as i see it - Pt. IV

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, February 09, 2006

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Once upon a time I was a fascist and I didn’t know it. I didn’t know it because I was brainwashed by fascists who didn’t know it either. Since I could not think for myself I aped my elders who were too traumatized by six centuries of tyranny that culminated in wholesale massacres, deportation, life in the ghetto, and still another World War to even begin to understand the difference between fascism and democracy. I understand their confusion and political disorientation. What I refuse to understand is the pretended confusion of individuals born and raised in a democracy who behave like fascists in the name of patriotism, as if patriotism and fascism were incompatible or mutually exclusive concepts. They are not. As far as I know no one has ever accused Hitler and Mussolini of being unpatriotic. It was Stalin himself who named World War II “Patriotic War.”

*

I define a fascist as anyone who thinks nothing of violating someone’s fundamental human right of free speech in the name of a misguided or self-serving definition of patriotism. A fascist has no use for free speech and does not consider that a serious aberration because he is either ignorant or pretends not to know that the worst crimes against humanity begin with the violation of someone’s human right.

#

[ara baliozian]

Friday, February 10, 2006

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Once more I have been asked to solve our problems. Once more we are invited to pretend that solutions are obscure verbal formulas like abracadabra that when spoken they will usher us into a new Golden Age. Once more I shall have to remind our dupes that solutions cannot be ordered the way you order pizza with or without anchovies.

*

In the 5th century (that’s 1500 years ago) two of our foremost historians (Khorenatsi and Yeghishe) exposed two of our central problems (corruption in high places and divisiveness) and provided their solutions (honesty and solidarity). I will let you decide what are two of our central problems today.

*

I have said this before, I will say it again, and it bears repeating: Finding solutions is not our problem, implementing them is.

*

After lobotomizing our literature our leaders spread the rumor that so far our writers have failed to solve our problems.

*

Let us assume for the sake of argument that our literature has been a waste of time and an irrelevant commodity that has ignored our problems. Let’s go further and declare all our writers to have been mental masturbators who did nothing but sing songs about the eternal snows of Mount Ararat and the glories of the Armenian language. What about our faith? We brag about being the first nation to convert to Christianity but fail to practice what we pretend to believe. What could be easier than to convert to Christianity and what could be more difficult than to be good Christians?

*

When Yeghishe spoke against divisiveness he was only paraphrasing a well-known passage from the Scriptures: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” When was the last time our leaders behaved as though they had read and understood the meaning of this passage?

*

After quoting two medieval historians allow me to quote a 20th-century author if only to illustrate the distance we have traveled during the last fifteen centuries. “Our political parties,” Gostan Zarian tells us, “have been of no political use to us. Their greatest enemy is free speech.” And, “Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another.”

#

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, February 11, 2006

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Once in my salad days when I contradicted a fellow Armenian with some degree of vehemence, he said, "You may be right" with complete indifference, smiled, and turned his back on me. That's when I learned an important lesson: in an argument let the facts speak for themselves. No need to assert the moral strength of your argument. Believing in the moral strength of your argument may color your perception of the facts and thus weaken your position.

*

If the Pope doubts his faith seven times every day (as Italians are fond of saying) one is justified in questioning all belief systems, especially if they are based on the words of a schoolteacher, a parish priest, a bishop, a mullah, an ayatollah, or a political boss - especially a political boss.

*

Politicians and truth might as well be mutually exclusive concepts. Sometimes you will be much closer to the truth if you believe the opposite of what a politician says, and sure enough, for every politician who says one thing there will be another who says the opposite.

*

Facts are important provided you also keep in mind that they do not exist in isolation. You may not be able to contradict facts but you may argue against their context. I suspect one reason we don't see eye to eye with the Turks on the Genocide is that we emphasize the facts and they emphasize the context.

*

There are honest Turkish writers and historians today who are willing to accept the facts of the Genocide. On the day some of our own historians (most of whom enjoy the support of a political boss, which might as well be the kiss of death on their objectivity) express a willingness to consider their context, we may have a better chance of reaching a consensus.

*

And if, at this point, you are tempted to contradict me with vehemence and accuse me of being a revisionist, a denialist, a traitor to the Cause, and perhaps even the lowest form of animal life, I will say, "You may be right" with a smile.

