as i see it

[arabaliozian]

comments

Sunday, October 12, 2008
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ON WRITING
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Kingsley Amis: “If you can't annoy somebody with what you write, I think there is little point in writing.”
*
If I fail to answer some questions or arguments it may be because I am too busy answering my perennial adversary – my former self.
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There is a type of philistine for whom the word culture is almost synonymous with cuisine.
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If shish-kebab and pilaf Armenians were to read a single Armenian book every year, Armenian literature would enjoy another renaissance.
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I am accused of hanging out the nation's dirty linen by the dirty linen.
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Cicero defines freedom as “participation in power.” If we are free, ours is the freedom of ants, birds, and herbivores – free to be stepped on, shot at, and devoured.
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In one of his essays Sartre says that never had French intellectuals been so free as they were under the German occupation during World War II. Something similar could be said of Armenian intellectuals at the turn of the last century in Istanbul under the sultans. A 21st -century Baronian and Odian are unthinkable because they would be immediately and unanimously silenced by editors who are no better than hirelings of our bosses and benefactors.
#
Monday, October 13, 2008
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VARIETIES OF PATRIOTIC EXPERIENCE
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If Mother Teresa lost her faith, can any believer be safe in his own? And if I, a thoroughly brainwashed hater of all Turks, can realize that they are human beings like the rest of us, can any Armenian be safe in his hatred of Turks, and by extension, hatred of fellow Armenians who dare to disagree with him?
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Ignorance of history allows a fool to think of himself as wise, a fanatic to be a moderate, and an executioner to be on the side of the angels.
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When I speak of free speech, I speak in defense of all writers who at one time or another were permanently silenced by fascist regimes in the name of patriotism. I speak with the strength of many.
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If you join a club of like-minded idiots and you assess yourself as wise, have at least the common sense and decency not to assess yourself as infallible.
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Because I refuse to believe to be Armenian means to hate Turks in theory and to hate Armenians in practice, am I then an enemy of the people whose tongue should be cut off?
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Diasporan patriotism: they pretend to love the country in order to hate fellow countrymen with a clear conscience.
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Patriotism: which comes first, love of country or hatred of the enemy?
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Solidarity in hatred, divisiveness in love: some may call that patriotism, I call it insanity.
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Those who preach patriotism and violate the human rights of their fellow countrymen are liars, cowards, and partisans of subservience.
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Love of country: mountains, rivers, and valleys are easy to love – they don't reason, neither do they judge. Love of fellow countrymen: a far more demanding enterprise.
#
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
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TEN YEARS LATER
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When a reader reacts with insults and profanities it may be because he has run out of arguments, or rather he never had any to begin with.
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To meet two old detractors after ten years and to realize they haven't advanced an inch and they are the same horse's arses is a sensation akin to revenge without the guilt.
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If a man's income is forty times your own, it doesn't necessarily follow that he is forty times smarter, though he may think so.
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Sarah Palin claiming to be an expert in foreign affairs because she can see Russia from her porch has a counterpart among Armenians who think they are patriotic because they know “Yes im anoush Hayastani” by heart.
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Let us not confuse hatred of Turks with love of the Homeland, or being slaves of former slaves with freedom.
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St. John: “The one who says that he loves God and does not love his brother is a liar.” So is the Armenian who loves his Homeland but hates his fellow Armenian.
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The contempt of the nouveau riche for the intellectual who can't make ends meet, the loathing of the bourgeois for the white trash, and the scorn of the aristocracy for the bourgeois – Turgenev's of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy's of Shakespeare, Nabokov's of Freud and Sartre....
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St. Paul: “If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise.”
#
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
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VIPERS
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Some share their thoughts, others their venom. But in order to share their venom, they must store it somewhere, that is to say, they must make themselves venomous. Unlike vipers that are not harmed by their own venom, however,human venom is stored in the heart and circulates throughout the entire organism. It follows, those who share their venom become its most generous recipients. Hence Gandhi's dictum, “Hatred injures us more than those we hate.”
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PROBLEMS
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Life is an endless succession of problems. Some problems can be solved, others, like death, taxes, and the voice of one's conscience, cannot.
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QUESTIONS
*******************
Can anyone name a single Armenian who has freely relinquished even a tiny fraction of his income, prestige, or power for the sake of solidarity -- that is to say, that which makes of us a nation as opposed to a collection of tribes?
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Sometimes I am asked:
“Why are you so consistently negative?”
My reply: Negative is in the eye of the beholder. To be against lies is positive;
but not to the liar, of course.
#

[arabaliozian]

fear

Thursday, October 16, 2008
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BELLS RINGING
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Albert Camus in the latest volume of his NOTEBOOKS: “Our literary society whose principle is second-rate spite, where offense takes the place of critical method.”
After reading Dostoevsky's CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: “I seriously consider the possibility of giving up.”
As a diarist Camus is disappointing. Unlike Gide and Jules Renard he makes no effort to be accessible. One entry simply reads: “The truth. The truth!” And another: “Thoughts of death.”
He quotes a French historian saying: “The Russians rotted before they were ripe.” And we were ripe 1500 years ago.
“Buddhism is atheism that became religion.”
I am reminded of Gandhi's observation that even atheists are believers because they believe the non-existence of God to be the Truth, and God is Truth.
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NOTES & COMMENTS
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We converted to Christianity as readily and passively as we converted to atheism under the Soviets.
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Historians study the past in the same way that psychologists study the unconscious. History as mankind's unconscious drives made visible. We are prisoners of our past as surely as a man is a prisoner of his unconscious drives.
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As in all fascist regimes, we have replaced intellectuals with propagandists. Hence the popularity of our Turcocentric ghazetajis.
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After we have seen and experienced what hatred does to people, we live as though hatred were the only answer.
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When they can't stand the heat, they drive you out of the kitchen.
#
Friday, October 17, 2008
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FEAR
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To the faceless cowards who insult me anonymously and from a safe distance I say: One does not have to be a prophet to predict that your big mouth will be your undoing. And if you say, What about your big mouth? I will inform you that my undoing, if it comes, will have two sources, (one) being honest among phonies, and (two) writing for Armenians, which, in case you didn't know, happens to be a capital offense in our environment. You want proof? Read a text on the history of Armenian literature or the biography of any Armenian writer chosen at random. And if you are too lazy to do that, consider the fact that our history has been shaped by ruthless foreign tyrants and their collaborators among us. Allow me to remind you that two of the most notorious executioners of writers – Talaat and Stalin – earned their reputation with the full support and assistance of our traitors.
*
Nothing comes easier to an Armenian than to assert a superior brand of patriotism. And it goes without saying that he who has a high opinion of himself, will also have a correspondingly low opinion of his fellow men, so low in fact that he will assume none of them to be smart enough to see through him. A truly superior man does not feel the need to assert superiority. Only the inferior (“storin” or “varnots” in Armenian) do that to cover up their inferiority.
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In an environment where propagandists are rated above intellectuals, not only the intellectuals but also the people will be at the mercy of executioners. For more on this subject, read a text on our history, provided of course it is not written by a hireling.
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What are liars afraid of? The truth, of course, which they try to bury with their lies. But truth, which has a life all its own, refuses to remain buried forever. Its resurrection, which may happen in three or thirty three days or years, is inevitable. It is the awareness of this inevitability that liars fear.
#
Saturday, October 18, 2008
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ON BIAS
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If you classify your fellow men as Black and White, or Muslim and Christian, or Turk and Armenian, you introduce bias. Think of them as human beings and you will be surprised what happens next. What I am saying has nothing to do with Christian or any other kind of morality. Turning the other is an alien concept to me. So is loving my enemy or forgiving those who trespass against me. True, I was brought up as a Christian but my ethics remain pagan. If someone slaps me, my first instinct is to want to kill him. I think of both Turks and Armenians as human beings because that's what they are, and I have discovered that some Armenians are more Turk than Armenian, and some Turks are more civilized than some Armenians.
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In a democratic environment a disagreement is just a disagreement. In a fascist environment a disagreement can be a capital offense or provoke verbal abuse.
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In a civilized environment, if you speak honestly, even those who disagree with you will respect you.
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I believe in the Turkish version of our past as much as I believe in our own. I question the honesty of Turkish politicians as much as I question the honesty of all politicians, including our own. Nothing can be more naïve and foolish than to say our enemies are pathological liars but we speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
#

