as i see it - Pt. I

[ara baliozian]

LATER // 28 January, 2002

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

1.

Life has a way of cutting down to size

anyone whose assessment of himself exceeds his real worth.

2.

Whenever I am attacked anonymously, I think:

"He must be a bishop or the son of one."

3.

One of my readers once took upon himself the trouble to remind me

that even the worst bishops deserves our respect

because he represents God on earth;

thus implying that I represent the devil or, at best, a lesser deity.

4.

To those who said The Bible was written by the Holy Spirit,

Shaw would say: "All books are written by the Holy Spirit."

5.

Anyone can say, "I speak in the name of God.

Therefore, I am authorized to say you speak in the name of the devil."

6.

Tyrants neither explain nor reason.

They lie and threaten.

Even when they say nothing they lie.

Even the blanks spaces between their lines and words are menacing.

Even their punctuation marks thirst for blood.

7.

Where dissent is silenced,

a fraction of the people are also silenced;

in the same way that where books are burned,

people will also be reduced to ashes.

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, January 29, 2002

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

"I agree with what you say

but I don't like the way you say it,"

I am told once in a while by the kind of fastidious reader

who on receiving a gift

he probably examines the packaging as carefully as its contents.

If the style is the man,

I suppose the only way to please some readers

is to assume a new identity;

and I might do just that, given enough time.

I am not what I used to be,

and I may not be what I am today.

But the same applies to my readers.

Just because they are what they are today,

it doesn't necessarily follow

they will be the same ten or twenty years hence.

I say therefore, let nature run its course and some day

we may meet, shake hands, and agree on all points.

In the meantime I suggest we ignore each other,

which, I assure you, will be a pleasure on my part.

[ara baliozian]

GIVING THE DEVIL HIS DUE

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

I am grateful to some of my critics because

they helped me to understand what it is

that goes into the making of a Stalinist, a Nazi, a fascist,

and in general all fanatics who are so sure of their views that

they would be more than willing to exterminate you like vermin.

I am grateful to these critics because

they have also humanized and made accessible to me even Turks,

and I don't mean Turks of today

half of whom may well be half-Armenian,

but Turks of a hundred years ago,

and the very same Turks who perpetrated the massacres.

To those who say:

"You are comparing law-abiding citizens to cold-blooded killers!"

I say: Once upon a time

all cold-blooded killers were law-abiding citizens.

Killers are not born but made

and what makes them is the total absence of all doubt.

All such law-abiding and respectable citizens need

to turn into cold-blooded killers

is the right (meaning of course, the wrong)

environment and leader – a leader

who will convince them they have enemies,

mortal enemies, enemies who are out to get them,

and it is their patriotic (or religious) duty to stop them,

and if there is only one way to stop them, so be it.

Finally, I am grateful to these critics

(and I am sure they know who they are)

because they have helped me to understand

what it means to be hated unto death.

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, January 30, 2002

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

Is what I am doing of any use to anyone?

I have no idea.

Why am I doing it?

I don't know.

If I fall silent, will anyone miss me?

I doubt it.

After twenty years of hard labor have I accomplished anything?

I don't think so – unless you consider perforating a few swollen egos

an accomplishment….

If I were in a phony-rhetorical mode,

I would come up with all kinds of phony-rhetorical answers

in which I would portray myself as an idealist

dedicated to principles who is doing what must be done

and I would sprinkle my prose with quotations

from Plato, the Scriptures, and a few other fancy source

that would convince no one, not even myself.

The truth of the matter is,

I am doing what comes easy,

that’s the beginning, the middle, and the end of it.

[ara baliozian]

TO A CRITIC

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

Just because we disagree

it doesn't necessarily follow that you are right and I am wrong.

Since neither of us is in a position to assert infallibility,

you could be wrong,

or I could be wrong,

or both of us could be wrong.

But in our context,

what’s infinitely more important than establishing who is wrong,

is reaching a consensus by means of compromise.

Let us therefore agree to disagree,

if only because a refusal to do so may legitimize and reinforce

our tribalism and fragmentation.

