Life, Liberty And Nagorno-Karabakh
“Do you see these men with their eyes closed and heads tilted?” My uncle asked my brother and I.
It was Christmas and our uncle had just come back from Armenia with gifts.
He brought us a gorgeous box carved out of obsidian with the image of men dancing on it. Some had their eyes closed, heads tilted as if in a trance, while the others were holding them upright.
“They’re sleeping!” my brother exclaimed.
“No... They’re dead” my uncle answered.
This was an engraving from the last stand of the men of Sasun––ancient Armenia’s Sparta–– whose reputation for stubborn refusal to submit to any foreign ruler and relentless resistance was made famous in medieval times.
While the First World War was raging, Armenians were fighting for their very existence as a people…
And after repelling wave after wave of Ottoman Turkish assaults, running out of ammunition and refusing to be taken alive, the men of Sasun decided to dance the Kochari (the traditional Armenian warrior’s dance which is typically performed in a tight circle with each dancer supporting the weight of the next) and fall to the last man as their final act of defiance.
They would be so unequivocally free that they would even choose the manner of their exit. In recent times, that defiant dance was again seen, in a very different place.
It was to be performed not against a foreign enemy but in the streets of Yerevan in 2018, where the brave citizens of Armenia faced truncheons, water cannons, threats and intimidation by their own soviet-styled police because they dared to demand their inalienable rights of liberty, rule of law, and democracy…
Which they eventually received through a bloodless revolution that has ushered in genuine reforms for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union.
The reason I bring this dance up is because this changes the reality in the south Caucasus…
The fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan is no longer a border skirmish between two corrupt kleptocracies intent on distracting their populations by fostering an external enemy.
Today’s threat to democracy comes in the form of the twin dictatorships of Azerbaijan and Turkey––known internationally for their atrocious human rights records––assaulting a fledgling democracy on the periphery of Europe.
The actions of the Azerbaijani regime speak volumes...
Imagine for a minute that upon greeting a German dignitary, the mayor of London would casually say “our goal is to eliminate the Irish.. You’re German, you know what I’m talking about”.
It would make headlines around the world and he would be hounded out of polie society.
And yet that’s almost precisely what the mayor of Azerbaijan’s capital told a delegation from Bavaria in 2005.
“Our goal is the complete elimination of Armenians. You, Nazis, already eliminated the Jews in the 1930s and 40s, right? You should be able to understand us”.
Currently, Azerbaijanis don’t need a visa to enter Armenia… While British citizens with Armenian last names were not allowed to enter Azerbaijan to watch the Europa League final.
While Armenia is restoring mosques in Nagorno Karabakh, Azerbaijan’s regime is destroying UNESCO world heritage sites to hide their Armenian origins.
This past June, the European Court of Human Rights issued a judgment holding Azerbaijan responsible for the Armenian civilian who was held in a military prison and found dead in Azeri custody. The Azerbaijani government has bestowed hero status to a convicted murderer who severed the head of a sleeping Armenian military officer in Budapest in 2008
To date, there are no independent reports of Azerbaijani civilians killed in Armenian captivity since the end of the 1990s. At the start of renewed hostilities this week, Azerbaijani anarchist activist Giyas Ibrahimov has been detained by the security services, allegedly for making anti-war statements online. The petro-dictatorship has tightened its grip over its population, has eliminated the opposition, has robbed the country for decades and has been able to do so as long as they point the finger at their neighbour.
They’ve channeled all the hatred in one direction, as if the loss a generation ago of a patch of rock inhabited by Armenians with no natural resources is the real reason their population is poor and struggling…
And not, say… Because the son of their president owns properties in Dubai worth $44 million dollars--funds looted from the state’s oil wealth. For the Azerbaijani state, this is a matter of national pride, keeping their population docile, and of controlling lines on the map.
For Armenians, this is a matter of national survival.
And this is what’s so heartbreaking…
The precious lives of young men and women are being wasted to prop up the regime of an authoritarian leader.
The events of the past few days have only reaffirmed my belief that the only path to a peaceful, prosperous world where all can live in dignity and harmony is the complete refusal to deal in violence, and the elimination of tyrannical governments in all it’s forms…
I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some fantastic young Azeris in my travels and I’ve found that there is much more that unites us than divides us.
To my Azeri brothers and sisters, as of now, we have a choice…
We can choose to be like the Balkans… or like the Baltics.
I dream of a day where you can elect leaders who respect your rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…
Where Armenians and Azeris can trade freely with each other…
Where there would be no need to fight over a patch of earth as we can have visa free travel, and can visit each other’s cities with ease...
Where the South Caucasus is a bastion of liberty, trade, high-tech innovation, entrepreneurship and prosperity.
Maybe you can take me to your favourite restaurant in Baku, and we can compare who makes the best dolma (hint: my grandmother!)
Maybe someday you can visit Yerevan and we can enjoy some fantastic Armenian mountain tea together…
Maybe someday we can finally let the young men and women whose lives would be cut short on a battlefield to instead develop their potential and become the next great thinkers and leaders in our respective countries.
Maybe someday we can put an end to collective grievances and tribal allegiances...
If we must be collectivists, let it be in our collective refusal to deal in hatred and violence.
If we must be tribal, let it be in our united tribe of free individuals who will no longer be the casualties of corrupt regimes.
No matter how this ends, we will again have families mourning lost loved ones… we will have more young people growing up believing that just over the border lies their enemies… We will again have an entire pool of unlived potential left lying still on a battlefield instead of living a fruitful life…
Violence only begets more violence and it has to stop sometime, so why not now?
In the words of Abraham Lincoln: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
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Patrick Elliott is a Canadian-Armenian freelance traveler, entrepreneur, libertarian and public speaker who uses entrepreneurship to advance the cause of liberty.
He cannot be found on social media as he doesn’t want to be, but you may hear more from him on this platform in the future.
