as i see it - Pt. IV

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

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THE REST IS PROPAGANDA

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Combine a passive or apathetic nation with an incompetent leadership and the result will be Armenian history.

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An incompetent politician may be defined as a lawmaker who has no respect for the law, or a judge who has no taste for justice.

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When the going gets tough, the smart Armenian emigrates.

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Buddhist saying: “Foolish friends are worse than wise enemies.” Likewise, incompetent leaders are worse than ruthless and bloodthirsty oppressors.

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Balzac: “Nature makes only dull animals. We owe the fool to society.”

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Kant [on the difference between ignorance and stupidity]: “There is no cure for stupidity.”

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Albert Camus: “Hell is a special favor reserved for those who have asked for it insistently.”

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

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DEATH WISH

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Emigration, alienation, assimilation -- to our “betters” and assorted riffraff they mean only one thing: one less malcontent, dissident, or critic. Zarian was wrong when he said our politicians are useless. The situation is worse. Much worse. Our politicians are megalomaniacal mental midgets driven by death wish. They preach survival but practice suicide. Preaching one thing and practicing another – so what else is new, you may well ask.

You need a license to drive a truck. No such requirement to lead a nation. Once upon a time no one saw anything remotely questionable in barbers practicing medicine. When it comes to political leadership, we continue to be at the mercy of executioners parading as barbers, who cannot even give you a shave without administering the death of a thousand cuts.

#

 

[ara baliozian]

 

Friday, May 29, 2008

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THE POWER AND THE GLORY

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If you think I am being too tough on our politicians, I say, no one can be tough enough on them. If I am wrong, sooner or later I will be exposed just as another ignoramus, one among many. But if I am right (and they are wrong) the result may be countless innocent victims.

*

The blunders of politicians are like cities set on a hill: they cannot be hidden. One reason politicians get involved in education is to rewrite history and to misrepresent their defeats as moral victories.

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Politicians have been persecuting and victimizing intellectuals ever since the trial and execution of Socrates 2500 years ago. Now then, name a single intellectual who has victimized a politician.

*

Since they cannot recreate the world in their own image, politicians try to reshape our perception of reality. And they succeed, but only up to a point. That's because they cannot fool all the people all the time. They may have the power, but they don't have the glory, and that is what makes them intolerant of dissent.

#

[ara baliozian]

Friday, May 30, 2008

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RANDOM THOUGHTS

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If your income is ten times that of another, the temptation to think you may be ten times smarter than he can be overwhelming. My advice: resist it. You may be ten times more ruthless, greedy, lucky, or even dishonest (Plato is wonderful on this point) –none of which has anything to do with your or his IQ.

*

If killing in the name of patriotism is right, what about lying? Why should my patriotism be good and my enemy's bad? If love makes us blind to the point of self-deception, what about hate?

*

What doesn't kill you may make you paranoid.

*

If you believe God to be almighty and all-knowing and if He tells you to kill your only son who has harmed no one, would you do it? (For an answer, see GENESIS 22:1).

*

Until very recently, and to some extent even today, many white Americans think of blacks as inferior, and neither the word of God (all men are brothers) nor that of their Constitution (all men are created equal) can convince them otherwise. All of which may suggest that, in a democracy, power may be on the side of the majority, but not truth.

#

[ara baliozian]

May 31, 2008

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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“I am a better writer than you,” an anonymous readers informs me. Anyone can be a better writer than me, provided of course he first learns how to read.

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If you say anything in your favor, even if you speak the truth, most people will suspect you are lying.

*

To say, “I don't believe in criticism” is criticism. No doubt those who condemned Socrates to death did not think of themselves as critics,

*

The aim of propaganda is to raise a wall between reality and our perception of it. Even when politicians speak the truth, they don't speak the whole truth for the simple reason that the whole truth exists only in the mind of God.

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A fool preaching patriotism: does he thereby cease being a fool?

*

No one is infallible but some

love to wallow in their own fallibility.

#

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, June 1, 2008

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ON CHURCH UNITY

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Whenever we speak of solidarity and church unity, we should consider the possibility that we may end up with an ayatollah rather than a pope in Etchmiadzin. But even if we are lucky enough to end up with a pope (a remote possibility that one) let's consider the contributions of the papacy to the world and more particularly to Italy: obscurantism (hence the Dark Ages) dogmatism, intolerance, the persecution of dissidents and heretics, crusades, religious wars (one of which lasted a hundred years) and more recently collaboration with fascist regimes and the mafia. I could also mention fornicating Renaissance popes and American cardinals who covered up and thus aided and abetted child molesting priests. All this assuming of course our church will act in complete freedom, as opposed to being subservient to the king, sultan, and more recently to the KGB (Etchmiadzin) and the CIA (Antelias).

If you think I speak as a hostile witness, listen to Raffi: “Instead of an elite or an aristocracy, we have merchants and clergymen. Merchants are trash. As for the clergy: they have always been against individual freedom.” Elsewhere: “Our clergymen preach patience to us thus promoting subservience to the point of slavery.” But “What's done is done. What we must do now is assess the damage and figure out how to avoid the next catastrophe.”

The next catastrophe, which is also a present catastrophe, is emigration from the Homeland and assimilation in the Diaspora, both of which amount to “white slaughter.” And what are our merchants and clergymen doing to combat this scandal? Preaching and promoting “law and order,” that is to say, subservience to authority. The more things change...

*

A final word on solidarity: one must differentiate between the solidarity of a nation that is brainwashed by a supreme leader who may be more dangerous and evil than a serial killer, and the kind of solidarity that unites a nation with a common identity, culture, and purpose. I suggest it is a serious blunder to place our hopes of solidarity on a leader, party, clique, or mafia.

#

[ara baliozian]

June 2, 2008

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ABOUT KEMALISM (PART TWO)

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Kemal continues to be a taboo subject in Turkey. To say anything remotely critical of him is “to offend Turkishness.” which may result in being dragged to court like a common criminal. But since neither Giles Milton, author of PARADISE LOST; SMYRNA 1922 (London, 2008, 426 pages) nor his reviewer, Philip Mansel, author of one of the very best books on Constantinople, are Turkish citizens, they discuss freely and objectively the events surrounding the destruction of Smyrna.

