They recently commemorated his birthday with a festival involving flowers. No one really even seems to know the name of the festival, a point I find rather amusing. Commemorating a dead president's date of birth is one thing (Washington, Lincoln, etc.) but continuing to mark his age (his bones just turned 87 by the way) starts to bridge the gap between a healthy tribute and North Korean Kim Il Sung nuttiness.
Not
that you can really blame Heydar himself as the 'Heydar
has the body that rocks the party' campaign
was actually put into action by his son Ilham
Aliyev. Cynics (i.e. realists) might say that this patriotic
offensive memorializing his dead daddy was deliberate subterfuge to
steer the focus away from the fact that Pa handed Junior the
presidency like the baton at an Olympic relay race. Sure there was an
election but it is incredibly easy to outmaneuver your political
opponents when none exist (as in not allowed to participate). Heydar
stepped down and appointed Little Aliyev sole presidential candidate.
Who's our daddy? Heydar is my daddy.
If
I were Azeri I could be put into prison for the preceding paragraph.
As a tourist I would most likely be arrested, harassed, and then
deported (or incarcerated for a starring role in Prison
Bitch: The Movie).
Freedom of press is pretty much nonexistent in Azerbaijan. For a
stark example you need only consider the case of Emin Milli and Adnan
Hadjizadel, the infamous Donkey
Bloggers. These two arch criminals are part of a youth movement
known as OL!, an
organization advocating tolerance and non-violence. They got
themselves into trouble after staging a mock press conference held by
a donkey and posting it on YouTube.
Why
would they do such a thing? Well, it all started with the revelation
that the Azeri government spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to
import donkeys from Germany, viewed as a testament to rampant
government corruption. In an effort to underscore the absurd nature
of this transaction the mock conference was held to gain insight on
the thoughts and opinions of one of these golden asses who proceeds
to sing the praises of being lucky enough to enjoy donkeyhood in
Azerbaijan. He also provides an anecdote about his tribulations at
the airport.
Not
long after posting the video Adnan and Emin were accosted in a Baku
restaurant. The official government report states that Adnan and Emin
were the instigators but you'd have to be huffing copious amounts of
super glue to buy that croc of donkey shit. Even to this day the
government asserts that the arrests were totally unrelated to the
YouTube video and have nothing to do with the political views of the
two miscreants. So what did the duo get for their trouble? Two and
two and a half years in prison respectively on the charge of
"hooliganism". While they were at it they should have
slapped them with "stupidism", "freedom of speakism",
and "wearing a donkey costume without a license-ism". For
more information you can check out the Facebook
page created to help get the word out about their unjust
detainment. Shit, I think I just went political. Tell your friends.
Below is the video that started it all.
[Author's
Note: In November of 2010 Adnan and Emin were set free after their
story garnered international attention. For more info check out
“Court
Orders Release Of Azerbaijani 'Donkey Bloggers” and “Second
Azerbaijani 'Donkey Blogger' Freed”.]
"We
have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that
self may prove to be."
— May Sarton
— May Sarton
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'Love me or hate me, but spare me your indifference.' -- Libbie Fudim