theology

Thursday, September 27, 2012 ***************************************** THEOLOGY *************************** If God exists, why does He go out of His way to make Himself inaccessible and incomprehensible? If Truth is One, what is it that drives us to invent ten thousand lies? If the Kingdom of God is within us, where is the Empire of the Devil? * “If I cannot answer the most important question, am I not fooling the reader?” Chekhov said. I suspect if we ever have the Answer – which may or may not happen in our lifetime – we will say, But of course! What else? I should have guessed. I had eyes but couldn’t see, ears but couldn’t hear, and a brain but couldn’t think. # Saturday, September 29, 2012 ********************************************* EASY QUESTIONS / OBVIOUS ANSWERS ********************************************* With religious leaders like popes, imams, and rabbis, who needs religion? With Scriptures like the Bible and the Koran that legitimize divisions, intolerance, the persecution of heretics, and the murder of infidels, who needs Scriptures? With monarchs like the Romanovs in Russia, the VIII Henrys in England, and the French Louis who came by the dozen, who needs kings? With bloodthirsty dictators like Hitler and Stalin, who needs dictators? * Speaking of blood: In the Ottoman Empire it was a capital offense to spill the blood of a present or future sultan, so they adopted a different method to eliminate the competition: they strangled all potential usurpers with a silk cord. (And they say Turks are dumb!) * With scary presidential candidates like Romney and Ryan who needs presidents? Gore Vidal may have been right when he said America will be better off without its politicians. To the question, who will run the country, he replied: “Swiss hotel managers.” With historians who cover up the criminal conduct and incompetence of the regime in power, who needs schoolteachers who recycle propaganda? * I am not just asking question: I am predicting the shape of things to come. Neither am I a prophet: I just use my common sense and the lessons of the past. # Saturday, September 29, 2012 *********************************** IN THE BELLY OF THE BEAST **************************************** Let’s cut the crap, shall we? Let’s leave rhetoric to our speechifiers infatuated with the sound of their own voice; and let’s leave pious sentiments to our sermonizers whose favorite mode of communication is to say the opposite of what they really think and feel. * I see Armenians as perennial losers and victims whose secret ambition in life is to victimize, and since they can’t victimize others, they victimize their own. As dupes they can’t stand anyone who refuses to be a dupe. As products of millennial oppression by bloodthirsty tyrants they see nothing morally questionable in brainwashing the weak, oppressing the defenseless, and in deceiving the ignorant and the naïve. That’s as far as their conception of patriotism goes. * I know what I am saying. I have been in the belly of the beast and I have dealt with some of our best and brightest. I am not here to flatter our collective colossal ego or to pretend to love you as a brother. Neither am I here to assert my superior brand of Armenianism, whatever the hell that may mean. I leave that to our bosses, bishops, benefactors and their dupes, flunkeys, and hirelings. * Whenever I am told to be kinder to my readers, I reply: A nation that managed to survive the Turk’s yataghan can survive the opinions of a minor scribbler who is here today and will be gone tomorrow. * Abraham Lincoln once said: “Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?” I have tried that method not once or twice but many times. It doesn’t work. I have had better luck with Turks. #

