcome criticism because, as the first nation to convert to Christianity, they are a tolerant and compassionate folk not only towards their fellow Armenians but also towards their enemies. And Armenians are tolerant and compassionate because as the first nation to suffer genocide in the 20th century they know all about the evil of intolerance and hatred. You want to hear more new ideas? How about this? Van, Erzrum, Kars and Ardahan belong to us in the same way that Detroit, New York City, Washington, Chicago and Dallas belong to the Apaches, Sioux, Seminole, and Cherokee Indians of North America, and our chances of getting them back are as good as theirs. The main thing is not to give up, to persevere, to have faith in our leaders and to support them. The best is yet to come. All our dreams will come true provided of course you send them a little money.

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Speaking about new ideas: Paul Valéry once asked Einstein: "Do you carry a notebook on your person so that when a new idea comes you may put it down for future reference?" And Einstein replied: "New ideas don't come to me that frequently." And sure enough, good old Einstein spent the last twenty years of his life in search of a new idea that he never found. It is such a heavy burden being a mediocrity among geniuses!

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[ara baliozian]

Thursday, September 29, 2005

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MASTERS OF THE BLAME GAME

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What I am about to say I have probably said before. If you value your time, no need to read any further.

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We blame the massacres on Turks; we blame the Stalinist purges on the Kremlin, emigration from the Homeland on the Earthquake, the Earthquake on God, and the high rate of assimilation in the Diaspora on conditions beyond our control. Which raises the question: Who is minding the store? What has been the role of our leadership in all this? If they have been of no use to us in the past, of what possible use can they be in the future?

*

More questions:

Do we have an independent judiciary?

Do we have a Supreme Court?

Does anyone know the name of the Chief Justice?

If we had an independent judiciary, how many members of the Executive Branch would be impeached, found guilty, and fried?

That’s something worth thinking about.

*

If I have said this before, I apologize.

[ara baliozian]

Friday, September 30, 2005

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Whenever a reader attacks my anti-establishment views, thus rising to the defense of the establishment (as if the establishment did not have an entire propaganda apparatus with which to defend itself and to hoodwink, bamboozle, and flimflam the public), I remind myself that there is a sucker born every minute. That’s the only way to explain why all leaders, no matter how corrupt, incompetent, and evil, have had their share of supporters. Nazis in Germany and Fascists in Italy exist today as surely as Stalinists do in Russian and in the former states of the USSR, including our own homeland and diaspora. I have met some of them myself. They may no longer identify themselves as Stalinists as openly as in the good old days, but neither do they try very hard to hide their true colors, especially when it comes to such subjects as the United States, McCarhty, the CIA, and our own ARF.

#

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, October 01, 2005

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MEMO TO A FRIEND

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You tell me I should travel, deliver lectures, visit community centers, press the flesh. To what end? Writers have at no time played anything but a less than marginal role in our collective existence. And now that they have been effectively exterminated or silenced, does anyone miss them? Have you heard anyone lament the fact that after the generation of Shahnour and Zarian we have only minor scribblers, propagandists, hirelings, brown-nosers, and phony pundits who blabber endlessly about Turks. Remember Puzant Granian's words: "So many national benefactors, but not a single national poet!" And allow me to quote Zohrab: "Once in a while I come across certain characters, among them so-called friends and acquaintances, who tug at my sleeve, take me aside and whisper: 'Why don't you concentrate on your own affairs, man? This writing business doesn't fill the stomach'." There you have a typical Armenian speaking. Can you imagine anyone saying to an Oriental carpet dealer: "Why bother selling rugs, man? There are more important things in life."

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[phantom22]

Ara,

 

With your last post, you have distilled the essence of our collective demise.

[phantom22]

When you quote Zohrab you pull me back to my childhood roots, now severed as I associate now solely with odars.

 

I remember my grandmother putting me on her knee and talking so highly of him and his friendship with my grandfather, who she dearly missed as he was brutally killed in the prime of his life.

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, October 02, 2005

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MEMO TO OUR FUND RAISERS

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If you send me any more letters with Comrade Panchoonie’s punch line – “Mi kich pogh oughargetsek” (Send us a little money) – I will discard them into the nearest wastepaper basket. And if some day I hit the jackpot and can’t spend it all, I will follow Baruir Massikian’s example and leave the unused balance “to a bordello in Cairo,” or Mexico, or Sao Paolo – anywhere but Yerevan. I don’t want to promote prostitution there. Besides, our pimps are the last men on earth in need of financial assistance from the likes of me. My sources tell our pimps in the Homeland are as loaded as some of our national benefactors in the Diaspora.