About the so-called mysterious fire, Mansel writes: “Milton quotes eye-witnesses who saw Turkish soldiers pouring oil.”

About Kemal we read: while the burning, looting, raping, and killing were going on, Mustafa Kemal spent days up in a villa courting his future wife Latife Hanim, daughter of one of the many Turkish businessmen who had profited from 'infidel Izmir.'” We are further told that thousands of Greek and Armenian men of military age were deported into the interior “in theory to rebuild villages destroyed by the retreating Greek army: few returned.”

Mansel concludes his review by echoing the very same sentiments I voiced in my recent essay “About Kemalism.” He writes: “Kemal shows that, if nothing succeeds like success, it can also be true that nothing fails like success...If Izmir had retained even a fraction of its cosmopolitan population, it might have helped Turkey's entry into the European Union.” For more details, see THE SPECTATOR (London, 10 May 2008, page 40); or www.spectator.co.uk

[ara baliozian]

JUNE 3,1908

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UNITY (PART III)

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Dan Rather: “Our elected leaders will sometimes deceive us, and a free press that does not try to ferret out the truth is not worthy of the name.”

*

W.G. Sebald (German writer): “How I wished that I belonged to a different nation.”

*

“You quote too much,” Vahe Oshagan told me when we first met. If I do, it may be because we either learn from wiser men or allow ourselves to be brainwashed by fools. This may seem to be a simple enough choice. And yet, throughout history, people have invariably allowed themselves to be manipulated by charlatans.

*

Armenians are hard to reform perhaps because every Armenian is convinced he is smart enough to know what's best for himself and the nation.

*

What have the Jews learned from their holocaust? Never again! As for us, the only thing we seem to have learned is that Turks are bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians. Result? Our pundits are now too busy trying to educate, civilize, and enlighten the Turks to have any time left to reform themselves, their fellow Armenians, and their gravediggers. Am I saying Armenians are fools? No. what I am saying is that they are worse than fools because they allow themselves to be deceived by idiots. Am I being negative? If I am, it may be because I lack the wisdom and forbearance to be positive or to see anything remotely positive in our present situation.

*

When Vahe Oshagan's last collection of short stories was universally condemned as obscene, he was quoted as having said: “I am ashamed to be an Armenian.”

#

[ara baliozian]

June 4, 2008

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ON COLLECTIVE INFANTILISM

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Because I no longer think as I thought when I was ten, I am seen as a hostile witness.

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If we view our dividers as our leaders as opposed to our gravediggers, it may be because we are afraid to call a spade a spade, and because I refuse to call a spade anything else, I am accused of unArmenian activities.

*

To convince the average Armenian dupe that our bosses, bishops, and benefactors are frauds and charlatans is as difficult today as to convince the average Turk that Kemalism (i.e. dogmatism, paternalism, authoritarianism) is inimical to true democracy and respect for fundamental human rights, and as such closer to fascism and barbarism than to civilization.

*

We share this in common with Turks: we can't recognize fascism when we see it, especially when it wears a benevolent mask.

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To ask what's positive about our history is the same as asking what's positive about subservience; and subservience, according to Zohrab, corrupts even our virtues.

*

What's positive about our history? Dikran the Great and his ephemeral empire? Dikran the Great was a loud-mouth and undisciplined coward who ran away from a small Roman legion whom he first mistook as ambassadors.

*

There is nothing wrong with our critical faculties. If anything they are highly developed, but they are directed only at the world. Incapable to reforming ourselves, we are eager to undertake an easier project, that of reforming the world, most of which isn't even aware of our existence.

#

[ara baliozian]

Thursday,June 5, 2008

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WHAT I KNOW ABOUT FASCISTS

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In his memoirs, Elia Kazan writes that ordinary Turkish citizens don't just shake the hand of a political leader, they go down on their knees and kiss it. Our political leaders are different. They prefer to have another part of their anatomy kissed.

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I have yet to meet an Armenian with political ambitions was not a fascist.

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As a long-time observer of the Armenian scene, I can recognize a fascist by the fact that he doesn't just criticize, analyze, attack, or insult anyone who dares to disagree with him, he goes further. He adopts the role of commissar and issues guidelines.

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Hitler was proud of German culture. So are we of ours. Even Armenians who know little or nothing and care even less about culture, like to brag about it.

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The best argument for an Armeno-Turkish alliance is that most Turks are not Turks, neither are most Armenians Armenians. The only thing that separates them is an incompatible educational system – that is to say, two different sets of brainwashers.

*

An Armenian who hates Turks and a Turk who hates Armenians: take away the direction of their hatred and they might as well be two interchangeable units. I speak from experience. I have received hate-mail from both and I see no difference between them.

*

Fascists excel in solving problems, even if in the process they create many more.

#

[ara baliozian]

June 6, 2008

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A QUESTION OF EMPHASIS

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I should like to read an autobiography in which the emphasis is on prejudices, blind spots, and defects. I should also like to read a nationalist historian who stresses not military victories but moral failures. Sartre's autobiography comes close to my ideal. So does Spengler's treatment of the West in his DECLINE OF THE WEST, and Toynbee's treatment of British history in his STUDY OF HISTORY.

*

What propels us to greater knowledge is awareness of ignorance. Some of the most asinine opinions I have been exposed to issued from the mouths of individuals who believed they knew everything they needed to know.

*

To emphasize the negative: that is to me the true meaning of patriotism. All our pseudo-patriots want flattery – first nation this, first nation that – and the more they brag, the more of their backside they expose, and they lack the decency and common sense to see this.

#

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, June 7, 2008

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LITERATURE

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When our bishops, bosses, and benefactors (or rather, their flunkies) get involved in literature, they do so not to promote it, but to control it. A bishop once asked me to prepare an anthology of Armenian literature. “We have the money,” he said, using the royal pronoun. When I asked if I would have complete freedom of selection, I never heard from him again. In his obituary I read that he had subsidized the publication of over fifty books. “They” had the money, all right.

