Thursday, June 24, 2009
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MEMOIRS
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Because I was born in Greece to Armenian parents in a multicultural ghetto of refugees from the Ottoman Empire whose common medium was Turkish, I learned three languages without any effort on my part. I never asked anyone about the meaning of words or their definitions: I just knew. Something similar happens in the realm of ideas dealing with religion, ethics, and justice. I accepted them as facts rather than as prejudices, misconceptions, assumptions, fallacies, theories, or hypotheses. As a result, ideas that I encountered later in life – ideas like atheism, agnosticism, the brotherhood of all men, democracy, and passive resistance – appeared at first as alien, sometimes even as incomprehensible. Which is why intolerance comes naturally to all of us. It is tolerance that must be taught and learned, and more often than not, it is neither taught nor learned.
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In my twenties I tried to teach myself Japanese and Zulu, among other languages. Today I remember only one word in Zulu -- “kitab” (book), and I remember it because it is the same word in Turkish.
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And now allow me to tell you my favorite Nasreddin Hodja story:
It is said that in his youth the Hodja made a fortune as a smuggler. Everyone knew this but but no one knew what was it that he was smuggling, not even the border guards who would search him and his donkey thoroughly every time he crossed the border, which he did frequently. Many years later when one of the border guards met the Hodja and asked him what was was it that he was smuggling, the Hodja replied, “Donkeys.”
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Speaking of smugglers: When an American customs officer asked Oscar Wilde if he had anything to declare, Wilde is said to have replied: “Only my genius” -- no doubt one of the most dangerous commodities known to man.
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Friday, June 25, 2009
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ACADEMICS
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If the overwhelming majority of our academics stay away from Armenian studies, it may be because they have no desire to submit their intelligence to someone who may not have enough of its himself – namely, bosses, bishops, benefactors and their flunkies. As for the very few who get involved in Armenian studies, they invariably end up recycling the propaganda line that says, we did nothing wrong and the rest of the world did nothing right. To say otherwise would amount to biting the hand that feeds them.
If history is the propaganda of the victor, these academic charlatans seem to be saying, we will make ours the consolation of the loser.
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What have we learned from history?
Only this: power means above all the power to cover up blunders and to misrepresent defeats as moral victories.
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Because 2500 years ago Herodotus introduced his HISTORIES with the warning that he intends to speak of the great deeds and achievements of both "Greeks and barbarians," he was torn to shreds by Greek critics (among them Plutarch) as a lover of barbarians.
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“If you are nice to them, they will be nice to you.” This is a rule that works with gentlemen but not with bastards -- and the world is full of them – and I don't mean gentlemen. And the trouble with bastards is that you can never be nice enough to them. Lower your pants and they will resent you for not bending over.
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Three things to remember: (one) a fruitful failure is better than a sterile success; (two) “Thou shalt not” does not always work; and (three) Sooner or later a prejudice will bite your ass.
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What I write may best be described as a digression in a footnote of a book that I will never write.
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Saturday, June 26, 2009
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INTELLECTUALS AND ACADEMICS
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An intellectual is someone who dedicates his life to ideas.
An academic is someone who dedicates his life to his career.
Once upon a time we had intellectuals but no academics.
Today we have no intellectuals but over a thousand academics.
Which may explain why in literature even the Turks are ahead of us.
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Likewise we have many nationalist historians but not a single historian.
A nationalism historian is one who places the interests of the nation above the interests of mankind. In other words, he makes of history a branch of political propaganda.
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In the following two quotations, a 19th-century German philosopher and a 20th-century British historian reflect on historians.
Arthur Schopenhauer: “Clio, the muse of history, is as thoroughly infected with lies as a street whore with syphilis.”
A.J.P. Taylor: “Human blunders, usually, do more to shape history than human wickedness.”
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There is an old saying: “Historia magistra vitae” (The past is our great teacher).
There is another, even older, saying: “Omnis homo mendax” (All men are liars).