[arabaliozian]

Q/s

Sunday, October 19, 2008
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A WOMAN AFTER MY OWN HEART
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In the introduction to her biography of the celebrated Italian novelist, Elsa Morante, Lily Tuck writes: “A truth teller, she tended to say hurtful things...She detested any sort of artifice, posturing, falsehood, she detested the misuse of power.”
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THEY NEVER LEARN
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Some Armenians are so hedamenats and aboosh that they think one way of defending the national badiv is by insulting Turks, and they stubbornly refuse to see that not only Turks outnumber us, but when it comes to delivering profanities and insults, they are pros and we don't even qualify as rank amateurs beside them. To Armenians who are addicts of profanities and insults, I suggest they stick to insulting their fellow Armenians, because then they have a better chance to come out on top.
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MART BIDI CH'ELLANK
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Whenever someone would recount a story about a fellow Armenian who had behaved badly, someone would say, “mart bidi ch'ellank!” meaning (freely translated) “once a jackass, always a jackass," or “we are a hopeless bunch!” I must have heard that line a thousand times, but never by those engaged in fund raising. These gentlemen know that if they flatter the dupes they plan to milk, they will be rewarded with more generous contributions. Hence the popular propaganda lines first nation this, first nation that, which may also be interpreted as first nation to be brainwashed and first nation to be taken in by foreign propaganda. As for the propaganda line that asserts we are just about the smartest people on earth, that was obviously designed to cover up the fact that we may well be be just about the dumbest.
#
Monday, October 20, 2008
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ON SOLUTIONS
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Never ask for solutions to our problems because all solutions begin with honesty, and since no one has yet discovered a verbal formula that can convert a crook to an honest man, all talk of solutions is a waste of time.
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DEDICATION
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The dedication to my next book will read: “For my critics and detractors – my most faithful muses.”
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HEADLINES
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A headline in our paper reads: “Hour of death should be 'chosen by God' Pope says,” the implication being, the Pope can read God's mind like an open book.
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Another headline: “Anglicans owe Darwin apology, bishop says.” But how does one go about apologizing to a skeleton?
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GREED
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About the present financial crisis, I wonder how many CEOs said or thought “If things go wrong and the whole structure collapses, the government is bound to step in and fix it. We are too big to fail.”
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A CEO at a hearing: “I take full responsibility.” He also took home $240,000,000 we are told.
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ON REASON
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You can reason only with the reasonable. With the unreasonable you can only go down on your knees and beseech the assistance of the Holy Spirit, if, that is, you believe in that mumbo jumbo.
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ON LOVE
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Our religion teaches us to love our enemies. It says nothing about loving our fellow Armenians. Have I said that before? No matter. Some things are worth repeating.
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WORDS OF WISDOM
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Albert Einstein: “It's not that I am so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.”
#
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
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EASIER SAID THAN DONE
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Speaking of Obama's favorite word: change means introducing new legislation, and “new laws,” according to an old German saying, “are followed by new tricks.”
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WHAT'S DONE IS DONE
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The very same readers who accuse me of living in the past whenever I quote an Armenian writer, never get tired of speaking or reading about the massacres in the Ottoman Empire.
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CANNIBALS
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When they bite me and I refuse to bite back, they resent it as if to say, “What's the matter, am I not good enough to be eaten?”
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ONE-UPMANSHIP
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The ease with which they assume to know better even when the subject under discussion is a new one to them.
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CONFESSION
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Speaking of dupes: in my youth when I heard a speechifier say something, I believed he meant it. And then I met some of them...
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PROGRESS
***********************
Some of my readers are getting better at dishing out insults. With a little more effort, practice, and discipline they may be as good as Turks.
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AN OLD TRICK
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When the men at the top are corrupt, they emphasize the importance of patriotism, after which they stigmatize dissidents as unpatriotic.
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MEMO
**********************
To those who recycle chauvinist crapola, I say, Leave it to the professionals of which we have more than our share. I assure you, they don't need your two cents' worth.
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SOPHISTS
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Those who want to get away with lies, rape, and murder, will tell you, these things existed since the beginning of time and no nation on earth is without them, in the same way that today they say corruption is universal and we might as well grin and bear it.
#
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
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QUESTIONS
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If they sling mud anonymously, is it because deep down somewhere they are ashamed of what they do?
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If our Turcocentric ghazetajis keep writing about Turks, is it because they have nothing good to say about their fellow Armenians?
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If we are proud of our multi-millionaires, shouldn't we be humble of our slum-dwellers?
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Is it humanly possible to ignore or forget the truth after hearing it?
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I may react to an honest disagreement but not to an insult. How does one react to an insult without going down into the gutter where the other has the advantage?
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ASSERTIONS
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No one can be as dangerous as a fool who is manipulated by another fool.
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If you say to a bunch of crooks, “Gentlemen, let's be honest!” don't expect a mass conversion.
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One cannot speak of vision where "the blind leads the blind."
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There is a big difference between “he thinks,” and “he thinks he thinks.” To think, to really think, means to go beyond the boundaries of the already thought.
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Who benefits when we cover up that which is negative? Surely not the victims. It follows, to cover up is to support and legitimize the victimizers among us.
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Some of the dumbest people I know are Armenians who think they are smarter than Turks.
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Communism has been defined as capitalism of the state, and capitalism as free enterprise for the poor.
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Cowardice in the Ottoman Empire among Turks – it's understandable.
But cowardice in America among fellow Armenians – it's not.
#

[arabaliozian]

confessions

Sunday, October 26, 2008
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DZOUR NESDINK
SHIDAG KHOSINK
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We were deceived by the corrupt and degenerate West, we are told by way of justification. But that's not a justification. Only an unrepentant dupe and a damn fool would think of it as one. That's more like a confession and an admission of inadequacy and incompetence.
All politics and diplomacy is based on deception. The difference between a politician and a statesman is that a statesman sees what's on the other side of the hill.
The question we should ask ourselves is, Did we ever have a statesman as a leader? And even more to the point: Do we have one today? We have speechifiers and sermonizers by the dozen. But a statesman? And what is a speechifier if not a dealer in empty verbiage? What is a sermonizer if not a sanctimonious prick whose favorite motto is, “Do as I say not as I do” -- the words of a fornicator and a holier-than-thou windbag.
Speaking of dupes and confessions: allow me to confess that I too am a dupe -- a dupe of the illusion that words make a difference.
We are told “At the beginning was the word.” But we are no longer at the beginning. If anything we are closer to the end. And at the end, my friends, the word is garbage.
#
Monday, October 27, 2008
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ANIMAL HOUSE
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Topix is the name of an Armenian discussion forum that is Armenian and a forum in name only. The Turks on this forum outnumber the Armenians and the discussion consists of a constant, endless, and monotonous barrage of insults, verbal abuse, and profanities; and when I say profanities I mean the kind that couples motherhood with prostitution and fornication; and the worst profanities are reserved not by Armenians for Turks, or vice versa, but by Armenians for Armenians.
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The moderator of this forum identifies himself as an Armenian and I believe him because he leaves the profanities in and deletes my things on the grounds that he agrees with me only 80% of the time.
And speaking of motherhood: one of the regular contributors to this forum identifies herself as a “mom” and she is one of my most dedicated readers and severest critics. I suspect she subscribes to the excrementalist school of criticism because her favorite descriptive term is “crap.”
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Describe someone as objectively as you can and he will consider it the worst insult that anyone has ever inflicted on him.
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When the majority of one group believes in one thing and the majority of another group believes the exact opposite, you can be sure of one thing: the brainwashers on both sides have been busy.
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How do you convince someone who thinks he is smart that he may not be as smart as he thinks he is? It can't be done. Even if you reach the apex of your profession you can be taken in by an operator in some other line of work. Cases in point: both Hegel and Beethoven were taken in by Napoleon. That's because music, philosophy, and politics do not share the same values, vocabulary, and principles.
#
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
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A TURNING POINT OR A DEAD END?
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During the Soviet era dissidents were labeled “enemies of the people” by commissars, to cover up the fact that they (commissars) were the true enemies. When the Soviet Union disintegrated, Stalinists put the blame on dissidents. Catholics said the credit must go to the Polish Pope, and American said it was all Reagan's doing. I say it was Stalin's doing for the obvious reason that he systematically eliminated the best minds and promoted mediocrities without vision. Where there is no vision the people perish, and one cannot speak of vision where the blind lead the blind.
What about us? Where do we stand? Has anything changed? Once upon a time our political leaders were intellectuals. They may have been daydreamers and losers but they were also men of principle. They believed in what they said. Today instead of intellectuals we have merchants and bureaucrats – anonymous, faceless, interchangeable nonentities whose number one concern is number one. In the Homeland they speechify like programmed zombies, and in the Diaspora they speak of fund-raising, never of accounting. But even if they spoke with the eloquence of Demosthenes and Cicero combined I wouldn't believe a word they said. What I believe instead are the silent masses who vote with their feet. On the day the rate of immigration exceeds that of emigration I will feel justified in thinking we have been successful in arresting the downward spiral towards oblivion. Until then I will only say, I loathe deceivers, and I loathe their dupes even more because I was one of them. As for a renaissance of our arts and letters: if it happens, it will happen only after our Ottomanized, Sovietized, and Levantinized wheeler-dealers are exposed for what they really are – the gravediggers of the nation.
#
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
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CONFESSIONS OF A FOOL
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“Excellent speech is not fitting for a fool.” PROVERBS 17:7
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“Let a man meet a bear robbed of her cubs, rather than a fool in his folly.” PROVERBS 17:12
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“A rebuke goes deeper into one who has understanding than a hundred blows into a fool.” PROVERBS 17:10
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Yesterday, while waiting at the emergency room (a wait that lasted seven hours) and after exhausting the available printed matter, I found a copy of the Gideon Bible, and again I was fascinated by the number of verses dedicated to fools.
I like reading about fools for a number of reasons, one of them being that I was one most of my life, and I continue to be one today because I sometimes go as far as thinking that what I write matters.
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Reading about fools amounts to reading about myself and about human nature in general. I suspect some day psychology will be known as foolology.
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To be insulted by a fool is not an insult because that's what fools do when they don't understand something. To be praised by a fool – now, that's what I call a true insult.
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Just because fools enjoy freedom of thought it doesn't mean they can think freely.
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If a fool disagrees with you, you may be justified in suspecting you are on the right path.
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When two fools agree, they think that have achieved wisdom.
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The greatest comfort of a fool is the animal warmth of another fool.
#

