The synchronous image of the enemy represents a generalized picture that can be shaped during the hostilities through direct personal involvement (former combatants of the Karabakh war);
The retrospective image of enemy brings together the individual memories of former combatants who were personally involved in certain events (and represent altered interpretations of such events many years after they happen);
The image of the enemy shaped by the official propaganda precedes the personal experience of any contacts with the enemy (and occurs at the level of officials or the most reputable figures for the community);
The image of the enemy shaped by analytical services prevails among commanding officers and diverse secret services, which require an adequate picture of an enemy based on an objective and a voluminous data for operational and strategic decision-making;
The image of the enemy shaped through personal contact and daily life is the most common and present at all army levels with those directly involved in the fighting or conflict.
Political dimension
The political component of xenophobia is based on the tendency to manipulate the public mind for channeling the emotional energy and tension towards the political agenda that is in the interest of the manipulator.
The very existence of the “external enemy” is asserted and instilled in the minds of the people for internal mobilization and, as a rule, is used by the political elite to suppress forces and currents aimed against it within the group.
“The image of the enemy” instilled in the minds of the people can unite the society around the figure of a charismatic leader making it temporarily oblivious of or alleviating for a moment the domestic conflict between the authorities and the society. It can help make up for economic and social blunders committed by the ruling elite. In the face of any threat, real or imaginary, the population demonstrates obedience to a ruler, who is endowed with a status of the “Father”, “Defender” or “Leader” of the nation.39
The idea of correlation between the formation and development of the society and specific individual is clearly and consistently epitomized in authoritarian societies; Azerbaijan can rightfully be characterized as such with its personality cult of Heydar Aliyev as the “Founding Father” and the “Savior” of nation placing his and his descendants’ authority above any criticism or discussion.
Dear Mr. President! Once, one of our wise poets said that the sun of the Orient will rise 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 that it might put at risk their own territories, thus becoming oblivious of their shared responsibility for the emergence and expansion of the occupied territories. In its turn, the occupation forced Azerbaijan into the vicious circle of rejected and failed peacebuilding initiatives. Over the years of the Russian mediation, the parties contributed to creating an entire calendar of violations of the ceasefire, derogations from similar agreements and other misjudged peace-building efforts (this is reflected in Resolution No. 884 in a circumlocutory language).51
This means that the existence of these resolutions is not disputed, yet taking their provisions out of their context and thereby completely changing the spirit and the letter of the document along with tardy demands for compliance, represent a blatant demonstration of half-truths or downright lies.
This being said, the most common form of misinformation in Azerbaijan consists in distorting information by means of small additions, insertions of text or paraphrases of the original wording.
Azerbaijani website Trend.az: WHO – selling organs of the Azerbaijani prisoners of war by Armenia is unacceptable. The commercial sale of human organs is absolutely inadmissible and is in absolute contravention of the human rights law. This statement was made to journalists by the head of the Committee on Strategic Programs and Special Projects of the European Regional Committee of the World Health Organization (WHO), Mr. Agis Tsouros who thus adopted a stance on the sale of organs obtained from Azerbaijani prisoners of war by Armenia.52
In reality, as reported by other information agencies of Azerbaijan (e.g. apa.az) the quote looks different and does not concern the position of Tsouros on Armenia or Azerbaijani prisoners of war but covers instead the general subject of illegal transplantology: “A. Tsouros noted that the transplantation of human organs in the global health care system is done in strict compliance with the law. Such operations are inadmissible, if they circumvent the law. The United Nations also speaks against the illegal transplantation of human organs or even their legitimate commercial sale”.53
Or, it may be a contradiction between a loud heading and the gist of the source statement.
Richard Morningstar: Growing drugs on the occupied territories proves true. The United States opposes the cultivation, transport and sale of drugs in any part of the world. “I am not familiar with all the facts on this issue. I do not possess any supporting information. However, we must be confident that all these thoughts and conjectures reflect the truth,” said the ambassador.54
Here, the words of the ambassador Morningstar are used in a heading so as to imply that he claims knowledge of illicit cultivation of drugs in Nagorno-Karabakh and confirms this information. While it is obvious from the wording of his direct quote that he is not fully familiar with the facts, and their veracity must be checked.
The main goal of this misinformation process consists in eliciting the required emotional response from the audience, in which the people lose their ability to think reasonably, assess critically and analyze the information they are presented with. Any attempt to understand, clarify or investigate the events is balked at the outset by exerting pressure on the author through defamation, derision, physical action, arrest or even assassination.