#

[ara baliozian]

Monday, October 03, 2005

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If you are born in a Christian or Muslim country you will be either a Christian or a Muslim. The same applies to all organized religions and belief systems in general. Under Stalin, all communists were atheists. We don’t chose our gods; geography does that for us. Nothing could be more absurd than to say my religion is better than yours is, or I am closer to god because I live on this side of the river, mountain, or sea.

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Something similar could be said about our understanding of the past. As children we are taught not history but propaganda, and as adults we continue to cling to our childhood illusions and believe our version of the past is closer to reality or truth than all other versions.

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A headline in our local paper reads: “FATHER OF SLAIN TEEN SAYS HE FORGIVES DAUGHTER’S KILLER.” In our environment such a father would be accused of entertaining unArmenian sentiments and ostracized.

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[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

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We see this happening almost daily in American and Canadian politics: the guiltier the bureaucrat the louder his assertions of innocence. By contrast, our crooks don’t even feel the need to assert innocence because their accusers soon give up in disgust and they either emigrate or assimilate, thus leaving the field to the dupes who will say “Yes, sir!” to anyone who is on top, be a he a sultan, *****, commissar, or mullah. As for our so-called revolutionaries: once upon a time they were to the left of the Sultan, they are now to the right of Genghis Khan. How to explain this?

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In August Wilson’s obituary today I read: “Wilson’s plays dealt primarily with the effects of slavery on succeeding generations of black Americans.” What have been the effects of six centuries of subservience to sultans and commissars? If so far our writers have failed to explore this theme it may be because they have concentrated too much on documenting the nightmare to analyze its aftereffects.

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[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

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Writing for Armenians feels like working for minimum wage and offering financial assistance to millionaires.

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To be popular, think like a propagandist and speak like a pundit.

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Recycling propaganda is not just repeating hearsay evidence but parroting perjury.

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Enlightenment comes only after the realization that you have been living in darkness.

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Ritual is choreographed propaganda.

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Massacres are not historic events but daily occurrences. Top dogs may pretend otherwise but underdogs know better.

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Every belief system generates non-believers and the men at the top decide who is right who is wrong, and ultimately who lives and dies.

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[ara baliozian]

Thursday, October 06, 2005

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Tchaikovsky hated Brahms, Schopenhauer hated Hegel, and Nabokov hated Dostoevsky. If they could hate the competition, why can’t we hate the Turks? Because it is one thing to hate marginally and another to make of hatred a fixation. Most of their lives, Tchaikovsky, Schopenhauer, and Nabokov concentrated their best efforts on creating masterpieces. Hatred for them was a transitory and ephemeral investment. With us it’s closer to monomania. Which is why it is damaging to our psyche and injurious to our creativity.

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During the last few days I have read several commentaries by Canadian pundits on Turkey’s prospects of membership in the EU in which the Genocide is not even mentioned. Some countries in Europe may try to use Armenians as a political football, as they did at the turn of the last century, but Canadians know better. Canadians know that in politics and international affairs the deciding vote is always cast by self-interest and not love of justice. Such a pity that some of our leaders and pundits forget this or pretend not to be aware of it, as if their own actions were invariably motivated not by self-interest but by altruistic sentiments.

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In his learned review of Annie and Jean-Pierre Mahé’s new book on Armenian History (L’ARMENIE A L’EPREUVE DES SIECLES), Claude Mutafian tells us that no historian is qualified to write a history of Armenia because no historian can claim to be an authority on all periods of Armenian history. And yet, historians like Spengler and Toynbee produced universal histories from ancient times to the present day. That’s because their aim was to understand history, not to describe it. One of our tragedies is that our historians have been of the descriptive kind, leading nowhere and understanding nothing. Hence our perception of the past as “a litany of lamentation, anxiety, horror, massacre, and deception” (Nigoghos Sarafian).

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[ara baliozian]

Friday, October 07, 2005

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The most effective way of suppressing dissent and free speech is to support writers and publishers while at the same time exercising strict censorship. This is what all totalitarian regimes do. Under Stalin, for instance, dissenters like Mandelstam, Solzhenitsyn, Akhmatova, and our own Zabel Yessayan, Bakounts, Mahari and many others) were silenced, sometimes permanently, but hundreds of other mediocrities (among them Sylva Kaputikian) were published, distributed, translated into many languages, and awarded the Stalin Prize. Most Soviet citizens didn’t care or were unaware of the fact that one of their most fundamental human rights was being violated.

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I once had the following conversation with one of our publishers:

“I have had phone calls saying I should stop publishing you,” he began.

“By whom?” I wanted to know.