#

[phantom22]

Friday, February 10, 2006

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Ara,

 

I have seen this numerous times.

 

After quoting two medieval historians allow me to quote a 20th-century author if only to illustrate the distance we have traveled during the last fifteen centuries. “Our political parties,” Gostan Zarian tells us, “have been of no political use to us. Their greatest enemy is free speech.” And, “Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another.” #

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, February 12, 2006

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Please note that the following notes and comments are meant for a mature audience. For children of 14 years of age and under, and Armenians of all ages, parental guidance is advised.

*

When I retire I may go into crocodile wrestling. After thirty years of writing for Armenians, it may be a safer and an easier way to make a living. It may even be more fun.

*

My credibility with some readers goes south whenever I assert that the very same people who speechify and sermonize about our culture are engaged in lobotomizing our literature. But consider the facts: under Sultan Abdulhamid II in Istanbul and under Stalin in Yerevan, we had many more brilliant writers than we have today under the leadership of our bosses, bishops, and benevolent benefactors.

*

Writing for Armenians is like fighting a war on two fronts – against the leadership and against the readership (as you can see I have successfully resisted the temptation of replacing the letter p with t). Instead of wrestling with a single crocodile maybe I should wrestle with two…

*

You cannot argue with someone who is in a position to silence you, as Socrates discovered 2500 years ago, and more recently Solzhenitsyn. As the French are fond of saying, “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme merde.”

*

Writers cannot solve the problems created by politicians for the simple reason that politicians are the ones who acknowledge the existence of problems, and whenever they create them they refuse to acknowledge them. The reason why we have so far failed to solve our problems is not that we lack the IQ and the motivation but that the men at the top (a) hate to share power, and ( they have become masters of the blame game. Which means that as long as there are Turks (and it looks like they will be around for some time) the blame-game will continue to be our favorite pastime.

#

[ara baliozian]

Monday, February 13, 2006

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NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WHIMPER

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My guess is the EU will eventually agree with us on the Genocide controversy and ask the Turks to acknowledge responsibility. It may also agree with Turks by saying Armenian claims of monetary reparations and territorial claims are unrealistic because monetary compensation would make Turkey even more economically dependent on the EU, and because territorial concessions would create more problems than solve them.

*

ANOTHER SCENARIO

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If the Turks agree to offer monetary compensation to survivors, they may set up criteria so easy that many phony claimants will abuse them. At which point they will set up a bureaucratic system so complex and tough that it will be a nightmare for the applicants and enrich only their lawyers.

*

DO YOU WANT TO BE POPULAR?

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If you say capitalists amass their fortunes by exploiting cheap labor or overpricing their products or both, you will not be very popular with our benefactors and their assorted hirelings. If you say the universal medium of all political parties regardless of race, color, and creed is propaganda, our partisans will call you an enemy of the people. If, on the other hand, you teach yourself to say “Yes, sir!” to everything you are told, you have a much better chance to achieve popularity.

*

MEMO TO MY CRITICS

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What you say is not what you think. What you say is what you were told when you could not yet think for yourself.

*

TWO INDECENT PROPOSALS

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Our benefactors are avid readers of our weeklies but only of articles in which their selfless generosity is discussed. This suspicion became a certainty to me when one of them once asked me to ghost his memoirs.

*

An editor once complained to me that a benefactor had agreed to support his weekly only if the editor agreed to publish a minimum of one article about him per week.

#

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

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In the Byzantine Empire Christians who supported the depiction of images (iconolaters) and their opponents (iconoclasts) fought wars and massacred one another. Did the defeat of iconoclasts make for a better brand of Christianity? An irrelevant question. I mention this to point out the fact that history teaches us that man has consistently refused to learn from past blunders.

*

We say we want the truth but we are willing to die only for a lie -- the bigger the lie the better.

*

Propaganda cannot solve problems. It can only create new ones. When Czarist propaganda in the 19th century was replaced by Communist propaganda in the 20th, things went from bad to worse.

*

By brainwashing people propaganda narrows their minds and reduces them to the status of apes who cannot think for themselves, they can only echo their leaders who rule by lies, coercion, and terror.

