as i see it (cont.) - Pt. II

[ara baliozian]

TEST

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

To test my loyalty as a Canadian citizen,

a loudmouth coworker once demanded of me:

"If Canada were to declare war against Rumania…or is it Aramaea?"

"Armenia," I corrected him.

"Whatever….Would you be willing to fight?"

To which I remember to have replied:

"If I were to say, yes, of course I would be more than willing to invade

Armenia and slaughter my fellow countrymen, I assume I would then qualify

as a good Canadian in your eyes. But my question to you is, Would I also

qualify as a decent human being?"

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, March 07, 2002

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

Forgiving others has never been a problem with me;

forgiving myself, that’s a different story.

I doubt if I will ever be able to forgive myself

for allowing some of our wolves

(also jackals and hyenas) in sheep’s clothing

to deceive me into thinking

they were human beings open to reason,

thus lending them some degree of respectability

and indirectly contributing to man’s inhumanity to man in general

and to Armenian Ottomanism in particular.

[ara baliozian]

7 March, 2002 / P.M.

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

Until the advent of the internet

Armenian writers confined their expressions of disappointment in their

fellow Armenians to diaries or letters to friends.

This is as true of Daniel Varoujan

(who once referred to our clergy in a letter to a friend

as "a nest of vipers")

to Gostan Zarian (who wrote in his posthumously published diary:

"Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another").

In this connection perhaps I should also quote

Baruir Massikian’s famous last words.

When asked by an Armenian delegation

to leave his money to Armenian foundations,

Massikian, (who, in addition to being

one of the most brilliant satirists in modern Armenian literature,

was also a wealthy lawyer),

is quoted as having replied:

"I'd rather leave it to a Cairo bordello."

One of my young readers writes:

"You must be living among some unusual Armenians

because the Armenians I know

are nothing like the ones you write about."

But what about the Armenians of Raffi,

Baronian, Voskanian, Odian, Zarian,

Varoujan, Shahnour, and Massikian?

[sen_Vahan]

To Ara Baliozian/ How about the Armenians of Raffi, Paronyan, Otyan, Massikyan,...? The faith of all these writers was very similar to the faith of their nation. Yes, we are all close-minded, as many outsiders say, but so are these writers. No? Who knows today Raffi, Paronyan, Otyan,... except Armenians(some of us do not even know them)? Maybe they were thinking about the Armenians and Armenia too much? What was the subject for Raffi, for example?Armenia, its history. Being perhaps very intelligent he was writing only about the Armenians and Armenia. I am not sure that some non-Armenian would like them. And I do not know ANY non-Armenian who reads Raffi or Otyan. Really, who cares about them, about that "narrow-minded" intelligents caring only about own nation. And the problem is that they did it without any great love to the nation, to its spirit(or maybe they did?). That is why I am thinking that they as well as many modern Armenians like only the "idea of Armenia" but not the people. And I am asking you what one should expect from young people being educated on Raffi, Otyan, Massikyan? Many generations in Armenia were educated in such a way , so what? Can we say that at least one of the writers mentioned by you might be considered as "all-Armenian" (although they were writing only about Armenians), as Russians consider for example Pushkin?

Vahan

[ara baliozian]

OPERATION TURKISH COBRA

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

One of the best things that can happen to a man

is the realization that he is fallible,

he doesn't know everything because no one does,

not even the ablest pundit or historian

because the past or reality is a bottomless pit of facts and factors

not all of which can be cited, described,

classified and taken into consideration:

in short, the realization that he is a human being

with an open mind willing to learn from someone else’s experience;

a human being, moreover, who is honest and courageous enough

to confront the unknown

(as opposed to taking refuge in familiar slogans, clichés, and recycled

crap).

The worst thing that can happen to a man is the certainty

that he is smart, he knows, he knows better,

he knows everything he needs to know

because his schoolteachers or parents,

or grandparents or party bosses told him so,

and anyone who dares to disagree with him

must be either an ignoramus or a fanatic and probably both.

When that happens such a man ceases to be human

and such an Armenian turns into a Turk.

I have witnesses this phenomenon so many times

not only with individuals but also institutions

(or rather, representatives of political and religious institutions)

that I feel justified in calling it

the Armenian Routine – or is it Operation Turkish Cobra?

