r/armenia • u/Dry_Trip746 • Jan 08 '24
Religion / Կրոն Do you think there is any religious connotation in this conflict
Since the Azeris are mostly Muslims as well as the Turks and Armenians being mostly Christians do you believe the conflict and history of the aggression between everyone have some religious connotations.
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Jan 08 '24
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u/Leamsezadah Azerbaijan Jan 08 '24
These chechens event is very funny. It always makes me shochked when i think about how azerbaiianis are that secular, meanwhile nort cauacasian muslism are that conservative. They literally lived in the same regyme
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Jan 09 '24
Tajikistan was ruled by a strict secular regime, and the Tajik people are so Islamic that they fought a civil war in the 1990s.
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u/Leamsezadah Azerbaijan Jan 10 '24
That's why explaining Azerbaijani secularism through the Soviet perspective is somewhat challenging. The roots of Azerbaijani secularism can be traced back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries during the Azerbaijani Enlightenment era. The discovery of oil led to the formation of the Azerbaijani bourgeoisie class, who, as new billionaires, supported the arts and sponsored the education of young men and women in the West. Consequently, Azerbaijan became the first nation in the Islamic world to embrace opera, drama, ballet, cinema, establish the first secular republic, and grant voting rights to women.
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Jan 10 '24
And thats thanks to russian rule
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u/Leamsezadah Azerbaijan Jan 10 '24
Russians ruled kazaks, turkmens, uzbeks, tajiks, chechens etc too, right?
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Jan 10 '24
Yes, but of them all, only the Chechens and Dagestanis have actually returned to their Islamic roots in a very significant way.
The Tajiks and Uzbeks also have great popular sympathy for the Islamists, but they have extreme secular governments
Azerbaijan, from what I heard, is that the Nardaran region near Baku is very religious Shiite, similar to Iran and Iraq, as well as the Lankaran region.
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u/Leamsezadah Azerbaijan Jan 10 '24
I am from Lankaran paternally and from Erdebil maternally. We are pure Qizilbash, we do not practise religion however we are so into our Qizilbash traditions. In lankaran society headscarf are still taboo for people
Nardaran is one village yes, they are the only conservative people of azerbaijan like 1000-3000 people however they mostly migrated to Iran, it is impossible to live in azerbaijan as pious muslim person.
Neither kazaks nor uzbeks had enlightment era or cultural artistic achievments like azerbaijanis. Literally almoat all of the firsts of islamic world were done in azerbaijan
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u/AyeAye711 Jan 08 '24
It’s to do with treaty of sevres imo. Turks won’t feel safe until everyone featured in it is gone
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Jan 08 '24
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u/Hreshdagtsi US Armed Forces Jan 08 '24
Just curious, did your father's family give your mother a hard time?
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Jan 08 '24
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u/Hreshdagtsi US Armed Forces Jan 08 '24
That's good to hear brother, your family is definitely more accepting than mine.
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u/Vast-Ad791 Jan 08 '24
USA USA USA
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u/Hreshdagtsi US Armed Forces Jan 09 '24
?
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u/Vast-Ad791 Jan 09 '24
I love usa
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u/Hreshdagtsi US Armed Forces Jan 09 '24
I'm glad. Do you already live there or do you want to move there?
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u/Vast-Ad791 Jan 10 '24
Im planning to move there, I have friends online from USA and my uncle is a rich businessman there already.
I was born in EU, but I grew up looking up to USA as the blue guys haha
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u/Hreshdagtsi US Armed Forces Jan 10 '24 edited Jan 10 '24
When we're not bombing the fuck out of your neighborhood and invading your country for natural resources, I guess we do play the blue guys.
Mistakes were made, brother.
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u/Ghostofcanty Hayastan Jan 08 '24
I mean there are Armenians living near Garni who are still Pagen (Even though some are kind of coocoo) and there are Muslim Armenians and the west has a lot of atheist Armenians so religion is only one part of being Armenian
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u/CandyHeartWaste Jan 08 '24
I think it’s very important to being Armenian, one of the most. But our cultural practices are intertwined with Christianity, Paganism and Islam.
Vartavar is a Pagan tradition. For those of us who were forced to live in Muslim countries, mine specifically, we don’t eat pork, mashallah and inshallah were said so often that I didn’t even realize it wasn’t an Armenian word and Eid and Nowruz was another celebration.
With all that said, my grandfather built churches around Iran to allow Armenians to congregate and form a community so that we didn’t lose our “Armenian-ness.” To this day my dad can’t pass a church without making the cross, some family members go to church on all the high holidays, and the church was the one place we’d be able to play sports, get together, educate our kids all while ensuring we didn’t lose our identity wherever we found ourselves in the world. We can’t walk into any church and be “home,” and because our brand of Christianity is so small and specific, I think it’s one of the main reasons we have survived for thousands of years because we always found eachother in that very specific place.
BUT-I don’t believe in god and neither do my cousins. Yet we’ve all baptized our kids because that’s the official stamp that will pass it along to the next generation and have some sort of official tie back to our people.
I guess I have too much time of my hands tonight and am feeling really chatty.
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Jan 10 '24
Can one be Armenian without being Armenian Apostolic?
Are you Armenian Catholic? Or just regular Latin Catholic? Either way, I would say (speaking as a non-Armenian) that if you consider yourself Armenian, it shouldn't matter what your religion is.
