Thursday, November 03, 2005
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One good thing about Naregatsi: he consistently refused to play the blame-game card; and one good thing about our naming him our greatest writer, “our Shakespeare,” is the unspoken admission that our admiration may well be an extension of the fact that we collectively lack his honesty and courage.
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If Turks are Asiatic barbarians, what does that make us? What kind of moral and political standards were we able to acquire as slaves of Asiatic barbarians during six centuries of subservience?
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An explanation that implies moral superiority is a convenient explanation; and such an explanation is bound to be biased if only because all claims of moral superiority are false.
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Conformism is also a form of subservience. To repeat a version of the past that enjoys the approval of a power structure is also a symptom of slave mentality,
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If the average Turk or Armenian is willing to recycle state propaganda, it may be because Ottomanism continues to shape his perception of reality.
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When it comes to our perception of reality, Ottomanism can be as misleading as Americanism or Armenianism. That’s because reality is neither Ottoman nor American or Armenian. Mountains and rivers, lies and truth, love and hate, honesty and dishonesty do not recognize national boundaries.
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Friday, November 04, 2005
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ON BIAS
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Bias, like the force of gravity, is everywhere, as invisible as an abstraction and as concrete as a ton of bricks or an avalanche. Even when we speak of facts and nothing but facts, bias enters into their selection.
Like lawyers, historians know that by carefully selecting facts and documents they can prove anything, even the innocence of a ruthless serial killer. In several recent editions of the ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA, for instance, Talaat is described as “an idealist and a man of integrity.”
What I said about lawyers and historians also applies to religious leaders and theologians. When Hemingway said a good writer should be equipped with a reliable “shit-detector,” he was talking about the ability to detect bias.
Whenever you express an opinion, ask yourself the following question: “If I can’t trust bishops, popes and ayatollahs, or rabbis and gurus who speak in the name of God or Truth, why should I trust politicians who speaks in the name of power? — knowing full well that politicians and their propaganda have played a central role in all wars and massacres?”
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I put my trust only in men who speak against their own interests. Or, in the words of Jean-Paul Sartre on the final page of his memoirs: “I depend only on men who depend on God and I don’t believe in God.”
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Saturday, November 05, 2005
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A genocide begins with the murder of a single innocent being simply because he belongs to a specific ethnic or religious group.
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Genocide has nothing to do with number of victims. If an Armenian kills a Turk because he is a Turk, that’s a crime against humanity.
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A Turk once said to me: “My grandfather was killed by an Armenian. What do I do about it?” If true, and I have no way to prove otherwise, we owe this Turk an apology.
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If Turks refuse to apologize, why should we? Because it is the right thing to do and because to say it is not is to accept Turks as role models of moral conduct.
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We should not wait for the Turks to ask for an apology. Neither should we coerce the Turks to apologize. A coerced apology is a meaningless gesture. If I owe someone an apology and I refuse to apologize until my arm is twisted, that’s not an apology but a maneuver to avoid pain.
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