as i see it - Pt. IV

[Armat]

February 28, 2010

 

I am not a good or even a mediocre pianist, but I can brag about one thing: I have been murdering Mozart's and Beethoven's complete Sonatas and so far no cop has ever laid a glove on me.

 

Funny Thanks

[ara baliozian]

March 4, 2010

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ON A VARIETY OF UNRELATED THINGS

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When someone you love dies, death ceases to be just another word in the dictionary and becomes a special kind of hell designed especially for you by a diabolically cunning sadist who knows you better than you know yourself, and is thus in a position to tell what will hurt you the most. He doesn't just behead you with an ax. Instead, he cuts your throat with a rusty knife and watched you bleed to death in a garbage can.

*

To say “Yes, sir!” to superiors has nothing to do with respect for authority and everything to do with cowardly subservience.

*

As far as I know, no one has ever heard anyone saying that a nation with the ablest Oriental carpet dealers is in a better position to make a valuable contribution to world peace and progress.

*

It is twice as hard to remain silent in two languages; and because most Armenians speak more than two languages, they suffer from chronic verbal diarrhea.

*

Insanity could also be defined as a process in which emotions are allowed to define thoughts.

#

March 5, 2010

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CONNECTIONS

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Whenever I read about oppression, I hear echoes, see parallels, make connections: Martin Luther King: “It is a strange and twisted logic to use the tragic results of segregation as an argument for its continuation.”

It is almost as strange and twisted as preaching Armenianism and practicing Ottomanism.

*

I see connections where none exist: first genocide of the 20th century and none of the Three Wise Men was Armenian. But then, they also say everything is connected to everything else.

*

Our version of democracy: Say what you like provided you believe what you are told by wiser men than yourself even when they happen to be damn fools.

*

Some of my readers enjoy using me as a punching bag. After Turks, an Armenian's favorite target is another Armenian.

*

Solidarity is a nation's greatest source of wealth and power.

*

If you are defenseless, you will be exploited and oppressed by men who will pretend to be your brothers, protectors, and benefactors. But you will make a big mistake if you think the only way to liberate yourself is by exploiting and oppressing your brothers.

#

March 6, 2010

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COMMENTS

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If freedom enlarges the usefulness of our faculties (according to Kant), millennial oppression narrows them down to such a degree that it is not at all unusual to see a fool parading as a genius.

*

Dealing with fools is hard enough; infinitely harder is dealing with a fool who has been taken in by another fool.

*

Assessing oneself as infallible may well be the surest symptom of terminal cretinism.

*

The more unwavering a man’s commitment to his own self-interest, the more altruistic the principles he pretends to espouse.

*

Politics is the second oldest profession and in many ways it resembles the first. Fascists agree but they think this does not apply to fascism.

#

[ara baliozian]

March 7, 2010

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WHAT I BELIEVE

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Just because we understand and explain some things, we think we can understand and explain many other things. But so far, and after millennia of speculation by theologians, philosophers, and scientists, we have failed to answer the most important questions and we fool ourselves when we think some day we may at last grasp the meaning of life and the nature of God.

Because in our arrogance (hubris) we think it is within our abilities to do so, we are punished (nemesis) with intolerance, jihads, fatwas, papal encyclicals, ten thousands commandments, belief systems and as many heresies and contradictions that suggest even the wisest among us is no better than a damn fool.

I believe or I would like to believe God to be inaccessible, incomprehensible, and indifferent to both believers and nonbelievers alike. I suspect any Being or Power that can create the universe, only a fraction of which is visible to us, must be too busy creating other universes in an infinite number of dimensions only one of which is accessible to us.

What are the chances that after we die, the incomprehensible will be comprehensible? I would say 50/50. I would also add that after we die we may no longer care whether life makes sense or not.

#

March 8, 2010

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REFLECTIONS

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Why is an Armenian another Armenian's Turk?

My only tentative answer is: Because his worldview is based on prejudice, propaganda, and lies.

*

Sartre: “Fascism is not defined by the number of its victims, but by the way it kills them.”

Or silences them.

Remember Milton's celebrated words in defense of free speech: “Who kills a man, kills a reasonable creature. But he who destroys a good book kills reason itself.”

*

I am beginning to see the truth in the old saying, sooner or later our blessings become curses, and everything that contributed to our good fortune, returns to destroy us.

*

There are prodigal fathers as surely as there are prodigal sons.

*

Propaganda is more dangerous than ignorance because it is identified as knowledge -- the kind that paralyzes the mind and moves crowds.

*

The bigger the lie, the greater the number of its dupes.

*

About the protocols: If history is on our side, why are we afraid of historians?

*

Ever since Jesus said it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, our benefactors have been building churches in the hope of bribing God, thus adding blasphemy to their previous list of sins.

#

March 9, 2010

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METAPHORS

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“An eye for an eye.”

“If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out.”

“When the blind lead the blind...”

“In the country of the blind, the one-eyed is king.”

These metaphors – assuming that's what they are – explain so much about human nature and history.

And consider the following by Toynbee: “Any man of forty who is endowed with moderate intelligence has seen – in the light of the uniformity of Nature – the entire Past and Future.”

*

It takes less than a second to see the light. But compared to what we can't see or what God sees, the light we see may well be another form of darkness.

*

The unspoken threat of all authoritarian leaders to dissidents: “Since you refuse to see me as I see myself, I will pluck out your eyes and cut out your tongue.”

#

March 10, 2010

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POWER & GREED

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What I put into words is the obvious, which may or may not be perceived as such by others, who may or may not wish to jeopardize their position within the power structure. As for our press: it is too dependent on the goodwill of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors for its survival to print anything that may not be flattering to their colossal egos.

*

The French have an untranslatable word for obnoxious, ignorant, brainwashed, narrow-minded, loud-mouth patriots: they call them “patriotards.” I call ours Panchoonies, Jack S. Avanakians, Turcocentric ghazetajis, and during the Soviet era, “chic Bolsheviks.”

*

The only time they are willing to admit blunders is when they want to assert their humanity (“Nobody is perfect”), never their abysmal incompetence.

*

I am resigned to the fact that I will never be popular with our brown-nosers and the source of the brown on their nose.

*

In his POWER & GREED: A SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLD (London, 2002, page 189), Philippe Gigantes writes: “The Christian Armenians in the Caucasus regions of the Muslim Ottoman Empire favoured the Christian Russian Empire and were slaughtered by the Turks, the rulers of the Ottoman Empire. How many were slaughtered? The numbers are in dispute, varying between 500,000 and I.5 million.”

This passage has a footnote that reads:

“My father's uncle, Dr Nicholas Vassiliades, living in Constantinople (now Istanbul) and conscripted as a colonel in the Turkish army's medical corps, saw the massacre in Armenia. From the records of the Turkish army's medical corps, he placed the slaughtered at more than 1 million.”

#

[ara baliozian]

March 11, 2010

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TOYNBEE

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One reason I love to read and reread Toynbee (sometimes more than twice) is that so much of what he says, and the authorities he quotes, are anti-authoritarian and apply not only to me personally but also to mankind in general, including – or should I say, especially – to Armenians.

Random examples follow:

Volney: “The source of man's calamities reside within him; he carries them in his heart.”

Saint Cyrian: “If the foreign enemy were to cease from troubling, would Roman really be able to live at peace with Roman?”

Rabbi Agus: “'Uniqueness' as an innate quality of being is exclusive in character, invidious in intent, invariably offensive.”

Walter Bagehot: “The very institutions which most aid at step number one are precisely those which most impede at step number two.” In Toynbee's own words: “Progress would not have been the rarity it is if the early food had not been the late poison.”

And I think of our own political parties whose step number one was love of freedom, and step number two fear or hatred of free speech.” Our own Garabents put it more succinctly when he said: “Once upon a time we fought and shed our blood for freedom. We are now afraid of free speech.” And to think that Garabents was a thoroughly pro-establishment writer beloved by all.

Another quality that makes Toynbee attractive to me personally is that he quotes the Bible (and he does so frequently – more frequently than any other historian I have read) not as a believer but as a non-believer. In his own words: “I believe that the answers to the questions that matter most to us can be found only beyond the reason's limits, if they can be found at all.” Please note that final “if.”

When asked why he had devoted thirty years of his life to the writing of his magnum opus, STUDY OF HISTORY, Toynbee is said to have replied with a single word: “Curiosity.”

#

March 12, 2010

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BLUNT TALK

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“The United States was not the golden land of opportunity people thought it was. Blacks were oppressed. The poor were downtrodden. The press told lies. Truth existed nowhere. Everyone was motivated by money.” (THE SHOT, by Philip Kerr. New York, 2000, page 62).

Blunt talk.

That's what I like.

I wish we had more of it.

*

People who are afraid of open spaces are said to suffer from agoraphobia, a word that combines two Greek words – agora (space) and phobia (fear). It seems to me, collectively, we suffer from alithophobia (fear of truth) and pragmatophobia (fear of reality). Which may well be why there are a great many people out there who don't believe us even when we speak the truth, probably because they think we suffer from psematolatria (the worship of lies).

Next time you hear or read one of our pundits or “patriotards” (baloney artists parading as community leaders), I urge you to keep these words in mind even if you can't find them in any dictionary for the simple reason that I just made them up.

*

Please note that Philip Kerr, the author of the above quotation, is not a historian, sociologist, or academic, but a writer of thrillers who was greatly influenced by Raymond Chandler, the only American writer I have enjoyed reading three times – see especially his FAREWELL, MY LOVELY. Like Chandler, Kerr has a brilliant sense of humor. At one point, for instance, his central character, who happens to be a professional assassin, says: “I'm the real careful type. Ava Gardner offered to suck my c*ock I'd probably ask what was in it for me.”

*

The only other American writer I have read three time is Hemingway -- not his novels but his short story “The Killers.”

I don't mention LOLITA because Nabokov was less American and more Russian cosmopolitan.

#

March 13, 2010

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REFLECTIONS

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My two ambitions in life as a writer:

(one) to explain why many Armenians are alienated, and

(two) to expose the arrogance and incompetence of those who alienate them in the name of patriotism.

*

If rabbis, imams, and bishops were to renounce their monopoly on truth, would the number of their followers go up or down?

Hard to say.

But one thing we can say with certainty: they would be promoting tolerance instead of intolerance.

*

As a reader, I prefer bad dialogue to good descriptions. I should like to read a work of fiction that begins with the words: “In what follows, I will not speak of the appearance and wardrobe of my characters on the assumption that what's most important about them will emerge in what they say.”

*

The trouble with some of my critics is that

they don’t consider me worthy of criticism.

Instead, they insist that I either give up writing

or change my views in such a manner as to jibe with theirs.

In short, they demand that I become a disciple and an echo.

Their disciple and their echo!

My critics are not literary critics in the usual sense of these words,

but messianic figures whose message is

“Abandon your ways and follow me,

for I am the only path to wisdom and salvation.”

To such an Armenian to say anything but “Yes, master!”

would be heresy leading to eternal damnation and hellfire.

#

[ara baliozian]

March 14, 2010

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SLOGANS

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To be brainwashed is bad enough.

What is infinitely worse is to be brainwashed by idiots who pretend to be smart. And what could be easier for an adult than to appear smart to a child, which is when they get you – when you are a child and cannot yet think for yourself. And they get you not with logic or sentences that make sense or have any connection with reality, but with slogans – slogans like “America the Beautiful,” “The Land of the Brave and the Free,” “Deutschland uber alles.”

Massacres and genocides come naturally to people who are brainwashed to parrot slogans like “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”

All slogans should come with a warning or a counter-slogan, such as “Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.”

“Workers of the world unite, provided you don't drop your pants and bend over to murderous morons.”

“Allawa akhbar!”

God may be One.

God may be Great.

God may even be Almighty.

But God is also Incomprehensible, and to speak in His name is to bluff and blaspheme.

#

March 15, 2010

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QUESTIONS

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Toynbee: “When prophets disagree, are we to give credit to either of their opposing voices?”

Likewise, when our dividers disagree...

*

The difference between an agnostic and a man of faith: the agnostic will not kill and die in the name of an entity whose existence is based on hearsay evidence.

*

Simone Weil: “It is impossible to forgive whoever has done us harm if that harm has lowered us. We have to think that it has not lowered us but revealed our true level.”

*

A noted French philosopher (Merleau-Ponty) once described the German occupation of France during World War II, as being “raped by history.”

How are we to describe our own experience?

After being gang-raped for 600 years we were eviscerated?

Are we dead or alive?

*

Questions that I ask myself seven times every day (which is how many times a pope is said to doubt his faith every day):

Am I wasting my time?

I am.

Why do I go on?

I don't know.

#

March 16, 2010

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IF YOU LIE DOWN WITH DOGS....

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If you lie down with cannibals, you are sure to end up in their digestive tract. Perhaps genocide was the price we had to pay for being not only subservient to them for 600 years but also their “most loyal subjects.”

*

Winners say they won because God was on their side or it was their “manifest destiny” to win. Losers say they lost because their enemies were predators who spoke with a forked tongue.

*

Prejudice comes as naturally to men of faith as extremism to fanatics and big lies to dupes.

*

The greater the number of divisions, the great the number of panchoonies and letters that end with the words “mi kich pogh.”

*

Who benefits from our divisions? Only our dividers.

