observations

Sunday, June 26, 2011
*****************************************
TWO OBSERVATIONS
************************************
The most convincing evidence of their guilt
is the fact that they have developed a propaganda machinery,
an educational system,
and a legal apparatus denying the charge of genocide.
Who believes them?
Not even Turks, except the brainwashed, of course,
who will believe anything if only because
they have no choice in the matter.
*
If Hitler had won World War II
there would now be an entire generation of Germans
committed to the belief that
he was a great statesman,
a progressive and civilizing force,
a man of vision,
and a warrior equal in stature
to Alexander the Great, Caesar, and Napoleon.
In short, he would be to Germans
what Kemal is to the Turks today.
#
Monday, June 27, 2011
*****************************************
WAS KEMAL A DENIALIST?
************************************
Not only was he not a denialist,
he also had some of the perpetrators
arrested, tried, and executed.
*
For more on this subject,
see THE COURT MARTIAL PROCEEDINGS
OF THE MILITARY TRIBUNAL 1919-1922,
compiled by Vahakn Dadrian and Taner Akcam
(Istanbul: Bilgi University Press, 733 pages, 2010).
*
This much said let me add that
Kemal’s motives may not have been
love of justice or sympathy for the victims.
It is reasonable to assume that
like all men of power
his main concern was to keep and increase his power
and the only way he could do that
was by eliminating his Ittihadist competition.
#
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
*****************************************
NOTES & COMMENTS
************************************
Never say “I was deceived.”
Say instead “I allowed myself to be deceived.”
*
To need something badly
is to make oneself vulnerable to deception.
*
Nations make mistakes as surely as individuals
if only because they are ruled by individuals.
*
What matters is not how big your mistakes are
but what you do with them.
*
To behave like bloodthirsty barbarians
and to pretend to be civilized
is to compound the felony.
*
The shortest distance between ignorance and wisdom
is a painful blunder.
#
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
*****************************************
DR NOOBAR JANOIAN SPEAKS
************************************
In his TRAVELS IN TIME AND SPACE
Dr Janoian speaks of a conversation he once had
with a Vietnamese patient.
When asked what was it exactly
that made North Vietnam resist
and ultimately defeat a military colossus
like the United States,
his patient explains that Vietnam
has always resisted and defeated all occupiers,
among them the Chinese, the Japanese, and the French.
The difference between the South and the North,
he goes on to explain, is that
the leaders of the North were
men of principle and ideals,
unlike their counterparts in the South,
who were no better than thieves and bandits.
An honest and dedicated leadership
inspires solidarity and self-sacrifice in the people, he adds,
and a corrupt leadership promotes
divisions, disloyalty, opportunism, and treason.
*
We may now have a free and independent homeland,
the good doctor reflects in the final paragraph of the story,
but our leaders are less like the leaders of North Vietnam
and more like the leaders of South Vietnam –
no better than thieves and bandits.
#

notebooks

Friday, June 24, 2011
*****************************
THEM AND US (III)
*********************************************
As long as there are Armenians,
Turks will never be able to convince the world
they are a progressive and civilized nation
incapable of behaving like bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians;
and as long as there are Kurds,
democracy and Turks will be perceived as
mutually exclusive concepts.
*
Americans will never use the word “genocide”
in reference to Armenians so long as Turks tell them:
“We did to our Armenians
what you did to your Indians.”
*
Tell me your favorite sport
and I will tell you who you are.
What’s ping pong to the Chinese,
hockey is to Canadians,
baseball is to Yanks,
massacre is to Turks,
and the blame-game is to Armenians.
*
Silencing dissent is a band-aid solution.
*
“An insult unanswered is the parent of many others.”
*
Cicero: “Do not hold the delusion that
your advancement is accomplished
by crushing others.”
#
Saturday, June 25, 2011
*******************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
*******************************
I understand Turks
because I understand Armenians,
and I understand both
because I understand myself.
As for Armenians and Turks:
they understand only the misdeeds of the opposition.
*
Because they want to forget what I say,
they tell me I repeat myself.
*
When asked what had been
the most important day in his life,
Napoleon is said to have replied:
"The day of my first communion."
My own first communion was such a forgettable event
that the only thing I remember about it
is the above quote (probably apocryphal) by Napoleon.
#

