as i see it - Pt. IV

[ara baliozian]

i forgot to thank those of my unfriendly readers who continue to read me faithfully. i don't have too many readers and those i do, i cherish...regardless of how hostile they may be..../ ara

[ara baliozian]

December 13, 2004

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

ABOUT SOLUTIONS

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

One of the worst obstacles in finding a solution to our problems are people who think there exists somewhere between heaven and earth a realm that contains solutions and all we have to do is pluck the right one for us. These individuals refuse to accept the fact that you cannot change bad men to good men by means of a verbal formula.

Socrates tried to reason with them and was arrested, tried, found guilty, and condemned to death.

Jesus tried to preach to them and he was crucified.

More recently Gandhi tried it and he was assassinated.

Closer to home, Khachatur Abovian did his utmost to enlighten them and he disappeared without a trace.

More recently, Gostan Zarian, a truly messianic figure, was silenced, ignored, and buried alive.

*

If far better men than myself have failed, what are my own chances of success?

None!

Why do I go on?

Or rather what are my options?

To fall silent and accept defeat?

To entertain the bourgeoisie by writing fiction about “the mutual torments of love” (Sartre)?

*

Perhaps I go on writing not to change things but to make friends.

What if in the process I make enemies?

One can always hope that they will see the light on the grounds that “no man is beyond redemption” (Gandhi).

*

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

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

In his Dec. 13 Insight article, “Europe divided over letting Turkey into club,” H.D.S. Greenway fails to mention that one of the major obstacles for membership is Turkey’s refusal to acknowledge the genocide of the Armenians before, during and after World War I (1894-1922). Eminent historians and scholars like Arnold J. Toynbee and Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Prize winner, have asserted the reality of the Genocide with no uncertain terms, but Turkish politicians continue to maintain it was not genocide but war and in war “bad things happen.” Which is an absurd claim in view of the fact that (one) Armenians were a minority within Turkey, (two) they were not allowed to bear arms and (three) the majority of the two million victims were women, children, and old men.

#

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

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

TRANSLATION FROM RAFFI

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

“Vartan didn’t know how to lie. He spoke the truth to everyone. He was even incapable of covering up his own blunders. Generally speaking, this type of individual is thought of as eccentric by ordinary folk, who are used to dealing with people who say one thing and mean another, and they hate anyone who insists on speaking the truth.”

*

THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE STATE

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

It is against the law for individuals to steal and kill. But throughout history states have behaved as though they had a license to plunder and massacre with impunity.

*

I MAY HAVE SAID THIS BEFORE

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

I have never been as wrong as when the possibility of being wrong did not even enter my head, or when I trusted the judgment of others only because they were older or in a position of power.

*

Holier-than-though is a mindset suitable only for those who have taken permanent residence in the gutter.

*

ARMENIAN HAIKU

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

Sacred cows

make delicious

shish kebab.

*

MY FAVORITE HOJA STORY

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

It was common knowledge that in his youth Nasreddin Hoja made a comfortable living as a smuggler. So that whenever he crossed the border with his donkey (and he did so frequently) he was searched thoroughly by border guards, who found nothing. Years later, when one of these guards met the Hoja, he wanted to know what was it that he was smuggling. “Donkeys,” replied the Hoja.

*

A LOSE/LOSE SITUATION

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

Edward Dahlberg: “It is hideous and coarse to assume that we can do something for others – it is vile not to endeavor to do it.”

#

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

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

UNSEEN PHOTOS AND UNWRITTEN BOOKS

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

When asked in his old age whether he had stopped taking pictures, the celebrated French photographer, Cartier Bresson, is said to have replied: "Oh no, I'm still taking them, I just don't need a camera any more."

I wouldn't be surprised if some writers do their best "writing" after they stop publishing.

*

SUBLIMATION

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

Revenge is the only thing that will settle the score between Armenians and Turks, a reader writes. Apologies, reparations and territorial concessions will not do it. Only an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. And as he waits for the showdown, this Armenian takes it out on his fellow Armenians by engaging in verbal massacre.

