Azerbaijan wavers between East and West

BAKU, Azerbaijan — Last month, this authoritarian nation tucked between Russia and Iran won the slightly wacky “American Idol”-meets-Model U.N. pop song contest called Eurovision, and now Azerbaijanis are asking themselves a question:

Can rock-and-roll — the lingua franca of dissent — make them free?

(Frank Augstein/AP) - The Eurovision victory of pop duo Eldar Gasimov and Nigar Jamal in Germany won Azerbaijan the right to host the competition in 2012.

Not only did the Eurovision victory leave this country — which feels deeply under-appreciated — dizzy with pride, but it also makes Baku host of the 43-nation event in May, opening it up to a madcap extravaganza that requires tolerance for high camp — think spiked orange hair and green sequined sunglasses — and unfettered self-expression.

This year’s contest in Duesseldorf, Germany, brought a live audience of 36,000, hordes of exuberant tourists and 120 million viewers on television and on the Web, more than the number who watch the Super Bowl.

Government critics are seizing on Europe’s sudden attention and the leadership’s desire for respect and friendship from it to press for democratic reforms. The government has a long record of arresting journalists and other outspoken opponents, and in March and April, unnerved by the popular uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, it cracked down hard on youthful demonstrators.

“As you know, rock is the music of free people,” more than 30 civic leaders said in a May 26 letter to President Ilham Aliyev, asking him to release journalists and activists before the Eurovision Song Contest arrives.

U.S. Ambassador Matthew J. Bryza also made the connection. “I hope this is the opening sign of a new era, a new era for Azerbaijan as it deepens its reforms,” he said, commenting on the president’s pardon and release of an opposition newspaper’s editor jailed for four years. “And what a wonderful way to begin this year of preparation for Eurovision 2012.”

Strategic importance

Azerbaijan, a secular Muslim nation that is mostly Shiite but wary of neighboring Iran, has one hand firmly extended toward Europe and the West — while the other keeps a tight fist on power and wealth at home.

Energy security and strategic location make Azerbaijan — which is perched on the heights of the Caucasus mountains and curves along the low Caspian shores — important to the United States. A 1,100-mile oil pipeline operated by BP in partnership with U.S. and other companies pumps a million barrels a day from Baku, the capital, through the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, helping diversify supplies and cut dependence on energy from the Middle East.

There’s money to be made here, and it washes fetchingly over Baku, which in the past decade has transformed from a slightly seedy Soviet capital into a moneyed city with well-landscaped parks, five-star hotels and the requisite Kenzo, Armani and Escada stores.

Families stroll along the oil-perfumed Caspian shore, eating popcorn, drinking Coke and stopping to sip tea in outdoor cafes. Twelfth-century walls enclose a tidily preserved old city where 14th-century caravan stops have been turned into restaurants. Art nouveau buildings from the last oil boom — the Swedish Nobel brothers made their fortunes after setting up here in 1879 — offer cosmopolitan elegance. And now, Soviet–era buildings are giving way to statement-making architecture, including three flame-shaped skyscrapers under construction at a cost of $350 million.