as i see it - Pt. IV

[ara baliozian]

------------------------------

 

Even if they don't brag, they think they are morally superior.

You cannot prevent a thought to cross your mind.

 

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

yes, they also think they are the Chosen.

but according to Toynbee, the Chosen think as they do because they have chosen themselves.

 

i too think and feel i am the center of the world, but i know i am not. / ara

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

***********

Edited September 22, 2007 by ara baliozian

[Louise]

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

yes, they also think they are the Chosen.

but according to Toynbee, the Chosen think as they do because they have chosen themselves.

 

i too think and feel i am the center of the world, but i know i am not. / ara

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

-----------------------------------------

 

All the peoples think they are superior to others, French, English, Japanese, Jewish, all...even

the Turks.

Once I asked my mother how those Turks have been able to organize a genocide.

She replied: it was the Germans - and many of my Armenian neighbours said so.

 

Most Turks do not believe to the genocide; because they are so good ! It is impossible !

Even if they are wrong, they are right !

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, September 23, 2007

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

WHY ANGELS FLY

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

G.K. Chesterton: “The reason angels fly is that they take themselves lightly.”

*

WARNINGS

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

Perhaps henceforth I should post the following two warnings at the head of everything I write.

TO MY FRIENDS: No need to read this. I say nothing you don’t already know.

TO MY ENEMIES: You may not enjoy what follows – I may be on target.

*

THE CHEERFUL THOUGHTS OF

A BRIGHT-EYED AND BUSHY TAILED ARMENIAN

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

It is the fate of some writers, very much like some composers and painters, not to be appreciated or understood by their contemporaries because they are ahead of their time. I can’t be one of them because I only recycle the LAMENTATIONS of Khorenatsi and Naregatsi – two medieval writers who wrote fifteen and ten centuries ago respectively.

Several friendly readers have told me they will love me only after I drop dead. Which raises the question: of the approximately one thousand dead Armenian writers (give and take a hundred or two) how many are loved or even read today? I remember an Armenian telling me: “If I can read first-class Greeks, Russians, and Germans, why should I waste my time with our second-raters? I challenge you to name a single Armenian who is as good as Plato, Dostoevsky, and Hesse!”

And speaking of Naregatsi: I once had a talk with Mischa Kudian (may the blessings of the Lord be upon him) -- remember Kudian? He translated Naregatsi, among many other Armenian writers. He was one of the most disappointed Armenians I have ever met. Afterwards I remember to have thought: “I will never be like that. He is too negative about his fellow Armenians. He sees only the worst in them. I will be more positive. I will be more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed…”

I am now told I am consistently negative, and I am told this by the very same Armenians whose favorite subjects are Turks, massacres, and denialists. Human beings are bundles of contradictions, we are told. Nothing new in that. Contradictions in themselves are not dangerous. Unawareness of them is. Unawareness allows a man to behave like swine and parade as a paragon of virtue. Hence the spectacle of garbage-mouth nonentities and control-freak simpletons pretending to be superpatriots with leadership qualities fully authorized to tell better men than themselves what to think.

*

IT IS NOT WRITTEN!

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

Jimmy Carr: “Cats have nine lives. Which makes them ideal for experimentation.” If God created us for purely experimental reasons, He also gave us a free will with which to disagree with Him.

*

DEMOCRACY

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

You say you are right because you have the majority on your side? How do you know? Did you take a vote? How come I wasn’t told?

#

 

 

[ara baliozian]

-----------------------------------------

 

All the peoples think they are superior to others, French, English, Japanese, Jewish, all...even

the Turks.

Once I asked my mother how those Turks have been able to organize a genocide.

She replied: it was the Germans - and many of my Armenian neighbours said so.

 

Most Turks do not believe to the genocide; because they are so good ! It is impossible !

Even if they are wrong, they are right !

 

what you say applies only to the dupes, and not to those who know better. Pamuk doesn't think like most Turks. Neither do many other Turkish writers. Sartre did not particularly care for the French. Socrates was very critical of his fellow Greeks. So was Kazantzakis. The same could be said of all dissidents, critics, and intellectuals of all nations.

[ara baliozian]

Monday, September 24, 2007

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

JOKES

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

G.B. Shaw: “If you want to tell a person the truth, make him laugh or he’ll kill you.”

