Sunday, March 27, 2011
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WE NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD!
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An article in the travel section
of our local paper informs me
that Estonians now have a museum
dedicated to the atrocities committed
against the people by the Soviet regime.
Do we have one?
If no, when are we going to have one?
Can we be really “azad” and “ungakh”
-- free and independent -- as long as
we are ruled by two sets of former KGB agents
– theirs and ours?
#
Monday, March 28, 2011
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WE ARE IN GOOD HANDS
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God has given us a brain
but our educational system teaches us not to use it.
*
A system may be foolproof but not crook-proof.
*
Our endless controversies and divisions
have nothing to do with right and wrong,
or orthodoxies and heresies.
If they disagree it’s because permanent disagreement
is to their advantage and the only way they know
how to defend and protect their powers and privileges.
As for the people they are meant to serve:
Let them eat cak(e).
*
The Arab revolutions that we are witnessing today
are organized and carried out by the young.
An Arab-style revolution in Armenia is unthinkable
because the regime in Yerevan encourages the young to emigrate,
and the young have done so by the million.
The buggers think of everything!
*
If an Armenian works for a boss, bishop, or benefactor
it goes without saying that he will be critical only of Turks.
Shaw is right: it’s a waste of time
arguing against a man’s source of income.
#
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
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IN THE NAME OF PATRIOTISM
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Patriotism does not mean love of homeland
and everything in it,
including the regime, the secret police
and its violations of human rights.
*
To accept the status quo as an inevitable fact of life
might as well be synonymous with treason
if only because it supports the victimizer
and ignores the victim;
in the same way that those who deny the Genocide
do so in support of the victimizer
at the expense of the victim.
*
There is an executioner in every dedicated patriot.
*
Unmask an Armenian and come face to face with a Turk.
*
It has happened to me more than once
that I became irrationally angry at the sight of someone
who reminded me of someone else
though I could not remember who.
This may suggest that the gut
has a longer memory than the brain.
*
There is a great deal that is hidden from us.
*
We are encouraged not to think for ourselves
on the ground that our “betters” are paid
to do our thinking for us.
The question is:
Who pays them to think as they do?
*
Under authoritarian regimes
to think is defined as not to think.
Remember Napoleon’s dictum:
“A man with an idea is my enemy.”
*
I repeat myself, granted.
But never as often as propagandists
who not only repeat themselves
but also brainwash other to do so,
and all in the name of patriotism.
*
Dissent is useful if only because
it makes us aware of the fact that
not everyone thinks alike,
and where everyone thinks alike
no one thinks.
*
Some days I receive so many hostile emails
that I have no choice but to conclude
my most faithful readers are my critics.
#
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
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THE REST IS PROPAGANDA
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Like every Armenian dead or alive
I too have experienced on my own skin
the inhumanity and contempt that an Armenian has
for another Armenian.
No one can convince me that
we are civilized, intelligent, and compassionate.
It took history a thousand years to shape our identity
and it may take another thousand for us
to be born again as human beings.
What matters, however, is not our destination
but the road on which we choose to travel.
In the meantime it is important that we keep in mind
some facts about ourselves:
We are our own worst enemies.
There is more fiction than fact in our history books.
The higher an Armenian rises
the deeper his contempt for his fellow Armenians.
We are a Christian nation in name only:
unmask an Armenian and expose the Turk
or the atheist for whom democracy and human rights
are alien and degenerate verbiage.
The rest is propaganda.
#