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[arabaliozian]

as i see it

Thursday, January 24, 2013
**************************************
WHY DO I GO ON WRITING?
************************************
That’s a question I ask myself again and again
and I always come up with an answer
that may make sense to me
but no one else.
*
I write to settle a score, beginning with myself.
I feel partly responsible for our leadership.
I supported it for a number of years.
I kissed its ass when I should have kicked it.
*
Our divisions go so far back in history
that they have become invulnerable to dissent and criticism.
It is also true that if a system is rotten
it will fall if not tomorrow than the day after.
Isn’t that what happened to monarchy, fascism, and Stalinism?
*
The reason our divisions have survived is that
we have lived on the margins of history;
and they have not so much survived as they have become,
in Toynbee’s classification, fossilized.
They are dead men walking.
Case in point: by failing to unite the Armenian vote in America,
our leadership has condemned itself to be a silent scream.
No American presidential candidate will ever take us seriously
so long as we divide our vote evenly
between Republicans and Democrats.
*
As for our Turcocentric ghazetajis
who pretend to be defenders of the Cause:
so far all they have succeeded in doing
is drive the Cause to a dead end.
Their unspoken or real aim is not to get justice
but to cover up the incompetence
of the empty suits they work for.
*
A final note on Turks:
they are not all butchers and murderers;
they have their share of both as surely as
we have our share of traitors, collaborators,
and cover-up artists,
#
Friday, January 25, 2013
*****************************************
PARADOX
***********************
We think with someone else’s thoughts
and we believe by adopting someone else’s belief system.
When it comes to the two most important things in life –
thinking and believing,
or that which makes us human --
we are more like apes than men.
I think therefore I am not.
*
Our disagreements and conflicts are not ours
but someone else’s.
Neither are our wars.
Only our victims may be said to be ours.
*
Absurdity is not a philosophical abstraction;
it is embedded in our daily existence.
*
Question all certainties.
Reject all dogmatic assertions.
And never forget that what you borrow
is not yours.
#
Saturday, January 26, 2013
***************************************
AS I SEE IT
***************************
Our most popular school of criticism
consists in slinging mud (such as pro-Turkish)
hoping some of it will stick.
*
Identifying blunders in others can be useful
only if it may help us identify our own.
*
Thirst for fame is the surest symptom of mediocrity.
*
Only pathological liars with political ambitions
rewrite history in order to project a positive image.
*
A book is called bad or dangerous if it proves
what you believe to be true is a lie.
#

[arabaliozian]

Wednesday, January 30, 2013
*****************************************
SMART ARMENIANS
**********************************
A smart Armenian is first and foremost
a self-assessed Armenian and in all self-assessments
propaganda speaks louder than reality.
*
Whenever I speak of reality
I am accused of being pro-Turkish probably because
for 600 years our reality was not ours but theirs.
When it came to the most important decisions in life,
it was they who made them.
We had no choice but to say “Yes, sir!”
They dished it out and we took it.
And when our revolutionaries decided to change that,
we all know what happened next: reality turned against us.
*
How long before we create our own reality?
My only tentative answer: I may not live long enough to see it.
*
I have dealt with many self-assessed smart Armenians
and they were all idiots.
So was I for most of my life.
Everything I say about Armenians is based on self-analysis.
*
Gentle reader: If you think what I say does not apply to you
because you are different, I am more than willing to apologize.
Every rule has its exceptions.
I have even heard it said that it is exceptions
that certify the legitimacy of a rule.
My hope is that really smart Armenians
will decide to step forward and get involved
in our community affairs instead of conducting
an underground existence.
*
Did I say really smart Armenians?
Strike that. Make it honest Armenians.
Because it doesn’t take a high IQ to see that
we are on the wrong path and on our way to the devil.
*
A warning: If you are an honest Armenian
and decide to be pro-active, don’t be surprised
if accusations of pro-Turkish sympathies are hurled against you
by moronized self-assessed Armenians.
#
Monday, January 28, 2013
****************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
**************************************
Propaganda is as addictive as nicotine, alcohol, and opium.
*
The hidden message in all propaganda is,
what you think is right
and anyone who dares to disagree with you
is an enemy agent.
*
Now Barabbas was a publisher
and Cain a fascist.
*
Speechifiers and sermonizers end up believing
in their own speeches and sermons.
Arguing with them is like trying to enlighten a source of light.
*
There are times when I get so depressed
by my fellow countrymen that
the thought of death cheers me up.
*
Dissent means questioning the integrity of individuals
who believe in their own infallibility.
*
Propaganda sticks to children like crazy glue.
#
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
************************************
IRRELEVANCE
********************************
Even in a land of the brave and the free
there will be cowards and slaves;
and if not slaves to human masters
than slaves to ignorance, prejudice, and lies.
*
Our men at the top know that
the best way to avoid international scrutiny
is by achieving irrelevance,
and irrelevance is thrust on some
as greatness is thrust on others.
*
Who after all gives a damn about Armenia?
Not even Armenians.
Who gives a damn about our 1,500,000?
Not even Obama.
Who gives a damn about our ongoing “white genocide”
(exodus from the Homeland and assimilation in the Diaspora)?
Not even our superpatriots
who prefer to speechify about the eternal snows of Mt. Ararat.
*
God’s existence is as great a mystery to me
as the Devil’s?
#
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
*****************************************
JESUS, MARX, FREUD
********************************
All of Freud may be said to be an expansion
of the Biblical dictum:
“The Kingdom of God is within you.”
Or, the resolution of all your inner conflicts and contradictions
are in your unconscious.
*
When Marx said “I am not a Marxist,”
he was in a way questioning the legitimacy of all ideologies
or closed systems of thought.
*
Einstein proved that all our fundamental assumptions
about time and space are wrong;
nothing is what it seems;
a great deal of reality may be comprehensible
but not everything.
There are things we may never understand and explain.
*
What has been the most important contribution
America has made to the world?
Double-talk.
To assert “All men are created equal,”
and with the full cooperation of the Church
to legitimize slavery.
*
What about Armenian contributions?
Inbred morons pretending to be smart.
*
If the Kingdom of God is within you,
so is the Empire of the Devil.
#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, January 31, 2013
**********
…AND SO IT GOES
**********
The aim of politics is power.
The aim of literature is understanding reality.
When the two meet, literature loses.
And when literature loses,
murder, war, and massacre become inevitable.
*
Writers are dreamers?
Yes, but only in so far as they think
they can survive in a fascist environment.
*
The attitude of the average dupe towards literature?
“He is a writer? An Armenian writer?
He must be a daydreamer.
Let’s have some fun with him.”
*
Armenians are different from Turks?
In their treatment of dissent
they might as well be identical twins.
*
Dupes rate the lies of propaganda
above the truths of literature.
*
One reason why our dividers are more popular
than our dissidents is that
the IQ of the average Armenian is a negative digit;
which is why he is constantly reminded he is smart.
*
One of my most dedicated readers is a
Second-Amendment gun nut and racist
who thinks he fully qualifies as a commissar culture
and based on that assumption
he issues daily memoranda
reminding me that unless I follow instructions
I will never amount to anything.
*
When reason meets prejudice,
reason is bound to lose.
So what else is new?
Mart bidi ch’ellank.
#
Friday, February 01, 2013
**********
AS I SEE IT
**********
Some lies are so transparent that
they might as well be confessions.
*
There are no more deep truths,
only platitudes in fancy uniforms.
*
There are Armenians today who are pro-Assad.
I have met some of them myself.
What’s next?– being pro-Talaat?
*
To those who demand that I explain my explanations,
I say: I have already done so in the past
and I will again in the future.
*
Toynbee:“Comprehension sometimes consists
in just a correct understanding of questions
that are unanswerable."
#
Saturday, February 02, 2013
**********
ON OUR 1%
**********
Why did Raffi say “we are sheep without a shepherd”?
Why did Avedik Issahakian call our leaders “brainless”?
And why did Zarian call them “useless”?
Were all three wrong or dupes of enemy propaganda?
*
Baruir Massikian, a successful lawyer in Egypt
in addition to being a brilliant writer:
as he lay dying in hospital he was approached
by a delegation community leaders
who suggested he leave his considerable wealth
(he was a bachelor) to an Armenian educational foundation.
His reply:“I’d much rather leave it to a Cairo bordello.”
Was he anti-Armenian or pro-Turkish?– two charges
that are leveled against anyone
who dares to refuse being a dupe.
*
Why do our academics prefer to write
about the Middle Ages and the Genocide?
And why is it that whenever someone tries to expose
the corruption and incompetence of our 1%
he is insulted by our superpatriots
and experts on any given subject?
*
Please note that I am only asking questions.
I am not making dogmatic assertions whose sole intent is
to divide the community into members of the club
and alienated degenerates.
*
I repeat myself and the 1% does not?
*
In the opinion page of my local morning paper
a pundit begins his commentary with the following words:
“We live, breathe and exist in an age of apocalyptic uncertainty.”
If you were to ask one of our pro-establishment propagandists,
my guess is he would say:
“We never had it so good
because we are in the best of hands.”
#