*

I plead guilty to the charge that I recycle ideas as opposed to propaganda, and to propagandists, recycling ideas might as well be a capital offense.

*

Our crypto-sultans and neo-commissars are so insecure that they will promote any mediocrity that knows how to flatter them, and silence anyone who dares to question their infallibility.

*

I am not personally acquainted with any one of our leaders but I have dealt with some of their underlings and I am appalled by their intellectual mediocrity (which I am willing to forgive) and moral moronism (which is at the root of all crimes against humanity”).

*

Incompetent leaders might as well be shepherds who drive their flocks in the direction of ravenous wolves.

*

A belief system or faith is a product of man's creative mind as surely as the composition of a great symphony, and man has created many more gods than great symphonies.

#

March 17, 2010

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THIS & THAT

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The Irish like to say, “There are two kinds of people: the Irish and those who would like to be Irish.” How many kinds of Armenians are there? I would say, as many as there are Armenians; but I could also say there are also two kinds: dividers and their dupes.

*

If I am wrong, I can be corrected. But if those who are in charge of our destiny are wrong, the result may be another massacre – if not “garmir” (red) than “jermak” (white).

If I have said this before, I apologize. I happen to be an addict of reiteration. Or, as Socrates used to say, “To know is to remember.”

*

Awareness of ignorance is better than false knowledge.

*

When an American politician needs a dedicated aide, my guess is, he says: “I need a Young Turk.” I doubt if anyone of them says “I need a rug merchant.”

I read recently that Khrushchev referred to Mikoyan as “my rug merchant.”

*

My English dictionary defines “Young Turk” as “a young person eager for radical change to the established order.”

*

If what you say makes sense,

let your words speak louder than your emotions.

#

[ara baliozian]

March 18, 2010

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OLD-TIME RELIGION

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What does the average Armenian know or understand about the reasons why we are divided? I suspect most Armenians follow the old-time religion routine: if it's good enough for my father, it's good enough for me. It follows the son of a Tashnak will be a Tashnak, the son of a Ramgavar will be a Ramgavar, and so on. It also follows, our divisions are based not on facts or values but on habit and tradition. Which may explain why even our revolutionaries are right-wing conservatives. As a result, instead of renewal we have stagnation, instead if progress paralysis, and instead of dialogue two monologues that never cross.

*

To join a group means to surrender a fraction of one's individuality and uniqueness.

*

In a group it is not always the best that rises to the top but the most cunning and ruthless.

*

Even the most absurd slogan will make sense if it flatters our ego.

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Sometimes I am accused of repeating myself. If you agree with a slogan, you don't mind to have it repeated countless times. But if you disagree with an idea, being exposed to it even once, it will be a source of annoyance, irritation, and hostility.

*

Who is more guilty? The leader or his dupe (who assesses himself as smart)?

*

The 11th Commandment in the Armenian Decalogue: “Thou shalt not be a dupe.”

#

March 19, 2010

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OPIUM

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Marx said religion is “the opium of the people.”

The word assassin comes from the Arabic “hashish” (opium).

Voltaire: “Since it was a religious war, there were no survivors.”

*

As a nonbeliever I respect equally both believers and nonbelievers– both Sartre and Schweitzer (who were cousins).

Sartre, the atheist, writes in his memoirs: “I depend on people who depend on God.”

A contradiction?

Walt Whitman: “So what if I contradict myself? I contain multitudes.”

*

Nationalism is defined as an ideology by nationalists, and as pathology by those who have studied its history.

*

Some are too big to fail, and some are too insignificant to register on the consciousness of the world. You may now guess to which category we belong.

*

Incompetence and intolerance of dissent is a lethal combination that might as well be a death warrant.

*

What makes life bearable is the idea of death.

*

Whitman: “Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.”

*

Optimism? Nothing wrong with it, provided you are prepared to be disappointed.

*

Why do I write in short sentences and paragraphs?

The short answer is, fear.

Fear of boring my readers.

#

March 20, 2010

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ON PATERNALISM

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Our genocide is not only a symptom of man's humanity to man but also of our own misplaced and naïve trust in an alien power structure that we were led to believe to be paternalistic because that is how it had (mis)represented itself to us for 600 years. One reason we don't emphasize this aspect of our past is that paternalism continues to be our favorite mode of perceiving our own leadership.

*

Xenophobia blinds us to the virtues of our adversaries to the same degree that it blinds us to our own vices.

*

In our traumatized partisan environment you are safe only if you parrot the partisan line. But if you dare to think and speak for yourself – that is to say, to give expression to your own thoughts. convictions, and experiences – then prepared yourself to be verbally abused by dupes who know and understand even less than their “educators” -- meaning, those who brainwashed them.

*

Oliver Goldsmith: “The laws govern the poor, and the rich govern the law.”

#

[ara baliozian]

March 21, 2010

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METAPHYSICAL SPECULATIONS

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Perhaps Existence or Reality and God are one and the same

if only because they share one very important quality in common,

namely, total indifference.

One way to explain this indifference is to say that

if we were to add up the positives and the negatives in a man's life,

the result will be zero.

*

The end of being is nothingness,

and from nothingness to being again.

From stardust to existence

and from existence to stardust again.

From here to eternity.

A cycle whose beginning is shrouded in mystery

and whose end is invisible and inconceivable,

very much like God Himself.

*

Scientists speak of the Big Bang.

But so far no scientist has ever ventured to speculate

about the nature or dimension of existence before the Bang.

*

The dead enter a timeless realm

in which a second is as long as a billion years.

In cosmic time, a life lasts no more than a fraction of a second.

The purpose of life – assuming it has one –

is to experience the human dimension,

and of dimensions there may well be an infinite number.

*

Nothing is impossible to an Almighty God,

the creator of the Universe only a small fraction of which

we can see even with the most powerful telescopes and microscopes.

*

Am I trying to explain the meaning of life?

No! Only doing my utmost to come to terms with Reality,

which is beyond our comprehension

and will remain so until we die, perhaps even after...

assuming there is an after.

The rest is propaganda.

#

March 22, 2010

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READING TOYNBEE

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“Private intellectual enterprise, unlike private economic enterprise, lives by co-operation not by competition.”

Translated into every-day language and applied to us, this simply means, Armenian writers dig their own graves if they continue to crap on one another as Oshagan did on Zarian, and as Oshagan's disciples continue to do so to this day.

*

“It is always easier, both intellectually and morally, to debit one's ills to the account of some outside agency than to ascribe the responsibility to oneself.”

What Toynbee is saying here is this: if you paint the opposition all black and yourself all white, as our dividers and Turcocentric ghazetajis tend to do, you will be believed only by those you have brainwashed and no one else.

*

What follows is one of my favorite passages from THE STUDY OF HISTORY:

“In the life which Man has made for himself on Earth, his institutions, in contrast to his personal relations, are the veritable slums, and that taint of moral obliquity is still more distressing in the least ignoble of these social tenements of the Human Spirit – for instance, in the churches and the academies – than in such unquestionably malignant institutions as Slavery and War.”

As I see it, what Toynbee is saying here: wars and massacres are extensions of the lies taught in schools and preached in churches (including temples and mosques); or again, there is more evil in legitimizing and promoting intolerance than in violations of human rights and in crimes against humanity, including genocide. But whereas war criminals are occasionally arrested, tried, found guilty, and punished, or are assassinated, hanged, or commit suicide, rabbis, bishops, and imams go on preaching their venom unmolested.

#

March 23, 2010

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VOODOO

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In his VOODOO HISTORIES: THE ROLE OF THE CONSPIRACY THEORY IN SHAPING MODERN HISTORY (New York, 2010, page 340), David Aaronovitch writes, conspiracy theorists are masters of writing “history for losers” in which they try to prove that “their defeat is not the product of their inherent weakness, let alone their mistakes; [but] it is due to the almost demonic ruthlessness of their enemy.”

*

Understanding reality is an endless process. After millennia of thinking and research some of the most important questions in science and philosophy remain unanswered. A partisan (and it makes no difference wheter he is a religious or a political partisan) is one who operates on the assumption that he knows all he needs to know; he has understood reality or its most important aspects, and all that remains to be done is to gather more evidence in order to strengthen his case. He confuses a fraction of reality with reality, his nation with mankind, and one side of an issue with all sides. He is a dogmatist and like all dogmatists he is intolerant, narrow-minded, self-righteous and prone to violence. Even when he speaks for peace and the brotherhood of all men he is prepared to kill and die. He is more of a preacher and propagandist than an observer and analyst. Which is why arguing with a partisan might as well be synonymous with making an enemy.

*

Reason unites. Emotion divides. Reason unites because it is predictable and it obeys laws of universal validity. We all agree that 2+2=4.

Emotion divides because it is unpredictable and inconsistent.

We all do not and cannot agree on matters of taste, faith, or anything else that is outside reason’s orbit.

Even when we disagree, reason tells us "to agree to disagree," because consensus

(which means working together rather than thinking alike) is better than conflict.

I say therefore, Let us reason together.

#

March 24, 2010

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TAKING CARE OF #1

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A power structure is as invisible as a glass wall. You feel its presence only when you bump into it and shatter your glasses or flatten your nose. That is why, from a very early age, you are taught obedience and respect for authority. That is also why you are constantly reminded you can't fight City Hall, it is heresy to contradict those who speak in the name of God, don't rock the boat, the law is the law...

A power structure knows the only way to take care of itself is by controlling the educational system, and by rewriting history.

And yet, every single privilege we enjoy today as citizens of a democracy we owe to dissenters like Socrates (who dedicated his life to proving those who pretend to know better are ignoramuses), Martin Luther (who dared to question the infallibility of the Pope), and Solzhenitsyn (who by exposing the criminal nature of Soviet despotism, undermined its legitimacy).

What about our own dissidents?

The short answer is: they have been ignored, buried, and forgotten by our commissars, who, with the blessings of our “popes,” continue to be in charge of our destiny as a nation today.

I suspect one reason we are constantly reminded of massacres is to let us know that we owe the fact that we are no longer being massacred to the statesmanship of our leaders. As for the fact that we were massacred at the turn of the last century: we should in no way ascribe it to their abysmal ignorance, arrogance, and incompetence.

They assert their legitimacy is by painting themselves all white and their enemies all black; and their dupes, who invariably outnumber those who can think for themselves, are more than willing to believe them. Hence the popular adage: “There is a sucker born every minute.”

#

[ara baliozian]

March 25, 2010

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AS I SEE IT

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Negotiating from a position of weakness might as well be synonymous with defeat.

*

We cannot see the dead, but can the dead (or their immortal soul) see us? If they can see us, is it with the indifference of Reality or God? Does our misery spoil their bliss (assuming they are in heaven)?

*

An ideal explanation combines truth (or a semblance of it) with consolation. Hence the popularity of religions – notwithstanding their many contradictions.

*

My views of my fellow men (beginning with myself) are so unflattering that I look forward to the day when someone will prove me wrong.

*

Do I write because I like to annoy the hell out of dupes, bigots, and charlatans?

Why not? Isn’t that as good a reason as any?

*

Where a part-time janitor makes more money than a full-time writer, there will be an abundance of recycled crap and a total absence of ideas. When, in such an environment, they say “We need solutions,” you can be sure of one thing: that's the last thing they need.

*

In all political movements, lust for power is invariably hidden beneath noble slogans: the greater the lust, the nobler the slogans.

*

There are many forms of cowardice, surely one of the worst must be fear of free speech.

*

It is not easy being civil to individuals who in a different time and place would have been my executioners.

#

March 26, 2010

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FROM ABC TO Z

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Abovian committed suicide, Bakounts and Charents were betrayed to an alien regime and “purged,” and Zarian died with the conviction that he had been murdered. The enormity of this crime against humanity is such that it needs to be repeated again and again and as often as the other great crime committed against us at the turn of the last century. Remember that next time you speak about Armenian literature and culture.

*

When top dogs fail to reach a consensus, the interests of underdogs cease to be a priority.

*

Because I am against a divided, incompetent, and corrupt regime, I am treated as an enemy of the people on the assumption that the people are too alienated or dumb to recognize a friend when they see one.

*

Just because the stars are not visible during the day, it doesn't mean they are not there. Likewise, just because our “betters” are unreasonable, it doesn't mean reason should be abolished.

*

If you insult someone anonymously, you may expose more your cowardice and less your target's failings.

*

Henri Barbusse: “The real and the supernatural are one and the same.”

So are the reasonable and the absurd.

*

Baudelaire: “Life is a disease. This is a widely known secret.”

#

March 27, 2010

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VANDALS

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To practice medicine, you need a diploma. To drive a car, you must have a license. But any charlatan can be a politician and proceed to dismantle the nation. This is a well-known historic fact. There are still millions of people who believe Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam were great leaders, in the same way that there are many Armenians who believe what they are told by our bosses, bishops, and benefactors, who, after vandalizing the nation's most important possession – namely, its solidarity – dare to speak in the name of patriotism and God. If that's not speaking with a forked tongue, I should like to know what is.

*

At the end of his life, Arthur (DARKNESS AT NOON) Koestler was so disgusted with politicians that at the beginning of every interview he would say, “No politics.”

*

When, a few days ago, I posted a short commentary titled “Metaphysical Speculations,” several readers said such speculations are a waste of time because they never lead to believable final answers. But according to Toynbee: “Comprehension sometimes consists in just a correct understanding of questions that are unanswerable.”

