Over the last few years, however, Baliozian has repeatedly crossed the line from criticizing the dominant Armenian mentality and the corrupt Armenian leadership to criticizing the Armenian nation and culture as a whole. After writing only in English, he stated that one does not need to write in Armenian to produce Armenian literature. He has repeatedly put down ALL of Armenian culture and literature in the most extreme terms. He has also crossed this line when he wrote about honesty as: "An extremely rare commodity among our elites and a word that doesn't exist in the Armenian language."
Often after reading such comments a bad aftertaste develops in one's mind: "If you think your nation is so bad, its culture and literature is so mediocre, and it is not necessary for its writers to preserve its language, then why don't you assimilate and stop complaining about the assimilation of others and stop claiming that you are an Armenian writer?"
In a recent interview mailed to ARI by Nazeli Baghdassarian, titled "A Conversation With Ara Baliozian", and published by ARI on March 5, 1997, Baliozian stated:
" Throughout our millennial history, our literature has never been successful in shedding its marginal status as entertainment or as lamentation after the fact or chauvinist nonsense about the eternal snows of Mount Ararat."
What about our greatest writers, Raffi, Baronian, Odian, Siamanto, Varoujan, Toumanian, Issahagian, Tekeyan, Charents, Shahnour, Shant, Sevag, Zarian? Did they all produce "marginal literature" and "chauvinist nonsense"? Has Baliozian written better literature than them?
A deep sense of cynicism bordering on despair permeates Baliozian's writings of recent years. In his PAGES FROM MY DIARY, written in 1986 on the occasion of turning 50, Baliozian wrote:
"There it is! The last word on the subject.
Disgust! "
Needless to say, every Armenian writer has had to deal with prolonged
periods of hopelessness and disgust, especially as a result of the shabby
treatment they receive and have received from our media and institutions, and
the life of poverty to which they are (were) condemned. But the mark of every
great writer, as is the mark of every great human being, is to overcome the
negativity, absurdity and pessimism and to transcend them, rather than to
dwell on them for years. As our great writers have always known, criticism
must be balanced with positive reinforcement. If one attacks the corrupt
bosses and bishops, one should also applaud the heroes and dedicated workers.
A writer, like a teacher, must point out the faults, but also praise the
greatness and unique achievements of his people and inspire them with respect
for their legacy and faith in the future. In Baliozian's writings this
balance is sorely missing.
"Cynicism", wrote Dr. B. DeAngelis, "is a cover-up for pain, and expression of angry hopelessness that the world is the way it is. Cynics are often frustrated believers who feel deep disappointment in people and in life itself. Think of someone you know who appears to have a negative or pessimistic attitude. When you look into their eyes, you will see a wounded spirit. If you have lost your faith in why we are here and what we are supposed to be doing, you aren't having enough real moments. It is these moments that themselves will bring meaning back into your life and make it all worthwhile."
"Wounded spirit" and "not having enough real moments" is the sad reality that appears through Baliozian's writings. A "wounded spirit" which prefers to wallow in its own negativity than pass on to a higher spiritual level. Baliozian himself admits that what he is saying today is no different than what he said 20 years ago, but does not realize that this is a sign of stagnation and stalemate, which results in decadence rather than growth. Much of his writings of the recent years are variations of the same themes, rearrangements of the same ideas repeated over and over ad eternum. It is this negativity which he sometimes projects over the Armenian nation as a whole. Any nation, obviously, cannot be all bad or all good. At this critical moment of our history, when we are threatened by the two-edged sword of assimilation and exodus, an Armenian writer must inspire his people with all the good they have produced and are producing, rather than hitting them on the head and diminishing their greatest men and women continually. Another manifestation of this cynicism is evident when he states:
"Sometimes I suspect, the only reason I go on writing today is that it has become a habit I can't give up."
"Not having enough real moments" is another cause of this negativism. To my knowledge, in the past 3 decades, Baliozian has rarely been out of his secluded apartment in Kitchener, Ontario, and had very little person-to-person contact and communication with his people. Much of the joy of being an Armenian is having "real moments" with fellow Armenians, feasting with them with oghi and shishkebab, singing "Zartnir Lao " and dancing with them, crying with them when someone recites Tekeyan or Shiraz, laughing with them when watching a satirical play, sharing their daily hopes and concerns, etc. A writer must have "real moments", otherwise his writing cannot speak to the hearts of "real people".