To those who say:

"You don't always practice what you preach, do you?"

I say:

If it will make you feel any better,

I am more than willing to concede that

I have been an utter failure as an Armenian,

as a writer, and as a human being.

If you are in need of a role model,

please don't choose me.

I reject all such labels and pretensions.

About a thousand years ago,

one of our most eminent writers

wrote a book titled LAMENTATIONS

in which he catalogued all his sins.

Let us name him our role model

and let us reflect on our own failures and blunders

before we attack and insult anyone

who does not see eye to eye with us.

All I can say in my defense is:

unlike our bosses and bishops

I don't make policy.

If I am wrong I harm no one but myself.

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, January 31, 2002

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

What moves nations

is neither truth nor altruism but self-interest.

Once you understand this,

it will be easy to understand why

both the United States and Israel support Turkey.

Some day nations may change

and be motivated not by self-interest

but by principles of right and wrong.

If that happens

– and I doubt if it will happen in our own lifetime --

we may then have the support of both Israel and the United States.

Until then let us not pretend outrage,

as if our own regime in Yerevan or,

for that matter,

our political parties in the Diaspora,

are in the habit of upholding the truth

(at all times and everywhere)

at the expense of their self-interest.

Because if you believe they do,

you must also believe in Santa.

[ara baliozian]

MY BRILLIANT CAREER

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

The average Armenian reader thinks:

"He is an average Armenian writer,

an utter failure; so I will share my wisdom with him;

I will give him a piece of my mind;

the poor fellow can use it."

At one time or another I have been told:

"Write more like Saroyan,"

(or Ian Fleming, or Mark Twain, or Hemingway….)

"Sex and violence, that’s where the money is."

"When you write about sex include details –

peculiarities, smells, sounds…the more details the better."

"Forget about Armenians: they'll never amount to anything.

Who wants to read about failures, victims,

and rejects anyway? Depressing! Uch!"

"Get an agent."

"Travel. Meet people. Press the flesh. Kiss ass if necessary…."

"Never mention money. It’s cheap. It’s vulgar. Can you imagine Beethoven

discussing money?"

(As a matter of fact, in his correspondence,

he discusses money more than music.)

I once met an old Canadian writer, a veteran of World War II, who said:

"There are 43 ways a publisher can cheat a writer."

Since most of my publishers have been Armenians,

I can truly state that I have been screwed 44 ways.

As for readers: 444 ways with no end in sight.

[ara baliozian]

USEFUL IDIOTS

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

It takes more than brains to be objective.

Not all "useful idiots" have been idiots,

if we define "useful idiot" as one

who is taken in by propaganda.

Plato was so disgusted with Greek democracy,

which had condemned his beloved master Socrates to death,

that he was taken in by a Sicilian tyrant –

a blunder that nearly cost him his life.

More recently our own Zohrab

hated Sultan Abdulhamid II so much that

he was taken in by Talaat --

a blunder that cost him his life.

After a brief interview with Hitler

Toynbee declared: "Herr Hitler wants peace."

A short list of "useful idiots" would have to include

such illustrious names as Beethoven, Shaw,

Sartre, Gide, Heidegger, and Koestler.

It is extremely difficult, perhaps even impossible,

for an Armenian to be objective about the Turks,

which may explain why some of us

are easily taken in by the propaganda of our own political parties.

The only reason that prevents me from joining

the chorus of our partisan "idiots" is the fact that

they have done their utmost

to alienate, silence, and sometimes even starve

some of our ablest writers, whose sole crime was

trying to be objective, which also means,

refusing to be taken in by their lies.

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, February 03, 2002

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

1.

Concerned friends sometimes advise me to do this or that,

or not to do this or that

because it may tarnish my reputation.

What reputation?

I have none and

I wish to have none.

I am not a boss or a bishop or a benefactor.

I have no desire to make a good impression

by pretending to be better than I am.

2.

Whenever I go down into the gutter with my critics,

I feel I have done an injustice to the situation.