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, February 03, 2013

******************************************

DEAD END

*********************

If I criticize the 1%

it’s because I am on the side of the 99%.

If I don’t enjoy the support of the 99%

it may be because the secret ambition of most of them

is to join the 1%.

*

Freedom of religion also means

the freedom to brainwash children.

If we don’t see the harm in that

it’s because we live in a world

in which subservience is valued more than freedom,

intolerance more than tolerance,

revenge more than justice,

and ultimately war and massacre

more than peace and coexistence.

*

On the day we learn to think for ourselves

we may have a better chance to achieve solidarity

not only with our brothers

but also with our enemies.

*

Always treat today’s enemy

as if he were tomorrow’s friend.

*

If I am different it’s only because I rely

more on my own thinking than on the thinking of

empty suits and bearded charlatans

who make a comfortable living by deceiving

the defenceless and the ignorant.

#

Monday, February 04, 2013

*****************************************

SOUND BITES

********************************

If Christianity has legitimized

intolerance, persecution, torture, war and massacre,

can we really say “There are good religions?”

*

I don’t believe in optimism.

Hell, I don’t even believe in pessimism.

In pessimism we construct a narrative that makes sense.

But evil is incomprehensible.

So is reality. That’s why every historian

creates his own version of the past.

*

Does it make sense to say what’s theirs is bad

and what’s ours is good

when that’s exactly what they say too?

*

If you make a list of writers who preferred exile

to life in their own homeland,

you may end up with a who’s who is contemporary literature.

*

Our reality is so unbearable that my objectivity

is sometimes confused with self-hatred.

*

“When we kill them it’s good;

when they kills us it’s bad.”

What’s the difference between this mindset

and the one expressed by an African tribal chieftain

quoted by C.G. Jung in his memoirs:

“When my enemy steals my wives, it’s bad;

when I steal his it’s good.”

*

To those who say “I don’t agree with you.

Human beings are better than that; so is life.”

All I can say is: “Enjoy your innocence (or is it ignorance?)

while you can. It won’t last.”

*

How often do I find myself saying:

“I would have agreed with you thirty years ago.”

#

Tuesday, February 05, 2013

**************************************

COMMISSARS OF CULTURE

***************************************

Q: Who are they? Could we have a definition?

A: They are Armenians who know what must be said and done

but who want someone else to do it for them.

Q: Why?

A: The obvious answer is, they don’t know.

They only pretend to know. They are bluffing.

Just like their role models in the USSR who trusted Stalin

more than Solzhenitsyn. Our commissars today trust more

our bosses, bishops, and benefactors than our writers.

Q: Why do they?

A: My guess is they believe literature to be a dead end.

No money in it. No power. No future.

Our history is clear on this point:

To write for Armenians is a waste of time.

Q: Knowing this you go on writing, why?

A: A good question, but I have a better one for you:

Why do Armenians who are brought up to believe

they are smart, progressive and civilized

choose to behave like inbred morons

when it comes to politics and collective action?

More precisely, why do they support our dividers

and grave-diggers?

Q: You must have an answer to that question.

A: I don’t! Unless of course we say they behave like morons

because they are in fact morons.

Q: I wouldn’t describe that as a diplomatic explanation.

A: Literature is not diplomacy. Neither is it a profitable enterprise

unless of course you decide to write

about the Middle Ages and the massacres.

But that’s a subject for another conversation.

#

Wednesday, February 06, 2013

*******************************************

ON BEING AN ARMENIAN WRITER

********************************************

Q: What are some of the positives and negatives

in being an Armenian writer?

A: Positives? None! Negatives? To begin with

you work for nothing;

you are treated like an unemployed and unemployable misfit,

a mental masturbator;

morons take it upon themselves to tell you

what to write and how to write it;

and worst of all, you are dependent on the charity of swine.

