as i see it - Pt. I

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, December 30, 2001

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

1.

I enjoy reading pundits who are on my side. I enjoy even more reading

pundits of the opposite side. But my very favorite pundits are liberals

who turned conservative and vice versa.

2.

I don't read to have my ego massaged or prejudices reinforced, but for

the exactly opposite reason.

3.

Dostoevsky began his literary career as a liberal and became

conservative. By contrast, Thomas Mann began as a conservative right-wing

nationalist and ended as a left-wing liberal. I enjoy reading both. I

enjoy them even when they express views with which I am in complete

disagreement.

4.

De Gaulle once said it was difficult to rule a nation that produced 87

(or is it 387?) different kinds of cheese. It is even more difficult to

write for a nation that produces 2 (or is it 22?) pundits for every

layman, especially when the pundits are skinheads who have assessed

themselves as experts on any given subject.

5.

There is a type of reader who reads not to learn but to settle scores;

not to engage in dialogue but to insult; and an insult is as difficult to

refute as a massacre, perhaps because it is verbal massacre.

[ara baliozian]

LATER THE SAME DAY [30 December, 2001]

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

1.

Nothing human is beyond criticism, including the Word of God as heard,

interpreted, written down, translated, read and understood by man.

2.

According to Buddha: "That which is spoken, heard, and understood are

three different things."

3.

What a scathing book review Buddha would write of the Bible and the

Koran!

4.

Patriotism as understood by our political parties means love of country

at the expense of love of fellow countrymen. But very often our partisans

go much further and use their own brand of patriotism as a license with

which to hate a fraction of their fellow countrymen.

5.

Can God speak to man? Of course He can. God can do anything! But can man

understand God? Of course he cannot. If man understood God there would be

only one God as opposed to ten thousand of them.

[ara baliozian]

Monday, December 31, 2001

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

1.

When I hear or read the word Islam, the first four words that come to

mind are: giaour, mullah, fatwa, and jihad; and I loathe these words as

much I loathe the words boss, bishop, benefactor, and commissar.

2.

You cannot change that which you hate: that may explain my failure.

Perhaps what we need is not critics but messiahs. Anyone interested in

being crucified?

3.

"He doesn't understand me" does not apply to a reader who is not equipped

to read others, only himself.

4.

A partisan thinks it is his patriotic duty to defend everything his party

does and to agree with everything his boss says. But I happen to be of

the opinion that the Pope is not infallible, Mussolini was not always

right, and Suleiman the Magnificent was no magnificent. I further believe

the Good Lord has given us a brain with which to think and judge for

ourselves and there is nothing praiseworthy in subservience even when it

is promoted in the name of discipline, loyalty, and patriotism.

5.

To change our destiny as a nation we must change our relationships with

one another; which is something we will never succeed in doing so long as

we allow ourselves to be manipulated and deceived by individuals who

place their powers and privileges above the survival of the nation.

[ara baliozian]

LATER………[31 December, 2001]

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

1.

Among Armenians, yesterday’s friend may be (and often is) today’s enemy,

but today’s enemy will never be tomorrow’s friend.

2.

I repeat myself because I am told again and again that the earth is flat.

3.

The credo of all ideologues and partisans should begin with the words: "I

believe in a false god…."

4.

There is something in our partisans that doesn't like disagreement,

dissent, criticism, dialogue, democracy, free speech, human rights,

honesty, straight talk, common sense….

5.

The disagreement of a single honest man means much more to me than the

agreement of a thousand fools and ten thousand dupes.

6.

When a reader called me "son of a whore" recently, no one saw anything

remotely questionable in it. That’s what being Armenians does to you.

7.

If you are wrong, they may forgive you. But if you are right, they will

silence you.

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, January 01, 2002

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

1.

Call me Ebenezer!

Call me anything you want

provided you don't expect me to contribute more humbug

to the humbug season.

2.

Reality has many faces and we are destined to see only one of them.

No matter how hard I try I will never see the face

that an English professor or a Chinese peasant sees.

You may also think of life as a puzzle

without a beginning and end

and we have been allotted only one tiny piece of it.

3.

I am neither a preacher nor a revolutionary: only a witness.

I am not trying to change anything.

If that had been my aim I would have given up in anger and disgust many

years ago.

Use my testimony and the testimony of others as additional pieces of the

puzzle.

4.

Picasso once said that even a spider's web can be a source of inspiration

to an artist.

Or, to adapt it to our present context,

even a spider's testimony can provide us with a new perspective.

