Author: arabaliozian

Sunday, July 01, 2007
***************************************
PROVERBS
**************************************************
From 1001 YIDDISH PROVERBS
by Fred Kogos (New York, 1970).
**************************************************
A friend you have to buy; enemies you get for nothing.
*
A half truth is a whole lie.
*
A liar tells his story so often that he gets to believe it himself.
*
One God and so many enemies.
*
One lie is a lie, two are lies, but three is politics!
*
When a wise man talks to a fool, two fools are talking.
*
When God wants to break a man’s heart, he gives him a lot of sense.
*
Truth is the safest lie.
*
The masses are asses.
*
The rich have no sense of justice.
*
The heaviest burden is an empty pocket.
#
Monday, July 02, 2007
*******************************************
NOTES AND COMMENTS
**************************************
We preach freedom of speech to others but among ourselves we practice censorship, and we are too self-righteous and arrogant to see a contradiction or even an inconsistency.
*
Hatred becomes pathological when you hate even those who don’t share your hatred.
*
Born to Armenian parents in Greece, educated in Italy, now a citizen of Canada and living in the shadow of the United States, I know to what extent nationalism and patriotism limit, distort, and even pervert a man’s perception of the world and his fellow men.
*
Anyone who is against us is not necessarily wrong and anyone who is with us is not necessarily right.
*
Adopting an anti-Turkish stance does not in any way strengthen our case. On the contrary.
*
To proceed on the assumption that Turks are bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians and compulsive liars is to guarantee that we will never reach a consensus with them.
*
We are unaware of our failings because they have become habits.
#
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
******************************************
PHONY PUNDITS
********************************
When a charlatan speaks the truth, he is bound to contaminate it with charlatanism. One reason why I am against phony pundits speaking about the Genocide…or anything else, for that matter.
*
PARADOX
***************
In her acknowledgments to her novel THE BASTARD OF ISTANBUL (New York, 2007), Elif Shafak writes: “I am particularly indebted to Armenian and Turkish grandmothers, who have an almost natural ability to transcend the very boundaries that nationalists on each side take for granted.”
There you have it, the paradox of our collective existence: the generation that experienced the massacres and deportations is more progressive in its thinking than the generation that followed it.
*
PROPAGANDA
***************************
Between writers and politicians, the masses will always choose to trust the politicians not because politicians know better or are smarter but because they control the media and the machinery of propaganda.
*
CENSORSHIP
******************************
Censorship in defense of truth, never. Censorship in defense of lies, always!
*
MORE YIDDISH PROVERBS
********************************************
God protects the poor from expensive sins.
*
God loves the poor and helps the rich.
*
He who is silent means something just the same.
*
The worst libel is the truth.
#
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
************************************************
OBSERVATIONS
*****************************
If you know you are a fool, you are almost smart.
*
We speak the worst lies when we speak of ourselves.
*
A story with a happy ending is an interrupted story.
*
If you believe you are smart no one except reality will make you change your mind, and sometimes not even that.
*
Our Turcocentric pundits write about the Turkishness of Turks. I prefer to write about the Turkishness of Armenians.
*
You tell a fool he is smart and he will believe it.
*
The smarter you are in one thing the dumber you will be in a thousand others. Like all rules this one too has its exceptions – two of them, as a matter of fact: Leonardo da Vinci and Jack S. Avanakian.
*
Three of the paintings in 1001 PAINTINGS YOU MUST SEE BEFORE YOU DIE, Selected by Leading International Critics (New York, 2006) are by Sarkis Katchadourian (1886-1947) (“Three Generations”), and by Arshile Gorky (real name Vostanig Adoian: 1904-1948) (“The Leaf of the Artichoke Is an Owl” and “Betrothal I”).
#

Sunday, June 24, 2007
***************************************
GOOD QUESTIONS / BAD ANSWERS
***********************************************
“Instead of telling us we are on the wrong path, why don’t you tell us where the right path is?” a reader demands to know.
My answer: The right path does not exist. It must be invented, and everyone must invent it for himself; and even after you invent it, there is no guarantee it will take you where you want to go, assuming of course you know where you are going.
Perhaps the best way to come up with a good answer is by rejecting all bad answers, even if you may end up with no answer; even if the choice is between a bad answer and no answer at all, or between collective catastrophe or individual anxiety.
Remember our revolutionaries in the Ottoman Empire: because they settled for a bad answer, we were visited with a collective catastrophe. Something similar happened in Stalin’s USSR, Hitler’s Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, and more recently with Bush’s reaction to 9/11.
No answer is better than an answer that will create bigger problems. Remember, if an answer makes perfect sense to you and every fiber in your body tells you it must be the right answer, it’s sure as hell to take you straight to the devil.
Perhaps all questions are good and bad at the same time: they are good as long as they remain questions; they are bad when we try to answer them.
#
Monday, June 25, 2007
******************************************
ILLUSION AND REALITY
*******************************************
Max Jacob: “An authentic work is one with enough power to change illusion to reality.”
*
Whenever I am called a loser by one of my gentle readers, I think, it takes one to know one; and by that I mean, as a loser, I may be in a far better position to understand my fellow Armenians. As for those who think of themselves as winners: I suppose, illusions are commodities within the income bracket of even beggars.
*
If you want to understand your fellow Armenians, don’t read our partisan weeklies that recycle an ideological line (99% illusion), read Raffi, Odian, Baronian, Zohrab, and Zarian.
