as i see it - Pt. III

Armen · May 10, 2004

i am too busy trying to understand the present to predict the future.

My concern is not the future, though a certain shadow of good future would not harm. My question is how do you get out of this much scepticism? You have said many times that you don't give ready answers because no one has them. This is understandable. But how did other nations overcome the distrust among them? What helped them?

ED · May 10, 2004

Edward, how are you going to convince a nation, which saw almost all of its living Karabagh war heroes getting corrupt? Scepticism among Armenians is at its highest possible point at present.

That’s a very interesting question.

As always true out of history of nations, blue color man the working class had taken a role and made the difference as a last resort.

But in our case blue color (working) class is the one who needs to be nourished and convincing. In the absence of intelligencia, (mtavorakan), in light of the fact which the transformation to mta-Vorakan! Thus, leaves the question in a paradoxical state!

I’m reinstating your dilemma here. I hate so state “It will take nothing short of miracle” to reverse the course.

The changes in which could make the deference would be immediate and fisable peaceful transformation of power, get the economy rolling, pay outmost attention to what people have to say, be in touch with them and fallow there wisdom.

As usual time is the healer of everything; in this case time is against us.

ara baliozian · May 12, 2004

Sunday, May 09, 2004

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If we knew everything, reality would be predictable. It follows, the larger the area of our ignorance, the more unpredictable reality will be.

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Organized religions are popular because they seek to make reality predictable by forging an alliance with the Almighty who happens to be in charge of reality.

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Islam is not pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel, or for that matter, anti-West or even anti-America or anti-democracy, but anti-modern and anti-progress, that is to say, against the advance of time or reality. Its aim is to return to the Middle Ages because it is in the Middle Ages that its imperial power reached its apex.

*

What a sad book one could write on the subject of wishful thinking in the history of nations!

#

Monday, May 10, 2004

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The greater the distance between man and war, the more warlike the man.

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Patriotism may be useful when it comes to getting votes and making war; but when it comes to understanding reality and making the right decision, every patriot should recuse himself.

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If you are for patriotism, does that also mean you are for your enemy's patriotism? And if you say: "My side is right and the enemy's side wrong," I ask: What if the enemy too is educated or brainwashed to think the same way?

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No one questions Hitler's patriotism, but had he been less patriotic and more objective in his judgment of men and events, there would have been no concentration camps, no World War II, and no millions of victims and casualties.

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I have been exposed to so much patriotic nonsense that whenever I meet a patriot I immediately dismiss him as either a dupe (if he is young) or a phony (if he is old).

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Patriotism is preached by the old and believed by the young.

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A good lawyer knows the law, a smart lawyer knows the loopholes.

#

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

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To pretend to be wise when foolish is a common aberration among us. The wise do not pretend. The wise do not feel the need to pretend. The wise do not feel the need to impress others with their wisdom.

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How to hate the Turks without becoming a Turk? Or rather: Is it possible to hate Turks without becoming one?

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We are imperfect beings living in an imperfect world and we like to believe we deserve better because we are better.

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To say I am better is to dehumanize others as inferiors, and to dehumanize others is at the root of all criminal conduct.

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The more ignorant a man is the more narrow the boundaries of knowledge will be for him.

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The problem begins when a patriot is brought up to think in terms of war and victory. If he were to think in terms of war and defeat he would be less of a patriot.

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Pascal: "The final act is always bloody, however fine the rest of the play is."

#

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

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"We may not have a Shakespeare in our literature but we have one of the greatest Shakespeare translators of all time!" an Armenian scholar once bragged to me, as if to say, we are one up on the English.

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Some of my readers are offended when I criticize Armenians. In their view we are beyond criticism and the function of a writer to be a brown-noser. Stalin and Hitler thought so too. So did the sultans. Unmask any one of our role models and expose a mini-sultan.

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I think it was either Freud or Jung who said, fanatics are happier and healthier people than moderates because they have no doubts, anxieties, uncertainties, complexes and phobias; they don't waver, hesitate, rationalize, explain and justify. They know not only what they want but also how to get it.

*

Misery likes company, they say. That may well be one reason why I would like to convert fanatics. I can't stand their smug self-satisfaction, their misplaced self-esteem, their infatuation with their own intellectual prowess, and their arrogant dogmatism based on the totally absurd assumption that they have all the answers. Call it envy!

*

I could be the happiest man on earth were it not for the delusion that

it is reasonable to reason with my fellow Armenians.

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Cyril Connolly: "If attacked by a lion thrust your arm down his throat. This takes some practice."

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ara baliozian · May 12, 2004

My concern is not the future, though a certain shadow of good future would not harm. My question is how do you get out of this much scepticism? You have said many times that you don't give ready answers because no one has them. This is understandable. But how did other nations overcome the distrust among them? What helped them?

we know that democracy and free speech are more conducive to progress.

the only way out of our dead end is the introduction of democratic reforms and the defense of fundamental human rights not only in the homeland but also in the diaspora. unfortunately all our institutions are authoritarian and anti-democratic and -- i hate to say this -- if we were to adopt the French model, we should start using the guillotine...provided i am not asked to handle the blade...

ara baliozian · May 15, 2004

Thursday, May 13, 2004

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Three of our eminent academics cannot decide whether Zarian's TRAVELLER AND HIS ROAD is a diary, a work of fiction or a memoir. I read a detailed and carefully annotated essay on this controversy in a recent issue of HARATCH (Paris). A controversy? Make it, a tempest in a tea cup. Instead of discussing the meaning of the work (and there is so much to discuss there!) these gentlemen argue about its classification, which amounts to discussing the size and color of the envelope and completely ignoring the contents of the letter within. And to think that these are the very same people who complain that the new generation has no interest in Armenian studies. There is an American expression that sums up this type of exercise in futility: "Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." Or, as the Russians would put it: "Bald men fighting over a comb." This type of academic gives literature a bad name by glorifying irrelevance and reducing thinking to the level of mental masturbation. One of the most dangerous aspect of some forms of perversity is its total absence of awareness. Some perverts assume their perversity to be the norm and they go about their business on the assumption that if the whole world doesn't share it, it should. And when someone comes along and identifies it as a perversity they are outraged and dismiss him as a pervert. I am reminded of a friend of mine, a diplomat, who once observed that even our academics have mafias, and the aim of mafias, as everyone knows, is to legitimize criminal conduct - it is worth remembering that the original meaning of the word mafioso is "man of honor."

#

Friday, May 14, 2004

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World War II was the best thing that happened to me. I was four years old when a German bomb reduced to rubble everything we owned. From that day on, my parents became so involved in the harsh business of survival in an alien environment that they had neither time nor inclination to teach me the rules of the game and the important role double-talk plays in human affairs, perhaps because the rules they themselves had been taught were no longer valid and they, as adults, were as confused as I was. This may explain why, when at the beginning of my career as a writer I tried to recycle chauvinist propaganda and engage in double-talk I was so dissatisfied with the results that, had I kept it up, I would have died of cancer within two or at most three years. Which is why I maintain a touch of honesty may be as important to your health as all the vitamins put together - from ABC to XYZ.

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Saturday, May 15, 2004

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There are those who study the past like lawyers in order to defend their side of the story. They forget that sooner or later a lawyer must confront not only the prosecution and its witnesses but also a judge and a jury, and the verdict may not always be in their favor.

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When it comes to our political partisans and their fellow travelers, my motto is similar to that of the American pundit who said: "I never vote: it only encourages them."

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Our genocide is a fact that no one can dispute.

Here is another fact: it has been disputed not only by Turkish and Turcophile historians but also by such progressive and enlightened democracies as Israel and the United States.

That's easy to explain, of course: both Israeli and American politicians are cynical opportunists whose number one concern is number one.

The two questions we should ask at this point are: is there a single state in the world today whose leaders are motivated by altruism? And, will mankind ever experience a golden age in which international diplomacy will be guided by principles of justice and fair play?

Even more to the point:

What about our own political leaders and historians: in what way are they different from their odar counterparts? If, for every historian who documents the genocide, we had another who took it upon himself to document our own blunders, perhaps we would have a better chance to abandon our tribal ways and become a nation.

I say to my fellow Armenians: If you want to change the world, begin with yourself; and if you want to teach ethics to odar political leaders, start with your own and don't be surprised if your efforts are not crowned with instant success.

#

ara baliozian · May 22, 2004

Sunday, May 16, 2004

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We should remind ourselves once in a while, and the more frequently the better, that we are imperfect beings living in an imperfect world and anyone who asserts or suggests or implies that he may well be an exception to this rule is one who cannot bear the weight of his imperfections and the dishonor of his blunders.

*

One mark of civilization is the ability to disagree without resorting to verbal abuse. In that sense, we have among us, perhaps even we are at the mercy, of barbarians who try to cover their barbarism with the flag by projecting the image of superpatriots. They operate on the false assumption that their chauvinism justified their conduct and they completely ignore the fact that the means they employ to express themselves belong to the jungle.