deception

Sunday, September 23, 2012 *************************************** DECEPTION (IV) ************************ For 600 years we hated the Turks and we had every right to do so for what they did and kept doing to us, but we deceived them into thinking we loved them and we did such a good job of it that they named us their most loyal millet (ethnic minority). * For 60 years we also hated the “onion-head” Russians but again we pretended to love them by calling them our “big brothers.” We went further. Much further. We betrayed and surrendered our ablest men to their murderers. * And now that we have no one to deceive we deceive one another and we do such an excellent job of it that most Armenians in the Diaspora believe when native Armenians call them “aghber” they don’t mean “white trash,” but “brother.” * We have become such habitual and expert liars that we believe in our own lies. Now you know why our 1% divides the 99% and gets away with it. They say they divide us because they are men of principle and gentlemen do not compromise on principles. The fact is they divide us out of fear. Fear of what we might do to them when we uncover the truth. After all, far more civilized and progressive nations than us have beheaded, executed, and assassinated their kings. The only reason we have done nothing of the kind so far is that we have been duped into thinking our leaders are not our enemies but our heroes and saviors. * Armenians of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your dividers and gravediggers.. # Monday, September 24, 2012 ************************************* CHEZOKS ********************** One of our elder statesmen (may God have mercy on his soul, if there is a God and he had a soul) once wrote a book in which he blamed all our problems on chezoks (non-partisan Armenians). “They are neither hot nor cold,” said he. “They are neither for nor against anything. They don’t care. They are useless, aimless, and purposeless. They exist but they do not live… they are a dead weight…” and so on and so forth. You may have noticed that when our speechifiers get going, nothing can stopping them. Zarian knew what he was talking about when he said “An Armenian’s tongue is sharper than a Turk’s yataghan.” * In my review of the book I said something to the effect that our dividers were the real source of all our problems, not chezoks. In his angry telephone call our statesman said, among other things: “I thought you were on our side.” “I am on nobody’s side,” was my answer, “if only because I have done no harm.” * My father was a chezok not because he didn’t care but because he lost everything twice and I mean that literally: first time in 1915 during World War I in Turkey, second time in 1941 during World War II in Greece. As a result he spent all his time trying to make a living and provide for his family in alien and hostile environments. He died in his fifties and he looked ninety. He may not have been a great Armenian but he was an honest man. I wish I could say the same of our Ottomanized, Levantinized, Americanized, and Sovietized fellow countrymen who parade as first-class Armenians and expect the rest of us to look up to them as role models. # Tuesday, September 25, 2012 ******************************************** BROTHERS ************************ There are truth-seekers and there are propagandists. The aim of propagandists is power. The aim of truth-seekers is exposing lies. * Propaganda has produced such monsters as the Nazi who believed to belong to a superior race; the Jew who believed to be God’s Chosen; the English sahib who saw himself as a civilizing agent; the child-molesting Catholic priest; and closer to home, the Armenian patriot with “Ararat in his heart” who views a fraction of his fellow Armenians as “white trash.” In America propaganda has produced the KKK and legitimized racism; in Russia the Big Brother (in the Orwellian sense of the words) and the commissar. By contrast truth-seekers have been solitary underdogs and victims of propagandists. Gandhi in India, Martin Luther King in America (both assassinated), Solzhenitsyn in Russia, Socrates in 5th-century BC Greece and Jesus in 1st-century Palestine. * How to identify a propagandist? Easy! A propagandist is a member of an organized group with a clearly defined agenda which pretends to be on the side of truth but on closer inspection reveals itself to be Big Lie. If you are a member of such a group, look out brother, you may well be on your way to the Devil. * I read the following quotation in my morning paper today: “He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.” Lao Tzu. # Wednesday, September 26, 2012 ********************************************* WHY I WRITE THE WAY I WRITE ******************************************** Do you really want to know why I write the way I write? I will tell you. I write the way I write in defense of all Armenians who were insulted and abused in the name of this or that brand of patriotism of which there are as many as there are Armenians. * A Bolshevik’s patriotism, for instance, means not only love of homeland but also loyalty to the memory of Stalin. A nationalist’s patriotism bears all the earmarks of racism and fascism. * I write in defense of all writers who were betrayed, silenced, exiled, butchered, or shot. I write to remind our Turcocentric ghazetajis and their dupes that it is wrong to gauge an Armenian’s patriotism by the degree of hatred he harbors against Turks. I write to say that I have nothing but contempt for the kind of Armenian who after perpetuating our problems tells me, “We need solutions, not critics.” My message to them is: “If you really need solutions, hang yourself!” * I have no illusions about myself and my fellow Armenians. I am fully aware of the fact that I have as much influence on Armenian affairs as a grain of sand on the Saharan desert. But I write to set the record straight. #

Saturday, September 22, 2012 **************************************** OBSERVATIONS *********************** After telling us the Bible is the word of God and “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” they divide a house that is already divided between believers and non-believers. * You say it’s impossible and I say doing what must be done creates its own energy and cunning. * Even as they blabber endlessly about Turks and massacres they tell me I am being negative. * Romney’s problem: a big mouth and a bigger foot. # Saturday, September 22, 2012 *************************************** ON POSTERITY & RELATED ATROCITIES ************************************ Posterity? I am not sure about posterity. You and I may well be our only posterity. * Depression? I have been depressed most of my life and I consider it an integral part of the human condition. Unlike most Americans I don’t think happiness or well-being to be a patriotic duty. I have never been near a shrink, nor taken a single pill. Only the occasional drink. * Homeland? I can’t imagine anyone not loving its mountains and rivers, lakes, valleys, and forests. Neither can I imagine anyone not hating the former KGB agents and commissars who are now in charge of it. Call it treason if you like. I call it rejection of all crypto-fascist propaganda. I call it refusal to be the dupe of thieving charlatans, and in that I am with the majority – namely all those who have voted with their feet and live abroad or they define homeland as anywhere on earth where they are allowed to work and provide for their families. # Saturday, September 22, 2012 *************************************** ON STUPIDITY ********************** Be aware of stupidity for it is the source of all evil. * The problem with hatred is that it tends to metastasize. Hatred of the enemy turns brother against brother. * More often than not our choice is not between good and evil but between the lesser of two evils. * Details are important especially the ones you miss or refuse to see. * “In the name of Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful, Owner of the Day of Judgment.” I quote from memory. I paraphrase. If wrong ascribe it to Alzheimer’s, not to blasphemy. * It is hatred of the infidel that turns Shia against Sunni and Assad against his ownpeople. * From the lyrics of a popular Armenian song: “An Armenian loves to eat (oudel) and he eats to hate (adel).” * He who is blinded by hatred believes he has 20/20 vision and God is on his side. * “I am not here to bring peace but a sword. If you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.” If you can’t guess who said that, I suggest you read the Scriptures. * And now let us pray! “Our Father Who art in Heaven…” #

