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

[ara baliozian]

MEMOS

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

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

TO OUR ENEMIES

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

No need to hate us.

We can do that for you;

and may I assure you that we can do

a much more thorough job.

And no charge.

Completely gratis.

On the house!

 

TO MY ENEMIES

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

No need to read me.

You and I have nothing further to say to each another.

But if you insist on reading me,

may I thank you for allowing me

to annoy the hell out of you.

 

TO A YOUNG WRITER

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

Never argue with someone

who reasons not with his tiny brain

but with his colossal ego.

Never argue with a parrot

who repeats the words of another parrot.

Never argue with the useful idiot

of a defunct totalitarian system,

or the useless idiot of a lunatic fringe.

Arguing with them is like

navigating at night

beneath a starless sky

without a compass.

[ara baliozian]

REPLY TO MY CRITICS

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

"Why do you always criticize Armenians?"

I am asked again and again by irate readers.

"We are a people like any other people.

You make it sound like we are the worst of the bunch!"

I criticize Armenians because we all need critics,

except those who are beyond criticism

(and what they need is not critics

but a kick in the pants –

several of them, as a matter of fact).

I need critics and I have my share of them.

You need critics and you have me.

So quit bitching.

Even the Good Lord has His share of critics.

I have read several Armenian writers

who have criticized Him for not helping us

when we needed Him most.

Perhaps we should define an Armenian

as someone who feels qualified to criticize God

but who considers himself beyond criticism?

[ara baliozian]

REPLY / 2

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

No, I am not Jewish.

Neither do I have a single drop of Jewish blood in my veins.

The only thing that I share with the Bagratunis

(who claimed to be Jewish)

is the first two letters of my surname.

If addicts of conspiracy theories

choose to see something in that

it will be because they specialize in seeing things.

Let them. I for one will not stand in their way.

I defend the Jews because

I find genocidal hatred of them

(be it Nazi or Palestinian) repulsive,

as I find all shades of Western anti-Semitism an abomination;

and I have every reason to suspect

so do our friends the anti-Semites

because they are unanimous in rejecting the label.

They prefer other less offensive labels

which they proceed to explain and justify

by inventing all kinds of reasons

that on closer inspection turn out to be no reasons at all.

The only decent thing about some anti-Semites is that,

when exposed they apologize – two recent cases in point:

Marlon Brando and Billy Graham.

As for the others:

if they want to go back to their vomit, let them.

I for one will not stand in their way.

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, May 16, 2002

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

#

Anyone who writes for thirty years

and expresses his views without beating around the bush

should expect to make enemies.

What bothers me is not the number of my enemies

but their weight, substance, and alcoholic content.

#

Some of my readers attack me

with the arrogance of academics

with a degree in literary criticism from

the Saddam Hussein University in Baghdad

or the Ayatollah Khomeini Institute of Higher Learning of Teheran.

I also have critics with degrees from the University of Selfegome:

an ubiquitous me,

a venomous ego,

and a slithering self.

#

Another reason I no longer read some of my critics is that

my constitution can tolerate only so much daily intake of venom.

#

My impression of most contemporary Armenian writers is that

their greatest concern is finding a good translator,

a dedicated disciple (a moneyed one would be preferable),

and fame (not just Armenian but international).

Nothing could be further from their thoughts

than producing an honest line.

[ara baliozian]

Friday, May 17, 2002

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

#

To those who accuse me of hating Armenians, I ask:

Who else beside your mama loves you?

#

To those who say I don't love Armenians, I say:

Describe ten lovable Armenians

and make it living Armenians, please.

Dead ones are easier to love.

I can myself name more than ten dead ones.

Things get more complicated when it comes to the living.

#

What does the average Armenian have in common

with Imelda Marcos?

Answer: More shoes than friends,

and the friends will probably wear out much sooner.

I speak from experience.

#

More often than not what makes Armenian friends

is not friendship but hatred of a common enemy,

and I don't necessarily mean Turks.

#

An Armenian who is not involved in Armenian affairs

and one who is will be as different as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

even when they happen to be one and the same Armenian.

[ara baliozian]

LATER

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

#

A couple of weeks ago,

a letter to the editor in our local paper said

something to the effect that

religious people are murderous bastards –

Hindus kill Muslims in India (and vice versa),

Muslims kill Jews in the Middle East (and v/v),

Protestants kill Catholics in Ireland (and v/v) and so on.

You don't hear agnostics and atheists

killing one another in the name of their belief systems.

