Author: Harut Sassounian

By Harut Sassounian

Publisher, The California Courier

www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com

The worship of former President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev is so exaggerated that an American blogger Andreas Moser on his visit to Baku and Ganja encountered the “great leader’s” monuments and buildings everywhere he went. Moser wrote in his blog a satirical report, excerpts of which are reproduced below for our readers’ great amusement!

Moser started his sarcastic article as follows: “Before I went to Azerbaijan, I was like you: I didn’t know Heydar Aliyev. But then, I had already gotten sick and tired of him by the second day…. Whether you want it or not, Heydar Aliyev will be your guide and constant companion in Azerbaijan. When you fly to Baku, you arrive at Heydar Aliyev Airport. When you arrive by train, you travel on the Heydar Aliyev Express, get off at Heydar Aliyev Station and walk along the wide Heydar Aliyev Boulevard to Heydar Aliyev Square, past Heydar Aliyev Foundations, Heydar Aliyev Schools and Heydar Aliyev Institutes. If you want to take a break from Heydar Aliyev and thus prefer to travel across Azerbaijan by car, you will still see a photo of the ex-president at every intersection, every turnoff and every roundabout.”

Moser started his journey by visiting a park, naturally named the Heydar Aliyev Park, which was “larger than some independent states…. When you have crossed the widest street in the world [12-lanes] after a march of ten minutes, you have reached the parking area. A car park like the one in front of the Olympic stadium. It was planned big enough that all cars in Azerbaijan could park here simultaneously. But it is empty. The public squares in the city were already overdimensioned, but this here is megalomania at a North Korean level…. Once you have walked through the triumphal arch (as big as in Paris and, for the avoidance of any doubt, adorned with the name of Heydar Aliyev), which is the actual entrance, you have to traipse for another mile to reach the Heydar Aliyev Museum. Just like people had to walk through a long hall in the royal palace before meeting the king.”

Making his way through the Park’s army of cleaners and scrubbers, “cleaning maniacs,” Moser came across an oversized statue of the “great leader” with his name engraved on it in golden letters, in front of the Heydar Aliyev Museum. Moser discovered that “the museum is three floors high, with a glass dome, much marble, much gold and white leather armchairs. Typical dictator kitsch. If you have ever visited the Gaddafis, the Husseins or the Trumps, you are familiar with it. I am the only visitor, which startles the man behind the desk so much that he turns off his YouTube video, jumps up and henceforth follows my every step, always four to five meters to my side and always looking at his phone when I look at him. We are the only two people in the whole building.”

While the massive building of the Heydar Aliyev Museum is highly impressive, there is not much in it, except for some propaganda about the “great leader.” The Museum “only has dozens of display boards about the life of Heydar Aliyev with hundreds of photos of him. Protected by glass, there are a few books about and by him. Two-meter wide TV screens are ready to show biopics….” Moser was also impressed by Heydar Aliyev’s vast collection of photos: “Heydar Aliyev in a field with farmers, Heydar Aliyev with soldiers, Heydar Aliyev with children, Heydar Aliyev as an archaeologist, Heydar Aliyev with a water melon, Heydar Aliyev at a busy market.”

Moser presented Heydar Aliyev’s background by quoting prize-winning Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski who wrote: “At first, Heydar Aliyev was head of the KGB in Azerbaijan, then, in the seventies, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the republic. He was a disciple of Brezhnev, who appointed him Deputy Prime Minister of the USSR. He was fired from that post by Gorbachev in 1987. Heydar Aliyev was part of Brezhnev’s circle — a group standing out for deep corruption, preference for any kind of luxury and overall debauchery. They displayed that corruption with provoking openness, not ashamed in the least.”

Moser stated that the Polish journalist’s description “could be the motto for the museum, actually the whole park or indeed for the whole country. For someone who was already famous for open corruption under communism, an independent Azerbaijan with gushing oil wells must have been the mother of all dreams. Thus, it comes as no surprise to meet the whole Aliyev family in the Panama Papers [offshore secret accounts].”

