???

[ara baliozian]

PREMONITION

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

Whenever I speak of "good Turks," I am asked: "Is there such a thing?"

May I confess that I have never met a good Turk because I have never met any Turk, period. But I have heard of them from survivors of the massacres, among them my own father.

And at this point, may I be allowed to raise the following question: Why is it that whenever I confront an Armenian who considers himself a good Armenian and a morally superior human being on the grounds that, unlike Turks, he has massacred no one, I have this uncanny feeling that if I were to disagree with him, he would gladly massacre me if he could? And this premonition leads me to raise another question: Is there such a thing as a self-assessed good Armenian who does not harbor a bloodthirsty Turk in his soul?

[MJ]

So true, Ara. The difference between that massacring Turk and that boosting non-massacring Armenian is that the history has given the chance to the Turk to massacre without being held responsible, but not to the Armenian that you are talking about.

[ara baliozian]

even more sad:

the turks massacred armenians;

the armenian is all set to massacre his own brothers!

[MJ]

The one set to massacre others would also massacre his own - just give him the motivation and the opportunity.

[ara baliozian]

right!

an entire generation of armenian writers were massacred by fellow armenian stalinists in the 1930s....

[MJ]

That's true. But some of the massacring were writers themselves.

 

When I read some of the messages of our internet worriers, or hear the partisan Armenians talking about the Genocide, I get an impression that they are trying to say: “Turks have massacred us, but we haven’t done the same to them. It is not fair.”

 

If by some miracle Turks come around and say: “ We are very sorry that our ancestors have done it, we are remorseful and please forgive us,” the Armenian type that we discuss would say: “No way, until we massacre you the same way, or more – 60 million instead of 1.5.”

 

[ July 21, 2001: Message edited by: MJ ]

[Guest]

Keep dreaming MJ. You guys talk about turks while you do not even have a clue about the way they think. So good dialogue between you.

[MJ]

If it is a dialog between us two, why do you get in the middle of it, Havik?

[Guest]

Ah sorry! I let you continue your virtual dialogue(as the name indicates it has got nothing to do with the real world).

[MJ]

Sure, Havik.

[ara baliozian]

SCARECROWS

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

Never trust an Armenian who never apologizes.

But trust an Armenian who apologizes even less.

An Armenian does not like to apologize because not only he knows better but also he is never wrong. Which may suggest that he does not think of himself as human, because being human also means being fallible.

But if he does not see himself as a human being, what is he?

He is a scarecrow whose ambition is to terrorize.

He demands to have not just your agreement but your subservience.

He is a born fascist but he doesn’t know it.

And if such an Armenian apologizes, you can be sure of one thing: he will hate you even more because he hates to be exposed as a human being like everyone else. He has been brainwashed to believe he is unique, special, superior, privileged and definitely not like everyone else.

I apologize to those of my readers who don’t recognize themselves in this type of Armenian. But I don’t need to apologize to them because I am sure they know what I am saying: they know because they have had the kind of encounters and confrontations on which I base my own conclusions.

[ara baliozian]

ON BEING CHISTIAN

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

A reader informs me that I will never understand what it means to be Armenian because being Armenian means first and foremost being Christian. It follows that a non-Christian Armenian is a contradiction in terms and an oxymoron.

I may not be a Christian but I was brought up as one.

I know what it means to be a Christian.

I also know what it does not mean.

It does not mean to look down at your fellow men.

Neither does it mean to use Christianity to assert or claim any kind of moral superiority on your fellow Armenians.

To be Christian is not a privilege but a responsibility.

The central message of Christianity is compassion, which means suffering with.

If I am a misguided fool or an ignoramus, I need your understanding and compassion, not your insolence. To foist your self-assessed superiority on others is not Christian but quintessentially un-Christian.

It follows: an Armenian, who uses his Christianity for un-Christian purposes is not only a hypocrite, a misguided fool, and an ignoramus, but also a contradiction, a paradox and an oxymoron (with emphasis on the last two syllables).

[ara baliozian]

LUNATIC FRINGE

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

Every village has its idiot and every nation its lunatic fringe; and this lunatic fringe is at all times and everywhere poised to assume power. It happened in Italy under Mussolini, in Germany under Hitler, in Russia under Stalin, in China under Mao; and it happened to us at the turn of the century; and it’s happening to us today in both the Homeland and the Diaspora. That’s the way it is with fascists: they promise heaven and deliver hell and anyone who adopts a critical stance is labeled a traitor, silenced, insulted, persecuted, ostracized, starved and worse.

