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Thursday, February 5, 2009
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NOTES AND COMMENTS
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You cannot solve a problem whose existence you refuse to acknowledge.
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Armenians are not litigious by nature – they learn it from their leaders.
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Fascists don't believe in dialogue and compromise, only in consensus and unanimity. Even when there are ninety-nine voices saying yes, and only one saying no, they feel the need to silence the sole dissenting voice.
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To know a great deal about Turks and next to nothing about Armenians, except their status as victims: that, it seems, is the mission of our Turcocentric ghazetajis.
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The reason why I am consistently negative is that my life and work may be divided into three distinct periods:
(one) past -- naïve and sentimental;
(two) present -- old and cynical;
(three) future – unprintable and unmentionable.
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“After all, we are Armenians!” – meaning , anything we say or do must be accepted and forgiven, including that which would be normally unacceptable and unforgivable. Some Armenians use Armenianism the way cold-blooded killers use the plea of insanity.
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There are as many versions of the past as there are ideologies, religions, nations, tribes, and schools of thought, all of whom assert to have a monopoly on truth. To say therefore that our own version of the past is true but the French, Russian, Patagonian, or, for that matter, Turkish versions of their own past is false, is to bury our heads in the sand.
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Friday, February 6, 2009
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ON EASTERN MYSTICISM
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What can we learn from schools of Eastern mysticism? Or rather, what has the East learned from its own mystics? To those who say the ideas of Eastern mystics have universal validity even if they have been corrupted by their religious and political leadership, I say, the same could be said of Christianity and its mystics.
Gandhi, a Hindu, learned a great deal from the Bhagavat Gita and other Hindu scriptures. But he also learned from Tolstoy (a Russian), Ruskin (an Englishman), and Thoreau (an American).
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If history teaches us anything it is that no matter how noble an idea or ideology, sooner or later it will be corrupted and perverted by an authoritarian elite whose greatest concern will not be the welfare of the masses but its own powers and privileges.
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What can we learn from mystics of both East and West? Only this: the mystical experience is not transferable and all efforts to express it in words are destined to fail. For more on this subject see Aldous Huxley's THE PERENNIAL PHILOSOPHY, and Arthur Koestler's THE LOTUS AND THE ROBOT. Also of interest, the writings of Krishnamurti, an Indian mystic, who said, “If you follow someone else, you are on the wrong path,” or words to that effect. This is true of individuals as well as nations. Our greatest exponent of this particular idea is Gostan Zarian. See his TRAVELLER AND HIS ROAD and BANCOOP AND THE BONES OF THE MAMMOTH, both available in English.
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Arthur Koestler on Zen Buddhism: “Inarticulateness is not a monopoly of Zen; but it is the only school which made a philosophy out of it, whose exponents burst into verbal diarrhea to prove constipation.”
Elsewhere: “Zen always held a fascination for a category of people in whom brutishness combines with pseudomysticism, from Samurai to Kamikaze to Beatnik.”
Koestler is much better on Indian mysticism and its countless aberrations, including Gandhi's.
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Finally, here are two of my favorite Buddhist sayings: “Look not for refuge to anyone beside yourself”; and “Foolish friends are worse than wise enemies.”
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Saturday, February 7, 2009
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DIARY
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It is written “You can't cook pilaf with words.” It is also written “Soft words can break bones.”
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Once upon a time a man went all over the world in search of buried treasure only to discover on his return home that it was buried in his own backyard.
Moral: It's a waste of time searching wisdom in what you don't know.
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To be the slave of former slaves is not freedom.
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In a recent edition of the PETIT LAROUSSE ILLUSTRÉ (the most widely used French-language reference work) there is an entry on Talaat Pasha wherein we read about what an Armenian did to him as opposed to what he did to the Armenians. As a matter of fact, there is only one Armenian mentioned and that is in the final line, which reads: “He was assassinated by an Armenian.” The innocent reader is left with the impression that some bloodthirsty crazed Armenian victimized an innocent Turkish statesman.
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In all fairness to LAROUSSE: in its entry on ARMENIA we read: “1915: The Young Turks committed genocide (1,500,000 victims).”
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DIKRAN THE GREAT is identified as a Parthian. Armenian emperors of Byzantium are not identified as Armenian; neither are such Armenian writers as Adamov and Troyat.
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Pierre Gaxotte: “There is no such thing as History, there are only historians.”
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