r/azerbaijan • u/Reasonable-Oil6514 • 19h ago
Söhbət | Discussion Honestly, stop the BS
I swear, some of these Turkish people and the crowd that blames everything on Jews don’t know Azerbaijan at all, yet they talk with such confidence, as if they do. We kept saying this isn’t the first time. In the 2010s, there was a hijab ban in schools, mass Ashura gatherings were banned, the volume of the Adzan in mosques was reduced, and the crackdown was even harsher than anything now. Back then, there were actually more religious people than there are nowadays, Salafis, Wahhabis, pro-Iranian Shias, and women walking around in chadras, especially in the Yasamal/Kubinka/Nizami areas and on the outskirts of Baku. But social media wasn’t a thing like it is nowadays, so there wasn’t much fuss, so yeah. Since then, Azerbaijan has secularized rapidly. I mean, the population was always mostly irreligious, but these people are gone too. The mosques are empty, and there aren’t “Quran courses” and “Arabic language courses” on every other corner like there used to be. I doubt anyone who can’t analyze this even lives in Baku or old enough to observe these events lmao.
Yet now they come and explain the country to those of us who were around for those events, who heard with our own ears what was being said in those circles and saw it with our own eyes. In recent years (or shall I say after Khamenei's death?) these people have started growing again, which is very strange and should raise a lot of questions for fellow Azerbaijanis too. Aliyev is indeed an authoritarian, but how ignorant do you have to be to brush off every conversation with “he’s paranoid” or “he’s going crazy”? This negligence is our biggest problem.
Just food for thought below.
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u/Comfortable-Elk67 17h ago edited 16h ago
During the Karabakh war, Erdoğan stood firmly beside Azerbaijan. Turkiye and Azerbaijan presented themselves as brotherly nations, and the solidarity between the two peoples was visible everywhere. I remember the Turkish and Azerbaijani flags being waved side by side during the war, and Erdoğan was immensely popular among Azerbaijan Turks.
But now that the Karabakh conflict has been resolved and Russia and Iran are constrained, the relationship seems to be changing. In my view, the Azerbaijani leadership may now perceive the growing closeness between Turkiye and Azerbaijan as a potential long-term threat to its own political position and influence.
I have not seen Turkish officials conducting an anti-Azerbaijani campaign or making statements hostile toward Azerbaijan. Yet Azerbaijan state television has deliberately promoted the claim that there is a AKP state-sponsored anti-Azerbaijani propaganda campaign in Turkiye, despite there being no convincing evidence of such a campaign. That is deeply troubling.
There are also contradictions that are difficult to ignore. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus remains internationally unrecognized. Also Azerbaijan maintains close relations with Israel, even as Israel openly regards Turkiye as a major adversary and has strategic interests that directly affect Turkiye security environment.
So who is actually acting in bad faith here?
To me, this is simply unethical and represents one of the lowest forms of politics, deliberately turning peoples who once considered themselves brothers against one another for political advantage.
What shocked me most was seeing some Azerbaijani Turks on social media seemingly make a complete U-turn embracing Israel while suddenly insulting Anatolian Turks and calling them “Arabs.” This is particularly striking when you remember the extraordinary sense of brotherhood and solidarity between Anatolian and Azerbaijan Turks.