Likewise, even the braying of a jackass can help us to see more of the

puzzle.

Hence my reliance on the verbal venom of our Turkish cobras.

5.

Don't get mad!

I did warn you at the outset that I wasn't about to engage in humbug┘.

[ara baliozian]

LATER[January 1, 2002]

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

1.

Last night, on CBC (a Canadian radio station) I heard Hrant Alianak

reading a poem by Hafiz. Alianak, an Armenian playwright-actor born in

Africa (either Kenya or Sudan, I think), now a resident of Toronto,

reading a 14th-century Persian poet to a Canadian audience. That's what

tribalism does to a nation: it scatters them all over the world like

sawdust, and makes them strangers in a strange land speaking all the

tongues of Babel except their own.

2.

In the late 1860s Dostoevsky wrote: "Russian thought is preparing a

grandiose renovation for the entire world┘and this will occur in about a

century √ that's my passionate belief."

There you have it: one of the greatest writers of recent times confusing

wishful thinking with prophecy -- all in the name of faith and

patriotism, of course.

3.

In a dictionary, I read the following definition:

"Party politics: Politics conducted only through the machinery of the

party, as against people's interests generally."

4.

On the day we shall have all the answers

we shall also lose the faculty of asking questions.

5.

Perhaps the function of a writer is not to speak the truth

(only God can do that)

but to remind us of that which we prefer to forget

and to emphasize that which we prefer to ignore.

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, January 2, 2002

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

1.

A biologist once said that homo sapiens is coded for error. History bears

him out. Suspect any man or institution that asserts infallibility.

Suspect them even more when they admit minor peccadilloes in order to

cover up catastrophic blunders.

2.

If there is a single tiny (and tiny to the point of being invisible to

the naked eye) particle of truth in what I am saying, feel absolutely

free to reject the rest. I don't mind. I don't mind in the least. Because

all I need is a needle-point of entry.

3.

The ego is our Achilles' heel. But perhaps it would be more accurate to

say that we are heels in search of an Achilles.

4.

Rumor has it that writers, and artists in general, are unreliable and

solitary eccentrics √ unlike political and military leaders who oppress,

exploit, declare wars and commit massacres. In an abnormal world the

normal is seen as an aberration.

5.

Instead of studying our present complexes and contradictions,

our Armenologists prefer to study our graves.

6.

Why are you tough on Armenians?

Because Armenians are tough.

Because they have been more than tough on their writers.

Because after six centuries of brutal Ottoman oppression

they tend to misinterpret kindness as a symptom of weakness.

7.

Once upon a time I thought, as an Armenian, I could count on the support

of fellow Armenians. I know better now. And worse. Much worse! Whenever

an Armenian asks for my support now, my first reaction is to ignore him.

So is my second reaction. That's what being Armenian does to you.

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, January 03, 2002

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

1.

What drives tribalism is a false sense of moral superiority, and moral

superiority is invariably rooted in arrogance and ignorance: arrogance on

the part of the rulers and ignorance on the part of the subjects; and

ignorance, according to Socrates, is the root of all evil, including

political suicide, which is the inevitable end of all tribal people.

2.

To confuse ideology with theology: that's another feature of all tribal,

totalitarian and racist cultures. Theology legitimizes and promotes

intolerance and hatred in the name of God or Truth. Odium theologicum is

a well-known Latin expression that means: "The bitter hatred of rival

theologians. There are no wars so sanguinary as holy wars, no persecution

so relentless as religious persecution, no hatred so bitter as

theological hatred." (BREWER'S DICTIONARY OF PHRASE & FABLE, 16th

edition, revised by Adrian Room, London: Cassell, 1999, page 841.)

3.

It is not that like all nations or human institutions tribal people are

sometimes wrong; rather, they can do nothing right. Everything they do,

every policy they implement (even when right) contributes to their

disintegration.

4.

To those who accuse me of pessimism, I say: To write is to hope, and to

hope is a symptom of optimism.

[ara baliozian]

Friday, January 04, 2002

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

With advancing age it's becoming increasingly difficult to be kind to

unkind people. I was never kind to begin with. But I tried. I tried very

hard. It didn't work. Perhaps kindness cannot be willed. It is also

possible that kindness (real or feigned) is often misinterpreted as

weakness. No matter. I am now resigned to the fact that partisans and

panchoonies are destined to remain beyond my reach and no amount of

kindness, generosity, common sense and logic will budge them an inch.

Partisans are as a rule politically brainwashed and ambitious people.