In other words, they are no better than Turkish gypsies who identify themselves as Armenians, and since their awareness is that of barbarians, this contradiction escapes their consciousness. Their aim is to prove they are better Armenians but they succeed only in proving they are both wicked and stupid.

*

To those who are eager to point out that I too on occasion engage in verbal abuse, I say: by proving that I too am a Turkish gypsy you reinforce my argument, which is, we all harbor a Turk within us, and the first step in rediscovering our true identity is to be born again as human beings.

#

Monday, May 17, 2004

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You can recognize an Armenian by his inability to handle disagreement, and Armenian disagreements come in a large variety of shapes, shades and sizes.

There are academic disagreements over irrelevant, petty abstractions completely divorced from reality.

There are disagreements in defense of an ideology or orthodoxy whose sole aim is to prove that one side is always right and the other wrong.

There are disagreements which are extensions of egos rather than brains ("I known better because I am smarter," - or rather, louder, and when that fails, more abusive).

And then there are fascist disagreements that are motivated by lust for power and in defense of a propaganda line.

How to reconcile these disagreements?

The Armenian who discovers a fail-safe method to do that deserves to be called the greatest leader in our millennial history, perhaps even a miracle worker of messianic dimensions.

#

Tuesday, May 18, 2004

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An often asked question: Should we forgive the Turks?

A seldom asked question: Have they ever asked for our forgiveness?

*

An environment that values patriotism will breed phony chauvinists; and a culture that values wealth will beget wheeler-dealers and bloodsuckers some of whom will surround themselves with brown-nosers and will parade as national benefactors.

#

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

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There can be dialogue only between two honest men with two different sets of experiences or perspectives. Two propaganda lines cannot engage in dialogue because propaganda and honesty are mutually exclusive. Propaganda cannot be honest even when honestly believed in. Faith may move mountains but it cannot change a lie to truth.

#

Thursday, May 20, 2004

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He who says my God is the only true God and my faith the only true faith, carries within him the seeds of countless wars and massacres even when his God is one of peace and even when his religion is based on mercy, compassion and love.

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We have become so obsessed with the issue of genocide recognition that we completely ignore the fact that once more we have placed ourselves at the mercy of the Turks and we continue to be dependent on their sense of justice and fair play.

#

Friday, May 21, 2004

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You want to make an Armenian friend? Recycle his favorite propaganda line. You want to make him an enemy or expose the Turk in him? Speak your mind.

*

If an odar criticizes us, we dismiss him as pro-Turkish. If an Armenian criticizes us, we call him an enemy of the people. We have no use for critics because we assume to be beyond criticism, and nothing makes us more vulnerable to criticism than this false assumption.

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Mikael Nalbandian: "It is high time that Armenians learn the manly art of telling black from white."

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Leo Alishan: "To be aware of our failings is smart; to ignore them is the height of stupidity."

#

Saturday, May 22, 2004

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Once upon a time but not so long ago I used to be younger than anyone else. Now I am almost always the oldest. Today, a conversation with a much older man who turns out to be five years younger than I. Either I am well preserved, I think, or he has made a mess of his life; and sure enough, he mentions three catastrophic illnesses and a nasty divorce that almost reduced his status to that of a homeless panhandler. But then, who is to say if writing for Armenians is not as painful an experience as terminal cancer combined with a nightmare divorce from a gold-digging shrew from hell?

*

People hate lies, but they hate the truth even more . I can't say I speak the truth because I don't know the truth; but I plead guilty to the charge that I speak honestly about what I think and feel.

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Conducting a civilized discussion is not exactly an Armenian art form. Here is a practical suggestion: state the facts as objectively as you can and let them speak for themselves. No need to engage in verbal abuse because insults cannot strengthen a weak case. On the contrary, they may expose it as untenable.

ara baliozian · May 26, 2004

Sunday, May 23, 2004

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Capital dehumanizes not only the worker, said Marx, but also the capitalist and society as a whole. The same could be said of nationalism - that it dehumanizes not only the enemy but also the nationalist himself, also nations and the world as a whole.

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"I think therefore I am," said Descartes, but he couldn't explain why people think differently about the very same subject even when they claim to use their common sense.

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The world is not an extension of our ego but the other way around. At every moment of our lives we are dependent on countless invisible forces beyond our control. We don't choose our parents, religion, nation or tribe. A Turk thinks and feels as he does because he was born a Turk, he had a Turkish education, he reads Turkish newspapers and books.

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To what extent what a man feels and thinks depends on where he was born? What if geography rather than common sense shapes our perception of reality.

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For every Armenian pundit who says his version of the past is the only true one there is a Turkish pundit who says the opposite. Do these pundits believe in what they say? And if they do, does it ever occur to them that it is where they were born and raised that shapes their thinking more than the rules of logic and common sense?

#

Monday, May 24, 2004

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Is freedom of thought possible in a world where at a very early age and at a time when we can neither think nor judge for ourselves we are exposed to ideas that are not our own?

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A Turk is brought up to believe Armenians are infidels, therefore less human than they and less deserving of fundamental human rights. Whose fault is that? Their God and their religion? Or rather, their interpretation or understanding of their God and religion? If a guilty man can plead not guilty by reason of insanity, can he also feel justified in pleading innocent by reason of his belief

#

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

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If religion legitimizes murder in the name of God, in what way is it different from insanity? - at least, as far as the victims go.

To those who say, "My religion does not legitimize murder," may I quote Voltaire's unforgettable dictum: "Since it was a religious war, there were no survivors."

And if you say: "You are talking about the past and I am talking about the present," I will say: A man of faith is a man of faith regardless of national origin or orthodoxy.

*

Religions are closed systems of thought and they all begin by legitimizing intolerance and dehumanizing heretics and infidels.

"This may apply to Islam today but not to Christianity." That's because Christians are top dogs. If some day their status is reduced to that of underdogs, who is to say we will not behave like jihadists?

*

Let us not confuse technological progress with moral progress. If anything, the 20th Century has been bloodier and more barbaric than the Middle Ages. Machines may change but man stays the same.

God may have created man but it is man who keeps recreating God in his own image and adapting Him to his own needs.

Islam has its fundamentalists and fanatics as surely as Christianity and in troubled waters scum invariably rises to the top.

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Wednesday, May 26, 2004

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It may be morally superior to be a victim than a victimizer but how many wolves would prefer to be sheep?

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There is nothing wrong in being a pessimist if you work like an optimist.

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It is not easy reasoning with a moron who calls you a moron.

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The only thing that I have learned from my Armenian critics is the law of the jungle.

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Life has a way of searching out and locating your weaknesses in order to cause maximum damage.

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Writing is a pleasure with only one drawback:

you cannot choose your readers.

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The human condition: We are all uninvited guests in search of an invisible host who may or may not exist.

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Fascists silence writers because they know in the realm of ideas they are destined to lose. Censorship is an admission of defeat.

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History is not a succession of inevitable occurrences or

the will of God unfolding. If it were, we would have to agree that the Armenian Genocide was the Will of God.

ara baliozian · May 29, 2004

Thursday, May 27, 2004

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Whenever I use my common sense and objectivity I am accused of being pro-Turkish. I suppose the same thing happens to an honest Turkish writer. Perhaps because all honest men swim in a sea of humbug.

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Propaganda works only when the leaders say what the people want to hear. It is a conspiracy between cunning operators and dupes who are too lazy to think for themselves.

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On the day mankind discovers a way to detect and eliminate all propaganda, all politicians will be exposed as compulsive liars.

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If you expose lies, all liars will conspire against you.

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In America, the rich think God is on their side; in our own circles, they are treated as if they were Gods by their circles of brown-nosers.

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Jules Renard: "The saddest moments: those in which we realize wisdom is also a fraud."

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I understand so well those who hold views that I held thirty years ago and their anger when their infallibility is questioned.

#

Friday, May 28, 2004

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If you want to project the image of a good Christian, do not speak like a bloodthirsty infidel.

If you want to be thought of as a patriotic Armenian, do not speak like a Turk on the warpath.

If you want to misrepresent yourself as a tolerant and civilized man, the very least you can do is not to curse like a rude and uncouth barbarian.

Remember, unawareness of contradictions is the surest symptom of instinctive or animal behavior, that is to say, beastly conduct.

A typical example: "No four-letter words here, please! We don't go for that shit!"

And finally, to our Muslim brothers and sisters, I say: If you speak in the name of a "merciful and compassionate Allah," do not murder innocent women and children. For actions speak louder than words, and the wages of sin is death.

#

Saturday, May 29, 2004

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Trying to understand reality and promoting hatred (or war propaganda) are mutually exclusive enterprises.

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I can think of nothing more despicable than the war propaganda of old men, civilians, and faceless and nameless bureaucrats who operate on the assumption that they will never come face to face with the enemy and someone else will do the fighting and dying for them. I would trust the judgment of these individuals as much as the patriotism of someone high on drugs. But perhaps to some people patriotism and hatred of the enemy provide a kind of high which they need as much as an alcoholic needs his bottle of booze.