In 2007, criminal proceedings were instigated against the Azerbaijani journalist Eynulla Fatullayev for a tentative to revise the official position of Azerbaijan on the tragedy of Khojaly.55 Following a trip to Armenia and Azerbaijan, he published a series of articles in the weekly “Realny Azerbaijan” entitled “Karabakh Diary”, where he voiced his confidence over the fact that a corridor for refugees did really exist, otherwise, the population of Khojaly could not find their way out of the encirclement. He also expressed the view that the Popular Front of Azerbaijan may be responsible for opening fire against civilian non-combatants for political reasons.
As a result, he was sentenced to 8 years and was released after four years of imprisonment.
Disorientation consists in misleading the public, propagating fallacious misconceptions and shifting value benchmarks. One common technique of disorienting the adversary or one’s own society consists in “decapitating” a group by discrediting, demonizing or dehumanizing the leader of the opponent group and his/her activities.
A resident of Khojaly, a town razed to ground by Armenians in 1992, claims that he was tortured by the current Armenian president R. Kocharyan56. “I passed out after I took a severe beating from Robert Kocharyan; ever since, I have problems with my eyesight. The entire world must know the instigator who was behind the tragedy of Khojaly and who poses as a democrat,” said Gulali Binaliyev. According to him, on the day when the town was occupied by Armenian forces, he was taken hostage along with his family and suffered torture at the hands of the current Armenian president Robert Kocharyan”.57
“The Armenian Catholicos Garegin II is just another terrorist and a bloodthirsty thug as the head of the State Serzh Sargsyan”. This statement was made by Elman Mamedov, a deputy of Milli Majlis from Khojaly in his interview to SalamNews. The deputy stressed that he did not expect any positive results from the meeting between the Haji Allahshükür Hummat Pashazadeh, the head of the Caucasian Muslims Office, and Garegin II: “Allahshükür Pashazadeh is a man of faith while Garegin II is another bloodthirsty thug just like Serzh Sargsyan”.58
“It is very shameful that these people claim to represent the intellectuals of Azerbaijan. Their actions can be qualified as high treason. We do not view them as representatives of our country’s intellectuals and demand that Rustam Ibragimbekov and Akram Aylisli be declared persona non grata,” the local media quote a young party official.59
When coupled with a visualization technique meant to bring about an emotional surge in the target audience, results can be obtained both rapidly and efficiently.
The American psychologist Victor Kagan60 holds that despite its irrational nature xenophobia may be also upheld by quite positive processes. The human being never commits deeds that appear as bad, evil, inappropriate or criminal etc. The mind always transforms any such perspective action into something positive. The motivation of any such deed undergoes a substitution, change, shift and an outward modification portraying it with positive and possibly heroic overtones.
This is precisely the process that Azerbaijan implements through its state machinery. It is clear that the murder of a sleeping person (or an enemy for that matter) is a dishonorable deed. Yet, a slight shift of accents in the rhetoric from “sleeping man” to “the man who desecrated our flag” оr “the feats of Ramil breathed in a new life” may warrant a positive public appraisal.
The political establishment of Azerbaijan chose armenophobia as its weapon in seeking to wrestle the Azerbaijani society into consolidation (assimilation process of ethnic minorities), to minimize the risks of a schism within the country (clan stratification and strife) and to re-channel the popular outcry.
2. The historical axis
Originating, evolving and spiraling among the Caucasian Tatars at the turn of the 20th century along the same tracks as anti-Semitism in Russia, armenophobia now represents an institutional component of Azerbaijan’s modern statehood.61 This means that we come to deal with a case of a profound rejection of Armenians in a context where the Azerbaijani perceive them today as educated, successful and wealthy people, whose very existence “stripped” the indigenous majority of their privileges and turned them into “uneducated”, “disadvantaged”, “impoverished” people and so forth.
Historically, Armenians became the axis, around which the ethnic and national identity of Azerbaijanis evolved62. At each point in history, the political and social discourse, the statements of public figures and researchers drew contrasting comparisons between the Muslim identity and Armenians.
The Armenian population with its relatively higher standard of living and higher level of education was seen by the local Muslims as alien and hostile which far from constituting any threat to their survival became a source of permanent sense of “inferiority” further exacerbated by the satirical, public and social discourse of the scant Muslim (Azerbaijani)63 intellectuals.
