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Opinion | Accepting our past is the only way we can move forward

29 January 2019 by Javid Agha

Этот пост доступен на языках: Русский

Javid Agha is an Ankara-based writer and social media observer focusing on Armenia and Azer­bai­jan, whose writing has been featured across the web including on the BBC. He is editor of Azer­bai­jani art and culture platform, VarYox.

In Azer­bai­jan, as in Armenia, remem­brance of the victims of past atroc­i­ties often takes on a one-sided nature. Despite attempts to twist and politi­cise such events to serve nation­al­ist causes, a more com­pas­sion­ate approach is needed to move forward, and a remem­brance that above all, innocent victims are always sacred.

Last week, Azer­bai­jan mourned her martyrs who fell during the Soviet violence committed 29 years ago in the capital, Baku. TV channels aired patriotic movies (iron­i­cal­ly, these were mostly made in Soviet times), radios went silent, and social media profiles turned red and black.

Black January is an atrocity much remem­bered in modern times, yet there is never any Armenian involve­ment mentioned — no Armenian soldiers, no Armenian victims. How did Baku go from being remem­bered as the most cos­mopoli­tan city of the South Caucasus to ‘Armenian-less’?

‘Fake news’

While the death toll of the Baku pogrom according to British jour­nal­ist Thomas de Waal, in his book Black Garden, numbered around 90, it is a rarely visited event in Azer­bai­jani his­to­ri­og­ra­phy. While you can see reactions to the Sumgayit pogrom in both gov­ern­men­tal and non-gov­ern­men­tal pub­li­ca­tions, the stance of Azer­bai­ja­nis on the Baku events are quite unclear and have been largely over­shad­owed by other Black January events.

For example, historian and professor Karim Shukurov described the forced removal of Armenians from Sumgayit and Baku as a necessary step to prevent the existence of a ‘fifth column’ in the future. He suggests that we must analyse these events within the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh War, rather than to see them as unrelated mass killings.

On the other hand, Panah Huseyn and Etibar Mammadov, former members of the Popular Front movement (a pre­de­ces­sor organ­i­sa­tion to Azer­bai­jani Popular Front Party), have suggested that the pogrom was a con­spir­a­cy planned by the Soviet KGB. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azer­bai­jan, the Armenian victims of 1990 were those who did not comply with the demands of the seces­sion­ists — thus they were ‘loyal Armenians’.

Are all of these state­ments lies or con­spir­a­cy theories? Or are they facts? Unless there is a full dis­clo­sure of the archives, non-his­to­ri­ans will never know. In an era of ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truths’, it is easy to manip­u­late people with random claims. People simply do not know who to believe.

Whataboutism and nationalism

So, what stops us from remem­ber­ing innocent victims? One answer is most certainly whataboutism. People tend to see justice as being on their side first; only after the griev­ances have passed might they think about the other side.

The problem with this stance is that they want to be their own judges in their own court. I like to call it the ouroboros of the victim complex. For these kinds of people, the Azer­bai­jani civilians killed in the town of Khojali cannot be remem­bered because they are used in political arguments by today’s politi­cians.

An Azer­bai­jani follower on Twitter once replied to a post of mine saying, ‘why should I remember Armenian victims, for what purpose? Do they remember our victims?’ Fair point, but someone has to start the process.

There are good things about remem­brance — innocent victims are always sacred, no matter how they died or who killed them. The Rohingya, Uyghurs, Yazidis, Bosniaks, Armenians, and Azer­bai­ja­nis all mark days of remem­brance, which, in theory, should help them (and us) think about the future.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there are also downsides. Today, in this era of nation­al­ism and whataboutism, these days often serve to assist revan­chist politi­cians. Not even days of remem­brance are inclusive anymore.

Can you see where the problem lies? Even if you honestly try to remember all of the victims of a tragedy and defend a minority, there is a good chance you will become a tool for pro­pa­gan­da and be demonised by society.

The path to peace is not without obstacles and it is important that we acknowl­edge the biggest one — irra­tional nation­al­ism.

Just look at the thousands of Turks who chanted ‘We are all Armenians’ after the shocking assas­si­na­tion of Armenian Turkish jour­nal­ist Hrant Dink in 2007. These men and women were hated and mocked by nation­al­ist Turks and used as an ‘evidence of con­fes­sion’ in regards to the Armenian Genocide by nation­al­ist Armenians. Rather than being politi­cised, the actions of these Turks should have been seen as evidence of com­pas­sion.

When you are a nation­al­ist, the death of millions is just a statistic, and sta­tis­tics go hand in hand with pro­pa­gan­da. Nation­al­ists have no com­pas­sion, as German philoso­pher Max Stirner once stated — they have a ‘paying kind of egoism’. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there will always be enemies of peace, and this is something we must take into account when attempt­ing to bring about change.

Looking forward

In the wake of the hopeful news that the leaders of Armenia and Azer­bai­jan recognise the need to prepare their pop­u­la­tions for peace, it appears worth a shot to open a positive dialogue between the two countries, remem­ber­ing everyone’s griev­ances. After all, neither the victims of Khojali or Baku deserved what they went through.

Is this concept of dis­cus­sion that hard to accept? Both nations claim to be generous and forgiving, and they now have a good chance to prove it.

There are already very good projects in the South Caucasus that bring people together in a way that does not exist anywhere else in the world — ordinary people engage in common peace projects like Chai Khana, and in various NGO activ­i­ties (thank God for Tbilisi!).

Social media is another good tool that helps ordinary people bypass borders and talk to each other, whatever their government’s stance. In the South Caucasus, where you come from matters. It is not about where you are born, but where your parents are from. Karabakhi Azer­bai­ja­nis who have never seen Karabakh, Yeraz (Yerevan Azer­bai­ja­nis) who have never been to Armenia, and Bakuvians who are actually Armenians are all around us (and you).

Social media has allowed people like me to talk to people from Armenia, to ex-Bakuvians, to Armenian Turks, and everyone else in between. Should we fight forever until the last one of us dies or will we have a chance to talk to each other?

These are just some of the ways civil society is par­tic­i­pat­ing in moving forward. Now it's is time for gov­ern­ments to step up as well.

This was achieved 100 years ago. Months after the March Days (where thousands of Azer­bai­ja­nis were killed by Bolshevik and Armenian Dashnak forces in what is offi­cial­ly remem­bered as a genocide in Azer­bai­jan) and the September Days (where thousands of Armenians were killed by Azer­bai­jani and Ottoman forces), Armenia and Azer­bai­jan both recog­nised each other as inde­pen­dent republics — they even share the same ‘birthday’.

Following inde­pen­dence, there were 11 Armenians in the Azer­bai­jani par­lia­ment, and six Azer­bai­ja­nis in the Armenian one. Imagine giving your supposed ‘enemy’ a seat in your par­lia­ment, just months after two horrific massacres. It is com­plete­ly unthink­able that this could happen in the current, so-called ‘enlight­ened’ times.

Now it is time to take a long look at our past — not at how we killed each other, but how we got along even after all of these griev­ances.

The opinions expressed in this article are author's alone, and do not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflect the views of OC Media’s editorial board.

 

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Filed Under: Opinion & Analysis Tagged With: Armenia, Azerbaijan, baku, black january, commemoration, history, nagorno-karabakh, nationalism, peace, pogrom, propaganda, sumgait, sumgayit, whataboutism, yerevan

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