Ara Baliozian: Ways and means

[ara baliozian]

THE EASIER OPTION

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One reason why we have at no time in our history beheaded our kings or revolted against the state is that we have always had an easier option: emigration and assimilation. Consider recent developments in the Homeland. If all those who emigrated had organized a political party, they would have overthrown the ancien regime and everyone connected with it without any difficulty. The same applies to the Diaspora. If all those who are not satisfied with the status quo raised their voices, things would improve instantly. What they prefer to do instead is assimilate. I am personally acquainted with Armenians from Greece who feel more comfortable in the company of Greeks: they go to Greek church and picnics and they send their children to Greek schools. Instead of saying, these Armenians are bad Armenians, we should question the values of those who consider themselves to be better. Speaking from my own personal experience: whenever I have dealt with an Armenian who thought of himself as la creme de la creme, I have discovered him to be instead la creme de la scum.

[ara baliozian]

ADVICE AND DISSENT

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A garbage dump of useless advice by frustrated commissars of culture: that’s how I would define the situation of an Armenian writer today. Every other reader, it seems, knows better and he is not only willing to share his wisdom but also feels authorized to make demands. "If you want to make a difference," or "If you want to make yourself useful," a routine advice runs, "you must do this, that and the other." There are even those who demand heroism and martyrdom from me. To them I say: You are barking up the wrong tree. I am not your man. I further maintain, those who makes such unreasonable demands on their fellow men must be either megalomaniacs who think they deserve someone else’s sacrifice, or worthless nonentities who want to have their existence certified by someone else’s blood. We are a nation of countless heroes and martyrs. What makes anyone think another will make a difference? And why this thirsts for more blood? Have we become a nation of vampires?

[ara baliozian]

NOTES / COMMENTS

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The most incomprehensible Armenian to me is the one who can listen to a long-winded stentorian speechifier or sermonizer without a single unkind thought.

 

There is no truth, only lies that must be exposed.

 

No matter how clear you are, some people will choose to misunderstand you.

 

If you speak up against bloodsuckers, don’t expect the support of vampires.

 

I write not to change anyone’s mind but to let those who think as I do that they are not alone.

 

There are two things about which I am certain: (a) life has a meaning, and ( we are destined never to find it.

 

It is not easy writing for an audience of commissars.

 

It is extremely difficult for me to be civil to people who in a different time and place would have been my executioners.

 

There is a type of critic who resents you because you dare to be ahead of him without his consent.

 

What could be more pitiful than the spectacle of a man who, in his efforts to prove himself superior, exposes himself as the lowest scum on earth.

[ara baliozian]

BEING ARMENIAN

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If a writer recycles propaganda he is dismissed as a derivative mediocrity.

If, on the other hand, he speaks the truth, he becomes an outcast.

Now consider a benefactor’s options:

If he says yes to all those who make demands on his generosity he is seen as a dupe.

If, on the other hand, he says yes to a few and no to many (as he must if he doesn’t want to declare bankruptcy) he makes more enemies than friends.

Which may explain why, when a wealthy Armenian-American went up to one of our established benefactors and said: "I have some extra money: what do you suggest I do with it?"

"Burn it!" was the reply.

 

Moral 1: Being an Armenian writer is a lose/lose situation.

Moral 2: So is being an Armenian benefactor.

Moral 3: So is being an Armenian, but it helps if you have the skin of a crocodile.

[ara baliozian]

POLITICS

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Politics, it has been said, is organized hatred. The Communist Party needed capitalism, the Nazis needed Jews and other inferior races, conservatives need liberals, and we need the Turks. One reason our bosses and bishops are popular with a fraction of the community today is that they legitimize hatred – and hatred not only of Turks but also of Armenians who don’t share their ideology or orthodoxy. They legitimize hatred by convincing their followers that their hatred is not motivated by Ottomanism but by Armenianism and what could be sweeter than to hate in the name of God and Country? And I go on writing not because in the near or distant future I hope to prevail but because I see more merit in fighting and losing a just war than in collaborating with the forces of darkness. Besides, I belong to a nation that has lost all its major wars and losing comes naturally to me. Question: Can you name a single Armenian writer who may be remotely described as a winner?

[ara baliozian]

WHY DON’T YOU WRITE MORE LIKE SAROYAN?

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Meaning: why don’t you write wonderful stories about wonderful Armenians?

