Azerbaijan of 1918, 2012 and the future

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"Its over now, calm down" said a Twitter user in response to my tweets about democracy issues in Azerbaijan during the final night of Eurovision song contest. Neglecting the reality is an easy way today in Azerbaijan and been this way for the last few years. Its easier to dust it off your shoulders and simply go with the flow. Its easy because you are untouched. Its easy because getting involved in the struggle for democracy, human rights, and freedom of expression puts you one step closer to a prison cell. It makes you the enemy of the state and puts you on the list of "wanted people". Sometimes I imagine that if it was a scene from one of the Westerns there will be small posters all over town pinned to the walls of buildings, coffee shops and restaurants with photos of activists, organizers and outspoken figures all with "WANTED" printed on them.

Its tiring to see constant criticisms of a country that could have potentially be the beacon of hope, the country rich in oil and gas resources with prospering life standards, well paid jobs for all, equality, free press and much more. But its not. And its unfortunate. Azerbaijan, today, though once a democratic state of 1918 is a corrupted, authoritarian, undemocratic state. Its current leadership and the ruling family has no respect to its past and especially to those two very significant years of our history. In fact, the name of the person who played an important role in bringing about this democratic state to life is systematically neglected. A spot where a statue should have been erected to M.E. Rasulzade is home to yet another fountain. And thats what is more important for Azerbaijani authorities than its history- fountains, parks, glamor and bling. 

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In fact, just like many other things, history in Azerbaijan is used and referred to only at moments when it suits certain interests and when it comes to certain issues. But alas we speak of 1918 democratic state. We choose to butter up certain individuals when talking about them than pay our respects to leaders of the past. We choose to spend thousands or millions on imported flowers when celebrating a birthday of the late president than face the truth and do something about it. 

What we as people of Azerbaijan are failing at as a mass is making sure we have healthy, educated generations to take care of this country once there is no more oil and gas. What we have now is uneducated large portion of young society living in a lala land, disconnected from the world, sucked in to the vicious circle of devastating outcomes of being uneducated. Moreover we are raising generations who have little knowledge about people like Rasulzade and the significance of May 28th. We must change the way we think! We must work to raise educated generations and prevent further societal degradation.

April 30th- we remember the tragedy at the State Oil Academy

Today while remembering what happened on April 30th, exactly three years ago,  I recollect my memories of that day, trying to once again understand the logic, the incentive and the sickening state of mind of the person who committed that terrible crime. His name was Ferda Gadirov, a Georgian national who entered the school that day with a fully loaded gun and started shooting. It didn't matter at whom, he was just shooting. At the end he shot himself as well. According to official numbers 12 people lost their lives while 13 received wounds of different degrees. Some say there were more but where to find that information and how to confirm it...

An article shared today by Radio Liberty Azerbaijani service, shares few videos from that day and commemoration a year later [AZ]. Once again the face of our state police- the little humanity they have in them shows itself all over- dispersing the crowd of young people from gathering in front of the academy, shouting at them, not letting them place carnations on the stairs of the academy. Seeing them I cannot help but wonder, what if one of those students was his son or daughter or maybe a relative- a nephew, a niece? Would it be that easy if that was the case? Or are they so brutal that even something like that would have made no difference? Who knows...

And then another article published by another online news outlet talks about how the president of Azerbaijan paid families of those who were killed a sum of 30.000AZN and to families of those injured 15.000AZN. Some of you might think this was a sign of sympathy, or generosity but it wasn't. A true act of sympathy would have been to let people live their pain, organize a commemoration for all those innocent lives, to allow for people to gather. Instead, any act of remembrance was prevented, because there was a much more important event to be held, 10 days later, it was the notorious Flower Day celebration organized to celebrate the birthday of Azerbaijan's late president Heydar Aliyev. No one cared about lives lost only 10 days prior. A celebratory concert was organized to praise the president and his achievements. You know how much Azerbaijani government spent to hold this celebration? Millions (a debated number for 2009 was around 20 million). Because its more important than lives or ordinary citizens.

If its all about remembering and commemorating (in fashion) that it should be done equally but equality is a loose term for many of Azerbaijani officials meaning little especially when it comes to ordinary citizens of this country.

As to many of us who do remember today and to all those lives lost on April 30th, I can only express my deepest condolences and add, rest in peace young men and women of the State Oil Academy...