Armenophobia in Azerbaijan. Armine Adibekya

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