A: Aren’t you afraid that by using angry words

you may run the risk of undermining your own objectivity?

A: I am more than willing to take that chance.

Those who are against me will be against me

even if I were to speak like an angel.

And I have every reason to suspect

if so far Armenian writers have been ignored

it’s because they were afraid to go down into the gutter

where our self-appointed “betters” and their dupes live.

Some day if these gentlemen are unmasked,

they will be exposed as bottom-of-the-barrel

egomaniacal sociopaths and bullies

who operate on the assumption that

they know better and our only option is to say “Yes sir!”

Q: "The Sultan is dead, long live the Sultan?"

A: That’s true for Ottomanized Armenians.

For Sovietized Armenians it’s “Stalin is dead,

long live our commissars!”

Q: Do you see a light at the end of the tunnel?

A: For me, no! For those who may follow me, maybe.

You never know…anything is possible.

And they say I am a pessimist.

What the hell do they know?

#

[arabaliozian]

writers

Thursday, February 07, 2013
***************************************
NAMING NAMES
*****************************
Q: You never name names. Why?
A: In our environment naming names doesn’t work.
Q: What do you mean it doesn’t work?
A: Last time someone named names he was taken to court,
his sources evaporated, he was found guilty, he suffered a stroke,
and shortly thereafter he died.
Q: His sources evaporated, how?
A: They refused to testify in court.
Q: Why?
A: Obviously they didn’t want to lose their only source
of financial support.
Q: I see.
A: That’s the way it has always been in our environment:
those in power and the establishment in general
have been invulnerable. This was true
even in the Ottoman Empire and the Soviet Union.
Even on the eve of the Genocide there were
Armenians – and I don’t mean dupes --
who worked for the Ottoman and Soviet administrations,
which means they supported the Sultan and the Young Turks.
Krikor Zohrab, an eminent lawyer, diplomat,
and intellectual leader was one of them –
he was a close friend and supporter of Talaat
who had him murdered in cold blood.
I am myself personally acquainted with writers
who make a comfortable living as secretaries of bishops.
Do you think they will even consider testifying
against their only source of income
and start looking for another job?
Who would hire them?
Armenian writers are not exactly in great demand
in today’s marketplace. But all that is theory.
In reality it has never happened.
We don’t have a system or cultural environment
that supports individuals who place truth or principle
above self-interest. And we have always had
ruthless manipulators willing to take advantage of this situation.
#
Friday, February 08, 2013
***************************************
ON READING
**************************
Q: What are some of the books you have reread more than twice?
A: Lesley Blanch’s SABRES OF PARADISE,
Toynbee’s RECONSIDERATIONS (volume xii of his STUDY OF HISTORY),
and Sartre’s WORDS.
Q: A strange trio.
A: I forgot Nabokov’s LOLITA, and of course Zarian
whom I have translated into English,
and to translate a book is equivalent to rereading
it ten times if not more. There may be others
but these are the ones that come readily to mind at the moment.
Q: What is it about Zarian that fascinates you?
A: His daring and uncanny ability to say
what you almost think…and his unique grasp of reality.
Q: What about books that have changed your worldview?
A: Dostoevsky’s IDIOT, Turgenev’s FATHERS AND SONS,
and Suzuki’s INTRODUCTION TO ZEN BUDDHISM,
all of which I read as a teenager --
and Plato’s DIALOGUES. Also Shaw’s plays,
or rather their prefaces which are longer than the plays themselves.
And Thomas Mann’s MAGIC MOUNTAIN.
Q: Do you have a favorite genre?
A: All of them – fiction, essays, biographies, memoirs, diaries,
conversations, crime novels, encyclopedias…
everything but poetry. I don’t remember to have ever read
a collection of verse from beginning to end.
Isolated poems now and then, here and there,
but Milton, Dante, and T.S. Eliot, no!
As for Pushkin: I might as well be deaf, dumb, and blind.
I have always suspected that in poetry
manner is more important than substance.
Q: Do you think Armenians read enough?
A: Somewhere Zarian says that what Armenians preferred to read
at the turn of the century in Istanbul were best-sellers
like Zevaco and Eugene Sue – whom no one reads these days.
I know Armenians who love books for purely cosmetic reasons,
to make an impression on visitors.
I am beginning to suspect an Armenians’ greatest enemy
is neither the Turk nor his fellow Armenian
but the written word.
#
Saturday, February 09, 2013
**************************************
FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE
**********************************
Gandhi once said you can evaluate a civilization
by the manner in which it treats its animals –
and, I would add, its writers.
If you make a list of our writers
you will be astonished to discover
an astonishing number of them
were either silenced, ignored and exiled or
betrayed to the authorities,
murdered and committed suicide.
*
Armenia has been called “the cradle of civilization”
by an Irish academic who enjoyed the financial support
of the Gulbenkian Foundation,
the wealthiest foundation in the world, it has been said.
But it would be even more accurate to call it its grave.
*
And speaking of Gulbenkian:
Why did he leave only 7% of his wealth to Armenians?
Did he know something we don’t know?
Did he guess that if he were to leave
all his wealth to Armenians,
93% of it would end up in the wrong pockets?
I am not casting aspersions,
just asking question and searching for answers.
#

