as i see it - Pt. III

[Sasun]

Ara, you pay more attention to the dark ages of Christianity than the present. I don't think anyone in his right mind will find excuses to defend the dark ages. But we are living now, heretics no longer are burned on fire, and church no longer has such powers. The mistake has been corrected long time ago, and if this trend continues the church will eventually become a much more pure place. I don't see anything terribly wrong with current organized Christianity. Sure I don't like the dust covered dogmas but it doesn't prevent me from goint to church. If we are looking for forgiveness we also have to be forgiving and less demanding. That is Christianity 101.

[ara baliozian]

Let's also not forget that the same Saddam who butchered his own Arabs was supported by the US against Iran.

again, the yanks supported saddam because he was fighting iran....\they had nothing to do with saddam butchering his own people.

[ara baliozian]

as for the dark ages (1000 years) --

again you want to forget the past....

in another thousand years more abuses may be exposed about today....

as you said and i agree: where there is power, there is corruption, and abuses of power....and as i said and repeat: i am not against religion, only organized religion...which means religion married to power...jesus was not a pope or bishop...he was an outsider, a rebel, a dissident...and i am all for dissent that exposes the evil that is in power.

[Sasun]

OK Ara, I see. I am not crazy about the organized part of the religion. But as it is today much of religion is organized. Most believers want organized religion, or else it would not exist I think. Its a sort of democracy...

[Sasun]

again, the yanks supported saddam because he was fighting iran....\they had nothing to do with saddam butchering his own people.

Of course they did. Didn't they know who Saddam was? Saddam was a known dictator by then. And what was so good about supporting the war against Iran - innocent deaths from both sides. There is a theory that had the US not supported Saddam he wouldn't be around too long.

All I can see is pure political interests, hypocricy and double standards.

[Sasun]

When some of my readers want to insult me they call me a genius. If I have any genius it is in attracting false friends and faithful enemies.

 

Ara, sorry if you feel insulted. That was not my goal, I was trying to make a point since you seemed to be so sure about what you were saying. Actually it is a common thing to call someone a genius when hearing a questionable idea as a 100% truth. There are a lot worse ways to insult someone.

I have fundamental disagreements with some of your concepts such as "man of faith" being a mad, fanatical, hateful potential criminal. I like to think of myself as a man of faith to a certain degree, and I don't think your definition has anything to do with me or any other men of faith that I know of. I hope you realize that could also be insulting although I am sure you are not trying to insult anyone. You feel like you have to tell the truth honestly, truth being what you think, but that is not the truth at all (in my understanding).

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, November 06, 2003

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In a recent column in the ARMENIAN REPORTER, one of our pundits asserted that Krikor Zohrab and Roupen Sevag, among others, were models of competent intellectual leadership in Istanbul prior to the Genocide. It is to be noted that Zohrab and Talaat were good friends and at one point Zohrab even saved Talaat's life by risking his own. And Sevag expressed affection for the Turks even after the Hamidian massacres. When his German fiancée, following a visit to Istanbul, begged him to move to Europe on grounds that she found Turks to be unpleasant people, Sevag replied (I will now paraphrase): "You don't know the Turks as well as I do. They are nice folk. After you get to know them you will like them too."

Needless to add, both Zohrab and Sevag were murdered by orders of Talaat.

If leadership consists in seeing "the other side of the hill," these two writers failed to see even the abyss that yawned before them. And when the blind lead the blind....

*

It is only the exceptional English-language dictionary of quotations that will include an Anglophone Armenian writer like Saroyan and Bagdikian. As far as these dictionaries go, Armenian writers writing in Armenian either don't exist or they have said nothing worth quoting. And when some years ago I edited and published a dictionary of Armenian quotations I made the painful discovery that Armenian themselves don't much care about the wisdom of their own writers. After we have been told a thousand times that we are smart, we are the first nation to accept Christianity and the first people to suffer a genocide in the 20th century, who needs wisdom?

*

If Christianity is no longer a menace to scientists, dissidents or anyone else who dares to think for himself without reference to the scriptures, it is because of legal strictures imposed on it by outside agencies. Sooner or later all power structures enter into pacts with the devil.

They are like tigers in a zoo: if they escape or are allowed to roam free, they will terrorize millions until they are caught and caged once more.

*

In a thousand years from now when overpopulation will be a central issue, today's Catholics (who are against both contraceptives and abortion) will be perceived as ignorant and hidebound as their counterparts in the Middle Ages who burned heretics at the stake.

*

History repeats itself; it does not xerox itself.

*

If I knew how to pray I would say: "Give me an Armenian critic who has not conditioned himself to believe in his own infallibility, or one who can tell the difference between recycled propaganda and independent thought -- or ideas as extensions of vested interests and ideas as results of objective judgment.

*

To be read by Armenians is like being followed by a pack of hungry wolves on a moonless night in a deep forest, or swimming with a nosebleed in a shark-infested lagoon.

*

If an Armenian cannot disagree with your logic he will disagree with your punctuation. To an Armenian with a highly developed spirit of contradiction, agreement might as well be an experience akin to public castration.

*

One reason I am not popular with our bosses, bishops and benefactors and their flunkies and followers is that I refuse to be their nigger.

*

There are so few of us left that an Armenian should be a blessing to another Armenian and not a curse or a carcinogenic agent.

*

Once when I pointed out to a translator that his translation was not faithful to the original, he said that sometimes to be attractive a translation may have to be unfaithful. I didn't have the heart to tell him that his translation had all the charms of Medusa.

*

If an Armenian writer does not die of tuberculosis in his twenties, is not butchered by the Turks in his thirties, or shot by the Soviets in his forties, or buried alive in his fifties by his fellow Armenians, he will be slaughtered by his translators.

*

Some of my best friends refuse to go near a computer and some of my worst enemies appear to spend most of their existence glued to the monitor.

*

I cannot hope to be understood by readers who have made no effort to understand themselves -- perhaps because it is not easy or rewarding to understand the void.

[ara baliozian]

I have fundamental disagreements with some of your concepts such as "man of faith" being a mad, fanatical, hateful potential criminal. I like to think of myself as a man of faith to a certain degree, and I don't think your definition has anything to do with me or any other men of faith that I know of. I hope you realize that could also be insulting although I am sure you are not trying to insult anyone. You feel like you have to tell the truth honestly, truth being what you think, but that is not the truth at all (in my understanding).

when you speak of religion you think of yourself;

when i speak of religion i think of its history...surely i have made that abundantly clear.

[Sasun]

when you speak of religion you think of yourself;

When I speak about Christian religion, for instance, I think of Christ, not about myself. I bring my example as not fitting your description because I am sure I know myself better than others.

 

when i speak of religion i think of its history...surely i have made that abundantly clear.

 

It is actualy not always clear.

[DominO123]

Sasun, why bother answering to his posts? Ara is a monologue. When an artist paint something, when you critic the painting, do you modify the art "pieces" ? This is how you should see Aras answers, the answers he give are the painting in question, onces they are said, there is no going back, there is no dialogue, it is a monologue.

 

Aras posts are made to be read, not answered.

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, November 08, 2003

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The average law-abiding citizen is swayed more by speechifiers and sermonizers than by the ideas of philosophers or, for that matter, by the words of a solitary scribbler.

*

Exploiters, bloodsuckers, wheeler-dealers and dupes see grandeur in the pyramids of Egypt. All I see is monuments to human degradation.

*

We all make contributions to history: some of us contribute dupes that legitimize the power of charlatans, and others contribute victims, and anyone who dares to point out this fact is dismissed as an eccentric and a hostile witness.

*

Some of my readers don't like it when I express my thoughts. They demand that I express theirs.

*

Writers are eccentric, poets unreliable dreamers, and artists unstable? What about the Napoleons and Rockefellers of this world? What are they if not glorified serial killers and bloodsuckers.

*

The question that I ask myself again and again is: Is it possible that there are readers out there who cannot see what I see? But perhaps we can see only what we are. Confronted with legitimate criticism, a hooligan will see only hooliganism.

[ara baliozian]

When I speak about Christian religion, for instance, I think of Christ, not about myself. I bring my example as not fitting your description because I am sure I know myself better than others.

mention a single christian who says otherwise.

in a historic context, good christians (like good muslims or good germans) have legitimized power and the victims of this power....

[ara baliozian]

Sasun, why bother answering to his posts? Ara is a monologue. When an artist paint something, when you critic the painting, do you modify the art "pieces" ? This is how you should see Aras answers, the answers he give are the painting in question, onces they are said, there is no going back, there is no dialogue, it is a monologue.

 

Aras posts are made to be read, not answered.

i am all for dialogue.

monologue is for fascists and dogmatists in general -- that is,

men of faith who subscribe to a closed system of thought. / ara

[ara baliozian]

p.s.

if i were against dialogue i would say:

"what i have said i have said and that's the end of the story."

but here i am replying to you and to sasun or

anyone else interested in dialogue. i have at no time asserted infallibility.

if anything i have made fun of those who do -- including the pope of rome..../ara

[ara baliozian]

Monday, November 10, 2003

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

If an Armenian butcher or Oriental carpet dealer ever comes up to me and wants to know if he could be as successful in literature as he has been in his own field, I would reply: "It depends on the political environment in which you live. Under a totalitarian system, if you parrot the propaganda line of the regime and if you have friends in high places, you could be not only an influential literary critic but also a highly effective judge, jury and executioner."

If Bakounts, Charents, Zabel Yessayan, and Mahari were alive today, they would agree with me.

By the way, I don't know any butchers and the only question I have been asked by Oriental carpet dealers is whether or not I would be willing to translate their writings into English or review their memoirs.

*

In a corrupt environment being unpopular is preferable to being popular.

*

My critics think they are my only readers, and my friends think my critics are riffraff and that I waste my time whenever I take the trouble to answer them. They may be right. I have never heard an Armenian say, "After reading writer X, Y or Z, I changed my mind about issue A, B or C."

*

An agenda, any agenda, is what it states and what it doesn't, and of the two the unspoken part is the more important.

*

You don't have to be literate to read between the lines and I don't just mean printed lines.

*

It's not easy being an underdog. By the time you figure out the rules of the game, you are either too busy being angry or busier taking evasive action against unfair rules to have any time left for positive or creative endeavors.

*

There are those who think deep down I am a revolutionary whose ambition is to overthrow the present leadership.

What rubbish!

First of all, I don't believe in revolutions because all they do is replace one set of rascals with another and I don't see even a remotely better set of rascals on the horizon. All I ask is a little less dishonesty on the part of those who support the status quo.

Please note that I am not asking for honesty. I am old enough to know that politics is not exactly a magnet for men of integrity. All I am saying is, there is a difference between occasional liars and compulsive ones, or between ideology and pathology.

[Twilight Bark]

p.s.

if i were against dialogue i would say:

"what i have said i have said and that's the end of the story."

but here i am replying to you and to sasun or

anyone else interested in dialogue. i have at no time asserted infallibility.

if anything i have made fun of those who do -- including the pope of rome..../ara

That is indeed a nice change in attitude. While a depressing number of his critics are indeed nothing but "hooligans", for a long time Mr. Baliozian had taken the same sort of attitude to any critique of his own thoughts. I for one appreciate his increased willingness to engage in a two-way conversation, even though I never experienced it myself.

 

It is still a pity that Mr. Baliozian stands out as a rarity, rather than a small part of a wide spectrum of intelligent thought (or attempts thereof). It is a sad reminder of the mediocrity of Armenian intellectual life.

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

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If a politician wants your vote,

he will tell you what you want to hear.

If a businessman wants your money,

he will sell you products or services that you want to buy.

If a writer tells you things you don't want to hear,

it's because he wants neither your vote nor your money.

*

Perhaps everything I write is a fragment of a long autobiographical novel which I may never complete.

*

According to Al Capone: "You can get a lot more done with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone."

Since I don't have a gun, I must modify my kindness.

*

A question I am asked once in a while:

"If you don't like Armenians, why do you write for them?"

My answer: "I write against hoodlums and in defense of decent men everywhere, regardless of nationality."

*

To be an Armenian writer means to be silenced by fascists

and insulted by hoodlums.

*

Propaganda is not what a regime tells you today

but also what you were told as a child by a schoolteacher, a priest or anyone else who spoke in the name of God, Truth, or a power structure.

*

In a corrupt environment, popularity is no guarantee of honesty.

*

Once upon a time I was read only by subscribers of Armenian weeklies and magazines. The typical Armenian subscriber is one whose central concern is seeing his name in print. Now, on the internet, even Turks read me completely free of charge.

*

A word to my critics:

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 so that you may be less vulnerable to manipulation by men with a secret agenda.

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 intellectuals were taken in by enemy propaganda - Zohrab by Turkish, Zarian 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, November 12, 2003

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

Some of my critics, who subscribe to the tit-for-tat school of criticism, accuse me of the very same transgressions that I have been leveling against our bosses, bishops, benefactors and their flunkies - intolerance, dogmatism, refusal to engage in dialogue.

If I were to plead guilty as charged, will anything change in our collective existence?

As far as I can see, only one thing: the tune I have been whistling in the dark, on a deserted road, in the middle of nowhere.

If, on the other hand, our bosses, bishops and benefactors decide to adopt a more tolerant and less dogmatic approach to community affairs, we may promote ourselves from a collection of unruly tribes engaged in endless conflict to a nation reborn.

Moral I: You want to make yourself useful by providing a service to the nation? Ignore the monkey and go after the organ grinder.

Moral II: If you allow the organ grinder a free hand, he may replace his monkey with a gorilla and the gorilla with King Kong.

Moral III: We have many problems. I refuse to believe I am one of them.

*

If we define history as the propaganda of the victor, we could also define war as two sets of brainwashed dupes shooting at one another and in the process killing innocent bystanders.

*

Is there such a thing as a just war?

Some historians say yes, others no. Which may suggest that historians are like advocates in a court of law: for every historian who says one thing there will be another who will assert the exact opposite. This is true not only of nationalist historians (such as Armenian and Turkish historians) but also of historians within the same nation -- if you consider the fact that we have as many versions of our recent past as we have political parties and religious denominations.

*

Illusions can appear to be more real than reality, and fallacies more true than truth: therein lies their danger.

*

It's not easy explaining things to people who don't want things explained.

*

To those of my gentle readers who would like to see me silenced on grounds of mediocrity, I say and repeat: Don't think of me as a writer but as a witness in a court of law.

Is my testimony honest?

If, on the other hand, I am committing perjury, then all you need to do is produce another witness that will contradict me, after which it will be up to the jury (our readers) to reach a verdict. So that my own mediocrity should be an asset (from your perspective) rather than a liability that needs to be exposed, attacked and suppressed.

*

What's wrong with demonizing the opposition? - be they Turks, the "corrupt" West, Antelias (if you happen to be pro-Etchmiadzin) or Ramgavar (if you happen to be a Tashnag) and so on?

Allow me to answer that question by asking another:

Which one of our many problems has been solved by this tactic?

Its only success has been reinforcing and legitimizing our tribal divisions by exploiting the prejudices and ignorance of a credulous community.

*

As for those who accuse me of being a bearer of bad tidings, therefore depressing, humorless, and monotonous: I promise, if I ever find a way of speaking about our problems in a more entertaining and cheerful manner, I will do so. In the meantime, the only solution to your problem is to ignore me. That should not be difficult since there are many other writers (dead as well as alive) with a more positive and amusing approach to life's many problems.

*

There is nothing new in what I have been saying. Cancer is cancer and it cannot be cured by calling it an attack of flu.

[ara baliozian]

Friday, November 14, 2003

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The will of the nation is the sum total of the will of its people. But where people are divided, the collective will is not so much divided as canceled out.

*

"Hitler would have loved reading you," a Jewish writer is told whenever he publishes a book or story critical of the Jews. I have never been told "Talaat would have enjoyed reading you," but I have been warned again and again that Turks sometimes quote me, the implication being, even if my criticism is fair, I should pretend we are beyond criticism, which also means that any Armenian writer who has ever published a critical book on Armenians - from Khorenatsi to Zarian - must be considered an enemy agent.

*

It is not easy walking away from a fight with a weaker adversary.

*

The pursuit of truth and the pursuit of power are mutually exclusive. Where power enters, truth will be suppressed and persecuted. And since organized religions have a propensity to side with power, it follows, religious leaders have been enemies of dissent, free speech, dialogue, and truth.

*

It is not unusual for one of our academics to quote from my translations and pretend it is his own by changing an adjective here and a comma there.

*

If goodness were always rewarded, it would not be goodness but a profitable investment or transaction.

*

Talk is cheap? If only men of action talked more and acted less!

*

Organized religions have improved a great many people, no doubt about that. But so has the prospect of death, so has Siberian exile, so has tyranny and war (in so far as they have brought forth courage and heroism). So what?

*

In the Middle Ages bloody wars were fought over the correct proportion of the human and the divine in Christ or over whether or not images should be allowed in places of worship. Today these controversies have lost all relevance and meaning.

How many of our own controversies will survive a thousand or even a hundred years hence? But perhaps a hundred years is too far ahead. Even as I write, the overwhelming majority of Armenian-Americans either don't know or care even less about our present-day orthodoxies and heresies that keep us divided. I for one don't give a tinker's bell whether or not Etchmiadzin (an instrument of the KGB, I am told by Anteliassagans) is more legitimate than Antelias (an instrument of the CIA, I am told by Etchmiadznagans).

*

My critics have taught me this most valuable of all lessons:

For an Armenian, no one can be as contemptible as another Armenian.

*

Vahram Papazian: "The greater your worth the greater the pleasure of the worthless to tear you down."

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, November 15, 2003

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In today's paper I read that a jungle tribe in darkest Africa staged an elaborate ceremony of apology for descendants of a British missionary killed and eaten 136 years ago. I suggest copies of this article be sent to Turkish embassies everywhere with a memo stating simply: "Let that be a lesson to you!" and signed: "Armenian descendants of Turkish cannibalism."

*

Trying to impress others is a form of subservience because it implies dependence on what they think.

*

It has been pointed out to me that I write like a grim grouch and that to make my message more palatable and effective I should deliver it with a friendly smile and a touch of humor. It is not easy to speak of a nation dying the death of a thousand cuts (some of them self-inflicted) and to be amusing at the same time. But perhaps someone in the future, someone with Shakespeare's genius, will succeed in performing that difficult task. I have this deep-seated conviction, you see, that when it comes to human beings and what they can achieve, it never pays to say never - though one must also concede that Shakespeares have not been a dime a dozen in the history of our literature or any other literature, for that matter, including English. In the meantime all I can say in my defense is that I am not here to entertain or amuse anyone but to enrage as many as I can at what's being done in their name.

*

A valid idea cannot be forgotten or ignored. It may be perverted, and it usually is, but it cannot be buried.

*

Some day I would like to compile a book of favorite sayings not only of famous men but also of lesser mortals. About a month ago I heard a Canadian politician quoting his: "If you are in a hole, stop digging," and I could not help reflecting that if Nixon, Clinton and their advisers had heeded the wisdom of this message they would have saved themselves a heap of trouble. Which reminds me of the favorite saying of a late aunt: "Have my own troubles shat on me that I should waste my time on someone else's?"

When it comes to favorite sayings, I have so many that I wouldn't know where to begin. "White man speaks with a forked tongue," is one of them, and another: "You want a friend? Get a dog."

My mother's favorite saying: "To the poor, everyone is generous with advice." Which is why an Armenian dispensing unsolicited advice reminds me of a Greek bearing gifts.

*

To my critics who say their sole intent is to make me a better man and writer, I say: My only hope is that you will not give up your reformist zeal if you fail to reform me but will persevere and try to reform others, among them our bosses, bishops, benefactors and their flunkies - an enterprise in which I have failed miserably.

I have failed, yes, but so has ever other Armenian critic that has ever lived, from Khorenatsi and Yeghishe to Baronian, Odian and Massikian.

*

I deal in facts. If you don't like them, don't get mad at me because I am only an observer. Blame yourself for being too scared to face reality or too myopic to see beyond your proboscis.

[ara baliozian]

Monday, November 17, 2003

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

A dialogue with a reader:

READER: Why don't you modify your style with a touch of humor?

MYSELF: It's not easy writing about massacres and being funny.

READER: But you don't always write about massacres.

MYSELF: Everything I write is an attempt to analyze the factors that contributed to three sets of massacres: the turn-of-the-century Hamidian massacres and the 1915 Genocide in the Ottoman Empire, the "white massacre" or assimilation in the Diaspora, and the present exodus from the Homeland, everyone of which claimed a million and a half - some say two million - victims. And now, my turn to ask you a question.

READER: Shoot!

MYSELF: Why this hunger for humor? Is your life so barren of laughter that you want to see comedy in tragedy? And on a more personal note: How would you feel if someone spoke of a personal tragedy in your life in a manner that would amuse an audience?

READER: You may have a point there.

MYSELF: Let me be more specific. Has anyone ever laughed at a misfortune that happened to you or to a loved one?

READER: Not to my knowledge, no.

MYSELF: But if someone were to laugh, would you laugh with him?

READER: No, I don't think so.

MYSELF: Of course not. You would feel offended and angry, yes?

READER: That would be my reaction, I agree.

MYSELF: Which is why I choose not to offend my readers by making a joke of our collective misfortunes.

*

I have more critics than readers; either that or my critics have multiple personalities or they use several aliases.

*

Sometimes originality consists in isolating and emphasizing what has been written about only peripherally or ignored.

*

Naivete and power make an ephemeral combination.

*

Writing is not a business. It is possible to write a dishonest book and make a fortune, and write an honest book, or even a good one, and starve. The overwhelming majority of writers on best-seller lists of, say, fifty years ago are now deservedly forgotten.

*

As soon as I realize someone is a charlatan, I stop reading him. I therefore say to those of my readers who have described me as a dispenser of verbal manure: Surely, you must have better things to do than waste your valuable time on crap!

*

We have survived our leadership: that to me is an irrefutable argument for God's existence.

*

In a democracy, abuse of power is probable;

under fascism, inevitable.

*

A power structure that has all the answers will view questions as subversive.

*

A community that has no place for dissidents and no use for investigative reporters is a community of dupes run by liars afraid of exposure.

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, November 18, 2003

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We seem to think of our problems as if they were very much like mathematical equations that someone, somewhere, some day will be successful in solving them. We at no time think of solutions as labor intensive processes that may make demands on all of us. And if there is any blood, sweat and tears involved, it will be someone else's.

*

On the power of words:

If Helen of Troy is thought of us the Miss Universe of antiquity it is because she was immortalized by a poet who never laid eyes on her.

*

The devil has many disguises, including that of his former self - an angel.

*

"I pray thee, understand a plain man in his plain meaning," says one of Shakespeare's characters, thus implying perverts will invariably pervert the meaning of an honest statement.

*

Alzheimer's can be a blessing to those with a bad conscience.

*

The very same people who tell you "Don't believe everything you read in the papers," are more than willing to believe any charlatan willing to echo their prejudices and sentiments.

*

We are like everyone else (when it comes to failings) but everyone else is morally inferior (when it comes to explaining our tragedies).

*

All fools are offended by intelligence.

*

In a snake pit, it is the snake with the most powerful venom that survives.

*

Were Pearl Harbor and 9/11 inevitable? Many Americans believe they were not and they could have been prevented. Has anyone ever asked the same question about our genocide?

*

Our editors and publishers don't like paying their contributors because every Oriental carpet dealer not only writes but is also willing to pay editors to see his name in print.

*

The English brag about the fact that they have never been enslaved. We brag about the fact that we were the first nation to accept Christianity and the first nation to suffer a genocide in the 20th century. Everyone likes to brag about something or other. There are even people who brag about things they should be ashamed of. And I like to brag about the fact that I have been fired as often as I have been hired.

*

A good friend of mine, a competent trial lawyer, once gave me the following advice: "It is better to drop your pants and bend over than to sue a corporation or individual with limitless financial resources."

*

More about problems:

Most people with problems don't want solutions; they prefer to be told their problems are figments of their imagination. If psychoanalysis is popular it is because it says all problems are in your head and their existence is dependent on your willingness to believe they exist.

*

More on our editors:

As far as they go, I might as well be an abominable no-man. I suspect the only time they will acknowledge my existence is when they announce my non-existence in an obituary.

*

"Armenians will respect you only if you become a success in odar circles," I am told again and again by well-meaning friends.

Maybe, but why should I care to have the respect of readers who don't respect their own judgment? -- readers so confused, ignorant and base that they must look up to odars for guidance -- the very same odars who are invariably dismissed by them as uncivilized, ruthless, double-talking brutes.

*

Before I translated Zarian, I was a solitary creature living in the middle of nowhere. After I published my Zarian translations, every other Armenian writer became my close friend. But their friendship came to an abrupt, and sometimes even rude, end when they realized I had no intention of translating them. Now I know how women feel when they are pursued not for their minds but for their interstices.

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, November 19, 2003

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In his ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF PACIFISM, Aldous Huxley defines nationalism as "idolatry" and a "religion of war." And in his ENDS AND MEANS he refers to propaganda as "organized lying." I prefer "institutional charlatanism."

*

I am personally acquainted with an Armenian academic who publishes a critical commentary once every five years and spends the next five years living in fear of assassination. Another academic once told me he refuses to publish anything critical of the Turks because he is afraid of retaliation.

*

When a nation is defeated and conquered, its elite and the institutions it controls are divided into two: resisters and collaborators. If the conqueror is ruthless, the resisters are systematically eliminated or silenced and forever after their testimony is ignored. You may now draw your own conclusions.

*

Has religion played a positive role in our history? If you ask a priest, he will say, yes, of course, it goes without saying! Many others will disagree. The only thing religion has taught us, they will explain, is to make of us faithful slaves to tyrants: and sure enough, we were known to the Turks as their "most loyal millet."

What about the average church-going Armenian who believes a priest represents God on earth?

One way to explain him is to say that there are millions of people around the world who have been indoctrinated to believe Islam or Buddhism or some other religion is the only true way to heaven or nirvana, and anyone who says otherwise is an infidel, a giaour, and a creature whose ancestor was probably a dog (so much for religious tolerance). Faith might as well be a cement wall that the light of reason cannot penetrate.

*

Blunt talk: I am all for it but not when it emanates from a bully.

*

He who brags will insult and threaten. The secret ambition of every windbag is to be a fire-breathing dragon.

*

If you write, you will make mistakes and there will always be readers who will be glad to correct you (simply because everyone loves to assert his superior knowledge), and editors who will demand revisions (because that's what editors do).

But if you are a leader, you can always surround yourself with yes-men and underlings who will cover up your blunders and misrepresent your defeats as moral victories; and they will do this in the hope that on the day they become leaders they too will have achieved infallibility.

Abuse of power in Armenian history: what a book one could write on that subject, and probably one of the longest in the history of world literature.

*

We are all unique and we have all been assigned to play a unique role in life.

Perhaps my role consists in calling a spade a spade.

This may not be a popular or profitable line of work but it has its secret compensations, one of them being: whenever you tell an Armenian he is making an ass of himself, you almost certify his status as an ass, because he tends to operate on the assumption that there is only one way to prove to himself and the world at large that he is not an ass and that's by being inflexible, self-righteous, obstinate, and ornery.

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, November 20, 2003

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Writes Pascal:

"Reason makes more demands on us than a master. If we disobey a master we may be penalized, but if we disobey reason we will be idiots."

*

Another thought by Pascal:

"There are two kinds of people:

the just who think they are sinners,

and the sinners who think they are just."

What about the idiots who think they are smart?

*

At least once a day we should remind ourselves that our leaders are our servants and our bishops are not "princes of the church" but servants of God and the community.

*

One good thing about writing for the internet:

at least one does not contribute to the slaughter of trees.

*

You want to complicate your life and make enemies?

Seek out the company of liars and speak the truth.

*

Dialogue is impossible with people who confuse disagreement with hostility.

*

We engage in verbal massacre because the real thing is against the law and not because we are better than Turks.

If anything we are worse because the massacre is against our own kind.

*

You never get exactly what you want:

it's either more, less or nothing.

*

For everything I know I don't know a thousand things.

It is different with our charlatans:

not only do they know everything I know plus the thousand things that I don't know, but also the ten thousand things no one will ever know.

*

Money goes to money, they say; something very similar happens to culture too. Consider the situation of 20th-century French literature, one of the most highly developed and influential in the world: the three playwrights who revolutionized the French theater (Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, and Eugene Ionesco) were an Irishman, an Armenian, and a Romanian respectively);

and now consider the situation of Armenian literature at the other end of the spectrum: not only we don't encourage or welcome outside help, but we also alienate and silence our own (from Abovian to Zarian).

*

It is better to be underestimated than overestimated if only because it is better to surprise than to disappoint.

*

Hell can't be worse than the world of my dreams. Why should I be afraid of it? I visit the place every night.

*

A nation stands divided when that which divides it is more important than that which keeps it united.

What is it exactly that keeps us divided?

Some obscure ideological or religious orthodoxy or heresy?

I don't think so.

What keeps us divided are the egos of ambitious little men to whom their powers and privileges are more important than the survival of the nation.

[ara baliozian]

Friday, November 21, 2003

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The trouble with self-righteous people is that even when they brag they think they are infallible.

*

If only writers could choose their readers and readers would read only writers who parrot their thoughts, life would be such a pleasant experience!

*

Politics is the art of promising the impossible

and delivering only a fraction of the possible.

*

A skinhead's worldview is circumscribed

by Hitler's MEIN KAMPF.

*

Three lines an Armenians hates to speak:

I don't know.

I was wrong.

I don't understand.

*

To reason with some people amounts to trying to rescue them from the grip of their mediocrity.

*

Arab proverb: "If an unlucky man went into business selling shrouds no one would die."

*

Chekhov: "But perhaps the universe is suspended on the tooth of some monster."

*

A nation that drives Abovian to suicide and buries Zarian alive has no business lamenting about its brain-drain as if it were a misfortune imposed by unforeseen circumstances beyond its control. Brain-drain has been and continues to be a carefully calculated and implemented policy by our leadership, and anyone who can't see this understands nothing about our recent history and knows even less about our character as a nation.

*

All power is suspect, and power without moral authority is criminal.

*

I am naturally suspicious of all Armenian enterprises that echo Comrade Panchoonie's punch line: "Mi kich pogh oughargetsek" (Send us a little money).

*

In our environment recycling propaganda is patriotic

and exposing lies "cheap talk"?

*

In an asylum where the inmates are in charge the self-evident will be a source of endless controversy.

*

Morality cannot be legislated, especially when the legislators are crooks.

*

Unlike the insane, the sane know how to check their insane impulses.

*

The astonishing ease with which people believe lies that are to their advantage and reject truths that are against them.