Thursday, August 13, 2009
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RAFFI AND I -- (Q/A #3)
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Q: The difference between a writer like Raffi and you is that--
A: He is a 19th-century giant and I am a 21st-century midget.
Q: That wasn't my question. My question has nothing to do with literary greatness and everything to do with a balanced and fair view of reality. In Raffi's writings there are bad as well as good Armenians. In your writings there are only bad ones. Why?
A: That's because I write about our problems.
Q: And Raffi didn't?
A: Only obliquely and in the context of historical fiction.
Q: What is your context?
A: Analytical commentaries.
Q: Does that mean good Armenians don't exist?
A: They exist only as victims of humbuggers or as ineffective players.
Q: You say you write about our problems. If we have problems, and I agree that we do, don't we need solutions?
A: Only one: solidarity.
Q: How do we go about developing solidarity?
A: By ending divisions.
Q: How do we do that?
A: By realizing and admitting to ourselves that dividers are our real enemies.
Q: It seems to me we are going in circles here. Let me approach this question from a different angle: If we need solutions, it must be solutions that work, right? When a solution doesn't work, we should discard it and search for one that will do the job?
A: Excellent idea. If we are a failed nation, let's consider the case of successful nations...such as the United States of America.
Q: But there are all kinds of divisions in America – the rich and the poor, whites and blacks, pro-war and anti-war, pro-abortion and anti --
A: There is also a mechanism designed to resolve differences, it's called democracy. Now, throughout our millennial existence we have at no time experienced democracy. We have been and continue to be at the mercy of paternalistic, authoritarian, fascist and self-appointed pseudo-elites who place their own powers and privileges above the welfare of the nation.
Q: Maybe so, but you still haven't convinced me that emphasizing the positive is wrong.
A: It is wrong if it means covering up or minimizing the dangers and challenges we face.
Q: Is that what Raffi did? -- minimized and covered up?...
A: You seem to have adopted Raffi as a model. If all writers had done that, they would have written nothing but historical novels. Writers like Baronian, Odian, and Massikian wrote satire, where the emphasis is on bad characters. If we were to judge a writer's merits by how successful he has been in solving our problems, as you seem to suggest, we shall have to conclude that our literature as a whole, from Khorenatsi to our own days, has been a gigantic failure. If we are to assign failure, let's begin with our leaders and the dupes who support them. That is why I never get tired of saying and repeating, the smart, progressive, civilized, and westernized Armenian is not just a lie but an absurdity.
Q: Are you saying there are no smart Armenians?
A: If there are, they have been marginalized and rendered ineffective: they are, in other words, ahistorical. They neither formulate nor implement policies, and in that sense they are double victims – victims of foreign aggression as well as victims of domestic corruption and incompetence. Let's end this interview on a positive note, shall we? Let's consider the case of Naregatsi. There is only one positive character in his LAMENTATION, namely God who, as everyone knows, is an Armenian. But the problem with God is that He has always been on the side of the powerful and against the weak, or rather, against dividers, their dupes, and fools who think they are smart.
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Friday, August 14, 2009
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MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL
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If American presidential candidates promise to recognize the Genocide and when elected they recant, it may be because they are exposed to the other side of the story and recognize themselves in Turks.
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The expression “Young Turks” does not have a sinister connotation in English. It means enthusiastic or single-minded dedication to a cause or policy that may be unpopular in some quarters.
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I remember, the first time I heard an Armenian say “The Turks won because they were better organized,” I was outraged. That's when I knew only one side of the story.
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To know only one side of the story is more dangerous than to know nothing.
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Empires do not speak the same language as tribes. Americans and Turks understand one another better than Armenian understands Armenian.
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When our “betters” divide us, they do so with the certainty their real motives will never be uncovered, and so far they have been right but only with an increasingly diminished fraction of the people.
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We blindly trust those who make us believe, no matter how absurd the belief system, even when they have done nothing to earn our trust.
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It pleases us to think what others believe is a lie, and what we believe is not.
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I began to recover my Armenian identity on the day I became aware of the Turk within me.
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Saturday, August 15, 2009
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WAS THE GENOCIDE INEVITABLE?
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A survivor: “Turks are nice people provided you don't step on their tail.”
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Roupen Sevag, prominent author and victim, in a letter to his German fiancée. “The Turks are nice people if you get to know them.”
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An Armenian: “Our revolutionaries were no better than a frog trying to rape an elephant.”
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General Antranik: “Our revolutionaries should hang from the nearest tree.”
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Philip Mansel, author of CONSTANTINOPLE: CITY OF THE WORLD'S DESIRE (London, 1995): “Some Armenians hoped for a massacre in the belief that it would provoke the intervention of the great powers.”
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Christopher J. Walker, English historian: “Anyone who has studied the history of the Armenians will know that perhaps the single most dangerous illusion that the Armenians entertained was that 'Christendom' (meaning France and Britain; Italy, Germany or Russia didn't quite count) would come and rescue them.”
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Artin Dadian, Armenian diplomat who in 1896 was appointed by the Sultan president of a commission to resolve the conflict between the Empire and the Armenian revolutionaries, in a letter to Tashnak leaders: “First, Europe shows complete indifference and says there is no Armenian question as far as they are concerned. Second, the threat of the complete annihilation of the Armenian nation has not yet entirely passed, and third, the people are tired of revolutionary actions and are ready to patch up their differences with the government in order to remain safe from further reprisals such as have almost wiped out our people from the face of the earth. Fourth, various organizations are fighting different causes, each in their own way, and in the middle of all this stands one pitiful Artin Dadian, who on the one hand begs the Sultan for mercy by telling him that this would be the best thing for his empire and on the other hand fights base individuals who in order to attain their selfish aims are willing to sell their nation.”
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Philip Mansel again: “In 1895-6 both the Sultan and the Armenian revolutionaries treated the Armenians of Constantinople as pawns without regard for human life.”
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