comments

Sunday, July 03, 2011
*****************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
*******************************
ON PATRIOTISM
************************
Love of homeland should never be confused
with loyalty to a regime,
or its propaganda, that is to say, lies.
*
ON WORDS
******************
As a medium of communication,
the spoken or written word is better equipped
to expose lies than to assert truths.
*
ON BS
*********************
It is only very recently that a friend pointed out to me
that both belief system and bull sh*t have identical initials.
*
ON CONTROVERSIES
*****************************
In all controversies there is a natural tendency
to go to extremes with the inevitable result that
moderation and objectivity are seen as treason.
*
ON METAPHYSICS
*******************************
To exist and to imagine non-existence
is as difficult as to non-exist and to imagine existence.
*
ON WOMEN
***********************
Women have played a very important role in my life.
The reason I don’t write about them is that
the wounds are too deep.
*
ON DEATH
************************
Death is a privilege reserved only for the dying;
all others are condemned to live.
*
ON PHILOSOPHY
**********************************
Everyone has a philosophy (in American parlance)
only when the line that separates philosophy (love of wisdom)
from philomoronism is either blurred or deleted.
*
MORE ON WOMEN
****************************
Freud said he had no answer to the question:
"What do women want?”
Shaw said women want the same things as men.
Neither Freud nor Shaw, or for that matter,
neither men nor women know what they really want
and what to do with it when they get it.
#
Monday, July 04, 2011
*****************************************
ON JUSTICE
*******************************
A headline in today’s paper reads:
“Turkey officially recognizes Libyan rebels.”
A hundred years ago they massacred their own.
They now recognize and support someone else’s.
*
Has anybody ever said,
“I plead guilty to the charge of genocide?”
Talaat was assassinated.
Stalin died in bed.
Hitler committed suicide.
Genghis Khan openly declared:
“My great pleasure is killing my enemies
and raping their women.”
Had they been arrested and tried,
would they have admitted violating anyone’s human rights?
In their own eyes they were statesmen of vision
who deserved universal respect and admiration.
*
If you have the power to rewrite history,
you also have the power to find the guilty innocent
and the innocent guilty.
Why should we be surprised if
after a century of trying
we have not yet seen a single red cent
or a single square inch of soil in reparations?
#
Tuesday, July 05, 2011
*****************************************
THAT WHICH WE SHARE
*******************************
To begin with, we share 600 years of coexistence.
*
They silence their dissenters.
So do we.
*
They confuse patriotism or love of homeland
with loyalty to a regime or ideology,
that is to say, a propaganda line
adopted by wheeler-dealers whose central concern
is neither consensus nor the welfare of the people
but their own powers and privileges.
Can we really say we are different?
*
They deal with controversial issues
by adopting a dogmatic stance.
So do we.
*
They are tribal.
So are we.
Don’t take my word for it.
Listen to Nikol Aghbalian (1873-1947),
an eminent statesman, literary scholar, and educator:
“We Armenians are products of the tribal mentality of Turks
and Kurds and this tribal mentality remains stubbornly rooted
even in our leaders and elites.”
*
We accuse them of crimes against humanity.
So do they.
*
On a personal level:
the insults leveled at me by both Armenians and Turks
have been so similar that they might as well have emanated
from the same source.
*
They rewrite history.
So do we.
If you have any lingering doubts on the subject,
have a casual conversation with a Catholic, Protestant,
Anteliassagan, Etchmiadznagan, and an atheist.
*
They brainwash their children.
So do we.
*
They cover up their crimes.
We cover up our blunders.
*
If the Ottoman Empire had been an Armenian Empire
and the Turks within it one of the minorities,
I have every reason to suspect
we would have done to them what they did to us.
#
Wednesday, July 06, 2011
*****************************************
OBSERVATIONS
*******************************
Our greatest problem:
our refusal to forget what we have learned
from our former masters and role models.
Collective amnesia or Alzheimer’s may well be
our only salvation.
*
We were sheep;
they were wolves;
and we didn’t see it coming?
Figure that one out, if you can.
*
Were we blind?
Can we really say
our sight has been restored?
#