pride

Sunday, June 20, 2009
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TOURIST PRIDE
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“I am proud of my Armenian identity,” I am reminded by readers once in a while by way of questioning my own loyalty to the Homeland. We live in a world where everyone is brainwashed to be proud of his ethnic identity, even when we vote with our feet and choose to live on foreign soil and consider our homeland as “a nice place to visit.”
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JERMAG CHART
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Only the naïve and the blind believe because the Turks are not massacring us today we are not being exterminated. Who is doing the extermination? To put it differently: Who is at the source of our alienation? Who else but Turks, of course! What else is Armenianism if not Turcocentrism? Michael Arlen (Kouyoumdjian) saw this clearly when he warned his son to stay away from Armenians because “they dwell too much on Armenian problems...distant repellent events...They are sweet people, but you can't let them too close. They end up boring you to death.”
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ROOSTERS
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The nice thing about our brand of politics is that when we do something right, no matter how insignificant, we behave like roosters who believe if it weren't for their vocalizing the sun wouldn't rise. But when we do something wrong, no matter how catastrophic, we blame it on others. A win-win situation if there ever was one.
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Monday, June 21, 2009
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X
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Supporting a corrupt regime has nothing to do with patriotism and everything to do with treason, betrayal, and cowardice. And the problem with political corruption is that as a rule it gets worse rather than better. It gets worse until it becomes unbearable. Which is what's happening in Iran today. And which is bound to happen in our own homeland sooner or later. And if our brothers and sisters in the Homeland never rise against the regime, we shall have no choice but to conclude that subservience has become such an integral part of our character as a nation that we no longer even take notice of it.
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If I am for revolution in Iran, why am I against our revolutionaries in the Ottoman Empire? Two reasons: (one) they had a Plan B only for themselves, and (two) they relied on others.
If you are David confronting Goliath, you'd better make damn sure (one) you are one of God's Chosen; (two) you are technologically more advanced than your adversary; and (three) you have developed the necessary skill to use your new equipment.
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The American, French, and Russian revolutions succeeded because the revolutionaries had the support of the majority. The majority of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, in addition to being a very tiny minority, lacked political awareness. I know because my father was one of them, and most of the Armenians in the ghetto where I grew up were refugees, spoke Turkish among themselves, and were illiterates who signed their name with an X.
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Tuesday, June 22, 2009
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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
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It's an old trick familiar to all religious leaders: whenever they want to do the devil's work, they speak in the name of god.
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It took a world war to prove Hitler wrong; and it took the collapse of the Soviet Empire to prove Stalin wrong. It is the fate of an immovable object to meet an irresistible force.
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“There is corruption everywhere.” That's the kind of talk the corrupt love to hear; and they will call anyone who repeats that line a true patriot.
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A suicidal man should not brag about surviving still another attempted suicide.
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If it can happen to someone else, it can happen to me. Even if I am god's chosen, I am not the only one.
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Every Armenian should carry a sign with the warning: "Contradict me and make an enemy for life!"
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Two Armenians were having a quiet conversation. It can happen.
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Wednesday, June 23, 2009
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WHAT ABOUT US?
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“There is a lot that we don't know,” a friend tells me speaking of our past.
And whose fault is that, may I ask?
Ours or theirs for failing to share what they know?
We will never know everything.
Nobody ever does.
Does that mean we should withhold judgment or submit our intelligence to those who may not have enough of it themselves?
Who benefits from our ignorance?
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Most of my readers don't like me. That's because I hold a mirror up to them and they don't like what they see. They blame the mirror and they blame me for holding it up to them. They never blame themselves. That's the beauty of the blame-game. It allows you to paint yourself all white and the opposition all black.
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A regime with enemies will have enemies even among its own people.
A regime that speaks of exterminating the enemy will invariably start by killing its own people. Isn't that what's happening in Iran today?
And what about us?
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