wrong

Sunday, September 16, 2012************************************ SUNDAY SERMON***************************** Empires are not born but made, and what makes them is vision, without which, the Bible tells us, “the people perish.” *We have perished not because the land allotted to us was stony, the climate harsh, and our neighbors bloodthirsty,but because our leadership was without vision. *Empires have risen from the most unlikely places – even from deserts and islands. I am not an imperialist. I say these things to point out the fact that our nationalist historians are first and foremost propagandists whose sole aim in life is to mislead us into thinking we have nothing to worry about because our “betters” are noble and selfless specimens of humanity as opposed to being the scum of the earth. *You don’t believe me? Listen to Zarian: “Our political parties have been of no political use to us. Their greatest enemy is free speech.” And even more to the point: “Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another.” *Like empires, cannibals are not born but made and what makes them are leaders who place their own powers and privileges above the interests of the community and the nation.#Monday, September 17, 2012****************************************** A READER WRITES****************************** “You repeat yourself. You write too much. You have too many opinions. You are on too many forums.” *That’s because I have about a dozen readers half of whom either believe nothing I say or do not trust my judgment even when I say the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.To the rest I am old news because I say nothing that is new or original; I simply repeat, quote, or paraphrase better men than myself (to which charge I plead guilty as charged). *It follows I may or may not have one reader who may profit from what I say. My ambition in life is to have at least two readers before I die. On the day that happens I may consider making myself more useful in some other line of work, such as planting potatoes or bird-watching.#Tuesday, September 18, 2012************************************ WRONG QUESTIONS****************************** Do I have more enemies than friends? Wrong question. The right question is: Am I saying what must be said? *Do our fanatics outnumber our moderates? What about our dupes? Do they outnumber those who can think for themselves? Corrupt, incompetent or dishonest leaders: do they outnumber the honest ones? Do our dividers outnumber those who are of the opposite disposition? *If the alienated and assimilated outnumber those who “have Ararat in their hearts,” who is to blame? Speaking as an alienated Armenian who stays away from community centers, churches, and political parties: I hate all propagandists regardless of nationality so much so that I’d much rather deal with an honest Turk than a dishonest Armenian. I will go further and say I consider all honest men my brothers and all charlatans and crooks as my enemies. *Do our brainwashed dupes outnumber those who refuse to surrender their hearts and minds to partisans and panchoonies? To ask the right questions is the beginning of all wisdom.#Wednesday, September 19, 2012**************************************** ON BEING WRONG****************************** So what if I am wrong? Far better men than myself have been wrong. Think of Zohrab who saved Talaat’s life by risking his own. Think of our revolutionaries who on the eve of the Genocide challenged the Turks to massacre us. Think of Charents who allowed himself to be brainwashed by the Bolsheviks. Consider the case of Sylva Gaboudikyan of “Forget your mother” fame, who after the collapse of the Soviet Union declared “I am proud to have been a member of the Communist Party!” *If I am wrong I can be corrected. And I have been, many times. I am corrected even when I am right. When was the last time anyone dared to correct any one of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors? *You have nothing to fear from someone willing to admit his fallibility, and everything to fear from someone who speaks in the name of God, Country, and the eternal snows of Mt. Ararat.#