May I confess that wonderful Armenians have been mighty few in my life. But that’s not the only reason why I refuse to be a third- or fourth-rate Saroyan (of whom we have more than enough already). Rather, I am not even remotely tempted to entertain or flatter the vanity of a nation that has consistently chosen to ignore the central message of its literature; and I have no desire to emulate vodanavorjis (versifiers) who write beautiful lines about nightingales serenading the moon. As for the eternal snow of Mt. Ararat: if they are really eternal they can afford to wait.

[ara baliozian]

EDWARD ALEXANDER’S OPUS

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OPUS (482 pages) is a combination of thriller and quest story whose focus is not a crime but a lost musical score and more specifically a Beethoven CELLO CONCERTO. The time is shortly after World War II and the places Germany, Hungary, Russia, and Armenia. The dialogue is gripping, the erudition unobtrusively and elegantly handled. Alexander writes like a polished pro. As a journalist and diplomat with a degree in musicology he has first-hand knowledge of the people and places he writes about. Every line rings with authenticity.

The author of two widely admired books, THE SERPENT AND THE BEES (about an Armenian KGB agent) and A CRIME OF VENGEANCE (about the Armenian genocide) Alexander has produced here a masterpiece of suspense.

[For more information contact .]www.Xlibris.com].

[ara baliozian]

PROBLEMS / SOLUTIONS

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To those who say, "We know all about our problems; what we need is solutions!" here is a short list of both:

charlatanism / honesty,

divisiveness / solidarity,

tribalism / nationalism,

authoritarianism / democracy,

intolerance, tolerance,

censorship / freedom of expression,

fanaticism / moderation,

corruption / accountability.

And if you were to ask, "How do we go about introducing honesty in an environment dominated by charlatans?" I would say: "I can only provide solution; I am in no position to implement them. That’s up to our organizations." But if you were to insist and say, "What’s the good of a solution if it cannot be implemented?" I would say: "If I had the power, I would begin by impeaching the present leadership on the grounds that (a) after creating our problems they have deceived the people into thinking they cannot be solved, and ( for silencing anyone who said otherwise."

[ara baliozian]

CALLING A SPADE A SPADE

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When a nation produces a messiah, prophet or dissident (who also happens to be an intellectual giant), it does not mean that it may now look forward to a brighter future;

it simply means that it is in deep trouble.

After Christ was crucified, the condition of the Jews did not improve.

On the contrary!

After Socrates was condemned to death, the Athenian Empire collapsed and neither Plato nor Aristotle could alter the course of Greek history.

Fascist states have been defeated but fascism and all its offspring (from racism to censorship) continue to be with us.

Nothing bad ever dies.

Our only option is to be vigilant and to call things by their right name.

To say or to imply that if it’s ours it must be okay amounts to allowing the cancer to spread.

The Good Lord has given us a brain with which to discriminate right from wrong.

We don’t need a messiah or an intellectual giant or prophet to tell us honesty is better than charlatanism, knowledge better than ignorance, and truth better than lies.

[ara baliozian]

There will always be bullies and fanatics on both sides of a controversy who will preach hatred and death to the enemy even if it means massacring the innocent and dragging mankind back into the jungle.

Patriotism is popular because it legitimizes our killer instincts.

One of the most painful discoveries I have made about human nature is that there is a cannibal in all of us, but whereas some people recognize it for what it is, others call it heroism and uncompromising dedication to noble principles.

The most convincing lies are the ones we tell ourselves.

The barbarians are not at the gate. They are within. But we cannot recognize them because they are us.

To be a barbarian does not mean to behave like a cannibal but to be unaware of one’s own cannibalism.

[ara baliozian]

WHAT I THINK I KNOW

ABOUT OUR POLITICAL PARTIES

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Hunchaks: Since most Armenians have no idea what a Hunchak is or what he stands for or whether he even exists or not, it is safe to assume that the only endeavor in which the Hunchaks have been successful is in staging a disappearing act.

 

ARF: They identify themselves as socialists but their leaders are bourgeois speculators, Levantine wheeler-dealers, and capitalists.

 

ADL: An insider once informed that a Ramgavar delegation once went to the Kremlin and shook hands with Stalin as a gesture of gratitude for all the wonderful things Uncle Stalin had done for Armenia. Some may call that pragmatism, but I call it "drop-your-pants-and-bend-overism."

