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YABLOKO’s leader participated in the international conference in Cairo devoted to global democracy

Press Release
December 8, 2009

On December 7, 2009, YABLOKO’s leader Sergei Mitrokhin opened international conference Conceptualising Global Democracy conducted within the framework of Building Global Democracy Programme.

Scholars, politicians and officials from over 60 countries of all the regions of the world participating in the conference will discuss the prospects of democracy in a changing more global world.

The honour to open a discussion was granted to YABLOKO’s leader Sergei Mitrokhin who was a discussant of the report Re-conceptualize Global Democracy from the Perspective of Chinese Culture made by Chinese scholars.

Sergei Mitrokhin marked a similarity of Russia’s and China’s problems. “In my opinion the authors are overestimating the national specifics and underestimate common democratic values. We can observe the same thing in Russia at present. The idea of a “sovereign democracy” has been actively promoted by the Russian authorities. It implies abolishing of democratic norms and values (that we have being observing) under the pretext of “Russia’s national specifics” or a “specific Russian way towards democracy”.

“In our country this approach serves so that to justify multiple violations of basic democratic rules and procedures, election fraud, total dependency of the judicial authority on the executive authority, negligence of the parliament and reduction of its powers and uncontrolled powerful bureaucracy,” Mitrokhin said.

Sergei Mitrokhin also stressed that the “the state and the political forces discussing the global democracy notion should come to a consensus as regards the basic universal corner stones of democracy, the rigid constructions that are not subject to alternative interpretations”. A global democracy should ground on basic democratic values that are not subject to revision, otherwise all discussions about democracy will turn into idle talk. What we mainly see today in the international politics is the “real politik”, which is very different from democracy.

Human rights represent one of such basic values. “If we neglect or underestimate the human rights notion, the dialogue between the developed democracies and the countries that are still far away from democratic ideals (and here I mean first of all Russia and China) will be either broken or all possible cooperation and interaction will be reduced to mutual false compliments,” Mitrokhin noted.

“Moreover if a state does not observe human rights, there can be no guarantees that in all other issues the behaviour of this country will be based on democratic values and principles. In this case we shall not be able to find solutions of other problems, such as ecology, for example. And both our countries – Russia and China – have to solve their problems in the field of human rights”, Mitrokhin said. YABLOKO’s leader also noted that Russia demonstrates multiple violations almost in every sphere and in every region, and China has huge problems including problems in the Shinjang Uyghur autonomous area, problems with Tibetans, political prisoners and other.

“I absolutely agree with the authors’ assumption that democracy is a developing system. However, if we don’t treat its basic values as absolute democratic values, the system will quickly “develop” into a totalitarian or authoritarian state, which we can observe in Russia today,” Mitrokhin stressed.

Stating that non-observance of basic democratic norms leads to problems in the inter-state relations, Sergei Mitrokhin gave an example of environmental problems in the Russian regions bordering on China. “The industrial development of China led to pollution of the environment making China one of the most environmentally unfriendly countries. The government tried to conceal the scope of the problems, however, sometimes the data on pollution do come out”, he said.

In particular, YABLOKO’s leader noted that the problem of pollution of the Amur river via its largest afflux – the Songhua river, which flows through Chinese territory. Also unlawful use of common water resources creates huge problems for Russia and Kazakhstan. In violation of international rules without any negotiations with other interested states, China began taking water for its irrigation purposes from the upper Irtysh (the so-called Black Irtysh), depriving the bordering territories of the RF and Kazakhstan of water resources. Also due to unrestricted Chinese consumption of half of waters of the Argun river which is one of the feeders of the Amur river, the whole Baikal region may turn into a semi-desert out of steppe.

Speaking about the authors’ thesis on the need of “a more fair world order” Sergei Mitrokhin noted that such countries as the RF and China making the loudest cries about unjust and unfair global order can not boast of a just and fair order in their states: violation of human rights, election fraud, etc.

Commenting on the key thesis of the authors of the report that the ultimate goal in the state development is “harmony—a mutually beneficial state without sacrificing the independence of each side”, YABLOKO’s leader stressed that this issue should not be treated as an abstract notion. He also recollected Fyodor Dostoevsky’s statement that “the entire universe of knowledge is not worth the tears of the child.”

Sergei Mitrokhin also stressed that understating of harmony as the main goal of development came from Chinese philosophy. He called all the colleagues to try to aspire harmony without sacrificing the independence of each side and each individual. “In my view, this could become our common slogan and unite all of us,” Mitrokhin concluded.

 

 

Press Release

December 8, 2009