By: Emin Milli

We have to understand that the world around us is changing. CHANGE is marching towards Azerbaijan from inside and outside. We have to understand that we have to change together with this world. We can not live on and pretend like nothing can change and change can never come to Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is one of the countries on the earth which is in need of so many changes in so many areas of our existence. We need to change value structure of our society, we need to change the mentality of corruption, we need to change authoritarian thinking and attitudes in our families, in our organizations, in our society and in our state. We need to open up our society for values of innovations deeply rooted in our ADR heritage and its spirit. We need to bring back those times when we were ahead of many nations not only of the Moslem world but also of the western world on the level of ideas and values. We need to give our people back their hope and their belief in the bright future our nation truly deserves.

Martin Luther King had dreams and many people never believed that CHANGE of such magnitude is possible at all. Those who oppress want the oppressed ones to believe that CHANGE is not possible. “White” people made “black” people to believe that you can be judged by the skin of your color and not just by the substance of your character. Acceptance of injustice imposed on part of society or the whole society can be sustainable only if oppressed ones accept their status and do not fight to design alternative future. Freedom and justice have always demanded sacrifices, dedication and commitment to the long struggle like our ADR fathers showed throughout their lives.

Dreams of Martin Luther King about freedom for all “black little boys and girls” came true and Barack Obama became the symbol of this DREAM. This symbol of DREAM will become source of internal CHANGE for United States of America, but what is even more important it will also become external source of CHANGE for millions of people and many nations on the Earth. It will give inspiration for CHANGE and will be the beginning of global emotional warming when new alliances for peace and tolerance will be built and forged among nations, races, religions and civilizations.

The powers built on oil and gas will melt down in the ocean of global emotional warming and systems cherishing “stability”, but betraying basic human values will pass away like many other systems in Latin America and Africa in the 20th century. Oil prices will go down and oil will be more and more replaced by alternative sources of energy, concentration camps will turn into plantations of freedom and justice!

Declarations of independence by African states and the fact that black people could come to US from Africa as heads of states, diplomats, businessmen contributed significantly to the changing of the value structure of American people and was one of the factors affecting thinking and attitudes of black Americans who stopped to believe that they deserve to be deprived of voting rights, human dignity, freedom of assembly and many other basic rights and freedoms. They stopped to believe in “stability” and they started to believe in dreams! It is time to start to dream again and to believe in freedom and opportunities for CHANGE! Everything starts from a DREAM!

(This is the English version of my article that was published in the NRC Handelsblad and NRC.next, daily newspapers in the Netherlands.)

On the 7th of May the Eastern Partnership will be signed by the EU and 6 of her eastern neighbors. In the run-up a lot of attention has been devoted to the situation of human rights and democracy in Belarus. Oddly enough the situation in Azerbaijan is being ignored, whereas it should be just as much of concern, if not more.

Of the three Southern Caucasian republics, Azerbaijan is least known among the European public. It is at the crossroads of Russian, Persian and Turkish civilizations and has been dominated, both politically and culturally, by Russia since the start of the 19th century until the end of the 20th. Baku, the capital, was the center of 19th century petrochemical industry and the Nobel brothers as well as the Rothschildt family set up businesses in this swiftly westernizing city. Baku hence still feels very European, both in terms of construction style as well as living style.

The short lived Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (1918-1920) was the first Islamic country that implemented full (women) suffrage, remarkably earlier than many Western countries. At the end of the eighties and beginning of the nineties the Azerbaijani independence movement was one of the most strident of all within the Soviet Union and was at the base of the final disintegration of the communist bloc. Especially in the first part of the nineties, Azerbaijan was characterized by a dynamic democratization and a pluriform society, with partly fraudulent but still heavily fought elections.

Unfortunately there is very little to be seen back from that emerging democracy that Azerbaijan promised to become in the nineties. Freedom House marked the country as partly free until 2003, but since then it has been part of the non-free countries. The current dictator, Ilham Aliev, has continued the work of his father, the late leader until his death in 2003, in an all too effective manner and marginalized the opposition by intimidation, bribing and incarceration. Critical journalists are beaten up and students who bring attention to corruption at their universities are kicked out. The remaining media is of a depressing state, as became painfully clear at the recent, and for Azerbaijani standards absolutely unique, shooting attack in Baku where 13 students were murdered. News could only be gathered via Turkish and Russian TV and for those able via some new media, whereas the national media only brought the issue to light a couple of hours later.

