as i see it - Pt. IV

ara baliozian · January 8, 2011

Thursday, January 6, 2011

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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In a recent issue of LE POINT (Paris: December 2, 2010) I read that Mario Monicelli, one of my favoried Italian directors, has committed suicide (“by defenestration from a hospital window”) at the age of 95.

*

In the same issue there is talk of a contemporary Syrian poetess by the name of Maram al-Masri who has translated into French (from the Arabic) a collection of her own verse titled SOULS WITH NAKED FEET. She is identified as a social worker in the suburbs of Paris and her poems are said to be testimonies of “abused, insulted, raped, sequestered, and abandoned women.”

I have retranslated from the French two samples of her poems.

*

First marriage at 16.

Eight children at 27.

First divorce at 30.

*

Why does my dad

beat my mom?

She doesn't know

how to iron shirts.

When I grow up

I will know

how to iron shirts.

*

I wish we had more poets like al-Masri as opposed to the kind of vodanavorjis who produced Bolshevik-chauvinist inspired nonsense that earned Sylva Kaputikian her Stalin Prize, or the hermetic verbiage by the likes of Krikor Beledian and Garo Armenian.

*

“The demonization of Israel – will it ever end?” writes Bernard-Henri Levy in a commentary in the same issue. Jews, he writes, are the only people in the history of mankind who have known nothing but totalitarian and tyrannical regimes but who have freely chosen a democratic form of government from the very beginning.

#

Friday, January 7, 2011

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ON FAITH AND RELATED ATROCITIES

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Certainties driven by faith are illusions (a euphemism for lies).

*

It should be a crime punishable by law to say or imply,

my imam is a man of God,

but your pope is a baloney artist, or vice versa.

*

Plato believed in the existence of universal ideas.

Aristotle, who was his student, did not.

Schopenhauer believed Hegel to be

one of the greatest charlatans that ever lived.

Marx (who changed the political map of the world) was a Hegelian.

This may suggest, charlatans enjoy a greater degree of credibility

than honest men.

*

It is safe to assume that whenever a man begins a sentence with the words

“I believe,” he either deceives himself or is about to deceive others.

*

Othello believed Desdemona to have been unfaithful to him.

Result: after murdering her, he committed suicide.

More recently, our own revolutionaries believed

the Great Powers of the West would never allow the Ottoman authorities to massacre unarmed Armenian civilians.

So much so that at one point they even challenged the Sultan to massacre.

How could they have thought to be 100% right

when they were in fact 100% wrong?

One way to answer that question is to say that

they were blinded by faith or rather by their own b.s.

I also suspect they were not and could not have been 100% sure

because they had a Plan B for themselves.

Which may suggest that even when deceivers believe in their own lies,

there is always a residue of unspoken doubt in them.

Hence the old sayings “Idol-makers do not believe in idols,”

and “Even the Pope doubts his faith seven times a day.”

*

For many centuries millions of people believed kings ruled by the grace of God.

Man, we are told, has created and believed in ten thousand gods.

In a historic context, faith cannot be said to have been an asset to mankind

but the most misleading and dangerous liability.

*

We should teach ourselves to say,

“Because I believe it, it cannot be true.”

*

Instead of saying what I believe is true,

and what you believe is a lie,

we should teach ourselves to say,

“We are both dupes at the mercy of deceivers

who are themselves dupes

of their own illusions, arrogance, stupidity, and greed for power.”

*

We should teach ourselves to say,

“I believe that I believe but I don't believe” (Sartre),

and “The function of philosophy is to introduce doubt

where there are only certainties” (Bertrand Russell).

*

Finally, if you say “If all belief systems are wrong,

so must be your own unbelief.”

To which I can only reply:

“Like fire and water, faith is a good servant but a bad master.”

#

Friday, January 7, 2011

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QUESTIONS I ASK MYSELF

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You have been writing for three decades now:

what have you accomplished?

Nothing.

Why go on then?

In the name of consistency.

The era of messiahs may be over

but they go on waiting, why?

In the name of consistency rather than hope.

Why do you keep writing about Armenians?

I don't write about Armenians,

I write against myself and dupes in general –

the world is full of them.

As I see it, our choice is between being objective about ourselves

or being exterminated by either “red” or “white”massacre

(that is, alienation and assimilation).

*

ARMENIAN QUOTATIONS

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Anonymous: “A clear conscience is a soft pillow.”

*

Vahram Papazian: “To be indifferent to crime is to conspire with criminals.”

*

ON THE ARMENIAN IDENTITY

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The Armenian identity

is an extension of the Armenian experience

and the Armenian experience

is a collective possession

as opposed to an individual acquisition.

None of us is in a position to assert,

“My experience is pure gold, yours counterfeit.”

Every Armenian – from the most assimilated

(who doesn’t even want to identify himself as an Armenian)

to the most dedicated chauvinist –

may be said to be the custodian

of a facet of the Armenian experience and identity.

And some day if and when we are allowed

to cross-examine assimilated Armenians,

we may discover that their alienation was a direct result

of the fact that at one time or another they were seen by

so-called authentic Armenians

as deviations from the norm.

It follows, self-assessed authentic Armenians

may well be at the very root of all our problems –

from dogmatism and intolerance

to tribalism and Ottomanism.

#

Ashot · January 8, 2011

I wish we had more poets like al-Masri as opposed to the kind of vodanavorjis who produced Bolshevik-chauvinist inspired nonsense that earned Sylva Kaputikian her Stalin Prize, or the hermetic verbiage by the likes of Krikor Beledian and Garo Armenian.

Personally I think that times are different, after all who had the courage back in the Communist era to stand up and say my "Husband beats" me or "the Prime Minister raped me". Nowadays there are many writers here in Armenia that freely speak of such stuff, erotic conversations are no longer an "amot" issue. People are expressing themselves freely. Sex before marriage? no problem at all. Boy if she had ever raised her voice and said a word about rapes, sex, beating she'd be 6 feet under ground buried alive, not to mention what would happen if she had written it. So I'd say let's not compare Kaputikyan wit al-Masri, I'll try to get some new poems in here and we could better compare what our writers write nowadays!!!

ara baliozian · January 12, 2011

Saturday, January 8, 2011

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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The shortest book in the world:

HUMAN RIGHTS IN ARMENIAN HISTORY.

*

Pragmatism always asks: What is the practical or cash value of an idea?

If nothing or negative, it may be safely ignored. Hence the official American reluctance to use the G word. The “cash” value of Armenian friendship is less than the value of Turkish loyalty in the Middle East.

*

Armenian academics are quintessential pragmatists. They would never write a single line against God and capital – make it, Capital and god; and when I say god, I mean of course the god of imams and bishops.

*

What if the first thing we say after we die is neither “I was right,” or “I was wrong,” but nothing?

*

We have nothing to fear from God, but everything to fear from men who speak in His name.

*

For a thousand years we were not allowed to shape our destiny. We know now that our so-called declaration of independence changed nothing.

*

Because for more than a thousand years we have been abused by alien tyrannies, we assume abuse and tyranny to be an integral part of the human condition, very much like death and taxes.

*

Whoever said “friends are God's apology for relatives,” knew what he was saying. Whenever I think of my relatives, I look forward to Alzheimer's.

#

Monday, January 10, 2011

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THINGS THEY DON'T TEACH IN SCHOOLS

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Real education begins

after you drop out or graduate.

*

God is an absentee landlord.

We remind ourselves of this fact whenever we say

“Our Father, Who art in heaven.”

*

You may not be Samson

and she may not be Delilah

but the only thing

you will get from her for nothing

is a haircut.

*

Gandhi on the British in India:

“A satanic force.”

Churchill on Gandhi:

“A malignant subversive fanatic,”

“a thoroughly evil force,”

and “the most successful humbug.”

*

Even our betters don't always know better,

and sometimes what they pretend to know

may well be worse than ignorance.

#

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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A headline in my morning paper reads:

“Oldest known winery unearthed in Armenia.”

We now have anoither thing to brag about:

we are the offspring of winos.

*

I was brought up to respect my elders and I did,

until I became an elder myself.

*

To speak of God amounts to translating an incomprehensible text

into a non-existent language.

*

To judge a religion by its scriptures

or an ideology by its political platform

is as absurd as judging a man by his intentions

as opposed to his actions.

Religions and ideologies should be judged by their history.

*

Every time a man speaks the truth

he makes a thousand enemies;

that’s because for every bitter truth

there are a thousand sweet lies

and as many dupes who hate to give up their illusions.

#

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

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I MAY HAVE SAID THIS BEFORE...

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...But it bears repeating.

*

A revolution in which the revolutionaries survive

but the people perish by the million.

*

A status quo in which the offspring

of the very same revolutionaries

now say to the offspring of the victims:

“We promise to get even with the Turks

provided we have your financial support.”

*

“In politics,” it has been said,

“lies are called promises.”

*

In the Homeland, rule by mafia.

In the Diaspora, rule by fund-raisers.

*

A nation of sheep

deserves wolves as leaders.

*

Our collective IQ is negative.

#

ara baliozian · January 12, 2011

Personally I think that times are different, after all who had the courage back in the Communist era to stand up and say my "Husband beats" me or "the Prime Minister raped me". Nowadays there are many writers here in Armenia that freely speak of such stuff, erotic conversations are no longer an "amot" issue. People are expressing themselves freely. Sex before marriage? no problem at all. Boy if she had ever raised her voice and said a word about rapes, sex, beating she'd be 6 feet under ground buried alive, not to mention what would happen if she had written it. So I'd say let's not compare Kaputikyan wit al-Masri, I'll try to get some new poems in here and we could better compare what our writers write nowadays!!!

i look forward...

ara baliozian · January 15, 2011

Thursday, January 13, 2011

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ON SUBSERVIENCE

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Once, a few years ago, when i pointed out to some children what they were doing was dangerous, I heard one of them saying, “You can't tell me what to do, you are not my father.”