Shortly thereafter there was an angry reaction that said:

"What about Stalin and Hitler?

Were they not atheists?"

No, they were not.

They thought they were gods.

And so did their followers.

#

"Words are loaded pistols," Sartre tells us.

If all wars were conducted verbally,

we would probably be one of the mightiest empires

in the history of mankind.

#

An Armenian comedian has written

a one-man show starring himself titled

"I Am the Most Brilliant Man in the World."

What else is new?

Every other Armenian I meet these days

(and not all of them comedians)

think so too.

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, May 18, 2002

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

#

Those whose main concern is to win an argument

rather than to enhance their understanding

condemn themselves to understand nothing.

#

My loathing of tribalism

(be it Armenian or Arab) is such that

I even loathe those who don't share my loathing for it.

#

Perhaps to be Armenian means to be hated and to hate.

We were hated unto death by the Turks

and we were brought up to hate them.

After which we learned to diversify.

#

Being honest means to be hated by charlatans

(regardless of national origin).

Thinking for yourself means

to be hated by the brainwashed (ditto).

Being open-minded means to be hated by those

who subscribe to a closed system of thought (ditto).

#

"You and I can no longer be friends,"

an angry partisan once told me

when I expressed an anti-partisan opinion.

But perhaps a friendship that cannot withstand a disagreement

was not a friendship to begin with.

#

Perhaps being an Armenian also means

coming to terms with the fact that

you will be hated by a fraction of your fellow Armenians.

And may I add that nothing gives me more pleasure

than being hated by the riffraff;

and nothing gives me more pain

than having their consent or affection.

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, May 19, 2002

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

If you write against tribalism,

every tribe will be against you.

If you write as a moderate,

both the right and left wings will be against you.

If you write as a right- or left-winger,

you will have the other two factions

(the moderates and the opposition) against you.

It’s impossible to please everyone.

And the only time you will please the lunatic fringe is

when you become a member of their club.

And if you write as yourself

without endorsing any group, faction,

ideology or belief system,

the chances are,

everybody will be against you.

Which is where I stand today.

I am not complaining.

I like it.

I work better alone

and I find opposition stimulating.

My final message to all my critics:

If I ever run for office,

please feel free not to vote for me.

[ara baliozian]

Monday, May 20, 2002

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

#

We are a humorless bunch.

That’s another reason why I like Jews.

They are not afraid to make asses of themselves in public.

We prefer to behave like pompous asses.

#

The internet has created a new kind of writer:

the trigger-happy verbal abuser

who thinks he is physically as well as psychologically invulnerable.

A heel who thinks he is Achilles.

A jackass with all four hooves in his mouth.

#

An Armenian writer has as much of a future in an Armenian environment

as a sardine in a pool of hungry sharks.

#

A partisan defending a fellow partisan

is like a wolf defending another wolf

to an audience of sheep.

#

A hundred years ago we were divided.

We remain divided today.

Since we have learned nothing from near extinction,

we may have better luck with total extinction.

[ara baliozian]

THE OTTOMANIZATION OF

CONTEMPORARY ARMENIAN LITERATURE…

AMONG OTHER THINGS…

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

#

To those who say I am too tough on our leaders,

I say, they are even tougher on our writers.

No writer has ever been in a position

to excommunicate, expel, silence, or starve

a boss, bishop, or benefactor;

but where these gentlemen and their assorted flunkies enter,

only brown-nosers survive and prosper.

#

The ambition of an Armenian dialogue

is to become a monologue by silencing the opposition.

The so-called Armenian wound is not a wound

but a contradiction.

#

The challenge an Armenian writer confronts today

is trying to make sense of a world

that refuses to make any sense of him.

He is an anomaly, an eccentric, a useless entity,

and a nuisance to a people

whose history has been a long nightmare of defeat,

oppression, massacre, dispersion, confusion, and alienation.

He is an unwelcome guest who doesn't know when to shut up.

He is a messenger whose tongue must be torn out

because he is the bearer of bad tidings.

Which is why, with extremely rare exceptions,

the biographies of our writers have a common ending:

whenever they were not murdered by foreign tyrants,

they were silenced by our own.

#

We sometimes confuse perseverance in error with principle,

and success in the market place with statesmanship.

Perseverance in error is arrogant obstinacy

("I am right because I say so

and anyone who says otherwise is my enemy");

and success in the market place is

a combination of greed and cunning.

To see more in them is a symptom of ignorance

compounded by subservience:

subservience to anyone with more money or power

(even when he happens to be a moral moron).

