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

[ara baliozian]

REQUIEM

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

A nation whose merchants are kings

and whose poets are paupers

is a nation in league with the devil.

A community that glorifies its men of action

and ignores its men of contemplation

might as well be brain dead.

There is only one thing to be said

about a tribe whose Oriental carpet dealers and hooligans speak as if they were princes

and whose philosophers…

what philosophers?

Make it: whose last philosopher

lived and died more than a thousand years ago –

a philosopher, moreover, none of whose ideas or lines is quoted or discussed…:

there is only one thing to be said about such a tribe,

and that’s

Der Voghormia,

Der Voghormia,

Der Voghormia.

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, March 27, 2002

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

On the day one of our hooligans agrees with me

it will be because either

a miracle has taken place and he has seen the light

or I am on the wrong path.

But since miracles are extremely rare occurrences in our context

and when they happen they are invariably of the negative variant –

that is: a minor individual blunder

turns into a major collective disaster

(like the Ottoman Bank caper at the turn of the century in Istanbul

which resulted in the massacre of 5000 innocent civilians),

the chances are,

if a hooligan agrees with me,

it will be because I have taken the wrong turn.

Which is why I feel much more comfortable

when our hooligans disagree with me;

I feel even better

when they go down into the gutter

because that’s exactly where they belong.

[ara baliozian]

ON THE HUMAN CONDITION

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

Honest men don't need to join a movement to do the right thing in the

same way that the wise don't need an -ism to justify their thoughts and

actions.

#

Christ and Marx: no one questions their good intentions, wisdom and

honesty. And yet, consider the abuses of the Papacy and Stalinism.

#

Speaking of -isms: nationalism, communism, capitalism, Catholicism,

Protestantism, Ottomanism…: history tells us all movements sooner or

later end the in the gutter.

#

There are honest men and there are crooks, and the crooks will always

outnumber the honest, in the same way that fools will outnumber the wise,

and the sheep will outnumber the wolves but both will be outnumbered by

wolves in sheep’s clothing.

#

It makes no difference if the sheep are protected against the wolves by

the shepherd and his sheepdogs, their end will be the same.

#

All violence purports to be counter-violence in the same way that all

hooligans represent themselves as reactions against the hooliganism of

the opposition, with the result that the majority will be doubly

victimized.

#

Armenians have been as much victims of Ottomanism as Armenianism. That’s

because (to paraphrase Lenin on the bourgeois) hooligans will be

hooligans regardless of national identity.

[ara baliozian]

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to

whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism

is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood,

just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have

reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the

mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing

the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused

with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of

their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know?

For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar."

-- Julius Caesar

[ara baliozian]

HOOLIGANS

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

#

"Why Armenian massacres?" a young Armenian-American academic once asked

me: "Did the Armenians commit the massacres?" A strange question, I

thought, coming from an Armenian. But is it? After all the Ottoman Empire

wasn't wholly Ottoman in view of the fact that Armenians and

half-Armenians (among them Sultan Abdulhamid II) played a central role in

it as soldiers, administrators, advisers, educators, architects, and so

in….

#

Our conscious memory is different from our subconscious memory. Which

means that when we do things that we don't quite understand, we may be

reacting to events that our conscious mind buried in our subconscious.

#

Nobody has ever won an argument with commissars because arguing with them

is a one way street at the end of which stands a killer (where commissars

are commissars) or a barrage of insults (where ex-commissars are

hooligans).

#

It has been said that forgiveness can be a spiritual victory. I am not

sure about that. Forgiving commissars can also mean legitimizing

hooliganism.

#

Some of my friends think I am wasting my time writing against hooligans,

and that if I were to translate more works of Armenian literature into

English I would be enhancing our prestige in the eyes of the

English-speaking world. But I have every reason to suspect that even a

thousand Armenian literary masterpiece translated into English will

enhance nothing so long as our hooligans remain in charge of our destiny.

[ara baliozian]

ENIGMA

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

To explain and justify his hatred of some Armenians,

one of our elder statesmen (a Ph.D.)

once confided in me:

"Some Armenians are not Armenians but Turks."

"You mean they are Ottomanized Armenians," I said.

