q/a

April 29, 2010
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CORRECT ME IF I AM WRONG
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Arrogance: The difference between how smart we are and how smart we think we are. Or rather, the difference between how smart we think we are and how dumb we really are.
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From the war of Troy to those of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan in our own days, we can say with some degree of certainty that war-makers are never right.
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Our revolutionaries challenged the might of the Ottoman Empire not because we loved freedom too much (we never did...even now, in a free country like America, we continue to be afraid of free speech – see below) but because we were deceived into thinking the Empire was on its deathbed and the Great Powers were on our side.
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Who is taken in by lies? Only dupes who allow wishful thinking to cloud their judgment.
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Our genocide is a major tragedy. But it is also a disastrous defeat, and as such it should be analyzed objectively -- if, that is, we want to learn from our blunders. To call it a tragedy and engage in endless lamentation does nothing but certify our status as perennial victims.
To those who say our conditions of life in the Empire were so unbearable that we had no choice but to act. Maybe so, but the aim of action is not to make things worse but better. Oppression is degrading. Sadistic oppression is unbearable. But genocide is infinitely worse!
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To say that we rose against the Empire because we loved freedom too much, is to ignore our history and the fact that for most of our existence we were the obedient and loyal subjects of ruthless and bloodthirsty tyrants from Suleiman to Stalin. So much so that in the Ottoman Empire our masters called us “the most loyal millet (ethnic group).” We were loyal to the point of betraying to the authorities our ablest men.
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As for our love of freedom and fear of free speech: according to Hagop Garabents (Jack Karapetian) – not a dissident or critic but a pro-establishment novelist, essayist, and short story writer: “Once upon a time we fought and shed our blood for freedom. We are now afraid of free speech.”
I have quoted this line before and I will continue to quote it to remind our dupes that we are not what we pretend to be, and there is a natural tendency in all of us to speak with a forked tongue.
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Churchill once said: “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.” Which is why I don't trust our nationalist historians – they are invariably too kind to the nation at the expense of the truth. As for our political leaders: like all political leaders they are closer to being compulsive liars than honest witnesses or selfless servants. To believe in what they say is to be a certifiable dupe.
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April 30, 2010
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QUESTION
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Is what I write of any use to anyone?
I don't know and I don't care to know.
I prefer to think no one gives a damn. At least that way I have history on my side (see below). If I were to believe what I write matters, I would begin to take myself seriously and gradually degenerate into a pompous ass. Instead of sharing my understanding I would sermonize and speechify, and of sermonizers and speechifiers we already have more than our share.
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HISTORY
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Betrayed to the authorities, abused, silenced, neglected, starved, and driven to suicide or executed, our ablest writers have been conveniently buried and forgotten. I have said this before and it bears repeating. Why should anyone give a damn about what a minor scribbler says?
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MEMO TO MY CRITICS
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To those of my readers who are eager to inform me that I am on the wrong path, I say: “Relax! No harm done. No one gives a damn. Why should you?”
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ANOTHER QUESTION
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Our children are brought up and even encouraged to brag about our Golden Age (5th century AD). But has anyone bothered to read any one of our golden masterpieces? Or having read them, has understood what they say? And what they say is what every honest witness has said: corruption and divisions breed incompetence, and to ignore our blunders or to cover them up is to sign the death warrant of the nation.
We have survived for millennia and we will continue to survive?
A man condemned to die the death of a thousand cuts will also survive up to the 999th cut.
What if, instead of survivors, we are “dead men walking”?
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IF
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If I write what no one want to read it may be because there are many others who make a comfortable living – thank you very much – by writing what they are told to write. And what are they told to write? What else but Turks, massacres, and “mi kich pogh...”
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THE ROOTS OF INTOLERANCE
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To elevate an opinion, and often a false one, to an ideology, and an ideology to a belief system is a mistake we all make when we are young and not yet able to think for ourselves. This descent from the human to the thoroughly dehumanized is so gradual that more often than not it escape notice. And that's where I come in.
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CONFESSION
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I may be prejudiced. As a writer – make it, scribbler – I tend to identify with writers as opposed to their executioners. What about you?
Allow me to end with a quotation:
Antranik Zaroukian: “What kind of people are we? What kind of leadership is this? Instead of compassion, mutual contempt. Instead of reason, blind instinct. Instead of common sense, fanaticism.”
Even more to the point:
“They speak of the cross and nail us to it again as they speak.”
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May 1, 2010
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FAILINGS
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“I am not a Marxist!” That's the smartest thing Marx said.
As for capitalists being bloodsuckers: that has never been a secret. There is even a line to that effect in the Bible.
Christ never said “I am not a Christian,” probably because he never thought of himself as the founder of a new religion.
Speaking for myself: I am a human being first, an Armenian second, and an Armenianist, never!
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Judging by the number of wars, revolutions, massacres, and genocides: a man is first and foremost a killing machine in search of a reason to justify his lust for blood – religion being one of them.
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You are an honest man?
Prove it!
Show me your scars.
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I repeat myself?
Not as often as our Panchoonies and Jack S. Avanakians.
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You want to know why I haven't been lynched so far? Because I live in the middle of nowhere, and nowhere is hard to locate on the map.
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There are failings and there are rotten failings. Example of a rotten failing: the fundamental human right of free speech is an invention of the degenerate West.
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Speaking of Oshagan and his friends, Zarian once remarked: “When they speak of homeland they mean Istanbul.” One could also say, when we speak of Armenianism, we mean Ottomanism.
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Unlike doctors, writers don't have a Hippocratic Oath. As a result, they are as willing to sell their soul as a whore is to sell her body. (I am now paraphrasing Zohrab.)
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If Americans prefer to believe Turks rather than us, it may be because it is in their own interest to do so. The rule is, everyone does what's in his own best interest. But like all rules, this one too has its exception: namely, us. We do whatever we undertake to do because it is against our own self-interest.
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ararat magazine
Bobelian's Children of Armenia. by Ara Baliozian comments: 0 ... Canadian writer Ara Baliozian was born in Athens, Greece, and educated in Venice, Italy. ...
www.araratmagazine.org/2010/04/bobelian-children-of-armenia/ - Cached
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