*
I have lost several friends because I could not take their religion or ideology seriously.
*
Smart readers, who think I am a fool, are my most faithful readers. Figure that one out, if you can.
*
Ideologies have a way of bringing together top dogs with underdogs – the first as deceivers, the second as dupes.
#
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
******************************************
GOD, DANTE, AND GALILEO
*************************************
As a rule, people feel more comfortable with people who are aware of their own failings and limitations; and their first thought on meeting a megalomaniac is, “the conceited ass!” This minor detail seems to have escaped our fascist charlatans who pretend to be leaders of men on grounds that they know better.
*
Like all fascists, ours too need not only foreign enemies but also traitors among themselves.
*
Galileo was silenced because his scientific theories contradicted the Bible which being the word of God could not be wrong. Dissidents and critics are silenced because they dare to contradict charlatans who think they know better and they might as well be if not gods than as infallible as God. Megalomania was their undoing but they seem to have learned nothing from history.
*
A contemporary Armenian Dante would populate his entire Inferno with our self-righteous megalomaniacs.
*
If you believe in something to be true, it is true, provided you don’t expect others to believe it too.
*
Whenever I assess myself as smart, some anonymous imbecile is sure to take advantage of me.
#
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
******************************************
CRITERIA
*************************
Since it is impossible to know everything there is to know about the past, we must assume there are some things we will never know. Historians disagree because they operate on the assumption that what they don’t know cannot be as important as what they know. And who decides what’s important, what’s less important, and what’s irrelevant?
*
CASE IN POINT
****************************
It is common knowledge that letters to the editor that express agreement with an editorial have a far better chance to be published that all other letters. Once, when I disagreed with an editorial, I was told: “We don’t as a rule publish letters critical of our editorials.” Translated into dollars and cents, this simply means: “Brown-nosers are welcome! All others might as well be irrelevant.”
*
CONCLUSION
***************************
An Armenian with partisan loyalties is an Armenian who has allowed his animus to blind his judgment. One is therefore justified in suspecting that those who take it upon themselves to formulate editorial policy or criteria in general are individuals who suffer from an advanced case of narcissism and an inferiority complex of monumental dimensions. This may suggest that what we need more than Turcocentric pundits are psychiatrists.
#

Thursday, June 21, 2007
***************************************
CONTEXTS AND DIMENSIONS
**********************************************
Truth is a dimension in which all contradictions are resolved. One way to explain this is to say that contradictions make sense only in sub-dimensions or false contexts. In a tribal, national, or political context, for instance, mankind will be divided into adversaries and allies, friends and enemies, victimizers and victims, butchers and sheep. But in a higher or religious context all men will be said to be brothers. It is up to us to choose in which dimension we wish to live and think.
In a world in which the truths of religion are only preached but the lies of politics are practiced, inevitably there will be more intolerance, hatred, and war, and less brotherhood and peace.
When mankind speaks with a forked tongue, double-talk, deception, and lies are sure to follow.
#
Friday, June 22, 2007
*********************************************
CONFESSION
***********************************
There is a type of mediocrity who will sell his soul to see his name in print. This is well known to our editors who operate on the assumption that the views of these mediocrities are representative of the majority. The truth of the matter is, these charlatans don’t write what they really think and feel but what will have a better chance to be printed. If anti-Turkish venom and pro-Armenian crapola have a better chance than objective, impartial, and critical assessments, they will produce venom and crapola. As a result, what we see in our weeklies is not a multiplicity of views but a uniformity of predictable and unreadable nonsense. I know what I am saying because I was there once – that’s when I was popular with our editors and my things appeared everywhere.
#
Saturday, June 23, 2007
******************************************
REFLECTIONS
*********************************
Man has the peculiar ability to think he is absolutely right even when he is catastrophically wrong.
*
In war one no longer thinks in terms of right and wrong but only in terms of kill or be killed. Something similar could be said about our controversies, which may be said to be civil wars by other means.
*
One should write as a human being and not as a member of a specific club, group, nation or race. To write in the name of a fraction of mankind is to elevate an accident of birth to a commandment from above.
*
I have nothing but contempt for our charlatans but I have become as attached to them as a criminal is attached to the rope from which he hangs.
*
The most dangerous and universal fallacy: Because I believe, it must be true. How many of our conflicts will vanish if we teach ourselves to say: Because I believe, it must be a lie.
#

Sunday, June 17, 2007
******************************************
INSANITY
**********************
“You read too much and you quote too much,” one of our academics once said to me. “You should rely more on your own experiences and judgment.”
Yes, ultimately I hope to do exactly that, but in the meantime I want to shed the heavy baggage of nonsense that was foisted on me when I was too innocent and naïve to think for myself.
I have since discovered that to unlearn is much more difficult than to learn. If in your formative years someone you trust and respect tells you something, anything, no matter how absurd, you believe him. It is on this principle that all organized religions are based.
What is an organized religion if not a belief system that is force-fed on children at a time when they are not yet aware of the fact that the majority of mankind rejects it as untenable, blasphemous, and dangerous.
To accept a belief system as infallible is bad enough. What’s infinitely worse, not to say contradictory, is to be willing to hate, kill and die in its name. The average dupe – and the world is full of them – is programmed to accept as infallible a religion in which understanding and love have been replaced with intolerance and blind hatred. To know and understand this is to see the world as an insane asylum divided into different camps whose aim is the extermination of all competitors and rivals.
