as i see it - Pt. IV

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, January 07, 2007

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NO EXCEPTIONS

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A key passage in Taner Akjam’s A SHAMEFUL ACT: THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND THE QUESTION OF TURKISH RESPONSIBILITY (New York, 2006) reads: “…there remains the high probability of such acts [i.e. genocides] being repeated, since every group is inherently capable of violence; when the right conditions arise this potential may easily become reality, and on the slightest of pretexts. There are no exceptions.”

*

Translated into dollars and cents this simply means, none of us can afford to assume a morally superior stance. It follows, to pretend that we Armenians are better than Turks is racist nonsense. If we have not committed genocide it may be because we had neither the opportunity nor the power. To put it differently: if the Ottoman Empire had been an Armenian Empire and if the Turks had been a hostile minority with territorial ambitions, we would have done to them what they did to us. That’s the meaning of the final “no exceptions.”

*

Like prosecutors eager to prove their case, our Turcocentric pundits and academics have been stressing Turkish responsibility to the exclusion of all other considerations. It has been their position, as it was Toynbee’s in his first phase, to ignore all questions dealing with Armenian responsibility and to focus exclusively on Turkish actions. To separate morality from political or legal issues is, I believe, to commit the same mistake that Turks commit when they deny the reality of the Genocide.

*

There is another and a far more practical reason why we should not look down on Turks by calling them “bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians” or other derogatory terms. In addition to being self-serving it is also politically inadvisable because it may alienate even Turks, like Akjam and Pamuk, who are on our side.

*

A final comment on the misconception of moral superiority: a morally superior human being does not as a rule assert moral superiority because he is too busy examining his own conscience and reflecting on his failings and transgression. I would go further and say that asserting moral superiority is the surest symptom of moral inferiority.

#

[ara baliozian]

Monday, January 08, 2007

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MYSTERY / I

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It is beyond me why people like Tiny Tim, Donald Trump, Paris Hilton, Pamela Anderson, and O.J. Simpson become celebrities in America. In my kind of world they would be arrested for making a public nuisance of themselves.

*

MYSTERY / II

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Why is it that phonies are idolized and honest men shunned, sometimes even crucified? We say we hate wars but we look up to war makers. We are against bloodsuckers but we admire exploiters.

*

HUNGER

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In the Ottoman Empire we were politically starved. During the Genocide the “hungry Armenian” became a cliché in America. The survivors were economically starved in alien slums. Today we are culturally starved by our own Turcocentric academics. So much so that whenever I take the liberty of paraphrasing Raffi, Baronian, Odian, Zarian, and Massikian, our brainwashed defenders of the faith call me a pro-Turkish degenerate denialist.

*

QUESTION

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What if, when I finally see the light, all I will see is the darkness in man’s heart?

*

DEFINITION

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Dupe: anyone who believes in human beings and their institutions. Relax! I am only paraphrasing the First Commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods.”

*

SEMANTICS 101

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The Brits associate the world “loss” with the loss of their Empire. “Survival” to Canadians means surviving American influence. To Americans yesterday is “history.” To us these words have a far more literal meaning.

*

ON DECLINE AND DISINTEGRATION

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I remember to have read somewhere that the decline of the British Empire began at the turn of the last century when an English writer published a commentary in which he said something positive about British rule. One could say that our moral disintegration began on the day one of our charlatans bragged about us being the first nation to convert to Christianity.

*

INTOLERANCE

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In this morning’s paper I read that Orhan Pamuk has published an editorial criticizing “the Turkish news media and government for suppressing free expression.” To him I say, “Welcome to the club.”

