Author: arabaliozian

Sunday, October 16, 2005
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All the Turks have to say is Armenians are prone to engage in acts of terrorism if their demands are not met and they will have majority support in Washington. And if, on top of that, Yanks discover the fact that some Armenians harbor anti-Israeli and pro-Arab sentiments, then you can kiss acknowledgement of the Genocide goodbye.
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Several readers have pointed out that my testimony cannot be relied on because I am a traumatized witness. I am more than willing to plead guilty as charged. But if these very same readers imply that six centuries of Ottoman oppression followed by massacres and dispersion have not traumatized them, they deceive themselves. Either that or they have been so thoroughly dehumanized that it doesn’t even occur to them that they may be in denial.
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Monday, October 17, 2005
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In an interview published in SOCIAL SCIENCE RECORD: THE JOURNAL OF THE NEW YORK STATE COUNCIL FOR THE SOCIAL STUDIES (Volume 24, Issue 2), Professor Vahakn N. Dadrian has some kind words for Armenians of Zeitun and Sassoun who “defied authority, retaliated, engaged in reprisals, in consequence many Turkish hordes as well as regular and superior army units were held at bay and in some instances even defeated and humbled.” What the good professor fails to discuss is, to what extent this kind of isolated defiance provoked the Turks to retaliate by massacring innocent and defenseless civilians who were in no position to resist?
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Nikol Aghbalian is right, we are a tribal people; or, in the words of Gostan Zarian, our concept of nation begins and ends with our mountain, our valley, our village, our church, and our chickens.
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Dadrian sets the stage for the interview by describing Armenians as a “historically persecuted race…an orphan nation” that has experienced “massacres, atrocities, and massive destruction.” What he fails to explore is to what extent our own tribalism, lack of solidarity, and incompetent leadership – things that have been discussed at some length by our own historians, novelists, essayists, satirists, and poets – were a contributing factor to our perennial status as losers and victims.
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Elsewhere in this same interview and speaking of other academics who, unlike him, have so far ignored the study of genocides, Dadrian explains that it may be because they prefer to explore topics “that yield them dividends in terms of research money, prestige, publicity and publication.” Dadrian thus illustrates another notorious Armenian idiosyncrasy – the widely held illusion that our status as victims empowers us to assume a morally superior stance by viewing Turks as Asiatic barbarians, the West as thoroughly corrupt, degenerate, and cynical, and, as if that weren’t enough, to express outrage when the world fails to support our claims.
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Tuesday, October 18, 2005
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THEME AND VARIATIONS
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History makes one point very clear: in time of trouble, when we need them most, our political parties are nowhere to be seen. But in time of peace they are all over the place – in schools, churches, community centers, and the media, speechifying, sermonizing,editorializing, organizing demonstrations, lobbying, and, above all, rewriting history in their efforts to cover up their blunders and inability to face facts and to come to grips with reality.
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As a case in point, consider the Ottoman Bank caper at the turn of the last century in Istanbul – the theme of many future variations. A small group of self-appointed heroes do their thing, clear out, and as a result of their actions, innocent civilians are massacred by the thousand. And, as if that weren’t enough, they add insult to injury by misrepresenting that debacle as a glorious page in the annals of our history.
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Wednesday, October 19, 2005
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Somewhere in his STUDY OF HISTORY Toynbee writes that the uneducated or poorly educated masses are no match for the educated bourgeoisie. Elsewhere he explains that the aim of an educational system is to maintain the status quo and to protect the privileges of the ruling class. To put it more bluntly, we are all brainwashed to believe that the political system in which we live is fair and we should be satisfied with our lot.
Long before Toynbee, Napoleon said if it weren’t for religion, the poor would butcher the rich.
Both Napoleon and Toynbee were members of the privileged classes or the Establishment, and both could afford being honest.
One positive feature of the bourgeoisie is that, in addition to producing swine, it has also produced some men of integrity and courage. Jean-Paul Sartre comes to mind. This Nobel-Prize winning philosopher, novelist, and playwright was born and raised into a petit-bourgeois family and he hated the bourgeoisie so much that he allowed himself to be a dupe of Stalin, Mao, and Castro.
On the day the average Armenian becomes aware of his status as a dupe, our bosses, bishops, benefactors with all their hirelings, flunkeys, hangers-on and brown-nosers will be consigned to the dustbin of history before anyone can say Jack S. Avanakian.
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[B]Thursday, October 13, 2005
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There are many ways to belittle a writer’s work and to insult a man and I have heard them all. Here are some samples.
-You are a disgrace to your nation.
-What’s your point?
-Was your mother a Turkish whore?