#
Monday, June 18, 2007
****************************************
PERSPECTIVES
****************************
In the years preceding the Genocide we saw ourselves as an ethnic minority within the Ottoman Empire claiming what was rightfully ours. That was our perspective. Turks, on the other hand, saw us as part of an international infidel conspiracy (Russia and the Great Powers of Europe on the other side of their borders, Greeks and Assyrians from within) to dismember the Empire. For obvious reasons the Turks don’t like emphasizing this aspect of the conflict because doing so would mean alienating some important players in the European Union by identifying them as giaours. Our Turcocentric pundits pretend unawareness of it because awareness would somewhat moderate the image of the bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarian slaughtering innocent civilians for the fun of it.
To those who are itching to accuse me of pro-Turkism or anti-Armenianism, I say, my aim is to replace blind hatred and prejudice (the very same emotional state that is at the root of all massacres) with a touch of understanding. Granted, not a very popular undertaking in the eyes of those who are addicted to hatred and are too self-righteous and dogmatic to consider any perspective but their own.
#
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
*******************************************
JANISSARIES
*****************************
One reason I suspect some of my critics to be wrong is that they echo the very same sentiments and thoughts that were mine before I was successful in deprogramming myself. And I can understand why they are having difficulties abandoning their views: deprogramming oneself can be in some ways a painful undertaking.
Another indication that they are probably wrong is that they have a marked preference for thinking in black and white terms by painting their adversaries all black and themselves all white, not because reality is on their side but because it is flattering to their ego. What could be more naïve to the point of being infantile than to believe in something simply because it is flattering to one’s vanity? The rule is: if you assume everything that flatters your ego to be wrong, you will be right more often than wrong.
*
If we approach a subject objectively, a great many invisible things become visible.
*
In Mohsin Hamid’s THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST, I read the following definition of janissaries: “Children of defeated nations who conscripted into the army of the enemy, and fought to erase their own civilization.”
#
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
*******************************************
THERE IS NO BUSINESS
LIKE SHOAH BUSINESS
*************************************
If you were brainwashed as a child, the chances are you will die brainwashed.
*
If patriotism means total blindness to our own failings and 20/20 vision to the failings of adversaries, I am proud to assert I cannot qualify as a patriot.
*
Have you ever tried to argue with a Jehovah’s Witness? What about an Armenian in whose mind politics is synonymous with theology?
*
Whenever friends ask me why I bother reacting to nonentities, I explain that I was born and raised in a slum. I love slumming. Call it nostalgia.
*
Some of my critics may think if most Armenians don’t contradict them, they must have the majority on their side. The sad truth is smart Armenians stay away from Armenian controversies because they know they are “sound and fury signifying nothing.”
*
To sum up Armenianism in two sentences: “Once upon a time we were slaves. We are now slaves of former slaves.”
#

Thursday, June 14, 2007
******************************************
AS I SEE IT
******************************
We have two distinctive, perhaps even contradictory, approaches in our dealings with the Turks: treating them as enemies or as potential friends. To those who say, Turks are destined to remain our enemies for the foreseeable future and nothing can change that, I reply: Allow me to rephrase my question: Will the chances of reaching a consensus with them be enhanced if we treat them as potential enemies as opposed to future friends? While you ponder that question, please remember that the present generation of Turkish diplomats are products of a culture and an educational system that has consistently denied any past crimes against their minorities, and it goes without saying, they trust their culture, educational system, and leadership more than they trust our own, in the same way that we trust our own schoolteachers and bosses more than we do theirs. To those who may object and say our schoolteachers and bosses are morally superior to theirs, therefore more trustworthy, I suggest all assertions of moral or any other kind of superiority are suspect and will convince only those whose ego is flattered by such transparent flattery. On a more personal note: I have dealt with some of our bosses and educators long enough and often enough to say that I don’t even trust them as far as I can throw them, preferably in the nearest garbage dump. Or, to repeat my favorite mantra first formulated by Zarian, “Our political parties have been of no political use to us. Their greatest enemy is free speech.” And now, imagine if you can, an educational system that bans free speech or educators who are afraid to speak of fundamental human rights.
*
P.S. I read today that one of our notorious bosses, also right-hand man of a national benefactor and self-appointed pundit – we might as well refer to him as a renaissance man – has been expelled from the party on grounds of corruption. Are you surprised? I am not. And I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if some day those who expelled him are themselves exposed as both corrupt and inept.
#
Friday, June 15, 2007
*******************************************
TO BRAG IS TO BRAY
*****************************
Angela Carter: “I think it’s one of the scars in our culture that we have too high an opinion of ourselves.”
*
Al Gore: “Why do reason, logic and truth seem to play a diminished role in the way we make important decisions?”
*
Sometimes readers verbally abuse me because I dare to expose failings that are universal in nature. Case in point: when I speak of divisions, I am reminded there are divisions everywhere, as if that were enough justification to cover up and ignore that particular failing in our collective existence. Who profits from this line of (un)reasoning? The dividers, of course. As for the nation: we have an answer for that too: we have survived where many others have perished. It follows; even the Genocide must be seen as a positive factor in our history because we survived it. What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. Our genocide thus becomes the ultimate test of our endurance. First nation to survive genocide in the 20th century! Who could ask for more? As for the best and the brightest that did not survive because they were betrayed to Talaat’s and Stalin’s butchers: that too is good because it allows the jackasses among us to parade as leaders and pundits. And then there is the narcissistic fraud who becomes infatuated with what he writes and ends up believing what he says regardless of its transparent absurdity. As the often quoted Armenian saying goes, “Mart bidi ch’ellank” (We shall never acquire the status of human beings). Now then, go ahead and brag about that.
