Graeme Wilson: “Azerbaijani people are confident in their present and future”

British researcher and writer Graeme Wilson who repeatedly visit Baku and is well acquainted with the realities of Azerbaijan expressed his perception of the results of 15 years in office of President Ilham Aliyev.

He wrote about this in his op-ed for 1news.az. We share with you the original author’s text.

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Once a month — more regularly if I am lucky — I make the sweeping journey from Heydar Aliyev International Airport and into Baku. It is a passage that has the familiar, comforting elements that accompany arrival to my second home. Such as the oil derricks that stand sentry along our route.

One even grows a fondness for the cranky Lada cars that share our road, although in this new age of Azerbaijan, those strange remnants of an almost bygone socio-economic era seem less in number all the time, replaced by Range Rovers, C-Class and other gleaming 21st century brands.

Airport Road has a warm familiarity as it winds into the city. Yet not necessarily in its vistas. Even for a regular traveller to the country, eyes remain peeled for a latest addition to the totemic buildings that dot your skyline, some shiny new infrastructure, or an example of the continuing paradigm shift in socio-economic development that has seen life in the nation transformed, during the duration of a single Azerbaijani Presidency, to a degree that takes other countries a generation, or more.

Baku used to be the Dubai of the Caucasus. Today, Dubai is the Baku of the Gulf. Azerbaijan’s capital has become symbolic of a nation morphing into a 21st century giant, a state that now straddles the international stage on so many levels.

How did this happen? How has this small Caucasus nation come to be considered a development model, despite myriad challenges, not least occupation, a million IDPs and a debilitating frozen conflict? For it is clear that, despite the odds, this phoenix nation has become a paragon of socio-economic and geopolitical success.

As I travel across the world, recently even to the dysfunction and corruption of Armenia, I often recall 1960 when Dag Hammarskjöld, then secretary-general of the United Nations, voiced his hopes for the future of our planet. It was an era of post-colonisation and widening self-determination of nations. He summed up a new generation of leaders he was meeting as being of “high seriousness, devotion and intelligence.”

Tragically, of course, Hammarskjöld would not live to see the emergence of  thenew world order he craved, contemporary evidence suggesting that the plane carrying him was shot down over Northern Rhodesia. Neither did Hammarskjöld’s optimistic view of the world’s politicians live on beyond his own demise, smashed on the rocks of prevailing events. In a constantly dynamic world of politics, challenges continue to evolve. Leaders who fail to constantly re-define their goals in line with the needs of their people, and the socio-political and socio-economic dynamics of their countries, fail their nations. With catastrophic consequences.

An age has passed since Hammarskjöld’s overly optimistic comments. And it is true that, today, the challenges of governing have never been greater amid this era of globalisation and hyper-change. It is also an age of post-truth. We see a rising tide of banal popularism.

It is a time when international leaders, rather than throwing a conniption in response to cognitive dissonance, then weighing ideas logically and coming up with solutions, have retreated into faux platitudes. We can also look back to an era when the media was not propaganda. The fourth estate informed, provoked coherent discussion and provided strength to our developing societies.

Amid the challenges, and the breakdown of many of our institution around the globe, this overarching and somewhat gloomy narrative has its exceptions. The ever-evolving ride into Baku illustrates that fact perfectly; that coherent leadership, purposeful vision and a goal-driven pursuit of the future, the very antithesis of a vacume and malaise that we are seeing around the world, is still a recipe for success.

On October 31, President Ilham Aliyev will reach a personal milestone. In 2003, he assumed the Presidency of his nation. If his predecessor had dragged his nation from its nadir a decade earlier, it would be President Ilham Aliyev’s task to shape a nation able to thrive amid the many challenges of the 21st century.

Over the last 15 years, a great deal has changed. Azerbaijan weathered the global economic crisis relatively well, with a marked rise in income and decrease in poverty. His government pursued a diversified economy adopted market based policies, and rolled out better social services.

Rule of law has been strengthened, while Azerbaijan has evolved as an energy powerhouse, a cultural hub and a bastion of political and diplomatic stability, all the while remaining aloof from the geopolitical traps that have claimed the independence of so many others.

This anniversary provides an excellent juncture, a pertinent moment, to take stock of the leader he has become. President Aliyev’s charm, confidence, likeability, power and personal magnetism have underpinned his ability to lead, allowing him energise his administration and maintain the overwhelming support of his people for his vision and goals.

For 15 years the nation’s stakeholders have been drawn in a unified sense of direction. Perhaps more than anything, this has underpinned Azerbaijan’s extraordinary march forward.

Unlike most world leaders, President Ilham Aliyev’s background is neither in the military nor in politics, but in business and academia. The usual rules of engagement – and language of politics – are not his.

Rather than talk in spin or sound bites, President Aliyev and his team delivered a powerful vision to the nation, one which had steered Azerbaijan toward retaining its independence and strengthening economic and political influence. He had eschewed fear-based strategies and divisive rhetoric, seeking instead to lead programmes of transformation that inspire hope, optimism and confidence.

On the international stage, there are too few leaders today who have the courage to speak their mind on the seminal issues. President Aliyev has, even when these are contrary to the mainstream view touted by a sometimes paralised global establishment. By speaking his mind, he and his nation has consciously avoided the mediocrity and inertia that prevents transformational change, progress in international affairs and in finding solution to the troublesome issues that plague the world in 2018.

I am reminded of an anecdote told by the late Natig Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Industry and Energy. In 2008, the day after President Aliyev had been reelected for the first time, the President telephoned his Minister.

Natig expected to discuss the successful election, which had provided a sweeping endorsement. Instead, it was business as usual, President Aliyev dismissing any congratulations proffered and instead going on to discuss more pressing matters. For me, this sums up the man and his approach to the task at hand.

To mark this seminal anniversary, there will be wide recognition of the statistics that underpin President Aliyev’s era in power. They are undoubtedly valid. For me, however, I look out of my car window and see the new headquarters of the State Oil Fund of the Republic of Azerbaijan, that bastion and guarantee of future development, and the headquarters of SOCAR.

My car heads into the city and allows me to pass Baku White City and Port Baku. And, eventually, I arrive within sight of the emblemic Flame Towers. These sum up a nation confident of its present, and its future. It is a nation whose time has, truly, arrived.

It takes deft leadership and a steely sense of purpose to succeed where so many others, among them surely many good men and women, have failed. Almost six decades on, however, perhaps there is evidence that Dag Hammarskjöld was indeed correct in his optimism.

Graeme Wilson

He is the author of numerous biographies and books about political leaders and major world companies. He is also the author of the biography of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and national leader Heydar Aliyev, as well as a book dedicated to the centenary of ADR.