[arabaliozian]

daffynitions

Thursday, October 30, 2008
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DEFINITIONS
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VODANAVORJI: A fabricator of verses inspired by the eternal snows of Mount Ararat and related atrocities.
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ANTI-SEMITE: An Armenian who loves Jews but hates Zionists.
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ANTI-AMERICANISM: A belief system that asserts the serpent in the Garden of Eden was a CIA agent.
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ANTI-ARMENIANISM: A capital offense committed by someone who dares to question the statesmanship of our wheeler-dealers, mi-kich-pogh Panchoonies, and assorted riffraff.
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ARMENIANISM: A vaguely defined discipline that allows a charlatan, bloodsucker, or parasite to assert his superior brand of patriotism and look down at anyone who does not live up to its low standards, and when I say low I mean lower than a snake's belly full of buckshot.
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BLAME-GAME: A favorite pastime of academics who ascribe all our misfortunes, blunders, defeats, and tragedies to historic, social, environmental, and cultural factors beyond our control.
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DISSENTER: A misguided fool, an unspeakable blasphemer, and a degenerate who believes we may have had something to do in shaping our character and destiny as a nation.
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INTELLECTUAL: A species as extinct as the dodo bird.
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PUNDIT: A retard with a negative IQ who is convinced he knows and understands everything there is to know and understand about our past, present, and future, but who is incapable of telling a hole in the ground from the perforation in his derrière.
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SOVIETISM: A mindset that asserts Russians to be our “Big Brothers.”
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ANTI-SOVIETISM: A mindset that asserts Russians to be our “Big Brothers” but only in the Orwellian sense of these words.
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TURCOCENTRISM: An Orthodoxy based on the assumption that we are dependent on the goodwill, fair-play, justice, and charity of Ankara.
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OTTOMANISM: A psychological complex or a mechanism that results in the production of oreos – that is, Armenians who are Armenian on the outside and Turk on the inside. Something similar could be said of Bolshevism or Stalinism. It is no exaggeration to say that Armenians of the Diaspora are at the mercy of Ottomanized thugs as surely as Armenians of Armenia are victimized by Stalinized scumbags.
#

Friday, October 31, 2008
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SUPERSTITIONS
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Elsa Morante: “Women's love brings bad luck.”
That may be because everything that's good in step one may be bad in step two. Yin and yang. “No banquet under heaven is endless,” according to an old Chinese saying.
*
Like Armenians, both men and women like to blame their troubles on the opposition, never on their own stupidity.
*
The most famous war in in the history of mankind recounted by the greatest poet in world literature is about the abduction of a floozy. But I suspect if the same story were told by a woman, the stress would be on man's stupidity. For all we know Paris may have been a serial rapist and Helen a respectable housewife.
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Speaking of war and stupidity: there are organized religions today that are against capital punishment but for war. Figure that one out if you can.
*
Speaking of floozies and man's stupidity: It is said of Antranik Zaroukian that on his return from Paris, where he was sent as a delegate by the ARF, he presented an expense account which included a line that said: “For necessary bodily functions.” When asked to explain, Zaroukian is said to have replied: “Visits to the bordello.” Somehow I find it difficult to imagine a woman delegate in the same position saying, “For services rendered by a gigolo.”
#

Saturday,November 1, 2008
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AS I SEE IT
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Don Marquis: “If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you. But if you really make them think, they'll hate you.”
*
Even if you are as wise as Socrates and as pure in heart as Mahatma Gandhi you will have enemies who will hate you unto death. And even if you are as evil as Stalin and as fanatical and single-minded as Hitler you will have followers willing to die for you.
*
I for one refuse to ascribe beastly conduct to human nature. Neither will I subscribe to the notion favored by philomorons that philosophy is a waste of time. Because if it weren't for philosophers we would be at the mercy of fools and fanatics and life would be hell on earth.
*
A good autobiography is everyone's biography.
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The greatest concern of a man in power is losing it.
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The shy in life will be daring in imagination.
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To read words and sentences – nothing easier. To read ideas – that's different.
#

[arabaliozian]

obama

Sunday, November 2, 2008
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BAND OF ROBBERS
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Saint Augustine: “What is the state without justice: A band of robbers.”
I should like to hear one of our dime-a-dozen pundits and patriots say as much. As a matter of fact, the other day I did hear one of our speechifiers speaking about “the Armenia of our dreams...the dreams of our fathers and grandfathers...the alienation of youth...poverty...” and more to the point “a great deal remains to be done...” But he never went as far saying the challenge we confront today is converting a band of robbers to a band of brothers.
*
“The Armenia of our dreams!” What about the reality of our diaspora? Let's dream about that for a moment, shall we? A diaspora that speaks with one voice and treats all Armenians as brothers. A diaspora whose leaders treat the human right of free speech not as a Utopian illusion but as a basic requirement for any progressive community. What could be more self-serving and misleading for a diasporan boss than to speak of divisiveness, corruption, and alienation as if these were problems that needed to be solved only in the Homeland?
What is a diaspora without mutual tolerance? What is a community that values entertainment, food, and sports above the exchange of ideas or the development of consensus?
*
Where there is no free speech, a braying jackass and a barking dog will enjoy more freedom of expression than an honest man. To those who say I have been silenced because I am wrong on all counts, I say, even a broken down clock shows the right time twice a day, and I ask: Who among us in infallible – our Turcocentric ghazetajis or the hirelings of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors who parrot their propaganda line?
*
What is the worth of a man who is afraid to say what must be said?
#
Monday, November 3, 2008
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MEMOIRS
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It took me many years to find a job that I truly enjoyed doing, and when I finally did, no one had any use for me.
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A LOSE/LOSE PROPOSITION
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If you are wrong they will disagree with you. If you are right, they will disagree with you even more.
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COMPROMISE
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Do we have a word for compromise? If we do, why is it that no one ever uses it – at least I for one have never heard anyone use it.
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WHY WE ARE INTOLERANT OF CRITICISM
************************************************** **
Because we believe one should not mess with perfection.
*
AN ARMENIAN STORY
*****************************
They asked the village idiot to translate the braying of an ass, and when he did, the villagers were divided between those who believed him and those who did not. There were no survivors.
#
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
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CHOICES
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We either speak the truth or we conspire with liars.
*
Very often in life what we don't know or what is hidden from view matters much more than what we know. To make visible that which is invisible, that's the function of literature. The rest is either propaganda or escapism.
*
What is the worth of a dupe's “I believe,” or a child's Santa?
*
We choose to see only facts that support our prejudices and fallacies. All other facts are either ignored or don't register on our consciousness.
*
We see the best in ourselves and project the worst on others after which we confuse projecting with exorcism.
#
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
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SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY
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We slept with the enemy for 600 years – 600 long years during which instead of making history we acquired bad habits, subservience being one of them. Subservience to top dogs even when they are s.o.b.s, and contempt for underdogs even when they are honest men. Subservience to bosses, bishops, and benefactors, contempt for scribblers. Subservience to lies and contempt for the truth.
*
In an environment where wealth is seen as a blessing, I brag about my poverty if only because, in the words of Socrates, “my poverty is proof of my honesty” -- which might as well be a declaration of war against all liars. I have never owned a car or even a bicycle. I walk. I walk in all kinds of weather. I walk for miles. I walk even in snowstorms, and as I walk, I think of Dostoevsky on his way to the House of the Dead in Siberia.
*
The sev is in and the esh is out! To racists around the world, a day that will live in infamy. To underdogs everywhere, a giant step for mankind.
#

