Armine Adibekya
Armenophobia in Azerbaijan
11. Anti-Armenian paranoia
Paranoia is a variety of a thinking disorder. People who suffer from paranoia have exasperated distrust of people around them, susceptibility to offense, suspiciousness, jealousy, tendency to see conspiring ill-wishers in random occurrences, inability to forget and forgive grievances or to handle criticism. They may conceive obsessive ideas leading a paranoid person to develop intricate and logically coherent conspiracy theories against him/her.
Individual incidents of paranoia are easily diagnosed, as the paranoid person is surrounded by people with healthy perception of the reality.
Collective paranoia is quite a different matter. Even the clear-headed, if any, must feign to share the collective delusion. In rare cases, they attempt to stand up for their cognizance of the reality and become targets to persecution and ostracism from those around them.
Apart from this, Azerbaijan relentlessly bans any positive mention or depiction of Armenians, with domestic information space bursting with pieces of information which, as we have seen above, are not only far from the reality, but are both fantastic and inconceivable. Any negative occurrence – from natural phenomena to socio-economic problems – are attributed to the insidious hand of Armenians or envious evil-wishers sponsored by Armenians.
Frequently, such paranoia takes preposterous forms. In this sense, any goods made in Armenia or by ethnic Armenians get a special treatment and are prohibited. A huge hullabaloo is raised over any commodity accidentally landing on the shelves of Azerbaijani shops.
At the outset of this strife, before the alleged reasons and motives became attuned to the ideology and logic, the most absurd reasons were brought up to justify the ban and destruction of any such merchandise. For example, this was the case with the Armenian brandy and coffee which were seized and destroyed.
The Azerbaijani website Azeritоdаy.соm: The State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan, in the framework of its No Smuggling campaign, discovered in the distribution network of Baku expired coffee and brandy produced in Armenia. The goods so discovered were destroyed in the presence of journalists. As reported by Aziz Majidov, Sector Head of State Customs Committee, the expert appraisal declared the destroyed merchandise unfit for use.364
Later, after bringing the set of categories into alignment with the official propaganda to furnish more or less logical rationale, the presence of the Armenian merchandise came to be portrayed as a manifestation of terrorism deliberately targeting the population of Azerbaijan. It must be noted that frequently, such information is either not true or intentionally distorted to further aggravate the situation.
The Azerbaijani website Bia.az: “In Azerbaijan, law enforcement authorities started a verification procedure in respect of a pediatrician who had advised his patients to use Nutrilаc infant formula365 produced by the Russian company Nitritek; the doctor faces a sentence of up to 8 years for advertising these products, since the company belonged to Armenians. Unquestionably, the purity of the foodstuffs for our children produced by Armenians cannot but be doubted. A serious expert appraisal is needed”, writes the website.366
All merchandise doubtful or harmful for the consumer is scrutinized in the first place to establish the “ethnic composition of supplier’s management”. The range of wares was further extended to include any mention of similarity or suspected Armenian origin of the goods, going as far as to cover the regional language labeling.