comments

Sunday, June 19, 2011
*****************************
THEM AND US (II)
*********************************************
We are brought up to believe
we are better than Turks,
in the same way that Turks are brought up
to believe they are better than Armenians.
In our treatment of intellectuals, however,
we might as well be identical twins.
They massacred our intellectuals
in time of war; and in our Soviet phase,
we massacred intellectuals in time of peace.
*
Why target intellectuals?
Because the only way to deceive and mislead the people
is by silencing intellectuals
who collectively suffer from a neurotic compulsion
to speak the truth even if doing so
may spell their total ruin and destruction.
*
Another thing we have learned from Turks
is to blame others for all our problems
even if in the process we may run the risk
of abdicating our humanity.
I therefore feel justified in maintaining that
deep down somewhere we (Armenians and Turks) are one and the same –
a fact that may become a certainty
when our respective DNAs are compared.
*
We either come to terms with this reality
or we continue to project that which is evil in us
on the other thus implying
one should not mess around with perfection –
an implication that has the double demerit
of being both absurd and ridiculous.
#
Monday, June 20, 2011
*****************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
*********************************************
A reasonable Armenian is as rare
as a Turk who has not beem brainwashed.
*
Tolerance: the ability to see some truth even in lies.
*
Anyone with the brain of an ape
and the tongue of a parrot
can recycle propaganda.
*
I don’t believe everything I write
but I wish I did.
*
I wear the insults of anonymous cowards like a badge.
*
There are no happy endings in life.
For everyone who preaches love
there are ten who preach hatred
and a hundred who practice it.
*
Noobar Janoian: “The opposite of fear is love.”
*
Italian saying: "Fratelli, flagelli."
(Free translation: "The wrath of brothers,
the wrath of whips.")
*
Flaubert: "Stupidity is something immovable,
you can’t try to attack it without being broken by it."
#
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
*****************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
*********************************************
When they say it was Armenians who massacred Turks,
what they really mean is that
a single Turk killed by Armenians
matters much more to them
than a thousand Armenians slaughtered by Turks.
That’s because they view the slaughter of infidels
not as a crime against humanity
but as a patriotic as well as a religious duty.
*
When I was a child in Greece we used to say,
“Do you take me for an American?” – meaning,
“Do you take me for an idiot?”
It was only on the day they elected Nixon as president
that I realized there was more to Yanks
than Yankee-Doodle-Dandy.
Likewise, it was on the day they awarded
the Nobel Prize to Pamuk that I realized
there was more to Turks than massacres.
*
I have said “Yes, sir!”
and I have said “No, sir!”
and No, sir! is more fun.
There may be no money in it, granted,
but I’d rather be dirt poor and free
than a slave, a dupe, and a brown-noser
with a regular income.
#
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
*****************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
*********************************************
The phoniest line in the world:
“Your call is important to us.”
*
The ugliest words in the English language:
“Press one…press two…press three…press four…”
at which point I hang up.
*
To cover up his true status
“Homo ignoramus” classifies himself
as “Homo sapiens.”
*
If some people have no interest in knowing themselves
it may be because they already know enough to know
that they are not worth knowing.
*
Why is it that some very smart and learned Armenians
confuse anti-charlatanism with anti-Armenianism?
Why is it that some very cunning Armenians
in their defense of their own selfish, narrow interests
will voice reasons worthy of an inbred moron?
*
A problem is like an illness.
The first step is to diagnose it correctly.
But if you choose to ignore it,
you may promote it from a minor nuisance
to a terminal affliction.
#