#
Saturday, June 16, 2007
*******************************************
A SELF-SERVING THEORY
**************************************
The question that is consistently avoided by our Turcocentric pundits is: Where did we go wrong? We had so many warnings in 1894, 1895, 1896, 1909…Why is it that we trusted the empty verbiage of the West and ignored the actions of the Turks? Was it wishful thinking? What else? Why is it that we cling to the theory that the Genocide was an inevitable fact of life? If it was so inevitable, why didn’t we see it coming? History, it has been said, is a series of occurrences that could have been avoided. Subscribing to the theory of inevitability is the phoniest of all justifications. Even more dangerous: if history is predetermined, it follows we can’t learn from past blunders; and if we can’t learn from past blunders, what’s the use of studying it?
#

Sunday, June 03, 2007
******************************************
MEMO TO OUR PUNDITS
**********************************
You will never write a single decent line as long as you think your readers are lesser men, perhaps even naïve dupes like yourself.
*
Since we don’t know everything there is to know – no one does – let us agree to listen to one another on the grounds that we may become aware of facts that so far have escaped our perception; and by one another I don’t just mean Armenians and Turks, but also Armenians and Armenians, or rather, Ottomanized Armenians and human beings, who place their humanity above their tribal or partisan loyalties. It is therefore to our advantage to treat our adversaries not as mortal enemies but as future friends.
*
Changing our perception of the past is as good as changing the past.
*
My writings are perceived by some as anti-Armenian. I reject the label. I am critical of certain Armenians because I see them not as Armenians but as by-products of Ottoman culture.
*
What we learn from defeats and failures we may unlearn from victories and successes.
*
If the atomic structure of the universe proves the existence of God, the atomic bomb proves the existence of the devil, or the other face of God, the one we pray to every day with the words, “Do no lead us into temptation.”
#
Monday, June 04, 2007
*********************************************
WHAT IS IMPOSSIBLE
CANNOT BE DESIRABLE
**************************************
Tolstoy: “Aren’t we all of us flung onto this earth to hate and torment each other?”
*
You cannot reason with someone who is infatuated with his own infallibility.
*
Since dead-end controversies that are destined to remain unresolved to the end of time have become an integral part of our collective existence and mindset, the chances that we will ever reach a consensus with the Turks are “as dark as the prospects of an honest politician” (Chandler).
*
If we assume consensus to be to our mutual advantage, willingness to compromise becomes not only inevitable but also necessary, because the alternative – negotiating without compromise – is not negotiating but imposing one’s will on others. Only the mighty may impose their will on the weak. To those who say, “If we have truth and the world on our side, we might as well have God on our side, and who could be mightier than the Almighty?” May I remind them that the world was on our side in 1915 too, and that what motivates the world is not truth but self-interest. As for God: unlike our pundits, I am more than willing to admit that not being an authority on the subject, I am in no position to make any pronouncements in His name.
*
If on the other hand the Turks compromise and make concessions, our side will simply escalate their demands. It follows, our self-righteous and dogmatic defenders of the faith will do their utmost to never resolve our differences with the Turks. Because, if they are ever resolved, they may run out of their favorite subject and may even be condemned to irrelevance — not a pleasant prospect for monomaniacal megalomaniacs.
#
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
****************************************
ON NATIONALISM
*******************************
As far as I can see, the only reason nationalism is popular with some Armenians is that it allows them to divide the nation into nationalists (the good guys) and anti-nationalists (the lowest form of animal life).
*
If nationalism is a good thing, was it good for the Germans, the Turks, and in general all fascist regimes that claimed to be nationalist? Can anything that divides us be good? If Armenian nationalism is good, can we say then all non-Armenian nationalists are bad? If that which divides us is good, does it mean, that which unites us is bad? There is only one thing that unites us, the Genocide. Does that mean by killing us the Turks did us a favor?
*
We hate to be deceived, and yet, self-deception is the most widely practiced form of deception. Nationalism teaches us to brag by asserting our uniqueness and superiority to all other nations. If we are unique, that’s because all nations are unique. To confuse uniqueness with superiority is the height of self-deception.
*
The flattery of brown-nosers: what is it worth?
#
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
*******************************************
PAST INJUSTICES & FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES
*******************************************************************************
The deepest wounds are self-inflicted.
*
A man obsessed with past injustices will be blind to future opportunities.
*
A less than perfect settlement, even a bad settlement, is better than no settlement.
*
During the last century, we have failed to reach a consensus with the Turks. Things may change in the next century and we may do better, but hope is not a policy.
*
If we have failed it may be because we have allowed the wrong people to represent us. Who should represent us? Not politicians, ideologues, or for that matter, nationalist historians, but lawyers, preferably odar lawyers, not because they are better or smarter, but rather because they care less about the truth (a metaphysical concept) and more about the evidence.
*
To negotiate and compromise is better than not to negotiate, if only because to compromise for the uncompromising is a step in the right direction. If we compromise and reach a consensus with the Turks, some day we may even compromise and reach a consensus with our fellow Armenians. If that happens, future historians may open a new chapter in our history subtitled “The Birth of a Nation.”
#

Thursday, May 31, 2007
***************************************
NOTES / COMMENTS
***********************************
A good nationalist believes to lie in the name of patriotism is morally superior to speaking the truth.