*

Whenever I am verbally abused by one of our ubiquitous hooligans parading as superpatriots, my first thought: “He must be a bishop or the son of one.”

*

I once asked one of our Turcocentric ghazetajis if he had read a single Armenian writer, he said he hadn't and he seemed proud of the fact.

*

Our Turcocentric ghazetajis have their counterparts among the Turks who blame everything on the degenerate and corrupt West and on Armenian criminal conduct, and whenever a Turkish intellectual dares to think for himself, he is imprisoned or forced into exile. If I am not the inmate of a gulag today it's because we don't have gulags in the diaspora.

#

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, June 8, 2008

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A HOUSE DIVIDED

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The sanctimonious patriotic prick who asserts moral and intellectual superiority is a far greater threat to our survival as a nation than all our enemies combined. This type of individual discusses our problems as if he were the first to do so. That's because he has neither interest nor respect for what has been achieved in the past by far better men than himself. His sole aim in life is to project the image of an individual endowed with unique powers of perception and to silence anyone who dares to question his judgment and integrity. In short, he is that most repellent of all creatures: an Armenian with political ambitions.

*

If a problem that has been solved is no longer a problem, it follows we have no problems. What we have instead is a long line of so-called leaders who have consistently obstructed the path of those willing to implement solutions.

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The more a nation is in need of intellectual and moral guidance, the more intolerant it gets. The Soviet Union under Stalin, Germany under Hitler, China under Mao, Italy under Mussolini, Armenia and the Armenian diaspora today.

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If you want to understand your fellow men, begin by asking yourself: “What if, instead of being better or the best, I am the worst?” Naregatsi's LAMENTATIONS may be said to be a long-winded but honest answer to this question, and in that sense it is the most unread and misunderstood masterpiece in our literature.

#

[ara baliozian]

Monday, June 9, 2008

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TRYING TO MAKE SENSE

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If there is someone out there who has the solution to all our problems but refuses to share it with the rest of us, it may be because he doesn't relish the idea of being crucified.

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Collectively we are hidebound and ignorant – all dogmatic people are. There is indeed some truth in the popular adage “People have the leadership they deserve.”

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When a capitalist explains reality or God, he makes sure his explanation will not harm his capital. The same applies to a boss with an ideology and a bishop with an orthodoxy.

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After dividing mankind into them and us, a nationalist, or anyone who subscribes to a belief system, will proceed to divide “us” into yes-men and dissidents as free speech goes down the drain.

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If you make sense, don't expect to be understood by fools.

#

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

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AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE

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Warning: Do not read what follows, it may cause irreparable damage to your ego.

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“I didn't know that!” is not argument but an admission of ignorance. Which raises a number of questions: Why is it that we are more eager to contradict than to learn? Why is it that some central facts about our power structures and establishment figures have been kept from us? Who profits by our ignorance?

*

To solve our problems? Nothing could be further from my thoughts. If we have consistently ignored, sometimes even rejected, all solutions, including those that have come down to us from heaven, what are the chances that we will even bother to consider the solutions provided by a marginal scribbler who may well be an enemy of the people?

*

Who is an enemy of the people? Anyone who refuses to kiss the fat ass of a megalomaniacal nonentity with political ambitions.

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It is not always easy to tell which part of a yes is prompted by subservience or inability to think for oneself and which by consent.

#

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

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Some of the most venomous e-mails I receive are from Armenians who tell me I should be more positive.

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All subservient people harbor deep inside somewhere an imperialist ego.

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The two most important ideas of all politically ambitious charlatans may be summarized as (one) You are either with me; (two) or against me.

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What is the difference between a fascist head of state who silences intellectuals and a sanctimonious prick who ignores them?

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A useful no can be more fruitful than a useless yes.

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I write one-liners because I don't particularly care for the sound of my own voice.

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The misunderstood, neglected, and impecunious writer is a cliché and I have such a horror of clichés that I prefer to identify myself as an unemployed and unemployable misfit.

#

Edited June 11, 2008 by ara baliozian

[ara baliozian]

 

Thursday, June 12, 2008

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PERVERSIONS

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From subservience to the mighty Sultan to the worship of the Almighty dollar: some may see progress here, but all I see is a movement from Ottoman barbarism to Yankee moronism.

*

The first and most important lesson a patriotic Armenian learns is how to piss on fellow Armenians in the name of patriotism. One reason why I loathe patriots and patriotism, nations and nationalism, empires and imperialism, hooligans and hooliganism, and in general anyone who is willing to massacre innocent civilians simply because he is ordered to.

*

“I may agree with you as a human being, but I cannot agree with you as a nationalist,” a reader writes. This perversion of values might as well be a reliable definition of fascism.

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Let our Turcocentric ghazetajis speak of Armenians as victims of Turks. I prefer to speak of Armenians as victims of Armenians.

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In his recently published White House memoirs, Scott McClellan writes, the Bush administration manipulates consent by means of “shades of truth, partial truths, twisting of the truth and spin.” This is news only to the nave, the innocent, the dupes, and the superpatriot.

#

[ara baliozian]

Friday, June 13, 2008

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ON JUSTICE

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When asked, “Recompense injury with kindness. What do you think of that?” Confucius is said to have replied: “With what then will you recompense kindness? Injury must be recompensed with justice, kindness with kindness.”

That makes sense, of course, but what if the injury is inflicted within an unjust social order? What could be more absurd than to speak of justice in a totalitarian or corrupt state?

*

Confucius on the superior man:

“He acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his actions.”

It follows: Never trust a man who suffers from chronic verbal diarrhea, namely, sermonizers, speechifiers, and anyone else who is in the business of recycling their verbal trash.

*

Our history, as it has come down to us, is less reality and more fantasy; it is, as a matter of fact, a conspiracy of dunces and dupes.

