Thursday, August 28, 2008
**********************************************
IDEAS & NON-IDEAS
***************************************
Those who have the power to control ideas will, sooner or later and inevitably, gravitate towards the notion that they will function with greater freedom (that is, they can brainwash more effectively) in an environment emptied of all ideas. Remember Napoleon's dictum, “A man with ideas is my enemy.”
*
There is a saying in politics: “You can't beat somebody with nobody.” In the world of ideas, however, the only way to beat ideas is with non-ideas, and the more fossilized the non-idea, the better.
Example of a non-idea: “The Turks owe us on account of the Genocide.” Hence the plethora of massacre paraphernalia – museums, monuments, memoirs, editorials, movies, TV documentaries, monographs, demonstrations, seminars, and so on).
Another central non-idea: “We can solve all our problems with money.” Hence the frequency of fund-raising campaigns and the apotheosis of multi-millionaires. How much of the collected loot ends in the wrong pockets? No one knows. Who, after all, gives a damn what Armenians do to Armenians? Not even Armenians, it seems.
*
Common sense tells us our assessment of ourselves (that is, our narcissism) will be devoid of all value unless it is moderated, modified, and balanced by other assessments, such as French (“filthy Armenians”), Greek (“Turkish gypsies”), Russian (“cowardly Armenians”), American (“Romanian?”), and last but not least, Turkish. We may think of ourselves as “the first Christians,” but we are also “Christian Turks.”
#
Friday, August 29, 2008
*******************************************
WHO WE ARE
*******************************
We are addicts of victimhood. When no one cares to victimize us, we victimize one another.
*
A few years ago an Armenian real estate developer named an annual literary prize but after three or four years he ran out of ghazetajis.
*
If the Turks are as bad as we say they are, how did we manage to live with them for 600 years? And if we are as good as we say we are, why is it that most of us prefer to stay away from the nearest Armenian church or community center?
*
If you want to understand history, begin with yourself. Because if you don't understand yourself, you are condemned to understand nothing.
*
My good friend Armen Melikian is right to say that there must be a mechanism in the human brain, no doubt the result of some kind of evolutionary malfunction, that identifies God with the Devil, or is it vice versa?
*
Discussion forum: a place where views are exchanged.
Armenian discussion forum: a bordello of verbal abuse.
*
Even friendly readers sometimes disagree with the direction of my work. They tell me I will be better off if I were to spend my time more profitably by writing creative stuff – stories, novels, plays, or for that matter, translations of literary masterpieces: all things that will make us proud in the eyes of the world. I suspect the main concern of these misguided friends is not the welfare of the nation but the fear of seeing their role models and probably themselves exposed as charlatans and dupes.
*
They want me to translate our great writers provided I say nothing about how they lived and died, or were persecuted and silenced, or were betrayed to the authorities.
Which amounts to saying, tell us anything you want, but don't tell us the Titanic has hit the iceberg. As cover-up artists, they would like to see me following in their footsteps. I don't write for such readers. I write against them. As for our so-called proud Armenians: most of them don't even qualify as Turks.
#
Saturday, August 30, 2008
*******************************************
SOLUTIONS
************************************
Winston Churchill: “All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.”
None of these things will be available in an environment controlled by individuals with the warmth and charm of a hangman's rope.
*
The problem with solutions is not that they are difficult to find but that those who are in a position to implement them refuse to do so.
*
In America they say “throw the bums out,” meaning, vote for anyone who runs against the incumbent. We don't have a corresponding expression in Armenian probably because we don't have bums, only statesmen.
*
To be polite sometimes means to say the exact opposite of what you feel or think. But in writing, if you fail to be honest, direct, and to the point, you will be either ignored or dismissed as a hack. And that's what my critics want from me – to write like a hack so that they can dismiss me as one.
*
To those who get a kick out of insulting their betters, I say, “Be aware of what you say because an insult is also a confession – it may reveal more about yourself than about your target, especially if your insults are motivated by revenge.”
*
If only those who pretend to know better also knew when to shut up.
*
“I am a Marxist -- of the Groucho tendency.”
If Karl were alive today he would have a good laugh. If Stalin were alive, the Gulag would be his answer. And that's what separates first-raters from second-raters.
#
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
comments
Sunday, August 24, 2008
***********************************************
SUNDAY SERMON
*******************************
When it comes to learning from history, we appear to know what others should have learned. As for ourselves: we don't feel the need to learn anything because, it is common knowledge that, as the smartest people on earth, we already know all we need to know and then some.
*
We know that to commit genocide is a crime against humanity. What we don't know and what we have consistently refused to learn is that to divide a nation, thus making it more vulnerable to genocide, and ultimately to genosuicide, is not one of the functions of leadership.
*
All religions are false because they divide mankind into believers and infidels. Holy books are not holy. A book that legitimizes war and massacre is an abomination and not the Word of God.
*
The quintessential oxymoron favored by all morons: Holy War.
*
Where disagreements cannot be reconciled, the leadership has failed and might as well be in alliance with the Devil.
*
Everything is connected to everything else. To divide a nation and to commit genocide or to allow others to do so, are not two separate actions but as interdependent as cause and effect.
*
Our heritage, our culture, our character and identity: it is a mistake to think of them as valuable possessions. Human beings are a bundle of contradictions and complexes, and so is the culture they produce. If we can't separate the positive from the negative, or the useful from the useless, or that which is good from that which is evil, we condemn ourself to learn nothing.
*
It is written, “If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” It is also written, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” It follows, those who divide us are men without vision; and those who are subservient to them are blind.
*
Martin Amis: “If God existed, and if he cared for humankind, he would never have given us religion.”
#
Monday, August 25, 2008
********************************************
UNDERGROUND NOTES
***********************************************
Tashnaks, Ramgavars, and Chezoks are unanimous in their agreement to silence me. That at least proves that, (one) I am not in their pay, (two) I refuse to recycle their propaganda, and (three) I am un-Armenian in so far I choose to be honest, objective, and to think for myself.
*
What if I am wrong and they are right? I for one value my own humanity too much to assert divine infallibility. Let others make an ass of themselves by doing so.
*
The arrogance of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors is such that in their eyes refusing to be a brown-noser is seen as a capital offense.
*
The trouble with psychoanalysis, or criticism for that matter, is that the very people who could profit from it most – from tyrants to serial killers – refuse to be analyzed. They prefer their own brand of insanity to any other alternative. Which amounts to saying, the very same people who suffer from the most dangerous infectious diseases reject medical care. As for blunders in history: those who could profit the most from learning from them are too busy repeating them to have any time left to learn.
*
I challenge anyone to read my critics and not to agree with everything I say about Armenian filth. Zarian said, “Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another.” He should have added, “and themselves.”
*
If those I criticize had a single shred of decency left in them, they would commit suicide. If they don't, it may be because on some higher level, they have already done so. Silencing the voice of one's conscience: is that not the surest way of dehumanizing oneself?
*
He who criticizes and he who rejects all criticism on the grounds that he is beyond criticism, that is to say, he is infallible in judgment: who is the loser?
*
If I am wrong I hurt no one but myself. But if they are wrong, millions suffer.
#
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
*********************************************
OUR MANDARINS
**************************************
According to prof. George Bournoutian in a recent televised interview, the world doesn't know enough about us. That is why his central concern has been to introduce our rich history and culture to the world, beginning with American academics who appear to be more interested in blacks and Jews.
If American academics are more interested in blacks and Jews it may be because most of them are blacks and Jews.
How many academics do we have?
About thirty years ago I remember to have read a study in which it was stated that there were at least a thousand Armenian academics in the United States alone. How many of our academics, who must number over two thousand by now, are interested in our history and culture?
If the overwhelming majority of our academics prefer to churn out works on odar subjects, why should odar academics be any different?
Even more to the point, why should the world be interested to know more about us?
What have we done to deserve their interest?
What have we contributed to the world except victims?
