Winter (January 2002) Volume 2, Issue 1
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Azeri Voice Community Newsletter for Azeri Diaspora The First World Congress of Azerbaijanis An opinion byRufat Hamidov T  he First World Congress of Azerbaijanis which took place on November 9-10, 2001 in Baku gathered about 1500 delegates and 900 quests from 36 countries of the world. The congress became a bright event in the life of the capital of Azerbaijan and a subject for discussion at all levels. Starting from November 5, 2001 almost all radio and TV channels, both state and independent, began to illustrate the arrival of the eminent representatives of the Azerbaijani Diaspora. The congress started at 10 o’clock on November 9th in “Respublika” Palace. It was astonishing to watch Azerbaijanis from all over the world, speaking the native language with different dialect, singing national anthem of Azerbaijan together. After salutatory speech of the President of Azerbaijan Republic and the statements of the leaders and representatives of Azeri communities, the participants continued their work in 8 working groups - commissions. On 10-th of November the representatives of working groups announced the reports. Later the “Coordination Council of the World Azerbaijanis” was established and its members elected the Board. It was decided to hold such forums once per three years. The Congress, as the first one in the history of independent Azerbaijan, had more symbolical, than practical meaning, which was emphasized by its coincidence with the 10th anniversary of Azerbaijan’s Day of State Independence (October 18). The congress became also the first gathering in the history of Azerbaijani Diaspora which was fully financed by the government of Azerbaijan. At this congress not only Azerbaijani emigrant communities, such as "World Azerbaijanis Congress", "Russia’s Azerbaijanis Congress", “Ukraine’s Azerbaijanis Congress” took part, but also well-known non-Azerbaijani researchers known by their objective position towards our Motherland also participated. All of them were placed in respectable hotels of city and enjoyed a special cultural program. By the estimations of the local press the organization of the Congress took about 1 million US dollars. However it must be also noted that there are different approaches to the Congress between members of the Diaspora. The attempt of the Azerbaijani Government to unite world Azerbaijanis into Diaspora network is the object of criticism. Also, the sum spent on organizing the event is being criticized. But it should be noted that spiritual meaning of Congress and the great hopes it has given to Azerbaijanis (including those who live in refugee camps) obviously can not be estimated in any kind of money equivalent. Having paid the expenses of the congress, Azerbaijan Republic has achieved the participation of those compatriots who were not able to participate in congresses due to lack of travel funds. I am hopeful that the congress will encourage the consolidation of World Azerbaijanis around our independent republic. Rufat Hamidov is a graduate of school of law at the Baku State University. He can be contacted at rufat1918@yahoo.co.uk First Congress of Azerbaijanis of World November 9-10, 2001 
The 1st Congress of Azerbaijanis of the World was held on 9-10 November in Baku. It was organized by the Azerbaijan Republic’s Government and some $ 1 million were spent from the state budget to finance the event. At the beginning of the Congress, participants addressed to the American people, the US congressmen and US President Mr George W. Bush after the terrorist acts, and support their principled stance on this issue. The first congress of Azerbaijanis of the World declared that the acts of terrorism committed in the United States on 11 September 2001 and the tragedy of many people losing their lives as a result of these acts, have made Azerbaijanis, like all the progressive people of the world, both angry and sad. Participants also appealed to the international community for help in peacefully resolving the Karabakh conflict, urging them to differentiate between the Armenian aggressor and Azerbaijan - the victim of this aggression. The appeal said that the new world order following the 11 September events in the USA meant the time was right to resolve Karabakh now as "aggressive separatism", such as that seen in Karabakh, is closely linked with international terrorism. After that, the Congress continued its work in 8 working commissions. At the end of the second day, the participants took a decision to form Coordinating Council of 102 members and elected 23 members of the presidium of the Coordinating Council. The president of the Azerbaijani National Academy of Sciences, Mahmud Karimov, was elected chairman of the presidium; while the