[arabaliozian]

lies

Thursday, November 6, 2008
****************************************
A SERIAL HUSBAND
********************************************
Best-selling-author Michael Crichton of JURASSIC PARK fame dead of cancer at age 66. “A devoted husband,” according to his widow; “married five times,” according to the obituary.
*
ON POWER
*********************
Power corrupted the Republicans under Bush not because the Republicans are more corruptible than the Democrats but because only saints are immune, and saints stay away from politics. Neither Thomas Mann nor Einstein were saints, but they were wise enough to say no when offered the position of head of state of East Germany and Israel respectively. As a “Mahatma” (great soul) Gandhi too rejected all positions of power in India. Obama may be America's answer to Gandhi and as such less corruptible than most politicians but the same will not be the case of everyone within his administration.
*
NOTA BENE
*************************
More often than not, it is in our efforts to appear smarter that we expose ourselves as fools.
#
Friday, November 7, 2008
****************************************
WHITE TRASH (I)
********************************************
Where fools outnumber the wise, charlatanism will be confused with charisma.
*
Speaking of Sarah Palin, a Canadian pundit said something to the effect that she looked like a semi-porno queen and was popular with the white trash. True or false? Who cares! “Se non vero, ben trovato.” Freely translated: “Even if not true, it's damn good.” Anyone who says to see Russia from one's porch is to know and understand them deserves it.
*
WHITE TRASH (II)
************************************
Because the first Armenian writer I translated into English was a Tashnak, I was identified as a member of the Party by the opposition. And when ten years later they realized they had been wrong, they offered to hire my services. They said they were willing to pay a goodly sum (I don't remember exactly how much – probably less than minimum wage) if I were to write biographical profiles of Ramgavar leaders. I informed them I was not qualified to do that because I didn't even know who they were. That's when I acquired the reputation of being an ingrate and an enemy of the people.
*
WHITE TRASH (III)
************************************
A friend in Toronto tells me he plans to attend a lecture on “Good Turks” by one of our prominent academics. Next I hope this academic will consider a lecture on “Bad Armenians.” You may not believe they exist, but take my word for it, they do. Like all nations, we too have our share of white trash who consider themselves la crème de la crème.
Speaking of good Turks: during the last few years I have made a few Turkish friends, which also means ten times as many Armenian enemies. I am not complaining. My worst enemies have also been my best sources of inspiration. If it weren't for them I would now be busy entertaining the bourgeoisie by writing love stories.
*
WHITE TRASH (IV)
********************************************
Raffi: “Our capitalists and merchants are the most corrupt and degenerate members of the community. Nothing good can come out of them. These people worship only money. They are men without a country. They belong to no nation on earth. Profit is their only homeland.”
*
Raffi: “We don't have an aristocracy. We have no elites and no leaders. What we have are merchants and clergymen. Merchants are trash. As for the clergy: they have always been against individual freedom.”
#
Saturday, November 8, 2008
****************************************
BIG LIES
********************************************
Insult an Armenian once and he will spend the rest of his life trying to get even. An eye for an eye is no longer good enough for him. He wants both eyes, ears, tongue, arms, legs, and a vital organ. An insulted Armenian ceases being an Armenian and becomes a Turkish viper.
*
Once in a while I am told I should not expose our failings in open forums. Why not? Our writers have been exposing our failings and contradictions intramurally with no effect. Shaming our dividers and gravediggers in the eyes of the world may be more effective.
*
A committed Armenian speaks in the name of a belief system and all belief systems create dupes as surely as chickens create eggs. With one difference. Eggs can be consumed.
*
The only time priests, rabbis, and mullahs speak the truth is when they call one another liars.
*
Organized religions are useful in so far as they stress the importance of morality in human affairs. But they also introduce prejudice which is the source of intolerance and countless crimes against humanity. Monopoly on truth is not just a lie but the Biggest Lie ever conceived by men.
#

[arabaliozian]