*

George Orwell: “The aim of a joke is not to degrade the human being, but to remind him that he is already degraded.”

*

Jews make great comedians. They love to laugh at themselves. We don’t! Perhaps because we are a joke.

*

“Why did Hitler kill himself? He got his gas bill.”

*

Woody Allen: “I’m very proud of this pocket watch. My grandfather, on his deathbed, sold me this watch.”

*

Jimmy Carr: “Mother always said, ‘If you haven’t got anything nice to say, then f*** off!’”

*

Terry Pratchett: “Build a man a fire and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.”

*

Groucho Marx: “These are my principles. If you don’t like them, I have others.”

*

Woody Allen: “My grandmother left me nothing. She was too busy being raped by Cossacks.”

*

Denis Leary: “I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Price.”

*

“Does the tailor Rabinowitch live here?”

“No.”

“Who are you?”

“Rabinowitch.”

“And aren’t you a tailor?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Then why did you say you didn’t live here?”

“You call this living?”

*

Rowan Atkinson: “Never before have I encountered such corrupt and foul-mouthed perversity. Have you considered a career in the church?”

*

Noel Coward: “You live and learn. Then you die and forget it all.”

*

Wanna read more jokes? See ONLY JOKING: WHAT’S SO FUNNY ABOUT MAKING PEOPLE LAUGH? By Jimmy Carr and Lucy Greeves (New York, 2006). Not a single Armenian mentioned in it.

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

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

THE ART OF OBJECTIVITY

AMONG OTHER FALLACIES AND MISCONCEPTIONS

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

If after making an assertion you are not haunted by its contradiction, it means you have decided to act as your own attorney, and as is well known in the legal profession, you have a fool for a client.

*

All the misfortunes of mankind may be ascribed to the fact that bad men outnumber good ones and they know how to organize themselves and impose their will on others.

*

In George Orwell’s ANIMAL FARM, the favorite slogan of the pigs (who represent Stalinists) is “four legs good, two legs bad.” The aim of all slogans is to legitimize prejudice and to organize hatred, and hatred not only of the enemy but also of fellow countrymen who dare to question their infallibility.

*

There are good men in all nations, but they are so few that it would be a serious blunder to alienate even one of them.

*

What’s the difference between an idiot and a dupe? An idiot believes in his own lies; a dupe believes in someone else’s. But that’s semantics. In reality, an idiot will also qualify as a dupe and vice versa. And there is this peculiarity about dupes and idiots: they will never admit to being dupes and idiots.

*

I have spent enough time among Greeks, Italians, Canadians, Americans, and Armenians to know the kind of vicious idiot nationalism can create.

*

Duke of Wellington: “The real test of a general is to know when to retreat and dare to do it.” This is exactly what our heroic revolutionaries did at the outset of the Genocide. They made a strategic retreat and lived long enough to write their multi-volume memoirs in which to recount in great detail their deeds of valor and self-sacrifice. As they are fond of saying in Latin America: Long Live the Revolution!

*

I once heard an Armenian define free speech thus (I abridge and paraphrase as is my wont): “Free speech is what I say it is. If you disagree, shut the f*** up!”

*

We all share the same daydream: to be loved for who we pretend to be.

#

 

 

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

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

ON MORAL SUPERIORITY

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

Remember the case of Zohrab’s Kurdish assassin? If you don’t, allow me to refresh your memory. Shortly before he died, it seems, this Kurd experienced a crisis of conscience, confessed his crime, and provided details as to time, place, and manner, all of which was duly published in the ARMENIAN REVIEW, a Tashnak organ emanating from Boston. We know that this Kurd was acting on orders from Talaat, in the same manner that two decades later and acting on orders of Stalin, our commissars in Yerevan murdered an entire generation of our ablest intellectuals. Now, my question is: Has any one of them come forward, identified himself as a killer, and expressed regret for his actions? My guess is – correct me if I am wrong – these commissars and their offspring are now busy sucking the blood of the people in the Homeland, and in the Diaspora, they are parading as superpatriots and delivering speeches on self-sacrifice and dedication to principles to the rest of us renegades.

I once met such a specimen. He had transparent blue eyes, an open face, and a sincere look. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth or anywhere else for that matter. He spoke at some length of corrupt practices and related atrocities, but added, such things were totally alien to him and he was as appalled by them as any man of integrity. I believed him. I wanted to believe him. Which once more confirms my status as an incurable dupe. Later, I heard from two different sources that this blue-eyed, moon-faced, and Oscar-caliber performed was one of the most corrupt operators in all of Armenia.

