Is Political Islam Growing in Azerbaijan?

The persecution and arrests of members of the banned Islamic Party in Azerbaijan raises questions and concerns in the US, TURAN's correspondent in Washington DC reports. "It seems the government of Azerbaijan was stung by the critical public comment addressed to it by the head of the now banned Islamic Party of Azerbaijan, Movsun. The Azerbaijani government also took note that many Azeris supported Samadov's criticism on the official ban of schoolgirls wearing the hijab". Catherine Cosman, a Senior Policy Analyst at the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, commented on Baku court's decision to sentence seven members of an Islamist group to long-term jail last week during an interview with TURAN. The officials accused the Islamists of setting up illegal military units and preparing terrorist attacks. Cosman says, "I do not know if this (Islamic) party was planning an armed overthrow of the Azeri government, as the government claims, but I do not think that the official allegations against the Islamic Party of Azerbaijan was proven in court and now six of its members were sentenced on October 6 to prison terms of at least ten years". "Through this court verdict, the government has made these men into martyrs for those people in Azeri society who hold particularly strong Muslim beliefs and were already very critical of the government. I doubt whether such court rulings can assist the government in building stability over the long run", she added. 

 

Even before the Soviet period, independent Azerbaijan was one of the first Muslim majority countries to have a secular form of government. According to the American type of secularism in which the government does not interfere in the practice of religion, people have the right to practice their religion or not to do so, as long as they respect the rights of others and do not advocate or use violence. "Therefore", Cosman adds, "under this form of secularism, governments do not have the right to prefer one religion over another and also cannot tell members of one community that they should follow a certain set of beliefs or hold certain views". "Unfortunately, however, several post Soviet states have adopted laws which give preference to so called "traditional" religions or include requirements in the registration process that make it difficult for communities to practice their religion according to their set of beliefs". She argued, "one glaring example of this type of restriction in the new Azerbaijani law that the state Committee of Religious Affairs can censor religious materials and decide which literature a religious community is allowed to receive from abroad or to print inside Azerbaijan". "Islam, along with many other religions, envisages a major role for religion in the public life of a society, particularly in the search for justice. If a government restricts the activities of political parties, religion may begin to fill the gap in public life", Cosman said with concern. "After all, people look for ways to play an active role in the public life of their societies. The difficulty arises for the government and society when a group uses or advocates violence in the name of religion, nationalism or for any other reason". 

 

"Should the government ban a group because it has a view or a vision that the government does not like? Is it not more fair and sensible for the government to prove that an individual has committed a specific act of violence?" she asks. "Still, is political Islam really growing in Azerbaijan? If not, then where will the arrests of the believers lead the country?" 

    Professor of Religious Studies Ivan Strenski from the University of California Riverside tries to describe the situation in an interview with TURAN. 

 

Question: The fact is that the majority of Azeris take a relaxed attitude towards religion, but officials say the influence of Islam (from Iran) is growing. If so, how should the government treat it? 

 

Answer: I have no special knowledge about the growth of political Islam. Yet, surely there must be a wide variety of politics in which Muslims engage in the name of Islam. Into which camp does the charged fall? What evidence is there of the member belonging to a violent movement bent on the overthrow of a nation-state's government? One would like to know. On the other hand, I need hardly call attention to what we see all over the Arab world, at least, namely the 'Arab Spring.' Here, I shall only point out the fact of the diversity of political actions undertaken in these movements, all the way from the non-violence of Egypt and Tunisia, through to the mix of violence and non-violence in Syria to the violent uprising in Libya. 

 

Question: One of the main questions being discussed in Baku is why do people choose religion as a platform for protests but not for democracy? How should the average Azeri differentiate religious activities from political ones? 

 

Answer: Often, religion becomes a focus of a collective political action, when other 'arms' of civil society have either been 'amputated' by aggressive repression or 'bound and tied' by means of coercion or deadly, force. It may be one of the only forums of civil society operating in relative freedom from potential government surveillance. Yet, I would say that religion is nothing special, in a way, since it is, among other things, just a particular mode of social organization. But, why has it been left alone, more or less, in the past? In many Muslim countries, religion took on a quietist or mystical quality, in effect renouncing any political action in principle. Governments then have tended to overlook religious institutions as sources of opposition, because, unlike, say, trade unions or openly political clubs, they seem harmless. But, at the same time, since they had some immunity from surveillance, they offered those seeking collective support for opposition movements ready-made vehicles for their plans. Religion, in this sense, was the only bit of civil society left relatively free. 

 

Question: Hundreds of people joined protests this and last year demanding the right to wear Islamic headscarves in Azeri schools. How should the government address this problem? Answer: I do not think there are hard and fast, cross-culturally valid universal rules for such matters. In France, given its peculiar history of Catholic menace against the Republic, all expressions, in the past, especially Roman Catholic expressions, of religious affiliation arouse suspicion. While I am not naive about European Islamophobia, I understand why the French wish to dampen public display of religious identification. For many French people, the headscarf, like the various other conspicuous displays of religious affiliation, is 'charged.' It provokes strong emotional feelings among many French people.On the other hand, here in the USA, with a related secular, revolutionary tradition, people are utterly apathetic about head scarves worn in public by Muslim women. Azeris will have to decide for themselves about these seemingly local matters. Perhaps, you will adopt the practice of your Turkish neighbors? On the streets of Ankara or Istanbul, one finds women both 'covered' and not.Often, as well, one sees friendly mixed pairs or groups of Turkish women, some wearing head scarves, others not. Of course, you also are aware of the controversy the head scarf issue has created in Turkey with the friction between the new AK Party government and the Kemalists, with their partly French-inspired traditions of secularity. Here, again, as in Azerbaijan, the question is one of what is proper in the public realm. And, that is something only the Azeri public should decide in as open and frank way with each other as possible.