The Ara Baliozian Story (the unauthorized version)…..
These days one practically needs a volcano of courage to go against the grain but not a guy named Ara Baliozian he is going courage free..
Ara is a fellow Armenian who makes his living off condemning all other Armenians in general. For not once I have read him make one clarification, or separation. it is always all or nothing.
Apparently he is exposing to the world what he believes are the Armenian people’s greatest weaknesses, and flaws. On some menial level I believe he thinks he is aiding humanity. Another selfless writer who courageously stands up for what he believes in? Well, not exactly what the loads of Armenian people out there would say but Ara seems content just writing about the anger he stirs up in fellow Armenians with his bias opinions of them(us)…
Clearly, he has no second thoughts about what he writes which is often harsh, and lacking sources. Quite similar to what an endless cycle of cheap shots lunged sharply at an entire nation would look like is more how I would describe his writing.
A writer who is true to their causes is going against the grain many times in his/her career and each time risks being penalized in some way for it. Like in Turkey writers and journalists charged with a crime and tossed in jail as well as being beat up. No different in many other countries where there is little to zero democracy. Often you’ll hear it was not the police that beat up a journalist but an angry mob of ultra nationalists who form on their behalf. In Azerbaijan the government is so scrupulous it stoops to criminal levels like blackmail by planting cameras in their homes without their permission or knowledge then later use it to defame them if they do not back down.
Ara lives in Canada where he has all the freedom he needs – he has also been able to write what he wants without any real restriction or friction – and for what ever the reason he thinks he should he has thought it for well over 20 years and as I see it,without ever having to be accountable for it.
I mean as much as I’d like to say this is where his right to freedom of speech prevails I’would only be condoning the discrimination in his writing if I did.
For what ever Armenian(s) did what ever horrid thing to Mr. Ara B. to make him react so harshly in his writing against all Armenians I certainly do not find it acceptable that he judge me of capable of the same only because I am Armenian. No thanks I’ll pass.
For it is a fact that the kind of sites where Ara finds his best reviews are the kind of sites that also promote the denial of the Armenian Genocide.
Frankly, I find it most difficult not to see him merely an opportunist. Considering there is such a huge unexplored, field out there for Armenian, anti Armenian writers the term “going against the grain” could mean an excellent career move for some starving writer.
The chances of seeing a unicorn in drag has better odds than seeing an Armenian, anti Armenian writer, Except for Ara B, I know of none. See, I don’t think Ara considers himself an anti Armenian but just a guy speaking his mind an all, and IMO Armenians could stand to gain a lot more writers speaking their mind. However, countries do not need writers bashing their people.
Ara’s views stick out like a swollen gland.
Ara will undoubtedly be remembered not for what he wrote but for being the only one that wrote it.
A statue may one day be erected in his honor with a plaque that will consist of very little truth, I’m sure.
And it won’t probably say that Ara’s writings had very little truth to them – or that his personal opinions and hypocrisy is what he seemed to have had plenty of.
The truth is Ara Baliozian really is not harming anyone with his writings so in this period of his life I think he should probably be tolerated or ignored. For whether he has did it all for the attention or he truly believed in what he wrote I think it has spiraled to a point that it does not matter anymore.
As there was a time the foul smell of bigotry and the uncouth way it was passed off as literature was when Ara was at his peak was the time to stand up against it . .
Words that don’t make a difference are words not worth writing.
A person writing words in hopes that make him/her different from all the rest is seeking admiration (welcome to what I believe is Ara’s world) and the person who is writing words in hopes that they make a difference is admirable.”
A journalist who goes against the grain for a greater good is courageous a journalist who does not is simply a coward.
AlanaKalanaian 
Lichtenberg: “One can live in this world on soothsaying but not on truth-saying.”
Just feel lucky there was someone out there who thought you worth their time to write about..
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
**********************************
One reason why we remain divided is that
we have been taught to believe
the survival of our leadership
is more important than
the survival of the nation.
*
To believe in politicians and theologians
is to trust the judgment of compulsive
and habitual liars.
*
The Turkish political machine
has created as many lies
as its Armenian counterpart.
*
A few months ago one of our bishops
was posthumously exposed as a KGB agent.
I was not surprised.
Man is capable of doing anything
for a second regular salary.
*
When lawyers enter, justice exits.
*
My blunders have been my best teachers,
*
Reality is unpredictable
because it has more legs than a millipede.