head of the public and political department of the Presidential Executive Staff, Ali Hasanov, the chairwoman of the society of Azerbaijanis of the USA, Tomris Azari, the head of the All-Russia congress of Azerbaijanis, Mammad Aliyev, and Professor of Edinburgh University Rza Tabrizli were elected deputy chairpersons of the presidium. The presidium also includes Azerbaijanis from Germany, Ukraine, Georgia, Britain, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. President Heydar Aliyev, officials from the presidential executive staff, government and Baku mayor's office, MPs, artists, representatives of public organizations, journalists, sportsmen and Azerbaijanis from Russia, France, Britain, Sweden, Germany, Canada, USA, Norway, Iraq, Israel, Baltic states and CIS countries are members of the Coordinating Council. The congress adopted a resolution and appeal to Azerbaijanis of the world. The resolution says that the sacred duty of every Azerbaijani is to defend the territorial integrity of the Azerbaijani Republic, develop and strengthen the republics' statehood, preserve the language and moral values of the Azerbaijani people and dignity of the historical motherland. Azerbaijan should take an active part in the life of the countries where Azerbaijanis live and create a Diaspora and lobby. The appeal to Azerbaijanis of the world says that people who consider Azerbaijan to be their historical motherland should participate in the country's life, unite around the idea of national statehood and show solidarity in resolving problems common to the whole nation. An organized activity of the Azerbaijani national community in countries of the world is huge support to the motherland. Azerbaijan has great potential in this sphere. A decision was taken to hold congresses of Azerbaijanis of the world every three years. Interview with Tomris Azeri, ASA President 2001 has been very busy for Azerbaijan Society of America. In this issue, “Azeri Voice” interviewed ASA President about the past work and future plans. 
1) Tomris hanum, tell us little bit about ASA's main activities in 2001? In 2001 we worked very hard to get ourselves heard in the US Congress through the letter campaigns and visits to our representatives on the issues of sections 907 and our occupied lands. We organized several events to gather the Azeri community to celebrate our holidays such as Novruz, May 28th, and our 10th years of Independence on October 18th and just last week we celebrated the Solidarity Day of Azerbaijan. 2) ASA took part in the first World Azerbaijani Forum in Baku this past November. You headed ASA's delegation to this forum. Could you share your impressions about the work of the forum? All four members from ASA attended the Forum were honored to be part of this historic event. This event was important for both Azerbaijan and Azeri-Americans. Taking part in this very informative and culturally essential Forum was an important step to showing national independence, national solidarity, and the value of common heritage in developing strong recognition and strong Diaspora. We all felt this unity was important for us to develop a strong working relationship with our government, culturally, socially and economically. 3) What are main challenges in the work of Azeri Diaspora nowadays? There are a few main difficulties and challenges facing the Azeri community here in the United States: a) The main challenge is finding and procuring enough funds from various private individual and public sources to maintain and diversify the types of events we organize, the modes of communication that we employ to inform Azeris here of our activities and Azeris abroad of the on-goings of the ASA. Funding, as you might well know, is the most difficult obstacle facing most organizations and private groups here in the US. Funding is necessary for all of our activities and is the lifeblood of the ASA. Without the generous donations from individuals and other organizations concerned with our cause, there would be no ASA nor would there be any organized effort here in the US to define and clarify the Azeri situation here in the US and in Azerbaijan. b) The second most important challenge to the Azeri community in the US is the daunting task of communicating with all of them our activities and our functions. We need diverse methods of communication (again, which all require some type of funding for production costs, etc.) to inform our group members and to inform others interested in our community and our culture. Without these different methods of communication (newsletters, flyers of events, word-of-mouth through the community, phone calls, and email) our organization could not succeed and would not be able to be as successful as it currently is. c) Finally, and the most intangible of challenges is maintaining solidarity and unity in our nationalistic causes and support of Azerbaijan as an important and independent nation leading the way in the region. Trying to convince and trying to show our constituency that this is a cause worth fighting for and speaking out for is very difficult. We must inculcate into our group and into our culture the notion that the Azeri society is not blemished as others might make our culture out to be. We indeed have a brilliant cultural heritage and a long tradition of independence and resolve. IN short, we must constantly remind ourselves that solidarity and unity are important intangible qualities necessary for the success of our organization and our culture. 