Armenophobia in Azerbaijan

Umoud Khazar, activist of Nida movement: I recall my childhood when influenced by some absurd propaganda I pictured Armenians as one-eyed, long-bearded, cannibal Cyclops, and ingenious parents spooked their children not with bogeyman stories but Armenians; nothing has changed ever since.21

Assessing an individual and his/her conduct in terms of a group affiliation is a form of ethnic stereotyping. As a rule, such assessment represents a projection of one’s own qualities on the “alien”.

Projection is a form of psychological defense that attributes to someone else the traits of one’s own character, personal qualities, feelings, relationships, etc. The projection functions as a protective mechanism guarding the individual against alarming sentiments. Besides, a desire or emotion so projected is perceived by the individual as directed at his/her own self externally. This comes as a consequence of the psychological repression that amounts to a subconscious attribution of one’s own qualities, feelings and desires to another person.22 In this case, repressed desires are projected to someone else. Meanwhile the individual condemns others for what he/she fails to identify as his/her own desires.

Repression is a protective process, through which ideas are removed from the consciousness. Due to the repression process, thoughts are suppressed and subdued inwards never ceasing to influence the individual and triggering an internal conflict.23

An individual who resorts to the protective mechanism of projection is convinced that others are capable of ill deeds while harbors latent tendencies to do the same. Sometimes, it is regretted that such ill deeds were not committed when opportunity presented itself. The most illustrative example of such projection can be found in the extensively trumpeted thesis on the “incompatibility of Armenians and Azerbaijanis” attributed to the ex-president of Armenia Robert Kocharyan.

By contrasting their “tolerance” and the “racism” of Armenians,24 the Azerbaijani authorities are at odds with their own unabashed display of xenophobic rhetoric:

• Some human rights defenders in Azerbaijan must be contaminated by a mix of the Armenian blood in their veins.25

• They (Armenians) must be killed in Karabakh and not in other countries.26 It can be confidently affirmed that if Hays27 ever show any “talent” at all, it is in no way an achievement of their own nation, but the result of the Turkish blood that most of them have flowing in their veins.28

• Although, in this case I chose the wrong wording and unwittingly insulted a noble and freedom-loving animal (‘wolf’ – author’s note) – the only one that cannot be tamed – by comparing it with the Armenians. It goes without saying that the love of freedom (throughout their history, Armenians prostrated themselves under the heels of others, and for the last three hundred years they have comfortably established themselves as Russia’s boot-licking pet dogs) or nobility for that matter are foreign to this nation. Instead, a comparison with jackals would be more appropriate, with their howling reminiscent of the wails of our vile neighbors about “their history full of suffering”.29

Similar distorted perceptions and judgments engender negative phenomena such as bias, prejudice and discrimination.

Bias is a preconceived judgment, belief or point of view on a person without sufficient reasons.30

Prejudice is a false condemnation of people solely on the basis of their affiliation with an ethnic group.31

Discrimination is a negative line of conduct or appeals to adopt a negative line of conduct in respect of certain people solely on the account of their affiliation with a particular ethnic group.32

If bias is a negative attitude/mindset, and prejudice is a negative judgment about a person and his/her actions, then discrimination is a negative behavior. Rectifying negative attitudes/mindsets can contribute towards eradicating discriminatory behavior.33

In view of the foregoing, it can be argued that stereotypes are ideal tools for shaping the image of enemy instilled in the public mind.

Image of the enemy is an ideological and psychological stereotype that allows establishing expectations, perceptions and behavior in respect of an “alien” who may be ascribed superhuman, arcane or negative traits.

However, this is hard to achieve without firmly relying on ethnocentrism, which is a tendency to view one’s own ethnic group and its social standards as a basis for value judgments on the practices of others. It is understood that the human being lends supremacy to own standards most likely for self-assertion and self-praise, yet it must not necessarily lead to a bad attitude towards the practices of foreign groups.34

Similarly, people in medieval Japan viewed the Chinese as their teachers and a source of many cultural borrowings, yet they referred to them using the offensive term of “Southern Barbarians”. The Greeks who coined the term “barbarian” (the one who babbles) acted in a comparable fashion.

For this very reason, the shaping of the enemy image based on the ethnocentrism also implies demonizing and dehumanizing the “aliens”35.

Dehumanization implies a total antagonism between ‘them’ and ‘us’ going as far as stripping them of their humanity. The members of the alien group are identified with ill-famed animal species, such as scorpions, snakes, jackals, rats, etc. Specifically, during the preparation stage of the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, government-controlled radio stations compared the Tutsi with cockroaches.36

Demonization implies ascribing to “aliens” certain negative qualities such as loose morals, marginality and possession of some supernatural powers using which they may exert adverse effects.

