Thursday, September 22, 2005
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Political parties don’t like admitting blunders, especially major ones. After World War I Germans blamed their defeat on Jews. There are pro-German historians today who believe Hitler was a great statesman, the Holocaust a figment of Zionist imagination, and Churchill a war criminal. I once heard a Stalinist blame the collapse of the USSR on Solzhenitsyn and his kind of “hyena with a fountain pen,” and “running dog of the bourgeoisie.”
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The rule is, political parties are never wrong. They might be willing to compromise and admit minor tactical errors, but never major or catastrophic or apocalyptic defeats and disasters.
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Are our own political parties exceptions to this rule? Are they right when they say conditions at the turn of the last century in the Ottoman Empire were so unbearable that revolution was their only option? What they avoid saying is that they confused the verbal support of the West with the certainty of military intervention, and they were so sure of the demise of the “sick man of Europe” that they were blind to the possibility of wholesale massacres.
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If conditions were unbearable, why is it that Zohrab, one of the most astute observers of his time, who had many Turkish friends, among them Talaat, did not quit Istanbul and save his own skin? Why is it that a friend of Yervant Odian returned to Istanbul from Egypt even when he knew he was a wanted man? Why is it that Siamanto returned to Istanbul from the United States? Why is it that Roupen Sevag wrote a letter to his German fiancee who had said she did not look forward to life in Turkey because she did not like Turks: “You don’t know them. Deep down they are nice folk.”
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We know now that our choice was not between passive acceptance of the “unbearable” status quo and revolution, but between passive acceptance and genocide; and this is not 20/20 vision but the clearly stated warning of our own leadership within the Ottoman administration.
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A final question: if conditions were unbearable, why is it that we produced many brilliant writers in Istanbul under the sultans and so far none under our own bosses, bishops, and benefactors in America?
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Friday, September 23, 2005
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ON REVISIONISM
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The ultimate aim of revisionism is to project infallibility.
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Past blunders interest me only in so far as our present problems are rooted in them.
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To rewrite history means to ignore its lessons.
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There was a World War II because the combatants had their own versions of World War I.
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To rewrite history means to mislead the people into thinking they are in good hands even as they stand on the edge of the abyss.
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We are experiencing “white massacre” today (emigration from the Homeland and assimilation in the Diaspora) because we ignore the lessons of the “red massacre.”
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When leaders think of themselves as the brains of the people they will treat the people as dupes.
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Unless our leaders start thinking of themselves as public servants, their number one concern will continue to be number one.
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When 99% of the people perish and 99% of the leaders survive it is safe to assume there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. I am not casting aspersions on any particular set of leaders or state — no, not even Denmark — only enunciating a general theory.
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Saturday, September 24, 2005
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Where everyone asserts the traditions of his own village, there will be no tradition. Likewise, where everyone asserts his own values, there will be no values. And finally, where everyone has his own version of the past, the study of history will be a useless enterprise.
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Armenians may be divided into those who believe there is nothing wrong with the status quo because we are in good hands; and those who say since we have always been divided we have never been in good hands, and consequently, all our misfortunes must be ascribed to our own incompetent leadership. If you belong to the first group, you may consider yourself a certified dupe.
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For more on this subject, see Khorenatsi’s LAMENTATION, Raffi’s historical novels, Avedik Issahakian’s CORRESPONDENCE, Zarian’s NOTEBOOKS, and my own DICTIONARY OF ARMENIAN QUOTATIONS, or simply count the number of our victims.
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However, if you are too busy with other far more important matters, read the following quotation by one of our most distinguished poets and novelists, Nigoghos Sarafian (1905-1973): “Our history is a litany of lamentation, anxiety, horror, and massacre. Also deception and abysmal naivete mixed with the smoke of incense and the sound of sacred chants.”
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