readers

Sunday, November 9, 2008
****************************************
THE DARK SIDE
********************************************
All power structures, be they tribes, nations, empires, cultures, and civilizations, have a dark side, and I don't mean here only empires like the Roman, Mongol, Ottoman and Soviet empires, but also “free,” “democratic,” “civilized,” and “progressive” empires like the United States of America that saw nothing inconsistent in declaring “All men are created equal” and practicing slavery, discrimination, and even ethnic cleansing, in addition to legitimizing and supporting some of the most corrupt regimes of the 20th century.
What about our dark side? If we have one, who speaks of it?
To answer this question I once published a DICTIONARY OF ARMENIAN QUOTATIONS in which I selected passages from the works of prominent writers from the 5th century (our Golden Age) to the present, beginning with Khorenatsi and Yeghishé to Zarian and Zaroukian, all of whom have exposed our dark side, namely the corruption, incompetence, and divisiveness of our leadership and its dupes.
*
The other day when I quoted Raffi in an essay, I was told by a gentle reader that things have improved since then and Raffi's dissenting views don't apply because we no longer live in the 19th but in the 21st century. To this reader I suggest he read such 20th century representative writers as Issahakian, Zohrab, Shahnour, Massikian, Zarian and Zaroukian to see that there has been no progress in our institutional life and that things have been getting worse rather than better. And if we no longer have respected writers today willing to speak of our dark side it's because our bosses, bishops, benefactors and their hirelings have been more intolerant and ruthless in silencing anyone who refuses to recycle their benevolent and paternalistic propaganda line whose message is, we never had it so good because we are in the best of hands. As a result, we now have a generation of dupes so thoroughly brainwashed that they call anyone who refuses to live in their fool's paradise a liar, an idiot, and a dispenser of verbal crap.
*
This morning, on the radio, in an interview, Farley Mowat, a Canadian author of 87 books: “I was a victim of the propaganda of our time.”
#
Monday, November 10, 2008
****************************************
ANALYSIS
********************************************
Analysis: “Separation of a thing into the parts of which it is composed.”
Also a method of reasoning or treatment that may lead to an objective assessment or accurate diagnosis.
*
Siamanto: “Our perennial enemy – the enemy that will eventually destroy us – is not the Turk but our own complacent superficiality.”
“Complacent superficiality”: A diplomatic circumlocution for stupidity; a reluctance of going beyond appearances; a phobia of depth; also a fondness for easy answers flattering to the ego.
*
Why did Abovian commit suicide?
Why did Raffi say “Treason and betrayal are in our blood”?
Why did Gomidas take refuge in insanity?
What was it that prompted Zarian to say, “Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another”?
If you ask these questions to a boss, he will speak of our heroic past and love of freedom. What he will not do is quote the secret and unspoken motto of our revolutionaries: “When the going gets tough, the tough take flight.”
If you ask a bishop, he will quote a line from the Bible but never the right line, such as “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” or “Where there is no vision the people perish.” (Speaking of vision: We are the offspring of men who for 600 years kissed Turkish butt; and when it wasn't Turkish butt it was Russian butt. At the center of our vision there has always been a butt.)
If you ask a benefactor, the very best he can do is write you a check and suggest you see a shrink. His business is making money, not analyzing the collective unconscious of the nation; and money for him is the alpha and omega of all human wisdom.
*
Another question: why is it that our greatest literary masterpiece is the LAMENTATION by Naregatsi (our Dante and Shakespeare combined) which consists of an endless catalog of sins, vices, failings, and aberrations?
*
Nigoghos Sarafian: “Our history is a litany of lamentation, dread, and massacre. Also deception and abysmal naiveté mixed with the smoke of incense and the sound of sacred chants.”
*
Hagop Baronian: “Truth is a language that if not spoken is forgotten.”
*
For more quotations relevant to our malaise (another circumlocution for collective insanity) that our pundits and ghazetajis pretend not to know and our brainwashed dupes hate to know, see my DICTIONARY OF ARMENIAN QUOTATIONS.
#
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
****************************************
REFLECTIONS OF A GIAOUR
********************************************
We don't choose our parents, nationality, and religion. Most people born and raised in Muslim or Christian countries are Muslim and Christian respectively, and they all share the conviction that theirs is the only true religion and all others are heresies and their followers infidels destined to burn in hell for all eternity. Most Germans born and raised in Hitler's Germany were fascists, and most Soviets in the USSR of Stalin were communists. They were, in other words, very much like Muslims and Christians, cases of arrested development.
*
To those who verbally abuse me whenever they disagree with what I say, I ask: How old were you when you acquired the infallible views you hold today? And more often than not I don't even have to wait for an answer to add: “No further questions!”
*
Patriotism is a noble sentiment. If anything it should make a man a better person. That is why I don't believe a word of what a garbage-mouth dupe says when he speaks in the name of patriotism or he expects me to believe his brand of patriotism or belief system is a cut above mine, and he is therefore qualified to look down at me as an enemy of the people, a heretic, and an infidel whose fundamental human rights can be violated with a clear conscience.
#
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
****************************************
UNPLEASANT ENCOUNTERS
********************************************
Most Armenian disagreements boil down to one side insisting that his hearsay evidence is more admissible than your eyewitness account.
*
To acquaint yourself with the kind of hatred that leads one nation to exterminate another, follow an argument between two anonymous Armenians in a discussion forum.
*
A jackass is equipped to understand only the braying of another jackass. To paraphrase a popular Turkish saying: “What the hell does a jackass know about khoshaf (stewed raisins)?”
*
If your perception of reality is based on what our nationalist historians, bosses, and bishops say, in what way are you different from a Turk who has been exposed only to the propaganda line of his nationalist historians, mullahs, and Kemal?
*
If I sound stupid sometimes it's because I want to be accessible to my audience.
*
There is a type of “inknahaivan” dupe (self-satisfied jackass) who will believe anything that flatters his ego.
*
To those of my readers who would like to dance on my grave, I say, if you die before I do, I shall mourn the loss of a Muse.
*
A gentleman does not insult another anonymously. To paraphrase a sexist Turkish saying (with apolos to the ladies on this forum): “Among ten men nine are sure to be women.”
#

[arabaliozian]

jack

Thursday, November 13, 2008
****************************************
JACK S. AVANAKIAN
********************************************
After the first profanity, I stop reading. If you have read one garbage-mouth anonymous Jack S. Avanakian, you have read them all. They might as well be xerox copies of one another.
*
Never call a self-assessed Armenian genius an inbred moron. If you do, he will be so blinded by hatred that in his efforts to prove you wrong, he will spend the rest of his life proving you right. That's because hatred makes a man stupid, and no one can be as stupid as a self-assessed genius.
*
I remember a friend telling me: “Do you know why there are no famous Armenian mountain climbers? Armenians are jumpers. They want to reach the top with a single jump.”
*
When a fanatic speaks of patriotism, he means love of country and contempt for countrymen who do not share his fanaticism. Give such an Armenian enough power and he will start by exterminating his fellow Armenians before he tackles the Turks.
*
Being Armenian looks easy only in Saroyan’s fiction. In reality it is such a demanding enterprise that most Armenians give up the effort and assimilate, and I for one do not blame them.
*
There is a type of Armenian who thinks just because he is an Armenian he is also an expert in Armenian affairs, which is like saying, just because an elephant is an elephant he is also an expert in zoology. Did I say elephant? Make it jackass.
#
Friday, November 14, 2008
****************************************
MY TWO CENTS
********************************************
The worst way of solving a problem is by silencing those who speak of it.
Likewise, the only way to be positive is by ignoring or covering up the negative.
If I am classified as negative it may be because the only way to be positive in our environment is by lying. And the beauty about political lies is that more often than not you don't even have to invent them, it will be done for you.
*
“The Russians are our Big Brothers.”
“Mer hairenik, azad angakh.”
“We are Armenians!”
I have always wondered what the hell that meant.
“We are all Armenians!”
Odian makes fun of that one in his COMRADE PANCHOONIE: “'We are all Armenians, we are brothers. Why can't we live together? Why must we fight?' That filthy bourgeois kept repeating, not being able to comprehend that conflict is the basic condition of life...'” thus Panchoonie in one of his regular reports to the Central Committee that invariably end with the immortal punch line: “Mi kich pogh oughargetsek,” which is now the favorite mantra of our dime-a-dozen fund raisers.
“Mart bidi ch'ellank!”
I see more truth in that punch line than in all the speeches and sermons delivered by our windbags.
*
When told to “give them hell,” an American presidential candidate (may have been Truman) is quoted as having said: “I don't do that. I tell them the truth and they think they are in hell.”
You may now draw your own conclusions.
#
Saturday, November 15, 2008
****************************************
ASSH***/s
********************************************
When Nixon called Trudeau “an assh***” Trudeau is said to have commented: “I have been called worse names by better people.” Meaning: If I can survive the verbal abuse of good men, why should I give a damn what riffraff think of me?
*
The eminent Canadian poet Irving Layton on his critics: “Just because they have an assh*** they think they are entitled to an opinion.” He delivered this line to an audience of librarians, schoolteachers, and students.
*
For a year I worked in a chain of department stores, first as a stockboy then as an assistant to a manager who expected me to adopt him as a role model. Once he bragged about being the youngest manager in the history of chain stores in Canada. Shortly thereafter Wal-Mart drove our chain stores out of business.
*
“You are a fool,” a gentle reader informs me. I suspect this reader will hang himself on the day he decides to read a wise writer. But if history teaches us anything it is that when a truly wise man appears, all the assh***s of the world conspire against him. Perhaps I owe my survival to my limitations.
*
There is a new book out titled DO ANTS HAVE ARSEHOLES? -- AND 101 OTHER BLOODY RIDICULOUS QUESTIONS. (The answer, by the way, is yes, they do.)
*
I for one do not underestimate the cunning of fools – after all, they run the world.
#

[arabaliozian]

