BITTER BEANS

By Cassandra, Toronto, 22 October 2021

Krikor: There you are, Pete. With all these people around, I couldn’t find you.

Bedros: Uhh. Pull a chair.

Krikor: Despite COVID-19, they seem to be doing very well.

Bedros: Uhh… the coffee is good. Thank God for small blessings.

Krikor: What’s the matter? You seem to be in the dumps.

Bedros: Now that’s a silly things to say, Greg. Who isn’t in the dumps these days? Did you just land from the moon? What Armenian can be happy these days?

Krikor: Aaaaah, now I get it.

Bedros: Let’s talk about something else. Armenian talk is depressing me and raising my blood pressure.

Krikor: We have had worse times. We have recovered. We will recover again.

Bedros: You talk like a Boy Scout. This time it could be fatal.

Krikor: I will tell you something…these days psychiatrists frequently use the word “catastrophizing” to describe your attitude.

Bedros: Cat..ssst…rophizing perfectly describes out current situation. Here’s a bit of sick humor…a perverse version of poet Elizabeth Browning’s “How do I love thee, let me count the ways…” Let me list the calamities we face.

The loss of the war. The loss of half Artsakh. The loss of 4,000 soldiers plus the injured. The civilian dead and wounded in Artsakh. The destruction of property and infrastructure. Azerbaijan soldiers on Armenian soil and killing Armenian soldiers or civilians almost every day. We can’t retaliate…it would be an excuse for another invasion. Meanwhile, Haivan Putin does nothing. Sorry…he does something: along with the so-called Armenian Levi-rov, the Eff Emm of Russia get deeper into bed with Erdogan.

Krikor: But you know…

Bedros: Wait, I am not finished yet. At this existential point in our history, we are blessed with a stupid, incompetent, asinine, self-centered—if not a treacherous—braggart who “managed” the Artsakh War although he hasn’t held anything more deadly than a pencil. Through dictatorial tactics, he has rendered the National Assembly as useful as a convention of COVID-19 analyzers. Which reminds me: we are losing 15-20 people to the virus every day. And yet there’s an ignoramus public in Armenia which re-elected the wretched and demented politico despite his crimes (unprepared for war yet provocative in addition to having no knowledge on how to run a war…). And before I forget: throughout the war he lied to the shiftless people who re-elected him that we were winning the war.

Krikor: It’s hard not to agree with you.

Bedros: I am not finished. Look at our Diaspora. The Little Armenia of Lebanon is vanishing. Our Syrian and Iraqi communities are at death’s doors. Egyptian community is a figure head. We boast there are 400,000 Armenians in France. I wonder how many can speak in Armenian or are part of the community. In Argentina there are 110,000 Armenians. I have heard from good authority that only 10,000 are part of the community.

Krikor: But we are strong in Southern California—the biggest U.S. state.

Bedros: True. But it’s too far from the homeland…and will the next generation demonstrate the same patriotism that so many Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena….Armenians demonstrate today?

Krikor: Enjoy your coffee. I better go before I contemplate seeing a shrink.

Bedros: I haven’t finished. Our political parties and institutions are in disarray. We are closing Armenian schools left and right…from Cyprus to Los Angeles to Toronto, we are shuttering Armenian schools. No Armenian school means no Armenian speakers means a dead Armenian language.

Krikor: I really have to go…

Bedros: But before you go… one more thing: our sham Church. A corrupt and immoral Catholicos in Echmiadzin, a Judas Patriarch in Istanbul, an ARF-designated Catholicos in Lebanon, and now the incompetent, slow-witted, chocolate-addict Patriarch Nourhan Manougian of Jerusalem who has handed a precious and strategic piece of the Armenian Quarter to a Jewish businessman for a few pieces of silver. And let’s not forget his right-hand man: the untrained and uneducated vartabed who is in charge of our priceless Holy Land real estate.

Krikor: Sorry, I have to go.

Bedros: Have a nice day.

Krikor: At least you haven’t lost your sense of humor.