Late final 12 months, following an unlawful blockade lasting over 9 months, Azerbaijan launched a navy offensive and violently uprooted Artsakh’s indigenous Armenian inhabitants — acts broadly acknowledged as genocide, however so far undertaken with impunity. Most individuals fled, forsaking private belongings, together with picture albums. They depend on Fb posts or images discovered on the web to revisit the locations they bear in mind.
As of now, the “We Are Our Mountains” monument nonetheless stands. It was created in 1967 by Sargis Baghdasaryan, modeled after his grandparents, who too have been from Artsakh. It grew to become a logo of the area and of Armenian indigeneity and resistance to occupation, and was later featured on the Republic of Artsakh’s coat of arms after its inhabitants voted by referendum for independence in 1991. The monument depicts an aged man and lady protruding out of a hilltop, shoulder to shoulder, as if they’re one with the land and of the land. The grandmother — or “Babo” within the Artsakh dialect of Armenian (“Tatik” in Japanese Armenian) — wears a conventional mouth protecting, which was a logo of modesty and indicative of the cultural norm of silence imposed on Armenian girls upon marriage.
Azerbaijani propagandists on X continuously misuse historic pictures of (Christian) Armenian girls from Artsakh with these mouth coverings as purported documentary proof of the presence of Muslim Caucasian Tatars (predecessors of the “Azeri” individuals; to not be confused with the Tat) — clearly not understanding that subjugation of girls is rooted in patriarchal components that transcend faith. For its half, Azerbaijan, a petro-dictatorship infamous for its personal legal guidelines silencing reporting and civic dialogue, determined to misappropriate the monument as a substitute of outright destroying it. It’s doable that Azerbaijan understands repurposing such symbols might be simply as psychologically dangerous as destroying them. (It is usually doable that destroying it isn’t a precedence.)
However should Wikimedia Commons adjust to requests to take away pictures of “We Are Our Mountains”? It relies upon.
A purple textual content field on Wikimedia warns customers in opposition to importing new photos of the monument. (screenshot Valentina Di Liscia/Hyperallergic through Wikimedia)
In response to Hyperallergic‘s request for comment, a Wikimedia Foundation spokesperson noted in a statement that it “does not determine what content is included, or how the content is maintained, on Wikimedia Commons or other Wikimedia projects.” Instead, the spokesperson noted, content is “determined by a global community of volunteer contributors, who also establish and uphold policies and guidelines for the site.”
The spokesperson’s assertion continued:
Furthermore, till final 12 months, an impartial Azerbaijan by no means had full de jure or de facto management over the world, together with the place the monument is located. The truth is, when Azerbaijan seceded from the Soviet Union, it disclaimed its Soviet authorized heritage, which might have included the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast — fashioned and plopped into the borders of the Azerbaijani SSR by Stalin himself — and as a substitute declared itself the successor state of the de facto, self-declared, and unrecognized Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, which existed from 1918 to 2020.
“We Are Our Mountains,” created in 1967 by Sargis Baghdasaryan, grew to become a logo of the area and of Armenian indigeneity. (picture through Getty Pictures)
Whereas Article 16 of Azerbaijan’s Structure imposes on the state an obligation to guard historic, tangible, and intangible heritage, Azerbaijan is infamous for its selective software of such tasks.
For instance, Azerbaijan flouts lots of its obligations as a celebration to the Conference on the Elimination of All Types of Racial Discrimination (CERD), together with a number of provisional measures by the Worldwide Court docket of Justice pertaining to its discrimination in opposition to Armenians and Armenian cultural heritage. Azerbaijan maintains a broad ban on anybody with Armenian ethnicity, no matter nationality, from getting into the nation, in addition to anybody who visited Artsakh earlier than late 2022 (that’s, with out Azerbaijan’s “permission”). As of now, there is no such thing as a one in Azerbaijan who might safely defend the rights of an Armenian artist or monument, even when these rights have been theoretically acknowledged by the state itself.
Within the lead-up to subsequent week’s COP29, the annual United Nations local weather change convention hosted in Azerbaijan this 12 months — whilst oil and pure gasoline accounts for over 90% of its exports — the nation has prolonged the pre-trial detention of over 11 journalists. Azerbaijan continues to illegally imprison dozens of ethnic Armenian prisoners of struggle, together with many officers of the Republic of Artsakh. These “pre-trial detentions” are along with the sham trials of Vagif Khachatryan, an aged Armenian civilian whom Azerbaijan kidnapped from a Pink Cross ambulance in 2023, and different civilians captured and later tried, corresponding to Rashid Beglaryan and Vigen Euljekian, as Azerbaijan’s de facto borders shifted.
Plainly even within the digital age, the place info travels past borders, nations corresponding to Azerbaijan are permitted to not solely bodily exclude Armenians from their homeland but additionally have the privilege of interfering with Armenians’ collective capability to mourn and bear in mind the locations from which they’ve been expelled.
Maria T. Cannon, affiliate lawyer at Ambart LLC, contributed reporting for this story.
Editor’s notice 11/8/24 3:54pm EDT: This text has been up to date with an announcement from a Wikimedia Basis spokesperson.