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, February 10, 2013
******************************************
HOLY BOOKS
**********************
We all have our own.
To some it’s the Bible,
To others the Koran,
to still others the UPANISHAD.
In my twenties my holy book was
Thomas Mann’s THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN
in which there are endless arguments
about all the important issues in life.
The two fictional characters who engage in these arguments
are Naphta (authoritarian, mystical, fascist)
and Settembrini (a liberal humanist).
The arguments are so convincingly done that
at the end you cannot tell who is right and who wrong.
*
In my thirties my other holy book was
Toynbee’s RECONSIDERATIONS
(volume xii of his STUDY OF HISTORY)
in which ideas about the past, that is to say life,
are carefully analyzed and discussed at considerable length.
*
It is to be noted that Mann’s character of Naphta
is based on the famous communist critic and philosopher Lukacz
with whom he was personally acquainted
(Lukacz was later to write a book on Mann);
and in RECONSIDERATIONS Toynbee quotes
many of his critics except Hugh Trevor-Roper
whose attack on him was so ruthless and rude
that its intent was not to question Toynbee’s ideas
but to destroy him personally.
*
Also to be noted, both Mann and Toynbee
were great readers of the Bible.
Mann even wrote his longest book,
the tetralogy JOSEPH AND HIS BROTHERS,
based on an episode in GENESIS.
*
When told the Bible was written by the Holy Ghost,
Shaw is said to have replied,
“All books are written by the Holy Ghost.”
What about LOLITA, one is tempted to ask.
LOLITA too, Shaw would have replied
(the book was published after his death)
because THE SONG OF SONGS in the Old Testament
fully qualifies as an erotic rhapsody in which,
Hebrew scholars tell us,
there is even talk of oral sex – obviously lost in translation.
#
Monday, February 11, 2013
*************************************
SOUND BITES
***************************
*
COMMON KNOWLEDGE
*********************************
“The small state, racked by internal dissension,
invites the foreign conqueror.”
This is a line that occurs in a short story by Mary McCarthy.
I quote it to point out the fact that far from being
the best and the brightest, we are a cliché known by all except us.
That’s how cunningly and thoroughly we have been brainwashed.
*
SUICIDE
****************
Instead of blabbering endlessly about murder,
we should speak of suicide by a thousand self-inflicted cuts.
*
THE ENEMY
***********************
He who is his own worst enemy
does not need an enemy.
*
THE WAY OF THE COMMISSAR
****************************************
You don’t like what he says?
Shoot him.
You can't shoot him?
Silence him.
You can’t silence him?
Call him “son of a Turkish whore.”
*
TRANSLATION
***********************
“A government by the people for the people.”
Translation:
“A government by the mafia for the mafia.”
*
WORDS
********************
Instead of analyzing my words
teach yourself to analyze your actions.
Unawareness, according to Freud and Jung,
is the source of all evil
*
PROPAGANDA
**************************
The real aim of propaganda is not to misrepresent lies as truths
but to moronize the people,
and the most effective way to moronize the people
is to call them seven times smarter than Greeks and Jews.
#
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
***************************************
CONTROL FREAKS
****************************
The Pope telling Galileo what to think
and imams telling women how to dress
spring from the same source:
ignorance, arrogance, and greed for power.
*
Unmask religion and expose the primitive in man.
*
If you cannot deal with reality,
invent your own fiction.
*
A man of faith believes his faith to be infallible
and with God on his side he can do no wrong.
This fallacy has claimed more innocent lives than any other.
*
There are as many paths to God or Truth
as there are human beings.
To say otherwise is to legitimize intolerance
and ultimately war and massacre.
This is not theory but reality,
that is to say, history.
*
The same applies to patriotism.
There are as many variants of patriotism
as there are patriots.
To say, suggest, or imply that your kind of patriotism
is better than mine or anyone else’s is to justify
all kinds of aberrations, including crimes against humanity.
*
To say my faith, my God, my Truth and no other
is to be on a path that leads not to God but to the Devil.
#
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
*******************************************
NOTES & COMMENTS
*********************************
The phoniest Armenians are those
who never miss an opportunity
to assert their superior brand of patriotism.
*
As children we are taught big lies
and forbidden to speak little ones.
*
Because I expose contradictions
I am told I hate myself.
*
The biggest lies are fractions of the truth.
*
In a trial by jury,
the function of the jury is not to separate
the guilty from the innocent
but to decide which side
has the more competent lawyer.
*
Nationalist historians are not liars;
they only emphasize the positive
and cover up the negative.
I know how that’s done because I have done it myself.
See my ARMENIANS: THEIR HISTORY & CULTURE.
#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, February 14, 2013
***************************************
WHO LOVES ARMENIANS?
****************************************
In his youth Zarian loved Armenians
because he saw himself as a messianic figure
and his fellow Armenians as a crucified nation.
In his old age he saw himself as a victim
of intolerance and envy,
and he died with the conviction that
he had been murdered.
*
Saroyan loved the whole world including Armenians
but he couldn’t stand his own family
including his half-Armenian son and daughter.
*
Michael (GREEN HAT) Arlen loved his fellow Armenians too
but he warned his half-Armenian son to stay away from them.
The son followed his father’s advice
with only one interruption
that lasted long enough for him to write
PASSAGE TO ARARAT that became a best-seller.
*
Because I hate myself, some of my critics tell me,
I am in no position to love or understand my fellow Armenians,
and armed with that conviction
they feel justified in calling me “son of a Turkish whore,”
among other abusive terms.
*
I have noticed that Armenians who speak endlessly of love
are the least lovable specimens
and though I have tried very hard to love them
I have failed.
But that’s my fault rather than theirs.
#
Saturday, February 16, 2013
*****************************************
LIES, BIG LIES, AND
CONTRADICTIONS
************************************************** ***
In politics don’t judge the man,
judge the men behind the man.
*
The same Leonardo who said war is
“pazzia bestialissima” (the most beastly madness)
also designed war machines.
*
Even Jesus failed to unmask Judas
until it was too late.
*
If Zohrab was Talaat’s dupe,
who among us will dare to say
he is nobody’s dupe?
*
One reason I keep coming back to dupes is that
I have been one most of my life…
with no end in sight.
*
If I were to make a list of Big Lies we believed in,
I would begin with
“The Turks would not dare to massacre us,” and end with
“Russians are our Big Brothers.”
*
To preach love and legitimize hatred is a contradiction,
and yet most religious leaders appear to be unaware of this fact.
*
Love of God (religion) and love of homeland (patriotism)
have justified more crimes against humanity
than hatred of the Devil.
#
Saturday, February 16, 2013
******************************************
WHO LOVES ARMENIANS? (II)
**************************************
There are systems of ignorance as surely
as there are systems of knowledge
and we choose both by the degree of flattery they contain.
*
Christians believe they are worthy of the Crucifixion,
Jews believe they are the Chosen,
and Muslim believe non-Muslims to be “infidel dogs.”
*
What about Armenians?
To begin with we don’t much care
about Turks, Kurds, Azeris, Georgians,
“onion-head” Russians, and the so-called “civilized West”
which fought its lousy World War I
instead of coming to our aid.
Neither are we fond of Protestants and Catholics
even when they happen to be fellow Armenians.
Native-born Armenians look down at Diasporans (“aghber”) --
I have myself been called “a piece of shit” by a fellow Armenian
born and raised in the shadow of Mt. Ararat.
*
Who loves Armenians?
Not even Armenians.
As the popular refrain has it:
“Mart bidi ch’ellank!”
Literally: “We will never acquire the status of human beings.”
#

[arabaliozian]