"No! I mean Turks. Pure-blooded Turks. Turks on both sides.

Turkish agents. Professionals who identify themselves as Armenians,

who speak Armenian fluently,

who know more about us than we do,

and who occupy key positions in our organizations."

"What organizations?" I wanted to know.

"All kinds – religious, cultural, political, philanthropic –"

"Philanthropic too? Whatever for?"

"To undermine their integrity, their ultimate goal being

the destruction of the Armenian Diaspora.?

"Do you know these people, can you identify them?"

"Of course!"

"Why don't you expose the bastards?"

"And who will believe me? Do you?"

"I am not sure. Some hard evidence would help…."

"What kind of evidence? Documents?

They can forge all the documents they need

and by the time they are through they may prove I am a Turk."

Maybe so, I remember to have thought.

But what if these gentlemen are in fact Armenians

without a single drop of Turkish blood in their veins?

How to explain their Ottomanized ways?

Their cynicism, opportunism, greed, venom,

their feuds and suicidal policies

that might as well be formulated in Ankara?

Neshan Beshigtashlian’s answer is as good as any, I guess:

"An Armenian is an enigma that refuses to be solved."

But what if Beshigtashlian too was a Turk?

[ara baliozian]

IFS AND WHYS

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

If I were to recycle crap,

who would be remotely interested in my product

except perhaps dealers in horse manure?

Why would I join a chorus of braying jackasses

if I can sing solo?

If I were to sermonize like a bishop or speechify like a boss,

would anyone take me seriously?

If I were to echo your sentiments and thoughts,

why would you waste your time reading me?

If I were to say "Yes, sir!" to whatever

our mini-sultans and neo-commissars say,

who would have any use for another brown-noser?

[ara baliozian]

SOMEDAY, SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE

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

Someday, someone, somewhere

will write an objective history of Armenia,

but until then I will trust our version of our past

as much as I trust the Turkish version of their own past,

or, for that matter,

the Palestinian, Israeli and Patagonian versions

of their own past.

Someday historians will view historiography

neither as propaganda of the victor

nor as the consolation of the loser.

But until then I will view all historians

as prejudiced witnesses – all except dissident historians:

those who adopt a critical stance

towards their own official version of history,

and critical to the point of being labeled

hostile by their own peers – historians

like Spengler and Toynbee ("anti-West)

and Gibbon ("anti-Christian").

Someday I would like to read a book on Armenian history

in which no effort is made to flatter our collective ego,

because flattery promotes arrogance

and arrogance, by overestimating our own powers

and underestimating those of the opposition,

may be said to be the source of all political blunders,

military defeats, massacres and genocides.

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, March 31, 2002

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

#

Ottoman crimes: we have published hundreds of books and thousands of

articles about them. Perhaps what we now need is a little book about our

own blunders.

#

The Turks quote me? What nonsense! Some of their ablest scholars are

Armenians.

#

The greatest distance in the universe is that which exists between an

Armenians words and his actions.

#

If your line of work is being a scourge of humbugs and a nemesis to

baloney artists, you will never join the ranks of the unemployed.

#

There is a difference between what works and what sounds good, and what

sounds good seldom works.

#

It never fails: as soon as I run out of things to say, God sends me a

hostile reader whose arrogance and stupidity illustrate and dramatize

everything I have been saying and which stimulates me to keep buggering

on.

#

And then there is the Armenian who thinks his patriotism allows him to

call your mother a whore. And let’s not forget the former Stalinist who

calls West-Armenian scholars "filth." Verbal venom as a form of

exorcising the demons of Ottomanism and Bolshevism: a virgin field

pregnant with possibilities!

[ara baliozian]

LATER [31 March, 2002]

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

#

My 1992/LAROUSSE informs me, the French word "hermine" (ermine in

English: meaning, a species of weasel whose winter white fur is highly

valued) comes from the Latin Armenius mus = Armenian rat).

#

Any fool can contradict an argument, and most fools do, but even the

wisest man cannot contradict reality without making a fool of himself.

#

Nigoghos Sarafian: "Our history is a litany of lamentation, anxiety,

horror, and massacre. Also deception and abysmal naiveté mixed with the

smoke of incense and the sound of sacred chants."