*

In a letter to the editor in our local paper I read the following Arab proverb: “The truth is good, but better to talk of the palm trees.”

*

For every propaganda line there will be a counter-propaganda line. In the same way that for every organized religion there will be one or more heresies. That’s because truth is one, but lies many.

*

One could also say that truth is one but the roads leading to it many; and when one kills one does not kill in the name of truth or God but in the name of a lie or Satan.

*

To say my road is the only true road is the biggest of all lies.

#

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

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In a commentary in our paper this morning I read: "Muslims are offended and insulted, and rightly so, by the controversial cartoons published in papers around the world." If I were to demonstrate every time I feel offended and insulted, I would be a full-time 24/7 demonstrator and the earth from where I stand to the horizon would be scorched.

*

Perhaps I should feel sorry for the lawyer accidentally shot by Vice-President Cheney, but I don't. He should have been more careful in his choice of friends and hunting companions. If I feel sorry for anyone it's the quails.

*

Speaking of hunting expeditions, one of Norman Mailer's novels is titled WHY ARE WE IN VIETNAM which is about a hunting expedition in an American forest and in which the word Vietnam is not even mentioned. To dramatize the kind of mindset that drove the U.S. to the war in Vietnam, what Mailer does, and he does it brilliantly, is to quote from the hunters' incessant talk which is crude, coarse, and peppered with profanities. To some Americans, Mailer is saying here, war is nothing but a hunting expedition.

#

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, February 16, 2006

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“Free speech? What the hell is that? One is either right or wrong. If wrong, one has no business spreading lies and corrupting the minds of the young.” That’s what I thought as a boy when God was on my side, I knew everything, and I was never wrong.

*

When I write about our fascists and dupes today I don’t have to guess or imagine anything. All I have to do is to remember.

*

I had an Armenian education and I don’t remember anyone teaching me about democracy and human rights, and if someone had mentioned these things to me I would have dismissed him as an instrument of the degenerate West that had stood by and watched us being slaughtered by the million. It was some years later that I read in the Preface to Shaw’s ANDROCLES AND THE LION that the Great Powers had been too busy slaughtering one another (by the million too) to help us.

*

Fascists are not born but made, and in my case, made by victims who were too confused, disoriented, and traumatized to be objective about anyone who dared to disagree with them.

*

A victim is equipped to think only in terms of “you are either with me or against me; and if you are against me you are an enemy, that is to say, a Turk in disguise.” Contrast this mindset with the British slogan: “We have neither friends nor enemies, only interests.”

*

Who is right and who wrong? I am willing to concede that unlike my “betters” I do not speaks in the name of Truth, God or capital (or is it Capital and god?). I speak only as an overworked and underpaid minor scribbler. That is to say, in the eyes of my fellow Armenians, the lowest form of animal life.

*

Not that far better writers than myself were treated more kindly – Abovian (committed suicide), Voskanian (silenced), Baronian (betrayed to the Ottoman police), Daniel Varoujan, Siamanto, Roupen Sevag, and many others (betrayed to Talaat’s butchers), Charents, Bakounts, Zabel Yessayan and many others (betrayed to Stalin’s executioners), Massikian (silenced), Zarian (silenced, driven to the USSR by our partisans and ideologues in America, and eventually murdered in Yerevan)…

#

[ara baliozian]

Friday, February 17, 2006

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Speaking of the Byzantine Empire which lasted over a thousand years, Zarian writes: "Notwithstanding their precursors, the Greeks, not a single school of philosophy." Something similar could be said of the Ottoman centuries that followed - "not a single school of philosophy."

*

What is Ottomanism? When Sultan Abdulhamid II and Talaat went about massacring us, they did so because they could get away with it - or so they thought. One could say that to do something simply because you can get away with it is an idea that belongs to the Ottoman school of philosophy or anti-philosophy.

*

It is not my intention here to cast aspersions on Turks. We have more than our share of massacrist academics and Turcocentric pundits who have adopted that department of intellectual endeavor as their central concern. My intention here is to expose our own contradictions by raising a parallel question: "Why did we silence or violate the fundamental human right of free speech of our major intellectuals from Abovian to Zarian? The only plausible answer I can come up with is, because we could get away with it.