[ara baliozian]

GOOD QUESTIONS

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

In a recently published book

about the children of Nazi leaders titled

MY FATHER’S KEEPER, Stephan Lebert writes:

"What does it mean for this country called Germany

that those responsible for the Third Reich,

and their fellow travellers and accomplices,

to have had children and grandchildren

to whom they have handed on their aggressions,

their cowardice, their capacity for atrocity,

their secrecy and their mechanisms of repression?"

Similar questions could be asked

of the present-day Turkish leadership,

and with some variations, of our own.

What does it mean for our leaders

to have had children and grandchildren

to whom they have handed on their intransigence,

their ignorance of international diplomacy,

their dogmatism and their inability to admit error

and to engage in dialogue,

their secrecy and their intolerance of dissent and criticism?

In short:

What have they learned from the Genocide beside lamentation?

And if a genocide cannot teach them anything, what can?

[ara baliozian]

Writers like Raffi and Baronian and Zarian

are valuable because they make a contribution to our understanding.

the fact that very few people read them means nothing.

Very few people have read Karl Marx,

and yet he changed the political map of the world. / ara

[ara baliozian]

AN HONEST ARMENIAN

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

"As for the 200,000 Artsakhis

who once called Mountainous Karabagh home,

only 100,000 sill live in liberated Artsakh today.

Those who escaped did not do it out of fear of Azeris,

but out of fear of their crazed fellow Artsakhis….

Armed with religious bigotry and raw animal instinct

that has no conscience, no mind, no intellect,

no spiritual consciousness or simple common sense,

these are people at their most primitive animal state.

They can kill with their bare hands,

wash their hands in a brook,

eat khorovadz and have sex afterwards."

I am quoting from a book titled

SAVAGE CHIC: A FOOL’S CHRONICLE OF THE CAUCASUS

by Kardash Onnig (133 pages, Privately printed:

P.O.Box 145, Stanfordville, NY 12581).

Born in the Middle East, now living in New York,

Kardash Onnig is an artist who in 2001

spent five months in Artsakh as an artist-in-residence.

SAVAGE CHIC is a diary, a travelogue, a meditation on what it means to be

an Armenian ("Armenians and Armenian culture continue to evolve…

a traditionalist Armenian is a dead Armenian").

SAVAGE CHIC IS an honest book by an honest Armenian.

When was the last time I wrote such a phrase

(an honest book by an honest Armenian)?

I don't remember.

My guess is, this is the first time.

I urge everyone to read it.

I would like to quote entire pages but that would be unfair to the author

 

and his editor (Ishkhan Jinbashian).

Allow me to conclude with another brief quotation

which speaks volumes:

"I have served children in America,

I have served them in Artsakh,

and I will serve them in Azerbaijan,

with equal love and equal care, as I have loved my own son."

[sen_Vahan]

Exactly, Marx changed the political map of the world. Now, how many people red him: Marxism was one of the most important subjects at all the Soviet Universities and Institutions of Education. I cannot say how many red him but at least much more than Rafii, Paronyan, Otyan,...... taken all together.

They helped us in our understanding of what? What can the close-minded Armenian understand with the help of narrow-minded national intelligents? All those intelligents were the product of Armenianism (sorry for the plagiarism) and the only thing they wrote about (I am again emphasizing it) was Armenia/ns. I guess here is the reason why a non-Armenian doesn't read them.

We are helpless (I mean young people) in that sense, because all our writers and philosophers could and can do is critisizing and sour-cream patriotism. Unfortunately, none tried " to change the political map ".

Of course, we are all close-minded, losers, stupid but look at our intellectuals!

Vahan

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, March 10, 2002

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

1.

If I want to read about deep ideas and noble sentiments

I consult the Scriptures or Plato.

All I ask from an Armenian writer is honesty.

We have too many brilliant intellects

(most of them self-assessed, of course)

but not enough honest men.

Honest men like Kardash Onnig.

2.

After witnessing a confrontation

between a couple of sloppy garbage collectors

and a fastidious old lady in Yerevan,

Kardash Onnig quotes one of the men saying:

"The Turks should have put an end to this Armenian race

when they had the chance."