[ara baliozian]

ARARAT

 

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

 

Early this morning I heard on Canadian radio (CBC/Toronto) that Egoyan’s ARARAT has been severely criticized for its portrayal of Turks.

I am not surprised.

Like the rest of us, Egoyan too was brought up to believe that, since Turks behaved like bloodthirsty monster, they must be bloodthirsty monsters; and since they continue to deny the Genocide they must be monsters without a conscience, and without conception of right and wrong or true or false.

True or false: is this view of Turks (as reinforced by our genocide scholars) true or false? If true, how do we explain the fact that

we managed to coexist with these monsters for six centuries without assimilating some degree of their ruthless cunning and cruelty?

Another unanswered question: What was it exactly that drove the Turks to behave as they did?

History tells us that even the most westernized and civilized nation on earth (and the Turks were neither) will commit unspeakable crimes when fighting for its very survival, and the Turks were doing exactly that: fighting for their survival not only against a formidable adversary (the Allies) but also such internal enemies as

the Greeks, Arabs, Kurds, and Armenians.

No, I am not justifying the Genocide, only explaining it.

And I want to explain and understand it because I am tired of dedicating a fraction of my daily existence hating Turks.

If we understand what happened we may be in a far better position to come to terms with reality,

with our fellow men (including Turks as well as Armenians) and ultimately with ourselves.

And someday an Armenian director may even produce a film about the Genocide that will make sense to foreign journalists and win universal approval,

very much like Spielberg’s SCHINDLER’S LIST.

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, May 21, 2002

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

#

If an odar does not confuse Armenians

with Rumanians or Aramaeans,

he will be inclined to define Armenians

as a people whose most pronounced feature

is a blanket hatred for Turks.

#

Sometimes we forget that

we don't makes the rules.

Who makes them?

Someone who stand between everybody and nobody;

or maybe there are no rules

and we rely on them because

we are too lazy to understand reality.

#

I look forward to the day

when I will no longer hate my enemies

not because I will be a good Christian

but because to hate means to punish oneself

for someone else’s ignorance, stupidity, or criminal conduct.

#

We tend to resist and reject all ideas

that threaten our inner balance;

and the more violently we reject them

the more serious their threat

or the more precarious our inner balance.

It has happened to me more than once that,

even as I rejected a new idea as a blatant lie,

I allowed it to penetrate my subconscious

to emerge years later as a self-evident truth.

[ara baliozian]

VERBOTEN

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

Never argue with a bishop or mullah

or anyone else who speaks in the name of God.

Never preach vegetarianism to an audience of hungry cannibals --

they will be too busy thinking of lunch

to concentrate on your words.

Never argue against a club

with a member of the club – that would be

as heedless as declaring war against Bugs Bunny.

Never argue with a chauvinist, a snob, or a self-assessed genius --

unless of course you are infatuated

with the sound of your own voice

and the brilliancy of your mind.

Never argue with a feminist – that would be as bad

as arguing against the monarchy with a king.

Never argue with someone who has more money than you,

especially if he is an Armenian from the Levant

who judges people by their income bracket.

Never argue with a racist, fascist,

anti-Semite, or fanatic – they should be exposed

not reasoned with.

Never argue with a lawyer

against the legal profession – that would be

like arguing against prostitution with a pimp

or a bordello madam.

Never argue with a barking dog –

I have never heard of a dog that suffers from laryngitis.

Never argue with a braying jackass,

especially one who thinks

his voice is sweeter than Pavarotti’s.

[Guest Fadi]

Ara, talking of honesty everywhere... we should ask. Are you a honest man ?

 

Can you once admit that you have been mistaken ? I told you what you have done is a caracter assassination... now I am waiting that you answer me that I was wrong, and prove me I was wrong...

 

I also saw the critics from the BBC etc...

 

These same sources have also cricised Egoyans film and a lots, one one of these same film that they criticised won the first prize in Cannes festival.

 

Have you read on the other side French critics ? Would you want that I post them for you here ? We all know how English critics are, they bark and bark, when a film is a little complicated for them, while the French critics generally more mature see what is a masterpieces.

 

Now if you were a honest man like you claim, you would admit your mistake and eradicate your caracter assissination of Egoyan from your collection of writtings, and more particulary for a film that you even haven't seen.

 

You attack Egoyan by saying that he also grow up by seing the Turks as monsters ?

 

Then be glad to explain me why the repsentents of Istanbul festival at Cannes, suggested to present Egoyan film at the opening of their festivale.

