sermon

Sunday, August 23, 2009
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SERMON
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As you grow older, your childhood acquires a different complexion. You begin to realize that those

who shaped your worldview were fallible human beings like yourself and most of what they said was

nonsense motivated by uncertainty, confusion, and fear. That's when you begin to think for yourself

and rely less on someone else's version of the story.
*
Nationalist historians are children who refuse to grow up. They continue to classify their fellow men

as friends and enemies. They continue to preach patriotism even after they recognize it as the root

of all prejudice, xenophobia, lies, conflicts, wars, and massacres. Some of them may have second

thoughts but by then it may be too late because propaganda is the only field of human endeavor in

which they excel. It is, in other words, their bread and butter, and you will be surprised what men are

capable of doing in defense of their source of income and their ability to provide for their family.
*
Generally speaking, people are not disposed to hate or harm men they know nothing about. But

expose them to propaganda and they turn into killers and are admired as heroes.
*
My critics tell me I repeat myself. But I suspect, deep down it is not my central message that bores

them but their fear of losing their infantile illusions. They say the same prayers every day and listen

to the same sermons against sin every Sunday; they read the same anti-Turkish editorials and

commentaries in our weeklies; and it doesn't even occur to think of them as repetitions. But confront

them with a different message for the second time, and immediately they recognize it as repetition. If

they go on reading me, it may be because the strange and the unknown have always been sources of

fascination to all men regardless of race, color, and creed. It is what drives them to explore,

experiment, and discover. And even when they fail to discover a new continent or theory, they may

discover something even more important. They may discover that the human mind is a universe in its

own right and most of it is shrouded in mystery.
*
Freedom, real freedom, does not mean the freedom to do this, that, or the other, but to explore the

unknown. And by contrast, clinging to the familiar and the known is subservience and slavery –

Ottomanism and Sovietism by other means.
*
At the end of everything I write, I would like to add: I could have said this better. Forgive me if I relied

too much on your willingness to work with me.
#
Monday, August 24, 2009
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ON WAR
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People don't declare war, politicians do.
Collective evil is an extension of individual evil
as surely as massacres are extensions of serial killers
even when they call themselves kings, sultans, emperors, and presidents.
People do not consent to being victimizers and victims.
Victimizers and victims are manufactured as surely
as products displayed on shelves in department stores and supermarkets.
*
ON LABELS
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To those of my readers who hang all kinds of nasty labels on me, I say:
You are barking up the wrong tree.
I am against labels as surely as I am against chief executive officers
who manufacture them.
God created man.
It is my ambition to be born again as a human being.
To those who find my ideas unpatriotic or anti-Armenian, I say:
Give yourself another decade or two;
and if you are as slow as I am,
add another decade for good measure.
*
ON BLUNDERS
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I have committed my share – make it, more than my share – of blunders
and I know how easy it is to commit them and,
having committed them,
how hard it is to admit them.
*
ON SUBSERVIENCE
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As long as you remain subservient,
you will never discover who you really are
and how much power you have.
*
LITERATURE AND PHILANTHROPY
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When I went into this business
I made a vow never to be unkind to anyone.
I ascribed most of our problems
– divisions, intolerance, dogmatism and so on –
to individuals with poor manners
acquired in the Ottoman Empire or the Soviet Union,
both of which I considered quintessentially unArmenian.
For a while I kept my promise.
I was kind even to unkind readers
until I realized that I was confusing literature with philanthropy.
I am not talking an eye for an eye now.
I am saying speaking truth to power
even if it means exposing liars, frauds, and bloodsuckers.
#
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
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A HUMBLE REQUEST
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Abovian committed suicide,
Baronian was betrayed to the police,
Bakounts was shot,
Mahari was sent to Siberia,
Shahnour survived on $8.00 a month
(compliments of a national benefactor),
Zarian was treated as a madman in the diaspora
and a non-person in the Homeland.
Please, don't call me an Armenian writer.
Call me a marginal scribbler;
but if that's too much to ask,
call me a face in the crowd
whose sole ambition in life
is to be an honest witness.
I may have a better chance to survive that way.
*
WISDOM
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Treat your friends as potential enemies.
*
DIPLOMACY
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Treat your enemies as future friends.
*
IF
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If I were to write things with which you agree,
I would be only your echo
and you would be a fool
wasting your time reading yourself.
#
WEDNESDAY, 26 AUGUST, 2009
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ON UNDERSTANDING
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We don't understand ourselves
and the forces that shaped our identity
not because we are incomprehensible
but because those whose task it is
to explain things to us
have done their utmost to muddy the waters.
*
You want to know more about a man?
Ask him questions.
You want to know him better?
Ask his friends.
But if you want to have a balanced view,
cross-examine his enemies.
#