*

PERSEVERANCE

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

I would have given up writing long ago were it not for the fact that those of my readers who despise me are also my most faithful readers, which may suggest that I must have something going for me. What is even more curious is that even readers who complain that I bore the hell out of them keep on reading everything I write - judging by the frequency of their insults. As for those who would like to see me silenced: it is they who eventually give up and fall silent.

*

FREUD, SPENGLER, TOYNBEE

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

All major thinkers have had their share of critics who have called them irrelevant pedants or even frauds and charlatans. And then there are lazy laymen who think they are justified in accepting the judgment of these critics as irrevocable verdicts. Speaking for myself and as a layman, may I confess that I have found in the works of all major thinkers many pearls of wisdom and unforgettable lines that are totally absent from the writings of their critics. Consider the following quotations as cases in point:

*

Freud: "Repression proceeds from the ego; we might say with greater precision: from the self-respect of the ego."

*

Spengler: "All genuine historical work is philosophy, unless it is mere ant-industry."

*

Toynbee: "The Jews, the Japanese, the British 'sahibs', the Nazis…all seem to me to have been chosen by no one except themselves."

#

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, December 16, 2004

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

TRANSLATION FROM RAFFI

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

“Subservience has become second nature with us. We are brought up to believe it is useless to resist tyranny and it is God’s will that we accept our fate as an inevitable and unalterable fact of life. As for our priests: they were successful in convincing us that life is ephemeral and that the more we suffer in this world, the greater the rewards in the next one.”

*

ON BEING UNDERSTOOD

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

How difficult it is to be understood by people you don’t understand! It’s like trying to communicate in Latin (which you don’t speak) with someone who speaks only Chinese (which you don’t understand).

*

A CHICKEN AND EGG PROBLEM

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

We are told, when dogs bite, it’s their trainers who should be penalized. Others maintain, dogs will be dogs and as dogs they will bite. This may well be one of those chicken-and-egg problems that cannot be resolved. But if eggs were to start biting, we would use them only to breed roosters.

*

HOW TO RECOGNIZE A FOOL

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

Man is a bundle of contradictions. Only fools are consistent and predictable.

*

ON EMPIRES

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

All empires are warlike. There has never been a pacifist empire. A pacifist empire might as well be a contradiction in terms. A pacifist empire would cease being an empire before you can say Jack S. Avanakian. That’s because an empire is like an attractive wench: everyone wants a piece of the action, and if she doesn’t resist, she becomes a woman with a past and no future, and in today’s parlance, history.

*

WHY I WRITE

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

“You are a fool to write for Armenians,” I am told once in a while by friends. I don’t write for Armenians. I settle scores with those who brainwashed me and I expose those who are now busy brainwashing you, your children and your grandchildren – regardless of nationality. What could be more universal?

#

[ara baliozian]

Friday, December 17, 2004

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

ARMENIAN HISTORY IN A NUTSHELL

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

Arpiar Arpiarian (1851-1908): Prominent Armenian writer, editor, translator and literary critic. He was active in Istanbul, Cairo, London, Paris, and Venice (where he was also educated). Because he wrote against oppression, he was persecuted by both Turks and Armenians. Imprisoned by the Sultan, he was assassinated by a member of an Armenian political party -- identified as “a terrorist” by a number of Armenian reference works.

*

ORIGINAL SIN

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

My definition – in the sense of its being at the origin of most crimes and transgression: allowing religious leaders to define good and evil, or political leaders to define right and wrong.

*

We expect the world to agree with us even as we engage in verbal massacre.

*

A favorite Armenian school of criticism: not deconstruction but demolition – Ottoman style.

*

VERSIONS OF THE PAST

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

When it comes to different versions of the past, the trick is not convincing ourselves (which amounts to preaching to the choir) but others, and more particularly, the opposition.

*

COMMISSARS

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

To those who would like to see me silenced, may I remind them not everyone disagrees with me, or agrees with them, which also means that to ignore me is to ignore a fraction of reality. You may fool most people most of the time, you may even fool all the people all the time, but you cannot fool reality. Turn your back on reality and reality is sure to bite your ass.

