Day.Az interniew with Shalala Hasanova, Head of the Azerbaijan-based NGO Assistance to Development of Public Relations.
Azerbaijan has marked March 31 as a Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis for already 12th year under the corresponding presidential decree of March 26, 1998 that was issued prior to the 80th anniversary of the tragic events that took place in 1918 when Dashnaks led by Stepen Shaumian committed genocide of Azerbaijanis in Baku, Shamakhi, Guba and other areas of Azerbaijan killing tens of thousands of Muslims. How deep is understanding of these tragic events in Azerbaijani society? Overview of articles in the press and the Internet shows that there is a need for a deeper comprehension of the Day of Genocide. The fact is that most of the media focus only on the March events, forgetting the dominant idea of this decree, that is, to create an objective picture of the genocide repeatedly committed against Azerbaijani people in the course of 200 years.
Independence allowed us to shed light on the facts concealed from the public and provide an objective picture of the past. After all, we witnessed separation of Azerbaijani nation after the Gulustan Treaty of 1813 and loss of ancestral lands of the West Azerbaijan that were presented to Armenia. Though we have experienced FOUR GENOCIDES FOR A CENTURY, we could survive and gain independence and integrate into the global community.
This is what we need to speak and write about not only on the Day of Genocide, but also in history lessons in schools and at international conferences and various political events.
Let’s recall that fours genocides are a genocide of Azerbaijanis in West Azerbaijan and Baku in 1905-1907, the genocide perpetrated by the Dashnaks in Azerbaijan and Armenia in 1918-20, the genocide of 1988 when the militant nationalists in the Soviet Armenia expelled Azerbaijanis from the Oghuz lands, subjecting them to torture and burning alive. Finally, the fourth of the genocides was committed by Armenian gangs in Khojaly.
In the presence of such egregious arguments, we must use information war against the Armenian propaganda, which seeks to introduce Azerbaijanis as organizers of genocide. It is therefore necessary to promote the undeniable facts of genocide of Azerbaijanis in the course of 200 years and confront the Armenian slander.
In this context, resolution on the Khojaly Genocide adopted by the OIC Parliamentary Assembly set a very important political precedent. It should also be noted that announcement of March 31 as Remembrance Day of Azerbaijan by the Governor of Nevada was the major success of Azerbaijanis in America last year.
What else Azerbaijan should do to raise world community’s awareness about the tragedies of the Azerbaijani people including the Khojaly Genocide? We seek to make the world recognize the events in Khojaly as genocide and give legal assessment of this... Each year, the Azerbaijanis of the world increasingly use possibilities of virtual communication, issue stamps, books, conduct conferences, marches and make appeals to leaders of countries they live.
Meanwhile, implementing such a global task requires to be aware of psychological portrait of a world audience to which our message is directed. This will determine the scope of audience and response. As is known, death of one person is a tragedy and the deaths of hundreds is statistics. In other words, for us the victims of genocide are great pain of a nation, but a tragic fact of stranger’s history for a foreigner. The nuance is that politician or an ordinary citizen of a foreign state felt the pain as his own.
Based on the fact that security is one of the basic human needs and Western man has fear of terrorism, we need to present facts of genocide of Azerbaijanis to world community not as a global grief of one people. Genocide of Azerbaijanis is a warning to mankind about the danger posed by Dashnak militant nationalism.
It is worth telling not only about the number of victims, but rather agonizing deaths they were subject to by Armenian thugs. The information war must focus on systematic intention of the militant Armenian nationalists to destroy the people and to carry out ethnic cleansing to clear land for themselves. What happened to the Azerbaijanis in past may well happen to any other people in the future. That is the danger of ideology of Dashnak Armenians! The world community should also know that Armenian terrorists ruthlessly destroyed children, future of a nation.
There is another important component to understand significance of the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis. Unlike Armenians, we do not use genocide for monetary compensation. What is the reason?The reason is that as a secular and tolerant nation, we intend to let the world know about the tragic events of our nation to promote the ideology of tolerance, humanity, universal values. In fact, any genocide is aimed at destroying not only a nation, but also its culture, history and all traces it has left on the earth.
Armenian vandals destroyed the monuments of the ancient Azerbaijani culture, ancient cemetery in West Azerbaijan, ie in the present-day Armenia, and destroyed monuments and evidences of Albanian culture in Karabakh. Khojaly is a settlement that reflects historical and cultural traditions of the people from ancient times to the modern period. This particular culture went down in history as Khojali-Gadabay culture.
Cromlechs, dolmens, cyclops, barrows and other monuments of Khojaly, and various household items were the samples of culture, reflecting pace of development of a human society. Destruction of of these cultural monuments, Khojali cemetery, one of the most ancient burial places, by occupiers is an act of vandalism directed against the entire world culture.
Therefore, genocide poses a danger of destruction of perennial cultural property. Terrorist policies of militant Armenians always contain such a danger. We should convince world civilians of this.
Genocide of Azerbaijanis is not just the events of 1918 in Baku and other regions. This is cenrury-old history of the people, but more importantly, it is an alarm what implications of fanatical self-aggrandizement of one nation over all others may have. With that in mind, the international community will be able to prevent further national tragedies of this nature.
/Day.Az/