OP-ED: Language-divide, Azerbaijani-style

It’s not worth mentioning the name of the person who raised a rather acute issue this time, since they have been subjected to harassment. The battle between the Russian and Azerbaijani ‘sectors’ is a constant theme on Baku social media.

So, what sectors are they?

Firstly there is the Russian sector, which unites those who were educated in the Russian language. Almost all central schools have ‘Russian-language’ classes, and all school textbooks in the country are available in two languages. The second are those who were educated in the Azerbaijani language (also known as the azsector).

Do you remember yourself as a teen? When in the 7^th grade, didn’t you have a classmate, whose mere existence was insulting to you? For example, we had a class monitor with high academic performance, who was snitching to teachers all the time. It seemed to me then that such people simply shouldn’t exist.

If all the pathetic is removed from the disputes between the sectors, that’s exactly what will remain: ‘You are the wrong kind of person. You’re living the wrong way. You shouldn’t exist.’

And there isn’t anything new in this ‘teenage approach’ to our community, where everybody is so touchingly caring about each other, always ready to set each other on the paths of righteousness. Simply, apart from some usual topics, like, for instance ‘whom to sleep with’, ‘what to put on’ and ‘when to get married’, we, the Baku residents, also have the proverbial ‘icing on the cake’- ‘what language to speak?’

At the moment of escalation, the opposing sides perceive each other as a certain ignorant, homogenous mass.

Just ask the bellicose azsector, what kind of people are there in the Russian sector? ‘Oh, those are the traitors, who have forgotten their roots, who have sold themselves out to Russia for just 5 kopeks. They don’t know either their country’s culture or literature; they don’t give a damn about their country’s language in which Nizami, Fizuli and Akhundov wrote (there might be some ancient poets among them, who actually wrote in Farsi or lived beyond Azerbaijan’s present-day border, but who cares?). They behave indecently, they drink and engage in vicious practices, and they hardly remember the color of their passport.’

Similarly, ask the Russian sector what kind of people there are in the azsector: ‘Oh, they are yahoos, who came down from the mountains just yesterday. They have never read a book in their life and shepherding is the only thing they know. They don’t even know where a theater or a museum is. They are loafers and hash-smokers, they beat their wives and don’t care about their children’s education, and they are the reason for the economic crisis and the rest of our troubles.’

We are so accustomed to all these kinds of talks that we can’t even see the entire absurdity of the situation. Amidst the economic crises, the people in a city with three million inhabitants are split into two camps according to the ‘first language principle’. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of them know the second language or are fluent in both of them. Without it, it’s hard to find a job in ‘a good place’ in Baku. Fluency in Russian, Azerbaijani and English is a major requirement to any applicant, for almost any position.

Here’s a link to the article that profoundly studies this issue: where the Russian sector originates from, why it still exists, the peculiarities of the Russian-speaking community. This is an excerpt from a serious sociological study, commissioned by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. The article was strikingly unpopular when it was first published. Why? Because it doesn’t say anything about which of the sectors is bad. And who needs all the rest?

Should we learn the second language, speak both of them and unite the sectors? Should we expand our info sphere? Create new opportunities for communication? Learn English and find common ground at least through that?

That would be nice, but how would we say then that ‘a true citizen should know his native language’? or, ‘there are so many bridge-and-tunnel people over here’? It’s ‘music to one’s ear’, isn’t it? In this case, some feel themselves fervent patriots, while others –the insulted intelligentsia. And the opponents would have been on an equal footing if Baku’s Russian-speaking community hadn’t been exactly 10 times smaller in size than the Azerbaijani-speaking one, including if the calls for patriotism and spy-hunt hadn’t been the most popular, unpunished and most widespread pretexts for harassment in Azerbaijan.