EUROVISION 2012 IN AZERBAIJAN: “BEHIND THE GLITZ AND GLAMOUR, SEQUINS AND SONGS LIES REAL-WORLD CONFLICT”
Eurovision 2012 in Azerbaijan: “Behind the glitz and glamour, sequins
and songs lies real-world conflict”
Center for Strategic and International studies /CSIS/ has published
a large article about Armenian-Azerbaijani relations about Nagorno
Karabakh conflict and about Eurovision 2012 in Azerbaijan. Sung
In Marshall is the author of the article. Times.am presented the
article completely.
The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual televised competition
featuring music acts from 56 countries in and around Europe, which
draws an estimated 125 million viewers from around the world.
Eurovision has given Azerbaijan a unique opportunity to showcase its
country when it hosts the event in May. But behind the glitz and
glamour, sequins and songs lies real-world conflict. This year’s
contest comes amid ever-present tensions and continual low-level
armed conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.
In such a tense environment, even the apparently innocent fun of
Eurovision is politicized and politically sensitive.
On February 24, a group of Armenian pop singers launched a campaign to
boycott the Eurovision contest. In their letter, they expressed their
refusal to “appear in a country that is well-known for mass killings
and massacres of Armenians, in a country where anti-Armenian sentiments
have been elevated to the level of state policy.” This campaign was
launched amid anger at the reported shooting of an Armenian soldier
by an Azerbaijani sniper, but it ran into controversy after officials
announced that he had actually been killed by a fellow serviceman.
Relations between the two countries continued to sour as Azerbaijan
marked the 20th anniversary of Khojaly, the alleged massacre carried
out by Armenians during the Nagorno-Karabakh War, on February 26 /In
real Khojali is a great crime of Azerbaijani authorities towards the
own people. Azerbaijanis now just use disinformation about Khojali
to spread Armenophobia in their society- Times.am/.
Reports from the Azerbaijani media included inflammatory language,
stating that the Khojaly incident was one of the most “heinous and
bloodiest tragedies of the 20th century” and blaming the “Armenian
aggressors” for “genocide”. Two days later, Azerbaijani President
Ilham Aliyev stated, “our main enemies are Armenians of the world
and the hypocritical and corrupt politicians under their control.”
Amid this renewed tension and increasingly threatening
rhetoric, Armenia withdrew from the Eurovision competition. Citing the
recent hostile and anti-Armenian remarks made by Aliyev, Armenian
Public Television released a statement about its withdrawal,
which said: “We can conclude that the president of a Eurovision
host country is officially stating that all Armenians, including
those who would be included in the Eurovision delegation, are the
enemies of Azerbaijan. Therefore, it would make no sense to send
our participant to a country where they would be received as an
enemy. We are convinced that the atmosphere created by this and
other anti-Armenian statements and actions cannot ensure equal
conditions for all singers participating in Eurovision.” Moreover,
the statement continued, “Despite the fact that the Azerbaijani
authorities have given security guarantees to all participating
countries, the Azerbaijani president made a statement that enemy
number one for Azerbaijan were the Armenians
A senior Azerbaijani politician reacted to the Armenian withdrawal,
saying that Armenia had no genuine reason to boycott the competition:
“The Armenian refusal to take part in such a respected contest will
cause even further damage to the already damaged image of Armenia,”
said Ali Ahmedov, the executive secretary of the governing party.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov also commented on the
Armenian boycott, stating “The Eurovision song contest should not be
politically exploited and especially not in this conflict.”
Despite the apparent innocuousness of a multinational pop song
competition, Eurovision has been politicized in recent years. In 2009,
Azerbaijani authorities interrogated 43 citizens who had voted for
Armenia’s entry, the duo Inga and Anush. The accused citizens had to
justify their vote and affirm their loyalty to Azerbaijan.
Also in 2009, the introductory video clip-or “postcard”-leading
into the Armenian performance depicted “We Are Our Mountains”, a
statue located in Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh. After
complaints from the Azerbaijanii side, the European Broadcasting Union
removed the clip. Ostensibly in retaliation for the Armenian display,
Azerbaijani television blurred out the Armenian voting number as well
as distorted the TV signal when the Armenian entry was performing
on stage.
The tit-for-tat spat surrounding the Eurovision contest is a
small-scale reflection of the larger Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
that Armenia and Azerbaijan have been embroiled in for the
past two decades. Nagorno-Karabakh, the landlocked, mountainous,
Armenian-populated enclave inside Azerbaijan, has been the subject of
a two-decade long dispute between the two countries. Conflict over
the region began in 1988 with smoldering antagonism and small-scale
violence during the collapse of the Soviet Union and erupting into
a full-scale war by 1992. The war resulted in an estimated 20,000 to
30,000 people dead and more than one million refugees and internally
displaced persons (IDPs). A Russian-brokered ceasefire was signed
in May 1994. Though it has thus far prevented another all-out war,
the Line of Contact separating Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in
the region remains the site of frequent sniper attacks and low-level
violent skirmishes. Meanwhile, both sides-Azerbaijan in particular-have
been escalating their arms race and resorting to bellicose rhetoric.