-You repeat yourself.
-You are a racist.
-Why don’t you say something we don’t know?
-A dealer in verbal crapola.
-Gobbledygook.
-You are a denialist.
-Booooooooooooring!
-You are a fool.
-Son of a bitch.
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Is it conceivable that the only thing we have learned from our Ottoman and Bolshevik experiences is intolerance?
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Why is it that in order to prove their superior brand of patriotism some of my readers find it necessary to go down into the gutter?
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And to think that some of these ladies and gentlemen think they are qualified to reform and civilize the Turks.
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Dealing with fellow Armenians builds character, provided you survive the experience.
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Friday, October 14, 2005
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We treat our satirists not as social critics but as comedians; we silence our dissidents; we discard anti-Armenian odars as Turcophiles (meaning the lowest scum on earth); and we believe in our own assertions of moral and intellectual superiority. All of which combine to make of us a nation in denial. And if our pundits and academics ignore our contradictions and concentrate their efforts on documenting the massacres and exposing Turkish lies, it may be because it is not popular to criticize a nation that has sustained a near-mortal wound. Either that or they follow an old American political maxim that says, “You don’t kill a man who is committing suicide.”
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About anti-Armenian odars: it makes little sense to label them as Turcophiles. All nations have their critics, why should we be an exception?
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Once, when Napoleon said, “All Italians are thieves!” his interlocutor replied, “Buona parte,” (meaning, not all of them but a good fraction).
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Saturday, October 15, 2005
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THE ARMENIAN CONNECTION
This year’s Nobel Prize winner for Literature is Harold Pinter who was greatly influenced by Arthur Adamov, a cofounder (with Beckett and Ionesco) of the Theater of the Absurd. It is to be noted that Adamov (an Armenian), Beckett (an Irishman) and Ionesco (a Rumanian) lived in Paris and wrote in French because their own homeland did not provide them with a friendly environment. In the same way that money goes to money, great writers go to great cultures. And Harold Pinter is a Jew who lives in London and writes in English.
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A THOUSAND AND ONE SMILES
If I were to name the funniest book in the world it would be neither Stalin’s COLLECTED WORKS nor Castro COMPLETE SPEECHES but THE COMPLETE CARTOONS OF THE NEW YORKER: ALL 68,647 CARTOONS EVER PUBLISHED IN THE MAGAZINE. There is a smile here on every page and a belly laugh ever five or six pages. It is not only the funniest but also the biggest and heaviest book I have ever handled. Take all your vitamins before you decide to carry it home from the library or your nearest bookstore.
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THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE WEST
Hiroshima and Nagasaki are major scandals, of course, but infinitely worse is the fact that Sinatra and Elvis sold more records than Sibelius and Elgar; and worse, much worse: the Beatles made more money than Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, and Bartok combined.
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Sunday, October 09, 2005
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To understand is to forgive. But since human understanding, unlike divine understanding, is limited, our forgiveness is bound to be tainted. The best we can do is to say we will not allow our enemy’s character and conduct to define our sentiments and thoughts.
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To understand another means to see oneself in him because “nothing human is alien to me.” Which may explain why Dostoevsky wrote with some understanding and sympathy about an ax-murderer of old ladies (CRIME AND PUNISHMENT), Nabokov about a child molester (LOLITA), and Richard Stark (real name Donald Westlake) about a ruthless killer (POINT BLANK).
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To be brainwashed means to have a fraction of our brain paralyzed.
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Prejudice is like a knife that maims and castrates our thinking organ.
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I have been exposed to too many patriotic speeches by charlatans to have any respect for verbal professions of patriotism.
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Monday, October 10, 2005
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TWO MEN OF INTEGRITY
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Thomas Bernhard was an Austrian writer who hated his fellow Austrians with a passion. No other writer has been as relentless as he in his excoriations of his fellow countrymen. Our Raffi too was very critical of Armenians but in his fiction he also created a good number of heroes and noble specimens of humanity. Baronian, Odian, and Massikian couched their attacks in humor and satire. Zarian’s trajectory from great expectations to despair and disgust was gradual and he was careful to confide his denunciations in his correspondence with friends, diaries and notebooks that were published only posthumously. Thomas Bernhard’s hatred seems to have been born in his cradle and continued all the way to his grave at the age of 58. But since he was widely translated and admired throughout the world, the Austrians had little choice but to award him a prestigious literary prize in the hope of that flattery may mollify him. It had the opposite effect. In his acceptance speech Bernhard delivered such a scathing attack on Austrian double-talk, mediocrity, intolerance, and fascism that the Austrian Minister of Culture and half of the audience walked out on him. I dare you not to love and admire such a man!