#

[ara baliozian]

March 28, 2010

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

WHAT WE ALL WANT

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

The maximum amount of respect for the minimum amount of effort to earn it.

*

LIES AND LIARS

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

According to an old saying, “All men are liars.” But whereas the poor and the weak lie in defense of their survival, the rich and powerful lie in defense of a power structure that allows them to deceive, exploit, and oppress the poor and the defenseless. Only the blind will not see a difference there.

*

ON HISTORY AND HISTORIANS

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

Where there are two version of the past, both can't be right, though both may contain fractions of truth. What happened, what is described in a book, and what is understood by readers are three different things. Which is why every historian disagrees with every other historian. Which is also why even the greatest historians – from Herodotus to Spengler and Toynbee – have been torn to shreds by other historians. Which may suggest that historians, even the very best, are as fallible as popes, imams, and rabbis.

*

ON REINCARNATION

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

I see reincarnation not as a concept or occurrence that may happen after death, but as a ceaseless, ongoing process in life. The air we breathe and the food we consume are constantly being recycled by our bodies. Which is why scientists tell us we all have within us atoms that once belonged to Socrates and Alexander the Great. In Toynbee's version of the story: “Every human being now alive has links, however tenuous, not only with every one of his contemporaries, but also with every other human being that has ever lived.”

#

March 29, 2010

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

CONTEXTS

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

In a NEWSWEEK commentary I read the following about THE NEW YORK TIMES: “Could America's greatest newspaper really be led by such vicious, untrustworthy people?” I have been asking that same question about our own weeklies which, compared to THE NEW YORK TIMES, are as nothing!

*

Am I poisoning the well?

You cannot poison a well of lies with a drop of antidote which may contain particles of truth.

*

Whenever I am told a self-important Armenian is too busy to answer his mail – that is to say, to behave like a civilized human being or to do what he is paid to do – the first question that comes up is: “Busy doing what -- beside pulling his d*ck?”

*

Literary immortality, including that of Dante and Shakespeare, lasts only a fraction of a second when placed in the context of cosmic time. I read this in a book on death by Julian Barnes titled NOTHING TO BE FRIGHTENED OF (New York, 2008).

*

Are Armenians smart? Maybe, But it is a mistake to use that line as a license to behave like an inbred moron. As Yanks are fond of saying, “That's my philosophy.”

*

"Truth shall set you free," we are told. Not always. Especially not in an Armenian context. An Armenian who thinks truth is on his side behaves more like a slave to his Ottomanism.

*

An assertion and its contradiction are only two steps on a road that stretches to infinity. But in an Armenian context, they might as well be dead ends.

#

March 30, 2010

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

COMMENTS

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

“This Western Sun-King's [Louis XIV] palace at Versailles weighed as heavily upon the land of France as the pyramids of Gizah weighed upon the Land of Egypt.”

My first thought on reading this passage in Toynbee's STUDY OF HISTORY: “and as our own four religious denominations (Protestant, Catholic, Etchmiadznagan, and Anteliassagan) weigh upon our communities everywhere.”

*

An infallible man or institution does not have to be proven wrong because nothing can be as foolish, to the point of being asinine, as claiming infallibility.

*

I knew Armenian literature and culture were bankrupt on the day I heard the words of a national benefactor and patron of the arts spoken to one of our poets: “I hire and fire people like you every day.”

*

We can truly say of the brainwashed: "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they say because they understand nothing and they know even less."

*

Writes Shahan Shahnour in a letter to a friend (I am now translating and paraphrasing from memory): "Dupes have been the source of our downfall. What we need most today is the kind of common sense that can discriminate right from wrong, and good from evil. What we don't need is the empty verbiage [i.e. propaganda] of partisan rhetoric. In the words of Arpiar Arpiarian, 'If we can't be useful to this nation, let us at least refrain from doing it any harm'."

#

March 31, 2010

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

READING SARTRE

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

“History is the result of conscious but often shortsighted decisions made by men in face of the problem of scarcity.”

At the turn of the last century in the Ottoman Empire, the problem of scarcity for the people was human rights or freedom, and for the revolutionaries, power. And now that they have the power, what are they doing with it? They run schools and educate a new generation of “decent” Armenians who will support their “cause” (that is to say, their power).

*

And here is Sartre again on the subject of decency in a political context:

“The decent man will make himself deaf, dumb, and paralyzed. He is the most abstract negation. He will define himself narrowly by tradition, by obedience...”

Now you may be in a better position to understand why when Talaat and Stalin felt threatened, the first thing they did was to systematically eliminate the intellectual class. Now you may also be in a better position to understand why under the sultans we had a vibrant literature, and under our own so-called revolutionaries we have nothing.

*

“In order for reality to be revealed, it is necessary for a man to struggle against it.”

The Ottoman and Soviet realities revealed themselves to us when we undertook to struggle against them.

What about our present reality?

It will never reveal itself as long as we allow those in power to brainwash us into being “decent” Armenians – that is to say, deaf, dumb, and stupid dupes who cannot think for himself.

#

[ara baliozian]

April 1, 2010

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

READING PEGUY

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

“Out of ignorance and a sense of duty most decent people are liable to turn into criminals.”

*

Charles Péguy (1873-1914) is closer to my heart than any other writer you care to mention. Unlike Toynbee and Sartre, he is as accessible to the ordinary reader as, say, Chekhov. Like Chekhov, he was an honest man and he said what he thought. Organized religions have their saints. Literature does not. If it did, I would name Peggy as one of the greatest.

Has he been translated into Armenian? I don't know. I doubt it. I don't think so. Probably because he was quintessentially un-Armenian. We are not brought up to appreciate honesty and straight talk. After centuries of subservience to brutal regimes, we have learned to be cautious and calculating in our speech – a diplomatic way of saying, we are born liars.

Enough by way of introduction and warning. Let Peggy speak for himself:

*

“It is vulgar to want to be right and still more so to want to be in the right against someone else.”

*

“The man who doesn't bawl out the truth when he knows the truth becomes the accomplice of liars.”

*

“When people become established they become intelligent.”

*

“Let them leave us to our work. But if they disturb us, then we shall see to it that we shall not have been uselessly interrupted.”

*

“The life of the decent man must in some ways be one of continual apostasy; he must continually be a renegade and in this sense his life is one continual unfaithfulness.”

*

“Destitution is not a pumice stone by which people can be polished and made to shine. If it were it would be worth preserving. Destitution weakens people and thereby makes them incapable of getting out of it. Destitution not only makes people unhappy, which is a serious matter, it makes them bad, ugly and weak, which is also a serious matter.”

*

“Tyranny is always better organized than freedom.”

*

“One does not have the right to betray even a traitor. Traitors must be fought and not betrayed.”

*

“What is most contrary to salvation is not sin but habit.”

*

“Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.”

*

Once, I remember, when I said as much to one of our Panchoonies who headed one of our major charity organizations, he explained: “If we assume a critical stance towards the regime in Yerevan, we will not be allowed to help the people.” To which I could only say: “You mean, they would allow the people to starve? If you know them to be so evil, why legitimize them with your support?” At this point he hung up on me and thus I acquired still another enemy in high places.

#

April 2, 2010

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

READING ZOHRAB

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

“Oppression corrupts everything it touches, even the highest moral principles.”

*

“We all of us condemn prostitution; yet, how many of us engage in it! Lawyers who perjure themselves for a few pieces of silver; ghazetajis who sell their conscience to vested interests; physicians who prolong a useless treatment; young men who marry wealth. In what way, may I ask, are these individuals different from common whores?”

*

“My code of ethics: Between the real and the imaginary, choose the real; between truth and falsehood, choose truth – at all times, everywhere.”

*

“A newspaper is not a chameleon. It should not change colors to please its readers. It is bound to make enemies. I would measure the moral success of a newspaper by its willingness to make enemies.”

*

“In the same way that nature abhors a vacuum, literature abhors the absence of ideas.”

*

“As impressionable as soft wax, the Armenian acquires indiscriminately the virtues as well as the vices of the country in which he happens to be living.”

*

Which may explain why Armenians from the Levant are more Levantine than Armenian, and Armenians from the former Soviet Union are more Soviet and less Armenian. Hence Sylva Kapoutikian's boast (and this after the collapse of the USSR) “I am proud to have been a member of the Communist Party!” -- the very same party that slaughtered two generations of our best intellects and awarded her the Stalin Prize.

*

Krikor Zohrab (1861-1915) was a victim of the Genocide. Has anything changed since then? Or rather, what have we learned from the Genocide? Are we not at the mercy of lying whores who will sell not only their bodies but also their souls to anyone for a few pieces of silver?

*

If we “dzour nesdink, shidag khossink,” we shall have to admit that “mart bidi ch'ellank!”

#

April 3, 2010

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

Q/A

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

Q: What makes an Armenian happy?

A: To crap on a fellow Armenian, what else?

Q: Isn't that what you have been doing too?

A: If I do it's only on brainwashed dupes who consider crapping to be their patriotic duty.

Q: Do you think you are always right?

A: Hell no! On the contrary. Everything I say may well be wrong. I don't know the truth. Only God does. All I ever hope to do is expose lies and in doing so to take a tiny step in the direction of truth which I may never reach in this lifetime.

Q: If you have such a low opinion of Armenians, why do you continue to identify yourself as one?

A: I identify myself as a human being. I consider my national identity an accident of nature. I don't see any inconsistency here perhaps because after being dehumanized by our propaganda I am now a born-again human being and as such I believe all men are brothers, which happens to be an assertion we make every time when we repeat the Lord's prayer -- “Our Father Who art in heaven...”

Q: No one denies that we have problems. But isn't it a fact that all men and all nations have problems similar to ours?

A: They do, yes. But that doesn't mean the best way to deal with them is to cover them up or to ignore them on the grounds that time or the Almighty will solve them for us. Time has never been on our side. After a thousand years of subservience to tyrants we were rewarded with a series of massacres. Am I saying something or anything that has not been said before by far better men than myself? Of course not! I will go further and say, everything I say is either a quotation or a paraphrase. I have at no time hidden that fact from my readers. I quote as a challenge to those who accuse me of of being anti-Armenian or even pro-Turkish. On the subject of Armenians crapping on fellow Armenians: I am reminded of a passage in Zarian's TRAVELLER AND HIS ROAD, in which, speaking of the new generation of Soviet-Armenian writers, among them Charents (who at first swallowed Kremlin's propaganda hook, line, and sinker), Zarian wrote: “They are spitting on Raffi. They are spitting on Derian. They are spitting on Aharonian. Danger! Danger! Danger!” Armenian worldview at the time Zarian wrote these lines was shaped by Lenin's and Stalin's commissars. Our worldview today is shaped by Jack S. Avanakian charlatans and arav-pakhav mi-kich-pogh Panchoonies who have been more than successful in raising a wall between us and reality by saying all we need to solve our problems is more money. As for ideas: they are empty verbiage and irrelevant commodities. Which may suggest, the more things change, the deeper we sink in our own merde.

#

[ara baliozian]

April 4, 2010

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

LAMENTATION

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

“You are consistently negative,” I am told again and again by the very same readers who are the cause of my negativism.

*

We speak as though our problems need solutions.

We speak as though generations of our writers lived, worked, and died in some other dimension inaccessible to us.

Poor Armenian people!

Poor Armenian writers!

*

Poor Armenian writers.

After we bury them, we re-bury them again and again whenever we ignore their works.

*

We have been so thoroughly dehumanized that ideas mean nothing to us.

Money, yes!

Ideas?

Who gives a damn?

*

Jesus died for our sins, we are told.

Generations of Armenian writers died to save us but we continue to wallow in ignorance, apathy, materialism, envy, intolerance, and arrogance.

*

I work for nothing.

I write for readers who know better.

Writing for Armenians is akin to mating with a shark.

*

We speak of nationalism because we have been de-nationalized as thoroughly as we have been dehumanized.

Our own backyard comes first.

As for the nation – who gives a damn?

*

Oppressors don't want the oppressed to have ideas. What they want is subservience. In their eyes, freedom is a dangerous commodity. As for ideas...in Napoleon's words: “A man with an idea is my enemy.”

It is the same with our bosses: all they want from us is subservience.

*

After the Sultan, Talaat.

After Talaat, Stalin.

After Stalin, our bosses and their assorted hirelings of Jack S. Avanakians and “mi kich pogh” Comrade Panchoonies, and communities whose favorite words are “Yes, sir!”

*

Even when we speak of others, we speak of ourselves. Think twice before you say another word on Turks.

#

April 4, 2010

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

FROM DUST TO DUST

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

Confucius: “Let us leave the spirits aside, until we know how best to serve men.”

*

Our parish priest (Anteliassagan) refused to bless my mother's grave on the grounds that she had been cremated. “We don't believe in cremation,” said he.

I wonder, was he trying to obstruct her path to heaven?

*

According to N.T. Wright, a contemporary theologian: “People are so preoccupied about who gets into heaven that they forget that much of the New Testament is about how we conduct our lives in the here and now.”

*

They lead us like sheep not to green pastures but to a den of wolves.

*

What makes me to repeat myself is not senility but the conviction that a truth should be repeated as often as the lies of our Jack S. Avanakians and “mi kich pogh” Panchoonies.