[ara baliozian]

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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Sometimes I am urged to look at the bright side, to see only the good in people, to concentrate on the positive by adopting Saroyan and Pollyanna as my role models. But that’s like asking a doctor to ignore bacteria and tumors, or a janitor to ignore dirt, or a garbage collector to ignore garbage. And speaking of garbage: when I was a boy I wanted to be neither a doctor nor a janitor but a garbage collector. I guess I can truly say now that I have realized my childhood ambition.

 

If my adversary is an Armenian (one of my pet illusions goes) we will eventually reach an agreement provided we explain our respective positions clearly. That’s because reason and common sense are universal faculties. But facts, reality, our own history tell me if two Armenians agree on 99 things, they will find an issue – and if they cannot find it they will invent one – on which to disagree to the point of hating each other unto death.

 

On the difficulty of speaking Armenian in America: What are the Armenian words for home, gentleman, honest, highway, parking lot, hamburger, hot dog, donut, jello, and supermarket? An Armenian writer once informed me that the Armenian word for supermarket is hanrakhanout – a word I have never used and I don’t intend to use because it sounds too close to hanradoun, which means bordello.

[ara baliozian]

NOTES / COMMENTS

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Knowledge and experience are limitless.

We as individuals can hope to have access to an extremely tiny fraction of it. To say, I know all I need to know might as well be an admission of incurable mental paralysis.

 

Sooner or later all ideologies and movements that divide mankind into fractions – them/us, friends/enemies – will be usurped by bullies who will engage in cannibalism.

 

I find charm seductive but no matter how hard I try I cannot forget Camus’ dictum "Charm is shit."

 

To those of my readers who find my views strange or un-Armenian, I say, that may be because your conception of Armenian literature has been carefully filtered, bowdlerized, and distorted by partisans and monks. There is more, much more, to Armenian literature than the pilaf and shish kebab versions, or, if you wish, the eternal snows of Mt. Ararat nonsense and the banality of "forget your mother but do not forget your mother tongue" b.s.

 

Emigration, alienation, assimilation, assassination: they too may be said to be criticism and dissent by other means.

 

A Canadian poetess once said, as soon as you think you have been screwed every possible way, you come across a publisher (or is it a critic?) who has read the KAMA SUTRA.

I am now beginning to suspect the author of the KAMA SUTRA was an Armenian who adopted an Indian pseudonym. (Some Armenian writers and poets in Istanbul did exactly that.)

[ara baliozian]

WHY I THINK

THERE IS SOMETHING

HORRIBLY WRONG WITH OUR

POLITICAL PARTIES

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During World War II the ARF supported Hitler and the ADL supported Stalin.

 

An ADL leader once wrote an editorial in which he stated that Antelias was a puppet of the CIA. When I asked him the role of the KGB in the manipulation of Etchmiadzin, I became his mortal enemy.

 

Once when I wrote a letter to the editor of a partisan weekly questioning the facts in an editorial, I was informed: "It is not our policy to print letters that question our editorial policy."

 

During the Soviet era, a member of the ADL once told me: "Paradjanov is a syphilitic homosexual and a black marketeer: Siberia is too good for him."

[ara baliozian]

RANDOM THOUGHTS

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Free speech is a fundamental human right only for individuals who respect the free speech of others. To silence a barking dog or a braying ass is not censorship.

 

Turks hate us because they have been brainwashed to believe we are giaours with evil designs on their homeland. Why does an Armenian hate another Armenian? Who brainwashed him? For what purpose? Explain that and you will expose the roots of our tribalism.

 

I define a partisan as someone who survives on a steady diet of verbal crap.

 

To think, to really think, means to go beyond the boundaries of the already thought.

 

About the racist concept of the Chosen People: Why would God choose a fraction of mankind when just as easily He could have chosen all of it.

 

Another question: Why does God allow misery in this world when without any extra effort on His part He could eliminate it? To those who say, misery enables us to appreciate bliss, I say, how about little miseries? A touch of flu or a mild headache instead of terminal cancer or a paralyzing stroke? As for those who say it is our free will that leads us to sin, misery, and crime, I say, that may apply to the sinner or criminal but not to his innocent victim.

 

We like to say that God created us in His image and that there is a divine spark in all of us. But consider the differences: God created the universe and we cannot even create a speck of dust.

[ara baliozian]

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

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Sometimes I am asked: "How do you explain the fact that there aren’t too many writers who write as you do?" My answer: Because most of them were brutally silenced in the Ottoman Empire and the Soviet Union, and by censorship in the Diaspora. Or, if you prefer, by legal means (de jure) under criminal regimes, and de facto in the Diaspora.

