as i see it - Pt. IV

[ara baliozian]

Monday, March 20, 2006

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There is a natural tendency in all of us to divide people into friends and enemies, or good and evil, and judgments into true or false. But reality is more complex, and more often than not it can be simultaneously good and evil as well as true and false.

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When someone tells me, “I don’t like Armenians,” my first impulse is not to accuse him of being an enemy but to ask myself, “Are we likeable?”

*

Nobody is perfect. We all have our share of failings. Whenever I mention one of them, however, I am told it is not a specifically Armenian failing but a human, therefore, a universal failing. Which raises the question: What is our view of humanity? Turks we call Asiatic barbarians, and the West a bunch of double-talking degenerates.

*

If we are like everybody else, we must also have our share of barbarians and degenerates who pretend to be civilized. Don’t get me wrong. If I am disappointed, it is not in my fellow Armenians but in myself for overestimating them and for failing to see them as they are – human beings with their share of contradictions, wounds, and complexes.

*

We like to say that we have massacred no one, but we forget to add, only in our version of the story. And if we are like everyone else, our version of the story, like everyone else’s, must be full of holes.

*

Am I saying we are as bad as Turks? No, I am saying not all Turks are “as bad as Turks,” and not all Armenians are morally superior. Collective moral superiority, or any other kind of superiority, is a myth created by the likes of Hitler. Which amounts to saying it is not just a lie but a Big Lie, and thus the source of some of worst blunders and crimes against humanity.

#

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

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Alain: “There is no doubt whatever that on certain occasions Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon behaved like fools. It has been my aim in life to avoid emulating them.”

*

The credibility of historians, even the best among them, has been questioned by fellow historians since the beginning of historiography. Herodotus, “the father of historians,” has also been called “the father of lies.” More recently, Arnold J. Toynbee, one of the greatest historians of the 20th Century, has been dismissed as “a prophet of mumbo jumbo.” And consider the case of Edward Gibbon (1737-1794): in his universally acclaimed DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, he portrays Romans as the good guys and Christians as the villains. To say that Armenian historians are more trustworthy than Herodotus, Gibbon, and Toynbee is to certify our status as perennial dupes.

*

Again, my intension here is not to question the reality of the Genocide but our version of its context, or rather our treatment or cover up of its context.

*

If Turks disagree with us, and now with themselves (as the Orhan Pamuk episode suggests), it may be because the Armenian side stresses the facts, and the Turkish side stresses the context; and the context, to put it in a nutshell, was the very real threat of annihilation not only of the Ottoman Empire, which was moribund, but also that of the Turkish nation.

*

In the Turkish version of the story, the slaughter of Armenians was a case of self-defense or justifiable homicide. Armenians were not alone in threatening their survival, of course. There were others. Many others. But they were beyond Turkish reach. We weren’t. And that was our misfortune. It is true, Turkish conduct was savage to the point of being irrational. But who has ever been able to reason with a man who is convinced his own existence is in peril?

*

Did we act reasonably when we drove the Azeris (most of them innocent civilians) from Karabagh? Is Israeli conduct towards Palestinians consistently reasonable? Even many Jews say it is not.

*

Speaking not as a historian but as a human being, I view the Genocide not as a clash between good and evil but a result of two enormous miscalculations or blunders: (one) that of our revolutionaries or freedom fighters (in our version of the story, terrorists in theirs) in thinking that with such mighty allies as the Russians and the Great Powers of the West, we couldn’t lose; and (two) that of the Turks in assuming that unarmed Armenian civilians were a real threat to their survival.

*

Alain: “I have at no time believed that it is possible to create a new philosophy. What I have been doing instead is re-creating the best of what has already been said. But is this not also creating in the best sense of the word?”

#

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

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Judging by the number of books that tell you how to solve problems, there must be two or more solutions for every problem. But judging by the number of people who don’t read books, the nation must be lousy with people drowning in unresolved problems. You may now guess what happens to such a nation when it goes out of its way to solve the problems of other nations.