When I speak of Armenian critics

I mean of course enemies;

and when I speak of Armenian enemies

I speak of hatred unto death.

3.

Exploiting your enemy is infinitely better than revenge.

Revenge may be short and sweet,

but exploitation is much more profitable.

Which is why I prefer to use my critics as sources of inspiration.

Where would I be without them?

Where would the ARF be without the Turks?

4.

Why focus on my critics

when there are so many other important topics to discuss?

But to discuss anything objectively and intelligently

we need freedom of speech;

and freedom of speech becomes impossible

in the company of bullies who,

instead of saying "I disagree with you"

call you "son of a whore."

And they call you that

because they have the blessing of their role models:

bosses, bishops, benefactors, and their flunkies

who are even more intolerant of dissent than they are.

[ara baliozian]

LATER…[3 February, 2002]

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

Lies.

I was brought up on lies –

lies spoken in the name of patriotism and self-esteem,

but lies all the same.

I was told being an Armenian was a rare privilege.

I went into the world thinking the world owed me something –

respect, sympathy, apology, admiration.

I soon discovered the world had no desire to bother with me.

The world didn't give a damn about me.

The world didn't even know who Armenians were.

Some went further and confused Armenians

with the biblical Arameans and Rumanians.

That's when I began to understand why

some smart Armenians change their names and assimilate.

Others prefer to stay away from their fellow countrymen.

Still others of mixed parentage hide their Armenian fraction.

What the hell was going on here?

Was the world full of ignoramuses and traitors?

It took me a while to realize that

the world was what it had always been;

and that I was the ignorant one in thinking

there was something special in being an Armenian.

I know now that we are a people like any other people,

or we would be, if we didn't try so damn hard

to pretend to be better than we are.

One could even say that,

what makes some of us inferior is thirst for superiority.

[soulsongera]

A question for A. Baliozian... I recall reading an essay you had written in which you criticize A. Toynbee's version of history. Winners write the history, and Toynbee's approach was to focus on large power struggles rather than on human rights, and never holding govts morally responsible...that's what I remember. I didn't know then how much I would need that essay now. I just started a class, "History of the Middle East" through Fresno Pacific University. I am 80 pages into the text, and it seems to be written by a Turcophile. Bernard Lewis is listed in the References. And how is the Armenian Genocide addressed? It is given all of three sentences! "...throughout eastern Anatolia the Turks were threatened by the insurrection of their embittered Armenian subjects, who disrupted communications and formed volunteer groups to help the Russians. Others joined the Russian Armenian forces. The Turks took a terrible revenge by ordering the deportation of the entire Armenian population from eastern Anatolia to northern Syria. Hundreds of thousands were killed, and many more died of hunger, exposure and disease. Between one and a quarter and one and a half million perished. Armenian nationalists still seek revenge against representatives of the Turkish state." That is it. No holding them morally responsible. Imagine writing a book on European history and giving only 3 sentences of this nature, which blames the victims, regarding the Jewish genocide of WWII!

I plan to write a reasoned and yet impassioned letter to the entire Board of Regents of the University and request a better history text. But I need your help. What was the name of the article you wrote re Toynbee? And do you have any history texts to recommend for a class of this nature?

[aurguplu]

konya,

 

what could be the jews blamed of by any stretch of the imagination?

[ara baliozian]

dear friend:
the essay you mention is titled
THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND THE WEST.
it may be found under http://www.narek.com or http://www.abrilbooks.com
My pamphlet also contains many footnotes and bibliographical information. If you have more questions, i will be happy to reply.
/ ara baliozian

[ara baliozian]

Monday, February 04, 2002

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

A spirit of contradiction can be a valuable asset if it is directed

against oneself. Directed against others it becomes an instrument of

polarization, conflicts, and destruction.

2.