*
When man goes out in search of God, he is sure to come face to face with the devil; and when he speaks or acts in His name, the chances are he does so in the name of the devil.
*
We study history not to prove ourselves right and everyone else wrong, but to learn from our blunders.
*
Since identity is an abstraction, all kinds of absurd claims are made in its name. Some of these claims may be relatively harmless but others, such as claims of racial, moral, or intellectual superiority, have been the source of much misery, including wars, massacres, and genocides. “I know better,” is very probably one of the most dangerous assertions one can make.
*
Those who are most in need of advice are the least receptive to them.
*
The Turks and our leaders have combined forces to turn us into pillars of salt.
#
Friday, June 01, 2007
**********************************************
REFLECTIONS
*******************************
The unstated aim of propaganda is to make you feel good about yourself. Hence its popularity. Literature has no interest in that direction.
*
When a charlatan calls me a charlatan, I conclude that (one) he knows the meaning of the word, and (two) he has too large an ego to suspect he may qualify as one.
*
To allow a past crime to define your future is to consent being permanently at the mercy of the criminal.
*
Jean Francois de la Harpe: “In France, the first day is for admiration, the second for criticism, the third for indifference.” Among Armenians, there are no first days.
*
Colette: “If you are incapable of magic, you should stay out of the kitchen.” I suspect what she had in mind was not the kitchen but literature.
*
Einstein: “I am a deeply religious nonbeliever.”
*
What made Einstein great was his refusal to accept the word of established authority and to reject all obvious answers as final.
#
Saturday, June 02, 2007
****************************************
ON PROUD ARMENIANS
************************************
Speaking for myself, I prefer humble Armenians, if only because we have many more reasons to be humble than proud.
*
The word denialist is applied to those who refuse to acknowledge the reality of the Genocide. It could also be applied to Armenians who deny the fact of their Ottomanization.
*
I was brought up to see religion and patriotism as noble concepts, but I know now that they are noble only when applied to fundamentally decent men. In the hands of a dupe who cannot think for himself, both God and Country may become instruments of intolerance and oppression, and ultimately justifications of war and massacre.
*
After accusing me of being a foreign agent, one of my readers identifies himself as “a proud Armenian.” There is a type of chauvinism and paranoia that are unmistakable symptoms of fascism.
*
In the presence of someone who identifies himself with a group – be it tribal or religious – I feel like a potential victim, someone who some day, given the right combination of conditions, may be killed in the name of God and Country.
*
A “proud Armenian” is not just a single person but a fraction of a lynch mob.
#

Monday, May 21, 2007
******************************************
In almost every Armenian discussion forum I have been, I have run across an idiot who takes it upon himself to contradict everything I say without even making the slightest effort to understand me. If Armenians remain divided to this day it’s because of this type of individual whose primary concern is not to advance our understanding but to assert some kind of moral, intellectual or patriotic superiority, which happen to be an extension of his ego and a figment of his imagination. When Zarian said, “Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another,” he had this type of idiot in mind.
*
Levon Shant begins one of his novels with the words: “In our literature as well as community affairs we have no one who is up to date with recent cultural developments.” Translated into dollars and cents this means: “We are at the mercy of hidebound philistines.”
*
Shant again: “Very few Armenians clearly understand that their gifts and abilities are a national asset that centuries of history have bestowed on them and that it is their responsibility to use this asset to achieve greatness.” This too could be abridged and paraphrased as, “So far we have failed to grasp the meaning of our history and our role in it.”
*
Shahan Shahnour: “Literature is beyond both optimism and pessimism.” It follows, to be a realist means to have two sets of adversaries.
#
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
*************************************
NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN
*********************************************
No one can be as megalomaniacal as an Armenian who thinks he can change the status quo or as phony as an Armenian in search of solutions to our problems. There are no new ideas. Everything we say is either a paraphrase or a quotation. It has been said that all philosophers have been doing is footnoting Plato, whose works are quotations or paraphrases of Socrates. And where the ideas of Socrates come from? Probably from the pre-Socratics, most of whose works have not survived. What I am saying right now has also been said. Take this as a warning. If you read me or anyone else in the hope of discovering a new or original idea, you will be disappointed. “There is nothing new under the sun.” Even more to the point, “The Kingdom of God is within you.” Which means, our problems and their solutions are all in the convolutions of our brains. When a writer thinks he is expressing a new idea, it only means that he is either unaware of the very same idea expressed by someone else or he does not remember to have heard or read it.
#
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
***************************************************
ON REPEATING ONESELF
**************************************
Because I write about Armenians and they write about Turks, they say I repeat myself.
*
There is more than one way for the victim to liberate himself from the criminal and his crime, and to seek justice in an unjust world is not one of them.
*
What’s wrong with Turcocentrism is that sooner or later it degenerates to hoodlumism. To our Turcocentric pundits I say: You want to write about Turks? Go ahead. It’s you right as well as privilege. We live in a democracy where free speech is a fundamental human right. But free speech should not be confused with abuse of free speech, or free speech only for myself and those who agree with me.
*
What’s wrong with hating Turks after what they have done to us? Go ahead and hate them as much as you want. But if you allow your hatred to color your views, you will do more harm than good to your cause. It may be your right to hate but it is your responsibility as a witness not to allow hatred to color your testimony.
*
Hatred breeds hatred, and Armenians who hate Turks will also hate their fellow Armenians or anyone who dares to disagree with them. I speak from experience. All Armenians are not saints and some of them may indeed deserve our hatred. But the more one is driven to hate, the more one should try to be objective.