comments

Thursday, June 16, 2011
*****************************
FASCIST PHOBIAS
*********************************************
Genocide: they relished the action
but are afraid of the word.
*
If you think we are different, think again.
We trusted Talaat, Stalin, and Hitler
but we silence anyone
who dares to question our judgment.
*
My most faithful readers are readers
who find me unreasonable, unbearable, and unreadable.
*
We are all entitled to make two big mistakes,
the first of which is being born.
#
Friday, June 17, 2011
*****************************
ON FAITH
*********************************************
A Turkish Kemalist writer
has published a book of nearly 900 pages
(copiousy footnoted and annotated)
in which he proves to his satisfaction
that the Armenian Genocide is a pack of lies,
it never happened.
Which at least proves one thing:
one can prove anything
by quoting passages from carefully selected sources.
*
There are lines in the Bible
that justify war, massacre, and genocide.
Eery jihadist and terrorist is convinced
God to be on his side.
Any Catholic theologian could easily produce
a tome of a thousand pages proving
all other religions to be heresies
and inventions of the Devil.
*
This may suggest that faith
is the most dangerous obstacle
to reason, common sense and decency,
and to subscribe to a belief system,
any belief system,
is the first step to becoming a dupe,
and worse, to applying for membership
in a criminal gang.
*
To trust the judgment of another –
as Germans did under Hitler,
as Russians did under Stalin,
and as Turks did under Kemal --
is to abdicate one’s humanity.
#
Saturday, June 18, 2011
*****************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
*********************************************
Truth is a lie you believe in.
*
This morning on the radio
I heard a politician use the word “dichotomy”
and I remembered Mark Twain’s definition
of cauliflower:
“A cabbage with a college education.”
*
We mourn our victims
and we brag about our survival:
am I the only one who see a contradiction here?
*
The disrepute of our political parties is such
that smart partisans pretend to be non-partisan –
like wolves in sheep’s clothing.
*
Never say I have a dream
when what you have is a nightmare in the making.
*
We use our brain to demolish our adversaries
and our gut to justify ourselves.
*
Why is it that dogs that kill
are invariably described by their owners as "friendly,"
and serial killers are described
as "nice" by their neighbors?
*
Being an Armenian writer
amounts to being a shoemaker in a country
where everyone prefers to go barefoot.
#

on turks

Sunday, June 12, 2011
*****************************
TRAVELS IN SPACE AND TIME
*********************************************
That’s the title of a book by Dr. Noubar Janoyan:
(Jamportoutiun Jamanagi yev Daradsoutian michov).
Does anyone know him?
I would like to have his e-mail address
in order to let him know how much I am enjoying it.
The book was published by Grakan Etalon in Yerevan.
It’s a collection of stories, anecdotes, and encounters
with fellow Armenians in the Homeland and the Diaspora.
It does not shrink from exposing the dark side
of our collective existence.
It is written in East Armenian.
I suspect Dr. Janoyan had it translated from his West-Armenian
(he was born in Iraq and now lives in Glendale).
The prose is eminently readable and accessible.
It deserves to be a best-seller.
#
Monday, June 13, 2011
*****************************
IDEAS THAT HAVE ENHANCED
MY AWARENESS OF REALITY
*********************************************
The following quotations are from Toynbee who was a historian as well as a metahistorian – that is, a philosopher of history.
*****************************************************
*
“…authorities are not to be taken at their word, as if they were infallible oracles of gospel truth.”
*
“Society is the total network of relations between human beings. The components of society are thus not human beings but relations between them.”
*
“When prophets disagree, are we to give credit to either of their opposing voices?”
*
“When top-dog sees a heaven, under-dog will see a hell.”
*
“…the orthodoxy that they idnetified with their own faith and a heresey that they identified with the ideology of their adversaries.”
*
“The apotheosis of the community spells slavery for individual beings.”
*
“Man is not an angel, and in seeking to be one, he deprives himself of something that is essential to his being.”
*
“A monument in a museum is one that has been desecrated and sterilized.”
*
“A reputation for scholarliness is expendable, and it is a scholar’s duty to risk it.”
*
“In art, in illuminating antithesis to practical life, there is more to be made out of failure than out of success.”
*
“There is no such thing as a human organization that can be established securely through being made weather-proof against the all-disintegrating action of time.”
#
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
*****************************
CORRECT ME,
IF I AM WRONG
*********************************************
Monkeys, we are told, have three enemies:
pythons, leopards, and eagles;
and according to recent studies,
they have a distinctive alarm call for each.
Men, by contrast,
have developed a much more sophisticated communication system,
but they have lost the ability to recognize an enemy
when they see one.
*
Murder in one dimension
means suicide in another.
By committing genocide,
Turks lost the ability to tell the difference
between truth and lies,
right and wrong, and
democracy and fascism –
hence, their apotheosis of Kemal.
*
In a recent commentary
I incorrectly stated that Turks
outnumbered Armenians 40 to 1.
One of my gentle Turkish readers
took it upon himself to question
the accuracy of my math and
even the existence of my sources.
I am now willing to reconsider my figures.
*
If we take into account
only Armenian revolutionaries
versus the perpetrators of the Genocide
(namely, the regime and the regularly army
augmented by Kurds and criminals
released from prison for the occasion)
the ratio would be closer to 400 to 1.
I say this because no one,
not even the most loyal and fanatic Turkish nationalist
would dare to suggest that unarmed civilians –
women, children, and old men –
could be thought of by any stretch of the imagination
as posing a threat to the terrirotial integrity of the nation
or the stability of the regime,
which was the rationale for the Genocide
as well as the context in which
the 40 to 1 ratio was stated.
Correct me if I am wrong.
#
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
*****************************
THEM AND US
*********************************************
We may never succeed in convincing Turks
that they are guilty of genocide.
We may, however, have better luck
in convincing them that
there is no such thing as a Turk
and that many so-called Turks
have Armenian blood.
One reason this aspect of their identity
has been ignored or not emphasized enough is that
it is repellent to both them and us
who like to proceed on the false assumption that
explanations are good
only when they flatter our collective ego.
*
The discovery of DNA is the most convincing argument
against nationalism.
*
All talk of pure blood is impure nonsense.
*
Translation is a difficult art to master
because every culture creates its own semantic atmosphere
in which words carry their own baggage.
#

