Thursday, October 06, 2005
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Tchaikovsky hated Brahms, Schopenhauer hated Hegel, and Nabokov hated Dostoevsky. If they could hate the competition, why can’t we hate the Turks? Because it is one thing to hate marginally and another to make of hatred a fixation. Most of their lives Tchaikovsky, Schopenhauer, and Nabokov concentrated their best efforts on creating masterpieces. Hatred for them was a transitory and ephemeral investment. With us it’s closer to monomania. Which is why it is damaging to our psyche and injurious to our creativity.
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During the last few days I have read several commentaries by Canadian pundits on Turkey’s prospects of membership in the EU in which the Genocide is not even mentioned. Some countries in Europe may try to use Armenians as a political football, as they did at the turn of the last century, but Canadians know better. Canadians know that in politics and international affairs the deciding vote is always cast by self-interest and not love of justice. Such a pity that some of our leaders and pundits forget this or pretend not to be aware of it, as if their own actions were invariably motivated not by self-interest but by altruistic sentiments.
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In his learned review of Annie and Jean-Pierre Mahé’s new book on Armenian History (L’ARMENIE A L’EPREUVE DES SIECLES), Claude Mutafian tells us that no historian is qualified to write a history of Armenia because no historian can claim to be an authority on all periods of Armenian history. And yet, historians like Spengler and Toynbee produced universal histories from ancient times to the present day. That’s because their aim was to understand history, not to describe it. One of our tragedies is that our historians have been of the descriptive kind, leading nowhere and understanding nothing. Hence our perception of the past as “a litany of lamentation, anxiety, horror, massacre, and deception” (Nigoghos Sarafian).
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Friday, October 07, 2005
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The most effective way of suppressing dissent and free speech is to support writers and publishers while at the same time exercising strict censorship. This is what all totalitarian regimes do. Under Stalin, for instance, dissenters like Mandelstam, Solzhenitsyn, Akhmatova, and our own Zabel Yessayan, Bakounts, Mahari and many others) were silenced, sometimes permanently, but hundreds of other mediocrities (among them Sylva Kaputikian) were published, distributed, translated into many languages, and awarded the Stalin Prize. Most Soviet citizens didn’t care or were unaware of the fact that one of their most fundamental human rights was being violated.
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I once had the following conversation with one of our publishers:
“I have had phone calls saying I should stop publishing you,” he began.
“By whom?” I wanted to know.
“By Jack S. Avanakian,” he replied.
“You mean the same Jack S. Avanakian who happens to be the personal secretary of one of our national benefactors?”
“The very same.”
“Are you going to follow his instructions?”
“Of course not!”
But he did. Shortly thereafter he stopped publishing me. What changed his mind? I have no idea and he never explained. But I can’t help remembering Brecht’s celebrated slogan: “Grub first, then ethics.”
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Saturday, October 08, 2005
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Fanatics in one camp will invariably create counter-fanatics in the opposite camp, and a fanatic’s favorite solution is extermination.
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Those in power will tend to misrepresent their fanatics as moderates with the result that moderation and tolerance will be seen as treason and critics of extremism will be branded as enemies.
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Whenever a fellow Armenian tells me, “Please, don’t write about this,” I think: Why shouldn’t I? It is my duty to do so. Let better men than myself deal with the problem of reforming and educating Turks. My ambitions are far more modest.
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