#

I have never heard an honest Armenian writer say he has made a single

penny from the royalties of his books, but I have heard many baloney

artists who have said they were donating their royalties to Etchmiadzin.

#

Lies and propaganda should be exposed not contradicted.

[ara baliozian]

DANGEROUS IDIOTS

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

A useful idiot, according to Lenin,

is one who supports a regime because

he is taken in by its propaganda.

A dangerous idiot is one who identifies a regime

with the homeland without realizing that

doing so amounts to identifying Russia with Stalin,

Germany with Hitler,

Italy with Mussolini,

and Spain with Franco.

If a regime is corrupt (and most regimes are

because power corrupts)

it becomes the patriotic duty of each citizen

to oppose it, which is what Thomas Mann did in Germany,

Alexander Solzhenitsyn in Russia,

Antonio Gramsci in Italy,

and Pablo Casals in Spain.

Regimes are ephemeral things here today, gone tomorrow;

but the homeland (the people, the culture, the real estate)

will continue to exist long after the regime

has been cast into the dustbin of history.

Listen to Axel Bakounts (1899-1937) on this very subject:

"Revolution? Socialism? -- they are just passing phenomena,

a period when history is suffering from the flu,

so to speak, a temporary ailment,

after which, all the dead cities will come to life again

from under the ashes."

If the Soviet flu has become the post-Soviet double pneumonia

it may be because our dangerous diasporan idiots

have been supporting the regime

and they have done so because they have confused

and continue to confuse the victims with their victimizers.

[sen_Vahan]

A useful idiot, according to Lenin,

is one who supports a regime because

he is taken in by its propaganda.

 

Let me guess: Did he mean Bol'shevik Propaganda? I think he did, and if not then he prooved to be a great idiot.

 

A dangerous idiot is one who identifies a regime

with the homeland without realizing that

doing so amounts to identifying Russia with Stalin,

Germany with Hitler,

Italy with Mussolini,

and Spain with Franco.

If a regime is corrupt (and most regimes are

because power corrupts)

it becomes the patriotic duty of each citizen

to oppose it, which is what Thomas Mann did in Germany,

Alexander Solzhenitsyn in Russia,

Antonio Gramsci in Italy,

and Pablo Casals in Spain.

 

Do I understand right that the opinions of Mann-s, Solgenitsin-s,...., are some kind of indicators about the regime? Solgenitsin is now living in Russia and it is not his patriotic duty to oppose today's regime there.(except some critics about social topics) So, what is that, he hopes or he is tired to oppose? Or maybe the regime in Russia today is not corrupt??

 

Thank you,

Vahan

[ara baliozian]

THE POSITIVE AND THE NEGATIVE

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

Whenever I am accused of being a negative or destructive critic,

I am reminded of the African tribal chieftain who,

when asked to define good and evil,

is reported to have replied (according to C.G. Jung):

"When I steal my enemy’s wives it’s good;

but when he steals mine, it’s evil."

 

When Gandhi called the British Empire "a satanic force,"

and Churchill returned the compliment

by calling Gandhi "a naked fakir,"

were they being positive or negative?

I suppose like so much else in life, positive and negative too

are in the eye of the beholder.

 

When at the turn of the century

the Turks said the only good Armenian is a dead Armenian

and our revolutionaries returned the compliment,

did any one of them stop to reflect

whether they were being positive or negative?

 

When Raffi called our merchant class the scum of the earth,

was he being positive or negative?

And when Shahnour said,

"The enemy is not the Turks but us,"

and Zarian echoed this sentiment by saying,

"Armenian survive by cannibalizing one another,"

were they being positive or negative?

 

There is effective criticism and ineffective criticism,

and Armenian criticism from Khorenatsi in the Middle Ages

to Massikian in our own days

has been ineffective because our bosses, bishops, and benefactors

have raised a thick wall between themselves and literature

so that no idea has ever been successful in penetrating their thicker

skulls.

 

Voltaire’s, Rousseau’s and Marx’s criticism

(of the Church, the Monarchy and capitalism)

produced revolutions that changed the map of the world.

By contrast, our criticism has produced only hooligans

parading as commissars of culture.

 

Am I being positive or negative now?

If you support the status quo,

you will call me negative, and worse,

an enemy of the people – which is what

Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco called

anyone who dared to disagree with them,

among them Solzhenitsyn, Mann, Gramsci,

Lorca, Casals, Bunuel, Bakounts, Zabel Yessayan,

Mahari, and I could go on and on….

 

I suspect if I were to ask one of our hooligans or commissars

to define positive and negative

or constructive and destructive criticism,

and if he were as sincere as the African tribal chieftain

quoted above, he would say:

"If I crap on you,

I am being positive;

but if you refuse to kiss my ass,

you are being negative."

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, April 02, 2002

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

#

In one of our weeklies I read the following headline: "All-Armenia Fund

Raises $5,4 Million in Diaspora Aid to Armenia in 2001." Someday I also

hope to read a headline that announces how much of this aid reached its

destination.

#

You want to love Turks? Try to reason with one of our killer-commissars.

#

The insults of an anonymous coward have as much effect on me as the venom

of a cobra in India.

#

You cannot solve the problems of a nation that views its vices as

virtues. To our partisans our political parties are destined to save the

nation and not (as our critics have asserted) to reinforce and legitimize

our tribalism and fragmentation.

#

Eric Hoffer: "Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many."

#

When asked what I do for a living, I am tempted to reply, "I am in the

business of being misunderstood."

"Any money in that?"

"None whatever, but plenty of insults -- Turkish insults: because when an

Armenian insults, he insults like a Turk!"

[ara baliozian]

THE POSITIVE AND THE NEGATIVE / #2

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

If you take the bus to work every day

or if you rely on regular mail delivery,

you take bus drivers and mailmen for granted –

until they go on strike.

If you watch the telly every day,

you take your TV set for granted –

until it breaks down.

It is the negative that makes us aware of the positive;

which is why Socrates once defined pleasure

as the absence of pain.

Something similar happens with writers.

Who would read me if I were to write

about the eternal snows of Mount Ararat?

Not even my friends.

But even my enemies read me

if I say anything remotely critical or negative.

And that’s why our political, religious, and cultural institutions

are now in the business of supporting literature,

but only a literature that has been neutered

and thoroughly sterilized.

In the Soviet Union our ablest writers were shot;

in the Diaspora they were silenced

(they shoot only horses here).

The result has been the same:

the corruption of literature,

the prostitution of writers,

and the castration of free speech.

A dead end.

[ara baliozian]

THE SINAN PHENOMENON

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

Most encyclopedias, including the French-language LAROUSSE,

identify Sinan as a Turk, in the same way that

they identify Saroyan as an American writer

and Khachatourian as a Soviet composer.

In their own biographies and reference works

Turks themselves prefer to identify him as a Greek,

but then the Turks will say anything to sever their ties

with Armenians and to pretend they never existed.

But to me, Sinan’s Armenian identify is as important

as the ease with which he was Ottomanized

and the loyalty with which he served his Ottoman masters.

As a victim of the devshirme system of taxation

(in which children replaced money)

Sinan had little or no choice in the matter, of course.

But what about so many others who had a choice

and freely renounced their Armenianism?

Cases in point: the Sovietized Mikoyan brothers,

the Hollywoodized Mamoulian,

the Frenchified Henri Troyat,

and the Russified Nina Berberova.

And let’s not forget Calouste Gulbenkian,

only a tiny fraction of whose wealth (about 5% I think)

has been earmarked for Armenians.

It is as if to be somebody in this world

and to realize one’s full potential,

an Armenian had no choice but to extricate himself

from the swamp of Armenianism

and to be born again as an odar.

What would have happened to Sinan

if he had not been Ottomanized,

or to Saroyan if he had written in Armenian?

Who would have heard of them?

Even more to the point:

Why is it that in our environment

one is not allowed to achieve excellence?

Is it because we are at the mercy

of cynical opportunists without vision

whose greatest enemy is excellence

because excellence may expose their nullity?

[ara baliozian]

You are right about Lenin

but wrong about Mann and Solzhenitsyn. / ara

[ara baliozian]

DOES THAT RING A BELL?

