ARMENIAN BLOGGERS PROTEST AGAINST ‘AZERBAIJANI DAYS’ HOLDING IN YEREVAN

2007-12-17 17:36:00

ArmInfo. Armenian bloggers protest against ‘Azerbaijani Days’ holding in Yerevan.

Armenian bloggers expressed their protest today at the opening ceremony of the Azerbaijani Days. When the head of the Caucasus Peace-making Initiatives Centre, one of the initiators of the event, Georgiy Vanyan was making a speech, four young men came up to him and gave him soap. Vanyan did not react and the bloggers left the hall. Journalists tried to clarify why the bloggers acted in such a way. First they did not want to answer the question, but then one of them, Tigran Kocharyan, said that Armenian bloggers think that ‘this is the wrong and untimely event, taking into account absence of tolerance towards Armenians in Azerbaijan’. ‘We think this is just a way to earn money, which will bring nothing kind to Armenia or Azerbaijan. This is a way to beg something at the expense of the people’s dignity’, - the bloggers said. ‘We don’t want to insult them, as Azerbaijanis are not guilty for arriving here, and we don’t want to help the organizers of the event to gain scores. For this reason we abstain from insulting them. We simply gave them soap as a gift to use it in a right way’.

When commenting on the incident the head of the ‘Mkhitar Sebastatsi’ educational centre Ashot Bleyan said of the necessity of paying more attention at the frozen conflicts and wished the year 2008 to become a year of normalizing relations with Azerbaijan. He also said that the given event is an education but a political one. ‘There is no politics here. The point is to learn each other better. And this is regarding not only Azerbaijan, but also Georgia, Turkey and Iran. Community should be tolerant, and all the layers of the society should take part in it’, - Bleyan said and added that if any educational centre of Azerbaijan initiates the similar event, he will go to Azerbaijan with pleasure.

ArmInfo, 2007-12-20 10:45:00

Akif Nagi Demands Bringing To Justice Participants In ‘Azerbaijan’s Week In Yerevan’

ArmInfo-TURAN: Chairman of the Karabakh Liberation Movement (KLM) Akif Nagi called on General Prosecutor to bring to criminal responsibility the representatives of Azerbaijani civil society who participated in Azerbaijan’s Week in Yerevan action.

In his appeal Nagi wrote that Azerbaijan was represented in that event by the head of Ganja department of the Helsinki Civil Assembly Sahib Babayev, human rights defender Khamis Masimov, publicist Seymur Bayjan, the editor of the edition “Third sight” Rauf Rajabov, the head of “Solidarity” NGO Afat Sariyeva and the lawyer Javanshir Omarov.

“In his speech in Armenia S.Babayev said that 80% of Azerbaijan’s population are against the war against Armenia. We think that such statements run counter the position of Azerbaijan’s President and negatively affect the fighting spirit of Azerbaijan’s army. These people violate Azerbaijan’s legislation, and I ask you to bring them to justice in accordance with Article 274 of the Criminal Code”, Akif Nagi says.

On the other hand, I think that another form of protest would have been better that one which was aimed to offend and insult. That’s my opinion, anyway.

On the other hand, protesting it through a public display referencing anal sex in front of a gathering of—school children—is not only out of touch with reality, but juvenile, vulgar, and irresponsible to boot. Did you guys stop to think that all the kids would be going home that day and asking their parents what the soap meant?

But let me focus your attention on one point.
There was competition of essays. The judges were from Azerbaijan.
Do you remember your shool years?
Can you remember the value of any award received?

Just imagine - your obvious enemy is awarding pupils for essays about the essence of turning this enemy into a friend.
Just imagine: Al-Qaeda officials giving awards to US pupils’ essay competition about the reconciliation efforts towards Al-Qaeda. And financial sponsor of it is emabassy of Iran.
Just try to imagine this.

PS What is the BSers?

Anyway it is a kind of nonsense for me that embassy of UK, country having big oil interests in Azerbaijan, gives money for promotion of reconciliation with Azerbaijan. This project stays in a row with all the cases of critisism, to UK embassy and it’s policy in Armenia.

Um, sorry, not nonsense. That’s precisely why the Embassy does it although personally I think the European Union or the U.S. Embassy could do a better job. And yes, I already guessed Naira Sultanyan was behind the event.

Anyway, I can also believe that grant recipients were involved at the school although from past experience from examining the British Embassy I’m surprised none were related to anyone working int he Embassy.

Well, to conclude, I am not against the idea, but yes, believe two things. Firstly, Ashot Bleyan’s school was the last place this should have been held given how his position on Karabakh is perceived by many here.

Secondly, I agree. The initiative should have been held concurrently with something in Azerbaijan.

Better yet, an initiative to promote reconciliation and future regional integration/stability should have been held first of all properly in a neutral location.

Still, such gaffs from my Embassy do not surprise me and I’m sure we’ll see more especially related to the presidential election early next year.

