as i see it

Sunday, February 24, 2008
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A PROBLEM EXPOSED
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A clearly stated problem has a better chance to be solved than one that is covered up, ignored, or explained and justified as an integral part of the human condition, like death and taxes. Perhaps one reason we have so far failed to solve our problems is that we consider them to be so complex that they might as well be insoluble, when all we need to solve them is a touch of honesty, such as a more or less independent judiciary. I am not talking here about total honesty, which in a political context may well be a utopian daydream, but only a touch or even a willingness to move in that direction. What is so complex to the point of being insoluble about an independent judiciary? Have all honest Armenians been systematically eliminated by Stalin and his neo-Stalinist and crypto-Stalinist successors? These gentlemen are neither invisible nor grey eminences working behind the scenes. Their names and the names of their victims are not buried in inaccessible archives written in invisible ink. They are familiar figures to the natives. Let’s talk to them. Let’s publish their stories. Let’s expose the crooks instead of allowing them to make headlines in our diasporan press as if they were statesmen or servants of the people. And if so far we have failed to do that, is it because they enjoy the full support of our equally corrupt and incompetent diasporan leadership? What else? And if we can’t take care of our own backyard, how can we ever hope to clean up the mess in Yerevan?
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Monday, February 25, 2008
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THE ROAD TO HELL
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It is not easy for a human being to kill another human being, but much easier if one of them hangs a label on the other. Labels are useful because they reduce, simplify, and dehumanize. Facing an enemy (a useful label) you don’t feel the need to think of him as a fellow human being or someone’s son, husband, brother, friend, or even uncle or neighbor. If it weren’t for labels, nations would not declare war on other nations, religious leaders would lose an important fraction of their powers and privileges, and prejudices would be exposed for what they really are -- extensions of ignorance. Labels are good for the few (the men at the top) but bad for the overwhelming majority. The road to hell is paved with labels.
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Tuesday, February 26, 2008
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DUPES
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Pro-establishment arguments travel with the speed of light, become common currency, and are repeated ad nauseam. By contrast, anti-establishment arguments are immediately buried, ignored, and forgotten. An example of pro-establishment argument: It may take two or three generations before our brothers in the Homeland are de-Sovietized. Examples of anti-establishment arguments: Avedik Issahakian’s reference to our leaders as “brainless” and Zarian’s as “useless” -- and more precisely: “Our political parties have been of no political use to us. Their greatest enemy is free speech.”
The absence of free speech may explain why our pro-establishment bias has become a permanent condition. When the establishment controls the press, the podium, and the altar, the result will be a brainwashed community that will behave like sheep even when the sheepdogs behave like ravenous wolves.
Where everyone thinks alike, no one thinks. And when our panchoonies say “mi kich pogh oughargetsek,” they will never add, “to support the status quo, that is to say, number one,” but “to help the needy.”
As for those who ascribe our present condition to factors beyond our control, I ask: Why should war, earthquake, and the collapse of a morally and politically bankrupt regime promote profiteering, corruption, incompetence, lies, and cannibalism? When Zarian said, “Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another,” he did not have in mind hard-working stiffs who survive by cheating and exploiting no one, but our sermonizers, speechifiers, and holier-than-thou parasites, charlatans, and bloodsuckers.
A final note on free speech: If Armenianism (whatever the hell that means, because as far as I know, so far no one has bothered to define it)…if, I say, Armenianism cannot be reconciled with human rights, then it is time that we consign it to the dustbin of history.
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Wednesday, February 27, 2008
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AN ARMENIAN PROPHET
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The only way to survive during the Soviet era was to be critical of the world but not the commissars and everyone connected with them. We don’t have commissars in the Diaspora. What we have instead are bosses, bishops, and benefactors – a holy trinity as untouchable as Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Hence our academics and dime-a-dozen Turcocentric ghazetajis whose number two concern is Turks -- number one being number one. As for the welfare of the nation: Nothing could be further from their thoughts. That’s as good a definition of Armenianism as any. And if you think what I am saying is new or unpatriotic, listen to Raffi: “Every man for himself: that’s the prevalent mentality among us. As long as I can take care of myself, why should I give a damn about anyone else?”(English translation: “I’m all right, Jack!”)
Here is Raffi again, in a prophetic message to our academics and ghazetajis: “What’s done is done. What we must do now is assess the damage and figure out how to avoid the next catastrophe.”
And here is Raffi again on our leadership: “We are like sheep without a shepherd…We have no leaders. What we have are merchants and clergymen. Merchants are trash. As for the clergy: they have always been against individual freedom.”
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Shaw once said that he had solved all of mankind’s problems but people went on speaking about their impenetrable complexities. To those who speak about the complexities of our problems, I say, “Read Raffi!”
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What to do about our problems? You have a number of options: (one) Shut up about them; (two) pretend they don’t exist; (three) blame them on everyone else but our leadership; and (four) speak of massacres.
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