as i see it - Pt. III

[nairi]

I understood this from your post the first time.

 

I am glad you did but then you have to admit that what you wrote, namely,

 

"you can't stop people from willing to communicate no matter how false their judgement is. "

 

doesn't follow from what I said as your previous post suggested.

Do feel free to explain yourself.

[axel]

Do feel free to explain yourself.

 

I understood this from your post the first time.

[nairi]

I understood this from your post the first time.

Good.

[ara baliozian]

Friday, April 18, 2003

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

According to Andrei Sakharov

in his Nobel Prize speech

(which he wasn't allowed to deliver

because he was labeled Enemy No. 1 by the KGB):

"Peace, progress, human rights,

these three goals are indissolubly linked;

it is impossible to achieve one of them

if the others are ignored."

In the Middle East today

(including our own beloved homeland)

there is neither peace nor progress

because there is no respect for fundamental human rights;

and when I said our homeland,

I should have included our communities in the Diaspora.

If you want to know the reason why

we have so far failed to qualify as respected members

of the international community,

examine your own heart.

To blame all our problems on outsiders

(Turks and Russians, or even Jews and Americans)

is to imply that our destiny is in their hands

and we have no power to change it.

But surely, if we have the power to violate

a fellow Armenian’s human rights (such as free speech)

we must also have the power not to do so.

To say otherwise is to defend an untenable position

with arguments worthy of a certified mongoloid

[ara baliozian]

ARMENIAN SAYINGS

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

A dead jackass is not afraid of the lion.

*

Sorrows are easier to survive than hunger.

*

Honey will attract flies even from Baghdad.

*

To a poor orphan, more bread, less advice.

*

Life is a battle and what counts is not the first defeat

but the final victory.

*

He is wise indeed whose learning begins in the cradle

and ends in the grave.

*

Some books make better friends

than the best of friends.

[ara baliozian]

NOTES / COMMENTS

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

Armenian saying: "For the wise, a glass of water is more than enough.

For the fool, even the ocean is not enough."

*

What do Armenians who agree with one another talk about?

They talk about Armenians who disagree with them, what else?

*

User friendly? Who would buy something that comes with the warning,

User hostile?

*

Who are the Armenians?

The Armenians are a people who identify themselves as Armenians.

*

Who are the Arabs?

The Arabs are a collection of ignorant tribes

who believe God speaks in Arabic,

whereas the whole world knows that God speaks only in Armenians.

*

Be grateful but not subservient,

and if you can't tell the difference, be an ingrate.

*

Armenian saying: "In most things, a little is better than too much."

*

By picking and choosing your sources

you can prove anything, including such absurd claims as

Jews are God’s Chosen People,

whereas the whole world knows

Armenians are God’s Chosen People.

*

Arab proverb: "To his mother a monkey is a gazelle."

[ara baliozian]

OBITER DICTA

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

For most of my life I was a dupe;

perhaps I still am because I think

the written word may make a difference.

*

What some Americans used to say about Indians

("The only good Indian is a dead Indian")

Armenians say about their writers.

*

It is written: "Roses may be lovely to look at

but cabbages make better sauerkraut."

*

Learn to say I don't know.

Honest ignorance is infinitely better

than phony knowledge.

*

Armenian saying: "Trust what you see not what you hear."

*

It takes a different kind of literacy

to read between the lines.

*

If an Armenian gorilla agrees with me,

he is a gazelle.

If a gazelle disagrees with me,

he is King Kong.

*

Armenian saying: "Neither sugar from Damascus

nor the face of an Arab."

(Alternate translation: If getting sugar means

looking at an ugly Arab mug,

I say to hell with the sugar!)

*

Perhaps we owe our survival to odars.

I shiver to think what would have happened to me,

or, for that matter, to the nation,

if it had been up to my fellow Armenians.

*

The easiest way to create a nation of dupes

is to convince them they are the smartest people on earth – which,

by the way, can be done without any effort.

*

In the eyes of a dupe, a charlatan, an ideologue,

a man of faith, and a fascist, to think for yourself

is an unforgivable transgression,

sometimes even a capital offense.

*

A bully will hate you

if you refuse to be intimidated by him.