There are many forms of denial. When a fool pretends to be smart, or when a crook pretends to be honest, or when a charlatan pretends to be a role model, or when a total ignoramus pretends to have all the answers, is he not a denialist too?

Casting aspersions? No, of course not!

Asking questions? Yes, certainly.

Present company suspected? No comment.

#

 

ARA HOME PAGE click on:

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arabaliozian.org

[ara baliozian]

 

ARA HOME PAGE click on:

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arabaliozian.org

[Louise]

ARA HOME PAGE click on:

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http://baliozian.blogspot.com/

arabaliozian.org

---------------------------------

Question: le livre "The traveller and his book" de Gostan Zarian a-t-il été traduit en français ?

 

Merci pour la réponse.

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, September 27, 2007

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

EXPLAINING THE INEXPLICABLE

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

For a long time I thought being Armenian allowed me to know all there is to know about Armenians, Turks, and the Genocide. I even wrote several books and reviewed hundreds more based on that false assumption. I know now that it is almost impossible for a victim to be objective about his victimizer. It is true, Turks behaved like racists when they punished the many for the crimes of a few. No doubt about that. But then, at the turn of the last century and even during World War II, which nation was not racist? Or which civilized and progressive nation today does not have racists among its people who in time of war may assume leadership positions and implement racist policies towards its minorities? I am not justifying, only explaining.

#

 

 

 

 

 

ARA HOME PAGE click on:

http://www.narek. com/store/ search.php? mode=search

http://baliozian. blogspot. com/

http://arabaliozian .org

[ara baliozian]

---------------------------------

Question: le livre "The traveller and his book" de Gostan Zarian a-t-il été traduit en français ?

 

Merci pour la réponse.

 

only 2 books by zarian are available in french:

the island and a man,

and

the ship on the mountain

[Louise]

only 2 books by zarian are available in french:

the island and a man,

and

the ship on the mountain

--------------------

 

"Le bateau sur la montagne" I know it.

 

Thank you for the Island and a man. I'll try to get it.

[ara baliozian]

Friday, September 28, 2007

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

COMING TO TERMS WITH REALITY

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

Did Khorenatsi and Naregatsi have their critics? If they had readers, they had critics, and their critics had their critics who had their own critics… In our reality it’s critics all the way down. Nothing and no one stands on terra firma. Only the blind and the mute have no critics.

*

When propaganda meets truth, truth is bound to lose. Propaganda has one advantage over truth: it flatters the ego. It tells Pepe le Pew, “You smell like roses,” and there is an el Pepe in all of us.

*

I can save nothing and no one. Those who are on my side were already there long before they read a single line by me. Those who are against me will be against me even after they begin to agree with me. That’s because their pea-sized brain is no match for their inflated Goodyear-blimp sized ego.

*

“Nutritious ain’t delicious.” I speak of carrots and broccoli, propaganda of Big Macs with fries.

*

Somewhere C.G. Jung explains that our subconscious is more visible to others than to ourselves. Propaganda speaks to the ego and its assets; criticism focuses on the subconscious and its liabilities. Not exactly a formula that may lead to popularity and success.

#

 

 

[ara baliozian]

GOTT MIT UNS

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

Propaganda may also be defined as whatever you were told as a child or at any other stage in your life when you were not yet capable to think for yourself. I am not suggesting everything you were told as a child is a lie, unless of course you define a lie as a fraction of the truth or a carefully edited version of the facts.

*

The aim of propaganda is to create dupes.

*

Anyone who thinks propaganda is positive and anything that contradicts it is negative lives in a parallel universe in the company of invisible creatures who are on his side. Remember the Nazi slogan GOTT MIT UNS (God with us).

*

Propaganda cannot be contradicted because it is an extension of a closed system of thought. It can only be defeated by another closed system, but sometimes not even then. Communism was defeated by capitalism, and fascism by democracy but both communists and fascists continue to have their share of dupes today who are convinced their defeat is only a temporary setback.

*

I’d rather be wrong than recycle propaganda. If I am wrong I can be contradicted, corrected, and exposed. But a fascist cannot be corrected in a fascist environment, or a communist in a communist environment, or a denialist in a denialist environment, and in the eyes of some we are all denialists, subversives, and infidels.