comments

Saturday, September 15, 2012
*****************************************
ON IDEOLOGIES & RELIGIONS
*******************************************
Sooner or later all ideologies and religions
develop a power structure;
and where power enters murder is sure to follow –
not to say war and massacre.
*
Religions may benefit individuals
here and there, now and then
but societies, never!
*
Religions have been and continue to be
as dangerous as biological and nuclear weapons.
*
Freedom of religion means
license to brainwash.
#
Friday, September 14, 2012
******************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
************************************
There are two ways of being popular
in an environment dominated
by charlatans and dupes:
by inventing new lies and
by recycling old ones.
*
I don’t write for dupes.
I write for readers who almost think as I do.
*
Who takes Armenian writers seriously?
Not even Armenian writers.
Speaking for myself,
I have nothing but contempt for writers
who write about many things –
from the Middle Ages to massacres –
but carefully avoid our present problems.
*
If everybody loved to play the same instrument
we wouldn’t have an orchestra.
*
An Armenian reader may agree with me
on one or two points, but three points? –
that would be like a minor miracle.
#
Saturday, September 15, 2012
*************************************
GUILTY AS CHARGED
********************************
Benefactors write checks, build schools and community centers;
bishops sermonized in the name God;
bosses speechify in the name of Country and Mount Ararat;
and after leading a more or less comfortable life
they die in bed.
By contrast, successive generations of our writers
have been reduced to the status of beggars,
silenced, exiled, and murdered.
Why?
Simply because they refused to engage in deception
and to mislead the community into thinking
they never had it so good
because they are in the best of hands.
And because I write as I do
I have been called a Turk, an enemy of the people, and a shit.
*
When in his eighties Zarian died in Yerevan
after sustaining injuries in a fall,
he was sure he had been pushed and murdered
by agents of the State.
*
When Baruir Massikian,
a brilliant playwright, short story write and essayist,
who was also a successful lawyer,
was visited in his deathbed by a delegation of Panchoonies
parading as concerned community leaders
asked him to leave his wealth
to the Armenian Educational Foundation,
he said he’d much rather leave it
to whores in a Cairo bordello.
*
You may see me as a pessimist
and a dealer in gloom and doom.
I see myself as an honest witness
who refuses to commit perjury.
If that’s a crime,
I am more than willing to plead guilty as charged,
#

if

Wednesday, September 12, 2012
*******************************************
IF
**************
What do you gain
if in your effort to be positive
you cover up the negative?
*
What do you gain
if you replace greed for money (capitalism)
with greed for power (communism)
if the number of victims
(the poor and the powerless)
remains constant?
*
History does not repeat itself;
it’s human nature that stays the same.
*
Propaganda makes a critic’s job easy
by telling him where the bodies are buried.
*
First nation to adopt Christianity in the 4th century;
first nation to adopt atheism in the 20th.
*
A man’s wisdom may also be judged
by the number of fools he counts as his enemies.
#

truth

Thursday, September 06, 2012

*******************************************

THE TRUTH

**************************

For ever opinion, theory, ideology, and belief system there is another that contradicts it. Communism versus capitalism. Theism versus atheism. Imperialism versus nationalism. Which is right? *We tend to think in terms of generalities, abstractions, and carefully selected facts – and that’s where we go wrong: in our selection of evidence. *What are the arguments for imperialism? For 600 years the Middle East lived in relative harmony. But after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire there followed a long series of internecine wars with no end in sight. Something similar happened after the collapse of the Soviet Union. *What are the arguments against nationalism? Divisions tend to generate more divisions and internecine conflicts can be as bloody as imperialist wars (Syria being a present-day case in point). *What is the difference between communism and capitalism? As the old joke has it: Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it’s the other way around. Or, as they used to say in Poland: “Once upon a time we were slaves. We are now slaves of former slaves.” *The truth is, there is no Truth, only Big lies and dupes.

#

Friday, September 07, 2012

***************************************

RECAPITULATING

*******************************

The reason why I like to make the truth as unpalatable as I can is that only then our dupes may decide to emerge from the cesspool in which they have been swimming. *Very early in my career as a writer I realized the only way to survive in this business is to kiss ass and say it smells like roses. *I know now why as a child I was lied to about Armenians: the truth is too unspeakable. *As an adult I was promised minimum wage (actually less) provided I wrote and translated what I was told by mediocrities that operated on the assumption it is a writer’s duty to emphasize the positive and cover up the negative, that is to say, to lie and deceive. *When I finally decided to speak the truth, I was silenced and became an enemy of the people. On more than one occasion I have been accused of being a hireling of foreign powers including the regime in Ankara. *We are so addicted to lies that anything that does not flatter our collective ego is rejected as enemy action. *May the Lord have mercy on our soul – if there is a Lord and we have a soul