*

And now, from the sublime to the ridiculous: I am an Armenian. As if that weren’t enough, I also write for Armenians. Two jumbo-sized problems right there. Which may explain why so far I haven’t been able to solve a single problem. Which may also explain why I have a grudging admiration for our Turcocentric pundits who have been successful in convincing their readers that on the day Turks repent three golden apples will fall from heaven and we shall live happily ever after.

*

As we wait for that day, here is a piece of advice you may wish to keep in mind: Never marry a woman whose three previous husbands committed suicide.

#

[Takoush]

Ara:

 

I don't share your views about the teachings of Turkocentric pundits as you have put it; if I understood it correctly, that we should turn around and pretty much sign out. There are plenty of Armenians who are uneducated and that are egocentrics. There are plenty of Armenians that are educated and are also egocentrics. There are also plenty that are self educated or plain educated and not so egocentrics; however, that doesn't mean that we have to give the Turks the right of way and not to follow our rights and have them not to accept their wrongdoings in history. When pretty much a whole nation was annihilated; surely the survivors and their descendents will revolt and demand that their rights are given and preserved, that goes without saying.

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, March 23, 2006

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Because Abdul Rahman, an Afghan, converted to Christianity 16 years ago, we are told, he may face execution. In an angry editorial, titled “Intolerance in Afghanistan,” in our paper today, I read: “As a citizen of this planet, Abdul Rahman should have the absolute right to worship the God he chooses in the manner he chooses without fear of prejudice, persecution, jail or death.”

*

It seems mankind (and I include Christians) has not yet decided whether God, or Truth, or religion is a life-affirming or death-legitimizing concept. Christians (including Armenians) continue to glorify their martyrs who chose death rather than conversion to some other religion, including Islam.

*

Questions: What if Islam legitimizes death because it accepts Christianity as its role model? What if Muslims call Christians infidels because Christians called them infidels? What if the Genocide could have been prevented if Armenians within the Ottoman Empire had followed the example of their compatriots in Hemshin and converted to Islam, in the same way that shortly thereafter, and under the Soviets, they converted to atheism?

*

When in the final volume of his STUDY OF HISTORY Toynbee said in effect that mankind will know peace only if all religions combine and become a single belief system, he was ridiculed by so-called enlightened and progressive critics and dismissed as “a prophet of mumbo jumbo.”

*

Some day in a future Age of Enlightenment mankind will no doubt see all leaders of organized religions, and anyone else who dares to speak in the name of God, for what they are, megalomaniacal windbags. In the meantime, history will continue to be shaped by charlatans and their brainwashed dupes.

#

[ara baliozian]

Ara:

 

I don't share your views about the teachings of Turkocentric pundits as you have put it; if I understood it correctly, that we should turn around and pretty much sign out. There are plenty of Armenians who are uneducated and that are egocentrics. There are plenty of Armenians that are educated and are also egocentrics. There are also plenty that are self educated or plain educated and not so egocentrics; however, that doesn't mean that we have to give the Turks the right of way and not to follow our rights and have them not to accept their wrongdoings in history. When pretty much a whole nation was annihilated; surely the survivors and their descendents will revolt and demand that their rights are given and preserved, that goes without saying.

 

before we fix the turks, it seems to me, we should take care of our own.

what if our leaders use the turks as a cover for their own blunders and mismanagement?

justice should begin within our own backyard.

[ara baliozian]

Friday, March 24, 2006

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The Turks saw us as their “most loyal millet (subject nation).” Raffi saw us as born traitors (“Treason and betrayal are in our blood”). Who is right? If I were to choose, I would say they are both wrong. The overwhelming majority of Armenians have been and continue to be too busy trying to survive in an alien and sometime hostile environment to have any time for politics. They are neither loyal subjects nor traitors to the Cause. Rather, they are law-abiding citizens even when the law is unjust, and even when the power structure is corrupt and authoritarian; and it makes no difference if the men at the top are Turks, Russians, or Armenians.

*

A prominent Tashnak once published a book in which he blamed all our problems on “chezoks” (non-partisan Armenians). When in my review of the book I said that amounted to victimizing the victims for the second time, I had an angry phone call from the writer who explained that he had sent a review copy of his book to me on the erroneous assumption that I too, like all right-minded Armenians, was a member of the Party and not that lowest form of animal life known as a “chezok.” The implication being that if I wasn’t with him, I must be against him, and therefore against God and Country, out of prejudice. It never even occurred to him that I might be on the side of the majority.