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Corrupt democracies and authoritarian states have identical goals, namely, to manufacture consent by misleading and moronizing the masses. This may explain why, with very minor exceptions, Turks and Armenians are in complete agreement on their own version of the past.

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It is the easiest thing in the world to fool those who are willing to be fooled.

*

Anti-Semites do not consider anti-Semitism a prejudice because they don't hate Jews; they just think Jews are hateful. Something similar could be said of them and us. It's astonishing the word-games people play to appear better than they are in their own eyes.

#

 

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, June 14, 2008

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ONE-LINERS

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In our context, financial success and moral failure might as well be synonymous.

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A routine occurrence among us: the brainwashed trying to convince the deprogrammed.

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Instead of bragging about what we know, we should be mortified by what we don't know.

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I could never write a mystery story because I would reveal the contents of the last page on page one. “Cut the crap” is one of my favorite mottoes.

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Turning the other cheek? That's easy. To stop wanting to murder the bastard. That's different.

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You can't educate brainwashed hoodlums who are out to educate you.

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If your answer raises two more questions, you are on the right path.

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The ambition of every smart intellectual today is to be the secretary of a national benefactor. That's where the money is.

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In an authoritarian environment the brainwashed are always better organized than the deprogrammed.

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Edited June 14, 2008 by ara baliozian

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, June 15, 2008

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WHY I AM NOT A PROUD ARMENIAN

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In a world inhabited by proud Greeks, Yanks, Brits, Jews, Turks, and Kurds, I prefer to be a humble Armenian.

*

Greeks are proud of their ancient culture. What they fail to mention or explain is why they squandered their priceless heritage to the point that they are now one of the poorest and most backward nations in Europe.

Jews are proud of being the Chosen People. But the truly great and progressive Jews, among them Spinoza, Marx, Freud, and Einstein dismissed all such claims as infantile illusions. And when Jesus taught us the Lord's Prayer that begins with the words “Our Father,” he meant that all men are brothers.

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Pride is for people who lack self-esteem. He who has self-esteem does not feel the need to make himself ridiculous by bragging about who he is.

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Another reason why I prefer to identify myself as a humble Armenian is the proud Armenian who wears his prejudices, ignorance, and arrogance as badges of merit and views criticism and dissent, and by extension, free speech and fundamental human rights, as unpatriotic. Such an Armenian ignores the fact that the function of literature, from Socrates to Sartre, and from Khorenatsi to Zarian, is self-criticism. Take away criticism from Western culture, and the West becomes an extension of Asia.

#

 

Monday, June 16, 2008

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SUMMING UP

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We cannot trust the solution to our problems into the hands of our dividers. That would be like trust the flock to wolves in sheep's clothing.

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Turks are not our greatest problem because nations are not killed, they commit suicide.

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If you are a proud Armenian stay away from Armenian affairs. If you make the mistake of getting involved, you will be tarred, feathered, and dragged through the mud. And if you think the solution to this particular problem is being a humble Armenian, forget it. I have been both and I speak from experience. No matter to who and what you are, if you are honest and mean business, the philistines and commissars will get you and you will curse the day you were born.

*

A bad Armenian can be worse than the worst Turk.

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Our propensity to create problems far outstrips our ability to solve them.

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I am fully aware of the fact that discussing our problems may exacerbate them, but it is a temptation I cannot resist. May I also confess that exposing baloney artists is one of the very few pleasures that happen to be within my income bracket.

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No one can be as dumb as an Armenian impressed with his own brilliance.

#

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

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OBSERVATIONS

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To the dupe, reality is not what he sees or experiences but what he is told, especially when what he is told is carefully tailored to flatter his ego.

*

Better a deprogrammed enemy than a brainwashed friend.

*

In an environment where speechifiers and sermonizers are amply compensated, critics will be seen as nuisances and enemies. The result will be a community swimming in b.s.

*

The certainties of my youth are my greatest sources of embarrassment. I shiver and burn whenever I think of them.

*

It's no use pretending to know better because no one knows everything and we will never know the truth. The best we can hope to do is expose the transparent lies of vested interests and propaganda.

*

The world is a dangerous place where people speak in the name of peace and make war, where they speak in the name of God and do the Devil's work, and where millions of dupes are eager to kill and die in the name of a Big Lie.

#

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

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A ROUTINE EXPERIENCE

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It might as well be a routine experience with me: readers who assume not only to be better but to know better, and based on that self-serving assumption, they proceed to deliver lectures on patriotism, the kind of nonsense I was exposed to when I was ten. They remind me of our heroic revolutionaries at the turn of the last century who were so sure of their final and inevitable victory that they had a Plan B only for themselves. And like all losers throughout history, they now blame their catastrophic blunder on everyone else but themselves. I once heard one of these revolutionaries (may the Good Lord have mercy on his soul) say, “The chezok [neutral or non-partisan] Armenian is the source of all our problems because he refuses to get involved in Armenian affairs. He is neither hot nor cold. He is nothing.” When Hitler lost World War II and shortly before he had the decency to commit suicide, he put the blame on his fellow Germans, the very same people he had classified as belonging to a superior race. Nothing evil ever dies. Hitler may be dead but his racist ideas continue to live in neo-Nazi skinheads, Putin's ultranationlist Stalinists, and Italy's neo-fascists. I could add our own first-nation-this and first-nation-that propagandists and dime-a-dozen Turcocentric ghazetajis who believe they will usher in a new golden age on the day they corner the Turks into assuming full responsibility for the Genocide, to apologize, and to make financial and territorial reparations. In the meantime they go about pretending there is nothing wrong with us and we are beyond criticism because God and Truth are on our side. It is not that I don't believe what they say, I don't think they believe it themselves.

#

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, June 19, 2008

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CROCODILES

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Politics and literature don't mix. Politics, power, and propaganda are inseparable. Where goes one, the others are sure to follow. By contrast, the aim of literature is to understand reality by exposing the inconvenient facts that have been swept under the carpet. Hence Hemingway's definition of a writer as one with “a built-in sh*t detector.”