Nagorno-Karabakh is often described as a “frozen conflict,” but in
reality it is a simmering stalemate, and recent actions taken by both
sides indicate that the conflict is heating up. A 2011 International
Crisis Group (ICG) report stated that there has been significant
deterioration in the region’s fragile peace, with an increase of 53
percent in ceasefire violations. Moreover, both sides have stepped up
their vitriolic rhetoric: according to an article in The Economist,
Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev warned of war in at least
nine separate speeches in 2010. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan
responded by strongly underlining his country’s readiness to respond
to any attacks.
In addition to aggressive rhetoric, both sides have been arming up.
Reports estimate Azerbaijan’s defense spending will rise by 1.8
percent this year to $3.47 billion, topping Armenia’s entire state
budget, although the official defense budget for 2012 is reported to
be only $1.7 billion. In an effort to keep up, Armenia’s military
budget for 2012 was increased to about $400 million-the country’s
biggest annual defense outlay ever, despite being a mere fraction
of Azerbaijan’s budget. Azerbaijan has been utilizing this huge
defense budget to amass weapons: according to ICG, Azerbaijan
purchased Mi-24 “Crocodile” attack helicopters, 29 BTR-70 armored
vehicles and some 35 122-mm and 152-mm artillery pieces from Ukraine
in 2009 and reportedly 62 of its 180 T-72 tanks from Russia. It also
reportedly closed a huge $1.6 billion arms deal with Israel. Although
Armenia’s official defense budget pales in comparison to that of its
neighbor, Yerevan enjoys support from the Russian base in Gyumri,
which currently houses MiG-29 fighter jets and S-300 missile systems,
as well as some 5,000 troops. There have also been several claims from
the Azeri side that arms transfers from Russia to Armenia via the
Gyumri base have occurred. In January 2009, Azerbaijan claimed that
Armenia was provided with $800 million worth of arms, including 21
T-72 tanks, some 50 armored vehicles, artillery pieces, “Strela-10”
and “Strela-2” surface-to-air missile systems, although these claims
were denied by Russia.
Efforts to find a political solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
are being spearheaded by the OSCE-led Minsk Group, and the Armenian
and Azerbaijani presidents have met for negotiations on several
occasions. However, progress has stalled. Given the failure of
repeated international efforts to broker a peace deal, grassroots
peace-building may offer the best solution to the impasse. Joint
bilateral civil society dialogue processes, including cultural
interaction, can provide a forum for meaningful exchange. The
symbolic idea of various nationalities uniting under a common
theme of music and entertainment-no matter how camp or cheesy it
may be-was underscored (somewhat ironically, considering the harsh
statements from the Azerbaijani side) by Azerbaijan’s First Lady,
Mehriban Aliyeva: “The language of music is clear to everyone,
regardless of nationality and religion. And it’s very symbolic that
during these days in May representatives of different countries,
different musical styles will stand on the same stage and sing songs
in different languages.” Music can indeed, unify, and the Eurovision
competition offers a unique opportunity for people-to-people dialogue
and cultural interaction.
In a recent interview with RFE/RL, Ambassador Robert Bradtke, U.S.
co-chair of the Minsk Group, emphasized the importance of
people-to-people dialogue as a peacebuilding tool:
“If you look back from the 20-year perspective, what we now see is
a generation in Armenia and Azerbaijan growing up that has really
not lived side by side. They have not had the personal relationships
that might help them understand better the perspectives of the other
sides and that might help them overcome stereotypes that one sees all
too often in the media in Armenia and Azerbaijan. So people-to-people
contacts can help play a role there, but one of the challenges is to
do this in a way that is constructive [and] to do it in a way that is
genuine. People-to-people contacts don’t work if they are used by the
sides for political purposes or are politicized. If they are used to
continue arguments about who was at fault or who did wrong to whom
20 years ago, that’s not going to help move things forward. It may
need to be bringing people together to discuss common problems.”
Thus, the more Armenian and Azerbaijani artists travel to each other’s
countries, the better they can build trust and restore confidence on
a personal level.
Eurovision 2012 had the potential to bring both sides together.
Although Armenia’s withdrawal from Eurovision is not the same as
walking out of peace talks, it is a negative move in a decades-long
effort to solve the intractable Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. If the
Armenian delegates had decided to attend even in the face of bellicose
statements made by the Azerbaijanis, and the Azerbaijani authorities
had welcomed them, Eurovision’s party atmosphere could have provided
a rare opportunity for the two sides to unite. This, however, was
not the case, and Armenia and Azerbaijan remain deadlocked in the
conflict that continues to grip the region.
12.04.12, 12:30
http://times.am/?l=en&p=6647