*

It has been said that when the rich fight, it is the poor who die. It could also be said that when charlatans fight, it is the honest that are silenced. You may now guess what gets ignored when liars disagree.

#

[ara baliozian]

#

Saturday, March 25, 2006

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We don’t burn books. We bury them beneath layers of indifference. The result is the same.

*

Just because someone is ideologically motivated, that doesn’t make him a lesser dupe.

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A tyrant is a public servant who behaves like a master.

*

Russian intellectuals divide Russia into three concepts: the regime, the people, and the literature; and they view the regime as a disease. Instead of a regime in the Diaspora, we have bosses, bishops, benefactors and their assorted commissars and hirelings who run our community centers, educational institutions, churches, and media.

*

A faithful member of the Party – and faithful in our context means lobotomized – once said to me: “You keep saying we are afraid of free speech. That’s a lie! I have contributed many articles to our weeklies and none of them has been edited or rejected.”

*

And so to bed with an easy conscience.

##

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, March 26, 2006

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Pasteur studied microbes. I study Ottomanized, Sovietized, and

Americanized Armenians; and by Americanized Armenians I mean Armenians who have assimilated from the American way of life not the best (respect for human rights, free speech, tolerance of dissent) but the very worst (worship of the Almighty Dollar).

*

Please note that I am not saying all Armenians are Ottomanized, Sovietized, or Americanized. What I am saying is that we are -- the nation is, and our literature is -- at their mercy, in the same way that during our Soviet phase we were – we, the nation, the people, our literature and culture – at the mercy of Stalinized Armenians.

*

No, I do not hate Armenians, only those who are convinced they know better because they have God or truth on their side; and armed with that phony conviction they pretend to speak in the name of the majority, and in defense of our identity, literature, and culture.

*

Literature: do we have one? If we do, it must be the only literature in the world with a Turcocentric worldview. What I am saying here, and what I have been saying all along is that, in a little over 60 years our bosses, bishops, benefactors, and their commissars have succeeded in doing what the Turks tried but failed to do in 600 years.

#

[ara baliozian]

Monday, March 27, 2006

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What I know in relation to what I don’t know or what there is to know might as well be a drop of water in all the oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers of the world.

*

I lived in Venice for five years. What do I know about its history? As I write, I am reading two recently published books about it, CITY OF FALLING ANGELS by John Berendt, and FRACESCO’S VENICE: THE DRAMATIC HISTORY OF THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL CITY by Francesco da Moto (I am not counting THE ASPERN PAPERS by Henry James, which takes place in Venice and which I am also reading, because it is a work of fiction) and I find something I don’t know on every pages.

*

And now from the sublime to the ridiculous: the neighborhood where I now live. As neighborhoods go it’s a quiet one about a mile from the center of town and the nearest police station. Even so I had my windows broken on three separate occasions; three of my next-door neighbors have been arrested on charges of growing marijuana and dealing in drugs; two others (one of them a professor of history) have been exposed as serial child molesters and are now serving time; and according to an article in our local paper today, another has been identified as a member of a racist gang and charged with first degree murder. There has also been a case of arson and another of suicide. The only reason I know about these things is that they have made headlines in our paper.

*

My guess is I know about my own neighborhood as much as I know about Venice.

*

Moral I: No one can claim to know all there is to know about the past.

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Moral II: And if psychologists are to be believed, we know very little even about ourselves.

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Moral III: Teach thy tongue to say “I don’t know.”

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[ara baliozian]

Monday, March 27, 2006

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What I know in relation to what I don’t know or what there is to know might as well be a drop of water in all the oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers of the world.

*

I lived in Venice for five years. What do I know about its history? As I write, I am reading two recently published books about it, CITY OF FALLING ANGELS by John Berendt, and FRACESCO’S VENICE: THE DRAMATIC HISTORY OF THE WORLD’S MOST BEAUTIFUL CITY by Francesco da Moto (I am not counting THE ASPERN PAPERS by Henry James, which takes place in Venice and which I am also reading, because it is a work of fiction) and I find something I don’t know on every pages.