*

More quotations from Confucius:

*

“Respect spiritual beings but keep them at a distance.”

*

“Only the wisest and the stupidest of men never change.”

*

“The path to duty lies in what is near and men seek for it in what is remote. The work of duty lies in what is easy and men seek for it in what is difficult.”

*

“When you see a good man, think of emulating him; when you see a bad man, examine your own heart.”

#

April 5, 2010

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

READING RAFFI

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

We sent Khrimian Hairik to Berlin, and Sylva Kaputikian to Moscow.

Diplomats and revolutionaries: where are they when we need them most?

Raffi's answer:

“We are like sheep without a shepherd...We don't have an aristocracy. We have neither elites nor leaders. What we have are merchants and clergymen [and vodanavorjis, he could have added]. Merchants are trash. As for the clergy: they have always been against individual freedom.”

*

“Where there is oppression, there is cowardice, ignorance, and sloth. A man needs freedom to discover the benefits of freedom.”

*

“What's done is done. What we must do now is assess the damage and figure out how to avoid the next catastrophe.”

*

“War, bloodshed, massacre: they will be with us so long as the principle of Might is Right prevails.”

*

“The prevalent mentality among us is, every man for himself. As long as I can take care of myself, why should I give a damn about anyone else?”

*

“Those who are in charge of our destiny are themselves a gang of criminals. What are our options? Who can help us? Not even God, it seems, perhaps because we have too many sins on our conscience.”

*

“Our capitalists are the most corrupt and degenerate members of the community. Nothing good can come from them. They are men without a country. They worship only money. Profit is their only homeland.”

*

In what way are our national benefactors different from Raffi's capitalists if they allow their flunkeys to behave like commissars of culture and to subsidize ghazetajis whose obsession with Turks far exceeds their concern for fellow Armenians? And what about our fornicating bishops and bosses who so far have delivered nothing but empty verbiage? Has anything changed during the last 150 years? Once upon a time we were slaves. We are now slaves of former slaves.

*

Here is Raffi again:

“No power on earth can deprive you of your freedom. No one can enslave you if you refuse to be enslaved. Where there is slavery there are also men willing to assume a passive stance. Oppressors know this and they count on it.”

#

April 6, 2010

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

PATRIOTISM

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

Nationalists begin by asserting a superior brand of patriotism and end by committing massacres.

*

All genocides are committed in the name of nationalism, and sooner or later all nationalists are exposed as fascists.

*

I have yet to meet an Armenian who thought his own brand of patriotism to be inferior to someone else's.

*

If I have been silenced, it's because our fascist editors and publishers have been successful in convincing their readers that I am an enemy not of fascism but of the people and the fatherland.

*

They accuse me of emphasizing the negative, whereas they are in the business emphasizing the positive; and emphasizing the negative means “corrupting the young” and “undermining the authority of the gods,” which happen to be the charges leveled against Socrates and against all dissidents in general.

*

To be a dupe of propaganda means supporting fascists whose ultimate aim is the destruction of the state, or so history or reality tells us.

*

Patriotism is a mask that hides killers, and killers not only of the enemy but also of their fellow countrymen.

*

Patriotism appeals to the emotions, and “emotions are judgments opposed to those arrived at by reason” (Epicurus).

*

There is nothing new under the sun. What I have been saying was said by Greeks more than two thousand years ago.

#

[ara baliozian]

April 7, 2010

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

WHY MEN DISAGREE

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

If we disagree, it may be because we speak in the name of Reality (whose complexities are infinite), Truth (which is accessible only to God) or God (Whom we are not equipped to know or understand).

*

When we speak, we select and emphasize a single aspect of Reality that has an infinite number of them.

*

Speaking and writing consists in selecting and emphasizing a perspective or point of view which proves a pet theory or justifies our interests. Which is why I trust more a man who speaks against himself.

*

Our brains' ability to perceive Reality is limited. Scientists tell us space is not infinite. Which means at a certain point it ends. But our brain cannot perceive or imagine what it is that stands between space and non-space, or between existence and nothingness.

*

No subject has created more disagreements, intolerance, persecutions, wars, and massacres than God, Who, we are told, is love mercy and compassion.

*

Man hates in the name of love and sees no contradiction in it. Figure that one out, if you can.

*

We are, or rather our history is, a succession of contradictions which we can only pretend to resolve and understand.

*

Our belief systems are houses of cards in a storm. To say “I believe” is to assert faith in the incomprehensible and the inconceivable.

*

When I say “Let us pray,” I express a desire to direct my words to a Being who has consistently ignored the voices of those who need Him the most – the enslaved, the downtrodden, the starving, the dying, and the innocent victims of massacres.

*

“Our Father Who art in heaven”? Any father who would witness the rape and murder of his young daughter when he was in a position to stop it, would be in jail for aiding and abetting a man guilty of a capital offense.

*

May God (if He cares to hear me) have mercy on my soul (if I have one).

#

April 8, 2010

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

READING ZARIAN

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

Or rather, “re-reading” him, because so far all I have been doing is either quote or paraphrase him.

*

G.B. Shaw once said that even after he had solved all of mankind's problems people kept asking for solutions. Something very similar could be said of Zarian and our problems. It can be said that Zarian is to Armenians what the Old Testament is to Jews, and what the New Testament is to Christians.

*

“What matters in life is not a multiplicity of ideas but a certain quality of attitude, action, responsibility, and commitment.”

*

“Morality is not the same as religion.”

*

“We don't have critics. Not in the true sense of the word. What we have are semi-educated meddlers with derivative criteria gathered from here and there – amateurs who have made of criticism an arid field of dismal mediocrity.”

*

“An Armenian's tongue can be sharper than a Turk's yataghan.”

*

“What are we but a handful of persecuted and displaced people at the mercy of the wind. Like dust we cling to stones on dirt roads and assume their shapes – grateful whenever we fall on a vegetable planted by others.”

*

“Our communities in the Diaspora are dominated by shopkeepers, pseudo-intellectuals, and priests. A miscellaneous crew of rascals with fat bellies and swollen egos. There you have the nucleus around which our collective existence revolves. This indeed ought to be the central issue of our literature today.”

*

“Our devils come in many disguises. In our own days they appear as clergymen, activists, hired scribblers, schoolmasters. They have beady eyes, loose lower lips, deep voices, and mangled features. They are termites, toads, and sometimes vipers. Pretense, envy, treachery...”

*

“We survive by cannibalizing one another.”

*

“Writing for Armenians is a waste of time. We are in a vegetative state. We are interested only in matters dealing with our survival. We carry our identity like a heavy weight on our shoulders. If I write, it must be in either French or English.”

*

“The Armenian nation is like a family whose members devour each other because of conflicting interests. And because they are absorbed in personal feuds, they are blind to spiritual greatness. For the average Armenian, Armenia is nothing but a piece of real estate.”

*

I could go on quoting Zarian for many more pages, but I will stop here on the grounds that “No banquet under heaven is endless.”

*

I may stop quoting him now but I will go on paraphrasing him in future installments.

#

April 9, 2010

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

SUMMING UP

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

By quoting others my aim is to point out the fact that the difference between my critics and me is that I rely on thinkers and they recycle the slogans and clichés of Panchoonies and Jack S. Avanakians. As for new or original ideas: there are none. They don't exist. Marx was against exploiters. So was our Lord when two thousand years ago he spoke about camels and the eye of a needle.

*

I am against dividers because I believe “all men are brothers” (and I don't mean like Cain and Abel); and when I say “all men” I include Turks. It is a mistake to think of Turks as Turks. I doubt if there is a single Turk alive today. Turks are a mixture of Greeks, Albanians, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Assyrians, Iranians, Arabs, Jews, and Armenians, among others. Something similar could be said of Armenians. As for Armenians who claim the Bagratunis and Mamikonians as their ancestors: Bagratunis identified themselves as Jews, and Khorenatsi identified the Mamikonians as Chinese. Speaking for myself: I have at no time hidden the fact that, on a good day, I can trace my ancestry all the way back to my father.

*

To hate Turks is to hate the wrong enemy. If we are going to hate, let's begin with fascists, beginning with our own.

*

“History of Armenian diplomacy” -- if one of our academics were to produce a monograph on the subject, with separate chapters on Zohrab in Constantinople, Khrimian in Berlin, Mikoyan in Yerevan, and Sylva Kaputikian in Moscow – the subtitle will probably read, “Anatomy of Incompetence and Treason.”

*

My critics accuse me of being anti-Armenian and of projecting my self-hatred on the nation, thus implying there is nothing wrong with us. So much so that, we might as well be a role model to all other nations. To which I can only say, “Self-satisfied bug*ers!”

*

It has been said “nothing fails like success.” If the opposite were true (“nothing succeeds like failure”) we should be on our way to being one of the greatest nations on earth. Now then, I dare anyone to call me a pessimist!

#

[ara baliozian]

April 10, 2010

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

ONE OUT OF TEN THOUSAND

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

Whenever asked for solutions, I offer a single word, “honesty.” And when asked to define honesty, I say nothing on the grounds that anyone who cannot recognize an honest man when he sees one deserves to be taken in by crooks.

We are responsible for our actions as surely as we are for our thoughts and attitudes; and life, as well as the law, do not allow us to plead not guilty by reason of ignorance.

*

For many centuries men were deceived into thinking kings ruled by the will of God; and after abolishing monarchy they consented to be ruled by even more dangerous charlatans. As a result, many more millions died in wars, massacres, and genocides.

*

Who is more guilty – the deceiver or he who consents to be deceived?

Mutual deception may be said to be at the root of all tragedies.

God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden, where He not only planted the Tree of Knowledge but also introduced the Serpent. In legal parlance, entrapment; in layman's terms, deception.

*

We were deceived into thinking the Empire would not strike back because the Great Powers were on our side.

Hitler deceived his people into believing they belonged to a superior race and were therefore qualified, nay destined, to rule the world.

Stalin deceived the people into believing the economic foundations of capitalism were rotten and the future belonged to Bolsheviks.

*

And consider what happens in HAMLET: Claudius deceives the people into thinking he is not a murderer and a usurper but the legitimate king of the land. Whereupon his nephew plots his revenge by deceiving the court into believing he is mad.

Who can forget the magnificent exchange between the usurper's senile minister of state and the “mad” prince?

POLONIUS: Do you know me my lord?

HAMELT: Excellent well, you are a fishmonger.

POLONIUS: Not I my lord.

HAMLET: Then I would you were so honest a man,

POLONIUS: Honest, my lord?

HAMLET: Ay sir; to be honest as this world goes is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.

#

April 11, 2010

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

ON POPULARITY

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

It is an honest man's duty to expose the dishonest because not to do so amounts to legitimizing dishonesty and ignoring their victims. And because the dishonest outnumber the honest, an honest man is bound to be unpopular.

My guess is, the Beatles made more money in a single day than Mozart in a lifetime.

Popularity is for the birds and the likes of Elvis Pelvis.

Whenever I make myself unpopular with a reader, I think “mission accomplished.”

Can you name a single Armenian writer who was popular?

Naregatsi? Abovian? Baronian?

The first led an anonymous existence in a monastery.

The second committed suicide at the age of 43.

The third was betrayed to the authorities, driven out of business (as publisher) and died of TB at the age of 49.

And they were the lucky ones.

Charents and Bakunts were worse off.

The first was betrayed, arrested, and committed suicide in a Yerevan jail at the age of 40.

The second was betrayed, arrested, tortured, and shot and the age of 38.

First nation to convert to Christianity?

Maybe, but in name only.

Intelligent, progressive, civilized?

Don't make me laugh.

Philistinized, Ottomanized, Sovietized (which also means converted to atheism)?

That's more like it

*

The Polish nation is in mourning today.

If what happened to them happened to us, I have every reason to suspect we would be celebrating.

*

When the truth is unbearable or unreachable, we lie.

#

April 12, 2010

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

MUMBO JUMBO

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

Some words are untranslatable. Case in point: in Armenian we have a word for “house,” but not one for “home.” There is a popular and widely quoted poem in English that says, “Every house ain't a home,” and “It takes a heap of living to make a house a home.” Translate that, if you can.

*

Man does not understand man (including himself) and yet, theologians pretend to understand and explain God to us. We can't understand God for the simple reason that God and man do not share the same dictionary. Man may need dictionaries. God doesn't.

*

God created man, and man created words, and the twain shall never meet. That's why everything we say about God is irrational, absurd, and blasphemous in the eyes of other men.

*

When we say “God is love,” or “God is our Father,” we in a sense make an attempt to bring Him down to our own level of understanding, and in this effort we fail miserably. Hence countless orthodoxies, heresies, religious wars, and massacres. It is no exaggeration to say that more people have died in the name of God than any other concept, including the Devil. Figure that one out if you can.

*

The Tower of Babel, like Reincarnation, is not a single occurrence but a constant and ceaseless process.

*

For millions of years, primitive man thought of God as the Unknown and the Unknowable; the source of all good as well as evil. Traces of this belief may be found today in all organized religions, including our own – as when we say in the Lord's prayer, “Do not lead us into temptation,” thus identifying God with the Devil whose business it is to lead man into temptation.

*

God may be many things but he is not and cannot be a contradiction. Some day we may see and understand this very clearly but not as long as we speak of Him as if He were a superior version of ourselves.

