Visas and Hemlines

While checking in at the US Embassy’s front desk the alarm sounded and all visitors were immediately required to exit onto the street and wait for the end of the drill. On this occasion there were only two visitors waiting to re-enter the embassy. One was a student from Iran who had been admitted to a US university with a scholarship. He was sitting on the embassy’s wall clearly confused. “I don’t know why, but the consular officer just said I wouldn’t receive a visa. He said he didn’t believe I would return to Iran. I showed him my scholarship letter, my parents’ bank records, my own bank account as well. I don’t know what made him think I didn’t want to come back home. Now I am not sure what to do.”

Over the last five years the number of Iranians seeking US visas has increased to the point where the Embassy has set aside Thursdays as the designated “Iranians-Seeking-US Visa” day. Comments on the number of visa seekers can include the description “thousands.” Not only at the US Embassy has the presence of Iranians become more evident. Women wearing the chador have become commonplace on the streets of Baku. While outside the Milli Iran Bank there is a well known statue symbolically representing the first Azeri woman to throw off the chador, it is not uncommon to see Iranian women walking in the same area wearing a contemporary variant of this form of covering.

Over the last five years the number of young Azeri women covering even in Baku has increased to the point that if previously this was rare, now walking along the heart of Baku’s popular Fountain Square it has become everyday. Although an oversimplification, the generational trend in “hemlines” contrasts what might be observed in other countries.

Women who were educated and had careers during the Soviet period, and today are of grandparent age, may be wearing below the knee skirts and dresses. Their daughters, also educated in the Soviet system and who began their careers prior to 1991, may likely wear trousers and slacks on the street and in the work place. Over the last five years younger women, born after the USSR ended, are increasingly choosing to cover.

Notwithstanding government efforts to constrain the wahhabi branch of Islam, religion more generally remains a societal avenue for open expression and display. Print media has become largely politicized, with major newspapers for the most part offering pro-government articles. The papers considered “oppositional” are rather tame, and the one remaining paper known for its relatively neutral reporting is in Russian with a readership principally concentrated in Baku. Television stations have become largely government owned and controlled. Evening programming commonly includes remembrances of the late president and news coverage of the current president’s opening of new city parks.

The Internet has increasingly become the outlet for open exchange of ideas and, for example, the discussion of governance. Listservs, blogs, and YouTube provide an outlet for a relatively small but growing audience for comparatively unrestrained exploration of ideas and topics. At the same time that oil revenue flows increasingly unimpeded into the country the government has improved its activity in areas where previously it had been constrained. As government reliance on international donors decreases it appears that its readiness to exercise its sovereign judgment in contrast to other governments’ opinions may be increasing. This is an observation obviously of perspective, and there are multiple examples to suggest otherwise. The current and evolving incident surrounding the detainment of two youth activists is, however, offered by many as indicative of a possible government warning to the cadre of educated youth that certain forms of parody and ambiguous critique incurs a higher risk. European and US government representatives, in Baku and elsewhere, have requested that stricter observance of rule of law be applied to their situation. The Azerbaijani government has offered the counterpoint that as an internal affair of a possible criminal nature that its domestic affairs be respected.

There has been speculation that this incident could also be a warning signal to possible opposition parties. Already disorganized and in disarray since the parliamentary elections of 2005, and especially leading up to and following the fall 2008 presidential elections, the detainment of these two popular youth activists in the wake of a YouTube "Donkey" video may further discourage public outspokenness leading up to the next round of parliamentary elections.

Expression through religion, however, so far remains an area relatively unconstrained by government authorities. As other avenues become increasingly limited, what role mosques and the few churches might play in the dissemination of ideas and the attraction of new youth membership is an important question.

The young Iranian student who had not received his visa, before leaving the US Embassy turned and said, “I guess I’ll go on to Ankara. Iranian students have an easier time getting US visas there than in Baku.”