*

It is a serious blunder to identify a regime with the people and its culture. To do so amounts to saying Hitler is an extension of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, or Chekhov and Stalin share similar aims. Speaking of Chekhov: in one of his letters to a friend (Suvorin, I think) and in an eerily prescient passage, he refers to the next generation of Russian leaders as “crocodiles.” which may suggest that, you don't need supernatural powers to predict the future. (In this connection, see also Dostoevsky's THE DEMONS, sometimes also translated as THE POSSESSED.)

*

“You can't criticize the Homeland if you have never been there,” I am told. With the advent of the computer, I don't feel the need to go anywhere because I receive a veritable avalanche of e-mails by fellow Armenians who have been there, done that, and now sport the T-shirt. Once I even received two books by a retired bishop in which he exposed the corruption within the hierarchy.

*

I have noticed that only Armenians who are in the business – and it is a business – of fund-raising that ascribe all our problems on the war, the earthquake, and the blockade and completely ignore the contribution of our crocodiles and “mi kich pogh” panchoonies to our present malaise.

*

Whenever I run into a smart-ass, loud-mouth, cowardly bully who insults me anonymously and from a safe distance, I have no trouble predicting a brilliant future in politics.

#

Friday, June 20, 2008

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BULLIES AND YES-MEN

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When the men at the top are bullies, the result will be a society of cowardly yes-men.

*

After they convince us we are smart, perhaps even the smartest people on earth, they treat us like idiots. Patriotism, that is to say flattery (“chosen people,” “superior race,” “it takes seven Jews to fool an Armenian”) is one of the oldest and most effective instruments of mass persuasion.

*

The honesty of dupes, like the faith of the brainwashed: what is it worth?

*

Once, at the beginning of my career (if you want to call it that) one of our elder statesmen called me a genius. Shortly thereafter when I wrote something with which he disagreed, he called me an idiot. Easy come, easy go. Sic transit gloria mundi. Or, as the French say, “He who can kiss, can bite.”

*

If our literature were a person, he would be a beggar in rags on the verge of starvation. We treat our literature the way we were treated at the turn of the century in the Ottoman Empire. Now then, tell me: In what way are we different from them?

*

People who know and understand, search for more knowledge and understanding. By contrast, the ignoramus is satisfied with his own ignorance.

#

Saturday, June 21, 2008

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SPEAKING WITH A FORKED TONGUE

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In a land of instant coffee

they want instant solutions.

Instead of doing what they can do,

they demand that others to

what they don't want to do.

Instead of reforming themselves

they want to reform the nation.

Even as they engage in cannibalism

they speak of solidarity, unity, and brotherhood.

They think of our writers as some species of song birds

who did nothing but serenade the moon.

Gentle reader, if you are one of them

my advice to you is:

Don't believe everything you are told

by those who pretend to know better

because they are better.

Don't be afraid to raise your voice and say

you refuse to be taken in by baloney artists

who speak with a forked tongue.

Beyond that there isn't much you

or anyone else can do.

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, June 29, 2008

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

ON COMMISSARS AND RELATED ATROCITITIES

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

The following notes and comments contain coarse language and mature subject matter. Parental guidance is advised.

*

When I speak in the name of common decency and use my common sense, they call it philosophy, and they think the aim of philosophy is to confuse and mislead law-abiding, tax-paying, and patriotic citizens like themselves. They seem to be unaware of the fact that philosophy is a Greek word that simply means love of wisdom, and the alternative to philosophy is therefore philomoronism.

*

Our revolutionaries at the turn of the last century and myself today share similar ambitions: we are both like frogs trying to rape an elephant. The elephant in their case was an empire. In my case it is the lies of propaganda. And of the two, it is hard to say which is the mightier adversary. But then, if I lose, I have only wasted my time. No harm done. Not a single innocent civilian will be lost, and forever after I will not condemn myself to play the blame-game.

*

Whenever I am asked a question, more often than not it is not an honest question but a loaded one, or in legal parlance, a leading one, which in a court of law would be immediately followed by the triad, “Objection,” “Sustained,” “Withdrawn.”

*

Dishonesty comes so naturally to us that even in our search for knowledge and understanding we manipulate reality in such a way as to certify our illusions. So that, if I were to quote the celebrated dictum “Truth shall set you free,” one of our ubiquitous Jack S. Avanakians is sure to stand on his hind legs and bray: “So you think you know the truth?” -- meaning of course “You arrogant s.o.b!” My usual answer to that leading question is: “No, I don't know the truth. Only God (if He exists) knows the truth. But I can recognize a lie when I hear one; and I can also recognize a self-appointed commissar of culture when I see one.”

*

It must be painfully frustrating, perhaps even humiliating to our commissars that we live in a democratic America rather than in a totalitarian USSR, where they would not only be free to cross-examine their victims but also put a bullet in their brain. Unmask these dealers in patriotic slogans and expose an executioner.

#

Monday, June 30, 2008

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

DELISH!

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

Anything that's worth saying is worth repeating. I, for one, never get tired of rereading and quoting the delicious lines that follow, if only to remind myself what I am against. Enjoy!

*

From a popular Armenian song:

“One Armenian eats one chicken,

Two Armenians eat two chickens,

Three Armenians eat each other.”

*

Gostan Zarian: “Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another.”

*

Anonymous mantra:

“Mart bidi ch'ellank.”

*

Yeghishé (5th-century historian): “Solidarity is the mother of good deeds, divisiveness of evil ones.”

*

Shahan Shahnour: “The enemy is not theTurk but us.”

*

THE PROBLEM

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

“The problem of who speaks for the Armenians is still acute,” writes Charles King in his THE GHOST OF FREEDOM: A HISTORY OF THE CAUCASUS (page 11). That may be because our chiefs outnumber our Indians.

*

CONFESSION

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

Some of my gentle readers tell me I disappoint them whenever I fail to come up with a new or original or creative idea that will save the nation and usher in a new Renaissance or Golden Age. I am flattered of course that they think me capable of performing such a miracle. I am afraid I shall have to disappoint them again by admitting that I am nothing but an overworked and underpaid shit-disturber, and if their desire is to see the nation saved, they should get themselves a messiah, which should not be difficult because Armenian messiahs are a dime a dozen.