on turks

Thursday, June 09, 2011
*****************************
ON TURKS (I)
*********************************************
Armenians are not Christian Turks.
Neither are Kurds Mountain Turks.
Armenians and Kurds have been around much longer than Turks.
And the chances are they will be around long after.
*
Freedom is a fundamental human right.
It is the right and duty of all oppressed people
to rise against their oppressors.
Which is what the Kurds are doing today;
and which is what Armenians
and Turks themselves did
(together with several other nations)
at the turn of the last century
in the Ottoman Empire.
*
At a critical point in their history, however,
Turks made the wrong decision by adopting the slogan
“Turkey for Turks,” which in reality meant
sultanism without the sultan,
fascism instead of democracy, and
massacre instead of compromise.
*
Had the Turks chosen multiculturalism
as opposed to monoculturalism,
they would now be a superpower
and a dominant force in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Because they went in the opposite direction
they are now vulnerable to Kurds
who will eventually bleed them to death
so that even a kick will be enough
to scatter the bones of the Ottoman skeleton.
*
Kemal may be the Father of modern Turkey
but he is also its gravedigger.
*
Moral I: Every idea has its contradiction
and sometimes the contradiction is closer to the truth.
*
Moral II: Free speech matters because
it exposes fallacies and it doubles our options,
thus allowing us to make the better of two choices.
*
Moral III: Even the best ideas become destructive
when implemented in the name of consistency.
*
Moral IV: Tolerance and flexible moderation are preferable
to inflexibe fanatcicism and intolerance.
#
Friday, June 10, 2011
*****************************
ON TURKS (II)
*********************************************
Because they betrayed us,
they accuse us of betraying them.
Because they massacred us,
they accuse us of massacring them.
Who believes them?
Only their own brainwashed dupes.
*
At the turn of the last century
both Turks and Armenians agreed on the fact that
Sultan Abdulhamid II was neither
a representative of Allah on earth
(as he pretended to be)
nor a benevolent dictator,
but a ruthless, degenerate tyrant
who oppressed Turks
and subjected Armenians
to successive waves of massacres.
*
With the full agreement and cooperation
of the Armenian political leadership,
the Young Turks deposed and exiled the Sultan,
after which they betrayed the Armenians
by adopting and implementing a policy of extermination
on the grounds that Armenians
(including unarmed women, children, and old men)
were a threat to the territorial integrity of the Empire.
*
Now then, go ahead and accuse Armenians
of betrayal and massacre,
and while doing so try to keep in mind that
Turks outnumbered Armenians forty to one.
#
Saturday, June 11, 2011
*****************************
ON TURKS (III)
*********************************************
Has anyone ever bothered to see
how many times the expression "human rights"
or "free speech" occurs in the many speeches
delivered by fascist leaders?
*
If you think today
what you thought ten years ago,
or if you still believe everything
your schoolteacher or imam taught you,
you can be sure of one thing:
the last ten years of your life
have been a waste of time
because you have learned nothing.
*
Where disagreement and dissent
are classified as criminal offenses,
the men at the top will be serial killers.
*
Wars, revolutions, and massacres
are also expressions of dissent and criticism.
*
The insane outnumber the sane
because reasonable men are in no position
to violate anyone's human right of free speech.
*
Where indoctrination is identified with education,
recycling propaganda will be identified with thinking.
*
No matter how corrupt, incompetent, and stupid,
a power structure will always have
its defenders, supporters, and dupes.
*
Whenever I am criticized by a brainwashed dupe,
I can only think of the Turkish expression:
“Yedii boka bak!” – if you will forgive my French.
#

