HOPES FOR THE FUTURE

James Willsher explains the roots of unrest in Azerbaijan, and the consequences facing those who seek change.

Vüsal Həmzəyev grew up in a nation shaking off the Soviet Union, and has seen his country slowly begin to regenerate itself and look towards Europe. He is one of thousands of other young people who have come to the UK as a student, and with memories of unrest followed by economic hardship amid a new independence. But Vüsal isn’t from Poland, or Lithuania, or any other of the recently-joined members of the European Union. This is his story of the new Azerbaijan.
It begins in 1988. There is turmoil within several Soviet states. “It wasn’t a day, it was a long period, of when people started to feel that something was changing,” he says. “We watched TV of course feeling that something different was happening.”

That feeling of something different culminated in 1990, with more than 200,000 people taking part in massive-scale demonstrations in Baku, the capital. On 20 January, Soviet troops entered the city in a bid to halt the protests. The troops opened fire and killed hundreds of demonstrators, TV stations were shut down. Then the rumours started. Across the country Communist Party members openly burned membership cards when news of the demonstrators’ death spread. There were further mass protests accompanying the funerals. With similar unrest in neighbouring Georgia, as well as in Latvia and Lithuania, the government acted.

The process of independence began. The government reorganised itself, and in September 1991 a referendum was held in which the vote for independence was more than 90%. The Parliament ratified this and on 18 October Azerbaijan formally became an independent state, with the former leader of the central committee as its first President. Azerbaijan declared herself as an ancestor of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, founded in 1918, the first democratic republic in the Muslim world.

During this time Vüsal was living with his family in the town of İsmayıllı, in north east Azerbaijan. During the Soviet era young people entering their fifth year at school were known as Pioneers, and wore red ties in support of the then-government. When news of independence spread, he remembers fellow pupils ripping up their ties, while he wore his in the style of a dog leash. For a number of months there was no television broadcasts after the 20 January events, but video cassettes showing the major events of the movement for independence were sent out. Prices were rising, and people were queuing for bread for over three hours.

“It was a time of crisis,” Vüsal says. “There was a movement that wanted a more nationalist government. They got to power in 1992. But there was another crisis and then another government came in. Everyone was interested in politics.”

At school the Soviet history lessons disappeared and were replaced with Azerbaijani history and world history classes, set texts for national education changed. A new way of looking at culture. “The films we watched during Soviet times, we watched them again and saw the bad people were now the good people for us.”

Azerbaijan shares borders with Iran, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Turkey. For Vüsal, independence from the strictures of Soviet life also meant discovering neighbouring cultures. “After independence we saw reality for the first time, we saw we were close to Turkey and were interested in Turkish culture. When I first watched a Turkish movie I thought ‘Oh my God, another people can speak my language!’ My parents were shocked as well, it was amazing. After that we received a large number of Turkish videos and audio cassettes, and we watched Turkish TV channels. It was very interesting to see the lifestyle of Turkey, the lifestyle of East and West mixed.”

Life, however, remained difficult during these first years. Vüsal remembers older people complaining, saying they preferred Soviet times, they missed the collective farms. There were no protests, but there was talk of how the Western things were wrong for the country, like nudity, that during Soviet times things were better for the people, food was cheaper. Up until 1995 the feeling was that despite the excitement of independence, the country was on a downward trajectory.

The regeneration of Azerbaijan began at the end of the 1990s. New buildings started to spring up, especially in Baku. Where Soviet ones had been brown and grey, these new ones were deliberately the reverse, in bright colours. Other, older ones were also re-painted colourfully in this new spirit. However, the roads had not been repaired for several years, and were in a poor condition. In recent years this has been addressed with new roadbuilding schemes. New colleges, factories, sports centres, schools.

This gradual, phoenix-like arising from the ashen-grey of Communism was fuelled in part by Azerbaijan’s now state-owned natural resources of gas and oil, and the massive investment that new contracts with Western companies, agreed in 1994, brought. Previously all this wealth has simply been added to the international Soviet budget. Even a James Bond film, The World Is Not Enough, had scenes shot in the capital. Vüsal: “Baku became very nice.”

He hints at corruption surrounding these multi-billion-dollar contracts, but doesn’t elaborate. He says that corruption has spread, post-independence, even into education, a subject he becomes passionate about: “Teachers are getting money from students for exams. You can go to university and you can buy all the exams, you can relax and buy your diploma if you’ve got money. The level and quality of teaching is not good, we need new teachers.”

New freedom awakened an old conflict, though. A bitter dispute with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which remains under the administration of Azerbaijan. In the early 1990s armed conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia resulted in the displacement of thousands of refugees. A body named the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) now deals with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and with the backing of the US and Europe tried to find a peaceful solution. However, the tension remains: the internet is alive with hostility, politicians on both sides occasionally lapse into barbed commentary, and the websites of the UK embassies of Azerbaijan and Armenia both feature prominent, detailed pages devoted to the issue.

The European Union is interested in its neighbours, and in Azerbaijan. This should lead to more open societies, greater democracy, Vüsal says. “Every country has its own problems, even the most developed countries. But the tragedy is, you can’t speak about these problems in Azerbaijan, you can’t go on TV, you can’t talk to the media. We need our country to be developed, and to be free, freedom of speech, a free media. Some journalists have been arrested because of what they have written.”

On July 8 this year two Western-educated Azerbaijani bloggers, Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizada, made headlines around the globe. After exchanging remarks critical of the government in a Baku restaurant, they were confronted by two well-built men, one breaking Adnan’s nose. The police arrived, and onlookers expected them to arrest the violent challengers. But it was Emin and Adnan who were taken into custody. Following legal proceedings that were closed to the public, they were sentenced to two months detention. It provoked outcry from around the world, criticism from the European Parliament, the US and German governments, British MPs, and human rights organisations. A new court date has been set for September. Emin and Adnan were young professionals, one working for BP, the other a freelance translator, and both were campaigners for freedom of speech, active on the internet, organising public debates and events, notably abroad: in Brussels, and even in the House of Lords.

“Young people want change,” Vüsal says, “We believe in change, step by step, we need it. We want the government to improve. We need to understand what democracy is. There’s no single independent TV station, they are commercially independent, but government-controlled, propaganda.”

He says Azerbaijani media frequently portrays those criticising the government as ‘hooligans’. Newspapers are either government papers or opposition papers, with nothing in the middle, nothing independent.

And of the future? Vüsal: “We want Azerbaijan to be a more democratic country, a more free country. We see Azerbaijan in the European Union, maybe it’s a long way. There are some people who say we should work for change very publicly, there are some who say we should do it silently, step by step. Economically Azerbaijan has big potential with oil and gas, but we need investment in other spheres, like technology.

“We believe that we will do this. There are some who say we have no future. They have a pessimistic approach and see problems everywhere. The tragedy is if you want change you need first to talk about to change to realise it. I’m not a pessimist, I’m a member of the optimist movement. Everything is possible if you work. You have to work if you have love for your country.”

http://www.lucidmagazine.co.uk/#/hopes-for-the-future/4535514371