What a difference, I thought, between their ways and ours.

I was brought up to respect my elders even when I did not respect them, even when I sensed they were throwing their weight around -- perhaps because I didn't know – I was never taught to see the line that separates respect from subservience.

Respect is earned.

Subservience is imposed by the powerful over the weak, or by bullies over cowards.

*

In the early chapters of memoirs by Jewish celebrities in America mention is invariably made of bullies who insulted, humiliated, and beat them up on the grounds that they were the offspring of Christ-killers.

I spent my childhood in an Armenian ghetto in Greece and I too was beaten up by bullies – not Greek bullies but Armenian bullies.

When I grew up I dismissed and forgot these painful early experiences because I was taught to believe Armenians were civilized, compassionate, and innocent victims of bloodthirsty barbarians. I even wrote a dozen books recycling this propaganda line.

*

I know now that we are not what we pretend to be.

I also know now why Zarian said, “Our political parties have been of no political use to us, their greatest enemy is free speech.”

Free speech is our enemy because it threatens to expose our “betters” as bullies and ourselves as cowards.

The truth is, we have been abused and intimidated into subservience for such a long time by alien bullies that we assume intimidation and subservience to be an integral part of the human condition.

If I have said this before, it bears repeating.

#

Friday, January 14, 2011

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SEMIRAMIS

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There was a time when I wrote nothing but fiction.

That's when I worked in factories, department stores,

and insurance companies and came into contact

with a rich variety of characters.

It was at the head office of a large insurance company

that I met and worked with a foul-mouthed young divorcee

who was fond of delivering lines like

“Let me sit in your lap and we'll talk about the first thing that comes up.”

She inspired me to write a novella titled SEMIRAMIS

which was accepted for publication in an American periodical

but never saw the light of day

because the periodical went out of business.

When I sent it to a literary agent in New York,

I received a letter that said in effect:

“The story you have submitted is better suited

for university periodicals with which we don't deal.”

Later when I submitted it to ARARAT,

a literary quarterly published in New York,

the editor rejected it with a single line that stated

“We don't publish pornography.”

All this happened decades ago

and I lost track of my real-life Semiramis.

As for the editor, he died three years ago,

may the Good lord have mercy on his soul.

#

Saturday, January 15, 2011

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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A headline in this morning's paper reads:

“Tunisian president flees amid rioting.”

That will never happen in Armenia for two reasons:

old men, women, and children don't riot;

like Turks, the Russians will exterminate the people

before they even consider submitting to their will.

*

A writer conducts a war on three fronts:

against the prejudices of the ignorant and brainwashed masses;

against the diabolical cunning of the competition;

and against the ruthless intolerance of those in power.

*

Any day now I expect a new translation of the Old Testament

to have a footnote identifying the Serpent in the Garden in GENESIS

as a Mossad agent.

*

One of the worst mistakes an Armenian can make

is to confuse Turkish venom with Armenian voki.

*

Men of reason may compromise and reach a consensus.

Reason has at no time played a central role in Armenian affairs.

*

Prejudices are stonewalls erected to obstruct the path of reason.

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Ashot · January 15, 2011

Thursday, January 13, 2011

I know now that we are not what we pretend to be.

Is this an issue with only us Armenians? I would guess not, look around Sireli Ara, this is an international issue which I would quote as the greatest original sin of selfishness. Perhaps it's just a lack of self-confidence and being secure of who we are?

Thursday, January 13, 2011

I also know now why Zarian said, “Our political parties have been of no political use to us, their greatest enemy is free speech.”
Free speech is our enemy because it threatens to expose our “betters” as bullies and ourselves as cowards.

I am beginning to wonder if we are practicing free speech at all, or merely shoving our own negativity down each others' throats.

ara baliozian · January 19, 2011

Sunday, January 16, 2011

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VOODOO

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Don't believe everything you read in the papers or books -- including holy scriptures. Likewise, don't believe everything you are told by men who pretend to know better including so-called experts because for every expert there will be another who will say the exact opposite.

*

There is patriotism and there is voodoo patriotism.

Voodoo patriotism may be defined as the fallacy that says “My country, right or wrong,” which is not patriotism but fascism, and fascism is not based on political science (an oxymoron if there ever was one) but on voodoo.

*

We wallow in superstitions of all kinds and call it science or faith. That's because mankind has not yet emerged from its primitive state and finds voodoo more accessible and flattering to its powers of comprehension than science, which is based on verifiable facts reached by objective judgment.

*

When two experts in the same field contradict each other and make no effort to compromise and reach a consensus, laymen may be justified in concluding they are both engaged in voodoo.

*

There is a strong element of voodoo in all organized religions.

The epidemic of child-molesting priests is an extension of the superstitious belief that as men of God, clergymen can do no wrong.

*

When capitalists and communists disagree and make no effort to compromise and reach a consensus, it is safe to assume their economic theories are more voodoo than science.

*

All organized religions believe all other religions to be voodoo and they are all right.

*

Our present economic malaise is a result not of real economic theories but of voodoo economics.

*

The objective and irrefutable truth is, imams, popes, and rabbis care more about their own powers and privileges than about God, perhaps because deep down somewhere they know God to be beyond their or anyone else's reach.

#

Monday, January 17, 2011

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DIARY

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Reading Thomas Mann's DIARY 1918-1939.

His observations on his fellow Germans could also apply to us.

“The German desire for legend and for myth, which runs counter to truth and counter to intellectual honesty.”

*

“The German spirit wallows in the manure of myth.”

*

“The Germans' hatred of truth.”

*

“We no longer have real history, but only mock semblances and degenerate epilogues, counterfeit history.”

*

“...hatred for common sense and progress.”

*

His comment on C.G. Jung applies to our own academics:

“He is an example of the irresistible tendency of people's thinking to bend itself to the times. He swims with the current. He is intelligent, but not admirable.”

*

“Charming young chaps” are as ubiquitous in Mann's diary as little girls in Nabokov's novels.

#

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

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More Quotations from

Thomas Mann's DIARY 1918-1939.

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On Beethoven's MISSA SOLEMNIS:

“Great beauty of the Sanctus; the rest inaccessible.”

*

On Peguy:

“A spiritual forerunner of fascism.”

*

On Christianity:

“An abject and servile religion of the lowly.”

*

On a novel by Sinclair Lewis:

"Too horribly true to life and therefore very powerful.”

*

On Spengler:

“A hyena of history.”

*

On “an ugly anonymous” letter:

“The vile depths to which the world will perhaps descend...”

*

Only one very brief reference to Hegel, and three references to Verdi's REQUIEM (“great music”).

*

ON MIRACLES

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Ten thousand biblical miracles don't impress me as much as the existence of the universe does.

*

ON GOD

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Since theologians have so far (after two millennia) failed to reach a consensus,

it is safe to assume that only God is qualified to speak about God.

#

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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There is only one issue about which we are not divided: Turks.

We see them as bloodthirsty barbarians,

they see themselves as avenging angels.

Who is right?

*

Our revolutionaries see themselves as heroes,

Zarian saw them as useless cowards who are afraid of free speech.

What a book one could write on the dangers of self-assessment!

*

If we judge Christians or Muslims by their holy scriptures and sermons,

they stand for love, tolerance and compassion.

And yet, there is more intolerance and hatred in their history.

*

Love and hatred come from a deeper place than commandments and scriptures. One does not have to be a psychoanalyst or a philosopher to see that

“white man speaks with a forked tongue,”

and sermons only “add hypocrisy to our previous list vices” (Bertrand Russell).

#

ara baliozian · January 22, 2011

Thursday, January 20, 2011

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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Some of the most progressive and civilized democracies in the West

share the same problem in common:

corruption in high places.

But if we are to believe our Turcocentric ghazetajis,

Turks are our only problem – a problem

they think they can solve by barking at them – a solution

that after one hundred years

has not generated a single red cent or a single inch of soil.

*

Insults are my most reliable source of inspiration.

Anger is my favorite muse.

*

Imagine a blind man trying to enlighten an audience with 20/20 vision:

that's what it feels like writing for Armenians.

*

The central concern of our leadership is not to lead

but to shield their fraction of the community from reality.

*

Born and raised as a subservient underdog,

I don't have any sympathy or respect for top dogs or leaders.

To me they are no better than white trash.

Dealing with them is almost like experiencing

what it must have been like living in the USSR and the Ottoman Empire.

*

I've had it with diplomatic double-talk.

Since I have nothing,

what can I possibly lose?

*

More lines from Mann's DIARY:

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“Read Brecht with increasing distaste.”

*

“Young American men not particularly appealing.”

*

“Impotent hatred must not consume me.”

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Friday, January 21, 2011

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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Where money enters, temptation is sure to follow;

and where there is temptation, sooner or later someone is sure to give in to it;

and when someone gives in, others are sure to follow.

This is as true of financial institution on Wall Street as of the Vatican.

I would like to be part of a movement

in which not only money does not change hands,

but also money-changers are unceremoniously driven out.

*

Claims of uniqueness are suspect

because they are invariably made to advertise assets,

and where assets are advertised, liabilities are sure to be covered up.

*

Never underestimate the ruthless cunning of top dogs.

What makes them who they are is not love of truth

but a propensity to lie and deceive.