[sAVAGE CHIC: A FOOL’S DIARY OF THE CAUCASUS, page 22.)

Now, we have all had similar feelings at one time or another,

but how many of us has had the courage to say so?

3.

In the U.S. you have the heroes of September 11

and you also have the bloodsuckers of Enron.

It is the same with us.

With one difference.

Our bloodsuckers continue to be in charge of our destiny.

4.

The only way bloodsuckers can survive and prosper

is by pretending to be more patriotic than the rest of us.

5.

If you mention bloodsuckers in the presence of bloodsuckers,

you can be sure of one thing:

they will accuse you of anti-Armenianism.

[ara baliozian]

Monday, March 11, 2002

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

1.

A man with a big mouth

doesn't need a rope to hang himself

or a shovel to dig his own grave.

2.

To qualify as a chauvinist in the eyes of a chauvinist

not only must you kiss the establishment’s ass but his own.

3.

If you think A

and I think C,

the truth may be in the neighborhood of B

or somewhere beyond Z.

4.

You say you are free

but all I see when I look at you

is the invisible ring in your nose and the harness on your back.

5.

I don't know what’s it like teaching in a kindergarten

but it can't be much different from writing for Armenians.

All children are children but not all adults are adults.

6.

When wolves and jackals rise to the top,

vegetarians have no choice but to avoid them.

Hence, our high rate of assimilation.

7.

Whenever a phony is silenced,

two more take his place.

And I remember one of our elder statesmen’s advice:

"Never explain. Never argue. F*** them!"

To which I remember to have retorted:

You mean I should follow the example of our bosses and bishops?"

[ara baliozian]

MORE QUOTATIONS FROM

KARDASH ONNIG’S "SAVAGE CHIC"

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

"One day Rafig [a war hero] and I took eleven kids, ages six to sixteen,

to a picnic. Rafig told the children the story of how he caught an Azeri

with a mouth full of gold teeth (he always looked for the ones with

plenty of gold teeth), tied the guy down, pulled all his teeth out, gave

him a shovel to dig a deep hole while blood poured out of his mouth, then

smashed his head with the shovel, cracking it open, and buried him in the

hole. The kids all listened with fascination."

***

"…an Armenian-American professor set out to walk from Lachin to Shushi, a

distance that would take two hours to cross by car. Along the way he was

invited to the home of a villager. In conversation the villager, having

gotten quite drunk, began to tell of his heroic war days. And the two got

into some argument about an issue. The Artsakhi got so physically abusive

that the American was forced to take out his mace and spray it on his

face. At that point the villager, blind with rage, asked his wife to get

him a knife and he stuck it into the guest’s stomach and killed him."

***

"Among the guests are 100 or so Diasporans from the United States, the

Middle East and Europe. One after the other, pompous Armenian and

Artsakhi academicians give speeches like orators, and if you listen to

what they are saying it is total bullshit, propaganda and

self-justification, naked lies."

[ara baliozian]

SOLUTIONS

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

Again and again we hear the cliché:

"We know what our problems are.

What we now need is solutions."

When a dishonest man delivers that line,

what he really needs is a solution

that will not expose his charlatanism.

When a chauvinist mouths that cliché,

what he really wants is a solution

that will allow him to continue thinking, feeling, and speaking

like a loud-mouth racist ignoramus.

When a partisan repeats that line,

the only solution that he will find acceptable is

to be told that every Armenian should join his party,

drop his pants, and bend over.

What is a solution?

It is not a chemical compound or a verbal formula

that if applied to our problems

will usher in a new Golden Age.

A solution is an idea and if you are in need of ideas

read Plato or the Scriptures.

Read political scientists, statesmen, thinkers.

There are thousands of ideas out there.

When it comes to ideas we might as well be millionaires

starving in a supermarket.

The only reason that we pretend to be in need

of solutions or new ideas is that

we have allowed ourselves to be brainwashed by fools and fanatics

whose sole aim in life is the acquisition of power

rather than the welfare of the community and the nation.

[ara baliozian]

TOO MANY DEMANDS

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

1.

In the mail today two Armenian weeklies.