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I have two kinds of hostile readers: those who say they don't understand me, and those who understand me too well. As for the brainwashed: they are like parrots, disposed to understand only other parrots.
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Sunday, June 27, 2009
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BARE-FACED BIG LIES
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“God's chosen people.”
“Superior race.”
“The Cradle of Civilization.”
Do you know who popularized the idea of Armenia being the cradle of civilization? A hard-up odar alcoholic academic who got himself a fat check from an Armenian foundation and hoped to get another.
“God's chosen people”?
Chosen for what, may I ask? To be scattered, insulted, abused, and periodically slaughtered by, among others, the self-assessed “superior race” of Aryans?
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Flattery, especially self-flattery, needs no proof. And if you tell a dumb person he is smart, he will not ask you to prove it.
“It is written”?
All that means is that some megalomaniacal idiot confused his illusions with the voice of God. It happens all the time. The inspired loud-mouth charismatic charlatan is a routine occurrence in history and its latest manifestation is the televangelist in the “Land of Liberty,” where one of the bloodiest civil wars in the history of mankind was fought in defense of slavery.
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What I find incomprehensible is not that some readers disagree with what I say but that they don't disagree with the state and direction of our collective existence. They are eager to question the words of a scribbler but not the actions and policies of those who are in charge of our communities and the nation. Figure that one out, if you can.
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Monday, June 29, 2009
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ONE DAMN THING AFTER ANOTHER
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In their efforts to advance a new thesis, some odar academics – those we like to quote – have made such extravagant claims on our behalf that even some Armenian scholars (among them Sirarpie der Nersessian) have rejected them as unjustified, unverified, and erroneous.
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Our bruised egos are so hungry for flattery that sometimes we take a disguised insult as a compliment. Case in point: “It takes seven Jews to fool an Armenian.” Translated into ordinary parlance, this simply means: “If you think Jews are bad, I've got news for you: Armenians are seven times worse!”
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There is a big difference between being God's children and being the dupes of charlatans who speak in the name of God.
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If history is “an unending dialogue between the present and the past” (E.H. Carr, WHAT IS HISTORY?), what has been our contribution to this dialogue beside victims?
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Everything that I say today stands in direct contradiction to an early conviction which was instilled in me by individuals with a narrow and dogmatic agenda that distorted reality and perverted my judgment.
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We like to brag about our genius for survival. The irony here is that those who did the actual surviving did not brag about it. I know because I grew up surrounded by them.
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The sad truth is, those who do the most harm to their fellow men are the least aware of it.
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If there is a god, he must be a thirsty one.
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009
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REFLECTIONS
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Man is at his most creative in his invention of lies.
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The biggest lies are half-truths.
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If you speak against those who speak in the name of God,
they will accuse you of speaking in the name of the Devil.
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To be brainwashed means not to question the honesty and wisdom of your abusers.
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A nationalist historian writes about his nation and its enemies.
A historian writes about the past and the conflicting interests of nations.
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Nothing offends me more than being insulted by a fool who has been brainwashed to believe he is smart.
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If you don't have an agenda, everyone with an agenda will be against you.
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Self-esteem is not a reliable index of worth, in the same way that dogmatism is not an index of certainty.
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It is a universally shared human weakness to prefer flattery to criticism, but it is a dangerous addiction to prefer lies to truth.
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To those who accuse me of having a very low opinion of my fellow Armenians, I can only say, nobody really gives a damn what I or anyone else thinks. What matters, what really matters, is whether or not I can tell the difference between fact and fiction.
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Wednesday, July 1, 2009
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ARMENIANS SPEAK WITH A FORKED TONGUE
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I don't believe everything I am told.
Neither do I believe everything I read in the papers,
especially if it's favorable to someone;
in which case what I want to know is:
How much is he being paid for saying these things?
People lie.
People lie all the time, not only because they don't know the truth
or if they know it, it happens to be against them,
but because they feel more comfortable when they lie.
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We all lie when it comes to our problems,
and the greatest liar is he who says,
“We need solutions.”