4) You were elected as the deputy chairwoman of the World Azerbaijani Forum. What will be the priorities (main directions) in your future activities? First I want to say that this is a great honor for me to be in the presence of and be working with the president of the Academy of Sciences Dr. Mahmud Kerimov. It is an honor for me to be elected to this board. Here are few of the future activities I would like to see us pursue. a) Education: First and foremost, we must make a concerted effort to educate not only those people who view Azeri culture negatively, but we must educate our own young to believe in the strength of Azeri culture, history and in the bright future that we have as a nation. b) We must involve the brilliant young Azeri minds throughout the world--many living in the United States or in Europe, engaging in higher education--to focus on the important cultural heritage of the Azeri people. We must bring these young into the fray and get them to be actively involved in different functions, events, and in disseminating information. c) We are actively engaged in curriculum changes in American universities: we want the creation and inclusion of Azeri culture, history, and language in specific institutions of higher education. We want language courses in Azeri to be made available to those who might have interest in pursuing the Azeri language as a course of study. We must bring together both senior scholars of Azerbaijan and graduate students in struggling for these types of curricular changes. New classes will not only add to the notion of a liberal education that the US system prides itself on, but it will add more viewpoints from which difficult historical issues maybe addressed and argued--critically and without bias--in a classroom setting. 5) Finally, Tomris hanum, could you share with us your impressions of Azerbaijan after so many years of living abroad? Trips back home are important for all Azeris not living in Azerbaijan—we can reconnect and reestablish bonds of nationality and pride that has stretched in some cases over the years and over the continents. As always, I was pleased and proud to be home. Meeting so many new Azeri friends from all over the world was great. Visiting the places where my ancestors lived and were buried was very important to me. I was pleased to see so many changes in Baku and so many happy young faces. This is how I want to see my people in my home country. Tomris Azeri can be contacted at Diaspora News .
Solidarity Day Celebration 
On Friday, December 21, 2001 Azerbaijan Society of America has celebrated December 31- Solidarity Day of World Azerbaijanis by organizing a music event in New York. ASA President Ms. Tomris Azeri reported that around 60 guests have attended. The musicians for the event included Shirvan Mugham Trio, with singer Samir Shirinov, Namik Rzyev (Tar), Elton Nagiyev (Kamancha). Representatives of Azerbaijani embassy in the US and Azerbaijan’s permanent mission to the UN also took part in the event. Dr. Chehregani visits Sweden World Azerbaijani Congress reported that Azerbaijan Federasion Isvec (Azerbaijan Federation of Sweden) has organized a first-ever visit of prominent leader of South Azerbaijan in Iran Dr. Mahmud Chehregani to Sweden. There, Dr. Chehregani met with the Azeri diaspora and there representatives Dr. Ferzane, Mr. Eldar Geredagli, Dr. Javad Derexti and Jabbar Settaroglu. Dr. Chehregani also held meetings in Azeri organizations “Savalan” and “Birlik” in Geteburg About 50 million Azeris living in 70 countries - agency report Azerbaijani news agency Turan reported on 9 November that according to the Motherland society Azeris are currently living in 70 countries of the world. The same source said that the total number of Azeris is about 50 million. There are 150 societies of the Azerbaijani Diaspora throughout the world. Unofficial reports say that about 30 million Azeris are living in Iran (southern Azerbaijan). There are major Azerbaijani communities in Turkey, Russia, Iraq, the USA, Germany and some other European countries. Only a few Azeris are living in Columbia, Brazil and Nigeria.