#

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

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I THINK THEREFORE I MAY NOT BE

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The older I grow the more ignorant I feel, perhaps because the more aware I become of all those things that I know nothing about. As a boy I was not aware of my blind spots; now I am more aware of them than the sum total of all those things that I have learned. For a long time I thought of the famous Socratic dictum “The only thing I know is that I don’t know” as a purely theoretical rather than pragmatic assertion. I know now that it stands for the difficulty, not to say the impossibility, of knowing anything. I think therefore I am? What if what I think is a mechanism within me of whose operation I know nothing about, in the same way that I know nothing about my being on its molecular or even cellular level? And to say that one doesn’t have to know anything about molecules or cells to know about being on a human level, is like saying one doesn’t have to know anything about trees to know all about forests.

*

CRITICAL CRITERIA

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I have learned much more from my critics than they have learned from me, perhaps because I have everything to learn from them and they have nothing…I mean, nothing to learn from me, of course. One of the things that I have learned is that, if it were up to them, before they start writing and publishing, writers would apply for a license with two requirements: first, knowing and understanding everything; and second, being infallible. Failure to fulfill these two requirements would result in being disqualified. As for our bosses, bishops, and benefactors: like the Pope of Rome, who is said to be infallible in matters of faith, they are infallible so long as they speak in the name of God and capital – make it Capital and god. Which means, they don’t need a license to operate the machinery of state or community. Facts are on their side. History proves that we owe our very survival to them. If it weren’t for them we would have shared the fate of all those empires, nations, and tribes that have bitten the dust and ended on the garbage dump of history. As for our victims: you can’t have an omelet without breaking a few eggs – or, in our case, a few million of them.

*

GOD IS AN ARMENIAN

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We were comparing Armenians to Jews – this motor-mouth anti-Semite and I – and when I said something to the effect that Jews like Jesus, Marx, and Freud shaped the thinking of entire continents and civilizations, unlike our own thinkers who cannot even change the mind of a single loud-mouth, know-it-all smart-ass dupe with a single-digit IQ, she retorted: “Marx and Freud have been curses on mankind rather than blessings. As for Jesus: he was more Armenian in spirit than he was Jewish, because Jews rejected him and Armenians were the first nation to accept him.” I challenge anyone to assert, suggest, or imply that we are not the real Chosen People.

#

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

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ARMENIANS AND THE NOBEL PRIZE

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There are several theories as to why no Armenian – except perhaps Raymond Damadian – has ever come close to winning the Nobel Prize, one of them being the charge of plagiarism, which was leveled against Damadian himself by a fellow Armenian scientist. Since I am not personally acquainted with Damadian and my scientific knowledge is less than rudimentary, I am in no position to testify on Damadian’s integrity as a man or a scientist. But I do know his accuser and I have no reason to suspect he is motivated by anti-Armenian sentiments. On the contrary, he happens to be an ardent patriot.

There is of course nothing new about the charge of plagiarism in reference to Armenians. Similar charges have been leveled against some of our ablest writers by their peers – see Oshagan on Zarian, Zarian on Charents, and Shahnour on Siamanto.

Let me expand on the question placed at the beginning of this article: Why is it that nearly 200 Jews have been awarded the Nobel Prize but not a single Armenian? The answer favorite by our anti-Semites (of whom we have our share) is that the Nobel Committee is an integral part of the Zionist conspiracy. By contrast, honest Armenians (we have some of them also) maintain that the reason is much simpler: no Armenian has ever deserved the Prize.

My favorite theory is that, whenever an Armenian is mentioned as a possible candidate, the Nobel Committee receives a mini-avalanche of letters written by Armenians accusing the nominee of moral turpitude, terrorist sympathies, mediocrity, dishonesty, and a number of other failings and secret vices. Either that or a member of the Nobel Committee has an Armenian adviser who kyboshes every Armenian nomination.

In the investigation of a crime, they say “Cherchez la femme.” About the Nobel Committee’s anti-Armenianism, I say, “Cherchez l’armenien.”

#

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, January 11, 2007

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QUESTIONS

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If Armenians change some day, it will not be because of what I or a thousand others before me have said but because reality will have eroded their lies and half-truths. Why go on writing? That’s a question I should be asking myself. Your question should be: Why go on reading? “Looking for fish, don’t climb a tree,” says a Chinese proverb. And I say, “Looking for flattery, read a brown-noser.”