*

All cowards are brave when they know their cowardice will not be exposed on the battlefield.

axel · May 29, 2004

the only way out of our dead end is the introduction of democratic reforms and the defense of fundamental human rights... unfortunately all our institutions are authoritarian and anti-democratic and -- i hate to say this -- if we were to adopt the French model, we should start using the guillotine...

Religions are closed systems of thought and they all begin by legitimizing intolerance and dehumanizing heretics and infidels.

Doesn't this definition apply to the "french model" you appear to be defending?

Remember, unawareness of contradictions is the surest symptom of instinctive or animal behavior, that is to say, beastly conduct.

I congratulate you for being aware of your own as the "I hate to say this" seems to suggest.

nairi · May 30, 2004

Doesn't this definition apply to the "french model" you appear to be defending?

Where does he appear to be defending the "French model"?

axel · May 30, 2004

In the first quote or maybe I misuderstood something...

ara baliozian · June 2, 2004

Sunday, May 30, 2004

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Whenever I raise the subject of Armenians and racism I am invariably attacked by our racists as anti-Armenian and even pro-Turkish - because anything remotely critical of Armenians is thought of as pro-Turkish in our environment.

Are Armenians racists?

Let me begin by asking: Am I a racist?

I was brought up as a racist.

I hated all Turks.

I hated Greeks too (because they called us "Turkish gypsies").

I thought of the offspring of mixed marriages as bastards.

I thought of the West as morally inferior and of Americans as a bastardized nation.

Because Shahan Shahnour's grandfather was Greek, his patriotism and Armenianism were questioned again and again by our pure-blooded partisans, he was even physically assaulted, and his character vilified with such intensity in our press that he eventually assumed a new name (Armen Lubin) and gave up writing in Armenian.

I have relatives in the U.S. (and I don't mean Alabama or Mississipi) who believe Blacks are inferior and all interracial couples degenerates.

Once a good friend of mine, whose mother is an Azeri, was called a "Turkish bitch" by one of our dedicated partisans.

Are we racists?

Let the evidence speak for itself.

Are we justified in being racists? No, because our racism alienates friends, and we have friends everywhere - among Americans, Greeks, Kurds, Jews, and even Turks (half of whom may well be half-Armenian).

#

Monday, May 31, 2004

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In a world where "it takes all kinds," it is impossible to be "all things to all men." No matter how selfless and noble your belief system, there will be those who will label you as an infidel, a heretic, a fool, or an enemy. That's because instinct (our animal side) speaks louder than reason (an extremely recent evolutionary development). To hope that things will change in our lifetime or even a thousand years hence might as well be an empty illusion. Consider the number of statesmen of vision, philosophers, prophets and messianic figures who have dedicated their lives to the service of their fellow men and were poisoned, crucified, assassinated, and exiled into the desert. Failure has been and continues to be the destiny of all men of goodwill whose sole aim in life is to promote universal peace and brotherhood. I am fully aware of this but I go on because the only way to justify pessimism is to work like an optimist; and defeatism makes sense only if you soldier on as if victory were inevitable. Don't ask me to explain this because I don't understand it myself.

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Tuesday, June 01, 2004

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If, instead of simply stating "I disagree with you," you let loose a barrage of personal insults or profanities, you can be sure of one thing: you are an oreo Armenian = Armenian on the outside, Ottoman on the inside. So that, in your case, hating Turks might as well be synonymous with hating yourself.

Since I am myself sometimes tempted to use profanities (as opposed to turning the other cheek) I am more than willing to concede that I too harbor a Turk within. But this phenomenon of two contradictory or Jekyll/Hyde beings coexisting within the same body is not a specifically Armenian aberration but a universal condition. Even Americans use the expression "Young Turks" in reference to ambitious politicians (Gingrich being a recent example) who are eager to introduce radical reforms in order to change the balance of power.

According to C.G. Jung "the relation between conscious and unconscious is compensatory." Translated into everyday parlance this means that man is constantly torn between two opposite tendencies one of which remains hidden from his own awareness. So that, the more an Armenian tries to project a patriotic image, the stronger the Turk within. Or, the more he protests or defends his Armenianism, the harder he tries to cover up his Ottomanism.

To those who say "I can't harbor a Turk because I have harmed no one," I say: if "at the beginning was the word," all bloody massacres begin with verbal massacres. One reason you have harmed no one is that you live in an environment in which killing or harming fellow human beings is against the law.

#

Wednesday, June 02, 2004

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Shahan Shahnour: "To have intellectual humility and to express with some degree of candor what one really thinks: these are two features that have been tragically absent in some of our partisan writers."

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All understanding proceeds from self-awareness. I have at no time criticized an Armenian aberration or failing that I have not detected in myself. Once upon a time I too was a holier-than-thou charlatan whose central concern was engaging in one-upmanship and I resented anyone who dared to express an opinion that differed from mine without first obtaining my seal of approval.

*

An Armenian critic has no future and an Armenian brown-noser has no self-respect.

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I don't make an effort to be a good Armenian. I don't even know what that means; and I doubt if there are two Armenians who agree on what constitutes Armenianism. Trying to be an honest human being keeps me so busy that I have no time for any other enterprise.

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ara baliozian · June 5, 2004

Thursday, June 03, 2004

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"Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are." Not quite. Even Jesus was taken in by Judas.

"Tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are." This saying is contradicted by another: "There is no accounting for tastes."

"Tell me the words you use more frequently and I will tell you who you are." That's much better.

My most frequently used (or rather thought) words are: "This is not what I had in mind."

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Our intolerance is such that we even refuse to tolerate any mention of it.

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In an intolerant society, writes Melvin J. Lasky, the late editor of ENCOUNTER, "manuscripts will be banned, and writers and readers will once again be sitting in concentration camps for having thought dangerous ideas or uttered forbidden words."

We don't yet have concentration camps for people, but we do have them for ideas; and where books remain unpublished and unread, burning them becomes redundant.

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I remember to have read somewhere in Shahnour (I am now quoting from memory): "The best way for a writer to serve his nation is by producing works that live. Whether these works are positive or negative should be of no concern to anyone."

#

Friday, June 04, 2004

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The problem with overestimating yourself is that forever after you are condemned to live up to your image; and that's a race you are destined to lose.

*

If whiskey tasted as sweet as a cola it would be popular with children too -- with predictable results. I write for adults, not children or retards who are taken in by propaganda.

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It is extremely difficult to convince intolerant people that they are intolerant. That's because they speak in the name of God or Truth - the implication being that anyone who disagrees with them speaks in the name of lies and the devil.

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On an atomic level we existed since the beginning of time and we shall continue to exist until the end. The immortality of the atom is a fact; it's the immortality of the soul that is speculation.

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You may have noticed that Charents's best known poem is titled "To my sweet Armenia," and that as far as I know he never wrote a poem titled "To my sweet fellow Armenians." That's because mountains and valleys are easier to love than Armenians.

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Saturday, June 05, 2004

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To assert your Armenianism it is not necessary to adopt Ottoman means. When Zarian said, "An Armenian's tongue can be sharper than a Turk's yataghan," he was referring to this aberration.

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To assert their respect for democratic principles, our partisans and ideologues think nothing of violating such fundamental human rights as free speech - which amounts to saying, "I believe in free speech but only in my own, not yours, especially if yours contradict mine."

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What is the value of a view if it only parrots someone else's? Is dialogue possible between two robots who are in complete agreement with each other because that's how they have been programmed?

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Contradicting yourself and insisting that you are right amounts to adding arrogance to stupidity.

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Arrogance combined with stupidity: there you have it, the source of all our defeats, tragedies, and catastrophes.

ara baliozian · June 9, 2004

Sunday, June 06, 2004

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Dogs attack to protect you. Critics attack to expose you as a phony. That's why dogs are more popular than critics.

*

If a thousand people agree with you and only one disagrees, that one will make a disproportionately deeper impact; and if he makes sense, the result may be deadly. Which is why tyrants silence, exile, jail or even murder dissidents, and they do so in the name of self-defense. They consider themselves the victims rather than the victimizers.

*

It is the destiny of an Armenian writer to starve, and no one can be as vulnerable to bribe as a starving beggar. That's why we have an overabundance of scribbling brown-nosers and a scarcity of writers willing to criticize benefactors or reject the worship at the altar of the Almighty Dollar. The names that come to mind are Raffi, Baronian, Zarian, Massikian - strike Massikian: he was not a beggar but a successful lawyer. But as far as our multimillionaires go, even one critic in every generation is too many; hence their view of all writers as potential ingrates. The irony here is that all writers, including the brown-nosers, are indeed ingrates because they are not treated as the best but as one among equals. The greed of our capitalists is exceeded only by the vanity of our mediocrities.

#

Monday, June 07, 2004

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He who cannot yet think for himself cannot be educated; he can only be brainwashed.