#

 

 

ARA HOME PAGE click on:

http://www.narek. com/store/ search.php? mode=search

http://baliozian. blogspot. com/

http://arabaliozian .org

[Louise]

GOTT MIT UNS

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

#

ARA HOME PAGE click on:

http://www.narek. com/store/ search.php? mode=search

http://baliozian. blogspot. com/

http://arabaliozian .org

-----------------------------------

 

 

I discussed with a Jehovah's Witness who knocked at my door.

He thought that only they will be saved. All the rest of the world's

people will be eliminated. Is it not a form of fascism ?

 

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, September 30, 2007

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

“THE ART OF DIALOGUE”

BY JACK S. AVANAKIAN

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

You begin by establishing your infallibility.

*

The best way to avoid criticism and contradiction is to brag as forcefully as you can about how much you know. The more forcefully and aggressively you brag, the more invulnerable you make yourself. After all, who in his right mind would want to tangle with a foul-mouthed ignoramus?

*

I once met an Armenian who asserted no one knew as much about Armenian history and culture as he did. When asked where he had studied these subjects, he replied, “In Zimbabwe.” (May have been Timbuktu or some other remote corner of the Dark Continent – please, don’t ask me to quote verbatim the utterances of an idiot). After that no one dared to question his expertise and infallibility. It worked. See what I mean?

*

As children we are brought up on stories, myths, fables, legends, and fairy tales, and eventually become addicts of fiction. This may explain why as adults we develop a violent allergic reaction to facts. Hence our preference of propaganda and illusions, and our intolerance of straight talk.

*

The Brits have a favorite slogan: “We have neither friends nor enemies, only interests.” An original and practical, even if cynical, approach to diplomacy? Not quite. I read the following in Polybius (2nd century BC): “Kings look on no man as a natural friend or foe, but ever measure friendship and enmities solely by the standard of expediency.”

*

There are no new ideas and Hemingway is right: “Why plagiarize if you can steal?” And speaking of garbage-mouth braggarts and diplomacy: We brag about Mikoyan’s skill and cunning as a diplomat even though he engineered the Stalinist purges in Armenia that in its ruthless efficiency and number of victims has been rivaled only by Talaat’s purges of Armenian intellectuals in 1915). We brag about Byzantine emperors of Armenian descent even when they adopted an anti-Armenian foreign policy. We brag about our heroic revolutionaries who took over the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul at the turn of the last century even when this publicity stunt resulted in the massacre of several thousand innocent civilians.

*

Where did our leaders, diplomats, and nationalist historians study their subjects, you may wonder. Since I don’t know everything there is to know about Armenian history and culture, I can only guess: it was either at the Saddam Hussein University in Basra or the Ayatollah Khomeini Center of Higher Learning in Qum. It may also have been somewhere in Libya, Namibia, or Botswana. Go ahead, I dare you to make a damn fool of yourself by questioning my infallibility!

#

 

[ara baliozian]

-----------------------------------

I discussed with a Jehovah's Witness who knocked at my door.

He thought that only they will be saved. All the rest of the world's

people will be eliminated. Is it not a form of fascism ?

 

fascism? no.

insanity, yes!

[ara baliozian]

Monday, October 01, 2007

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

TWO SAINTS AND

TWO THOUSAND RASCALS

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

There are a number of good reasons why I prefer to emphasize the negative, one of them being, the positive has been repeated and instilled in us for so long that we have lost all awareness of our failings. So that we see more merit in pride, arrogance, and prejudice than in humility, objectivity, and tolerance.

*

In the Prologue of her autobiography, Santa Teresa of Avila tells us it is at the request of her superiors that she is undertaking to write a book about her spiritual experiences. She goes on to say, she wished she had been asked instead “to make a detailed list of all the things I have done wrong in my life,” and “I would be so much more comfortable disclosing my imperfections.” All this in the first brief paragraph of her preamble. She goes on to describe herself as “wicked” and “incorrigible.”

*

“Wicked” and “incorrigible”: Naregatsi’s LAMENTATIONS may be said to consist in endless variations on this theme. By acknowledging Naregatsi as our Shakespeare, we also express a tacit admiration for the “method in his madness.”