*

The Turks massacred us because they saw us as alien infidels who were conspiring with the Great Powers of the West as well as the Greeks, Kurds, and Assyrians to dismember their homeland.

*

What about our silenced intellectuals? What were they up to? Whom did they threaten? Who were their co-conspirators? Both Abovian and Zarian tried to enlighten their fellow countrymen. They threatened no one. Neither did they conspire with anyone. To enlighten means to educate brainwashed dupes who live in darkness. If our leaders consider that a crime punishable by law, then I deserve to be hanged from the nearest tree if only because I have translated some of our writers, among them Zarian.

#

Saturday, February 18, 2006

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A mullah in Pakistan has announced a $30,000 reward for killing the Danish artists who lampooned Muhammad. My guess is, if a Muslim hitman carries out this mission, a millionaire in the West will announce a $300,000 reward for killing the mullah who thinks he can behave like a Mafia don and get away with it.

*

If I were to make a list of my failings, I would begin with the irrational need to share my understanding with readers knowing that it will change no one and nothing.

*

No matter how absurd the flattery, there is always something in us that is tempted to believe it.

*

Some day we may run out of authoritarian leaders but we will never run out of commissars of culture.

*

When I speak of massacres as routine occurrences in history, I do not do so to explain or justify Turkish conduct but to expose the abysmal ignorance of our revolutionaries who thought they could challenge the might of a ruthless empire without paying a heavy price.

*

If I am wrong I like to believe I am wrong as a human being and not as a dupe. To be wrong as a dupe means (a) being someone else's instrument and ( never learning from one's mistakes.

*

When asked if he has a last wish, the condemned man facing a firing squad replies: "To learn how to play the violin."

#

[phantom22]

Ara,

 

What is the "root cause" of the silencing of our intellectuals such as Abovian and Zarian? I suspect that the impetus emanates from the Armenian Apostolic Church hierarchy. Is this true? If not, where does the main thrust of the Armenian doctrine of silencing our intellectuals come from? Who is hellbent upon perpetuating the myths concerning our history and why?

 

 

Friday, February 17, 2006

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

Speaking of the Byzantine Empire which lasted over a thousand years, Zarian writes: "Notwithstanding their precursors, the Greeks, not a single school of philosophy." Something similar could be said of the Ottoman centuries that followed - "not a single school of philosophy."

*

What is Ottomanism? When Sultan Abdulhamid II and Talaat went about massacring us, they did so because they could get away with it - or so they thought. One could say that to do something simply because you can get away with it is an idea that belongs to the Ottoman school of philosophy or anti-philosophy.

*

It is not my intention here to cast aspersions on Turks. We have more than our share of massacrist academics and Turcocentric pundits who have adopted that department of intellectual endeavor as their central concern. My intention here is to expose our own contradictions by raising a parallel question: "Why did we silence or violate the fundamental human right of free speech of our major intellectuals from Abovian to Zarian? The only plausible answer I can come up with is, because we could get away with it.

*

The Turks massacred us because they saw us as alien infidels who were conspiring with the Great Powers of the West as well as the Greeks, Kurds, and Assyrians to dismember their homeland.

*

What about our silenced intellectuals? What were they up to? Whom did they threaten? Who were their co-conspirators? Both Abovian and Zarian tried to enlighten their fellow countrymen. They threatened no one. Neither did they conspire with anyone. To enlighten means to educate brainwashed dupes who live in darkness. If our leaders consider that a crime punishable by law, then I deserve to be hanged from the nearest tree if only because I have translated some of our writers, among them Zarian.

#

Saturday, February 18, 2006

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

A mullah in Pakistan has announced a $30,000 reward for killing the Danish artists who lampooned Muhammad. My guess is, if a Muslim hitman carries out this mission, a millionaire in the West will announce a $300,000 reward for killing the mullah who thinks he can behave like a Mafia don and get away with it.

*

If I were to make a list of my failings, I would begin with the irrational need to share my understanding with readers knowing that it will change no one and nothing.

*

No matter how absurd the flattery, there is always something in us that is tempted to believe it.

