Real estate genius?

The latest evidence of the wealth accruing to the ruling family in Azerbaijan has been published on the Internet. This article by the Times details the real estate riches acquired by Heydar Aliyev, the 12-year-old son of the current president of Azerbaijan. Nine luxury properties in Dubai had been bought during a two-week period last year when the youth spent $44 million. In all, the president's children have real estate holdings of about $75 million.

This is wonderful. It's very important that young people be taught how to invest and save. The president is setting a fine example for other parents in Azerbaijan, encouraging his son's thrift and enterprise.

President Ilham Aliyev indeed sets a very notable example, and apparently, it has an effect. The country, after all, is recognized for its stubbornly high level of corruption.

It's also recognized for its high level of income disparity. While the president's son is investing millions of dollars in Dubai, the yearly gross national income per capita is roughly $666.

(As it happened, I needed to talk with someone in Azerbaijan this morning. The journalist I was contacting, however, couldn't talk because her newsroom was facing a momentary crisis. The news outlet's website was facing very strange and serious problems. Very mysterious. Perhaps the president does not want to share the news about his financially savvy son?)

Let's not be offensive!

As we learn from a recent RFE article, the journalists from Yeni Musavat are the latest members of the press to come under pressure in Azerbaijan. While the journalists aren't under fire from the government, the source of their problems is damn close. The president's brother - Jalal Aliyev - said he was offended by an article an article that claimed some unfinished buildings in the capital belong to him. The article also maintained that no one complains about their incomplete status because they're owned by the president's brother.

Makes sense to me - but Jalal is offended by this assertion.

I'm reminded of a few things.

1. The many construction sites all over Baku - sites that grew like mushrooms, in defiance of any understanding of the law of supply and demand. Who was going to live in these luxury apartments? Everyone just assumed that construction was some not so secret way of money laundering.

2. The conversation I had with a newspaper editor in the country, not long after I moved there. In our conversations, at a certain point he referred to another newspaper being owned by the family. I asked "what family?" "The family," he informed me, was the term referring to the president's family. It's not like the president himself owned all that much - but rather the holdings were like some sort of large & extended business.

So - his brother is in the family & he owns a bunch of buildings.

Surprised? I'm not.

The importance of smashing idealism

OL! has a nice little interview with Ziya Aliyev, senior investigator of the Sabail Region district. Aliyev is the fellow supposedly investigating the case of Adnan Hajizadah & Emin Milli Abdullayev. As you recall, the two activists were arrested earlier this month, and were last week sentenced to two months pre-trial detention.

Their sentence came despite the fact that according to witnesses, they were the ones who were assaulted. That's the way it works in Azerbaijan. If you are a critic of the government, you are likely to be assaulted, and then be arrested for committing the assault. It's as logical as the rest of the governance there.

Since the arrest of the two young men, the action of the Azerbaijan government has been condemned by the representatives of the European Union and the United States. But this apparently has not changed the course chosen by the Azerbaijan government. They assume - probably correctly - that the fuss will settle down, and then sufficient punishment will be inflicted on Adnan and Emin to further intimidate the opposition with Azerbaijan. And the people running the country can proceed with their corrupt practices within their long-suffering country.

When I was working in Azerbaijan, I observed that corruption is useful to the authoritarian rulers in at least two ways. Most obviously, corruption personally enriches them. A huge chain of corruption has been built, and the top representatives of the government are the greatest beneficiaries. But secondly, corruption works to sap the strength of any opposition. If corruption is all pervasive, then even the opponents of the government can be snared in the sticky web. For this reason, true idealism - which is found most often in the young - can be the greatest threat to such a regime.

The persecution of Adnan and Emin may seem to be completely disproportionate to their offenses or the threat they posed - but their persecution is not directed at just two individuals. The rulers of Azerbaijan are intending to teach all young activists a lesson. To all those idealistic youths who took to the streets this spring, the Masters say, "Look at Emin and Adnan. This fate could be yours. Behave!"

Victims jailed and the guilty parties walk

Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizada have been sentenced to two months "pre-trial investigative detention." Presumably this is for investigation into the incident where they were both assaulted and seriously injured. Confused? You should be.

There is a movie called Absurdistan. Azerbaijan is perceived to be the model for the fictional country. It is such incidents that cause such perceptions. Yes, if you are assaulted in Azerbaijan, you will be jailed and your assailant will go free.

Of course, this is the case if you are a trouble-making activists like Emin Milli and Adnan Hajizada. Emin Milli was agitating on the Internet, using Facebook to get the word out about protests and the conditions in Azerbaiajan. Adnan Hajizada was one of the founders of OL Youth group. This group also used the Internet to publicize the problems that young people in Azerbaijan face. Radio Free Liberty has an article about the case. Global Voices and Flying Carpets and Broken Pipelines write about the case as well.