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

Very early this morning I heard an African economist deliver the

following lines on the radio: "The world owes nothing to Africa…Economic

help should be coupled with reforms…African governments are corrupt…In

the past, economic assistance has been extended even to leaders who

commit atrocities against their own people…."

#

"Man cannot create a single worm, yet he has created ten thousand gods."

Also a hundred thousand lies and for every lie millions have died: lies

of ideology; lies of nationalism; lies of patriotism; "my killer is a

freedom fighter, your killer is a terrorist."

#

My first reaction to critics of Armenia and Armenians is not to dismiss

them as liars and hirelings of Turks (even when they happen to be felons

like Weems) but to see how much truth there is in what they are saying.

After all, even a broken down clock shows the right time at least once

every twelve hours.

#

After many years of hard work you reach a certain position in life and

you spend the rest of it trying to maintain it. One of the great things

about being an Armenian writer is that you are very secure in your

position because, as the lowest of the low, it is impossible to go

anywhere else but up.

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, April 04, 2002

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

No use trying to explain, amplify, annotate, enlighten and provide a

bibliography to someone who has programmed himself to misunderstand not

only your views and facts but also your commas, semicolons, and periods.

#

Fools are a universal phenomenon. Every nation, tribe, village and

neighborhood has its share. But the Ottomanized and Sovietized Armenian

is a species unto itself.

#

Why is it that some of my readers equate being a good Armenian with being

a nasty human being?

#

In his memoirs titled MY TEACHERS, Moushegh Ishkhan discusses Oshagan,

Zarian, Shant, and Adonts, among others. At one point he quotes Adonts to

the effect that Siamanto was a far greater poet than Varoujan: "There

will come a time," Adonts is quoted as having said, "when Varoujan may be

forgotten but Siamanto’s worth will be enhanced." Poor Adonts and poor

Ishkhan. It probably never even occurred to them that there may come a

time when such controversies will be abandoned, forgotten, ignored and

buried never to rise again.

[ara baliozian]

ENFER DE MERDE

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

The Turks quote me?

When a Jewish writer

says anything remotely critical of Jews or Israel,

his fellow Jews tell him:

"If Hitler were alive today,

he would love reading you!"

And how do Turks react to their own critics?

I don't know, but if I were to guess,

I would say they call him an "Ermeni pij."

But then, they call anyone they don't like

an Armenian bastard.

Perhaps one of these days

Armenians, Turks and Jews should get together

and declare themselves beyond criticism;

either that or deal with their critics

the way Stalin did with his.

And judging by the depth of their hatred,

I wouldn't be surprised if my Ottomanized and Sovietized critics

dream of doing exactly that in a future Armenia –

all in the name of patriotism, of course!

When a mad dog bites, it hurts.

The fact that it’s only a dog,

and a mad one at that,

is no consolation. If it were,

we would dismiss the Genocide

as the action of mad dogs and forget about it.

Whenever I am asked

if I plan to establish myself in my beloved homeland,

I am reminded of the Irish writer

who is quoted as having said:

"Ireland is a good place to die."

Writing for Armenians

is a good way to starve,

and while starving,

to wallow in an enfer de merde.

[ara baliozian]

Friday, April 05, 2002

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

#

I don't consider old age a privilege,

except when I think of today’s youth.

#

It is always reassuring to have the disagreement of an imbecile.

#

If one is willing to learn, one can learn even from one’s enemies.

#

I am against capital punishment:

if only murderers agreed with me.

#

In Greece, where I grew up

Greeks called Armenians "Turkish gypsies."

For a long time I couldn't understand why.

But I do now.

#

The hidden message of an insult:

I have nothing to contribute to this exchange

but verbal pollution.

 

#

When two fools strike up a friendship,

their first and most important priority is

to convince each other they are smart.

[ara baliozian]

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

Saturday, April 06, 2002

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

#

Do you want to know how it feels to serve vegetarian dishes

to a warlike tribe of starving cannibals? Be an Armenian writer.