*

Intolerance of dissent means tolerance of lies.

*

Where there is no free speech,

speech will contaminated with lies.

Where there is freedom to lie,

there will be no freedom to speak the truth.

*

More lines from Mann's DIARY:

“Some music. Charmed by pieces by Rossini and Chopin.”

“The blindness of these people [Germans] is monstrous.”

“The fifteen or sixteen capitalist arch-villains in the world who call the tune.”

In a 1939 entry: “Einstein visited.”

Not a word on what was said. Was it small talk? Somehow I have trouble imagining Mann and Einstein engaged in nothing but small talk at a time when the world was on the brink of another war.

#

Saturday, January 22, 2011

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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How to recognize a killer?

If he speaks like a commissar, he qualifies.

*

How to recognize a Turcocentric ghazetaji?

If he quotes Talaat and Hitler more often than Naregatsi and Hitler,

he is one.

*

Whenever I am accused of negativity, I am tempted to ask:

Are you a fund-raiser?

Do you have political ambitions?

If no, who brainwashed you?

*

Our problem is not (in Donald Rumsfeld's words)

“known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns,”

but “knowns” whose existence we refuse to acknowledge.

*

If Armenia had been an American-style democracy,

immediately after the Genocide there would have been hearings

in search for answers to the question:

What went wrong?

Who miscalculated?

Who, beside Talaat, must be held responsible?

#

ara baliozian · January 26, 2011

Sunday, January 23, 2011

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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Speaking of one of our political bosses,

a friend – himself a poet – once said to him:

“He is a good man, a man we can trust.”

“I trust no one in politics,” I said.

“You don't know him as I do.

He loves literature and he respects writers.

He once told me poets are engineers of the soul.”

“He never said that,” I said.

“He said it to me.”

“He was quoting Stalin.”

*

We are a nation whose defenders of the faith

are themselves ignorant infidels.

*

Worth repeating and remembering:

Don't believe everything you read or you are told.

Everyone has an ax to grind – an ax aimed at your neck.

*

Never identify a regime, any regime, or power structure

with the Homeland.

*

Most of our disagreements and controversies

are rooted in two propaganda lines

which we have swallowed hook, line, and sinker.

#

Monday, January 24, 2011

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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Nothing comes more naturally to an Armenian bully than to assume, as a superpatriot he speaks in defense of the eternal snows of Mount Ararat.

“All you do is write,” such a specimen once told me.

To which I could only say:

“And what else have you been doing beside pulling your dick?”

I should write a book on the art of making enemies for life.

*

Armenians are smart?

A really smart person does not need to be told he is smart;

and the surest way to flatter the vanity of an imbecile

is to tell him he has the IQ of a genius.

*

“Among ten men nine are sure to be women,” Turks say.

This may explain why they relied on infidel boys

to do their fighting for them.

This may also explain why slaughtering defenseless women, children, and old men came naturally to them.

*

They say “Live and let live, that's my philosophy -- not that's my favorite cliché, platitude, or slogan, but philosophy.

In a democracy everyone is a philosopher.

Not a philomoron but a philosopher.

Nobody ever says “I believe in God, that's my theology,”

or “Smoking causes cancer, that's my oncology.”

*

An Armenian born in Iran and educated in Yerevan

became an instant celebrity last week.

He was in all the papers, on radio, and TV.

He killed a cop for no apparent reason.

#

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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The “I” must be the most irrelevant part of our being.

We are born without it and we lose it when we die.

*

If only popes, imams, and rabbis were honest enough to admit

they don't deal in verifiable facts

but in unverifiable assumptions and theories

all of which may be open to error.

Or, like Socrates, to be modest enough to say,

“Of the gods we know nothing.”

*

As children we are taught to believe obedience to authority is a virtue.

As adults we learn that subservience to scum is an inevitable fact of life

that we challenge at our peril.

*

One positive aspect of computers is that

it makes inaccessible people accessible.

*

An Armenian will demand your agreement (meaning subservience)

even when he contradicts himself.

*

Anonymous: "It is easy to lust for fame,

much harder to achieve greatness."

*

Ideological truths become lies

when they justify violations of human rights,

the first of which is always freedom of speech.

Where there is censorship of ideas

there will be censorship of lives.

Next time you promote censorship,

ask yourself this question:

"Do I really want to legitimize murder

in the name of God and Country?"

#

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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The work of an honest writer

tells the story of a liberation from the tyranny of fear,

the limitations of ignorance,

and the oppression of prejudice.

*

The aim of all propaganda is to legitimize prejudice

by means of such lies as “superior race,”

“the Chosen People,” and closer to home,

“first nation this, first nation that, “ -- lies

whose ultimate aim is to convince dupes

they are in the best of hands

and they never had it so good.

*

Even the most liberal and democratic power structures

will speak the truth only if it is in their own interest.

But since self-interest is a big lie,

and since truth and lies are mutually exclusive concepts,

it follows: even when nations speak the truth, they lie.

Either that or they use one truth to cover up many lies.

*

Where was God before the Big Bang?

The only possible answer:

in a dimension that is beyond

the time-space continuum – such as

the dimension of dreams, music, and mystical visions;

or the realm of Platonic ideas,

“the Kingdom of God” within us,

or the “satori” of Zen Buddhism.

#

ara baliozian · January 26, 2011

ON HISTORY AND HISTORIANS

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A capitalist version of American history is to be

trusted as much as a communist version of Russian

history. Likewise, since nationalism is also an

ideology, a Turkish version of Turkish history is

as trustworthy as a Greek version of Greek

history, or a Jewish version of Jewish history,

or a Palestinian…and so on and so forth.

*

There are those who maintain the Armenian version

of Armenian history is an exception to this rule.

I am not one of them.

*

But to speak of an Armenian version of history is

a misnomer because we don’t have one but several

– provided we define history not just as what

happened by why.

*

In one version of our history, General Antranik

is represented as a great military leader and a

hero. In another, he is described as a war

criminal. And in the General’s own version,

Armenian political leaders are the real war

criminals who should be crucified because they

must be held partly responsible for the

massacres.

*

Why does the average Turk trust Turkish

historians more than any other? For the same

reason that the average Greek, Jew, Russian,

American, and Armenian trusts his own historians.

*

Historians are motivated not by love of truth,

but, at best, by love of God and Country; and it

is a universally acknowledged fact that, in a

world where gods and geographic boundaries are in

conflict, my god and my geography will be closer

to the truth than my enemy’s.

*

As he is drowning while Smyrna is in flames, a

Greek character in BIRDS WITHOUT WINGS by Louis

de Bernieres, is quoted as saying to an imaginary

audience: “Don’t misunderstand me, it isn’t that

I think Greeks are worse than Turks, what

irritates me is that they think they’re so much

better when really they’re exactly the same.”

Such admissions are made only in works of fiction

written by foreign writers. I was born and raised

in Greece and I now live in a Canadian city with

a substantial Greek community, and I have never

heard a Greek expressing sentiments remotely

similar to these and I doubt if I will live long

enough to hear an Armenian admit that Turks too

are human beings who deserve to live.

*

Whenever a Jewish writer says anything critical

of Jews, he is told: “If Hitler were alive today,

he would enjoy reading you.” And whenever I try

to humanize Turks, I am accused of covering up

the Genocide. It comes with the territory, I

guess -- the territory being an attempt to view

the past without bias.

#

ara baliozian · January 29, 2011

Thursday, January 27, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

All our organizations (be they political, cultural, or religious)

have a HUAC (House Un-Armenian Activities Committee)

and a McCarthy of their own whose job it is

to separate the sheep from the goats,

the (brain)washed from the unwashed,

the dupes from those who can think for themselves,

the kind who drop their pants and say thank you

from the kind who for some unfathomable reason of their own

refuse to do so.

*

Dissidents are not born but made,

and what makes them are self-satisfied, power-hungry idiots

who pretend to know better.

One such specimen once promised a goodly sum

if I consented to write portraits of ADL leaders,

to which I could only say,

I didn't know any,

I had never heard of one,

and I wasn't even aware of their existence.

*

Some great men believed in Big Lies

for the same reason that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

of Sherlock Holmes fame believed in ghosts.

*

No job can be as demanding

as a job that any nonentity can perform.

That's because nonentities can be easily replaced

by other nonentities and the world is full of them.

*

Charlie Chan: “Truth, like football – receive many kicks

before reaching goal.”

#

Friday, January 28, 2011

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

ACADEMICS

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

Academics operate in a dog-eat-dog environment.

The competition is stiff.

The unspoken rules and commandments outnumber the spoken ones.

In what follows I have made an attempt

to share my knowledge and understanding

of their character, values, and worldview.

*

Violations of human rights in both the Homeland and Diaspora

is a subject they avoid discussing

because it may question the integrity of individuals

on whose goodwill they depend.

*

Our historians study history

not to learn from it but to hone their skills

of their favorite sports, namely the blame-game.

Their unspoken message is:

(one) there is nothing wrong with us;

(two) we never had it so good;

(three) we are in the best of hands.

*

In a Western-style democracy

some of the most ferocious anti establishment critics

(like Bertrand Russell and Arnold J. Toynbee in England)

were themselves members of the aristocracy.

We don't have an aristocracy.

What we have are the offspring of victims

shaped by famine, poverty, and slum-life,

that is to say, individuals whose greatest ambition in life

is a steady income and a suburban existence.

*

In the 19th century we produced fearless intellectuals

like Raffi, Baronian, and Odian

who exposed the corruption and greed

of our establishment figures -- that is, bosses, bishops, and benefactors.