Officials from the US Embassy & the Norwegian Embassy are objecting to the persecution of the activists - but I don't hold much hope that external pressure will change things. To me, the case is a reminder that even authoritarian governments are not monolithic. Within the power structure, there may be different elements that have different agendas. Some people in Azerbaijan breathed a sigh of relief last month, when legislation concerning NGOs was not as restrictive as feared. As it was - it is plenty restrictive - but perhaps it was less than some hard liners wanted. Here is an example of the hard line elements in the government taking off their gloves - and showing human rights activists - and the populace in general - that they better not make noise about the thieves who are running their country.

Student blog from Azerbaijan

Here's a new resource for people trying to keep a finger on the pulse of young people in Azerbaijan.

TƏHSİL XƏBƏRLƏRİ is written by students in Azerbaijan. The title means roughly "Education News." There is a "button" to provide an English translation of the site, although the translations are really brief summaries of the articles. Translating is a lot of work! Nonetheless, if you check it out you'll get an idea about what educated young people in Azerbaijan are doing. In my experience, they have a lot of idealistic energy, much of it frustrated by the government.

Even the summaries can give you a flavor of life there. For example:

"Head of press service of Tefekkur University Shirmammad Khanmammadov was arrested while selling forged diploma."

"Students of Chemistry faculty of Azerbaijan State Pedagogical University (ASPU) are forced to bribe."

"Illegal actions are continued at Baku State University (BSU)."

I commend the young people of Azerbaijan for persisting in their efforts to bring greater democracy and honesty to their society!

Demonstrations in Baku

Harlem

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?


Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

by Langston Hughes

-----

Azerbaijan is far from Harlem of Langston Hughes, but today I was thinking about the concepts he expresses in this poem. A friend of mine sent me information this morning about the student demonstrations in Baku.

Here also is a link to the blog of Ilgar Mammamadov. He was one of the first political bloggers in the country, and I see that he was at the protests and is writing about them.

An Azerbaijani friend of mine later explained that the students wanted a day of remembrance for the victims, but the police were trying to control all the expressions of sorrow. I think the authorities are reflexively trying to restrain all spontaneous expressions. At the demonstration, the students were told to disperse. Also, the police interfered with the demonstration - with plain-clothed policemen telling the students to go in one direction, while uniformed cops sent them a different way.

This repressive reaction on the part of the government is part of living in an authoritarian country. All spontaneous action and communication is suspect - even if it is patently non-political. But - by trying to restrain such natural and human impulses - the authorities only will make things worse for themselves. The control will chafe more on the feelings of the people - who know that the government does not represent them - but feel powerless to make any changes.

Interesting - that in one of the news accounts here, the students are quoted as chanting "No terror, no corruption."

While the government may argue that it innocent in this particular terrorism incident, the complaints about corruption certainly hit close to home.

Such government repression can create serious consequences for the people in charge. Think Bloody Sunday, Jan. 22, 1905, when peaceful demonstrators in St. Petersburg were killed by the tsar's police. Or - perhaps more relevantly, think of Qara Yanvar, when 26,000 Soviet troops stormed Baku and killed hundreds of unarmed residents of the city. The killings were followed by stubborn resistance and 40 days of mourning, while the country engaged in a de facto strike. While the intervention by the soldiers was to maintain Soviet power, the opposite occurred. The country declared its independence the following year.

I'm not saying in anyway that the student demonstrations are similar to either of these historical events. But - I do believe that in situations when a population does not feel represented by its government, non-political events can have political consequences that are surprising and seem to be out of proportion.

Protesting an unjust decision

I chatted today - via e-mail - with Parviz, my former student who was expelled last month for writing about corruption at his university. He sounded defiant - but he also seems resigned to the fact that the expulsion from the university is unlikely to be reversed. I asked about his plans. Parviz said he is contacting international organizations and protesting the decision. I'm posting YouTube footage of a protest held earlier this week. The footage and an article about the case can be found at this site - but it's all in Azerbaijani.

While his case is unusual in one sense - in many ways his situation isn't that odd. He is trapped, like so many Azerbaijanis. I suggested that leaving the country for awhile might be a good idea. It's not an option, he said. And even if it were - what does this mean? That the brightest and most courageous young people must leave the land of their birth?

An uphill fight

In some ways - I almost feel sorry for the authorities at Lenkoran State University, where my student Parviz was expelled last month. (The expulsion was just made public last week.) The authorities may not have understood his character. He's a very tenacious guy - and very brave. Very few students would dare to take on their professors and their school administrators over the issue of bribery.