*

Some day we may run out of authoritarian leaders but we will never run out of commissars of culture.

*

When I speak of massacres as routine occurrences in history, I do not do so to explain or justify Turkish conduct but to expose the abysmal ignorance of our revolutionaries who thought they could challenge the might of a ruthless empire without paying a heavy price.

*

If I am wrong I like to believe I am wrong as a human being and not as a dupe. To be wrong as a dupe means (a) being someone else's instrument and ( never learning from one's mistakes.

*

When asked if he has a last wish, the condemned man facing a firing squad replies: "To learn how to play the violin."

#

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, February 19, 2006

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The Brits and the Yanks use terms like Victorian to describe an era whose mindset can clearly be defined and distinguished from, say, the Edwardian that followed it. If I were to label the period of our collective experience and mindset from the turn of the last century to the preset, I would have to call it Hamidian after Sultan Abdulhamid II and Talaat, to emphasize the fact that we continue to be at the mercy of Ottomanized mini-sultans and crypto-Stalinists.

*

The two challenges we confront today are (a) to modernize and ( to democratize, that is to say, to liberate ourselves from the nightmares of despotism, massacrism, and Turcocentrism,

*

What we need is an emancipator like Lincoln whose “personal qualities enabled him to form friendships with men who had previously opposed him, to repair injured feelings that, left untended, might have escalated into permanent hostility; to assume responsibility for the failures of subordinates; to share credit with ease; and to learn from mistakes.”

I am quoting from TEAM OF RIVALS: THE POLITICAL GENIUS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN by Doris Kearns (New York: Simon and Schuster, 916 pages, 2005).

*

When warned that one of the politicians he was about to promote had been a rival in the past, Lincoln is quoted as having said: “We have stood together in the time of trial, and I should despise myself if I allowed personal differences to affect my judgment of his fitness for the office.”

*

Do you see anyone on the horizon that may come close to qualifying as an Armenian Lincoln?

*

And now let us pray: “Our Father Who art in heaven…”

#

[ara baliozian]

Ara,

 

What is the "root cause" of the silencing of our intellectuals such as Abovian and Zarian? I suspect that the impetus emanates from the Armenian Apostolic Church hierarchy. Is this true? If not, where does the main thrust of the Armenian doctrine of silencing our intellectuals come from? Who is hellbent upon perpetuating the myths concerning our history and why?

 

authoritarian rulers (both political and religious) hate to have their corruption and incompetence exposed. they prefer to rule over dupes who are too ignorant and backward to challenge their authority. that is, as far as i know, the only "root cause" for suppressing free speech without which literature is lobotomized. / ara

[Takoush]

Sunday, February 19, 2006

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*

What we need is an emancipator like Lincoln whose “personal qualities enabled him to form friendships with men who had previously opposed him, to repair injured feelings that, left untended, might have escalated into permanent hostility; to assume responsibility for the failures of subordinates; to share credit with ease; and to learn from mistakes.”

I am quoting from TEAM OF RIVALS: THE POLITICAL GENIUS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN by Doris Kearns (New York: Simon and Schuster, 916 pages, 2005).

*

When warned that one of the politicians he was about to promote had been a rival in the past, Lincoln is quoted as having said: “We have stood together in the time of trial, and I should despise myself if I allowed personal differences to affect my judgment of his fitness for the office.”

*

Do you see anyone on the horizon that may come close to qualifying as an Armenian Lincoln?

*

And now let us pray: “Our Father Who art in heaven…”

#

Ara; Are you serious? Anyone qualifying as Lincoln? Perhaps in the past; I doubt anyone in the future my friend. You are right to say a prayer. Funny or is it sad really.

 

People are deteriorating even within the past 20+ years it's not funny. Egotistical, egosentrical, and only playing vicious games to accommodate their vicious egos, whatever it is for the moment. I totally understand and agree with you when you said a number of times as to how authoritative people abuse their powers only to accommodate themselves and for their egos only. It's really despicable and sad. And yes, the only thing you can do is to pray and pray real much and real hard.

[ara baliozian]

Monday, February 20, 2006

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I am proud of my few friends and even more proud of my many enemies.

