Azadlig: Azerbaijani authorities remove Heydar Aliyev’s portraits from streets to conceal ‘cult of personality’ from Europeans
The authorities in Azerbaijan attempt to conceal the cult of personality of Heydar Aliyev from the foreigners ahead of the European Games. The country’s ex-president’s posters and portraits have been started to be removed from Baku’s central streets and avenues. The posters portraying Heydar Aliyev have been taken away from various parts of the city, including the Nobel Avenue in Nizami metro station district, where they were hung for many years, the Azerbaijani newspaper Azadlig writes.
According to the article, some of the representatives of Baku districts executive authorities, being inquired on the matter, said they were carrying out special instruction. A part of those asked claimed they had no idea who had taken away the posters with Heydar Aliyev’s portrait. There also came such responses as “the portraits will be restored and hung back.”
The leader of the opposition party Azerbaijani Popular Front (APFP), Ali Kerimly, commented the case on his Facebook page writing that having Heydar Aliyev’s portraits and statues on every corner in Azerbaijan obviously points to retardation, and even the authorities realize that.
“Every foreigner, who arrives in Baku, can easily guess that he/she is a guest to a whitewashed eastern despotic country just considering the excessive number of the portraits, statues, museums, centers, parks and other institutions, which have some relation to Heydar Aliyev or carry his name. Such a vivid expression of cult of personality as in Azerbaijan cannot be found in a normal country. And now the authorities attempt to hide that and disguised themselves from the Europeans to save their reputation,” he stressed.
The Azerbaijani newspaper wonders: if the authorities of Azerbaijan can afford taking away Heydar Aliyev’s portraits from the streets, houses, offices, summer cottages, from their suits, from school textbook covers and copybooks in order to hide the cult of his personality, how will they hide the ex-president’s statues that occur at every step, and most importantly, how are they going to hide the Holiday of Flowers in Heydar Aliyev’s honor due on May 10 on which an enormous sum of money has already been spent?
The cult of personality of Heydar Aliyev was initiated during his lifetime, and this process has been on since his death. Streets and parks, various enterprises (including the airport in Baku and refineries) have been named in honor of the former president. In the textbooks, Heydar Aliyev is called a "great leader" and “savior of Azerbaijan.” According to BBC, the critics say that the cult of personality of Heydar Aliyev was created partly in order to legitimate his son’s ruling.
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