*

ON NATIONALISM

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The problems with nationalism is that it narrows our horizons and with them our understanding of the world. Or, as the Malaysian proverb has it: “A frog beneath a coconut shell believes there is no other world.”

*

ON HUMBUG

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One reason I ignore some of my critics is that I don’t know how to argue against humbug. Does anyone? Humbug has resisted millennia of philosophy and science and it will probably outlive long after we are all dead and buried – and by we I mean Homo sapiens.

*

WHAT I UNDERSTAND

ABOUT OUR COMMISSARS

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I have no illusions about my fellow men, including my fellow Armenians. If some day in the near or distant future a Stalin-like figure emerges and takes over our homeland, he will have all the support he needs from our chic neo-Bolsheviks in the Diaspora and as many commissars his dark heart desires. This may happen anywhere, of course, but not as easily in countries with democratic traditions. As for our commissars: after shooting all dissidents (assuming there will be any left by then) they will do what they did under Stalin: they will start shooting one another. Which raises the question: Why fight a system, any system, knowing that sooner or later all systems collapse?

*

ON THE UNIVERSALITY OF PROVERBS

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Chinese proverb: “Those who have free seats at a play hiss first.” I experience the truth of this proverb every day.

#

[SAS]

Պարոն Բալիոզյան,

 

ինչո՞ւ միայն անգլերեն եք գրում:Ինչքան ես հասկացա, դուք գիտեք նաև հայերեն:

[ara baliozian]

Friday, January 12, 2007

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A RULE WITHOUT EXCEPTIONS

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An Armenian who dehumanizes Turks, sooner or later will dehumanize his fellow Armenians. This is a rule without exceptions.

*

A RULE WITH ONE EXCEPTION

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Good logic has the power to silence even a loudmouth smart-ass suffering from an advanced case of verbal diarrhea. This rule, however, has one exception: the Armenian of the species.

*

MONGOLOIDS AND ARMENOIDS

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In a commentary titled “American forces in Iraq could learn from Genghis Khan,” I read: “The Mongols spared anyone with a craft such as carpentry and writing…” Henceforth whenever I use the word Mongoloid I will think Armenoid.

*

GLOOM AND DOOM

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If you think what I write is gloomy because I see only the dark side of things, you couldn’t be more wrong. I become gloomy only when I think of my fellow Armenians.

*

CASUALTIES OF WAR

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“I am right!” – the false assumption that is at the source of all conflicts. If all self-righteous and dogmatic people taught themselves to say, “I could be wrong,” we would have fewer casualties of war.

*

ON BEING A REVOLUTIONARY

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I know too much about power and propaganda to be a partisan of any ideology or movement. I also know it is not necessary to adopt an ideology or join a movement to be a revolutionary. Be honest and the whole world will be against you.

*

SHARING A SECRET

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Ever since I decided to expect nothing from my fellow men I have not experienced disappointment.

#

[ara baliozian]

Պարոն Բալիոզյան,

 

ինչո՞ւ միայն անգլերեն եք գրում:Ինչքան ես հասկացա, դուք գիտեք նաև հայերեն:

 

djbaghdabar im computers hayeren girer chouni. / ara

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, January 13, 2007

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FEAR OF FLYING

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“The smaller the country,” I remember to have read somewhere, “the longer its national anthem.” Also, I would add, the more long-winded its sermonizers and speechifiers. As a child I was exposed to countless speeches and sermons delivered by individuals infatuated with the sound of their own voice and the platitude of their clichés. I remember only one Armenian whose speech made sense to me and he committed suicide. Some say it wasn’t suicide but a political assassination. Others are convinced it was an accident – he was drunk, lost his balance and fell from his balcony. Which sounds to me like six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. At the root of these theories is the fact that he was misunderstood (or understood too well) and rejected by his fellow Armenians. All this to explain why I write in short paragraphs, I don’t drink, and I don’t live in a high-rise.