miracles

Sunday, June 05, 2011
*****************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
******************************************
To a sensitive person
life is a traumatic experience.
*
A line from a film
(I no longer remember which):
“Mortal wounds don’t hurt.”
*
Three arguments against nationalism:
(1)“I only know the skin of the earth /
And that it has no name” (Pablo Neruda).
(2) If God is our Father,
all men are brothers.
(3)The alternative to nationalism is war
and the massacre of defenseless civilians.
*
Because I refuse to say “Yes, sir!”
they call me arrogant.
It never even occurs to them
to consider the possibility that
arrogance may also be defined as a need
to hear the words “Yes, sir!”
when the more appropriate response would be
“No, sir!”
*
Just remembered the source of the line
about mortal wounds: Otto Preminger’s EXODUS.
#
Monday, June 06, 2011
*****************************
ON LEADERSHIP
*****************************
Where others say “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition,”
we say “Lord have mercy and drop your pants.”
*
If the majority rules and the majority is dumb –
I will let you draw your own conclusions.
*
The regime in Yerevan cannot be toppled
because it has Russian support.
The regime in the Diaspora is so diffuse and fragmented
that it survives as a shadow – visible but untouchable.
*
Like all authoritarian structures,
both regimes share one important feature in common:
they are intolerant of dissent.
They have systematically alienated and silenced
the intellectual class to such a degree that
even the Turks are ahead of us in literary achievements.
*
Even the Turks!
I can’t imagine a worse insult to our diginity as a nation.
As for our foreign policy:
it can be summed up in three monosyllables:
Turks, Turks, and Turks.
*
Speaking of leadership:
The stupidity of Turkish leadership
is surpassed only by its cruelty.
*
Turks deny the reality of the Genocide
even as they violate the human rightrs of the Kurds.
And having done so
they expect the European Union to believe
they are a democracy.
Which may suggest either their IQ is negative
or they don’t know the meaning of the word.
#
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
*****************************
THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION
*********************************************
In the Old Testament, God orders the Jews
to exterminate not only their enemies
but also the cattle that belongs to them.
(For more on this subject,
see Bertrand Russell’s WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN.)
*
After agreeing that God is our Father,
“people of the Book”
(Jews, Christians, and Muslims)
proceed to massacre one another
in the name of God.
Explain that to me, if you can.
*
Peguy was a devout Catholic
and Sartre a dogmatic atheist.
I love both for their honesty.
Honest men can also disagree
and even contradict one another.
*
Chekhov said he did not know the answer
to the most important question,
and if he said he did
he would be fooling his readers.
*
Talk of God or gods has been around
for much longer than organized religions,
all of which assert a monopoly on the subject.
*
Nietzsce said organized religions are based on myths
very similar to those of ancient civilizations.
*
“Men cannot create a single worm,
yet he has created ten thousand gods.”
I no longer remember the source of this quotation
which I consider to be one of the most insightful observations
on the subject.
*
A thousand Gothic cathedrals
and as many golden-domed mosques or temples
do not and cannot prove the existence of God,
only the powerful hold that myths have
on the minds of men, and the overwhelming need
to unbderstand and explain
that which is destined to remain incomprehensible
*
Myths are neither lies nor truths.
At best they may be said to be half-lies or half-truths;
and in that sense they are an expression
of man’s insatiable hunger
and blind acceptance of propaganda.
#
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
*****************************
ON MIRACLES
*********************************************
As children we are brought up to rate
tribal loyalty above honesty,
and bias above objectivity.
Who believes what a Turk says about Turks?
Only another Turk.
Who believes what an Armenian says about Armenians?
Only another Armenian.
To an Armenian,
a Turk appears as the offspring
of bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians.
To a Turk,
an Armenian appears
as the lowest form of animal life.
To expect or hope that some day
Turks and Armenians will come to terms with one another
is to believe in miracles.
I write as I do because I believe in miracles.
I believe both Turks and Armenians
are capable of rating truth over lies,
honesty above dishonesty,
loyalty to the human race above loyalty to the tribe,
and justice over injustice.
It may take a thousand years
but it will happen.
It will happen if only because
peace is better than war,
and life is better than death.
#