It’s no secret that I have never been popular with our lunatic fringe. Every day I received such messages (always anonymous, of course) as "I have had enough of your nonsense!" "I have given up reading you!" "Aren’t you tired of peddling the same garbage?" "Ignore him!"

What hurts is the thought that these readers think by not reading me they are hurting me. If only I could let them know how wrong they are. I have met many writers and none of them has ever said that he enjoys being read by scum. Speaking for myself: I will go further and say that it is a pleasure to be misunderstood and insulted for the wrong reasons: it means the idiots have so far failed to catch up. I may consider being depressed on the day they do.

[ara baliozian]

LUNATIC FRINGE

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

Every village has its idiot and every nation its lunatic fringe; and this lunatic fringe is at all times and everywhere poised to assume power. It happened in Italy under Mussolini, in Germany under Hitler, in Russia under Stalin, in China under Mao; and it happened to us at the turn of the century; and it’s happening to us today in both the Homeland and the Diaspora. That’s the way it is with fascists: they promise heaven and deliver hell and anyone who adopts a critical stance is labeled a traitor, silenced, insulted, persecuted, ostracized, starved and worse.

It’s no secret that I have never been popular with our lunatic fringe. Every day I received such messages (always anonymous, of course) as "I have had enough of your nonsense!" "I have given up reading you!" "Aren’t you tired of peddling the same garbage?" "Ignore him!"

What hurts is the thought that these readers think by not reading me they are hurting me. If only I could let them know how wrong they are. I have met many writers and none of them has ever said that he enjoys being read by scum. Speaking for myself: I will go further and say that it is a pleasure to be misunderstood and insulted for the wrong reasons: it means the idiots have so far failed to catch up. I may consider being depressed on the day they do.

[ara baliozian]

THE "RED SYLVA" ARGUMENT

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

One of the most frequently raised questions or counter-arguments against those who adopt a critical stance is: There are so many positive things about Armenia and Armenians: why concentrate on the negative?

I call this the "Red Sylva" argument because I first came across it in an article written by Sylva Gaboudikian (also Kaput-etc.) in response to an Armenian-American tourist who had complained about the unbearable stench of latrines in Yerevan. In her vitriolic retort, Red Sylva demanded to know: "How can anyone think of latrines after viewing the noble grandeur of Mount Ararat?"

I wonder if anyone dared to ask Red Sylva: But what’s so hard about maintaining sanitary washrooms? Is it conceivable that you find stench so edifying that you have no wish to abolish it?

I am reminded of Erasmus of Rotterdam who once remarked: "Everyone loves the stench of his own excrement." Please note that even Erasmus did not dare to say: Since I enjoy my own stench, you should too! And yet, this is exactly what the Red Sylva argument demands that we do.

Another widely used argument à la Red Sylva goes something like this: Corruption is universal. Where there are human beings, there will be corruption. If you want to expose corruption and criticize corrupt officials, criticize the world and human nature and leave Armenians alone!

Yes, yes! There is corruption everywhere. Corruption is universal. But what is even more universal is the desire to expose and combat corruption. If you are for corruption, say so and don’t use human nature as a justification or extenuating circumstance. Murder and rape are universal too and as old as mankind. How would you feel if someone you love were raped or murdered and at the trial of the guilty party, his lawyer said: "My client pleads not guilty, your Honor, on the grounds that murder and rape are universal and as old as mankind"?

Nothing further.

[ara baliozian]

TO BE AN ARMENIAN

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

To be an authentic Armenian, I have been informed by several readers and self-assessed superpatriots, it is necessary (a) to be Christian and ( to hate Turks.

I see a contradiction here.

Our religion teaches us to forgive and love our enemies.

Has anyone ever met an Armenian willing to forgive those who disagree with him? (Last time this happened to me, I was called the son of a whore.)

In the Lord’s Prayer we are taught to say: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

Does massacre qualify as a trespass?

