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

[ara baliozian]

IT IS WRITTEN

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

All corrupt and incompetent regimes

rewrite history and control the press

and they do this for a very simple reason:

fear that their corruption and incompetence will be exposed

and their legitimacy questioned.

#

To say there are Armenophile and Turcophile historians

is to admit there are two versions of the past;

and for an Armenian to say that the Armenophile version

is more objective than the Turcophile

is to legitimize a Turk’s right to say the exact opposite.

We should suspect the integrity of all historians

that are identified as either Armenophiles or Turcophiles

because the past is one and

objectivity the only valid criterion.

#

The sad truth is,

there are as many versions of the past

as there are ideologies, religions, nations,

tribes, and schools of thought,

all of whom assert to have a monopoly on truth.

To say therefore that our own version of our past is true

but the French, Russian, American, British, Patagonian,

or, for that matter, Turkish versions of their own past is false,

is to bury our heads in the sand.

[ara baliozian]

GOOD GUYS

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

When asked about his political orientation,

a friend of mine replied:

"I am with the good guys!"

A wonderful answer.

Armenians and politics don't mix.

But then, who is to say what is and is not politics or propaganda?

 

NOT GUILTY

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

"After all, we are Armenians!" – meaning ,

anything we say or do must be accepted and forgiven,

including that which would be normally

unacceptable and unforgivable.

Some Armenians use Armenianism

the way cold-blooded killers use the plea of insanity.

 

WORTH REPEATING AND REMEMBERING

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

What divides a nation

is neither theology nor ideology

but leaders who consider their own powers and privileges

more important than the survival of the people.

[ara baliozian]

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED

ABOUT PREJUDICE ON THIS FORUM

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

#

Prejudice promotes dogmatism,

understanding leads one to wonder and skepticism.

#

Those who act in the name of prejudice

behave as though they had Truth and God on their side.

#

Prejudices leads men to action – from rape to genocide.

Understanding enhances contemplation.

#

Understanding is a solitary endeavor.

Prejudice is gang-driven.

#

Intolerance and hatred follow prejudice

as surely as night follows day.

[ara baliozian]

CALLING A SPADE A SPADE

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

 

We are all unique and we have all been assigned

to play a unique role in life. Perhaps my role consists in calling a jackass a jackass.

This may not be a popular or profitable line of work but it has its secret compensations,

one of them being: whenever you tell an Armenian

he is making an ass of himself, you almost certify his status as an ass, because he tends to operate on the assumption that there is only one way to prove to himself and the world at large

that he is not an ass and that’s by being inflexible, self-righteous, obstinate, and ornery.

[ara baliozian]

SURREALISM

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

TALAAT…In a recent edition of the PETIT LAROUSSE ILLUSTRÉ (the most

widely used French-language reference work) there is an entry on Talaat

***** wherein we read about what an Armenian did to him as opposed to

what he did to the Armenians. As a matter of fact, there is only one

Armenian mentioned and that is in the final line, which reads: "He was

assassinated by an Armenian." The innocent reader is left with the

impression that some bloodthirsty crazed Armenian victimized an innocent

Turkish statesman.

…

ARMENIA…In all fairness to LAROUSSE, mention must also be made of the

fact that in its entry on Armenia it has included the following line:

"1915: The Young Turks committed genocide (1,500,000 victims)."

…

DIKRAN THE GREAT is identified as a Parthian. Armenian emperors of

Byzantium are not identified as Armenians; neither are such Armenian

writers as Adamov and Troyat.

…

HISTORY…I am reminded of Pierre Gaxotte’s words: "There is no such thing

as History, there are only historians."

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, June 25, 2002

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

UNDERSTANDING is shared. Prejudices are inflicted.

.

ONE OF THE WORST BLUNDERS a man can make is to treat his fellow men as if

they were human.

.

WHAT IS LITERATURE?…In the preface of a history of French Literature I

read the following: "Literature is not just something that writers

produce. Oral literature preceded written literature and it has always

coexisted with it. Conversation, unless it is purely utilitarian, is also

a form of literature."

.

DIVIDING LINES… Once upon a time the rich were poor, and the dream of the

poor is to be rich. The lines that divide men into classes, nations,

races, etc. are not carved in stone but are fluid. Some Turks are

civilized, some Armenians delight in behaving like barbarians. After a

short visit to Turkey a friend calls to inform me that he was astonished

to discover that Turks are very much like us: "They look like us, they

eat the same food, they behave like us, some are even more honest than

us." He then proceeds to recount anecdotes. "You plan to go back?" I ask.

