Orientalism in Azerbaijan:
 A Response to Elmir Mirzayev’s
 Bir daha “öz yolumuz var” tezisi haqda

By Kerry Cosby

 Although I was in the same conversation that Elmir Mirzayev mentions in his article “Bir daha ‘öz yolumuz var’ tezisi haqda,” there appears to have been two very different discussions occurring there. I’d like to bring out what many in the conversation saw as significant for Azerbaijan and beyond.

An international group (Azerbaijani’s inside and outside of Azerbaijan, and Europeans and Americans) sought to examine how Edward Said’s understanding of Orientalism played a role in the public writings of contemporary Azerbaijani journalists and thinkers.

Since Mr. Mirzayev did not take the time to explain  Mr. Said’s book, I’ll give a brief synopsis of the argument. Said viewed Orientalism as a discourse (a node in a network of texts) developed by Europeans, particularly France and Britain during the 19^th and 20^th Centuries, as a way to create knowledge about peoples outside the imagined “West.” They did this, according to Said for two primary purposes:

1.    To define “the West” in opposition to the other

2.    To implement the power-knowledge relationship to subjugate non-European peoples as a part of the process of imperialism. (Note: power-knowledge is a concept defined by French Philosopher of History, Michele Foucault—who wrote after the distinguished Europeans Mr. Mirzayev mentioned in his article--as the idea that forms of power create knowledge and knowledge tends to reinforce power)

The Orientalist discourse was based on the dichotomy of attributes. The Orient was feminine, the “West” masculine. Other dichotomies included: primitive-civilized, weak-strong, sexual-moral, exotic-ordinary.

Said’s opinion and the opinion of many of today’s scholars and thinkers is that the creation of such dichotomies is false and detrimental to the formation of an inclusive society.

Here, Mr. Mirzayev, might have developed the idea that the conversation was to push the statement of “’bizim öz yolumuz var’ və bu yol Avropadan fərqlənirmiş.” There were indeed several different perspectives offered in the discussion, one of which included the idea of hybridity.

Hybridity is a concept put forward by several post-colonial theorists (the people we might call the successors of Said). Gayatry Spivak and Homi Bhabha theorized that although the Orientalist discourse was often internalized by the colonized peoples, many had accepted some elements of the discourse and integrated it into a previously existing discourse and narrative.

This mixing of discourses is hybridity. And according to Homi Bhabha, hybridity is one of the strengths of the colonized people. Since they have been educated in the system of the colonizer, they are able to take his discourse, turn it upside down and use it against the colonizer himself.

The concern of the people who had lived many years in Europe (as Mr. Mirzayev pejoratively calls them) and others who still live in Azerbaijan, but who desire to interact critically with the beliefs received from the modernist thinkers and seek out new and alternative perspectives for a path forward, was that many in Azerbaijan had still not been able to move beyond the blind faith in “Western-ness” as a road to progress and survival.

As brilliant as Mirza Jalil was, he was a man of his time. He had to deal with the situation as it was. He saw the Turks and Muslims as significantly weaker than the European forces that had consolidated into nations on the basis of science, economic development and progress, and had expanded their power across the world through empires. This was a strong motivator for the recommendation to emulate them.

Mr. Mirzayev does not take into consideration that the situation has changed in the past century. The nations that Mirza Jalil saw as unified and pure are now much more diverse. The people who have spent too much time in Europe (and the United States) have actually become a part of us—the American and European nations. Their hybridity has changed our own discourses. In fact, they have helped us see that we are all hybrids. We no longer seek to be purebred nations.

Many of the people who were arguing for moving beyond Orientalism in Azerbaijan, were in all actuality making the same appeal that a great post-colonial thinker Partha Chatterjee made in his book The Nation and Its Fragments. They were bringing forth the idea that the nation in Azerbaijan needs to accept its hybrid nature and the benefits of many different perspectives.

Chatterjee has claimed that the biggest problems India faces come from its fear of its fragments—its diversity, inclusiveness and it critical interaction with its past.

“Fragmentation” is an often repeated fear in Azerbaijan. Calls for accepting the one road provided to Azerbaijan by the great thinkers at the beginning of the twentieth century is a manifestation of this fear.

However, it is that inability to accept the importance of debate, the need for difference in society that can potentially stop the movement toward an open, free and democratic country. Even the intellectuals of the beginning of the century, Mirza Jalil Mammedgulzada, Hashim Bey Vazirov Abu Turab Afandizada, Ali Bey Huseynzada and Mirza Alakbar Sabir disagreed on the avenues of national development. In fact, their debates are what advanced these ideas.

