A.Zeynalli: Azerbaijan Not Threatened with Spread of National Socialism

In modern Europe manifestations of neo-fascism have intensified and the interest in the book Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler is growing. Over the last year the book was reprinted in Italy and Germany - countries where it was previously prohibited. In an interview with the program Chetin Sual (Difficult Question) this was said by the journalist Avaz Zeynalli, who in 2004 translated the book by Hitler from Turkish into Azerbaijani and published it, for which he had a criminal record.

Zeynalli agrees with the view that to understand the causes of troubles, to which the idea of ​​the book led, you should refer to the original source.

"Without reading the book, it is impossible to understand the threat posed by it. The Italian publisher is right - when people read, they understand that it is imbued with hatred and racism, and will reject it. In this regard, the British are right - they will never ban books," said Zeynalli.

The book itself, as a piece of literature, is very weak and in Germany, it was just mocked at the beginning. But in some societies, nationalistic and hegemonic ideas of Hitler's book are being adopted. For example, such manifestations are particularly intensified in Russia against the annexation of the Crimea and events in Donbass.

Such trends in Russia were much earlier - for centuries, from Ivan the Terrible - the story of grabs, occupation, mass murder and repression.

Stalin's Communism was the flip side of Hitler's Nazism - the same camps, deportations and mass killings, said Zeynalli.

Is there a threat of the spread of National Socialism in Azerbaijan? Zeynalli gave a negative answer to this question. In his view, the Azerbaijani society will never accept radical religious and nationalist ideas.

Such phenomena are possible over large areas with large populations and resources.

On the other hand, all the forbidden books should be translated into the Azerbaijani language, and they should be discussed and the threats should be identified. This will save us from many troubles," he said.

At the same time, according to Zeynalli, Hitler's commonplace book could not find the scale of state ideology, if there had not been a historical background.

The reason for the victory of Nazism was the unfair conditions of the Versailles Peace.

For centuries Europe prevented the unification of the German nation.

This was done only by Bismarck in 1871. However, Germany was humiliated after World War I. Vanity infringed the German society and there were trends of revenge, which helped Hitler to come to power.

Prejudice about the danger of united Germany still exists. Even in the late 1980s the Western people showed restrained attitude to this idea and today they are trying to isolate Germany from key decisions.

In world practice, there are many examples where individual books worked as a national unification program. Is there a need for such a book for the Azerbaijanis, given they are a divided nation? In answering this question Zeynalli said sometimes books by individual figures became a reference point for national development, e.g. books by Ataturk, Gamal Abdel Nasser and others.

However, Azerbaijan has no book of the kind. "Ahead of us there is probably a big fight. And maybe someone will write a book, which will summarize our common woes and indicate ways to address them," said Zeynalli. -06D-