Western governments have been closing their eyes for the deteriorating state of human rights and democracy in Azerbaijan for years. Belarus has opportunistically been dubbed the last dictatorship of Europe whereas Azerbaijan as member of the Council of Europe and the OSCE is just as much part of Europe and the government is just as notorious, if not more. During the scarce moments of honesty, Western representatives speak of this discrepancy as resulting from geopolitical considerations, meaning that good relations with the Azerbaijani government are that important for Western interests that human rights issues should be ignored. These considerations come down to the geographical position of Azerbaijan in the middle of Iran and Russia, as well as the role of Azerbaijan as an important alternative oil and gas provider for Russia.

Such opportunistic reasoning obviously turns Western human rights policy into a caricature. What might actually be even more problematic is the fact that such so-called realism testifies a shortsighted understanding of Western interests vis-à-vis Azerbaijan and that this could have disastrous effects already on the short term.

First, only a democratic Azerbaijan is a genuine alternative for Russian energy. The ties between the current Russian and Azerbaijani political elites are just as warm as they were in the past, politically, economically as well as personally. In the case of a further deterioration in the relations between Europa and Russia it will be unlikely that the authoritarian Azerbaijan will drop their Russian colleague. The renown Nabucco tap can be closed in a jiffy after a single call from the Kremlin.

Secondly, the close association of the West with the current regime has led to a sharp decline in the reputation of the West in Azerbaijan as a supporter of democracy. The remaining opposition is still very bitter over the lack of support after the fraudulent presidential elections in 2003, when the West withheld its support for the opposition whereas it did the opposite in similar situations in Georgia and Ukraine. In an environment with lots of dissatisfied youth, and in which the big southern neighbor is Iran, alternative associations are easily found. It is a public secret that radical muslim sects from Iran and the Arabian peninsula are actively promulgating.

Azerbaijan still has the potential to turn into a pluriform, stable democracy, which can be built on top of earlier, autonomous democratic traditions and institutions and hence does not need to be started from scratch. It is time that the West will be taking her own interests seriously and extends her explicit support to the few remaining democratic forces that remain in Azerbaijan, before it is too late.

(Onderstaand het oorspronkelijke artikel wat is ingestuurd naar de NRC Handelsblad redactie. Het is daar verder ingekort en vanmiddag – woensdag – geplaatst; mogelijk ook morgenochtend in NRC Next! Veel geinteresseerde reacties gekregen. Ik hoop dat het op ten duur ook nog wat politieke spin-off gaat krijgen.)

Op 7 mei wordt het Oosterlijk Partnerschap getekend door de EU en zes van haar oosterburen. In de aanloop hiernaartoe is veel aandacht besteed aan de situatie van mensenrechten en democratie in Wit-Rusland. Vreemd genoeg wordt de minstens zo zorgwekkende situatie in Azerbeidzjan, een van de andere partnerlanden, vrijwel volledig genegeerd.

Van de drie Zuidelijk Kaukasische republieken is Azerbeidzjan waarschijnlijk het minst bekend onder de Europese bevolking. Bakoe, de hoofdstad, stond aan de basis van de  negentiende-eeuwse petrochemische industrie en trok ondernemers en investeringen aan vanuit de hele wereld. De bezoeker aan Bakoe zal nog steeds een kenmerkende Europese stijl herkennen, zowel in de architectuur als in de open levensstijl van de bevolking. Ook op politiek niveau heeft Azerbeidzjan zich meermaals van een westerse snit voorzien. De kortstondige Azerbeidzjaanse Democratische Republiek (1918-1920) was het eerste islamitische land dat vrouwen stemrecht toekende, gelijktijdig met Nederland. Aan het eind van de jaren ‘80 en begin van de jaren ‘90 was de Azerbeidzjaanse onafhankelijkheidsbeweging een van de krachtigste binnen de Sovjet-Unie en stond daarmee aan de basis van het uiteindelijke uiteenvallen van het communistisch blok. Met name in de eerste helft van de jaren ‘90 werd Azerbeidzjan dan ook gekenmerkt door een dynamische en pluriforme democratisering, met vrije media en verkiezingen.

Last week was one of those weeks in which I lost sense of time and space while on duty for IFLRY. I am still not sure where I have been precisely so allow me to just try recapitulate it with you here.

On Saturday the 18th I left in the earliest hours of the morning my new home base Baku for Geneva, where IFLRY was co-organizing the Geneva Summit for Tolerance, Human Rights and Democracy on Sunday the 19th. Info on the programme, videos as well as pictures (you might see me passing by) are all on www.genevasummit.org . The event was attended by representatives of JD (Netherlands) and JFS (Switzerland), as well as Liberal International’s Human Rights Committee Vice-Chair Andy Sundberg. It was an amazing and inspiring event, with lots of emotions particularly due to the personal accounts of victims of human rights abuses. On the 20th I spent most of the day at the actual – fairly notorious – Durban Review Conference at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, where I experienced the tumultous speech by the Iranian President Ahmadinejad from closeby. Thanks to UN Watch for helping me with the accreditation to take part in this conference, by the way!