*

When we say God knows everything, do we mean He knows all the names and numbers in all the telephone books in print today? God's words – assuming he has them, or needs them, or uses them – are not our words, and neither are ours His. When Wittgenstein said we should not speak about things we know nothing about (in his own words, “...about that of which one cannot talk, one must be silent”) I suspect he had God in mind and he was saying “Shut up!” to theologians. Two and a half millennia ago Socrates made a similar assertion when he said, “Of the gods we know nothing.”

*

Jean-Paul Sartre, a contemporary of Wittgenstein, wrote a big philosophical treatise titled BEING AND NOTHINGNESS. In the cosmos, the planet on which we live is the size of a speck of dust so tiny that it might as well be invisible. Which may suggest that “being and nothingness” are not two contradictory conditions but one and the same, or as complementary to one another as mumbo jumbo.

#

April 13, 2010

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

APHORISMS

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

We all harbor a killer and like 007 all we need is a license to kill.

*

God did not create man in His own image. Man is prone to error. God is not – provided we assume creating man not to have been a serious blunder on His part.

*

We choose an ideology or belief system not by its truth but by its usefulness to us.

*

By selecting a set of values and facts, one can formulate an almost infinite number of belief systems and ideologies.

*

There is a natural tendency in all of us to believe in pleasant lies and to reject painful truths.

*

If the Bible is the word of God, then it is a clumsily garbled paraphrase by someone suffering from an advanced case of Alzheimer's.

*

True knowledge contains doubts, false knowledge only certainties.

*

If as a teenager I had read someone like me, I would have hated his guts.

*

A bad reader can be a mean critic.

*

Men have been talking about women since the beginning of time and they still can't figure them out. What does that tell you about the state of human knowledge and understanding?

#

[ara baliozian]

April 15, 2010

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

READING BARUIR MASSIKIAN,

THE ABOMINABLE NO MAN

OF ARMENIAN LITERATURE

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

“Armenian literature is a vast cemetery and writing for Armenians as cheerful a prospect as attending a requiem mass.”

*

A handful of his contemporaries may have heard of him but the rest have every reason to assume that he is a fiction of my own imagination whose raison d'etre is to reinforce my own peculiar views on Armenians and related atrocities. It is to dispel that notion that I have translated below the brief entry on him in the SOVIET-ARMENIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA (volume 7, page 267), by A. Yapujian:

“Armenian author, born in Adana in 1914. He lived in Cairo in 1920. Received his primary education in the Berberian School, Studied law at the University of Paris, philosophy and literature at the University of Brussels. His works include OUR LIFE (1946), BROKEN CROSSES (1959), and PELTING RAIN (1962), which is a collection of humorous tales, and the plays “My Grandson,” “The Cross,” “One Million,” and “Akhjikdes” [literally, “girl-viewing,” a formal visit arranged by match-makers). His operetta ERZRUM RONDO was staged in Cairo, New York, and elsewhere.”

In addition to being a composer he was also an excellent violinist, or so I am told by a personal acquaintance of his.

He died about ten years after the Encyclopedia was published in 1981.

His contempt of Armenian activists, Panchoonies, and Jack S. Avanakians was such that, when several of them approached his deathbed suggesting he bequeath his estate to an Armenian educational foundation (he died single and, as a successful lawyer, he was a wealthy man), he is said to have replied: “I'd much rather leave it to a Cairo bordello.”

*

“To be an Armenian poet means to be a beggar at the mercy of buggers.”

*

“They asked a thief why he stole, and he replied: 'To qualify as a member of an Armenian organization.'”

*

“He was convinced he looked like a doctor though he had not had much practice in legal murder.”

*

“The logic of an Armenian charlatan: All geniuses have major failings. Since I have a major failing, I must be a genius.”

*

“Instead of books, they want basterma.

Instead of theater, belly-dancing.

Instead of poems, obscenities and brawls.”

#

April 16, 2010

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

REFRAINS

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

Because he was a Jew, writes Kirk Douglas in his memoirs, he was constantly harassed, bullied, and beaten by neighborhood boys in New York. I too was bullied and sometimes beaten, not by Greeks but by my Armenian classmates.

*

Nothing comes more naturally to a victim than to victimize the first chance he gets.

*

For most of our historic existence we were at the mercy of bullies who were successful in convincing us we were in the best of hands.

When shortly before he was himself murdered, Zohrab warned his fellow Armenians of the coming catastrophe, they said, “Zohrab effendi is exaggerating.”

That's another problem with us. After being victims for centuries, we assume our status as underdogs to be an integral part of the human condition.

*

I have said this before and it bears repeating: Once upon a time we were slaves. We are now slaves of former slaves.

*

We experienced a literary Renaissance in Istanbul under Sultan Abdulhamid II. Under our own bosses and benefactors (and with the blessing of our bishops) we are experiencing the apotheosis of mediocrity which is worse than death.

*

The dead can be resurrected. It is more difficult with the living.

*

I remember to have read somewhere, “A feud should live a full and colorful life and then it should die a natural death and be forgotten.” After we die, our feuds will go on living. Our mortality is certain. So is the immortality of our feuds.

#

April 17, 2010

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

TWO BOOKS

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

Two recently published books that I am looking forward to read are SPEAK, NABOKOV by Michael Maar, and a biography (the first, I think) of Lesley Blanch titled INNER LANDSCAPES, WILDER SHORES by Anne Boston.

*

Nabokov is a favorite writer of mine. LOLITA is the only work of fiction that I have read four times with equal enjoyment. His critics are right when they say he has no moral sense, no social consciousness, and no constructive message. In that sense, he is very much like music, even though he was himself tone deaf, unlike his son Dimitry, who in addition to being an opera singer is also his father's editor and translator of his Russian works.

My admiration of Nabokov is such that I am more than willing to forgive his blind spots – two of them being his contempt for two bourgeois writers like Thomas Mann and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Nabokov was born in the highest Russian aristocracy, a multimillionaire, who lost his fortune to the Soviets and his father to an assassin.

*

Lesley Blanch is the author of THE SABRES OF PARADISE, the most fascinating book on the Caucasus, or rather, the fierce resistance of Caucasian tribes under the leadership of Imam Shamil, which continues to this day.

There are several Armenians in this epic story, one of them being a girl not much older than Lolita, with whom Shamil is said to have fallen in love. So much so that even when the girl's parents were willing to pay a ransom for her (she was abducted), she refused to return to her family.

Leslie Blanch married Romain Gary, author of the best-selling THE ROOTS OF HEAVEN, (inspired by the ideas of Teilhard de Chardin, with whom he was personally acquainted), who left her for a much younger Jean Seberg, who committed suicide; and so did Romain Gary.

I have a soft spot for all suicides (except Hitler), but I am also convinced it is the wrong people who commit suicide, and those who should, don't – Stalin, Mao, Franco, and any day now, Castro.

#

[ara baliozian]

April 22, 2010

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

FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE

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

Herbert von Karajan's biographers (and there are several of them) tell us he was of Greek descent (real name Karayannis = Blackjohn), but there are Armenians today who believe he was Armenian. The evidence? The last syllable of his surname, of course. What other evidence does anyone need?

An Armenian writer (may he rest in peace) who is accorded an entry in the SOVIET-ARMENIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA, in an angry letter to me: “I have published a book on Armenian celebrities and Karajan is in it!”

What could be more irrefutable than that?

It is common knowledge (but only among Armenians) that many Hollywood stars, among them, Gregory Peck, Jack Palance, and Elizabeth Taylor (Ipekian, Palanjian, and Tertsakian respectively) are of Armenian descent.

“Jesus may have been a Jew,” I was once told by an Armenian with a college degree, “but he was Armenian in spirit because Armenians were the first nation to convert to Christianity.”

More recently I was told, if 40% of Armenian words have Iranian roots, it is the Iranians who borrowed from us and not the other way around. The evidence? To make a long story short, we are “the cradle of civilization.”

If true, I wonder why is it that no historian has so far bothered to write a history of our decline and fall? Is it because the roots of our decline and fall are within us? -- and more particularly in our tribalism, ignorance, prejudice, arrogance, and megalomania – and more particularly, the kind of megalomania that allows us to believe anything that flatters our collective ego?

Or is it because, in the words of our own Raffi:

“We are Armenians and we bear God's curse on our foreheads. We demolish our house with our own hands. Mutual intolerance, divisiveness, envy, betrayal, and a thousand other vices have built permanent nests in our hearts.”

Elsewhere:

“If you examine carefully our national misfortunes and the acts of barbarism perpetrated against us by our enemies, you will invariably find an Armenian. Where Armenian blood flows look for for an Armenian hatchet. After digging the foundations and carefully raising his house, an Armenian will tear it down again with his own hands.”

Is this why the cradle has become the grave?

#

April 23, 2010

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

ARMENIANS ON ARMENIANS

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

As an Armenian, you may say whatever you wish about your fellow Armenians and get away with it on the grounds that (one) as an Armenian you are an expert on the subject, and (two) most Armenians are dupes who know even less than you do. What Ajarian said about the Armenian language (“Who among us can truly claim to know the Armenian language?”) could be said about Armenians -- “Who among us can truly say to understand Armenians?”

An Armenian is a foreign country to another Armenian. Our differences are such that it is as if we were not only members of different tribes but also of races. I remember once when a fellow Armenian and I disagreed and I said, “We must come from different planetary system,” he retorted with “Make it galaxies.”

What you think or say about Armenians may contain particles of truth which may be easily contradicted by someone else's particles. I say and I repeat, feel free to say whatever you wish about Armenians provided you are honestly interested in the subject which, after all, is an integral part of the human condition – not exactly alien territory to many disciplines, among them philosophy, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and semantics.

*

A reader has posted a critical comment in which he praises the generosity of our benefactors and attacks the integrity of our bishops on the grounds they are in it only for the money. If true – and it may well be – the questions we must ask are:

If those among us who speak in the name of God are corrupt, what about those who speak in the name of ideology (bosses) or capital (benefactors)?

If the central concern of our bishops is greed, is the central concern of our bosses and benefactors selfless service?

Are we to believe religion is abused but power and wealth are not?

What has been the contribution of capitalism and ideology to the human condition?

An idea should be judged by its history and not its dictionary definition.

A power structure should be judged not by those in power but by its history of abuses. Where there is power, there will be abuses of power. This is as true of the papacy as it is of monarchy, imperialism, communism, capitalism, authoritarianism, and democracy.

#

April 24, 2010

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

CONTRADICTIONS

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

Nothing can be more misleading than to confuse chauvinism with patriotism, and dissent with treason. Because to do so also means to confuse propaganda with truth, fascism with democracy, and subservience with independence.

*

All leaders, be they political or religious, rely on the propensity of the average dupe to say “Yes, sir!” Leadership without dupes is inconceivable.

*

Fascism and human rights are mutually exclusive concepts. History is very clear on this point. A leader who pretends to have the Keys of the Kingdom, his Kingdom is that of Hell.

*

We are told one reason suffering is an integral part of the human condition is that Adam and Eve ignored God's warning not to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. In other words, they failed to say “Yes, sir!” and they dared to think for themselves. If you believe that, you will believe anything, including the necessity of just wars, which also means massacres, violations of human rights, and intolerance of free speech.

*

In the eyes of warlike people, all wars are just. Has any nation in the history of mankind ever admitted to have initiated an unjust war? Or, for that matter, has any religious leader ever admitted to believe in a false God? And yet, the world is full of them.

#

[ara baliozian]

April 25, 2010

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

COMPASSION

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

Compassion, I am told, is a missing ingredient in my commentaries. What I am not told is, compassion for whom? The victim or the victimizer, the deceiver or his dupe?

*

A critic is judged by his degree of objectivity; a sermonizer by his compassion (which means suffering with); a physician, on the other hand, is judged by the accuracy of his diagnoses; and a lawyer by his ability to prove the innocent guilty (if he is with the prosecution) and the guilty innocent (if he is with the defense).

What I am trying to say here is that, all lines of work have their own specific and narrow aims, and it would be a mistake for a critic to muscle in the territory of sermonizers, or for that matter, for a lawyer to discard his whig, don a white coat and with a stethoscope around his neck, walk into a hospital and pretend to know what he is talking about.

*

As Armenians, shall we ascribe all our problems to our writers and critics for their lack of compassion? Like the rest of mankind, we too have been exposed to sermonizers for almost two millennia now. What has been the result? More lies, more corruption, more incompetence, more victims, more blunders, and more propaganda. As they say in Washington: “You want a friend who will love you even if you are an s.o.b. or a dealer in b.s. (caca de toro), get a dog!”

#

April 26, 2010

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

AND ANOTHER THING

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

Underestimating the opposition might as well be synonymous with defeat.

At the turn of the last century the Ottoman Empire was labeled “the Sick Man of Europe.” That's when our revolutionaries decided to challenge its might and went as far as daring the Sultan to massacre us, assuming if he was foolish enough to do so, the Great Powers of the West and the Czar of all the Russias would fall on him like a ton of bricks. No one said the Empire was less like a sick man and more like a wounded tiger, that is to say, at its most dangerous phase.

Our greatest enemy then and now is not the Turk but our damaged perception of reality.

*

And now, consider the case of Palestinians today: they too underestimated the opposition when they chose to go on the warpath. They thought, as Muslims – once upon a time mighty warriors and empire builders – they outnumbered Jews a thousand to one. Besides, who were these Jews who dared to occupy their lands? Nothing but scrawny money-changers who had not fought and won a single war during the last two thousand years.

