In Azerbaijan, multiculturalism is very much in vogue these days. After all, 2016 was the “Year of Multiculturalism”.
There is an advisor on multiculturalism, a department in the presidential administration, which has its municipal subsidiaries, and multiculturalism symposiums, conferences, rallies, and festivals are being held.
In the New Azerbaijan Party (YAP), there are mandatory multiculturalism Fridays. Just like in the honorable Soviet times, there are exchanges of experience in the field of multiculturalism, exchange trips by leading figures in multiculturalism; news anchors declare, with the most serious and solemn expressions on their faces, how the most recent foreign guest has expressed delight at the exceedingly high level of multiculturalism they observed in Azerbaijan.
In short, multiculturalism is becoming a brand image for the country, like the grenade, the oil pipeline and Formula 1.
The average citizen has every right not to know what this is.
I’ll give you the short version: this is the cherished dream of the peaceful coexistence and integration of various cultures within a single society. It’s a high-minded idea, but like all such ideas, it has led directly to the hell of the migrant crisis of Europe and the sharp, rightward swing of the population, which has begun voting for nationalists and xenophobes.
We don’t have to go far to look for examples, remember President Trump’s order banning the citizens of seven Muslim countries from entering the US. And then consider that six of these countries were demolished under the wise leadership of the multicultural USA. They were demolished, and as a result there appeared religious radicals and terrorists, with whom this same West is now fighting under the keen leadership of the USA.
Reality has done away with the starry-eyed dreams that Muslims in Europe will forget their traditions and be remade anew as tolerant Europeans.
In the late 1970s, an Iraqi Kurd moved to Sweden with his family. At that time it was particularly popular in Europe to love the Kurds. The head of a family gets settled in with a job, and receives as much in a month as he would in a year in Iraq. His children go to a Swedish school and grow up as free people. At 17 years old, the Kurd’s daughter falls in love with a young Swedish boy. She announces to her family that she and Sven have decided to get married. The father is furious: he promised his daughter to the son of the Sheikh of a Kurdish tribe in Iraq.
It will be a disgrace if he doesn’t keep his word. His daughter says that she won’t get married to a person she doesn’t love in far-off and unfamiliar Iraq, that she loves Sven, and he loves her. What? Love? The father cuts of the head of his insubordinate daughter. And he proudly stands before the court, insisting that in doing so he defended his honor as a man who had given his word to the Sheikh of a Kurdish tribe.
All of Swedish society is at a loss regarding such a position. This person lived in Sweden for twenty years, and now is asserting that, in cutting off the head of his daughter, he defended his honor. It’s sort of stupid to bring to mind multiculturalism in such a situation.
And there was more to follow. The crowds of migrants that streamed in are transforming Europe. With such a situation in politics, the heroes become those who express the deep thought, “Sweden for Swedes”. And so on. Netherlands for the Dutch. England for the English. USA for Americans (they don’t have blacks or Indians in mind).
And in its turn, “Russia for Russians”.
An enormous, chaotic situation has taken shape.
An acquaintance of mine who often goes to Strasbourg on business and adores this city – and each time after a trip would talk emotionally about the exemplary manners of the locals: about how they are obliging and kind to foreigners – yesterday returned from a trip to Strasbourg at a loss.
He was audaciously robbed in the supermarket. The employees of the store took part in the robbery, he claimed. He was demonstratively refused help. Passers-by stared at him with hatred and contempt. He said, “The atmosphere in Strasbourg reminds me of the atmosphere in Azerbaijan on the eve of the Armenian pogroms, or the atmosphere in Armenia on the eve of the Azerbaijani pogroms. The residents of Strasbourg consider it an act of patriotism to abuse foreigners, who they consider to be a migrant looking to move to France. Of course, not all residents of Strasbourg act this way, but not all Armenians and Azerbaijanis took part in the Armenian and Azerbaijani pogroms”.
European political leaders are openly declaring the failure of the multicultural experiment. You can’t hitch a lame-deer and a quick-legged horse to the same cart. The Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, thunderously announced the end of the experiment. Multiculturalism is rejected by all the youthful, aggressive political parties of Europe and their leaders. Even academics can’t suggest how, in practice, such different worldviews and traditions can be brought together, how the dream of good hearts and beautiful souls can be realized. They don’t know…
They don’t know? Let them come to us in Azerbaijan. We’ll teach them. True, the Azerbaijani form of multiculturalism doesn’t involve peaceful coexistence in one society of the powerful elite and dissenters, but that’s no problem. Sit them in jail for four years, like Ilgar Mammadov, maybe they’ll smarten up and understand how to do multiculturalism with those in power. See, Ilgar Mammadov doesn’t do multiculturalism, and so he was graduated to grade five of the Prison University of Multiculturalism.
Actually, yet another world congress on multiculturalism is being planned. After the next Formula 1. Azerbaijan will front the bill for those participants who don’t have the means to travel to Baku and participate in this grand event in honor of Multiculturalism.
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Ed. This article reflects the views of the author, which may not coincide with those of Meydan TV.