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When a prominent Soviet official died, a good number of Soviet personalities in the arts, among them Shostakovich, were invited to deliver eulogies. As it was to be expected, all the brown-nosers emphasized the positive and ignored the negative in the deceased, all except Shostakovich who chose to emphasize only the negative by exposing the man’s dishonesty and opportunism. Which is why, ever since I read this, I have had a soft spot for Shostakovich, whose music I also love not because it is elegant, refined, deep, intricate, or noble but because it has a propulsive and sometimes gut-wrenching forward drive.
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Tuesday, October 11, 2005
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Bad news for our massacre pundits: as the number of tragedies around the world rises, the magnitude of our own goes down. This phenomenon is also known as “compassion fatigue.” As a result, the more we talk about our tragedy, the more sympathizers we lose. I suggest therefore, “Less is more.”
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Our massacre pundits remind me of the survivors of another holocaust in the Old Testament who looked back and turned into pillars of salt.
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If a friend “is a masterpiece of nature” (Emerson), what is an enemy if not a curse from hell.
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It is not easy educating those who are infatuated with their own ignorance.
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I have written over a thousand commentaries and letters and I am proud to announce none of them ends with Comrade Panchoonie’s punch line, “Mi kich pogh oughargetsek” (Send us a little money). I am thus in a position to say to my readers, “If dissatisfied, your money will be cheerfully refunded.”
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Wednesday, October 12, 2005
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What’s wrong with assimilation, an assimilated reader demands to know. Nothing, if the assimilation is driven by necessity such economic conditions, unemployment and destitution. But if the economic conditions are results of a corrupt and incompetent administration, then emigration and assimilation become our collective responsibility. Assimilation in the Diaspora is less a result of economic conditions and more of internal conflicts, divisions, mutual intolerance, and inept leadership. In which case, assimilation or “white massacre” may be said to be the death of a thousand self-inflicted cuts.
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Another reader wants to know why I am against millionaires? I am not, provided they mind their own business and don’t get involved in culture and politics, because where benefactors enter, brown-nosers rise to the top. It is worth remembering that plutocracy and democracy are mutually exclusive concepts, and a developed wallet means an underdeveloped intellect.
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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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Sunday, October 02, 2005
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MEMO TO OUR FUND RAISERS
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If you send me any more letters with Comrade Panchoonie’s punch line – “Mi kich pogh oughargetsek” (Send us a little money) – I will discard them into the nearest wastepaper basket. And if some day I hit the jackpot and can’t spend it all, I will follow Baruir Massikian’s example and leave the unused balance “to a bordello in Cairo,” or Mexico, or Sao Paolo – anywhere but Yerevan. I don’t want to promote prostitution there. Besides, our pimps are the last men on earth in need of financial assistance from the likes of me. My sources tell our pimps in the Homeland are as loaded as some of our national benefactors in the Diaspora.
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Monday, October 03, 2005
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If you are born in a Christian or Muslim country you will be either a Christian or a Muslim. The same applies to all organized religions and belief systems in general. Under Stalin, all communists were atheists. We don’t chose our gods; geography does that for us. Nothing could be more absurd than to say my religion is better than yours is, or I am closer to god because I live on this side of the river, mountain, or sea.
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Something similar could be said about our understanding of the past. As children we are taught not history but propaganda, and as adults we continue to cling to our childhood illusions and believe our version of the past to be closer to reality or truth than all other versions.
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A headline in our local paper reads: “FATHER OF SLAIN TEEN SAYS HE FORGIVES DAUGHTER’S KILLER.” In our environment such a father would be accused of entertaining unArmenian sentiments and ostracized.
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Tuesday, October 04, 2005
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We see this happening almost daily in American and Canadian politics: the guiltier the bureaucrat the louder his assertions of innocence. By contrast, our crooks don’t even feel the need to assert innocence because their accusers soon give up in disgust and they either emigrate or assimilate, thus leaving the field to the dupes who will say “Yes, sir!” to anyone who is on top, be a he a sultan, pasha, commissar, or mullah. As for our so-called revolutionaries: once upon a time they were to the left of the Sultan, they are now to the right of Genghis Khan. How to explain this?
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In August Wilson’s obituary today I read: “Wilson’s plays dealt primarily with the effects of slavery on succeeding generations of black Americans.” What have been the effects of six centuries of subservience to sultans and commissars? If so far our writers have failed to explore this theme it may be because they have concentrated too much on documenting the nightmare to analyze its aftereffects.
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Wednesday, October 05, 2005
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Writing for Armenians feels like working for minimum wage and offering financial assistance to millionaires.