The Azerbaijani website Gunxeber.соm: In Baku, ladies’ knitted jackets of Turkish production and of colors reminiscent of the Armenian flag have been withdrawn from sale. “In the beginning, sellers did not understand what the problem was, but were shocked as they did and realized the blunder they had committed. The sellers took away all jackets and promised to send them back to wholesalers who had imported the wares from Turkey,” writes Gunxeber.соm website.367
The Azerbaijani website Bizim Yol: The second floor of the newly constructed Bina shopping center in Baku, houses a ladies’ wear shop where all clothing is of Armenian brand “Artsakh”368. Eyyub Huseynov, Chairman of the Free Consumers Union of Azerbaijan, stated in an interview to the newspaper that although the State Service for Consumer Market Control under the Ministry of Economic Development had previously identified and removed from the market Armenian mineral water, cigarettes and coffee, today, this service does not control the market for unknown reasons.369
The Azerbaijani website Haqqin.az published a photograph of a menu in Traveler’s Coffee, a fashionable restaurant in Baku. The photo showed Armenian lavash indicated as an ingredient of one of the dishes. Siraj Piriyev, Traveler’s Coffee corporate lawyer, found the author of the photograph, social journalist Azer Aydemir, and addressed to him several strident letters with threats of litigation and trouble. “In so doing, the lawyer S. Piriyev acknowledged the presence of the Armenian lavash in the restaurant and hurried to point out for some reason that the owners of Traveler’s Coffee have already corrected this small (?!) mistake by replacing the word “Armenian” with “Azerbaijani,” reports the website.370
The Azerbaijani newspaper Yeni Musavat: The Deniz supermarket of Baku sells Indian tea that has some labeling in Armenian. The production and packaging of the tea is commissioned by a Russian company Dialogtorg and takes place in Sri Lanka. The press secretary of State Committee on Standardization, Metrology and Patents of Azerbaijan, Fazil Talibli reported that the sale of merchandise with labeling in the Armenian language is prohibited in Azerbaijan. “Recently, dried fruits labeled Sevan in Armenian were discovered on sale in the Masally District. The shop was fined by the Committee, and the wares were seized and withdrawn from sale”, said Talibli and noted that goods featuring a label in Armenian and the Armenian flag are prohibited in Azerbaijan.371
The Azerbaijani website Gundelik-bаku.соm writes that the colors of the Armenian flag can recently be seen in the appearance of food and trade outlets on the streets of Baku and regions of Azerbaijan. Thus, the website gives the example of the gas station located on the square near the former bus station in the 3rd residential community of Baku that was painted after renovation in colors of the Armenian flag. “Before, the gas station was only painted in dark blue, but now orange colors have been added”, reports the website indignantly. In addition, the website discerned a link to Armenia in the name of the gas station H-Petrol by noting that there are gas stations in Armenia with this name deciphered as “Hаyаstаn-Petrоl”372.373
The Azerbaijani website Ара. az: Import of spirits and tobacco goods prevented to Azerbaijan Brandy, vodka, cigarettes and coffee were discovered to contain substances harmful for the human body <…>. The import of Armenia-produced brandy, vodka, cigarettes and coffee was prevented to Azerbaijan. This report was received by APA from the State Customs Committee. Laboratory research carried out with modern equipment at the Central Customs Examination Department of the State Customs Committee revealed that the products were made with breaches of manufacturing techniques and were unfit for use. Harmful substances were identified in these products. The State Customs Committee reiterates its warning that the import of such commodities is inadmissible and will be vigorously deterred.374
The tendency of barring entry for any literature published in Armenia, irrespective of its content, holds a special place.
Azerbaijani customs officers seized from the director of the regional representative office of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, journalist Shahin Rzayev a book by an Armenian author Tatul Hakobyan entitled “Karabakh Diary: Green and Black”.
<…> “This occurred yesterday at the customs checkpoint of Boyuk-Kesik as Rzayev returned from Georgia, from an Internews event where he had purchased the book. The customs officials seized the book under the pretext that it “was published in Armenia” and made an entry to this effect in their report.
“I asked them: “Had I brought a copy of ‘Eugene Onegin’ published in Armenia, would you have seized it, too? I was given the answer: “Yes”, told Rzayev”.375
The underlying reasons for such line of conduct are quite explicable. Feelings of tolerance and sympathy are in the first place based on knowledge and sufficient information on the subject. The presence of production is an indication of a demiurgic core, and if the commodity is of quality into the bargain, this is bound to develop some sort of a liking or at least a positive attitude to the manufacturing country or nation. For instance, high-quality machinery and equipment from Germany, French perfumes or Chinese silks impact to some extent the country’s recognizability and perception of its citizens in a positive light. The availability of Armenian wares on the shelves of Azerbaijani shops is detrimental to the propagandized image of a hungry and decaying country that is far from any constructive endeavor and void of any capacity for production.