Vatan had held a lecture dedicated to refugee situation in Azerbaijan on November 8, 2001, at the London School of Economics. The speaker, Neil MacFarlane, Professor of International Relations and Director of Center for International Studies at Oxford University, is a well known academic, who traveled extensively in refugee – camps and wrote on Azerbaijan and Karabagh dispute, with a particular emphasis on the humanitarian aspect of the conflict. During the one hour presentation Professor MacFarlane covered in depth the situation facing some 600,000 IDPs from Azeri territories occupied by the Armenian forces as well as nearly 300,000 refugees from Armenia, Chechnya and other parts of the former Soviet Union e.g. some 50,000 Meskheti Turks fled ethnic strife in Uzbekistan in 1989 and settled in Azerbaijan Republic. Socio-economic, political and psychological problems facing the refugee population, such as poverty and chronic unemployment, communicable diseases, aid-dependency and lack of political representation, were addressed in the talk. Particular attention was paid to emerging factor of donor-fatigue, with international aid agencies withdrawing support because of longevity of the displacement and new crises elsewhere in the world. Professor MacFarlane covered the issue of the return of refugees to their homelands, giving special consideration to Armenia’s refusal to allow Azeris to return to Shusha, Lachin and other parts of the Mountainous Karabagh – integral territory of Azerbaijan, occupied by the Armenian Republic. He added that prospects for a peaceful settlement of the Karabagh conflict remain elusive and improbable in the foreseeable future. Professor argued that unless refugees and IDPs return to their homes en masse or are settled elsewhere in Azerbaijan (something Azeri government is unlikely to do), their situation would worsen rapidly. Radicalization and politicization of the refugee population may be one of the outcomes. The lecture was followed by a presentation of Azerbaijan-related materials (books and magazines) at the Waterstones Economist Bookshop (one of the largest specialist book stores in London) in Clare Market, LSE. Several publications on display were exclusively on the topic of Karabagh. The whole selection will go on general sale from 12.11.01. The event marks another stage in Information Proliferation Program, launched by Vatan a year ago to provide nationwide distribution of Azeri-related materials and publications in the UK. In October, 2001 Vatan secured an official supplier status with Waterstones, which paves the way for a wider distribution program in 2002. Vatan will be holding the following events next year: 17 January 2002 "Challenge to Tehran: Growth of Azerbaijani National Movement in Iran" Speakers: Sharokh Mazhari (World Azerbaijanis Congress); Prof. Sabri Tabrizi (Uni. Of Edignburgh); Chair: Murad Gassanly Venue: London School of Economics 24 January 2002 "Armenian Allegations of Genocide: Facts and Realities" Prof Ataov Arslan and Prof Sabri Tabrizi (tbc); Chair Murad Gassanly Venue: LSE 23 February 2002 Vatan Society has called for all- Turkic Diaspora demonstration outside the Armenian Embassy in the UK at 25 Cheniston Gardens. "Avenge Khodjaly" shall be our battlecry 26 February 2002 "Massacre of the Innocents: Khodjaly Memorial Lecture" Venue : LSE (tbc) Speakers: Thomas Goltz, journalist and an eye-witness; Prof Sabri Tabrizi; Murad Gassanly; we are talking to Amnesty International to provide a fourth speaker and a film will also be shown. Chair: Samed Azimov (General Secretary, Vatan Society) Interested people should contact Murad Oguz-Gasanli at m.oguz-gassanly@lse.ac.uk Azeri Concert in Canada Azeri Community Association of Ontario (ACAO), a Canada based, nonprofit community organization has organized a concert on November 4th 2001 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of restoring Azerbaijan's Independence. This cultural event featured Azerbaijan's finest Opera master Lutfiyar Imanov. A superb voice of Azerbaijan's opera and vocal traditions, Imanov evokes epic memories of Azerbaijan's treasured opera: Koroghlu, in which Lutfiyar Imanov performs as the lead tenure. The event took place in University of Toronto. For further information, please contact Board of Directors Azeri Community Association of Ontario (ACAO) at: A_C_A_O@hotmail.com Interview In an effort to reach out to all Azeris, living and working in the US, “Azeri Voice” has conducted an interview with Dr. Jeyhun Mollazade, President of US-Azerbaijan Council. His answers give an interesting perspective on Diaspora issues. (Due to limited space, we give here only excerpts of the whole interview) 1) Jeyhun bey, as a person, who has been dealing with Azeri Diaspora in US for over 10 years, what is your assessment of its past and current conditions and changes within these 10 years? My assessment is as follows, one of the problems that we have faced as a Diaspora is that as a group of people or a community of people living within the United States we are not numerous. Most of the people of Azeri descent have come mainly from Iran and from this minority only a small group identify themselves as Azeris, and in turn only a few are sympathetic to Azeri causes. Most of these people, though passive supporters are not really politically active, that is they do not actively petition their political representatives and rarely if ever contribute towards the Congressional or Senatorial campaigns of their district representatives. Currently and unfortunately there is no well-organized or influential Azeri-American