Young People Are Azerbaijan's (Troubling) Future

Fittingly, I spent my last two nights in Azerbaijan with lots of young people.

I spent my next-to-last night at the graduation ceremony of Khazar University, the private college which co-sponsored my trip. It was thrilling, depressing, entertaining, and disturbing, all at once.

I spent my next-to-last night at the graduation ceremony of Khazar University, the private college which co-sponsored my trip. It was thrilling, depressing, entertaining, and disturbing, all at once.

Seeing young people at the beginning of their adults lives, simultaneously earnest and giggly, was inspiring—and, like I said, a little depressing (children! They’re all children!). They wore the blue and gold robes of Khazar over their miniskirts or jeans; occasionally a robe opened to expose impossibly tall high heels or the ragged cuffs of what had to be a student’s only pants.

I reflected on what a college or advanced degree means in a market-oriented fascist country. Teachers? You teach the president’s truth. Doctors? Don’t get any fancy ideas about public health. Business people? Better master the art of the bribe, and learn which players are government-approved.

And lawyers? I was informed, sotto voce, that this would be the last graduating Law class. The country’s “President,” apparently, doesn’t want private law schools confusing the students with any inconvenient ideas of justice.

Oddly, each group of graduates pledged an oath in both Azeri and English. Grimly, in unison, they swore to bring honor to Khazar, and to use what they’d learned “to serve my family, my people, and my country.” They actually ended with “I swear, I swear, I swear.” It was eerily like a military or Communist youth pledge. And while many presumably said it purely by rote, the idea of such a pledge was creepy to my Western, individual-oriented ears. Essentially, their education didn’t belong to them

—it belonged to their community. It’s a charming idea, troubling in its inevitable implementation.

The diplomas handed out, oaths sworn, and mortar-boards tossed into the air, it was time for entertainment. We saw traditional folk dances, and heard some Azeri opera. The climax was a stage full of “foreign students” lustily singing a national song off-key. As everywhere, the enthusiasm of youth was infectious, and ended with rousing applause. The future of Azerbaijan began again.

The final night of my trip I spoke to 50 of Khazar’s undergraduates.

And what did these kids want to know about? The same things that all college students want to know about: love, desire, love, sexual incompatibility, love, orgasms, and love. Who doesn’t want to know more about love?

These modern kids with their cell phones and laptops also have a disturbingly strong belief in the sexual stereotypes we associate with the 1950s. Both the young men and women were vocal about the necessity of female virginity before marriage, and their ambivalence about male virginity. They saw the latter as an ideal, but not entirely realistic. Indeed, both genders saw men as having special erotic “needs” that they couldn’t entirely control.

I must report, with all due modesty, that the kids loved me—my active lecturing style, continual kibitzing of individuals who texted or talked while I spoke, and willingness to use words like “vagina” and “balls.” When they said people just don’t say such things in public, I asked why. I then asked if they’d say them in private. “Not to your future wife,” said one. “Or your actual wife,” said another.

Americans were sexually inhibited 50 years ago, too.  But we weren’t continually pressured by MTV, internet porn, and the 24-hour-a-day contact of mobile phones. Yet in my two weeks here, I rarely saw young people hold hands, much less kiss. When I mentioned “kissing with tongues” during my talk, many of the students giggled or blushed.

And so I simply talked about “myths about sex;” said that feeling confused about sex is normal; reminded them that some girls like sex and some guys don’t; and threw out lots of words: menstrual period, masturbation, clitoris, going slow during intercourse, big breasts. They stayed and stayed; although I was hot and tired, I stayed and stayed, too. I wouldn’t have left this for the world.

Except I had to go pack.