Do we really want the world to know that we are a nation whose leadership has collaborated with some of the most criminal regimes in the history of mankind? Or a nation whose tribal rulers have succeeded only in dividing the people thus making them more vulnerable to foreign aggression?
I have no doubt whatever in my mind that there are Untouchable academics in India today, perhaps even in the United States, who believe they too have a rich history and deserve to be better known to the world. To prof. Bournoutian I ask: How much do you know or are interested to know about the Untouchables?
More questions:
If the world knew more about us, would that be to our advantage or disadvantage?
Do we really want the world to know that even after independence our so-called democracy in the Homeland is no better than a farce?
Do we really want anyone to know that after nearly a century in America, our leaders on this continent are no better than benevolent sultans?
How many of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors have been freely elected by the ppeople?
How many of them have the right to say they represent the people?
How many of us can even name these leaders?
Last but not least:
How much have we ourselves learned from our history?
I say to prof. Bournoutian, before we introduce our history to the world, let's introduce it to ourselves, and when I speak of history I mean an account of the past that is both honest and objective, which means, it does not shrink from exposing our failings. Because it is only by acknowledging our blunders and learning from them that we may be worthy of universal interest.
#
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
********************************************
NOTES & COMMENTS
**************************************
Anonymity makes a woman sound like a man, and a man like a woman. Which reminds me of the Turkish saying, “Among ten men nine are sure to be women.”
*
Subservience to a corrupt and incompetent leadership has nothing to do with patriotism and everything to do with cowardice, and cowardice comes naturally to people who for 600 years were subservient to the Sultan.
*
My detractors are my most faithful readers because they know I write about them and, as narcissists, nothing fascinates them more than themselves, no matter how bad and ugly. As for what they say about me: I don't have to read it to know. What could be more predictable than criticism or analysis motivated by revenge? When the gut speaks, the brain is silenced.
*
The aim of nationalist historians is to legitimize amnesia in so far as everything that is negative is covered up and forgotten, and everything that is positive is exaggerated or, like the Battle of Avarair, invented.
*
Somewhere Primo Levi remarks that if Italians are ashamed of being Italian it may be because they have failed to produce a political class that represents the people. Does that ring a bell?
#
***********************************************
SUNDAY SERMON
*******************************
When it comes to learning from history, we appear to know what others should have learned. As for ourselves: we don't feel the need to learn anything because, it is common knowledge that, as the smartest people on earth, we already know all we need to know and then some.
*
We know that to commit genocide is a crime against humanity. What we don't know and what we have consistently refused to learn is that to divide a nation, thus making it more vulnerable to genocide, and ultimately to genosuicide, is not one of the functions of leadership.
*
All religions are false because they divide mankind into believers and infidels. Holy books are not holy. A book that legitimizes war and massacre is an abomination and not the Word of God.
*
The quintessential oxymoron favored by all morons: Holy War.
*
Where disagreements cannot be reconciled, the leadership has failed and might as well be in alliance with the Devil.
*
Everything is connected to everything else. To divide a nation and to commit genocide or to allow others to do so, are not two separate actions but as interdependent as cause and effect.
*
Our heritage, our culture, our character and identity: it is a mistake to think of them as valuable possessions. Human beings are a bundle of contradictions and complexes, and so is the culture they produce. If we can't separate the positive from the negative, or the useful from the useless, or that which is good from that which is evil, we condemn ourself to learn nothing.
*
It is written, “If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” It is also written, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” It follows, those who divide us are men without vision; and those who are subservient to them are blind.
*
Martin Amis: “If God existed, and if he cared for humankind, he would never have given us religion.”
#
Monday, August 25, 2008
********************************************
UNDERGROUND NOTES
***********************************************
Tashnaks, Ramgavars, and Chezoks are unanimous in their agreement to silence me. That at least proves that, (one) I am not in their pay, (two) I refuse to recycle their propaganda, and (three) I am un-Armenian in so far I choose to be honest, objective, and to think for myself.
*
What if I am wrong and they are right? I for one value my own humanity too much to assert divine infallibility. Let others make an ass of themselves by doing so.
*
The arrogance of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors is such that in their eyes refusing to be a brown-noser is seen as a capital offense.
*
The trouble with psychoanalysis, or criticism for that matter, is that the very people who could profit from it most – from tyrants to serial killers – refuse to be analyzed. They prefer their own brand of insanity to any other alternative. Which amounts to saying, the very same people who suffer from the most dangerous infectious diseases reject medical care. As for blunders in history: those who could profit the most from learning from them are too busy repeating them to have any time left to learn.
*
I challenge anyone to read my critics and not to agree with everything I say about Armenian filth. Zarian said, “Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another.” He should have added, “and themselves.”
*
If those I criticize had a single shred of decency left in them, they would commit suicide. If they don't, it may be because on some higher level, they have already done so. Silencing the voice of one's conscience: is that not the surest way of dehumanizing oneself?
*
He who criticizes and he who rejects all criticism on the grounds that he is beyond criticism, that is to say, he is infallible in judgment: who is the loser?
*
If I am wrong I hurt no one but myself. But if they are wrong, millions suffer.
#
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
*********************************************
OUR MANDARINS
**************************************
According to prof. George Bournoutian in a recent televised interview, the world doesn't know enough about us. That is why his central concern has been to introduce our rich history and culture to the world, beginning with American academics who appear to be more interested in blacks and Jews.
If American academics are more interested in blacks and Jews it may be because most of them are blacks and Jews.
How many academics do we have?
About thirty years ago I remember to have read a study in which it was stated that there were at least a thousand Armenian academics in the United States alone. How many of our academics, who must number over two thousand by now, are interested in our history and culture?
If the overwhelming majority of our academics prefer to churn out works on odar subjects, why should odar academics be any different?
Even more to the point, why should the world be interested to know more about us?
What have we done to deserve their interest?
What have we contributed to the world except victims?
Do we really want the world to know that we are a nation whose leadership has collaborated with some of the most criminal regimes in the history of mankind? Or a nation whose tribal rulers have succeeded only in dividing the people thus making them more vulnerable to foreign aggression?
I have no doubt whatever in my mind that there are Untouchable academics in India today, perhaps even in the United States, who believe they too have a rich history and deserve to be better known to the world. To prof. Bournoutian I ask: How much do you know or are interested to know about the Untouchables?
More questions:
If the world knew more about us, would that be to our advantage or disadvantage?
Do we really want the world to know that even after independence our so-called democracy in the Homeland is no better than a farce?
Do we really want anyone to know that after nearly a century in America, our leaders on this continent are no better than benevolent sultans?
How many of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors have been freely elected by the ppeople?
How many of them have the right to say they represent the people?
How many of us can even name these leaders?
Last but not least:
How much have we ourselves learned from our history?
I say to prof. Bournoutian, before we introduce our history to the world, let's introduce it to ourselves, and when I speak of history I mean an account of the past that is both honest and objective, which means, it does not shrink from exposing our failings. Because it is only by acknowledging our blunders and learning from them that we may be worthy of universal interest.
#
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
********************************************
NOTES & COMMENTS
**************************************
Anonymity makes a woman sound like a man, and a man like a woman. Which reminds me of the Turkish saying, “Among ten men nine are sure to be women.”
*
Subservience to a corrupt and incompetent leadership has nothing to do with patriotism and everything to do with cowardice, and cowardice comes naturally to people who for 600 years were subservient to the Sultan.
*
My detractors are my most faithful readers because they know I write about them and, as narcissists, nothing fascinates them more than themselves, no matter how bad and ugly. As for what they say about me: I don't have to read it to know. What could be more predictable than criticism or analysis motivated by revenge? When the gut speaks, the brain is silenced.
*
The aim of nationalist historians is to legitimize amnesia in so far as everything that is negative is covered up and forgotten, and everything that is positive is exaggerated or, like the Battle of Avarair, invented.
