seeing things

Sunday, April 15, 2012
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SEEING THINGS
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Even after they systematically raped our daughters
and brainwashed our boys to kill and die
in their imperialist wars
we continued to be their “most faithful ethnic minority.”
Individuals like Krikor Zohrab and Roupen Sevak
persisted in believing that deep down
Turks were nice people who meant no harm to Armenians
and we could safely trust our collective destiny
into their hands.
If they had any doubts on that score
they did not share them with the people.
Even our political and intellectual leaders were dupes.
*
On more than one occasion
I have been told by angry readers:
“What did you expect them to do?
Urge the people to abandon their 'babenagan douner'
(ancestral homes)?”
Why not, may I ask, if the alternative was
wholesale massacre and deportation into the desert?
*
Once when I reviewed the memoirs of a Russian KGB agent
in which he stated that several of our political leaders
(among them Tashnaks) were KGB plants,
an insider berated me for blabbering about things
I knew nothing about and understood even less?
What if, he said, these so-called former KGB agents
could be of greater use to us?
Leave it to an Armenian to see things
that are not there.
#
Monday, April 16, 2012
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WHAT I (DON’T) BELIEVE
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Ideologies and religions – belief systems, in short –
claim to have found a path to truth or god;
and anyone who dares to disagree
must be classified as a heretic,
and as such, an enemy –
and an enemy not only of the belief system
but also of mankind.;
and based on that blatantly false assumption
they proceed to divide civilizations, societies,
empires, nations, and communities.
There you have the root of all evil,
beginning with intolerance, persecution,
and ultimately war and massacre.
*
I am not voicing a theory here.
I am simply stating facts available to anyone
who has eyes to see, ears to hear, and brains to think –
and not to think that he is thinking
but simply to say, if you add 2 to 2
what you get is neither 5 or 22 but 4.
*
If you believe god is one,
or three in one, or, for that matter, four in one –
why should that be a good enough reason
to torture and kill another
who believes the right numbers are five in one?
And yet…
*
The stated aim of all belief systems is to save mankind;
their unstated aim, however, is the destruction of the world.
*
Man is born in sin, we are told.
So are belief systems – born in arrogance
that leads to greed for power.
I don’t believe in belief systems.
#

Tuesday, April 17, 2012
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STATUS QUO
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A nation that has lived in darkness for a thousand years
will prefer to go on living in darkness for another thousand years
if the alternative is to see the light.
*
My aim is not to solve our problems
but to say and repeat the obvious
... when the obvious is ignored or forgotten.
*
My aim is not to provide answers to the most important questions
but to question the honesty of those who pretend to have them.
*
If I can place a small distance – even if it is a fraction of an inch –
between us and our certainties -- that is to say lies –
I shall consider my mission accomplished.
*
A religion of love will practice hatred;
and a religion of intolerance will practice intolerance.
A nation that brags about its high IQ
will be subservient to morons,
both foreign and domestic.
*
In the eyes of pragmatists,
daydreamers are contemptible jerks.
In the eyes of our leaders,
writers will be mental masturbators.
*
To solve a problem,
you must first acknowledge its existence.
You may now draw your own conclusions.
#
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
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STATUS QUO (II)
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We have many brilliant minds in all fields of human endeavor
but not a single brilliant idea.
Our ablest academics study the past (medievalism and massacrism)
but none of them seems to be interested in our present and future.
I wonder why.
Is it because somewhere very deep inside
they have given up on us?
Or is it because there is no money in it?
*
Our benefactors and panchoonies spend millions
building schools, churches, and community centers
as if raising wall mattered much more than promoting solidarity.
*
Solidarity with us is very much like Mark Twain’s weather.
Every speechifier and sermonizer loves to quote Charents’s final message
(“Oh! Armenian people, your salvation etc.”)
but nobody does a damn thing.
*
“Where there is no vision the people perish” –
and we are perishing in both the Homeland and Diaspora –
by exodus and alienation respectively,
both of which have clearly definable socio-economic reasons
that can be isolated, named, and prevented.
But no one seems to give a damn!
The very same activists who speak of patriotism during the day
turn into gravediggers under cover of darkness.
*
Solidarity is not a commodity you can buy on the marketplace.
Neither is it tax deductible.
Could that be one reason why it is not popular
with our bosses, bishops, and benefactors?
I am not casting aspersions, just wondering…

#



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