Sunday, February 17, 2013
*****************************************
US/THEM
****************************
As a child I was told many things
that as an adult I rejected.
As a Catholic I was brought up to believe
the only reason Martin Luther had divided the Church
was to fornicate with a nun.
*
More often than not the hidden aim
of all categories, differences, and labels
is to assert some kind of phony superiority.
*
Shaw once said that the reason why
he was successful in creating believable female characters
is that he did not think of women as different from men.
When the French say “Vive la difference!”
I have every reason to suspect
they have in mind only anatomical differences.
*
An old lady from Kharpert once told me
they viewed women from Izmir (Smyrna) as sluts
because they (Izmirtsis) used make-up;
and a woman from Izmir once told me
they view Kharpertsis as Kurds.
For every label there will be a counter-label.
*
Native-born Armenians versus Diasporans
(or aghber = white trash).
As a non-native Armenian I suspect native-born Armenians
to be former Bolsheviks, even Stalinists.
*
We are all brought up to look down on our fellow men
for reasons that on closer inspection reveal themselves to be
based on ignorance, prejudice, fear, and fallacies.
I feel therefore justified to formulate
the following categories of my own:
human beings who view their fellow men and women as equals
and dupes who suffer from a psychological aberration
known as infantilism which consists
in clinging to illusions, lies, and prejudices instilled in them
when they could not yet think for themselves and
whose hidden aim is to make them feel superior or privileged.
#
Monday, February 18, 2013
*******************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
*******************************
Why is it that people who view abortion as murder
don’t see war as murder?
*
The Enlightenment did not put an end to the Dark Ages;
neither did Christianity expose false gods.
*
Whenever a reader calls me pro-Turkish
I know he has run out of arguments.
If memory serves, it was Goebbels who said:
“Making noise is an effective means of opposition.”
*
As a pessimist I hate to be right.
*
Because I make Armenianism
(its cheap, loathsome variant) look hateful,
I am accused of hating myself.
*
Be a dupe, join a group.
*
The contempt of idiots and fanatics
is as valuable an asset as the affection of good men.
*
When Jesus said “The Kingdom of God is within you,”
the rabbis thought, there goes my bread and butter.
*
Among us success is harder to survive than failure.
*
In real life all stories have an unhappy ending
if only because at the end everyone dies.
#
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
*****************************************
ON PATRIOTISM
*************************************
The most patriotic Armenian is neither
the devout church-goer nor
the dedicated partisan
but an honest man.
*
If you can’t think of me as a critic
(someone who exposes contradictions)
think of me as the devil’s advocate.
As far as I know no one has ever identified
a devil’s advocate with the devil.
*
Where there is money there will be prostitution
in one form or another;
and where there is patriotism, there will be treason,
and more often than not it will the real traitors
who will accuse the real patriots of treason.
*
Armenians who criticize no one and nothing
(except perhaps Turks and Kurds)
will criticize critics and their favorite mode of criticism
will be slinging mud in the hope that some of it may stick.
*
Our critics – and we have had our share of them –
have made no difference in our collective existence
probably because our idiots outnumber the rest 99 to 1.
I may be wrong in this.
The correct ratio may well be 98 to 2.
#
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
******************************************
WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYING
**************************************
“In their place I would have done a better job.”
That’s not what I have been saying.
What I have been saying is
having committed blunders
I would not spend the rest of my life
trying to cover them up
in an effort to project a positive image.
Neither would I declare myself to have been
a proud member of the Communist Party
(as Sylva Kaputikian is said to have done).
or any other party, for that matter.
Or having divided the community
I would not portray myself as a statesman of vision
whose number one concern is the welfare of the nation.
Neither would I judge a regime or a power structure
by the number of privileges and powers it bestows on me
and to hell with everyone else.
As for brainwashing children into believing
we never had it so good because we are in the best of hands:
I would consider that adding insult to injury
and raising another generation of brainwashed idiots.
Now then, go ahead and accuse me
of making too many demands on our “betters”
who may not be perfect but are doing their best
under difficult conditions:
and if you believe that you will believe anything!
#

[arabaliozian]

Monday, March 25, 2013

*************************************

NOTES & COMMENTS

*******************************

If both sides believe Truth to be on their side

it must be a Big Lie.

If both sides believe God to be on their side,

it must be the Devil.

In a historic context Homo sapiens may be defined as

a being who cannot tell the difference

between God and the Devil.

*

Q: Is it true that you are more critical of Armenians

than of Turks?

A: As an Armenian I criticize Armenians.

I leave to Turkish critics the task of criticizing their own.

*

When tyrants silence writers,

they invariably target the best.

*

The reason I am a pessimist or see the dark side of things

is that I refuse to be moronized by the 1%.

*

In murder it may be “cherchez la femme.”

But in war and crimes against humanity

it’s cherchez moral and intellectual hoodlums

parading as statesmen.

*

The 99% don’t make history;

they only suffer it.

#

*****************************************

NOTHING IS WHAT IT SEEMS

OR GENOCIDE BY OTHER MEANS

**************************************************

Learning also means unlearning

what you were taught as a child.

Loving your people also means hating their enemies.

The average dupe loves to brag about the lies

he has been taught as a child

and to ignore the evidence to the contrary.

*

We in Canada are brought up to brag about

our multiculturalism and to forget that

there was multiculturalism in the Ottoman Empire too;

so much so that after 600 years of “brutal oppression”

we produced literary giants like

Baronian, Odian, Zabel Yessayan, and Zohrab.

*

Now then, name a single Canadian-born Armenian

who is capable of writing a single decent line

in his mother tongue.

*

I have heard smart Canadians define multiculturalism

as “let them dance.” Obviously because

they can read between the lines of their state propaganda

better than outsiders like us.

*

In the obituary of the Nigerian author Chinua Achebe,

I read the following this morning:

“He spent much of his adult life in the United States

but resisted literary honors from a government

he refused to accept.”

In other words, he refused to be taken in

by a policy of genocide by other means.

*

If you want to read more about the many ways

the 1% has of misleading, deceiving, confusing, bamboozling, flimflamming, exploiting, and hoodwinking the 99%

read MYTHOLOGIES by Roland Barthes.

#

IDIOTS

***********************

Armenians who say there are divisions everywhere

are simply parroting the words of an idiot

whose sole aim is to explain and justify

his own powers and privileges.

*

There are divisions even in the most advanced democracies?