[Sasun]

What some Americans used to say about Indians

("The only good Indian is a dead Indian")

Armenians say about their writers.

I never heard that before. Is that really so?

 

Learn to say I don't know.

Honest ignorance is infinitely better

than phony knowledge.

 

 

It is written: "Roses may be lovely to look at

but cabbages make better sauerkraut."

It should be written also that cabbages may also be lovely to look at.

 

For most of my life I was a dupe;

perhaps I still am because I think

the written word may make a difference.

 

I think the written word can make a difference but it depends on what is written and how, and also by whome (which determines what is written and how).

 

 

Ara, I hope you don't mind that I make comments or ask questions on your posts. If so, then please tell me because I wouldn't like to waste time

Edited April 22, 2003 by Sasun

[Sasun]

After being exposed to mullahs and "suicidal fanatic dupes", Mr Baliozian understood the legitimacy of Israel's crimes against humanity.

 

"Enthusiasm has two faces in general, sacrifice of oneself for a passionately embraced idea, this is Faith, sacrifice of others for this idea, that is fanatism" (Augustin Cochin)

 

So where is fanatism, among the desperate and humiliated palestinians who commit suicide bombings (including teenage girls) or among the zionist leaders who kill and destroy in the name of Eretz Israel, starting with their own people?

Axel, in a nutshell I agree with the definition of fanatic vs man of faith that you are suggesting. On the other hand, if you apply the same definition to a suicide bomber that would technically make him both a fanatic and man of faith. However, (I believe) it takes more to be a man of faith than a fanatic, therefore a suicide bomber is a fanatic, not a man of faith.

 

As to the politicians that you are mentioning, I don't think they are fanatics. They are simply calculating, self-interested, ambitious people. They are not lead by any religious/spiritual beliefs.

 

P.S. I think you are being to harsh to Ara Baliozian. Why would a writer try to mislead people or have any hidden agenda? Even if we assume there could be any reason, I agree with Nairi that nobody is being mislead, and in general what harm is being done to anyone but himself as a result of his writings (other than occasional turmoil in the forums )

Edited April 22, 2003 by Sasun

[ara baliozian]

ARMENIAN FOLK WISDOM

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

Better black bread with friends

than butter and honey with enemies.

*

The worship of wealth

is an incurable disease.

*

Either you beat your daughter today

or your knees tomorrow.

*

You can't wash blood with blood.

*

When the cat appears,

the mice disappear.

*

Better a wise sinner

than a foolish saint.

*

Four walls have four ears.

*

With patience you may even find profit in loss.

*

Honesty harms no one,

dishonesty everyone.

*

A well cannot be filled with tears.

*

You may say you are welcome to the manure in my stable;

you may not say you are welcome to my daughter.

*

Even if the chicken is black,

the eggs will be white.

*

If you run after two rabbit

you will catch neither.

*

Better to pray once to God

than forty times to forty saints.

*

A lie that builds is better

than a truth that tears down.

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, April 23, 2003

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

Until very recently and

even under such bloodthirsty butchers as

the Sultan, Talaat and Stalin

our literature boasted of giants.

Today I can't even name a handful of midgets.

Why? What happened?

Can anyone explain this sudden and

precipitous fall and disintegration?

My tentative answer:

We are at the mercy of crypto-fascist philistines

who have flimflammed, bamboozled and hoodwinked the people

into thinking their central concern is

the survival of our literature and culture;

and being abysmally insecure,

they do their utmost to do a better job than

their Turkish and Russian predecessors.

*

According to an English Orientalist:

"Every Arab word has its primary meaning,

then its opposite meaning,

then something to do with a camel,

and lastly something obscene."

Se non vero ben trovato.

*

Never try to reason with someone

who is allergic to reason.

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, April 24, 2003

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

We remember the victims;

what we prefer to forget are the names of those

who predicted the Tragedy and,

if heeded, could have prevented it.

*

Don't believe everything you read in the papers,

or anywhere else for that matter.

It’s astonishing how frequently this old adage

is ignored or forgotten.

So that it is not at all unusual

to hear someone say

"I read it in the papers!"

as if he were a devout Muslim quoting the Koran

or a born-again quoting the Good Book.

*

So what if I am on the "shit list" of shits?