 

On Style: I love brilliant stylists like Nabokov, but I prefer writers (like Peguy) who have something so compelling to communicate that their words fall from them like stones with the minimum of artifice and craftsmanship. The same applies to music: compare J.S. Bach to Gregorian Chant.

 

There are people out there who have not read a single story from THE ARABIAN NIGHTS or a single page from WAR AND PEACE who tell me: "Why don’t you write a story for a change?" They have trouble following me when I explain that I will be more than happy to write a story on the day I understand the plot of our own story, the story of our collective existence.

 

Men of faith: I have yet to meet one who didn’t think he had a monopoly on truth, and did not confuse politics with theology or compromise with heresy.

 

The ugly Armenian: He is everywhere. He cannot be ignored. He cannot be swept under the rug. He cannot be placed on the sidewalk in a plastic bag to be picked up on the following day by the garbage truck. He is loud even when he whispers. He believes by downgrading others he upgrades himself. He is convinced the most effective way to assert his own superior brand of wisdom is by calling anyone who disagrees with him an idiot. Which is why I don’t hesitate to say that a good Turk is better than an ugly Armenian; and if I had a choice, I’d rather live in a democratic Turkey than a fascist Armenia.

 

A good chauvinist should be blind in one eye; both, of course, would be preferable.

[ara baliozian]

SEMANTIC REFLECTIONS

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It has been said that there is a Turk in all of us but some prefer to call him by other names: partisans, for instance, call him "loyalty to the party."

 

Which reminds me of a passage in Odian where he tells us, with all his passion for talking, "Comrade Panchoonie misused words repeatedly, often perverting their meaning altogether. One day he picked up a valuable vase from the table and slammed it to the floor, shattering it into a hundred pieces."

When his father scolds him, little Panchoonie justifies his act of vandalism by saying: "I fixed it." "What do you mean you fixed it?" his father demands: "you broke it!" "No, father, I fixed it."

 

"Almost all controversy would cease," Descartes tells us, "if there was agreement between philosophers as to the meaning of terms." If philosophers have so far failed to develop a consensus, what chance do we have?

 

How easily man is deceived by beautiful words and noble sentiments? How many times I have myself been taken in! I could spend the rest of my life banging my head again a stone wall.

 

I love the American expression: "What’s your racket?"

 

In one of his meditations, Marcus Aurelius says, it’s a waste of time hating your enemy because very soon you will both be dead anyway. It is to be noted that this emperor was also a commander in chief who fought many battles against the enemies of the Empire. I wonder if he ever said to his soldiers: "Don’t bother hating the enemy: just kill him!"

 

Discussion forums on the internet have taught me one thing that I didn’t know before: namely, not all Armenians are more civilized than Turks.

 

I don’t criticize anyone as an Armenian but as a human being. There are so many definitions of Armenianism and so many rascals who have abused that term that I no longer know what it really means and what it stands for. But I know something about human beings because I have been one all my life.

Which is why, whenever a fellow Armenian starts waving the flag at me, I immediately conclude that what he really intends to do with it is to cover his nakedness.

 

You may have noticed that, when an intelligent man behaves stupidly, the reasons he invents to justify his conduct will be even more stupid.

[ara baliozian]

MORE SEMANTIC REFLECTIONS

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God: A supreme being who stands for truth, love, compassion and mercy but who appears to inspire His followers with intolerance, dogmatism, hatred, torture, war, and massacre.

 

Massacre: To the fanatic it’s the will of Allah, to civilized nations it’s "C’est la guerre," to Americans it’s "collateral damage," to many others it’s "ethnic cleansing." Very much like beauty, massacre too appears to be in the eye of the beholder.

 

Good old Moses was a windbag. Any editor could have told him his ten commandments were nine too many. All he needed to carve was a single brief positive statement: "Be kind," or "Behave decently." A kind person does not go around lying, thieving, killing and coveting asses. It wouldn’t even occur to a decent man to massacre defenseless women and children, unless of course he is ordered to do so by his religious leaders.

 

Man is a reasonable being and armed with that conviction he feels fully qualified to behave in an unreasonable manner.