Yes, if we adopt Our Lord Jesus Christ as our role model. After being publicly insulted, humiliated, tortured, and crucified, He said: "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do." Has any Armenian ever said that about any Turk? If it were up to our sermonizers and speechifiers, they would massacre not only the guilty but also deface Turkey off the map. My guess is, they would even massacre fellow Armenians who refused to join them in their jihad. Because, as you may have guessed by now, hatred is not a disconnected or isolated act but a disposition of the soul. If one makes hatred of the Turks the central motif of one’s being, one will end up hating one’s own brothers, sisters, and ultimately oneself.

[ara baliozian]

WRITING FOR *****S, PADISHAS,

SULTANS & COMMISSARS

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

We have all met the Armenian who utters the most outrageous nonsense as if it were self-evident truth. How to explain this type of aberration? My guess is, somewhere, sometime in his formative years such an Armenian was told by his elders that he was endowed with superior perception and intelligence, and that a great many things were expected of him; and of course, he believed every word of it:

Am I projecting? I wouldn’t be surprised.

Because when I was a little boy and believed everything I was told by adults, I too was dished out the same nonsense and I too swallowed it hook, line and sinker. It took me many years to reach the painful conclusion that I was a damn fool like everyone else. I still am! and I can prove it, if proof be needed.

During the last twenty years I have been wasting my life by writing for an audience of morally and intellectual superior Armenians in the hope that, by expressing my views as honestly as I can (the same way in which every citizen in a democracy is allowed to share his views by, say, voting for this or that candidate or by writing a letter to the editor) I was making myself useful. And when I say morally and intellectually superior Armenians, I mean of course Armenians who are more Bolshevik than Stalin, more Catholic than the Pope, and more Ottoman than Suleiman the Magnificent.

[ara baliozian]

JACK S. AVANAKIAN

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

"Why don’t you name names?" challenges one of my anonymous readers, of whom I have a great many (as befits a nation that a hundred years ago defied the ruthless might of one of the most bloodthirsty empires in the history of mankind).

Gentle anonymous reader: If you identify yourself, I may consider mentioning you in a future article. In the meantime, whenever you see the name Jack S. Avanakian, you may consider yourself named.

 

"As a non-Christian, you have no right to speak about Christianity," another one of my gentle anonymous readers writes.

If we were to generalize this rule, we would be left with mighty few subjects to talk about; we may even end up not being qualified to speak about anything, including ourselves: because according to many psychologists and philosophers of our own days, to be human means to avoid the truth. One philosopher (Heidegger) has even gone as far as saying that no one yet has been successful in explaining why things exist. If we don’t know or understand why things exists (including ourselves) the only thing that remains to be said is: the rest is silence.

 

A third reader informs me: "You are casting pearls before swine."

Sometimes also jackasses!

[ara baliozian]

THE ENIGMA

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

"The Armenian is an enigma that refuses to be solved," said Neshan Beshigtashlian. But if you were to ask any one of our dime-a-dozen chauvinist charlatans, you will be told, when it comes to such things as corruption and prostitution, we are like everyone else; but in every other respect we are unique and O so proud of it!

It is to be noted that Beshigtashlian was active mainly in Paris, which may explain why he was allowed to die a natural death; but he died so destitute that a group of young men in Toronto organized a fund-raising campaign for him and when they calculated the proceeds, the total came to something like, if memory serves, $64.37 (sixty-four dollars and some change: it may have been $46.29 – all this happened about thirty-five years ago); and sure enough, shortly after they sent the money to Paris, they received a long hand-written letter from the writer thanking them for their generous gift. The fund-raising committee was so proud of this letter that they published a facsimile of it in the local paper, and forever after saw themselves as patrons of the arts and national benefactors.

If the Armenian is an enigma, I think I have the answer and it goes something like this: The Armenian is a jackass so full of himself that when he brays he thinks he sounds like a canary. I suspect our Neshan Beshigtashlain knew this answer too but the reason he did not divulge it is that he also knew, had he done so, he wouldn’t have been the recipient of his fellow Armenians’ generosity.

[ara baliozian]

CRITICISM AND PROPAGANDA

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

Propaganda has been defined as a fraction of the truth. Propaganda does not necessarily mean a lie, neither does it mean the whole truth.

Criticism may be defined as reality check, or exposing the unspoken fraction of propaganda.

Examples:

Propaganda: Armenians are smart.

Criticism: Some Armenians are smart (more in the market place than in politics; and more in alien environments than in their own).