The profuse literary works, political and social discourse, pamphlets and satire, which laid bare their own backwardness, obscurantism and the absence of a national identity, mainly used comparison and contrast with the Armenians, rarely Russians and Jews, but were far from favoring the Muslim (Azerbaijani) population.
Overall, three main levels can be identified in the Azerbaijani perception of Armenians:
• Idealizing Armenians and setting them as a role models;
• Regarding Armenians as equals;
• Debasing and rejecting Armenians on the brink of an unabashed policy of xenophobia and bigotry against Armenians.
Pre-Soviet period
At the turn of the 20th century writers, public and artistic figures marked a clear borderline in their perception of Armenians and the local Muslim (Azerbaijani) population by viewing Armenians as a standard and example to emulate; this tendency is readily traceable in the works of Azerbaijani intellectuals.
The self-criticism that hinged on a contrasting comparison with Armenians found expression in all significant areas of public and social life. By the early 20th century, the education among the Muslim (Azerbaijani) population was still at a rudimentary level, while regions with the Armenian population had primary schools that had been offering joint education to children of both sexes as early as in the mid-19th century. Thus, the first school opened in Shemakh in 1863. The need to school the children was seen by the local Muslim population as something alien that collided with their customs and traditions and led to a greater exclusion of Armenians.
In 1875, Hasan bey Zardabi64 addressed his compatriots with these words: “Muslims! Don’t you regret that the whole world, and even our neighbors, seeks enlightenment, while we remain dead in our tracks waiting to “have everything stuffed in our mouths and chewed for us”? Muslims, who care for the fate of their nation, open up your eyes!”65
Such comparisons and efforts to hoist the Muslim (Azerbaijani) population to the level of Armenians drew from the local population led by the Muslim clerics strong feelings of aggression and rejection towards Armenians. The clergy sought to keep the population within the confines of the ummah66, while the intellectuals fought for the nascent national identity.
Lack of education was the decisive factor that tilted the scales against the intellectuals and by extension – against Armenians. The latter were frowned upon as catalysts of all woes associated with these changes.
Here is how the famous composer Uzeyir Hajibekov67 describes the comparison between the Muslims (Azerbaijanis) and Armenians:
Look, my friend, Armenian or Russian children do not go to school before they turn seven and receive a home education, while Muslim children stay away from school at home even after they turn seven, eight or nine years of age. <…> Armenian or Russian children are nurtured at home by intelligent and educated mothers who put them to sleep and let them out for a walk in due time, who fill their leisure with toys useful for both spirit, morals and physical health. Not a single bad or pernicious word reaches the ears of these children. What do they hear then? Music splendid for the mind and body, stories, poems and legends written specifically for children by famed pedagogues, correct instructive words of their parents, conversations of well-mannered and educated guests who visit their houses. What do they see then? The walls of their homes are decorated with paintings and pictures of flowers that please the eye, there are beautifully illustrated magazines and books on their tables, cleanliness and order surround them and so forth. <…> And what about our children? May Allah have pity on them! All they hear is obscene language, swearing, foul talk and intrigues! What do they see? They see nothing but the evil doings of their elders; they are surrounded by ubiquitous dirt and waste. Places of their games are full of dust and mud, and their playing is about… strangling cats, hurting dogs, dipping mice in oil and setting them ablaze.
It must be noted that parallels between Armenians were drawn not to “hail Armenians as superior” to Muslims. On the contrary, such parallels were acrimonious along these lines: “we are unlike them”, “we should resemble them”, and “we do nothing to become more educated and civilized like them”.
Mirza Alakbar Sabir
Thank God, we are not Armenians, to send our boy to school.
There, look at our praised beanpole of the son-in-law who was a swat at school, and what is there to gain from him?
No, I won’t allow my baby boy to be schooled! He is still a tot!
Let my boy continue swearing, he is just but a little one!
25 August, 190868
This backfired as phobias in respect of Armenians did not abate; instead, they were heated up and intensified. Considering the illiteracy factor of the population, it can be rightfully claimed that there was virtually no direct link between ‘the people and the intellectual elite’, and all communication was mediated through the clergy or a state authority which protected the interests of the business and had a stake in maintaining the ignorance and therefore their ability to control the masses and sought to eliminate their Armenian competitors.