Moser concluded his humorous article by remembering other Heydar Aliyev Parks in Podgorica, Montenegro, Tbilisi, Istanbul, Ankara, Bucharest, Kiev, “and maybe soon in your hometown. You simply have to talk to your city council about it. Azerbaijan will pay for everything.”

In his last sentence, Moser described Azerbaijan “as a strange country. But at least I don’t have to visit North Korea anymore.”

In addition to Moser’s article, Wikipedia has a whole section titled, “Heydar Aliyev’s Cult of Personality” as follows: “Every city and town in Azerbaijan has a street named after Heydar Aliyev, including one of the central avenues of capital Baku. According to official information, there are 60 museums and centers of Heydar Aliyev in Azerbaijan.”

Furthermore, there are statues of Heydar Aliyev in over a dozen countries around the world. However, Azerbaijan suffered a major embarrassment in Mexico City when its sensible City Council decided to remove the massive statue of Heydar Aliyev from a park on the city’s main avenue that Azerbaijan had paid to have renovated. “Human rights activists had objected to the statue and pointed to the repressive nature of Mr. Aliyev’s rule,” according to BBC News.

My advice to Azeri worshippers of Heydar Aliyev is to worry more about the fate of their current President, Ilham Aliyev, rather than the deceased Heydar Aliyev, because Armenia’s recent ‘Velvet Revolution’ may soon spread to Azerbaijan, which might be more bloody than velvety!

For many decades, the Turkish government has had an inflated image of the Armenian Diaspora, describing it as a giant worldwide force. In recent years, Azerbaijan has been infected with the same fear of the global Armenian Diaspora. Pres. Ilham Aliyev has described the ‘Armenian lobby’ as the greatest enemy of Azerbaijan. Consequently, the Azeri leaders have started pouring massive resources into the formation of their own diaspora in various countries as a counterpart to the “powerful Armenian lobby.”

Ironically, while the Armenian government is making plans for the repatriation of Armenians from overseas, Azerbaijan is trying to do the exact opposite by encouraging Azeris to move to formerly Soviet countries, Europe and the United States in order to enlarge its Diaspora!

Nazim Ibrahimov, Chairman of Azerbaijan’s State Committee for Work with the Diaspora, recently announced that “the establishment of coordination centers for world Azerbaijanis continues and that this affair is one of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s priorities…. The state of Azerbaijan has created massive financial conditions for this. Upon the president’s orders, we offer support to our diaspora organizations around the world. On account of this activity, the Azerbaijani diaspora not only responds to the Armenian lobby decently, but also overpowers them at times.”

Last year, Sergey Rumantsev, a graduate of Baku State University, wrote an article in the OpenDemocracy.net website, titled: “Long Live the Azerbaijani Diaspora,” stating that “Baku is going to great lengths to mobilize, or even create, an international Azerbaijani diaspora.” The main purpose of the Azeri Diaspora is to counter Armenians in the Karabagh (Artsakh) conflict. Azeri leaders view the Armenian Diaspora “as immensely influential and strongly united in solidarity,” hence, “for Azerbaijan’s ruling Aliyev regime, a diaspora is synonymous with an overseas political lobby.”

Azeris have such an exaggerated view of the Armenian Diaspora that when the Russian Supreme Court decided to annul the registration of the All-Russian Azerbaijani Congress last year, “many [Azeri] commentators rushed to conclusions about Armenian plots and intrigues,” Rumantsev wrote. The truth is that the Azeri organization had violated Russian laws. Armenians had nothing to do with its closing.

Azeri authorities were so impressed by the Armenian Diaspora’s political clout that since the early 2000s they “have invested large sums of financial and symbolic capital into this project. They’ve tried to conjure up a diaspora to their liking as quickly as possible.”

