GAY NOVEL SHOCKS AZERIS
By Nigar Musayeva

Institute for War and Peace Reporting
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Feb 20 2009
UK

Book about love affair between Azeri and Armenian sells well, despite
uproar over its publication.

Artush and Zaur were two schoolchildren growing up in the great
multi-ethnic city of Baku, but fate was not kind to them. Just when
they were discovering their love for each other, they were torn apart
by war.

Artush, an Armenian, ended up in Armenia, while the Azeri Zaur was
left to mourn the memories of his lost love as he walked the streets
of Azerbaijan’s capital.

As a plot for a novel, it is not the most original in the world. But
the twist has shocked Azerbaijan and made author Alekper Aliev infamous
in his homeland. For both Zaur and Artush are men.

Setting a love affair between two men in the midst of the conflict
over the region of Karabakh, which is ruled by Armenians but claimed
by Azerbaijan, has proved controversial.

"I think that only a sick or completely cynical person could write
such gibberish, someone who spits on his own country and on the
millions of people harmed by the Karabakh war. It is just filth,
that’s what it is," said Sultan Gafarov, a student in Baku.

Such attitudes are widespread in the country. Homosexuality has
been legal in Azerbaijan since September 2000, and it is illegal to
discriminate against homosexuals, but openly gay Azeris meet abuse
in many areas of life.

"There is xenophobia against homosexuals in society, which is
stirred up by publications about AIDS. It is not universal. For
example, homosexuals who achieve a high place in society are not
criticised. In society, a rich homosexual appears more of a man than a
poor heterosexual," said Eldar Zeynalov, director of the Human Rights
Centre of Azerbaijan.

In such a complex atmosphere, Aliev knew that publishing his book
would not prove easy.

"In Azerbaijan not one publishing house would agree to issue a
homoerotic book, which in their opinion dirtied the good name of the
Azeri people," he told IWPR.

"The main theme of the book is the conflict between Armenia and
Azerbaijan, the theme of homosexuality is not essential, just a
way of attracting attention. Everyone knows the negative opinion of
homosexuality in the South Caucasus. Against this background, I tried
to show the mosaic of conflicts in the three neighbouring republics."

He finally had to publish it through a private publishing house
last month, but it has proved successful. One shopkeeper said the
controversial novel had been "selling like hot cakes".

"I am very glad that a novel finally emerged to shock conservative
opinion in Azerbaijan. This is long overdue, to break stereotypes, to
have a joke with public opinion," said Khanlar Agayev, a businessman
in Baku.

"I hope now the author manages to survive the many attacks that will
come from readers and critics."

Such attacks have come from all sides, including from the religious
hierarchy in the mainly Muslim country. Haji Fuad Nurulla, deacon
of the Baku Islamic University, is among the strongest opponents
of homosexuality, which he thinks has come in from abroad and is
weakening national culture.

"In the Koran this is strongly condemned. It is a sin, abnormal. It is
completely unacceptable for a man to wear women’s clothes, to behave
like a woman," he said.

"Such people must be isolated from healthy members of society, so
they do not infect them."

Only one charity is helping Azerbaijan’s homosexuals with the
difficulties of life in such an environment, the Union of Gender
Development and Flourishment, which started work in 2006. Its funding
primarily comes from The Netherlands. According to its chairman,
Kamran Rzayev, homosexuals in the country have most trouble within
their own families.

"There have been cases when parents, finding out about the
non-traditional orientation of their children, have beaten them and
thrown them out of the house," he said.

"In such cases, we provide psychological support to these boys and
girls and try to speak to their parents. Some parents, particularly
those who are younger, come to our office themselves, and we explain
that their children are not drug addicts, are not criminals, they are
normal people who work, earn money, study, have their own interests."

Natavan, a lesbian, is among the young people who gathered in the
organisation’s kitchens to smoke and talk about their lives. She
said her parents knew about it, but they did not talk about it in
the family.

"Any conversation turns into an argument. They think it is a
perversion, and probably think I am an ill-fated child," she said.

"I want to have a normal family, I would like to live together with
a loved one. But men just don’t interest me, and if I lived with a
woman then everyone would spurn me."

Rzayev said that a handful of single-sex couples do live in Baku, and
that some of them had even been together for a decade or more. Some
had even gone abroad to have their union recognised in one of the
countries were gay marriage is legal.

As it turned out, that is exactly what happened to Artush and
Zaur. After long years separated by the tense relations between
Armenia and Azerbaijan, which have still not signed a peace deal,
they find each other in Tbiliisi – a city where Azeris and Armenians
can go and be friends again – and were married by a friend of Georgian
president Mikheil Saakashvili’s Dutch wife.

Nigar Musayeva is a journalist from the Trend news agency and a
participant in the IWPR Neighbours programme.