*

And now from the sublime to the ridiculous: the neighborhood where I now live. As neighborhoods go it’s a quiet one about a mile from the center of town and the nearest police station. Even so I had my windows broken on three separate occasions; three of my next-door neighbors have been arrested on charges of growing marijuana and dealing in drugs; two others (one of them a professor of history) have been exposed as serial child molesters and are now serving time; and according to an article in our local paper today, another has been identified as a member of a racist gang and charged with first degree murder. There has also been a case of arson and another of suicide. The only reason I know about these things is that they have made headlines in our paper.

*

My guess is I know about my own neighborhood as much as I know about Venice.

*

Moral I: No one can claim to know all there is to know about the past.

*

Moral II: And if psychologists are to be believed, we know very little even about ourselves.

*

Moral III: Teach thy tongue to say “I don’t know.”

#

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

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OF PROPHETS AND GODS

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Did Jesus marry Mary Magdalene and sire a child, as some scholars believe he did? I don’t know and I don’t care to know. But I like all theories that question the validity of organized religions, which I consider the source of much evil, among them intolerance, dogmatism, prejudice, authoritarianism, and countless wars and massacres.

*

Jesus himself had nothing to do with these things, of course, and cannot be held responsible. But if his followers are right, as a god he was in a position to foresee clearly the manner in which his followers would pervert his central message of love into hatred. He could have said he was not what his followers claimed him to be, namely the son of God, but only a humble carpenter who spoke not as God or even in the name of God (and following the example of Socrates he could have added: “Of God we know nothing”) but as a human being whose ignorance far exceeded his knowledge. Or, in the same way that Karl Marx declared, “I am not a Marxist,” he could have said “I am not a Christian.” Would that have changed the course of human history? Did Marx’s declaration change the career of Marxism or prevent a single crime against humanity?

*

In the same way that composers create music, philosophers ideas, and writers works of fiction, men with messianic ambitions create gods. Hence the old saying: “Man cannot create a single worm, yet he has created ten thousand gods.”

*

There is no reason why creating gods should not be a noble task. The trouble begins when power-hungry and narrow-mind bureaucrats “see the light” and emerge with the dangerous conviction that their god is the only true god, thus reducing all others into phonies, usurpers, and idols.

#

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

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PARALLEL WORLDS

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Man has accepted kings as representatives of god on earth, barbers as surgeons, bishops and imams as spiritual teachers, and politicians as leaders. Man inhabits a parallel world, which he has been brainwashed to believe is the real one.

*

I speak from experience. For many years I too lived in a parallel world created by our chauvinist charlatans. I now believe what a bishop tells me as much as I believe what an imam says.

*

I agree that we have been victimized by two sets of massacres, one “Red” (genocide), the other “White” (assimilation). The Turks blame the “Red” on war; the Armenians blame the “White” on conditions beyond their control. The Turks refuse to accept responsibility because they stand to lose prestige, money (in the form of reparations) and territory. The Armenians don’t accept responsibility because they may be vulnerable to the charge of incompetence, divisiveness, corruption, absence of vision, and thus lose prestige, of which they think they have a great deal. And they think that because they too, like the rest of us, live in a parallel world. As for the people: what could they possibly lose they have not already lost?

*

I remember once when I submitted a commentary to this effect to one of our most progressive and enlightened editors, he rejected it with the words, “I don’t want to get involved in Armenian politics.” He too lived in a parallel world in which everybody is a victim, nobody a victimizer.

#

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, March 30, 2006

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Massacre is an extension of intolerance as surely as a tree is an extension of its roots. Something similar could be said of prejudice and ignorance.

*

From the death of Socrates and the crucifixion of Christ to the assassination of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, history may be said to be a catalogue of acts perpetrated by the intolerant against the weak and the defenseless.

*

The tolerant reasons and preaches. The intolerant acts.