*
Somewhere Primo Levi remarks that if Italians are ashamed of being Italian it may be because they have failed to produce a political class that represents the people. Does that ring a bell?
#
Saturday, August 23, 2008
victimistan
Thursday, August 21, 2008
**********************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
****************************************
What do Georgians and Armenians have in common? They both thought they were invulnerable because they had the verbal support of the great powers of the West, which they mistook for military alliance.
*
I was born and raised in a ghetto where it was common knowledge that books drove men mad. It was said of the local idiot that in his youth he spoke seven languages.
*
Whenever I speak of tolerance I am told in no uncertain terms that we Armenians are in no need of lectures on the subject. Armenians can be very intolerant in their defense of their own tolerance.
*
If it were up to theologians, lawyers, and the average Armenian know-it-all, everything that is written can be interpreted to mean the opposite of what it says.
*
It has been calculated that a good Armenian speechifier can produce more manure in an hour than ten circus elephants in a month.
*
If you ask any one of our dividers why he supports divisions, you will be told that he is for solidarity, it's the opposition that is for divisions.
*
“You should write more like Mark Twain,” I have been told on more than one occasion. To which I can only say: How many American problems did Mark Twain solve? How many Armenian problems did Baronian, Odian, and Massikian (our three most brilliant humorists) solve? In a world where messiahs are crucified, recrucified, or dismissed as blasphemers, who can save the damned?
#
Friday, August 22, 2008
****************************************
WRITERS AND COMMISSARS
*************************************************
An e-mail informs me today that I am a repellent nonentity because I refuse to adopt Nelson Mandela as my role model. That's the trouble with our commissars: they don't read to understand what's being said; they read to recreate you in their own or someone else's image.
*
A writer has no choice but to negotiate from a position of weakness. Reason, common sense and decency are his only weapons – weapons that throughout history have proved to be unequal to the challenges of unreason, greed, ignorance, prejudice, and power.
*
There is a type of Armenian who pretends to speak in the name of all Armenians when in fact he speaks only in the name of a loud-mouth idiot, a self-satisfied jackass, or a gutless brown-noser.
*
To put it as elegantly as I can: A nation whose commissars outnumber its writers is in very deep sh**.
*
We should speak less of genocide and more of genosuicide if only because the first is history and the second an ongoing policy implemented by corrupt and incompetent leaders whose number one concern is not the welfare of the people but their own powers and privileges.
#
Saturday, August 23, 2008
********************************************
VICTIMISTAN
***********************************
The publication of every book by an Armenian is cause for celebration because it has little or nothing to do with reality. On the day an Armenian writer publishes a book that speaks of our reality, it will be cause for lamentation rather than celebration.
*
Ordinary people have differences of opinion. Armenians have Ottomanized differences, which means, the only way to settle them is by slaughtering the opposition – if not in deed than in thought.
*
The easiest thing in the world is to lose an Armenian friend; the hardest thing is to make an Armenian enemy a friend.
*
It is difficult to be on the side of underdogs who are also dupes – who, that is, allow themselves to be brainwashed and manipulated by fund-raising panchoonies for whom the welfare of the people rates far below that of their own powers and privileges.
*
If I am an authority on dupes it's because I have been one most of my life.
*
If there is one thing that is harder than making an Armenian enemy a friend is deprogramming a brainwashed Armenian.
*
Victims of foreign despots, victims of domestic wheeler-dealers, victims of our own narcissism, we are citizens of Victimistan.
#
**********************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
****************************************
What do Georgians and Armenians have in common? They both thought they were invulnerable because they had the verbal support of the great powers of the West, which they mistook for military alliance.
*
I was born and raised in a ghetto where it was common knowledge that books drove men mad. It was said of the local idiot that in his youth he spoke seven languages.
*
Whenever I speak of tolerance I am told in no uncertain terms that we Armenians are in no need of lectures on the subject. Armenians can be very intolerant in their defense of their own tolerance.
*
If it were up to theologians, lawyers, and the average Armenian know-it-all, everything that is written can be interpreted to mean the opposite of what it says.
*
It has been calculated that a good Armenian speechifier can produce more manure in an hour than ten circus elephants in a month.
*
If you ask any one of our dividers why he supports divisions, you will be told that he is for solidarity, it's the opposition that is for divisions.
*
“You should write more like Mark Twain,” I have been told on more than one occasion. To which I can only say: How many American problems did Mark Twain solve? How many Armenian problems did Baronian, Odian, and Massikian (our three most brilliant humorists) solve? In a world where messiahs are crucified, recrucified, or dismissed as blasphemers, who can save the damned?
#
Friday, August 22, 2008
****************************************
WRITERS AND COMMISSARS
*************************************************
An e-mail informs me today that I am a repellent nonentity because I refuse to adopt Nelson Mandela as my role model. That's the trouble with our commissars: they don't read to understand what's being said; they read to recreate you in their own or someone else's image.
*
A writer has no choice but to negotiate from a position of weakness. Reason, common sense and decency are his only weapons – weapons that throughout history have proved to be unequal to the challenges of unreason, greed, ignorance, prejudice, and power.
*
There is a type of Armenian who pretends to speak in the name of all Armenians when in fact he speaks only in the name of a loud-mouth idiot, a self-satisfied jackass, or a gutless brown-noser.
*
To put it as elegantly as I can: A nation whose commissars outnumber its writers is in very deep sh**.
*
We should speak less of genocide and more of genosuicide if only because the first is history and the second an ongoing policy implemented by corrupt and incompetent leaders whose number one concern is not the welfare of the people but their own powers and privileges.
#
Saturday, August 23, 2008
********************************************
VICTIMISTAN
***********************************
The publication of every book by an Armenian is cause for celebration because it has little or nothing to do with reality. On the day an Armenian writer publishes a book that speaks of our reality, it will be cause for lamentation rather than celebration.
*
Ordinary people have differences of opinion. Armenians have Ottomanized differences, which means, the only way to settle them is by slaughtering the opposition – if not in deed than in thought.
*
The easiest thing in the world is to lose an Armenian friend; the hardest thing is to make an Armenian enemy a friend.
*
It is difficult to be on the side of underdogs who are also dupes – who, that is, allow themselves to be brainwashed and manipulated by fund-raising panchoonies for whom the welfare of the people rates far below that of their own powers and privileges.
*
If I am an authority on dupes it's because I have been one most of my life.
*
If there is one thing that is harder than making an Armenian enemy a friend is deprogramming a brainwashed Armenian.
*
Victims of foreign despots, victims of domestic wheeler-dealers, victims of our own narcissism, we are citizens of Victimistan.
#
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
insanity
Sunday, August 17, 2008
*****************************************
INSANITY
***************************
A friend tells me, one of our partisan academics was heard stating recently that consensus and solidarity should not be seen as key ingredients in our collective existence. The only way to explain such an assertion is by quoting an Armenian saying that predates Freud, Jung, and Adler: “There are 49 kinds of insanity.” Make it 50.
*
No one can be as transparent as he who is not in the habit of questioning his motives. And when such a one is analyzed, he feels as naked and vulnerable as an earthworm after a rainfall.
*
Only readers who know little or nothing about Armenian literature, and the little they know is filtered through anthologies and textbooks subsidized by political or religious institutions accuse me of harboring anti-Armenian sentiments.
*
One way to define a commissar is to say that he knows better what you should write and how you should write it though he has himself published not a single line.
*
Memo to those who verbally abuse one another on the Internet:
Ask yourself the following question and for once in your life try to be honest: What weight does the word of a coward have when delivered anonymously and from a safe distance?
#
Monday, August 18, 2008
*********************************************
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
******************************************
Had Charents known someday he would be betrayed by his fellow Armenians and die an early and harrowing death in a Yerevan jail, would he have written “Yes im anoush Hayastani” (To my sweet Armenian)?
Was his patriotism based on deception and false assumptions?