summing up

Sunday, November 16, 2008
****************************************
SUMMING UP
********************************************
History is one because the past is one, and even God, it has been said, cannot change the past.
*
Nations disagree on what happened because they invent their own past. This is common knowledge among historians but not among dupes who in all times and everywhere outnumber historians by a million or even ten million to one.
*
When political leaders speak of principles, what they don't tell you is that their most important principle is their power.
*
When a man makes a big mistake, he ruins his life. When a political leader makes a big mistake, he ruins the nation. But a political leader has an advantage over an ordinary citizen: he can rewrite history, because power also means the power to misrepresent and mislead.
*
The surest way of creating dupes is by controlling the educational system,.
*
In a civilized environment dissident writers are awarded the Nobel Prize (Mann, Shaw, Sartre). In an uncivilized environment dissidents are silenced, exiled, starved, shot or driven to suicide.
*
Sometimes to rewrite history does not mean to invent lies. One may also rewrite history by selecting facts. Hence the definition of propaganda as “a fraction of the truth.”
*
One way to deceive dupes is by first flattering them into believing they are smart, progressive, civilized, and superior to all others, and therefore impossible to deceive.
*
One index of barbarism is intolerance, and intolerance means first and foremost tolerance of prejudice, lies, and injustice – all in the name of patriotism of course.
*
The more backward a nation, the greater the number of its bullies, thugs, fanatics, and fools who operate on the assumption that truth is on their side and anyone who dares to say otherwise is either a misguided simpleton or an enemy of the people.
*
One way to judge the health of a nation is by its creative impetus. When we brag about our Golden Age and our medieval music and architecture, we tacitly and unknowingly admit that when we lost our independence and adopted subservience as a way of life, we also lost an important fraction of our creative impetus, our identity, and our humanity.
#
Monday, November 17, 2008
****************************************
“I AM A PROUD ARMENIAN,”
SIGNED “ANONYMOUS”
********************************************
For every proud Armenian there are probably ten, perhaps even twenty proud Turks. So that if we adopt pride as a weapon, we lose once more.
Instead of saying “I am a proud Armenian,” let us learn and teach others to say : “I am a humble human being and all men are my brothers.”
*
For everyone who says I am a proud Armenian, there are probably as many not so proud Armenians who cannot speak Armenian, bear foreign names, are married to odars, and stay away from Armenian community centers, schools, and churches.
*
The average Armenian (assuming such a creature exists) probably has more friends among Turks than among Armenians, if only because half of Turks are probably half-Armenian.
*
I have never heard an Armenian say “I am a proud half-Armenian,” even if most Armenians are exactly that. I have said this before and it bears repeating: on a good day I can trace my roots all the way back to my father.
*
The so-called loud-mouth proud Armenian who proclaims his patriotism anonymously from the gutter and by means of insults and profanities against anyone who dares to disagree with his infallible views (which on closer inspection turn out to be misconceptions, fallacies, and prejudices) is the very best argument against himself.
*
To say “I am a proud Armenian” amounts to rattling one's chains of subservience and degradation.
#

[arabaliozian]

free speech

Thursday, November 20, 2008
****************************************
ON FREE SPEECH
********************************************
I believe in free speech for two important reasons:
(one) It is a fundamental human right, and
(two) Armenians don't believe in it, which is another thing they share in common with the Turks. With one difference however: the Turks have a law against “offending Turkishness” -- a misguided law, granted; even a foolish law, also granted. But a law nonetheless.
The same applies to commissars in the Soviet era: they did whatever they did in accordance with the laws of the land.
Unlike Turks and Soviets, we don't have a corresponding law that authorizes anyone, even the wisest among us, to violate anyone's fundamental human right of free speech. What we have are pseudo-patriotic neo-Stalinist self-appointed commissars who behave with the inflexible conviction that they know best what's good for the nation. It never even occurs to them that a great many of our defeats, catastrophes, and tragedies are a direct result of his misconception.
#
Friday, November 21, 2008
****************************************
ON SOLUTIONS
********************************************
If you think of solutions as verbal formulas, you will never find them.
*
THE LESSONS OF THE PAST
*************************************
Whenever I quote Naregatsi or Raffi, I am told I live in the past. Translation: history is bunk and literature a waste of time. And I think of Bazarov, the nihilist in Turgenev's FATHERS AND SONS. I also think of Tolstoy who at the end of his life gave up literature, hated Shakespeare, and became a born-again Christian atheist whose central idea was “the Kingdom of God is within you.” Unlike Bazarov, Tolstoy didn't kill himself but ran away from home and died at a train station in the middle of nowhere.
*
EXPLANATION (I)
********************************
If I am harsh with meddlers it's because I am not running for office and I don't mind if I lose to the opposition – as long as I am allowed to do my work without needless interruptions. I may be hungry but not to the point of starvation and willing to say “Yes, sir!” to anyone who dangles a carrot at me.
*
ANOTHER 11th COMMANDMENT
***********************************************
Had Moses been an Armenian I suspect he would have come down with a commandment that says something to the effect that one should not confuse the dung heap in one's backyard with Mount Ararat.
*
EXPLANATION (II)
*******************************
Stupidity is infectious and wisdom is not transferable: that's the only way to explain mass movements, wars, and massacres.
#
Saturday, November 22, 2008
****************************************
DECLINE AND FALL
********************************************
For eight years I worked in a large financial institution. There was such an accumulation of petty little rules and regulations that there was only one old man in our department who remembered them all. Once when I dared to suggest that these rules could be easily simplified and streamlined I was treated as a blasphemer and even my co-workers turned against me. One way to explain the collapse of these institutions in America today is by saying that they concentrated so much on meaningless rules and regulations that they lost sight of the essential and collapsed beneath the weight of their own bureaucratic inflexibility.
*
It has been said that truth is found at the end of an obstacle course of errors. For those ready to admit error, the obstacle course is short; for the infallible, it is endless.
*
Give a good Armenian anonymity and a computer and watch him behave like a bad Turk.
*
“We are doing our best” is not the same as “We could do better.”
*
Never ask for solutions if your are in no position to introduce and implement new policies.
*
Tina Brown: “It's great when people trash you, it means you are interesting.”
#

[arabaliozian]

2 birds

Sunday, November 23, 2008
****************************************
WE ARE CIVILIZED PEOPLE
********************************************
An investigative reporter has been severely beaten up in Armenia.
We don't do that sort of thing here.
We are not Asiatic barbarians.
We are civilized.
Besides, it's against the law.
In the words of an Armenian moderator:
“No four-letter words on this forum, please! We don't go for that shit.”
Our brothers in the Homeland may operate within a lawless environment.
We don't. That's a luxury we can't afford.
We are civilized people.
If we want to have someone silenced, we simply shut him up.
It's the easiest thing in the world. All it takes is a phone call to the publisher.
Not even the need to mention withdrawal of financial support.
Yes, sir! We are a civilized bunch here.
Not Asiatic barbarians.
This is a rule and like all rules it has its exceptions, of course.
Once, when the editor/publisher of a California weekly allowed the publication of an exposé, he was beaten within an inch of his life.
The perps were never caught.
It was rumored that they were imported talent and by the time the crime was reported to the police, they were on their way to the Middle East somewhere.
On another occasion, when the editor/publisher of another weekly published an exposé about the tax-deductible shenanigans of one of our charitable institutions, he was dragged to court, was almost taken to the cleaners, had a stroke, and lost on a technicality because, unlike the charitable institution, he couldn't afford belly-slitting lawyers who were fully aware of the fact that the reporter's “deep throats” would refuse to testify for him because doing so would mean losing their only source of income.
It is the height of hypocrisy to express outrage at a beaten up investigative reporter in Armenia and completely ignore the filth in which we are drowning here.
We preach democracy there but we practice fascism here and we refuse to see a contradiction. And we refuse to see a contradiction because this convenient blindness allows us to assume a holier-than-thou stance, and we are all addicted to asserting moral and patriotic superiority.
Yes, sir!
We are not Asiatic barbarians here.
We are syphilized people.
#
Monday, November 24, 2008
****************************************
URBAN LEGENDS
********************************************
Racial superiority is an urban legend fabricated by inflated egos for inferior minds.
*
Some say Cain was a Turk, and Abel an Armenian. Others say it was the other way around.
*
ALL MEN ARE BROTHERS
***********************************
Give an Armenian fanatic anonymity and a computer with Internet access and watch him commit verbal massacre.
*
Give Armenians a superior army and an inferior enemy and watch them commit crimes against humanity, and afterwards pass a law against insulting Armenishness.
*
NOTA BENE
************************
We hate the enemy because we understand ourselves.
*
All organized religions have failed. If they continue to have followers it's because any meaning, even when meaningless, is better than no meaning.
*
Strong convictions are the surest symptoms of weak minds.
*
SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE
****************************************
To brainwash an Armenian is easy, to reason with him, impossible. I was brainwashed once and was not open to reason or, for that matter, to common sense and decency, let alone Christian compassion and Kantian ethics.
#
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
****************************************
PIRATES
********************************************
What is the difference between Somalian pirates who hijack cargo ships and demand ransom money on the one hand, and on the other, American chief executive officers who run their company to the ground, give themselves fat salaries and handsome bonuses, travel by private jet, and demand billions from tax-payers? Two differences: (one) the pirates' financial demands are infinitely more modest, and (two) when caught, the pirates are treated like common criminals.
*
HIJACKERS OF CULTURE
***************************************
All of German literature, philosophy, and music produced Hitler. All of Armenian literature, music, and architecture produced the morally bankrupt loud-mouth philistine who parades as defender of the faith and is taken seriously by dupes.
*
ENEMIES
*************************
When an Armenian disagrees with you, he disagrees not only with your views but also with your existence. The Golden Age of this type of Armenian was turn-of-the-century Istanbul, and the first decades of the Soviet era when all it took was an anonymous phone call to the authorities.
*
It goes without saying that if you speak in defense of human rights, free speech, and democracy, you will acquire fascist enemies.
#
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
****************************************
TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE
********************************************
A church is first and foremost a house of God, and I have no doubt whatever in my mind that the Good Lord would welcome Catholic as well as Protestant and Loussavorchagan (both Etchmiadznagan and Cilician) worshipers within His walls. Consider the millions we could save for the needy in the Homeland and in the process may be even save the soul of the community. I am not talking about church unity here, only of putting existing real estate to more responsible use. Needless to add, what I say about churches also applies to community centers and schools.
*
An insider once told me, one of the two Armenian cathedrals in New York City employs as many as 83 people, among them professional fund-raisers, in addition to advertising the sale of Oriental rugs within its walls (including rugs made in Turkey) in the NEW YORK TIMES.
*
Why do we need two bishops when one would be more than enough? I once knew a bishop who had so much time on his hands that he wrote derivative poetry, which is what I said in my review of his first collection of verse. That may have put an end to his career as a vodanavorji, because I never heard from him again.
*
To end these depressing thoughts on a positive note: It is said of two Armenians on a desert island that they built three churches. When asked by their rescuers about the purpose of the third church, they had explained: “That's the one we don't go to.”
#