Using the enemy image typology proposed by the historian Yelena Sinyavskaya37 who studied the subject in the army or in wartime,38 in relation to the armenophobic policies in Azerbaijan in the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the image of enemy may be described as follows:

The synchronous image of the enemy represents a generalized picture that can be shaped during the hostilities through direct personal involvement (former combatants of the Karabakh war);

The retrospective image of enemy brings together the individual memories of former combatants who were personally involved in certain events (and represent altered interpretations of such events many years after they happen);

The image of the enemy shaped by the official propaganda precedes the personal experience of any contacts with the enemy (and occurs at the level of officials or the most reputable figures for the community);

The image of the enemy shaped by analytical services prevails among commanding officers and diverse secret services, which require an adequate picture of an enemy based on an objective and a voluminous data for operational and strategic decision-making;

The image of the enemy shaped through personal contact and daily life is the most common and present at all army levels with those directly involved in the fighting or conflict.

Political dimension

The political component of xenophobia is based on the tendency to manipulate the public mind for channeling the emotional energy and tension towards the political agenda that is in the interest of the manipulator.

The very existence of the “external enemy” is asserted and instilled in the minds of the people for internal mobilization and, as a rule, is used by the political elite to suppress forces and currents aimed against it within the group.

“The image of the enemy” instilled in the minds of the people can unite the society around the figure of a charismatic leader making it temporarily oblivious of or alleviating for a moment the domestic conflict between the authorities and the society. It can help make up for economic and social blunders committed by the ruling elite. In the face of any threat, real or imaginary, the population demonstrates obedience to a ruler, who is endowed with a status of the “Father”, “Defender” or “Leader” of the nation.39

The idea of correlation between the formation and development of the society and specific individual is clearly and consistently epitomized in authoritarian societies; Azerbaijan can rightfully be characterized as such with its personality cult of Heydar Aliyev as the “Founding Father” and the “Savior” of nation placing his and his descendants’ authority above any criticism or discussion.

Dear Mr. President! Once, one of our wise poets said that the sun of the Orient will rise here in Azerbaijan. Indeed, the time has come, and in 1969 the sun rose over Azerbaijan.

That sun was our genius leader – the great Heydar Aliyev, who in the Soviet period could turn in a short time an economically deprived republic into fully developed country making our homeland thrive. The sun was the architect and creator of the independent Azerbaijan – Heydar Aliyev. The sun was the founding father and the author of Azerbaijan oil strategy – our great leader Heydar Aliyev. Subsequently, you have continued the political course of our great leader. In the period of your leadership, our country has seen great accomplishments. New cities and towns were built, and country’s infrastructure was reconstructed. Gigantic social and industrial facilities were created. There are too many things to list. And, most importantly, the financial and spiritual welfare of our people becomes increasingly better with every new day.40

Such authoritarian individual maintains an outward indifference and betrays no ambition for power despite its attractiveness. Instead, this leader forms a clique of loyal people and plants in their minds the conviction that wielding power is such a complex, responsible and divine vocation that only a man of extraordinary and superhuman abilities can cope with it.41 If the power represents a super value only a super human deserves it. The loyals, in their turn, carry this conviction down the social hierarchy.

In May and June 1993, with the threat of civil war and the loss of independence looming over the country amid a severe governmental crisis, the people of Azerbaijan stood up with an insistent plea for Heydar Aliyev’s return to power.42

Modesty is yet another distinctive feature of the authoritarian personality. By the way, this person’s true wealth, ambitions and the desire to retain power at any cost have no bearing on this. The picture of the reality in the minds of the masses becomes so warped that the pursuit of power is replaced by the notion of modesty so that the ascent to power is staged as popular clarion call, people’s choice with the leader’s reluctance to assume the onus of power. Under these circumstances, the leader may not spurn the pleas of the people. Such maneuvering gives credit to the myth that the leader basks in popular love, which is then replicated at all social levels; by the way, the faith of the people is often absolutely genuine.43

The people love me, I simply can’t help it. Recently, the chairman of the Executive Committee of the city of Ganja decided to erect my statue in front of the premises of the City’s Executive Committee. I summoned him and explained that he ought not to do this. He argued for a long time. But I told him: “Erect a statue in my memory, when I’m gone. If you can do it then”.44

In fact, the popular faith in the infallibility, salvation mission and veneration of the “Father of the Nation” warrant the security and power of any such authoritarian personality, while negative manifestations in the society get channeled towards external or internal enemies concocted to this end by the very authorities in power. They can be Armenians, Russians, clerics of Iran, corrupt officials, mercenary human rights defenders, people green with envy, but never the “Leader” himself.

It must be pointed out that anti-Armenian publications and official statements spike in Azerbaijan as the domestic situation escalates to its maximum amid civil unrest, public outcry, natural disasters, corruption scandals, etc., where the “Leader” is called to account for his policy, and the public gaze must be averted.

To inculcate its ideology, the authoritarian system seeks to sow fear in the society by positioning itself as the guarantor of security. This is the shortest path to achieve goals, which can be defined as state-perpetrated terror tactics within the society itself. Terror tactics call for creating an atmosphere of fear and instability or using the existing instability or security needs of the people to suppress freedoms and tighten the grip on power.45

The forces that seek to disrupt the existing status quo get marginalized and labeled as internal enemies with the state machinery cracking down on them amid public condemnation. This process can be described as domestic terror.

To keep the information space under а total control and to ensure а trouble-free functioning of the “enemy images”, those in power resort to such tools as misinformation and disorientation.

The mass media are powerful weapons in the arsenal of propaganda and suit well to advance the current agenda. The authorities that control the mass media and alternative news outlets can influence the public opinion to manipulate it and inculcate the required ideology.

Misinformation is an action that targets a person and represents a deliberate communication of misleading information concerning the true state of affairs.46

Misinformation occurs following the chain of events below:47

• Misleading a specific person or group of persons (even entire nations);

• Manipulation (of the actions of single person or a group of persons);

• Shaping of the public opinion on some issue or subject.

Misleading represents a direct or indirect deception, communication of false, slightly modified or incomplete information which implies its distorting, misinterpreting or taking the information out of its context.

Manipulation is an influencing technique which directly seeks to re-channel the activities of the people. The following levels of manipulation can be identified:

• Reinforcing values which serve the interest of the manipulator and already exist in the minds of the people (ideas, attitudes and mindsets);

• Partial tweaking of attitudes about some event or fact;

• Fundamental swing of attitudes and mindsets.

Shaping of a public opinion is a step-by-step process, which involves generating views on some subject, phenomenon or situation, sharing information between people, discussions and debates crystallizing into a public attitude in the minds of the people.

Other varieties of misinformation are half-truths or the deceit through non-disclosure.48

The information space of Azerbaijan abounds in examples of such half-truths. One of the best-known and widely advertised of such half-truths is the myth of the notorious UN resolutions49, ignored by Armenians”.

Armenia has so far not complied with four resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council on the liberation of Nagorno-Karabakh and its adjacent territories.50

The half-truth lies in the fact none of these resolutions presses any demands on the Republic of Armenia for liberation of the “occupied territories”. These resolutions feature a number of points, the first and foremost of which is the immediate cessation of hostilities. In 1993, at the time when these resolutions were adopted, Azerbaijan went on the offensive and never planned to stop hoping to deliver a counter blow and reclaim the territories that had been lost before 1993.

The UN Security Council came up with this request as early as on April 30 1993 in its first resolution No. 822. However, a full year elapsed with another three resolutions issued, but thefirst resolution remained without compliance. The bloodshed continued swelling the number of displaced persons. The ceasefire “without delay” could not imply lingering till May 1994. With such persistent failure to abide by the resolutions of the UN Security Council, can it be claimed that they were complied with in a timely fashion? Which of the two parties breached this cardinal requirement of all resolutions and must bear the primary responsibility for failing to abide by their provisions and becoming the cause of almost all other demands aborted and leading to a massive non-compliance with UN Security Council resolutions?

Of course, no party is free from error but Azerbaijan can rightfully claim the “first prize” in this matter. Even as the country was losing control over its territories, the leadership of Azerbaijan – both Elchibey and Aliyev – persevered in their attempts to score a military breakthrough on the front-line and resolve the conflict by sheer force. Relying on force alone, they ought not to neglect the fact that it might put at risk their own territories, thus becoming oblivious of their shared responsibility for the emergence and expansion of the occupied territories. In its turn, the occupation forced Azerbaijan into the vicious circle of rejected and failed peacebuilding initiatives. Over the years of the Russian mediation, the parties contributed to creating an entire calendar of violations of the ceasefire, derogations from similar agreements and other misjudged peace-building efforts (this is reflected in Resolution No. 884 in a circumlocutory language).51

This means that the existence of these resolutions is not disputed, yet taking their provisions out of their context and thereby completely changing the spirit and the letter of the document along with tardy demands for compliance, represent a blatant demonstration of half-truths or downright lies.

This being said, the most common form of misinformation in Azerbaijan consists in distorting information by means of small additions, insertions of text or paraphrases of the original wording.

Azerbaijani website Trend.az: WHO – selling organs of the Azerbaijani prisoners of war by Armenia is unacceptable. The commercial sale of human organs is absolutely inadmissible and is in absolute contravention of the human rights law. This statement was made to journalists by the head of the Committee on Strategic Programs and Special Projects of the European Regional Committee of the World Health Organization (WHO), Mr. Agis Tsouros who thus adopted a stance on the sale of organs obtained from Azerbaijani prisoners of war by Armenia.52

In reality, as reported by other information agencies of Azerbaijan (e.g. apa.az) the quote looks different and does not concern the position of Tsouros on Armenia or Azerbaijani prisoners of war but covers instead the general subject of illegal transplantology: “A. Tsouros noted that the transplantation of human organs in the global health care system is done in strict compliance with the law. Such operations are inadmissible, if they circumvent the law. The United Nations also speaks against the illegal transplantation of human organs or even their legitimate commercial sale”.53

Or, it may be a contradiction between a loud heading and the gist of the source statement.

Richard Morningstar: Growing drugs on the occupied territories proves true. The United States opposes the cultivation, transport and sale of drugs in any part of the world. “I am not familiar with all the facts on this issue. I do not possess any supporting information. However, we must be confident that all these thoughts and conjectures reflect the truth,” said the ambassador.54

Here, the words of the ambassador Morningstar are used in a heading so as to imply that he claims knowledge of illicit cultivation of drugs in Nagorno-Karabakh and confirms this information. While it is obvious from the wording of his direct quote that he is not fully familiar with the facts, and their veracity must be checked.

The main goal of this misinformation process consists in eliciting the required emotional response from the audience, in which the people lose their ability to think reasonably, assess critically and analyze the information they are presented with. Any attempt to understand, clarify or investigate the events is balked at the outset by exerting pressure on the author through defamation, derision, physical action, arrest or even assassination.

In 2007, criminal proceedings were instigated against the Azerbaijani journalist Eynulla Fatullayev for a tentative to revise the official position of Azerbaijan on the tragedy of Khojaly.55 Following a trip to Armenia and Azerbaijan, he published a series of articles in the weekly “Realny Azerbaijan” entitled “Karabakh Diary”, where he voiced his confidence over the fact that a corridor for refugees did really exist, otherwise, the population of Khojaly could not find their way out of the encirclement. He also expressed the view that the Popular Front of Azerbaijan may be responsible for opening fire against civilian non-combatants for political reasons.

As a result, he was sentenced to 8 years and was released after four years of imprisonment.

Disorientation consists in misleading the public, propagating fallacious misconceptions and shifting value benchmarks. One common technique of disorienting the adversary or one’s own society consists in “decapitating” a group by discrediting, demonizing or dehumanizing the leader of the opponent group and his/her activities.

A resident of Khojaly, a town razed to ground by Armenians in 1992, claims that he was tortured by the current Armenian president R. Kocharyan56. “I passed out after I took a severe beating from Robert Kocharyan; ever since, I have problems with my eyesight. The entire world must know the instigator who was behind the tragedy of Khojaly and who poses as a democrat,” said Gulali Binaliyev. According to him, on the day when the town was occupied by Armenian forces, he was taken hostage along with his family and suffered torture at the hands of the current Armenian president Robert Kocharyan”.57

“The Armenian Catholicos Garegin II is just another terrorist and a bloodthirsty thug as the head of the State Serzh Sargsyan”. This statement was made by Elman Mamedov, a deputy of Milli Majlis from Khojaly in his interview to SalamNews. The deputy stressed that he did not expect any positive results from the meeting between the Haji Allahshükür Hummat Pashazadeh, the head of the Caucasian Muslims Office, and Garegin II: “Allahshükür Pashazadeh is a man of faith while Garegin II is another bloodthirsty thug just like Serzh Sargsyan”.58

“It is very shameful that these people claim to represent the intellectuals of Azerbaijan. Their actions can be qualified as high treason. We do not view them as representatives of our country’s intellectuals and demand that Rustam Ibragimbekov and Akram Aylisli be declared persona non grata,” the local media quote a young party official.59

When coupled with a visualization technique meant to bring about an emotional surge in the target audience, results can be obtained both rapidly and efficiently.

The American psychologist Victor Kagan60 holds that despite its irrational nature xenophobia may be also upheld by quite positive processes. The human being never commits deeds that appear as bad, evil, inappropriate or criminal etc. The mind always transforms any such perspective action into something positive. The motivation of any such deed undergoes a substitution, change, shift and an outward modification portraying it with positive and possibly heroic overtones.

This is precisely the process that Azerbaijan implements through its state machinery. It is clear that the murder of a sleeping person (or an enemy for that matter) is a dishonorable deed. Yet, a slight shift of accents in the rhetoric from “sleeping man” to “the man who desecrated our flag” оr “the feats of Ramil breathed in a new life” may warrant a positive public appraisal.