Latent perception implies the use of administrative resources with clear armenophobic tendencies against the background of ‘friendship’, ‘brotherhood’ and ‘solidarity’. This very administrative resource became the instrument of self-assertion in the region and, particularly on Armenian territories, and became the locomotive of the ambition to rewrite one’s own history, to find more ancient roots, ancient statehood, to define one’s own unique place and contribution into the treasury of the human civilization as well as to change the regional demographics. And all this occurred in contrast and comparison with Armenians.
Ex-president of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev: In the future, we must create works so as they continuously and constantly prove the claims of Azerbaijan to the lands that host today’s Armenia. We must do this. We must pave the way for generations to come.80
These words uttered back in 1999 are a telltale evidence of the succession of the policy initiated back in the Soviet period as confessed unequivocally by H. Aliev.
Heydar Aliyev, ex-president of Azerbaijan: “<…> I speak of the period when I was the first secretary and contributed a lot to the development of Nagorno-Karabakh. At the same time I sought to change the demographics of the region. Nagorno-Karabakh raised the issue of establishing an institute, a university there. <…> I thought and I decided to do so. But with one condition; there should be three sectors: Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian. <…> Azerbaijanis from the neighboring regions were directed not to Baku but there. We also sent Azerbaijanis from the adjoining regions. I took this and other measures trying to increase the number of Azerbaijanis in Nagorno-Karabakh and to crop the number of Armenians.81
This was reflected not only in words but in actions: curtailing the rights and possibilities of Armenians as an ethnic unit to favor the Azerbaijani population. This was not the first but the most flagrant fact of mass discrimination in the history of the Soviet Azerbaijan, and it was quite purposeful and targeted.
Perception in the daily life: along with the development and progress of Azerbaijan, the country became caught between two worlds. On the one hand, there was Baku with its Europe-oriented upper class with its flexibility, moderation and openness; on the other hand, was the remaining part of the country, a huge social stratum that was retrograde and remained at the level of ‘ummah’, with its typical apathy and impassiveness towards the secular authority, with the traditional practice of docility and the customary religiousness.
A very illustrative example of xenophobia in daily life is described in an autobiographic essay by Vahid Ghazi.82
My grandmother used to tell us stories: “When we were kids, Armenians massacred many Turkic people. At the time, they called us Turkic. They killed us everywhere. They cut off the nipples of the women, laced them in strings and threw into our trenches. Those who could not stand it and stepped forward were shot down. They tied hot samovars on the backs of the people and made them run…”
But my grandmother never told me: “You must also hate Armenians!” I know, I heard that Armenians bring up their children with a feeling of hatred to Turkic peoples and Azerbaijanis. We did not have any such practice. The hatred links to memory and ours retained no vestige of it.
It must be noted that in their interactions with Azerbaijani who referred to facts based on their personal experience, all tentative of the Armenian side to hear a single confirmed example of Armenian children brought up “in the spirit of hatred to all Turkic” remained without response.
The testimony narrating the reaction of ordinary Azerbaijanis to the devastating earthquake of 1988 in Armenia is quite illustrative in the context of aggressive armenophobia.
General Alexander Lebed: The events unfolded with a relative calm up to December 7. In the evening of December 7, the news release of ‘Vremya’ announced that Armenia suffered a tremendous earthquake. <…>. The silence was suddenly broken by a sound, or to be more precise, by an entire roar of sounds that merged into a single general howl of triumph and glee that increased in intensity. <…> In an attempt to ascertain the nature of these sounds, I went out on the balcony along with another five or six officers.
<…> On the opposite side of the street, right across the building of the Regional Executive Committee there was a big nine-story residential block. All windows in the building were alight without exception; people on the balconies yelled, screamed, hooted and roared with wild laughter. Down went empty bottles, burning paper and some other objects. This nine-story residential block was not alone in its expression of cannibalistic mirth. The picture was identical in all adjoining buildings. The entire district beamed and howled in a frantic frenzy.
People that considered themselves civilized, educated to a certain extent and well-mannered, some of them supposedly religious and following the covenants of the Quran were united in this inappropriate barbarian celebration of a tremendous human tragedy. I felt a strong urge to cross out this cursed residential block with a long burst of my assault rifle. This could be the only way to make people degraded to apes claim back their humanity. How many merry, kind reasonable, hospitable people I met among Azerbaijanis! The discourse of many of them was so full of passion and conviction! Where have all these reasonable and kind people gone? How could it be possible that they all dissolved in this scum yielding to an impulse, the extent of heinousness of which is hard to define? This was a riddle to me. There can be only one interim and sad conclusion: any stage of civilization, any upper form of social and economic life is separated from feudalism and even the savage horde by a single step backwards, only one step… It takes just certain conditions, and people immediately prove themselves capable of showing that they climbed down the trees only very recently.83
Vardges Bagratovich Artsruni, head of the construction complex of Armenia: The Soviet Union still existed, and help streamed into the disaster zone from all parts of the country. Azerbaijan too had sent some fuel tanks by railway. The fuel tanks bore writing: “Congratulations with the earthquake! We wish you another one!” The train was sent back, and it became clear that there would be no reconciliation. This is impossible to forget. A little later, it became known that trains carrying food and humanitarian aid which passed by railway through Azerbaijan were rolled over to reserve tracks at Azerbaijani stations. Refrigerators were turned off for several days, and after meat and other foodstuffs became spoiled the train was sent on into the disaster zone. Mix trucks carrying cement were filled with water and after staying idle for 2 or 3 days were sent into the disaster zone. The construction and other machinery loaded onto platforms reached the regions of Armenia hit by the earthquake not only with shattered windshields but with everything else that could be broken (doors, windows, etc.). Following that, full blockade of the railway and road communication ensued.84