#
Monday, March 23, 2015
***************************************
WOLVES
***********************
Anonymous: “A man is another man’s wolf.”
*
Once when I said Baronian had been betrayed
to the Ottoman police by some of his readers,
an angry reader commented:
“What did he expect
after making cruel fun of them?”
This reader never asked himself:
What if Baronian was right
and those he ridiculed wrong?
*
Another question:
Is the function of literature
to flatter the ego of swine?
*
To paraphrase another popular saying:
“You may take an Armenian
out of the Ottoman Empire but
you cannot take the Ottoman Empire
out of an Armenian.”
*
Sometimes it’s pointed out to me that
I too go too far. Things are bad enough,
why make them look worse?
No one wonders:
What if things are in fact worse?
In what way a “white” massacre
is morally superior to a “red” one?
What if an Armenian is really
a Turk to another Armenian?
What if they didn’t see
the Writing on the Wall
because they were morally blind?
*
What about us today?
Do we have 20/20 vision?
#
MANIFESTO
******************************
The function of literature is to understand reality.
The function of criticism is to expose contradictions.
The function of politics is to do what must be done.
The function of a reader is that of a consumer,
and as a consumer his most important priority
is not to be taken in by advertisements and
propaganda. When readers fail
and behave like dupes the result will be
not Bach and Mozart but Elvis and the Beatles;
and I for one cannot imagine a worst nightmare.
#
WE NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD
****************************************
Wrong life, wrong time and place,
under wrong people with wrong ideas:
nothing about us is right.
Nothing!
Our present situation is not just shituation
but a nightmare, or as the French say,
“un enfer de merde,” from which
we refuse to wake up.
*
What we need is not just a statesman of vision
who will guide us out of our labyrinth
but a messiah, who —
if we adopt history as our guide –
will share the fate of the other one,
thus condemning us to another
two millennia of nightmares.
*
We never had it so good!
#
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
****************************************
To keep us stupid
they tell us we are not just smart
but just about the smartest people on earth.
*
One way to describe Soviet-Armenian architecture
is to say it was cunningly designed
to kill the maximum number of people
in earthquakes.
*
There is a difference between patriotism
and patriotic propaganda:
the first is a sentiment;
the second an instrument of deception.
*
To contradict someone who lives in harmony
with his own misconceptions, prejudices and fallacies
is like interrupting a honeymoon.
*
The true atheists are not those
who identify themselves as non-believers
but bishops, imams, and rabbis.
*
To those who say writing for Armenians
is a waste of time, I say:
“I write to provide a footnote to Zarian.”
#
IDIOTS
*************************
Memo to a new FB friend:
“Dear friend:
It is obvious to me that you and I
share absolutely nothing in common.
It follows, we can learn a great deal
from each other.”
*
A man without contradictions
is a dead end.
*
Two world wars:
What did they accomplish? –
except to show that stupidity has been
and continues to be the mightiest force in history.
And when I speak of stupidity
I mean not the stupidity of the masses
and the unwashed but the stupidity
of the smartest, the ruling classes,
the most sophisticated,
and the most highly educated.
*
When they condemned two harmless
as well as innocent men
(Socrates and Jesus) to death,
did any one of them say,
“What the f*** are we doing? ”
*
Cherchez la femme?
Wrong!
Cherchez les idiots!
That’s different.
#
US & THEM
******************************
In their own eyes and in the eyes of most men,
Turks are not bloodthirsty savages
but men like all other men,
and like all other men
they can be ruthless
in defense of their own narrow interests.
*
You want to know more
about this human peculiarity?
Ask Algerians about the French,
natives about Yanks,
dissidents about Russians,
Hindus about Muslims,
Untouchables about Hindus,
Protestants about Catholics,
and last but far from least,
Armenian writers about Armenians;
and when I speak of Armenian writers
I don’t mean Arlen and Saroyan,
who wrote fiction even when
they wrote non-fiction.
*
And speaking of Armenian writers:
Two questions that I ask myself again and again are:
Why was I born an Armenian
and why did I compound the felony
by being an Armenian writer?
#
A STUDY OF HISTORY
**************************************
Imagine a political candidate who says to the people:
“You are smart,” and another who says “You are idiots.”
Can you guess which candidate
will have a better chance to be elected?
*
Now imagine a writer who says to the ruling classes:
“You are statesmen of vision,
the people owe their survival and prosperity to you.