“By Jack S. Avanakian,” he replied.

“You mean the same Jack S. Avanakian who happens to be the personal secretary of one of our national benefactors?”

“The very same.”

“Are you going to follow his instructions?”

“Of course not!”

But he did. Shortly thereafter he stopped publishing me. What changed his mind? I have no idea and he never explained. But I can’t help remembering Brecht’s celebrated slogan: “Grub first, then ethics.”

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[ara baliozian]

Saturday, October 08, 2005

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Fanatics in one camp will invariably create counter-fanatics in the opposite camp, and a fanatic's favorite solution is extermination.

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Those in power will tend to misrepresent their fanatics as moderates with the result that moderation and tolerance will be seen as treason and critics of extremism will be branded as enemies.

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Whenever a fellow Armenian tells me, "Please, don't write about this," I think: Why shouldn't I? It is my duty to do so. Let better men than myself deal with the problem of reforming and educating Turks. My ambitions are far more modest.

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[ara baliozian]

Sunday, October 09, 2005

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To understand is to forgive. But since human understanding, unlike divine understanding, is limited, our forgiveness is bound to be tainted. The best we can do is to say we will not allow our enemy’s character and conduct to define our sentiments and thoughts.

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To understand another means to see oneself in him because “nothing human is alien to me.” Which may explain why Dostoevsky wrote with some understanding and sympathy about an ax-murderer of old ladies (CRIME AND PUNISHMENT), Nabokov about a child molester (LOLITA), and Richard Stark (real name Donald Westlake) about a ruthless killer (POINT BLANK).

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To be brainwashed means to have a fraction of our brain paralyzed.

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Prejudice is like a knife that maims and castrates our thinking organ.

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I have been exposed to too many patriotic speeches by charlatans to have any respect for verbal professions of patriotism.

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[ara baliozian]

Monday, October 10, 2005

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TWO MEN OF INTEGRITY

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Thomas Bernhard was an Austrian writer who hated his fellow Austrians with a passion. No other writer has been as relentless as he in his excoriations of his fellow countrymen. Our Raffi too was very critical of Armenians but in his fiction he also created a good number of heroes and noble specimens of humanity. Baronian, Odian, and Massikian couched their attacks in humor and satire. Zarian’s trajectory from great expectations to despair and disgust was gradual and he was careful to confide his denunciations in his correspondence with friends, diaries and notebooks that were published only posthumously. Thomas Bernhard’s hatred seems to have been born in his cradle and continued all the way to his grave at the age of 58. But since he was widely translated and admired throughout the world, the Austrians had little choice but to award him a prestigious literary prize in the hope of that flattery may mollify him. It had the opposite effect. In his acceptance speech Bernhard delivered such a scathing attack on Austrian double-talk, mediocrity, intolerance, and fascism that the Austrian Minister of Culture and half of the audience walked out on him. I dare you not to love and admire such a man!

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When a prominent Soviet official died, a good number of Soviet personalities in the arts, among them Shostakovich, were invited to deliver eulogies. As it was to be expected, all the brown-nosers emphasized the positive and ignored the negative in the deceased, all except Shostakovich who chose to emphasize only the negative by exposing the man’s dishonesty and opportunism. Which is why, ever since I read this, I have had a soft spot for Shostakovich, whose music I also love not because it is elegant, refined, deep, intricate, or noble but because it has a propulsive and sometimes gut-wrenching forward drive.

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[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

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Bad news for our massacre pundits: as the number of tragedies around the world rises, the magnitude of our own goes down. This phenomenon is also known as “compassion fatigue.” As a result, the more we talk about our tragedy, the more sympathizers we lose. I suggest therefore, “Less is more.”

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Our massacre pundits remind me of the survivors of another holocaust in the Old Testament who looked back and turned into pillars of salt.

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If a friend “is a masterpiece of nature” (Emerson), what is an enemy if not a curse from hell.

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It is not easy educating those who are infatuated with their own ignorance.

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I have written over a thousand commentaries and letters and I am proud to announce none of them ends with Comrade Panchoonie’s punch line, “Mi kich pogh oughargetsek” (Send us a little money). I am thus in a position to say to my readers, “If dissatisfied, your money will be cheerfully refunded.”

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[Takoush]

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

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Bad news for our massacre pundits: as the number of tragedies around the world rises, the magnitude of our own goes down. This phenomenon is also known as “compassion fatigue.” As a result, the more we talk about our tragedy, the more sympathizers we lose. I suggest therefore, “Less is more.”

*

#

I am beginning to come to grips in understanding and agreeing with this saying; as "Less is more".