 

The worst enemy of a film is bunch og yellers like you, that critic a film based on few things you have read about on critics, without having seen the film yourself... we all know how it is easy to kill a film.. and the proof that Egoyans film has achieved what was expected is that its the film that from my knowledge that the critics are the most opposed for the past years... Some call it a genious work(from French critics) and other call it a flop, but again, if they can not understand a film and have been educated to critic "Hollywoodian" films, its their problem.

 

Now shut the ... off... and wait untill you see the movie, before deciding if you will assassinate Egoyan.

 

Have a nice day.

[ara baliozian]

EGO / ID

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

When I decide a writer is unreadable,

I stop reading him.

What else?

But when some of my readers decide

that I am unreadable

they take it upon themselves to read everything I write.

I become an integral part of their daily routine.

But perhaps it is not me they read but themselves.

In Freudian terms,

it is their ego that reads their id.

Or, if you prefer Jung,

their persona reads their anima.

Ego or persona: a person’s conception of himself.

Id or anima: their real self or the face beneath the mask.

Hence their inability to kick the habit.

Hence, too, their conception of me

as a monkey on their back,

and judging by the emotional intensity of their reactions,

not just a monkey but a gorilla.

Whether we like it or not

we are all slaves of the reality principle.

We may deceive ourselves into thinking

that we have the power to shape it,

but it is reality that ends up shaping us.

So that even our victories

(when on those very rare occasion

they occur as a result of a combination of

perseverance, luck, and cunning)

are so disappointing or different

from what we imagined them to be

that they might as well be synonymous with defeat

[ara baliozian]

WISHFUL THINKING

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

When an odar writer or diplomat

says something nice about Armenians,

we don't question his judgment or motives.

But when anyone dares to say anything

remotely positive about the Turks,

we dismiss him as an opportunistic brown-noser

or a mercenary academic.

Speaking for myself,

I tend to be skeptical of both

Armenophiles and Turcophiles.

Let’s not forget that

the double-talk of Armenophile diplomats and statesmen

at the turn of the century

was one of the contributing factors to our genocide,

which, according to their successors today,

never happened.

As for Turcophiles:

my only hope is that,

even if one-hundredth of what they say is right,

there is hope for both Armenians and Turks

to coexist side by side in a future

United States of the Middle-East and Transcaucasia.

[ara baliozian]

Friday, May 24, 2002

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

In their efforts to enhance their power and prestige,

all religions, nations, and political parties

engage in some degree of propaganda,

that is to say, deception,

by emphasizing the positive in themselves

and the negative in the opposition.

All power structures do this --

except ours, of course!

Or so I was brainwashed to believe as a child.

I was the ideal dupe then

and I believed everything I was told

by our sermonizers and speechifiers.

It is now time that we produce a book

in which the central characters will be

good Turks, compassionate Turks, heroic Turks

who risked their lives to save Armenians.

And we must do this not only because it is true

but also because it may enhance our objectivity.

By representing Turks, all Turks,

as butchers of pregnant women,

rapists of virgins and murderers of old men and women

we succeed only in damaging our credibility

in the eyes of the world

in addition to exposing ourselves as perennial dupes

of our own propaganda.

As for me writing such a book:

sorry, I can't!

They did such a good job on me that

the word Turk conjures up in my mind

a fat-bellied mustachioed slob wielding a yataghan

dripping with the blood of innocent victims –

a million and a half of them.

[ara baliozian]

JOIN THE CLUB

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

To those of my readers

who are eager to inform me

that I have been a source of disappointment to them,

I say: Nothing unusual in that.

I doubt if there is a single Armenian alive today

who has not been at one time or another

deeply disappointed, sometimes even mortally wounded,

by a fellow Armenian.

Speaking for myself:

disappointing readers and being disappointed by them

has become a routine experience.

It is only on extremely rare occasions

that I read an Armenian’s comments

not just on my things

but on any given subject

without muttering profanities in several languages,

including Turkish.

[ara baliozian]

CREDIBILITY CANYON

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

What a man believed ten years ago

and what he may believe ten years hence

may be in direct contradiction.

Ditto for what a man says and what he thinks.

Ditto for what he thinks he thinks

and what he really thinks.

Or, as Sartre puts its it:

"We may believe that we believe

but we don't believe."

When two men contradict each other

it is safe to assume that one or both are either lying

or they don't know what they are talking about.

That takes care of lawyers, politicians,

nationalist historians, psychiatrists, preachers

(from Muslim mullahs to Catholic cardinals) and philosophers….