*

It is not the wise who have strong opinions but the foolish who are satisfied with their own ignorance.

*

I hope I will never be insecure enough to make the mistake of elevating an opinion to a belief system.

*

They tell me I complain too much. I see nothing wrong in that. Complaining or grumbling is a legitimate genre. According to J.B. Priestly, “I am a writer of talent but I am a grumbler of genius.” And Paul Johnson: “If I had my way there’d be a Nobel Prize for grumbling.”

*

I criticize no one but myself, and more precisely, my former self.

*

When at the age of 87 a woman with whom Mozart had fallen in love as a young man was asked, “Whatever made you reject him?” She replied, “How was I to know? He was such a little man!”

#

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

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Some people are so consistently wrong that if they ever decide to say the opposite of what they think, they may come close to achieving infallibility.

*

“I made a mistake when I said there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz,” admitted British historian David Irving. After calling him a “serial denialist,” the Austrian judge sentenced him to three years in prison. As a historian Irving should have known that being a denialist is a bad career move in the West. It’s different in the Middle East…

*

On the radio this morning I heard a woman define a great lover as “a man who makes love to you for eight hours and then turns into a pizza.” She must have been a black widow spider in a previous life.

*

André Gide: “Truths belong to God; ideas belong to men. Some people confuse ideas with truths.”

*

A writer should write as if he valued the reader’s time more than his own. One reason I find minor academics unreadable is that they write as if they had all the time in the world to produce empty verbiage that may mean a great deal to themselves and to their fellow academics but no one else.

#

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

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"If you think just because you and I are Armenian that makes us brothers, you are dead wrong, my friend. We are nothing of the kind. As a matter of fact, to avoid all future disappointments, let us think of each other as Turks!" Had I approached my fellow Armenians with this mindset, I would have been a happier man.

*

In his second volume of memoirs, BETWEEN YOU AND ME, Mike Wallace writes about his encounters with many celebrities from all walks of life and quotes from his interviews extensively. Sometimes what happens before and after the interviews is far more interesting than the interviews themselves. When, for instance, President Johnson warns Wallace that he has no wish to speak about Vietnam and if Vietnam is mentioned he will walk out on him, Wallace tells him: "Vietnam f***ed you, Mr. President, and so, I'm afraid, you f***ed the country. And you've got to talk about that!" I look forward to the day when an Armenian journalist will say to one of our political leaders: "Do you have an explanation as to why you and your kind have been f***ing the nation?"

*

In Hermione Lee's VIRGINIA WOOLF'S NOSE: ESSAYS ON BIOGRAPHY, there is a chapter titled "How to End It All," where Lee analyzes the tendency of all biographers to embellish and dramatize the death of their subjects. It seems biographers, even the ablest among them, are incapable of simply stating the facts. Instead they give in to the temptation of orchestrating a finale which more often than not belongs to fiction rather than history.

#

Books to read:

DICTIONNAIRE MOZART,

SUR L'AMOUR ET LA MORT by Patrick Sueskind,

L'HOMME SANS CONCESSIONS: ARTHUR KOESTLER ET SON SIECLE by Michel Laval.

#

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, February 23, 2006

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Gide: “Faith moves mountains; yes, mountains of absurdities.”

*

Misunderstanding is a constant theme in Gide’s final diary entries.

“When an intelligent man makes an effort not to understand, he naturally succeeds much more cleverly than a fool.”

But I have also discovered that, when it comes to misunderstanding, fools can be surprisingly creative.

*

After seeing Olivier’s production of KING LEAR Gide goes at some length to explain why he thinks this to be Shakespeare’s worst play. Odd that he does not mention Tolstoy, whom he admired, and who also hated this play about which he wrote a long essay as if he were trying to settle an old score with a rival.

*

Communism has been defined as state capitalism, and capitalism as socialism for the rich. Private enterprise promotes greed, and government programs legitimize waste. All systems are designed by elites to favor elites.

As for revolutions: they only replace one set of rascals with another. Which is why, during the final years of his life,

Arthur Koestler (one of the most politically astute writers of the 20th century) refused to discuss politics.