*

Confronting reality is like confronting an adversary, and to underestimate an adversary’s strength is to lose.

#

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, December 18, 2004

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

TRANSLATION FROM ARPIAR ARPIARIAN

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

"Criticism paralyzes the weak and stimulates the strong."

*

ARMENIAN PROVERB

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

"Don't try to hurl a stone you cannot lift."

*

TRANSLATION FROM RAFFI

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

"Humility and patience cease to be virtues in a world that subscribes to the law that says 'an eye for an eye'…"

*

EITHER/OR

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

Readers with an either/or mindset think, just because I am tough on Armenians, I will be soft on Turks. As a matter of fact, I am neither. Rather, I am against all propagandists and their dupes; that is to say, individuals who cannot speak for themselves because they cannot think for themselves and must therefore parrot the nonsense put out by a group with a specific agenda and vested interests.

*

DO I REPEAT MYSELF?

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

If you think I do, why waste your valuable time reading me when, for the same money, you can read writers who don't repeat themselves?

*

QUOTATIONS FROM SARTRE

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

"The introduction of terror is the necessary price for cohesion of the group, but it is the individual who pays that price, since if the group is essential, he becomes unessential."

*

"In a society which reserves its women for the old and rich, [sex] is the first pain of a poor young man with a premonition of his future enemies."

*

CHARLATANS AND THEIR DUPES

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

They have always been in the majority. That's the only way to explain the power and popularity of Talaat, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Idi Amin Dada, Paul Pot, Saddam…to mention only a handful of sadists and serial killers parading as charismatic statesmen. And here, I shall refrain from making a much longer list of their victims….

#

FRIENDS, THERE ARE NO FRIENDS

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

There are those who plan, execute, and terminate friendships as if they were military operations. I remember, after I published my first book reviews and translations I was bombarded with gifts, invitations, offers of friendship and promises of honors, titles, and even banquets by bosses, bishops, benefactors and their assorted flunkies. Being naïve and uninitiated, it never even occurred to me to question their motives. But now that I know better, I am left alone. Months go by without a single letter or phone call. To which I can only say: "Peace, is wonderful!"

#

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, December 19, 2004

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

TRANSLATION FROM ARPIAR ARPIARIAN

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

“We sent our representatives all the way to Berlin to liberate us from the yoke of Kurdish and Turkish bloodsuckers, as if our own bloodsuckers were not worse than any Kurd or Turk.”

*

There are two things on which our turn-of-the century writers agree: the detestable nature of our bourgeoisie in Istanbul and the suffocating influence of the clergy in the provinces. To which I can only add: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

*

FOR OR AGAINST

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

Others may speak of their silent majority; we can speak only of an indifferent one.

*

Agreement and disagreement in our context might as well be meaningless. For everyone who agrees with you, there may be 2 or even 22 who may disagree, and 222 who will not give a damn one way or the other.

*

But when two schmucks agree, they assume they have achieved national consensus.

*

IMAGINARY INTERVIEW

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

-Your greatest mistake?

-Being born an Armenian.

-Your second greatest mistake?

-Writing for Armenians.

-Why is that a mistake?

-It’s like writing for an army of Napoleons?

-Why Napoleons?

-Make it, lunatics who think they are Napoleons.

#

[ara baliozian]

Monday, December 20, 2004

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

The central concern of all intellectual labor is human nature. “Scientific experience,” writes Spengler, “is spiritual self-knowledge.”

*

By devising extensions of the human body, technology reveals the secret direction of our desires.

*

To say that psychology, historiography, mythology, philosophy, sociology and the writing of fiction share in common an interest in human nature is to say the obvious.

*

Consider the following thought by Freud as a case in point: “It is not our hatred of our enemies that harms us: it is our hatred for the people we really love that destroys us.” What better key to our own history or status as perennial losers and victims!

*

The following passage by a historian (Toynbee), that explains many aspects of universal history, including – and especially – our own, could have been written by Jung or Freud: “The egocentric illusion…this most fantastic of all freaks of Maya… has always beset every living organism in which an ego has ever asserted itself.”