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To be popular, think like a propagandist and speak like a pundit.
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Recycling propaganda is not just repeating hearsay evidence but parroting perjury.
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Enlightenment comes only after the realization that you have been living in darkness.
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Ritual is choreographed propaganda.
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Massacres are not historic events but daily occurrences. Top dogs may pretend otherwise but underdogs know better.
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Every belief system generates non-believers and the men at the top decide who is right who is wrong, and ultimately who lives and dies.
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Thursday, September 29, 2005
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MASTERS OF THE BLAME GAME
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What I am about to say I have probably said before. If you value your time, no need to read any further.
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We blame the massacres on Turks; we blame the Stalinist purges on the Kremlin, emigration from the Homeland on the Earthquake, the Earthquake on God, and the high rate of assimilation in the Diaspora on conditions beyond our control. Which raises the question: Who is minding the store? What has been the role of our leadership in all this? If they have been of no use to us in the past, of what possible use can they be in the future?
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More questions:
Do we have an independent judiciary?
Do we have a Supreme Court?
Does anyone know the name of the Chief Justice?
If we had an independent judiciary, how many members of the Executive Branch would be impeached, found guilty, and fried?
That’s something worth thinking about.
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If I have said this before, I apologize.
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Friday, September 30, 2005
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Whenever a reader attacks my anti-establishment views, thus rising to the defense of the establishment (as if the establishment did not have an entire propaganda apparatus with which to defend itself and to hoodwink, bamboozle, and flimflam the public), I remind myself that there is a sucker born every minute. That’s the only way to explain why all leaders, no matter how corrupt, incompetent, and evil, have had their share of supporters. Nazis in Germany and Fascists in Italy exist today as surely as Stalinists do in Russian and in the former states of the USSR, including our own homeland and diaspora. I have met some of them myself. They may no longer identify themselves as Stalinists as openly as in the good old days, but neither do they try very hard to hide their true colors, especially when it comes to such subjects as the United States, McCarthy, the CIA, and our own ARF.
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Saturday, October 01, 2005
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MEMO TO A FRIEND
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You tell me I should travel, deliver lectures, visit community centers, press the flesh. To what end? Writers have at no time played anything but a less than marginal role in our collective existence. And now that they have been effectively exterminated or silenced, does anyone miss them? Have you heard anyone lament the fact that after the generation of Shahnour and Zarian we have only minor scribblers, propagandists, hirelings, brown-nosers, and phony pundits who blabber endlessly about Turks. Remember Puzant Granian’s words: “So many national benefactors, but not a single national poet!” And allow me to quote Zohrab: “Once in a while I come across certain characters, among them so-called friends and acquaintances, who tug at my sleeve, take me aside and whisper: ‘Why don’t you concentrate on your own affairs, man? This writing business doesn’t fill the stomach’.” There you have a typical Armenian speaking. Can you imagine anyone saying to an Oriental carpet dealer: “Why bother selling rugs, man? There are more important things in life.”
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Sunday, September 25, 2005
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SEMANTIC PERVERSIONS
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If you call a crook an honest man, he will be flattered. He will thank you and after congratulating himself he will think: “I am good. I must be doing something right.” When he says “good” he means bad; and when he says “right” he means wrong.
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An honest man doesn’t care to be called honest. He is too busy trying to survive in a dishonest environment to have any use for flattery.
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A really smart man doesn’t identify himself as smart. He doesn’t even talk smart. I have myself dealt with smart men who pretended to be idiots because they knew from experience the best way to take advantage of another is to let him think he is the smart one and no idiot like himself could ever hope to deceive him.
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When odars call us smart, we are flattered. We welcome flattery no matter how false. And when others fail to flatter us, we flatter ourselves.
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We identify ourselves as the first nation to convert to Christianity, but we avoid asking ourselves: How genuine is our faith? Do we love one another? Are we even tolerant of one another? As for loving our enemies…don’t make me laugh.
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We have become beggars for flattery and masters of self-deception. We call our military defeats moral victories thus asserting our moral superiority even as our own ablest writers tell us treason and betrayal are in our blood (Raffi) and we survive by cannibalizing one another (Zarian).
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Our leaders tell us we are in good hands even as they depopulate the Homeland and alienate the majority in the Diaspora.
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A handful of young hotheads, after taking over the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul, negotiate a safe passage abroad for themselves. That same day, in retaliation, several thousand innocent Armenians are slaughtered by a mob of enraged Turks, and to this day this fiasco is described as a heroic episode that made headlines around the world. Nobody wants to know if these headlines saved a single life or were of any practical value to anyone. The heroes are exalted and enshrined in the annals of our glorious past and the anonymous victims are reduced to the status of a statistical footnote and forgotten.