Many of the people taking part in the discussion Mirzayev writes about were simply saying that there is a need to continue interacting critically with the thoughts of these great intellectuals and with each other to see whether other options are available.

I say this from my home in the United States, the country to which I returned after having lived a long time in Azerbaijan. When I returned home, I saw the fear of fragmentation growing in books like “Who Are We?” by Samuel Huntington (an author who did not have the warmest of feelings for Edward Said), and in my neighbors’ inability to have open dialogue on those things that make us different—politics, religion and views of the future.

The interactions around me tend to focus on safe topics like popular culture and sports. While in Azerbaijan, I had grown used to open conversations and disagreements about internal and external politics. Of course, there were limits to these conversations and the fear of fragmentation was often hidden behind many of the discussions, particularly regionalism and the divide between the religious and the secular.

For this reason, I can safely: the problem has not already been solved. It needs to be addressed anew by each generation. And perhaps when talking about the direction of Azerbaijan, citizens are not reinventing the bicycle, but rather the people in the conversation are saying that the bicycle can be improved upon by looking in new directions not available to the great thinkers of modernism.

Has Azerbaijan’s Ruling Elite Found the Answer to Discontent?

By K.A. Cosby

By the time election season is over, Americans are sick and tired of seeing their candidates on advertisements, television shows and debates. Azerbaijan’s presidential election was so efficient and so short (a 23-day campaign period), that it was over before many could even know who all the candidates were.

Many writers have said for months that the election was a foregone conclusion, and the Azerbaijan government proved that the day before the elections when the government accidently released a mobile app with the incumbent Ilham Aliyev winning the race.  In truth, Aliyev did this without ever really campaigning. He never even showed up to the debates—one of which showed a level of bitterness between opposition and government that resulted in the throwing of a bottle at Jamil Hasanli, the candidate from the opposition National Council of Democratic Forces in response to Hasanli’s statements about the corruption and repression of the government and ruling party (Yeni Azerbaijan Partiyasi).

How did the Azerbaijani government win the elections so handedly?

The process took many days than allotted in the campaign period, and its focus was not simply to win an election. The efforts of the Azerbaijani government were to ensure that following the election, angry opposition supporters would not take to the streets of the capital. The regime did this through widespread repression of the media, NGOs and oppositional parties before election season had even begun.

The political, social and economic environment in Azerbaijan seems ripe for protest and the events in the region have provided ample models for opposition forces to follow. Over the past two years, Azerbaijan’s neighbors Russia and Turkey have both had to cope with widespread unrest.  Protesters took to the streets in Russia from the time of the country’s parliamentary elections in 2011 and continued holding demonstrations until Putin’s inauguration as president in May of 2012. During the past summer, Turkey faced protests that arose originally from the planned destruction of a public park in Istanbul. But it quickly spread to include a wide range of complaints against the growing authoritarianism of Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party (AKP).

In the past year, Azerbaijan itself has had a number of localized protests in the regions of Quba and Ismayilli and in the Bina Market in the country’s capital Baku. These protests partly sprung from the increasing economic gap between the ruling elite and the majority of citizens, as well as the waning promise of the economic miracle previously offered by hydrocarbon reserves.  A July 2013 report by the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) noted an 11% decline in Azerbaijan’s oil and gas revenue in 2012.  The International Monetary Fund noted in March that “oil dependence and fiscal vulnerabilities are rapidly increasing as evidenced by the rising break-even oil price and oil fund transfers to the budget.”

The internal and international environment weighed heavily on the Aliyev regime, particularly given that Aliyev’s running for election this year has been an so controversial. In 2009 a referendum changed article 101 of the Azerbaijan constitution, effectively removing term limits for the office of president. The change gave Aliyev the legal permission needed to run for a third term. However, in the run-up to the election, the topic became heated following a Youtube post by jurist Erkin Gadirli and the response by Constitutional Court Judge Rovshan Ismayillov. Opposition figures continued to focus on this point in pre-election rallies, calling for the president’s resignation.

To keep such hot-button issues from inspiring an Arab Spring or Gezi Park type uprising, the government undercut the oppositional press’s ability to reach the citizenry.