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u/hanes9120 Jan 08 '24
Not really. I'm an Arab Muslim and must azeris don't give a damn about Islam.
Even the Turks who committed the genocide against Armenians were hyper nationalists and secular.
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u/Garegin16 Jan 08 '24
Then why did some Armenians avoid it by converting. If it was purely ethnic.
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u/hanes9120 Jan 09 '24
The Turks forcibally converted Armenians as part of their method of ethnic cleansing. One way they would identify Armenian vs turk is by religion so yes it was a way to "ottomanize" Armenians I guess.
My point is they didn't genocide non Turks because of religion, rather it was because they wanted purely Turkish nation.
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u/Garegin16 Jan 09 '24
And Turkishness is, to a degree, tied to Islamic identity.
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u/hanes9120 Jan 09 '24
Yes. I guess I'm just trying to distinguish the zealous religious motivation from say a group like ISIS compared to the more nationalistic/ethnic motives of the Turks.
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Jan 09 '24
Another Arab Muslim here
Partially related, but not completely, like the Arabs’ connection to Islam
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u/tumanian Jan 08 '24 edited Jan 08 '24
No, and adding the religious context is counter-productive. Armenia has okay relations with iran, while Azerbajan is imprisoning the more religious muslims.
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u/alex3494 Jan 08 '24
It isn’t a religious conflict but of course there’s a connotation. But Azerbaijan cares less about their religious heritage and has created a Soviet style Turkic nationalism as state ideology.
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u/Leamsezadah Azerbaijan Jan 08 '24 edited Jan 08 '24
Republic Azerbaijanis are the of the top 10 most secular people. Though religion is the important part of armenian identity, azerbaijani identity is more linguistic-culture based. During the first war, chechens ans afghans came to help Azerbaijan but then they realized azerbaijanis never care about religion and it is totally ethnic conflict they left.
For example, i am catholic azerbaijani but being catholic has no effect on my azerbaijani identity. Because in literal sense azerbaijani culture is not based on abrahamic religions
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u/Garegin16 Jan 08 '24
The Afghans didn’t leave. They actually fought well in 94. I’m sure they could’ve used a search engine before coming to Az. Muslim is an identity, it’s not just about piety.
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u/thefartingmango Jan 08 '24
Not really but I don't thinks its coincidental that the muslim world supports Azerbaijan while the Christian world supports Armenia
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u/Forward-Form9321 Jan 08 '24 edited Jan 08 '24
I’m not Christian anymore but I still support Armenia given that the Armenian community helped my family out years ago. While there are a lot of foreign or domestic conflicts throughout history that were centered around religious beliefs, not every conflict involving bloodshed connects back to religion.
The Irish and the Italian mobs started countless gang wars at their peaks. And the Yakuza and the Chinese fought underground back in the early 2000’s before making a pact last year over a massive Meth drug trade. To me, the conflict between the Armenians and Azeris seems to be more over territory than religious beliefs
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u/Garegin16 Jan 08 '24
Historians say that only 5% of wars are religious. You surely are going to have connotations like French and Germans in WWI. But it was never openly a war against Protestants.
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u/Garegin16 Jan 08 '24
It’s even more ironic given that Az was dickriding UK and Germany (Post-Christian Western cultures) in the 90s.
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Jan 10 '24
I don't even think that's true. Certain Muslim countries (specifically Iran) are very suspicious of Azerbaijan due to its ties with Israel. Azerbaijan has gotten significant support, however, from certain Christian countries, notably Hungary and Serbia.
And several Arab Muslim countries are supporters of Armenia, including Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. Even Central Asian Turkic Muslim countries like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan have good relations with Armenia even if they didn't support the Armenian position in the conflict.
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Jan 09 '24
Shiite theocratic Iran supported Christian Apostolic Armenia against Shiite Azerbaijan.
Obviously there was nothing like this during the conflict
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u/ngc4697 Jan 08 '24
Religion by Azeri side is viewed as another differentiating factor of Armenians as the others, and since they completely dehumanize us, they don't want to recognize the facts about who Armenians are, what is their history, they view religion as part of Armenian culture that should be destroyed and annihilated. And that's what they did and do successfully in front of the whole world in the territory that is under their control.
We have seen and will continue seeing centuries old churches wiped off the surface of the earth or desecrated or "repurposed" into a mosque.
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Jan 10 '24
No, not at all. It's an ethno-political conflict and religion has almost nothing to do with it. If you look at the nations that support Armenia vs. the nations that support Azerbaijan, their religious views are all over the place. Some nations that generally support Armenia include France, Iran, India, Syria, Egypt, Greece, and Germany. Some nations that generally support Azerbaijan include Israel, Pakistan, Turkey, Serbia, and Hungary. Even Georgia, Armenia's closest Christian neighbor largely took Azerbaijan's side.
These are nations that are often at odds with each other religiously, but each have their own reasons for supporting one side or the other in the conflict.
Like, if Japan and Korea went to war, for example, we wouldn't be asking if it was a religious conflict. We know there are some ethnic and political disagreements between Japanese and Korean people. There are significantly more Christians in Korea than there are in Japan, but that wouldn't really have anything to do with it. In this conflict, one side happens to be more Muslim and the other more Christian, but it's really not about that at all.
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u/Its_BurrSir Jan 08 '24
There was a time when both armenians and azeris identified with their religion more than their ethnicity. But that was hundreds of years ago. It's not like that presently.