this/that

Sunday, March 30, 2008
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DZOUR NESDINK, SHIDAG KHOSSINK
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We like to say that Israel and the U.S. are denialist states because they don’t want to offend a friendly nation in the Middle East, which happens to be a hornet’s nest of hostile tribes that threaten their vital economic interests or survival. What we don’t say is that nations that are on our side may also have unspoken political motives, which have little or nothing to do with what’s right and wrong. What we also hate to admit is that which even a major pro-Armenian historian like Toynbee has said, namely that we were wrong to make territorial claims on Turkey, because if every nation did that, the world would become an unrecognized place and many nations (including Israel and the U.S.) would lose their right to exist. It’s all politics? So what else is new? Was there ever a Golden Age in the history of mankind when nations behaved against their own interests or for purely idealistic reasons? What about our own political parties? If any one of them is righteous, upright, and honorable, why is it that so far it has failed to convince the other parties?
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Monday, March 31, 2008
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SHOUTS AND WHISPERS
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How does one humanize the dehumanized, especially if they are in denial of their condition?
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Armenian problems and their solutions: they have as long a history as Armenian literature. Perhaps I write to save myself and no one else. If I succeed, I may be an example to others. If I fail – and so far I have, like so many of my predecessors – I may be remembered by a handful of readers as a mental masturbator. But then, no one said being an Armenian writer was a win/win proposition.
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We are brought up to believe speaking of Turkish criminal conduct is a patriotic duty, but exposing our own violations of human rights is treason.
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Zola wrote only one “J’accuse.” Our Turcocentric ghazetajis write nothing else.
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Freedom means participation in power. The only freedom we have enjoyed since independence is to respond to Panchoonie’s S.O.S. of “mi kich pogh” in the Diaspora, and in the Homeland, to emigrate and riot.
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Because the shouts of my predecessors have dwindled to inaudible whispers, I am accused of being shrill.
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Tuesday, April 01, 2008
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IF THE SHOE FITS
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Since we can’t settle our score with the Turks, we call each other nasty names, preferably from a safe distance and anonymously.
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Politicians and lawyers share a tendency to make their side look all white and the opposition all black, which may explain why they are the least trusted people on earth. So much so that if you say, a lawyer or a politician told me the sun rises in the east, no one will believe you.
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To know how to read is not the same as knowing what deserves to be read.
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To be a commissar in a democracy or a nationalist in America is almost as bad as being a vegetarian among Armenians – meant to say, cannibals.
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Nothing can be more arrogant than to speak in the name of God, and since arrogance is an attribute of the devil, to speak in the name of God is almost as bad as speaking in the name of the devil.
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To believe means to believe only one side of the story even when you know there is another side. We believed historic Armenia to be ours. We believed the Great powers were on our side. We believed the Ottoman Empire was about to collapse and disappear. It is now time that we believe our believers less and our dissidents more.
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Armenians who believe in Mount Ararat and Vartan Mamikonian will believe anything.
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Wednesday, April 02, 2008
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NOTES & COMMENTS
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If you want to understand our past and the manner in which it has shaped our character and identity, read our writers, not our ghazetajis. What you get from our ghazetajis, especially the Turcocentric variant, is not history but political pornography whose aim is not to understand and explain but to propagandize and dehumanize.
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On more than one occasion I have been described as “controversial.” I reject the label. I maintain what’s controversial is our reality as it is perceived by our sermonizers and speechifiers.
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Sometimes the very same people we trust most deceive us; which could be rephrased as, because we trust them without reservation, they deceive us.
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If you don’t understand the lines, don’t try to read between them, because if you do, you may see things that are not there.
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A question to our editors and Turcocentric ghazetajis: If a member of your family is molested or raped, do you feel the need to speak of molesters and rapists every time you open your mouth? Why do you discuss Turks whenever you put pen to paper? Doesn’t the nation deserve the same degree of consideration as members of your own family?
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