In his book entitled Polygon of Azerbaijan, Aris Kazinyan notes an essential role of rumors as a main propaganda weapon of all times in shaping the behavior of ignorant popular masses.99
It is very illustrative that at the beginning of the past century many journalists, missionaries and diplomats who worked either in the Ottoman Empire or in the Transcaucasia noted that the very fact of rumors about violent acts against Muslims at the hands of Armenian was the symptom of a forthcoming massacre, an anticipation of new Armenian pogroms. There is an amazing continuity not only in the rites of violence, but also in the pretexts for perpetrating it. On the eve of every Armenian massacre Ottomans and Turkish Tatars spread false rumors about carnage of Muslim populations at the hands of ‘gyavurs’ in some remote areas, about Armenian plans to attack Turkish districts in specific cities. <…> In 1905, the newspaper Tiflis Leaflet (Тифлиский Листок) published a report on the situation in the Eastern Caucasia: “In the mid-August, the provinces of Aresh, Jevanshir and other places were upset by a gruesome rumor: it was claimed that Armenians attacked peaceful nomads near the village of Vank and massacred many women and children. Three hundred armed horsemen from Aghdam moved into the area only to find out that there had been a skirmish about seven stolen sheep, with two Tatars killed and several Armenians wounded. Such conflicts happened every year and involved more severe bloodshed. But the formal pretext was found (Tiflis Leaflet, 21.08.1905)100.
On the eve of the Sumgait massacre, the same traditional scenario came into play: certain individuals appeared in Baku, Sumgait and other regions of Azerbaijan telling the stories of Azerbaijani pogroms in Kapan (Kafan) region of Armenia and displaced compatriots.
A similar scenario was staged in January 1990 during the massacre of Armenians in Baku. An eyewitness of these events, the Colonel V. Anokhin reported: “I am sure that the more fantastic the lie is, the higher are the odds that people will be taken in. The deception techniques are sometimes monstrous. For instance, a public rally is held in the neighboring district to commemorate 1000 dead in Kurdamir. When I tell the residents of Kurdamir about it, they are astounded; they surely know that there is not a single loss of life there. However, they themselves go around telling stories of forty thousand Azerbaijanis killed in Baku”.101
As a result, all things that caused the alarm and concern of Azerbaijani thinkers again led to the frustration of Azerbaijani intellectuals rather than consolidated it.
Mirmehdi Agaoghlu, writer: My views of Armenians were shaped amid the famous slogan: “He, who does not sit, is Armenian”. The events on the central square began with millions of people squatting and standing up following this command. Just like the grown-ups, we, the kids, had a slogan of our own: “Wherever you see Armenian, hit him on the head with a pail”. We had but one enemy: the Armenian enemy. We heard this propaganda from the Azerbaijani television, we were taught this at school. The Armenian ‘dyga’102 were our enemies. We grew up amid this hatred towards Armenians. The state machinery of propaganda portrayed Armenians as a fictitious people that never had statehood, parasites and cheap prostitutes who lived off other countries. <…> Do you want to know the truth? In the past 20–25 years, your own historians and authors of propaganda told you lies. On the top of it, Armenian sources also indulge in exaggeration. Now try to distinguish fiction from reality. Every time I saw Armenian actors, scientists or representatives of other spheres of life on Russian channels, I felt resentment but still asked myself the question: If they are indeed such a tiny little nation that we can easily be done with, why do we come across them everywhere? Why are we not like them?
So, gradually the hatred inside me transformed into a complex of inferiority. And I felt angry because I had been deceived all this time.103
Journalist Farheddin Hajibeyli: Why do we always suffer a defeat? There is no one to blame except us, boycott YOURSELVES!
Nobody is head over ears in love with black eyebrows and eyes of Armenians. They accomplished what they have today after decades of hard work. Let us consider them our enemies cursing and abusing them, but for the sake of justice we must recognize their right to all these victories, as they have been accomplished due to their intellect and foresight. <…> Now, let us be honest: who is more worthy of victories? Us or them?104
After the country’s independence, the Azerbaijani quest for national identity and consolidation through inculcation and cultivation of the image of the external Armenian enemy by manipulating the public mind was given free rein through self-expression.
3. Armenians in Baku
One of the main propaganda tricks employed by the official Baku in disseminating the myth of its tolerance and commitment to multiculturalism – the one that becomes a fertile ground for cultivation and indoctrination of armenophobia – rests upon the assumption that 30 thousand Armenians live in Azerbaijan.
This myth of 30 thousands Armenians in Baku is quite actively exploited by the Azerbaijani propaganda. The late national leader Heydar Aliyev was the first to come up with this statement.105 Later, this figure fluctuated depending on the situation at hand and the needs of the day. For example, in 2008 Ziyafat Asgarov, the vice-speaker of the parliament stated: “Presently, there are approximately 50,000 Armenians living in Azerbaijan, and they face no problems”.106 In his turn, Araz Alizadeh, the chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Azerbaijan, curtails the number of Armenians by 10 thousands and brings up a figure of 40,000 Armenians living in the country.107 In the meantime, Elnur Aslanov, the head of the Division of Political Analysis and Information Support of the President’s Administration of Azerbaijan speaks about some 20,000 Armenians.108 Ganira Pashayeva, member of the Azerbaijani parliament, confined herself to invoking “thousands of Armenians” without specifying their precise number.109
Meantime, according to the official census of 1999, there were about 645 Armenians living on the territories controlled by Azerbaijan,110 while the census of 2009 placed the number of Armenians at 193.111 In this reference, the Azerbaijani side brandishes the argument that the Armenians who live in Azerbaijan do so in a stateless capacity and, therefore, are not covered in the census.
It must be noted that this refusal to issue documents on the ground of ethnicity,112 which dates back some 20 years, is in itself indicative of an ongoing apartheid and segregation policy against Armenians.
In the study Ethnicity as a social status and stigma: Armenians in the post-soviet Azerbaijan, published by Heinrich Böll Foundation,113 Sevil Huseinova notes that after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, ethnic Armenians who had lived in Baku were stripped of their status of equal members of the local urban community. This was determined not only by ethnic demarcation of the population. Their status of equal community members was lost during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, as Armenian ethnicity virtually became synonymous with the concepts of enemy and alien. This occurred as the ongoing conflict came to stigmatize the ethnic identity of Armenians. Being Armenian and living in Azerbaijan represented a contradiction and no longer met the standard of a ‘good citizen’. The self-perception of Armenians living in Baku crystallized in this context.