In the same interview Baliozian states:
"In France, for example, writers like Voltaire and Rousseau shaped the French Revolution. There are no Voltaires in the history of our literature -- writers, that is, who by reshaping perceptions, changed the destiny of the nation."
We had many writers at least as good as Voltaire who tried to do the same. Apovian, Raffi, Baronian, Arpiarian, Siamanto, Varoujan, Odian, Sevag and Zarian are just a few, and they still shape our perceptions today. But we had a different history than France, such as hundreds of years of slavery under foreigners, which made it almost impossible for our writers to reach their people and communicate with them in any way. If they had, they would have enlightened them and led them just as well as Voltaire. Voltaire was only imprisoned and banished by his own king. Many of our writers, such as Apovian, Arpiarian, Siamanto, Varoujan, Sevag, disappeared or were murdered for the only sin of writing for their people and trying to enlighten them. These were not only greater writers than Voltaire, but also greater heroes who faced death for enlightening their people.
Unfortunately, this very dangerous psychology of feeling inferior to Western
cultures surfaces often in Baliozian's writings. "Odaramoloutyoun"
(Xenomania), or the infatuation for everything foreign, believing the myth
that we are inferior to the "civilized" Westerners -- which is only a
consequence of our own ignorance of our history, legacy and culture -- is the
root cause of the "White Genocide" or assimilation, which according to
Baliozian has a rate of 80% among Diasporan Armenians. Yet Baliozian labels
the Armenian writers who write about the greatness of their nation as
chauvinists and continues to tell us that as a nation we amount to almost
nothing and points to the "civilized West", an oxymoron, as a model. The same
"civilized West" that has perpetrated the greatest Genocides and Wars in the
last few hundred years, and victimized the world, including our nation, with
its colonialism, imperialism and dirty politics. The same "civilized West"
that has flooded the world with materialism and commercialism, eroded
indigenous values and cultures and degraded human beings to alienated, hollow
men defined as "human resources" in global corporations. The same "civilized
West" which is now poisoning the world with alcohol and tobacco, and
destroying its environment. Does Baliozian utter a word criticizing the
Western culture and its dire influences on the world? Never! In a recent
writing soon to be published by ARI, he wrote:
"In the civilized West, patronage is a thing of the past; among us, it
continues to define our literature."
Again, the constant comparisons of the "civilized" versus us, that is, "the uncivilized." As if literature that can only be sold to the highest bidder and bought by the lowest common denominator is better than that produced by patronage.
The following is Baliozian's answer to the following question:
"Could Voltaire himself be Voltaire if he had lived in Istanbul or Yerevan?
A: Of course not. But I happen to believe, neither Ottoman tyranny nor Soviet oppression were inevitable facts of life imposed on us by God or some other invisible force over which we had no control. We were defeated and oppressed because we were divided. To put it differently, in order to defeat us, our enemies made countless little decisions that were right and we made an equal number of decisions that were wrong...and the irony of it is that we continue to make decisions that are against our own interests."
Is it our own fault that we could not face and defeat the hundreds of thousands of hordes pouring upon us every few decades for thousands of years, and the millions of soldiers in the Red Army? There is no doubt that our past and present divisiveness played (plays) a great role in our defeat as a nation. But to jump from this conclusion and say that "our enemies made countless little decisions that were right and we made an equal number of decisions that were wrong" is utterly ridiculous, bordering on nonsense. There is not one individual that consistently makes correct or incorrect decisions, so how could this be true with a whole nation?
