Azeris to attack Yerevan via Jerusalem and other scenic detours

Hardcore Ashura practitioners somewhere in the Middle East.

The Israeli rampage through Gaza is generating all kinds of weird reactions throughout what is known as the Muslim world. Just recently clerics in Iran asked their young people to not volunteer to fight against Israel.

Meantime, [in the breakaway former Iranian province of] Azerbaijan, at a January 7 event marking Ashura*, one local leader Haji Muxtar Rza suggested that "liberation of Karabakh and Iravan would pass through Quds." This is according to http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=94846.

A couple of clarifications and reflections are in order.

Since recently Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia, has been renamed into "Iravan" of the "occupied Western Azerbaijan." In early 2008, Ilham Aliyev publicly complained that "Iravan" was originally Azeri land that was treacherously "gifted" to Armenians.

Quds is of course Arabic for Jerusalem, 20 percent of which is occupied by an Armenian quarter.

So the local Haji is suggesting that by supporting the pan-Islamic agenda of capturing Quds, Azeri Muslims will be able to overrun Armenia after presumably overruning the Armenian quarter of Jerusalem.

A new route to be sure, but similar diversions have already been offered.

In their stated effort of overruning and wiping out Armenia, Azerbaijan's apparently atheistic ruling family have alternatively worked Moscow and Washington routes.

The geographically shortest diversion was proposed by late Azeri ex-president Abulfez Aliyev (Elchibey), a secular nationalist who would say that road to the Karabakh capital of Stepanakert lies via Tabriz.

Elchibey's mantra implied that a revanche against Armenia could be achieved via a pan-Turkic effort of "liberating" parts of northwestern Iran.

Considering that Armenians may be of extra-terrestial origin (see www.gagashev.net) the Azeri leaders' disinclination to confront them directly is perfectly understandable.

*this is the day when good Shiites hit themselves with various heavy and sometimes sharp objects in the effort to connect with the martyrdom of Ali's sons.

Freeing our khachkars

Much of Armenian symbolism is about rocks. Starting from Mount Ararat - the highest peak of the Armenian highland - to the multitude of fortress-churches and associated cross-stones (khach-kars in Armenian). It's a rocky country with a rock-and-roll kind of history.

The cross-stones - man-sized slabs of stone with unique, complex and often intricate carvings - are much more than religious symbols. Serving primarily as gravestones they are intended to symbolize the uniqueness of each individual life even if packed into similar-sized human bodies. See http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Khachkar

The tradition goes back many centuries. But faced by the elements - beaten by wind making writings unrecognizable, relocated to be used for construction (and often new khachkars), gone underground or under water because of shifting rivers and earth - not that many survive in their natural habitats rather than in museums.

I am aware of only two large medieval cemeteries that survived into modernity - one at Noraduz near Lake Sevan and another at Jugha in Nakhichevan.

Three years ago, the one at Jugha (or Julfa, Djulfa) was wiped out by the government of Azerbaijan. See http://www.djulfa.com

It was a multi-year project by Azerbaijan - there were just too many khachkars, they were hard to move, it was hard work done by army conscripts - essentially slave laborers.

It was an outrageous decision but one that fits into the overall logic of what has been happening to Armenians and Armenian things in places where Azerbaijani nationalism runs amock (see previous post).

Other than a statement here and a resolution there the international community has imposed no obvious costs on Azerbaijan's government for this and earlier outrages. As with most issues few people seem to understand the problem and those who may often don't care.

To be sure there is plenty of grievances that Armenians and Azeri can trade. But going after cemeteries?

In Baku Armenian cemeteries with less historical but more immediate sentimental value to many (including my family whose three generations made their home in Baku for nearly a century) were paved over for roads or new construction. That does not justify the disrespect they were afforded but makes some remote kind of sense.

In the case of Jugha, khachkars stood in the middle of nowhere and were simply crushed, dismembered, thrown into the river. They were targeted and wiped out for their Armenian symbolism and as the last remaining Armenian outpost. All remaining Armenian churches of Nakhichevan were done away with in years prior.

What can be done short of going to war about this?

There are no fast and easy solutions. In the hard years of the Karabakh war the only way to get your POWs or civilian hostages or even their dead bodies back was to trade them for those of the enemy.

Now I am thinking, perhaps Armenians should disassemble the remaining Azeri mosques and gravestones on their territory and exchange them for the khachkars and other Armenian heritage items of value?

Certainly some of the Azeri items have cultural value for Armenia and people who truly care about cultural heritage would rather not see them go. But what other options are there?

What do you think?

Baku pogromshiks' zest on wane

Armenians are back in Baku. A whole three of them. Two are from the Foreign Ministry and one from Transportation. They had to be admitted for a couple of days as a condition for Baku hosting another one of those TRACECA conferences under the Council of Europe umbrella.

But lest anyone think its back to normal, provocateurs allegedly on employ of Azerbaijani government are at it again. Akif Nagiyev tells Media Forum (in my translation from Russian):

""Our activists are searching for Armenians at the official event in Baku." He declared that they are looking for Armenians to cause them harm:

"Our activists were ordered to go into the Gulistan palace. If they could get in, they would beat up an Armenian and take him outside. But police interfered.

We are now looking for Armenians in various city hotels. Either we will die or they will! There will be some kind of a fatal incident, unless these visits stop."

Nagiyev said that several hotels were visited, but they could not find any Armenians. He again blamed police but promised to continue with this tactic."

http://www.mediaforum.az/articles.php?lang=rus&page=00&article_id=20081204071817075

Hold up! Does this sound as a credible pogromshik to you? Where is Neimat Panakhov?
In the old days even the Soviet army could not stop truly-motivated pogromshiks. Photo circa 1990.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom_of_Armenians_in_Baku