*

When our own turn-of-the-century novelists like Arpiarian, Gamsaragan, Nar-Dos, and Zohrab wrote about the repulsive nature of our bourgeoisie in Istanbul, they might as well have been echoing Spengler’s sentiments in the following passage from THE DECLINE OF THE WEST: “The parasitical city dweller, traditionless, utterly matter-of-fact, religionless, clever, unfruitful, deeply contemptuous of the countryman….”

*

And speaking of religion:

All social movements are conceived by underdogs and confiscated by top dogs. Which amounts to saying, eventually, Marx will be followed by Stalin, and Christ by anti-Christ (Renaissance popes and American televangelists).

#

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

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

IMAGINARY INTERVIEW (II)

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

-What's your racket?

-I am in the business of being misunderstood.

-Any money in that?

-Only insults.

-What kind of insults?

-Being called all kinds of names.

-Such as?

-Son of a whore, disgrace to the nation.

-What nation?

-Armenian.

-Romanian?

-No, Armenian.

-Aramaean?

-No, no. Armenian.

-What's the difference?

-Aramaeans are extinct.

-And Armenians aren't?

-Only the real ones.

-You mean, the phonies aren't?

-Right.

-So, why write for them?

-To defend the honor of the real ones who can no longer defend themselves.

-But since they are dead and buried, they are in no position to express their appreciation: am I summing up the situation correctly?

-I couldn't have said it better myself.

-In that case, your situation is shituation.

-You took the words right out of my mouth.

-As a matter of fact I did: I read some of your things on the Internet.

-So, tell me. What do you think?

-About what?

-My things.

-You really want to know?

-I do.

-You are wasting your time.

-I agree.

-So, why go on?

-I was hoping you would tell me.

-Sorry, friend. I can't help you there. Unless, of course, you believe in an afterlife.

-I don't.

-Then I ask you again: if the living insult you and the dead will not thank you, why go on?

-How about, to balance the score.

-But who will know - if the living don't give a damn and the dead can't speak?

-I will…and now, you will too.

-Is that enough?

-No, but it may be a step in the right direction.

#

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, December 23, 2004

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

ON DOGMA

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

Where there is a dogma there is sure to be another that will contradict it.

*

Where there are conflicting dogmas, intolerance will be legitimized.

*

Legitimizing intolerance is the first step on a road that leads to violations of human rights and, ultimately, to torture, murder, war and massacre.

*

Insecure people need dogmas the way cripples need crutches.

*

A dogma allows men to dehumanize their fellow men without any sense of responsibility and guilt.

*

QUOTATION FROM ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE

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

“Every human being now alive has links, however tenuous, not only with every one of his contemporaries, but also with every other human being that has ever lived. In this sense, human history is one single seamless web, and any dissection of it is an arbitrary misrepresentation of Reality.”

*

MASSALS

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

Ours is a story of such labyrinthine complexities, with so many unexpected twists and turns, dark corners and underground passages, dead ends and blunders – yes, above all blunders and miscalculations, not to say treason and betrayal – that to reduce it to a narrative of 20 or 200 or even 2000 pages (less than a page for every 365 days) amounts to engaging in magic realism in the manner of THE ARABIAN NIGHTS. Which is exactly where our history texts stand today. I know what I am talking about having concocted such a massal myself: my only best seller (over 10,000 copies sold so far). And now you may draw your own conclusion…

Three apples fell from heaven and all three were rotten!

#

[Anoushik]

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

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

IMAGINARY INTERVIEW (II)

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

-What's your racket?

-I am in the business of being misunderstood...

 

#

style_images/master/snapback.png

Mr. Ara Baliozian, surely our culture and people are not so bad as portrayed here? We still have our thinkers and philosophers, and if right now we can't sense them I'm sure we will know of their presence once our country gets back on its feet. Why be so pessimistic?

[ara baliozian]

Friday, December 24, 2004

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

THREE KINDS OF WRITERS

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

Some writers write to achieve fame and fortune; others write to achieve personal immortality; still others write to preserve the immortality of ideals and principles without which a lawless rabble cannot rise to the status of civilized society.