They are programmed to disagree with anyone who does not accept the party

line as gospel truth. As for panchoonies: all they are interested in is

"mi kich pogh" (a little money) and I have none to give.

To those who say: "What if they are right and you wrong? Why is it that

no one has ever been able to prove that you may be wrong?"

That is not a difficult question to answer. I began my career as a

brainwashed chauvinist fascist. Not even a miracle can convince me now

that fascism is better than democracy, or that God is on our side because

we are morally superior, or that we are in good hands because our bosses

and bishops know better. I say, if they know better, let them convince

one another first, instead of brainwashing a new generation of partisans

and panchoonies.

[ara baliozian]

4 January, 2002 / LATER~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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

1.

A pundit is useless to an audience of superpundits.

2.

Capitalism is morally superior to Communist if only because

greed for money is better than greed for power.

3.

All pessimists were optimists once

in the same way that all old men were young ones.

4.

More often than not bias is expressed in the selection of facts

rather than in their misinterpretation.

5.

Jean Rostand: "There are some persons we could not cut down to size

without diminishing ourselves as well."

6.

Thomas Hardy: "More life may tickle out of men through fear than through

a gaping wound."

7.

Anonymous: "Skinheads have more hair than brains."

8.

Anonymous: "A friend in need is history."

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, January 05, 2002

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

1.

Until very recently all I knew about Afghanistan was its location and the

fact that it was called "the graveyard of empires." I know much more

about it now. I know all about its warlords, mullahs, tribalism,

talibanism, fanaticism, fragmentation, poverty, and backwardness. I also

know that most Afghans are ordinary people like the rest of us. But their

leaders! The best I can say about them is that the less said the better.

2.

What did I know about Armenia and Armenians when I was a boy in the

ghetto? Whatever I was told by my schoolteachers. But now that I have met

some of our bosses, bishops, benefactors, and their flunkies, I can truly

say that most of them are pathological liars of the "graveyard of

empires" caliber.

3.

They say, to understand is to forgive. If that were true, most marriages

wouldn't end in divorce.

4.

In the 19th century they spoke of "life’s little ironies." In the 21st we

may have to learn to speak of its "major horrors."

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, January 06, 2002

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

In the ghetto (population 4000), where I grew up,

we had two or more of everything:

carpenters, shoemakers, bakers, schoolteachers, priests, dentists,

pharmacists, physicians, tailors, and so on.

But no writers.

Or if we had them they kept to themselves.

Writers, poets, intellectuals, academics, historians, philosophers:

they knew they would be seen as irrelevant eccentrics and dismissed as

figures of fun.

I don't remember anyone quoting a single line from an Armenian poet or

writer.

I don't remember anyone saying:

"If only we had a philosopher to explains things to us."

For understanding and wisdom we relied on newspapers and proverbs

– and mostly Turkish proverbs: gems like:

"damla damla goeul olur,"

(drop by drop makes a lake),

"chok ghareshterma, bokhou chekar,"

(don't stir it up too much, you may expose the crap), and

"kimini chock chock, kimini hich yok."

(some people have too much and some have nothing).

Which is why I am not surprised when some of my readers

take it upon themselves to tell me what to write, how to write it,

and sometimes even how to live.

You may take an Armenian out of the ghetto

but you can't take the ghetto out of him.

[ara baliozian]

Monday, January 07, 2002

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

Twenty years ago I wrote a book (THE ARMENIANS: THEIR HISTORY & CULTURE)

in which I emphasized the positive. Since then I have been concentrating

on and emphasizing the negative not because I enjoy doing so but because

we have too many chauvinist charlatans emphasizing the positive (first

nation to accept Christianity) and covering up the negative (first nation

to abandon Christianity).

In the Ottoman Empire, our Church became the Sultan▓s tax collector; in

the Soviet Union, it became a source of foreign currency and an

instrument of the KGB. And according to our own partisan pundits,

Antelias became an instrument of the CIA.

The majority of Armenians today are not members of the Armenian Church

but Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, agnostics, atheists (compliments of

the Enlightenment in the Diaspora and the Marxist-Stalinist educational

system in the USSR), Anglicans, and so on.

If I had mentioned any of the negative aspects of our history and culture

in my book, it would never have seen the light of day, let alone be a

best-seller (four printings, over ten thousand copies sold).

The lies an Armenian writer must speak in order to be read and accepted

by our partisans and panchoonies who control our schools, community

centers, and churches (where books are sold)!

[ara baliozian]

LATER / January 7, 2002

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

Turks read the Turkish press,

Armenians read the Armenian press.