*

It’s not easy being right;

but then, neither is being wrong.

*

Why would anyone lie and cover up

for the privilege of kissing a boss’s ass?

And yet….

[ara baliozian]

24+1

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

On April 24 we mourn Armenian victims of Turks.

On April 25 we should mourn Armenian victims of Armenians.

*

If your ambition is to be a giant,

avoid the company of midgets.

*

If by arguing you will succeed only in widening the gap,

state your case and hold your tongue.

*

No matter how fast we run

we will never catch up with reality.

I read today that Chirac is a fan of Saddam’s –

hence his nickname: Shah-Iraq.

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, April 26, 2003

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

Q: What do you call a Turk

who believes everything Turkish historians tell him?

A: A dope.

Q: What do you call an Armenian

who believes everything Armenian historians tell him?

A: A dupe.

Q: What’s the difference between a dope and a dupe?

A: A dope is someone whose IQ is negative

but who thinks otherwise – and

that’s the only time he thinks.

A dupe believes only that which is to his advantage

and rejects everything that isn't.

*

Charles Peguy: "It is vulgar to want to be right

and still more so to want to be in the right

against someone else."

*

Bertrand Russell: "Life is nothing but a competition

to be the criminal rather than the victim."

*

Olaf Stapleton: "A nation is just a society for hating foreigners

[ara baliozian]

SUNDAY

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

You may have noticed by now that

whenever we run out of solving our problems

(assuming we have any, of course)

we become involved in solving

the problems of other nations,

beginning with the Middle East.

If you were to ask a pro-Arab Armenian,

you will be told that the solution to the Middle East problem

(which has stymied several administrations)

is simplicity itself:

all that needs to be done is

arresting, trying and hanging Ariel Sharon as a war criminal,

disarming Israel and allowing the Arabs

to drive the Jews into the sea.

Or, to put it bluntly:

solution by genocide – or solution by final solution.

Who says we have not learned from history?

We have, and our gurus are

the Sultan, Talaat, Hitler and Stalin.

As for those who disagree with this radical approach:

they should be silenced, the more permanently the better.

*

To those of my readers who accuse me of repeating myself,

I say: Think of me as a man of faith

who repeats the same prayer every day,

and my prayer happens to be a question:

"Why do we allow ourselves

to be divided, tribalized and trivialized

in the name of a phony orthodoxy

and a defunct ideology

by morally bankrupt charlatans?"

[ara baliozian]

MOAN-DAY

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

It’s not easy writing for an Armenian audience:

readers who hate to read;

philistines who are self-appointed pundits;

crypto-fascists whose greatest enemy is free speech;

Levantine wheeler-dealers

who worship only power and money (god and Capital);

Ottomanized or Sovietized charlatans

who either slaughter or starve writers;

imbeciles who love chauvinist crapola

("Yes im anoush Hayastani")

and hate objective judgment or honest criticism

("Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another").

To those who accuse me of being an anti-Armenian racist,

I say, What nonsense!

The majority of Armenians are alienated.

Of the remaining minority,

the majority don't read – and I don't mean only books

but also newspapers: to make it more specific,

only about 1% of the Armenian-American community

are subscribed to an English-language Armenian weekly,

and my guess is, the majority of these subscribers

or shithouse readers, read only articles about themselves.

As for those who join an Armenian discussion forum on the internet:

the majority quit in disgust -- and who can blame them?

So that the riffraff I say I loathe

is not even the lunatic fringe

but the lunatic fringe of the lunatic fringe.

[ara baliozian]

29 April, 2003

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

In a commentary I read the following today:

"What America thinks of itself and

what others think of America are not the same….

There are opinions about America

other than their own and America should know that."

To speak of America as if it were a single entity

with a single opinion about anything including itself

is to know nothing about America.

Moreover, Americans don't have to go to the Middle East

or anywhere else, for that matter,

to find out what others think of America.

In the aftermath of 9/11

when asked what they thought of Bin Laden,

Arab school kids in New York City said

they saw him as a hero.

