as i see it - Pt. I

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, February 09, 2002

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In a French dictionary of philosophy

I read the following definition:

"absolute (from the Latin absolutum, separated):

independent of all other things.

The absolute, according to Hegel,

drives all human thought and action.

He writes: ‘Philosophical reflection leads us to the absolute,

but it requires patience and hard work.

Religious faith, romantic love, and suicide

are but manifestations of impatience vis-а-vis the absolute’."

It follows, haste rather than ignorance

(according to Socrates and Plato) is the source of all evil.

But perhaps in this context

ignorance and haste might as well be synonymous.

What is ignorance, or action based on ignorance,

if not a result of haste –

haste in confusing ignorance or partial knowledge with wisdom?

We act to the best of our knowledge

and in doing so we confuse fragmentary knowledge with the whole truth.

We were massacred because we wanted independence ASAP

and because we were too hasty

in mistaking Europe’s verbal support of our aspirations

for the real thing; and because we were too quick to assume

the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire to be imminent as well as

inevitable.

We hastily embraced all those factors that were in our favor

and blindly (also rashly) ignored the voices that advised caution.

We are disappointed in (and hence critical of)

our fellow Armenians because we have the mistaken notion

they are not what they are but what they ought to be.

And what are they if not products of centuries of brutal oppression,

hence suspicious of their fellow men (including Armenians),

cunning, ruthless and cruel when in a position of power.

[ara baliozian]

RELIABLE SOURCES

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

During the last 25 years I have reviewed several hundred books by odar

historians, statesman, witnesses, missionaries and diplomats in which the

Armenian Genocide is mentioned or discussed. Here is another:

In the fifth and final volume of his memoirs, THE JOURNEY NOT THE ARRIVAL

MATTERS: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE YEARS 1939 TO 1969, Leonard Woolf

devotes several pages to the Armenian massacres. Among other things we

read here: "In 1894 one of those savage and senseless internecine

massacres, epidemic among human beings, broke out in the Ottoman Empire.

Turks and Kurds, encouraged by the Ottoman Government, began a systematic

looting and destruction of Armenian villages and the slaughter of the

inhabitants. The motives were religious, racial, and economic – which

means that they were senseless, uncivilized, and inhuman. To kill a man

and his wife, to rape his daughter and then kill her, because they pray

in a church instead of a mosque, talk Armenian instead of Turkish, and

are slightly (or thought to be slightly) more prosperous than you are, is

senseless and barbarous, and the motives given above are labels which

conceal a deeper and darker part of the human mind. The man who massacres

can only do this if he regards his victims not as individuals like

himself but as non-human pawns or anonymous ciphers in the fantasy or

nightmare world of friends and foes, good men and evil men, in which he

thinks he lives and which he therefore creates – or, of course, if he is

just a plain common or garden sadist."

One could easily a 1000-page tome of similar quotations by reliable

sources from England, America, France, Italy, Russia and many other

countries. I wonder why so far our "massacrists" and "genocide mafia"

have failed to do this.

[ara baliozian]

PLEASE, DON'T CORRECT ME IF I AM RIGHT!

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

1.

After reading one or two, or at most three books by Armenian historians

subsidized by Armenian political parties or satellite cultural

institutions, the average Armenian thinks he knows everything there is to

know about Armenian history. It goes without saying that this

misconception is shared is by people of all national groups, including

Turks.

2.

I have been silenced by partisan editors,

corrected by uninformed ignoramuses,

and insulted by chauvinists because I refuse to recycle chauvinist crap:

I must be on the right path.

3.

When two men of different principles meet,

one of them is sure to kill the other even if neither principle justifies

murder.

4.

If my humility will only reinforce your intolerance,

you will be better off if I were to kick your ass.

5.

I only put into words that which is felt and thought by many.

If you say, that’s a lie,

I suggest a more receptive frame of mind.

People hesitate to express their innermost thoughts and feelings

to self-righteous imbeciles on the warpath.

[ara baliozian]

THE ABC OF HISTORY

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In our environment the lessons of history are like Mark Twain’s weather:

everyone talks about it but no one does a damn thing. That’s because

history for us has become a source of lamentation rather than

understanding and instruction. To learn from history certain conditions

must be present, among them the awareness that

-we don't know everything we need to know;

-we have committed many blunders in the past; we are committing many

blunders today, and the chances are we will commit many more in the

future;

-there is more to history than massacres;

-we are not the Chosen People and God is not on our side: which means we

can rely on no one but ourselves;

-to emphasize and analyze our blunders is infinitely more important than

to catalogue and document the crimes of our enemies;

-to introduce nationalist or partisan bias in the study of history is to

pervert it;

-in any collective enterprise, divisiveness is a sure recipe for

failures;

-the function of leadership is not to divide but to unite;

-a leadership that divides will lead the people to slaughter.

Unless these conditions exist, learning from history is destined to

remain an unattainable goal for us.

[ara baliozian]

Monday, February 11, 2002

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

1.

