on genocide

Sunday, March 11, 2012
*******************************************
ON GENOCIDE
****************************
Our genocide is an expression not only of Turkish criminality but also our arrogance and incompetence; and when we emphasize the first and cover up the second, we fool no one but ourselves. We thus become our own deceivers and dupes.
*
ON GOOD AND EVIL
*******************************
If we assume the existence of other dimensions beside our own, we must also admit the possibility that in at least one of them all our contradictions, including that of good and evil, or God and the Devil, will be resolved or reconciled.
*
ON WOMEN
***************************
The woman you fall in love with and the woman you marry are two different beings even when they are one and the same. Hence the Greek myth of the lovely bride who on the wedding night reveals herself to be a tangled knot of hissing serpents. Something similar could be said of ideologies and belief systems: they look lovely until put into practice. Hence the saying “When dreams come true they turn into nightmares.”
*
ON SURVIVAL
********************************
If we are survivors, what would you call cockroaches – an endangered species? Am I comparing Armenians to cockroaches? No, of course not! I have never heard a cockroach brag.
#
Monday, March 12, 2012
**************************************
ROTGUT
*********************************
Some readers disagree with me simply because
they hate to be reminded that two plus two makes four.
*
My taste buds have been so thoroughly corrupted by cheap booze that if some day I am offered a glass carbonated urine and told it’s champagne from the Napoleonic era
I will pretend to enjoy every drop of it.
That’s exactly the situation with the average Armenian
and propaganda. He has been exposed to so many big lies that he believes propaganda to be a harmless version of reality and our leaders have our own best interests at heart.
*
There is addiction to big lies as surely there is addiction to nicotine, alcohol, painkillers, and heroin. What rotgut does to your taste buds, propaganda does to your brain cells.
#
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
**********************************************
IDEAS
*******************************
“A man with an idea is my enemy,” Napoleon is quoted as having said.
Hitler and Stalin took ideas seriously too.
So much so that they murdered anyone whose ideas they didn’t like.
Which is why a smart Armenian is one who pretends to have none.
*
A smart Armenian equates life with propaganda and ideas with death.
*
The ideas of our Turcocentric ghazetajis may be summed up with three words: Turks, Turks, and Turks.
*
Our so-called patriotism and nationalism never rise above tribalism.
*
If you want to understand the soul of a nation, read its writers.
If you want to know the way people deceive themselves, read a collection of political speeches.
#
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
**********************************************
A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND
*******************************************
You think I am too critical of my fellow Armenians and I think no one can be critical enough.
*
If you love for the wrong reasons you will hate for the right ones.
*
I was brought up to love my fellow Armenians. No one ever warned me to stay away from them – as Michael (THE GREEN HAT) Arlen did his son (PASSAGE TO ARARAT).
*
So what if I will never be a popular writer? Armenians don’t need popular writers; they already have Arlen and Saroyan – that should be more than enough for the rest of their historic existence.
*
When will we grow up as a nation? On the day we discuss our problems without mentioning Turks.
*
If Socrates married a shrew, who among us will dare to say he will not make the same mistake?
*
I was educated by monks and I have no illusions about them. And yet, I lead a monastic existence. Figure that one out if you can.
#