At all times and everywhere philistines have been in the majority. My

guess is, every prehistoric cave painting was interrupted again and again

by philistines who said: "Make yourself useful. Go out and kill an

animal. We can't have paintings for lunch." When one of our eminent

national benefactors said to one of our poets: "Poetry is of no use to

us!" he was echoing the very same sentiments of prehistoric kibitzers

whose spiritual and intellectual horizons never went beyond hunger and

lunch. I respect the benevolence of our benefactors but I loathe the

values they legitimize: money is everything, ideas trash. Capitalists are

princes, poets paupers.

3.

An Armenian is an open wound to another Armenian and if he hates unto

death it’s because he has been hated unto death. When a reader threatens

to kill me or calls my mother a whore he is settling a score against the

Turk and his unawareness is such that it never even occurs to him that

his enemy is no longer a Turk but a fellow Armenian.

4.

The Turks don't have to kill us in order to exterminate us. All they have

to do is sit back and enjoy the spectacle. That’s the only way to explain

the irrational forces unleashed by the Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation

Commission.

[ara baliozian]

LATER / 4 February, 2002

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

Our institutions have been in the business

of dividing us since day one.

To hope that some day soon they will see the light

and change their ways is to engage in wishful thinking.

I recognize only one legitimate way

of judging the future conduct of institutions

and that’s by assessing their past performance.

I have lost all faith in ideologies and orthodoxies.

I place my trust only in the democratic process.

Let the people speak.

Let the people decide.

And if they are ever allowed to do so

they will be unanimous in demanding honesty from their leaders.

That’s because no one likes to deal with crooks

and even charlatans avoid charlatans.

[soulsongera]

To Ara Baliozian: Thank you very much. I feel that I must challenge this teacher on the use of this text. I want to do my homework first. If I do not find a receptiveness to the possibility of bias in her chosen text I plan to write each member of the board of regents of the university and make my plea. Thank you; I now have a place to start.

To Ali Suat: I get the impression from your post that you have an argument that the Jews are responsible for their own deaths in the Jewish Holocaust during WWII. Explain, please.

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, February 05, 2002

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

1.

In my PETIT LAROUSSE (Paris, 1968) I come across the following entry:

ALTHEN (Jean): Armenian agronomist (1711-1774) who introduced into France

the cultivation of "garance," which is defined in the vocabulary section

as a plant whose roots provide the basis of a red dye.

2.

Elsewhere we read that POLYEUCTE is a tragedy by Corneille, written in

1641-1642, whose central character, Polyeucte, is an Armenian nobleman,

who, despite his wife Pauline’s efforts to save him from his

father-in-law Felix, the Roman governor of Armenia, allows himself to be

a martyr. "His sacrifice brings about the conversion of both Felix and

Pauline and the admiration of Severius, a Roman nobleman, who, without

rejecting paganism, acquires an awareness of the greatness of the

Christian faith."

3.

Arthur Adamov is identified as a French playwright of Russian origin. He

was an Armenian, though Armenians are seldom mentioned in his writings.

4.

Arshile Gorky and William Saroyan are not mentioned, but Aram

Khachatourian is ("Soviet composer born in Tiflis"), and so is Henri

Troyat (" French novelist born in Moscow").

[ara baliozian]

LATER [5 February, 2002]

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

1.

So many false charges have been leveled against me by fellow Armenians

that I no longer believe anything an Armenian tells me.

Were it not for the fact that I grew up among survivors,

I would be inclined to question the validity of our genocide.

2.

If an odar writer doubts the reality of our genocide,

there is no need to question his integrity.

A man who is wrong should be corrected, not insulted.

To insult such a man is to make him an enemy for life

and not just your enemy but an enemy of the nation.

We already have more than enough enemies.

No need to make more of them.

3.

All of us have been wrong at one time or another –

all of us, except of course our self-assessed morally superior experts

on any given subject who happen to be a dime a dozen.

4.

What could be more morally repellent than

to use someone else’s heroism

to justify one’s own cowardice,

or someone else’s honesty

to cover up one’s own dishonesty,

or, as Zaroukian once put it,

to lament about someone else’s crucifixion

even as one nails another to the cross?

5.

