Three or four years ago, Azerbaijani youth was religious, varying from extremists reading Abdullah Azam to moderates following Fethullah Gulen. Return to Islam and to most untraditional forms of it was the mainstream trend among students. Those were years corresponding to high tide of insurgency in Iraq, Danish cartoons, Madrid, Istanbul and London bombings and what was seen as West's assault on Islam. There was a feeling that the world is torn apart, Huntington is a prophet and clash of civilization is going to result in a catastrophe. However, this was not the main reason for increasing Islamic activism.
It was a time when oil was sold at fantastic prices and all those Middle Eastern extremists plenty with cash were generous at financing Islamic activism in the Muslim peripheries. Try our government to close two Sunni mosques and demolish two Shiite one, Aliyev family would be toppled the other day, followed by secular institutions.
Today Azerbaijani youth is leftist. The city is rife with communists, anarchists and others. Che Guevara is the idol of the day. Not surprisingly, the main headline is the Crisis. Banks collapse, constructions halt and economies fall into decline. There is a feeling that the world is torn apart, Marx was a prophet, end of the capitalism is near. However, this is not the main reason.
Oil prices are down and down and all those Middle Eastern extremists once plenty with cash now have no funds for Muslim peripheries. They are too busy to please their own subjects. That is why the government has closed or demolished four mosques, and threatens all others, and not an Islamist is seen protesting. If there are left any Islamists at all. Left to own fate, the youth either have returned to their communist heritage or have caught the spirit of their time.
However, both the Islamists of four years before and leftists of today have one thing in common - their totalitarian tendencies, their proneness to violence (at least in theory), their assault on critics and silencing the dissent among themselves, their intolerance of and refusal to accept those who embrace other beliefs.
Not surprisingly, liberal youth is in minority as it was three or four years ago.
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
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3 comments:
yes,no diffrence between communist and islamists,they are not tolerant
What you mean by different beliefs? and i don't agree with such broad generalizations of the youth by leftits and Islamists. I think such a generalization contains serious flaws.
Well, this is not a scholarly article, thus can contain serious flaws, but what I tried to show was the general tendencies among Azeri youth.
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