*

I don’t expect our bosses, bishops, benefactors, charlatans, and commissars to behave like saints; neither do I want them to behave like rascals. If we want to improve things we can’t begin by saying we are God’s chosen and he has created us in his image, we are therefore models of perfection and the envy of the world. Another reason I emphasize the negative is that no matter how hard I try I don’t see any positives. If you do, ask yourself: Why is it that the world, including some Armenians, and our literature in general (and not just Naregatsi) does not agree with me?

*

The mark of a good quotation is this: once heard or read it is not forgotten. One such quotation is by Santa Teresa of Avila, which I remember to have read twenty or thirty years ago: “Never submit your intelligence to someone who doesn’t have much of it himself.” Hence my inability to say “Yes, sir!” to our dupes, morons, and rascals.

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

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

WHAT I BELIEVE

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

I believe in Socrates who said, “Of the gods we know nothing.”

I believe in Tolstoy who said you don’t have to believe in god to be a good Christian.

I believe in Gandhi who said god is truth, and truth is not a commodity that can be acquired, but an endless journey fraught with doubt, uncertainty, anxiety, agony, and despair.

I believe in Karl Barth who said heaven, hell, and immortality don’t have equivalents in the real world as we perceive it with our senses but are only metaphors,(*) in the same way that when Christ said “the kingdom of god is within you,” he was saying god and his kingdom are only dimensions within our psyche.

I believe in Sartre’s dictum “We believe that we believe but we don’t believe.” Which may explain Mother Teresa’s “dark night of the soul” that was not just an isolated episode, as described by Santa Teresa of Avila in her autobiography,(**) but lasted most of her life.

*

WHAT I DON’T BELIEVE

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

I don’t believe in a god that is swayed one way or another by human desires and prayers. A god, who allows a brute to rape and murder a defenseless child when he can put a stop to it, is not a god who takes sides or gets involved in human affairs. To say therefore that god is on our side is to blaspheme.

*

TWO PRAYERS

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

Be on my side. Teach me to think against myself.

*

Bernard Berenson: “Give us this day our daily idea and forgive us all those we thought yesterday.”

***

FOOTNOTES

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

(*) In Karl Barth’s own words: “Resurrection means not the continuation of life, but life’s completion. The Christian hope is the conquest of death, not flight into the Beyond.”

(**)For more details, see “A Glimpse of the Underworld,” in THE BOOK OF MY LIFE by Teresa of Avila, translated by Mirabai Starr (Boston, 2007, page 251).

#

 

 

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

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

ON PATRIOTISM AND RELATED

ABERRATIONS AND ATROCITIES

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

Patriots of all nations share three things in common:

(one) hatred of the enemy; (two) intolerance of dissent; and (three) a genetic predisposition to confuse indoctrination with education.

*

When ideology enters a controversy, reason flies out the window.

*

Patriots are the ideal dupes of tyrants.

*

Whenever I step out of the box, I am called an enemy.

*

In a patriotic environment anyone who refuses to be brainwashed is called a traitor.

*

You know all you need to know? What if your need of flattery exceeds your desire for knowledge?

*

There is collective wisdom and there is collective stupidity. You may now guess which is more popular.

*

I should like to see our patriotic speechifiers discharge their empty verbiage on an odar audience instead of preaching to the choir.

*

All ideologies generate their own jihadists.

*

Never call a moron an imbecile; he may take it as a compliment and spend the rest of his life trying to live up to it. I have seen it happen.

*

If straight talk offends you, blame your ego, not me.

*

Our enemies speak in the name of the devil even when they speak in the name of god.

*

A headline in today’s paper reads: “Study says half of fraud victims relied on trusting relationship.”

*

Delivering patriotic speeches is like offering free drinks to alcoholics.

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, October 04, 2007

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

MORE ON PATRIOTISM

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

Our problem, which is also the world’s problem, is not the underworld but the overworld, i.e. the men at the top. When the underworld stages a massacre, like Al’s St. Valentine’s Day, its victims may or may not number a dozen. But when states commit massacres, its victims may number in the millions.

“What we need is solutions,” the average dupe is brought up to say, thus implying these solutions don’t yet exist, and they need to be discovered by a visionary, another messiah, who will appear among us out of nowhere and be our savior. This, needless to add, is a rumor created and publicized by our propagandists who are so used to playing the blame-game that it doesn’t even occur to them that they are our problem and the only solution is getting rid of them. Either that or to convince them to get out of their box by learning to think not as leaders of men (or mini-sultans and neo-commissars) but as servants of the people.