*

Whenever we forget or ignore the achievements of our writers who dedicated their lives to maintaining these principles and ideals, we, in a way, collaborate with the likes of Talaat and Stalin in killing and burying them for the second time; and of the two deaths, that which is inflicted by us is the more deserving of universal contempt and condemnation.

*

A nation that forgets the memory of its greatest minds might as well be brain dead.

*

TRANSLATION FROM RAFFI

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

“I am against elitism. Even so, I can’t help wishing that we had an elite. That’s because the masses lack political awareness and they need an elite to express their discontent, especially if members of the elite are themselves oppressed and thus share their suffering.”

*

TOYNBEE ON NATIONALISM

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

“To believe that one’s own tribe is God’s Chosen People is the error of nationalism.”

*

“Self-idolization is most flagrantly in evidence, not as self-adjudicated reward for success, but as self-exculpating compensation for failure.”

*

QUOTATION FROM HEGEL

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

“Man can never overestimate the greatness and power of his spirit.”

*

SUFFERING AND WISDOM

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

According to Aeschylus: “The gods have so ordained it that man gains wisdom only by suffering.” I see the suffering in our past, but I see very little wisdom in our conduct and character as a nation. We have historians who specialize in documenting our suffering but I see no one actively engaged in preserving the wisdom gained by our ablest thinkers, perhaps because this wisdom would expose the charlatanism of our pseudo-elite or crème de la scum.

#

[ara baliozian]

anoushik:

writing is an act of optimism. / ara

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, December 25, 2004

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

When you try to do something that has not been done before, everyone will tell you it can’t be done, until you do it, and afterwards they will pretend you have not done it.

*

The Nazis legitimized barbarism in the name of civilization and progress – their conception of civilization of progress. Likewise, organized religions legitimize intolerance in the name of a merciful God – their conception of mercy and God.

*

Ottoman anti-Armenianism, Nazi anti-Semitism, Muslim anti-Americanism: subtle minds may see differences in kind and degree here, but I don’t.

*

Foreign scholars have praised our art, architecture, and music, even our mountains, rivers, and valleys. But, as far as I know, none of them has ever said anything remotely kind about our statesmanship. When Avedik Issahakian said: “We have been cursed with natural disasters, bloodthirsty neighbors, and brainless leaders,” he was saying something very similar.

*

I see my countrymen as a tiny fraction of mankind, and I am on the side of the exploited and oppressed. Between a hungry man and a fat-bellied slob, my sympathies will always be with the hungry even if he happens to be a Turk and the fat one An Armenian bishop. When General Antranik declared: “I am not a nationalist. I recognize only one nation, the nation of the oppressed,” he meant something very similar too.

#

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, December 26, 2004

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

THE ARMENIAN COMPLEX

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

To overestimate friends and underestimate enemies: I call this the Armenian complex. It is indicative of weakness and wishful thinking. I speak from personal experience.

*

At the turn of the last century our revolutionaries overestimated the verbal commitment of the Great Powers and underestimated Turkish savagery, and for that innocent miscalculation the people paid a disproportionately heavy price. That's what they mean when they speak of life being unfair.

*

Some get away with murder, others get killed for deviating a fraction of an inch on the highway. Moral: Always behave as though somebody up there did not much care about you.

*

To put the same thought more succinctly: There is a difference between smart and smart-ass, and smart-ass is closer to ass than to smart.

*

A self-assessed smart Armenian is sure to be a smart-ass.

*

Having said this I am reminded of Talleyrand's celebrated dictum: "It's worse than a crime, it's a blunder."

*

If we had had a Talleyrand among our revolutionaries, the following would have been his comment on the verbal commitment of the Great Powers: "Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts."

*

Talleyrand on non-intervention: "Mot metaphyisque et politique qui signifie a peu pres la meme chose qu'intervention." In other words, when politicians speak of non-intervention they mean intervention and vice versa.

*

20/20 vision or diplomatic experience (which we did not have)?

*

Another question: What if our political parties brainwash us to believe we are smart because they want to cover up their own stupidity?