A wise man is shaped by what he understand,

a fool by what he cannot understand.

6.

A wise man has twice as many doubts as a fool has certainties.

7.

If the facts are on your side, stick to facts.

A single fact speaks more eloquently than a thousand arguments

and ten thousand insults.

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, February 06, 2002

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

1.

Writing for Armenians I feel like a dogface

writing for an army of Napoleons.

2.

The hatred of an Armenian for a Turk is rivaled only

by the contempt of an Armenian for another Armenian.

3.

No one, not even an elephant in his prime

has as good a memory as an Armenian

whose ego has been injured by another Armenian.

Compared to such an Armenian,

the elephant might as well be suffering from an advanced case of

Alzheimer’s.

4.

"Write more like Saroyan!" I am told again and again.

Poor Saroyan, who began his literary career by loving all of mankind

(and feeling sorry for the Turks)

and hating his own children.

And poor, poor Zarian! He began his literary career

by declaring Armenians to be the real Chosen People

and ended it by calling them cannibals.

[ara baliozian]

LATER [6 February, 2002]

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

If you describe a man more or less objectively and accurately,

forever after you condemn him to pretend to be someone else –

call it the magic of words or the power of ideas,

both of which are invisible…

but then so is the wind, so is gravity, so is memory,

and so is also our perception of reality.

Likewise, if you describe a community or nation objectively

and in the process you expose its contradictions,

something is bound to change,

but only under normal conditions –

meaning progressive or democratic,

or a climate wherein dialogue, compromise, and consensus

are given half a chance.

After centuries of oppression however,

we seem to be conditioned to either oppress or be oppressed,

and ultimately to regress, decline, disintegrate and collapse.

I hope and pray to be wrong;

but after repeated disappointments

I can no longer survive on hope,

and the last time I prayed was in 1952 or 1953,

if memory serves….

[soulsongera]

I grew up near Saroyan’s old neighborhood. Many of my childhood friends were Armenian. But I never had a clue what the issue was. One day I was standing in my mother’s door watching the neighbors argue regarding whose leaves were blowing into the yard. My Mom’s neighbor is fastidious about his yard. I heard him mutter “Turk” as he got into his long, white Cadillac and drove away. (both are Armenian). And I remarked,”What is the big deal with the Armenians and the Turks? Why don’t they just get over it and move on?” No one answered. It was rhetorical. My mother never has opinions about such subjects. She assumes I’m probably right. The next time I was at Borders I bought the first Armenian Genocide book I found. Written by a local author (they have their own section near the front), it was “The Cross and the Crescent” by Lindy Avakian. It started me on a journey that has transfixed me. I am obsessed with fighting for acknowledgement of the Genocide, etc.

Why didn’t I know? I grew up in Fresno. I have a reasonably good liberal arts education. Yet I knew zero.

Our selfish natures that gravitate to oppress others isn’t limited to Armenians.

Your observation about Armenians changing under normal circumstances made me think that

perhaps this is why the Armenians were so lovely and lovable to the missionary community in the late 1800’s and up until the genocide.(based on their writings) They were surviving in abnormal conditions, persecution, so their best sides came shining through. Nearly all the Jews in the holocaust movies seem fairly lovable too. This brings me to my point. When I was a little girl my father would read Bible stories. Reading Exodus I asked why the Hebrews were so dumb, because in the last chapter they just walked across on dry land and now they are complaining and doubting God again. My father paused, “Don’t you see? The is the story of all of us…”

I will probably be the first and last person to quote from a muppets movie to you. In “The Muppets Take Manhatten” one of the great truths of the universe is put forth, “Peoples is peoples.”

Perhaps I risk your despising me by revealing I am a Christian, but my pastor pointed out Sunday how Christ looks at the aggravating masses of humanity. He looked at them as harrassed and helpless, and lost, without a shepherd, and with great compassion. WE are all screw-ups.

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, February 07, 2002

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

1.