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At a very early age I was taught to brag about Mt. Ararat and Lakes Van and Sevan. I was even taught to brag about the fact that Armenians had been the first nation to suffer a genocide in the 20th Century. I was also taught to brag about a thousand other things including, and above all, our talent for survival.

*

If our dead could speak, what would they brag about? Our genius for contributing victims to sadistic Mongoloid morons?

*

Only idiots brag about their failures.

*

We are not smart if only because we have been and continue to be at the mercy of idiots - if it's not Ottoman or Soviet idiots, it's our own.

*

To be at the mercy of idiots means being lesser idiots.

*

Just because something is never said it does not mean it is not thought; and just because something is not thought it does not mean it cannot be true.

*

There may be more truth in what is covered up than what it is proclaimed from the rooftops. Contrary to what roosters may believe, it is not their crowing that makes the sun rise.

*

"Armenians are smart!" A statement that consists in 99% wishful thinking and 1% cunning in the marketplace.

#

Tuesday, June 08, 2004

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

From Avedik Issahakian's posthumously published notebooks:

*

"Armenia labors under three curses: bad geographic location, bloodthirsty neighbors, and dumb leaders."

*

"Contrary to Soviet propaganda, the Revolution does not change men into angels but into beasts of prey."

*

"We owe to the 20th Century two great discoveries: the disintegration of the atom and the disintegration of the soul. The first discovery was made by Europe, the second by the Russians."

*

"Socialism is the enemy of culture."

(And I cannot help reflecting: If one were to add socialism Russian style, or Sovietism, to Ottomanism, the result would be an idiot who brags about how smart he is.)

*

"Ah! If only life lasted as long as death!"

*

"The eye cannot see that which the mind cannot perceive."

*

"If only men were born and died like the stars: part mortal, part immortal."

#

ara baliozian · June 12, 2004

Wednesday, June 09, 2004

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

Karl Marx: "History has more imagination than the men who make it."

*

The French Revolution promised "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," and it delivered the Terror. Ditto with the Russian Revolution. Closer to home: at the turn of the century we demanded our historic lands. History delivered only a fraction of what we wanted, plus a series of massacres, a genocide, dispersion, alienation and assimilation. The plots of history don't always have a happy ending.

*

To ignore the past or the history of an idea or ideology is to indulge in wishful thinking and daydreams, and history or reality has a way of turning daydreams into nightmares.

*

After reading one or two, or at most three books by Armenian historians subsidized by Armenian political parties or satellite cultural institutions, the average Armenian thinks he knows everything there is to know about Armenian history. It goes without saying that this misconception is shared by people of all national groups, including Turks.

#

Thursday, June 10, 2004

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

It is the destiny of all movements (be they political, religious or utopian) to be confiscated by men of greed whose understanding of history or the complexities of reality is limited to the point of blindness.

*

Even idealists and political leaders with a pure heart and noble intentions may end up leading a nation to hell - hence, the old saying: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

*

No matter how expensive the wine, its destiny is to become urine. No matter how noble the ideology, the destiny of its Party line is to become a downward spiral.

No matter how admirable the -ism, its destiny is to degenerate from charlatanism to gangsterism.

#

Friday, June 11, 2004

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

If we don't understand ourselves (as Freud, Jung and Adler tell us) whom and what can we possibly understand?

If we don't know why things exist, what can we possibly know? -- except perhaps to question the judgment of those who pretend to know better and who, based on that false assumption, make a mess of things for the rest of us. And then there are those who don't know whether they are coming or going but who insist on dragging us there with them and they invariably find a mob eager to follow them.

*

Just because millions believe in something, it doesn't make it true. Millions believed in the divine rights of kings and many more millions believe in astrology, the papacy…and Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Mao. The more absurd a belief system, it seems, the more followers it will attract.

*

Mankind may be divided into those who pretend to know and their dupes.

*

When I knew nothing, I was eager to believe; and when I believed, I had no doubts - none whatever!

*

More men are seduced by verbal crapola than by reason and common sense.

*

Man does not live by bread alone, he also needs propaganda.

*

The truth is one, but the lies that are spoken in its name are many.

#

Saturday, June 12, 2004

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

America as that "shining city on a hill." A popular metaphor. A dazzling image. It combines myth with wishful thinking. And even more to the point: it ignores or covers up the ruthless and systematic extermination of twenty million natives.

*

About the recent prisoner-abuse scandal in Iraq, we are told, it does not show "the real face of America." But what if it bares its soul?

*

Will America ever recognize our genocide? If they do it will not be because they are on the side of the underdog and the victim, or because they believe in justice for all, but because it is in their own interests. Some day even the Turks may recognize it for the same reason. There is no friendship, love, compassion or justice between nations, only common interests.

*

A Turkish diplomat in the White House on the subject of our genocide: "Armenians are our Indians."

*

The victimizer and his victim speak two different and mutually incomprehensible languages even when they speak the same language. Americans and Turks understand each other even when one speaks in Turkish and the other in English.

*

And what about us? Are our hands clean? If we have victimized no one, is it because we are the first nation to accept Christianity? Is it because we are full of love for all our fellow men regardless of race, color, and creed? Or is it because we have been perennial underdogs and victims?

*

We have victimized no one - no one! except our writers, the most defenseless, vulnerable and innocent members of the nation; and we have victimized them because they dared to bare our soul, shatter our myths, and expose our chauvinist charlatans as compulsive liars.

*

I once had the following exchange with one of our partisans:

MYSELF: "Did it ever occur to you to consult the people whether or not they wanted a revolution at the turn of the century in the Ottoman Empire?"

PARTISAN: "The people? But the people are like sheep. Shepherds know better what's good for them."

Yes, but when the wolves devour the sheep, whom do we blame? The wolves or the shepherds?

ara baliozian · June 16, 2004

Sunday, June 13, 2004

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

A racist divides mankind into two fractions in order to classify himself as superior and to believe that this superiority allows him to behave like swine and get away with it.

*

Nationalism is nothing but a variant of racism. A nationalist too believes the fraction of mankind to which he belongs to be superior, and that this superiority legitimizes criminal conduct. Both racists and nationalists are no better than the scum of the earth who, secretly or unconsciously aware of this fact, create an imaginary world order in order to place themselves at the top of the food chain.

*

Anti-Semitism is popular because it allows even skinheads with single-digit IQs to assert moral and intellectual superiority.

*

That which racists ascribe to their race and nationalists to their nation, tribalists ascribe to their tribe, and aristocrats to their class.

*

The Greeks did not have a word for racist or nationalist. They simply divided mankind into Greeks and barbarians. But they had another word: hubris (pride or arrogance) which was invariably brought low by Nemesis.

In that sense, all men of faith are guilty of hubris too when they assume their faith to be the only true faith.

#

Monday, June 14, 2004

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

One reason I am against nationalism is that we were massacred by nationalists in the name of nationalism.

If we are going to adopt an -ism, let it be something better than or different from nationalism.

*

For an Armenian to be a nationalist amounts to a victim of a serial killer being for serial-killerism.

*

To say, my nationalism is good but my enemy's nationalism is bad is to echo the African chieftain's definition of good and evil as quoted by C.G. Jung in his memoirs: "When I steal my enemy's wives, it's good; when he steals mine, it's bad."

*

In the 19th Century nationalists conducted wars of liberation against imperial powers; in the 20th Century against one another. And whenever nationalists run out of foreign enemies, they take it out on their own countrymen. Hence the frequency of civil wars.

*

Like all fanatics, nationalists divide people into those who are with them and those who are against them, and those who are against them tend to outnumber those who are with them.

*

Fanaticism is a minority aberration that sometimes infects the majority, which is what happened during World War I in Turkey and during World War II in Germany, Italy, and Spain.

*

Nationalism is one of the three pillars of fascism - the other two being anti-Semitism and anti-intellectualism.

*

To a nationalist, a man with mixed parentage is a man with divided loyalties. It follows, he views a fraction of his own countrymen with suspicion.

*

It is to be noted that some of our most ardent nationalists (from Abovian to Zarian) married odars. Also to be noted: Zarian began his literary career as an impassioned nationalist and ended it by saying: "Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another." If you want proof of this assertion, visit an Armenian discussion forum on the internet.

*

The word chauvinism was coined in France after a soldier by the name of Chauvin who is said to have been blindly loyal to Napoleon.

*

Like Napoleon (a Corsican) most political leaders tend to be either foreigners or of mixed parentage. The Mamikonians were of Chinese descent, the Bagratunis claimed to be Jewish, many Greek-Byzantine emperors were Armenian, Hitler was an Austrian, Stalin a Georgian, English and Greek kings were German, the Young Turks were anything but Turkish, and Sultan Abdulhamid II was half-Armenian.

*

The universal brotherhood of all men may be a utopian daydream but the only alternative is hatred, war, massacre and ethnic cleansing - a euphemism for genocide.

