Comments on: Turkey’s Kars Amnesia

By: ara baliozian

ara baliozian — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 18:28:34 +0000

Sunday, March 29, 2009
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WHERE WE STAND
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Russians gave communism a bad name and Americans did the same with capitalism. The next “fail-safe” or “best” system, whatever it may be, will also bite the dust by its dedicated supporters as surely as communism and capitalism. It is almost as if the destiny of the best were to be the worst.
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Armenianism: the triumph of dogmatism over solidarity.
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It is the most assertive among us that are the most insecure.
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What we are is not a monolithic structure but fragments of what we could have been.
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We are constantly bombarded by lies that encourage us to hate our fellow men. It is almost as if the function of our “betters” were to make us worse.
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Pablo Neruda: “I only know the skin of the earth, / And it has no name.” After “All men are brothers,” the best argument against nationalism.
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I see a clear parallel between what contemporary composers have done to music, what artists have done to art, what politicians have done to statesmanship, with what economists have done to the global economy.
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Monday, March 30, 2009
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SOCRATES
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“We approach truth only in the proportion as we are farther from life.”
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ON OBJECTIVITY
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Objectivity and passionate involvement are mutually exclusive concepts – unless of course one develops the difficult art of thinking against oneself, which means assuming one is wrong even when – especially when – one is absolutely certain of one’s moral superiority and infallible judgment.
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ON UNDERSTANDING
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To understand and solve a problem, one must be objective, and one must be objective for purely selfish reasons – to improve one’s chances of survival. Cultures that are not tolerant of objectivity or dissent (in this context, two words that might as well be synonymous) have a short lifespan. Think of the Soviets, the Nazis, the regime of the Young Turks, and more recently, the Nixon administration. Closer to home, think of all the dissenting voices in the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the last century that were ignored by our revolutionaries who to this day emphasize their heroism instead of questioning their judgment.
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DEFINING EVIL
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To know what must be done and not do it.
To know that what one does is wrong but do it anyway.
To know that “a house divided against itself cannot stand” and to divide it anyway.
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WORTH REPEATING
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The surest way of moronizing a nation is to brainwash the people into believing they are not just smart but smarter than any other nation, and anyone who dares to say otherwise is an enemy of the people. I speak from experience. The more moronized I was, the smarter I thought i was.
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Tuesday, March 31, 2009
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STRANGE BUT TRUE
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What a strange world we live in!
Chief executive Rick Wagoner (the one who traveled to Washington by private jet to ask for a handout) is getting $23 million for bankrupting General Motors as the management is demanding more concessions from the workers.
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The best argument against women’s intuition and men’s IQ (if such a thing exists) is the high rate of divorce.
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In the struggle for justice there are no losers. Even if you lose you may inspire others to carry on the struggle, or you may wear down the opposition even if it is by an invisible fraction of an inch.
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No one can be as ignorant, or rather, as infatuated with his own ignorance, as he who pretends to know and understand everything. I would even go as far as saying, the safest way of judging a man’s knowledge and understanding is by the number of times he is willing to say “I don’t know” and “I don’t understand.”
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One of the most difficult things in politics is separating friend from foe – especially the kind of foe who knows all the right words and can easily guess what it is exactly that you want to hear.
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It is only after the obvious solution is rejected that a problem is declared insoluble.
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Wednesday, April 1, 2009
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DON’T BE A FOOL!
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A wise man (it may have been Aldous Huxley) once said that our planet is the insane asylum of the universe.
It is said, “There are forty-three kinds of insanity.”
Or, to paraphrase Tolstoy, “Every insane person is insane in his own way.”
There is a school of psychology that says, since the social order in which we live in is insane, the function of psychiatry is to replace one form of insanity with another.
Consider the case of Christians who believe the Bible to be the source of all wisdom, including scientific knowledge.
Chief executive officers who believe they deserve million-dollar bonuses after bankrupting not only their business but also the global economy.
After reading one of my commentaries, a Mekhitarist monk is quoted as having said: “He is an intellectual and all intellectuals eventually go insane.” Which may suggest that we are better at diagnosing insanity in others than in ourselves. Either that or we assume to be the norm and any deviation we label as insane.
We may know how to survive, but do we know how to live?
We brag about our literature but we suppress free speech.
Don’t be taken in by appearances.
Don’t believe everything you read in the papers.
There are as many lies in the speeches of our speechifiers and the sermons of our sermonizers than there are forms of insanity.
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By: Shiva

Shiva — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:14:15 +0000

That’s right, barbaros. We will continue to be that eternal insignificant inconvenience until _your_ country and people change. Armenians are not just Armenia, we transcend those bloody borders. Thus far, it has only been the Turkish Armenians who have been willing to engage and shape Turkish society. This only happened recently, with Agos and Hrant Dink. It must continue. And Armenians from all over the world must take part in it in any way they can.

