homeland

Thursday, 27 August, 2009
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HOMELAND
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Homeland is where you were born and spent your childhood.
Homeland is where you were educated as an adolescent.
Homeland is where you are allowed to work and provide for your family.
I was born in Greece, educated in Italy, and am now a citizen of Canada.
I have three homelands but Armenia is not one of them.
Homeland is where the human rights of a law-abiding citizen are respected.
I do not call homeland a country ruled by former commissars whose role models are executioners.
Homeland is not where respectable young women are driven into prostitution because they have no other option.
Homeland is not where you are beaten up for daring to expose corruption.
Homeland is not where cops no longer catch thieves because, if they did, they would be arresting one another.
Homeland is not where only tourists with deep pockets are welcome with open arms.
Homeland is not where honesty and objectivity are criminal offenses.
Homeland is not where reason is confused with treason.
Homeland is not where its best and brightest are discarded to wander as strangers in strange lands.
Homeland is not where the poor and the needy are dependent on the charity of swine.
Who would have guessed there would come a day when Armenians would miss the good old days under Stalin?
If Naregatsi were alive today he would lament not his many sins, failings, and transgressions but the degradation of the state.
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Friday, 28 August, 2009
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CHOOSING SIDES
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Sometimes I am accused of hating myself and my fellow Armenians by readers who are so convinced they are lovable that they cannot imagine anyone capable of resisting their charms.
The flunky of an archbishop once wrote me an angry letter demanding to know if I thought I was the only Armenian writer who has been treated badly. In my reply I said: “No, of course I don't think I am. That is why I speak with the strength of many. And what about you? On whose side are you?”
As you may have guessed, I never heard from him again.
I was reminded of this exchange recently when I read his obituary.
Hating Armenians: what unmitigated nonsense!
I have nothing against honest men, regardless of nationality.
But I loathe exploiters who think you should be grateful to them.
I detest fools who pretend to be so smart that they think they can treat you like an idiot and get away with it.
I can't stand phony patriots who betray their fellow Armenians to the authorities in the name of law and order as established by sultans, commissars and their Ottomanized and Sovietized successors – and here I could make a long list of writers who perished as a result of this aberration.
What's there to like about arrogant dupes who will believe anything that flatters their crippled little egos.
I have nothing but contempt for victims who turn into victimizers the first chance they get, even when their victims happen to be fellow Armenians.
I despise Armenians in positions of power who, after brainwashing us into believing we are in the best of hands, refer to us as “assh*les” and “sh*ts” among themselves.
And you, gentle reader, on whose side are you?
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Saturday, August 29, 2009
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ONE OR TWO THINGS I KNOW
ABOUT WHAT IT MEANS
TO BE BRAINWASHED
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The brainwashed cannot think for themselves. They believe to think for oneself is almost equivalent to treason.
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They are like monkeys at the mercy of an invisible organ grinder.
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They have the same control over their ideas as a parrot has over its vocabulary.
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When they say “in my opinion,” they mean in someone else's opinion; and when they say “I think,” they lie.
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The brainwashed don't speak, they can only repeat, recycle, and regurgitate.
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To be brainwashed is to be dehumanized.
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He who controls the educational system, shapes the central ideas of the people within that system.
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Tell me where you were educated and I will tell you what you think.
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To be brainwashed means to believe you were not brainwashed.
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To brainwash means to make the most absurd lie appear as the most self-evident truth.
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To be brainwashed means to believe you are morally superior to those who live on the other side of a river or mountain.
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To be brainwashed means to believe the mud of your country is of superior quality to the mud of all other countries.
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The brainwashed believe if they slaughter innocent and defenseless human beings, they will be rewarded in heaven.
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To be brainwashed means to blur the line that separates a serial killer from a hero.
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I speak from experience.
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