#

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

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

When a chauvinist says, "My country, right or wrong!" what he really means is: "Myself, right or wrong." But a chauvinist who relies on his own judgment is like a dog who knows his master but not his master's master, who may be his worst enemy.

*

During World War II Armenians fought for Hitler as well as Stalin because they were told (led to believe…misled…brainwashed) they were killing and dying to liberate or in defense of the Sacred Homeland.

Did they have a choice?

The Armenians on Hitler's side were volunteers.

The Armenians on Stalin's side believed the Catholicos of Etchmiadzin when he said they were fighting a patriotic war.

Writes Manuel Sarkisyanz in his MODERN HISTORY OF TRANSCAUCASIAN ARMENIA: "The Communist regime needed the Church to endorse its war effort." He goes on: "A number of churches previously closed were now reopened. Some Armenian priests previously deported to Siberia were now returned." And because the Catholicos cooperated by accepting to be an arm of the Soviet propaganda machine, "the Soviet authorities permitted the reopening of the theological seminary in Etchmiadzin." Result? 350,000 Armenian boys died fighting not a patriotic war but a war between two fascist regimes. They trusted their master, but did not know their master's master, who happened to be one of the most ruthless and murderous tyrants in the history of mankind.

#

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

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

General Antranik: "I am not a nationalist. I am on the side of the underdog regardless of nationality." Translated into dollars and cents this simply means that he would have risen to the defense of a Turk against an Armenian if he had perceived the Turk to be an Armenian's victim.

*

We are a Rip Van Winkle nation and our slumber as Ottoman and Soviet subjects lasted over six centuries, and whenever our intellectuals attempted to wake us, they were silenced, buried and forgotten. Which may explain why whenever I quote or paraphrase one of them I get a pro-Ottoman reply or a comment worthy of a commissar. Zarian is right: "An Armenian's tongue can be sharper than a Turk's yataghan," and a yataghan laced with cobra's venom.

*

To say that we need solutions more than criticism is to imply that our intellectuals from the Golden Age (5th century AD) to the present either serenaded the moon or engaged in mental masturbation.

*

By the time a solution is found, the problem may no longer exist. And I suspect by the time our bosses, bishops and benefactors decide to listen to our intellectuals (as opposed to silencing them) it may be too late.

*

A hundred years ago, our partisans demanded freedom from tyranny (a demand that cost us countless innocent victims), and now that they have it, what are they doing with it?

*

Assertions of infallibility have a subtext that says: "Even when wrong, I am right!" But if you speak the truth or make sense - such as: "two plus two make four," or "the sun rises in the east and sets in the west" - no one will contradict you and all assertions of infallibility will be redundant. But if you say, "There is only one God and I speak in His name!" millions of Buddhists (who don't believe in God), atheists and agnostics will disagree with you and a thousand assertions of infallibility by ten thousand popes, ayatollahs and rabbis will not influence their thinking. Which may also suggest that assertions of infallibility are meant only for dupes who will believe in anything. And to think that millions of innocent people died because they dared to question the nonsense uttered by self-righteous, holier-than-thou nonentities.

sev-mard · June 16, 2004

Thursday, October 24, 2002
*****************************
To understand another does not mean
to adopt his values and worldview.
To understand an Armenian does not mean
to think and feel as an Armenian
in the same way that to understand a Turk
does not mean to think and feel as a Turk.
Understanding should not be confused
with surrendering one’s identity as well as humanity.
And yet, this is exactly what we are expected to do
by those who feel misunderstood.
*

:clap:

ara baliozian · June 19, 2004

Thursday, June 17, 2004

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

Can an Armenian and a Turk engage in dialogue?

Not if either one or both are brainwashed.

*

Can two Armenians engage in dialogue?

I have to see it to believe it.

*

Dialogue is possible only between two enlightened people. To a brainwashed Armenian, an enlightened Armenian might as well be a Turk. I speak from experience….

*

Once upon a time I too was brainwashed, so much so that I could write a book titled MEMOIRS OF A BRAINWASHED CHAUVINIST. That's when I had a counter-argument for every contradiction. That's when I was as invincible as David Anhaght and David of Sassoun combined - or so I convinced myself to believe in the hope that others would believe it too. And whenever my arguments bordered on the absurd I raised my voice; and when that didn't work I did not hesitate to go down into the gutter - anything to make the opposition give up in disgust and quit the field. I was a motor-mouth running an automatic. I did not think for myself because far better men had done the thinking for me. Every word I spoke was based on hearsay. I had the judgment of a parrot and the objectivity of a ventriloquist's puppet. I recycled propaganda and I didn't know it. I delivered platitudes and convinced no one, not even myself. Because no one believes what a brainwashed person says, not even the brainwashed person himself, but they allow him to speak out of embarrassed sympathy.

*

How many enlightened Armenians do I know? Quite a few, as a matter of fact, but most of them are either marginalized or alienated; and those who work for Armenian organizations speak one way in public and another in private. Speaking with a forked tongue has become second nature with us. So much so that we see nothing morally questionable in it.

*

For me, to argue with a brainwashed chauvinist would be like contradicting views that I held thirty years ago - a painfully embarrassing exercise in one-upmanship…or is it one-uphoodlumship?

#

Friday, June 18, 2004

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

We all swim in a sea of doubts and uncertainties. Not to be aware of this is a dangerous illusion. To cling to false certainties is to confuse a snake with a lifesaver.

*

To say, "I don't give a damn what others may have said," amounts to saying: "What I think represents the alpha and omega of human understanding," and "I prefer my own ignorance to someone else's wisdom," or "I am too infatuated with my own tribal and personal limitations to have any desire to explore in the infinite fields of human knowledge and understanding."

*

For a partisan to say, "I believe what my party leadership tells me and I reject what anyone else may say on the subject" is fascist b.s., ayatollah rubbish, and fuehrer baloney. What really matters is not what your leader tells you but what you think, and what you think begins on the day you decide "not to submit your intelligence to someone who may not have much of it himself" (Santa Teresa of Avila).

*

To read a writer means to open the gates of your perceptions to his ideas. Even when your conscious mind rejects these ideas, your subconscious may embrace them if only because the subconscious is not equipped to reject or censor ideas no matter how unorthodox. What it does instead is store them for future reference.

*

I don't write for readers who agree with me. I write for those who disagree and I am happy to note that they are my most faithful readers.

*

Speaking for myself, I live and work with the hope that tomorrow I will know something I don't know today, and this new knowledge will change the way I think. I also hope when that happens I will have taken a step in the right direction - forward and not backward.

#

Saturday, June 19, 2004

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

The greater the difference between what you know and what you pretend to know, the greater the ignorance.

*

If knowledge is power, it is also a responsibility and a burden, not something to brag about. Only the loud-mouth impostor, whose ignorance exceeds his knowledge, brays like an ass to impress other asses.

*

An educational system that enjoys the support of a political party, religious institution, or power structure, is contaminated with propaganda, hence the dictum: "Learning begins with unlearning."

*

I had two kinds of schoolteachers: honest ones and charlatans, but even the honest engaged in some form of charlatanism. In Brecht's unforgettable phrase: "Grub first, then ethics."

*

When a nation engages in violence, it calls it counter-violence. To this day the Turks see nothing morally questionable in the Genocide because they say their very existence was being threatened by the Great Powers (including the U.S. and Australia), Russia, and from within, Kurds, Greeks, and Armenians.

*

Every nation engages in propaganda; but even the most brutal regime (Hitler's and Stalin's are two recent examples) have had their share of critics and dissidents. It is up to us to decide whether or not we want to be on the side of the executioners or their victims.

*

Every power structure lies, yes; but one cannot help wondering what life would be like in a world where a spade is called a spade, and a lie a lie.

#

ara baliozian · June 23, 2004

Sunday, June 20, 2004

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

History tells us Sultan Abdulhamid II and Hitler were spectacular failures. What if our own leaders were no better than mini-sultans and crypto-fuehrers whose paltry failures harmed no one but their own people?

*

We are told we have been the blameless victims of ruthless and bloodthirsty nations. If so, what have our leaders done to defend us against our enemies? Or, if their defensive measures were ineffective, should we not classify their performance as an unqualified fiasco?

*

What can I say that hasn't been said before by far better men than myself? Is there anything anyone can say or do to convince someone who has been brainwashed to believe he is la crème de la crème that he is in fact no better than la crème de la scum? Can the combined wisdom of a Plato and the Old Testament prophets convince a self-styled Savior of the Nation that he and his kind are in fact its gravediggers?

*

Faulkner may have been right when he said: "Compared with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, we are all failures." And what if Sartre is also right when on the final page of his memoirs stated: "Literature saves no one." Which raises the question: In what way a superior Russian literature could have prevented Stalin? And why is it that the mighty impetus of 19th-century German philosophy could not block the rise of Hitler?

*

Perhaps the only reason I go on writing is that after thirty years and as many books writing has become a habit I cannot kick. Or, paradoxical as this may seem, I am encouraged to persevere by my critics. Surely, if such mighty intellects like them consider me worth reading and criticizing, I must be worth something.

