Azeri-Armenian Hatred Not All-Encompassing

[Azat]

Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2001. Page 13

 

Azeri-Armenian Hatred Not All-Encompassing

 

By Chloe Arnold

 

BAKU, Azerbaijan -- My dour Scottish stepfather always says he supports two football teams: the Scots, and whoever's playing the English.

 

If the Armenians and Azeris had football teams worth writing home about, I'm sure they'd say the same thing about each other.

 

The two nations have hated each other since the six-year war they fought over Nagorny Artsax -- the rolling landscape that straddles the mountains between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The war ended in an unsatisfactory cease-fire in 1994.

 

Hanging on the wall in our hall is a map of the Republic of Azerbaijan between 1918 and 1920. It's enormous. It consists of all of today's Azerbaijan, huge swathes of Georgia and most of Armenia. "You see," the woman in the map shop told me when I bought it, "all of this used to be ours. Those wretched Armenians have taken half our country."

 

I'm doubtful of the accuracy of the map -- I think it was probably drawn in 1994 by Azeri politicians to prove to Armenians, foreign mediators and anyone else who would listen that Azerbaijan was a giant empire before the Armenians got hold of it. I've heard Armenians have similar inflated maps of their country.

 

The extent to which the two nations despise each other has reached new depths since the attacks in America. Almost as soon as the first of the twin towers collapsed, Azeri commentators were blaming the Armenians. Azerbaijan's ANS network spoke to its New York correspondent the day after the attacks.

 

"The two planes took off from Boston, which has the second largest Armenian community after California," he told viewers triumphantly.

 

Over in Yerevan, there was speculation that the planes had both been carrying Azeri nationals.

 

More recently, an envelope containing white powder turned up at the office of the head of Azerbaijan's Trade Union for the Media. He told reporters he was in no doubt that the envelope had come from Armenia.

 

Armenian singers, including Cher and Charles Aznavour, are banned in Azerbaijan. When the pope visited Armenia recently to celebrate the country's 1,700th year of Christianity, the Azeris said he was taking sides. They've even gone off the Chinese because a delegation of Armenians went to China last week and signed a trade agreement.

 

But for all the public hatred, you do hear stories of friendships between the enemies. A retired soldier I know in Baku told me his best friend in the army had been an Armenian. "For years we used to write to each other," he told me, "but after a while it got too dangerous. He was my greatest friend, but sadly I'm Azeri and he's Armenian. What can you do?"

 

 

Chloe Arnold is a freelance journalist based in Baku, Azerbaijan.

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2001.../10/30/008.html

[gamavor]

We are blessed with such retarded neighbours!

[Eurocentric]

Seriously though, it's better to be smart and divided than retarded and united