Members of the ADL read the ADL (Ramgavar) press,

members of the ARF read the ARF (Tashnag) press.

Each side accuses the other of misrepresentation.

What would an outsider think? -- and I don't mean an Armenian.

But speaking as an Armenian:

Once upon a time I would have said the Turks are liars.

I haven't changed my mind on that score.

I still say Turks are liars.

But what about us?

Once upon a time I would have said all Armenians are honest.

I am not sure about that now.

And don't think I am alone in this.

Even our partisans and panchoonies agree with me here:

with the difference that each side accuses the other of lying.

Truth and objectivity continue to be our perennial victims.

Also dialogue and democracy.

Because there cannot be dialogue

between two sets of liars -- only monologue:

the monologue of mini-sultans and neo-commissars;

the monologue of bosses and bishops:

all of whom speak - it goes without saying, of course! --

in the name of God or Truth and cursed be he who does not believe them!

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, January 08, 2002

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

Sometimes a victim is only a loser

who underestimated his adversary.

Give a victim half a chance

and he will victimize, and even as he victimizes

he will think of himself not as a victimizer

but as a morally superior being

who is doing what must be done

in the name of patriotism, truth, or God.

This is true of individuals as well as

political parties, ideologies, and religions.

The Communists saw themselves as victims of capitalism

and the Nazis saw themselves as victim of international Jewish

conspiracy,

and armed with that conviction

they engaged in cannibalism,

and even as cannibals,

they assessed themselves as morally superior.

Facts are facts and numbers are numbers:

neither can be denied, rejected or contradicted.

But the way we view and interpret facts

is something that happens in the convolutions of our brains.

Which is why I no longer believe everything I am told.

Neither do I believe everything I read.

I come from a long line of losers and victims,

and I refuse to be victimized by liars and charlatans.

Let those who consider themselves morally superior call this treason.

I don't trust the judgment of morally superior beings.

As a matter of fact,

I have yet to meet a self-assessed morally superior being

who did not qualify as riffraff.

[ara baliozian]

REFLECTIONS ON A CADAVER

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

When I first heard of the Turkish-Armenian Reconciliation Commission,

I did not say "Let them eat cake!"

but my attitude might as well have been pure Marie Antoinette:

complete indifference and boredom.

For almost a century now we have been calling them murderers

and they have been calling us liars:

a few palavers weren't about to change anyone’s mind, I thought

and dismissed the whole thing as

theater of the absurd of interest of no one but the participants.

I was wrong.

I was wrong in underestimating our voracious appetite

for controversy and venom.

What has TARC accomplished?

More feuds, more fragmentation, more tribalism –

all in the name of survival and progress, of course!

Our saviors continue to be our gravediggers.

If only they could be convinced to leave us alone,

perhaps then we would have a better chance

to see the light at the end of the tunnel --

assuming it is a tunnel and assuming it has an end.

But I suspect, with our luck,

the tunnel is no tunnel but a vestibule leading to the belly of a beast

-- a carrion-eating savage brute!

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, January 09, 2002

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

Armenian literature has been doubly oppressed

by foreign sultans and commissars

as well domestic bosses, bishops, benefactors and their flunkies.

In America, foreign oppression has been replaced with American apathy,

which can be as deadly as any yataghan or bullet in the neck.

Knowing this our partisans and panchoonies have done nothing to

counteract it.

On the contrary, they have used it as another weapon in their arsenal.

Their unspoken but unmistakable message:

"You either kiss ass or we let you twist slowly in the wind of American

apathy."

Hence the sudden decline, not to say death, of Armenian literature.

At the turn of the century in Istanbul

we had Baronian, Odian, Varoujan, Oshagan,

Zabel Yessayan, Indra, Arpiarian, Medzarents,

Roupen Sevag, Siamanto, Chobanian, Zarian, and many others.

And now, we don't even have a single writer

born and raised in America who can even write

a single decent sentence in the Armenian language.

What the Turks failed to do in six centuries

our own gravediggers succeeded in doing in less than six decades.

[ara baliozian]

LATER / ............

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

1.

Anyone who has any power over another will use it;

and anyone who uses power will abuse it.

If there are any rules without exceptions,

this must surely be one of them.

 

2.

Ignorance is a luxury only the very lucky can afford.

 

3.

Love your enemy? Impossible.

Force yourself to love that which you hate

and you will end up hating even yourself.

 

4.

The higher you climb the more anatomy you expose, and

the more vulnerable you become.

What could be easier than rising to the top?