on turks

Thursday, June 02, 2011
*****************************
MEMO TO MY TURKISH READERS
******************************************
It doesn’t take much courage
to massacre defenseless old men, women, and children.
But it take courage to admit it.
Not only Turks have failed on that score
for nearly a century
but they could also qualify as just about
the most cowardly people on earth.
*
At all times and everywhere dupes outnumber those
who can think for themselves.
That’s because as children
we are brought up to believe
what our elders and betters tell us.
But you are no longer children.
That extenuating circumstance
is no longer available to you.
*
The aim of all slogans is to simplify complexities
in order to convince the simple-minded.
The slogan “Turkey for Turks”
immediately raises the questions:
Who is a Turk?
Does he exist?
Take a good look at yourself in the mirror:
if you don’t look like a Mongol you don’t qualify.

You don’t have to be a historian or a genealogist
to know that your family tree
has representatives of as many races, nations, and tribes
as your ancestors vanquished and raped.
You are probably more Kurd, Arab, Greek,
Serbian, Albanian, Egyptian, Hungarian,
Assyrian, and Armenian than Turk.
No need to take my word for it.
Have your DNA checked.
*
If Europe were to adopt the slogan
“Europe for Europeans,”
Turkey would be saddled with many more garbage collectors
than it needs; and providing for them
would probably bankrupt your economy,
assuming it is not already bankrupt.
*
All is not lost however.
You have a choice between being an authentic human being
or a bastardized phony Turk
and a dupe who believes what he is told
by politicians, nationalist historians, and propagandists,
that is to say professional charlatans
whose first and more important priority is their own power.
#
Friday, June 03, 2011
*****************************
A CITY SET ON A HILL
******************************************
These days no one pleads guilty to murder one.
Instead they plead “not guilty” by reason of insanity,
or even self-defense and
a myriad other extenuating circumstances.
Faced with a charge of genocide,
Turks go one better by accusing their accusers
of the very same crime
on the grounds that they may succeed
in raising a reasonable doubt in the mind
of a single member of the jury
who may well be a Turcophile
or even a murderer.
So far this tactic has worked.
The question is: can it work forever?
At this point three apposite quotations come to mind:
“No banquet under heaven is endless;”
“You can’t fool all the people all the time;” and
“A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.”
#
Saturday, June 04, 2011
*****************************
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE…
******************************************
When I posted comments critical of Armenians
I acquired several Turkish readers and friends.
When I gave the Turks the same treatment
I lost all of them.
Easy come, easy go.
*
When we served Turkish interests,
we were their “most loyal subjects.”
When we asserted our human rights,
we became their mortal enemies
and were targeted for extermination.
*
Today they abuse the human rights not only of Kurds
but also Turks -- among them
Pamuk (a Nobel-Prizer winner)
and Akcam (an internationally respected historian),
all in the name of Kemal Ataturk,
thus exposing him for what he really was –
a typical product of his time
and a fascist no different from Mussolini and Hitler.
But whereas Italy and Germany have renounced their past
and are now democracies,
Turkey continues to cling to its moreally bankrupt
and criminal values, principles, ideology, and methods.
The fez and shalvar have been outlawed
but Ottomanism continues to rule.
The Sultan is dead.
Long live Sultanism.
Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme sh*t.
#