What do the people want? This is a question they don’t even bother asking perhaps because they already know the answer, which is strength through consensus, and peace and prosperity.

People who preach patriotism pretend to be ignorant of misguided patriotism, the kind that dehumanizes the enemy and ultimately legitimizes hatred and serial killers on a massive scale.

Some philosophers and creators of closed systems of thought like Saint Thomas Aquinas and Karl Marx may speak of just and unjust wars and revolutions. But as Toynbee points out somewhere in his monumental STUDY OF HISTORY, just wars have a way of becoming indistinguishable from their counterparts, because once put into motion they create their own rules and forget those formulated by the likes of Aquinas. As for revolutions, they succeed only in replacing one set of rascals with another.

Patriotism and wars may save the hide of a tyrant or increase the size of his dominions, but they are not the solution; and if they are, they have not solved any one of our problems.

This much said let me add that there is nothing wrong with patriotism in itself as long as it is a sentiment between you and your homeland. But when it is politicized and organized, it is invariably coupled with militarism, and the ultimate aim of all militarism is slaughter. And slaughter is slaughter. To say if my enemy slaughters my family it’s bad, but if I slaughter his it’s good, is the kind of moronic primitivism that rightfully belongs to the jungle.

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Friday, October 05, 2007

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

WHERE THERE IS NO VISION

THE PEOPLE PERISH

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

Verbal abuse in the name of Armenianism is not patriotism but hooliganism. I am not casting aspersions. I am only confessing past sins. But if the shoe fits, you are more than welcome to it.

*

When I was young I thought the aim of an argument was to win it by silencing the opposition, and the surest way of achieving that goal was by raising my voice and escalating the personal attacks. Another tactic was assuming superior airs, making dogmatic assertions whose clear implication was that only an idiot would dare to contradict them. As for dialogue and consensus: I considered both to be anti-Armenian activities. It never even occurred to me to suspect that my way of winning an argument may result in alienating a fellow Armenian. And I know something I didn’t know then. To alienate an Armenian is to carry on Talaat’s policy of extermination by other means. To silence a fellow Armenian by means of verbal abuse or censorship is also an unconscious admission of the fact that we don’t deserve to live.

*

We lie when we blame others for all our problems. We deceive ourselves when we brag we survived where many others perished, when our survival is nothing but a slow-motion death of a thousand cuts, most of them self-inflicted. We flatter ourselves when we say we are smart. Some of us may indeed be smart, but collectively and politically we are no better than perennial dupes of foreign and domestic manipulators. Consider the evidence of history: at the turn of the last century we were taken in by the empty verbiage of the Great Powers and the Young Turks. Even our ablest statesman, Krikor Zohrab, not only trusted Talaat but also risked his own life to save his from the secret police of the Sultan. In the Soviet Union we were taken in by Stalin’s b.s. In the Diaspora we fought for Hitler. That’s right: Armenians fought for both Hitler and Stalin and their only tangible achievement was killing one another. And today we believe in our own propaganda, and that’s the worst thing that can happen to a nation: to believe in the flattery of their baloney artists whose favorite line is the one immortalized a century ago by Yervant Odian: “Send us a little money.”

*

Nothing I have said so far is new or original. My line is neither novelty nor originality. I have only been paraphrasing and repeating what has already been said by far better men than myself. What I have said above may be said to be a variation in a minor key of Zarian’s dictum: “Our political parties have been of no political use to us. Their greatest enemy is free speech.”

*

If you think I am being negative, consider my two main sources so far: the Bible and our literature. After writing these lines I came across the following passages in Santa Teresa of Avila’s BOOK OF MY LIFE, in a chapter subtitled “Advice to World Leaders” (page 150): “There is so much deception and duplicity here on earth. A certain person persuades you that he is your friend, and then you find out that it was all a lie. Who can live in a world so rife with deceit and betrayal?” And, “No one believed those who expressed themselves better than I have.”

