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Azerbaijani Diaspora organizations issue statement of protest against racist remarks of Armenians against Azerbaijan and Turkey

14 March 2009 08:02 (UTC +04:00)

Los Angeles. Zaur Hasanov â€“APA. Azerbaijani-American Council (AAC) and Azerbaijan Society of America (ASA) join Azerbaijani- and Turkic-American community in California to express their concern about the racist remarks made by the Armenian-American activists at the presentation on "Geopolitics of Energy Security" sponsored by the California State University Northridge (CSUN) College of Engineering and Computer Science on March 11, 2009, APA US bureau reports.

â€œDuring the speech on regional energy projects by the Consul General of Azerbaijan in Los Angeles, Elin Suleymanov, a group of Armenian student activists turned the discussion into an offensive attack on Azerbaijani and Turkic peoples by shouting slogans against ethnicity and race.
We value every American’s right to express his/her opinions freely and encourage a civilized, open dialogue with the Armenian-American community. At the same time, ethnic insults and racial slurs represent a disturbing abomination in 21st century America and are unacceptable for the academic environment. Unfortunately, instead of engaging in a constructive and relevant discussion, Armenian activists resorted to shouting slogans calling openly for the destruction of Azerbaijan and mass deportation of Azerbaijani people from their lands, moving the entire nation elsewhere on Earth. These sentiments clearly echo similar calls for the destruction of Israel and exodus of Jewish people made by some enemies of humanity. Even more disturbing were references made by the Armenian activists to "Armenian Aryan superiority", while Azerbaijanis were denigrated as an "inferior Turkic raceâ€.

As deeply offensive to Azerbaijani-Americans as it is, we want to believe that such manifestations of racism and Turcophobia are not shared by all Armenian-Americans. Remembering the historic words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character", America has come a long way to denounce racism and social intolerance in 21st century. And today, we are hopeful that Armenian-Americans and friends of Armenia share those values and understand how damaging the ethnicity-based chauvinism and racism are for Armenia, for peace and cooperation in South Caucasus, and for the humanity as a wholeâ€, read the statement.