[arabaliozian]

books

Thursday, November 27, 2008
****************************************
THE BIGGER THEY ARE
THE HARDER THEY FALL
********************************************
We are told again and again that some financial institutions and industries in America are too big to fail. What nonsense! Empires rise and fall, and when they fall, people are liberated from the grip of bloodsuckers. Who are the bloodsuckers today? If you ask chief executive officers, they will name the unions and their bosses, never their own greed and incompetence.
*
Mighty empires are not born but made, and they are made by an elite of creative people who successfully confront challenges and solve problems. But in time these creative individuals are followed by incompetent and corrupt operators without vision. That's when empires decline and fall. The same applies to major economic enterprises. But don't expect the executives to admit as much because, like Armenians, they are masters of the blame game. They will blame everyone but themselves. Their blindness is such that they will travel by private jet and beg taxpayers' money, and they will do this with the arrogant certainty they are too big to fail. Sooner or later, however, they will have to come to terms with reality, which is, not even God can save a man or a power structure that is set on self-destruction.
*
The USSR was bigger than all the financial institutions and car manufacturers in America combined, but neither Marx and Engels, nor Lenin and Stalin could postpone its disintegration by a fraction of a second. The same applies to Ford, Freddie Mac, and the rest. Reality has fixed the time of their downfall, and neither Bush nor Obama can alter it.
#
Friday, November 28, 2008
****************************************
FIVE FAVORITE BOOKS
********************************************
THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN by Thomas Mann. What Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms are to German music, Mann is to German literature.
*
RECONSIDERATIONS: Volume 12 of A STUDY OF HISTORY by Arnold J. Toynbee. Beneath a proper, academic veneer, Toynbee is a thoroughly anti-establishment thinker.
*
THE SABRES OF PARADISE by Lesley Blanch. A history of 19th-century Caucasus that reads like a historical novel by Dumas and Tolstoy.
*
LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov. The magic of a brilliant stylist transforms a continental pedophile and a spoiled American brat into fascinating Dostoevskian characters.
*
FAREWELL, MY LOVELY by Raymond Chandler. In his hand American slang acquires the irresistible charm of pure poetry, and Los Angeles becomes as mesmerizing a place as Dostoevsky's St. Petersburg, Mann's Davos, and Lesley Blanch's Caucasus.
*
These are not books to be read once, but faithful companions to be cherished to the end of one's life.
*
P.S. I have not mentioned books from our literature because I don't wish to make myself vulnerable to the charge of promoting my own work as translator.
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Saturday, November 29, 2008
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A REPUBLIC OF LIES
********************************************
In the republic of charlatans, honest men are outlaws.
*
It is not at all unusual for a man to believe in his own lies. That's the only way to explain why some smart people make dumb assertions. To lie is not only cowardly but also a direct assault on our intelligence.
*
We are a very young democracy, I am informed once in a while. We shouldn't be too critical of the regime. I am also told we are “the cradle of civilization.” I feel therefore justified in asking what is so civilized about greed, corruption, incompetence, and abuse of power? Unless of course we are willing to concede that after living under barbarians for many centuries, we have adopted their ways and it may take many more centuries for us to recover our status as civilized human beings.
*
Being critical of Armenians in open forums may reflect badly on us, I am also told. But this amounts to saying we can't afford being honest in public – and that to me is the greatest insult that can be leveled against the nation.
*
Wellington's dictum on British soldiers: “the scum of the earth enlisted for drink.”
*
Think of an Armenian friend as a potential enemy and he will not disappoint you.
*
Perhaps what I am trying to do is educating not my fellow Armenians but myself, and by educating myself I mean recovering my humanity; and if I ever succeed in that endeavor, I will fall silent because “he who speaks does not know.”
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[arabaliozian]

notes

Sunday, November 30, 2008
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BOMBAY
********************************************
We may call it Mumbai, but i am told Indians themselves prefer to call it Bombay.
*
MUSLIM TERRORISM IN INDIA
***************************************
“Hindus and Muslims must work together to overcome rising level of terrorism in India,” reads a headline of a commentary by a pundit. What this pundit doesn't tell us is that Muslim resentment against Hindus in India runs as deep as Armenian resentment against Turks, Black resentment against Whites, and Jewish resentment against anti-Semites (who now prefer to identify themselves as anti-Zionists). Hinduism is said to be one of the most tolerant religions. Not so from the perspective of the Untouchables who, following the Muslim conquests in India, converted to Islam because they were told, in the eyes of Allah all men are equal. In the eyes of Allah, maybe; but in the eyes of their fellow Hindus they continued to be treated as subhuman Untouchables. Which meant they had to put up with a lot of Hindu crap (literally). I am not justifying terrorism, only providing the context.
*
THE HOMELAND AND THE DIASPORA
******************************************
In Armenia we have a regime. In the Diaspora we have a dysfunctional collection of communities with tribal loyalties. In that sense, the Homeland is ahead of us. Some day there may be progress there. I am less optimistic about the Diaspora.
*
OUR PROBLEMS
*********************************
They are as old as mankind. So are their solutions. When someone says “we need solutions,” he speaks two lies: (one) mankind has at no time experienced what we are experiencing today; and (two) all of human thought moves in a dimension that is outside our orbit.
#
Monday, December 1, 2008
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WANTED: MANDELA
*********************************
In the opinion page of our paper I read this morning that Nelson Mandela's struggle against apartheid was one reason why Obama decided to enter politics. I suspect several other names had something to do with that decision, among them Martin Luther King, whose role model was Gandhi, who in his turn was greatly influenced by Tolstoy's doctrine of non-violence and Thoreau's ideas on civil disobedience. Mandela reminds me of a reader who once sent me a venomous e-mail in which the kindest thing he said was that I was a total failure and I would never amount to anything because I did not qualify as Armenia's Nelson Mandela. All I can say in my defense is that I have been and continue to be a great admirer of Thoreau, Tolstoy, and Gandhi.
*
Internecine conflict is the opium of the Armenians, oneupmanship their favorite pursuit, and the blame-game their favorite sport.
*
If all anti-Semites are as dumb as Armenian anti-Semites, the Jews are justified in clinging to the absurd notion that they are the Chosen.
*
When liars speak of freedom, they mean the freedom to brainwash and deceive.
*
Every superficial explanation echoes a propaganda line and appears to make perfect sense to those who think they are thinking. That is why the world is in the kind of mess it is in.
*
The problem: we are what we have become because we are not open to explanations. The solution: tabula rasa, or the assumption that we know nothing or everything we know is without foundation in reality. Not an easy position to assume for an Armenian who has been brainwashed to believe he is smart, he knows all he needs to know, he knows better, and if explanations are needed, they will flow from him, never from the opposite direction.
*
I don't write for readers who know better but for readers who are as confused as I am, readers who have more questions than answers, more doubts than certainties, more ignorance than knowledge, readers who are more foolish than wise. If I were half as wise as most of my readers, I would say, if hell is your destination, who am I to obstruct your path?
#
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
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ARMENIANS IN ISTANBUL
*********************************
In his superbly illustrated coffee-table book, NEW EUROPE, Michael Palin has a section on Armenians in Istanbul, where he discusses the assassination of Hrant Dink, the photographer Ara Guler (“a Jew and also an Armenian”), and “a debonair art dealer” by the name of Raffi Portakal.
*
No need to read any further: I may be repeating myself. But then, what choice do I have? Suppose you have a suicidal friend: what choice do you have but to keep telling him life is better than death, until he realizes he has been on the wrong path and chooses to embrace life with all its failures, miseries, and troubles, like the rest of mankind.
*
If our perception of reality has been shaped by our educational system, in what way are we different from the average Turk? Next question: To what extent our leadership uses Turkish criminal conduct to cover up its own blunders and incompetence? For more on the moral and intellectual degeneration of our turn-of-the-century leadership in the Ottoman Empire, read Baronian and Odian, most of whose works, for obvious reasons, are not available in English.
*
A gentleman never insults another anonymously. I dare anyone to enter an Armenian discussion forum where anonymity is the rule and find there a single gentleman, or for that matter, lady.
*
And speaking of anonymous Armenians: you may notice that the more patriotic they are, the lower they sink.
#
Wednesday, December 23, 2008
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HISTORIANS, METAHISTORIANS,
GHAZETAJIS AND PROPAGANDISTS
**************************************************
History is not a science or a belief system, but an art. Instead of saying, I believe this is what happened, we should say, according to some historians or eyewitness accounts, or official documents, etc.
Trial lawyers will tell you eyewitness accounts are not always reliable; official documents can be doctored, edited, selected, destroyed, and even forged; and for every historian who says one thing there will be another who says something else and sometimes even the exact opposite. This is especially true of nationalist historians who are ideologically or politically compromised. In the eyes of metahistorians (philosophers of history like Spengler and Toynbee) nationalist historians are no better than propagandists.
Speaking of Toynbee: it is widely known that he at no time denied the reality of the Armenian genocide, and this even after he acquired Turkish friends, heard their side of the story, became a Turcophile, and learned the Turkish language. The difference between Toynbee and our nationalist historians is that Toynbee exposed not only the criminal conduct of the Turks but also the blunders of our own leadership, something our historians have at no time dared to do; which may suggest they have not dared to say everything that needed to be said; in other words, their version of the past is only partly true (which is also how propaganda is defined). I feel therefore justified in suggesting that under the guise of supporting our cause, our nationalist historians and Turcocentric ghazetajis have succeeded only in damaging our credibility in the eyes of the world and thus reducing the issue to the status of political football.
#

