Folk writer of Azerbaijan Chingiz Abdulayev is outraged by the illiteracy of most of his compatriots.
“Today an interview with Lukashenko was broadcast. It is stated everywhere that they are the leading journalists of Russia. Two of the four journalists — Simonyan and Babayan — are editors-in-chief. The speakers on Russian television channels are Kurginyan, Sarkisov, Shakhnazarov, Poghosyan, Keosayan, and the list goes on. Don’t dare to tell me about their lobbying. They are smart, intelligent and talented people who have good command of Russian. We Azerbaijanis have the opposite examples. Compare the speeches of Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan in Russian or English. Is there any need for comments?
Let’s talk about Azerbaijani nationalists. “Let’s close Russian schools” — we have been hearing the wrathful squeals many times. Calm down. We Azerbaijanis don’t even see anyone on foreign TV channels, and those who appear on TV channels have very bad command of Russian. I can’t even say anything good about Azerbaijanis speaking English on English-language TV channels, even though the number of Azerbaijanis with command of English is growing. Dear local illiterates, knowing your native language is a necessity and can’t even be discussed, but a small country like ours needs thousands of people who at least have excellent command of Russian, English, French and Arabic.
We Azerbaijanis don’t just need reporters who have command of languages. We need officers who have command of foreign technical equipment, artist and scientists who will present their culture and science to the world, and finally, we need politicians. We Azerbaijanis don’t have a lobby not because somebody is standing in our way. Our stupidity, backwardness, inferiority, envy and ignorance — these are the main enemies, and this is seen in the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, and in international affairs, and in foreign and domestic policies. As one of the local ‘figures’ said, “we dreamed of liberating ourselves from the Russian language, how can we liberate ourselves from the English language”. Of course, dreaming is not harmful. But perhaps we can do the opposite and increase the number of schools in different languages and make our children learn second and third languages. Perhaps then we won’t remember others’ lobbying when we see two Azerbaijanis appear on our television screens, even though, really, dreaming is not harmful…” the writer declared, reports haqqin.az.