In one of them I read an editorial

urging us to read more Armenian poetry.

In the other I read an interview with an Armenian writer

suggesting we organize more literary activities

and lectures by Armenian writers. It seems to me

that’s making too many demands on the community.

All I ask is that we not bury writers when they are alive;

let’s at least have the decency to wait

until they are dead.

2.

Whenever I see the photo of an Armenian writer

in the company of a boss or bishop,

I can't help thinking, "There goes the neighborhood."

3.

The easiest thing in the world

is to locate an expert (and to ignore a thousand others)

who support your views and forever after

to think that you are the alpha and omega of wisdom.

4.

There is a type of loud-mouth arrogant idiot

who will be silenced only by life, that is to say,

the reality principle, that is to say, death.

Words and ideas will have no effect on him.

I believe in Gandhi’s dictum that

"No one is beyond redemption,"

but I am also humble enough to admit that

in the redemption business I happen to be a total failure.

[ara baliozian]

TRIBALISM IN ACTION

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

1.

After our Golden Age and Silver Age

we must now be at the summit of our Garb Age –

and as Zarian suggests somewhere,

it’s not even garbage picked up from our own streets.

In the Homeland we are at the mercy of neo-commissars;

in the Diaspora, mini-sultans.

2.

It is to be noted that

the only time Onnig Kardash mentions Armenian writers

in his diary (SAVAGE CHIC)

is to say that they either promote racism (Zori Balayan)

or they were murdered by their fellow Armenians (Charents, Baruir Sevag).

3.

Another revealing detail from Kardash’s book:

every Armenian tribe thinks of other tribes as second-class citizens.

Armenians in Yerevan view Karabagh Armenians

as descendants of Albanians,

and Karabagh Armenians have

an equally uncomplimentary view of Yerevantsis;

and both view Armenians from the Diaspora as milch cows.

Why should we be surprised if Greeks call Armenians

Turkish gypsies and most odars cannot tell the difference

between Armenians and Rumanians?

4.

The nastier the person

the more pronounced his need for flattery

or everything that will cover up his nastiness.

[ara baliozian]

BEAUTIES

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

In her READING CHEKHOV (New York, 2001),

Janet Malcolm devotes several pages

to a short story titled "The Beauties,"

whose central character is a 16-year old Armenian girl

of such dazzling beauty that

the narrator has a near-death experience.

Writes Chekhov (as quoted by Janet Malcolm):

"Whether it was envy of her beauty,

or that I was regretting that the girl was not mine,

and never would be,

or that I was a stranger to her;

or whether I vaguely felt that her rare beauty

was accidental, unnecessary, and, like everything on earth,

of short duration; or whether, perhaps,

my sadness was that peculiar feeling

which is excited in man

by the contemplation of real beauty, God only knows."

In his SAVAGE CHIC, Kardash Onnig

describes a similar experience in the presence

of a 14-year old Armenian girl by the name of Nora:

"Her eyelashes moved up and down like butterflies," he writes,

"her eyebrows met like Frida Kahlo’s

and she had a soft smile and a voice

that could melt even my heart….

She stood there in the middle of the room

with a proud smile…tears filled my eyes [and]

through my tears I saw an angel thanking me."

And I can't help thinking that

whenever a friend of mine returns

after a visit to the Homeland a born again patriot

eager to dedicate his life to the welfare of his people

he is moved neither by the landscape

nor the deplorable conditions of his fellow countrymen

but by an angelic apparition similar to those

experienced by Chekhov and Kardash.

[ara baliozian]

CLEOPATRA’S NOSE

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

Who or what makes history?

We don't know. Nobody does.

There are many theories, all of them controversial.

If we say history is the will of God unfolding,

then we must ask:

Can a genocide be an expression of God’s will?

If yes, what kind of God are we dealing with?

If God is love, can He will evil?

If we say great men make history,

then what happens if an Oswald guns down a Kennedy?

Does it mean an anonymous misfit today

has as much power to make (or unmake) history

as the most powerful man on earth?

"When destiny has accomplished its purpose in me,"

Napoleon once said, "a fly may suffice to destroy me."

Tolstoy believed history is the accumulation of many invisible forces.