Armenians and Americans share this in common:

For everyone of them who thinks,

there are ten eager to contradict him,

a hundred who recycle propaganda (pro as well as con)

and a thousand who neither think nor give a damn

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, April 30, 2003

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

To a partisan friend in Yerevan

who has published a critical commentary

on recent developments in the Homeland:

Dear friend:

After reading your commentary

I have two questions for you:

Which one of our political, religious,

cultural or humanitarian institutions in the Diaspora

is squeaky clean or democratic

(that is, accountable to the public)?

Who among us in the Diaspora

is in a position to assume a holier-than-thou stance

in his analysis of the situation

(make it, shituation) in the Homeland?

*

To a reader that complains that

I speak of problems but not of solutions:

I am not here to solve problems

but to understand them.

Neither am I here

to convince anyone,

only to share my understanding.

The only way to solve problems

is by replacing old policies with new ones.

It follows, formulating solutions

without the power to implement them

is no better than to engage in mental masturbation.

*

To another reader who informs me

that I am not a philosopher:

Neither am I the Bishop of Madagascar.

I could make a long list of all those things

that you and I are not.

So what?

[ara baliozian]

1 May, 2003

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

Compared to what we don't know,

what we know is so insignificant

that to be proud of our knowledge

might as well be synonymous with

being proud of our ignorance.

This is especially true when it comes to the past.

History is a veritable abyss of facts

(verifiable data like time, place, encounters, statistics)

and factors (convictions, emotional states,

unconscious drives and misconceptions

none of which can be verified with any degree of certainty).

Case in point: consider statistics,

which are sometimes dismissed as "damn lies."

What is the answer to the question:

How many Armenians?

How does one define an Armenian?

Who qualifies?

Is an assimilated or alienated Armenian an Armenian?

Is a half-Armenian an Armenian

(if yes, then Sultan Abdulhamid II was one of us).

What about a 25% or quarter-Armenian?

Where do we draw the line?

What about the odar wife of an Armenian

who speaks Armenian and

is active in community affairs?

After 600 years of cohabitation (or haremization)

how many Turks today are part Armenian?

What about an Armenian

who does not identify himself as one

because his fellow Armenians

are a source of embarrassment to him

but who may come out of the closet

on the day we behave in a more civilized manner? --

miracles happen!

Armenians, crypto-Armenians, anti-Armenians,

pseudo-Armenians, bastardized Armenians,

Armenians who are not even aware of their identify….

Do we number five or fifty million?

Even more to the point:

Are we growing or disappearing?

[ara baliozian]

2 May, 2003

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

Some men are so infatuated

with their own prejudices

that if you advance arguments against them

their first instinct is to silence you –

the more permanently the better.

Which may explain why

when power and prejudice meet

they produce killers.

*

Phony pundits on any given subject

(including the Middle East)

are a dime a dozen among us

because they assume their fellow countrymen to be

the descendants of yokels from the interior provinces

of the Ottoman Empire.

*

To be for human rights for oneself only

(and who isn't?)

is to be against human rights.

*

The two most rarely used phrases by Armenians:

"I don't know," and "I agree with you."

*

Can we trust the political judgment of a nation

that allowed itself to be brutalized

by six centuries of Ottoman oppression?

*

If some of my critics are right,

the greatest peril we confront today

(please, don't laugh!) is me.

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, May 03, 2003

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

To say "I know all I need to know

and I am thus in a position to say what needs to be said,"

is to pronounce one’s own intellectual obituary.

*

In his SUNDAY ISSUE OF MY PAPER

Shahan Shahnour writes: "The Turks may be slobs

but not when it comes to Armenians."

*

Capitalism destroyed Communism

not because it is morally superior

but because Communism preached

the total destruction of Capitalism

and in doing so it created its own nemesis

and wrote its own obituary.

*

One can never be too careful in the choice of one’s enemies.

Friends may betray but enemies kill.

*

For Arabs to say DEATH TO JEWS and

DEATH TO AMERICA is to admit

they have learned nothing from history.

*

The easiest way to misunderstand someone

is to hate him.

*

Let us learn to be more tolerant of foreigners.

After all, to the overwhelming majority of mankind

(sometimes even to our fellow Armenians),

we too are foreigners.

[ara baliozian]

AMERICA

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

For a nation that didn't even exist four centuries ago,

the United States has become

the mightiest imperial power in the history of mankind.