Next, in the evening of the 20th, I flew to Tbilisi, Georgia, in order to spend a day with the local Young Republicans and talk through the preparations for the upcoming IFLRY seminar there. At the same time, and as some of you may know, there are large and ongoing demonstrations in Tbilisi aimed at forcing President Saakashvili to resign, and the YRs took me with them to take part. The members of the wide coalition organizing the demonstration have all slightly different motivations for asking for his resignation, but the common denominator is that Saakashvili, in all his lunatic authoritarian behavior, is a danger to the country and a threat for democracy in the Caucasian republic.

Another night later – flights in the Caucasus usually arrive and depart in the middle of night, unfortunately – I flew to Brussels, Belgium, in order to have several meetings in and around the European Parliament. I met with Aloys Rigaut, LYMEC President, as well as with colleague Frederik Ferie (IFLRY VP) in the premises of the ELDR party in order to give a briefing on the state of democracy in Azerbaijan (a sad story…).

The next day, we’re speaking of the 23rd now, I took off my IFLRY hat to spend two days on holiday with my mother in Rome, only to fly back to the Netherlands on the 25th to attend the 25th anniversary Congress of the Jonge Democraten, my Dutch Member Organization. Jelena Spasovic, also IFLRY VP, joined the congress as well, together with several international representatives from Jong-VLD (Belgium), YOLDP (Moldova) and SU (Finland). Then the week was finally over and I took a long, long sleep!

Below the press release for the upcoming Geneva Summit. To register for the live webcast, send an e-mail to webcast@genevasummit.org, with “Register” in the subject line. I’ll be moderating the panel between 15.30 and 16.30. If you cannot make it to Geneva, follow us online!

Geneva, Switzerland — Human rights victims, activists and reporters worldwide will be able via the internet to watch and participate in a global summit of human rights activists that will take place in Geneva this Sunday, on April 19, 2009, one day before the opening of the UN Durban Review Conference on racism and discrimination, to urge the international community to address the world’s most severe violations.

Ksenia Vakhrusheva, frequent visitor of IFLRY/LYMEC events, is writing about a new law passed in St. Petersburg that restricts the mobility of young people to go around town. It is a rather odd one. If anyone knows of similar laws in other countries then please let me know.

I wrote a short item for IFLRY’s Bureau Blog titled ‘Cyberspace’s Promises‘.

Whereas I am really not an IT expert, I do take great interest in the Internet as a new social phenomenon and its implications. The MA thesis that I am currently supposed to be writing touches upon a different aspect of the Internet: its actual physical infrastructure (cables, satellites, ISPs) and the geopolitical dimensions of this structure.

Ik ben zelf een grote consument van nieuws en analyse met betrekking tot Rusland, zoals bijvoorbeeld David Johnson’s Russia List, de OpenDemocracy Rusland pagina en de blog van NRC-Correspondent Michel Krielaars.

Een aanrader is echter ook de website van Olaf Koens, huidig GPD-correspondent in Moskou, waarin hij niet alleen zijn gepubliceerde maar ook (nog) niet gepubliceerde artikelen plaatst.

Besides the standard NGO capacity trainings that I am conducting in the Caucasus, I always leave a time slot open for some political discussion, most often centered around the concept of freedom. I usually keep my own political opinions rather discrete and let the participants play around themselves with me moderating. Not only because the – often traditional – crowd I train is politically diverse and I don’t want to antagonize them, but also because I am afraid that my philosophical, radical understanding of freedom is not always easy to explain within an hour or so and can actually turn people off.

Now, today (Gymri, Armenia) was an exception and I went into the mud myself, though admittedly only knee-deep. Some remarks:

Myself: “I see absolutely no reason why someone would be able to prohibit me from smoking marihuana.” Participant #1: “So what if someone tries to kill you?”

Participant #2: “If we are going to follow your understanding of freedom, we will all turn into beasts.”

Participant #3: “Can we please come back to the question what freedom exactly is?” (he repeated this 3 times, as if he was still expecting me to pull it out of a high hat at some point of time)

We had a good time though.

Okay, ik weet dat ik niet teveel mijn geliefde regio belachelijk moet maken, maar het zijn soms toch zulke sufferds.

Zie onderstaande foto van een sportzaak in Tzakhkadzor, Armenie. Tussen topclubs als AC Milan en Barcelona vind je daar warempel het logo van FC Eindhoven. Hoogstwaarschijnlijk beoogde de eigenaar het logo van PSV (Eindhoven) op zijn gevel te plaatsen maar de designer was te lui om de logo’s te checken (die van Juventus is immers ook wat vreemd).

Hoe dan ook, amusant is het wel.

Tzakhadzor Sport Shop