Письмо из Баку: о Них
от Читателя из Азербайджана
Аллергия
“У меня на Них аллергия. Я никогда не общалась с Ними, и никогда не стану общаться! “, однажды воскликнула подруга, работающая правозащитником в НПО.
Лицемер
“Я не раздумывая рискну собственной жизнью, спасая жизнь другого. Но я никогда не моргну глазом, если увижу как Они страдают от боли “, как-то провозгласил лечащий меня врач. Тот, кто обещал служить во благо всему человечеству, дав клятву Гиппократа.
Зомби
“Мы должны помнить,
Мысли об окончательном мире
Марине Эжурйан
Те, кто меня знают сейчас, но не знали меня еще тогда, когда я была еще на первом-втором курсе университета, - вероятно, вы будете удивлены, узнав, что всего четыре года назад я была одной из тех среди армянской молодежи, которая во время празднования событий выкрикивала антитурецкие и антиазербайджанские лозунги. Я также была тем, кто писала статьи для моей университетской газеты
Личная история: Война и Переселение
Замира Аббасова
Я родилась в Варденисе, в 1984-ом году. Четыре года спустя вся моя семья, а также родсвенники в связи с массовыми переселениями вынуждены были покинуть Армению и бежать в Азербайджан. Тогда мне было 4 года и, оглядываясь назад я не могу вспомнить все, что я оставила там , за собой. И я не знаю, к лучшему это или нет, что я
Münaqişə və Qaçqın olmaq barədə şəxsi düşüncələr
Zamira Abbasova
Mən 1984-cü ildə Vardenisdə anadan olmuşam, dörd il sonra isə mənim bütün ailəm qohumlarımız ilə birlikdə kütləvi sürgün nəticəsində Ermənistanı tərk edib, Azərbaycana köçməli olmuşlar. Ermənistandan getdiyim zaman mənim dörd yaşım var idi və geriyə baxaraq arxada buraxdıqlarımı xatırlaya bilməməyiminin yaxşı və ya pis olduğunu deyə bilmərəm. Amma evimizi, bağçamızı, oyun meydançamızı, dostlarımı, alma ağacımı və sevdiyim xoruzu xatırlayıram.
Azərbaycana
Большинство меньшинств и калейдоскоп культуры
Читатель из Баку
“Почему мы должны быть врагами по прихоти каких-то политиков? Вы не можете отделить ноготь от пальца не кровоточа и причинив себе сильную боль. Мы не можем быть друг без друга. Такими мы были, такими мы будем и всегда“.
- Назханым, Ходжорни, Грузия
Было дождливое утро в Тбилиси после Пасхи. Погода успела нарушить все мои планы об экскурсии по городу, - подумала я про себя сосредоточенно прыгая над лужами, как вдруг оказалась перед Армянской церквовью. Будучи из преимущественно мусульманской страны, я не могла пройти стороной, не удовлетворив свое любопытство еще раз. Тусклое, почти средневековое здание, священник в черной рясе, женщины читающие молитву, свечи горящие страстно. Инстинктивно следуя толпе, я зажгла свечу и в тот же миг окунулась в совершенно новый для меня мир с людьми, которые сильно напоминали мне азербайджанцев, просто практикующих другую религию.
Caucasus Conflict Voices — May 2011
Introduction by Thomas de Waal
Anyone who works with the conflicts of the Caucasus learns to live with contradiction. If you watch state media in Armenia or Azerbaijan or hear some politicians speak, you could believe that these two nations are implacable enemies on the verge of war. One Azerbaijani friend told me that nowadays whenever he hears the word “fascist” he expects to hear the word “Armenian” attached to it. In many ways the modern identities of independent Armenia and Azerbaijan and of the small statelet of Nagorny Karabakh are defined by rejection and hatred of the other.
Yet as soon as you probe deeper strange things start to happen and this picture begins to blur. A long conversation with an Azerbaijani about how terrible the Armenians are ends with the admission that his grandmother was actually…Armenian. A Karabakh Armenian talks about the crimes of the Azerbaijanis and then casually lets slip that he had Azeri friends at school and still remembers a lot of the language.
A majority of minorities and a kaleidoscope of culture
By Reader in Baku
“Why should we be enemies at the whim of some politician? You cannot separate a nail from your finger without bleeding and causing yourself severe pain. We cannot do without the other. This is how we were and how we will always be.”
—— Nazkhanim, Khodjourni, Georgia
A rainy Easter Monday morning in Tbilisi, Georgia, and the weather had already managed to disrupt my sightseeing plans as I instead concentrated on jumping over the puddles. But, coming from a predominantly Moslem country, I could not help but satisfy my curiosity once again when I found myself in front of an Armenian Church. A dim and almost medieval building, a priest stood in a black robe while mainly women whispered prayers as candles burned intensely before them. Instinctively following the crowd, I lit a candle too, ushering in a whole new experience among people who reminded me of Azeris simply practicing another religion.
Famous Azeris with Armenian friends on Facebook
I’ve long been using Facebook as a way to connect and stay in contact with friends and colleagues in Azerbaijan, especially when traditional forms of communication are blocked because of the still unresolved conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh. So, when an article appeared today on Qaynar.Info listing prominent Azerbaijanis with Facebook friends in Armenia, others naturally assumed the worst.
Планы об армяно-азербайджанском миротворческом центре в Грузии на фоне возрастающей напряжённости
Онник Крикориан
Проект армянского театрального режиссёра и актёра побудил его как борца за мир открыть центр мира в Текало, небольшой деревне в Грузии в нескольких километрах от границы с Арменией и Азербайджаном. “Общение не предательство, а естественная потребность человека.”
В этом году будет отмечаться 17-летие с момента подписания в 1994-ом году соглашения о прекращении огня, который приостановил войну между Арменией и Азербайджаном по поводу спорной территории Нагорного Карабаха. С тех пор попытки найти прочное мирное разрешение конфликта, унесшего около 25,000 жизней и заставившего миллионы людей покинуть свои дома, не увенчались успехом. Действительно, с учётом менее примирительных выступлений президентов Армении и Азербайджана на Саммите ОБСЕ в Казахстане в конце прошлого года, а также военных расходов Баку, достигших уровня 3,1 млрд. долларов США в 2011 году, аналитики и международные наблюдатели в настоящее время всё больше говорят о необходимости предотвращения, нежели урегулирования конфликта.
Последним сигнальным звонком оказался Доклад Международной Кризисной Группы (МКГ) по Нагорно-Карабахскому Конфликту, обнародаванный 8 февраля.
“Гонка вооружений, эскалация фронтовых столкновений, язвительная риторика и виртуальный прорыв в мирных переговорах повышает вероятность войны между Арменией и Азербайджаном по поводу Нагорного Карабаха”, говорится в докладе.“[…]Наращивание военного потенциала с обеих сторон сделает новый вооруженный конфликт на Южном Кавказе ещё более смертоносным, чем в 1992-1994 гг., который закончился шатким перемирием. В региональные альянсы могут втянуться Россия, Турция и Иран. […] Чтобы избежать опасный обратный процесс, противоборствующие стороны должны подписать документ об основных принципах урегулирования конфликта мирным путём и предпринять меры по укреплению доверия для снижения напряженности и предотвращения новых боевых действий”.
Что я хочу
Нигяр Гаджизаде
“Напиши первое, что приходит на ум и отправь его немедленно, прежде чем другая мысль придёт в голову. Это все, о чём я прошу”. Эту задачу поставил передо мной Онник примерно 45 минут назад. Я давно начала писать на тему Армении и Азербайджана и никак не могла докончить. Этим я его и рассердила. Я не могла закончить свою запись просто потому, что существует много нюансов и сложностей. Очень много точек зрений, которых надо учесть. И факт, что я одна из сторон конфликта. И в моем случае, надо ещё суметь сказать всё правильно.
Но опять же, существует много людей, которые не задумываются над этими вещами. Люди, которые ничего не делают, кроме как глотают ненависть, извергают её и выплёвывают. Мало кто пытается сопереживать, и, кажется, то, чем ты являешься всегда перевешивает ту доброту, которая заложена в людях. Возможно, это даже было бы в порядке вещей, если мы таким образом становились лучше. Но это не так. Так что думаю, можно начать с простого и высказать всё. Потом уж можем вдаваться в подробности.
Вот что. Я хочу Мира.
The Things I Want
By Nigar Hacizade
“Write the first thing that comes into your head & send it off immediately before another thought occupies you. That’s all I ask.” This is the task Onnik gave me roughly 45 minutes ago, because I have started too many pieces on the topic of Armenia and Azerbaijan that I haven’t been able to finish, and I am starting to piss him off. I haven’t been able to finish because there are nuances and complexities; there are so many points of view to empathize with; there is the weight of being from one side of the conflict; and in my case, there is the even heavier weight of needing to say the right things.
But then again, there are so many people out there that don’t care about these things. People who do nothing but swallow hate, regurgitate it and spit it out. There is such little attempt at empathizing, and the weight of identity always seems to overpower whatever good will people have. And this might even be okay if it did any one of us any good, but it doesn’t. So I think it might be ok to start out with the basics and have them be said. Get them out there. We can go into the details later.
Here it is: I want peace.
Friends like Sisters: A view from Moscow
“If you received my SMS, it can mean one of two things. Either peace between our countries is really possible, or I’m now on the KGB’s list.”
By Marianna Karapetyan
I admit that I don’t remember much about the war or the incidents in Sumgait and Baku, but one memory still remains clear. We were at the house of my grandparents in a small village in Armenia with my numerous cousins playing in the yard. And I can remember drawing huge posters with red letters while screaming anti-Turkish slogans very passionately. In those years before moving to Moscow, while I never had any particular interest in what really happened with Azerbaijan, I knew that I hated them with all my heart. This completely blind hatred was injected into my blood and it came with my genes. It was an undeniable and unquestionable truth collected in one single negative emotion that defined who I was.
“Are you Marianna? The new Armenian girl?” a girl was later to ask me in class in Moscow, smiling and introducing herself as Leyla from Baku. She was in my art history class and actually the first person in months who tried to get to know me. “She can’t be Azeri, she is so nice,” was my first thought. “They should be like monsters with bloody hands and crazy eyes,” was my second, although it would have been odd to find such students in a university. It was also this moment that was the only time in all our years of friendship that I doubted her because of nationality. In fact, I am so happy because I met her. In reality, she turned out to be an adorable charming person, with an enormous range of talents, and such a huge amount of love which she shares with everyone around her.
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About The Caucasian Knot
This blog is a compilation of news, analysis, links and original material by Onnik Krikorian, a British journalist and photographer. He is also the Caucasus Editor for Global Voices Online, the Armenia Editor for Oneworld.net and writes for the Frontline Club blog. He can be contacted at
News Briefs | External Blog Posts | Announcements
Recently there has been a growing number of people discussing the role of social networks in conflict resolution between Armenia and Azerbaijan over disputed territories of Nagorno-Karabakh. This quest brought me on YouTube website. After entering keywords “Azerbaijan”, “Armenia”, and “Nagorno-Karabakh” into the search box I have started surfing various videos – an emotionally challenging journey that took me about seven hours to complete. In this post I would like to share my findings and analyze how the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is presented on the world’s largest video-sharing website.
All search results can be divided into three groups:
A. Those that promote and support a propagandistic and one-sided story of the conflict i.e. “prove” aggressive image of either Armenia or Azerbaijan depending on the nationality of video uploaders. These videos are usually full of violent and sad images that I don’t recommend anyone who is sensitive and emotional to watch;
B. Those that underline might and glory of the Armenian or Azerbaijani military. These videos demonstrate surface, air and naval (in the case of Azerbaijan) forces ready to strike and tear apart the enemy. An interesting fact, though, is both sides tend to exaggerate reality and use images of military equipment and weaponry that is not in actual possession but rather stolen from the Internet;
C. Those few that promote peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two nations.
The full post by Geysar Gurbanov is here.
Facebook has long been a valuable tool for cross-border communication between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, especially as very few options other than meeting up in third countries such as Georgia exist. Locked into a bitter dispute over the mainly Armenian populated territory of Nagorno Karabakh, recent attempts to broker the basic principles for a final peace to end the war that raged fiercest in the early 1990s have faltered, with skirmishes and incidents on the front line separating the sides causing alarm, especially in recent years.
Earlier this year the International Crisis Group warned of the danger of an ‘accidental war,’ while my own work, recently again presented two weeks ago, which set the the precedent and also the example for others to follow in facilitating open communication between young Armenians and Azerbaijanis via new and social media, might at least offer some hope in offering alternative narratives on Nagorno Karabakh. Nevertheless, despite this success, online tools such as Facebook have failed to reach most online users in both countries and continue to also be used by nationalists in order to perpetuate rather than resolve conflict.
This was most evident a few weeks ago when a Facebook Question was sent to me asking who Nagorno Karabakh belonged to. The possible answers that Facebook users could choose from were limited to just two — Armenia or Azerbaijan. Obviously, the question had only one intention — to see which side could attract the most numbers to justify their position even if it changed nothing on the ground. There were no other options — not even a ‘Don’t know’ or ‘Don’t Care, positions that the prevailing mindset in both countries demands all citizens display knee jerk reactions to.
[…]
The full post can be read on Caucasus Conflict Voices.
Last week, on 8 July, a half-day conference, Blogs and Bullets: Evaluating the Impact of New Media on Conflict was held at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington D.C. Co-sponsored by George Washington University’s Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, the first and last of three panels included Alec Ross, Senior Advisor for Innovation to the U.S. Secretary of State, Ethan Zuckerman, Global Voices co-founder and Senior Researcher at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Marc Lynch, Director of the Institute of Middle East Studies at George Washington University, Colin Rule, Director of Online Dispute Resolution at eBay, and Adam Conner from Facebook.
Also present on the second panel were bloggers and journalists such as Global Voices’ Mialy Andriamananjar and Hamid Tehrani, Global Voices Caucasus Region Editor Onnik Krikorian, Raed Jarrar, Nasseem Tarawnah, and Golnaz Esfandiari. The panels were followed up by a private experts working group also involving Berkman and Global Voices’ Jillian York and representatives from the World Bank and the U.S. Department of State among others.
In a USIP report (draft) released at the conference, a team of scholars from GWU, in cooperation with scholars from Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society and from Morningside Analytics, take a fresh theoretical, and empirical approach to answering this question.The report critically assesseses both the “cyberutopian” and “cyberskeptic” perspectives, and proposes a new framework for assessing the role of new media in contentious politics.
The full post where comments can be left is available on Global Voices Online.
There are moments in life when things are very simple and ordinary until you realize that they are awesome. You go to a meeting or a date, you meet some people chat with them, drink, eat or smoke and do not pay attention to lot of things which hit your head only after you leave.
It was another hot Friday evening in Washington DC, full of people walking around the Dupont Circle who were going to bars, clubs and other places. There was a little meeting around a very little aluminum table in front of the circle. They were three, representing: Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. They did not eat but drink. One was a refugee from Armenia, another one was IDP from Abkhazia and third one just moved from London to Yerevan long time ago. They spoke about Caucasus. A lot. They shared their personal stories and discussed them from a regional point of view. They spoke about its past, present and the future. Discussion and entire evening went smoothly and harmonically, they listened to each other expressed their opinion and gave suggestions. This does not happen that often, especially with representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Even though these countries are tiny and they are next to each other there is less interaction than it should be. One who came from Yerevan kept saying that Georgia is one of the key places where Armenians and Azerbaijanis actually do meet and talk.
[…]
The full post by Mirian Jugheli where comments can be left is available on The Young Georgians.