Well those things have happened and Azeris only continue to seem to be set in such ways. The totally ridiculous anti-Armenian propaganda continues to churn. Azerbaijan is possibly one of the most immature nations I’ve ever seen, not to mention insecure. It actually goes to the extent, beyond all the typical cultural cleansing methods, to do everything from ripping the Armenian parts out of Caucasian travel guides for guests arriving in Azerbaijan (while meanwhile no Armenian, no matter what nationality, is ever allowed in) to continuously whining that Armenians culturally steal everything Azerbaijani and point out everything from songs allegedly by Azeri musicians which Armenians use to instruments like the duduk. Everything to them is Azeri (or Albanian, therefore by extension Azeri based on some sort of perverted logic) and therefore everything Armenians have must have been stolen from them. An American friend I know who studied in Turkey said his professor at the major Turkish university he studied said that there’s a (true) reputation for each Turkic people. For Azeris, he said they are the biggest BSers. Based on all the propaganda they churn out at a ridiculous rate I can’t argue with it.

All that aside- what are we to do then? The government continues its hateful policy and yet we are neighbors and will have to deal with them sooner or later- preferrably sooner. I think for all its faults Armenia has consistently taken the high road and has been much more rational towards Azeris than we receive in return- whether its allowed investigators in to monitor monuments in Armenia even though Azeris continuously refuse to allow them in to see Julfa to a generally more sane disposition towards these subjects. I really don’t think we have to worry about damaging these kids because of one week of trying to unilaterally understand Azeris. They aren’t all going to just defect to Azerbaijan over this and in the meantime Armenia shows unlike them it can be tolerant of talking “the enemy”.
I am disturbed by the ulterior motives the British embassy might have since clearly BP is an extremely interested party in stability in the region. I wonder what they’ve been trying to do in Azerbaijan since that’s where they really ened to do some work- there’s clearly no sign of it based on their behaviour.

And I’ve re-read you comment, and understood, that I’ve given wrong answer to one of your questions.
Event, held in Bleyan’s school, have changed nothing in terms of reconciliation.

PS Is it really required to fill the captcha image after posting a comment? I’m writing from my phone, and it creates some difficulties for me.

Do you know, Onnik, reconciliation is something, that we, as society, really need. But if the steps to reconciliation are made only by one side (in this case the armenian one) I reckon that one-sided reconciliation efforts is promotion of “loserhood”. Remember, Onnik all that story with soccer qualification games for EURO2008? Remember the heroization of Ramil Safarov. Remember the story of destroyed armenian cemeteries in Baku and in Jugha. Armenia cannot promote recociliation without having the same attitude from azeri side.

I really do not know how the fundraising process for this event was managed. G.Vanyan (the man with soap) mentions, that they have received $5000 for this event. Naira Sultanyan from British Embassy was present there. So I concluded that it is her project. The essence of this project was essay competition about Azerbaijan conducted in Bleyan’s school. And the judges were those azeris, invited there. So the choice of the school was done on early stage of the project implementation and, of course, was known by Mrs. Sultanyan.
Anyway it is a kind of nonsense for me that embassy of UK, country having big oil interests in Azerbaijan, gives money for promotion of reconciliation with Azerbaijan. This project stays in a row with all the cases of critisism, to UK embassy and it’s policy in Armenia.

Anyway - one of my “friends” in LJ shared his opinion about Tony Cantor, the Ambassador, and his hope, that after a few months we may have a better person representing UK in Armenia.
I, personally, reckon, that nothing will be changed. But let’s wait.

On the other hand, would this event have really changed anything? I mean, as the MFA said, it would have showed the Armenian side ready for dialog whereas it is usually Azerbaijan that reacts against talk of compromise and peace. Interestingly, the Azeri press haven’t picked up the story of the protest yet.

Again all of us are not against reconciliation efforts. We are against one-sided reconciliation efforts, and brainwashing of children in public schools with that pseudo-liberal crap.

There will be no protest action, at east from us, if the event was not called “Days of Azerbaijan in Armenia”, was not held in public school.
That’s it.

Indeed, his name alone is enough to derail any chance of some kind of reconciliation, one guesses. Anyway, as RFE/RL read this blog on a daily basis and as I know they’ve seen this post from my statistics, I’m surprised they haven’t added anything to the initial report. This to me indicates they might have purposely left it out.

Meanwhile, reaction to the event is starting to come from Azerbaijan where some MPs have expressed their opposition to the idea. Basically, while the idea might be a noble one, it appears to have backfired on the British Embassy big time. No surprise there then. They nearly always do.

Azerbaijani MPs protest to holding “Week of Azerbaijan” in Armenia

18 Dec 2007 17:37

Azerbaijani Parliament held next meeting today, APA reports.

MPs commented on holding “Week of Azerbaijan” in Armenia and Azerbaijani delegation’s visiting this country during the discussion of the current issues. MP Zahid Oruj expressing his negative opinion regarding such cases said that one day “Armenian days” will be held in Azerbaijan.

“And Armenians will be able to arrive in Azerbaijan freely. This is very abnormal case. Decision should be made for preventing such visits,” he said.

MP Azay Guliyev said that spokesman for Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Khazar Ibrahim briefed the media that he justifies such visits and events indirectly.

“We do not understand what common policy should be composed of. On the one hand we tell Turkey not to open borders with Armenia, on the other hand we are establishing relations with Armenia ourselves,” he said.

http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=40913