For me, it isn’t about land or reparations. It never has been, really. It is about changing the jingoistic mindset of these people before it goes too far (again).

By: barbaros

barbaros — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:39:32 +0000

This will be my last post Raffi,

Turks are at ease. Armenia is so insignificant that a vast majority of Turks don’t even know where it is.
Though to ease your worries I will read the book.

By: Raffi Kojian

Raffi Kojian — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:24:08 +0000

Barbados – I did not address what you wrote about Germany, let me do it now.

Yes, Germany was forced to give land to Poland and Russia. Turkey not only did not give land to Armenia, it took more. What were the results? Let me generalize here…

Germans today do not think twice about the lands that they gave, and Germany is not any weaker for not having them. Germans are happy, healthy, well adjusted, respected, and feel about as much at peace as possible.

Turks constantly think about the lands they took, the possibility of having to return some, and cry at the thought of a smaller Turkey, as though the country would crumble if an inch were lost. Turks are unhappy about the situation, remain ultranationalistic, I would not say they are well adjusted when it comes to this subject, I would not say they are respected for what they have done, and I would definitely not say they are at peace. They could not even discuss the topic a few years ago (again, read the book, it’s incredible), and today they still have a huge psychological burden to bear.

Quite a contrast.

By: Raffi Kojian

Raffi Kojian — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:04:15 +0000

Barbados, not to beat a dead horse, but I believe actually that YOU are the enemy of Turkey, that I am its ally and friend. Your time is past, mine is coming (and I think you see that). If you care to blame Turkey’s ultranationalism and hawkish behavior on just calls for reparations, be my guest. A psychologist I suspect would beg to differ, and find an entirely different root to your problems.

Just read the book. I promise it is an amazing journey you will go on – it was for me, and I think any human would be a better person for having read it. If you don’t want to buy it, request that your local library does.

By: Atovm Aramyan

Atovm Aramyan — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:40:47 +0000

Shiva I hope you are not serious. There is a huge power disparity between armenia & turkey.

By: Shiva

Shiva — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:04:49 +0000

Turks are always accusing Armenians of trying to bring down their government or state. It is time for Armenians to do just that. Why don’t we ever act?

I know what most will say: look at what happened to Hrant Dink. But these things can also be done clandestinely. Dink was vocal about everything, and when he got too close (ordinary Turks were beginning to pay attention to what he had to say), he was assassinated. We must work with others in Anatolia to put an end to this jingoistic nonsense, which has left the people fretful, imbalanced, and racist.

The corrupt Armenian government should also be replaced, but _not_ with someone like Levon Ter-Petrossian.

By: barbaros

barbaros — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:02:15 +0000

You are absolutely right. I admit there was a deportation. I admit it was necessary. And this might shock you, I have no hate for Armenians. As I said before there are already 70,000 illegal Armenians in Turkey. If more want to settle in Turkey, I am fine with that.

Now, I am against Armenians like you who are the enemies of my state. And you are the enemy, therefore I feel nothing towards you. You are no different for me than a member of the PKK. Now for Armenians like Blogian or Ara Baliozian I have the highest admiration and respect, because they see that the subject of land reparations only fuels even moderate Turks to become staunch hawks.

Also there is something flawed in your argument. Germany did not give land to Poland and the Soviet Union. It Was “MADE” by the winners of WW2 to give land. Just like the Ottoman Empire was made to give land to almost all its neighbours with the treaty of Serve. Call it fate, will of god or just dumb luck; we had a man name Ataturk. Who saw how corrupt and impotent the Ottoman Empire had become, so he decided to take matters into his own hands. So my question is: Who is going to make Turkey abandon its land, that it fought so hard for, to Armenia?

By: Raffi Kojian

Raffi Kojian — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 23:46:26 +0000

Barbados, you’ve gone from “I don’t believe the deportations of 1915 were a genocide.”, to actually admitting to and endorsing the Armenian Genocide in the space of a few comments. Thanks for the admission, I guess this is progress. It looks like I won’t be holding my breath for an apology from you though…

Read “You Rejoice My Heart”, by Kemal Yalcin. I’d like to see even you not be shocked and moved. Even if you read it with your heart set on hating everyone in it, you should test yourself and see if you can face it and still make that last comment so boldly.

By: barbaros

barbaros — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:06:15 +0000

Raffi the more I get to know you the more I “know” they ( my ancestors ) were right.