At the end of December, a group of men from a nationalist organization broke into a high school in Baku and accosted a teacher, who had become a focus in social media for publishing a photo of one of his students dressed in traditional Armenian costumes.

“They humbled me in front of my students. They called me Armenian, “said Rovshan Azizov, a teacher at Eurasianet. “They told me that I am an Armenian agent, that I came to Azerbaijan to destroy this country under the orders of Armenia. I just wanted to show that peace is possible, and that we can not resolve this conflict by killing each other, that’s all, “said Rovshan Azizov.

Rovshan Azizov said the school officials had put pressure on him even before the nationalists stormed the school. “They told me,” You better leave. If you stay, you endanger our lives and those of children, “said Azizov. “The teachers told my students that I was Armenian and that they should stay away from me.”

A few days later, on December 28, Azizov was fired. School officials say it was not because of his pro-Armenian stance but because of his unorthodox teaching methods.

But the episode highlights the delicate balance that the Azerbaijani government is trying to maintain in its ongoing struggle against Armenia: the two states are stuck in a dead end process to determine the future of Nagorno Karabakh, a territory seized by Armenian forces to Azerbaijan in a war in the early 1990s.

The representatives of the Azerbaijani government insist that their dispute is with the government of Yerevan, not with the Armenian people, and they strive to underline their commitment to multiculturalism and inclusion.

In an interview last year, Azerbaijani First Lady and Vice President Mehriban Aliyeva said that she “will never let the Azerbaijani people form an enemy image of the Armenians. There was a time when these people lived together, drank their wine at the same table. We should come back to that moment. “

At the same time, Azerbaijani textbooks present Armenians in very negative terms to children who, for the most part, have no first-hand knowledge of Armenians. A 2012 study found that terms such as “Armenian terrorist, Armenian fascist, Armenian bandit, Armenian separatist, Armenian barbarism, enemy and adjectives such as Armenian villain and Armenian fascist are widely used in these textbooks”.

“For 25 years, the government has developed revanchist ideas and an image of the enemy, without putting forward any plan for peace,” said Orkhan Nabiyev, a peace activist. “Unfortunately, the Azerbaijani society has been poisoned with this, just like the Armenians. So our conflict is changing from politics to ethno-politics and we Armenians and Azerbaijanis must stop it. “

The controversy over Azizov began in November, when he posted a photo on facebook of one of his high school students, in front of the closed Armenian church in Baku, wearing the traditional Armenian outfit known as the taraz.

The photo was seized by government-backed nationalist groups such as the Karabakh Women’s Veterans Association and the Karabakh Liberation Movement, and spread quickly through Azerbaijani social media.

Users looked at his previous posts on social networks and found that he had a long experience of promoting peace with Armenia. He posted a picture with the Armenian and Azerbaijani flags flying together, with the caption “I live in Azerbaijan. I do not want a war. I want peace. We do not have to shed blood, both in Armenian and Azerbaijani. And the student’s photo was part of a larger project in which he made a series of videos with students playing on both sides of the Karabakh conflict.

His videos, heavily staged – including a lot of shots – have pushed some of these supporters. In a discussion on Facebook, Novella Jafarova, director of the Association for the Protection of Women’s Rights, described a video as a “troubling lesson where children hit girls with guns”.

An official statement, provided by the Baku City Board of Education, said Azizov had been fired because the videos were “inappropriate for the education and moral and psychological development of students”.

Others found this explanation unconvincing.

Every year, on the occasion of the anniversary of the Khojaly massacre (…), students throughout Azerbaijan replay the event using elements as violent as those of Azizov, according to Zamira Abbasova. co-founder of the Tbilissi-based Neutral Zone radio, a program dedicated to building peace in the Caucasus. “If Azizov is fired from his job because of this video, then the directors of almost every school should be sent back for sketches on Khojaly,” Abbasova told Eurasianet.

Akif Nagi, the leader of the Karabakh liberation movement, confirmed to Eurasianet in an interview that his group had sent representatives to the Azizov school to face him because of the pro-Armenian nature of his projects.

“We tried to explain to him how his position works for Armenia,” said Nagi. “But he did not want to understand. He was trying to defend his opinions, as if he were a pacifist and he will continue until society understands him. “

“To speak of peace means that he wants our territories to remain under occupation, which is unacceptable,” Nagi said.

Nagi also said that in December, he spoke with the school director, Tural Mirzeliyev, who promised that he would withdraw Azizov. Mirzeliyev refused to comment on Eurasianet.

In an interview at the Boho tea house in central Baku, Azizov wore the traditional Azerbaijani arakhchin hat. But he acknowledged that he could, in fact, have Armenian roots.

It was adopted when I was a baby by an Azerbaijani family, and grew up believing that his biological parents were most likely Russian. But after the death of his adoptive mother in 2014, he began to investigate, and people who knew his adoptive mother when she was younger believed that she had adopted him from an Armenian family, although he has not yet confirmed that.

“This is one of the reasons that motivated me to promote peace and reconciliation,” he said. “Many think that I am the enemy of my nation. They think I’m dangerous. But I have never betrayed my country … I have just promoted peace. Calling for peace is not a crime. “

Azizov said he still has faith in the government to do him justice. “If they really believe that Armenians and Azerbaijanis can live side by side in peace, they should support me,” he said.

Editor’s note:

Lamiya Adilgizi is an independent Azerbaijani journalist

Eurasianet.org