 

An Armenian writer writing for Armenians will say Turks are bloodthirsty savages. A Turkish writer writing for Turks will say Armenians are lying giaours. I consider it a waste of time reading both. I’d much prefer to read a writer who writes as a human being as opposed to a member of a club, tribe, nation or race. As a human being I know that some Turks risked their lives to save Armenians, others were against it (genocide) and still others had nothing to do with it.

 

I am suspicious of all talk of patriotism or love of country that masks a specific political agenda or partisan platform. Such love always implies hatred not only of the enemy (some of whom may well be friends) but also friends who don’t share the same agenda or platform. Partisan patriotism is an oxymoron with the emphasis on the last two syllables.

[ara baliozian]

NOTES / COMMENTS

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If one does not make one’s mistakes when young, one is bound to make them when old with far more catastrophic consequences. The problem with me is that after committing my share of blunder when young, I keep committing many more when old: as a boy I wanted to be a writer; as an old man I have become an Armenian writer.

 

What is Armenianism? As soon as it is defined it will become clear that there is a great deal of humbuggery in it.

 

You cannot be a member of an Armenian political party and be committed to democratic principles, in the same way that you cannot be a bordello madam and be a virgin.

 

A bishop once wrote me a letter in which he said he had been forced into early retired by fornicating rascals who call themselves bishops. The letter ended by blessing me for my crusade.

An Oriental carpet dealer once phoned saying I was absolutely right in my low opinion of Oriental carpet dealers.

I can truly say therefore that some of my best friends are bishops and Oriental carpet dealers.

 

Some Armenians remind me of Turks without a yataghan, but according to Zarian, an Armenian’s tongue can be sharper and cut deeper than a Turk’s yataghan.

 

When two crooks get together they call each other men of honor.

 

When it comes to political corruption, graft, prostitution, homosexuality, massive unemployment, electoral fraud, mass exodus, substance abuse, and a thousand other problems, our chauvinists claim we are like the rest of mankind; but in every other respect, we are superior.

[ara baliozian]

REFLECTIONS

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Inmates should not be in charge of the asylum. Flies should not teach eagles how to fly. And Armenians should not speak of the lessons of history when they have themselves failed to learn the most important lesson of history: namely, a house divided against itself is destined to lose.

 

What if existence, life, death, space and time are only a handful of concepts among countless others which our mind is not equipped to grasp?

 

If war is a product of hatred and greed it’s because entire generations were brought up to view hatred and greed as patriotic duties.

 

Sometimes petty annoyances are harder to bear than great tragedies whose weight makes them appear inevitable as if ordained by God or the invisible forces of the universe.

 

All persecuted minorities and victims tend to view freedom as the freedom to persecute and victimize.

 

Somewhere someone may discover a method of communication that will eliminate all possibility of misunderstanding; but so far and throughout our millennial history such a one has not yet made an appearance among us or anywhere else for that matter.

[ara baliozian]

WHY I AM NOT A PESSIMIST

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By writing I hope to change the world.

I know this to be an illusion on my part

but I go on writing.

Notwithstanding the fact that so far

I have failed to change the mind of a single partisan or priest,

I go on writing in the hope that some day

I may hit on the right combination of words and ideas

that will connect.

I know this to be another illusion

but I go on writing in the hope that

the invisible forces of history and the universe

will combine to create the kind of fertile soil

in which ideas may germinate into actions.

If this is another illusion, so be it!

[ara baliozian]

ON A FAMILIAR ARMENIAN ABERRATION

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++==

Like all perennial losers we are paranoiacs; and like all paranoiacs we see conspiracies in every dark corner and locked room. Conspiracies are a fact of history and present-day reality, of course, but we see them even when the only evidence we can produce is rooted in our fertile imagination.

I speak from experience.

I have readers, even friends and relatives, who are convinced I am not what I pretend to be but a secret agent in league with the devil, all because I hold a mirror up to them and they don’t like what they see there.

I have been accused of Tashnag membership or sympathies by Ramgavars and vice versa, all because I count among my friends members of both parties.

Both Anteliassagans and Etchmiadznagans have called me a paid agent of the Vatican, all because I once identified myself as a Catholic.

Armenians know (though, when it suits them, they pretend not to know) that an Armenian writer cannot survive without the financial support of a political party or power structure, and since I have been a full-time writer for almost thirty years now and have also been consistently critical of all our institutions, they assume I must have the support of some nefarious entity from hell.

So far I have not been accused of being, like Gostan Zarian, a mezzo-gigolo (he married the daughter of an American banker) perhaps because I am single. But I suspect even if I were to marry an orphan without a single penny to her name, I shall be accused of marrying money.

