What to do with politics?

Often there's certain, political or otherwise sensitive chess news, and we're not sure what to do with it here at ChessVibes. Garry Kasparov criticizing Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Kramnik putting Vishy Anand's world title in doubt, or, like today, Teimour Radjabov expressing hatred against Armenia. We could have ignored the APA interview with Radjabov, because it all came down to just one (admittedly, astonishing) little sentence. We could have grabbed the trumpets and published the interview with a screaming header like "Teimur Radjabov: We all hate Armenians". Instead, we decided to express our uncertainty. What to do with politics?

In an interview for the Azeri Press Agency, when asked about the match against Armenia at the recent European Team Championship last month in Crete, Radjabov is quoted as responding:

"One must admit to being worried. No matter where you meet, the enemy remains the enemy. We all hated them. But at such times you try to suppress these feelings so they don't interfere. In chess it is necessary to play with a clear head, otherwise you won't achieve your results."

We know Radjabov can be quite outspoken, especially when angry, but isn't it highly unlikely that Teimour literally said "We all hated them" to the APA journalist? And if he did, should it be treated by chess journalists as news?

Is any news related to chess players, "chess news"? Depends on the player, we hear you answer. And indeed, recently we decided to keep on presenting Kasparov interviews from American television shows, not because it was about chess, but because it was Kasparov.

The "problem with this problem" is similar to Searle's declarative illocutionary speech act. By asking the question "should we write about it", we're already writing about it. We have now mentioned Radjabov's astonishing statement about the Armenians, and so we've touched upon politics already before we actually knew whether we wanted to.

And now, we could (try to) give you more insight in the tragical history between Armenia and Azerbaijan, from the Armenian-Azerbaijani war (1918-1920) till the Nagorno-Karabakh War, but this is not the place to teach historical lessons and we're far from qualified to say more about this subject than we've done already.

Instead, we're just expressing doubt. Feel free to express your thoughts on the question: what to do with politics?