Even under Stalin we had intellectuals

who placed dedication to ideals and principles above their self-interest.

Today we have only academics

who live in fear of their own shadows.

To paraphrase an old Turkish saying:

Among ten Armenian academics

eleven are sure to be brown-nosers.

*

Their favorite topics of expertise are

Middle Ages, massacres, and anything else that is removed

from our present state of decline, degeneration, and disintegration.

*

During the Soviet era when they published their travel impressions of Yerevan,

they never dared to criticize anyone above hotel waiters.

*

They operate on two levels:

privately they are full of venom;

publicly they are all sugar and spice.

Their greatest enemy is neither intolerance nor corruption,

neither authoritarianism nor Ottomanism,

but the competition – anyone, that is,

who may be perceived as a threat to their position of eminence.

#

Saturday, January 29, 2011

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

CONTRADICTIONS

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

An Armenian prefers his own ignorance

to someone else's knowledge.

*

If an idea flatters his vanity,

he will make it his own.

*

Tell a coward he comes from a long line of proud warriors

and he will bare his teeth and growl

next time he faces a mirror;

and when he slices a watermelon,

he will imagine it's a Turk.

*

Since he cannot defeat the Turk

he will exploit, insult, and humiliate a fellow Armenian.

You want proof?

Read a history of Armenian literature.

*

He is self-righteous, therefore infallible.

*

He is smart but he can't tell the difference

between a synonym and an antonym.

Neither can he tell the difference

between an insult and a compliment.

Example: “It takes seven Jews to fool an Armenian.”

And the synonymous assertion:

“After shaking hands with an Armenian,

count your fingers.”

*

He stresses the irrelevant at the expense of the essential.

Case in point:

He does his utmost to avoid asking questions like:

Has a thousand years of subservience to alien tyrants

changed our DNA?

If the answer is “It has not,”

how do we explain the contradictions outlined above?

#

Ashot · January 29, 2011

Dearest Ara - as much as I love reading your posts I would also like to see a single "positive" phrase every once in a while! Will you make it happen?

Please!

ara baliozian · February 2, 2011

Sunday, January 30, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

When I was young I was exposed to the wisdom of our elder statesmen.

Now that I am old I am exposed to the insults of the young.

But I shouldn't complain.

Compared to many others I have been the luckiest of men.

Very few Armenian writers were lucky enough to live past the age of forty;

and those who did, spent a good number of years in fear

of Siberian exile or starvation.

*

To the poor everyone is generous with advice, my mother used to say.

“Write more like Saroyan.”

“Be as critical as you can provided

you also amuse and entertain your readers, like Mark Twain.”

“Be more positive and constructive.”

The implication of this final line is that so far Armenian literature

has failed in its mission because Armenians remain as divided today

as they were a thousand years ago.

But I believe Armenians remain divided today

not because Armenian writers have failed

but because the dominant mindset of our leadership has been self-interest.

If it's good for me, my family, my party, or my tribe,

it must be good for the nation.

Even when they preach patriotism

they legitimize treason by dividing the nation into tribes.

They confuse nationalism with tribalism,

and ultimately Armenianism with Ottomanism.

No amount of sermons, speeches, editorials, and commentaries

can alter this fact and the only Armenians who cannot see this clearly

are the ones who have been so thoroughly brainwashed

that they have lost all ability to see, think, and speak for themselves.

#

Monday, January 31, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

There are Armenocentric Turkish ghazetajis

as surely as there are Turcocentric Armenian ghazetajis.

These gentlemen (if you will forgive the overstatement)

operate on the assumption that

they discharge their patriotic duty

whenever they emphasize the criminal conduct

and lies of the opposition.

On the day they fall silent,

Armenians and Turks may have a better chance

to reach a consensus and establish peaceful coexistence

that may well be of benefit to both.

*

One of our elder statesmen once wrote me a letter

in which he said that I had a better chance

to achieve fame and fortune as a writer

if I were to accept his advice on what to write and how to write it --

one such advice being, “Write more like Saroyan.”

Shortly before he died he informed me

that he had 43 unpublished manuscripts to his credit

and asked me if I would be willing to edit and revise them.

Moral of the story:

After shaking hands with an Armenian

willing to share his wisdom

count your fingers.

*

I have noticed that Armenians who have met Saroyan

on even one occasions

never call him Saroyan but Bill.

#

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

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

THE HEART OF THE MATTER

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

A private blessing, religious faith becomes a collective nightmare

when it acquires a leader, dogmas,

commandments, rituals, and mumbo jumbo.

*

Where there is a leader

there will be power and authority.

Where there is power there will also be greed for more power.

This is as true of emperors, kings, and dictators

as it is of popes, imams, and rabbis.

And where there is greed for power

there will be wars and massacres.

This is not theory or anti-religious bias

but historic reality.

*

Historians speak of holy wars but not of holy massacres.

And yet, when Voltaire said,

“Because it was a religious war, there were no survivors,”

he knew what he was saying.

*

If you know the right words, even if you are blind,

you can lead men with 20/20 vision into the ditch.

The trick is to ascribe your words not to yourself

or to any man dead or alive,

but to God.

*

Faith moves mountains, we are told.

What we are not told is that

it can also slaughter millions

with a clear conscience.

*

Everything I say is open to error

because I speak as a man

and all men are prone to error.

But if I were to speak in the name of God

I would become infallible by proxy.

*

God does not contradict Himself.

But men do. And when men who speak in the name of God

contradict one another, it is safe to assume that

they speak not in the name of God but in the name of the Devil.

#

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

According to an American pundit,

Americans are such “know-nothings” that

some of them quote lines from Marx's Communist Manifesto

thinking they are quoting the Constitution of the Unites States.

Even their congressmen and senators, it seems,

can't tell the difference between the Declaration of Independence

and the Constitution.

What about us?

Do we have a Constitution?

And if we do, who takes it seriously?

Can you quote a single line from it?

Is there a paragraph in it in defense

of the fundamental human right of free speech?

Why is it that whenever I am silenced

by an editor or forum moderator,

no one raises an objection?

Why is it that these editors and moderators

consider censorship a patriotic duty?

Is it some kind of conditioned reflex

that we acquired during a thousand years

of blind obedience to alien and brutal tyrants?

Do you have answers to these questions?

If yes, please let's have them.

Because I don't!

#

ara baliozian · February 2, 2011

Dearest Ara - as much as I love reading your posts I would also like to see a single "positive" phrase every once in a while! Will you make it happen? Please!

Sweetheart:

it is because i want to emphasize the positive that i expose the negative.

ara baliozian · February 5, 2011

Thursday, February 3, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

In a commentary on recent political developments in Egypt

an Arab pundit writes:

“Entire generations of Arab children are raised to believe

that good citizens are measured by their loyalty to government

and that critical thinking is treasonous.”

To put it more bluntly:

Arabs are smart but they are systematically moronized

by their leadership.

So are we.

*

Elsewhere I read:

“Critics are measured more by their courage to be disliked,

by their capacity for dishing it out and taking the inevitable backlash.”

Or, “Tell me who your enemies are and I will tell you how good you are.”

And if you were to tell me you have no enemies,

I shall have no choice but to conclude that

you must be a person of great charm,

which, in Albert Camus' definition, is “sh*t.”

#

Friday, February 4, 2011

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

Q/A

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

Q: Not many people like you. Why is that?

A: I am in no position to employ and compensate anyone. What I say has no cash value, and our dominant mindset is grub first than ethics.

Q: Would you describe yourself as a believer? If yes, what exactly do you believe in?

A: I believe there is an element of wishful thinking in all belief systems, and I believe where wishful thinking enters, reality exits. I believe truth and power to be mutually exclusive concepts. That's because where there is power there will also be a big lie and a big liar: this is as true of emperors, kings, and dictators as it is of popes, imams, and rabbis.

Q: What about a democratically elected head of state?

A: People vote for a politician on the basis of his promises; and in politics, promises and lies might as well be synonymous.

Q: What about an honest politician who makes an honest promise?

A: Promises deal with a future which is unpredictable. An honest politician knows this. That is why when he makes a promise, he lies.

Q: You have said you are in the business of exposing contradictions and lies. Do you believe by doing so you will solve our problems?

A: No, of course not. I believe solving problems is not and cannot be a one-sided process. If the will to solve problems is not there even a messiah will be useless.

Q: Are we doomed?

A: I don't know because I don't know if death is an end or a new beginning.

Q: Where was God before the Big Bang?

A: The same place we were before we were born.

Q: What is your aim in life?

A: To understand and explain reality knowing full well that the most important questions are unanswerable.

#

Saturday, February 5, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

When I say we are a people like any other people,

I don't just mean the so-called civilized nations of the West,

but also Russians, Turks, Kurds, and Gypsies.

And when I say Russians I don't mean

Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov and their fictional characters

but Bolsheviks.

*

When I say Turks I think of one of our elder statesmen

who once said to me:

“Some key players in our organizations are not Armenians but Turks.

They may speak Armenian fluently

and they may know more about us than we do,

but take my word for it, they are Turks.”

I also think of Puzant Granian,

a prolific writer, critic, poet, and activist,

who once said to me:

“There is a Turk in all of us.”

*

Speaking of Gypsies:

In Greece, where I grew up, we were called Turkish Gypsies.

You say we need solutions?

Two words: de-Ottomanize and de-Stalinize!

*

Sometimes I am urged to get an agent.

Allow me to explain why I don't have one:

No one in his right mind would be interested in earning

10% of nothing.