#

Saturday, September 08, 2012

**************************************

CHAUVINIST SLOGANS

*****************************

Chauvinists are not born but made, and what makes them is systematic indoctrination at a vulnerable age. *What is the difference between an Armenian and a Turkish chauvinist? Only the identity of their brainwashers. In all other respects they might as well be Siamese. *Where there is chauvinism there will be deportations, wars and massacres. *“All men by nature desire to know” Aristotle tells us.He should have added, except chauvinists who prefer to wallow in their own cliches ignorance. *A chauvinist’s most important ideas revolve around slogans and recycled propaganda and his favorite two words are “Yes, sir!”*“My country, right or wrong!” “My love of my country is good. My enemy’s love for his country is bad.” “If you don’t have Ararat in your heart you are no better than a piece of sh*t," (or so I was informed the other day by one of my gentle readers). “Forget your mother but do not forget your mother tongue.”And to think that there are actually self-assessed smart people who take this kind of nonsense seriously.*The Jesuits --masters of indoctrination--had a slogan of their own: “Give me a child and I will raise him to believe anything!” And so it is. *To speak truth to stupid is to dig your own grave.

#

comments

Sunday, September 02, 2012
***********************************
SEMANTICS
***********************
Freedom to a bully means
the freedom to bully the weak and defenseless.
Freedom to a racist means
the freedom to view a fraction of his fellow men
as inferior and himself as superior.
To a capitalist it means the freedom to exploit.
To a tyrant it means the freedom
to oppress, enslave, and when necessary, to slaughter.
*
Until very recently, in my own lifetime as a matter of fact,
“Anglo-Saxon democracy” in the Southern States
freedom meant classifying “Jews, Catholics, and niggers”
as alien, hostile, and undesirable minorities,
that is to say, the scum of the earth.
*
It is not enough to say what must be said;
you must also be careful to say it to the right person.
In that sense, all our writers have been preaching
to the deaf, dumb, and stupid.
*
Freedom is not the only word open to abuse however.
All important words – truth, justice, equality, objectivity…
among many others – can be easily perverted
to mean the opposite of what they really mean.
To a nationalist historian, objectivity means
to cover up the negative and to emphasize the positive,
and if there are no positives, to invent them.
*
To subscribe to an ideology or belief system means
to abdicate one’s common sense and reason,
and to accept a Big Lie as the Truth.
Patriotism in our context means love of one’s country
and hatred of one’s fellow countrymen beginning with those
who dare to disagree with us.
*
And speaking of Catholics:
An Irish priest to a little schoolgirl:
“Tell me, daughter, what do you want to be when you grow up?”
“A prostitute.”
“What’s that you said?”
“I said a prostitute, Father.”
“Thank God for that. I thought you said a Protestant.”
#
Monday, September 03, 2012
****************************************
SEMANTICS (II)
*****************************
Speaking of words and their meanings:
When we speak of nationalism
what we really mean is tribalism.
In our context freedom means only the freedom
to choose a foreign master.
Patriotism means loyalty to a gang of partisans
and “mi kich pogh” panchoonies.
And what is our anti-Americanism
if not disguised pro-Bolshevism?
*
When an Armenian says to another Armenian
“I disagree with you,” what he really means is
my brainwashers disagree with your brainwashers.
Or, it is not we who disagree
but our bosses and bishops.
Which may suggest,
even our disagreements are not our own;
or to paraphrase Zarian,
even our trash has not been picked up from our own backyard.
*
I know I am on the right path
when what I think today
stands in direct contradiction
to what I was brought up to believe yesterday.
*
Zohrab is right: Subservience corrupts everything it touches,
including the noblest virtues.
When near in the end of his life
Charents dared to speak of solidarity
he was careful to hide his message in a poem so cunningly
that only his most loyal friends could locate it, and – you guessed it –
it was one of them who betrayed him to the authorities.
#
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
******************************************
PROPAGANDA AND DISSENT
**************************************
Don’t think of me as someone who knows better.
Think of me as someone who provides a perspective
that contradicts a propaganda line.
*
How to recognize a propaganda line?
Easy! A propaganda line emanates from a power structure
and all power structures rely on a class of individuals
who make a more or less comfortable living
by misleading the people:
schoolteachers, priests, sermonizers, speechifiers, and the press.
Another peculiarity of propaganda is that
there will invariably be another propaganda line
that contradicts it; and by contradiction
I mean not only abstractions but facts.
(Genocide? What genocide? It never happened.
It’s a fiction of our imagination.)
*
All power structures have the means to silence dissent.
By contrast dissent is powerless as well as solitary and unprofitable.
Consider the case of our own dissenters.
Most if not all of them were silenced, starved, ostracized,
betrayed to the authorities or murdered in cold blood.
*
The Romans had a legal principle that said
the surest way of identifying the guilty party is by asking
“Who benefits by the crime?”
Dissent is not and cannot be a crime
(though more often than not it is treated as a capital offense)
because there are no beneficiaries, only losers – namely,
the dupes of propaganda and the dissenters themselves.
*
In America today there are two propaganda lines
that contradict each other,
and there are dissenters who say
it is not politicians that control events but corporations.
*
In our own Homeland and Diaspora
there is a propaganda line that says
we never had it so good
because we are in the best of hands,
and there are dissenters who say
our power structures are rotten
and we are experiencing not one
but two self-inflicted genocides:
assimilation in the Diaspora
and exodus in the Homeland.
*
Who is right and who wrong?
Up to you to decide.
And there you have another difference
between propaganda and dissent:
dissent gives you a choice.
Propaganda does not.
#
Wednesday, September 05, 2012
********************************************
BENEFUCKTORS
******************
I don't trust the judgment of the powerful and the rich.
The greater the wealth, the emptier the suit.
In an environment where benefactors are kings,
only brown-nosers prosper.
#