*

Even when the tolerant triumphs, intolerance is bound to follow. Gandhi’s non-violent liberation of India was followed by the massacre of millions of innocent Hindus and Muslims.

*

The intolerant can neither reason nor preach; they can only propagandize to the unthinking masses.

*

Both sides of the Genocide issue today (and I include our pundits) would be more than willing to kill in the name of truth.

*

Mankind continues to be at the mercy of liars, crooks, and their dupes. The massacre continues.

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[ara baliozian]

Friday, March 31, 2006

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“Forensic report unveils evidence of nepotism, poor management, and sloppy record keeping,” I read in a front-page headline today. I have never seen such a headline in our press and I doubt if I will ever see one. It is a universally acknowledged fact that nepotism is foreign to us, all our managers and accountants are models of integrity and efficiency; and, in the words of the Duke of Wellington, “if you believe that you’ll believe anything!”

*

Partisan politics is to politics what a virus is to a healthy organism.

*

One of our elder statesmen once said to me: “If you continue to criticize our benefactors, they may withdraw their support.” I had to explain to him that benefactors don’t respect the opinions of someone whose annual income is negative.

*

Whenever I am told that such and such a fellow has leadership qualities, I want to know where exactly does he plan to lead us? We may trust a bus driver or taxi driver because we know he will take us to our destination; we may trust a plumber, a butcher, or a pharmacist, but to trust a politician on the grounds that he has leadership qualities amounts to legitimizing criminal conduct.

*

I welcome criticism, even insults. I wouldn’t be able to write a single line if I thought there are readers out there who think I speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I may speak of half-truths and lies, but speaking or pretending to know the truth I leave to charlatans with leadership qualities.

#

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, April 01, 2006

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An authentic critic begins by criticizing himself.

*

When caravans pass, dogs bark but dung-beetles feast.

*

There is a type of idiot (and I was one of them myself) who thinks just because he is Armenian he is an expert on Armenian affairs, and just because his parents or grandparents were victims of massacres, he is an expert on the Genocide.

*

Mankind may be divided into those who are dissatisfied with their brand of wisdom and those who are satisfied with their brand of idiocy.

*

You may have noticed that our pundits never quote Armenian writers. It is as if our literature did not exist and they represent the very best in Armenian wisdom.

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If I am a lone voice in the wilderness it may be because I can’t afford hiring yes-men.

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I have lost so many friends during the last few years that I am seriously considering getting myself a dog.

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If our masters of the blame game are right, our entire history has been shaped by alien and hostile forces and our sole contribution has consisted in providing victims.

#

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, April 02, 2006

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The last century has claimed more victims than any other century in the history of mankind; or man uses technological progress not as a blessing but as a curse.

*

Literature may influence isolated readers here and there, now and then, but not the majority; and definitely not those who shape history.

*

If God allowed His only child to be crucified, why should He be more considerate towards the rest of us?

*

In my next life I hope to have beautiful faces as sources of inspiration instead of ugly Armenians.

*

I get two kinds of reports from visitors to the Homeland: (one) Yerevan is another Florence; and (two) the men at the top are bloodsuckers. The only way to explain this contradiction is by saying that, when it comes to politics, some people might as well be color-blind and tone-deaf. Their “we are in good hands,” translates as “we are in deep doodoo.”

*

We may be as good as Turks on the day Turks start emigrating to Armenia.

#

[ara baliozian]

Monday, April 03, 2006

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Some readers write to me only to point out a mistake in spelling or grammar. That’s their way of asserting superiority. They seem to be blissfully unaware of the facts that (one) a need to assert superiority is the surest symptom of inferiority, and (two) to write is to confess.

*

Most people are not particularly fond of the English and the French. But there are Anglophiles and Francophiles and they are the ones who write the books. Likewise, there are Armenophiles and Turcophiles, and when they write they don’t do so under oath.

*

In one of our partisan weeklies today I read a commentary about the Ottomanization of the Armenian psyche. I call this development a clear-cut case of an idea whose time has come.

*

Faith is a rare gift, granted, but only if it is not misunderstood, and it almost always is.