*

The difference between the Pope of Rome

and the average brainwashed Armenian:

the Pope is infallible and the Armenian is never wrong.

*

Where there is no vision

there will be a total absence of ideas – and worse –

an opposition to all ideas.

#

ara baliozian · February 9, 2011

Sunday, February 6, 2011

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

TO BE A GOOD ARMENIAN

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

To be a good Armenian it is not necessary to hate all Turks

including the dead and the unborn.

Likewise, patriotism does not mean to love all Armenians,

including crooks, liars, bloodsuckers,

and fornicators who preach chastity.

*

In politics and human affairs in general,

words are used to cover up the true intent of actions.

Under capitalism and communism,

to cover up exploitation and abuses of power respectively.

*

In Egypt today there is talk of an orderly transition

following thirty years of disorderly conduct.

*

I have been deceived and misled so many times by my “betters”

that I no longer trust anyone, including the trustworthy.

*

Divided we were defeated and massacred,

and divided we stand today.

Who says experience is a good teacher?

*

Germans were a disappointment to Thomas Mann

as Armenians were to Zarian,

as the French were to Sartre,

and as Greeks were to Kazantzakis –

the very same Greeks who shat on his grave.

Sartre loathed his fellow Frenchmen (including De Gaulle)

to such a degree that he embraced Stalin, Mao, and Castro.

In his diary of the 1930s Mann quotes a German bishop

who looked up to Hitler as a messianic figure.

*

I have been awarded several Canadian literary prizes and grants

but not a single Armenian one.

If I am ever awarded an Armenian prize I will say,

“I accept the cash but I reject the honor.”

#

Monday, February 7, 2011

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

TO BE A BAD ARMENIAN

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

As long as I wrote what was expected of me,

I was published in over a dozen Armenian newspapers

in Canada, United States, and the Middle East.

Sometimes I was even compensated for my work –

always less then minimum wage, of course,

but enough to cover a fraction of my expenses

such as stationery, postage stamps, and typewriter ribbons.

But on the day I decided to write what I wanted to write

and say what needed to be said,

I became an abominable no-man.

Newspapers sponsored by political parties

turned against me because I was against them.

Non-partisan papers turned against me

because their owners are capitalists

in whose eyes I am a Bolshevik.

And Bolsheviks in the Homeland classified me

as a reactionary hyena with a fountain pen.

*

Recently when asked

how much I would charge for reviewing a book,

I said “a million dollars.”

No one laughed. No one even smiled.

Money is a deadly serious subjects with us,

especially with those who have a great deal of it.

*

I write a page a day with my morning coffee in the kitchen

when I am alone and it is dark outside.

*

For many years I thought I was the only Ara Baliozian on the continent

until another Ara Baliozian in California made headlines in the papers

by murdering his wife.

Ever since then whenever my name comes up in some circles,

I am told, I am identified with the murderer.

When asked by a woman where I live,

I said I live in Ontario, Canada

(there is another Ontario in the United States)

and informed her that I was not related to the wife-killer.

I never heard from her again.

This woman knew instinctively what took me years to find out:

Never trust another Armenian,

especially when he assesses himself;

and if you think the worst of him,

you will be closer to the truth.

*

If Adam and Eve had been Armenian,

it would be said of Eve that she was a nymphomaniac,

of Adam that he was an adulterer,

and of the Serpent that he was

a writer who wrote not what was expected of him

but what he thought needed to be said.

#

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

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

A DEFINITION OF TREASON

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

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

It follows: a patriotism that divides is treason.

*

When exposed, traitors identify themselves

as patriots of a superior brand.

*

Our dividers never say it is a good thing to divide the nation.

What they say is:

“We are for unity; it’s the other side that divides.”

And to think that these are the kind of people

who accuse me of repeating myself.

*

The spirit of contradiction in some Armenians

is so highly developed that

if you were to agree with them

they would disagree with you.

*

May I confess that I don’t always read my critics.

It is painful to the extreme reading thoughts

that I entertained as a child but rejected as an adult.

*

A religion that emphasizes dogma

at the expense of love, is an invention of the devil.

#

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

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

DEMOCRACY

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

“Egypt is not ready for democracy,” some say.

I have heard the same thing said about us:

“We (Armenians) are not ready for democracy.”

A nation with a long history of subservience

to ruthless and bloodthirsty tyrants

has no use for freedom and human rights?

*

The difference between a schoolyard bully

and someone like Mubarak is that

the bully is too smart to say,

“I do what I do as a favor to my victims.

They enjoy being bullied.

They love it.

It enhances their self-esteem.

It is the best solution to all their problems.”

*

When asked if it's true that Mubarak has amassed

a fortune of 70 billion dollars,

a Middle-East Pundit in Canada said:

“Much more than that. Much, much more!”

*

Hegel is right: “No one gives up power without a bloody fight.”

*

Armenians are not ready for democracy?

If they have brainwashed us to believe

we never had it so good

because we are in the best of hands,

they have a good chance to brainwash us to believe

freedom and human rights are inventions

of the corrupt and degenerate West

and anyone who speaks of democracy and free speech

is an enemy of the people.

This is what Ottoman sultans believed.

This is what Soviet commissars believed.

And this is what our bosses, bishops, and benefactor believe today.

“Armenians are not ready for democracy.”

*

If we are not ready for democracy,

why don't they educate us?

Why waste their time and our money

by trying to convince us they will get even with the Turks?

If you have answers to these questions,

I would like to have them.

#

ara baliozian · February 12, 2011

Thursday, February 10, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

Silvio Berlusconi: “Never in my life have I paid for sex.

I find it degrading to do so.”

He is right, of course. But only literally. Or is it legally?

People in his income bracket have “people”

who deal with the questionable aspects of transactions.

*

Give an honest man a title and a regular salary

and he will be as loyal to his boss as a dog to his master,

but a dog, who like all dogs,

knows his master

but not his master's master.

*

As a boy I had more friends than enemies.

As an adult I have many enemies and very few friends.

But whereas most of my former friends and present enemies

have titles and a regular salary,

I have been and remain an unemployed and unemployable misfit,

all because I speak more of human rights and less of massacres.

Among us talk of massacres is in,

all mention of human rights is out.

What's done and cannot be undone is in.

As for what's being done:

why mess with perfection?

*

Nothingness is the only perfection we will ever know.

#

Friday, February 11, 2011

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

FLATTERY

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

For most of my life I thought, felt, spoke, and wrote as a dupe.

I know first hand how easy it is to be taken in by flattery.

“Superior race.”

“The Chosen People.”

“First nation...”

*

Bias is popular because it flatters.

*

Bias and lies are as close as bum and pants.

So are propaganda and prejudice.

*

Education is a hidden tool of oppression.

*

Flattery does not need proof.

*

Propaganda is not free speech,

but a license to lie.

*

Propaganda is as carefully premeditated and planned

as cold-blooded murder.

*

The rules of the game have changed.

Mubarak has now been exposed as a tyrant.

A violent crackdown would further expose him

as a bloodthirsty fascist guilty of crimes against humanity.

In which case he may run the risk of losing

both his freedom and his wealth.

He is between a rock and a hard place.

To put it more elegantly:

He is in deep sh*t and he knows it.

He also knows everybody else knows it.

*

Sooner or later and inevitably

all dictators must contemplate the following two questions:

Will I be shot and hanged like Mussolini?

Will I be cornered into committing suicide like Hitler?

#

Saturday, February 12, 2011

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

WHAT'S NEXT?

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

“No one knows what's going to happen next in Egypt,”

according to an editorial in today's paper.

Pundits who write editorials may not know, but historians do.

In the French Revolution the beheading of the king and queen

was only step one.

Like rats abandoning a sinking ship,

Mubarak's cronies will start their exodus –

unless of course they made a deal with the junta.

*

Revolutions only replace replace one set of rascals with another.

This is well known to historians but not to the masses

who are now too busy celebrating their victory –

probably on the grounds that a hollow victory

is better than a catastrophic defeat.

*

In Turkey 133 military officers have been arrested.

About 1600 Tunisians have landed on a tiny Sicilian island –

rats abandoning ship?

*

My only hope is hat “people power” will act like a virus

and infect not only Arab regimes in Africa and the Middle East

but also in China, Russia, and Armenia,

even if it means their victory will be hollow, as it is bound to be.

#

ara baliozian · February 16, 2011

Sunday, February 13, 2011

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

FIXERS

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

Nothing infuriates me more than paying $40.00

to a fat-assed plumber for tightening a screw –

something I could have done myself in less than a minute.

But then what options do I have?

Whenever I try to fix something on my own

I make things worse.

There are times when I cannot help thinking that

by writing as I do I fix nothing.

I may even make things worse.

The words obstinacy and resistance immediately remind me

of an Armenian who has made up his mind and thinks

anyone who dares to disagree with him – or rather,

with the propaganda line he has swallowed hook, line, and sinker –

is either a Turk in disguise or a retard.

Perhaps that's also what happens to all “fixers”

who meddle in human affairs.

In the last century alone mankind has been the beneficiary

of a long line of fixers who made things worse.

Mussolini and Hitler come to mind,

also Stalin, Mao, Latino juntas, and last but far from least

our own glorious turn-of-the century revolutionary heroes.

Let us not be surprised therefore

if things get from bad to worse in Egypt.

#

Monday, February 14, 2011

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

MY SECRET AMBITION

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

To be read by readers who find me unreadable.

Judging by the number of insults hurled against me,

I must be doing something right.

*

REVOLUTIONARIES

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

They are, by definition, dissenters in words as well as in deeds.

And yet, ours seem to be afraid of free speech.