*

MORAL: If you make sense, they will hate you.

#

Edited January 13, 2007 by ara baliozian

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, January 14, 2007

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THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

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When it comes to races, nations, and tribes, there are no good guys and bad guys. There are only good and bad human beings, and more of then than not the bad are misguided dupes.

*

To be human means to be prone to error, especially when one is sure to be right. “I may be right” is closer to “I may be wrong” than to “I am right!”

*

It takes a lot of hatred to love one’s country – hatred of past and present enemies, hatred of those who are or have been on their side, hatred of fellow countrymen who do not share one’s love to the same degree, and hatred of those who believe in the brotherhood of all men, which also means hatred of tolerance.

*

To be a good patriot also means to feel guilty by association whenever a fellow countryman is arrested and makes headlines. But guilt by association is a racist concept. Hitler was a racist. Buddha and Christ were not. You may now draw your own conclusions.

*

To fall in love means to kill the rest of mankind, said Camus. If you say that’s going too far, let’s say, passionate love makes us indifferent to the fate of others. But indifference is worse than hatred. In hatred we are connected to those we hate. In indifference this connection is severed.

*

Our enemies “fail to see us as what we really are – a bunch of traumatized half-hysterical refugees and survivors haunted by dreadful nightmares…” I am now quoting from HOW TO CURE A FANATIC (New York, 2006) by Amos Oz. I should like to see one of our Turcocentric pundits produce such a sentence.

#

[ara baliozian]

Monday, January 15, 2007

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ON BELIEF SYSTEMS

AND RELATED ATROCITIES

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It is in life as it is in lottery: for every winner there will be several million losers. An optimist hopes to win; a realist is aware of the odds and does not believe in miracles; and a pessimist knows it’s a racket.

*

I believe in miracles. I believe the universe to be the greatest miracle of all beside which changing water to wine is no better than an abracadabra trick.

*

Speaking of miracles and abracadabra: I don’t believe which is better or worse: believing in a past messiah or in a future one. As for prophets and belief systems: I see nothing wrong with any of them provided their followers don’t kill one another or themselves.

*

I believe any belief system that legitimizes murder and suicide to be an instrument of the devil.

 

Not all Turks are born killers or denialists. There is no doubt about that anymore. Likewise, not all Armenians bear a racist grudge against all Turks. With one difference. No Armenian of Pamuk’s or Akjam’s stature has produced a work to point out that fact. If he did, he would be ostracized and silenced as a traitor to the Cause. In that sense, Turks are ahead of us.

*

To kill and die for one’s country fighting an enemy who also kills and dies for his own: does that make any sense to you? I am against capital punishment but I would make an exception of all those guilty of legitimizing and promoting the idea of killing and dying for one’s country.

*

Of the many forms of illusion – I am smarter than you, I understand more than you do, my dick is bigger than yours – surely the most widely entertained and dangerous must be “My god is better than yours.”

#

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

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NOTES AND COMMENTS

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To contradict is not the same as to disagree. Some people contradict automatically, unthinkingly, instinctively – that’s their way of asserting superior wisdom. To pretend to be wiser than one is: I would call that the most universal of all temptations.

*

When we think of experiencing life we may delude ourselves into thinking that a man who has climbed Everest, or amassed a vast fortune, or slept with two thousand women has experienced life. But what if in the process of doing these things he has succeeded only in diminishing his capacity to feel, to understand, to love, and ultimately, to experience.

*

I once heard someone reading to an audience from one of my books. My first reaction was to beg him to stop. I have a horror of boring people. I would have given up writing years ago were it not for the fact that even people who hate me, read me – judging by the number of abuse e-mails I get.

*

Elfriede Jelinek in THE PIANO TEACHER: “The opposite sex always wants the exact opposite.”

#

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

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THE ART OF LIVING

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Wisdom or the art of living consists in minimizing the guesswork and replacing total ignorance with partial knowledge.