Pascal said Cleopatra’s character

was not as decisive in the making of history

as the shape of her nose.

(Imagine, if you can, a Caesar or an Antony

being seduced by a Cleopatra

with a Karl Malden schnozzle.)

If Helen had been blind in one eye,

what would have been the shape of Greek history and literature

(minus Homer who was blind in both eyes).

The cover of a NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC magazine

may have aroused more world sympathy for Afghan refugees

than all the Afghan warlords put together.

If some day Karabagh becomes an international diplomatic football

and TIME or NEWSWEEK publishes on its cover

the picture of a 14-year old Azeri refugee

with piercing blue-green eyes,

you can kiss Karabagh goodbye!

[ara baliozian]

several readers have asked me where they can get a copy of Kardash's

SAVAGE CHIC. The book was privately printed and no price is mentioned.

Your best bet is to write to

narek.com

or

abrilbooks.com

[ara baliozian]

QUESTIONS

( or DZOUR NESDINK, SHIDAG KHOSINK)

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

1.

Oshagan said:

"Our revolutionaries didn't have a chance because they formed only tiny

islands in an Ottoman sea."

My question is:

Did we have to suffer a genocide to make that earth-shaking discovery?

2.

Zarian said:

"Our political parties have been of no political use to us."

We have been blabbering about Hai Tahd and historic Armenia

for the last hundred years without annexing a single inch of soil.

What are our chances that in the next hundred years

the world will see the light and say:

"Historic Armenia belongs to Armenia!" and the Turks will agree?

3.

If we are smart and Turks are dumb,

why is it that Zohrab (one of the smartest Armenians that every lived)

saved Talaat’s life by risking his own?

4.

If Turks are evil,

why is it that Roupen Sevag said to his German fiancée:

"You don't know Turks. Deep down they are nice folk."

5.

If we didn't have a chance then, do we have one now?

6.

Can we learn from our past blunders without admitting them first?

7.

If we were right and the rest of the world wrong,

do we have the qualifications to reform the world or,

for that matter, the Great Powers and Turkey?

[ara baliozian]

Neither philosophy, nor religion, nor morality, nor wisdom,

nor interest will ever govern nations or parties against

their vanity, their pride, their resentment or revenge, or

their avarice or ambition.

--John Adams

[ara baliozian]

Friday, March 15, 2002

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

1.

Why is it that to most of us,

being right is more important than being fair, or objective, or truthful?

 

2.

When there are two or more theories or explanations,

man will always choose the one that is more flattering to his vanity

even if it is the least plausible.

3.

History as written by ideologues or nationalists

is another way of preaching to the converted.

4.

Where the ego enters, lies are sure to follow.

5.

On the day man learns to think against himself

we will have a better chance to settle differences

by means of dialogue and compromise

as opposed to wars and massacres.

[ara baliozian]

THE GENOCIDE: AS I SEE IT

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

1.

The problem with Genocide historians and historians in general

is that they rely too much on official documents,

diplomatic exchanges, statistics and press reports,

and tend to ignore the complexities and nuances of the real situation --

a situation that was the result of six centuries of coexistence.

 

2.

In Krikor Zohrab’s and Zabel Yessayan’s realistic fiction

and autobiographical writings, for instance,

the educated Turks and the educated Armenians

might as well be interchangeable,

and the Turks appear to be as deeply concerned

about justice and human rights issues as the Armenians.

By contrast, in Voskanian’s, Baronian’s and Odian’s writings,

Armenians are depicted as arrogant, vain,

greedy, and intolerant quasi-Turks.

3.

The Genocide was provoked and perpetrated by outsiders

and more particularly, by Armenians from Tiflis

and semi-Turks from Salonica

whose grasp of the real situation ignored all nuances and complexities;

and what provoked the Turks was not

Armenian demands for human rights but their territorial ambitions.

 

4.

In the Zohrab-Chobanian correspondence,

Chobanian’s warnings from Paris go unheeded.

Like Roupen Sevag, Zohrab was sure in his understanding

of the real situation and the Turkish temperament

(even after the Hamidian massacres of 1894-96 and 1909 massacres

about which he wrote extensively).

