Not quite duck and cover

A few weeks ago, Azerbaijan celebrated "Civil Defense Day," and I sat in on one school's events. Although hardly surprising, it was worth seeing.

In the afternoon, students gathered in the school's courtyard, and five students came forward wearing leather bags over the shoulders. Looking serious, they stood in a row while one of the younger teachers harangued the assembly with tales of Armenian perfidy, warning that an Armenian terrorist gas attack could strike this sleepy village at any time. The students seemed more inclined to gossip amongst each other or stare at the goofy foreigner snapping pictures.

A second teacher got up, an older history teacher who I happened to know was a member of one of the ethnic minorities in the area. His speech was much more restrained, talking about the general advantages of knowing first aid -- in case of natural disaster, for example. He seemed to studiously avoid tales of foreign devilry, preferring to focus on the non-divisive praticalities of the situation.

His speech over, the five students in front produced gas masks from their shoulder bags, and demonstrated how to put them on. Then they trooped out to take photos with the director of the school, and then more photos inside the school, four of them carrying a fifth one through the hallways.

It should be noted that the five gas mask-clad youngsters were boys. A bit later, the young teacher entered one of the classrooms, and showed the girls how to tie bandanas of cheesecloth over their mouths and noses.

This is diplomacy

Amidst sporadic firefights on the border, an interesting UN resolution on Karabagh has Azerbaijan up in arms:

The UN General Assembly on March 14 adopted a nonbinding resolution demanding the "immediate, complete, and unconditional" withdrawal of all Armenian forces from Azerbaijan's territory.

Thirty nine countries voted in favor. But more than 100 countries abstained. Seven countries, however, including Russia, the United States, and France, voted against.

The three countries are co-chairs of the Minsk Group, which is trying to facilitate a negotiated settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. They argued that, as mediators, they had to remain neutral.

The "no" vote by the Minsk Group members has raised the hackles of most people here, from the government to the press to the fractious opposition.

Of course, no one is happy with the outcome of the vote.

Meanwhile, food prices continue to rise in the face of Dutch Disease.

When violence works for everyone

Amid continuing violence in the aftermath of Armenian presidential elections, there's been a flareup in the Garabagh border standoff.

Azerbaijan claims that the violence is an attempt to divert attention from the protests, and that isn't entirely unbelievable. According to the Defence Ministry:

You see, Armenians are trying to divert the attention of their citizens and the world community from the internal and domestic unrest and bloody actions. That is the reason why Armenia resorted to this. Azerbaijani armed forces courageously and bravely repelled the enemy, prevented their attacks and gave deserving retaliation.

However, that's not the only issue at play here -- the actual violence comes in the direct aftermath of a salvo launched by Azeri president Ilham Aliyev:

"Official Baku will never make concessions to the separatist regime of Nagorno Karabakh and will never give up its principles. We are for the peaceful resolution of the problem in the framework of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity with observance of norms and principles of international law. But we should also be ready to the problem settlement by other ways," Aliyev noted.

He said in this issue country's leadership attach special attention to army strengthening. "For this purpose we use all capacities. Strengthening of the army will influence the negotiation process and settlement of the problem", the president said.

These broadsides, however, are a matter of course in Azeri politics, and one more or less could hardly rock the boat of Azer-Armenia diplomacy.

The Armenians, of course, responded; given the tensions between the two, it's impossible to guage the level of sincerity, but with Armenia effectively in control of Karabagh, there doesn't seem to be much need for the Armenians to escalate violence:

"Azerbaijan has made announcements on purchase of arms and the forced resolution of the Karabakh conflict, however, talks on the peaceful resolution of the conflict are being held", [Prime Minister Serj Sarkisian] told reporters in Yerevan.

Sarkisyan said he is optimistic on the case and considers that normal civilized logics will win and Garabakh problem will be settled peacefully.

Unfortunately, when it comes to Karabagh, there's precious little "normal civilized logics" on either side. Indeed, even the numbers are a purely political game. At the moment, the Azeris are claiming to have lost three soldiers dead and one wounded to an Armenian loss of 15 dead; Sarkisian claims, meanwhile:

But I would like to inform that this position is currently under our control and the enemy has given up with numerous casualties.

Treason and repression

From the International Herald Tribune:

Two members of an ethnic minority centered near Azerbaijan's border with Iran went on trial Thursday on treason charges, the latest case reflecting concerns of Iranian influence in the former Soviet republic.

The article goes on to claim that the arrest reflects "a tug-of-war for influence between the secular, democratic West and Iran, its large southern neighbor," which is fine as far as it goes. Unfortunately, it doesn't go very far.

This country is fraught with ethnic tension -- obviously any Armenians in the country are suspect, but it goes much deeper than that. As recently as six months ago in a village I visited, a Christian church was pulled down by the police, with no particular reason given. The members of that parish must now make a trip of about an hour and a half, to an entirely different region, to get to the nearest church. And that's a bigger trip than it sounds, as most families don't have cars, and must rely on the local marshrutkas, which make few trips. They could, of course, take taxis, but the drive is terribly expensive, and increasingly so, as inflation continues to hit the poor hard.

What's more, the treason charge stems from the publication of a newspaper:

The trial in Azerbaijan's Grave Crimes Court in the capital, Baku, stems from accusations that the newspaper Talysh Voice, whose name comes from the Talysh ethnic group, preached separatism and ethnic bias and insulted members of other groups including majority Azeris.

Talysh Voice editor Novruzali Mammadov and another top official at the newspaper, Elman Guliyev, were arrested in February and are being tried behind closed doors.

The newspaper business is a most dangerous game here, and the government is more than happy to crack down. The law imposes harsh punishment for anyone who "insults" anything anywhere near related to the government.