#

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

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

SITUATION / SHITUATION

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

Those who know how to think for themselves probably see me as someone who is doing his best to emulate them. It is those who cannot think for themselves that resent me and would like to see me silenced, and if possible, massacred; and they are my most faithful readers. If I ever become a best-selling author, I will owe it to them.

*

I don't write against my critics and detractors. I write against myself when young, naïve, ignorant, brainwashed, self-satisfied, and a loud-mouth smart-ass know-it-all.

*

My sole aim in life now is to be readable. As long as they read me, I have them by the short hair. As for saving the nation: the nation and I swim in the same soup. We are both dependent on the charity of swine. On the day I save myself, saving the nation will be the number one item on my agenda.

*

Whenever a reader makes a specific demand on me, I am tempted to ask: “And how would you like your pizza – with or without anchovies?”

*

If an Armenian disagrees with you, he will not say “I disagree with you.” He will call you a fool, an idiot, and a pro-Turkish bastard who should be tarred, feathered, and driven out of town on a jackass. The trouble with us is not that we don't know how to agree with one another but that we don't even know how to disagree.

*

We like to explain the massacres as politically motivated actions. But what if they are also expressions of visceral hatred, the kind that I seem to provoke in some of my readers, and vice versa?

#

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

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

SECRET PLEASURES

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

We all have our secret pleasures.

One of mine is needling windbags.

*

In order to reach XYZ

we must begin with ABC

and we haven't yet begun.

*

If in crime it's cherchez la femme

in political blunders it's cherchez the dividers.

*

Why do you think a small island in Europe

was successful in colonizing an Asiatic subcontinent?

Simply because the English were united and the Indians divided.

*

The Holocaust may be traced back to what happened 2000 years ago when the Jewish leaders divided the people into those who believed Jesus to be the Messiah and those who believed him to be a blasphemer.

*

Nations are divided by leaders who cannot reconcile their differences because they speak in the name of God. When God enters in an argument, the Devil is sure to follow.

*

Theology: the science of the Unknown and the Unknowable.

*

For many centuries we were subservient to foreign despots from sultans to commissars. Today we are subservient to the lies of our own propaganda. Vicious circle or downward spiral?

#

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, July 3, 2008

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

IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE

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

Armenians who find me unreadable are my most faithful readers. Figure that one out if you can. My only explanation is that like all perennial losers, they have accumulated so many unsettled scores against the world that they take it out on anyone that is available, provided of course he is defenseless and therefore in no position to retaliate.

*

When asked why I bother writing for readers who hate me, I say, the challenge is not writing for civilized and intelligent readers who may well be ahead of me, but for barbarians who are infatuated with their own limitations. Another reason is that once in a while I receive a phone call or an e-mail apologizing for having been rude to me in the past. Which proves that, like the worst Turks, the worst Armenians are first and foremost human beings and as such not beyond redemption. Besides, it has been the fate of all Armenian writers to be verbally abused by their fellow Armenians. Some of our most celebrated medieval historians, among them Yeghishé and Khorenatsi, have been called hirelings of warlords with dynastic ambitions. Some of our greatest poets and writers, among them Siamanto and Zarian, have been called plagiarists. Accused of nationalism, Charents was betrayed to Stalin's thugs and committed suicide in his cell.

*

There is nothing typically Armenian about this phenomenon. In times of crisis the scum rises to the top and speaks with the approval of the dominant minority. The verbal abuse hurled against such writers as Sartre in France, Thomas Mann in Germany, Solzhenitsyn in Russia, Kazantzakis in Greece, and more recently Pamuk in Turkey, are cases in point that come readily to mind. If giants like these have been maligned and insulted, why should midgets like me be spared? In a way, I am even tempted to be flattered for being singled out.

*

Perhaps I should also point out that not all Armenians hate me or disagree with me. If they are afraid to express their agreement openly it may be because they don't relish the prospect of being targeted by hooligans. Finally, to those who say the reason why I call those who disagree with me losers, barbarians, and hooligans, is that once upon a time I was no better. I have always maintained that as products of the same historic conditions and experiences, all Armenians are brothers under the skin, and all analyses begin with self-analysis. If I understand losers it's because I am one. If I understand resentment and venom, it's because “Bovary c'est moi.”

#

Friday, July 4, 2008

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

ONE-LINERS

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

As long as Armenians and Turks are educated by their own historians, justice, understanding and consensus will elude them.

*

Propagandists cannot define good and evil in the same way that compulsive liars cannot define truth.

*

Ideologies and orthodoxies teach us to think that we are thinking.

*

“There are better writers than you here,” a reader informs me. I consider that cause for celebration if only because misery likes company.

*

I have learned about us more from odar sources than our own. So much so that I no longer believe anything I am told by Armenians.

*

Whenever I speak about our failings, I am told all nations have them. With one important difference however. We hate discussing ours, and whenever someones dares to do so we silence him, and failing that, we bury him beneath an avalanche of verbal manure.

*

To prove that he is civilized, an Armenian will behave like a barbarian. He will become intolerant in defense of tolerance and fascist in defense of freedom; and all with the self-confidence and unawareness of an inborn moron who is convinced of his superior intellect.

*

Patriotism means supporting one group against another. The opposite of patriotism is not treason but “all men are brothers.”

*

When Raffi said wealthy merchants are the lowest scum on earth, a wealthy merchant proved him right by hiring a Kurdish assassin.

#

Saturday. July 5, 2008

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

FAMOUS LAST WORDS

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

“Once upon a time we shed our blood for freedom. We are now afraid of free speech.” After discovering this terrifying truth, Hagop Garabents (Jack Karapetian) spent the rest of his life avoiding it by writing love stories, which made him a darling of our establishment figures. Shortly before he died, he is quoted as having said: “I die alone.”

*

Those who brag about our survival should be reminded once in a while that our best and brightest did not survive. The massacre goes on....

