Thank you very much for this invitation.
I am honoured to be with you in such a difficult time, when – as I feel it - Russia stands again at crossroads, as your people have so often stood in the last century.
I have been asked for a contribution about the issue of civil society and the role NGOs may play in its formation. But first I wish to start with a comment to what is happening these days:
I have been for the last three years also a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Russia is a member-state in this council and it has put its signature to the founding document of the Council of Europe, that is: the European Convention of Human Rights. I went through the Articles of this Convention. What I found concerning what has happened these days is laid down in Art. 5 and, as I said, is signed also by Russia. I quote:
“Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. No one shall be deprived of his liberty save in the following cases and in accordance with a procedure prescribed by law:
...
the lawful arrest or detention of a person effected for the purpose of bringing him before the competent legal authority on reasonable suspicion of having committed an offence or when it is reasonably considered necessary to prevent his committing an offence or fleeing after having done so;”
I learned from the papers, that 40 Duma-deputies and other public figures vouched in a letter to the court that Khodorkovsky would not flee the country if released on bail.
I am stunned – and not only I, but most of the public opinion in the rest of Europe - how the court and its judges feel competent to neglect such a strong voucher. If judges feel so much aloof, isn't it a sign of them leading this country the way back into a police-state?
I have it also from the papers that your president, Mr. Putin, said: “Nobody is above the law”. Yes, I fully agree. But doesn’t it mean also, that everybody is also entitled to the benefits of the law and of lawful procedure?
But now back to the issue about which you have asked me to speak. And let me start with an observation:
Two months ago I participated at a conference of the German-Russian Forum in Berlin also on the now very popular issue of “civil society”. And what struck me was that most of the German and most of the Russian speakers were talking about quite different concepts of civil society. Some of the German speakers didn’t like the notion of civil society, they rather preferred to speak about “civic society” and then they went back quite scholarly to ancient roots in the Greek democracy, while Russian speakers slipped in phrases of “party of power”, or “administrative resources”, or “the arms bearing ministries”, which the Germans mostly didn't understand and rather took for a slip of tongue, instead of asking themselves if both sides were not speaking about quite different political systems in their countries.
Therefore I want to speak about (1) what difference, (2) how to reach a truly pluralistic party system, (3) about NGO-structures as a mean to this end, and (4) about political education and Internet.
1) Russia and Germany both went through a period of One-Party-domination – with a remarkable difference: Germany, which brought all the barbarism and destruction of Nazism over its neighbours was saved by the western democracies and by the Soviet-Unions Red Army. Because of that – at least its western part - had to endure one-party-domination only for twelve years, while such structure – and I am speaking only about the structure of a one-party-system, not about issues and contents - lasted on your country for more than 80 years. And while in Germany after 1945 remembrances of the Weimar Republic 1919-1932 as the formatting period of a multi-party system were still very much alive, it is far more difficult, better said: impossible, to bridge 80 years – especially when 90 years ago there was not a strong pillar of a multi-party-system, but only a small beginning of a party-building process.
But the dangerous consequence of a one-party-system is its depoliticising effect on its people.
People in such a system are authority-oriented, if they like their leaders, or hate them, or are forced to like them.
To self-liberate their minds, in order to have them make well informed autonomous choices between policies and parties takes time, or better a lot of 4-year-terms between elections. If time would allow I would go deeper into this question in comparisons of West and East German electoral behaviour.
2) I am not an expert to deliver a judgment, where Russias political system in its transition from a one-party-system to a truly pluralistic party-system now stands. I quote what I get from discussions with Russian friends: There is this one Russia-wide party, defeated in its ideology, but still strong in its structure, slowly decreasing, but for a long time to come still a factor, to be reckoned with. And you have one or the other smaller party trying to develop a country-wide structure. And then you have the “party of power”: invented, designed and redesigned in the presidents administration or in quarters very close to it, whose program is very short: “the president”, and whose job is very necessary: to secure legislation.
But taken as a whole: Such political system is still very uneven, asymmetric. In short: It’s a “pluralistic party system in the making”.
3) This is where the question of NGOs and civil-society comes in. And here I am a bit more on my home turf. Because I am one of the co-founders of the party of “the Greens” in Germany, the party which is really an offspring of a strong NGO-movement and which now provides my country with its foreign minister. To explain this: After 1945 we developed in Germany a 3 party system. The parties were the embodiment of the mainstreams of conservative, of liberal and of social democratic thinking, with roots back into the party-building processes of the 19th century. The Liberals in-between the two bigger parties guaranteed the change of power between Conservative/Liberal and Social/Liberal coalitions. But among these three parties there developed also a consensus as far as questions of the future of our industrial society and of security of our people were concerned. All the three parties supported industrial growth what so ever, while people felt that some kinds of growth were poisoning the environment. They were asking for selective growth in quality not only in quantity. The three-party consensus was for nuclear energy as the top of technological progress; people were frightened by the dangers connected with it. The three parties supported the stationing by NATO of a new generation of nuclear missiles; we felt that these missiles wouldn’t protect our people, but destroy our country. Therefore at the end of the 70th all over the country citizens initiative groups sprung up, an ecological, an antinuclear and a peace-movement. They educated themselves as to the realities of the dangers they felt, they tried to go into dialog with the government and the parties, but when they felt, the answer was only persuasion without listening to them, and to integrate them because of their voting-strength without changing policies, the slogan came up: “we will elect ourselves”, or “they understand only the language of power”, meaning, of course, the power which derives from the voting-boxes. And by this the development of the fourth German party started.
Are there lessons to be learned by this? Of course not to also build a green party. Imitations never work. But more about the need to support the formation of NGOs, NGOs not designed from above, but built around a common goal, which this group of people feels necessary to pursue, are activating a society. Parties may establish a serious and stable dialog with them and by this also take better roots in society. And hopefully this could become the way to establish a truly and stable multi party system, where transition of power by the way of election is a normal way of life and it doesn't need a party of power in order to embrace power because a whole clan or “family” feels dependent from staying in power.
4) This brings me to the last point: Political education and Internet, or should I better say: by Internet. I have to confess that until a year ago, when I left parliament by my own will, I was not familiar with these modern technologies. I had my office and staff and when I needed a piece of information I got it in short time. Now I had to transfer my office and essential addresses into a laptop. And I am amazed. Because I have worked for a long time in the fields of Human Rights, and know a lot of Human Rights NGOs, e.g. in Azerbaijan, now I feel I know at least as much as my Foreign Minister about what’s going on in this country, especially about the falsifications of the last election there. Why? Because diplomats are speaking to governments and ministries. What they get and are reporting back is bureaucratic truth not to be confused with reality. What I get are lists of detainees, of ordinary people, who sitting in local election offices were not willing to underwrite falsified election results and preferred temporarily to be taken to jail.
Governments will have to realize that NGOs networking by Internet have surpassed national frontiers.
I am very glad to have been invited by the Foundation Open Russia. I am convinced that the process of opening up Russia has very much started and that in the same time it is our obligation in to open up Europe and even the EU for a cooperative Russia – even if it's still a long way to go. And on this long way it will be very necessary to support NGOs, especially those for Human Rights, for Press Freedom and for an Open Russia.