Sunday, September 04, 2005
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Tyrants who slaughter writers, and editors who silence them, belong to the same species of swine and it makes no difference whether they are Turks, Germans, Russians, or, for that matter, Armenians.
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I am an Armenian and you are an Armenian. Now then, can you give me a single reason why I should trust you? Because, for the life of me, I can’t think of a single reason why you should trust me.
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In a dishonest environment all assessments of the past will be dismissed as 20/20 vision, of the future as alarmist, and of the present as based on misinformation. Which simply means, to be pro-status quo or pro-establishment is to be infallible, and to be anti-status-quo or anti-establishment means being consistently wrong.
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During the Ottoman phase of our existence, those who predicted the massacres were dismissed as alarmist, and during the Soviet era those who said Stalin was a ruthless tyrant were labeled as unpatriotic. Which means, it would be far more accurate to say that to be pro-establishment is to be consistently wrong, perhaps because our men at the top and their hirelings happen to be moral morons, political nonentities, and intellectual midgets — that is to say, swine.
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Monday, September 05, 2005
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Hitler was dead wrong. Amnesia does not always follow extermination. Everyone remembers the dodo bird. That of course is no consolation to the dodo, or for that matter to the dinosaurs.
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And speaking of dinosaurs: god is less of an ecologist and more of a terrorist. He has exterminated countless species and killed millions of innocent civilians by means of floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, volcanoes, and miscellaneous other natural disasters and “acts of god.”
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Under fascist as well as democratic regimes the masses are educated enough to be brainwashed. Hence the old adage, “A little learning is a dangerous thing.”
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The authentic critic begins by thinking against himself. Those who can think only against others are not critics but propagandists, commissars, and fanatics.
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One man’s sacred cow is another’s shish kebab.
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Tuesday, September 06, 2005
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There are two kinds of ideas: those that bind and those that liberate. You may now guess which are more popular.
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The dupes of priests, mullahs, gurus, and witch doctors will always outnumber those who have mastered the difficult art of thinking for themselves.
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To think for oneself also means to think against oneself.
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There are those who cling to old ideas the way a drowning man is said to cling to anything, including a venomous serpent.
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My parents survived the Turks. I am now busy trying to survive my fellow Armenians.
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“You learn to grow up,” I remember to have read somewhere, “on the day you have a good laugh at yourself.” But to laugh at oneself is as difficult as to think against oneself.
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To understand reality begins with the realization that we are not the center of creation and that planet Earth is only a speck of dust in the universe, and man is only a speck of dust on earth. Now then, can you calculate the dimensions of your problems, the problems of your tribe, and problems of the human race?
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Religions have tried to teach love and tolerance and they have failed. But they have succeeded, and succeeded brilliantly, in teaching hatred and intolerance. Figure that one out if you can.
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Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869), French poet: “Hatred and egoism have only one homeland. Brotherhood has none.”
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Wednesday, September 07, 2005
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The problem with being a famous writer is that you think twice before saying anything that may detract from your popularity. But a writer who places his fame and fortune above honesty is no better than an expensive whore. Which is why I feel justified in bragging about my status as a slum-dwelling failure.
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Somewhere Zarian differentiates refugees from exiles. An exile is an exile by choice, he writes. By contrast, a refugee is driven by necessity. Dante, Byron, and Thomas Mann were exiles. As the offspring of refugees from the Ottoman Empire, I fully qualify as a double refugee – compliments of our enemies and my brothers.
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An Armenian writer has as much of a future in an Armenian environment as a sardine in a pool of ravenous barracudas.
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An eye for an eye is a legal principle that can be enforced only between equals. When a tyrant deals with a dissident or a scribbler with a boss, bishops, benefactor and his flunkies, it’s more like an eyebrow for both eyes, ears, limbs, lungs, liver, heart, and a few other vital organs thrown in for good measure.
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