history

Sunday, January 18, 2009
****************************************
AGAINST DOGMATISM
**************************************************
A doctor in Australia speaking of people in isolated villages: “You must always have a translator with you because when they don't understand a question, they say yes.”
It is the same with underdogs everywhere. They think it is safer to say “yes, sir!” even when they are told to drop their pants and bend over.
We said yes to Christianity; we said yes to atheism under the Soviets; and in the Ottoman Empire some of us said yes to Islam. We said yes to capitalism in the Diaspora and yes to communism in the Homeland. And today we say yes to our bosses, bishops, benefactors, and their assorted gangs of neo-commissars and "mi kich pogh" panchoonies.
*
A famous Armenian soprano speaking of a Gomidas love song during a radio interview:
“Armenians are shy.”
“You mean coy.”
“No, shy.”
“You are not shy!”
We like to think, since most odars, not to say Armenians, are ignorant, we can say anything we want about Armenians and get away with it; and it comes as a shock when we are contradicted.
*
“To know is to remember,” Socrates used to say. It follows, to remind is to teach.
*
No matter what you say, there will be those who disagree with you. Remember, there are still flat-earth theorists and dupes who think Hitler and Stalin were messianic figures.
*
There are honest disagreements and there are Armenian disagreements. If throughout our millennial history consensus has been with us an unattainable Utopian goal, it’s because our disagreements are seldom honest disagreements.
*
Honest men with honest disagreements may agree to disagree and thus develop a consensus -- which means working together, as opposed to thinking alike.
#
Monday, January 19, 2009
****************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
**************************************************
“I don't like making enemies,” a writer tells me. And I cannot help thinking that the only way to avoid making enemies in our environment is by joining them, if only with your silence.
*
When I was young I trusted and respected my elders. But with old age comes mistrust and suspicion. So much so that whenever I run into an honest man these days I feel like a born-again human being.
*
Gone are the good old days when a commissar could permanently silence a dissident with a memo or a phone call with three monosyllables: “Shut him up!” Their only weapon now is verbal abuse. But the trouble with insults is that there are only a limited number of them and only a limited number of times they can be repeated. It has happened to me more than once that after repeatedly and almost daily abusing me for a year or two or even more, they have given up and fallen silent.
*
Obama's greatest achievement so far is that he survived the insults of his adversaries and is now willing to have them as advisers, and this not in the name of a belief system but common sense.
*
I am not surprised to read the following headline in one of our weeklies:
THOSE WHO WERE NOT AFRAID OF SOVIET INJUSTICE ARE NOW AFRAID OF ARMENIAN JUSTICE.
*
When an Armenian asks you a question, you can be sure of one thing: he knows the answer.
#
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
****************************************
ENEMIES
**************************************************
Emile Littré : “Man is a most unstable compound, and earth a decidedly inferior planet.”
*
When it comes to religion and politics, the prevalent attitude among leaders towards the masses is: the less they know and understand the better – because then they can be more easily manipulated and misled. As a result, we know more about the dark side of our enemies than they do; and we know less about ourselves than we should. It follows, anyone who dares to say all men are more or less the same, or Turks are our if not brothers than half-brothers is promptly labeled a traitor.
*
Our enemy, our real enemy, is not the Turk but knowledge, understanding, and objective judgment. Socrates was guilty of exposing the ignorance of his “betters.” Galileo knew something that the scriptures did not. Solzhenitsyn did not think the men in the Kremlin were morally or intellectually superior, he was therefore guilty of objective judgment. As for writers like Zabel Yessayan, Charents, and Bakounts, among others: they were too smart to be taken in by Bolshevik propaganda – though smart in this context does not mean a higher IQ but the ability to use one's common sense and to think for oneself.
*
Napoleon once said, “A man with ideas is my enemy.” Which may suggest that rulers prefer to rule over the brainless. In their eyes, to expose the lies of their propaganda might as well be a crime against humanity.
*
The Turks have a saying: “Chok ghareshterma, bokhou chekar.” Freely translated:
“Don't get involved (or mix it up too much), you may expose the sh**.”
*
Those who have dared to confront tyrants have always been a tiny minority, and tiny enough to be almost invisible to the naked eye.
#
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
****************************************
HISTORY
**************************************************
We have advanced from one form of oppression to another accompanied by long-winded sermons and speeches in the name of God and Country. Who speaks in the name of the people? Who dares to see a cause-and-effect connection between our corruption, incompetence, divisiveness or lack of vision and our status as perennial victims? All we contribute to our narrative is lies. Consider our press: most of it is about Turkish criminal conduct and our minor celebrities. Our problems – from massacres to earthquakes – fall on us without warning like thieves in the night. “Mart bidi ch'ellank.”
*
We like to think, since we are not guilty of genocide, we are not fascists. But to silence dissent or to be deaf to dissenting voices is if not fascism than it is saying yes to fascism.
*
There is an idiot in all of us, including the most wise. Likewise, there is a killer in all of us, compliments of our crocodilian ancestors. This may explain why sometimes intelligent men are deceived by fools, and decent men are misled by criminal psychopaths; and here, I could make a long list of famous men who supported Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin.
#