 

5.

When Raffi warned (long before the massacres – Raffi died in 1888)

that the Armenians had no future in the Ottoman Empire,

he too was ignored in the same way that Zarian’s warnings

were dismissed by Charents, Zabel Yessayan and Totovents

(all three victims of Stalin’s purges)

as the ravings of a "bourgeois nationalist,"

which suggests that Armenian intellectuals

are as open to dialogue as our political partisans.

[ara baliozian]

HOOLIGANS,

ORIENTAL CARPET DEALERS &

GRANDMOTHERS

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

1.

God save the nation whose hooligans

are commissars of culture (self-appointed),

Oriental carpet dealers are statesmen (self-assessed),

and grandmothers its main source of wisdom.

 

2.

What happens to a commissar of culture

after he is successful in exterminating culture?

It depends:

if he is a Russian, he goes out of business

because the Empire collapses;

if he is an Armenian, he becomes an expert on any given subject

and acquires messianic ambitions.

 

3.

What happened to Armenian literature

after the generation of Oshagan, Zarian, and Shahnour?

To put it more bluntly:

Why are Armenian writers on the list of endangered species,

perhaps even extinct?

Because to be an Armenian writer means

being dependent on the charity of swine

and being exposed to the verbal abuse of hogs.

4.

Why so many grandmother stories?

I once asked Dr. Leo Hamalian, editor of ARARAT Quarterly.

"Because," he explained, "grandmothers have played a central role

in our consciousness."

That explains the general senility of our present state, I thought.

 

5.

Some very strange things happen

when man meets computer:

a partisan turns into Napoleon,

a skinhead sermonizes like a bishop,

a peddler pontificates like a national benefactors,

a prince turns into a toad,

and an Armenian into a Turk –

but never the other way around.

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, March 17, 2002

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

1.

Even a Turk can love another Turk

who agrees with him,

or flatters his vanity,

or kisses his ass….

2.

We are not as smart as we think we are,

and they are not as dumb….

Neither are we as progressive, civilized, tolerant,

Christian, and lovable as we would like or we pretend to be.

3.

A reader comments:

"Your message hasn't changed during the last twenty years

that I have been reading you;

neither has our situation."

The same could be said of the message

of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors;

or sermonizers, speechifiers, and propagandists.

And what about our Genocide and Hai Tahd?

After hundreds of books,

thousands of articles,

and millions of dollars,

how many minds have we been successful in changing

during the last hundred years?

And what about the law of the jungle after

two thousand years of Christianity?

 

4.

To recycle propaganda means

to allow others to do your thinking for you;

which also means

to abdicate your responsibility as a human being

and to repudiate one of the most precious possessions

that God or the forces of the universe

have endowed you: your brain.

[ara baliozian]

BULLIES

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

In their efforts to make me feel as a failure

(as if I were unaware of the fact)

some of my gentle readers enjoy reminding me

that I have failed to changed anything

(as if I didn't have eyes with which to observe

the disaster area that is our collective existence) –

notwithstanding the fact that

I have said again and again that

it is not my intention to change anything;

and if some day a miracle happens and things change,

I will not think that it was as a result of my efforts

and the efforts of far better men than myself

beginning with Movses Khorenatsi….

I write not to change things

but to give our bullies something to think about,

to have second thoughts, so to speak,

to hesitate before they make a spectacle of themselves;

and even if they hesitate for a fraction of a second,

I shall consider my mission accomplished.

That may be a very poor substitute for justice, granted;

but it is better than the total triumph of ignorance over knowledge,

and it is less than the unconditional surrender of honesty to

charlatanism.

To those who say:

"If a bully wants to make an ass of himself in public,

why obstruct his path?

Why do him that favor?

Let him go ahead and make an ass of himself

and let us enjoy the spectacle by having a good laugh!"

Again, I doubt if I have the power to obstruct anyone’s path.

A bully will be a bully

and he will continue to make an ass of himself in public.

All I may succeed in doing is

introducing a tiny worm of doubt in his mind

(if you will forgive the overstatement);

so that next time he insults, threatens, or brags

he may ask himself:

"What if I am exposed as a coward or an ignoramus or a phony?"