Sunday, April 02, 2006
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The last century has claimed more victims than any other century in the history of mankind; or man uses technological progress not as a blessing but as a curse.
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Literature may influence isolated readers here and there, now and then, but not the majority and definitely not those who shape history.
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If God allowed His only child to be crucified, why should He be more considerate towards the rest of us?
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In my next life I hope to have beautiful faces as sources of inspiration instead of ugly Armenians.
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I get two kinds of reports from visitors to the Homeland: (one) Yerevan is another Florence; and (two) the men at the top are bloodsuckers. The only way to explain this contradiction is by saying that, when it comes to politics, some people might as well be color-blind and tone-deaf. Their “we are in good hands,” translates as “we are in deep doodoo.”
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We may be as good as Turks on the day Turks start emigrating to Armenia.
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Monday, April 03, 2006
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Some readers write to me only to point out a mistake in spelling or grammar. That’s their way of asserting superiority. They seem to be blissfully unaware of the facts that (one) a need to assert superiority is the surest symptom of inferiority, and (two) to write is to confess.
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Most people are not particularly fond of the English and the French. But there are Anglophiles and Francophiles and they are the ones who write the books. Likewise, there are Armenophiles and Turcophiles, and when they write they don’t do so under oath.
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In one of our partisan weeklies today I read a commentary about the Ottomanization of the Armenian psyche. I call this development a clear-cut case of an idea whose time has come.
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Faith is a rare gift, granted, but only if it is not misunderstood, and it almost always is.
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In John Mortimer’s delightful little book, WHERE THERE’S A WILL, I read the following: when advised by a Victorian doctor that masturbation leads to blindness, a bright child is alleged to have asked, “Can I just do it until I’m short-sighted?”
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Tuesday, April 04, 2006
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REV. MORGAN
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Montaigne: “None but fools are certain and resolute.”
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Our town is blessed with a retired Anglican minister by the name of Rev. Morgan who contributes a weekly column on religious themes to the local daily. He is a white-haired, elegant, and friendly gentleman in his eighties whom I meet at least once or twice a week during my walks. We exchange greetings and the occasional comment on the weather. Judging by the range of quotations in his commentaries, Rev. Morgan is well read and has mastered the art of using his common sense and logic. And yet, he is the perennial target of abusive letters to the editor by right-wing fundamentalist fanatics.
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It never fails: speak of tolerance and love and you will be hounded by narrow-minded and intolerant haters who pretend to know better.
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To know better is not necessarily to know. We owe wars, revolutions and massacres to people who pretend to know better and who seem to be unaware of the possibility that what they don’t know may exceed what they know.
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An angry reader once said to me, “Your kind of wisdom is available to anyone with a library card.” Which may suggest that some people prefer to rely on their own charlatanism rather than on Plato’s philosophy.
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Wednesday, April 05, 2006
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Some Armenians born and raised in Turkey tell me I don’t or I can’t understand Turks as well as they do. I may not be personally acquainted with Turks but I know Armenians who have no respect for human rights. I know Armenians who operate on the assumption that violating my free speech is their patriotic duty. I know Armenians who make no effort to understand what they read, which also means they prefer to rely on their own ignorance than on someone else’s knowledge and understanding. And I understand these Armenians because I was one of them myself. So much so that when I first read about Toynbee’s pro-Turkish sentiments I was so outraged that I wrote a critique of his work titled THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND THE WEST.
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In short, I know Ottomanized Armenians and if you know Ottomanized Armenians you don’t need to be personally acquainted with Turks to understand them.
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And speaking of understanding: the aim of understanding is not to promote intolerance but its exact opposite. If your understanding leads you to more intolerance, and intolerance not only of Turks but also of fellow Armenians who don’t parrot your sentiments and thoughts, you should begin suspecting that perhaps what you have in your possession is not understanding but something more akin to misunderstanding.
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More on understanding: There is human understanding, which is limited, and there is divine understanding, which is without limit – and I evoke the concept of god here only as a point of reference, the way mathematicians use the concept of infinity in their equations. It follows, none of us can claim to know and understand everything, and to understand not only others but also ourselves.
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More about Armenians born and raised in Turkey: not all of them think alike. I count among my friends several Armenians from Istanbul who think of Turks not as bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians but as fellow human beings as good or as bad as the rest of us. Does that mean they are lesser Armenians or second-class citizens? Ottomanized Armenians may think so. I don’t!
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