The day when residents of Baku gathered at the Fountain Square to raise their concerns over killings of conscripts during their military service in Azerbaijan, the country's social media presence was alive as ever. In her analysis of #protestbaku Katy Pearce, pointed out to some interesting facts, but what caught my attention was her evaluation of what she referred to as "Group 4"- the pro- government youth groups, and one very popular young gentleman led by Rauf Mardiyev, who is notorious for his outlandish statements and tweets when it comes to anyone who is, well, lets just say not like him and his support network. The day when everyone was using #protestbaku, he initiated another hashtag #Khadijautan ("shame on Khadija"). Now the readers of this blog, already might be familiar with the name Khadija Ismayil. She is a well known and well respected journalists from Baku, woman of courage and strength. It would not be an exaggeration to add a woman of inspiration.
#Khadijautan was aimed solely at Khadija, accusing her for accusing dead conscript's mother in bargaining. She explained herself in the following Facebook status update:
I wrote "there is a need for mothers in this country who don't bargain over their son's dead bodies"[...].
As Rauf and others were busy throwing dirt at Khadija, none of them, bothered to say anything about the wicked military service of our country. Is it because they consider it impeccable? So who should carry this shame? Certainly not Khadija and thousands of Baku residents, were right there, on the streets, demanding an end to deaths of Azerbaijani soldiers, resignation and final resolution to this situation. This wasn't the first time that a conscript lost his live.
So whose shame is it at the end? Surely its our shame to share if we are talking about shame in general. It is ours to share because it is our country, our soldiers and our government's ill treatment of its citizens, young boys who are sent to complete their military services but who are mistreated. It is our shame for not taking action earlier. Its easy to shame someone, but shouldn't we start from shaming ourselves? Doesn't everything begin from our individual selves? It is shame indeed. But it our shame to share and deal with so all those biased critiques please grow up and take some responsibility ...