*

In John Mortimer’s delightful little book, WHERE THERE’S A WILL, I read the following: when advised by a Victorian doctor that masturbation leads to blindness, a bright child is alleged to have asked, “Can I just do it until I’m short-sighted?”

#

[Arpa]

Don’t get me wrong. I have not read the above jus as I neither read your bullshit for the past twenty years.

Ara/khara, whatever the "bleep" your name is.

Will you please exit this forum!

You have not said anything new for at least the last twenty years.

Now that, no self respecting Armenian periodical will publish your heap of bullshit, you seem to have found a captive audience here and in many other internet sites to spread your feces.

Before you come back, how about deturkifying you surname from that "bleep" Turkish Balioz-oghlu!!

Maybe then we will listen o you…

Edited April 3, 2006 by Arpa

[ED]

Arpa,

 

what is your problem with Ara?,

the men has every right to express his openion and he should, you dont agree with him? fine, there are people who read him and understand him, share his views, lets not be so harsh and be tollarante, and stop your name callings please, he has not offended you direcctly, never called you names

 

 

this will be the last time i will write about this Arpa and anybody who intends to break the rules of this forum

enough !!!!

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

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REV. MORGAN

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Montaigne: “None but fools are certain and resolute.”

*

Our town is blessed with a retired Anglican minister by the name of Rev. Morgan who contributes a weekly column on religious themes to the local daily. He is a white-haired, elegant, and friendly gentleman in his eighties whom I meet at least once or twice a week during my walks. We exchange greetings and the occasional comment on the weather. Judging by the range of quotations in his commentaries, Rev. Morgan is well read and has mastered the art of using his common sense and logic. And yet, he is the perennial target of abusive letters to the editor by right-wing fundamentalist fanatics.

*

It never fails: speak of tolerance and love and you will be hounded by narrow-minded and intolerant haters who pretend to know better.

*

To know better is not necessarily to know. We owe wars, revolutions and massacres to people who pretend to know better and who seem to be unaware of the possibility that what they don’t know may exceed what they know.

*

An angry reader once said to me, “Your kind of wisdom is available to anyone with a library card.” Which may suggest that some people prefer to rely on their own charlatanism rather than on Plato’s philosophy.

#

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

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Some Armenians born and raised in Turkey tell me I don’t or I can’t understand Turks as well as they do. I may not be personally acquainted with Turks but I know Armenians who have no respect for human rights. I know Armenians who operate on the assumption that violating my free speech is their patriotic duty. I know Armenians who make no effort to understand what they read, which also means they prefer to rely on their own ignorance than on someone else’s knowledge and understanding. And I understand these Armenians because I was one of them myself. So much so that when I first read about Toynbee’s pro-Turkish sentiments I was so outraged that I wrote a critique of his work titled THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND THE WEST.

*

In short, I know Ottomanized Armenians and if you know Ottomanized Armenians you don’t need to be personally acquainted with Turks to understand them.

*

And speaking of understanding: the aim of understanding is not to promote intolerance but its exact opposite. If your understanding leads you to more intolerance, and intolerance not only of Turks but also of fellow Armenians who don’t parrot your sentiments and thoughts, you should begin suspecting that perhaps what you have in your possession is not understanding but something more akin to misunderstanding.

*

More on understanding: There is human understanding, which is limited, and there is divine understanding, which is without limit – and I evoke the concept of god here only as a point of reference, the way mathematicians use the concept of infinity in their equations. It follows, none of us can claim to know and understand everything, and to understand not only others but also ourselves.

*

More about Armenians born and raised in Turkey: not all of them think alike. I count among my friends several Armenians from Istanbul who think of Turks not as bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians but as fellow human beings as good or as bad as the rest of us. Does that mean they are lesser Armenians or second-class citizens? Ottomanized Armenians may think so. I don’t!

#

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, April 06, 2006

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There is an unspoken Armenian theory (to which I subscribed for many years) that says: “The angrier you get, the more you raise your voice in outrage, the closer to the truth you are.” It took me many years to see the wisdom in the old Chinese proverb: “He who loses temper has wrong on his side.”