[arabaliozian]

more....

Thursday, December 4, 2008
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ON SPEECHIFIERS, SERMONIZERS,
AND RELATED ATRCOTITIES
**************************************************
If you want to understand the soul of a nation, read its writers.
If you want to know the way people deceive themselves, read a collection of political speeches.
*
You may ignore writers, but you cannot ignore the voice of your conscience. That is why the first thing tyrants do is silence writers.
*
Everything I have been saying could be reduced to a single sentence: “Something is rotten in the State of Denmark.”
*
I repeat myself only to the same degree that our sermonizers paraphrase the Scriptures.
I remember once when I said as much, the secretary of a bishop wrote an angry letter to the editor saying in effect, how dare I compare myself to the prophets of the Bible?
If our sermonizers paraphrase prophets, I paraphrase Plato; and as far as I know, no one in his right mind has ever dared to suggest that Jewish prophets are greater thinkers than Greek philosophers.
*
Deception and self-deception are favorite themes of the Scriptures.
Adam and Eve allowing themselves to be taken in by the Serpent who, according to my anti-American friends from the Middle East, was an agent of the CIA in disguise.
Moses thinking he can take a short leave of absence without losing his grip on the people.
Consider the case of the muscleman/ judge Samson and his nemesis/barber Delilah. And Goliath laughing at his puny but technologically more advance challenger armed with a stick.
God Himself fooling poor old man Abraham into thinking that He wants him to butcher his own son Isaac.
Last but not least, consider the present economic crisis hatched by the very same financial and political leaders whose responsibility it is to protect the interests of the people, and afterwards making demands on taxpayers' money for a bailout, thus trying to defraud the people for the second time.
Now then, go ahead and try to convince me that our own bloodsuckers are morally superior to their counterparts in the West.
#
Friday, December 5, 2008
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MYSTICISM AND PRAGMATISM
**************************************************
Like most people, Armenians too are easily satisfied with one side of the story. I once had the following conversation with a Tashnak friend, a woman in her fifties. When after reading an exposé on Tashnak shenanigans I mentioned it to her, she wanted to know where I had read it.
“In one of our weeklies,” I said.
“Ramgavar?”
“No, chezok.”
“Lies.”
“Its main source is a former high-ranking Tashnak.”
“A turncoat.”
“Don't you want to read it?”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“A waste of time.”
“What if it's true?”
“I don't think so.”
*
In politics I am a liberal, but once in a while I enjoy reading conservative pundits because I learn there things that I would never learn in the liberal press.
*
I am a great admirer of Dostoevsky, Thomas Mann, and Sartre, but I find it stimulating reading critics like Koestler and Nabokov (whom I also admire) willing to speak of the dark side of the moon.
*
One reason I love rereading Toynbee's RECONSIDERATIONS (volume 12 of his STUDY OF HISTORY) is that in it he quotes all his critics – except Trevor-Roper – and on occasion is willing to plead guilty as charged. And the reason he doesn't quote Trevor-Roper is that Trevor-Roper didn't just disagree with him; he wanted him tarred and feathered on the grounds that he (Toynbee) had strayed from the straight and narrow path of empiricism and pragmatism into the vague and amorphous realm of mysticism by saying the only way to establish permanent peace in the world was by uniting all religions into a single universal religion. Recent events have proved Toynbee more right than wrong, and Trevor-Roper more wrong than right. Establishing one universal religion may seem Utopian, but it doesn't necessarily follow mankind cannot move in that direction by being less dogmatic and more tolerant. After millennia of conflict and two world wars, who would have thought some day European Union would become a reality in our own time?
*
At the center of all our problems stands a Trevor-Roper who would like to see anyone who doesn't agree with him tarred and feathered or branded as a liar and an enemy.
#
Saturday, December 6, 2008
****************************************
CLINGING TO THE WRECKAGE
**************************************************
You cannot solve a nation's problems the way you solve mathematical, scientific, medical, or philosophical problems. Power is not open to reason or common sense and decency. Those in power will not give it up without a bloody fight, Hegel says somewhere, and so it is.
A friend of mine, a philosopher, tried to expose the roots of our problems in a philosophical treatise of over 500 pages. Now he is not allowed to enter Armenia. Long before my friend, a Greek philosopher tried to convince Athenian politicians that they cannot discharge their duties as rulers if their ideas are based on false definitions, and we all know what happened to him: he was arrested, tried, found guilty, and condemned to death.
Marx came very close in his efforts to prove with mathematical precision that capitalism is a dead man walking, and yet, it took bloody revolutions everywhere from Russia, China, and Cuba to convince those in power to give it up.
Where there is free speech, you may speak truth to power (whether power will listen remains to be seen). But in an authoritarian or corrupt environment, the only result of speaking truth to power from a safe distance will be making the speaker feel morally or intellectually superior.
Do you want to end prostitution, corruption, incompetence, and violations of human rights in our beloved homeland? Go ahead and write an essay, a letter to the editor, a declaration signed by a hundred or even a thousand names, but don't be disappointed if nothing happens.
At this point you may well ask: “Why do you go on writing then?” My answer is a simple one: habit – and habits, as everyone knows, are easier to keep than to give up. Add to habit the satisfaction of seeing a pompous ass deflated, a charlatan ridiculed, and a liar exposed. Last but not least, I write because irreverence where irreverence is due is a virtue, and I have so few of them that I cling to those I have like a drowning man clings to the wreckage.
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