If school officials thought that expelling him from the university would make the issue go away, they are sadly mistaken. Parviz is petitioning parliament on the issue, and I don't think he's just going to be quiet about the issue. He shouldn't. After all, I firmly believe the facts are on his side. I had so many people complain to me about the corruption in the school system when I was teaching over there. Americans who taught on Fulbright Fellowships talked about it. The students, of course, complained. One of my students - who herself wanted to become a teacher - couldn't enter her profession because she couldn't pay the requisite bribes. The system is shot through with corruption - and everyone knows it.

Silence is the necessary accomplice to corruption. Maybe the matter of Parviz will open the proverbial can of worms. Who knows where it will send? After all, it's not just the education system that is corrupt - as anyone who knows Azerbaijan will tell you. Several years ago, Azerbaijan was ranked lower than Nigeria in the corruption index compiled by Transparency International. When I talked to Azerbaijanis, this corruption was a source of shame for many, but the problem seemed like it was insurmountable, as daunting as the creation of a real democracy.

Here's a link to a little news conference held a few days ago on the subject of Parviz's expulsion from the university.

My last class

A beautiful new set of Azerbaijan postcards has been introduced to the stores in downtown Baku. It's a welcome addition to a postcard selection that previously was composed solely of photos from Soviet days. These cards were amusing & quaint - but really not that scenic. The new ones, however, feature scenes from the deep mountains and remote villages, places that probably 99 percent of the tourists will never see.

No surprisingly, no scenes from the stretch of land from Lenkoran to Baku are included on these new postcards. I returned from Lenkoran today - returning from teaching my last group of students in this country. This stretch of land makes the middle of Ohio look scenic. Mile after mile after mile of flat salt marsh and scrub land. It's not on the postcards - but it's real Azerbaijan too.

I'll include a couple of shots from the trip - and also a less scenic but very gratifying shot of a newspaper. This is the newspaper article that one of our students published in the local newspaper. Each of our students has to complete a video project, maintain a blog, and write a newspaper article. This is definitely the best newspaper article to come out of this term. To be honest, however, I asked him to delay publishing it because I wanted to see more documentation.

The article is about corruption at Lenkoran State University. The headline says roughly "An open bazaar behind closed doors." We talked quite a lot about the article yesterday. After the article was published, all his sources were summoned into the office of the university president or dean. (I'm not sure which.)

Will one article change the climate of corruption in the educational system? Of course not. But - perhaps such articles might get people talking about the subject more openly. And corruption shrinks from public examination. So - if the forbidden layers that surround corruption are peeled away, perhaps the problem will become less pervasive and powerful.

The Carousel of Corruption?

It seems a bit curmudgeonly to complain about a carousel - but I will. The carousel pictured above is certainly one of the most elaborate ones I’ve ever seen. Certainly more elaborate than the ones in Central Park, NYC.

The carousel is part of a never-ending renovation process on what is called the “Bulvar” or boulevard, the well-used walkway by the Caspian Sea in Baku. I’ve seen the carousel in the process of installation over the last month or so - but today was the first time I’ve seen it whirling around.

So, what’s not to like about a carousel? It’s a beautiful attraction, after all. Good clean fun. And the whole renovation process keeps people employed - although many of the laborers seem to be Chinese - not Azeri.

I guess the thing that bothers me is that when I see such expensive attractions and renovations, I think about meager pensions and salaries. I think about the stipends for students that are promised and not paid. And what is the economic or political principle that means funding such high-profile public works projects is more attractive than investing in less grandiose infrastructure improvements? Is one type of expenditure more easy to divert for private gain? Why?

I have my hunches about the answers to these questions - but really answering them could be difficult - or dangerous.

Stories

I met up today with one of our former students from the Baku journalism program. She’s living now in Baku, working as a poorly paid journalist. We chatted about friends and what they’re doing - and then about what she’s doing. She wanted to get some of her articles translated into English - not an easy task, really. My friend really has some interesting work, and it reminded me of the tangled knot of problems this country faces.

One example. Last year, the government agency in charge of education decreed that all primary school students needed uniforms. But - the tender for providing these uniforms was not awarded competitively, so not surprisingly the uniforms were expensive and shoddy. Because they are so expensive, many families face additional hardships, outfitting their children for school.

So - again we have a decision made to benefit inside cronies that directly harms the welfare of ordinary Azerbaijanis. This is true in so many sectors of the economy. The monopoly on cement - held by a government insider - forces higher building costs - which again affects the whole economy. There is even a government monopoly on the import of shoes. I personally know two people who were forced out of business because of this monopoly. Who benefits from these monopolies and uncompetitive tenders? Government insiders. But because the government is not run democratically, there is no systematic way to cleanse the “rent takers,” as they are called in political science. Sure - one government official might fall from favor and lose his comfy post, but he will be replaced by an official that will almost certainly be or become equally corrupt.