Shaw tells us, "All professions are conspiracies against the laity."

We say "Don't believe everything you read in the papers,"

– and that takes care of journalists,

pundits, diplomats, PR men,

editors, and publishers.

I could go on….

Since mankind’s credibility is lower

than a snake’s belly full of buckshot,

whom and what do we believe in?

A good question.

A tentative answer:

Nobody!

Moral I: An open mind is better than a closed one.

Moral II: Skepticism is better than fanaticism.

Moral III: Doubt is better than certainty.

Moral IV: Questions are better than answers.

[ara baliozian]

i have at no time maintained to be infallible.

It doesn't take honesty to admit this,

only common sense.

[Twilight Bark]

Writing as if you were infallible is not much better. What upset Domino is not your claim to infallibility (although one would be forgiven for surmising such self-assessment on your part), but your shooting from the hip, without any regard to factuality or fairness.

 

Any claim of infallibility would indeed be met with ridicule, given the fact that a good portion of your un-borrowed output is seriously flawed if they are meant to be social commentaries. However, if they were meant as the manifestations of a long and public mental masturbation, they are excellent specimens.

[Guest Fadi]

quote:

---

i have at no time maintained to be infallible.

It doesn't take honesty to admit this,

only common sense.

---

Then I don't think you will have any difficulty to appologize for your slander against a person. Right ? I still am waiting you recognise your grave mistake here Ara. Of course a grave mistake even from yourself, since you accuse others of attacking yourself unfairly.

 

A professional recognise his mistakes and would not have any difficulty to appologize, only weak people refuse to confront their mistakes, you preach honesty, then I ask you to be Honest with yourself.

 

[ May 26, 2002, 05:46 PM: Message edited by: Domino ]

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, May 26, 2002

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

Our empathy for an underdog

is somewhat modified

if we take into account the fact that

once upon a time he too was a top dog

and his sole aim in life now

is to recapture his former status.

Our sympathy may acquire a tinge of indifference

at the spectacle of an underdog

who spends as much time dwelling

on his past defeats and misfortunes

as others do about their achievements and triumphs.

Our fellow feeling may turn to indifference

when an underdog ascribes his present status to others

thus reducing himself to an extension of their will.

Our pity may even turn to contempt

for an underdog who has learned nothing

from his experience as underdog

except to lament, complain, and project the image

of someone without any shortcomings or moral failings of his own.

Our commiseration may turn into rage

at the sight of a victim who even as he speaks

of the bloodthirsty and carnivorous instincts of his enemies

he engages in "cannibalism" (Zarian)

or even as he moans of his own crucifixion

he busies himself "nailing his brother to the cross" (Zaroukian).

[ara baliozian]

CRITICS

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

I respect anonymous critics

as much as i respect anonymous blackmailers.

 

WINDBAGS

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

The world is held together

by decent, hard-working, anonymous blokes,

and torn asunder by ambitious charlatans

who speechify and sermonize

in the name of God and Country.

DIVISION OF LABOR

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

There is a type of infantile reader

who likes to accuse me of the very same infraction

that I have exposed in him;

and now that I have exposed the infant in him,

he will next accuse me of infantilism.

I do the analyzing,

he does the parroting:

division of labor, Armenian style.

INSPIRATION

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

I have no use for it.

I just wait for the next insult,

and since I write for Armenians,

I know I will never experience writer’s block.

OBSERVATION

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

The Good Lord in his infinite wisdom

has endowed us with a heart and a brain.

We do an injustice to the Creator

as well as our faculties

if we reason with our intestinal tract.

[ara baliozian]

SAKHAROV

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

A recent biography of Andrei Sakharov

comes with an endorsement by President Vladimir Putin

that reads:

"At certain periods of time in the life of any nation,

there will be people who turn on the light, if you will.

They show a road for the nation to follow.

Andrei Sakharov was one of those people:

a visionary, someone who was able not only to see the future,

but to articulate his thoughts, and to do so without fear."

And to think that a few years ago, Putin’s boss,

Yuri Andropov, then the KGB chief

(and later leader of the USSR)

branded Sakharov "Public Enemy No. 1"

and ordered that Sakharov’s name not to be printed

in any Soviet newspaper or magazine.

And why?

Because Sakharov voiced such unpatriotic,

anti-Soviet and subversive ideas as:

"Peace, progress, human rights,

these three goals are indissolubly linked;

it is impossible to achieve one of them

if the others are ignored."