Thursday, November 09, 2006
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PROJECTIONS
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Ask a poet and he will tell you we are a nation of poets.
Ask another who doesn’t much care for poetry and he will tell you we are a nation of vodanavorjis (versifiers).
Others will tell you we are a nation of speechifiers and sermonizers who can deliver more empty verbiage in five minutes than an entire contingent of Southern televangelists in a week.
A merchant will tell you we are a nation of merchants.
A pragmatist will dismiss mystics, beginning with Naregatsi (assuming he has heard of him) as worthless daydreamers.
A commissar will tell you in no uncertain terms that intellectuals are, in his humble opinion, no better than mental masturbators.
Ask me and I will tell you we are not even a nation but a collection of tribes divided by bosses (who believe to an ideology), bishops (god), and benefactors (capital). But whatever we are, we are first and foremost men of faith, even when what we believe in is unbelief. Which means we know what’s good for others better than they know themselves.
Ask me what I believe in and I will tell you I believe in the freedom to question the validity of all belief systems.
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Friday, November 10, 2006
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REQUIEM FOR A DISSIDENT
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NOVAYA GAZETA (the Russian paper for which Anna Politkovskaya worked): “As long as NOVAYA GAZETA exists, her assassins will not have a good night’s sleep.”
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Mikhail Gorbachev in LA REPUBBLICA (Italy): “It is clear that they wanted to silence her. It is an assault on the free press and on all those who struggle for democracy in our country.”
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THE TIMES (Great Britain): “She was a fearless critic of President Putin and the atrocities committed by Russians in Chechnya. One of these reasons cost her life.”
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CORRIERE DELLA SERA (Italy): “Europe and the United States protest, Putin is silent.”
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EL MUNDO (Spain): “The name of Anna Politkovskaya is added to the list of assassinated journalists who defended freedom.”
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Saturday, November 11, 2006
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DIKRAN THE GREAT AND OTHER RASCALS
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Perennial victims of empires, we brag about the fact that under Dikran the Great we too had an empire. We brag even when we have nothing to brag about. The Roman Empire, like so many other empires around us, bit the dust, we like to brag, but we Armenians continue to live and prosper. What unspeakable nonsense! What verbal manure! What trashy propaganda! If half of the world today speaks dialects of Latin, can we really say the Roman Empire has ceased to exist? The Ottoman Empire lasted much longer than the Roman Empire. Are the Turks justified in asserting superiority over the Romans?
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What does it take to be an empire, beside greed and a bloodthirsty disposition? In all civilized and semi-civilized countries today there are laws that say you can’t just walk into your neighbor’s home and say, “Henceforth your property is no longer yours but mine. Disagree with me and you die!” And yet, this is exactly what empires do. Consider one of the most civilized empires in the history of mankind, the Athenian Empire. Greeks today brag about their culture as we brag about Dikran the Great. And yet, they condemned Socrates to death. As for Plato and Aristotle: they were so afraid they might meet the same fate that they spent a number of years in self-imposed exile. The Athenian Empire was based on military might, which meant war and taxation. When a city-state refused to pay its share of taxes, it was punished by ruthless massacres of civilians.
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According to our chauvinists, we are a peace loving people, hence our status as perennial underdogs and victims. What does it take to be an underdog? According to Hegel, fear of death, that is to say, cowardice.
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We like to brag not only about Dikran the Great, but also our millionaires. What does it take to be a capitalist? Exploitation. Our benefactors may not brag about their wealth but they love to make headlines in our papers and see their portraits hanging in vestibules of community centers, schools, and churches.
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We brag about Dikran the Great because we can’t brag about Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, or Suleiman the Magnificent. But I suggest we and the rest of the world have nothing to brag about, and whenever a tribe, nation, or empire brags, it lies.
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