*

And if you were to ask: "Why such depressing thoughts on this joyful season?" I say, what could be more thrilling than self-knowledge or (which is the same thing) understanding something about reality that you did not understand before? And what could be more depressing (with tragic consequences) than failing to learn from past experience?

#

[ara baliozian]

Monday, December 27, 2004

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

ON CULTURE SHOCK

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

A culture shock can be painful as well as degrading, and I have experienced four of them: first time when I ventured outside the Armenian ghetto in Greece; second time when I went to Italy for my secondary education; third time when we moved to Canada; and fourth time when I started writing for Armenians. I have since discovered that an Armenian from Syria and an Armenian from Italy can be as different as an Arab and an Italian.

*

In today’s paper I read the following: “Motorists leaving Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport encounter a billboard that says, in Turkish, “Control the Traffic Monster Inside You.” And I say to my Armenian readers, in English, “Control the Turkish gypsy inside you.”

*

Why is it that I don’t experience culture shock when I read Chekhov, Sartre, Kazantzakis, Thomas Mann, Pavese or Toynbee, and many other writers from all four corners of the world? On the contrary, what I experience is a sense of kinship and liberation. I conclude, therefore, what’s shocking about the encounter of cultures has nothing to do with values and everything to do with intolerance. And sure enough, all the writers I mentioned above were torn to shreds by critics and sometimes even imprisoned, exiled and excommunicated by their own compatriots. Which may suggest that labels may change but man is the same everywhere, and it is up to each individual to choose between being on the side of the victimizer or the victim. All the rest is academic nonsense and propaganda.

#

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

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

MISLEADING LABELS, BAD SEMANTICS

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

To be beyond criticism is an ambition we all share and a status we can never attain because everything that is human is also imperfect and a product of contradictions.

*

If you are an underdog you have no choice but to say “Yes, sir!” even when they kick you in the ass. But if you are a top dog you can always label the criticism as unfair, negative or destructive, and to silence the critic (if he is an underdog).

*

A negative critic is one who dares to question the qualifications or competence of those in power. A positive critic is one who says the fault lies not with the men at the top (who are beyond criticism) but some of their underlings – the lower the underlings, the more positive the criticism.

*

To identify people by their religion is at the root of all religious intolerance. The faith or religion of the overwhelming majority of people is a result not of choice but of accident – the accident of birth. In that sense, Napoleon was right when he remarked: “Geography is destiny.” Most Christians are Christian because they were born in a Christian country. For such a Christian to label Muslims infidels and vice versa – for Muslims born and raised in a predominantly Muslim environment to call Christians giaours or infidels -- is to legitimize intolerance and ultimately hatred, war, and the murder of the innocent.

*

A Christian fundamentalist and a Muslim fundamentalist share one thing in common which is much more important than their religion, namely, their claim to be God’s Chosen or Favorite People. This claim of privileged status has nothing to do with compassion and mercy (the central tenets of both Islam and Christianity) but with arrogance, ignorance, and stupidity.

*

When I say God is perfect and infallible, I also imply that by believing in Him I share some of his perfection and infallibility. So that even when I victimize the innocent I do so as an instrument of God’s Will. If this is not the most dangerous form of insanity, I should like to know what is.

#

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

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

LIARS AND THEIR ACCOMPLICES

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

Our editors operate on the assumption that, so long as they adopt an anti-Turkish editorial policy, they are on safe ground.

One reason they are unanimous in their refusal to publish me is that, before they print anything, they ask themselves: "Will this displease in any way any one of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors?"

*

In order to survive, our press has no choice but to recycle the propaganda line of our establishment and to silence our critics. To those who ask, "Do we have them?" - meaning critics, I say: Judging by our turn-of-the-century literature in Istanbul and later in Soviet Armenia, all our writers were also anti-establishment critics. If they had not been, neither Talaat nor Stalin would have adopted a policy of systematic extermination. And when I say, our writers were also critics, I don't just mean critics of Ottoman and Soviet oppression, but also and above, critics of Armenian greed and corruption in high places.