*

How right are those of my readers who tell me I should get busy flattering egos instead of exposing derrières and questioning the integrity of our leaders, their institutions, and their fund-raising campaigns?

And speaking of fund-raising: If the deciding vote is cast by the bottom line, it only means the decision-makers think not with their brains (assuming they have any) but with their bottoms.

*

It has been said, “We begin to grow up on the day someone we love dies.”

We died.

What have our leaders learned?

Did they ever love us?

#

April 27, 2010

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

AS OTHERS SEE US

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

Last night on the evening news on TV there was talk of organized Armenian gangs in Los Angeles. Now a few more million people know we are not what we pretend to be.

But then who is?

And yet, we keep brainwashing our children to believe we are better and silencing those who dare to disagree.

We need a positive outlook on life, we are told by negative individuals. And by negative individuals I mean Panchoonies, Jack S. Avanakians, and their dupes whose main concern is covering up who they really are and what they are really up to. In other words, Armenians who speak in the name of Armenianism and practice Ottomanism and Sovietism.

By negative individuals I mean cowards who are afraid to take a good look at themselves in the mirror – afraid of what they may see there.

To cover up their treason, they speechify on patriotism.

Our organized criminal gangs: where did they learn their trade?

By observing our “betters” of course -- that is to say, our commissars in the Homeland, and in the Diaspora, our bosses and bishops – or our mini-sultans and crypto-imams.

How to reconcile our criminal gangs with our demand for Genocide recognition?

That indeed is the question.

All nations have their share of criminal gangs.

If true, then let us have the decency to admit once and for all that we are no better than the rest of mankind, including Turks. And if, unlike Turks, we are not guilty of genocide, it's not because we are better. Because to say we are better than Turks is to confuse military inferiority with moral superiority.

And now, let us pray, if we still have a prayer.

#

April 28, 2010

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

THE ENEMY WITHIN

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

We were defeated because our enemies outnumbered us.

True or false?

To imply that God created more Turks than Armenians is to accuse Him of being pro-Turkish and anti-Armenian. Like all nations and empires Turks too began their career as a collection of small tribes. With one difference. They were successful in forging alliances with one another. Forging alliances has never been our forte. Being subservient to barbarians comes more easily to us than coming to terms with our own brothers.

*

We are told geography is destiny. We were divided because of our mountains and valleys.

Consider the case of North-American Indians: not only they lived on flatlands but they also outnumbered white men. And yet they lost. They lost because they were divided. Too many chiefs...

*

If in crime it's “cherchez la femme,” in politics it's “cherchez the enemy within.” If, on the other hand, you put the blame on others (another line of thinking popular with us) you condemn yourself to die an ignoramus.

*

More cases in point:

Hitler won at first because he was successful in uniting the German-speaking people. But he lost because he divided his fellow Germans into friends and enemies. As a result, he lost some of the most creative minds in his realm.

Something similar could be said of Stalin's USSR. It was not American capitalism or the Pope of Rome that defeated Communism, but Stalin.

*

Is my criticism wrong because I don't understand my fellow Armenians?

Nobody is perfect. If you read only infallible writers, you should stick to Papal Encyclicals. If I am wrong, the next question we should ask is: Are our propagandists right?

As for understanding my fellow Armenians: I don't have to understand why they think as they do because I too was brought up to think like them. I have been there.

A layman may be forgiven for believing what he is brainwashed to believe. But he cannot and should not be forgiven for thinking he knows better and what he knows is the alpha and omega of human knowledge and wisdom. That's neither knowledge nor wisdom but arrogance or hubris, which is invariably punished by the gods.

#

[ara baliozian]

April 29, 2010

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

CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG

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

Arrogance: The difference between how smart we are and how smart we think we are. Or rather, the difference between how smart we think we are and how dumb we really are.

*

From the war of Troy to those of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan in our own days, we can say with some degree of certainty that war-makers are never right.

*

Our revolutionaries challenged the might of the Ottoman Empire not because we loved freedom too much (we never did...even now, in a free country like America, we continue to be afraid of free speech – see below) but because we were deceived into thinking the Empire was on its deathbed and the Great Powers were on our side.

*

Who is taken in by lies? Only dupes who allow wishful thinking to cloud their judgment.

*

Our genocide is a major tragedy. But it is also a disastrous defeat, and as such it should be analyzed objectively -- if, that is, we want to learn from our blunders. To call it a tragedy and engage in endless lamentation does nothing but certify our status as perennial victims.

To those who say our conditions of life in the Empire were so unbearable that we had no choice but to act. Maybe so, but the aim of action is not to make things worse but better. Oppression is degrading. Sadistic oppression is unbearable. But genocide is infinitely worse!

*

To say that we rose against the Empire because we loved freedom too much, is to ignore our history and the fact that for most of our existence we were the obedient and loyal subjects of ruthless and bloodthirsty tyrants from Suleiman to Stalin. So much so that in the Ottoman Empire our masters called us “the most loyal millet (ethnic group).” We were loyal to the point of betraying to the authorities our ablest men.

*

As for our love of freedom and fear of free speech: according to Hagop Garabents (Jack Karapetian) – not a dissident or critic but a pro-establishment novelist, essayist, and short story writer: “Once upon a time we fought and shed our blood for freedom. We are now afraid of free speech.”

I have quoted this line before and I will continue to quote it to remind our dupes that we are not what we pretend to be, and there is a natural tendency in all of us to speak with a forked tongue.

*

Churchill once said: “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” Which is why I don't trust our nationalist historians – they are invariably too kind to the nation at the expense of the truth. As for our political leaders: like all political leaders they are closer to being compulsive liars than honest witnesses or selfless servants. To believe in what they say is to be a certifiable dupe.

#

April 30, 2010

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

QUESTION

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

Is what I write of any use to anyone?

I don't know and I don't care to know.

I prefer to think no one gives a damn. At least that way I have history on my side (see below). If I were to believe what I write matters, I would begin to take myself seriously and gradually degenerate into a pompous ass. Instead of sharing my understanding I would sermonize and speechify, and of sermonizers and speechifiers we already have more than our share.

*

HISTORY

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

Betrayed to the authorities, abused, silenced, neglected, starved, and driven to suicide or executed, our ablest writers have been conveniently buried and forgotten. I have said this before and it bears repeating. Why should anyone give a damn about what a minor scribbler says?

*

MEMO TO MY CRITICS

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

To those of my readers who are eager to inform me that I am on the wrong path, I say: “Relax! No harm done. No one gives a damn. Why should you?”

*

ANOTHER QUESTION

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

Our children are brought up and even encouraged to brag about our Golden Age (5th century AD). But has anyone bothered to read any one of our golden masterpieces? Or having read them, has understood what they say? And what they say is what every honest witness has said: corruption and divisions breed incompetence, and to ignore our blunders or to cover them up is to sign the death warrant of the nation.

We have survived for millennia and we will continue to survive?

A man condemned to die the death of a thousand cuts will also survive up to the 999th cut.

What if, instead of survivors, we are “dead men walking”?

*

IF

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

If I write what no one want to read it may be because there are many others who make a comfortable living – thank you very much – by writing what they are told to write. And what are they told to write? What else but Turks, massacres, and “mi kich pogh...”

*

THE ROOTS OF INTOLERANCE

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

To elevate an opinion, and often a false one, to an ideology, and an ideology to a belief system is a mistake we all make when we are young and not yet able to think for ourselves. This descent from the human to the thoroughly dehumanized is so gradual that more often than not it escape notice. And that's where I come in.

*

CONFESSION

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

I may be prejudiced. As a writer – make it, scribbler – I tend to identify with writers as opposed to their executioners. What about you?

Allow me to end with a quotation:

Antranik Zaroukian: “What kind of people are we? What kind of leadership is this? Instead of compassion, mutual contempt. Instead of reason, blind instinct. Instead of common sense, fanaticism.”

Even more to the point:

“They speak of the cross and nail us to it again as they speak.”

#

May 1, 2010

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

FAILINGS

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

“I am not a Marxist!” That's the smartest thing Marx said.

As for capitalists being bloodsuckers: that has never been a secret. There is even a line to that effect in the Bible.

Christ never said “I am not a Christian,” probably because he never thought of himself as the founder of a new religion.

Speaking for myself: I am a human being first, an Armenian second, and an Armenianist, never!

*

Judging by the number of wars, revolutions, massacres, and genocides: a man is first and foremost a killing machine in search of a reason to justify his lust for blood – religion being one of them.

*

You are an honest man?

Prove it!

Show me your scars.

*

I repeat myself?

Not as often as our Panchoonies and Jack S. Avanakians.

*

You want to know why I haven't been lynched so far? Because I live in the middle of nowhere, and nowhere is hard to locate on the map.

*

There are failings and there are rotten failings. Example of a rotten failing: the fundamental human right of free speech is an invention of the degenerate West.

*

Speaking of Oshagan and his friends, Zarian once remarked: “When they speak of homeland they mean Istanbul.” One could also say, when we speak of Armenianism, we mean Ottomanism.

*

Unlike doctors, writers don't have a Hippocratic Oath. As a result, they are as willing to sell their soul as a whore is to sell her body. (I am now paraphrasing Zohrab.)

*

If Americans prefer to believe Turks rather than us, it may be because it is in their own interest to do so. The rule is, everyone does what's in his own best interest. But like all rules, this one too has its exception: namely, us. We do whatever we undertake to do because it is against our own self-interest.

#

ararat magazine

Bobelian's Children of Armenia. by Ara Baliozian comments: 0 ... Canadian writer Ara Baliozian was born in Athens, Greece, and educated in Venice, Italy. ...

www.araratmagazine.org/2010/04/bobelian-children-of-armenia/ - Cached

##

[ara baliozian]

May 2, 2010

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

There are good Armenians and there are bad Armenians, or so I am told.

I am a bad Armenian because I hate myself and I hate Armenians, or so I am told.

Rouben Mamoulian was a bad Armenian because he never helped a single Armenian.

I once knew an Armenian conductor who, after inviting an Armenian pianist to play with his orchestra, said “Never again!”

*

Never again!

Two words used by victims with the implication, “Unless we are the perps.”

*

Once when asked why I don't encourage young Armenian writers, I said “We need readers not writers.” No one dared to object.

*

One of the functions of lawyers is to defend the lawless.

*

When asked if I believe in God, I say, “I don't believe in the God of imams, popes,

and televangelists.”

It seems to me, speaking about God or trying to understand the inconceivable and the incomprehensible, is like trying to drink the sea with a spoon.

*

If you are an Armenian and have an opinion , you can always rely on a fellow Armenian to call you a fool and an ignoramus.

*

A safe assumption: Anything that flatters the ego is false.

*

When, at the turn of the last century, Turks heard Armenian Evangelicals singing "Onward Christian soldiers," they thought the giaours were planning another crusade.

*

If I took my critics seriously, I would have two instead of only one ulcer.

*

Good men don't judge bad men, because good men (if they exist) are too busy examining their own heart.

*

If an Armenian tells you he doesn't hate Turks, it may be because he loves to lie even more.

*

From a popular Armenian song:

"An Armenian loves to eat (oudel)

and he eats to hate (adel)."

#

May 3, 2010

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

CALL IT MEGALOMANIA

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

My mission in life: to de-Ottomanize and to de-Stalinize my fellow Armenians; which amounts to saying: to humanize the dehumanized, to civilize barbarians, and to deprogram the brainwashed. Not an easy task. Which is why so far I have failed and the chances that I will ever succeed are so remote that they might as well be invisible to the most powerful telescope.

*

A LOVE STORY

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

In a review of an Iranian novel mention is made of a classical Sufi love poem titled "KHOSROW AND SHIRIN, written nine centuries ago by Nizami and telling of the romance between a great Persian king and an Armenian princess.”

*

A SOLEMN PROMISE

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

On the day I will stop infuriating fools, fanatics, and fascists (but I repeat myself) I will give up writing.

*

PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL REFLECTIONS

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

What we don't know about the physical world or the visible universe far exceeds what we know. As for the metaphysical world – that which lies beyond the visible – we know nothing. Nothing! That doesn't stop us from blabbering endlessly about God, the Mother of God, the Son of God, the immortality of the soul, heaven and hell, and angels and devils.

*

CHARLATANS: A DEFINITION

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

Sermonizers and speechifiers who speak endlessly about things they know nothing about. Shaw is right: “All professions are conspiracies against the laity.”

*

TODAY'S QUOTATION

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

William McAdoo: “It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.”

#

May 4, 2010

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

THAT WHICH WE SHARE

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

Our failings are universal, I am reminded once in a while by readers who are so afraid to confront their own failings that they adopt the school of thought that says “misery likes company.”

There are divisions everywhere, granted; also corruption and incompetence, not to speak of prejudice and ignorance. But is that the end of the story?

*

In a book on the social behavior of animals, I read today: “The analysis of DNA demonstrates that only 2% of our genetic code differs from that of chimpanzees.”

In some respects, animals may be ahead of us:

“Female chimpanzees (unlike female humans) do not experience menopause, and thus can remain fertile into old age.”

Elsewhere: “It is not so much that elephants are like us. They are us, and we them.”