*

Zarian observes somewhere that we are on the verge of extinction not because we have been victimized by ruthless tyrants, but because we have lost our bearings, we have assimilated the values of our oppressors, and we have betrayed all those among us who have attempted to define what is and is not Armenian.

#

[ara baliozian]

Friday, February 24, 2006

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David Irving is now willing to concede that millions of Jews died during World War II, but he refuses to use the word Holocaust describing it as a concept that “became cleverly marketed, like Tylenol.” In view of his past blunders and dishonesty, I find his semantic sensitivity fraudulent.

*

Indifference is sometimes confused with strength. It seems to me it is more akin to moral feebleness.

*

The very same extremists who mounted violent demonstrations against cartoons of the Prophet are now demolishing holy shrines and beheading teachers in front of the class for refusing to teach only religion and riot.

*

Whenever I mention the many crimes committed by organized religions I am reminded that atheism too has produced its share of criminals, such as Stalin. But I maintain that, unlike Marxism, which is an ideology, Stalinism became a religion and a highly organized one at that. Let me quote Nikita Khruschev on Stalin: “It is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics akin to those of a god.”

*

Mohammed is only a prophet and a messenger; and yet, he is treated as a god in whose name all kinds of unspeakable crimes are committed every day. This is clearly seen by the overwhelming majority of mankind except the criminals.

*

Because I have consistently refused to confuse ideology with theology some of my partisan friends think of me as a heretic and an enemy of the people.

#

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, February 25, 2006

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In some people the instinct to assert intellectual superiority is stronger than the need to learn and understand.

*

Gide quotes Leon Bloy as saying: "One must puke on others!" How about that for French refinement, etiquette, and elegance?

*

At the turn of the last century Baronian made savage fun of our leadership but history advanced as if he had not written a single line.

*

Before I blame anyone, I blame myself - a quintessentially unArmenian trait that. Before we blame ourselves, we prefer to blame the rest of the world, not just Turks and Kurds but also Bolsheviks, the West, and the Good Lord Himself. We never bother to ask what have we done to deserve so many enemies?

*

A contemporary Baronian is unthinkable perhaps because after the Genocide, and unlike the Jews (who have produced some brilliant satirists and comedians) we prefer to lament crocodile tears rather than have a good laugh at ourselves - at our vanity, at our illusions, at our propaganda, and ultimately at our lies.

#

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, February 26, 2006

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The many ways those in power have to control our thoughts and emotions, especially the emotions of the thoughtless.

*

Most of his life, Gide writes in his World War II diaries, his efforts have been concentrated on understanding “the other,” that is to say, the enemy. It is such a pity that the world is run not by men like Gide but by the likes of Hitler and his dupes.

*

Armenian problems? What problems? Since we haven’t been able to solve them so far we must assume them to be an integral part of the human condition, like death and taxes.

*

Patriotism allows us to do nothing and to feel good about it.

*

Patriotism also allows us to think that if our heart is in the right place, we can’t go wrong. But what if the heart is controlled by a dysfunctional psyche?

*

An honest man is a charlatan’s worst nightmare.

*

That which we learn from books may not even register on our consciousness. But that which we learn from experience we can’t forget.

*

If your understanding focuses on yourself and ignores the other, your understanding of yourself as well as reality is bound to suffer because you are only a tiny fraction of a far larger reality, and tiny to the point of being invisible. And what is patriotism if not an extension of the self?

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[Dreamcatcher]

authoritarian rulers (both political and religious) hate to have their corruption and incompetence exposed. they prefer to rule over dupes who are too ignorant and backward to challenge their authority. that is, as far as i know, the only "root cause" for suppressing free speech without which literature is lobotomized. / ara

Ara,

 

I basically agree, but I also think there is a more mundane aspect to it. Namely, the good old "he who pays the piper calls the tune" principle.

Correct me if I am wrong, but to the best of knowledge most (if not all) of the Diaspora-Armenian media is financed by the political and religious crowd who'd most likely feel threatened by your criticims, especially if they become more personalised.

At the same time, I believe there are quite a few people who actually share your views, but they have not created any organizational structure (including the media) to get their message across and counterbalance the conservative propaganda. Thus, a "progressive" Armenian journalist has nowhere to go if he has been cut off the mainstream publications. True, now you can use the Internet to convey his message, but cannot make a living by posting articles in forums.

