Heiko Langner: Germany 'fouls' against Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan's policy always seeks a high level goals - to strengthen Azerbaijan's independence with the help of appropriate tools, political analyst from Berlin Heiko Langner said in an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza.

- How do you assess the fact that in the context of the organization of the European Games the German politicians with unprecedented hitherto activity raised the issue of human rights in Azerbaijan?

- International sports should unite people and promote closer relations between them. In my oppinion, the approach, in which the suitability of the host country are being to doubted postfactum, is counterproductive. We watched it happen now, in the case of the European Games in Azerbaijan and earlier in other countries - Russia, Ukraine and China. I think that all the discussions on this matter should be carried out before the decision on the venue of the event.

The situation with human rights may become one of the criteria for the nomination of a country. The decisive factor is, nevertheless, the way in which this will be done: first of all, we should talk to each other rather than into the void! The criticism, of course, is acceptable and even necessary. But it should be based on clear facts and should not contain double standards. Unfortunately, these fundamental rights have not been respected in the situation with Azerbaijan.

- Can you give us some examples?

- Of course! i can give plenty of them! For example, in one of the issues German newscasts 'Tagesschau', claimed that half of the Azerbaijani population lives below the poverty line. I compared these data with the statistics of the World Bank, which for 2013 indicated a quota of poverty by 5.3%. This discrepancy is very revealing and requires an explanation. I have been in Azerbaijan several times and in my opinion the statistics of the World Bank is much closer to reality.

Furthermore, the German Bundestag have debated and voted on two resolutions on human rights in Azerbaijan the same day that the European Games have opened. At the same time I do not remember our Parliament focusing on the topic of the death penalty in the United States. Of course, this time it was not a coincidence that both resolutions used the darkest colors to present the human rights situation in Azerbaijan. In particular, the draft resolution which was developed by the ruling coalition of the CDU / CSU and SPD contains passages about restrictions of religious freedom in Azerbaijan, which opposes of social reality in the country. Moreover, the German Government later noted the high level of tolerance towards religious minorities in Azerbaijan in its own response to the parliamentary question of the "Green" faction on June 15, 2015 . Thus, the German government has exposed an error in it's own resolution! It is obvious to me, that the authors of this resolution did not have either the political will or the professional competence to make something more sensible. Perhaps, it had neither one nor the other. So, one of the Deputy Speaker of the SPD (Social Democrats) was indignant during a parliamentary debate that the Azerbaijani Ambassador has criticized the campaign of the German media against his country in the press release of the Embassy. This way of understanding of the democracy is simply discouraging. The ambassador has the right to express his own opinion! When it comes to Azerbaijan, one should expect the worst from the Social Democrats. You can double-check all of my statements in the public domain.

- Why, in your opinion, politicians and the German media are referring in this way to Azerbaijan?

- There are several intertwined factors. In the minds of the local political elite the view, that the democratic deficit and human rights violations occur only outside of Germany, is dominated. They prefer to point the finger down on others, rather than to start with themselves. And there are more than enough reasons for self-criticism: widespread child poverty, marginalized system of education, the lack of the right of political choice of almost 6 million people with a migration background living in Germany for a long time, but did not have German citizenship, police violence against the demonstrators, abuse of refugees in shelters and generally intolerable EU policy towards refugees, which is trampling the principles of humanism and human rights. We should be ashamed of it.

On the other hand, a country like Azerbaijan is becoming more uncomfortable partner, as against the backdrop of its economic importance, it can afford to pursue an independent policy, consistently defending its own interests. Not everyone likes it. And then the young and not-rooted democracies in post-Soviet countries, which are undergoing transformation, turned into a political topics, and everyone delivers a blows in this direction at any suitable opportunity. Of course, there are significant problems in these countries. This is true. But there is a great progress in certain areas, which should also be taken into account when making assessments of the situation. But they do not. The criticism of human rights populists always associated with political interests. If Azerbaijan has a strict pro-Western course, the criticism would have been much more modest, or, it would not exist at all. Saudi Arabia, for example, is one of the major importers of German war production, but the German government usually keeps silent on the catastrophic human rights situation in the country.

But if someone starts calling for a more differentiated consideration of the situation in Azerbaijan, he immediately incurs the suspicion of 'sympathizing for the dictatorship' and 'sympathy for Aliyev'. At the same time, the activities of the media in Germany are driven by some interests. It does not affect all media and not in the same extent, but there are a lot of such media. Large segments of the German population have noticed similar trends in the context of lighting of the Ukrainian conflict, which, as a rule, Russia is put like the only guilty side. The fact that people notice the manipulation in the media is good for democracy. Free, independent and critical journalists are indispensable for democracy. But the media itself should not be immune from criticism, otherwise, the democracy will be on the wrong path.

- How, in your opinion, will affect recent political tensions between Berlin and Baku the prospects of German-Azerbaijani relations? Can recent events in certain circumstances be an occasion to the strategic reorientation of the Azerbaijani politics?

- The strategic relations between the states are meaningful only if they are based on fairly solid foundation of common political interests. I see such convergence of interests in a greater degree in the field of energy policy. Azerbaijan wants to enter new export markets, while Germany wants to reduce its energy dependence from Russia by diversifying of energy suppliers. Azerbaijan's policy always seeks a higher level - to strengthen its independence with the help of appropriate tools.

In this respect, I do not expect any substantive negative effects of recent developments on the German-Azerbaijani relations. These themes affect more a question of prestige, but not the specific economic and political interests. However, in the light of recent events Azerbaijan may reconsider its restrained position and begin to focus more actively on domestic problems in Germany both domestically and in international markets, for example, at the UN Council on Human Rights, the Council of Europe or the OSCE. Azerbaijani political elite, as well as many ordinary people, react so sensitively, because they see generalized, comprehensive criticism from Germany as an attack on the 'national dignity' of the country, although it has gained independence quite recently if judging by historical standards. There is no such thing as 'natural law', according to which Germany cannot be subjected to reciprocal criticism, and it must forever maintain the status of a privileged partner, regardless of it behavior. In politics,  like in sports, those who 'fouls' many times, someday will get the red card.