USA, CHRISTIANS AND ZIONISTS ARE TO BLAME FOR ALL, OUR ISLAMISTS ARGUE
by F. Teymurxanli
Zerkalo
Jan 31 2008
Azerbaijan
"Our departure from Islamic values is the source of all our
troubles." This concise and brief statement might aptly open and
conclude a story about yesterday’s news conference organized by the
Islamic Party of Azerbaijan (IPA). The theme under discussion was
"Occupation of Azerbaijani lands as a result of the international
community’s policy of double standards". Yet out of respect for IPA
members we will give the readers a fuller report on the event.
The IPA press secretary, Akif Heydarov, set out his vision of the
Karabakh problem as follows. "We have always spoken for our occupied
lands to be liberated at any cost. The Azerbaijani people should at
last unite and re-conquer their territories". The developments have
shown, he said, that the international community including the Minsk
Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
[OSCE] are taking no efforts to settle the Karabakh problem. "We
should pin our hopes just on ourselves," Heydarov added.
Then the news conference took an odd course. IPA chairman Movsum
Samadov took the floor to condemn the Zionist world waging war against
Islam. He touched upon too wide a range of problems from the Prophet
Muhammad cartoons to articles by Rafiq Tagi in which the author
insulted God’s last envoy.
For some unclear reasons again, our Islamists paid the greatest
attention to the problem of Palestinians suffering "from Israel’s
aggression". Still the organizers would recall our own problems now
and again. "Europe is indifferent to the destiny of Palestinians
who have been suffering from Israeli aggression for more than half
a century. So one can safely say that the Karabakh problem is of no
importance for the West altogether," Movsum Samadov said.
Apart from this, participants in the event voiced an idea that is
difficult to quarrel with, precisely, that the Azerbaijani people are
unprepared for war. They are not ready to regain our occupied lands
at the cost of their sons’ lives.
Any patriotic spirit among Azerbaijanis is out of the question, IPA
deputy chairman Eldar Samadov said in his speech. "There is not a
single billboard in Baku to reflect the whole truth about Nagornyy
Karabakh," he said.
All the blame should be laid, according to Islamists, on the West in
general, the USA in particular, the Christian world and the damned
Zionists. But is it really right to blame all that on the West,
the Zionists and the Christian world?
Anyway, the political analyst Hikmat Hacizada holds another view. "I
think the Armenians are the first to be blamed for the Karabakh
problem," Hacizada said in an interview with Zerkalo. According to
Hacizada, it is the West that takes every effort to resolve the
protracted conflict. "The problem is that the West is just short
of strength to settle this conflict. The West is far away while
Russia is next door to this region. Therefore it is just Russia that
plays a dominant role in setting back the Karabakh settlement. The
Islamic Party blames all that on the West because of its leadership’s
inadequate approach to settling existing problems," Hacizada said.
Meanwhile it should be pointed out that the Minsk Group of the OSCE
has shown its inability to settle the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict
ever since it was set up.
Hacizada expressed his attitude to the Minsk Group’s activity in the
following way. "To start with, the Minsk Group was based on wrong
principles, on a wrong premise from the very outset. The premise is as
follows: Armenia and Azerbaijan have quarrelled and some moderators,
not even judges, will come and help to settle the conflict between
the two states. This approach is wrong. It has resulted in Russia,
one of the main initiators of the Karabakh conflict, being co-president
of the Minsk Group. Should Russia work against itself? It’s absurd."
Hacizada also said that the Minsk Group has the authority to mediate
but not to judge. "So this structure may only assist but not coerce
in conflict settlement," he said.
So some people blame all our troubles on Russia while others do
on the West. It is very easy to seek someone to blame outside and
thereby acquit oneself of one’s own responsibility for what is going
on. Nonetheless we should not forget Balzac saying that conscience
is a stick with which everybody tries to strike someone else but not
themselves. Therefore let us try and recall our own responsibility
and conscience. That might help us resolve our problems?