Investigative reporter Khadija Ismayilova was harassed by the repeated posting of videos of her and her partner engaged in intimate relations. The videos were attempts to discredit Ismayilova and her articles investigating corruption in the Aliyev family.  On September 17, the National Security Council arrested Perviz Hashimli, chief editor of Moderator and Bizim Yol, news outlets that investigated allegations of corruption and human rights abuses and criticized President Aliyev.

The arrest of Hashimli is not the first such instance. In 2011, Aliyev’s government was listed among Reporters without Borders’ “Predators of Press Freedom.”

The Azerbaijani government also sought to quiet online criticism through changes to the defamation laws in June, criminalizing posts in blogs and on social networking websites.

To show potential protesters what could happen if there was widespread unrest following the presidential elections, the Azerbaijan government, cracked down on the more localized demonstrations that took place in Quba in 2012, and Ismayilli and Bina Market in early 2013.  In the country’s capital, Baku, attempted protests in March and April by opposition activists were broken up and over 200 demonstrators were detained. The government also arrested five democracy activists for trying to organize through Facebook a nationwide day of protests. 

As further efforts to discourage citizens from participating in anti-government demonstrations, in November 2012 and February 2013, the Azerbaijan government enacted amendments to the laws that greatly increased fines for participating in and advocating unsanctioned demonstrations.

In an effort to keep youth from being involved in post-election protests, the Aliyev regime also ensured that a candidate with the potential to inspire them was not involved in the election. Ilgar Mammadov, presidential hopeful from the REAL (Republican Alternative) movement, was arrested on February 4 for allegedly inciting riots in the town of Ismayilli. Mammadov’s supporters obtained the 41,242 signatures for his candidacy in the election, but the Central Election Commission rejected 4982 as being invalid, which left Mammadov short the signatures needed to be a candidate.

In the coming days it will become apparent whether or not these efforts have borne fruit for Aliyev’s government. Following the elections, the opposition candidate Hasanli noted that the National Council of Democratic Forces have requested permission to hold a demonstration on October 12—a request that has not yet been answered by the government. In the case that the government does not provide permission for the demonstration, Hasanli explains, “We have a variety of methods for resistance.”

Two Protesters Walk into a Bar: Humor and Resistance in Today’s Social Movements

 

By

 

Aysel Vazirova

 

and

 

K. A. Cosby

 

On May 31, despite a police crackdown in Istanbul, Turkey, a group of protesters fighting to save a park in the city’s downtown refused to concede defeat. Instead they used every tool at their disposal—including humor—to resist a government they saw as increasingly ignoring their will. These first activists were joined by others across the country with their own concerns about the government. One protester, drawing a connection between the demonstrations and the ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) recent ban on the sale of alcohol between the hours of 10:00 pm and 6:00 am, spray-painted the following statement on the side of a wall: “You banned alcohol. The people sobered up!!” 

Another protester took aim at the police’s use of tear gas, stating in a placard, “As kids we chased pesticide trucks. Our generation is immune to toxic gas.”

Humor has great potential for resistance and political activism, undercutting or exposing flawed governmental narratives. Hannah Arendt wrote in On Violence, “the greatest enemy of authority, therefore, is contempt, and the surest way to undermine it is laughter.” The protesters in Turkey have sought to overturn the symbolic power of the government by deconstructing its discourses through humor and satire.

 But these protesters are not alone. Recent events in Eurasia, Brazil and the Middle East provide examples of how social and political movements have drawn on humor for resistance. Brazilian protests against poor public services were supported by a popular video (currently with 2.4 million views) mocking the government’s efforts to promote Brazil as a prospering country in the lead-up to the World Cup. Egyptian revolutionaries used youtube and twitter to satirize Hosni Mubarak when he refused to step down from the presidency. Syrian revolutionaries have used satirical webpages as a method of resisting the Assad regime. 

A series of web broadcasts in Russia have taken on Vladimir Putin’s government of in verse. The creators of Grazhdanin Poet (Citizen Poet) have railed against the second sentencing of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and drawn parallels between the 2012 Russian protests against Putin’s re-election and the Arab Spring. The broadcasts, some of which have garnered over two million views, have developed a broad-based following among Russians, who are unhappy with their country’s entrenched authoritarianism.

China, where online dissent and political satire are closely monitored and censored, has had a dramatic increase in online viewers of the Daily Show. The New Yorker recently reported that “in the last few years ordinary men and women have banded together to subtitle and post clips as fast as they can.” Political and “undesirable” content in China is often blocked by the government, so the consumption of even the Daily Show can be considered subversive.