What about the patriotism of our speechifiers, sermonizers, and partisan propagandists?
To what extent our own patriotism is based on misinformation?
If we knew all there is to know about our leaders, their motives, and sentiments, would we still be patriots or, like so many of our compatriots, we would choose to be born again as human beings and hit the road leading to assimilation?
Why is it that both Siamanto and Totovents found life in America so unbearable that they returned to Istanbul and Yerevan respectively only to be slaughtered like sheep?
Why is it that when warned not to return to Istanbul by his German fiancée, Roupen Sevag told her, in effect, she didn't know what she was saying and that deep down Turks were wonderful folk, only to go back to Istanbul and share the fate of Siamanto, Zohrab, Zartarian, Daniel Varoujan, among many others?
What about Zabel Yessayan, one of our most sophisticated, Sorbonne-educated writers? Why is it that she chose to ignore Zarian's clear warnings, establish herself in Yerevan only to disappear in the Gulag shortly thereafter?
If you say Marxism deceived some of the greatest intellectuals of the West, among them Arthur Koestler, Ignazio Silone, Antonio Gramsci, André Gide, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, the question we must ask then is: What about Ottomanism? How many intellectuals of the West were taken in by Talaat's Ottomanism?
Also to be noted: not all our intellectuals were taken in by Kremlin's Stalinism parading as Marxism. Zarian and Bakounts saw clearly its aberrations and dangers, but their warnings fell on deaf ears.
#
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
********************************************
FASCISTS AMONG US
************************************
There are many ways to violate someone's fundamental human right of free speech,
from a bullet in the neck and the Gulag to censorship and a steady barrage of insults. In the case of insults: if you fall silent as a result of them, they win. If you continue to exercise your right of free speech, they lose.
*
Free speech allows fascists to expose themselves as fascists. That's one of the many beauties of democracy. Free speech allows even a garbage-mouth inbred moron with a negative IQ to parade as a genius (self-assessed of course) and to bray like a jackass pretending all the while to be Pavarotti singing “Nessun dorma.” Have I said this before? Probably. What else can I say to a fascist except that he is a fascist and that his days are numbered as surely as those of his predecessors.
*
For a long time I couldn't understand why Germans had embraced Nazism, Italians fascism, and Soviets (including my fellow Armenians) Stalinism. How could ordinary law-abiding, decent citizens, I would ask myself, allow themselves to be taken in by the belief system of thugs, sadists, and cold-blooded-murderers? I have my answer today. There is a killer in all of us. The post-World War II French slogan “Nous sommes tous des assassins” (We are all assassins) could also be rephrased as “We are all fascists.” Only in a society ruled by laws, rather than men, that is to say, only in a democracy, our inner killer or fascist is exposed and checked. Which is why I say “God bless America!” As for Armenia and Armenians: may all our fascists (of which we have more than our share even in America), I say, “May they all go to the Devil!”
#
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
******************************************
WHY I WRITE THE WAY I WRITE
************************************************
Writing for Armenians is a waste of time, I am told.
I agree. But I don't write for Armenians.
Neither do I write about them.
I write for human beings some of whom happen to be Armenian.
I write about intolerance and violations of human rights.
I write about ignorance parading as knowledge.
I write about slaves whose ambition in life is to enslave.
I write about propaganda and its dupes.
I write about victims who victimize.
I write about the death of a thousand cuts that until the 999th it's called survival.
I write about power and its abuse.
I write about speechifiers and sermonizers who speak in the name of God and do the Devil's work.
I write about readers who have been so thoroughly moronized by propaganda that they believe honesty and objectivity to be unpatriotic.
In short, I write about things that transcend racial, national, tribal, and partisan barriers.
*****************************************
INSANITY
***************************
A friend tells me, one of our partisan academics was heard stating recently that consensus and solidarity should not be seen as key ingredients in our collective existence. The only way to explain such an assertion is by quoting an Armenian saying that predates Freud, Jung, and Adler: “There are 49 kinds of insanity.” Make it 50.
*
No one can be as transparent as he who is not in the habit of questioning his motives. And when such a one is analyzed, he feels as naked and vulnerable as an earthworm after a rainfall.
*
Only readers who know little or nothing about Armenian literature, and the little they know is filtered through anthologies and textbooks subsidized by political or religious institutions accuse me of harboring anti-Armenian sentiments.
*
One way to define a commissar is to say that he knows better what you should write and how you should write it though he has himself published not a single line.
*
Memo to those who verbally abuse one another on the Internet:
Ask yourself the following question and for once in your life try to be honest: What weight does the word of a coward have when delivered anonymously and from a safe distance?
#
Monday, August 18, 2008
*********************************************
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
******************************************
Had Charents known someday he would be betrayed by his fellow Armenians and die an early and harrowing death in a Yerevan jail, would he have written “Yes im anoush Hayastani” (To my sweet Armenian)?
Was his patriotism based on deception and false assumptions?
What about the patriotism of our speechifiers, sermonizers, and partisan propagandists?
To what extent our own patriotism is based on misinformation?
If we knew all there is to know about our leaders, their motives, and sentiments, would we still be patriots or, like so many of our compatriots, we would choose to be born again as human beings and hit the road leading to assimilation?
Why is it that both Siamanto and Totovents found life in America so unbearable that they returned to Istanbul and Yerevan respectively only to be slaughtered like sheep?
Why is it that when warned not to return to Istanbul by his German fiancée, Roupen Sevag told her, in effect, she didn't know what she was saying and that deep down Turks were wonderful folk, only to go back to Istanbul and share the fate of Siamanto, Zohrab, Zartarian, Daniel Varoujan, among many others?
What about Zabel Yessayan, one of our most sophisticated, Sorbonne-educated writers? Why is it that she chose to ignore Zarian's clear warnings, establish herself in Yerevan only to disappear in the Gulag shortly thereafter?
If you say Marxism deceived some of the greatest intellectuals of the West, among them Arthur Koestler, Ignazio Silone, Antonio Gramsci, André Gide, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty, the question we must ask then is: What about Ottomanism? How many intellectuals of the West were taken in by Talaat's Ottomanism?
Also to be noted: not all our intellectuals were taken in by Kremlin's Stalinism parading as Marxism. Zarian and Bakounts saw clearly its aberrations and dangers, but their warnings fell on deaf ears.
#
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
********************************************
FASCISTS AMONG US
************************************
There are many ways to violate someone's fundamental human right of free speech,
from a bullet in the neck and the Gulag to censorship and a steady barrage of insults. In the case of insults: if you fall silent as a result of them, they win. If you continue to exercise your right of free speech, they lose.
*
Free speech allows fascists to expose themselves as fascists. That's one of the many beauties of democracy. Free speech allows even a garbage-mouth inbred moron with a negative IQ to parade as a genius (self-assessed of course) and to bray like a jackass pretending all the while to be Pavarotti singing “Nessun dorma.” Have I said this before? Probably. What else can I say to a fascist except that he is a fascist and that his days are numbered as surely as those of his predecessors.
*
For a long time I couldn't understand why Germans had embraced Nazism, Italians fascism, and Soviets (including my fellow Armenians) Stalinism. How could ordinary law-abiding, decent citizens, I would ask myself, allow themselves to be taken in by the belief system of thugs, sadists, and cold-blooded-murderers? I have my answer today. There is a killer in all of us. The post-World War II French slogan “Nous sommes tous des assassins” (We are all assassins) could also be rephrased as “We are all fascists.” Only in a society ruled by laws, rather than men, that is to say, only in a democracy, our inner killer or fascist is exposed and checked. Which is why I say “God bless America!” As for Armenia and Armenians: may all our fascists (of which we have more than our share even in America), I say, “May they all go to the Devil!”
#
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
******************************************
WHY I WRITE THE WAY I WRITE
************************************************
Writing for Armenians is a waste of time, I am told.
I agree. But I don't write for Armenians.