*

We speak of pride to cover up the fact that we have many more reasons to speak of humility.

*

To undertake the impossible is another way of doing nothing.

*

There is something fundamentally wrong in a community where the old are radicalized and the young entrenched in the status quo.

#

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, July 6, 2008

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

THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL

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

We begin by lying to ourselves, after which we see nothing wrong in deceiving others. A jihadist believing he will spend eternity deflowering virgins; Hitler believing in the superiority of the Aryan race; the Pope believing in his own infallibility in matters of faith: all lies. One could go as far as saying that faith is the root of all evil. As for money: it too could be the root but only if you believe it can solve all your most important problems.

*

No one can be as dumb as he who believes to be smart. I think of Armenians who believe Armenians like me are the source of all evil. So much so that if I were slightly older they would pin the Genocide on me or wish I had been one of the victims. When told I am a writer, this type of reader becomes even more abusive. If I were to ask these readers to name their favorite contemporary Armenian writer, I have every reason to suspect they would fail to come up with a single name. That's because they have been “educated” to believe by our bosses (believers in their ideology), bishops (believers in God and capital, make it Capital and god), and benefactors (believers in the Almighty $) that dissent or freedom of thought are anathema and anyone who dares to speak against their faith is an enemy of the people, a Turk in disguise, and a liar who is condemned to spend eternity burning in hell, as opposed to deflowering virgins or an equally ill-defined delightful activity. And if you believe that, you will believe anything!

#

Monday, July 7, 2008

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

MEMO

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

Whenever two or more readers gang up on me, I feel it is my duty to remind them, if they lie down with dogs they are liable to get up with fleas.

*

QUESTIONS

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

Can there be progress where there is no respect for fundamental human rights? Can there be free speech in a totalitarian environment? Is dialogue possible with a fascist, a concrete wall, an Armenian?

*

CONTRADICTION

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

Why is it that the vocabulary of Armenians who preach constructive criticism and love seldom rises above the gutter?

*

A NOTEWORTHY DISTINCTION

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

A famous French actress who slept with Germans during the Occupation is quoted as having said: “My heart is French, but my ass is international.” A noteworthy distinction that. By contrast, when we sleep with the enemy, we surrender our body as well as soul. Hence such unfortunate phenomena as Armenians under Talaat and Stalin betraying their fellow Armenians.

*

ON A RELATED TOPIC

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

I wonder how many of my readers, dealers in chauvinist crapola, and holier-than-thou sanctimonious pricks are aware of the fact that until very recently the wealthiest woman in Turkey was an Armenian. When the Turkish government awarded her a prize for paying more taxes than anyone else, her line of work was not known to the bureaucrats. When the master of ceremonies was informed that she was a bordello madam, he wanted to recall the medal, but it was too late. She was no longer in the audience. An obvious case of “arav-pakhav” (grab-and-run).

*

THE MORAL OF THE STORY

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

To emphasize the positive and cover up the negative could be another definition of propaganda and I leave propaganda to our bureaucrats. I prefer to speak of reality in order to make the blind see. If so far I have failed, it may be because, like most of my predecessors, I am not a miracle worker.

#

 

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

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

RIFFRAFF

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

“Bullying: Conduct designed to embarrass, humiliate or belittle someone.”

*

“I don't read you because you are an idiot!” a reader (make it, a non-reader) writes. A clear-cut caste of a bully in action.

*

The memory of all those I offended when I was young, brainwashed, and self-righteous has been a thorn in my conscience. But I have learned from our bullies to be more tolerant of my youthful self. Which proves that, if you are disposed to learn, you may learn even from riffraff.

*

If you think for yourself, you can't be self-righteous because, in thinking, doubts always outnumber certainties. Only the brainwashed assert infallibility, and in doing so they compound problems instead of solving them.

*

There is a type of Armenian who gages your patriotism by how much you hate Turks. “Who is your favorite Armenian writer?” I once asked such an Armenian who also happened to be one of our notorious Turcocentric ghazetajis. “I don't have any,” he replied. “How many have you read?” I asked next. “None!” was his answer. Armenians who are brainwashed to hate avoid ideas because they don't want the purity of their hatred to be contaminated.

*

Knowledge can be a painful acquisition because it may expose our failings and blind spots. Hence the saying: “Ignorance is bliss.”

*

We don't burn books or starve writers. We ignore them. It amounts to the same thing. If they are with us, writers are redundant. If they are against us, they should be silenced or ignored.

*

Ideas are assaults against ignorance. Hence the favorite tactic of the ignorant: “Attack is the best defense.” But how does one go about defending an absence or a vacuum? It can't be done. That's when bullying comes in. When you can't defend your ignorance, attack, threaten, or bully. And if you are a coward -- and all bullies are – try to do so from a safe distance and anonymously. The greater the distance, the better.

#

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

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

ON TURCOCENTRIC GHAZETAJIS

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

They are dangerous charlatans

who wallow in massacres and self-pity.

They appeal to our baser instincts

by creating a climate of resentment, hatred, and intolerance.

They refuse to engage in dialogue

with their own fellow countrymen,

let alone the opposition.

They have nothing but contempt for free speech

and fundamental human rights

and by extention, literature and culture.

They at no time admit that

it was a blunder to gamble

with the lives of innocent civilians

by relying on the assistance of the West and Russia –

nations that have themselves massacred their own kind

in the name of political expediency.

They portray themselves as defenders of our interests

and the fact that they are believed

proves only that we are a nation of dupes.

By thinking only in terms of victims and victimizers,

they cover up the fact that

we have been and continue to be

double victims of foreign oppression

as well as domestic corruption and incompetence.

#

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, July 10, 2008

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

UNDERSTANDING ARMENIANS

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

If you want to know more about Armenians, the worst thing you can do is read a book about them written by an Armenian. Since I have written one myself, let me tell you how it is done. You read a few books on the subject. You select, paraphrase, and quote the positives and discard the negatives on the grounds they were written by Turcophile scumbags. The result is bound to be a best-seller. Mine was. Four printings and all sold out within months.