#

Monday, June 21, 2004

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

A reader writes: "Your ideas are not nuanced enough." By that I suspect he means, if I were to nuance them the way he thinks I should nuance them, I may have a better chance to agree with one of his own nuanced ideas.

*

I am reminded of an exchange between two Jewish merchants who meet on a road somewhere in Russia at the turn of the last century:

"Where are you going?"

"To Minsk."

"Minsk, you say, so that I will think you are going to Pinsk, but you see, I happen to know you are going to Minsk. Why must you always lie to me?"

*

In the corridors of power an honest man's chances of survival are as slim as those of a sardine in a pool of hungry sharks.

*

Kiss me, I am Armenian.

Be kind to animals.

*

When the going gets tough, an Armenian assimilates. In the eyes of our chauvinists (who are very probably the reason why he opts for assimilation) he is a quitter. In his own eyes, he is a born-again human being.

*

Not all Armenians are liars. But when an Armenian decides to speak the truth, our charlatans will call him a Turkish scumbag.

*

David Shields: "Hunters make better lovers: they go deeper into the bush - they shoot more often - and they eat what they shoot."

#

Tuesday, June 22, 2004

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

Jews are ahead of us. This has been said before, many times, but it bears repeating. Consider the following passage written by a Nobel-Prize winner Jewish writer (I.B. Singer) about his fellow Jews, (in a short story titled "Shadows on the Hudson"): "Why should it matter to me if they massacre types like these or burn them in ovens?…The tragedy is that they destroyed the good ones and left the trash behind." Why is it that Armenian writers are incapable of producing such lines - except perhaps in their posthumously published (if at all) diaries and private correspondence? Even Armenian writers with fat bellies write like hungry orphans forever dependent on the charity of swine, careful to offend no one but Turks.

*

To be narrow-minded means to reduce the universe into a tiny room, to constantly rearrange the few items in it and to confuse this routine operation with thinking. Thinking, real thinking, is an open-ended operation, very much like the universe whose beginning and end are shrouded in mystery.

*

The very same people who silence me, expect me to be their co-conspirator by covering up our violations of fundamental human rights on the grounds that a good Armenian does not expose our dirty linen in public.

#

Wednesday, June 23, 2004

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

They say I repeat myself as if the repetition of the blunders I write about were less important than the repetition of my words.

*

It takes a charlatan to fool a charlatan, because a dupe is also a charlatan who pretends to understand more than he does.

*

The Greeks discovered dialectic or dialogue 2500 years ago. Whenever I am silenced by one of our editors I cannot help reflecting that it may take us more than a generation or two to catch up.

*

What if the light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming missile with a nuclear warhead?

*

The ambition to succeed has deformed so many of my contemporaries that it makes more sense to aim at failure.

*

Truth may be beyond our reach but lies are within us; all we have to do

is recognize, name, and reject them.

#

ara baliozian · June 26, 2004

#

Friday, June 25, 2004

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

Almost everything we know is based on hearsay. When we disagree, it is our sources that disagree; and it goes without saying that a chauvinist will invariably select sources that flattery his ego.

*

Intolerance is a reptilian response.

*

Optimism has a shorter life span than pessimism.

*

I am willing to concede that nothing I say about Armenians is original. What I prefer to do is expand, illustrate and provide footnotes to writers that I have myself interviewed or translated. (For more details, see my DICTIONARY OF ARMENIAN QUOTATIONS.)

*

A good question raises more questions.

*

Saturday, June 26, 2004

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

Some egos are so large that they eclipse the universe.

*

We all have our blind spots. The blind spot of a smart-ass is his IQ.

*

"A shadow," Leonardo writes in his NOTEBOOKS, "is not visible to its source of light." Something similar could be said of complexes: namely, that they are not visible to its consciousness. Hence Freud's dictum: "The aim of civilization is to make the unconscious conscious."

*

A good critic exposes contradictions.

A bad critic exposes his own complexes.

*

ara baliozian · June 30, 2004

Sunday, June 27, 2004

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

It doesn't take much for an Armenian to transfer his hatred of the Turks onto his fellow Armenians. A misplaced comma will do as readily as a misunderstood semicolon.

*

Some of my readers from the Middle East hate me unto death because I refuse to share their affection for Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and assorted imams, ayatollahs and mullahs.

*

I am personally acquainted with an Armenian who oozes hatred from every pore in his body - he oozes it like an active volcano oozes lava, and he breathes it like a dragon breathes fire - but asserts that Armenians are incapable of hatred - he asserts it and he believes it and, astonishing as this may seem, he is believed by others, perhaps because to the insecure, befuddled, and vulnerable mind, flattery, no matter how absurd, is always welcome, and what could be more flattering than assertions of moral superiority?

*

I know something now that I didn't know before: genocide is a double crime: it also drives the survivors nuts. And to think that it took me several decades to see this obvious fact which must be clearly visible to all outsiders. The implications of this abnormality can be alarming indeed. Because, if we can no longer tell love from hatred and, by extension, Armenianism from Ottomanism, neither can we tell right from wrong. Which may explain why our partisan ideologues preach patriotism (love of country) and practice hatred of fellow countrymen.

*

Now I understand why people who believe in a "compassionate and merciful Allah" murder innocent women and children in the name of the same Allah. Now I also understand why the very same descendants of Armenians who were massacred by Muslim extremists at the turn of the last century are now capable of defending and supporting jihadists and cold-blooded killers of innocent civilians: notwithstanding their assertions of moral and intellectual superiority, they have lost the faculty of telling right from wrong, and truth from lies.

#

Monday, June 28, 2004

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

If you write against cannibalism, cannibals will conspire against you because they hate to starve.

*

If I were to hate everyone who hates me, I would be so busy hating that I would have no time for any other activity. And now consider the amount of time and resources we invest on documenting our hatred of Turks.

*

There is a difference between movies and real life: life is slower and takes longer.

*

You cannot reason with an ego.

*

Egos are numberless, reason only one.

*

Reason and hate are mutually exclusive.

*

Reason has 20/20 vision, the ego is blind.

*

The easiest two assumptions an Armenian makes: "I know better," and "I am smarter." One could go as far as saying that all our defeats and tragedies are direct results of these two false assumptions.

*

Consider the two false assumptions made by Dikran the Great when viewing the Roman legion advancing towards him: "If they come as ambassadors, they are too many. If they come as soldiers, they are too few."

*

When it comes to writing fiction, a believable style matters more than believable characters.

*

A believable style makes even unbelievable characters real.

#

Tuesday, June 29, 2004

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

Once in a while one of my gentle readers enjoys reminding me that he feels nothing but raw hatred for me. Why should I be surprised? It has been the destiny of all Armenian writers to be hated by a fraction of their readers. Narekatsi may be an exception perhaps because he dealt only with God and he spent all his life in a monastery. But even Narekatsi has had his share of critics, among them Zohrab, Zarian, and Shahnour. This too should surprise no one. There has not been a single issue on which Armenians have been successful in developing a consensus.

*

Shortly before he died, Mischa Kudian asked the following two rhetorical questions during an interview: "Who is an Armenian? What is an Armenian?" I may now have a tentative answer: A good Armenian is first and foremost a good human being. It follows, an Armenian who behaves like swine in the name of patriotism or Armenianism is a fraud.

*

Director Ettore Scola in his eulogy of actor Nino Manfredi: "He was the quintessential little man born to be victimized but never a victim because of his rich inner life." In other words, a victim consents to be a victim by starving his inner life.

*

Perhaps to be truly creative means not excelling in a particular art form or genre but inventing a new genre.

*

Men of faith are convinced they have a monopoly on truth and their faith or God is the only true one. This mindset promotes and even legitimizes prejudice, arrogance (that masquerades as humility), intolerance of other faiths and heretics, and contempt, not to say hatred, for fellow men (that parades as love of God or truth). All this becomes evident when we study not the faith itself or its scriptures but its history and its relations with other faiths.

*

P.S. on men of faith: Prejudice and intolerance promote ignorance. Which is why we owe the Dark Ages to men of faith. Which is also why some of the most backward and barbaric societies today are deeply religious.

*

Holy scriptures are more like political platforms and propaganda whose aim is to mislead rather than to enlighten; and he who relies too much on quotations from the scriptures to justify himself is a man who either cannot decipher or is unwilling to read his own real feelings and thoughts.

*

Thucydides tells us every historic event has as many meanings as its participants: the defeat of one will be a victory for the other. Something very similar has been said about tragedy and comedy: tragedy when it happens to you, comedy when it happens to someone else.

#

Wednesday, June 30, 2004

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

What could be more revealing of doubletalk than a style dripping with venom and promoting love and tolerance?

*

Being human means, if anything, being fallible. Remember all the great scientists and their certainties: how many of these certainties have withstood the test of time?