Neither do I write about them.
I write for human beings some of whom happen to be Armenian.
I write about intolerance and violations of human rights.
I write about ignorance parading as knowledge.
I write about slaves whose ambition in life is to enslave.
I write about propaganda and its dupes.
I write about victims who victimize.
I write about the death of a thousand cuts that until the 999th it's called survival.
I write about power and its abuse.
I write about speechifiers and sermonizers who speak in the name of God and do the Devil's work.
I write about readers who have been so thoroughly moronized by propaganda that they believe honesty and objectivity to be unpatriotic.
In short, I write about things that transcend racial, national, tribal, and partisan barriers.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
interview
August 14, 2008
************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKIS
***********************************************
Empires may rise and fall but the loud-mouth idiot who thinks he is smart is indestructible.
*
The Armenian who verbally slaughters his fellow Armenian does not have the right to say he does not harbor homicidal feelings towards the Turks.
*
It is difficult to doubt, question, or dislike someone who tells you what you like to hear. Hence, the popularity of political charlatans.
*
Russian saying: “The heart of another is a dark forest.”
*
If a Jew says anything remotely critical about his fellow Jews, he is accused of Antisemitism. If a Turk dares to agree with an Armenian, he is accused of insulting Turkishness. If an Armenian says anything that is honest and objective, he is accused of insulting Armenishness. Now then, in what way are we different from them?
*
It is an unfortunate fact that my ideal reader no longer cares to identify himself as an Armenian not because he is a bad Armenian but because he is a decent human being.
*
The more unwavering a man’s commitment to his own self-interest,
the more altruistic the principles he pretends to espouse.
*
The words of an honest man don’t need definitions; but the commas of a crook should be carefully examined under a microscope.
*
Even when our predictions come true, they do so in such an unexpected manner or context that their accuracy becomes irrelevant.
#
August 15, 2008
****************************************
INTERVIEW
***************************
QUESTION: Is it true that your enemies outnumber your friends?
ANSWER: If they do, it may be because I don't write to make friends. As for aiming at best-sellerdom: There is no such thing as a best-selling Armenian writer.
Q: How do you explain that?
A: We don't have independent publishers or, for that matter, a competitive literary marketplace. All our publishers and book distribution centers are in the hands of political and religious institutions with their own sets of dogmas -- which means their own walls of censorship.
Q: What made you decide to become a writer under these conditions?
A: A combination of ignorance and hubris. Plus the fact that I happen to be an unemployable misfit.
Q: You are tough on yourself and tougher on your critics, why?
A: Critics? You mean kibitzers. We don't have critics, only meddlers who insult me.
Q: And you insult them back?
A: On occasion, yes. Why not? You may not be aware of the fact that writing for Armenians is a blood sport. In the 20th century alone, two generations of our ablest writers were betrayed to the authorities by their fellow Armenians and slaughtered by fascist regimes. Also, in our environment, good manners is sometimes confused with weakness and rudeness with strength. I think it was Bismarck who said, “With a gentleman I am a gentleman, with a pirate, a pirate-and-a-half. But there is still another reason why I don't hesitate to insult those who insult me. Sometimes, that's the only way to acquire a faithful reader. Armenians hate to read. They believe they are too smart to need the two cents' worth of a scribbler. That's why they have consistently starved their writers. Not that I enjoy insulting people and being hated by them. But for a writer, to be hated is preferable to being ignored. Luckily, most of my readers are not aware of this fact.
#
August 16, 2008
***************************************
THE ARMENIAN WAY
*****************************************
History teaches us that fascists lose even when they win. No one has ever said military victories are moral triumphs, or censorship and violations of human rights promote consensus and progress.
*
If you say anything that is worth saying, you will be attacked by those who speak a great deal but avoid saying anything.
*
It is not easy for an Armenian to say “I disagree with you.” “Fool” and “idiot” come more naturally to him. I have even been called a “coward” by readers who write anonymously and from a safe distance.
*
How to express your patriotism? Verbally abuse anyone whom you deem less patriotic than you. That's the Armenian way.
*
Like all tribal people, when we say nation, what we really mean is tribe – my political party, my church, my backyard, my chickens.
*
To be an Armenian writer is to be a perennial loser. And yet, compared to my predecessors, I am just about the luckiest of them all. Most Armenian writers never made it past forty.
*
It is silly for an Armenian or Turk to justify the actions and policies of their respective political leaders. Politicians are a species apart for the simple reason that those with power and those without it share nothing in common.
*
There was a time when I would wonder what kind of Armenian would betray his fellow Armenians to the enemy. I now have my answer: the kind of Armenian we meet every day on our discussion forums – dogmatic, self-righteous, brainwashed, infallible, with the ego of a giant, the brain of a midget, and the moral compass of a whore.
*
Once upon a time I thought to understand the past, you must study eyewitness accounts, official documents, novels of the period, statistics, biographies of key players, and so on. But I know now that the best key to the past is the present, that is to say, human nature. Times may change, fashions may change, names may change, but some things never change.
#
************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKIS
***********************************************
Empires may rise and fall but the loud-mouth idiot who thinks he is smart is indestructible.
*
The Armenian who verbally slaughters his fellow Armenian does not have the right to say he does not harbor homicidal feelings towards the Turks.
*
It is difficult to doubt, question, or dislike someone who tells you what you like to hear. Hence, the popularity of political charlatans.
*
Russian saying: “The heart of another is a dark forest.”
*
If a Jew says anything remotely critical about his fellow Jews, he is accused of Antisemitism. If a Turk dares to agree with an Armenian, he is accused of insulting Turkishness. If an Armenian says anything that is honest and objective, he is accused of insulting Armenishness. Now then, in what way are we different from them?
*
It is an unfortunate fact that my ideal reader no longer cares to identify himself as an Armenian not because he is a bad Armenian but because he is a decent human being.
*
The more unwavering a man’s commitment to his own self-interest,
the more altruistic the principles he pretends to espouse.
*
The words of an honest man don’t need definitions; but the commas of a crook should be carefully examined under a microscope.
*
Even when our predictions come true, they do so in such an unexpected manner or context that their accuracy becomes irrelevant.
#
August 15, 2008
****************************************
INTERVIEW
***************************
QUESTION: Is it true that your enemies outnumber your friends?
ANSWER: If they do, it may be because I don't write to make friends. As for aiming at best-sellerdom: There is no such thing as a best-selling Armenian writer.
Q: How do you explain that?
A: We don't have independent publishers or, for that matter, a competitive literary marketplace. All our publishers and book distribution centers are in the hands of political and religious institutions with their own sets of dogmas -- which means their own walls of censorship.
Q: What made you decide to become a writer under these conditions?
A: A combination of ignorance and hubris. Plus the fact that I happen to be an unemployable misfit.
Q: You are tough on yourself and tougher on your critics, why?
A: Critics? You mean kibitzers. We don't have critics, only meddlers who insult me.
Q: And you insult them back?
A: On occasion, yes. Why not? You may not be aware of the fact that writing for Armenians is a blood sport. In the 20th century alone, two generations of our ablest writers were betrayed to the authorities by their fellow Armenians and slaughtered by fascist regimes. Also, in our environment, good manners is sometimes confused with weakness and rudeness with strength. I think it was Bismarck who said, “With a gentleman I am a gentleman, with a pirate, a pirate-and-a-half. But there is still another reason why I don't hesitate to insult those who insult me. Sometimes, that's the only way to acquire a faithful reader. Armenians hate to read. They believe they are too smart to need the two cents' worth of a scribbler. That's why they have consistently starved their writers. Not that I enjoy insulting people and being hated by them. But for a writer, to be hated is preferable to being ignored. Luckily, most of my readers are not aware of this fact.
#
August 16, 2008
***************************************
THE ARMENIAN WAY
*****************************************
History teaches us that fascists lose even when they win. No one has ever said military victories are moral triumphs, or censorship and violations of human rights promote consensus and progress.