*

The Ottoman and Soviet tyrants have been swept into the dustbin of history, but Armenian greed and corruption continue to be covered up on the grounds that it is bad policy to expose our dirty linen in public.

*

But once in a while, this corruption stings a member of our establishment. Immediately lawyers are hired, appeals are sent to congressmen and ambassadors, letters to the editor, commentaries and editorials are published in our weeklies, and a great deal of dirty linen is exposed.

*

My question to our editors and self-righteous ladies and gentlemen who can afford to spend thousands of dollars on lawyers and endless litigation on several fronts is: "Is this the only time you have become aware of corruption in high places? If you were aware of what goes on but preferred to adopt no-skin-of-my-nose stance, in what way are you not as guilty as those you now accuse of deception and fraud?"

*

"The man who does not bawl out the truth when he knows the truth," writes Péguy, "becomes the accomplice of liars."

#

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, December 30, 2004

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

POLITICALLY INCORRECT ASSESSMENTS

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

If intellectuals are the brains of the nation, we fully qualify as an intellectually challenged.

*

If the function of intellectuals is to expose the lies of propaganda, we might as well be a bunch of dupes and retards.

*

The stealthy but systematic extermination of our intellectuals by our own leadership is a scandal that is bound to have far more tragic consequences than the previous exterminations undertaken by Talaat and Stalin. But the even greater scandal is that so far this campaign of extermination has not yet registered on our collective consciousness, as if it were fire on the other side of a distant and foreign river.

*

In his STUDY OF HISTORY, Toynbee tells us civilizations grow by responding successfully to challenges under the leadership of creative minorities, and declines when the leaders fail to react creatively. You may now draw your own conclusions.

*

Elsewhere on the same subject: “A growing civilization can be defined as one which the components of its culture [economic, political, religious, artistic, etc.] are in harmony with one another; and, on the same principle, a disintegrating civilization can be defined as one in which these same elements have fallen into discord.”

#

[ara baliozian]

Friday, December 31, 2004

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

Call the dumbest Armenian smart and he will believe you. He may question and contradict everything else you say, except that.

*

An Armenian will spend the first half of his life supporting an organization, and the second half supporting a rival organization.

*

Armenians love to argue, gossip, and dismiss writers with the comment, “Words are cheap.”

*

In today’s paper I read the following comment on the horrors of the tsunami in the Indian Ocean: “Human suffering is not something to blame on God.” But if we blame it on the Devil, we must ask the following questions: “Is the devil as Almighty as the Good Lord? And if he is not, why does not God defeat him once and for all?”

*

I am not saying God does not exist, only that we don’t understand Him, and he who speaks, as though he did, cannot be trusted.

*

ARMENIAN SAYINGS

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

“Give without fear, take without shame.”

*

“Sorrow is easier to bear than hunger.”

*

“An old friend can’t be an enemy.”

#

[Armen]

An Armenian will spend the first half of his life supporting an organization, and the second half supporting a rival organization.

Same goes for all other nations.

Armenians love to argue, gossip, and dismiss writers with the comment, “Words are cheap.”

Who doesn't?

“Is the devil as Almighty as the Good Lord? And if he is not, why does not God defeat him once and for all?”

Sounds like something I would ask my dad when I was 5 years old.

I am not saying God does not exist, only that we don’t understand Him, and he who speaks, as though he did, cannot be trusted.

style_images/master/snapback.png

No one can be trusted...

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, January 01, 2005

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

Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme shit! That’s all I have to say about the New Year.

*

The only thing that will change is that I will grow older and probably more foolish, in the sense that I will go on writing, hoping against all hope, that a writer’s role in a civilized society is as important as that of a policeman, a bus driver, a plumber, and a garbage collector.

*

Those in a position to silence me, will do so; and those who cannot silence me, will try to do so by insulting me, my mother, and Gostan Zarian, all in the name of Armenianism, of course, as if there were anything remotely Armenian or, for that matter, human, in calling a woman they have never met a whore, or dismissing a writer they have not read a derivative mediocrity.

