Sunday, March 25, 2007
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THE VOICE OF GOD
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When an Armenian speechifies or editorializes he does so not only as the voice of the people but also as the voice of God, and that’s the only time he comes close to believing in His existence.
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Politics is not theology. One should never speak of black-and-white certainties. To do so is to expose oneself as a fanatic and a fascist. If so far Turks and Armenians have been unable to reach a consensus it may be because they have consistently ignored the gray areas that they share in common.
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The aim of literature is to raise consciousness; the aim of propaganda is to lower it.
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No one wants to be identified as a racist; and people will say anything to improve their image. Once I even cornered a notorious anti-Semite to say “I love Jews.” But forever after he hated me. And whenever I corner an Armenian to say, “I don’t hate Turks,” I make another enemy for life.
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It’s the easiest thing on earth to make an Armenian enemy. Sometimes all it takes is to begin a sentence with the words “I think…” That’s because he will immediately assume you are muscling in his territory.
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An Armenian will always prefer the company of yes-men and brownnosers. He has no use for thinkers. That’s why to be an Armenian writer means to be the wrong man at the wrong time and place and in the wrong line of work; that is also why to read the biography of an Armenian writer is to read a tragedy.
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Our writers may no longer die of tuberculosis in their late teens or early twenties; Talaat’s and Stalin’s henchmen may no longer be around, but philistines and commissars are very much alive. How else to explain the death of Armenian literature?
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Voltaire: “The surest thing is to be sure of nothing.”
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Joseph Joubert: “The sound of drums dissipates thoughts; it is for this very reason that this instrument is eminently military.
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Tuesday, March 27, 2007
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TRUTH AND JUSTICE
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To speak of truth and justice is to deal in shadowy theological terms and moral/judicial concepts on which even theologians, moral philosophers, and legislators disagree. A lawyer will tell you that his primary concern is not justice but evidence and interpretation of the law. A judge will tell you that courthouses are not courts of justice but courts of law. A politician will tell you his primary concern is not and has never been truth but self-interest. Hence the slogan of the British Empire: “We have neither friends nor enemies, only interests.”
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I was brought up to believe the Turks did what they did to us because they are bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians. Though I am no longer a child, deep inside somewhere I still feel and think so. But I also know that there is a barbarian in all of us. If only because, according to psychologists and biologists, part of our brain is crocodilian – i.e. it has the same shape as the brain of crocodiles. I also know that when a man thinks his existence is in peril, he will not stand on ceremony and behave like a civilized human being – which is why to kill in self-defense is not a crime.
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In 1915 did the Turks believe their existence to be in peril? Or rather, was it reasonable of them to think so? What about us? Can we really plead not guilty on all counts? Were we right to believe in the verbal commitments or propaganda of the Young Turks, the Great Powers of the West, the Russians, and last but not least, in the reality or possibility of a recaptured Historic Armenia? If we were wrong on all these counts, can we really assert we played no part in digging our own graves and that our revolutionaries were not blundering fools but heroes and statesmen of vision? If smart, cosmopolitan, educated people like us were justified in being deceived by practically everyone we came into contact, is it conceivable that dumb and primitive savages fresh out from the depths of Asian steppes, were also justified in being deceived into thinking we were their mortal enemies and together with the rest of the infidel world, we threatened their very existence?
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The aim of these questions is not to establish truth and justice but to ask: Where do we go from here? Do we advance towards mutual understanding or do we continue to hurl insults at one another? — which is what we have been doing for nearly a century, in addition to wasting millions on lobbyists, academics, and propaganda.
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By the way, I do not think we are smart, except perhaps when it comes to selling Oriental rugs. I also do not think Turks are dumb: those who planned and carried out the Genocide were born, raised, and educated in Europe, and some of them may even have been part-Armenian.
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