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"You shall not make for yourselves idols, nor shall you set up for yourselves an image or a sacred pillar, nor shall you place a figured stone in your land to bow down to it; for I am the Lord your God."
Holy Bible, Leviticus, 26:1

Do those who disbelieve think that they can get away with setting up My servants as gods beside Me? We have prepared for the disbelievers Hell as an eternal abode.
Holy Quran, Al-Kahf (The Cave), 18:102

Since the fall of Soviet Union, the newly independent nation of Azerbaijan faced the typical problem of an ideological vacuum created by the collapse of the old communist system, and the authorities expectedly attempted to control the advance of both domestic and foreign-born religious and secular movements. In-spite of similarity of this process to likewise trends in some other post-communist countries, it is nevertheless uniquely linked to the existence of a state-sponsored religion in Azerbaijan - Heydarism. In its essence, Heydarism consists of blind obedience to the government, active participation in its operations and devotion to its leaders, with the late president Heydar Aliyev, carrying the title of “National Leader”, and his family, including his son – the current president, being the main objects of worship.

The Fear of Decency

The current political-economic system in Azerbaijan is based on a pervasive bribery pyramid, total state control over all aspects of political life and obligatory support for the government in everything it does, regardless of whether the person really believes that the actions of the government benefit the public. Since these very foundations of the regime contradict any basic morality, both religious and secular, the system demands from its adherents to leave behind their moral convictions. The present government of Azerbaijan keeps guard against any other influential ideology taking hold of its people and leading them to stray away from the officially mandated creed of Heydarism. The weaker is people’s adherence to some positive principles and values – the easier it is to control them, and the feebler are the protests against injustices and pervasions perpetrated by the authorities.

When the system is immoral and corrupt in its core, the “clean” individuals, those who have relatively unsoiled conscience, threaten the existence of the regime, since such persons have the highest chance of taking a principled stance and refusing to participate in the criminal machine of the establishment. Thus, the worse-case scenario for the authorities is for such individuals to start following a certain code of ethics organized into a coherent philosophy, such as a religion or any concrete secular ideology advocating decency and personal integrity.

At the same time, the ruling petro-dictatorship in Azerbaijan is quite realistic and modest in its ambitions – the regime’s guardians recognize that it does not have enough ideological strength and will ultimately loose the struggle if it tries to openly stand against the religion, especially the traditional beliefs practiced in Azerbaijan, or if it publicly opposes the universally accepted secular humanistic norms. Therefore, instead they choose to initially "cooperate" with most religious and secular movements, aiming to either: 1) undermine and eventually destroy them from within by infiltrating them; or 2) actually put them into a service of the regime by buying out or deceiving their leaders when possible; or 3) constantly intimidate and pressure its leadership, members and financial assets, just enough to keep them in-check, without allowing them to pose any real threats. With this methodology, the authorities ensure that the society at large stays corrupted, to a degree that no large positive value system, capable of uniting people around an alternative vision, can emerge in Azerbaijan without itself getting utterly distorted. If the movement stays strong and grows, despite the efforts to subvert and corrupt it - then the regime uses dirty tactics to discredit its leaders and their ideas. If that does not work either – then it will resort to brute force to demolish and ban the movement, morally (if not physically) destroying, jailing or expelling its leadership from Azerbaijan, whatever is necessary.

To achieve the goal of total control over its direct followers and the rest of population, the cult of Heydarism has two simple main commandments comprising its foundation (along with few other secondary rules), the strict observance of which is demanded from all individuals who take up a leading role in the society, be it a state job or any other position of significant power. These two main principles are also implicitly “taught” to everybody else, old and young alike, by the "realities of life" (created by the regime itself) and thus the general population is prepared to accept the immoral system. Those two commandments run as follows.

The First commandment: "Mention My Name Before Any Other Gods"

Being a flexible and practical sect, Heydarism does not demand exclusive loyalty from its subjects. All it asks for is to pay homage to the “National Leader” and to the present leadership on every appropriate occasion and frequently sing praises to the regime, while one might at the same time continue to nominally profess any other religious or secular ideology or lack thereof, as long as doing so does not clash with the system.

The old Soviet rule of putting subservient stooges of the government in the leadership positions of official religious establishment was carefully preserved. But in Azerbaijan the unity of church and state took a whole new meaning. In a vivid demonstration of such synthesis between a traditional religion and Heydarism, a poem was written by an eager-to-please “Muslim believer” with the main theme of “Allahu Akbar – Heydardi Rehber” (translated in English: “God is Great, Heydar is the Leader”). In another case, a successful farmer, known by name Xanish Kishi, from a southern province brought dozens of lambs and sacrificed them for the “Great Leader”. Of course, the fact that Islam, as well as both Christianity and Judaism, all prohibit sacrificing animals in anybody else’s name, except for One True God, was conveniently forgotten. What mattered was that the ritual proceeded in accordance with “Islamic tradition” and the Leader’s name was mentioned.