It is equally true that, unlike us,

advanced democracies have a centralized power structure

because they have been successful

in overcoming their tribalism,

namely the misconception that

my political party, my church, my backyard

and my chickens matter more than all others.

*

There are divisions everywhere?

There are also rapists and murderers everywhere.

Should we therefore accept them

as inevitable facts of life

and adopt a live and let live stance

in the name of compassion, tolerance and patriotism?

*

There are divisions everywhere?

There are also crooks and idiots everywhere.

Does that mean we should allow them

to be in charge of our collective destiny?

#

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

***************************************

MEMOS TO MYSELF

**********************************

Political leaders prefer dupes to dissidents.

*

The plea of not guilty may be available to dupes

but not to their deceivers.

*

Power corrupts, weakness castrates.

*

On the art of writing: the less art the better.

*

To write too much is not a sin;

to discard too little is.

#

[arabaliozian]

Thursday, March 28, 2013
****************************************
WHEN I THOUGHT I KNEW
**************************************
When I thought I knew,
I didn’t!
*
State a problem clearly
and its solution will fall on your lap.
*
When it comes to solving our problems
we may well be just about
the dumbest people on earth.
*
In an anti-intellectual environment
to call someone an intellectual is the same
as identifying him as a mental masturbator,
a parasite, and a daydreamer
who knows nothing about real life.
An Armenian may identify himself as a professor
or an academic, but only a retard
will call himself an intellectual.
To those of my readers
who dismiss me as an intellectual
I therefore say, one does not have to be an intellectual,
a vodanavorji, or anything else for that matter
to recognize a jackass when he sees one.
*
To those who say “I know what I need to know,”
I say: Knowledge is not and cannot be a final product
but a work in progress.
#
Friday, March 29, 2013
************************************
WHAT IF OUR BETTERS
ARE OUR WORST?
**************************************
The problem with a drug addict
is not his addiction
but his refusal to kick the habit.
Likewise, our problem is not
the absence of solutions
but the rejection of all solutions,
one of them being solidarity.
*
Next time you hear someone parrot the line
“what we need is solutions,”
you may classify him
as a habitual and compulsive liar.
*
More often than not we are not deceived;
we consent to be deceived.
We are brought up to believe we are smart
to cover up our status as dupes of idiots.
*
We believe our “betters” to be la crème de la crème
when in fact they are la crème de la scum.
#
Saturday, March 30, 2013
***************************************
ON CROOKS AND LIARS
*********************************
An honest man cannot solve the problems of a crook.
Neither can he solve the problems of a nation
run by crooks.
Which may explain why our literature
has failed to solve a single problem,
prevent a single death,
expose a single liar.
*
Between an unprofitable truth and profitable lies,
most men will choose lies.
This may explain why nationalist historians
outnumber the others a thousand to one.
*
To write about crooks and liars means
never to run out of things to say.
*
My ambition: to say things nobody says
and everybody thinks.
*
Like the last Ottoman sultans
who had a thousand concubines in their harems,
the average propagandist has a thousand lies.
You want proof?
Think the opposite of what a speechifier says
and you may see more sense there.
#

[arabaliozian]

questions

Monday, April 01, 2013
*************************************
TWO QUESTIONS
***********************
Even after successive waves of Hamidian massacres
in the Ottoman Empire and Stalinist purges in the USSR,
Armenian writers like Siamanto and Totovents
couldn’t stand life in America
and returned to Istanbul and Yerevan respectively.
Now then, my question is:
How many of our writers now living in exile
have returned to their homeland after Independence?
Is it conceivable that there was more tolerance
and freedom under the bloody Sultan
and the iron rule of Stalin
than under our own oligarchs?
*
I am personally acquainted with an Armenian writer in exile
who is not allowed to visit his dying father in Yerevan.
My second question is:
Is it conceivable that our oligarchs
are more commissars and less Armenian?
Or more robots and less human beings?
#
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
*******************************************
ON LIFE, AFTERLIFE, AND
RELATED ATROCITIES
************************************************
On life after death:
the chances are we will return to wherever it was
that we came from before we were born.
But that may not be the end of the story…
*
Nationalism teaches us to have 20/20 vision
when it comes to our assets
and pretend to be deaf, blind and stupid
when it comes to our liabilities.
*
There is a natural tendency in all of us
to subscribe to dogmas whose sole intent
is to divide the community and to reject
what common sense, decency, logic, and self-interest dictate.
*
To contradict is a temptation an Armenian cannot resist.
*
When we rely too much on our understanding
we tend to forget or ignore the fact that,
that which is incomprehensible
may well be closer to the truth.
#
Tuesday, April 02, 2013
************************************
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
***************************************
We owe our dogmas and divisions
to individuals whose ultimate aim
is the destruction of the nation;
and if they are not aware of this
it’s because they have allowed themselves
to be moronized by their own propaganda.
*
We have bosses, bishops, and benefactors
by the dozen and dupes by the thousand
but not a single consensus seeker.
*
Nationalism also means
to believe nothing you are told
except flattery.
*
It took Turks 600 years to realize
sultans were up to no good.
It may take them a little longer to realize
Kemalism is a morally and politically bankrupt ideology.
*
If there is a god,
garbage collectors will go to heaven
and politicians to hell.
*
Where there is subservience there will also be
intimidation -- or bullies and cowards.
#
Wednesday, April 03, 2013
*****************************************
UNDERSTANDING THE ENEMY
******************************************
We may understand why we hate our enemies
but we don’t always understand why they hate us.
*
If we have trouble understanding our enemies
it may be because we have been brainwashed
to believe we are lovable;
and we are lovable even when
we behave like repulsive apes;
and we are smart
even when we speak like inbred morons.
*
We like to believe
if our enemies hate us
it’s because there must be something
fundamentally wrong with them.
Turks are bloodthirsty savages.
In the eyes of Americans,
Muslim terrorists are ignorant fanatics.
*
Instead of examining our conscience
we blame others.
We use the lies of our propaganda
to reach a truth which is a bigger lie.
*
We forget that
we are not as cute as we think we are.
No one is.
To take propaganda seriously
means to moronize oneself.
*
Instead of wondering why
Americans hate Muslims,
Muslims should ask themselves
why do Sunnis butcher Shias and vice versa?
Instead of wondering why Turks hate Armenians,
we should ask ourselves
why does Armenian hate Armenian?
*
Why Muslim terrorists hate Americans unto death?
Why did Americans hate one another unto death
in their Civil War (in cosmic time, yesterday)?
#
Saturday, April 06, 2013
***************************************
ON CHARM
******************************
“Charm is shit!”
I hate the man who said that.
I should have said it first.
*
Death may be the end of the road for us
but the road itself is without end.
*
Robert Frost:
“And nothing to look backward to with pride
And nothing to look forward to with hope.”
Our history in two lines.
*
I am what my critics made me.
*
The 1% may be replaced but not toppled.
*
Beware of the man who is humble only before God.
*
Divide the enemy and the battle is half won.
Let the enemy divide us and the war is lost.
#
Saturday, April 06, 2013
*****************************************
MEMOIRS OF A SURVIVOR
**************************************
Unmask an Armenian and expose
a celebrity without recognition,
a king without a crown,
and a tyrant without power.
*
I remember once when I tried to arrange
an interview with a minor Armenian celebrity,
I was treated with such contempt that
I cancelled the interview without notice
and decided never to interview another Armenian again.
*
Success has this in common with power – it corrupts.
*
The offspring of survivors
I am myself a survivor:
my parents survived Turks;
I survived Armenians.
*
In the official version of our recent story,
the operation was a success but the patient died.
*
Recycled propaganda is verbal vomit.
#
Saturday, April 06, 2013
**********************************
WAR CRIMINALS
******************************
Who is crazier – the Second Amendment gun nut
or the unbalanced teenager or adult
who kills defenceless children?
Speaking for myself:
I don’t know.
Hard to say.
*
I suggest there is a mass murderer in all of us
waiting for the right combination of circumstances
to make an appearance.
*
Consider the frequency with which
law-abiding patriotic citizens that have committed
or cooperated in the commission
of atrocities, massacres, and genocide in the past.
How many of them surrendered
and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity?
What about political, military, and religious leaders
who legitimize and promote
intolerance, hatred, and war or mass murder?
Last but far from least:
How many popes, imams, and rabbis
have been identified as war criminals?
I am not casting aspersions,
just asking questions.
#

