Thursday, October 28, 2004
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THE POSITIVE AND THE NEGATIVE
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I once heard a Jewish comedian say, he did not care for the Ten Commandments because they stressed the negative.
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Why were Charents and Bakounts tortured and killed by our commissars? Because they were perceived as a negative influence on Soviet society.
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Hagop Baronian was betrayed to the Turkish authorities by his fellow Armenians in Istanbul because he too was perceived as negative.
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Freud saw in Christianity “a distorted form of obsessional neurosis,” and Karl Marx as “the legitimator of exploitation.” They did not much care for the Ten Commandments either.
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What’s positive and what’s negative? It depends on where you stand. My enemy is negative, my friend positive, and my enemy’s enemy is my friend because two negatives make a positive. To paraphrase the African chieftain quoted by C.G. Jung in his memoirs: “If I steal my enemy’s wives, it’s positive. If he steals my wives, it’s negative.”
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When I sit down to write, it never even occurs to me to choose between being negative or positive…especially if my house is on fire.
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At the height of the British Empire, Matthew Arnold wrote: “The world, which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams, [contains] neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain.” As far as I know, no one has ever accused Arnold of stressing the negative at the expense of the positive.
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A CRITIC’S JOB
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I read the following in Kenneth Tynan’s posthumously published diaries: “A critic’s job is to make way for the good by demolishing the bad.”
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A PARABLE
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Once upon a time there was a man who lived in a beautiful house on a hill. Upon his return from work one day, he saw from a distance that his house was on fire. On noticing a passerby with a cell phone, he said: “Please, call 911 for me.” And the passerby said: “Why should I?” “Because my house is on fire,” said the other. “That’s the bad news,” said the passerby. “What’s the good news?”
Much later the man, whose house had gone up in smoke, found out that the passerby with a cell phone was an Armenian.
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AN ARMENIAN DECALOGUE
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I. Thou shalt not confuse the god of our priests with God.
II. Thou shalt not consider intolerance a virtue.
III. Thou shalt not blame foreigners for all our misfortunes.
IV. Thou shalt not entertain the ambitions of a commissar of culture.
V. Thou shalt not resent those who expose the Turk in you.
VI. Thou shalt not practice or promote Ottomanism in the name of Armenianism.
VII. Thou shalt not believe every word you utter as if it were the word of God.
VIII. Thou shalt not pretend to be as infallible as the Pope of Rome, as fearsome as Stalin, and as magnificent as Suleiman.
IX. Thou shalt not parade your ignorance as if it were the latest word in wisdom.
X. Thou shalt not reject the validity of these Commandments on the grounds that they stress the negative and ignore the positive.
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Friday, October 29, 2004
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ON THE POSITIVE SIDE
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It has been said that reality is often stranger and more brutal than any fiction. But in reality, whenever a door is closed, there may be ten or even a hundred other doors waiting to be opened. Just because we cannot see these doors, it does not mean they are not there. Very often, that which is nearest to us is also the least visible.
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ON NATIONALIST HISTORIANS
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It is not at all unusual for a nationalist historian to be objective when it comes to other nations and turn into a pathological liar when it comes to his own. This is true not only of Turkish historians but of all historians in general. I wish I were in a position to say that our own historians are an exception to this rule.
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THE RED AND THE WHITE
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The difference between a “red” and a “white” massacre is that, a red massacre is perpetrated by wolves and jackals, and a white massacre is perpetrated by sheepdogs and shepherds.
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QUESTION / ANSWER
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Why is it that under the repressive, not to say, murderous, regimes of the Red Sultan and Stalin we had literary giants, and under our own bosses, bishops, and benefactors, we don’t even have midgets. My guess is: a combination of ignorance, prejudice, intolerance and envy can be more deadly than an army of jihadist imams and commissars with a license to kill.
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A THOUSAND AND ONE DOUBTS,
ONLY ONE CERTAINTY
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Unlike some of my self-righteous and chauvinist detractors, I am more than willing to concede that nothing I say is certain and the chances that I may be wrong are very high. I am willing to go further and say that I may even be wrong 99% of the time. But on one point I can assert 100% certainty: namely, in my defense of free speech. I wonder, how many of our self-appointed neo-commissars, who have at one time or another advocated silencing me, have had anything remotely favorable to say about free speech, which happens to be a fundamental human right.
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ZARIAN AND GARABENTS
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The two authorities I would like to quote at this point are Zarian and Garabents.
Zarian: “Our political parties have been of no political use to us. Their greatest enemy is free speech.”
Garabents (Jack Karapetian): “Once upon a time we fought and died for freedom. We are now afraid of free speech.”
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ON THE NEGATIVE SIDE
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If, in an Armenian environment, a door is closed, you can be sure of one thing: a trap door will open beneath your feet.
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MEMO
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Expect the worst and you will not be disappointed.
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Saturday, October 30, 2004
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BUSHWHACKED
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We are a people like any other people, I am reminded repeatedly, “with our own share of honest men and charlatans.” If true, consider some of the insults, slogans, headlines, and graffiti directed at Bush, only a small fraction of which are quoted in BUSHWHACKED: LIFE IN GEORGE W. BUSH’S AMERICA, by Molly Ivins and Lou Debose (New York: Random House, 347 pages, 2003).
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BUSH IS PROOF THAT EMPTY WARHEADS CAN BE DANGEROUS.
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LET’S BOMB TEXAS, THEY HAVE OIL TOO.
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IF YOU CAN’T PRONOUNCE IT, DON’T BOMB IT.
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ONE THOUSAND POINTS OF LIGHT, AND ONE DIM BULB.
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WAR IS NOT A FAMILY VALUE.
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$1 BILLION A DAY TO KILL PEOPLE -WHAT A BARGAIN.
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WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ME AND GOD? HE MIGHT FORGIVE BUSH, BUT I WON’T.
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SMART WEAPONS, DUMB PRESIDENT.
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PEACE TAKES BRAINS.
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IT’S NUCLEAR, NOT NUCULAR, YOU IDIOT!
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Because I have been paraphrasing and expanding on these slogans in reference to our own leadership, I am perceived as a hostile witness and an enemy that should be silenced. My question is, if you disapprove of our leaders, what have you done to expose their blunders? But if you approve of them, what right do you have to tell me to recycle your own particular brand of pro-establishment crapola?
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CRITICS, MEDDLERS, AND COMMISSARS
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After criticizing me, a reader writes: “I am not a critic.” Zarian is right. “We don’t have critics. What we have are meddlers.” And more often than not, may I add, meddlers with the ambitions of commissars of culture who miss the good old days when they had a license to kill.
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EMPEROR MURPHY
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If the massacres can be blamed on the bloodthirsty disposition of the Turks and the double talk of the Great Powers; if the exodus from the Homeland and the high assimilation rate in the Diaspora can be blamed on social and economic conditions beyond our control; the question we must ask is: What the hell do we need leaders for? If so far they have been of no use to us when we needed them most, why don’t we get rid of them and consider ourselves perennial subjects of Murphy and his inflexible law, that says: “If things can go wrong, they will go wrong at the worst possible time.”
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IN PRAISE OF HUMILITY
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In a book of Anatolian travel impression by Lord Kinross (who is also the author of a mammoth biography of Ataturk), I remember to have read about his encounters with old Turks who bragged to him on having taught the Armenians a lesson they will never forget.
They brag about having massacred us, and we brag about our survival. May I suggest the world would be a far better place if we, all of us, realize we have nothing to brag about and a great deal to be humble about. Besides, if we brag about our survival, what do we do about the millions who did not? Do we plead amnesia? Do we ignore them? Do we pretend, out of sight, out of mind?
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