The fact is that from the beginning our numbers were small and we were surrounded by invaders of much greater numbers who decided to pass through our lands, plunder what they wanted and destroyed the rest. Most of these invaders were nomads whose culture and lifestyles were based on taking what was there, rather than producing something new. We, as a nation, from the beginning, believed in building, planting, creating life rather than killing and destroying. Except for brief periods of our history, we never had imperialistic designs of invading or conquering and exploiting our neighbors. We wanted to live in peace and to expand our spiritual and intellectual consciousness through faith, art and culture. If we failed to resist the barbarians it was precisely because our priorities were not in building arms and forts. Measured by today's standards of Western culture where only success and profit count and ANY end justifies the means, of course we would be judged as a big failure. But who said these are the greatest standards and values that mankind should uphold? "Might is right" from the Roman Empire until today has caused nothing but great damage not only to mankind but also to the whole planet. Great writers must inspire their people with great ideals and not succumb to the standards of those who believe in the exploitation of the weak.
Another example is the following answer to this question:
"Q: How do you explain that? What is it that drives some nations to do the right thing and others to do the wrong thing?
A: Historians and philosophers have come up with many tentative answers. Socrates, for example, believed that ignorance is the source of all wrong actions."
In other words we are ignorant and others are not. Insult upon insult is piled on a poor nation which had been deprived of education and access to world culture and sources of knowledge for centuries. While the West was going through cultural and scientific Renaissance, we were suffering in the Dark Ages of the Ottoman Empire. There is no mention that as soon as we had some educational institutions available to us, we produced, as in Soviet Armenia one of the highest ratios of college educated people in the world. In the Diaspora the same may be true as well.
In another writing submitted to ARI by Baliozian and published by ARI on March 18, 1997, Baliozian wrote:
"Where are our Jeffersons, Lincolns and Roosevelts?"
Again, the endless comparisons to Western men, held up by Baliozian as the highest models for our nation. God save us when hypocritical slave owners like the "founding fathers" and imperialists like US presidents become the highest models of our nation! How could we have produced great statesmen during or after centuries of Ottoman and Communist slavery, Genocide, and dispersion all over the world? Those that did have potential to become great statesmen were at best ostracized and imprisoned, and at worst exiled and killed. Almost all of our great men believed and wrote about the great ideas of liberty and justice for all, but we were not living in a continent like America where we could head West if we didn't like our oppressors, and our oppressors were not on another continent, but on our own land!
Baliozian also wrote:
"A culture of defeatism, miserabilism, and degradation is not culture but anti-culture because it is motivated not by life but by death. A dignified silence is to me much nobler than this kind of philistinism which is nothing but a suicide note in disguise."
Armenian culture is admired worldwide, even though only a small portion of it is known and accessible to foreigners. Sure there is a lot of "Armenian culture" that masquerades as "culture" but is nothing but trash, but the same is true with all other cultures of the world. Why be so preoccupied about the "trash" and ignore the great jewels that our nation has produced under the most difficult and oppressive circumstances? Who is to say that if our great writers were translated and published worldwide, if our music was recorded and played worldwide, if our architecture which was copied by Byzantine and Rome was shown by the Western media, if our painters displayed their paintings in the greatest galleries of the world, that we would not have names as great as Shakespeare, Verdi and Picasso? Much of our culture like our history is sad indeed, but true sorrow is always superior than superficial joy.
The bashing of the Armenian and the Armenian nation continues:
"According to Neshan Beshigtashlian, 'An Armenian's nose is a Mount Ararat and his speech an earthquake.' He could have added: And his brain a cesspool of cliches, misconceptions, fallacies, and recycled propaganda."
Another absolutist statement, which grossly omits the fact that there are many open-minded and bright-minded Armenians which have chosen to remain silent while the swine conduct the affairs of the nation. At one point or another many of them became involved and dedicated in Armenian affairs, but could not deal with all the filth, became disgusted and walked away. An Armenian writer must reestablish faith in ourselves and always remind us that the misery of our situation and the apathy which plagues us today is not because of an inherent fault in us as nation, but because we tolerated our corrupt leadership for too long.
Baliozian then continues to say:
"I don't enjoy Armenian writers, and I like even less meeting them -- and they say, misery likes company." And "One reason why I dislike Armenian writers is that they are more than willing to make a pact with the devil for a little success." Yet, a few paragraphs above he condemns those who are indifferent to Armenian writers and literature:
"A nation that treats ideas and intellectuals like worthless trash ends up at the mercy of real trash!"
