Thursday, December 13, 2012**************************************** IF…************* Some of the greatest Irish writers, among them Oscar Wilde, G.B. Shaw, and James Joyce, wrote not in Gaelic but in English. What would have happened if Armenian writers in the Ottoman Empire had written in Turkish? My guess is (one) they would now have many more readers; (two) at least one of them would be a Nobel Prize winner; (three) they would have been translated into many languages; (four) their life and work would have been the subject of numerous biographies and monographs in several languages; and last but not least (5) since half of Turkey is very probably half-Armenian, millions of Armenians would now be identified not as Christian Turks but as Muslim Armenians. *Treason, you say? Listen to James Joyce: “Ireland is the old sow [pig] that eats her farrow [babies].” And if you say Armenians are more civilized than that, I say: Compared to Irish literature, Armenian literature is a nightmare of neglect, degradation, betrayal, exile, and murder.#Friday, December 14, 2012************************************* SLOGANS******************** After the collapse of the USSR, Estonians, Lithuanians, and Latvians were ruthless in their treatment of their Russian citizens. Chechens and Georgians went further and declared war on Russia.We did nothing of the kind on the grounds that we need them more than they need us.*If true it is also true that what we don’t need is their kind of oligarchy, plutocracy, larceny, corruption, and contempt for democracy and human rights, which may be at the root of our exodus or “white massacre.” If you can’t see this clearly it may be because you are capable in thinking only in terms of cheap slogans and recycled enemy propaganda. *Once upon a time we had chic Bolsheviks in America who parroted the Kremlin line “The Russians are our Big Brothers.” The USSR has collapsed, our chic Bolsheviks have been silenced, but Stalin lives. *To the simple-minded who can think only in terms of slogans, how about this one?“Russia, yes. Russian shit, no!”*Have you noticed that the dumbest Armenians are Armenians who have assessed themselves as smart?#Saturday, December 15, 2012*************************************** DIARY**************** In the latest edition of BARTLETT’S FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS I find half a page dedicated to Raymond Chandler. Now that’s what I call progress. On the negative side, there are several pages of T.S. Eliot quotations most of which are neither familiar nor accessible to a layman like me. Armenians are mention only once in a single line – Hitler’s.*On our tombstone I suggest the following inscription: “They tried everything but solidarity.” Or “They refused to learn from their mistakes which they were careful never to acknowledge.”*We have played minor supporting roles on the stage of world history and we have invariably supported our butchers and executioners. *All the political policies we have adopted and implemented have been driven by death wish. What was done to us is only half the story.*Jose Ortega y Gasset must have had us in mind when he said: “A society without an aristocracy, without an elite, is not a society.”*We live in a world where genocide is easier to cover up than murder.#