how to reason with a turk

Sunday, May 29, 2011
*****************************
LET US REASON TOGETHER
******************************************
Nations and empires need dupes more
than they need dissidents.
*
If “the Kingdom of God is within you,”
it follows loyalty to a power structure or regime or authority figure
is treason.
*
To “give unto Caesar” does not mean
to trust or to believe in Caesar.
*
If to expose our contradictions is negative,
does that mean to speak of massacres is positive?
#
Monday, May 30, 2011
*****************************
LIES AND LIARS
******************************************
Until he was ousted by the Young Turks,
the Sultan was the supreme religious leader
of the Muslim world as well as
the political leader of the Ottoman Empire.
He thus combined the power of the Pope
and that of the President of the United States.
Now then, imagine if you can,
a pope or a president saying
he needs a harem of a thousand concubines
to better serve God and the people.
Why should we be surprised if Turkish denialists believe
all politicians lie except their own,
all academics are for hire except their own,
and all propagandists deceive the people except their own?
*
Turkish children are brought up to believe in lies
for the simple reason that if they admit the facts,
Turkey stands to lose
several Armenian provinces,
billions of dollars in repratations,
and their mask as a civilized and progressive nation.
The threat of even one of these three prospects
would make a compulsive and a habitual liar
out of an honest man.
*
Because the Serbians arrested Ratko Mladic,
a war criminal who massacred 8000 Muslims,
“the European prospects of Serbia are now brighter than ever,”
according to a WASHINGTON POST editorial.
To my Turkish readers I say:
Let that be a lesson to you.
#
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
*****************************
HOW TO REASON WITH A TURK
******************************************
It can't be done.
Don't even try!
It's a waste of time.
*
A Turk believes he can defeat
reason, common sense, reality itself
with the same daring that his ancestors
defeated their adversaries.
He chooses to ignore the fact that
the Ottoman Empire is dead, buried,
and cannot be resurrected.
*
There are two easy ways to win an argument alla Turca:
by ignoring the arguments of the opposition,
and by repeating the same argument
even after it has been exposed as
untenable, outgrageous irrational, and absurd.
*
It is a mistake to think that Armenians were punished
because they revolted against the Turks.
The undeniable fact is,
the central authority was so rotten
that everyone within the Empire,
including Turks themselves,
revolted against it.
*
Armenians were selected for speciasl treatment
simply because they were there
and they made themselves an easy and convenient target.
*
To disagree with a Turk
is to understand where Armenian fanatics come from.
*
Kemal’s fallacy:
The idea that by eliminating the fez and the shalvar
The Turk could be de-Ottomanized.
Which amounts to saying,
what goes on inside a man’s mind
is an extension of his wardrobe.
No psychologist has ever dared to advance
such an insane theory.
If he did, he would be exposed as a charlatan and
his licence would be immediately revoked.
#
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
*****************************
NOTES AND COMMENTS
******************************************
We befriended the Turks under Talaat
and we called the Russians our big brothers under Stalin.
Now then, go ahead and say something positive
about our leadership.
*
If you have the majority on your side,
it makes no difference whether you are right or wrong.
This indeed is the rock on which stand
both democracy and fascism.
*
Nothing can be more fragile and unpredictable than life.
And yet, we take its permanence for granted.
Something similar could be said of the infallibility
of authority figures who are more prone to error
than the rest of us; and I don’t means errors
like marrying the wrong partner
or making a bad investment.
I mean errors in which thousands and millions die.
*
They massacred the Indians,
they enslaved millions of Africans,
they murdered one another
in one of the bloodiest civil wars in the history of mankind,
they allowed the rich to exploit the poor mercilessly,
they went to war and killed countless natives
in all four corners of the world,
and now they educate their children to be proud Americans.
*
I have been deceived so many times
that I no longer trust even my own judgment.
#