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On Wednesday, an hour before sending this issue of Obshchaya
Gazeta to the printers, the Civil Forum began its work in Moscow.
The largest hall in Moscow, the State Kremlin Palace, was full
to capacity, as had been initially planned. About five thousand
people representing about three thousand public organisations
of different profiles came to participate in the work of the Forum.
They received a warm welcome from Russian President Vladimir Putin,
who arrived at the State Kremlin Palace with a large group of
state leaders. The dialogue of the authorities with civil society,
as announced by the organisers of this Forum, had began. According
to plans it will last two days. Naturally, time will tell what
the parties to this event will agree on and how they will carry
on in future. On the threashold of the Forum Obshchaya Gazeta
asked Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the Yabloko party, what he
thought about the Kremlin gathering of the citizens.
Question: Grigory Alexeevich, sometimes we hear that the
Civil Forum is Yabloko's initiative, i.e. the adapted version
of your Democratic Assembly, stolen by the authorities.
Grigory Yavlinsky: I don't think so. In any case, the
Civil Forum did not influence the work of the Democratic Assembly
at all. We shall soon hold another meeting and we work in accordance
with the agenda we adopted at the very beginning. The Democratic
Assembly represents a permanent dialogue of democratically-oriented
political parties and civic organisations, whereas the Kremlin
Forum is, in my opinion, merely a one-time Forum conducted solely
for the sake of image. If the initiators of this PR action had
come to the President with their idea after September 11, I am
sure he would advise them not to bother with trifles. But preparations
for the Forum began in summer, when there was the scandal with
NTV, the developments in Chechnya were such that we were criticised
by the world, when Kim Jong Il was visiting… Something had to
be devised during that time to fix the international image of
the President. It was decided to protray him as the builder of
civil society. After September 11 the international image of our
President is OK, and the need for this tremendous performance
fell away. But since the Forum had been announced, organisational
work done, and large funds allotted, it would naturally have been
awkward to call the Forum off.
Question: Why don't you want to believe that this is a
real attempt of the authorities to arrange a dialogue with the
civil society structures?
Grigory Yavlinsky: Because I don't understand what kind
of dialogue there can be when five thousand people representing
a huge variety of interests are gathered in one place. For example,
there are societies of bee-keepers, rabbit-breeders, divers, defenders
of wildlife; all of them are doing useful and necessary things,
and they probably require state support. Some need help with premises,
other with money. But there are civil associations targeted at
control over the actions of the authorities, for example, organisations
defending human rights. They have special relationships, as we
say, with the state. Do you as someone in authority like to hear
the voice of human rights activists? Fine, give an hour of broadcasting
time at a state channel to Memorial, and listen to what they have
to say. But they don't give broadcasting time to human rights
activists, they don't read their reports or visit their congresses,
but they invite them to the Kremlin for a talk. That's the kind
of dialogue we have here…
Question: Recently the organisers of the Forum have been
talking a lot that the President is not using the resource of
his popularity. He enjoys huge public support, but there are no
mechanisms for transforming this potential into practical deeds.
Consequently, the mobilisation of independent civic organisations
represents an attempt to build such a mechanism. However, no one
has mentioned here the goals of such mobilisation.
Grigory Yavlinsky: One can state with certainty that we
cannot implement a single task in building a modern competitive
country without the support of civil society. And I don't know
what the organisers of the Forum had in mind here. Belarussian
president Lukashenko, for example, also likes to be supported
by the public. This is a kind of special, "progressive public"
selected for a pleasant chat with the president. Later he cites
this "vox populi" in disputes with his opponents. I
don't know, maybe the organisers of this Forum have set the same
task - to replace civil society with the "progressive public".
I don't think they will succeed here. There are many people with
rich life experience among the participants of this Forum; it
is unlikely that they will allow themselves to be manipulated.
I hope that people of common sense will not concentrate on the
Civil Forum only. This is a private one-time arrangement, it will
pass, but the tasks of the interaction of civic organisations
and the problems they have to face will remain.
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