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Monday, September 26, 2005
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To understand reality also means to want to change it, but whereas fools aim to change others, never themselves, the wise concentrates on themselves. The wise have a better chance to succeed.
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Schopenhauer observes somewhere that women have been carefully designed so that men may make asses of themselves. That is something worth thinking about.
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If you are going to pretend to know better, first make sure how much the other knows.
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A rule without exceptions: Those who think they sit at the right hand of god, sit at the left hand of the devil.
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According to Nejdeh, “Hye lineluts araj, petk a mard linel!” Roughly translated: “If you want to be an Armenian start by being a human being.” And according to a frequently quoted Armenian motto: “Mard bidi ch’ellank!” Roughly translated: “We will never qualify as human beings.” Figure that one out if you can.
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If some of my readers don’t like what I say it may be because “the torch of truth burns many asses.”
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You become a success when you no longer care if others see you as a failure.
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Before you decide to assess yourself as smart, make sure you know the difference between smart and smartass.
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Tuesday, September 27, 2005
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Changing the world has never been my ambition, only sharing my understanding with my fellow Armenians. I now suspect I bet on the wrong horse. I had a better chance to succeed if I had aimed at changing the world.
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When two brainwashed dupes contradict each other, it is not themselves that do the contradicting but their respective propaganda lines.
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Gresham’s Law, named after the 16th-century English merchant Sir Thomas Gresham, states, “Bad money drive out good money,” meaning: adulterated gold drives out pure gold, for the simple reason that it is cheaper. By extension, opportunists drive out men of principle, and mediocrities drive out those who seek to achieve excellence.
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An extension of Grisham’s Law: “Evil knows how to organize itself because it appeals to the selfish instincts of the majority.”
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Likewise, recycled crap drives out objective judgment, and hoodlums and their verbal abuse drive out dialogue.
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There is more to Armenian history than the massacres. To focus on the massacres and to ignore centuries of subservience, divisiveness, intolerance, dogmatism, betrayal, abuse of power, incompetence, and anti-intellectualism is to misrepresent and misunderstand the historic significance of the massacres.
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One reason our dime-a-dozen pundits concentrate on the Red Massacre is to cover up and ignore its White variant. But I have said that before…
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What’s done is done and not even God can change the past. We are in a far better position to change the present. If we prefer to lament, adopt a passive stance, and deceive ourselves into thinking we are in good hands, it may be because after centuries of subservience to foreign tyrants, subservience to our own mini-sultans, neo-commissars, and pseudo-ayatollahs comes naturally to us.
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If I repeat myself it may be because our blunders keep repeating themselves and not repeating myself would amount to either giving up or covering up.
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Wednesday, September 28, 2005
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CONFESSIONS OF A FAILURE
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If I repeat myself it may be because I have run out of ideas. Which may explain why I am a slum-dwelling failure. Which may also explain why any writer who decides to write for Armenians is destined to be a failure, Saroyan being the sole exception that confirms this rule. But many literary critics see even Saroyan as a failure. If he continues to be admired by Armenians it may be because Armenians have been successful in ignoring and silencing their critics. They don’t mind tolerating brown-nosers, but critics they treat the way Turks treated Armenians at the turn of the last century. If I have said this before, I apologize. Henceforth I promise to do my utmost to say something different, such as, Armenians welcome criticism because, as the first nation to convert to Christianity, they are a tolerant and compassionate folk not only towards their fellow Armenians but also towards their enemies. And Armenians are tolerant and compassionate because as the first nation to suffer genocide in the 20th century they know all about the evil of intolerance and hatred. You want to hear more new ideas? How about this? Van, Erzrum, Kars and Ardahan belong to us in the same way that Detroit, New York City, Washington, Chicago and Dallas belong to the Apaches, Sioux, Seminole, and Cherokee Indians of North America, and our chances of getting them back are as good as theirs. The main thing is not to give up, to persevere, to have faith in our leaders and to support them. The best is yet to come. All our dreams will come true provided of course you send them a little money.
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Speaking about new ideas: Paul Valéry once asked Einstein: “Do you carry a notebook on your person so that when a new idea comes you may put it down for future reference?” And Einstein replied: “New ideas don’t come to me that frequently.” And sure enough, good old Einstein spent the last twenty years of his life in search of a new idea that he never found. It is such a heavy burden being a mediocrity among geniuses!
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Thursday, September 22, 2005
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Political parties don’t like admitting blunders, especially major ones. After World War I Germans blamed their defeat on Jews. There are pro-German historians today who believe Hitler was a great statesman, the Holocaust a figment of Zionist imagination, and Churchill a war criminal. I once heard a Stalinist blame the collapse of the USSR on Solzhenitsyn and his kind of “hyena with a fountain pen,” and “running dog of the bourgeoisie.”
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The rule is, political parties are never wrong. They might be willing to compromise and admit minor tactical errors, but never major or catastrophic or apocalyptic defeats and disasters.
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Are our own political parties exceptions to this rule? Are they right when they say conditions at the turn of the last century in the Ottoman Empire were so unbearable that revolution was their only option? What they avoid saying is that they confused the verbal support of the West with the certainty of military intervention, and they were so sure of the demise of the “sick man of Europe” that they were blind to the possibility of wholesale massacres.
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If conditions were unbearable, why is it that Zohrab, one of the most astute observers of his time, who had many Turkish friends, among them Talaat, did not quit Istanbul and save his own skin? Why is it that a friend of Yervant Odian returned to Istanbul from Egypt even when he knew he was a wanted man? Why is it that Siamanto returned to Istanbul from the United States? Why is it that Roupen Sevag wrote a letter to his German fiancee who had said she did not look forward to life in Turkey because she did not like Turks: “You don’t know them. Deep down they are nice folk.”
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We know now that our choice was not between passive acceptance of the “unbearable” status quo and revolution, but between passive acceptance and genocide; and this is not 20/20 vision but the clearly stated warning of our own leadership within the Ottoman administration.
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A final question: if conditions were unbearable, why is it that we produced many brilliant writers in Istanbul under the sultans and so far none under our own bosses, bishops, and benefactors in America?
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Friday, September 23, 2005
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ON REVISIONISM
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The ultimate aim of revisionism is to project infallibility.
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Past blunders interest me only in so far as our present problems are rooted in them.
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To rewrite history means to ignore its lessons.
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There was a World War II because the combatants had their own versions of World War I.
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To rewrite history means to mislead the people into thinking they are in good hands even as they stand on the edge of the abyss.
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We are experiencing “white massacre” today (emigration from the Homeland and assimilation in the Diaspora) because we ignore the lessons of the “red massacre.”
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When leaders think of themselves as the brains of the people they will treat the people as dupes.
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Unless our leaders start thinking of themselves as public servants, their number one concern will continue to be number one.
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When 99% of the people perish and 99% of the leaders survive it is safe to assume there is something rotten in the state of Denmark. I am not casting aspersions on any particular set of leaders or state — no, not even Denmark — only enunciating a general theory.
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Saturday, September 24, 2005
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Where everyone asserts the traditions of his own village, there will be no tradition. Likewise, where everyone asserts his own values, there will be no values. And finally, where everyone has his own version of the past, the study of history will be a useless enterprise.
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Armenians may be divided into those who believe there is nothing wrong with the status quo because we are in good hands; and those who say since we have always been divided we have never been in good hands, and consequently, all our misfortunes must be ascribed to our own incompetent leadership. If you belong to the first group, you may consider yourself a certified dupe.
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For more on this subject, see Khorenatsi’s LAMENTATION, Raffi’s historical novels, Avedik Issahakian’s CORRESPONDENCE, Zarian’s NOTEBOOKS, and my own DICTIONARY OF ARMENIAN QUOTATIONS, or simply count the number of our victims.
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However, if you are too busy with other far more important matters, read the following quotation by one of our most distinguished poets and novelists, Nigoghos Sarafian (1905-1973): “Our history is a litany of lamentation, anxiety, horror, and massacre. Also deception and abysmal naivete mixed with the smoke of incense and the sound of sacred chants.”
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Sunday, September 18, 2005
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Armenians are smart, progressive, civilized, compassionate, peace-loving, creative, brilliant…as long as you agree with their own assessment of themselves. Disagree with them and out pops the yataghan.
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When as a boy I read Baronian and Odian, I thought they were writing about Armenians of the Ottoman period – Armenians with fezes, mustaches, and shalvars. It was much later that I realized they might as well be our contemporaries. Flattery, subservience, double-talk, and worship of money are as much with us today as they were under the sultans. Even the final lines of letters from organizations presided over and subsidized by our multimillionaires echo Comrade Panchoonie’s celebrated punch line – “Mi kich pogh oughargetsek” (Send us a little money). As the French are fond of saying, “Plus ca change plus c’est la meme merde.”
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What have we learned from the Genocide except to publish memoirs by survivors and anti-Turkish commentaries by our dime-a-dozen pundits?
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We sometimes confuse perseverance in error with principle, and success in the market place with statesmanship. Perseverance in error is arrogant obstinacy (“I am right because I say so and anyone who says otherwise is an enemy of the people”); and success in the market place is cunning. To see more in them is a symptom of ignorance compounded by subservience: subservience to anyone with more money or power (even when he happens to be a moral moron).
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Monday, September 19, 2005
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Our lives are long lists of blunders and it makes no difference whether you are the leader of a mighty empire or an ordinary Joe who can’t make ends meet. The only difference is that if you have power or money on your side, you can afford to hire PR men, lawyers, and pundits, who will make your blunders look like an integral part of a vision whose sole aim is to further the interests of the people. If, on the other hand, you are like myself, an ordinary Joe, even idiots will call you an idiot.
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But as the invasion of Iraq and more recently Katrina have shown, even the President of the mighty U.S. cannot always be successful in misrepresenting his failures as triumphs of statesmanship.
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What have been some of the major blunders of our own leaders? When this issue was raised in reference to the Genocide, I once heard one of our so-called pundits say: “What we have here is an extremely complex concatenation of events and conditions, and none of us is in a position to know what happened behind the scenes.” Of course, no one will ever know everything there is to know about any historic event. We do know however that a million and a half innocent civilians were slaughtered in 1915, and more recently about the same number emigrated from the Homeland in search of minimum-wage employment in foreign countries, including Turkey; and as I write, more millions are being alienated and assimilated.
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Where does the buck stop? The politically correct answer recycled ad nauseam by our dime-a-dozen pundits: all our misfortunes and tragedies must be ascribed to Turkish barbarism, and geographical, historic, cultural, and social conditions beyond our control. But if you were to ask our writers (from Khorenatsi in the 5th Century to Zarian in our own days) they would give you an entirely different answer. They would say the buck stops within us, beginning with our lack of solidarity; and solidarity is a responsibility not of the people but of its leadership.
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Could solidarity have prevented the Genocide? I will let facts speak for themselves. At the turn of the last century our leaders in the Ottoman Empire were divided between those who said revolution was a necessity imposed on us by history, and those who said any revolutionary activity would result in the wholesale massacre of defenseless and innocent civilians. There was no dialogue, compromise, and consensus. Both sides adopted a dogmatic stance; and when that happens, those who are right become powerless, and those who are wrong prevail.
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As for the people, they had no say in the matter. No one asked for their opinion. Throughout our millennial history the voice of the people has been an absent factor in the decision-making process. The only time we hear about them is when they are slaughtered, drowned, or buried beneath the rubble of badly constructed buildings.
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Tuesday, September 20, 2005
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Let conflicting interests escalate and even Abel will behave like Cain.
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To Blacks “white man is the devil.” Gandhi once called the British “a satanic force.” Jews have their anti-Semites and Palestinians their Jews. Tutsis have their Hutus, and we have our Turks. And the merchants in the temple had Jesus.
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The evening news. An angry mob of merchants around the TV camera all shouting at the same time, anxious for their 15 seconds of fame:
-I was minding my own business when this madman barges in with a whip screaming profanities!
-A lunatic, that’s what he is.
-An anarchist.
-An enemy of free enterprise.
-Gave me a bloody nose!
-Blinded me in one eye.
-He should be arrested and fried.
-I say crucify him.
-I am a law-abiding, respectable entrepreneur. I have never done any harm to anyone. I pay my taxes. What the hell does he want from me anyway?
-That wild-eyed fanatic is still running amok vandalizing the place.
-He broke my cell phone. Has anyone called the cops?
-He pushed me, I fell and broke two teeth.
-For all I know he could be a terrorist.
-Maybe even Al Qaida.
-Blinded me in one eye.
-Broke my arm, he did.
-Has anyone called the cops?
-I have no insurance. My inventory flew the coop . I am bankrupt.
-Does anyone know who he is?
-I think he’s Joe’s son.
-Which Joe?
-Joseph the carpenter.
-Can’t be. I know Joe. He is a quiet fellow, a law-abiding citizen like the rest of us here.
-I have heard it said that his real father is a Roman soldier.
-That figures.
-Where the hell is the police?
-I called 911 ten minutes ago.
-They are never around when you need them.
-This town is going to hell. No law and order.
-I pay my taxes like everyone else. I am entitled to some protection.
-Blinded me in one eye he did…
-Broke my nose and at least two ribs.
-I am ruined.
-I say, crucify him!
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Wednesday, September 21, 2005
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Not guilty by reason of insanity is a plea reserved for individuals with diminished capacity. It does not apply to political leaders with an unlimited capacity to kill millions. Which may suggest that man may be successful in dealing with minor and isolated aberrations but faced with major scandals he is helpless by reason of cobra fascination.