[arabaliozian]

more...

Saturday, April 13, 2013

*************************************

SERMON

**************************

In what way am I morally superior

to a cold-blooded killer if I harbor a killer within me?

In what way are Americans morally superior to Muslims

if they (Americans) have killed more Muslims

than Muslims have killed Americans?

In what way Muslims are morally superior to Americans

if the only reason they have killed fewer Americans

is military inferiority?

*

Closer to home:

we have been so busy exposing Turkish criminal conduct

that our own moral status has become an alien dimension.

As Zarian would say: “Danger, danger, danger!”

*

There is only one way to feel morally superior

and that is (to echo Saroyan) by feeling sorry

for the morally inferior.

*

The Scriptures tell us there is no difference

between an adulterer and a man

who lusts after another’s wife.

Likewise there is no difference between a killer

and a man who preaches hatred and revenge

which he identifies as justice.

*

Perhaps what I have been trying to say here is

we all swim in the same sh**!

#

Saturday, April 13, 2013

***********************************

THEOLOGY

**********************

The aim of human speech

is to say one thing

and do the opposite:

to say God is love and truth

and to worship lies and the Devil;

to say “Thou shalt not kill”

and to go to war;

to call Diasporan Armenians “aghber” (trash)

and to behave like trash.

Theologians and sermonizers are familiar with this phenomenon

but prefer not to speak about it.

*

THERE WILL BE BLOOD

********************************

As soon as the Kremlin realizes

the present regime in Yerevan to be a liability,

it will replace it with another.

Will anything change?

It remains to be seen.

“No one gives up power without a bloody fight,”

Hegel tells us.

Is he right?

We may have an answer soon.

*

DOES POWER CORRUPT?

*********************************

Power does not corrupt.

It only exposes the corruption

that was already there.

*

AMERICA AND ARMENIA

***********************************

Unhappy is the nation

whose two most important sources of education are

TV ads and state propaganda.

#

FROM MY NOTEBOOKS

*********************************

In life nothing works as planned.

An honest autobiography would be

a long list of disappointments.

*

My first book was a best-seller.

My second book was banned.

That’s when I knew I was on the right track.

*

We adopt a belief system because we are told

all the others don’t make sense.

*

If you write in defense of dupes,

deceivers will conspire against you.

#

REMEMBER!

****************************

Patriotism is the favored word of tyrants.

*

Political parties need honest men

as surely as religions need saints.

*

“A man of principle is a majority of one.”

#

Saturday, April 13, 2013

**************************************

SITUATION / SH*TUATION

*************************************

In the eyes of the world

our regime in Yerevan has lost its virginity.

The people are against it.

But even if replaced

nothing will change.

*

Believe nothing you are told.

There are no good guys in politics.

Power prostitutes.

*

Some of our greatest brains

praised Lenin and Stalin.

Even our best and brightest are no better

than a bunch of dupes.

*

Where there is too much talk

of freedom and independence,

oppression is sure to follow.

*

Throughout our millennial history

foreign tyrants have always relied

on their Armenian collaborators

to moronize the people.

#

TURCOCENTRISM REVISITED

*******************************************

In Turcocentric circles I am know only as someone

whom Turks like to quote.

All I can say in my defense is that

the Devil too can quote the Scriptures.

Does that mean the Good Lord is pro-Devil?

*

I gladly admit to being not a Turcocentric

but an Armenocentric writer.

So were Baronian and Odian;

or for that matter Zarian and Massikian;

and before them Naregatsi

who in his LAMENTATION blames no one

but himself for his many failings and transgressions.

*

A human being is not a lump of clay

at the mercy of forces beyond his control.

The Turks did not recreate us in their own image.

We consented to be recreated.

That is worth repeating and emphasizing.

We are what we have become

because we chose freely to be who we are.

The rest is propaganda

and our favorite sport: the blame game.

#

DIARY

********************

“I enjoy reading you.”

I am less interested in your enjoyment

and more in your torment.

I don’t write to entertain.

Flattery is as irrelevant to me

as the words of a brainless critics or dupe

who believes what he is told

especially what he is told

flatters his ego.

*

In Deirdre Bair’s SAUL STEINBERG: A BIOGRAPHY

I am informed that if you are depressed

you can go to the nearest emergency

and ask to see a shrink.

This may be common knowledge but it’s news to me.

*

I remember once when asked by a French friend

if I have ever been analyzed

I said something to the effect that

analysis is for the bourgeoisie

and that as a perennial slum-dweller

it has never even occurred to me

to visit a shrink.