The Second commandment: “You Shall Not Avoid Stealing”

Basically, the system has a simple “no play – no pay” rule, requiring all “players” to participate in the comprehensive scheme of bribery which results in stolen public and, sometimes, private wealth and penetrates all levels of society, from the very top to the lowest bottom. Thus, the nation turns into a wicked order of willing and unwilling thieves, with everyone’s hands tainted and no one being able to claim innocence from crimes of the regime.

Sometimes outside observers get puzzled by laws and regulations in Azerbaijan, which seem to be intentionally designed to make it impossible to follow them, even when there is no evident gain for the ruling elite from such setup. But the economic system is deliberately built in such a way, in order to prevent the citizens from operating in an honest and legal way. It ensures that all members of society see themselves as guilty as the ruling elite, and nobody can express a genuine outrage at the depravity of situation. At the same time, large portions of the population become stakeholders in the crooked enterprise, with the people’s livelihood depending on its smooth operation. Like a physical reincarnation of Quranic character of Satan, the Heydarist establishment acts as if it recognizes its own damned nature and tries to corrupt and take down with itself as many people as possible.

Those who opt out of this massive circle of thievery, with very few exceptions, become economic and social outcasts, hardly able to sustain themselves. They either end-up relenting and falling back into the fold of the system, or face the tragic option of leaving the country or continuing their helpless struggle with all hardships that ensue. But even those lonely desperate dissidents are allowed to remain only because the system extracts benefits from their existence. The minor and more apparent use of such individuals is the mirage of opposition and pluralism, with which the regime placates its critics in Western democracies. But their more subtle and much more important role is that the misery and suffering of these nonconforming politicians, intellectuals, and journalists demonstrate to the rest of people the consequences of opposing the authorities and hopelessness of dissent.

Ideological Parasite

In many ways, Heydarism lives as a parasitic organism, lacking any fixed norms of its own (except for basic human instincts of greed, fear, and adulation of power), and, therefore, being incapable to offer any genuine vision to the society. But it compensates for this disadvantage by a rather enviable ability to attach itself to other more complete and already popular sets of values and traditions, and gradually appropriate their meanings. The absence of any great ideals or solid doctrines, in fact, might be the greatest strength of Heydarism: on one hand, it is open to borrowing ideas from any other ideology, as long as it helps to promote its goal of staying in power and plundering the nation; on the other hand, there are practically no moral boundaries that the regime would not transgress, and no principles that it would hesitate to abandon, once they become an obstacle on its way.

The consequences for other belief systems of being overtaken by Heydarists are disastrous. Once the regime associates with another philosophy, it sucks up all of its inherent energy, uses it to cover-up its own vileness, and by committing numerous crimes in the name of those noble ideas - it ultimately destroys that ideology in the eyes of the public. In other words, entering into a pact with the devil turns any good idea into a mockery of itself, and devil always leaves its “spiritual allies” in shatters.

The biggest victim of such abuse was the genuine patriotism of Azerbaijani people. Ever since Heydar Aliyev’s face was put on the national flag and his name was attached to the national-liberation movement, which peaked in late 1980s and early 1990s, it slowly but surely turned the natural pride and love of people towards their country, into a struggle for power and tribal-regional loyalty. The deep-rooted sense of despair, the idea that “our people deserve the government they got”, the disbelief in any alternatives to the current regime, the pervasive indifference of people to the fate of their country – all these are the results of the ideals of Azerbaijani statehood and nationalism being perverted by Heydarism.

The aspirations for economic prosperity, liberation of occupied lands in Karabakh, freedom and human rights, and many other ideas faced similar tragic fates in Azerbaijan, tuning into a discredited utopia, rather than a tangible goal in the eyes of the public once they were infected by the virus of Heydarism. Even the long expected fruition of oil contracts was presented as the exclusive achievement of wise policies of “National Leader”, and thus oil and gas turned into a rightful property of the royal family, rather than a national resource. The people learned to be grateful for any leftovers and abstain from demands of transparency and responsible management of oil revenues.

With all hopes and dreams vanished, the dark grey cloud of Heydarism remains as the only surviving reality, with its promise of limited material “paradise” in exchange for submitting one’s soul into the hell of moral degeneracy – the ultimate choice that this cult offers to its adherents.

By S. A. Mirzayev
(Translated from original in French)