During my stay in Baku I was extremely surprised by the vehement acrimony of foreigners against Armenians; apart from a couple of isolated cases, their sympathies were entirely in favor of Tatars. I must confess that I was impressed by this unanimity. I came to Caucasus without any biased judgment; however, I was inclined to believe that the sufferings of Armenians were greatly exaggerated by the European press which blackwashed Tatars. Agayev to whom I paid a visit convincingly proved the righteousness of Tatars, while the English, Russian and other disinterested observers were almost unanimous in their condemnation of Armenians. Even plain Russian soldiers and policemen who were asked to give their opinion on who was responsible for the unrest responded without the slightest doubt: Armenians. Where racial and religious hatred was white hot, it was hard to weigh all pros and cons at once. I had no choice but to rely on statements of those who knew well this land and seemed neutral. But I gradually came to the conclusion that foreigners were not as unswayed in their judgments as it seemed at first. Let along the Muslim skill of impressing, the position of foreign financial and business circles was influenced by their competition with Armenians. But for Armenians, foreigners could lay their hands on the entire oil industry of this place, instead, they must deal with an able, industrious and resourceful opponents <…> all of the above explains the rancor of foreigners against Armenians. A prominent English factory owner told me quite straightforwardly that all Armenians must be annihilated.69
The nascent small bourgeoisie under the guiding hand of Pan-Turanian ideologists benefited the ignorance of the population to advance their objectives, i.e. consolidation of the population of various ethnic backgrounds around the idea of the single ethnic self-identification based on the image of Armenian enemy rather than the common religion. The image of the Armenian enemy has become the very impulse that was necessary for the consolidation of the society and formulation of ethnic traits.70
A. Agayev wrote during the clashes between Armenians and Tatars of 1905-06: “It is thanks to these clashes that all Tatars of Transcaucasia came to realize that they belong to a single kind and related with one another by close ties, and that there is no difference between Tatars of Nakhichevan and Tatars of Baku”.71
A correspondent of ‘Kavkazskoe slovo’ (‘Caucasian Word’) newspaper S. Rafalovich wrote in his memories: “In my presence, the Minister of the Internal Affairs, Behbud Javanshir, said: “Today I received Tagionosov. I told him that it was in the best interests of Armenians not to come pleading to me. When I talk to Armenians, I feel such resentment that I forget myself which is surely to make things worse for Armenians”. When asked why he chose to accept the post of such responsibility, the Minister of the Internal Affairs, Behbud Javanshir responded: “Why? I became a minister only to do away with Armenians”.72
Dr. Khosrov bey Sultanov (Minister of Agriculture and State Property), along with many others, openly declared that in Azerbaijan there would be either no Armenians altogether, or they would be given the status of the Turkish rayah (rightless creatures). “Armenians have nothing to do here, let them go to their own country”, vehement nationalist voices were heard.73
Asad Karayev: We rejoice in your success. We have no doubt that the sum of around 100 million allocated from Baku will not be spent without benefit. May Allah bless the power of the money that can do more than mighty troops. Those who know the thinking of Armenians will always know how to become their masters. There is no Armenian who wouldn’t sell everything for money. This nation holds nothing sacred except money. This explains the large number of Armenian spies and agents as in no other country money can achieve as much as in case of Armenians. It is a fact of life. Wretched (poor) Jews are unjustly accused of this.74
The 20th century – Soviet period
With higher level of education and with equal conditions and the absence of the need to take personal part in the process of education, ethnonym and alphabet75 creation, historiography, etc., in the context of the rhetoric dictated by the epoch, Armenians came to be viewed as an attained benchmark. This found its expression in the thesis of “Armenian-Azerbaijani equality and brotherhood’’, “friends for centuries” and “companions in arms in the struggle”, etc.
It must be noted that in daily life and at subconscious level comparison and contrast were still quite common and were later on transferred into the areas of academic studies and administration. The perception of Armenians and the behavioral patterns that ensued formulated at several levels.
Outward – at the level of slogans and propaganda which were based on communist values and represented as a whole a showcase where recent tragic events came to be termed as “fratricidal war provoked by the tsarist regime”. In this sense, a footnote to the poem by Sabir appearing in a publication in 1983 is quite illustrative.76
Dedicated to clashes between Armenians and Azerbaijanis provoked by tsarist regime in Caucasus in 1905 and published in ‘Hayat’ newspaper along with the letter of Sabir in which the poet responded to the invitation for cooperation appearing in the newspaper to mark the commencement of its activities. “For people who made a bloodbath” etc.77 The reference is made to the fratricidal massacre between Armenians and Azerbaijanis.78
Or, the public statements of communist leaders of Azerbaijan: