Facebook: Connecting Armenians & Azerbaijanis online

As some readers probably know, I was recently in Washington D.C. taking part in a panel at an event, Blogs and Bullets: Evaluating the impact of New Media on Conflict at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Also present were Harvard researcher and Global Voices co-founder Ethan Zuckerman and Adam Conner from Facebook. Both shared their views, cyber-skeptic and cyber-utopian, on the role the popular social networking site can play in this area while I recounted my own experience in the area of Armenia-Azerbaijan relations.

Anyway, it was very encouraging to see that despite being less than positive about that potential, Ethan has since mentioned my own mainly positive experience in an extensive post on his blog, My heart’s in Accra.

My friend Onnik Krikorian has become a Facebook evangelist. Onnik, a Brit of Armenian descent, living in Armenia, is the Global Voices editor for the Caucasus, which means he’s responsible for rounding up blogs from Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan as well as parts of Turkey and Russia. This task is seriously complicated by the long-term tensions in the region. Armenia and Azerbaijan are partisans in a “frozen” conflict – the Nagorno-Karabakh war, which lasted from 1988 – 1994, and remains largely unresolved.

It’s taken Onnik years to build up relationships with bloggers in Azerbaijan, relationships he needs to accurately cover the region. Azeri bloggers are often suspicious of his motives for connecting and wonder whether he’ll cover their thinking and writing fairly. But Onnik tells me that Facebook has emerged as a key space where Azeri and Armenians can interact. […]

And not just that, in a more general analysis for CNN published today, Ethan also makes a passing mention of this unprecedented interaction which has really only started to happen in the past 18 months.

(CNN) — Last month Facebook announced it had signed up its 500 millionth member. Many news outlets began stories on this milestone by declaring that if Facebook were a nation, it would be the third-most populous on the planet.

[…]

Like the Internet itself, Facebook is one of the most powerful technologies ever built to increase connection between people separated by borders of nation, language, religion and culture.

Armenian journalist Onnik Krikorian reports that Facebook has created a space where young Armenians and Azeri — separated in physical space by a decades-old border dispute — can explore friendships that would never otherwise develop.

Thanks, Ethan. It’s been a lot of hard work and encouraging to have it noticed by a recognized expert in this field. In fact, it’s greatly appreciated, especially just a few days after launching Caucasus Conflict Voices on Global Voices to empower alternative voices and monitor trends in the use of new media in this area.