Chapter 8. Armenophobia in official statements
Any authority that holds instruments and potential for shaping ideology, public opinion, vision and perception of the reality is responsible for the consequences of its statements and any acts committed on their basis.
Therefore, with reference to the armenophobia rampant in Azerbaijan at the level of official propaganda and ideology, it is appropriate to point out that it is public officials who mainly set the tone for this: members of the parliament, functionaries of various levels, including the country’s president, and the consequences of their statements translate into a public consciousness and line of conduct.
Azerbaijan’s political establishment is the main supplier of public moods and the country’s trendsetter which covers, inter alia, armenophobia. It is of note that their thinking and actions are absolutely void of self-reflection; the same people who profess aggression and bigotry are genuinely convinced of their own tolerance and find it ludicrous to suggest that their actions amount to racism and xenophobia.
President Aliyev considers laughable the statements of the Armenian head of state on racism and armenophobia in Azerbaijan.[209]
Ilham Aliyev, the President of Azerbaijan:[210] “Our political weight and economic might keep growing. <…> However, there are forces which dislike us and wish us evil. They can be divided into several groups: In the first place, our main enemy is the global Armeniandom as well as hypocritical politicians who do their bidding enmeshed in corruption and bribery”.
Allahshukur Pashazadeh:[211] “Azerbaijan is an exemplar of the tolerance and interfaith dialog”.
Allahshukur Pashazadeh:[212] ”We do everything possible to settle this conflict in a peaceful way. < …> However, we don’t see the results of these meetings because the lie and treachery sit in the blood of Armenians. They sat at our tables, they ate our bread, but when they went out, they spoke against us”
Mubariz Ahmadoglu, head of the Center for Political Innovations and Technologies:[213] “The Azerbaijani weapons are capable of destroying any target on the territories controlled by Armenians, including in Armenia itself… when I say any target, I mean the nuclear power plant in Metsamor and the address Baghramyan 26 in Yerevan…. Let them take pity on their own kins and relatives as well as the family members of the military personnel. Searching for bodies of the Armenian soldiers killed by thermobaric weapons may become the primary task of their relatives…It must be considered that weapons are mindless. In this sense, it appears that Armenians want to match their own ignorance to the mindlessness of weapons. We just want to advise Armenians against doing so”.
The range and variety of inculcated stereotypes covers virtually all aspects of social, political, cultural, mental, historical and moral image of Armenians and Armenia.
Abulfaz Elchibey, ex-president of Azerbaijan:[214] Armenians are not capable of building a state. Over the course of their history, Armenians have never built a state and have never been a state-building nation. Russians have built the state for Armenians; they always commanded: Stand there! Sit here!
Igrar Aliyev, academician, Director of the Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan: Indeed, the Armeniandom is an extraordinary, singular, malicious and misanthropic phenomenon.[215]
Mubariz Ahmadoglu, political analyst: The aggression and usurpation of other peoples’ territories are intrinsic to the Armenian mentality and are accordingly reflected in the Armenian Constitution adopted in 1991″.[216]
Abulfaz Garayev, Minister of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan: As long as the people and culture of Azerbaijan exist, we will be exposed to the Armenian plagiarism.[217]
Vagif Aliyev, First Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism: What do we have to do to make Armenians shut up? Doubtlessly, every act of Armenians contradicts the international rules and standards. Armenians are a breed of a sort that will be judged by the history itself.[218]
Siyavush Novruzov, deputy executive secretary of the ruling party Yeni Azerbaijan (YAP): Our party does not accept Armenian members. Some applications to this effect were filed to our regional and city offices, but they were all turned down. Today, not a single Armenian can be found in our ranks.[219]
Bayram Safarov, head of the Azerbaijani Community of Nagorno-Karabakh: The Karabakh conflict has grown from territorial claims between two nations into a war between Christians and Muslims. Today, our enemies are not only Armenians, but also the Christian world that defends them.[220]
Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the Council of Europe [221] advises Armenians against sleeping in peace as long as the Karabakh conflict remains unresolved. “Before the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the occurrence of incidents similar to that of Budapest – reference is made to the murder of an Armenian military officer in his sleep in Budapest – cannot be ruled out”. This statement was made today by the ambassador of Azerbaijan to the Council of Europe at the session of one of the committees of this organization.
Elchin Alibeyli, anchorman, general producer of ATV television channel: For many years Armenians have been stealing Azerbaijani tunes and presenting them to the international community as their own. < …> Armenians steal not only from Azerbaijanis; it is their national malady. The matter is that if a nation lacks history and culture, which is confirmed by the Armenian historians, they must shape themselves at the expense of other nations and therefore, they have decided to steal from their Azerbaijani neighbors <… >. No matter where they lived, Armenians always stole from these peoples their culture and even their language.[222]
Colonel Eldar Sabiroglu, head of the press-service of the Ministry of Defense: They shamelessly accuse us of provocations. What is their purpose? It is clear that in this way the perfidious enemy is trying to plant a false idea in the minds of the Azerbaijani people. Lying is in their blood.[223]
Ziyafat Asgarov, First Vice-Speaker of the Parliament: It is hard to purge the ‘Armenian’ pest. The longer it remains without cure, the harsher its consequences are. Its aggravation harms the Armenians themselves. This fictitious genocide of theirs has no underlying historical, legal or moral basis. Armenians simply live off this fantasy, this disorder of theirs. This relates to territorial claims to their neighboring countries: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey, and even Russia, although it is Russia that provides for Armenia.[224]
Recommendations on how to resolve issues related to Armenians and Armenia.
Heydar Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s ex-president: In the future, we must create works so as they continuously and constantly prove the claims of Azerbaijan to the lands that host today’s Armenia. We must do this. We must pave the way for generations to come.[225]
Vafa Guluzadeh, political analyst, the former government adviser: Let them go and study Hitler’s experience from the 1930s to see what a splendid army he created. The Hitlerjugend established by him was much more efficient than the pioneer organization of the Soviets. This is the reason why Germany suffered the least casualties in that war. In a short time, the German army could capture the entire Europe and Russia’s European regions. To put it simply, I want that we, just like the Hitler supporters, make preparations for war in all seriousness.[226]
Mubariz Ahmadoglu, political analyst: Azerbaijani missiles will cover the distance to Metsamor nuclear power plant and nuclear waste storage facilities in an incomparably shorter time than is necessary for any government to recognize the state named Nagorno-Karabakh. This scenario can be prevented only by the signing of a BPA (Big Peace Agreement) which can become a new resource in Karabakh conflict settlement.[227]
Adil Haribov, Director of the Institute for Radiation Problems of ANAS suggested provoking an artificial earthquake with a magnitude of 9 in Armenia to test the resilience of Metsamor nuclear power plant under extreme conditions.[228]
Polad Bülbüloğlu, Azerbaijan’s ambassador to the Russian Federation: < …> Every Azerbaijani must take part in the liberation of our lands. < …> If the military path is chosen to resolve the Nagorno- Karabakh conflict, much will depend on Azerbaijanis who live in Russia, and each of us must be ready for this. If anybody hopes to stay behind and sit snug at home, while the army fights to reclaim our lands, that won’t be happening. The entire country, the whole society, all the people must rise and clench themselves into a single fist to back our president and liberate the lands. It cannot be otherwise.[229]
Anar Mamedkhanov, ex-member of the parliament of Azerbaijan: I keep telling our officers who study military science in Turkey: “You are needed in Karabakh. They (Armenians) must be killed in Karabakh and not in other countries.[230]
Abulfaz Elchibey, ex-president of Azerbaijan: Armenians, Kurds, Lezgins, Circassians and Romanies are our internal enemies. Can you see how many enemies we’ve got? Prepare well before delivering your blow. May Allah help you![231]
Another much admired form of inculcating armenophobia consists in parading one’s own personal input or details of one’s life necessarily depicting episodes related to humiliating, insulting or harassing Armenians.
Arif Gaziyev, founder and head of Mugham theater:
We always started fights during the breaks, and as the school was not far from a river, we often cut the classes to gather there singing and playing hide-and-seek. But the most memorable detail was probably how we flung stones at Armenians who always sought to play some dirty tricks.[232]Igbal Aghazadeh,a chairman of the political party Umid: At the time, I did my military service in the Soviet Army, in the Kemerovo Oblast. It was in 1988. Azerbaijanis were in a desperate plight. There were just too many Armenians there. After I returned to Baku, the Sumgait events were the talk of the town. < …> We realized that our people were obliterating Armenians and we looked positively at the fact. < …> Yes, it happened as I was a 5th grade student. We had this teacher of Russian, Alla Petrovna Chebarina. She used to look down on us as a nation by treating us disparagingly and insulting us. We frequently debated with her, but she continued to humiliate us. Once, as she left the classroom, I broke her umbrella, though later I had to pay 27 rubles for it.[233]
The unabashed propaganda of armenophobia at the highest level could not but draw the attention of the international community. Global Post, an American online newspaper notes that the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev not only doesn’t like Armenia, but is not afraid to say it, nor to tweet it. President Ilham Aliyev’s Twitter followers were treated to a string of more than 30 messages about his neighbor that were distinctly undiplomatic and, in fact, can be considered as downright abusive. “It’s tempting to imagine Aliyev hunched in solitude over a laptop like so many an online troll”.[234]
Foreign Policy, an American magazine, asks: “What do Azerbaijan, Estonia and Rwanda have in common? Not very much, you say? Au contraire! All three countries, it seems, have presidents who are prone to picking fights on Twitter”. “The lesson in all this for world leaders? If you’re going to pick a fight with somebody and want people to notice, you’d better do it in 140 characters at a time”, says the journal.[235]
Heydar Aliyev, ex-president of Azerbaijan, in his speech pronounced on October 13, 1999 in Nakhichevan said: In times of trouble, the people of Azerbaijan saw the help of Turkey and the Turkish people and is grateful for that. Particularly, in 1918-1919, during the struggle for independence under the leadership of the great Atatürk, who cleansed his land of Armenians and other enemies, the Turkish people and Turkey offered their help to Azerbaijan, to Nakhychivan.[236]