*

It is absurd to speak of Armenianism or Armenian identity without taking into account six centuries of subservience to Ottoman rule.

*

If I were to isolate the DNA of Armenian identity today, I would say it consists in an inability to separate the Armenian from the Ottoman within our psyche.

*

As for our genocide: the truth is, no one gives a damn about it; or, to put it differently, others care about our genocide as much as we care about the genocide of others. But it is also true that, if others can use our genocide to their own advantage, they will do so driven not by their sense of morality, justice, and fair play but by self-interest – that is to say, the very same reason that drove the Turks at the turn of the last century to solve their Armenian problem by getting rid of Armenians.

#

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, January 02, 2005

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

As human beings, we are all entitled to make our share of mistakes. What we are not entitled to do is to assert infallibility.

*

To say, my god, or my ideology, or my belief system does not make mistakes, is to say what the Pope says: “As long as I speak in the name of faith (or god) I am infallible.” Or, what I think, say or do may be wrong, but what I believe never is.

This conviction has been and continues to be the source of some of the most colossal crimes in the history of mankind.

*

A German is credited with the words, “When I hear the word culture I release the safety catch of my revolver.” He should have said, “When I hear the word faith….”

*

When I speak in the name of faith, means, when God speaks through me, or, the voice may be mine, but the words are god’s.

There is no end to human megalomania.

*

On his own, man may not kill, but in the name of god he will gladly become a serial killer.

There is no end to human perversity.

*

Primitive man was ahead of us when he believed god and the devil, or the unknown and the unnamable, are one and the same.

*

As for the scriptures: since some of the greatest theologians and thinkers don’t agree on their interpretation (hence the countless orthodoxies, heresies, controversies, divisions, civil wars and massacres), the average layman has no choice but to rely on the interpretation of mullahs, televangelists, and parish priests. Never say therefore, “I speak in the name of the scriptures, or god,” but “I speak in the name of my mullah, televangelist or parish priest.”

*

To say my favorite theologian, televangelist, mullah or priest (who may well be a child molester, a fornicator, a fanatic, an embezzler, or a fraud), is unlike all the others, an honest man whom I can trust, is to speak like a certified dupe.

*

Next question: If I can’t trust anyone’s judgment, how can I trust mine? The answer is: I don’t. I have more questions than answers, more doubts than certainties, more anxiety than serenity.

*

The first and last question we should ask every day is:

“Whose dupe am I?”

*

When you think of the ten thousand gods that man has created, not to say the likes of Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin, one will have to admit that throughout history dupes have always outnumbered those able to think for themselves.

#

[ara baliozian]

Monday, January 03, 2005

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

RECAPITULATION

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

Armenians are brought up to believe

(one) they are smart, (two) Turks are bloodthirsty savages, and

(three) the so-called civilized West speaks with a forked tongue.

*

If we are smart, why did we allow ourselves to be ruled by barbarians and hoodwinked by baloney artists? What if even morons can be successfully brainwashed to believe they are smart?

What if given the right (or wrong) circumstances, all men, regardless of nationality, are capable of behaving like savages?

What if all diplomats and politicians, including our own, speak with a forked tongue?

*

To introduce doubts where there are nothing but certainties is the function of philosophy, according to Bertrand Russell in his WISDOM OF THE WEST, perhaps because certainties legitimize intolerance and arrogance as surely as doubts open the gate of tolerance, an enhanced understanding of the human condition, and progress.

*

Speaking of tolerance versus intolerance: why is it that we were successful in being tolerant of Turkish barbarism for six centuries but consistently intolerant of our own writers, most of whom were either ignored, silenced, starved or betrayed to the enemy? And what was their crime? What else but trying to share their understanding of human nature and history.

*

As I see it, the function of Armenian literature today is to convince us that (one) we have been perennial victims and dupes because we were dumb; (two) there can be nothing more moronic than to allow our own leadership to divide and subdivide us in a world of monolithic giants and to be taken in by our masters of the blame game parading as pundits; and (three) it is morally indefensible, not to say suicidal, to silence and starve anyone who fails to flatter our collective vanity.

#