It all started when Heydar Aliyev, the father of the current president, was the leader of Soviet Azerbaijan in the 1970’s-80s. He arranged for the education of many Azeri students in universities throughout the Soviet Union and encouraged the relocation of Azeris to various Soviet Republics!

Prior to the Second World Congress of Azerbaijanis, held on March 16, 2016, “the state committee for working with Azerbaijanis abroad produced a documentary film with the telling title, ‘we’re a nation of 50 million,’ ” Rumantsev wrote. The committee stated that 10 million Azerbaijanis were living in about 70 countries.

Rumantsev asserted that Azeris living overseas are not a coherent group; there is a considerable difference among Azeri immigrants: “Azeri Diaspora activism is generally limited to quite a small circle of ethnic Azerbaijani businessmen and their family members.”

Rumantsev described the origins of the organizational efforts for Azeris abroad: “In November 2001, Baku held the inaugural World Congress of Azerbaijanis at the initiative of Heydar Aliyev. The following year saw the foundation of the state committee for working with Azerbaijanis abroad — Nazim Ibrahimov was appointed its permanent leader. Its first convention led to the creation of yet another body, the ‘Coordinating Council of World Azerbaijanis’, led by, of course, pan-Azerbaijani president Heydar Aliyev. The success of diaspora-building henceforth came to be measured in how many organizations existed, and how to unify them into one structure.”

The World Congress of Azerbaijanis consists of local/regional bodies, followed by Azeri organizations in various countries and finally by the World Congress which takes its orders directly from the Azeri government.

President Ilham Aliyev proudly told attendees of a recent conference of World Congress of Azerbaijanis: “if we had 336 diaspora organizations five years ago, now we have 416.” At the Fourth World Congress in 2015, “delegates stated that there are now 462 such organizations.”

The few activities Azeris participate in worldwide are represented by Azerbaijan’s official media in an exaggerated fashion, as if a large number of Azeris in Europe or the U.S. are involved in pro-Azerbaijan activities, in support of the Aliyev regime. For example, when Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan visited Berlin in 2016, a small number of Azeris held a protest, and sent the following message to Pres. Aliyev: “Mr. President — you have the support of Azerbaijanis across the world!”

Rumantsev concluded his article by stating that the Azerbaijani Diaspora cannot be compared to the classical Diasporas of Armenians, Jews or Greeks. Most Azeri organizations overseas “exist only on paper.”

The US State Department just issued its 2017 report on International Religious Freedom in about 200 countries, including Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. This week, we will focus our attention on the section on Turkey.

In general, all religious groups that are not Sunni Muslim suffer from discrimination and persecution in Turkey. Alevis, who constitute over a quarter of Turkey’s population of 81 million, are viewed by the state as “Heterodox Muslims” whose houses of worship are not recognized. Anti-Semitic articles vilifying Jews are frequently published in Turkish newspaper. Pres. Erdogan constantly provokes the public by his Anti-Israel rhetoric.

The State Department reports that “Religious minorities said they continued to experience difficulties obtaining exemptions from mandatory [Islamic] religion classes in public schools, operating or opening houses of worship, and in addressing land and property disputes. The government restricted minority religious groups’ efforts to train their clergy…. [Islamic] religion classes are two hours per week for students in grades four through 12. Only students who marked ‘Christian’ or ‘Jewish’ on their national identity cards may apply for an exemption from religion classes. Atheists, agnostics, Alevis or other non-Sunni Muslims, Bahais, Yezidis, or those who left the religion section blank on their national identity card may not be exempted.”

Approximately 90,000 members of the Armenian Apostolic Church live in Turkey, of which 60,000 are citizens and 30,000 are migrants from Armenia without legal residence. The U.S. Report states that “children of undocumented Armenian migrants and Armenian refugees from Syria” could attend public schools. “Because the government legally classified migrant and refugee children as ‘visitors,’ however, they were ineligible to receive a diploma from these schools.”