"Yes, of course. Hopefully next year!" I remember, when I asked him the

same question after his visit to Armenia, he replied: "Once is more than

enough!"

.

ALMOST EVERYONE I KNOW has been either mugged or burglarized at one time

or another. I have been very lucky in that department. But then, as an

Armenian writer,

I have been verbally assaulted and hacked so many times during the last

twenty-five years that it’s a miracle I am alive.

.

A MAN WHO DELIGHTS in being loud and vulgar will see nothing questionable

in his conduct until he meets someone who is as loud and vulgar as

himself, and the inevitable question he will ask then is: Is it possible

that I am as bad as he?

[ara baliozian]

FROM A TO Z

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

FROM ABOVIAN TO ZARIAN…I am constantly urged by both friends and enemies

to visit Armenia. I was brought up to love my homeland but the older I

grow the more second and third thoughts I have, one of them being: I live

in a country where people speak not only of human but also of animal

rights, a country moreover where dogs are treated better than writers

have been treated in Armenia. But I am glad to report after a recent

encounter with a benefactor that they too are treated with equal

contempt. I consider that a positive development.

=

A UNIVERSAL DAYDREAM…If only what we think of ourselves coincided with

what others think of us.

=

AN ARMENIAN STORY…We agreed on many things for many years but because we

disagreed on one thing he has become my enemy and he has assigned me the

role of Cain.

=

FROM SOCRATES TO GANDHI…Every period in history has its great man and

their killers who behave with the certainty that they act in the name of

a principle that is higher than themselves and their victims; killers who

see themselves not as criminals but as servants of the state and

benefactors of mankind. Wars, massacres and genocides are committed by

the same type of individuals. Perhaps words like state, race, nation,

religion and truth exist only in the plural and fanaticism consists in

trying to reduce them to singular.

=

A WIDESPREAD ILLUSION…There is a type of Armenian who thinks just because

he is an Armenian he is also an expert on Armenian affairs, which is like

saying, just because an elephant is an elephant he is also an expert on

zoology. Did I say elephant? Make it jackass.

[ara baliozian]

LIVE AND LEARN…Etienne de Silhouette (1709-1767): French politician and

financier under Louis XV who balanced the budget by taxing the privileged

classes and the rich. His enemies gave his name to linear designs as a

symbolic reference to the condition to which his victims (those he taxed)

were reduced by the time he was through with them.

It occurs to me that what our homeland needs more than anything today is

a Silhouette.

/

IN 1054 PATRIARCH KEROULERIOS of the Eastern Church excommunicated Pope

Leon IX after being himself excommunicated by him.

/

NO ONE EVER BELIEVES anyone who assesses himself and only gullible fools

believe in gypsy fortune-tellers. To those who say, sometimes gypsies can

be right, I

say, they may well be, but an Armenian who brags never is.

/

WE TEND TO FORGET that our propaganda has as much effect on others as

theirs on us.

[ara baliozian]

A FATHER DOES NOT always agree with his son or daughter and vice versa.

Likewise, a brother does not always see eye to eye with his brother or

sister and vice versa. The same applies to husbands and wives, uncles and

aunts, not to say in-laws and outlaws…. But among Armenians a writer must

at all times agree with his readers and in that sense must be more than a

father, brother, husband, uncle, and grandfather. Among Armenians one

strike and you are out. One disagreement and you are confronted with an

army of killer-commissars out for blood.

/

BARBARIANS MAY BE civilized. But it is much more difficult with riffraff.

/

TO SOME, WORDS LIKE DEMOCRACY and human rights are just words that hardly

register on their consciousness. To others, among them myself, they may

well be a matter of life and death.

/

YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED that fascists, racists, and Bolsheviks seldom or

never speak of human rights; that’s because they prefer to be in the

business of violating them – all in the name of truth, God, patriotism or

some other ism of course.

/

BEING ARMENIAN LOOKS EASY only in Saroyan’s fiction. In reality it is

such a demanding enterprise that most Armenians give up the effort and

assimilate and I for one do not blame them.

[ara baliozian]

ONCE MORE WITH ABOVIAN AND ZARIAN / Money goes to money, they say;

something very similar happens to culture too. Consider the situation of

20th-century French literature, one of the most highly developed and

influential in the world: the three playwrights who revolutionized the

French theater (Samuel Beckett, Arthur Adamov, and Eugene Ionesco) were

an Irishman, an Armenian, and a Romanian respectively); and now consider

the situation of Armenian literature at the other end of the spectrum:

not only we don't encourage or welcome outside help, but we also alienate

and silence our own (from Abovian to Zarian).

 

MUMBO JUMBO /Ever since I read one of my own cherished ideas brilliantly

expressed by a Greek philosopher who lived 2500 years ago, I can never be

sure of the originality of any idea. I say this to emphasize the fact

that there may not be any new ideas or new solutions, and the solutions

to all our problems may well be out there already, if not in the Bible

than in Plato; and those who pretend we need new and original ideas, know

little or nothing about what has been said before. Case in point: if we

were to discard the mumbo jumbo from our religion and retain its central

message, we would solve most of our problems; because what divides us is

not our religion but mumbo jumbo, and a bishop who pretends otherwise

fully qualifies as the Pope of all Charlatans.

 

WHY I AM NOT A PESSIMIST/ By writing I hope to change the world. I know

this to be an illusions 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]

OTTOMANISM…It is a writer’s function to echo his readers’ sentiments and

thoughts. If he fails in that regard, he should be open to literal or

character assassination.

/

ANTI-SEMITISM…He loves to hate Jews and he hates to be identified as an

anti-Semite because that would expose him as a racist. Far from being a

racist he views himself as the soul of tolerance, and if not infallible

then on his way there.

/

OPTIMISM AND PESSIMISM… Both pessimism and optimism are more or less

legitimate ways of forecasting the future. Sometimes pessimists are

right, and sometimes optimists. But optimists are never right if their

optimism is motivated by wishful thinking. Reality advances on a

different plane from our wishes. That’s why, even when our dreams come

true they have a tendency to turn into nightmares.

/

IT COMES WITH THE TERRITORY… Doctors are exposed to cancer, divorce

lawyers to adultery, policemen to crime, and Armenian writers to readers

eager to share their superior brand of wisdom, expertise (on any given

subject), and understanding of human affairs in general and Armenian

history, culture, and politics in particular.

[ara baliozian]

OUR PROBLEMS AND THEIR SOLUTION / We live as though our problems were

insoluble; but we argue as if we had a minimum of two solutions for every

one of our problems.

/

THE REALITY PRINCIPLE / Some people are so outrageously wrong that they

don't have to be corrected. Sooner or later life, facts, the reality

principle will speak to them much louder than any logical argument or

appeal to common sense and decency.

/

THE BEST PROOF / We have survived our leadership: that to me is the best

and the most irrefutable argument for God’s existence.

/

WHETHER WE LIKE IT OR NOT, we are all in the same boat and the boat is

sinking; and it is sinking not because it is not seaworthy or the waves

are too high but because the captain is down below drilling holes.

/

KILLERS / If a bigot is not yet a killer, it may be because history has

not yet given him an opportunity to act out his convictions.

[ara baliozian]

HOW TO BE A GOOD ARMENIAN / It can't be done. It is an impossible dream.

A utopian illusion. A Platonic abstraction. A good Armenian is a relative

term -- relative to a specific regime, party, church or club. To be a

good Armenian in the eyes of a regime means to support that regime and to

oppose the opposition: and we all know what happens to an Armenian who

opposes another Armenian. To be a good Tashnak means to be a bad Armenian

in the eyes of Ramgavars and so on. And then there are those with a pet

theory, say on the origin of the Armenian race or the causes of the

Genocide, and if you don't subscribe to it all hell will break loose. An

Armenian uses his membership to a club as a club with which to beat all

non-members to a pulp. And here may I voice one of my own pet theories:

What motivates an Armenian to join a club is not a set of dearly held

convictions but the pleasure of hating a fraction of his fellow

Armenians. You don't believe me? That’s all right! You may relax. I will

not think of you as an enemy or a Turkish agent. A carcinogenic agent?

That’s different.

[sen_Vahan]

I have a question: Do you think the word SOCIETY can be used for what we have in Armenia today? What is the structure of that society in Armenia if it exists? And do we have that in Diaspora? In the case of Diaspora I mean the structure of Armenian Community - does it exist?

 

And a second question: Dear Ara, have you ever been to Armenia? Sorry, but I really do not know whether you did.

 

Thank you,

Vahan

[ara baliozian]

WHY CRITICS? / One of the functions of criticism is to remind us

that no matter how you slice it, propaganda is recycled crap,

and just because two million, or for that matter, twenty or two hundred million people believe in it and are willing to die or kill for it, that doesn't make it true -- think of organized religions and the crimes that have been committed in their name.

The reason why critics are not popular is that no one likes to be told what he believes in is crap.

 

THERE IS MORE TO BEING AN ARMENIAN than proving you are a better Armenian; there is more to being an Armenian than how you feel about Mt. Ararat; what matters more than your feelings about Mt. Ararat is your feelings about your fellow Armenians -- and I don't mean Armenians who agree with you, or are members of the same party, club or mafia; but Armenians who disagree with you. To love only Armenians who agree with you, who, that is, echo your sentiments and thoughts (make it, misconceptions and fallacies) , who are in effect carbon copies of yourself -- let’s call them ditto Armenians, has nothing to do with love and has everything to do with narcissism, which happens to be a neurosis, a disease of the mind, and a chemical imbalance in the brain.

[ara baliozian]

A READER WRITES / It’s an insult to call your fellow men "jackasses which

you do often?" I agree. But an insult to whom? Compare man’s inhumanity

to man with that of jackasses – a mountain versus a speck of dust.

/

SOLUTIONS / If I or anyone else were to come up with a perfect verbal

solution to all our problems (assuming of course such a formula exists

and so far it has eluded our greatest intellects) it would convince no

one and change nothing. Show me an Armenian who says "What is your

solution?" and I will show you a bully out for blood.

/

FREEDOM AND LARCENY / The challenge that the present regime confronts in

Yerevan today is discriminating free enterprise from free larceny.

/

CONSPIRACY / When two bad men strike up a friendship, their first and

most important priority is to convince each other they are good men in

order to proceed being twice as bad with an easy conscience.

[ara baliozian]

THERE IS A FAMILIAR TYPE of Armenian who has no interest in what anyone

else may have to contribute to the debate. Dialogue is a foreign concept

to him. In his system, there is only one valid view and he is its sole

spokesman.

One view. One spokesman. One fuhrer. Heil Hitler!

To those of my readers eager to inform me I am myself a heil-hitler type,

I can only say: "With one important difference: I am aware of it, and

whenever I forget it, I can always rely on readers like you to remind me,

for which many thanks."

/

VIVE LA DIFFERENCE / When I was a little boy growing up in a crowded

ghetto, I loved reading about distant exotic places. Later, when I

discovered literature, I enjoyed most of all reading writers with whom I

shared nothing in common. To this day, I love reading about experiences

and ideas outside my narrow orbit.

Which is why I cannot understand those of my readers who wish to recreate

me in their own image, and I have every reason to suspect, on the day

they succeed, they will give up reading me. Because, if you think about

it, who wants to talk to his own shadow or eat regurgitated food?

/

CROCODILES AND EARTHWORMS / People who like dishing it out

can't take it. They attack with the confidence and daring of crocodiles

but they squash like earthworms when stepped on.

[ara baliozian]

ARMENIAN APHORISMS AND SAYINGS

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

By Avedik Issahakian

I fell, I got up

I lost and I found...

Of all certain things

The most certain is doubt.

**

Have pity on all,

But love none,

Don't tempt men,

live a humble life;

There is no other path

to a happy life.

**

We are like feathers

Fortune a strong wind

That blows and snatches

at its whim.

**

To be on the safe side

Avoid a dog's front end

And a mule's rear end.

**

Teaching consists in opening the mind;

The mouth will open by itself.

(translated by a.b.)

[ara baliozian]

ARE WE REALLY SMART? / If we are, why is it that we are in such a mess?

Two possible answers: Being smart isn't enough. Or maybe we are not as

smart as we think we are. Because when two self-assessed smart people

disagree it may be because they are both wrong or one of them is an

obstinate, arrogant fool who thinks he is endowed with a superior brain.

/

MY AMBITION / Being infallible? Certainly not. Being readable? Maybe…

/

SUCCESS / To be a success in literature you must be a source of income to

someone else. In its millennial history, Armenian literature has not been

a source of income to anyone. A reliable and unfailing source of

disappointment, disease, and early death, yes!

/

PATRIOTISM / I don't trust the patriotism and compassion of bloodsuckers,

capitalists, propagandists, and in general anyone with a full belly. When

I speak, I speak for the hungry, the unemployed, the insulted and

injured, the exploited and the poor, the disoriented, the alienated, the

assimilated, and the massacred.

[ara baliozian]

The short answer to both questions is no!

We are essentially a tribal people -- very little coherence...hence no society in the sense in which the word is used in the West.

[ara baliozian]

IT IS AN IMPOSSIBLE TASK to civilize the offspring of uncivilized

parents.

/

ARMENIANS WORSHIP live benefactors and dead poets.

/

THE TWO MOST DANGEROUS enemies of learning: a large ego and a big mouth.

/

THE AMBITION OF EVERY Armenian sardine is to be a Turkish shark.

/

SOMETIMES THE BEST REVENGE is to condemn your enemy to live with himself

for the rest of his life.

/

IF I CAN'T SWAY THEM, I can at least make them sweat.

/

THE BRAIN MAY compromise but the gut, never!

/

A BETTER UNDERSTANDING of the past means fewer surprises in the future.

[ara baliozian]

AT THE AGE OF FORTY everyone goes crazy." I am now quoting the pet theory

of a friend of mine who died recently. There are those whose mission in

life is to recycle crap, and there are their counterparts: those who call

crap crap. Who is to say which form of madness is worse?

/

WHERE SMART ENDS and smart-ass begins?

/

ASSIMILATION / Has anyone ever surveyed a group or even a couple of

assimilated Armenians to determine what was it exactly that made them opt

for assimilation? Why is it that we are obsessed with the past ( Genocide

or Red Massacre) and choose to ignore the present (Jermak Chart or Red

Massacre)?

/

ANOTHER QUESTION / Why is it that we are so eager to preach and promote

justice to the world but we cannot even deal with our own petty crooks

and contemptible bloodsuckers? -- or we invent reasons to explain and

justify their conduct.

[Sip]

I would say right below that last quote line above. And I think it's safe to say that smart-ass will end at the end of this sentence, and hopefully smart will begin again.

[ara baliozian]

PUNDITS AND THEIR FICTIONS / A couple of weeks ago my next-door neighbor

was arrested for growing marijuana in his basement. A day later another

neighbor (a devout Catholic) was arrested for sexually molesting twenty

minors (among them two of his own daughters). To those who pretend to be

experts on Armenia simply because they were born and raised there, I ask:

How much did you really know about your next-door neighbors?

/

ELEPHANTS AND ANTS / When an elephant and an ant disagree, guess who is

going to have the last word and who is going to say "I agree."

/

SUMMING UP / If an Armenian comes up to you and says "I am a more

patriotic Armenian than you," you can be sure of one thing: he is not!

The same applies to an Armenian who says he is a morally superior being

or a better Christian or a more principled man. The rule is: an Armenian

who brags is a liar.

Speaking for myself: I have been exposed to so much Armenian deception

and double-talk that I no longer think everything a Turk says is a lie

and everything an Armenian says is the truth, the whole truth, and noting

but the truth. And if you tell me I think that way because I am a bad

Armenian and you are, by implication, a better one, you know my answer to

that.

/

VARIETIES OF IGNORANCE / Garden variety ignorance ("I don't know the

capital of Norway"). Arrogant ignorance ("I know everything I need to

know and what I don't know cannot be worth knowing"). Fascist ignorance

("Anyone who knows something I don't know should be silenced so that I

may appear to know better in the eyes of those who know less or

nothing").

[ara baliozian]

ON REPETITION / Again and again I am accused of repeating myself. But we

all repeat ourselves. All good Christians say "Thy kingdom come" every

day, more than once; and I recycle the same line when I say, Let honesty

and justice reign.

/

ON REPETITION (ii) /And speaking of recycling: Intolerance is a

double-edged sword. If you live by it, you will die by it. History

provides us with many instances. Robespierre comes to mind; and more

recently, Stalinists, who after killing dissidents, proceeded to kill the

executioners, after which history buried them both.

/

WRITERS / Only writers who consider themselves immortal can afford to

write for posterity. I feel privileged if what I write today is read

tomorrow, even if it is forgotten the day after.

/

FOOLS / You may have noticed that, when an intelligent man behaves

stupidly, the reasons he invents to justify his conduct will be even more

stupid.