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Men of faith and brainwashed dupes in general have an unlimited capacity to rewrite history and make the guilty look innocent and vice versa.
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There may come a time when politics or the exercise of power will be seen as an unmistakable symptom of mental instability and anyone harboring political ambitions will be too ashamed to admit it in public.
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Do we need politicians? As long as they have the power, they will be successful in convincing us that we can’t live without them.
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You may have noticed that the heads of the most efficiently run states are almost anonymous. And the more headlines a political leader makes the more damage he inflicts on his fellow countrymen and the world.
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It has been suggested that the U.S. would be better off if Swiss hotel managers ran it.
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It is worth remembering that once upon a time barbers were also surgeons, and to whisper or suggest that kings and queens were not need was a capital offense punishable by decapitation.
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Thursday, September 15, 2005
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The private conversations of a former Canadian Prime Minister have been published in a book. A big scandal! Politicians, even when they happen to be megalomaniacal wheeler-dealers, must sound like elder statesmen with vision. They are not supposed to have private thoughts and feelings that may reflect badly on others and themselves. But perhaps this is true of all of us. White man must speak with a forked tongue. To say out loud what one thinks is a luxury very few people can afford. Good manners compel us to pretend, distort, and lie — unless of course we deal with a subordinate or someone who is dependent on our goodwill.
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We spent 600 years kissing Ottoman derriere and now we compensate by hurling verbal abuse at them. And when we die our epitaphs will read: “Here lies an Armenian who hated Turks.”
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In one of his books Puzant Granian writes: “Whenever Armenians are mentioned, so is the Genocide, as if our sole contribution to world civilization had been victims of Turkish massacres.”
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We have become a nation with a score to settle, and we divide the world into those who are for us and against us. As for the rest (the overwhelming majority) who are not even aware of our existence, we dismiss them as ignorant rednecks.
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And I ask myself: What do I really know about other people and places? I know that there is something rotten in the State of Denmark. What else? I know that the word “bugger” has something to do with a supposed birth control method practiced by Bulgarians. I may know more about Greeks because I was born and raised there. But what do I really know about Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Patagonia. Tierra del Fuego, the Inuit, Estonians, and so on and so forth…
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We brag about the Golden Age of our literature but I wonder how many of us have read a single golden masterpiece?
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A boozed up British academic with ulterior motives and with the financial assistance of the Gulbenkian Foundation calls Armenia “the Cradle of Civilization” and we believe him. As Saroyan was fond of saying, “Ahmot!”
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Friday, September 16, 2005
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The roles we play in life are seldom ours. We adapt and we conform, which means we accept guidelines imposed on us by others. To be a good Armenian means to accept definitions and values formulated by others.
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During and after World War II Germans were divided into good and bad Germans. Thomas Mann disagreed with these distinctions. Every German, he said, carries within him qualities that were both good and bad. He went further and wrote an essay about Hitler titled “A Brother.” Perhaps we will mature as a nation only on the day we call Turks “our brothers.”
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Armenian role models come in all sizes and shapes. Armenians who say, “the only good Turk is a dead Turk,” unwittingly echo Talaat for whom the only good Armenian was a dead Armenian.
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Sometimes I am criticized and even censored by self-assessed patriotic Armenians on the assumption that they are infallible and as if, as a human being with his share of limitations, I were not entitled to be fallible. But if I were to accept their definition of a good writer as one who is infallible, I would be no better than a self-righteous, dogmatic megalomaniac, a Stalinist without Stalin, a Nazi without Hitler, and a fascist without Mussolini. Which is why I feel justified in saying I’d rather be wrong as a human being than right as a fascist.
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Saturday, September 17, 2005
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There is a type of patriotism that gives patriotism a bad name. Example: patriotism that is an extension of one’s salary. I once knew a professional propagandist who asked for a raise, was refused, and was never heard from again.
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If you are on the wrong path, sooner or later you will know about it. Even if you are the smartest man on earth, you cannot always predict reality’s next move.
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Sharing one’s understanding must also mean making the inaccessible accessible; otherwise it will be like serving a glass of water to someone who is not thirsty.
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You reject barbarism not by reasoning against it, but by behaving in a civilized manner. Sometimes the most effective refutation is silence.
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Even the wisest among us must teach himself to say “I don’t know” and “I don’t understand,” because to be human means to have limitations.
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Totalitarianism in politics and dogmatism in religion recognize only one legitimate school of philosophy – deviate an inch and you are toast.
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When I think of all those writers and thinkers who were silenced and the strident voices of fools who are everywhere in our media and discussion forums, I want to hand in my resignation as a member of the human race.
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