But if you really want to understand Armenians, here is what you do: you enter an Armenian discussion forum on the Internet and post an honest, objective, and self-evident statement -- something like, say, two plus two equals four, or the sun rises in the East -- and see what happens. I will tell you what happens. You will come face to face with Armenians who believe, as the offspring of victims of massacres, they are justified to verbally massacre anyone who refuses to recycle their favorite brand of propaganda.

What have the Armenians learn from history beside adopting Turks as their role models? You may well ask. Don't get me wrong. We probably have as many moderates as extremists. But like all extremists everywhere, ours too are better organized and loud. So much so that they appear to represent the majority even when they are a minority that suffer from acute verbal diarrhea, which happens to be a common malady among us.

#

Friday, July 11, 2008

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

HOW NOT TO SOLVE PROBLEMS

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

Because I am not a prophet, they want my head on a platter.

*

The only reason we engage in verbal massacre is that the real thing is against the law.

*

They tell me they are all for free speech, but not for idiots like me, and they define idiot as anyone who disagrees with them.

*

Like the kingdom of god, the solution to our problems is within us. But if we are to believe our Turcocentric ghazetajis, the solution is in Ankara.

*

When I was a fascist I justified myself by saying, how can I, a victim of fascism, be a fascist? I now have the answer to that question: the secret ambition of all victims is to victimize.

*

It is written: “If you have an Armenian friend, you don't need enemies.”

*

The solution to our problems is not a verbal formula. But if you insist on a verbal solution, abracadabra is as good as any.

*

When nations lack critics, it means they are not worthy of them.

*

To those who say the nation will be better off without Armenians like me, I say, you are now in an excellent position to understand them because that's exactly how they felt about us at the turn of the last century.

*

Only after we de-Ottomanize ourselves we may begin the search for solutions. Until then we will continue to think of genocide as the only viable solution.

#

Saturday, July 12, 2008

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

STRAIGHT TALK

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

Some Armenians write anonymously on the Internet because, I am told, they are afraid of Turkish retaliation. I invite these Armenians to answer the following questions. How many Armenians have Turks killed during the last fifty years? How many Turks have Armenians killed in the same period? And last but far from least: How many Armenians have been killed by Armenians?

Turks, moreover, have welcomed thousands of Armenians in Turkey. How many Turks have we welcomed in our homeland and communities in the Diaspora? “Dzour nesdink, shidag khossink.”

*

Anyone who thinks he knows and understands everything he needs to know and understand should be declared a certified case of arrested development or a mindset that consists in mindlessness.

If space can't be infinite, where does it end? What's on the other side of the line or wall? Why things exist? These are questions no scientist or philosopher has ever been able to answer. Now then, go ahead and pretend to know and understand all you need to know and understand when what you know may not even be a drop in the ocean of knowledge.

#

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, July 13, 2008

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

FINAL SOLUTION

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

You want solutions to our problems?

Read the Bible.

And if you think you are smarter than God,

find your own goddamn solutions.

If you say the solutions in the Bible are dated

and therefore useless, then I suggest

the only solution is putting in an order

for a new God, a new Bible, a new Messiah,

and a new Lord's prayer:

“Give us this day our daily shish kebab and pilaf,

and lead us not into massacres.”

Do you really think

our bosses, bishops, and benefactors

are in need of your solutions?

How many letters have you received from them

so far asking for solutions?

How many letters have you received from them

so far asking for your “moral and financial support?”

These gentlemen have no use for your two cents' worth.

They want your bucks.

The bigger the buck the better.

Instead of statesmen we have panchoonies

whose favorite punch line is “Mi kich pogh.”

If you haven't understood that much about Armenians,

what, pray tell, have you understood?

A rhetorical question.

No need to answer.

Because the answer is obvious:

nil, nada, nothing,

vochinch, rien, zero, zilch!

#

Monday, July 14, 2008

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

MEMOS:

TO MY FELLOW ARMENIANS

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

If no one flatters you

do not flatter yourself

but if you do

do not confuse your lies

with articles of faith

straight out of Holy Writ.

*

If a fellow Armenian

refuses to parrot

your sentiments and thoughts

don't accuse him of being a Turk

who hates not only you

but also Mount Ararat

and Lake Sevan.

*

If a fellow Armenian

disagrees with you

don't insult him;

but if you do

and he returns the compliment

don't spend the rest of your life

trying to get even.

*

If you are in a hole

stop digging as if

you aimed to reach China.

*

If you bray like an jackass

don't compare yourself to Pavarotti.

*

If you look like a mongoloid

walk like a retard

speak like an inbred moron

don't brag about your genius.

*

If you begin to suspect

no one wants to touch you

with a ten-foot pole

the very least you can do

is not to pretend

the sun shines

out of your backside.

#

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

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

OBSERVATIONS

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

All our publications are subsidized by bosses, bishops, and benefactors. Which means you can say nothing against God, Capital, and the Party; only Turks. This may explain why our Turcocentric ghazetajis are our most prolific, ubiquitous, and popular writers. Next time you hear about an Armenian who was awarded a literary prize, you can be sure of one thing: he is a Turcaholic.

*

Armenian criticism: Revenge by other means.

*

I have never heard a decent Armenian say we need solutions, only dupes and crooks who will reject any solution that threatens to expose them.

*

The only time I question the truth of the dictum, “No one is beyond redemption,” is when I visit an Armenian discussion forum on the Internet.

*

To ignore Armenian writers is to exterminate them by other means. There is a micro-Talaat and mini-Stalin in all of us.

*

An Armenian once said to me: “When I stay away from Armenians, I am a vegetarian. In their company I become a carnivore.”

*

Some writers, among them Gabriel Garcia Marquez, write for their friends. I write against my enemies. My ideal reader is one who reacts to my things with profanities, but after a while – say, in 9 or 99 years – he begins to suspect I may not be as hopeless a case as he thought I was, and someday, with his guidance, I may even begin to see things his way.

#