Thursday, July 27, 2006
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WHAT I KNOW ABOUT FASCISTS
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Under fascism to call a spade a spade and to suggest that two plus two make four may be construed as dissent, that is to say, a capital offense.
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Under fascism the only way to play it safe is to say what they want to hear and to pretend they know better what’s good for you even if they know nothing about you and they care even less.
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Fascists will identify you as an enemy not because you are wrong and they are right, but because you dared to disagree with them.
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Under fascism if you refuse to be systematically moronized you will be called an enemy of the people by enemies of the nation.
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Fascists preach patriotism, practice the destruction of the nation, after which they blame the rest of mankind.
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And now a question: knowing what I know about fascists, if you had a choice between living in a fascist Armenia and a democratic Turkey, where would you live?
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I am willing to concede that people like me improve nothing. But sometimes I am tempted to believe that they may make a tiny — even if tiny to the point of being invisible — contribution towards preventing things from getting worse.
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Friday, July 28, 2006
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If I were to name the three most incomprehensible things in the world they would be (one) why things exist; (two) why propaganda works; and (three) why do we obstinately refuse to see any inconsistency in preaching Armenianism and practicing Ottomanism.
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A systematically moronized generation will moronized the next generation with a clear conscience and total unawareness of what it is doing.
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Russian proverb: “Right is on the side of those who have more rights.”
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Extremism: a frequently used word these days and to me one of the most annoying, not only for what it stands, which is repulsive enough, but also for what it looks like – excrementalism.
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“Consciousness cannot go through the same state twice,” Bergson tells us. It follows, whe I say “I haven’t changed my mind” I also admit that I am not in the habit of allowing my consciousness to make a contribution to my thinking, which is a contradiction because objective judgment and logic are operations of the conscious mind.
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“Loving a human being amounts to killing all others,” Camus writes in his NOTEBOOKS. Patriotism may not amount to killing or hating all other nations, but it may make us less receptive to their humanity.
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An Armenian who dares to think for himself will make many enemies and very few friends. The same could be said of Turks and in general of all people who view tolerance as a state of mind that may lead to treason.
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Saturday, July 29, 2006
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Saroyan once said that he felt sorry for the Turks. For a long time I couldn’t understand that. But I do now. Saroyan could have added that he felt sorrier for his fellow Armenians for their lack of awareness, for what they have become, and for the way they treat one another.
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A Turk once said to me, “What about the innocent Turks massacred by the Armenians?” In my reply I said that I have always been on the side of victims and against victimizers regardless of race, color, and creed.
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I feel sorry for the Palestinians today, but I feel sorrier for the Jews. If the Palestinian have known oppression for fifty years, the Jews have known it for five thousand years. When I speak of Palestinians I don’t have in mind their “freedom fighters” or “terrorists,” but the innocent civilians who are double victims – victims of Israelis as well as their incompetent and corrupt leadership; and I have every reason to believe that Palestinians will be better off in a democratic Israel than in their own theocracy.
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In Chekhov’s NOTEBOOKS we read: “Love, friendship, respect do not unite people as much as common hatred for something.” That indeed is the true tragedy of all defeated and massacred people – the emphasis on hatred in their collective existence and the absence of friendship, respect, and ultimately common sense and decency.
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Elsewhere, Chekhov writes: “It is better to be the victim than the executioner.” There you have another reason why Saroyan felt sorry for the Turks.
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It has been said that only the very wise and the very stupid don’t change. No matter how hard I try I see very little wisdom in our past blunders and present conduct. You may now draw your own conclusions.
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I am not a man of faith and I have every reason to suspect that organized religions have done more harm than good. And yet (the two saddest words in the English language, it has been said), and yet, sometimes I feel an irresistible urge to go down on my knees and pray: “Our Father, Who art in Heaven…”
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