*
To be objective means to think with one’s brain and not with one’s gut and ego, if only because neither the gut nor the ego is capable of reason. And if you are tempted to think, since these are the views of a minor Armenian scribbler they deserve to be ignored or dismissed as irrelevant, think again. Because what I am saying is what common sense and decency dictate. And to say, “If I know I am right and I know you are wrong, why should I respect your views?” is to legitimize fascism.
*
I repeat myself? Why would anyone read someone who repeats himself?
#
Thursday, May 24, 2007
****************************************
ON UNDERSTANDING
*********************************
In a commentary today, a Middle East pundit of the local paper concedes that he does not understand the Middle East. “If you claim to understand what’s going on in Lebanon,” he writes, “you simply reveal the depths of your ignorance.” Who cares or really understands what happened a hundred years ago in the Ottoman Empire?
*
Instead of saying “that’s the way it is,” we should say, “that’s how I see it.”
*
What a book one could write on the eloquence of silence!
*
The best way to understand the status quo is by trying to change it. The easiest thing in the world is to say, “There is something wrong here,” the hardest, to set it right. The hardest because what motivates human conduct is neither reason nor love, but greed and hatred. And to love, in a political context, means to hate the same enemy.
*
When we say, “I understand,” we overestimate our powers of perception and underestimate the complexities of reality. Which is why there is some misunderstanding in all understanding.
*
Reality advances on an infinite number of lines, most of which are beyond our perception. When reformers and revolutionaries undertake the difficult task of changing the status quo, more often than not they go wrong because their perception of reality is limited. If philosophers, historians, and scientists disagree, it is for the same reason.
*
Dialogue is better than monologue because two eyes are better than one.
*
The first and most important requirement for a thinker is humility, which means admitting our nothingness in the face of Reality, which some call God.
*
Where do we go from here? Like Socrates, we teach ourselves to say, “The only thing I know is that I don’t know.”
#
Friday, May 25, 2007
********************************************
WHAT’S WRONG WITH NATIONALISM?
*****************************************************
In good plays by, say, Shakespeare or Ibsen, there are no good guys and bad guys. It is different with bad Hollywood movies. Something similar could be said of good or objective historians or bad or nationalist historians. When a nationalist historian writes a book about the past of his people, he will invariably portray them as the good guys and their enemies as the bad guys. To do this he will concentrate on documenting the crimes of the enemies and ignoring or covering up those of his own people. The easiest and most universal way of misunderstanding the past, and by extension, reality, is to allow oneself to be brainwashed by nationalist propagandists. In case you suspect I am beginning to adopt a denialist approach to our genocide, allow me to add that I understand the nature of prejudice, extremism, abuses of power, man’s inhumanity to man, and contempt for fundamental human rights, in short, evil, not only because of what the Turks have done to us, but also because I have come face to face with Armenian evil.
When writers like Shaw, Mann, Toynbee, or for that matters, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov write about evil, they begin with their own. This is exactly what our own writers have done. This is also what good Turkish writers are doing today. But if we are to believe our Turcocentric pundits, the West is corrupt, Turks bloodthirsty barbarians, and Armenians paragons of virtue. This type of one-sided, misleading, and superficial approach threatens to reduce a major human tragedy to a minor political farce.
#
Saturday, May 26, 2007
********************************************
THE DANGERS OF SELF-ASSESSMENT
*****************************************************
After a lifetime spent on reading about Armenians, I have reached the obvious conclusion that non-Armenian writers tend to be more objective about Armenians – that is to say, more reliable, honest, and truthful – than Armenian writers.
*
I believe an Armenian writer on Armenians as much as I believe a Turkish writer on Turks.
*
We are a nation with a deep wound. We need reassurance and flattery as much as a man dying of thirst in the middle of a desert needs water. But I don’t read to be flattered. I read to enhance my understanding of reality.
*
Men commit their worst blunders when the possibility of being wrong doesn’t even occur to them. Men without doubts: they are the most dangerous in the world. Think of Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini. Think of our revolutionaries at the turn of the last century.
*
Speaking about our revolutionaries: Why did General Antranik say they should be arrested and hanged? Were they criminals or heroes? You can be sure of one thing: if they are allowed to assess themselves, none of them will ever plead guilty to any charge.
#

Thursday, May 03, 2007
*********************************************
IN SEARCH OF AUTHENTICITY
****************************************
Who is an authentic Armenian? I don’t know. No one does.
*
During World War I, when Armenians in the Ottoman Empire were being transported from one place to another “for their own safety” (in the Turkish version of the story), Thomas Mann was busy writing a big book, titled REFLECTIONS OF A NON-POLITICAL MAN, in which he attempted to define “the authentic German.” When the book was published, Heinrich Mann, his brother, himself a writer, disagreed with it. Sometime later Thomas Mann himself recognized it as dangerous.
*
In his magnum opus, BEING AND NOTHINGNESS, written during World War II, Sartre tells us, men cease to be authentic when they adopt an identity imposed on them by society, and play the part for the rest of their lives. In another book, ANTI-SEMITE AND THE JEW, he advances the theory that the Jew is a creation of the anti-Semite, the way, one might say, the Ottomanized Armenian is a creation of Turks, and the Sovietized Armenian is a creation of the Soviet system.
*
Long before Mann and Sartre, Karl Marx explored the concept of dehumanization, which may be said to be the opposite of authenticity. Capital, he said, dehumanizes not only the worker, but also the capitalist, society as a whole, and all social relations. Capital is the real Leviathan.
*
At all times and everywhere we are pressured by forces, that are as invisible and omnipresent as the force of gravity, to be not who we are or what we would like to be, but what others want us to be.
*
The headline of the editorial in our local paper today reads: “Free people need a free press.” A free press is unthinkable, we read here, “if journalists are restricted from seeking and reporting facts – particularly facts that are embarrassing to someone who is powerful.” And: “People cannot make good decisions if they do not have good information. A democracy cannot exist in an information vacuum.”
*
Speaking of our press, one of our Ottomanized benefactors (let’s call them Jack S. Avanakians) and their role models, the Sultan, an editor once recounted the following to me: “He promised to subsidize our paper on condition that I print an article about him with a photo in every issue.” I no longer get that particular weekly but I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if an article with a photo of Jack S. Avanakian appears regularly in every issue. As Brecht used to say: “Grub first, then ethics.”
#
Friday, May 04, 2007
***************************************
RE-WRITING HISTORY
********************************
Where politics enter, propaganda is sure to follow; and where propaganda enters, truth is bound to be the first casualty. Turks re-write history. So do we. So does everyone else. Imagine, if you can, a history of the United States written from the perspective of native Indians. A Mekhitarist scholar and the foremost Armenian medievalist once told me the Battle of Avarair, the most famous battle in our history, never happened. It’s not just propaganda but pure fabrication by a pro-Mamikonian chronicler. True or false? Draw your own conclusions (or confusions). Speaking of our more recent past: we have as many versions of it as we have political parties. In the eyes of Ramgavars and Bolsheviks, Archbishop Ghevont Tourian was a dedicated patriot, a martyr, and a saint. In the eyes of the opposition he was a cowardly rascal, an unprincipled opportunist, a womanizer, a Stalinist, and a traitor.
*
We like to say that if and when the Ottoman archives are opened we will have access to the truth. A Turkish friend tells me the same about Tashnak archives. It seems the Tashnaks have consistently refused to open their archives to scholars. True or false? I plead ignorance. I wasn’t even aware of the existence of these archives.
*
Whenever I mention Tourian’s role in Smyrna, my credibility is questioned. About twenty years ago an angry reader threatened to expose my lies by checking with Marjorie Housepian, the foremost authority on the subject. I am still waiting to hear from him. The SOVIET-ARMENIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA states that Tourian was active in “Istanbul, Smyrna, and Manchester,” before his transfer to the U.S. in 1931 “where he attempted to bring together the Armenian-American community under Etchmiadzin.”
*
Was Ghevont Tourian Bedros Tourian’s brother? According to the ENCYCLOPEDIA their real name was not Tourian but Zembayan and they were both born in Istanbul. In saying all this I do not claim infallibility on behalf of my sources, let alone myself. I welcome facts that will contradict or question the accuracy of my sources. History is not a belief system but an investigation. If you place your belief system above facts, you contaminate both with prejudice and propaganda.
#
Saturday, May 05, 2007
******************************************
QUESTIONS
***************************
Who are we?
Where do we come from?
Where are we going?
Is there a single belief system that can answer these questions to the satisfaction of all?
Is it necessary to have answers to these questions in order to lead a productive or creative life?
Did our medieval ancestors have the answers to these questions?
Did they, for that matter, ask them?
What is the place of Turcocentrism in our psyche?
Can Turcocentrism contribute anything positive to our identity?
What if Turcocentrism threatens to turn us into pillars of salt?
What if identity consists not in answering these questions but in the honesty and commitment with which we search for their answers?
What if our identity, like the solution to all our problems, is not a verbal formula accessible to a select few, but a process that consists in rejecting everything that is dishonest, corrupt, and mediocre?
#

Sunday, April 29, 2007
****************************************
THAT WHICH MAKES US WHAT WE ARE
********************************************************
Being a human being is a privilege as well as a responsibility. Being a member of a group – be it club, party, tribe, nation – promotes a herd mentality, which means, it allows one to behave like swine with a clear conscience.
*
We have been divided, conquered, and ruled so often and for such a long time that dividing ourselves has become part of our behavioral DNA to such a degree that most of us see nothing wrong or remotely questionable in it. Even when no one divides us, we divide ourselves. I will know things are about to change only when we reverse this trend. Until then I will consider all talk of progress as empty verbiage whose sole intent is to deceive the deaf, blind, and stupid.
*
Explanations may be transferable, understanding is not.
*
For everyone who says one thing, there will be another who says something else or the exact opposite. Next time you meet a boss, bishop, or benefactor, ask him why he belongs or prefers to support group A rather than group B. You may notice that he will parrot received ideas and clichés. That’s one reason why I suspect anyone who places his nationality or ideology ahead of his humanity.
#
Monday, April 30, 2007
*************************************
PROFILE OF A GOOD ARMENIAN
***********************************************
The more patriotic an Armenian, the more clearly defined his views on what it means to be a good Armenian; and no one can be as intolerant as an Armenian with clearly defined black-and-white views who believes truth and God to be on his side.
*
An intolerant Armenian is a dogmatic and self-righteous Armenian of the you-are-either-with-me-or-against-me variant; and if you are against me you might as well pro-Turkish. Such an Armenian is a divider. His nationalism is disguised tribalism, and his patriotism a sham. And here is the irony: an intolerant Armenian is an Ottomanized Armenian, and an Ottomanized Armenian is an oxymoron (emphasis on the last two syllables). Which simply means, he is neither Armenian nor Ottoman. He is as programmed and fixed in his views and reactions as a robot. When he thinks, he doesn’t feel; and when he feels, he doesn’t think.
*
An authentic Armenian is also an authentic human being. Think of the profound humanity, even universality, of our folk songs, liturgical music, and religious architecture that date back to a time when we were free and not yet contaminated by Ottoman venom and Levantine filth.
*
When asked by English friends if he was really an Armenian, Michael Arlen is quoted as having said (I quote from memory): “Who would want to identify himself as an Armenian [or make such a painful admission] if it weren’t true?”
*
The thought that comes naturally to all Armenians: “If he is Armenian, he is sure to be second rate.” Or, “If he is one of us, he is bound to be a loser and a mediocrity.” Which may explain why someone of Oshagan’s stature dismissed Zarian as a plagiarist without providing a single shred of evidence. And when Shahnour, quoting chapter and verse, proved Siamanto to be a plagiarist and Zartarian a second-rater, he was accused of being anti-Armenian and at one point publicly thrashed by superior type patriots. That’s what I call Ottomanism in action.
*
Please note that everything I have said so far is based on self-analysis. If it doesn’t apply to you, feel free to consider yourself a good Armenian, an exemplary human being, and a role model.
#
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
****************************************
THE PUNCH LINE
*****************************
If you want to know what it means to be an Armenian, read our writers, the explorers of our psyche. As for the sermons of our bishops and speeches of our bosses and their assorted hirelings, they all lead to the same predictable punch line, “mi kich pogh oughargetsek” (send us a little money).
What happens to the money after they get it? Only they know. Accountability is not in our DNA. Once, when an editor in Los Angeles exposed the corruption within one of our political parties, he was beaten within an inch of his life.
I wonder how some of my readers would react if I were to add that punch line to everything I write. My guess is, they will tell me to shut up, mind my own business, and leave them alone. They are saying as much now, when it hasn’t even crossed my imagination to make any demands on them. In their view, there is only one thing wrong with our community life, namely, malcontents like me who have an eye only for the negative.
Corruption? Sure, we have our share of it, who doesn’t?
Incompetence? Ditto.
Critics? Well, yes, they too are everywhere, but we’d rather not have them, you see. We’d rather not be reminded we are people like any other people. We’d much rather be told we are special, we are unique, and we have nothing to worry about because we are in good hands.
When on the eve of the Genocide, Krikor Zohrab predicted the coming catastrophe, he wasn’t believed. “Zohrab effendi is exaggerating,” they said. If the Great Powers of the West and the Good Lord are on our side, what could possibly go wrong?
The support of the Great Powers was of course only verbal, and the Good Lord has at no time shown any inclination to interfere in our affairs, but we prefer to be brainwashed to believe otherwise and to ignore, and whenever possible, to silence the pessimists who see only the dark side of things.
Please note that, seven years after the Genocide, history repeated itself. Armenians of Smyrna were brainwashed by their bishop to believe they had nothing to worry about and that Ataturk was a friend. And what was bound to happen, happened.
Who was that particular bishop and what happened to him? As they say, thereby hangs a tale. He was none other then the very same Ghevont Tourian (1879-1933), (brother of poet Bedros Tourian) who had betrayed Gomidas Vartabed to the Turkish secret police. In the SOVIET-ARMENIAN ENCYCLOPEDIA (volume 3, page 462) we read the following: “Because of his patriotic activities, Tourian was persecuted by members of the ARF (Tashnagtsoutiun) and knifed to death on 24 December 1933 in the Holy Cross Church of New York.”
#
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
****************************************
TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
******************************************
Gentle reader:
If you have had enough of my nonsense, please feel free to spam or block me. It’s easy – all it takes is a fraction of a second. No need to ask me to remove your name from my address book when your name has at no time been there to begin with. Nothingness cannot be removed. Thank you! / ara
*
ON THE ROLE OF INTELLECTUALS
*************************************************
Where fascists enter, intellectuals exit.
*
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Everyone is familiar with this line from the Bible. It’s not only common knowledge, it’s also common sense – the least common of all faculties, it has been said. For 1500 years our intellectuals have been trying to convince our leadership that “solidarity is the mother of good deeds, divisiveness of evil ones” (Yeghishe). And yet, we stand as divided today as we were in the 5th Century. This may explain why even our-dime-a-dozen pundits are smart enough to concentrate their efforts on reasoning with Turks: deep down they know they have a better change with them than with our own.
*
The role of intellectuals? Sound and fury signifying nothing. I rest my case. Nothing further, your honor!
*
A final question: Why go on writing when the written word will change nothing? Can anyone in his right mind be megalomaniacal enough to entertain the hope that what he says or writes matters in our environment? Has anyone of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors ever come close to admitting to have been on the wrong track or to have behaved not as a servant of the people or of God but as a Master accountable to none but himself?
*
The role of intellectuals? Unmask the swindlers and even if you give them insomnia for a fraction of a second, consider your mission accomplished.
*
I quoted Yeghishe (circa 410-470 AD) above. Allow me to quote him again if I may:
*
“We may not be allowed to question the integrity of princes, but neither should we praise men who pit themselves against the Will of God.”
*
“In the same way that a man cannot serve two masters, a nation cannot have two kings. If a nation is ruled by two kings, both the kings and their subjects will perish.”
#