There is a story about Michael Arlen (Dikran Kouyoumjian) needling

Churchill with pro-German and anti-British propaganda and Churchill

giving him such a tongue-lashing that, my guess is, Arlen’s critical

faculties were forever after permanently paralyzed. And how can I forget

the most damning line in Churchill’s angry words to Arlen: "You are an

Armenian!" – probably meaning: before you meddle into our own affairs,

take care of your own mess. My suggestion to all Armenians who

contemplate criticizing odars: Don't! But if you do, be prepared to be

slaughtered.

2.

There is a type of Armenian who knows more about Turks than the average

Turk and the only thing he knows about Armenians is that they were

slaughtered by the Turks.

3.

Man: an evolutionary success story but a moral failure.

4.

To how many of my critics I could say: "Thank you for being a living

proof of everything I have been saying, and thank you also for being too

stupid to see this."

5.

If you think of history as a cemetery of false beliefs and ideologies,

you can no longer say "I believe I am right!" especially if your

adversary says so too.

[ara baliozian]

LATER [7 February, 2002]

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

In his effort to justify the conduct of a typical Armenian bully

whose favorite mode of communication is to insult and threaten,

a friend explains:

"His bark is worse than his bite.

I met him recently.

He is actually a very nice person.

Very kind, smart, a dedicated patriot –

the way only a young person can be…and he is young."

And I am tempted to ask:

How old do you think fascist killers were?

They too were kind and considerate to their friends.

Some of them even sang Schubert songs,

played Beethoven sonatas on the piano,

and enjoyed Bach’s B-minor Mass.

Like a rose, a fascist, is a fascist, is a fascist.

It makes no difference to me if he is a Turk or an Armenian.

I'd rather deal with a tolerant Turk

than an intolerant Armenian.

As for patriotism:

some of the most brilliant speeches on patriotism

were delivered by Hitler and Mussolini.

[ara baliozian]

Friday, February 08, 2002

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

1.

Centuries of oppression and subservience

have taught us to confuse power with authority.

On the day we learn to separate the two,

we shall have taken a step in the right direction.

Until then we will never rise above the level of sheep who,

even as they are led to the slaughterhouse,

follow the shepherd.

A bishop does not represent God on earth,

neither does a boss represent the people;

and the two combined have as much legitimacy

as the French Monarchy on the eve of the Revolution.

2.

It never pays to go down into the gutter to reinforce an argument.

If you are right, let the evidence speak for itself;

if you are wrong, why compound the felony?

3.

When a fool convinces another fool,

he assumes the majority is on his side.

When an Armenian convinces himself,

he thinks the world should be on his side.

4.

Why is it that when we see a starving man I say

"This man is starving,"

and you say "He is only hungry and we all get hungry every day."

Why is it that when I look at our problems

I say they are of genocidal dimensions

and you say the whole world has problems?

[ara baliozian]

LATER [8 February, 2002]

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

1.

When late in life Verdi made a recommendation to a conservatory

and was ruled out, he wrote an angry letter

whose first line reads:

"If I had been born a TURK I might have got what I asked!"

2.

Meeting an Armenian, nothing better.

Dealing with him, nothing worse."

3.

I have yet to meet a fool who did not assess himself as wise.

4.

Some of my readers labor under the assumption

that as a writer it is my duty to respond to personal attacks

with patience, kindness, and understanding.

It doesn't even occur to them to ask:

"Who made this rule?" – assuming of course

this to be a rule and not a figment of their self-serving imagination.

Let me therefore assure one and all

that there never was a rule that says

arrogant stupidity or insolence should be rewarded with generosity of

spirit.

5.

When Henry Ford said "History is bunk!" he was echoing

Napoleon’s words: "Circumstances – what circumstances? I make

circumstances."

6.

Among us, politics (the art of the possible)

is confused with ideology (the art of the impossible),

and inevitably, ideology is confused

with theology (the art of the incomprehensible),

and theology is confused with pathology.

Some day, in a future progressive and enlightened Armenian democracy,

if our partisans are arrested and put on trial,

they will be absolutely right in pleading not guilty by reason of

insanity.