Window on Eurasia

Baku’s Approach on Radical Islam Said a Model for Post-Soviet States

Paul Goble

Tallinn, June 15, 2006 – Baku has blocked the rise of a radical Islamist
movement there despite the fact that Azerbaijan has many of the
preconditions „essential” for such a movement, and that very
success should make it „a model” for Russia and other post-Soviet states, according to a leading Moscow analyst.

In an essay posted online this week, Sergei Markedonov, who writes
frequently on ethnic and religious questions, argues that Baku’s
success is striking given that Azerbaijan, has five characteristics
often viewed as „the essential preconditons for the „activization
of radical Islam”
[http://www.prognosis.ru/rdemo/2006/6/13/markedonov.html].

In addition to being an overwhelming Islamic country – roughly 97
percent of its people are historically Muslims and two-thirds of them
are shiites – Azerbaijan in the post-Soviet period has „a weak,
demoralized and politically ineffective secular opposition,” one that
few in society put much hope in.

Second, Markedonov says, the country has suffered „’national
trauma’” of the loss of Karabakh” as a result of a conflict most
Azerbaijanis view as „an interconfessional one.” Third, Baku’s
„authoritarian-modernization” program has been accompanied by the
social pathologies that often serve as a fertile field for the growth
of radical Islamist ideas.

Fourth, the country borders not only Iran but Daghestan, both centers
of Islamic radicalism. And fifth, Markedonov continues, there is „a
massive disappointment in the West and in Western values” because of
the inability of the European Union and the United States to arrange a
settlement of the conflict over Karabakh.

Moreover, despite the fact that the post-Soviet Azerbaijani government
has continued to assert its secular character, Markedonov continues,
„Islam has become an important constitutent part of the ideology of
independent Azerbaijan, which has a green band on its flag, membership in the OIC, and various Islamic educational institutions.

In the immediate aftermath of the recovery of independence, that south
Caucasus country even had an Azerbaijani Islamic Party, the basic goals
of which were the achievement of „social and economic independence of
Azerbaijani via the establishment in the country of Islamic laws.”

Despite all that, Markedonov says, Baku has avoided the outcome most
would have predicted, largely because of its clever and flexible
policies concerning various religious trends and its willingness to
carefully distinguish between traditional Islamic values and „radical
extremist tendencies.”

Baku’s policies toard religion lie „within the competence of a
special committee for work with religious organizations,” that was
created in 2001 and has the power to register or de-register religious
organizations. Earlier, Baku’s approach to Islam was governed by a
law adopted in 1993 and amended in 1995.

The amendments, „which prohibited foreign citizens from being
involved in religious propaganda on the territory of Azerbaijan,” have proved especially critical, Markedonov says. They allowed th regime to limit the impact of missionaries from Jordan, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, to strip the Azerbaijani Islamic Party of its registration.

More than that, in May 1996, the Azerbaijani authorities arrested the
leadership of that party, and in 1997, it condemned them for
cooperating with the Iranian secret services, actions that have helped the government htere to limit the impact of Iran on various Islamic groups within Azerbaijan.

At the same time, Baku has provided genuine protection for Christian
groups, except of course for those connected with Azerbaijan. In 1998,
both the Azerbaijani government and the Muslim Spiritual Directorate of
the South Caucasus supported the creation of an eparchate of the
Russian Orthodox Church subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate.

In addition, in 2002, Baku was able to host Pope John Paul II. The
Catholic pontiff brought 100,000 U.S. dollars for the relief of
refugees, a contribution the Azerbaijani government, Markedonov notes,
for its own propagandist purposes declared were „for the victims of
Armenian aggression.”

Lying behind Azerbaijan’s success, Markedonov argues, is a long
tradition of secular politics. When the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic
emerged during the Russian Civil War, its leaders were committed to
secularism in much the same way that Ataturk was in Turkey, and
„Islamist ideology” was thus marginalized because of its „’anti-state’ roots.”

More recently, Markedonov points out, this secular focus has been
reinforced by the fact that it has been „secular Turkey and not
shiite Iran” that has supported Azerbaijan on the Karabakh issue by
regularly speaking up on behalf of Baku’s position and maintaining a blockade on Armenia.

Until very recently, the Moscow analyst says, people in Baku joked that
„even Osama bin Laden himself would not be able to put the chadr on
an Azerbaijani girl,” and so far they have proved right. But the
existential realities of Azerbaijan today mean that the situation could
change and change quickly.

Consequently, Markedonov concludes, „the political challenge of Islam, above all in the form of ‚the Islamic revolution’ in neighboring Iran – in combination with the national ‚trauma of Karabakh’--
will keep the Azerbaijani authorities tense” not only now but far
into the future.