*

Like most men I too have my limitations, blind spots, prejudices, and false assumptions some of which may well be hidden from my own awareness. Which means that everything I say, think and write has a foundation of uncertainty and a penumbra of doubt, and therefore open to criticism and correction - but not by individuals who parade as role models, paragons of virtue, unerring judges of their fellow men, and more Catholic than the Pope, more Bolshevik than Stalin, and more Magnificent than Suleiman.

*

Anyone who considers himself infallible cannot be right even when right. By that I mean that, an arrogant fool is in no position to dispense wisdom.

*

I do not advocate silence but dialogue. When two uncertainties meet, a near-certainty may emerge. As for certainties: Let's leave them into the hands of skinheads, men of faith, mullahs, imams, and jihadists….

*

To question certainties can be a risky business because it creates a credibility gap between those in power and their victims - the brainwashed masses.

*

Style should be like life - unafraid of repetition, clichés, and vulgarisms. It should surprise and shock but always with a sense of inevitability. Inevitability is very probably a style's greatest asset.

*

Inevitability: Can it be taught? Can it be acquired?

*

Faith justifies nothing.

#

THOTH · June 30, 2004

Men of faith are convinced they have a monopoly on truth and their faith or God is the only true one. This mindset promotes and even legitimizes prejudice, arrogance (that masquerades as humility), intolerance of other faiths and heretics, and contempt, not to say hatred, for fellow men (that parades as love of God or truth). All this becomes evident when we study not the faith itself or its scriptures but its history and its relations with other faiths.
*
P.S. on men of faith: Prejudice and intolerance promote ignorance. Which is why we owe the Dark Ages to men of faith. Which is also why some of the most backward and barbaric societies today are deeply religious.
*
Holy scriptures are more like political platforms and propaganda whose aim is to mislead rather than to enlighten; and he who relies too much on quotations from the scriptures to justify himself is a man who either cannot decipher or is unwilling to read his own real feelings and thoughts.

...
*Faith justifies nothing.
#

Super stuff...the whole post...but - of course - I wish to draw attention to these particular passages in the hope that certain forumites might take a look....thanks Ara - very well said....

ara baliozian · July 3, 2004

Thursday, July 01, 2004

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

ARMENIANS, PATAGONIANS AND TURKS.

CRITICISM AND PROPAGANDA.

VOLTAIRE ON THE WRITING LIFE.

PASCAL ON FLATTERY.

A DEFINITION OF SUCCESS.

INVISIBLE MEN AND THE SCUM OF THE EARTH.

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

"What will odars think of us if they read you?" I am asked once in a while. If you want an answer to that question, begin by asking: "What will I think if I read a Patagonian critic writing about his fellow Patagonians?" I suspect the first thing you will think is: "Who the hell are these Patagonians?" And the second: "Whoever they are, they are not much different from us." Even better, suppose you were to read a Turkish critic writing about his fellow Turks: What will you think? The chances are you will think, not all Turks are dupes willing and eager to recycle chauvinist crapola. Not all Turks read only Turkish newspapers and pundits; and if they read them, they don't always believe what they say. Some Turks, you may further think, believe in democracy and in their fundamental human right of free speech, which is available not only to those who are experts on any given subject and never wrong, but also to those who are ordinary human beings and, as such, fallible. You may also think, not all Turks are dumb enough to go on digging when they find themselves in a hole. Not all Turks believe they are the only good people living in an evil world. Finally you might even think: "At last, a Turk who does not pretend to be better than he is," or, "It is such a relief to meet a Turk who is not afraid to look himself in the mirror and to describe what he sees there, warts and all, rather than what he wishes others to see."

*

To be read even by people who hate you: Can there be better praise?

*

Voltaire once remarked to a friend: "In literature, if you fail, they look down at you with contempt; if you succeed, they hate you." Judging by the amount of hate mail I get, I must be going places.

*

Some of my critics tell me I express all the negative aspects of our identity without ever mentioning the positive ones. If that's what I do, if, that is, by reading me you recognize some of your own failings, then I can truly say mission accomplished. Besides, to stress the positive and to cover up the negative is not the function of a critic but that of a propagandist and a flatterer.

*

Pascal: "To speak beautiful words is to have an ugly character." Or, "Flatterers speak with a forked tongue."

*

Ever since we were massacred by the Turks and no one came to our rescue, it is as if we were invisible to the rest of the world. It is this invisibility that allows our leaders to behave as though they were totally indifferent to world opinion.

*

Some Armenians are infatuated with their status as perennial losers and victims simply because it allows them to assert moral superiority by saying: We have victimized no one, but the whole world has victimized us. We are truly the Chosen sharing the planet with the scum of the earth.

*

But what if we have victimized no one (except one another, of course) because we don't have the tools? What if, to paraphrase Churchill, if we ever acquire the tools, we would not hesitate to finish the job?

#

Friday, July 02, 2004

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

PROFILING IN CONTEXT.

AN INVITATION FROM A PARTISAN.

TWO QUESTIONS.

WRITERS AND MADNESS.

DUPES AND THEIR LIES.

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

Muslims living in the West are angry because they say they are being profiled by government agencies. Now they may be in a better position to understand Armenian anger over what happened to them a hundred years ago in the Ottoman Empire. Just because non-representative militant groups of Armenians engaged in isolated acts of terrorism, nearly two million innocent civilians were profiled, deported into the desert, starved, burned alive, raped, and massacred. Now they may even be in a better position to understand the anti-Mulsim bias that animates the West after 9/11, the endless series of terrorist acts in Israel, Iraq, Spain and elsewhere, which are all clear-cut cases of profiling too: but with one important difference: when Muslims profile, they murder; when they are profiled, they are only interrogated.

*

"Instead of criticizing us, you should join us!" I have been told by partisans on more than one occasion. First they silence me, then they want me to be one of them in order that I too may silence anyone who refuses to be their dupe.

*

The question that I ask myself again and again is: What makes an Armenian hate a fellow Armenian as much or even more than he hates Turks? Another question: Why is it that an Armenian writer enjoyed more freedom of expression under the Red Sultan in Istanbul at the turn of the last century than today in the land of the brave and the free and under the watchful eye of our mini-sultans who run cultural foundations and parade as supporters and promoters of Armenian literature? Is it conceivable that we are as guilty of profiling as Muslim terrorists?

*

Writers are sometimes described as mental cases. That's because they bare their souls. Which is not something that is required of garbage collectors, dentists, politicians, or lawyers.

*

He who is never wrong, never learns. Example: our bosses, bishops, benefactors and their assorted flunkeys and dupes.

*

I don't want to change the world or anyone in it. I just want to change myself so that I will no longer care about forked tongues, venomous fangs, and fools pretending to be wise.

*

A dupe is also one who believes in his own lies, and after saying "I hate no one," he uses that line as a license to hate everyone with an easy conscience (assuming of course he has one).

#

Saturday, July 03, 2004

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

WRITERS AND READERS.

THE POVERTY OF FAITH.

SEMANTIC HELLS.

OUR GENOCIDE INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX.

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

I may improve the quality of my writing but I cannot improve the quality of understanding in my reader. There is only one way to please a Nazi reader and that is by recycling MAIN KAMPF. Something similar could be said of Bolsheviks, mullahs and their dupes, racists and chauvinists. Doubt and anxiety are an integral part of the human condition, and those who think they can dispel both by adopting a religion or a closed system of thought are like alcoholics who permanently damage their physical health for an ephemeral sense of well-being. In their search of heaven the can find only a hell of illusions, prejudices and lies.

*

When the complexities of life are reduced to a problem by means of a verbal formula, it becomes relatively easy to find a verbal solution. Only when the solution fails to do its job do we realize its inadequacies and erroneous assumptions. "At the beginning was the word" only because it was God's word. By contrast, man's word is as imperfect a tool as his understanding.

*

This may explain why what can rightly be called our "genocide industrial complex" (historical studies, memoirs, commentaries, articles, editorials, speeches, sermons, plays, movies, documentaries, art works, monuments, requiems) has so converted no one but members of the congregation.

#

ara baliozian · July 7, 2004

Sunday, July 04, 2004

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

DEFINING THE UNDEFINABLE.

IN PRAISE OF SKEPTICISM.

CENSORSHIP AND DIALOGUE.

DOUBLE-THINK AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.

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

What is Armenianism? If you were to define it, you are sure to have the majority against you. But if I were to define it, I would begin by saying, anything that is Ottoman - intolerant, authoritarian, hostile to human rights and above all to free speech - cannot be Armenian.

*

One good thing about skeptics: they will never kill in the name of God or any other certainty.

*

Leave it to an Armenian to make himself hateful even as he preaches love.

*

Double-think leads to double-talk, and double-talk leads to double-act - by that I mean, promoting survival of the nation during the day and digging its grave at night.

*

To silence the opposition is not the same as winning an argument. The concept of winning an argument itself is not conducive to dialogue, which should be the goal of all civilized exchanges.

*

Where there is censorship, one side will invariably win the argument, but will that be democratic, civilized, human or conducive to progress?