 

#

I love this quote by John Milton. If I could I would place it at the

beginning of everything I write and on the walls of all our editors and

managers of book distribution centers:

"Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature; but he who destroys a good

book kills reason itself."

#

If I continue to be read it's not because I am original, brilliant, or

deep, but because I say things publicly most of my readers say only

privately for the simple reason that they have no desire to expose

themselves to the venom of our bigots. I say this because with extremely

minor exceptions, those who agree with me prefer to do so in

private. If, among us, freedom of speech is easily confused with insults

and threats, it's because decent Armenians are afraid to confront our

killer-commissars and say: "You, my friend, are not what you claim to be

but an impostor and there is no flag big enough to cover your nakedness."

#

Advice to a young writer:

Even if you were to write with the wisdom of Socrates and the compassion

of Jesus Christ, there is no guarantee that you shall escape the hemlock

or the cross. But if you write as most writers do, don't be surprised

if you are dismissed as an idiot by idiots, a jerk by jerks, and a

Turcophile by Turkish gypsies parading as commissars of culture.

[ara baliozian]

TIT FOR THAT

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

Since I have written several hundred essays against hooliganism,

Stalinism, racism, and fascism, I have been called a hooligan by

hooligans, a Stalinist by Stalinists, a racist by racists and a fascist

by fascists.

#

I am against all kinds of isms, including, and above all, tribalism, also

capitalism, communism, nationalism, patriotism, and pacifism. I am

against patriotism because I consider it an extension of nationalism, and

to say my nationalism and patriotism are good, and my enemy’s nationalism

and patriotism are bad, makes no sense. And because I make sense, fools

call me a fool.

#

And now allow me to explain why I am against pacifism.

Pacifists exist today because others have died in order to allow them to

be pacifists. Because pacifists know that others will go on fighting for

them to defend their right to be pacifists. Because to be surrounded by

bloodthirsty warlike tribes and be a pacifist amounts to dropping your

pants and bending over. Pacifists are pacifists because they have not yet

found a cause in which they believe enough to kill and die. Because if

pacifists have had their way, we would now be subjects of fascist regimes

and would now be communicating in Russian, German, or perhaps even

Japanese, and I find the idea of learning still another language

unbearably burdensome…and I dream of the day when others will learn my

mother tongue; and I dream of a heaven in which people will identify

themselves as human beings and that will be the end of all isms.

[ara baliozian]

Monday, April 08, 2002

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

#

The very same people who believe

the final solution to the Middle East problem is another Final Solution,

also assert the Final Solution is Zionist propaganda.

#

If ignorance is bliss, give me misery.

#

Patriotism is the first refuge of our rascals.

#

From the cradle of civilizations, empires, and religions,

the Middle East has become the garbage dump of internecine tribal feuds.

#

Reality is an equal opportunity nemesis:

sooner or later we must all come face to face with it.

To the ignorant, this confrontation will be their worst nightmare.

#

You can take an Armenian out of the Ottoman Empire and the USSR

but you can't take the Sultan and Stalin out of him.

#

Democracies are the last refuge of fascists.

#

There are those who hate Hitler because

his Final Solution wasn't final enough.

Our killer-commissars have made it clear to me that

they feel the same way about Talaat whenever they read me.

[ara baliozian]

TURKS AND ARMENIANS

 

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

 

A gentle reader writes:

"Why is it that you criticize Armenians

but you never criticize Turks?"

Because Turks have their own critics.

Because I want to clean up the garbage in my own backyard before I start working on someone else’s.

Because we have full-time professional assacrists

(Genocide scholars) who specialize in kicking Turkish ass.

Because my audience is Armenian not Turkish.

Because we have already produced a mountain of criticism against the Turks without any discernible results.

Come to think of it,

we have produced a bigger mountain of criticism

against our own bosses, bishops and benefactors

without any results either, which may suggest that Armenian criticism, regardless of its targets, is an exercise in futility.

And any day now I expect one of my readers

to criticize me by saying:

"If you are an Armenian, as you claim to be,

why is it that you don't have a Cyrano de Bergerac nose?"

And did you know that Cyrano de Bergerac’s

real name was Giragos?…

I forget his last name: Balderbajakhian…I think;

I am not sure…can someone help me?