They talk endlessly about Turkish atrocities

but avoid all mention of censorship.

They use someone else's suffering

to cover up their own uselessness.

What saves them is their own insignificance.

*

THOMAS MANN

ON HIS FELLOW GERMANS

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

“Wretched, isolated, demented people,

misled by a wild stupid band of adventurers

whom they take for mythical heroes.”

#

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

Authoritarian regimes remain in power

so long as they systemically and successfully moronize their subjects.

*

Lincoln said, “You can't fool all the people all the time,”

because he was born and raised in a democracy.

Had he been born under an authoritarian regime,

he would have said, “You can't moronize all the people all the time.”

*

In a commentary in this morning's paper, I read:

“The democracy movement in Egypt is like a tiger

that has been living in a tiny cage for thirty years.”

They were sheep.

They are now born-again tigers.

All it took was the decision to think for themselves.

*

To be brainwashed and to be systematically moronized

are synonymous operations.

*

Most problems and their solutions

begin and end in the convolutions of our brains.

*

Authoritarian regimes are afraid of free speech

because it may expose them as systematic moronizers.

*

To how many of my readers who insult me

on the grounds that they are smarter and better Armenians

I could say: “I know how you feel. I too was brainwashed once.”

*

I doubt if I will ever meet an Armenian

who has not been taken in by another Armenian.

*

Some day if the Rock of Gibraltar sinks,

it can be easily replaced with an Armenian

who has made up his mind.

*

I am told again and again to get involved in community affairs.

But I am involved.

I became involved when I decided to think for myself.

#

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

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

INTELLECTUALS

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

In an interview published in LE POINT

(Paris: February 3, 2011, page 22),

when asked if French intellectuals exercise

any influence on national affairs,

Marine Le Pen replied:

“No. I think our intellectual elites are totally disconnected.”

The same cannot be said of our own intellectual elites

simply because we don't have them.

They don't exist.

They have been silenced, alienated, exiled, and marginalized

to the point of irrelevance.

Our speechifiers and pundits may quote

Charents's line on solidarity

but no one does a damn thing.

They operate on the assumption that

they can solve all our problems with speeches.

And as our problems get from bad to worse,

and from worse to worst,

they explain their failure by blaming it on the opposition.

#

ara baliozian · February 19, 2011

Thursday, February 17, 2011

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

MY REPLY

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

An anonymous reader writes:

“The only reason why you keep posting your garbage on this forum

is that no editor in his right would publish you in his paper.”

My reply:

“For your information, editors who decide

what gets printed and what gets rejected

are not men of superior literary judgment

but cowardly idiots like you,

afraid to offend the sensibilities of their brainwashed readers

and potential advertisers on whose goodwill they depend.”

#

Friday, February 18, 2011

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

A SERMON

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

God has no reason to hide from us.

He is within us as well as around us.

If we are blind to His presence,

it's because we have failed to develop our faculties.

A dog's sense of smell is far superior to ours.

A cow has many more taste buds on its tongue.

Idiot savants have remarkable powers

of perception and calculation

incomprehensible to the average man with a normal IQ.

Rats can predict tsunamis and earthquakes better

than our most sophisticated instruments.

These achievement have been made

not by an act of will or choice

but by allowing nature to take its course.

Which may suggest our limitations are of our own making.

As children we are dependent on received ideas.

As adults we are predisposed to respect authority

even when authority is in the hands of liars and criminals

who pretend to know better.

Popes and imams: variations on the same theme:

fascist megalomania.

Crusades and jihads: premeditated, cold-blooded massacres

conceived by blood-thirsty barbarians

who speak in the name of God

even as they do the Devil's work.

#

Saturday, February 19, 2011

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

ON LOVE AND RELATED ATROCITIES

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

Love: a biological malfunction that blurs the line

between reality and illusion.

*

One of the first questions

that an Armenian asks about another Armenian:

“What does he do for a living?”

Second question:

“How much does he make?”

In my case, the two answers are:

“He scribbles,” and “Nothing.”

*

“I think therefore I am?”

Not so fast.

If you are an Armenian, it would closer to the truth to say,

“I think, therefore I am not.”

*

If a Jew is ever elected president of the United States,

an extremist group will identify him

as a former agent of the Mossad

whose forefather was not Adam

but the Serpent.*

*

I have been taken in so many times by my fellow Armenians

that I now reserve my trust only for an Armenian

who speaks against his own interests –

not something that happens every day.

#

ara baliozian · February 23, 2011

Sunday, February 20, 2011

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

WRITERS: A LAMENTATION

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

What is a writer deprived of free speech?

Worst than a gagged and hogtied Mideast Arab

at the mercy of corrupt potentates

so fearful of being exposed for what they really are

that they are willing to slaughter their own people.

*

As an Armenian writer – that is to say,

as an unemployed and unemployable misfit –

I respect everyone except those

who make no effort to earn my respect

not so much as a writer but as a human being;

and when I speak as an Armenian writer,

I do not speak of myself alone

but of all those who came before me

and were misunderstood, rejected,

betrayed to the authorities and

murdered in cold blood.

Armenian writers have been perennial scapegoats

of our Ottomanized and Sovietized leaders

and their brainwashed dupes.

*

In his efforts to explain and justify this state of affairs,

one of our elder statesmen once said to me:

“You speak as though you were the only writer

who has been unfairly treated.”

To which I had no choice but to reply:

“That is why I speak with the strength of many.

My question to you is: On whose side are you?”

I never heard from him again.

Shortly thereafter he died.

May God have mercy on his soul, if he had one.

#

Monday, February 21, 2011

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

NUTS

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

“He is nuts!”

I once overheard one of our elder statesmen

say of another – both members of the same political party.

Which may suggest we are not just divided but also subdivided.

Even our divisions have divisions.

*

Armenian politics:

I can't imagine a more depressing subject.

Does anyone know or remember

when was the last time we had a single king

or head of state who was not the puppet

of an alien power structure?

*

If our elder statesmen have a low opinion of one another,

what is their opinion of the people?

“Sh*ts” and “assh*les” according to two friends

quoting two of our “statesmen.”

*

The Armenian equivalent of “cherchez la femme”

is “cherchez le Panchoonie” -- that is,

the bureaucrat who makes a comfortable living

by parroting someone else's propaganda line.

Which reminds me of Zarian's celebrated line:

“Even our garbage has not been picked up

from our own streets!”

#

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

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

ON UNDERSTANDING

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

We all agree that as Turks they behaved like Turks,

and as Armenians we behaved like Armenians.

Turks behaving like Turks we understand.

But what do we really mean when we say

Armenians behaving like Armenians?

Did we believe in our own propaganda?

Did we underestimate

the ruthless determination of the opposition

and God's indifference?

Did we confuse our wishful thinking or illusions with reality?

By emphasizing Turkish motives and responsibility

and ignoring or covering up our own,

we condemn ourselves to understand nothing.

*

Can we understand ourselves

without understanding others

and the world in which we live?

*

Whenever I speak with a member of a political party

I assume at least a fraction of what he says

is recycled propaganda, that is to say, a shameless lie.

*

No matter how deep runs my contempt

for some of my fellow Armenians,

it will never be as deep and venomous

as their contempt for all selfless intellectual labor.

#

THREE POEMS

TRANSLATED INTO FRENCH

BY GEORGES FESTA

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

The Human Condition

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

We walk like apes

Eat like cannibals

Talk like parrots

Fight like dragons

And call ourselves

Civilized human beings.

==============================

La condition humaine

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

Comme les singes nous marchons

Comme les cannibales nous mangeons

Comme les perroquets nous parlons

Comme les dragons nous nous battons

Et nous osons nous dire

Des êtres humains civilisés.

==========================================

Haiku

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

Little toadstools

On the lawn:

Reminders of Hiroshima.

=====================================

Haïku

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

De petits champignons vénéneux

Sur la pelouse :

Rappels d’Hiroshima.

========================================

Dreams/Nightmares

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

When dreams

Come true/They turn

Into nightmares.

============================

Rêves/Cauchemars

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

Lorsque les rêves

Se réalisent/Ils se transforment

En cauchemars.

=========================================

Textes extraits de :

Armenian-American Poets: A Bilingual Anthology,

éd. et trad. Garig Basmadjian

(Détroit, Michigan: Alex Manoogian Cultural Fund of the Armenian General Benevolent Union, 1976).

___________

Source : http://armenian-poetry.blogspot.com/search/label/Ara%20Baliozian

ara baliozian · March 2, 2011

Sunday, February 27, 2011

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

THINGS THAT ARE HIDDEN FROM US

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

Cross-breeding is one of the benefits of being defeated and conquered by multiple races, and cross-breeding may well be at the root of our survival.

*

They Ottomanized us to the same degree that we Armenianized them.

The same could be said of Romans, Greeks, Persians, Mongols, Tatars and Arabs among others.

*

In the Armenian ghetto where i was born and raised,

Armenians came in all sizes and shapes --

hook-nosed, large-headed, dark-skinned, beady-eyed...

*

It is said of Genghis Khan that he had so many wives and concubines

that according to English geneticists

his direct descendants today number sixteen million.

Add to that the descendants of his generals, lieutenants, and soldiers,

and the number may reach closer to a billion.

For more on this subject, see Ian Frazier, TRAVELS IN SIBERIA,

(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010, page 122).

*

Cross-breeding may also explain our endless internecine conflicts.

We are not a collection of tribes but races.

Solidarity is not in our DNA.

Like cats and dogs we are driven less by reason and more by biology.