*

In NEWSWEEK magazine today an American politician running for office is quoted as having said: “It’s hard to have a debate when you have to debate a bunch of morons!” I can’t imagine an Armenian saying that about fellow Armenians, can you?

*

Since not all of nature is comprehensible to us, we tend to call phenomena that we can’t explain miracles, Aldous Huxley writes in one of his essays after witnessing a “miracle” (a weeping statue) in an Armenian church in Beirut. As a child I remember someone telling me that Jesus did not change water to wine, which would amount to legitimizing alcoholism. He just had water added to the remaining wine and the guests were by then too drunk to notice the difference in taste. And in our paper today I read that according to an Israeli scientist Jesus did not walk on water but a patch of ice. If you are interested in this subject I suggest you read Thomas Mann’s THE TABLES OF THE LAW where many other Biblical miracles are explained scientifically.

*

If I had a say in the matter, I would make tolerance (beginning with tolerance of Turks and their side of the story) the most important subject for study in our schools. One benefit of tolerance: it may lower the barriers that divide us thus enhancing our chances of survival as a nation.

*

The very same people who have been blabbering endlessly about massacres demand that I change my tune and say something new.

#

[ara baliozian]

Friday, April 07, 2006

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On more than one occasion I have been told to Armenianize my surname. To what end? To cover up 600 years of Ottoman subjection? Can it be done? I think of Malcolm X who changed his name but was murdered by his own kind anyway. Besides, the root of my surname is not Ottoman but Venetian. “Bailo” in Venetian dialect means ambassador. Among other words that the Turks borrowed from the Venetians are “piazza” and “maranga” (carpenter).

*

Was one of my ancestors an ambassador? I don’t know and I care even less. Unlike some of my fellow Armenians who trace their ancestry all the way back to Vartan Mamikonian (of Chinese descent) or the Bagratunis (Jewish), on a good day I can trace mine all the way back to my father, who was born in Sivrihisar, a town famous only as the birthplace of Nasreddin Hodja – a detail that I discovered only very recently on the internet.

*

Some of my readers may not be aware of the fact that for several centuries Venice and Constantinople were in constant touch as allies, competitors, and more often as rivals.

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When Sultan Mehmet II (1429-1481) wanted his portrait painted, he asked the Doge of Venice to send him a good painter. The Doge chose Giovanni Bellini, the greatest of them all. The Sultan approved Bellini’s portrait and he commissioned him to paint the head of John the Baptist, who it seems is venerated as a prophet by the Muslims. When the work was done the Sultan had one minor objection. The neck of the prophet was too long, he said, and explained that when a man is beheaded the muscles in the neck contract and the neck shrinks. When Bellini seemed unconvinced, the Sultan had one of his slaves beheaded in Bellini’s presence to prove his point. Bellini was so horrified and scared that something similar might happen to him if he displeased His Majesty that he hastened his return to Venice under cover of darkness.

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It is to be noted that some of these superpatriots who urge me to change my name are so proud of their own that they write under assumed names that are anything but Armenian. As Zarian says somewhere, “even their filth has not been picked up from our streets but from alien gutters.”

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[ara baliozian]

Saturday, April 08, 2006

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Whenever told he repeats himself, Saroyan would recount the story of the cellist who played the same note over and over again. When asked why he did that, he would reply, “Other cellists play different notes because they are looking for the right one. I have found it.”

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To the untrained ear all Bach’s fugues (and he wrote hundreds of them) sound alike. One could also say that all of literature, from THE ILIAD and THE SONG OF SONGS to MADAME BOVARY, ANNA KARENINA, and LOLITA, is about women.

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A few years ago when a Holocaust denier by the name of Zundel was jailed in Canada, one of our elder statesmen wrote me an angry letter saying it was wrong to jail a decent man for exercising his fundamental human right of free speech. And now, he and his kind are doing exactly the same thing when they refuse to listen to the Turkish side of the story on the grounds that the Turks are denialists.

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To verbally abuse someone on the Internet from a safe distance and anonymously is to compound insolence with cowardice. The question to be asked at this point is: What kind of idiot would make himself vulnerable to these charges? If I have said this before, it bears repeating.

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