*

We like to say that Naregatsi is our Shakespeare and Dante combined. But who reads Naregatsi? Not even Armenians. At least I have never heard an Armenian quote a single line by Naregatsi.

*

Armenians are a fraction of mankind in the same way that a day is a fraction of eternity.

*

“An Englishman cannot be a slave,” they sing in “Rule Britannia.”

And what do we sing? “Mer hairenik, tshvar ander.”

*

About Armenians and slavery:

“Once upon a time we were slaves. We are now slaves of former slaves.”

We take to slavery like a duck takes to water, a baby to mother's milk, and newlyweds to their bed.

Instead of being subservient to the Sultan, we are now subservient to our bosses, bishops, and benefactors. Progress cannot be said to be our most important product.

*

An autobiographical short story by an American writer begins with the words: “As one who works with words for a living...”

An Armenian writer could introduce himself with the same words except one: instead of “living” he would have to say “dying.”

#

May 5, 2010

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

CONFESSIONS

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

In the Homeland, our elections are marred by irregularities, or so I am told by observers. In the diaspora, we have no elections. We must therefore conclude that our representatives represent no one but themselves and their respective mafias. As for our so called democracy, respect for human rights, and rule of law: they are nothing but fictions of our imagination.

We have been so thoroughly Ottomanized and Sovietized that we consider these aberrations business as usual.

When will we see the light?

It is said of blind men that when their sight is restored, they take refuge in dark rooms.

*

To refuse to flatter fools is not the same as being negative.

*

Heroes are like cops: they are never there when you need them.

*

We flatter ourselves when we say the world, or a fraction of it, is against us. The truth is much worse, as always. The world is for itself and we may not even register on its consciousness. It would be even more accurate to say that the world cares about us as much as we care about ourselves.

*

Unlike Turks we are good at picking fights we can't win. Several of our poets have even addressed some nasty words against the Good Lord Himself. At this point I don't mind admitting that, by picking a fight against our bosses, bishops, benefactors and their army of hirelings, flunkies, dupes and brown-nosers, I too have picked a fight I can't win, and I have thus joined the ranks of my ancestors as a perennial loser.

#

[ara baliozian]

May 6, 2010

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

WITNESSES FOR THE PROSECUTION

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

Our history keeps unfolding like a worst case scenario.

And what has been the contribution of our leadership to this fiasco?

Treason, betrayal, and collaboration with the enemy.

And the contribution of our historians?

Lies and propaganda.

We are a people like any other people, we are told.

To which I can only say:

When was the last time we beheaded a single king or boss?

Am I advocating public executions?

Hell no! Only pointing out a difference.

But enough about what I think. Allow me to introduce my witnesses:

*

Shavarsh Missakian on our degeneration:

“The Armenian Diaspora is losing its character. Our language, our literature, and our traditions are degenerating. Even our religious leaders have abandoned their calling and turned into cunning wheeler-dealers. Our press thrives on meaningless controversies. I see charlatanism and cheap chauvinism everywhere but not a single trace of self-sacrifice and dedication to principles and ideals. What's happening to us? Where are we heading? Quo vadis, O Armenian people?”

*

Levon *****lian on our bosses:

“A familiar figure in our collective existence is the wealthy and arrogant community leader who, by obstructing the path of all those who wish to reform and improve our conditions, perpetuates a status quo whose sole aim is his own personal profit and aggrandizement.”

*

Philip Mansel on massacres:

“Some Armenian leaders hoped for a massacre in the belief that it would provoke the intervention of the Great Powers.”

*

Shirvanzadeh on our ghazetajis:

“The narrow partisan propaganda line that is espoused by our press is the enemy of all literature.”

*

Nigoghos Sarafian:

“Our history is a litany of lamentation, anxiety, horror, and slaughter. Also deception and abysmal naiveté mixed with the smoke of incense and the sound of sharagans.”

*

Derenik Saribekian on collaboration with the enemy:

“It is safer to defend the interests of wolves against sheep than the other way around.”

*

Nothing further, your Honor!

#

May 7, 2010

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

DECLINE AND FALL

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

What makes strong nations weak?

Corruption, incompetence, divisions, and internecine conflicts.

What makes weak nations weaker?

Ditto.

Knowing this why do we allow our leaders to divide us?

Because they are more like wolves and we are more like sheep.

*

About corruption: is there anything we can do about it?

We begin by exposing it. Not an easy undertaking.

Why not?

Because the corrupt don't like to be exposed, and the incompetent will never admit incompetence. Those in power will never give it up without a bloody fight, Hegel tells us, and so it is. Consider the number of emperors, kings, and czars that were assassinated or beheaded. But even more to the point, consider the number of thinkers who were persecuted, silenced, exiled, and executed.

*

If I speak of our many problems but don't provide a single solution (as my critics are fond of saying) it may be because I write for readers who are brainwashed to believe we are in the best of hands and we never had it so good.

As for readers who tell me they know all about our problems but what they need is solutions, I say: We can't abracadabra our way out of our problems, and there are no verbal formulas or programs with numbered steps that will reform our leaders, who expect us to believe they are doing their best and if their best is not good enough it is because we are all at the mercy of historical, cultural, political, and environmental conditions beyond our control.

And if you believe that, you will believe anything!

#

May 8, 2010

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

ON HISTORIANS

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

Herodotus, the“father of history,” is also known as the “father of lies.” Ever since then historians have called one another liars. Two of the greatest historians of the last century, Arnold J. Toynbee and Oswald Spengler, have attracted more critical fire and verbal abuse by fellow historians than any other historian dead or alive. For more on this subject, see Toynbee's STUDY OF HISTORY,volume 12, subtitled RECONSIDERATIONS, where he discusses and replies to his critics, one of whom – Hugh Trevor-Roper, a fellow Englishman – was so abusive that reading him, Toynbee writes in a footnote, was like being verbally electrocuted.

*

We are products not of our culture, religion, climate, and environment, but of our collective experiences, that is to say, our history, or rather, the lies of our historians, which have done more to shape our worldview and character than reality and truth, or our literature and culture, of which the average Armenian knows nothing and cares even less – unless of course you classify shish-kebab and pilaf under culture.

*

My human right of free speech has been violated unanimously by our publishers and editors and I can't think of a single reader, writer, academic or vodanavorji who has raised a single objection. I have been reduced to the status of an abominable no man all because I refuse to recycle the lies of our historians or to flatter the colossal egos of our leaders.

*

To those who accuse me of being a denialist, I suggest they read my ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND THE WEST.

*

You want to prosper in our environment?

Lie!

*

To those who say I am not published in our press because I am a bad writer, I say: I could make a long list of far better writers than myself who not only were silenced but also betrayed, exiled or executed. And if you say, since I have not been exiled or shot, it means we are moving in the right direction, I say, I am not exiled because I live in self-imposed exile in the middle of nowhere, which I call “my Siberia.” And the only reason I have not been betrayed and shot is that I have done nothing against the laws of the land, namely Canada, which is a democracy, and in a democracy writers don't get shot for exercising their human rights.

As I have said before and it bears repeating: Progress is not our most important product.

#

[ara baliozian]

May 9, 2010

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

TO MAKE A LONG STORY SHORT

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

Just because something happens, it does not mean it is God's will.

God has given us a brain and if we don't use it, we can't blame our blunders on God or, for that matter, on the Devil.

But the blame-game is the favorite sport of all losers, and we are no exception.

*

“Turks, Turks, Turks,” say our leaders; never “the buck stops here.”

*

To say we need solutions is to imply that our literature is a waste of time – a convenient line with which to suppress dissent or anyone who refuses to flatter our ego.

*

We are not as good as we think we, Naregatsi tells us. We may even be worse than we like to admit. Which may explain why Naregatsi is our greatest and least read writer.

*

If you want the truth, give up all hope for flattery.

*

Where there are divisions, there will also be dupes who are easily taken in by false arguments.

*

Nice Armenians exist, but only in Saroyan, who was himself far from nice, or so we are told by his wife and son in their memoirs.

*

There is no money in dissent, hence the scarcity of dissenters.

There is money in flattery, hence the abundance of brown-nosers.

*

A victim who collaborates with his victimizer ceases to be a victim.

#

May 10, 2010

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

AS OTHERS SEE US

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

We have friends. So do Turks. In a review of Norman Stone's THE ATLANTIC AND ITS ENEMIES, I read: “...he (Norman Stone) has become a passionate advocate for Turkey against a very powerful Armenian diaspora.” (THE SPECTATOR, 24 April 2010, page 32.)

I suspect what is meant here is not that we are powerful but that we have some mighty powerful arguments in our favor.

*

To cover up a scandal or a lie may be easy, but to cover up a million corpses is much more difficult. The Turks say the corpses are not Armenian but Turkish. What they ignore is the fact that you cannot bury a million bodies in the middle of a desert where no battle was fought.

A very powerful Armenian diaspora?

Don't make me laugh!

*

In the same issue of THE SPECTATOR I also read the following: “...the real abuse by Roman Catholic priests may not be the groping of child bodies but priestly subversion of child minds.”

I agree! Brainwashing is as serious a crime as sexual molestation of defenseless boys and girls.

Organized religions compound their felonies by

(one) asserting infallibility, and

(two) by legitimizing intolerance.

*

Thucydides: “The strong do what they will and the weak suffer what they must.”

By dividing themselves and engaging in endless internecine conflicts, the ancient Greeks and contemporaries of Thucydides fell prey to Macedonians, Romans, and Ottoman Turks. And very much like us, they continue to divide themselves today. And again like us, they continue to find themselves at the mercy of powers beyond their control.

*

Philip Pullman: “Wisdom works secretly and quietly, not in the great courts and palaces of the earth, but among ordinary people.”

#

May 11, 2010

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

COMMISSARS

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

To how many of my critics and detractors I could say, some day if I ever write an essay titled “Portrait of a commissar,” I will use you as a source of inspiration. Like all commissars, you are better at shooting writers than understanding them. I wonder why. Is it because it is easier to shoot them in the neck than trying to understand them?

*

Like all skinheads and fanatics, all commissars are wrong if only because they assert infallibility, which amounts to a bordello madam asserting virginity.

*

It is much easier to say “It was God's will,” rather than, “It was our fault.”

*

In all anti-democratic environments, the people are brainwashed to support and believe in liars and starve those who expose them.

*

Why should God interfere when men adopt the Devil as their role model?

After giving us what we need to survive and shape our destiny, God tells us, “It's up to you to decide if you want to live like free men or die like slaves.”

You may now guess what has been our choice.

*

“Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds,” Homer says of Odysseus. We too have seen many cities and a large variety of men, but what have we learned? -- except perhaps to brag about how smart we are and blame others for our misfortunes.

*

You want solutions?

Read the Bible.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

“Where there is no vision the people perish.”

And the people perish because

“When the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”

*

Unlike Protestants, Catholics are not encouraged to read the Bible. Neither, it seems, are Armenians – judging by the number of readers who demand solutions from me, as if I were a better writer than the Holy Ghost.

*

Even so, I thank my detractors, for they are my most faithful readers.

#

May 12, 2010

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

MY AIM IN LIFE

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

To make the incomprehensible comprehensible.

Also to convince the brainwashed

that they have been brainwashed.

Not an easy task, especially if the brainwashed

have also been brainwashed to believe they are smart.

I maintain our history,

or what they call nowadays, our narrative,

proves that some of us may indeed be smart in the marketplace,

but most of us are dumb in politics.

What if I am wrong and my critics right?

That's always a possibility of course,

but a very remote one, if my critics believe

what I believed thirty years ago.

As for those of my critics who think

they have all the answers:

No one but the Good Lord has all the answers --

I use the Good Lord as a point of reference.

I don't assert His existence.

I assume it.

There is a difference.

As for our genocide:

I believe the narrative of our nationalist historians

and Turcocentric ghazetajis to be wrong

in so far as it stresses Turkish responsibility

and covers up the incompetence of our leadership.

Lamentation is important.

But learning from our blunders is even more so.

Turkish responsibility does not justify

our own past and present irresponsibility.

#

[ara baliozian]

May 13, 2010

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

POPES...AND RELATED ATROCITIES.

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

I am reading a book on Renaissance popes. What rascals they were! They engaged in fornication, murder, torture, treason, wars of conquest...One of them promoted his teenage bastard son, who was not even a priest, to cardinal.

*

It is beyond me why some serious writers like Mauriac, Claudel, and Graham Greene took their Catholicism seriously. Why should anyone bother to identify himself as a Catholic when he could choose to be an honest man? Are the two mutually incompatible?

*

If one includes the number of heretics who were burned at the stake, the papacy has probably killed more people than the Mafia.

Besides these popes, American televangelists are no better than rank amateurs.

*

Organized religions are successful because like Ponzi schemes they promise much more than they deliver. They promise heaven and deliver hell. They promise 72 virgins (I wonder, what do they promise to virgins?) and they legitimize the murder of innocent civilians.

*

That's the way it is with charlatans: the more they promise, the less they deliver. The great Powers promised our historic lands, and they delivered massacres.

*

To be dependent on someone else's goodwill: I can't imagine a worst fate. We were dependent on Turkish goodwill for 600 years, until...

*

Even at its most savage, writing is the gentlest of arts, because no writer is in a position to force anyone to read what he writes. If you are disappointed in what you are reading, it may well be a result of inadequacy, not necessarily yours but mine.