To brag about our survival therefore makes as much sense

as to brag about the fact that we are neither kangaroos nor worms.

*

These things are hidden from us because

no one wants to be the bearer of bad tidings.

But I believe it is by confronting the dark side of things

that we may see the light. In the same way that

to treat a disease you need a correct diagnosis.

You cannot cure cancer by pretending it's insomnia.

#

Monday, February 28, 2011

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

DEAD MEN WALKING

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

What triggered the Arab uprising in North Africa and the Middle East

was not the ideas of a philosopher or the words of a poet

(ideas promoting democracy and words praising freedom

have been around for thousands of years)

but the self-immolation of a poor and unknown Tunisian street vendor.

Which may suggest that criticism and dissent do not overthrow tyrants.

Ideas move in a metaphysical realm that has no point of contact with reality.

Writers are not prophets but at best only canaries in a mine.

Rousseau and Voltaire did not convince the French to rise

and behead their king and queen, hunger and humiliation did.

Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov did not end or

even initiate the disintegration of the USSR

but the incompetence and lies of the commissars did.

Subservience to tyrants may not be an ideal condition

but people appear to have an astonishing degree of tolerance for it.

Whether I fall silent or go on writing

will make no difference in the long run.

To my critics and to our editors who have classified me

as an enemy of the people and a traitor to the cause, i say:

"Relax! I am not a threat to anyone.

Our destiny is not dependent on what I or anyone else writes

or what you print because we are all dead men walking."

#

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

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

THE MORE THINGS CHANGE...

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

An Arab-style Armenian uprising is unlikely

because we have been so thoroughly and effectively

scattered, alienated, mongrelized, and some would say, moronized

(if you will forgive my French) that to paraphrase Mark Twain,

consensus is something we all like to talk about

but nobody does a damn thing.

*

Another negative factor:

We don't confront a single Ben Ali, Mubarak, or Gadhafi

but a host of nameless and faceless bureaucrats

who work behind the scenes and are thus unidentifiable and inaccessible.

Our future leaders will probably spring from their ranks,

which means, even if things change they will stay the same.

O how I wish I were wrong!

*

What did really change after our revolution in the Ottoman Empire?

Instead of being massacred by Talaat

we were purged by Stalin.

Different players, same results.

*

Why is it that we know the number of victims in the Ottomine Empire

but not in the USSR?

Why should a Soviet tyrant be different from an Ottoman tyrant?

Or, for that matter, an Armenian tyrant?

An Ottomanized or Sovietized Armenian may well be

more Ottoman than the Sultan,

and more Stalinist than Stalin.

Lenin once said:

"A bourgeois is a bourgeoi regardless of nationality."

So is a tyrant.

#

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

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

ON TURCOCENTRISM

AND RELATED ATROCITIES

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

Our Turcocentric ghazetajis have reduced our recent history

to the chronicle of an unsettled score.

Not a single spark of creativity!

Like people who are said to be more Catholic than the Pope,

they are more victims than survivors of massacres.

I was born and raised among survivors

and though most of them were illiterate,

they knew better than to blabber endlessly

about reparations and recognition.

*

When wise men speak

you search for wisdom even in their banalities.

When a fool speaks the exact opposite happens:

even if what he says contains a pearl of wisom,

you have eyes only for the banalities.

*

Revolutions fail because they kill the dog

but not the dog's master.

*

An Armenian uprising?

It may come -- if it comes -- via China and Russia...

*

Life after death?

If there is one, it may be so different from life as we know it

that we may fail to see any connection between the two.

*

Why is it that inter-tribal conflict have a longer lifespan

than warfare between nations?

Some day Turks and Armenians may be friends but

Armenians and Armenians?

#

ara baliozian · March 5, 2011

Thursday, March 03, 2011

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

MEGALOMANIACS

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

They brag about our heroes but they are afraid of free speech.

They hate to be called cowards but they don't mind behaving like gutless worms

on the assumption that if the people are stupid enough to believe in their propaganda

they will be stupid enough not to see their cowardice.

That's the way it is with all autocratic regimes:

they demand heroism in action and cowardice in thought;

and what is even more astonishing, they get it.

350,000 Armenians died in World War II.

How many dared to raise their voice against Stalin and his commissars?

*

Armenians who say they are for democracy

and Turks who refuse to recognize the Genocide

are dupes who believe all politicians are liars except their own.

They believe it is their duty as good citizens

to believe what they are told,

especially if what they are told flatters their vanity.

It is this kind of aberration that allows

the Ben Alis, Mubaraks, and Gadhafis of this world

not only to hang on to power long after they have outlived their usefulness

but also to establish dynasties like the Bourbeons and Romanovs

and to rule their nation to the end of time.

#

Friday, March 04, 2011

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

MEMO TO EDITORS

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

To be for democracy and to be against free speech is a contradiction.

If you can't see this you must be blind...and

when the blind lead the blind both shall fall into the ditch.

*

MEMO TO FORUM MODERATORS

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

As a critic I am willing to admit that I can be wrong

because I am only a human being.

If you think as a moderator you can assert infallibility

you must be an arrogant fool.

*

MEMO TO OUR RULERS

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

Turks ruled by intimidation and got away with it for 600 years.

Are Turks your role models?

*

MEMO TO FUND-RAISERS

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

Do you know

(a) who will handle the distribution and

( what is his cut?

*

MEMO TO MY CRITICS

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

If you have a closed mind

your criticism is without merit.

#

Saturday, March 05, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

In today's paper I read Russians are more afraid of the police than of criminals.

The situation in Armenia is not mentioned

probably because no one gives a damn about Armenians,

not even Armenians.

*

My quarrel is not with God Whom i neither know nor understand,

but with the god of popes, imams, and rabbis.

*

Truth may also be defined as a lie that you believe in.

*

Stalin, Mao, and Franco died in bed.

Gadhafi ruled for 43 years.

Those who are in power today cannot tell with any degree of certainty

how long they are going to last.

But they will never forget the wisdom of the old Chinese saying:

"No banquet under heaven is endless."

*

The central preoccupation of Armenian intellectuals today

is how to get closer to the money tree and

to obstruct the path of those with similar ambitions.

I remember once when I insulted one of our national benefactors

in the presence of several academics,

there was a stunned silence as though I had a committed a capital offense.

The Turks say, "Among ten men nine or sure to be women."

I suspect in our case eleven would be a more accurate esdtimate.

#

ara baliozian · March 9, 2011

Sunday, March 06, 2011

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

PHOBIAS...AMONG OTHER THINGS

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

Is Islamophobia -- that is, fear of Islam -- as irrational as say

agoraphobia (fear of open spaces) or homophobia (fear of gays)?

What about fear of child molesters, fear of organized crime,

or fear of serial killers?

Why is it that they do not qualify as phobias

in need of psychiatric treatment?

Who in his right mind would befriend

a serial killer, a mafioso, or a child molester

in the name of tolerance or political correctness?

Now then, if Muslims have killed many more innocent civilians

than serial killers,

why should Islamophobia be thought of as

neurotic, irrational, unjustified, or, for that matter, politically incorrect?

I look forward to the day when political correctness

will be seen as semantic fascism.

*

Everyone has a book in him, we are told.

What we are not told is that

most books remain unpublished,

and if published unread,

and if read forgotten.

*

Men who don't understand themselves call women incomprehensible.

*

More and more frequently now i find myself saying,

"I don't remember."

If it's the onset of Alzheimer's, it is more than welcome

because my unpleasant memories far outnumber the pleasant ones,

and nothing would give me more pleasure than to erase them.

Whoever defined happiness as a "bad memory"

knew what he was talking about.

#

Monday, March 07, 2011

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

REFERENCES

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

In eveything I read I see direct or hidden references to Armenians.

The situation in Lybia, for instances, reminds me of the fact that

no matter how corrupt and incompetent a leader,

he will have loyal supporters willing to kill and die for him.

I am also reminded of the fact that Sylva Kaputikian,

winner of the Stalin Prize,

even after the collapse of the USSR

openly declared pride in having been a member of the Communist Party.

*

While reading a review of Alan Riding's

AND THE SHOW WENT ON: CULTURAL LIFE IN NAZI-OCCUPIED PARIS,

dealing with French collaboration with Nazis

and the purges that followed under De Gaulle,

I reflect that we were at no time de-Ottomanized or de-Stalinized.

As a result there are still Armenians today who believe

Russians to be our Big Brothers notwithstanding the fact that as a nation

we could be their grand-grandfathers.

*

In the latest issue of the NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

I read a review of Carol Edgarian's THREE STAGES OF AMAZEMENT

and another of David Livingstone Smith's

LESS THAN HUMAN: WHY WE DEMEAN, ENSLAVE, AND EXTERMINATE OTHERS,

whose subtitle reads:

"A philosopher argues that dehumanization is necessary

for genocide, slavery and slaughter to take hold."

According to Smith,

"dehumanization is rooted in human nature, not culture."

Which simply means, Turks massacred us

not because they are bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians,

but because they are human beings, like the rest of us.

Toynbee would agree.

In one of his many references to Turks and Armenians

he writes that under certain conditions

even the most civilized people on earth

will behave like Turks -- that is,

if they follow their instinbct and ignore their reason.

*

In the review of Carol Edgarian's novel,

we are reminded that her first book, published 17 years ago,

is titled RISE THE EUPHRATES.

#

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

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

ON IDENTITY

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

David Hume on history:

"Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human natur."

It follows, to identify Turks as bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians

and ourselves as progressive, Christian, Westernized, civilized, and so on...

is as valid as to speak of superior and inferior races,

or Germans and Jews as defined by the Nazis.

*

In a review of ERNEST GELLNER: AN INTELLECTUAL BIOGRAPHY

by John A. Hall, I read:

"Gellner seems to have regarded his Jewish identity

as an obstacle to be overcome rather than an inheritance to be cherished."

Something similar could be said of our identity.

*

Gellner on tradition:

"...bullsh*t, servility, vested interests, arbitrariness, empty ritual" --

in short: mumbo jumbo.

*

What we need more than anything today

is an objective assessment of our reality and not

more Turcocentrism, lamentation, and blame-game.

We don't need bosses, bishops, and benefactors to tell us

who we are and what to think.

As long as we look up to them for guidance

we are no better than dogs who know their master

but not their master's master.

*

Our identity is not a set of assets handed down to us by our ancestors

(who may have been more confused than we are)

but a garbage dump of liabilities.

Now then, go right ahead and think I am wrong

because I refuse to flatter your vanity.

*

There is a misprint in "In God We Trust."

The letter "l" in "God" has been inadvertently deleted.

#

Wednesday, March 09, 2011

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

THEM AND US

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

When accused of sleeping with German soldiers during World War II,

a French actress is reported to have declared:

"My soul is French but my ass is international."

My answer to those of my readers who accuse me

of being anti-Armenian and even pro-Turkish, I say:

"My soul is Armenian but i write

(please note, i am not saying "my pen is")

... but I write as a human being.

I refuse to apply for membership

in a club, cabal, party, or organization

for the simple reason that i refuse to be coerced into writing

what someone else wants me to write.

Anyone is free to disagre with me on the grounds that

he is a better Armenian

and some of the most thoroughly Ottomanized and Sovietized Armenians have done so.

*

I have yet to see an Armenian willing to concede to another Armenian

that he is not a superior specimen who knows better.

*

It has been said that ideologies attract the best as well as the worst.

In our case, the worst far outnumber the best, alas!

*

Our men at the top know their business.

They choose their hirelings carefully.

They take a nobody, brainwash him,

give him a regular salary and a title,

and watch him turn into a parrot

who will repeat what he is told.

*

Speaking of World War II and Germans:

Hitler began his political career by blaming Germany's problems on Jews,

and he ended it by blaming the Germans.

That's the way it is with fascists:

they will blame everyone but themselves.

They are never wrong because they are infallible.

I will never forget the elder statesman

who blamed all our problems on "non-partisan Armenians."

When informed I was, like my father before me, a non-partisan, he said:

"I thought you were one of us."

And that was the end of our friendship.

#

ara baliozian · March 12, 2011

Thursday, March 10, 2011

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

COSMOLOGY

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

If I understand recent developments in cosmology,

we live in a multi-dimensional multi-universe

in which Big Bangs are routine occurrences.

Man may not live forever but the cosmos does,

and what are we if not tiny fragments of the cosmos?

*

For the first time in history Armenians in America are free.

But what are they doing with their freedom?

They either allow themselves and their offspring

to be brainwashed by propagandists

or they assimilate.

They have as much initiative to shape their destiny

as a grain of sand in a sandstorm.

*

All power structures rely on the support of dupes and idiots

who believe everything they are told.

Even after 43 years of incompetence, corruption, and greed

by an obviously deranged megalomaniac,

there are many Libyans today willing to kill and die for him.

Closer to home: there is no evidence to suggest

that we are smarter or better off than Libyans,

and judging by the number of our victims so far,

we may well be dumber and worse off.

#

Friday, March 11, 2011

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

SITUATION / SH*TUATION

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

We were defeated

because we were divided.

We were bastardized

because we were defeated and conquered.

We have been moronized

because we were divided, defeated,

conquered, bastardized, and brainwashed to believe

none of it is our fault

but must be ascribed

to geographic, political, economic, and cultural conditions

beyond our control.

Which of course is hogwash.

Everything begins and ends in the convolutions of our brains.

Which also means there is a way out.

Ours is not a verdict without appeal.

If our problems are of our own making,

so are their solutions.

The rest is propaganda –

The kind whose ultimate aim is to moronize.

#

Saturday, March 12, 2011

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

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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

Propaganda moronizes both the perp and his victim.

Has a single political leader ever identified himself as a moronizer?

*

Genghis Khan openly admitted that

nothing gave him as much pleasure as killing and raping.

There is a dormant Genghis Khan in all men of power.

*

We speak of political ambition and greed for power;

not of ambition and greed to serve.

We live in a world where even the chief executive officers

of charitable organizations demand and get paid millions.

*

The easiest thing in the world: to make mistakes.

The hardest: to admit them even to oneself.

It took the popes of Rome several centuries

to admit they had made a mistake in persecuting Galileo.

It may take them several more centuries

to admit they are not infallible.

*

Power also means a refusal to see

that which is clearly visible to others.

Stalin and Hitler never even considered pleading guilty

to a single murder.

*

No one likes minorities with unsettled scores in their midst.

Do we have such minorities in Armenia?

If we don’t, how come?

If we do, how to we handle them?

Does anyone know what happened to the Kurds in Karabagh?

Is anyone interested?

#

ara baliozian · March 16, 2011

Sunday, March 13, 2011

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

MEMO TO MY CRITICS

(IF YOU WILL FORGIVE THE OVERSTATEMENT)

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

If wrong, I can be corrected.

I don’t pretend to have all the facts

or to be infallible.

Neither do I pretend to know everything.

All my assertions are based

on theories, guesses, speculations, and assumptions

that may be exposed as false.

If you disagree with me, state your reasons.

However, if you choose to insult me

anonymously and from a safe distance,

you run the risk of being identified

as a cowardly loud-mouth dupe

who will believe everything he is told

by individuals who pretend to know better.

*

I am willing to concede that

if I had all the facts and knew everything

I would probably think otherwise.

If, on the other hand, you think you are right

because the majority is on your side,

may I remind you that majorities

have been known to be wrong and often are.

To enjoy majority support is meaningless.

Stalin in the USSR,

Hitler in Germany,

Mao in China,

Mussolini in Italy,

Mubarak in Egypt,

Ben Ali in Tunisia,

And Gafdhafi for 43 years in Libya

(to mention only a handful of names)

had the support of the majority.

*

There are still Armenians in America today

who believe Stalin was good to us.

There are still skinheads all over the world

who look up to Hitler as a great statesman.

I say and repeat: if wrong, I can be corrected.

By engaging in verbal abuse and name-calling

you convince no one

even if you are a boss

who speaks in the name of an ideology

(that may well be politically bankrupt);

even if you are a benefactor

who speaks in the name of capital

(before which every Armenian is brought up

to genuflect and osculate derrieres);

and even if you are a bishop

who speaks in the name of God

Who in His infinite wisdom

has consistently refused to get involved in our affairs.

#

Monday, March 14, 2011

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

REFLECTIONS

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

If you think I represent everything

that is evil in Armenian life

and you represent everything that is good,

allow me to share my experience on the subject.

When I was young

I too was convinced I was better than others.

But as I grew older

I discovered that this type of self-assessment

became progressively more difficult.

I now count myself among the lowest of the low.

*

If it pleases you to think you are a better man than me,

be my guest. But allow me to warn you

that you live in a fool’s paradise

that is as ephemeral as the illusions of youth,

as baseless as the propaganda of fascist regimes,

and as phony as the promises of a politician.

*

Do I know better?

I am not sure.

But I do know that it makes good sense

to reject everything that flatters my ego.

#

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

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

A ROSE IS A ROSE

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

A rose is a rose.

So is a moron a moron

and we have our share of them.

With one difference:

ours think they are not just smart

but smarter than anyone else,

including their fellow Armenians.

They confuse propaganda with patriotism,

objective judgment with treason,

and Ottomanism with Armenianism.

More Bolshevik than Stalin,

more Catholic than the Pope,

more intolerant than the Sultan,

they rate themselves as true defenders of the faith.

This may explain why Turks have

internationally recognized and respected dissidents

and we have none.

That may also explain why

we had better writers under the Sultan

than we have today under our own bosses,

bishops, benefactors, and brown-nosers.

Hence the popular Armenian adage:

“Mart bidi ch’ellank.”

Freely translated and paraphrased:

“We will never amount to anything.”

#

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

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

CONSIDER THE EVIDENCE

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

Dictatorship means first and foremost

to live in an environment

where an ordinary citizen with an average IQ

is not allowed to use his common sense

and to call a spade a spade.

Consider our genocide as a case in point;

we speak of it as if it were a great tragedy,

which it certainly was.

We never refer to it as a wake-up call.

*

For 600 years we adopted a passive stance.

We were brainwashed to believe

the men at the top knew better.

On the eve of the great tragedy

our own men at the top

(namely, our revolutionaries on the one hand

and our men within the Ottoman administration

on the other) failed to reach a consensus.

Instead of dialogue they engaged in two monologues

that never crossed.

*

Our situation today remains unchanged.

We have learned nothing.

We remain divided in the name of tribal loyalties

and continue to think of consensus

as if it was an irrelevant concept.

We have replaced “Red” massacre

with its “White” variant – namely,

assimilation in the Diaspora,

exodus in the Homeland.

Our fundamental assumptions

and “truths” – we never had it so good,

we are in good hands,

the Russians are our big brothers –

are Big Lies; and the Bigger of all Lies:

respect for human rights,

free speech, and dialogue may be good

for the corrupt and degenerate West but not for us

because we are smarter and we know better.

*

I am not asking you to believe everything I say.

All I ask is that you consider the evidence.

#

Sign In

as i see it - Pt. IV

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