The government does seem to be vaguely aware of its credibility problem on the issue, recently releasing one jailed journalist. But the conditions are put in such a way that everything sounds friendly, but only to ears that don't know how to hear:

"The judge told me that this decision will not affect my journalism activities in the region," Nasibov said. "He said, ’This year is a probation period for you, and during this time, you can’t distribute false information or be involved in any illegal or inflammatory activity. So you should work in a constructive and objective way. If you do that, you shouldn’t have any problems." [emphasis added]

Given that simply reporting the facts in this country can often be inflammatory, the government may as well have kept him in prison.

Enough about me...

I've been harping on corruption a bit, so this from a friend might have a few interesting things to say. There are parts of it I disagree with, but the characterization of the education system comes from a long time in the trenches, and the take on corruption is pretty apt:

I remember, when I arrived in this country a year and half ago, how excited and optimistic I was about working in the education system here.

And then I started working in the education system, and reality came crashing down around my ears.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning for class, and I think to myself, why bother? What I do doesn't matter. Our presence here is a joke. The government doesn't expect us to do anything really meaningful. In fact, the government has designed their education system so that it's practically impossible to do anything meaningful. By anyone. Ever.

I could teach my ears off and the kids wouldn't learn anything. But it's not just limited to English Language. Their curriculum, which is mainly the absentminded memorization of a collection of facts -- often times these facts are just plain wrong -- doesn't matter because the kids who can afford it will purchase their grades by slipping money inside their grade books. And the kids who can't afford it will pass anyway. The American "No Child Left Behind" system has nothing on education here. Their lowest grade possible is "passing".

But it really doesn't matter that the kids buy their grades, because the are able to buy their college entrance exams as well. And once they buy that, they can buy their grades in college also (it's more expensive, of course). And once you've purchased your college degree, you can go on to buy your job. I've met English teachers who can neither understand nor speak one word of English. Their family decided that they should be an English teacher, and the right palms were greased along the way, and now a new generation of children will be able to grow up, learning nothing because their teacher has nothing to impart.

The education system here, like most of the ministries, are farcical shadows of their previous soviet institutions. Having grown up during the Cold War, I have a healthy respect for what the Soviet education system was. The Soviet Union was not a major competitor in the Space Race without educating their children properly so that they could grow up and help contribute to their government's goal of world domination. Because, let's be honest, that is what the Super States are really after ... eventually. Or, if not domination, then at least deferentiation, where all the lesser countries of the world make decisions that most benefit the Super State in dominance, whether they want to or not.

But the Soviet Union collapsed, and the new republics are now scrambling to pick up the scraps left behind, and mould themselves into a new (or an old) identity and stake their claims on the global playing field. And that's exactly what Azerbaijan is doing right now. They've declared themselves a democracy, because America is in ascendence and Democracy is the "in" government. But democracy is just as much a farce as the education system is, if not more. Azerbaijan is one of the world's 10 LEAST democratic countries in the world. In fact, there are countries that aren't even democratic that have more practicing democracy than this place. The people here don't pretend like they have any power to change that. They know they don't. Not only do they know who the next president will be, the know who will be president after that. [probably the current president's wife -- ed.]

And the people who have so effectively grasped at this power will hang on to it, tooth and nail.

One of the ways in which they are doing this is by neutering the education system. The network of bribes and the tradition of corruption embedded in the schools and universities is favored and encouraged by the government, because an uneducated people is so much easier to keep repressed than an educated populace. Why educate the people? They might realize how crappy their lives are, or, worse yet, they might realize that they have the power to change their own lives, and define their own future. But an ignorant population will simply accept that this is the way things are, and go about their smallish lives and continue allowing the powers that be to exploit them beyond decency.

So why do I wake up in the morning and go to school? Because "Drops Make a Lake". And maybe, somehow, the work I'm doing here will help one person come in to their own. Maybe that one person will ask the right questions at the right time, and an intellectual revolution will occur. Maybe. And the mornings when I can't drag myself out of my bed ... I don't feel so bad anymore.

Go nuclear

An interesting bit of news popped up via an Iranian news service:

Azerbaijan's President, Ilham Aliyev, voices his country's support for the Islamic Republic's right to peaceful nuclear technology, PressTV reported.

"Azerbaijan supports Iran's peaceful nuclear activities and has announced its stance formally," he said.

I'm quite sure there's more to this than we're getting here - certainly, Iran would be happy to take Aliev's words out of context - but it's intersting nonetheless.

Aliev is certainly deviating from the American line that any nuclear activity in Iran is totally objectionable, but is he bending, or is he breaking? It seems to me that in saying peaceful nuclear capacity is acceptable, he isn't accepting Iran's posession of nuclear weapons, but is allowing himself enough wiggle room to please his neighbor to the south without earning too strong an American rebuke. Iran is one of two powerhouses that are pinching Azerbaijan, and there are far more Azeris living in "South Azerbaijan" than in Azerbaijan proper. It would be interesting to find the whole transcript, though

From the horses' mouth

An interesting back-and-forth between a journalist for ANS TV, one of the main news sources here, and the public:

- Why don’t you make any magazine or program about IT (information technologies) in native language? Yes, it is true that programs of this kind was made only in two (AZTV and ITV) of local TV channels. However, their level is not so satisfactory. I think, there is great need for it. May be it is worth to think about.

- I agree with you. Probably, the root of the problem lies in the fact that information technologies are not in native language. In Azerbaijan, rumor is preferred to information, broken phones preferred to communication, and hand-made methods to technologies.
...
-Whom do you see as ideal for yourself in this profession?

-I have no ideal, I have ideas. Telling the truth is everybody’s duty. Therefore, if you are respected for this, then it means there’s a problem in the society.
...
- What do you think about present-day education in Azerbaijan?

- I think... [edit: yep, that's the whole answer]