The Turkish government, as required by the 1923 Lausanne Treaty, grants a special status to “non-Muslim minorities” (Armenian Apostolic Christians, Jews, and Greek Orthodox Christians). However, according to the U.S. Religious Report, the government does not acknowledge “the leadership or administrative structures of non-Muslim minorities, such as the patriarchates and chief rabbinate, as legal entities, leaving them unable to buy or hold title to property or to press claims in court. These three groups, along with other minority religious communities, had to rely on independent foundations they previously organized, with separate governing boards, in order to hold and control individual religious properties. The foundations remained unable to hold elections to renew the membership of their governing boards because the government, despite promises to do so, had still not promulgated new regulations to replace those repealed in 2013 that would have allowed the election of foundation board members.”

Nevertheless, “The Armenian Apostolic Patriarchate and the [Greek] Ecumenical Patriarchate continued to seek legal recognition, and their communities operated as conglomerations of individual religious foundations. Because the patriarchates did not have legal personality, associated foundations controlled by individual boards held all the property of the religious communities, and the patriarchates had no legal authority to direct the use of any assets or otherwise govern their communities,” the U.S. Report states.

The Turkish government also obstructs the election of a new Patriarch for the Armenian Church in Turkey to succeed the incapacitated Patriarch. The U.S. Report states that “in March [2017] the Istanbul governor’s office suspended a decision by the Spiritual Assembly of the Armenian Patriarchate to elect a trustee to start the process for the election of a new patriarch. Incumbent Patriarch Mesrob II remained unable to perform his duties because of his medical condition, and an acting patriarch continued to fill the position. Some members of the community criticized the governorship’s notification as interference in the internal affairs of the church. Patriarchate sources said the government later recognized the March election to elect a trustee. In July the elected trustee applied to the government to hold the patriarchal election in December. At year’s end, the community had not received a response from the government about how to proceed with the patriarchal election.”

According to the U.S. Report, “Religious communities continued to challenge the government’s 2016 expropriation of their properties damaged in clashes between government security forces and the terrorist group Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). The government expropriated those properties for their stated goal of ‘post-conflict reconstruction.’ By the end of the year, the government had not returned or completed repairs on any of the properties, including the historic and ancient Sur District of Diyarbakir Province, Kursunlu Mosque, Hasirli Mosque, Surp Giragos Armenian Church, Mar Petyun Chaldean Church, Syriac Protestant Church, and the Armenian Catholic Church. In April the Council of State, the top administrative court, issued an interim decision to suspend the expropriation of Surp Giragos Armenian Church.”

Armenian and other religious minority foundations had submitted 1,560 applications since 2011 for the return of their properties confiscated decades ago. The government returned only 333 properties and paid compensation for 21 others.

The U.S. Report also states that “various self-defined Islamist groups continued to threaten and vandalize Christian places of worship. In September an unidentified group threw stones at the Armenian Surp Tateos Church in the Narlikapi neighborhood of Istanbul, breaking windows. Some witnesses said the attackers shouted anti-Armenian slogans while a baptismal ceremony took place inside. In September the president of the Surp Giragos Armenian Church Foundation said unidentified looters had burglarized the church in Diyarbakir multiple times, despite a continuing curfew in the area.”

As expected, the Turkish Foreign Ministry rejected the U.S Report of the violations of religious rights calling it “a repetition of certain baseless claims.” However, the repetition confirms that there has not been an improvement in the protection of the religious rights of minorities. The Turkish government has continued to blatantly ignore the rights of Armenian, Assyrian and Greek religious minorities, as well as Jews and Alevis.

As an indication of the reign of terror prevailing in Turkey under Pres. Erdogan, the religious leaders of the Jewish, Armenian Apostolic, Armenian Catholic, and Syriac communities felt obligated to issue congratulations last Sunday for the re-election of Erdogan, the tyrant of Turkey!