This is the reason for waging a war on Armenian goods and their subsequent destruction for show. To explain the underlying reasons to their consumers, a myth of “food and goods terrorism” is concocted as it is best taken up by the masses, with its potential of affecting everyone. The real purpose behind this clamor in news reports is not an attempt to protect the population from food or goods terrorism. Here, a series of other objectives are pursued:
• preventing the recognizability and emergence of the image of creative Armenians;
• barring the potential dissemination of alternative sources of information;
• intimidating population and whipping up armenophobia as it instills fear and distrust and results in a hatred which can be later exploited by the authorities to advance their agenda;
• producing a conspiracy theory to consolidate the society in the face of a common enemy.
The subversive role of Armenians purported to account for the existence of social problems in Azerbaijan links not only to the issue of Karabakh but is traced back further into history: “Armenians used to spend a lifetime hatching out nefarious schemes to destroy Azeri Turks and did harm even in the happy Soviet times”.
It appears that goods manufactured in the Soviet period carried a far-reaching agenda of causing harm many years later.
The Azerbaijani website Vesti.az: The point is that from the mid-1960s, our republic saw the beginning of the mass construction of 9-storey residential panel buildings and a series of frame stone housing. The USSR Gossnab (State Supplies of the USSR) supplied the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan with passenger elevators produced by… a plant in Spitak. As early as in 1960s, far-sighted Armenians of Spitak knew that the outbreak of a bloody war between the two peoples over Nagorno-Karabakh was near and were out to cause mischief. The consignment of elevators manufactured for the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan had deliberately induced manufacturing defects. That is why the residents of the capital city who live in 9-storey panel residential blocks to this day continue to be plagued by these elevators. And we, in our ingratitude, put the blame for this on the management of the elevator maintenance services and public utilities of our capital city.376
Insights into history with a cryptographic slant toward conspiracy theory deserve a special highlight.
Azerbaijan has seen a litany of figures who seek to find reasons explaining the overt and covert Armenian perfidy stemming from some innate traits attributed to ethnic Armenians. Attempts to produce evidence in support of above-stated qualities ascribed to all Armenians without exception took the course of unveiling conspiracy theories, cyphers as well as an occult impact on Azerbaijanis.
Newspaper Vyshka (Watchtower) № 20 (19664) dated 06.1.2007: It would have never occurred to any Azerbaijani who consumed back in 1981 Polyus ice cream produced by the Refrigerator Plant of Baku that it represented a direct reference to Armenian organizations – Artsakh, Dashnaktsutyun, Gnchak, Krunk, ASALA and Miatsum – and that Armenians exchanged information using the products of this very plant. <…> The wrapping paper of the ice cream features 4 colors. The symbols inside and outside the outline of the figure 8 can be deciphered as follows. The blue outline of a shark inside the figure 8 – <…> and the figure itself betokens a plan to seize 8 regions of Nagorno-Karabakh (Shusha, Lachin, Kelbajar, Qubadli, Zangilan, Jabrayil, Fizuli and Agdam) in addition to Agdere, Khojaly and Khojavend. <…> While brown colors joining the band on both ends is none other than firmly anchored boots of the Russian soldiers who help Armenians in seizing the Azerbaijani lands as far as the Iranian border.377
A. Aliyev, Azerbaijani psychologist, affirms that the people of Azerbaijan turn into a society of schizophrenics, with 80 percent of the country’s population facing serious mental problems. Schizophrenia and dementia are the main threats to Azerbaijan. According to the psychologist, the scale of these ailments shows a total incidence, and the society is facing the risk of undergoing genetic mutation. Apart from this, the number of persons suffering from a depression and various neurotic disorders has spiked amid an ever growing rate of divorces, childless marriages and suicides. Also, the society is simply overflowing with aggression.378
The causality of the ongoing social destruction is identified through the string of concepts Armenians – Azerbaijanis – separatism – occupation and is based on the juxtaposition of the presumed characteristics of both groups.