My friend’s article was published in one of the few independent newspapers. But changing the pattern of corruption will take more than a few newspaper articles.

(Above is a picture of the Kepez Hotel, mentioned in the previous post. Not scenic in any sense -but a remarkably good example of Soviet architecture.)

Thinking about corruption

“What is corruption?” This is the question that I asked to begin the Wednesday’s class discussion of the subject. It’s always important to clarify the definition of the subject, especially in the case of corruption, by its nature a murky topic.

The answers to the question were various – none wrong, none right. The first thing I told the students was that while I have some answers, I do not have all the answers. And the process of finding the answers is much more important than the answers themselves.

I did offer them my own rough definition of corruption. It’s not original – but I can’t remember the first source where I saw it: Corruption: the betrayal of public trust for private gain. I like this definition particularly because it does not involve breaking the law. The point I wanted to make to my students is that journalists can be – and are – corrupt when they betray public trust for private gain. This is an important point here and in many other countries where the free media remain relatively undeveloped. Journalists are known to threaten people with the publication of false and damaging information, unless they are paid off. They write articles in exchange for payment. They misuse the privileges of their job, using “press” stickers on their cars to evade traffic and parking restrictions.

The discussion that followed really was wonderful. The students – all young people between the ages of 16 and 30 – have great experience with corruption. When we began talking about the subject, they could easily offer concrete examples of how it affects their lives. One student told how a decision by the ministry of education virtually guarantees the sale of diplomas. Another student, one of the brightest in the class, told how entry into a university is essentially impossible without the payment of a bribe, even if he excels academically.

I concluded the discussion by asking them their opinions about what is the solution to the problem. I received answers that fell into two main categories: the solution to the problem lies with the individual and the solution lies with the government.

Both of these answers could be judged correct. We all bear individual responsibility for our correct behavior. We are responsible for our own morality, and a society composed of individuals who refuse to participate in corruption will not be corrupt. But a government ideally will aggregate the wishes of its subjects. If the people really do not want corruption, the government should respond to these wishes and effectively implement anti-corruption measures. In Azerbaijan, this doesn’t happen. In fact, the government effectively encourages corruption with a number of policies. The policy that grants economic monopolies to connected individuals is an abuse of public trust for private gain. The bidding process for contracts with the government is widely acknowledged to be completely corrupt. The list goes on and on. If the government depended on democratic consent to hold power, it would change such policies. But it does depend on democratic consent, so it won’t change its policies.

Nonetheless, discussions about such issues can be useful. I encouraged my students to begin blogging about the subject. I will be interested to see what they write.

What it takes to become a teacher here

One of my favorite parts of this class is talking about story ideas. It’s interesting for me – to see how students think about the news. I also learn about their world as they suggest ideas for articles. Many of the ideas that students suggested were good. Many were vague and not feasible. By the end of class, however, we had nine solid topics for articles. If five students follow through and actually write a decent article, I will be very pleased. My experience so far has been that students are reasonably good about coming up with ideas. Completing the work and writing the article, however, is another story.

As often happens, I get little glimpses of my students’ lives as they describe the issues that are close to their heart. One interesting exchange came today as a student started describing how she wanted to do an article about unemployment. I said this subject was too broad, and we started to talk in more detail about what was on her mind. As it turned out, she is trained as a teacher, and only works as a journalist as a hobby. Needless to say, she receives almost no money for the articles that she writes. Why is she not working as a teacher? She doesn’t work as a teacher because she cannot afford the $1,000 bribe that is needed to get a teaching position. So, she is barely employed as a writer for a local newspaper. I think it is more accurate to say she is unemployed. And this is a subject that is close to her heart.

As we talked, I suggested some ways to write about the subject. As we are now entering August, it is timely to think about school and teachers. What is needed to become a teacher in this city? That is the story as we left it this afternoon. I hope that she can write this story. It is an important subject that touches on a number of different areas. The education system. Corruption. Protection of corruption by high officials. I didn’t tell her this, but I expect that she knows – that if she actually writes this article and it is published under her name, she will never get a job as a teacher.

Actually, maybe we should talk about this, just in case this fact hadn’t occurred to her already. On the other hand, it looks like she’ll never work as a teacher in any case!

After work, I took a taxi ride to the nearby village of Fazil, where archeologists have been excavating an underground labyrinth. A new museum is dedicated to the archeological project, but the museum was closed when we arrived. The labyrinth, of course, was underground and invisible to us. Some sheep grazed on the mounds, presumably unaware of the site's historical significance.