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, October 06, 2007

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

SITUATION / SHITUATION

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A Kurd was being interviewed on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) and I was immediately struck by the way he was bragging about Kurdish history and culture. Was it possible that all oppressed and divided people were indoctrinated to think, feel, and speak the same way? And even more to the point: have they ever been successful in fooling anyone but themselves? The suspicion that we may be no better than Kurds became a certainty when I undertook the task of translating three books by Zarian – actually, four (the fourth, like so much else, remains unpublished and very probably will never see the light of day). That’s when I started writing critical commentaries. At first no one objected. Partisan as well as non-partisan papers printed everything I wrote, probably thinking my critical barbs were aimed not at them but at the opposition. Only when it became clear that I was targeting all sides indiscriminately did they pull the plug. To those who say they did the right thing because I am a bad influence, I say: Relax, no harm done. No respectable young lady ever lost her virginity to an obscene book; far better men than myself have failed to breach the stone walls of our collective consciousness; and for every dissident, we have a chorus of pro-establishment pundits, brown-nosers, and ghazetajis who sing our praises during the day and dig our graves at night.

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The question all patriots should ask themselves is: Why is my patriotism right and my enemy’s patriotism wrong if both spring from the same source and aim at the same goal, which is slaughter of the enemy?

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And here is an example of speaking with a forked tongue: We like to identify ourselves as a peace-loving civilized nation and not as ruthless bloodthirsty imperialist barbarians, and yet we brag about our Dikran the Great and his ephemeral little empire.

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Richard Millet (French writer and critic, b. 1953): “I thought literature was immortal. I thought the French language and France were immortal. I know now that not only are they mortal but moribund.”

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[ara baliozian]

Sunday, October 07, 2007

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ARROGANCE AND DISSENT

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What is censorship if not another form of dissent by those in power against the defenseless. Assassination, it has been said, is still another form of dissent.

*

Arrogance can be lethal to the best among us, how much more so to a nonentity. If you want to understand why we have been perennial underdogs and victims, have a talk with one of our smartass, know-it-all, holier-than-thou nonentities who will tell you what brought us to this pass is our geography, our religion, our neighborhood…and a thousand other reasons, never their own kind of dogmatism, intolerance, and contempt for what others think.

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A man of average intelligence will assess himself as above average. That’s more or less normal. It happens all the time. What is not normal but a constant in politics, including our own, is for a nonentity to assess himself as a genius, a man of vision, and a leader of men. Speaking of one such leader (Hamo Ohandjanian) Granian once told me, “He was credulous to the point of being naïve. During World War II, in the middle of an argument, I heard him say, ‘Churchill does not lie!’”*

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And speaking of arrogance and Churchill: when Michael Arlen (real name Dikran Kouyoumdjian) once challenged Churchill to admit that his tanks were no match for Hitler’s, Churchill didn’t even bother to lie; he just let him know – and this in the presence of distinguished guests -- what he thought of him: “You are a foreigner, an intruder, an Armenian who dares to come to this country and write books purporting to be about the manners and behavior of its aristocracy. You do not belong and never will belong to the classes in this country, which you are so profitably describing. You have, in point of fact, no right to be sitting at this table.”**

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Today’s quotation in our local paper is by Havelock Ellis and it reads: “What we call progress is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance.” Armenian translation: “What we call leadership is the succession of one arrogant nonentity with another.”

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FOOTNOTES

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*See my VIEWS / REVIEWS / INTERVIEWS (Los Angeles, 1982)

**See Harry Keyishian, MICHAEL ARLEN (Boston, 1975).

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[ara baliozian]

Monday, October 08, 2007

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ON FRACTIONS AND WHOLES

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Human understanding deals with fractions. Only god’s understanding deals with wholes. When a man says his understanding extends from alpha to omega, you can be sure of one thing: he doesn’t even understand a fraction of alpha. If a man says he has all the answers, he has only one answer and that answer is wrong.

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If we agree that the international community is moved only by self-interest, the question we should ask is, do we have anything to offer? If the answer is we have nothing, then obviously we have been wasting our time.

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In what way are we different from the rest of mankind? Is not self-interest what motivates us too? If the answer is no, that may indeed be our problem. If the answer is yes, then we have no right to portray ourselves as morally superior.

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The greatest obstacle to understanding is understanding itself, or to think that, just because we have understood one fraction, we understand the whole.

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Historians disagree because they focus on different aspects of reality. Philosophers disagree because they deal with different aspects of understanding. Both reality and understanding are complex concepts with many facets and layers.

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Knowledge and understanding advance through many stages. To say I know and understand all I need to know and understanding is to confuse the first step of the journey with the last.

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