Apart from the “food terrorism”, against which the authorities of Azerbaijan are waging an unequal fight, some representatives of the intellectual community have exposed a “genetic terror” unleashed by Armenians in as early as 1950s. Specifically, Shohrat Eldaniz, the editor-in-chief of Yeni Yekenchi newspaper and at the same time the editor-in-chief of the Internet television channel Kаnаlm5.tv confirmed the prevalence of disruptive social phenomena and after giving the matter a lengthy thought, came to the conclusion that the blame for this lies with Armenians who had mounted a campaign of “genetic terror” against the people of Azerbaijan. To put it otherwise, Armenians have used some pharmaceutical compound to corrupt the gene of the Azerbaijanis who had presumably possessed qualities listed above.
Shohrat Eldaniz, editor-in-chief of Yeni Yekenchi newspaper, chief editor of Kаnаl5. tv: What do you think is going on? Why the seed of our people decays and breaks down? Why there is an increasing level of cruelty, indifference and insensibility? I have reflected a lot examining and studying numerous articles and researches. Apart from a single consideration, nothing sensible came to my mind. There is information that the human body contains codes for over 400 healthy genes. Such concepts as ‘homeland’, ‘love for your land’, ‘moral integrity’, ‘consciousness’ linked to ethnic roots as well as ‘morality’, ‘honor’, ‘kindness’, ‘courage’, ‘heroism’, ‘bravery’, ‘selflessness’, etc. are governed by these genetic codes.
As early as in 1951, in Moscow under Mikoyan’s wing, Professor Edik Sardaryan, the head of Armenian scientists379 voiced at a meeting presided by him “an apprehension over the gene pool of the Azerbaijani nation” and confessed that “if this gene pool continues to develop any further, there will be a risk of Azerbaijanis turning into a dominant force in the Caucasus”. This is how the activities of Armenian scientists aimed at damaging and corrupting the healthy genetic code of Azerbaijanis started in Kremlin.
To cause the corruption, mutation and destruction of the genetic code, Armenian scientists, joined by their Russian colleagues, invented “Mersin-N” pharmaceutical compound. According to the information available on this compound, it would be used to implement a program of genetic terror against nations possessing healthy genetic codes. This program continues to be implemented to this day.380
It is pointless to speak in earnest and try to refute the existence of any such compound or its use by the Azerbaijanis for that matter; however, the Azerbaijani society harbors a genuine conviction that Armenians are carrying out a deliberate subversive policy against if not the genes than at least individual representatives of the Azerbaijani people.
Often, people who are not only far from morality but are poorly versed in school taught disciplines hurry to make a display of their patriotism and grab their share of glory.
Extract from an interview by a famous Azerbaijani actress, Shukyufa Musayeva who tells the story of her involvement in the fighting over Karabakh: I was wounded in the blink of an eye. We were waging a battle, and two of our askers381 burnt down to death. Later, I was told that I, profusely bleeding, screamed: “Commander, don’t let the boys burn to death!” As I passed out, I slipped into a clinical death. I was taken to Baku in a helicopter to the Semashko hospital. I was hurt beyond recognition; fragments were all over my body and especially on my face. They stitched together a wound on my forehead, but it would not heal. As I was already going through the recovery period, a doctor tried to pull out my frontal bone using a pair of tongs. I didn’t feel anything, I only saw another doctor enter the room, give him a slap in the face and take him away with words: “What is it? Do you want to make her miserable?”
It is only now that I realize that this doctor either did somebody’s bidding or was Armenian. Later, I read that the human memory is contained in the frontal bone382. I don’t know the reason, but this Armenian doctor in his attempt to pull out my frontal bone wanted to erase and remove my memory.383
Occult practices hold a special place in unmasking the subversive role of Armenians. Parapsychologists and psychics have joined the fight against the pernicious Armenian influence and claim in dead earnest that “Armenia is launching hostile magical assaults against Azerbaijan through releasing energy waves to induce depression, aggression, despondency, vindictiveness, etc”.