Which proves that it must be doing something right;

and it is up to us – morally bankrupt

and politically broken down nations --

to learn from it.

But as long as we adopt a morally superior stance

and concentrate not on what’s right but on what’s wrong

mart bidi ch’ellank, Armenian for (freely translated)

we will drown in our own crapola,

which is what we have been doing

during the last ten centuries:

that is, long before the United States

strode on the stage of international politics.

*

All nations harbor within them

the seeds of greatness

as well as their own destruction.

What stands between the Arab world

(or, for that matter, us) and greatness?

Nothing much: only a centralized government,

the rule of law, respect for human rights

(free speech, free press) solidarity, or, in one word:

democracy.

In short, once we decide to do what must be done,

nothing and no one (not even

Zionists or "Zionist-run America") can stop us.

*

L’chaim! Or, if you prefer,

salaami!

(but not baloney, please).

[ara baliozian]

DEFINITIONS

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

ARMENIAN COMMUNISTS OR

CRYPTO-STALINISTS:

Victims defending their oppressors.

Underdogs defending mad top dogs.

Mice defending cats.

*

PRO-ARAB ARMENIANS:

Perennial losers siding with perennial losers

on the false assumption that

being morally superior they may be winners

at the end of the day or decade or century.

*

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

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

At a time when the rest of the world

(including Europe and Russia) wallowed in fascism,

America welcomed to its shores such exiles and rejects as

Einstein, Fermi, Thomas Mann, Vladimir Nabokov,

Schoenberg, Toscanini, Fritz Lang and Billy Wilder,

and allowed them the freedom to work and prosper.

*

ZIONISTS

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

Is America run by Zionists?

Let us, for the sake of argument, assume that

our political partisans were as well organized

as Zionists are in America:

Would they exercise their influence

for or against our own interests?

And suppose too that some day

we achieve military superiority over the Turks:

Will we say to them:

"Let bygones be bygones.

We will let you keep Van, Kars and Ardahan"?

*

CNN

*******

To those who accuse me of being brainwashed

by the CNN, I say: "As a Canadian citizen

my main source of news is the CBC

(Canadian Broadcasting Corporation).

In addition, as an insomniac, I also listen to news

emanating from South Africa, Australia,

Poland, Holland, Germany, and England.

As for news from the Middle East:

If you have heard one mullah,

you have heard them all.

*

OUR EMPIRE

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

The sun never sets on our fallacies and fanatics.

*

TWO SLOGAN

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

Between NEVER AGAIN and DEATH TO JEWS

is there – can there be -- room for compromise?

[ara baliozian]

SLOGANS, DEFINITIONS & CURSES

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

An African tribal chief’s definition of good and evil

(according to C.G. Jung):

"When I steal my enemy’s wives, it is good.

When he steals mine, it is evil."

*

If Palestinians and Jews mean business

when they speak of an end to hostilities,

they should amend their slogans from

DEATH TO JEWS to DEATH TO SOME JEWS,

and from NEVER AGAIN to NEVER IS A LONG TIME.

*

The unspoken slogan of Arafat, Bin Laden and Saddam:

PREACH SUICIDE, PRACTICE SURVIVAL.

*

Yeghia Demirjibashian: "My mother cursed me with the words:

‘Be a writer and starve to death!’"

*

Our unspoken slogan:

WHY BURN BOOKS

IF YOU CAN BURY WRITERS?

*

Life may be short but it is never short enough

for our enemies.

*

A dizzy blonde, a man of wealth, a mighty empire:

they all share this in common:

everyone wants a piece of the action.

*

There is no light at the end of the tunnel

because there is no tunnel and

the only source of light

is a discarded cigarette butt.

[ara baliozian]

DEMOCRACY

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

What is democracy?

We don't agree.

We are confused.

We don't know.

That may be because we don't teach civics in our schools.

We teach everything but civics.

Because if we were to teach civics,

we would be exposed as authoritarian and antidemocratic.

How is one to explain this scandal?

Easy!

The very same people who stand to lose

if we were to introduce democratic reforms

in our power structures keep brainwashing us to believe

that we are the best and the brightest.

And here is the paradox of our situation:

by convincing us that we are the best and the brightest

we are more than willing to be subservient

to the worst and the dumbest.