In a word, if I am right, you cannot expect "authoritarian rulers" let you expose their "corruption and incompetence" in the media financed by them. We simply need to create our alternative media for our "free speech", otherwise we'll be silenced all the time, it's as simple as that.

[ara baliozian]

Monday, February 27, 2006

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In a tribal environment the myth of “pure blood” is taken seriously. It is different with the ruling classes and elites in general where mixed marriages are the norm rather than the exception.

*

After centuries of intermarriage a Turk is more difficult to define than an American. Something similar could be said of an Armenian. In the ghetto where I was born and raised there were Armenians who looked like Mongols, Germans, and Negroes but they all identified themselves as Armenian because (a) Armenians were the dominant tribe, ( to identify themselves as anything else would have been against their own interests, and © because the offspring of mixed marriages were looked down at as mongrels.

*

There are harmless idiots and then there are dangerous idiots. A dangerous idiot is one who believes what his political and religious leaders tell him.

*

I understand idiots because I was one most of my life. Perhaps I still am for thinking that common sense and decency are transferable.

*

I was born again as a human being on the day I said to myself, “I am an Armenian, therefore I am an idiot.”

*

There exists an American school of thought that says, if you repeat to yourself “Today I like myself more than yesterday. Tomorrow I will like myself even more,” you will cease being a lousy bastard.

*

There is also an Armenian school of thought that says, if you repeat to yourself every day, “I am smart,” or “I am smarter today than I was yesterday,” you will cease being an idiot.

*

If two idiots meet and one says to the other “You are smart,” and the other replies, “You too are smart,” they will part with the conviction that, unlike most of their fellow men, they are not idiots.

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[ara baliozian]

Ara,

 

I basically agree, but I also think there is a more mundane aspect to it. Namely, the good old "he who pays the piper calls the tune" principle.

Correct me if I am wrong, but to the best of knowledge most (if not all) of the Diaspora-Armenian media is financed by the political and religious crowd who'd most likely feel threatened by your criticims, especially if they become more personalised.

At the same time, I believe there are quite a few people who actually share your views, but they have not created any organizational structure (including the media) to get their message across and counterbalance the conservative propaganda. Thus, a "progressive" Armenian journalist has nowhere to go if he has been cut off the mainstream publications. True, now you can use the Internet to convey his message, but cannot make a living by posting articles in forums.

In a word, if I am right, you cannot expect "authoritarian rulers" let you expose their "corruption and incompetence" in the media financed by them. We simply need to create our alternative media for our "free speech", otherwise we'll be silenced all the time, it's as simple as that.

 

yes, i agree with everything you say.

i also agree that we have at our disposal a medium that did not exist until very recently --namely, the internet which may become more widely read than our print media..../ara

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, February 28, 2006

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

There is more to America than cowboys and Indians. There is also more to Armenians than the massacres. And yet, our press, our educational system, our editorialists, pundits, and academics conspire to reduce our identity, to distort our worldview, and to narrow our horizons when they emphasize the dark side of our recent past. They go further and cover up our failures and shortcomings, of which we have more than our share, because, they tell us, they come under the general heading of “dirty linen.”

*

Anyone who dares to discuss our problems is told to shut up unless he can solve them, or rather make them disappear as if by magic with a single verbal formula like abracadabra.

*

We are more, much more than misunderstood victims if only because we are human beings, or rather, it is within our powers to be born again as human beings.

*

We have a small army of lawyers, PR men, lobbyists, propagandists, and fund-raisers who are fully equipped to handle our grievances. We don’t have to brainwash our children to think and behave as their unpaid hirelings or crusaders.

*

In a commentary of our local paper today I read: “A smart country is a country brimming with ideas, a country open to pioneering minds, a country not fearful of intellectual fertility, experimentation and daring – a thinking country.”

*

Even more to the point: “We need to be careful in our use of language, avoid reductionist marketing strategies, and celebrate the fully broad nature of smartness. Otherwise we will miss the Mozarts and Platos in our midst. And that would not be a smart thing to do.” Where, O where is the Armenian pundit capable of producing such a paragraph?

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