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.
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