*

We may learn to limit the number of our blunders but we have no control over the blunders of others. Which may explain the tragic fate of some of the wisest men that ever lived, from Socrates to Gandhi.

*

And speaking of Christ: if there is a moral in the story of Christianity it is that, not even god can survive human blunders. As for the wisdom of American presidents: in his SHADOW PEOPLE: INSIDE HISTORY’S MOST NOTORIOUS SECRET SOCIETIES, John Lawrence Reynolds writes that the feud between Shiites and Sunnis began in the 7th Century, which means it has lasted for 1,400 years. You may now draw your own conclusions.

*

The universe is the greatest miracle of all – no doubt about that. I may have mentioned that already. What I may have failed to mention is that the second greatest miracle from where I stand is the fact that I have survived, and I have survived not only World War II, the Greek Civil War that followed, and a number of other natural and man-made disasters, but my own blunders.

*

It has been said that the only reality we can come to grips with is the future. There isn’t much we can do about the past. The present is only a fleeting moment that even as we experience it has become the past. It follows, our struggle is with something that is prey to countless factors most of which remain beyond our perception and control.

#

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, January 18, 2007

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PROPAGANDA

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Propaganda says, “When we are brainwashed, we speak the truth. When our enemies are brainwashed, they lie.”

*

CASE CLOSED

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When two religions or ideologies contradict one another on any point of their credo, and neither can prove the other wrong or itself right beyond a shadow of a doubt, or to the satisfaction of an impartial jury, both must be wrong.

*

CREDO

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Only hoodlums believe hoodlamism to be an ideology. Likewise, only nationalists, tribalists, capitalists, communists…

*

FACT AND FICTION

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Between fact and fiction, propaganda will always be a partisan of fiction.

*

FANTASY AND REALITY

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When we say we are right or we are better, we engage in fantasy. When we say, like all human beings, we have our share of failings and blind spots some of which may well be beyond our awareness, we begin to come to grips with reality.

*

WHAT’S WRONG WITH FANTASY?

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Nothing, provided we keep in mind that fantasies operate in a realm that is beyond common sense and logic.

*

JEWISH WISDOM

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Amos Oz in HOW TO CURE A FANATIC: “The two nations will have a lot of soul searching to do, about their past and mutual stupidities.”

*

MEMOIRS: FIRST PARAGRAPH

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Like most people I was born an idiot. Unlike most people, I was also raised as an idiot because I was told I was smart.

*

REMEMBER

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It takes a very bad Armenian to be a good human being.

*

To disagree with oneself is the beginning of all wisdom.

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Friday, January 19, 2007

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ON FANATICS

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In his book, HOW TO CURE A FANATIC, Amos Oz writes that the ultimate aim of fanatics is “to get crucified, or to crucify others, or both,” thus implying that fanaticism has a millennial history and a very respectable pedigree. But I think fanaticism goes back much further than two millennia. It began with the god of the Old Testament when he punished not only Adam and Eve for eating an apple, or from “the tree of knowledge,” (as if knowledge were a capital offense; as if ignorance were a better alternative), but also their offspring, and the offspring of their offspring to the end of time.

*

On a number of occasions I have called our fanatics “inbred morons.” Oz agrees. “Very often the fanatic can only count up to one,” he writes, “two is too big a figure for him or her.”

*

How to cure a fanatic? The answer is obvious: it can’t be done. Consider their role models.

##

 

[AntranigBey]

True zen to read your comments. Even more true now that you're no longer published, ironically. Such is our fate.

[Armenak]

ARMENIANS ARE SUCH FANATICS

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Nobody understands me

*

Jews and Turks do it better

*

I once met an Armenian who didn't like me and thought my work was crap. This means he was a) Ottomanized Sovietized c) a partisan and member or supporter of an Armenian political group d) a charlatan.

*

ON ARMENIANS

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Gostan Zarian said this...

