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Wednesday, December 31, 2008
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MY ANSWER
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Once in a while a gentle reader takes it upon himself to remind me that what I say doesn't apply to everyone because it is based on self-analysis, and that it is wrong to project my own conflicts and contradictions onto the nation.
I have at no time denied the fact that my analysis of our complexes is based on self-analysis. In my formative years and for a good fraction of my adult life I was a typical Armenian with all the prejudices, preconceptions, and fallacies that I now enjoy tearing to shreds. Neither have I ever denied that I was a devout believer of every single lie that was foisted on me by our “betters.” It is only very recently that I became aware of our reality as opposed to the fiction in which I lived. To put it differently: I was taught to be a narcissist, and after many years of slumber in a fool's paradise, I woke up one day with the realization that I was neither smart nor honest.
If you tell me what a nation needs to achieve greatness is confidence in its own ability to confront and overcome challenges, and that at this point in our history what we need is not my kind of negativism that demoralizes us and turn us into defeatists like myself; I say, that is your perception of what I do based on your status as a dupe, and that to promote liberation from the lies of our propagandists is far from being negative or defeatist. It is, in point of fact, quintessentially positive and invigorating. I further maintain to be enslaved by comfortable lies is as bad as being enslaved by Turks. But to see this clearly you must first extricate your head from the sand in which you have it buried.
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Thursday, January 1, 2009
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LEARNING FROM GENGHIS KHAN
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The first words on the back cover of Conn Iggulden's historical novel, GENGHIS: LORDS OF THE BOW, are: “After uniting warring clans...”
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Once upon a time all empire were a single clan. Their career as empire began when one clan persuaded another to join forces on the grounds that two clans together are less vulnerable to aggression from other clans.
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Clans are bad enough. Warring clans might as well be an open invitation to conquerors.
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God did not create more Mongols, Chinese, Russians or Americans. If we are few today it's because some of us saw the writing on the wall and switched loyalties.
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Let the fool enjoy his folly so that he may be wise, even if wisdom comes at the hour of his death.
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When Indians burned widows, did any one of them ever bother to raise the question: “Why don't we ask the widows if they like to be burned?” Civilizations should be judged by the manner they treat the weak and defenseless.
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If you want to understand Armenians, don't read their nationalist historians; read instead a history of Armenian literature. The only reason we don't burn writers the way Indians burn widows is that we prefer to ignore them, which amounts to burying them alive.
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Because I refuse to share their obsession with massacres and money, they call me negative. One way to be positive in their eyes is to adopt “Yes, sir!” as a mantra.
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Friday, January 2, 2009
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DIVIDING LINES
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Speaking of his mother, Edward Gorey says in an interview: “She had a stroke when she was about eighty and her entire character changed. All her hypocritical love for humanity vanished.” (ASCENDING PECULIARITY: EDWARD GOREY ON EDWARD GOREY. Interviews by Karen Wilkin, page 95.)
This type of dividing line in one's life happens to all of us; and when readers disagree with me violently, I cannot help thinking that their disagreement has not yet reached the line that divides propaganda from reality.
When did I change my mind about my fellow Armenians? In my case it was not so much a line but the last straw that broke the camel's back.
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As children we should be taught to reflect that every conviction and dogma in our belief system may well be wrong and there may be more merit in their contradictions. That, it seems to me, should be the underlying principle in all educational systems.
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In her review of LEFT IN DARK TIMES by Bernard-Henri Levy, Claire Berlinski mentions a Turkish friend of hers who “like most Turks” has been brought up to believe “the Armenians had it coming.” (NATIONAL REVIEW, December 15, 2008, page 32.)
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A true sign of insanity, it has been said, is the belief that everyone else is crazy. In my view, another sure symptom of insanity is the belief that the world is run by intelligent men who place the interests of their people and mankind in general above their own and anyone who says otherwise must be nuts.
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In a recent issue of the ARMENIAN REPORTER (December 20), there is a remarkable letter to the editor by Ara Sarafian outlining in some detail the present situation of Armeno-Turkish relations, which clearly implies that when it comes to the Genocide issue, our Turcocentric ghazetajis may be doing more harm than good. I urge Ara Sarafian to post this letter on Armenian discussion forums on the Internet.
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Saturday, January 3, 2009
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ON APOLOGIES
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As a rule governments don't like apologizing for past crimes but they may change their mind when under pressure from their own people, or so we are told in THE POLITICS OF OFFICIAL APOLOGIES by Melissa Nobles, where we also learn: “The Armenians are not going to get an apology any time soon, in spite of a worldwide public campaign, from the Turkish government for the atrocities committed during World War I because most Turks are not prepared to accept that their government bore responsibility.”
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The best interview in THE PARIS REVIEW INTERVIEWS, volume I (New York, 2006) is the one with Dorothy Parker, a relatively minor writer; the most boring is the one with T.S. Eliot – a pezzo novanta. Unlike Eliot who speaks only about himself and his work, Dorothy Parker speaks of many things and is never long-winded.
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Armenians who vilify Turks and Turks who vilify Armenians don't think of themselves as racists because they assume the whole world knows what bloodthirsty savages Turks are and what nasty, disloyal scum Armenians are. But the whole world knows nothing of the kind and cares even less. To most of the world Turks and Armenians might as well be Hutus and Tutsis. As an Armenian, the only thing I know about Hutus and Tutsis is that they are tribes in Africa. The average Canadian doesn't even know where Armenia is. To him we might as well be Romanians or Arameans.
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