[ara baliozian]

RANDOM THOUGHTS

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What could be more innocent and even patriotic than to say, "Our homeland is our only hope for survival. I see no future in the Diaspora." But I believe condemning the Diaspora to irrelevance amounts to committing genocide by other means and committing genocide comes naturally to all Ottomanized Armenians.

 

As an alienated Armenian, I speak in the name of alienated Armenians everywhere, which means I speak in the name of the vast majority, and my message is as follows: Those who alienated us may consider themselves as representatives of the nation but they are nothing of the kind: what they are is a trashy collection of bunglers, windbags and wheeler-dealers who have been successful only in dividing the nation and alienating the majority.

 

My ideas are not mine; they belong to the world of ideas, some of which are as old as mankind. If they seem strange to you it may be because you have not allowed them to register on your consciousness.

 

If you say I am wrong, I may ascribe it to my failure to make my position clear.

If you say I am a bad writer, I may accept that as a challenge and try harder.

If you give me advice on how and what to write, I may ask you to prove that you are yourself capable of producing a single honest line.

But if you try to silence me, I shall have to inform you that you are barking up the wrong tree, in the wrong orchard, and on the wrong continent.

[ara baliozian]

FROM MY NOTESBOOKS

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It has become obvious that my critics and I have been traveling on different roads: I, on the road of our dissidents, and they, on the road of our chauvinist propagandists.

 

There are crooks and there are honest men, but they are few and far between, Far more numerous are the crooks who have successfully brainwashed themselves into believing they are honest men.

 

Voicing morally superior sentiments is not the same as being morally superior. If it were, every sermonizer would be a saint.

 

Let the Turks deny our genocide all they want, but let us not deny the humanity of our fellow men because that would be genocide by other means.

 

When an Armenian speaks about Armenia and says the same things as Hitler did when he spoke about Germany, I have every reason to smell a rat and to say there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.

 

Where there are commissars of culture, there will be no culture.

 

Writers like Abovian and Zarian believed in their ability to change things – or rather, in the power of words and ideas to change our perception of reality. Today’s writers and scholars believe in one thing only: taking care of number one.

 

For our bosses and bishops, literature has only one purpose: to cover up their lies, and to misrepresent their blunders as triumphs of statesmanship.

[ara baliozian]

ARMENIAN WISDOM

+++++++++++++++++++++

Anonymous: "A thousand friends are too few, one enemy is too many."

 

Raffi: "Even those among us who have taken it upon themselves to educate the people

are nothing but uneducated ignoramuses."

 

Karekin Nejdeh: "To struggle in defense of what is right is not a calamity but a blessing."

 

Krikor Zohrab: "Oppression corrupts everything it touches,

including the highest moral virtues."

 

Yeznig Palig: "A hungry vegetarian can be as dangerous as any carnivore."

 

Derenik Demirjian: "Every Armenian has another Armenian whom he considers his mortal enemy."

 

Anonymous: "The drowning man has no fear of rain."

 

Ruben Ter-Minassian: "Our cultural achievements and intellectual abilities may be superior to those of our neighbors, but without solidarity we are bound to be defeated, victimized, and exterminated."

 

Karekin Nejdeh: "Undermining the morality of a nation amounts to undermining its strength."

 

Anonymous: "Sugar may be sweet but bread is better."

 

Yeghishe: "Solidarity is the mother of good deeds, divisiveness of evil ones."

 

Gostan Zarian: "Greater wisdom imposes a greater strain upon a man."

 

Neshan Beshigtashlian: "Suicide: the brave deed of a coward."

 

Puzant Granian: "We have many national benefactors but not a single national writer."

 

Anonymous: "In his own home a mouse is a lion."

 

Raffi: "It is not unusual for the wise to be misled by wisdom. Sometimes what is needed is audacity verging on madness."

 

Gostan Zarian: "A man is rich to the degree that he has enriched life. A man is creative to the degree that he has made a contribution to the re-creation of the universe."

 

Yervant Odian: "Man has good as well as bad instincts, but the bad have a longer life span than the good."

 

Anonymous: "Hope for the best but be prepared for the worst."

 

Anonymous: "Trust a new friend as much as you would trust an old enemy."

 

Anonymous: "Only God gives without expecting anything in return."

 

Anonymous: "If you say what you want to say, you will hear what you don’t want to hear."