If you, as an Armenian writer, believe that our writers are not worth your time and our literature is full of lamentation and "chauvinist nonsense" and our culture is inferior to that of the French or the American, why do you condemn others for believing the same? To my knowledge, Baliozian has never said a good word about ANY living Armenian writer, which indicates that he feels he is the only one worthy to be called an Armenian writer, even though he has not written a word in Armenian.
In another writing in The Armenian Reporter Int'l, February 8, 1997, titled "ARA BALIOZIAN'S CORNER - What is Literature?", we read:
"How often we have heard it said that writers like Arlen, Adamov, and Saroyan do not belong to Armenian literature because their medium was not Armenian. Ah! The pleasures of passing judgment on one's betters. The power of sitting on a podium, looking down at the accused below, and saying 'You are not one of us' ".
The fact is, Mr. Baliozian, that Americans do not consider French books as American literature even if they dealt with Americans and American culture, the French do not consider German books as French literature, so on and so forth. Whether you like it or not, it is the language that defines the nationality of the literature, and as long as you write in English ONLY, you are only an American (or Canadian) writer who writes about Armenians. In an essay titled OUR LANGUAGE and published by ARI on August 29, 1996, I wrote:
"One of the reasons our language has survived more than three thousand years while many other languages perished is its ability to adapt and respond to the demands of the times in which it was used. We shall give examples of this later. Another reason for the survival of our language is that no matter how many foreign languages we learn to speak, nothing comes closer to expressing the depths of our minds and souls than the language of our ancestors, the language of the "collective subconsciousness" of our race. And this is true, even if we are born on foreign soil and have never learned Armenian, as the following lines explain.
In his autobiography, Gosdan Zarian, perhaps the greatest Armenian writer of this century, explains why he decided to learn Armenian at the age of 27, after receiving a PhD in Literature from the University of Brussels (my translation from Armenian ):
'By coming to Belgium, the language problem was presented to me in a quite acute way. To give vitality to the language it was necessary to return to the land. Our own land. Language receives its sap from the land, like the tree.
Language, someone else's language, if it is used in perfect accuracy, becomes a mold and loses its mobility and freedom. One does not write in some language but in someone else's language.
As we were arguing about this, Verhaeren (renowned Belgian poet) asked me:
'I don't know, whether you are a believer or not', he said, 'but if you
were, in which language would you be praying?'
'While I was young, my mother had taught me 'Our Father' in ancient
Armenian.'
'Armenian?'
'Ancient Armenian.Yes!'
'Then, what is poetry but a permanent prayer?'
The general language situation in Belgium and Verhaeren's argumentation
resolved the question of my language.
After not more than few weeks I was sitting in one of the rooms of Venice's Saint Lazarus Armenian monastery, where once Byron himself had learned Armenian, and with the help of two monks I was working to master both ancient and new Armenian.
Now I understand; the language is in the blood, like talent, like disease, like taste. Furthermore, if you have something important to express, you will find the necessary language. I fell in the ocean of the Armenian language and mobilized my whole body to master it.' "
Armenian writers who have given up writing in Armenian, specially when writing highly creative and personal works such as poetry, will never be able to express themselves completely and to the degree of depth that they need to express themselves, nor will they ever be understood to the degree they want to be understood. Shahan Shahnour wrote in RETREAT WITHOUT SONG:
'What you wrote cannot speak to any Armenian, as long as the word 'garod ' does not exist in them. Yes, don't laugh! Because that is not the only thing missing; you already know, but let me remind you that there is no French for the word 'mayr ', the word 'hay ', the word 'aksor '...there is no French for our 'kaghtagan ', our 'vorp '...!'
Armenian writers who have given up writing in Armenian, also cannot completely fulfill a very important role for the nation, which is to encourage others to preserve the Armenian language, culture and legacy, and not to become assimilated. An Armenian writer writing in a foreign language has no moral ground to stand on when it comes to preaching others about not assimilating. As Armenian writers, we don't have the luxury like writers of other nations to write in whatever language we wish. Our primary goal cannot be just literature, but the preservation of our nation as well, which is the most critical issue that the Armenian nation faces today."
Baliozian writes:
"How many times I have myself been told by our literary pundits and defenders of the faith: 'You, my friend, don't belong to Armenian literature because you write in English' - as if they were depriving me of a rare privilege; as if being just a writer were not difficult enough task; and as if producing unreadable trash in Armenian were better than writing an honest line in English or any other language for that matter."
Verhaeren and Gosdan Zarian believed it was a "rare privilege" to write in one's own language, rather than in "someone else's" language. Were they wrong? What a tremendous loss would it have been for Armenian literature if Gosdan Zarian did not learn and write in Armenian! According to you, if he wrote only in French or Italian he would still have been an Armenian writer. And what about producing honest lines in Armenian? Is not that possible and better? Perhaps not, since you don't believe the word "honest" exists in Armenian. And let us not hide behind poverty, because you can still write in Armenian while you are writing in English to get paid for your work.
Baliozian continues:
" The most important quality about a literary work is not its medium but its ability to engage us on all levels -- intellectual, spiritual, emotional, political, etc."
And none of these has to do with one's nation and nationality? There are three fundamental things that identify us as a nation: Homeland, language, culture. We do not live in our homeland, we are always exposed to foreign culture as opposed to our own culture, and if we give up the language, then what will be left to define and keep us together as a nation? If we continue adding to someone else's culture instead of to our own, what will happen to our own culture? The greatest literature first springs from one's own roots and then permeates to the rest of mankind, and not vice versa.
Baliozian continues:
"An Armenian mediocrity writing a mediocre poem in his mother tongue enhances nothing but our own mediocrity."
And what about an excellent Armenian writer writing in his own mother tongue and enhancing our excellence? Is that a possibility for you? Is there ANY living Armenian writer about whom you wrote ANY kind words? Is there ANY dead writer that wrote anything but "marginal literature"? If you think so little of your nation, perhaps that is the real reason that you are not writing in your mother language.
Then he continues to rationalize his writing in English by saying that most Armenians in the West do not understand Armenian. But it is our very mission to oppose this trend and not to follow it, rather than giving up to it as if it were an inevitable fact of life.
Baliozian continues:
"If you are dying of thirst and you come across a stream of clear water, you don't say, 'I will not drink from this stream because it does not spring from Armenian soil.' "
There is no doubt that we have much to benefit from other cultures and we must drink from all streams. However, we must also remember that the only stream which will really quench our thirst springs from Armenian soil. And why settle for a poor substitute?
Baliozian often accuses those who disagree with him with many "ism"s, such as "nationalism", "chauvinism", "purism", "racism", etc. He cannot accept the fact that there are many honest, yes honest, Armenians who love their nation and are deeply concerned about its future. Since when did the love of one's nation become a dirty word? And why can't we distinguish the love of our nation from any negative connotations that those "ism"s contain?
As an Armenian one sometimes feels that he is some kind of a specimen of an endangered species in Baliozian's underground, secret, secluded laboratory, being analyzed and dissected, criticized, and then preserved in a jar for to be used later. He derides poets when he has never written a line of poetry, he ridicules or ignores those who ask his advice for their works, and he judges a whole people from his seat in an apartment thousands of miles away from where they live. One rarely feels the Armenian voki in his writings, the spirit that unites us and keeps us alive in spite of all disasters, the unquenchable torch of our ancestors that Zarian spoke about so gloriously. In short, one seldom feels that this is his older brother who cares for him and loves him, but rather an icy schoolmaster who will be quick to condemn him for the stain on his shirt, and will ignore him even when he does well.
In the conclusion of Baliozian's interview, we read:
"Q: Isn't there anything positive you can say about our present situation?
A: Only one thing: the possibility that I am wrong.
Q: Could you elaborate?
A: One of the most frequently leveled criticisms against me is that I am consistently negative; to which I reply, nothing would give me more pleasure than being proven wrong."
I give you all the pleasure, Mr. Baliozian. You may consider yourself proven wrong.
Feedback/Comments: The email address of Shant Norashkharian is:
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