From an interview given to Bizim Yol by a phytotherapist and parapsychologist Tunzala Bayramova: “Azerbaijan is in a state of war with Armenia, and the war is waged not only using weaponry, but also over various other channels. For instance, those who have lost their homes are aggressive, with problems rising between them and the locals because of their inability to find common ground; contradictions also rise between rural and urban populations. All of it bears the impact of our enemy’s magic manipulations. On the other hand, I am more concerned with the lack of love in our society. People feel a void that becomes filled with mercenariness, greed and avidity intrinsic to the period of transition”, stated T. Bayramova.
The parapsychologist assures that Armenia is mounting alleged magical assaults against Azerbaijan through releasing energy waves which induce heavy depression, aggression, despondency, vindictiveness, etc. “There, sorcerers comprise 20 % of their population. Each country has its own political laboratories and scientific centers studying magic, parapsychology and extrasensory powers; these centers do the bidding of the country’s leadership. Regretfully, Azerbaijan is an exception and becomes target of such attacks”, assures the phytotherapist and parapsychologist.384
Judging by the publications appearing in the Azerbaijani press, Azerbaijanis are quite superstitious and fervently believe in psychics, witches and sorcerers. The sector of occult services in Azerbaijan accounts for an approximate turnover of 200 million manats.385 With this in mind, there can be no doubts that the parapsychologists’ message is surely to drive home and be blindly accepted and added to the armory.
The Azerbaijani website Vesti.az: An unknown person called the 112 service of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Azerbaijan and reported that Armenians had attached a bomb to his back.386
A significant share in the theory of conspiracy and subversive action goes to claims of a “classic” terror at the hands of Armenians (kidnapping, terror acts, etc.). It must be noted that Azerbaijan has publicly announced that “in connection with threats from ASALA terrorist organization” all itineraries of Azerbaijani officials will be kept secret.387 However, after a while, the publication of information on the movements of officials resumed.388
The hand of Armenians, represented by a phantom Armenian named Maukamyan, was unveiled in nothing short of orchestrating the collapse of the Soviet Union as well as a “series of terrorist acts”, including the Black January389.
Extract from an interview with Anatoly Fedorenko, the author of the book Black January who lives in Ukraine and is an eyewitness of the bloody events of January 1990 in Baku: With my hand on Quran, I swore an oath by Allah to politically revenge the terrorists whatever it took. In a short while, we will be mounting an action against Gorbachev. My comrades are conducting an investigation that has preliminarily revealed that Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev was recruited in 1979 by Maukamyan, a resident agent of Armenian origin of the American special services. It was him who coaxed Gorbachev into further collaboration. Gorbachev was given an instruction on how to cause the collapse of the Soviet Union in disguise of the Perestroika; in fact, he was perpetrating a series of terrorist acts against the ordinary and peaceful people. In 1990, Azerbaijan saw events that later came to be called as Black January.390
The figures of the Azerbaijani establishment can be diagnosed with a clear case of cause and effect disruption. Fully aware of grave domestic problems faced by their country, they are concerned with finding out if such problems were brought about by an Armenian or the fact that Armenians might learn and spread the word of their problems.
In his statement delivered on the Solidarity for Karabakh forum held in Baku, the journalist Azer Hasrat exhorted his colleagues to stop their criticism of the authorities and their report of Azerbaijan’s domestic problems as Armenian specialists were reading and re-circulating that information.
I have started my speech with a phrase: “Watch out! We’re being overheard. After that, I said that statements pronounced in this room and appearing in the Azerbaijani press are very closely followed in Armenia. Armenians draw from our newspapers all negative opinions about our army or country, translate and disseminate them across the world because this serves their interests. Therefore, we must be careful in our statements. Such meetings cannot be used to air grievances in respect of high-ranking officials and the president”, reports the Azerbaijani journalist.391
Attempts to explain Azerbaijan’s ongoing destructive processes by external forces are quite clear. Here, a protective mechanism is activated representing an instinctive process intended to minimize negative experiences. The existence of the problem itself is already a source of such experiences, while realizing own guilt and the onus it carries represent a factor that multiplies negative sentiments and exacerbates the oppressed minds.