Comprehensive Azerbaijani-American diaspora website launched

"The idea of establishing a comprehensive Azerbaijani-American diaspora website, tasked specifically with unifying, streamlining, and multiplying grassroots [grassroots, a popular English political jargon, translates as "common people", "all people", "everyone"] and what is typically called as diaspora "lobbying" efforts, has been a dream for all the members of the ad hoc organizing group for several years [ad hoc, a Latin term, means a temporary Special Committee, in English language political jargon]. In fact, we registered the website itself, www.Azeris.com and its variations (such as www.Azeris.net), many years ago, knowing that its time will come," said Adil Baghirov, co-author of the website.

Baghirov told APA's US bureau that this will not be a simple website like there are now thousands of all over the Internet.

"It will be a very complex, database-driven website with sophisticated and expensive software and maintenance, like what large corporations use. I believe we have to think big in order to achieve big results, and thus, we will have such an ambitious website project.

"Azeris.com will be a "one stop" place for absolutely all Azerbaijani-American diaspora political and grassroots events in the United States. In other words, everyone will now know, that for the latest information on the efforts and campaigns of the Azerbaijani-Americans, they should go to this website, Azeris.com, get informed and lend their support. Basically, what will happen is that the founders of the website and other Azerbaijani-American activists will do the following:

1) Find out about the issues or problems affecting the entire Azerbaijani-American diaspora;

2) Draft professional letters of response which everyone can sign;

3) Place those letters (of protest or gratitude) on the Azeris.com website, together with some background information about the issue (incident), biographical information on the people involved, other relevant news;

4) Once all this is placed on Azeris.com, it will make it available for everyone to read, and if they agree, to sign and send on their behalf, for free, quickly and easily, via e-mail or fax, to the United States Congress (all members of Senate and House of Representatives), and American media (newspapers, journals, magazines, TV and radio), as well as to some officials in the U.S. Administration (White House and State Department).

"We should note that this website will be useful not just for Azerbaijani-Americans, but also all our American friends and well-wishers. In other words, everyone will be able to come and support our initiatives, the same way we support many other initiatives not related to Azerbaijan or Azerbaijanis in our lives (i.e., cleaner environment, lower taxes, etc). If you remember, before, we had to chaotically write such letters, and either send it on our own, individually, or circulate it in various email lists, asking people to take several steps in order to properly send it to the right addressee. Because of all the steps involved, many got confused or made mistakes, or were simply too lazy or disorganized. Now, it will all be automated, and easy to find, making it almost inexcusable for anyone not to participate. Once the Azeris.com will start functioning, everything should change, we will become more effective and efficient, our diaspora more unified and politically active, and as a consequence, stronger.

"Azeris.com will be as successful as we all will try to make it to be, in other words, its success is completely dependent on all of us, its success will be the success of all of us, each and every one of us, as would be its failure. Thus, neither myself on my own, nor even 100 people, can make it successful. Only when majority of the entire Azerbaijani-American diaspora, which is estimated to be up to 400,000 citizens and permanent residents in the United States, will come to the website and sign and send letters, will we be successful. The more of us will come to the website and press a few buttons (all this taking less than one minute of our time), the more successful we will be as a diaspora.

"Of course, this requires a great regular financial commitment, but we should be able to meet all the requirements successfully, as we have done fundraising before, such as for children-orphans of Khojaly massacre, and needy students in Azerbaijan, collecting thousands of dollars for them. We have already experienced an outpouring of public support, with many Azerbaijani-American families from all over the United States immediately sending their financial contributions.

"Because we have a professional Treasurer (who is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), a top accounting degree in the United States, assuring highest professionalism) and all the founders of the Azeris.com are well-known activists with excellent reputation, who have done a lot for their communities in all these years, the public trusts us and knows their contributions are in good hands for a great cause.

"To sum up, it is impossible to overestimate the importance of this project, it will play a very important role in making our diaspora much stronger, its voice better heard and noted by the U.S. political establishment and media," Adil Bagirov concluded.