I was astonished when he informed me that

in France analysis is available to everyone

free of charge.

*

Perhaps deep inside somewhere

I continue to be a subject of the Ottoman Empire

where the insane were treated like criminals.

#

[arabaliozian]

war

Sunday, April 14, 2013
*********************************
ON WAR AND PEACE
*************************************
There are no just wars.
A war in which innocent civilians die cannot be said to be just.
*
Countless wars have been fought since the beginning of time
and in all of them there were winners and losers.
*
No nation on earth can assert military invincibility or,
for that matter, moral superiority.
Only Americans believe in their own moral superiority
only Muslims believe in theirs, and so on...
*
If Americans and Jews were to behave like Turks did
at the turn of the last century
the world would witness a series of genocides
on several continents.
*
Muslims may think they are invincible
because they have Allah and oil on their side,
in the same way that we (Armenians) thought
we had the might of the Great Powers of Europe,
plus God and the justice of our cause
(freedom from oppression) on our side.
It didn’t do us any good.
It was all an empty illusion.
*
All political leaders (including Kemal, Arafat, and our own)
are first and foremost baloney artists.
They may successfully brainwash their dupes
but they cannot fool reality.
*
If so far Americans and Jews have not behaved like Turks
it may be because there is a difference between the autocratic East
and the democratic West.
*
If Muslims want to coexist with their enemies
they have no choice but to reject their undemocratic ways
and realize that the concept of fundamental human rights
is not an invention of the corrupt and decadent West.
But even if it were, that does not make Muslims
more progressive, civilized, and just in the eyes of the world.
*
Our choice is seldom between good and evil
but between bad and worse;
and sometimes even between worse and worst.
#
Hegel’s famous last words:
“No one understood me except one,
and even he didn’t understand me.”
#
The Nazis believed God to be on their side.
So do jihadists today.
The God of fanatics is the Devil.
#
ON MODERATION
*******************************
“Moderation in all things,” Greeks said
even as they condemned Socrates to death.
*
For every believer there is a non-believer.
Who is right?
Neither.
Who is wrong? Both.
*
Trust your friend but respect your enemy.
*
Modify your assertions with their contradictions.
That may not be the best way to live
but it is the only way to survive.
#
REFLECTIONS
*********************************
My real education began on the day I realized
I was a brainwashed dupe and a self-satisfied idiot.
*
Words and reality (like ideas and God)
move in two different dimensions that like parallel lines
never meet (except in eternity).
*
Scientists tell us space has an end.
What does this end look like?
Is there some kind of invisible wall?
What’s on the other side of the wall?
*
God is not a being, Thomas Aquinas tells us,
but “being itself.”
Whatever the hell does that mean?
*
Plato put it best when he said
reality is like fire and words only shadows.
*
It is to be noted that after having a mystical experience
Aquinas gave up writing and said something to the effect that
all writing was no better than verbal trash.
#

[arabaliozian]

Saturday, April 20, 2013
******************************************
BROTHERS
**************************
If you go against the dominant mindset of your time,
you can’t go wrong.
You may be a perennial reject
but the chances are you will be closer to the truth
than the crowd.
*
At the turn of the last century
Turks thought the fewer Armenians the better.
During World War II Germans had a similar disposition
towards Jews.
Remember the American slogan:
“The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”
*
One reason Americans did not exterminate Negroes is that
Negroes played a key role in their economy.
Closer to home: our own attitude
towards our critics and dissidents:
the fewer the better but none is best.
(I speak from experience.)
*
All genocides begin in the hearts of men
and we are no exception.
Now then, go right ahead and assert moral superiority.
#
NOTES & COMMENTS
*******************************
Using profanities in an argument
is like raising your voice to strengthen your position.
It works only if your adversary is intimidated by noise.
*
I no longer search for the company of good men.
If I can recognize and avoid the proximity of cold-blooded killers
I am satisfied.
*
To those who accuse me of seeing only the dark side of our reality,
I say: We have a long-standing literary tradition
that prefers fiction to fact.
Mine is a balancing act.
*
To lose a false friend is like defeating a dangerous enemy.
*
In the world of scholarship as in life
the most valuable asset is a readiness
to renounce a cherished idea.
#
NOTES / COMMENTS
************************************
Individuals may admit their failings
but nations never!
All nations are habitual and compulsive liars.
This is as true of Americans as it is of Russians;
as true of Turks as it is of Armenians.
*
We like to say we had a Golden Age
when the West was wallowing in its Dark Ages.
The question we avoid asking is:
Who is responsible for frittering away our heritage?
*
A new revolution or regime opens the path
to a new class of mediocrities, opportunists,
and bureaucrats – sharks for short.
More often than not the difference
between the old and the new is in name only.
Scratch the label and expose the scum of the earth.
#

[arabaliozian]

variations

Thursday, April 25, 2013
*************************************
VARIATIONS ON A FAMILIAR THEME
************************************************
After behaving like swine
they assert moral superiority.
This is as true of nations and tribes
as it is of empires;
as true of the Ottoman Empire
as it is of our own political parties and mafias.
*
When a fanatic says “God is on my side,”
you can be sure of one thing:
he can’t tell the difference
between God and the Devil.
*
All belief systems are perversions.
*
Not to expose lies means
being subservient to liars.
#
ONLY IN AMERICA
****************************
In America if you fail as a writer
you can make a comfortable living
as a teacher of creative writing.
*
I don’t know what they do in Armenia
but in the Diaspora you make yourself
as invisible as possible – not to be the bud of jokes
as a vodanavorji or a medavoragan
(freely translated as versifier and assh*le).
*
ONLY IN ARMENIA
************************
Where idiots are in charge,
the smart will be persecuted.
*
Ours is a nation whose lunatic fringe
is the dominant minority.
*
Literature is to the mind as water is to the thirsty
and bread to the hungry.
But some people experience neither thirst nor hunger
because they are walking cadavers.
*
Politicians create enemies to cover up the fact that
they are the real enemies.
#
ON EVIL
& RELATED ATROCITIES
*******************
The only way to understand evil
is to recognize it within us.
Which is why the judgment of the self-righteous
cannot be trusted – and who could be
more self-righteous
than bishops, imams, and rabbis
who speak in the name of god?
*
One man’s god
may be another’s devil.
*
To be diplomatic, tolerant, and civilized means
to say the opposite of what you think and feel.
*
After I make an assertion
I am haunted by its contradiction.
*
To be a writer means
to be a re-writer.
#