bullies

Thursday, August 30, 2012
*************************************
BULLIES
***********************
In any given group victims outnumber their bullies;
and yet, bullies are allowed the freedom to victimize.
*
It took slaves and workers long centuries
to unite against their masters and exploiters
only to develop their own set of bullies –
more tyrannical, more ruthless, more bloodthirsty.
*
Why did it take women thousands of years
to assert their rights?
Even as I write these lines today
most women spend more time, money and energy
to make themselves more desirable to their oppressors
than to develop the kind of solidarity
that will give them the strength to assert equality with men.
*
And finally, consider the 99% versus the 1%.
In an enlightened society the 1% would probably be in jail;
and yet, they are allowed the freedom to sermonize and speechify
in the name of God and Country,
or freedom and prosperity.
*
One may be justified in suspecting that
what motivates most men and women
is not common sense and decency
or even self-interest but
cowardice, greed, and ignorance.
#
Friday, August 31, 2012
*************************************
DECEPTION
************************
Don’t believe everything you are told.
Believe even less everything you read.
The aim of human communication is deception.
This is not a personal prejudice but a universal truth.
It has been said and repeated by far better men than myself,
among them Socrates who went further and said
people (including the 1%) use words
with total unawareness of their meaning.
*
Turks don’t view the Genocide as a tragedy
or a crime against humanity
but as a military victory to celebrate
and brag about among themselves.
(“We taught them a lesson they’ll never forget!”)
*
Armenians don’t view treason and betrayal
as a capital offense but as a necessary means for survival.
To some degree we are all perverts and liars,
and to say otherwise is the height of self-deception.
*
You think I enjoy being the bearer of bad tidings?
I think of myself as an objective observer
and an interpreter of reality.
As for the world at large:
the consensus seems to be:
Let bygones be bygones.
Concentrate on the future.
What’s done is done and cannot be undone.
*
Asvadz medz eh!
Not an original slogan, granted.
But what’s the use of originality if it can fix nothing?
#
Saturday, September 01, 2012
*****************************************
CONFESSIONS OF A
MEGALOMANIAC
***************************************************
A megalomaniac with an inferiority complex.
That’s me.
I write for Armenians who hate to read
because they know better.
Armenians who brag about
their highly developed instinct for survival
even as they dig the nation’s grave.
Whoever said “At the beginning was the word,
at the end garbage,” sure knew what he was talking about.
*
Neither Khorenatsi nor Naregatsi,
neither Raffi nor Zarian were successful in toppling
the thick impenetrable wall that stands
between our men of contemplation
and our men of action – writers and politicians.
*
“Our political parties have been of no political use to us;
their greatest enemy is free speech”(Zarian).
*
The average Armenian dupe is convinced
nothing and no one can fool him,
not even the combined cunning of seven Genoese
(the smartest Italians, it has been said)
seven Greeks, and seven Jews.
And yet he is taken in by partisan slogans
whose sole aim is to divide the nation.
*
To divide and rule.
That’s enemy action.
It follows, as night follows day,
and as sunset follows sunrise,
our partisan patriots are our enemies.
Now then, go ahead and contradict that.
#