Diaspora in the United States. Attempts to unite different groups of Azeris in 1997/98 failed amid acrimonious accusations about where their loyalties actually lay between Azerbaijan or Iran? 2) In your opinion, what were the main challenges and obstacles for the strengthening of Azeri Diaspora in the past decade? One challenge that the Azeri Diaspora has is that its roots are relatively young compared with for example the Jewish or Turkish Diaspora in this country. This means also that in absolute numbers we represent a very small part of the general population of the United States. There are also problems of practicality, such as for example the fact that younger and more recent arrivals concentrate their efforts primarily on finding themselves a livelihood in the United States. Once they are busy establishing themselves and raising families they find little time to participate in the political process of this country. Another challenge has been the split within the Azeri-American Diaspora. Amongst Azeri-Iranian,s there is split between those who support the former Shah of Iran, those who support various leftist parties in Iran and others with various political affiliations. Many of these Azeri-Iranians may identify themselves culturally with Azerbaijan but their identification does not translate into support for our political or national causes such as for example over Nagorno-Karabakh. Within the Azeri-American Diaspora from Azerbaijan proper, there are differences, which further divide us. There are for example people who support the government and then there are those who support Azerbaijan’s opposition political parties. The Azeri-American Diaspora from Azerbaijan proper is even smaller as a group than the Azeri-American Diaspora from Iran, which means our numbers are in relative terms are very small and which also means that our ability to influence policy on causes of interest to us are at present severely diluted. A very big challenge to overcome in order to strengthen the Azeri Diaspora in the past decade has been the absence of a coordinated effort to establish a nationwide organization in the United States and to raise substantial funds for it to enable it to undertake the coordination of numerous activities to raise the profile of our cause within the US. It would have been very good to have regional, city or state chapters of such an organization, to raise the profile of Azeris and Azerbaijan locally. 3) What needs to be done to further strengthen and unite Azeri Diaspora? What are the challenges for the 21st century? To unite the Diaspora it is important to establish an organization such as for example an Azeri-American national assembly. This organization would bring together Azeris of different political opinions no matter what his or her political philosophy is, just as long as they are committed and sincere in advancing our cause. An intensive fund raising campaign would have to be undertaken in order to provide funds for the establishment of a national headquarters with a capable staff. This organization could then reach out to the media advocating our causes and building a lobbying network to reach out to Congressmen and Senators. This organization could also be active within political campaigns and within local communities. The organization could provide seminars to Azeri-Americans in order to educate them on how to become more political active in the US and therefore exercise their influence over US policy as US citizens do. Therefore they could make an invaluable contribution to the cause of Azeris in the US. 4) In your opinion, what is the role of Azeri students in this process? Although Azeri students cannot exercise full rights as US citizens can in the political process they can nonetheless play an important role by educating fellow students, professors and friends about causes that are important to Azeris. They can publish newsletters, which they can distribute over the Internet. However, professionalism in this respect is very important. Inflammatory public relations could be harmful and counterproductive in this respect. 5) What is the role of Azeri non-profit organizations in the US, like the one you founded, in strengthening of Azeri Diaspora? The United States-Azerbaijan Council is not an organization based on a particular ethnic background. We have a diverse membership and our volunteers come from many different backgrounds. Since 1995/96, I have been visiting and reaching out to different groups in the West, the Mid-West and Washington DC which although was not my objective resulted in the creation of the World Azerbaijani Congress by groups in Los Angeles and Washington DC. Regrettably, instead of focusing on the US, the World Azerbaijani Congress choose instead to focus its reach on a global basis, diluting at a stroke its ability to influence national events in the US. My personal preference was for the creation of an organization that would have been a national organization that is an American focused grouping. Similarly, a copycat organization formed by the Azeri government composed of a membership of a completely different set of Azeris has established itself on a global out reach basis. Again its effectiveness has been diluted and it lacks objectivity. I am more focused on an Azeri-American organization that is one that has national reach because I believe it can more tightly focus on immediate objectives and influence policy far more quickly than a global organization. I believe it would be better to create strong national organizations first such as for example organizations similar in nature to the one I have mentioned in Sweden, Germany, Russia etc etc. After this is done a global umbrella organization could be created to unify our Diaspora internationally. I believe that the attempt to create a global organization such as the World Azerbaijani Congress in 1997 was too early. National organizations wherever they maybe could be active and influential within their own communities by hiring Azeris with knowledge of law and political science from within their communities. The Azeri government could be instrumental and could do a lot more to help on a national basis. Instead of creating a disunited Diaspora as they so often have done they could do more to promote unity. I believe that there is a huge amount of unexplored potential waiting to be harnessed and the Diaspora should work in that direction. Today there are too many sporadic groups trying to do too many things. I also believe we can learn a lot from the positive experiences of organizations that work on behalf of Turkish and Jewish causes in the US. We should also work more closely with these organizations to get our message across. It is very important also to build networks amongst our non-Azeri American friends. We could establish and develop forums and develop relations with policy-makers, businesspersons, students, academics and all others amongst the intellectuals of our community to further promote our agenda. Thank You Very Much. Jayhun Mollazade http://www.usazerbaijancouncil.org/
www.azerbaijan.8m.com Use of Azeri banned in Iran's Azeri-language newspaper 
The Azerbaijani newspaper Ayna reported that the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has banned the use of the Azerbaijani language in the provincial newspaper Shams-e Tabriz published in Iran's Azeri-populated city of Tabriz. Protesting about this, the editor-in-chief of Shams-e Tabriz says that the ministry's action runs counter to Article 15 of Iran's Constitution and that there is no need to obtain special permission for using local languages. World Azerbaijani Congress has protested against this act of Iranian Government by issuing an appeal to media, international organizations and fellow Azerbaijanis. In the appeal, Dr. Javad Derekhti, chairman of the World Azerbaijani Congress has drawn attention to the illegal crack down on papers in Azeri Turkic by Law Enforcement Forces of Islamic Republic of Iran. The appeal says “Iranian regime has stepped up pressure on intellectuals in order to restrict the freedom of expression even further and reinforce harsher censorship. Closure of "Shams-i-Tebriz" in Tebriz, arrest of it's editor and ransacking the offices of "Nevid-i-Azerbaijan" in Urmiya by unknown individuals of so-called pressure group are new developments in proving our points. Unfortunately this is not the first time that the rights of over 30 million Southern Azerbaijani Turks are being violated and for sure it will not be the last either. As you are aware Southern Azerbaijanis are deprived of the right to education in their mother tongue and there is not even a single school in Azeri Turkic. In the course of the last century we fought to restore our rights against imperial forces of central government. (Sattar Khan (1905-1912), Mehemmed Khiyabani (1920), Cefer Pisheveri (1944-1945), uprising of 18 February 1978 in Tebriz and Sherietmedari in 1980). As a result of these uprisings some changes were made to the Iranian Constitutions but unfortunately neither Shah' neither regime nor Islamic Republic honoured their own constitutions. Our nation is subjected to racism and discrimination constantly. Southern Azerbaijani Intellectuals are being tortured and jailed for speaking their minds. Our historical homeland has been divided into scores of provinces or municipalities and put under control of other nations. Our historical monuments are being destroyed. Our culture has been banned. Our language has been forbidden. Our civilization is being ridiculed. In one sentence assimilation of Azerbaijanis into Iranian society is the official policy of Islamic Republic of Iran.” At the end of the appeal, WAC urges everyone to condemn closure of "Sheme-i-Tebriz" and attack on the offices of "Nevid-i-Azerbaijan). New Book on Azeri Diaspora P The “Azeri Voice” Newsletter is published by Azerbaijan Society of America. It expresses the views of Azeris around the world. The editorial staff of the newsletter bares no responsibility for the content of materials, submitted for the publication. For comments, contributions or subscriptions, please contact Fariz Ismailzade at fariz_1998@yahoo.com rofessor Vagif Arzumanli, Director of the Institute for International Relationships presented his book on the development phases of the Azerbaijani Diaspora. He said the Azerbaijani Diaspora has its own unique history of emergence, development and evolution. The Azerbaijani Diaspora was formed during the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic and developed in Turkey and Germany. In a later development, Azerbaijani emigrant communities were formed in other countries of Europe and Near East. Today, the Azerbaijani Diaspora has organizations in most countries of the world. In an interview with RFE/RL's Azerbaijan service, Arzumanli provided clarification for the disputable issue regarding the number of the Azerbaijani Diaspora. According to him, the Azerbaijanis living in Iran, Daghestan and Georgia are not included in the Diaspora. Because of this, it can be stated that the number of the Azerbaijani Diaspora is over 10 million.
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