С тремя неурегулированными конфликтами и цензурой на местные СМИ, блоги высказывают свое мнение по поводу онлайн-проекта, надеясь сломать стереотипы. Они рассказывают о примерах иных этнических групп мирно сосуществующих вместе в условиях конфликта на Южном Кавказе. Проект был проведен редактором Global Voices Online, ответственным за Кавказ, при содействии блогеров и журналистов из Азербайджана и Грузии.
После этого, и ряда постов, написанных для Transitions Online Steady State, множество блогеров прореагировали на эту инициативу. В подробном комментарии, Ianyan- армянский интернет журнал, основанный на блоге, говорит, что результат проекта является основанием для надежды в регионе, страдающем от этнических противоречий и исторических различий.
В Тсопи, грузинской деревне, которая находится недалеко от армянской границы, группа из 80 школьников учатся вместе в школе без водопровода и электричества. Хотя в некоторых частях мира этот сценарий может показаться необычным, студенты, которые являются этническими армянами и азербайджанцами, возможно вас удивят. Армяне знают азербайджанский язык и азербайджанцы армянский. После долгих лет войн и конфликтов, подобное сосуществование кажется утопической фантазией для этих двух групп.
[…]
Тот факт, что на свете существует такой уголок, где две этнические группы со сложной историей могут взаимодействовать и жить вместе в условиях мира, оставляет место для надежды. Это можно увидеть по комментариям, оставленным к сообщению на сайте Transitions Online.
The full post is available on Global Voices Online.
With three unresolved conflicts and a local media that often self-censors, blogs comment on an online project hoping to break stereotypes by reporting on examples of ethnic groups otherwise in conflict in the South Caucasus co-existing peacefully together. The project was undertaken by Global Voices Online’s Caucasus editor alongside bloggers and journalists from Azerbaijan and Georgia.Since then, and a series of posts for Transitions Online’s Steady State, a number of other bloggers have commented on the initiative. In an extended post, Ianyan, a blog-based Armenian online magazine, says that the outcome of the project is reason for hope in a region fractured by ethnic divides and historical differences.
In Tsopi, a Georgian village close to the Armenian border, a group of 80 pupils study together at a dilapidated school with no running water or electricity. Although this scenario might not seem uncommon in parts of the world, the students, who are ethnic Azeri and Armenians might surprise you. Armenians know the Azerbaijani language and Azeris know Armenian. After countless years of war and animosity, co-existence seems like a Utopian fantasy for these two groups.
[…]
The fact that there is still some corner in the world where two ethnic groups with loaded histories can interact and live together in peace leaves room for hope, a notion that is evident by the comments left on posts as Transitions Online.
The full post where comments can be left is available on Global Voices Online.
PhotostoriesPhotographs by Onnik Krikorian can be viewed on the main Oneworld Multimedia site or on his Lightstalkers portfolio page. Photostories accompanying posts on the Caucasian Knot can be viewed by selecting a thumbnail below. |
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Armenia: Poverty, Transition & Democracy
Articles and photographs by Onnik Krikorian covering issues as diverse as socially vulnerable families, children enrolled into residential institutions, mental health, landmines and UXO in Nagorno Karabagh and on the border with Azerbaijan, resettlement in the territory between Armenia and Nagorno Karabagh and the impact of the Rose Revolution in the neighboring Republic of Georgia on Armenia.
[ Buy ] | [ View Online ]
UNICEF Yearbook 2006
Articles and photographs by Onnik Krikorian commissioned by UNICEF to raise awareness of some of the problems facing Armenian children. The book also accompanied a series of five posters to raise awareness of issues such as HIV/AIDS, children deprived of parental care, education and health.
[ View English Online ] | [ Download Armenian ]
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Global Voices Online: Caucasus
Global Voices Authors Wanted
Global Voices Online, a citizen media project, is looking for volunteer authors from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.Are you interested in becoming part of the Global Voices team? Are you passionate about blogging, podcasting, and citizen media? Do you blog from or about a region or country that is ignored by traditional media? Do you follow the "conversation" in the blogosphere in your own country or some other country you know well?Please contact caucasus [at] globalvoicesonline.org.