Sunday, October 24, 2004
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SPEECHIFIERS AND SERMONIZERS
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Whenever I am invited to deliver a speech, I try to explain that what I have to say is not exactly speechifiable. Last time I heard one of our popular speechifiers, he voiced the same old familiar slogan: “We must support our beloved homeland because without it we are no better than lost sheep wandering aimlessly in a desert of alienation.” My message would be the exact opposite: the Homeland should support the people or us because without the people the Homeland is nothing but a piece of real estate.
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As things stand, to support the Homeland also means to reinforce and legitimize a corrupt power structure and a priviligentsia whose number one concern is number one.
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Lenin opposed all forms of charity, because, he explained, “charity does nothing but postpone the revolution.”
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“The Homeland needs us!” yes, certainly, it goes without saying. But what the Homeland needs even more is elected officials who will live up to their responsibilities by being honest public servants accountable to the people. This may not be part of our culture or authoritarian traditions, granted. But what is the alternative besides despotism, Sultanism, or Stalinism?
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I am not suggesting a regime change by assassination or revolution, but by gradual reform. Let us help the Homeland by all means, but let us also do whatever we can to clean up the mess there. Easier said than done? Yes, especially if you take into account the fact that before we undertake to clean up the mess there, we should clean up our own mess here.
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We in the Diaspora may be financially better off, but morally we too are in desperate need of reform. Which is why I shiver when I see diasporan charlatans and gravediggers going to Armenia and parading as benefactors and saviors of the nation.
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Corruption and incompetence are at the root of the exodus from the Homeland and a high rate of assimilation in the Diaspora: two “white massacres” that are more or less ignored by our ghazettajis and phony pundits, who prefer to stress such meaningless controversies as the use of the word “kef” or the adoption of the vernacular badarak.
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If the present rate of assimilation and exodus continues, who do you think is going to support and defend the Homeland? Our speechifiers and sermonizers in the Diaspora or our wheeler-dealers with their Swiss bank accounts and villas in the Homeland?
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Monday, October 25, 2004
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MATTHEW 7:6
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“One reason I refuse to write for Armenians is the warning in Matthew 7:6,” a reader writes.
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A couple of days later, the same reader: “It seems to me you take Armenian affairs and your fellow Armenians too seriously, and you consistently ignore the advice in Matthew 7:6.”
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I check Matthew 7:6 and I read: “Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, less they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.”
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I dread to think what would happen to me if I were to adopt St. Matthew’s sentiments and vocabulary. As for political correctness: I agree with those who dismiss it as “semantic fascism.”
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Ever since I read Gandhi’s definition of religion – any belief system that you think is true, including atheism – I can no longer identify myself as a non-believer. Like Chekhov, I believe that we cannot answer the most important questions with any degree of certainty, and what make most belief systems intolerant are the certainties they pretend to possess.
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People believe for two main reasons: they were conditioned to believe at a time when they couldn’t think for themselves; and they believe because they feel a deep need to believe…and they will believe in anything and anyone, including Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Castro.
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As a child I was educated to be a devout Catholic. In my twenties I discovered Zen Buddhism. I now think there is a core of universal truth in all religions, provided we define religion as an endless quest. I also think if Socrates, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed and Gandhi ever met, they would agree with one another and they would consider their followers as so many dogs and swine.
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There is a type of Armenian criticism that I call “nuisance criticism,” whose intent is not to make sense or to expose contradictions (which is the true definition of criticism) but to make a nuisance of itself and to silence dissent. It is no exaggeration to say that some of our ablest writers – from Voskanian and Massikian to Shahnour and Zarian – fell silent as a result of this type of criticism.
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When an American criticizes America, he is motivated by love of America. But when a Muslim jihadist criticizes America, his ultimate aim is the total destruction of the continent.
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To my critics I say: Next time you think of attacking me, ask yourself, “Am I motivated by Ottoman venom?” and if the answer is yes, keep silent. Because, remember, the most devastating criticism is silence born of apathy.
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Tuesday, October 26, 2004
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CRITICS AND COMMISSARS
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Times may change, continents may change, but the number of our commissars, it seems, is destined to remain constant, with one difference: they no longer have a license to kill.
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Whenever our editors reject one of my commentaries, they never explain why, and when they do, their lies are so transparent that I experience a shiver of shame on their behalf.
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Some of our commissars may no longer have a license to kill or to silence but they make up for it with concentrated Ottoman venom.
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I write only about what I see, experience and think. Obviously, I am in no position to write about what someone else sees, experiences and thinks.
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To those who say I am an enemy of the people, I say: “That’s what you think and I cannot be held responsible for what you think.”
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To those who would like to see me silenced, I say: “You, my friend, are an anachronism. Because, in case you didn’t know, the era of commissars of culture has been consigned to the dustbin of history, where it belonged in the first place. Of course, you are free to disagree with me. But again, I cannot be held responsible for what’s in your head, only for what’s in mine. Besides, why should I write about what you think if (a) you are in a far better position to do that, and (b) I don’t even know who you are?”
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Censorship exists where there are dark secrets and lies, which, if exposed, would tarnish the image of those in power. It is the function of a critic to expose these lies and secrets. A critic who fails to do that is like a doctor who ignores the symptoms of serious illness in his patient. Such a doctor is not a doctor but a quack whose license should be revoked. And such a critic is not a critic but a propagandist and a parrot that can repeat only what others see, think and feel.
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Wednesday, October 27, 2004
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Because I am in the habit of trashing charlatans, a reader writes: “It is wrong to trash the Homeland,” thus identifying the Homeland with charlatans.
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“Why is it that you consistently stress the negative and ignore the positive?” I am asked repeatedly. Allow me to answer that question by asking another, which, as far as I know, is never asked in our environment: “Why is it that we can afford to support priests, bishops, editors, and schoolteachers by the dozen, sometimes even by the hundred, but we cannot afford a single full-time investigative reporter?”
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The publisher of a chezok diasporan weekly once said to me: “On the day I published an investigative report on the ARF, the ARF issued an order to its members to cancel their subscriptions. As a result, in a single week, I lost a thousand subscribers.”
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An editor from Yerevan: “Once, recently, when I published an investigative report critical of the regime, my office was vandalized and my reporters beaten up.”
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If we had an investigative reporter, would anyone tell him to investigate the positive and to ignore the negative?
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As I see it, we are experiencing two “white massacres” – exodus from the Homeland and assimilation in the Diaspora: number of victims, a million and a half each. Please note that both semantics (“white massacre”) and statistics (a total of three million victims) are not mine. Are they accurate? You be the judge.
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Should I apologize for not being the bearer of bad tidings?
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You want positive? Easy! Read ARF weeklies on ARF activities, ADL (Ramgavar) weeklies on Ramgavar undertakings, AGBU- and Armenian Assembly-sponsored publications on their respective success stories throughout the world. And if you need more, expose yourself to the verbal diarrhea of our dime-a-dozen sermonizers, speechifiers, and pundits.
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And I can imagine a member of the Party reviewing Solzhenitsyn’s GULAG ARCHIPELAGO in a Soviet literary periodical and saying: “On the whole, this book emphasizes the negative and completely ignores the many positive aspects of Soviet life.”
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We may not have real Gulags, granted; but we do have a good number of moral Gulags.
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Even if I were to write about real Gulags, would I be believed? To this day, Solzhenitsyn is attacked by crypto-Stalinists (you will be surprised how many of them are still with us) on the grounds that he allowed himself to be an instrument of American imperialism.
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You want more positive? Every other day I receive a newsletter or a brochure in which the many wonderful deeds of our charitable organizations (there must be hundreds of them) are described in some detail, with the inevitable Panchoonie punch line: “Mi kich pogh oughargetsek” (Send us a little money).
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