If they never had it so good it’s because of your wisdom.”
And another writer who says:
“You are the scum of the earth.”
Can you guess which writer
will have a better chance to enjoy the support
of the establishment?
*
Moral I: Flattery works because it is
to human relations what oil is to machinery.
*
Moral II: In politics as in life,
lies are more useful than truth.
*
Moral III: The function of the 1%
is to moronize the 99%
and the function of the 99%
is to drop their pants and bend over.
*
Moral IV: Both the 1% and the 99% agree
that lies make more sense than truth.
*
Moral V: There is nothing in wrong
in speaking in the name of God
and doing the Devil’s work
because everybody does it.
#
ENJOY!
****************************
Some of the most important decisions in our lives –
such as the time and place of our birth and death,
whether we live in time of war or peace –
are not made by us but by conditions beyond our control
and by individuals who know nothing
and care even less about us.
*
As for freedom:
our options are so limited that
we might as well be ants in a labyrinth:
we may have the freedom to turn left or right
at the next corner, but beyond that
we might as well be slaves.
*
Some writers share their wisdom.
I share my misery.
I believe in the old saying:
“You want to make your friend happy?
Speak to him of your problems.”
#
NOTES / COMMENTS
*********************************
When we want something badly
we expect the universe to rearrange itself for us
and we are disappointed when it fails to do so.
*
Some people study the rules of the game
so that they can break them more wisely.
*
Shakespeare never wrote a book
on the art of writing
because he was too busy writing,
and had he written such a book
we would have fewer writers today
because they would realize
they didn’t have what it takes.
*
Love our enemies?
Don’t make me laugh!
We can’t even stop hating one another.
#
To be powerless is an open invitation to abuse.
“Telling it like it is” isn’t what makes one courageous it is being able to stand behind one’s words throughout any of the aftermath it caused that does.
I have been deceived so many times
that I no longer trust even my own judgment.
#
MANIFESTO
******************************
The function of literature is to understand reality.
The function of criticism is to expose contradictions.
The function of politics is to do what must be done.
The function of a reader is that of a consumer,
and as a consumer his most important priority
is not to be taken in by advertisements and
propaganda. When readers fail
and behave like dupes the result will be
not Bach and Mozart but Elvis and the Beatles;
and I for one cannot imagine a worst nightmare.
#
IDIOTS
*************************
Memo to a new FB friend:
“Dear friend:
It is obvious to me that you and I
share absolutely nothing in common.
It follows, we can learn a great deal
from each other.”
*
A man without contradictions
is a dead end.
*
Two world wars:
What did they accomplish? –
except to show that stupidity has been
and continues to be the mightiest force in history.
And when I speak of stupidity
I mean not the stupidity of the masses
and the unwashed but the stupidity
of the smartest, the ruling classes,
the most sophisticated,
and the most highly educated.
*
When they condemned two harmless
as well as innocent men
(Socrates and Jesus) to death,
did any one of them say,
“What the f*** are we doing? ”
*
Cherchez la femme?
Wrong!
Cherchez les idiots!
That’s different.
#
Failure is known by what you learned from it – learning nothing and continuing to do so is not failure but reoccurring stupidity.
Deceivers exist because deception works.
It is astonishing the number of great men who were taken in by Hitler and Stalin, both of whom made a mafia godfather look like a benevolent uncle.
*
If one goes ahead and willingly loses a true friend then one is far too much of dupe to know just how much they have really lost.
If Calderon is right and “life is a dream,” it may not even be our dream but someone else’s.
Integrity is most admirable when one is genuinely inspired by the acts of courage of others and blinded when it comes to seeing their own.
We say “shit happens” even when we micro-manage the catastrophe.
A society that does not hold all people accountable to the same laws and standards will fail… No government should ever be above law.
Two synonymous sentences:
Once upon a time barbers were surgeons.
Once upon a time politicians led nations.
#
Promise and delivery
might as well be strangers to each other.
#
If you feel strongly enough in what you believe in you won’t fear defending it…..
The most dangerous form of denialism
is to say, think, or imply that we are not responsible
for our misfortunes.
Passionate love is a disease that cures itself.
We may be unique (who isn’t?)
but our problems are not.
When I make a mistake I am corrected.
I am even corrected when I am right.
Rowan Atkinson: “Never before have I encountered such corrupt and foul-mouthed perversity. Have you considered a career in the church?”
Denis Leary: “I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Price.”