In a book published in 1836 and titled HINTS ON ETIQUETTE by that most

prolific of all thinkers and sources of wisdom, Mr. Anon (short for

Anonymous) we read the following: " "Shopkeepers and retailers of various

goods will do well to remember that people are respectable in their own

sphere only and that when they attempt to step out of it they cease to be

so."

2.

According to the rich, the poor are poor because they are lazy.

According to the poor, the rich are rich because they are bloodsuckers.

But according to another theory that I read today:

the poor are poor because they refuse to accept

the moral and intellectual guidance of the rich.

Live and learn.

3.

All tragedies begin with happy endings.

4.

On several occasions I have been called by Armenian readers an idiot and

a pro-Turkish denier of the Genocide. About being an idiot: I suppose

every Armenian is an idiot in the eyes of another Armenian; it would

therefore be a waste of time to refute the charge. As for being a

pro-Turkish denier: I am told whenever a Turk wants to insult another, he

calls him an "Ermeni pij" (Armenian bastard). If so far I have not yet

been called a "Turkish bastard" it may be because the Turks are ahead of

us.

5.

The root of arrogance is ignorance. The root of ignorance is mental

laziness. And the root of mental laziness is self-satisfaction, which

might as well be another word for arrogance. Arrogance, ignorance, and

laziness thus feed on each other and starve even as they grow fat.

[ara baliozian]

CARCINOGENIC AGENTS

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It takes all kinds and my readers are no exception: they come in all

sizes, shapes, and colors. Some are friendly, others less so, still

others indifferent, semi-hostile, downright hostile, viciously hostile,

and cut-throat hostile.

And then there is the carcinogenic agent.

The carcinogenic agent reads and comments on everything I write –

including the commas and blank spaces between the lines – with the

single-minded dedication of a John Ford Indian, a turn-of-the-century

Turk, and a mafia hitman. He thinks it is his patriotic duty not only to

contradict everything I say but also to silence, slay, and bury me.

Nothing unusual in that because he shares these sentiments with our

bosses, bishops, benefactors, and their flunkies. But he goes further. He

is convinced that I am, or rather my kind of ideas are, the source of all

evil in this world – past, present, future – from Cain’s murder of Abel

to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So that if twenty or thirty years hence and

long after I am gone he is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia or

cancer, he will blame it on me. It goes without saying that I plead not

guilty on all counts, beginning with Cain’s felony, on the grounds that

(a) I never had the privilege of making this gentleman’s acquaintance,

and ( I have an airtight alibi.

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, February 12, 2002

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1.

Whenever someone says anything remotely favorable about himself,

my first instinct is to doubt his honesty.

2.

In the Bible we read:

"If God be for us, who can be against us?" (ROMANS, 8:31)

A Jew would reply: "The whole world";

and an Armenian: "Turks and Armenians."

3.

If it’s not corrupt, incompetent, and wasteful civil servants,

it’s cut-throat capitalists or killer commissars

and the imbeciles who support them in the name of God or Country:

the options of an underdog are limited.

4.

To my critics and fellow underdogs I say:

I have no interest in proving you wrong and myself right.

All I want to do is allow you to observe our reality from a different

perspective

or add my perspective to yours and in doing so

to make you less vulnerable to manipulation by impostors.

If you say, "I can take care of myself; I don't need your two cents’

worth,"

may I remind you that some of our ablest men

were taken in by enemy propaganda:

Zohrab by Turkish, Zarian (and many others) by Soviet –

and they paid a very high price for their gullibility:

the first was murdered in cold blood by Turks

and the second was buried alive by fellow Armenians.

Moral I: None of us can claim to be immune to deception and manipulation.

Moral II: To say or think that one is immune

is an unmistakable symptom of self-deception.

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, February 13, 2002

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1.

All suicides blame their misfortunes on others.

It is the same with nations.

2.

To hate the Turks or what they have to us

without Ottomanizing ourselves: that’s the challenge

that so far we have failed to confront with any degree of success.

3.

For an Armenian, there are always two sides to every question:

his and the Turkish (even when it happens to be Armenian).

4.

"We have forty million reasons for failure but not a single excuse,"

writes Kipling.

It should be obvious by now that we cannot teach morality to Turks,

but we may have a better chance to learn something from our tragedy,

provided we view it as a blunder on our part.

And speaking of blunders, I am reminded of the old dictum

(by Talleyrand, I think): "It’s worse than a crime. It’s a blunder!"

5.

Like all men, Armenians too have their good and bad sides,

but they reserve the worst when dealing with their own kind.

6.

Do not grasp a knife by the blade.

Do not call an Armenian a friend.

7.

No need to insult an arrogant fool:

he is already a prisoner of his own limitations.

8.

When a fool says "I believe," a lie is sure to follow.

9.

A partisan definition of patriotism: "To recycle the boss’s crap."

10.

MEMO TO A YOUNG ARMENIAN WRITER: "Remember, being a writer is a noble

profession with many fringe benefits, one of them being: to be called an

idiot by idiots. Another is looking forward to lectures on etiquette by

hooligans. Still another is being the recipient of the generosity of

benefactors (or what Plato once called "the charity of swine"). There are

many other benefits that come with the territory which happens to be a no

man’s land.