*

Jean-Paul Sartre said that...

*

The following Armenian writers are more popular and successful [and published] than I am, so I will now proceed to complain about them... blah blah.

#

 

 

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, January 20, 2007

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MORE ON THE "F" WORD

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Fanaticism is as different from moderation as beast is from man. Fanatics are not just a different race, color, and creed, but also a different species.

*

A fanatic does not reason. Common sense, logic, and dialogue are alien concepts to him. He is out to settle a score. He is out for blood. He defines an enemy as anyone who disagrees with him. Fanaticism and hoodlumism might as well be Siamese twins.

*

A moderate may be prone to error, but a fanatic is never right. Even when on those extremely rare occasions he is right, the means he employs are sure to be wrong.

*

Our revolutionaries were right to revolt against tyranny – no doubt about that. And because they were right, we did not survive.

*

Like all men of faith, a fanatic begins with the certainty that he is right; and where certainty is placed above doubt, fanatics will flourish.

*

A fanatic’s favorite disguise is moderation.

*

LITERATURE AND PROPAGANDA

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Literature tells us we are not what we pretend to be, and more often than not, what we pretend to be is the exact opposite of who we are.

*

QUOTATIONS FROM ART BUCHWALD

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“If you attack the establishment long enough and hard enough, they will make you a member of it.”

*

“People ask what I am really trying to do with humor. The answer is, I am getting even. For me, being funny is the best revenge.”

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Armenak:

you are right. i agree with you.

who needs midgets like Zarian and Sartre

when we have intellectual giants like you, eh? / ara

 

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, January 21, 2007

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BOOK REVIEW

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SHAHAN SHAHNOUR: CORRESPONDENCE, volume 3 – LETTERS TO VAHAN TEKEYAN, ZAHRAD, VRATSIAN, SARAFIAN, ALAJAJIAN, SAROUKHAN & OTHERS. Edited, Annotated and with an Introduction by Krikor Keusseyan. Illustrated. (215 pages, 2007). Privately printed

(50 Watertown St., #302, Watertown, MA, 02472).

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

Shahnour was an honest man and an objective observer of our contemporary scene; and that was his undoing. Honesty has never been good policy in our environment. If the ubiquitous secret agents of an alien tyrant don’t get you, the hirelings of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors will. The occasional grudging support he received from benefactors (which more often than not he rejected) was more akin to charity that probably did more harm than good to his self-esteem and precarious health.

In his introduction, Krikor Keusseyan writes that three of Shahnour’s favorite writers were Turgenev, Flaubert, and Hardy, and that like them he was austere in his private life but audacious in his work. Which in our context means, among other things, that he consistently refused to recycle partisan propaganda and chauvinist clichés about the eternal snows of Mount Ararat. As a result he was treated as an enemy of the people and reduced to the status of abominable no man. Even after he gave up writing in Armenian, assumed a different name (Armen Lubin) and produced several volumes of prose and verse in French, a collected edition of which was issued recently by Gallimard, his critics would unearth things that he wrote thirty years ago and continue their attacks. In one of his letters, Shahnour quotes with obvious approval Mahari’s observation, “The curses of a good man are preferable to the flatteries of an idiot.”

Speaking of our writers under the Red Sultan in Istanbul, he comments: “They had neither universities nor scholarships, and yet they produced many more valuable works than our academics today.”

Some of his opinions on contemporaries are worth quoting:

On Nartuni: “He is neither good nor bad. He is elsewhere.” (This could be said of so many of our Turcocentric academics today.)

On Vorpuni: “He is not devoid of talent. What he lacks, it seems to me, is individuality. He tends to write under the influence of a book (invariably by a foreign writer) that he has just read and enjoyed.”

On Minas Tololyan: “In his CENTURY OF LITERATURE he discusses 56 writers none of whom he tears to shreds as thoroughly as he does me. He seems to be unaware of the view that there is a kind of hostile criticism that might as well be equivalent to praise.”