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

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What's wrong with assimilation, an assimilated reader demands to know. Nothing, if the assimilation is driven by necessity such economic conditions, unemployment and destitution. But if the economic conditions are results of a corrupt and incompetent administration, then emigration and assimilation become our collective responsibility. Assimilation in the Diaspora is less a result of economic conditions and more of internal conflicts, divisions, mutual intolerance, and inept leadership. In which case, assimilation or "white massacre" may be said to be the death of a thousand self-inflicted cuts.

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Another reader wants to know why I am against millionaires? I am not, provided they mind their own business and don't get involved in culture and politics, because where benefactors enter, brown-nosers rise to the top. It is worth remembering that plutocracy and democracy are mutually exclusive concepts, and a developed wallet means an underdeveloped intellect.

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[ara baliozian]

Thursday, October 13, 2005

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There are many ways to belittle a writer's work and to insult a man and I have heard them all. Here are some samples.

-You are a disgrace to your nation.

-What's your point?

-Was your mother a Turkish whore?

-You repeat yourself.

-You are a racist.

-Why don't you say something we don't know?

-A dealer in verbal crapola.

-Gobbledygook.

-You are a denialist.

-Booooooooooooring!

-You are a fool.

-Son of a bitch.

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Is it conceivable that the only thing we have learned from our Ottoman and Bolshevik experiences is intolerance?

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Why is it that in order to prove their superior brand of patriotism some of my readers find it necessary to go down into the gutter?

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And to think that some of these ladies and gentlemen think they are qualified to reform and civilize the Turks.

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Dealing with fellow Armenians builds character, provided you survive the experience.

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[phantom22]

Ara,

 

It does not require one to be a dissident writer to have comments such as these hurled at one. All one has to do is proclaim one's membership in a specific sub-group of our community to members of another sub-group. I once had a couple get up and abruptly move to another table at an Armenian fund-raiser when I told them that my great-grandfather was a prominent Armenian Catholic. My own family has vilified me for attending functions at the Prelacy church, where my ex-wife's family were members. This list goes on and on.

[Takoush]

Ara,

 

It does not require one to be a dissident writer to have comments such as these hurled at one. All one has to do is proclaim one's membership in a specific sub-group of our community to members of another sub-group. I once had a couple get up and abruptly move to another table at an Armenian fund-raiser when I told them that my great-grandfather was a prominent Armenian Catholic. My own family has vilified me for attending functions at the Prelacy church, where my ex-wife's family were members. This list goes on and on.

Phantom:

 

Years ago when I was in Canada; I was trying to collect subscribers through calling Armenians from the Armenian Directory. It was entirely my idea to promote the new Armenian paper. This happened to be a Tashnagtsagan paper. I have called everyone; whether they were of Ramgavar or of Tashnagtsagan belief. One woman who was Ramgamavar herself, for one and half hour exhausted me and asked me numerous questions and wanted me to satisfy all of her so called needs. I satisfied her fully, then after a while she started arguing with me. I totally kept my cool and my politeness to her, more so because I was representing the paper of a gousagtsoutyoun of an idea, a belief. Even though I was a very young girl at the time and a bit more inexperienced in life to give an excuse and hang up on her, nevertheless I played along with her until she called me names and abruptly and rudly hang up on me. That is not all. Two days later, our Church's parishoner has informed me that such and such a woman called and complained to him that I was not nice to her. I was numbfounded and I told the priest that it was her who was extremely rude to me. The priest said, don't worry my dear I believe you. These things happen when you belong to a gousagtsoutyoun that is of different belief than theirs.

 

I simply couldn't believe the lies of this woman after exhausting me for one and a half hour and hanging up on me, then turning the tables on me and went on to feed lies to our priest. Unbelievable.

Edited October 13, 2005 by Anahid Takouhi

[phantom22]

Anahid,

 

In my youth, I happened to meet a young woman of Armenian descent at a social gathering. Having been raised in a odar environment, I was not aware of her family. During our short relationship, I was informed by others about who she was and I became sort of uncomfortable with the relationship. She obviously liked me very much and wanted to continue the relationship. I told her, "you know I am a nobody." She replied that she did not feel that way and felt that I was a special kind of Armenian. The new found acquaintances that I had made discouraged me from continuing the relationship by embarrassing me, saying that I was interested in her family's money. Quite honestly, I grew up in an odar community where the Anglo-Saxon wealthy did not flaunt their money and mingled freely with all the classes. Being so young and coming from a different value-structure, I did not realize until later that the motives of these acquaintances were not genuine. This experience, among many others, has jaded me toward my own people. That is why many of Ara's writings ring so true for me.