[ara baliozian]

LATER [13 February, 2002]

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1.

I learned two new words today:

shopocracy: rule by shopkeepers; and

ignoranus: an ignoramus who is also "where the sun don't shine."

2.

Chinese saying: "When in a hurry, slow down."

3.

Nothing can be as impenetrable as the self-assessed intelligence of a

dimwit.

4.

In a French dictionary I read a definition of tolerance which says,

among other things:

"Tolerance is a proof of intelligence because it allows us to enrich

ourselves by contact with beliefs and practices that are not our own. Its

aim is to replace brute force with reason."

5.

In the eyes of ancient Greeks, all foreigners were barbarians.

To a Protestant, a Catholic is a "biscuit eater."

To an American bigot, Paris is a city famous for its pissoirs

and England a land of fags.

Gamal Abdel Nasser once described America as a country

populated by "cowboys who engage in gangsterism."

In the eyes of the average Armenian from the Middle East,

Armenian-Americans are fools ("aboush amerigahayer").

To those who brag about Armenians being the first nation to accept

Christianity,

I ask: "And how good a Christian are you?"

[sen_Vahan]

Ara,

You are asking personally or that is a question to all armenians? I mean your question about how good Christian are we.

If it is for all of us then I will answer that this way:'Show me any real Christian nation and I will proove that armenians are "good" christians.'

If it is a personal question then my answer is that there is NO real christian (except maybe those living in monasteries), but there are probably some GOOD ones. What it means to be GOOD? I am not a good christian and you?

Vahan

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, February 14, 2002

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1.

On several occasions I have been accused of corrupting the young.

What nonsense!

The young are ahead of us today.

It was different with my generation.

I remember, a Catholic priest once told me:

"The only reason Martin Luther broke away from Rome is that

he wanted to marry a slut." And I believed him.

I should like to see the young who could be taken in by such a line

today.

As a child I was also brainwashed to believe

Armenians were special and it was a privilege being one.

I swallowed that one too.

I was told many other lies but after that one

the others are bound to be an anti-climax.

2.

To be read by friendly readers: nothing unusual in that.

To be read by hostiles: That’s where the money is,

because it means being allowed the opportunity

to introduce thoughts where none exist.

3.

We have enough gold in our communities

(think of Gulbenkian, Krikorian, Manoogian, & Co.)

for two Golden Ages. Instead,

we wallow in the recycled crap of Jack S. Avanakians.

4.

Even after you prove to him that his position is untenable,

an Armenian will go on defending it to the bitter end,

like a captain going down with the ship.

That’s his way of asserting his manhood.

I don't write for readers whose central concern is their own manhood.

That would be like writing about hallucinations.

[ara baliozian]

LATER [14 February, 2002]

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1.

Why does anyone assert his fictitious moral or intellectual superiority?

-- unless it is to covered up his real inferiority.

2.

About ten years ago I met an Armenian writer

who thought by publishing a single article

he was going to change everything.

When I informed him that I had published hundreds of article

without changing anything, he replied:

"You have been going about it the wrong way."

I have no idea what he thinks today

because we are no longer on speaking terms.

3.

In a dictionary of philosophy:

"Generally speaking megalomania is a reaction to failure.

The megalomaniac represents himself as he would like to be but as he is

not. Megalomania may also be a symptom of the decline of one’s critical

faculties."

4.

On dogmatism:

"It stands in direct contradiction to criticism, skepticism, empiricism,

and realism.

It fosters intolerance and fanaticism."

5.

I have readers who hate me but love reading me,

but only in the sense that Jack the Ripper loved the company of women.

[ara baliozian]

dear Vahan:
we emphasize the first nation to be Christian bit too much, i think.
also the first nation to suffer a genocide in the 20th century.
i don't think that's something we should brag about.
as for monks: i was educated by them;
most of them were not good Christians either..../ara

[HOB]

I guess that all you're doing is shouting louder the forum signature of Movses

" Zartnir Lao, mernim kezi"........

 

ԶԱՐԹԻ՛Ր, ԼԱՈ

 

Խեղճ մշեցին մեռավ լալով,

Օտար երկրներ ման գալով.

Մեռավ՝ թուրքին պարտքեր տալով,

Զարթի՛ր, լաո, մըռնիմ քըզի:

 

Ինչ անիծեմ շուն ասքյարին,

Ըսպաներ է ջոչ ափոյին,

Իլլաջ մացեր Արաբոյինշ

Զարթի՛ր, լաո, մըռնիմ քըզի:

 

Չուր ե՞փ մընամ էլու դռներ,

Էրթամ գտնեմ զիմ խեղճ գառներ.

Սուքեմ զիմ բաղչայի ծառներ,

Զարթի՛ր, լաո, մըռնիմ քըզի:

 

Սեֆիլ, շիվար մացած հայեր,

Եղած անտուն, բնավ հավքեր.

Սուլթան կուզե ջնջե մըզի,

Զարթի՛ր, լաո, մըռնիմ քըզի: