as i see it - Pt. III

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, March 22, 2003

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

If you brag about being the smartest man on earth,

sooner or later you will provoke someone

into calling you the dumbest loud-mouth on earth,

and what’s even infinitely worse,

you will gradually suspect that

he may indeed be right.

*

If to know everything about something means anything,

it means that you know nothing about many, many other things

and that your knowledge is no better than a droplet

in an ocean of ignorance.

*

To call the war against Iraq "unjust, immoral and illegal,"

is to imply that Saddam’s regime is "just, moral and legal."

And if Saddam’s regime is criminal,

those who demonstrate against America today

should bear some responsibility

in Saddam’s crimes against humanity

by failing to demonstrate against them.

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, March 23, 2003

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

A good writer raises the consciousness of his readers.

Judging by the depths of consciousness of some of my readers,

I must be a horrible writer and

the only reason I am alive today is that

they don't shoot writers in the West.

Needless to add,

my fate would have been different in Stalin’s USSR.

*

As far as Armenians go,

Ottomanism and Stalinism continue to be

our dominant mindset.

So that if I were to ask an average Armenian

to name two contemporary Armenian poets, essayists or novelists,

I would get a blank stare.

*

When I went into this business about 30 years ago,

Armenian writers were on the list of endangered species.

They are now extinct.

Which may suggest that our Ottomanists and Stalinists

have succeeded where

their Turkish and Russian counterparts failed.

*

On 9/11 Muslim fanatics declared war

against the United States;

and judging by their conduct in Israel,

they were not about to bury the hatchet

and smoke the peace pipe with infidels.

President Bush had two options:

either to drop his pants and bend over or

to fight back.

*

About collateral damage:

Innocent civilians have consistently been

the Muslims’ favorite targets (beginning with our Genocide).

No further questions!

*

Muslim fanatics have two options:

unconditional surrender or suicide

and fornication with an imaginary harem of virgins --

the horny buggers!

[ara baliozian]

Monday, March 24, 2003

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

Pity the nation whose educators are hooligans.

*

It is astonishing to what degree a man

grown fat on a steady diet of lies

will perceive truth as an expression of hatred.

*

All nations have a lunatic fringe

and, as a rule, lunatics share more things in common

with other lunatics regardless of national origin.

So that an Armenian lunatic and a Turkish lunatic

might as well be interchangeable units.

*

Anyone who has worked for Armenians,

or plans to do so, cannot afford to have any illusions about them.

*

The most alienated Armenians I have met

are the sons and grandsons of famous writers.

*

Pity the nation whose elite is white trash,

[Sasun]

This must be joke What have you done that could possibly turn your enemies into friends?

 

P.S. Once you wrote that you avoided from making friends, or something like that.

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, March 25, 2003

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

A character in Umberto Eco’s recent novel BAUDOLINO

is an Armenian by the name of Mekhitar Ardzruni.

Part of the action takes place in Cilicia.

*

A TV pundit last night compared the U.S. war on Iraq

to a fight between Mike Tyson and Woody Allen.

But no matter how hard I try

I cannot imagine Woody defying, challenging,

or even contradicting Tyson.

*

The trouble with megalomaniacs is that,

like all liars, they end up believing in their own lies.

*

I see several parallels between our revolutionaries

in the Ottoman Empire and Saddam today.

Like Saddam our fedayees too thought they were right

and they had the world as well as God on their side,

and with such allies they couldn't lose.

*

Empires survive their blunders:

that’s one of the benefits and privileges of being an empire.

*

If, at the age of 60, a man thinks as he thought

when he was 30, that means he has not done much serious thinking

during the last three decades.

*

The U.S. should have negotiated with Iraq.

Yes, perhaps. But as Aristotle knew 2500 years ago,

reason works only with reasonable men.

It doesn't work with suicidal fanatics, bloodthirsty terrorists,

megalomaniacal dictators,

and as our own history makes it abundantly clear,

with self-righteous Armenians:

hence our endless feuds, divisions, and irreconcilable differences.

*

And consider this very discussion forum.

Will I ever admit to have been wrong?

Will my critics? Not on your life.

And what is at stake here?

A ridiculous and absurd notion:

our own infallibility.

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, March 26, 2003

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

Pity the dope who believes in his own infallibility.

*

Would I feel safe in a neighborhood populated by my critics,

or in a state whose policemen, judges, and lawmakers

shared their views?

Next question:

Would you feel safe in a country of cut-throats?

*

Pity the smart-ass who thinks he is smart.

*

If it’s not the Sultan, it’s the ghost of the Sultan.

If it’s not Stalin, it’s the ghost of Stalin.

If it’s not the Turkish or Russian enemy,

it’s the Armenian friend.

The massacre continues….

*

Pity the useless idiot who is convinced

he is wiser because he is better.

*

You cannot engage in dialogue or, for that matter,

in any form of communication with an adversary

whose sole aim in life is to degrade, defeat, or silence you.

*

Pity the hooligan who thinks

he is a noble specimen of humanity

and a role model to future generations.

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, March 27, 2003

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

All religions are false except mine.

If I were to make a list of universally held illusions,

this one would be one of the top ten.

It follows: I may be fallible but my God is not.

Which also means:

I may be wrong in little or unimportant things

but never in big or important ones.

So that, as long as I speak in His name,

I am right, and if you dare to contradict or doubt me,

you are a partisan of the devil.

Replace the word God with ideology, belief system or any -ism,

and you will have the source of all controversy,

conflict, war and massacre.

Which is why,

that which promises heaven

will invariably deliver hell.

[ara baliozian]

Friday, March 28, 2003

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

What a book one could write

on the perversities of public opinion.

After World War II

millions of Frenchmen, Italians, Greeks

and other European nations

preferred Stalin to Truman.

And there are millions of Frenchmen today

who view Napoleon as a great man

and Bush as a warmonger.

*

The Turks and Yanks have had a disagreement.

We rejoice! What could be more droll?

Armenians disagree all the time

and no one gives a damn,

not even Armenians.

The Turks and Yanks have disagreed before

and they will disagree again,

but they are also smart enough

to let their self-interest

to dictate their conduct.

Unlike Armenians who profess inflexible principles.

I too am partial to principles

but not when they are held

by charlatans and bunglers.

*

Zarian is right.

Small nations see big meanings in little events

because they are desperate for good news,

and like drowning men they will cling to anything,

including straws and serpents.

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, March 29, 2003

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

Has anyone ever counted

the number of Saddam’s victims?

If Saddam has a license to kill,

who gave it to him?

*

The barbarian and the civilized

speak a mutually incomprehensible tongue

even when they speak the same dialect.

*

A man who is on his way from A to B

should not pretend he has reached Z.

*

Life is a terminal disease

and some men are carcinogenic agents.

*

I am for peace and the brotherhood of all men.

I kill only enemies of God:

the oxyMORONic logic of men of faith.

*

Pity the carcinogenic agent

who thinks he is an agent of God.

*

If so far I have succeeded in anything

it is changing minor disagreements into major antagonisms,

and when I say major I mean murderous.

*

What’s valuable in philosophy

is not what it asserts as truths

but what it exposes as lies.

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, March 30, 2003

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

To speak in the name of God

is to speak in the name of a false god.

*

Wishful thinking and predicting the future

are incompatible activities and incompatible

to the point of being mutually exclusive.

*

When two messengers of God

contradict each other, the chances are

not just one but both are charlatans.

*

All messengers of God are self-appointed,

in the same way that all Chosen People

are chosen by no one but themselves.

*

For a messenger of God

to repeat the message of another messenger of God

is to condemn himself to irrelevance.

Hence the tendency of such messengers

to contradict one another.

*

Crackpot theories will always be popular among crackpots.

[ara baliozian]

Monday, March 31, 2003

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

During World War I

our God wasn't of much help to us.

During World War II

the God of the Jews wasn't of much help to them either.

That’s the trouble with gods:

they tend to fall asleep when they are needed the most.

What about Allah?

Is he an insomniac?

Nobody knows.

But I know this: no matter what happens next,

he will continue to have his worshippers.

That’s because god is a being

who doesn't need to exist in order to rule.

*

An Arab pundit on CBC this morning:

"Arabs may hate Saddam but they hate America even more.

Even Saddam’s enemies are now returning to Iraq

to fight against the Americans.

This is hard to understand but this is reality."

*

Armenians come in all sizes, shapes and colors.

Stand them beside a chameleon

and it will not be the chameleon that will change color.

I have even met anti-bishop Armenians who are pro-mullah.

That too is reality.

*

Turkish mullahs and Arab mullahs:

in so far as they legitimize

the murder of innocent women and children,

are they not brothers under the skin?

And to think that for centuries

Jews were hated because it was said

their rabbis sacrificed Christian children to their God.

*

In a letter to the editor:

"God is going to punish America…."

And who is going to punish Saddam? -- unless of course

the Good Lord too is pro-Saddam and anti-Bush.

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, April 01, 2003

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

"Prejudice, not being founded on reason,

cannot be removed by argument," writes Samuel Johnson.

Which is why I apologize to my anti-Semitic readers

for wasting their time by trying to reason with them.

*

Did you know that to some Protestants

the devil is a Catholic and vice versa?

*

For a man of faith

nothing can be as contemptible as religion – all religions,

except his own of course!

*

Can reason explain why a religion of love and peace

becomes one of hatred and war?

*

The difference between Americans and Arabs is that

Americans aim at minimum damage,

Arabs at maximum.

So that if left unchecked, in ten or a hundred years,

the Arabs may destroy the West

even if it means destroying themselves in the process.

*

When in the final volume of his STUDY OF HISTORY

Toynbee said mankind will live in peace and prosperity

only if all religions are reconciled and made one,

he was universally dismissed by both believers and non-believers

as a mystic and a charlatans with messianic ambitions.

By non-believers because he had dared to reconcile

reason with faith, and by believers

because he had questioned the unique validity of their religion.

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, April 01, 2003

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

"Prejudice, not being founded on reason,

cannot be removed by argument," writes Samuel Johnson.

Which is why I apologize to my anti-Semitic readers

for wasting their time by trying to reason with them.

*

Did you know that to some Protestants

the devil is a Catholic and vice versa?

*

For a man of faith

nothing can be as contemptible as religion – all religions,

except his own of course!

*

Can reason explain why a religion of love and peace

becomes one of hatred and war?

*

The difference between Americans and Arabs is that

Americans aim at minimum damage,

Arabs at maximum.

So that if left unchecked, in ten or a hundred years,

the Arabs may destroy the West

even if it means destroying themselves in the process.

*

When in the final volume of his STUDY OF HISTORY

Toynbee said mankind will live in peace and prosperity

only if all religions are reconciled and made one,

he was universally dismissed by both believers and non-believers

as a mystic and a charlatans with messianic ambitions.

By non-believers because he had dared to reconcile

reason with faith, and by believers

because he had questioned the unique validity of their religion.

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, April 02, 2003

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

When emotion meets emotion

there can be no compromise.

When faith meets faith, ditto.

Same applies to prejudice.

*

If you were to ask a Jew and a Muslim,

or, for that matter, a Catholic and a Protestant,

what makes them think their faith is right

and everyone else’s false,

they will give you similar answers.

"My God," they will say, "does not deceive me,"

or words to that effect.

To which the other will reply:

"So you think my God is a liar?"

Result? War and massacre – if not literal than verbal –

all in the name of a God

who stands for compassion and the brotherhood of all men.

*

One reason why when Armenians get together

they start crapping on each other is that

they are men of emotion, faith, and prejudice,

rather than reason.

*

A man of reason has very few satisfactions

in the kind of world we live in

except perhaps being a witness to the spectacle

of two dupes beating each other senseless,

each claiming to be smarter than the other fellow.

*

In his book FOOTBALL AGAINST THE ENEMY,

Simon Kuper quotes an Armenian fan who,

sensing the possibility of Armenian national independence

after Gorbachev came to power,

was heard to shout at a match:

"Referee, go f*** your wife in front of the Lenin mausoleum!"

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, April 03, 2003

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

As a form of intellectual blindness

prejudice may be said to be its own punishment.

It follows, the best way to retaliate against a prejudiced person

is to let him keep it.

*

A prejudice is not a prejudice to its holder,

but simple common sense, clean logic, immaculate affirmation.

According to Heinrich Himmler:

"Anti-Semitism is exactly the same as delousing.

Getting rid of lice is not a question of ideology,

it is a matter of cleanliness."

*

"If a Gypsy steals your child,"

writes Stephen Burgen in his

YOUR MOTHER’S TONGUE:

A BOOK OF EUROPEAN INVECTIVE,

"it’s only so they can put it out to beg;

but if a Jew abducts one

it’s because they need the blood of a Christian child

to bake matzos for Passover.

But then everyone knows that."

*

Elsewhere we read that Gypsies speak a language

related to Hindi, Farsi, Greek, Armenian and German.

*

They brag about their past triumphs

and they ascribe all their present problems

on foreign powers.

They are tribal, authoritarian and undemocratic

with no respect for free speech and fundamental human rights.

They have experienced centuries of subservience

within the Ottoman Empire,

hence their ready acceptance of corrupt, inept

and quasi-fascist leaders.

If freedom and equality mean sharing power,

they treat their women as second-class citizens.

They are hostile to Zionists

because Zionism stands for solidarity,

which happens to be an alien concept to them

and so far it has proven to be an unreachable goal.

If you suspect I am talking about Arabs

you are right.

But not quite.

Because I am also talking about Armenians.

[ara baliozian]

Friday, April 4, 2003

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

Why did America support right-wing fascist regimes

during the Cold War?

For the same reason that left-wingers now support Saddam:

they hate America.

And America hated Communism.

And the only reason America supported Saddam

is that they hated Iran even more;

and Ayatollah’s Iran was too blind or stupid to see that

if it defies an imperial power,

it should be prepared to pay a heavy price.

Wasn't that our blunder too?

To think that we could defy an empire

and get away with it?

Well, we didn't get away with it;

neither did Iran and Iraq.

And neither did the Jews 2000 years ago

when they defied the Roman Empire.

If international diplomacy had commandments,

the first would probably read:

"Thou shalt not defy an empire,

especially if you happen to be a mickey mouse."

As for Jehovah, God and Allah:

It should be obvious by now that

He prefers not to take sides

even when the survival of His Chosen People is at stake.

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, April 05, 2003

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

You wanna project a positive image?

No problem.

Accuse your critics of negativism.

Someone calls you a fascist?

Easy! Call him a fascist.

This is bound to work at least with a fraction

of your audience – namely, the dimwits.

In case you didn't know,

this type of criticism is known as

schoolyard, echo, bounce or infantile criticism,

for obvious reasons.

Here is another typical instance

of this particular school of criticism

popular among Armenians.

To cover up their Stalinist education and mindset,

Homeland historians are now criticizing – though

accusing would be more accurate –

Armenian-American historians of treason,

which, as everyone knows, is a capital offense.

And needless to add,

crypto-Stalinists of the Diaspora agree.

If it were up to our so-called (and self-assessed)

patriotic (make it, fascist) Armenians,

an important fraction of the nation

would be arrested, tried, found guilty,

condemned to death and shot.

Talaat lives and Stalinism rules!

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, April 06, 2003

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

To understand an ideology

is not the same as to understand reality.

An ideology may explain a fraction of reality,

never all of it.

*

I describe reality not to justify it

but to explain it. Because only when we understand reality

we may avoid its traps.

*

To understand cancer does not mean to be for cancer.

On the contrary.

*

There is a natural and unconscious tendency in all of us

to understand reality by making assumption that are in our favor.

But reality is neither a friend nor an enemy.

Even so, there is more truth in viewing reality

as an adversary rather than an ally.

*

One reason I ignore some of my critics is that

life is short and I have suffered my quota of fools.

[ara baliozian]

Monday, April 07, 2003

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

When a fascist strongman’s monuments to himself

bite the dust, all dictators spend at least one sleepless night

reflecting on their own mortality.

*

About the innocent victims of war:

someday someone may reinvent war

in which only soldiers die.

If that happens he will no doubt be awarded

the Nobel Peace Prize.

*

Speaking of innocent victims:

since the victims of fascist regimes are silent

and do not make headlines in the international media,

the average naïve dupe may think

they don't exist, in the same way that

for many years the existence of Hitler’s concentrations camps

and Stalin’s Gulags was questioned even by pundits.

*

Speaking of prizes: on winning the Pulitzer Prize,

an American writer is quoted as having said:

"The Pulitzer [Prize is] somebody saying ‘Keep going!’"

It’s easy to keep going after winning an important prize;

much harder when the message of the world is:

"Stop! No one gives a damn!"

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

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

According to the 17th-century French philosopher

Antoine Arnault: "Human faith is in itself subject to error."

How much more so ideologies – especially when

they assert a monopoly on truth.

*

One of the worst mistakes we can make

is to think that just because we believe in something today

we will continue to believe it tomorrow

or a year or ten years hence.

*

There is a famous anthology titled THE GOD THAT FAILED,

wherein Andre Gide, Ignazio Silone and Arthur Koestler,

-- among others, all former Communists --

explain why they became anti-Communists.

*

If an intellectual is honest

he will readily admit error.

It is different with political leaders.

Consider the case of someone like Saddam:

to admit error on his part

would amount to pleading guilty to countless murders

and to thus condemning himself to death.

Some dictators, like Stalin and Franco, died in bed.

But others, like Hitler and Mussolini, did not.

It remains to be seen to which category Saddam belongs.

*

America will crumble and fall, no doubt about that.

Empires are not immortal.

Neither are tribes and nations.

Sometimes we become so absorbed in predicting the future

of those we hate that we ignore

our own blunders, shortcomings, and mortality.

*

If Christians are right, Muslims are wrong and vice versa.

But if it were up to a Buddhist to decide,

both Christians and Muslims would be wrong

if they claimed to speak in the name

of the only true God.

[Sasun]

If Christians are right, Muslims are wrong and vice versa.

But if it were up to a Buddhist to decide,

both Christians and Muslims would be wrong

if they claimed to speak in the name

of the only true God.

This is unfortunately true for most practicioners of the mentioned religions and less for Buddhists. But it's not true about the religions themselves. Failure to see this is the cause of religious intolerance.

[Sasun]

...

and Ayatollah’s Iran was too blind or stupid to see that

if it defies an imperial power,

it should be prepared to pay a heavy price.

Wasn't that our blunder too?

To think that we could defy an empire

and get away with it?

Well, we didn't get away with it;

neither did Iran and Iraq.

And neither did the Jews 2000 years ago

when they defied the Roman Empire.

If international diplomacy had commandments,

the first would probably read:

"Thou shalt not defy an empire,

especially if you happen to be a mickey mouse."

...

So, are you saying that little countries or nationalities should not defy against tyranny, that they should not strive for freedom when they feel that the tyrant would punish them for that (and when when would it be not so?).

If this is the case, then isn't it the opposite of what you are doing and saying on other levels? You talk against charlatans, bigots, liars, etc. and a lot of people hate you and insult you and threaten you. So, why do you keep doing it? No offence, but you are not any bigger than a mickey mouse in this situation. The same way, I think, little people like us defied the tyranny of the Ottoman Empire (one should stress the small scale of such defiance though), or Iran, Iraq and a few other countries have defied the American domination, or Afghanistan defied the Soviet rule, or Israelis defied the Roman empire. You can't help it, people need freedom and justice, be it at international, social, political,or personal level.

[Sasun]

Ara, as usual you are confusing men of faith with crazy fanatics. According to you a man of faith has no reason. This is quite disappoiting.

 

A humble suggestion: observe your actions and their effects (essentially a total uselessness). What is it that keeps you going?

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, April 09, 2003

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

Methodical people have Plans A, B, C and so on.

Men of faith have only Plan A: God is great

and with Him on our side we have no need

for man-made plans.

And you may have noticed by now that

men of faith tend to confuse God with men:

if it’s not the Pope of Rome or the Ayatollah,

it’s Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, Saddam….

*

There is a Turkish saying:

"Eshek khoshnan ne annar?"

(What does a jackass know about

khoshaf=a sweet soup made with raisins).

A pre-Socratic Greek philosopher

by the name of Heraclitus (circa 500BC),

born, raised and active in what’s today Turkey,

said: "A jackass prefers garbage to gold."

Which may suggest that sometimes

when the territory changes hands,

so does its wisdom.

*

One good thing about being an Armenian writer is that

on the day you think you may have produced a useful line,

one of your gentle readers is sure to inform you that

you are no better than a piece of shit.

I like that.

I believe modesty is a valuable asset of which

none of us is in a position to say

he has more than enough.

[ara baliozian]

Sasun:

I agree that the need of freedom is universal

and in the nature of things i too am a tiny mouse

and as such i am paying a price for defying our bosses, bishops, benefactors and assorted charlatans.

Defiance is a good thing provided you are prepared to pay a heavy price for it. Defiance is a bad thing if you think you can get away with it without a penalty.

I am describing reality. I am not necessarily on reality's side.