*

It is easy to make mistakes, much harder to admit them.

*

In old age you become aware of your youthful mistakes.

*

We are all entitled to make one or two major mistakes and ten thousand minor ones.

*

For every honest man there are ten thousand crooks who are brainwashed to believe they are honest men.

#

May 14, 2010

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

FREIENDS AND ENEMIES

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

I find the venom of my enemies more stimulating than the honey of my friends, in the same way that our Turcocentric ghazetajis find the lies of Turkish bureaucrats more stimulating than the truths of our writers – judging by the lies they quote and the truths they ignore.

And why?

Because asserting moral superiority is more flattering to their ego than examining their conscience.

But that's not the worst part of it.

The most dangerous misconception our Turcocentric ghazetajis spread is the notion that our genocide is history (in the sense that it belongs to the irrevocable past) rather than a self-inflicted ongoing operation. That is also why they are very eager to name the perpetrators of the first “red” genocide, but not of the second “white” one.

*

The trouble with asserting moral superiority is that it doesn't end there. Sooner or later and gradually it degenerates to dogmatism and ultimately infallibility; and we all know what happens to charlatans who assert infallibility: they end up victimizing innocent and defenseless civilians – from burning heretics at the stake to sexually assaulting children.

*

You want to know what is the difference between propaganda and literature?

Our propaganda says, we have enemies and we have friends.

Our literature says, the enemy is us.

*

Were the Great Powers of the West our enemies or friends?

If they were our friends, where were they when we needed them most?

*

In his JOURNALS Kierkegaard writes: “One man alone cannot help or save the age in which he lives, he can only express the fact that it will perish.”

To save the age?

If our Lord perished while trying, what chance to we miserable mortals have?

#

May 15, 2010

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

WHAT IS PROPAGANDA?

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

The difference between a lie and propaganda is that a lie may be exposed but propaganda, even when exposed, continues to be believed.

*

All power structures (be they political parties, organized religion, or business corporations) engage in propaganda. That's because their number one concern is their own legitimacy rather than the truth.

*

All power that is not selfless service is illegitimate.

*

To believe and to recycle propaganda is infinitely more dangerous than to lie.

*

Propaganda is at the root of all intolerance, persecution, wars, and massacres.

*

Only dupes who cannot think for themselves believe in propaganda.

*

The world is a dangerous place and life a risky business because those who cannot think for themselves have always outnumbered those who can.

*

Millions of innocent civilians have died because their killers were brainwashed to believe their God was the only true God, and their race was God's chosen.

*

For every propaganda line there will be another that contradicts it.

*

All claims of superiority are false because no one has ever admitted to belong to an inferior race, nation, or tribe.

*

Moses was wrong if only because he failed to add the most important commandment of all, namely: “Thou shalt not believe in men who speak in the name of God for they engage in propaganda.”

#

[ara baliozian]

May 16, 2010

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

REPLIES

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

FROM AN INTERVIEW

WITH BETTY MIDLER

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

Q: What is the quality you most like in a man?

A: Guts.

Q: What is the quality you most like in a woman?

A: Balls.

*

FROM AN INTERVIEW

WITH BRIGITTE BARDOT

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

Q: If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

A: Nothing about me. Everything about others.

*

FROM AN INTERVIEW

WITH SALMAN RUSHDIE

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

Q: What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

A: Faith.

Q: What is your greatest fear?

A: Irrelevance.

*

See VANITY FAIR'S PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE (New York, 2009)

#

May 17, 2010

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

MORE REPLIES TO

THE PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE

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

MAUREEN DOWD

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

Q: How would you like to die?

A: After my enemies.

*

DUSTIN HOFFMAN

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

Q: On what occasion do you lie?

A: When people ask , “How are you?” The real answer I save for my therapist.

Q: Who are your favorite writers?

A: Nineteenth-century Russians.

*

WILLIAM F. BUCKLEY

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

Q: What or who is the greatest love of your life?

A: J.S. Bach.

*

SIDNEY POITIER

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

Q: Who is your favorite hero of fiction?

A: Jason Bourne.

*

WALTER MATTHAU

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

Q: Which historical figure do you most identify with?

A: Jack the Ripper.

Q: What is your motto?

A: “F*ck you.”

*

DAVE BRUBECK

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

Q: If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?

A: J.S. Bach.

*

GORE VIDAL

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

Q: Who are your heroes in real life?

A: Dr Kevorkian.

#

May 18, 2010

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

MY ANSWERS TO

THE PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE

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

Q: What is your idea of perfect happiness?

A: Playing Bach on the organ in an empty church.

Q: What is that you most dislike in others?

A: Intolerance.

Q: What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

A: Charm and a perfect set of white gleaming teeth.

Q: What do you consider your greatest achievement?

A: The fact that I have been writing for thirty-five years and I am still alive. Very few Armenian writers can say as much.

Q: Your favorite word?

A: Compassion.

Q: Your favorite writers?

A: Plato, Chekhov, Toynbee, Sartre, Zarian, Koestler, Simenon, Chandler, Lesley Blanch...among many others.

Q: Who are your heroes in real life?

A: Socrates, Diogenes, Gandhi.

Q: Your favorite heroes of fiction?

A: Jack Bower, Jason Bourne, Bugs Bunny, and Walker in POINT BLANK.

Q: Your happiest experience?

A: Receiving a letter from Saroyan saying he reads everything I write.

Q: Who is the greatest love of your life?

A: After my mother, J.S. Bach.

Q: Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

A: “If you know what I am saying,” when I don't know what I am saying.

Q: On what occasion do you lie?

A: When asked by a writer to assess his work.

Q: How would you like to die?

A: Suddenly, in my sleep.

Q: Which talent would you most like to have?

A: The ability to sing Neapolitan serenades.

Q: What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

A: Self-doubt.

Q: What is the trait you most deplore in others?

A: Subservience.

Q: What is your most marked characteristic?

A: Timidity.

Q: Which living person do you most despise?

A: Flunkies, hirelings, and brown-nosers.

Q: What is your favorite journey?

A: Greek islands, Italian cities, South-American jungles, and Caucasian mountains.

Q: If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?

A: A concert pianist.

Q: What do you regard as the lowest of misery?

A: To be a homeless refugee in a poor country under an authoritarian regime in time of war.

Q: If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

A: To be more diplomatic in my dealings with my fellow men.

#

May 19, 2010

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

MORE ANSWERS TO

THE PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE

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

Q: Your favorite occupation?

A: Reading.

Q: Your greatest fear?

A: Losing my eyesight.

Q: Where would you like to live?

A: Since I can no longer live in the Armenian ghetto in Athens where I spent my early years – because it was torn down – in Venice.

Q: Your most treasured possession?

A: The complete organ and piano works of J.S. Bach.

Q: Your favorite saying?

A: “When the house is finished, death enters.”

*

DAVID STEINBERG

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

Q: If you could choose what to come back as, what would it be?

A: Frank Sinatra's dick-- the early years.

*

ON THE RADIO

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

“They don't eat bagels in Israel.”

*

SHRINKS

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

I am told I hate myself. If I do, it may be because I can't imagine anything more repulsive than being infatuated with oneself.

*

Everything I say about Armenians has been said before, and if not said, felt.

#

[Moushegh]

Mr Baliozian,

 

 

May I ask some questions?

 

 

 

1) Which compositions of J.S. Bach are your favorites?

 

2) Who are your [other] favorite composers?

 

3) Who are your favorite pianists?

 

4) Who are your most least-liked people in history? (you didn't give specific names)

 

5) Which of your books would you recommend to others?

 

6) What would you like to be remembered for?

 

7) Which books [by other authors] would you recommend to others?

 

8) What is the one thing you would have done differently in your life?

 

9) What will be the first question you would like to ask of 'God?'

 

10) What is the one thing you would like to see happen in the world?

 

 

 

 

I always enjoy reading your posts. Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions.

 

I know you what you think of people who pay compliments, but I consider you to be a treasure of our people. Thank you for all your work. God bless.

[ara baliozian]

May 20, 2010

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

ON LEVANTINE CUNNING

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

After informing me that translating Zarian is a waste of time because he was a loud-mouth nonentity, a third-rate vodanavorji and a fourth-rate intellect went to suggest that I translate his poetry instead, and he made it sound as if translating him were a rare honor he was bestowing on me in an unprecedented burst of generosity for which I should be eternally grateful to him.

*

We are told God created men in His own image. Good men, maybe. As for bad men: I like to believe they were created by the Devil. To say otherwise would be to blaspheme.

*

Every policy has a stated as well as a hidden motive. Two cases in point:

Speaking about Canadian multiculturalism, I once heard a pundit on the radio define it as, “Let them dance.”

Our Turcocentrism may also be summed up thus: “If they think about Turks and massacres all the time, they will have little time to think about our shenanigans.”

*

We don't understand everything. Therefore there must be Someone who does. What could be more unbearable than a mystery without a solution? God must exist!

*

We see the Genocide as a tragedy; but it is also a defeat and a victory -- a defeat for us, and a victory for the Turks not only over Greeks, Kurds, and Armenians, but also Russia, the Great Powers of the West, and their Allies.

*

H.G. Wells: "The Athenian democracy suffered much from that narrowness of patriotism which is the ruin of all nations."

*

It is a well-known fact that in America when the cavalry won it was a victory, but when the Indians won it was a massacre.

*

It has been said that nothing divides the Arab nations more than talk of Arab unity. Something similar could be said about us. Because I have been critical of our dividers, I too have been accused of being one.

#

May 21, 2010

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

NOTES AND COMMENTS

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

At one time or another all nations have conducted wars of conquest. Why is it that when it comes to Jews, this is seen as a crime against humanity?

*

Judging by the number of times I have been called a fool by fools, I am not the only one who thinks Armenians are not as smart as they think they are.

*

There is a natural tendency in all fools to conspire with other fools and call themselves smart.

*

No book can be as unreadable as an established masterpiece.

*

About Americans and genocide recognition: it would be useful to remind ourselves once in a while that what we are dealing with here are men who at one time or another in the past, and to some extent even today, have justified such aberrations as slavery, racism, revolution, wars of conquest (including civil war), and the massacre of civilians.

*

And speaking of Indians: nowadays, even they speak with a forked tongue.

*

When you don't know, you have no choice but to trust the judgment of those who pretend to know.

*

There is no accounting for tastes. Some scholars are Turcophiles, some are Armenophiles, some women fall in love with serial killers.

*

Yugoslav proverb: "Man is harder than rock and more fragile than eggs." If we view Turks as hard as rocks and ourselves as fragile as eggs, it may be because, by uniting them, their leaders made them stronger; and by dividing us, our leaders made us weaker and more vulnerable. If you think I am the first to say this, read Yeghishé (410-470 AD): "If a nation is ruled by two kings, both the kings and their subjects will perish."

*

To ignore our prophets is bad enough; to cover up their prophecies is to pretend that history fell on us without warning, like a thief in the night.

#

May 22, 2010

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

What could be more incomprehensible than someone else's grief?

*

When popes, imams, rabbis, and gurus pretend to have a monopoly on truth, they lie. Our “betters” are liars.

*

Hegel: “Truth lives only in the conquest of error.”

*

Kierkegaard: “You will never be anything so long as you have money.”

*

To those who say, “knowledge is power,” Socrates says “we know nothing.”

*

Heidegger: “The greater the work accomplished the richer the unthought-of element in that work.”

Or, the more questions an answer raises, the closer to the truth it takes us.

*

John Ruskin: “When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.”

*

I don't write against anyone, not even Turks. I write against the Turk in me.

*

Because we are experiencing a slow-motion and self-inflicted white massacre, we pretend it is not taking place.

*

Erich Fromm: "Understanding a person does not mean condoning; it only means that one does not accuse him as if one were God or a judge placed above him."

*

True knowledge contains doubts, false knowledge only certainties.

*

When it comes to political awareness, we are an underdeveloped people no better than Zulus and Ugandans.

#

[ara baliozian]

Mr Baliozian,

 

 

May I ask some questions?

 

 

 

1) Which compositions of J.S. Bach are your favorites?

 

PASSACAGLIA AND FUGUE in C-minor.

*

 

2) Who are your [other] favorite composers?

 

The Chopin of the BALLADES and the slow movements of his two PIANO CONCERTI.

 

 

3) Who are your favorite pianists?

 

Sviatosolav Richter and Glenn Gould.

 

 

4) Who are your most least-liked people in history? (you didn't give specific names)

 

From Nero to Stalin...all dictators in general.

 

 

5) Which of your books would you recommend to others?

 

CONVERSATIONS WITH NAZELY

 

 

6) What would you like to be remembered for?

 

My honesty.

 

 

7) Which books [by other authors] would you recommend to others?

 

Lesley Blanch's THE SABRES OF PARADISE and Toynbee's RECONSIDERATIONS.

 

 

8) What is the one thing you would have done differently in your life?\

 

I would have loved my mother more.

 

9) What will be the first question you would like to ask of 'God?'

 

The kind of understanding that would explain His actions.

 

10) What is the one thing you would like to see happen in the world?

Peace and brotherhood.

 

 

 

 

I always enjoy reading your posts. Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions.

 

I know you what you think of people who pay compliments, but I consider you to be a treasure of our people. Thank you for all your work. God bless.