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Sunday, August 21, 2005
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It is not anti-Armenian to suggest that if Turks are human beings they deserve our understanding.
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Because I speak for understanding, tolerance, and dialogue, I am accused of denying the Genocide. I see no connection there, but I see a connection between being perennial losers and perennial ignoramuses.
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I am against hatred not because I love murderers and rapists but because hatred limits our ability to function at our full potential.
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Freedom of speech does not mean my freedom is more important than yours is because I am right and you are wrong. It means the freedom to be wrong, that is to say, to be fallible, that is to say, to be human.
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Armenians are a misunderstood, unappreciated, and ignored people, and ignored not only by odars but also by Armenians.
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Authoritarianism, intolerance, and charlatanism: I see them as three different facets of the same aberration.
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Any idea that remotely resembles what I thought twenty years ago as a dupe is repellent to me today, as it may well be twenty years hence to our dupes today.
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As long as there are Armenians who are not Armenophiles and Turks who are not Turcophiles, we may hope for reconciliation, coexistence, and peace.
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Monday, August 22, 2005
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I am for dissent and against propaganda regardless of race, color, and creed. Between a Turkish dissident and an Armenian propagandist I will be on the side of the dissident; and I refuse to believe that agreement with a dissident Turk and disagreement with an Armenian propagandist is a capital offense.
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The sentence, “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do,” could also be rephrased as, “Forgive them, Father, for they have been brainwashed.”
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The only way to agree with a propagandist is to allow him to brainwash you.
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Where benefactors play a central role, there will be rule by flunkies and brown-nosers parading as intellectuals and statesmen. When asked to name the greatest influences in his life, one of these so-called statesmen-intellectuals is quoted as having named one of our national benefactors.
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After subsidizing the construction of a museum dedicated to Armenian history and culture, one of our benefactors is said to have offered his old desk as an exhibit. What a book one could write on the megalomania of our benefactors!
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Until she died a couple of years ago, the wealthiest woman in Turkey is said to have been a bordello madam by the name of Manoogian. At her death even our weeklies in the diaspora published long obituaries.
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Tuesday, August 23, 2005
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There are two kinds of people, those who say, “Let us reason together” and mean it, and the others. It is to the “others” that we owe all wars and massacres.
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As long as I have the agreement of moderates on both sides, why should I care about the others? To put it more bluntly: as long as I have the agreement of reasonable men, why should I give a damn about the disagreement of jackasses?
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My greatest ambition in life: to make my readers smile even when I write about sad things.
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More often than not I do nothing but paraphrase our writers (see my DICTIONARY OF ARMENIAN QUOTATIONS). Our jackasses are not aware of this fact because they don’t read Armenian writers. Their ignorance thus allows them to parade as good Armenians even as they voice views that are neither good nor Armenian.
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The Turks say, “We are not guilty of slaughtering Armenians,” and our political parties say, “We are not guilty of leading the nation to the slaughterhouse.” Nothing new in that. All significant historic events have their defenders and critics. Napoleon is a hero to some, a villain to many others. The American, French, and Russian Revolutions have their apologists as well as critics. Notwithstanding their countless victims, Stalin and Hitler have their defenders. Even Hiroshima has been Rashomonized.
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Like all moderates, I believe silencing or exterminating the opposition is not the only legitimate way of settling differences.
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Wednesday, August 24,2005
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Speaking as a layman, I say if our political parties and their pundits have so far failed to convince me, they have also failed to convince many others. The reason of our high alienation and assimilation rate (or “white massacre”) must be sought in this failure rather than in “historic, social, cultural, and environmental factors beyond our control.”
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If you are like myself a man of limited knowledge and understanding, you will have many adversaries among those who know and understand everything.
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Preaching to the converted is one of the most popular and profitable commercial enterprises in the world.
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After meeting a nice Turk and a nasty Armenian you are bound to question many other assumptions.
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Armenian writers survive only by writing for an odar audience. The culturally starved Armenian will only starve them.
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