The illustrations consist of photos of the author, alone and with other writers, and samples of his own brilliant caricatures executed in different styles.

There is a great deal more in this excellent volume that is worth rereading and translating; and I promise to do so in future installments.

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Monday, January 22, 2007

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NOTES AND COMMENTS

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In a fight both sides discover the worth of the other, Shaw says somewhere. But in my view, what a fight exposes more often than not is less worth and more worthlessness.

*

The art of making dupes consists in simplifying complexities for the simple-minded.

*

To those who disagree with me I ask: How much of your disagreement is based on hearsay? Do you disagree with me because you think I am wrong or because you heard someone say I am wrong at a time when you were in no position to know and judge for yourself?

*

Most people think if they hide their defects they will project a better image. They seem to be unaware of the fact that the more we try to hide our defects the louder our body language or style declares them. Have you noticed the way Putin and Kocharian walk? They don’t walk so much as they swagger like bullies.

*

Not all Nazis were racists. When they saw a smart Jew they promoted him. To those who objected, Goering once explained: “It’s up to me to decide who is a Jew and who isn’t.”

*

I see something fundamentally wrong in being right and dead. I don’t believe in being an excellent corpse. “A corpse is without interest,” says the Talmud.

*

Life after death? Who’s who in the messiah business? Irrelevant questions. It’s more important that we concentrate on the mess we have made of the world, because that’s the first subject on which we will be cross-examined by the messiah or whoever is in charge of eternity.

*

Man values knowledge over ignorance. In theory. In practice, the brainwashed, the dupe, the fanatic, and the man of faith are unteachable.

*

Whenever we follow our gut or instinct and ignore the voice of reason, we behave like Hrant Dink’s killer. In that sense WE ARE ALL ASSASSINS, which happens to be the title of a post-World War II French movie. It is to be noted that the word assassin begins with “ass” and ends in “sin.” But that’s pure coincidence, like so much else in life. The root word of assassin is hashish, a drug used by a gang of Middle-East fanatics before they went on the warpath. I wouldn’t be surprised if Hrant’s assassin pleads not guilty by reason of drug-induced insanity.

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

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If you tell me Armenians are nice people, I believe you on the assumption that you speak from experience. If someone else tells me Armenians are nasty people, I don’t see why I should call him a liar. And if you were to ask me what I think of Armenians, I would say they come in all sizes and shapes and the higher they rise in the community, the nastier they are.

*

The better the message, the more easily it will be perverted. “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” says the Good Book. So what our kings and nakharars, bosses and bishops do? They concentrate their efforts on inventing orthodoxies and ideologies with which to divide and demolish our house.

*

If a man stands on principle it may be because he has nothing else to stand on. Another way of saying he is a born loser.

*

If you begin to make a list of all those things you don’t know, you will never have time to brag about what you know.

*

If war is hell, everyone involved in it must have something of the devil in him.

*

Writing about Armenians for Armenians is a dead end. Writing about Turks, that’s different.

*

If you repeat a thousand times what they want to hear, they will love you.

If you repeat twice what they don’t want to hear, they will hate you.

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

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CONVERSATION WITH A PARTISAN

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“Are you saying we have done nothing right for the nation?” an angry partisan demands to know?

“No, I have at no time said that,” I reply. “What I have been saying is that on peripheral things you may have done some good. But on central and important issues, no.”

“Such as?”

“Such as solidarity -- developing a mechanism whereby all sides engage in dialogue and reach a consensus; such as the waste of funds for building and maintaining multiple churches, schools, community centers, and weeklies when one will do.”

“I don’t agree with the notion that one is better than two if only because where are two there will also be competition.”

“I too believe in competition, but not competition that begins and ends with us, but competition with standards set by the world at large.”

“You mean like AIM and TIME magazine?”

“That was less competition and more slavish imitation. Less AIM and more APE. No matter how hard I try I don’t see any purpose in having a dozen or more mediocre weeklies with a handful of readers each, instead of a professionally edited publication with many more readers, including odars who are interested in our culture.”