Propaganda: There are a million Armenians in Canada ant eh U.S.

Criticism: The majority of these Armenians are either alienated or assimilated.

Partisan propaganda consists in stressing the assets and successes of one side and the liabilities and failures of the opposition.

The same applies to nationalist propaganda (be it Armenian or Turkish).

Propaganda flatters the collective ego.

Criticism tells us only fools believe in their assessment of themselves.

If propaganda stresses the positive, criticism stresses the negative not simply for the sake of stressing the negative but in order that something may be done about it.

To say that where there are two sides (groups, parties, tribes or nations) one side speaks the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and the other side lies, is to know nothing about human nature and to understand even less about politics and history.

[ara baliozian]

MEN AND WOLVES

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

More often than not, two adults disagree only because when they were children they were exposed to different schoolteachers; and schoolteachers disagree because they are employed by two different bureaucracies; and where there is a bureaucracy there will also be a power structure whose most important aims are (a) to maintain its power, and ( whenever possible, to increase it. It follows that, in such an environment, truth and objective judgment become irrelevant, not to say, dangerous concepts.

That may explain why every nationalist historian is also a revisionist; and why Japanese textbooks don’t mention Japanese atrocities against Chinese civilians; and Chinese textbooks don’t mention Chinese atrocities against their own civilians. That is also why Armenian and Turkish historians accuse one another of massacres and ethnic cleansing; and finally that’s why whenever I express views that don’t echo the views of a schoolteacher I am described as a foreign agent, an idiot, and the son of a whore.

Whether we like it or not, we are all dupes of schoolteachers, revisionists, and nationalist propaganda whose ultimate goal is to promote the idea that man is wolf to another man (homo homini lupus), which contradicts the central message of all religions, including our own, which is, all men are brothers.

[Guest]

That is also why Armenian and Turkish historians accuse one another of massacres

Who cleansed who?

So you claim we also massacred and did ethnic cleansing did we?

Is this why we are left 50000 in Turkey and turks are 70 millions?

The devastation a regular army can cause is not comparable to any revenge attacks by acouple of which may have taken place afterwards.

You are serving your western masters my friend.

[ara baliozian]

ON CHAUVINISM

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

Chauvinism divides because it views the offspring of mixed marriages (the majority of mankind) as second-class citizens.

Where there is chauvinism there will be victims on both sides.

Chauvinism is a false god and a bloodthirsty one at that.

The word itself was coined under Napoleon who was not a Frenchman but a Corsican and spoke French with an accent.

German chauvinism reached its peak under Hitler who was not German but Austrian.

Stalin, the architect of the Great Patriotic War, was not a Russian but a Georgian, and he killed many more Russians than Germans.

Some of our most distinguished chauvinist leaders (both intellectual and political) married odars.

Chauvinism is an instrument of deception used by a tiny minority to manipulate a majority of dupes.

Chauvinism stands in direct contradiction to the Biblical dictum "All men are brothers."

Chauvinism deceives, manipulates, and kills.

Chauvinism is a dead end.

[ara baliozian]

COMMENTS

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

Sometimes I am taken to task for ignoring my critics. But the truth is, all my essays are replies to specific criticisms. I consider myself not only thoroughly questioned, interrogated, examined and cross-examined but also given the third degree, grilled, shish-kebabed and skinned alive…and all that without the benefit of a defense lawyer saying Objection! Irrelevant! Inadmissible! Hearsay!…

 

There are those who place their ego ahead of the truth without realizing that the two are not only incompatible but also mutually exclusive.

 

When I was young I was given to understand that one of the hardest things about being an Armenian writer was the low pay. I know now that there is no pay. But that’s only a minor nuisance. What is infinitely more unbearable is writing for an audience of commissars.

 

Eliminate corruption and silence those who justify it in the name of this or that principle, and all our internal problems will be solved.

 

You cannot argue with somebody who thinks you are nobody.

 

Forgiveness comes easy to those who sustain only superficial wounds.

 

A typical Armenian leader has a Plan A for the nation, but a Plan A and Plan B for himself. Even when the nation loses, he wins.

 

There are many forms of cowardice, one of the worst is fear of free speech.

 

Every Armenian is infatuated with his own b.s.

[gamavor]

Think of it that way. Probably you are that good (I'm absolutely serious, you are damn good) because you have so many critics. Armenian critics.