Thursday, January 11, 2007
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QUESTIONS
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If Armenians change some day, it will not be because of what I or a thousand others before me have said but because reality will have eroded their lies and half-truths. Why go on writing? That’s a question I should be asking myself. Your question should be: Why go on reading? “Looking for fish, don’t climb a tree,” says a Chinese proverb. And I say, “Looking for flattery, read a brown-noser.”
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ON NATIONALISM
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The problems with nationalism is that it narrows our horizons and with them our understanding of the world. Or, as the Malaysian proverb has it: “A frog beneath a coconut shell believes there is no other world.”
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ON HUMBUG
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One reason I ignore some of my critics is that I don’t know how to argue against humbug. Does anyone? Humbug has resisted millennia of philosophy and science and it will probably outlive long after we are all dead and buried – and by we I mean Homo sapiens.
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WHAT I UNDERSTAND
ABOUT OUR COMMISSARS
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I have no illusions about my fellow men, including my fellow Armenians. If some day in the near or distant future a Stalin-like figure emerges and takes over our homeland, he will have all the support he needs from our chic neo-Bolsheviks in the Diaspora and as many commissars as his dark heart desires. This may happen anywhere, of course, but not as easily in countries with democratic traditions. As for our commissars: after shooting all dissidents (assuming there will be any left by then) they will do what they did under Stalin: they will start shooting one another. Which raises the question: Why fight a system, any system, knowing that sooner or later all systems collapse?
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ON THE UNIVERSALITY OF PROVERBS
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Chinese proverb: “Those who have free seats at a play hiss first.” I experience the truth of this proverb every day.
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Friday, January 12, 2007
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A RULE WITHOUT EXCEPTIONS
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An Armenian who dehumanizes Turks, sooner or later will dehumanize his fellow Armenians. This is a rule without exceptions.
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A RULE WITH ONE EXCEPTION
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Good logic has the power to silence even a loudmouth smart-ass suffering from an advanced case of verbal diarrhea. This rule, however, has one exception: the Armenian of the species.
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MONGOLOIDS AND ARMENOIDS
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In a commentary titled “American forces in Iraq could learn from Genghis Khan,” I read: “The Mongols spared anyone with a craft such as carpentry and writing…” Henceforth whenever I use the word Mongoloid I will think Armenoid.
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GLOOM AND DOOM
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If you think what I write is gloomy because I see only the dark side of things, you couldn’t be more wrong. I become gloomy only when I think of my fellow Armenians.
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CASUALTIES OF WAR
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“I am right!” – the false assumption that is at the source of all conflicts. If all self-righteous and dogmatic people taught themselves to say, “I could be wrong,” we would have fewer casualties of war.
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ON BEING A REVOLUTIONARY
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I know too much about power and propaganda to be a partisan of any ideology or movement. I also know it is not necessary to adopt an ideology or join a movement to be a revolutionary. Be honest and the whole world will be against you.
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SHARING A SECRET
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Ever since I decided to expect nothing from my fellow men I have not experienced disappointment.
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Saturday, January 13, 2007
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FEAR OF FLYING
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“The smaller the country,” I remember to have read somewhere, “the longer its national anthem.” Also, I would add, the more long-winded its sermonizers and speechifiers. As a child I was exposed to countless speeches and sermons delivered by individuals infatuated with the sound of their own voice and the platitude of their clichés. I remember only one Armenian whose speech made sense to me and he committed suicide. Some say it wasn’t suicide but a political assassination. Others are convinced it was an accident – he was drunk, lost his balance and fell from his balcony. Which sounds to me like six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. At the root of these theories is the fact that he was misunderstood (or understood too well) and rejected by his fellow Armenians. All this to explain why I write in short paragraphs, I don’t drink, and I don’t live in a high-rise.
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MORAL: If you make sense, they will hate you.
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