Today, we are going to re-visit the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict and this post will be centered around a report from the AP, Azerbaijan delays takeover, denounces fleeing Armenians, taken from the sidebar of the What Others are Writing Section on the Homepage. Like always we will highlight two other articles that come in for honorable mention, they are: Analysis: Al Qaeda’s deputy emir killed in Iran – Long War Journal, an excellent deep-dive on the raid and the LONG Iranian/al Qaeda connections, and India, Afghanistan deny Pakistan’s allegation of ‘terrorism’ – DW which offers a potential new wrinkle in a complicated area. Both are excellent and demonstrate that the world is often composed in shades of grey instead of black and white. If you haven’t already done so, head over to the front page and check out some of the other candidates for today’s Featured Article, lots of good stuff over there.
I was unsure which direction I would turn for today’s article then I listened to this podcast on The John Batchelor Show where he interviews Professor Brenda Shaffer with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy. In this interview, I was apoplectic at the certainty in which she stated that the Armenian civilian withdrawal from the territory recently taken back by the Azerbaijan forces should be ”celebrated” as their houses burned. The certainty of her self-righteousness was appalling.
Why This is Important
There is no other war currently raging that better demonstrates the shades of grey in the world in which we live better than the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. The deep-seated disputes and periods of genocide that have defined this conflict still has the potential for spill-over and can act as model anywhere we see two seemingly self-righteous sides square off. I am glad we do not live in a country with this level of certainty on the issues that divide us.
Today’s featured article and other headlines that touch on this conflict:
Azerbaijan delays takeover, denounces fleeing Armenians – AP
After War Between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Peace Sees Winners and Losers Swap Places – The New York Times
Cultural erasure may spark next Nagorno-Karabakh war – Asia Times
I have been thinking about genocide a lot lately, not committing it but the effects of it, and have written about it recently here in regards to the Uyghurs in China. Last weekend, I watched this episode of Chef’s Table on Netflix which discussed how a form of soft-totalitarianism can lead to a cultural genocide or erasure of traditional cuisine in Turkey even though the trenches are not necessarily being filled on the killing fields as they once were. In today’s post we are going to start at the end of our Featured Article and work backwards, from the AP:
“Our nation has lost everything, our heritage, everything. We have nothing left. I can’t say anything. I’m only begging Russian people to help us, so that at least others can have a better life in our own land,” said Seda Gabrilyan, a weeping mourner at the Sunday burial of a Nagorno-Karabakh soldier in Stepanakert, the regional capital.
These are the statements of a civilian that is fleeing the recently ‘recaptured’ portions of Azerbaijan. So which is it? Are the recaptured territories Armenian or Azerbaijani? Unfortunately, there is no simple answer to those questions as the region is or was very mixed. To demonstrate this let’s go back several years to the first part of the conflict. From our feature:
Prior to a separatist war that ended in 1994, Kelbajar was populated almost exclusively by Azerbaijanis. But the territory then came under Armenian control and Armenians moved in. Azerbaijan deemed their presence illegal.
Nagorno-Karabakh was an autonomous republic of Azerbaijan during the Soviet period. A movement to join with Armenia arose in the late Soviet years and after the Soviet Union collapsed, a war erupted in which an estimated 30,000 died and hundreds of thousands of people were displaced…
How or why would an area the mostly made up of Azerbaijanis want to become part or Armenia. I suspect the blanket statement above doesn’t tell the entire story. So, what is happening in the region and what are the recent victors doing? From earlier in the article:
Azerbaijan on Sunday postponed taking control of a territory ceded by Armenian forces in a cease-fire agreement, but denounced civilians leaving the area for burning houses and committing what it called “ecological terror.”
The cease-fire ended six weeks of intense fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region and territories outside its formal borders that had been under the control of Armenian forces since 1994. The agreement calls for Azerbaijan to take control of the outlying territories. The first, Kelbajar, was to be turned over on Sunday…
After the agreement was announced early Tuesday, many distraught residents preparing to evacuate set their houses ablaze to make them unusable to Azerbaijanis who would move in.
For the Armenian perspective, I suggest you follow Emile Ghessen on Facebook. So, are the victors and losers of the conflict simply swapping places as the headline of The New York Times suggests? Should the destruction of these ‘settlements’ be celebrated as Professor Shaffer stated? Well it’s more complicated than that and for details of why the Armenians are so distraught we will turn to this article from the Asia Times:
Azerbaijan’s recent 44-day war on Armenia-backed Artsakh, better known by its Soviet name of Nagorno-Karabakh, resulted in a Moscow-brokered deal earlier this week that effectively ends millennia-old Armenian existence in much of the region.
In addition to land already lost on the battlefield, the deal dictates Armenians to cede to Azerbaijan many more territories by December 1. As they evacuate these lands, traumatized Armenians are leaving behind hundreds of sacred sites. Given Azerbaijan’s terrible record with cultural erasure, long-term peace may seem hopeless.
Simon Maghakyan of the Asia Times has been researching this for the past 15 years and even produced a short film about the cultural erasure there (embedded below). He continues:
According to Azerbaijan’s authorities, Armenians’ ancient past is fake news. A top Azerbaijani diplomat has dismissed my research as “a figment of Armenia’s imagination.” The 89 medieval churches, 5,840 cross-stones and over 22,000 historical tombstones of Nakhichevan never existed in the first place because, Azerbaijan insists, Armenians are not indigenous to the Caucasus.
What will most likely be lost:
If history is a guide, this is how Azerbaijan will treat the sacred sites of Artsakh.
First, it will destroy the numerous medieval statuesque khachkars that are nearly impossible to “Albanize” given their rich Armenian inscriptions. One of the most prominent khachkars at grave risk is the 14th century Angels and the Cross in the Vank village of Hadrut region, which Azerbaijan captured last month.
Second, Azerbaijan is likely to swiftly destroy all lesser-known medieval Armenian churches, as well as medieval inscriptions on secular structures, especially those already under its control in the Hadrut region. In fact, video evidence suggests that Azerbaijani soldiers are already desecrating sacred sites.
Third, the best-known Cathedrals will likely be “Albanized” and preserved in the short-term, although “Albanizing” the majestic Dadivank Monastery, for instance, will be a particular challenge given its over 100 Armenian inscriptions. Again, in light of what happened in Nakhichevan, Albanization of major sites is an unlikely hope for long-term preservation.
Finally, for public relations and to underscore the myth that Armenians are not the indigenous peoples of Artsakh, Azerbaijan will likely restore the Holy Savior Ghazanchetsots Cathedral of Shushi it air bombed twice on October 8.
You really need to read the entire article to get a picture of the true scope of the cultural genocide / erasure that has already and most-likely will occur there.
As the battle-lines are drawn across the globe, absolute self-righteousness is often used as a justification for actions that seek ideological purity. A purity that often lacks to context and nuance required to coexist in a complicated world. Our ability to relate to others, ideologically and culturally, will be critical in staving off future Armenian-Azerbaijani levels of cultural erasure and genocide. Unchecked self-righteousness that sees the world in black and white misses the complexities and depth of the grey in which we live and will only lead to destruction and a place worse than the one that already exists.