*
If you say anything that is worth saying, you will be attacked by those who speak a great deal but avoid saying anything.
*
It is not easy for an Armenian to say “I disagree with you.” “Fool” and “idiot” come more naturally to him. I have even been called a “coward” by readers who write anonymously and from a safe distance.
*
How to express your patriotism? Verbally abuse anyone whom you deem less patriotic than you. That's the Armenian way.
*
Like all tribal people, when we say nation, what we really mean is tribe – my political party, my church, my backyard, my chickens.
*
To be an Armenian writer is to be a perennial loser. And yet, compared to my predecessors, I am just about the luckiest of them all. Most Armenian writers never made it past forty.
*
It is silly for an Armenian or Turk to justify the actions and policies of their respective political leaders. Politicians are a species apart for the simple reason that those with power and those without it share nothing in common.
*
There was a time when I would wonder what kind of Armenian would betray his fellow Armenians to the enemy. I now have my answer: the kind of Armenian we meet every day on our discussion forums – dogmatic, self-righteous, brainwashed, infallible, with the ego of a giant, the brain of a midget, and the moral compass of a whore.
*
Once upon a time I thought to understand the past, you must study eyewitness accounts, official documents, novels of the period, statistics, biographies of key players, and so on. But I know now that the best key to the past is the present, that is to say, human nature. Times may change, fashions may change, names may change, but some things never change.
#
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
insults
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
*********************************************
AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF INSULTS
******************************************************
If you want to enhance your understanding of human nature, the urban jungle, and what's goes on in Armenian discussion forums on the Internet, read THE DEVIL'S GUIDE TO HOLLYWOOD by Joe Eszterhas (New York, 2006), which could be subtitled “An Encyclopedia of Insults” by individuals whose work has shaped several generations of people around the world.
Some typical entries follow:
*
Marlon Brando to Zsa Zsa Gabor: “A man can do only one thing with you, Zsa Zsa – throw you down and f*** you!”
*
An insider on two of my favorite directors: “Sam Peckinpah is a prick and Robert Altman is a cunt.”
*
A director to a starlet who is offering him a blow job for a bit part: “What's in it for me?”
*
“Angry at Roman Polanski, Faye Dunaway peed in a coffee cup and threw it into his face.” (We are not told where she did her peeing: in the loo or in his presence?)
*
Anna Magnani to Marilyn Monroe: “Putana!”
#
"Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right." Arthur Schopenhauer
*********************************************
AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF INSULTS
******************************************************
If you want to enhance your understanding of human nature, the urban jungle, and what's goes on in Armenian discussion forums on the Internet, read THE DEVIL'S GUIDE TO HOLLYWOOD by Joe Eszterhas (New York, 2006), which could be subtitled “An Encyclopedia of Insults” by individuals whose work has shaped several generations of people around the world.
Some typical entries follow:
*
Marlon Brando to Zsa Zsa Gabor: “A man can do only one thing with you, Zsa Zsa – throw you down and f*** you!”
*
An insider on two of my favorite directors: “Sam Peckinpah is a prick and Robert Altman is a cunt.”
*
A director to a starlet who is offering him a blow job for a bit part: “What's in it for me?”
*
“Angry at Roman Polanski, Faye Dunaway peed in a coffee cup and threw it into his face.” (We are not told where she did her peeing: in the loo or in his presence?)
*
Anna Magnani to Marilyn Monroe: “Putana!”
#
"Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right." Arthur Schopenhauer
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
charm
Sunday, August 1, 2008
*****************************************
FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE
********************************************
For a thousand years we dreamed of freedom but we at no time asked ourselves if we are worthy of freedom. For a thousand years we dreamed of free speech, and now that we have it, we rant, bluster, curse, and reduce our discussion forums into cesspools of verbal abuse. We brag about survival but we don't know how to live. How long before we are born again as human beings as opposed to being bundles of mutual contempt, intolerance, and hatred?
*
The very same Armenians who brag about out heroes, hide their identity behind false names as if they were important enough to be targeted for assassination; and to make sure no one will locate them, they pretend to live in remote corners of the globe. And what do they do with their newly acquired sense of invulnerability? They hurl insults and profanities at anyone who dares to question their infallibility...
*
Some people learn from their mistakes. We cover up ours or pretend we never made them. It was all someone else's fault, beginning with Turks; and armed with that conviction we behave like Turks. Even in a civilized country, when Armenian meets Armenian, it's the Ottoman Empire all over again.
*
If you say I am wrong, I say, sure why not? But if you say you are infallible, all I can say is, go ahead, make an ass of yourself.
*
“Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty I am free at last to make an ass of myself!” Is that all there is to freedom? You want solutions to our problems? Make yourself worthy of freedom, and then we will exercise our human right of free speech and talk. Until then we are not the cradle of civilization but its grave.
#
Monday, August 4, 2008
*********************************************
METAPHYSICS
**********************************
Whenever I lose a critic – in our context, a euphemism for an enemy who is out for blood – whenever I lose a vampire, I also lose a source of inspiration. The only solution to that problem is to enter a new Armenian discussion forum, and bingo! presto! – it never fails: before you can say Jack S. Avanakian, I run into half-a-dozen new avanaks.
*
The best way to combat depression is to count your blessings. I do that all the time and it never fails. Things could be much worse, I say to myself. I could be a Chinese living in China, or a Russian living in Stalin's USSR, or an Armenian in America before the advent of the Internet.
*
When I was silenced by the editors of our weeklies, two friends sprang to my defense: one, an employee of IBM in San Jose, sent me a computer; the other from Toronto, sat down with me and with great patience taught me how to use it.
*
I believe God created my friends, and the Devil created my enemies. I also believe God created man and the Devil created woman. For it takes a diabolical imagination to think of all those curves and secret interstices that will reduce any man to an irrational bundle of desires, urges, and drives.
*
If God created man, who then created Talaat, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and Mussolini? Good question. My tentative answer: nobody. They were not creations but reincarnations of the Devil.
*
Finally, which came first, the chicken or the egg? It was the rooster, of course!
#
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
*********************************************
ON THE IRRESISTIBLE CHARM OF ARMENIANS
**********************************************************
“You are a pessimist,” a friend tells me, and goes on: “The only predictable thing about life is that it is unpredictable. We don't know what's going to happen next.
I for one will not be astonished if we enter another Golden Age. Our literature enjoyed a Renaissance in Istanbul at the turn of the last century. Why not another Renaissance in the Homeland or Diaspora or both?”
“Cultures, civilizations, empires, nations – once dead, they stay buried,” I explain. “Consider the history of such empires as the Roman, the Ottoman, and more recently, the Soviet. To think that a new Alexander the Great will be born and raise the Macedonian Empire from the grave is an impossible dream, an illusion, a plot for a science fiction novel... To speak of another Golden Age of Armenian literature and culture in our context is not optimism but megalomania run amok. Let us therefore be more realistic, shall we? Let us aim at common sense and decency.”
*
Because I write against dividers, they call me a divider. Because I write against fanaticism, they call me a fanatic. And because I make fun of sermonizers, they call me a sermonizer.
*
Until I visit Armenia, I do not qualify as an Armenian, a reader tells me. To him I say, “If Armenians in Armenia are as nasty as you are, telling me to go to Armenia amounts to telling me to go to hell. To which I can only say, no, thanks. I prefer to stay in my own gulag.”
*
If a man is both ignorant and stupid, he will also be stupid and ignorant about all the evidence against his self-assessed status as a genius.
*
In his novel, A PARTISAN'S DAUGHTER (New York, 2008) Louis de Bernieres writes about “an emperor who blinded all his prisoners except for one in every hundred, who was supposed to lead the others home, and when the opposing king saw what had happened to his troops, he died of the shock.” What he doesn't say is that both the emperor (Basil II Bulgaroktonus [Bulgar-slayer]) and the Bulgarian king (Czar Samuel) were of Armenian descent. For more details, see my book, THE ARMENIANS: THEIR HISTORY AND CULTURE (New York, 1981).