“That will never happen.”

“If it doesn’t it will be because we are incurably tribal – many chiefs and no Indians – and we are tribal because of partisans who are afraid that some day their blunders may be exposed for all to see.”

“What blunders?”

“The very same blunders we have been talking about.”

“If you mean business, why don’t you join us and get involved in changing things? Talk is cheap.”

“So is censorship. During the last few years that I have been discussing our failings, our publications have been unanimous in treating me as an abominable no man. They say I insult Armenianism. The Turks have a law against insulting Turkishness. We don’t have such a law but we behave as though we did. Insulting Turkishness or Armenianism! What utter nonsense. How do we define these terms? Why should honesty and objectivity be an insult? In what way are we better than Turks if we allow our political leadership to define Armenianism? Does Armenianism consist in clinging to ideas that have been dragging us from genocide to alienation and from alienation to assimilation or white massacre? What is the difference between shooting a critic and silencing him…which amounts to cutting out his tongue?”

#

 

[gmd]

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

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

CONVERSATION WITH A PARTISAN

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

“Are you saying we have done nothing right for the nation?” an angry partisan demands to know?

“No, I have at no time said that,” I reply. “What I have been saying is that on peripheral things you may have done some good. But on central and important issues, no.”

“Such as?”

“Such as solidarity -- developing a mechanism whereby all sides engage in dialogue and reach a consensus; such as the waste of funds for building and maintaining multiple churches, schools, community centers, and weeklies when one will do.”

“I don’t agree with the notion that one is better than two if only because where are two there will also be competition.”

“I too believe in competition, but not competition that begins and ends with us, but competition with standards set by the world at large.”

“You mean like AIM and TIME magazine?”

“That was less competition and more slavish imitation. Less AIM and more APE. No matter how hard I try I don’t see any purpose in having a dozen or more mediocre weeklies with a handful of readers each, instead of a professionally edited publication with many more readers, including odars who are interested in our culture.”

“That will never happen.”

“If it doesn’t it will be because we are incurably tribal – many chiefs and no Indians – and we are tribal because of partisans who are afraid that some day their blunders may be exposed for all to see.”

“What blunders?”

“The very same blunders we have been talking about.”

“If you mean business, why don’t you join us and get involved in changing things? Talk is cheap.”

“So is censorship. During the last few years that I have been discussing our failings, our publications have been unanimous in treating me as an abominable no man. They say I insult Armenianism. The Turks have a law against insulting Turkishness. We don’t have such a law but we behave as though we did. Insulting Turkishness or Armenianism! What utter nonsense. How do we define these terms? Why should honesty and objectivity be an insult? In what way are we better than Turks if we allow our political leadership to define Armenianism? Does Armenianism consist in clinging to ideas that have been dragging us from genocide to alienation and from alienation to assimilation or white massacre? What is the difference between shooting a critic and silencing him…which amounts to cutting out his tongue?”

#

 

Certainly something to think about Ara. Thank you. I for one do not agree with cencorship. Although I do not agree with how you say things sometimes, I admire your commitment to improving the Armenian nation.

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, January 25, 2007

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REFLECTIONS ON A REMARK BY SHAHNOUR

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If there is a story in my life, I don’t see it. All I see is either a succession of dead ends or paths that lead nowhere. I have wasted so much time trying to reason with my readers -- as if that were in the realm of possibilities.

In one of his letters Shahnour writes (I translate from memory): “Sooner or later the voice of an authentic writer will be heard. He will even prevail over those who misinterpret him.” But can he prevail over those who having heard his voice choose to ignore him or dismiss him as a nuisance? Who reads Shahnour today, or having read him is open to his line of thinking?

It is said that on the battlefield soldiers don’t think of victory, only of survival. I have survived, so has the nation. But what if our survival is nothing but a slow-motion death of a thousand cuts, most of them self-inflicted?

#