*

He who speechifies on Armenianism should be careful not to practice Ottomanism.

*

An Armenian is not brought up to think in terms of democracy versus tyranny, or, for that matter, right versus wrong, but in terms of weakness and power. He knows from experience that he who is weak will be victimized by the powerful. Which means, between the words of our bosses, bishops and benefactors and the words of solitary and defenseless dissidents, the average Armenian will consistently be on the side of those who inherited the power of the sultans and commissars. It follows, between fighting our mini-sultans and crypto-commissars and joining them, en Armenian's instinct will tell him to join them because the alternative choice may lead to annihilation.

#

Monday, July 05, 2004

KNOWLEDGE AND UNDERSTANDING.

KNOWLEDGE AND HUMILITY.

IGNORANCE AND ARROGANCE.

THE TRUE AIM OF LITERATURE .

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

On the road of knowledge we are all beginners.

*

Only God knows everything and he who thinks he is closer to God because he knows better is closer to the devil in arrogance.

*

The greatest impediment to understanding is the illusion of knowledge.

*

To know better is not the same as to know.

To know better is only one step on a road that stretches to infinity.

*

Sometimes what remains unsaid has as much effect on the reader as what is said, repeated, and shouted.

*

He who asserts moral or intellectual superiority may succeed only in exposing his arrogance.

*

No man can be as unbearable as he whose ignorance is exceeded only by his arrogance. I know what I am saying because I am describing myself when young.

*

The wise say "I don't know" more often than the ignorant.

*

The aim of literature is understanding reality. Everything else is entertainment and escape.

#

Tuesday, July 06, 2004

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

A CONFESSION.

BREAKING RULES.

ON CONSENSUS BETWEEN NATIONS.

THE DANGERS OF EXTREMISM.

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

If I were to make a list of the books I have read and another of the books I should have read, I suspect the second list would contain many more masterpieces. I have read all of Thomas Mann and Arthur Koestler, but I have not read anything by George Eliot and Milton. I have read more of Chekhov, Raymond Chandler, Saroyan, Camus, Sartre, Simenon, and Simone de Beauvoir than Dickens, Racine, Corneille, Zola, and Hugo.

*

There are many rules for achieving success but the most original is by breaking all existing rules on condition that one takes the trouble of learning them first. Likewise, if you want to read between the lines, it is necessary that you first learn how to read.

*

Turks and Armenians have so far failed to engage in dialogue perhaps because both sides have been represented by extremists. On the day moderates take over the leadership of both nations, dialogue, compromise and consensus may because a possibility.

*

Consensus between nations is possible only if consensus within the nation becomes a reality. A divided nation cannot develop consensus with another divided nation.

*

Leaders that succeed only in dividing a nation should be declared failures and kicked out of office.

*

Another thing we share with the Turks: we consider moderation treason and anathema.

*

A smart-ass will invariably assess himself as wise, and a fanatic will assess himself as a man of integrity unwilling to compromise on his cherished principles without which the nation would perish.

#

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

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

WHY THEY HATE AMERICA

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

Siamanto found life in America so unbearable that he returned to Istanbul where he became one of the first victims of the 1915 Genocide. Something similar happened to Totovents, who left America, returned to Armenia, where he was shot during the Stalinist purges of the 1930s.

*

In his memoirs Yervant Odian speaks of Armenians who preferred death in Istanbul to life elsewhere.

*

Armenians may be adaptable but only if they don't have a choice.

*

When we say "It takes all kinds," we sometimes forget that varieties in human nature cover a much wider spectrum than our imagination can grasp.

*

After the collapse of the USSR, Lenin's "useful idiots" because useless idiots. What has remained constant is their blind and irrational hatred of America. Then there are those who hate America because they love Arabs - or so they say - and when I say Arabs I don't mean moderate Arabs but the ruthless and bloodthirsty killers like Saddam and Bin Laden. Figure that one out if you can.

*

Like all imperial powers throughout history, America has committed its share of blunders and crimes against humanity. No doubt about that. But when one compares American presidents with Roman and Byzantine emperors, Ottoman sultans, Russian czar and commissars, one may have to concede that America is ruled and populated by human beings very much like the rest of us with their own quota of failings and limitations, and to hate America amounts to hating mankind.

#

ara baliozian · July 10, 2004

Thursday, July 08, 2004

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

ON GOD AND UNDERSTANDING.

A CRITIQUE OF ANTI-AMERICANISM.

SERIAL KILLERS AND THEIR DEFENDERS.

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

"They think when I say God, I mean God rather than the idea of God." These words by C.G. Jung remind me of Sartre's "We believe that we believe but we don't believe," and Hegel's famous last words: "No one understood me except one, and even he didn't understand me." To be on the safe side, we should question everything and after we get an answer, doubt the answer.

*

Anti-Americanism is not a political stance but a psychological complex like inferiority complex, and very much like inferiority complex it may be said to be an expression of inadequacy in relation to a superior political system and culture.

*

The difference between a functional and a dysfunctional system is that the first comes to grips with its problems and the second pretends it has none.

*

"We survived because we were divided," an imbecile once told me, thus implying that our numberless victims were an undeniable proof of our success as a nation.

*

After an imbecile assesses himself as smart he will also assume he is wise even when he behaves like a certified moron with a single-digit IQ.

*

Anti-Americanism is not the same as being critical of America. All Americans have been critical of America at one time or another. Anti-Americanism in its extreme form views America not only as an evil empire but also as the source of all evil in the world. A genuine anti-American will go as far as believing that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was a CIA agent.

*

Anti-Americanism has its source in pro-Sovietism, pro-Arabism and anti-Semitism - three politically and morally bankrupt belief systems (except to their crypto-adherents, of course). Anti-Americanism has little or nothing to do with America itself and everything to do with concepts alien to it. It's almost like hating chemistry because you love, sociology, music and poetry.

*

Even a dog's fleas have fleas. That's the only plausible explanation as to why serial killers like Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, Milosevic, and Bin Laden have their defenders.

#

Friday, July 09, 2004

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

PASSION AND FANATICISM.

MY SOURCES OF INSPIRATION.

FOOLS ARE INVINCIBLE.

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

"He who loses himself in his passion, loses less than he who loses his passion." When Saint Augustine wrote these words, he knew nothing about suicidal fanatics. Times change, ideas evolve (or devolve) and timeless truths become dangerous lies. The Greeks knew better when they espoused moderation in all things and when Socrates said: "Ignorance is the source of all evil." Next question: What is the value of the passion of a dupe or a fanatic?

*

I use my enemies as sources of inspiration, and they use me as a target for their poison arrows. I immortalize them even as they try to kill me.

*

Andre Labarrere: "I doubt and question everything, but I have faith all the same."

*

The answers exist even if we may never find them in this life. As for finding them in the next one: that's in the lap of the gods (if they exist).

*

In the battle between wisdom and folly, the fools are destined to emerge the victors because they outnumber the wise a thousand to one. As if that weren't enough, whenever a wise man appears (from Socrates and Jesus to Gandhi and Martin Luther King) the fools kill him. But the opposite never happens: the wise have at no time conspired to silence, let alone kill, anyone, least of all a fool.

*

When he turned seventy and there were no banquets to celebrate the momentous occasion, a disappointed and disgusted Armenian writer confided to me: "No one gives a damn!" I was tempted to tell him: You were left alone. You survived to a ripe old age unharmed. What more could you possibly want? Consider yourself the luckiest man on earth. How many of our writers can say as much?

#

Saturday, July 10, 2004

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

BUSH AND HIS CRITICS.

ANTI-AMERICANISM, AMERICAN CRITICS, AND PRAVDA.

MICHAEL MOORE AND HIS CRITICS.

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

You may have noticed by now that anti-Bush partisans share one important feature with Bush: his dogmatism and a stance that says: "You are either with me or against me."

*

To justify their anti-Americanism, foreign observers and pundits tend to rely on American critics, which is also what PRAVDA did during the Soviet era. Its anti-American propaganda section was handled by a single young woman in a tiny office the size of a cubicle. During an interview with 60 MINUTES, she explained that her job consisted in reading the NEW YORK TIMES and some other American publications and selecting all the negative articles, thus giving readers the impression that most Americans were either unemployed, homeless, or members of a criminal gang, the rest being mercilessly overworked and underpaid factory hands, cigar-chomping and blood-sucking capitalists and corrupt politicians.

*

Now, about Michael Moore and his FAHRENHEIT 9/11, let me begin by saying that I share and even admire his left-wing, anti-establishment, and liberal worldview. But may I remind those who take his documentary at face value, that Moore himself has conceded that his facts have been carefully selected and edited. Which means there may well be an equally valid selection of other facts which may contradict his thesis. Even Richard Clark, one of the most severe critics of the Bush Administration, has dismissed some of Moore's central assertions as absurd. Furthermore, the French press, whose hostility towards Bush is no secret, has attacked Moore for his bias that sometimes borders on the absurd.

#

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as i see it - Pt. III

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