#
"Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right." Arthur Schopenhauer
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
*****************************************
ON ARMENIAN PECULIARITIES AND PARADOXES
***************************************************************
Most of my readers are Armenian and they read me not to enhance their understanding or to consider a worldview different from their own, but to settle a score with me.
*
After insulting me daily for several years in an Armenian discussion forum, a reader called to apologize – that's another Armenian peculiarity: insulting publicly, apologizing privately. His apology was so verbose and disarming that I believed him. I completely ignored the old saying, “If you hear a mountain has moved, believe it. If you hear a man has changed, believe it not.” And sure enough, shortly after his apology, this reader reverted to his old ways and he is still at it.
*
The Armenian paradox: Even as he behaves like swine, he considers himself a superior being, and he believes the only way to assert his superiority is by looking down at his fellow men.
*
It happened in Athens at the end of World War II and at the beginning of the Greek Civil War. Very early one morning the rumor spread that there were three corpses in a ditch less than a block from our house. I was eight or nine then, and I joined the small crowd to view the unusual sight. Later we were told both the victims and their killers had been members of rival Armenian political gangs.
*
There is a dark side to our story, and the older I grow the larger the darkness grows. And the prevalent misconception among us is that it is the duty of every patriotic Armenian to cover up this darkness and to pretend it doesn't exist.
*
I am constantly attacked for being a defective or bad Armenian, a Turk in disguise, a traitor to the Cause, and so on; even though on several occasions I have stated in no uncertain terms that my ambition in life is not to be a good Armenian (whatever the hell that means) but a decent human being, and to think of others (including Turks) not as members of a different nation or tribe but as member of the human race.
#
"Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right."
*****************************************
FROM CRADLE TO GRAVE
********************************************
For a thousand years we dreamed of freedom but we at no time asked ourselves if we are worthy of freedom. For a thousand years we dreamed of free speech, and now that we have it, we rant, bluster, curse, and reduce our discussion forums into cesspools of verbal abuse. We brag about survival but we don't know how to live. How long before we are born again as human beings as opposed to being bundles of mutual contempt, intolerance, and hatred?
*
The very same Armenians who brag about out heroes, hide their identity behind false names as if they were important enough to be targeted for assassination; and to make sure no one will locate them, they pretend to live in remote corners of the globe. And what do they do with their newly acquired sense of invulnerability? They hurl insults and profanities at anyone who dares to question their infallibility...
*
Some people learn from their mistakes. We cover up ours or pretend we never made them. It was all someone else's fault, beginning with Turks; and armed with that conviction we behave like Turks. Even in a civilized country, when Armenian meets Armenian, it's the Ottoman Empire all over again.
*
If you say I am wrong, I say, sure why not? But if you say you are infallible, all I can say is, go ahead, make an ass of yourself.
*
“Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty I am free at last to make an ass of myself!” Is that all there is to freedom? You want solutions to our problems? Make yourself worthy of freedom, and then we will exercise our human right of free speech and talk. Until then we are not the cradle of civilization but its grave.
#
Monday, August 4, 2008
*********************************************
METAPHYSICS
**********************************
Whenever I lose a critic – in our context, a euphemism for an enemy who is out for blood – whenever I lose a vampire, I also lose a source of inspiration. The only solution to that problem is to enter a new Armenian discussion forum, and bingo! presto! – it never fails: before you can say Jack S. Avanakian, I run into half-a-dozen new avanaks.
*
The best way to combat depression is to count your blessings. I do that all the time and it never fails. Things could be much worse, I say to myself. I could be a Chinese living in China, or a Russian living in Stalin's USSR, or an Armenian in America before the advent of the Internet.
*
When I was silenced by the editors of our weeklies, two friends sprang to my defense: one, an employee of IBM in San Jose, sent me a computer; the other from Toronto, sat down with me and with great patience taught me how to use it.
*
I believe God created my friends, and the Devil created my enemies. I also believe God created man and the Devil created woman. For it takes a diabolical imagination to think of all those curves and secret interstices that will reduce any man to an irrational bundle of desires, urges, and drives.
*
If God created man, who then created Talaat, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and Mussolini? Good question. My tentative answer: nobody. They were not creations but reincarnations of the Devil.
*
Finally, which came first, the chicken or the egg? It was the rooster, of course!
#
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
*********************************************
ON THE IRRESISTIBLE CHARM OF ARMENIANS
**********************************************************
“You are a pessimist,” a friend tells me, and goes on: “The only predictable thing about life is that it is unpredictable. We don't know what's going to happen next.
I for one will not be astonished if we enter another Golden Age. Our literature enjoyed a Renaissance in Istanbul at the turn of the last century. Why not another Renaissance in the Homeland or Diaspora or both?”
“Cultures, civilizations, empires, nations – once dead, they stay buried,” I explain. “Consider the history of such empires as the Roman, the Ottoman, and more recently, the Soviet. To think that a new Alexander the Great will be born and raise the Macedonian Empire from the grave is an impossible dream, an illusion, a plot for a science fiction novel... To speak of another Golden Age of Armenian literature and culture in our context is not optimism but megalomania run amok. Let us therefore be more realistic, shall we? Let us aim at common sense and decency.”
*
Because I write against dividers, they call me a divider. Because I write against fanaticism, they call me a fanatic. And because I make fun of sermonizers, they call me a sermonizer.
*
Until I visit Armenia, I do not qualify as an Armenian, a reader tells me. To him I say, “If Armenians in Armenia are as nasty as you are, telling me to go to Armenia amounts to telling me to go to hell. To which I can only say, no, thanks. I prefer to stay in my own gulag.”
*
If a man is both ignorant and stupid, he will also be stupid and ignorant about all the evidence against his self-assessed status as a genius.
*
In his novel, A PARTISAN'S DAUGHTER (New York, 2008) Louis de Bernieres writes about “an emperor who blinded all his prisoners except for one in every hundred, who was supposed to lead the others home, and when the opposing king saw what had happened to his troops, he died of the shock.” What he doesn't say is that both the emperor (Basil II Bulgaroktonus [Bulgar-slayer]) and the Bulgarian king (Czar Samuel) were of Armenian descent. For more details, see my book, THE ARMENIANS: THEIR HISTORY AND CULTURE (New York, 1981).
#
"Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right." Arthur Schopenhauer
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
*****************************************
ON ARMENIAN PECULIARITIES AND PARADOXES
***************************************************************
Most of my readers are Armenian and they read me not to enhance their understanding or to consider a worldview different from their own, but to settle a score with me.
*
After insulting me daily for several years in an Armenian discussion forum, a reader called to apologize – that's another Armenian peculiarity: insulting publicly, apologizing privately. His apology was so verbose and disarming that I believed him. I completely ignored the old saying, “If you hear a mountain has moved, believe it. If you hear a man has changed, believe it not.” And sure enough, shortly after his apology, this reader reverted to his old ways and he is still at it.
*
The Armenian paradox: Even as he behaves like swine, he considers himself a superior being, and he believes the only way to assert his superiority is by looking down at his fellow men.
*
It happened in Athens at the end of World War II and at the beginning of the Greek Civil War. Very early one morning the rumor spread that there were three corpses in a ditch less than a block from our house. I was eight or nine then, and I joined the small crowd to view the unusual sight. Later we were told both the victims and their killers had been members of rival Armenian political gangs.
*
There is a dark side to our story, and the older I grow the larger the darkness grows. And the prevalent misconception among us is that it is the duty of every patriotic Armenian to cover up this darkness and to pretend it doesn't exist.
*
I am constantly attacked for being a defective or bad Armenian, a Turk in disguise, a traitor to the Cause, and so on; even though on several occasions I have stated in no uncertain terms that my ambition in life is not to be a good Armenian (whatever the hell that means) but a decent human being, and to think of others (including Turks) not as members of a different nation or tribe but as member of the human race.
#
"Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right."
Saturday, August 2, 2008
wisdom
Thursday, July 31, 2008
*********************************************
THE DARK SIDE
**********************************
Politicians belong to a different species. What they hate most is projecting the image of losers. That's why when they lose, they claim victory on some other level; and what's even more astonishing, they are believed. Turks believe Talaat was a great statesman, and we believe all our misfortunes must be ascribed not to our kings, princes, warlords with dynastic ambitions, nakharars, and bosses, but to our geography, to our bloodthirsty neighbors, and I once even heard one of our eminent poets – a notorious brown-noser parading as a fearless critic – blame the Good Lord Himself.
*
About the fearless critic: He was fearless towards defenseless underdogs, vodanavorjis like himself, and lowly priests, but at no time did he dare to publish a single line against any one of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors. There is a saying in German: “Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.”
*
If you want to understand politicians, don't read their dime-a-dozen hirelings and partisans. That would be like reading a former member of the Communist Party in order to understand our Soviet era. The very same people who say, “Who in his right mind would do that?” read Tashnak ghazetajis to understand Tashnaks, Ramgavar wheeler-dealers to understand Ramgavars, and Armenian nationalist historians to understand Armenian history. And when Turks do the same , they call them dumb.
*
“After reading you I feel ashamed of being an Armenian,” writes a reader; and he feels ashamed not because he is exposed as a dupe, but because I expose the dark side of the moon and because I dare say there is something rotten in the State of Denmark. I don't write to promote shame. I write to challenge readers to confront the forces of darkness that have shaped and continue to shape our destiny as a nation.
#
Friday, August 1, 2008
*************************************
THE WISDOM OF DIOGENES
*************************************************
Once upon a time when I was gainfully employed first as a stock boy in a department store and later as a clerk in an insurance company, they would ask me: “Do you like your job?” and I would lie and say, “Yes, like it very much.” I wonder, has anyone ever asked a garbage collector if he likes his job? Another question that is seldom or never asked: Where would civilization be without garbage collectors?
*
So far no one has ever bothered to ask me if I enjoy writing for garbage. But I shouldn't complain. In all fairness, I should mention the fact that I also have a handful of civilized readers who, whenever they disagree with me, they say “I disagree with you,” as opposed to calling me a senile old man who should commit suicide by banging his head against a wall.
*
To be hated by an Armenian is to have a foretaste of immortality. My friends may forget me, but my enemies never will. Among us, hatred has a longer lifespan than any other emotion. Like Pollyanna, I see a blessing even in a curse.
*
To my friends who criticize my critics, I say, “Please, be gentle with them. They are my bread and butter. I need them the way a garbage collector needs garbage.”
*
On entering the home of a wealthy Greek and warned not to spit on the floor, Diogenes is said to have spat on his host's face saying he couldn't find a meaner receptacle. I dare anyone not to love such a man!
#
Saturday, August 2, 2008
*****************************************
THE ARMENIAN WAY
********************************
If they can't see what you see, their first instinct is to gouge your eyes out.
*
We know the names of the writers who were shot by our Stalinist commissars. What we don't know are the names of the commissars. That's the way it is with executioners – they prefer to be faceless and anonymous. They are probably dead by now, but I suspect their offspring are among us and they speechify as superpatriots, sermonize as defenders of the faith, and parade as role models.
*
If a future scholar writes a history of contemporary Armenian literature, I suspect it will be the shortest book in the world and it will bear the subtitle “The Age of Commissars.”
*
There is a commissar in every boss, bishop, benefactor, and their dupes who recycle their propaganda in the name of patriotism.
*
There are two ways of committing suicide, by killing the body and by poisoning the mind. He who cannot think for himself is a walking cadaver.
*
An insult is a silent cry for flattery.
*
There is no prejudice, lie, misconception, or absurdity that was not at one time or another part of my belief system. Neither Armenianism nor Ottomanism is a terminal condition. We can overcome! (And they say I am consistently negative!)
#
*********************************************
THE DARK SIDE
**********************************
Politicians belong to a different species. What they hate most is projecting the image of losers. That's why when they lose, they claim victory on some other level; and what's even more astonishing, they are believed. Turks believe Talaat was a great statesman, and we believe all our misfortunes must be ascribed not to our kings, princes, warlords with dynastic ambitions, nakharars, and bosses, but to our geography, to our bloodthirsty neighbors, and I once even heard one of our eminent poets – a notorious brown-noser parading as a fearless critic – blame the Good Lord Himself.
*
About the fearless critic: He was fearless towards defenseless underdogs, vodanavorjis like himself, and lowly priests, but at no time did he dare to publish a single line against any one of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors. There is a saying in German: “Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.”
*
If you want to understand politicians, don't read their dime-a-dozen hirelings and partisans. That would be like reading a former member of the Communist Party in order to understand our Soviet era. The very same people who say, “Who in his right mind would do that?” read Tashnak ghazetajis to understand Tashnaks, Ramgavar wheeler-dealers to understand Ramgavars, and Armenian nationalist historians to understand Armenian history. And when Turks do the same , they call them dumb.
*
“After reading you I feel ashamed of being an Armenian,” writes a reader; and he feels ashamed not because he is exposed as a dupe, but because I expose the dark side of the moon and because I dare say there is something rotten in the State of Denmark. I don't write to promote shame. I write to challenge readers to confront the forces of darkness that have shaped and continue to shape our destiny as a nation.
#
Friday, August 1, 2008
*************************************
THE WISDOM OF DIOGENES
*************************************************
Once upon a time when I was gainfully employed first as a stock boy in a department store and later as a clerk in an insurance company, they would ask me: “Do you like your job?” and I would lie and say, “Yes, like it very much.” I wonder, has anyone ever asked a garbage collector if he likes his job? Another question that is seldom or never asked: Where would civilization be without garbage collectors?
*
So far no one has ever bothered to ask me if I enjoy writing for garbage. But I shouldn't complain. In all fairness, I should mention the fact that I also have a handful of civilized readers who, whenever they disagree with me, they say “I disagree with you,” as opposed to calling me a senile old man who should commit suicide by banging his head against a wall.
*
To be hated by an Armenian is to have a foretaste of immortality. My friends may forget me, but my enemies never will. Among us, hatred has a longer lifespan than any other emotion. Like Pollyanna, I see a blessing even in a curse.
*
To my friends who criticize my critics, I say, “Please, be gentle with them. They are my bread and butter. I need them the way a garbage collector needs garbage.”
*
On entering the home of a wealthy Greek and warned not to spit on the floor, Diogenes is said to have spat on his host's face saying he couldn't find a meaner receptacle. I dare anyone not to love such a man!
#
Saturday, August 2, 2008
*****************************************
THE ARMENIAN WAY
********************************
If they can't see what you see, their first instinct is to gouge your eyes out.
*
We know the names of the writers who were shot by our Stalinist commissars. What we don't know are the names of the commissars. That's the way it is with executioners – they prefer to be faceless and anonymous. They are probably dead by now, but I suspect their offspring are among us and they speechify as superpatriots, sermonize as defenders of the faith, and parade as role models.
*
If a future scholar writes a history of contemporary Armenian literature, I suspect it will be the shortest book in the world and it will bear the subtitle “The Age of Commissars.”
*
There is a commissar in every boss, bishop, benefactor, and their dupes who recycle their propaganda in the name of patriotism.
*
There are two ways of committing suicide, by killing the body and by poisoning the mind. He who cannot think for himself is a walking cadaver.
*
An insult is a silent cry for flattery.
*
There is no prejudice, lie, misconception, or absurdity that was not at one time or another part of my belief system. Neither Armenianism nor Ottomanism is a terminal condition. We can overcome! (And they say I am consistently negative!)
#
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