Because that's the last thing we want.
Have you ever met a bishop willing to resign his position
or vacate his cathedral for the sake of solidarity?
Have you ever met a national benefactor
willing to utter a single word
against the worship of money?
Have you ever met a boss
who was not a loud-mouth megalomaniacal narcissist
all sound and fury signifying nothing?
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I doubt if there is a single Armenian today
who does not know what our problems and their solutions are.
Even a child knows where divisions are the problems,
solidarity is the solution.
Where worship of money is the problem,
respect for ideas is the solution.
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Our greatest intellectual of recent times was no doubt Gostan Zarian,
whose life and work prove that
we have no use for intellectuals and their ideas.
What we need is a messianic figure willing to be crucified.
But even then there is no guarantee
that will be the end of our problems.
Remember the brief life and career of another messiah
who was accused of blasphemy by his own people
and continues to be rejected by them even today,
after they have had two thousand years
to reconsider their position on the subject.
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Thursday, July 2, 2009
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PLATO, OSHAGAN, AND ZARIAN
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Everything I write is a paraphrase. I am as original as a cook who combines ingredients available in all supermarkets. If the result is edible or if what I say make sense, I am satisfied. I leave originality to my betters.
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Plato was a great philosopher, and according to some, the greatest. A 20th-century English philosopher (may have been Whitehead) once said that all of Western philosophy is nothing but footnotes to Plato. Was Plato an original thinker? We know that most of his DIALOGUES are based on the conversations of his teacher, Socrates. As for Socrates, very probably most of his ideas came from predecessors, who, like himself, never wrote a single line. To say otherwise is to imply that for almost a thousand years Greeks did not think, speak, discuss, and contradict one another.
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According to the Oshagans (pere et fils) Zarian was a plagiarist. What was their intention in saying that? To warn the nation not to be taken in by a charlatan or to establish themselves as the alpha males of 20th-century Armenian literature? If Zarian was a charlatan, what about the bosses, bishops, and benefactors whose support they (the Oshagans) enjoyed?
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An academic by the name of Stern (I forget his first name) once wrote a detailed study with copious footnotes and a bibliography, in which (unlike the Oshagans) he proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything Sartre wrote can be traced to an illustrious predecessor. Result? Who speaks of Stern today?
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If you want originality, read the Oshagans (whose works are being translated into English, I am told). But if you want to understand what's happening to us today, read Zarian.
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Friday, July 3, 2009
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ON ARMENIANS
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There is a brown-noser and a bastard in all of us – the brown-noser is reserved for odars, the bastard for our fellow Armenians. Somewhere between the two there is a human being, but he is well-hidden.
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We will think twice before contradicting an odar, but we will contradict, insult, and crap on a fellow Armenian as if it were our patriotic duty.
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An Armenian is never as smart as he thinks he is. But that's not his real problem. His real problem is that he is incapable of imagining how unspeakably stupid he can be.
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Nikol Aghbalian is right, we are a tribal people; or, in the words of Gostan Zarian, our concept of nation begins and ends with our mountain, our valley, our village, our church, and our chickens.
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Dissatisfied with what you have just read? Your refund is in the mail.
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Saturday, July 4, 2009
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UNTITLED
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Criticizing odars is a waste of time.
They have critics of their own.
They don't need our 2 cents.
They might even tell you to go back where you came from.
I speak from experience.
If by criticizing others we try to cover up our own problems
on the grounds that nobody is perfect,
we delude ourselves.
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We may not know all there is to know about our past.
Nobody does.
But we should know one things for certain
even if it may be hard for some of us to admit it.
We should know that what we were told in our formative years,
what we read in our papers today,
and what our speechifiers and sermonizers tell us,
is irrelevant nonsense.
We should know that the dark pages in our history
are not tragedies but blunders,
and only when we see them as such
may we arrest our downward spiral
and be born again as a nation.
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You wrote "I don't believe everything I am told", as for me I don't believe everything I read...