Cracking open the secular ‘sacred’ tru…
Cracking open the secular ‘sacred’ truths with examples from reality.
Since the end of the Cold War, the dominant paradigm of the Caucasus region has been “ethnic unmixing,” however, on the ground away from nation-state actions, there are actually examples all over the place of Armenians and Azerbaijanis living in peaceful, mixed communities.
As a conclusion, I would like to return to one of the stereotypes that are most common both on grassroots level and in the official discourse of Armenia and Azerbaijan, according to which states Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples cannot live side by side. I hope that many of those who are subject to the hypnotic influence of such myths will learn about the existence of villages like Tsopi, which is by far not the only existing remnant from the times when the lives of the two peoples were closely intertwined. [...] from a more general point of view representatives of different national communities, including Armenians and Azerbaijanis, are destined to co-existence as neighbors, as in the case of the villagers of Tsopi. It is necessary to pay attention to these spaces of coexistence and then probably there will be much more chances to make the perspective of peace closer to this region.
(via)