What could be harder than staying there?

5.

The more logical the brain

the more irrational the heart.

6.

When it comes to our partisans,

my motto is similar to that of the American pundit who said:

"I never vote: it only encourages them."

7.

Have you noticed that an Armenian who is a faithful member of a political

party

feels fully qualified to criticize everything under the sun,

including the Good Lord Himself,

but not – never! -- his own party?

8.

My epitaph:

"Here lies a born loser who wasted his life writing for perennial losers

whose favorite illusion was to think of themselves as morally

invincible."

[Hyeflyer]

#1-I agree as absolute power corrupts absolutly

Also to mistake intelect for intelligance is a common acurrance,I would choose the intelligant every time as many intelects can not do simple daily tasks. A example is Albert Ienstien who had trouble counting change for a purchase in a store.

[Twilight Bark]

But Mr. Baliozian didn't say absolute power. He said any power. Since it is physically impossible for two people(s) to have precisely, exactly the same level of "power", the logical conclusion is that everyone will abuse everyone else whenever they get the slightest chance, which would be absurdly often. He also thinks that the only difference between the persecutors and the persecuted is that the former are better in grabbing power. Even if we assume that Mr. Baliozian had a magical threshold in mind for the power difference, the implication that the persecuters/executioners/thieves are thus overall "better" than the victims is a central aspect of Baliozianism. Baliozianism also avoids any mention of the observation that some cultures simply do not pursue domination over others while others pursue it with utmost arrogance and violence.

[Twilight Bark]

I would take the intellect specialized in business, and then use the money to hire the intelligent for doing the daily tasks for me.


And I would take special care not to abuse my power over the intelligent

[ara baliozian]

CURSES

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

1.

May you be the only wise man in a crowd of smart-ass loud-mouth know-it-alls.

2.

May you be the only vegetarian in a village of hungry cannibals.

3.

May you be the only sane man in an asylum for the insane.

4.

May you be the only honest man in a gang of crooks.

5.

May your son (or daughter) be an Armenian poet.

6.

May your son (or daughter) be an honest Armenian writer!

7.

May you have only one friend and may that friend be an Armenian.

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, January 10, 2002

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

1.

In his NAKED LUNCH, William Burroughs quotes a doctor saying: "Baboons

always attack the weakest party in an altercation. Quite right too. We

must never forget our glorious simian heritage."

2.

A biologist friend once said to me: "You don't need psychology,

philosophy, sociology or anthropology to understand and explain

Armenians: all you need is zoology."

3.

In his efforts to explain the actions of a philandering husband (I read

in today's paper) a lawyer is said to have made references to man's

"primal instincts, comparing his actions to animal behavior."

4.

What undermines the integrity of Oshagan's work is the fact that he could

be very critical, even merciless, towards his fellow writers -- "in his

presence, young writers trembled with fear," I was told once by an

octogenarian -- but as far as I know, he never wrote a single critical

line against our bosses, bishops, benefactors, or anyone else who could

be a potential source of income.

To rationalize Oshagan's conduct by saying, as a product of his time and

place, he couldn't have done otherwise, I say: What about writers like

Raffi, Voskan, Baronian, Odian, Zarian, Shahnour and Massikian, among

others, who resisted the temptation of behaving like baboons and chose

instead to behave as human beings even if it meant paying a heavy price

for their honesty.

[Hyeflyer]

To say anyone has power in its own is a absolute,wetherthatpower is political,religiuos,social or ecenomical.May I be cursed

[ara baliozian]

Friday, January 11, 2002

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

1.

Once in a while I am tempted to remind my fellow Armenians that there is

more, much more, to being Armenian than Turks and massacres.

2.

One reason why I prefer to write more about Armenians than Turks is that

Turks are beyond my reach. But I am beginning to realize that the more I

write about Armenians the greater the distance grows between us; and I

can already see the day when that distance will be almost the same as

that which exists between Turks and me.

3,

More often than not our disagreements are not between two conflicting

ideas but between an idea and nothing, and I consider recycled propaganda

less than nothing.

4.

When you voice an idea to someone who doesn't have any of his own, he is

sure not only to disagree with you but also to resent you.

5.

To a philistine, the aim of an idea is to act as a placebo, and the aim

of a writer is to be a source of reassurance. Any idea or writer that

upsets the carefully arranged apple cart of recycled crap should be

silenced and starved, and whenever possible, beheaded or shot.

6.

We blabber so much about the Ottoman massacres that we completely ignore

our own massacre of ideas.