In many authoritarian countries the creators of political humor have been targeted in the same manner as journalists. In fact, a well timed joke can land a political satirist in prison. In 2009 two Azerbaijani bloggers, Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizada, were arrested for making a satirical youtube video of a donkey holding a press conference—a send up of corruption charges that the country’s government paid excessive prices for the import of donkeys. 

More recently Egyptian satirist Bassem Youseff, who is often known as Egypt’s John Stewart, was summoned to court in April for insulting the president Muhammad Morsy. Though the case was thrown out by the judge, it shows how humor can threaten a government by exposing the cracks in its carefully crafted image.

A joke from the former Communist East Germany wittily shows how dangerous humor can be to authoritarian and totalitarian societies. According to the joke, Erich Honecker, General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party in the German Democratic Republic, and Erich Mielke, the former head of the State Security Service “were talking about their hobbies. Honecker said, ‘I collect all the jokes about me that are going around.’ Mielke replied, ‘Man, Erich, we have practically the same hobby! I collect the people who are telling the jokes!’”

Humor in the public sphere has a profound democratizing potential: a good joke can make a blogger or Facebook/Twitter user and the issue they address popular within hours and command the support of thousands without any reliance upon external funding, or media connections, thus extending the reach of a political activist independent of the support and agenda of power holders.

In some countries the expanding reach of political humor is occurring against the backdrop of the weakening appeal of the traditional political opposition. During the mass protests in Russia and Turkey, parliamentary opposition parties were sharply criticized for their inability to facilitate change.  The biting humor of the protestors, in many cases, expressed the people’s frustration with the usual suspects on the political landscape.  One picture by a Gezi Park protester widely circulated online features the leaders of the two largest opposition parties, Kilicdaroglu and Bahceli reads, “We’re not here for you. We’re here because you couldn’t do it.”

Humor as resistance, however, is not just found in authoritarian countries, but has also been a part of political struggle in the United States. The language of political satire finds supporters in times when the traditional mechanisms of democratic political engagement struggle with the maladies of corruption, dependence on special interests, cronyism and the erosion of public trust. As more and more Americans have become disillusioned by their elected officials, they have drawn on satirical television shows like the Daily Show and the Colbert Report for the expression of their frustration and mobilization for political action. In 2010, the two shows joined forces to gather 200,000 people for the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, targeting the vitriolic discourse of cable news shows and extremist politicians.

It should not be overlooked that despite its heavy reliance on modern technology and global internet culture, contemporary political humor is filled with references to local traditions of political and social satire. Egypt’s current political satire relies on a well-established tradition of comedy movies that address corruption and other social ills. The Russian series of Grazhdanin Poet emulates Russian classical literature to mockingly address current political repressions. Turkey's political satire harkens back to the political cartoons created in the early 20th century by Ottoman artists.

 The outcome of political humor has been debated among specialists with some coming down on the side of political humor’s inability to mobilize large groups to take action. Others have noted that it can become one of many tools of resistance. They further argue that humor is able to confront narratives a government gives of its own legitimacy and authority to exert power.

Political humor liberates public discontent from the shackles of worn-out and compromised political rhetoric.  Through the mockery of the narratives, lexicon and images of political actors, humor creates a new language based on the inversion of meanings and values. Steven Colbert provides a vivid example of the ridicule of overly patriotic rhetoric, while Turkish cartoonists offer a wide range of satirical lines targeting the AKP’s constant reference to religious values.

As the strength of social media and their ability to disseminate videos and texts created by groups opposing those in power grows, we should witness its increasing use by activists for political satire. But at the same time, we should expect that governments will target online satirists more, seeking to limit their ability to mobilize groups of disaffected citizens. As opposed to direct political criticism, humor uses silences, gaps and the mimicry of official discourses to provide an elusive adversary for power-holders seeking to strengthen control over the public sphere.

Irony and satire seem to provide a new language for political participation—one that is steadily and profoundly changing how and by whom politics is conducted?

In response to these changes, authoritarian governments already monitor social media postings and some countries have written legislation on the defamation of public officials in social media outlets.  As this happens, we may see a transformation of how humor and satire are included in resistance.

The questions that remain are: will that change result in more radical or more guarded humor?  Will humor continue as a strong mobilizing force or be rendered a harmless outlet for political frustrations?