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Izvestia
November 21, 2001
AGREEMENT ON OPINIONS
Civil society is being born in Russia
Author: Alexander Arkhangelsky
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
THE CIVIL FORUM THAT OPENS IN MOSCOW TODAY WAS PERHAPS THOUGHT TO BE JUST ANOTHER DISPLAY PUT ON BY THE GOVERNMENT. HOWEVER, THE CIVIL SOCIETY WHICH HAD SPONTANEOUSLY DEVELOPED SINCE 1991 IS SEIZING THE INITIATIVE. YET THERE IS CLEARLY STILL A LONG WAY TO GO.
Today Moscow witnesses the opening of the Civil Forum, in which 4,000 representatives of citizens' groups and NGOs will take part. The Justice Ministry has registered 350,000 non-profit organizations in Russia. According to the forum organization committee, about 70,000 of these are actually operational; every year they create up to 1 million jobs and provide free services to 20 million Russians - worth 15 billion rubles a year. The forum is to result in a new public agreement, or, at worst, a "protocol of intentions."
The new Russia has been consistently resolving essential historic challenges. Having defended its right for freedom in 1991, it dived in freezing waters of market so that home capital arose that would be vitally concerned for existence of the democratic regime. Then, they polished political institutions that still secured, if worse, functions of power. Now, time has come to do a much more important job, although much more difficult, too: gradually to create ground for development of an independent and strong civil society. That is a system of organizations that would be capable of protecting a person from despotism of business and of power, giving him the possibility of civil self-realization, and inculcate in the country a taste for self- government.
The forum had been preceded by conflicts on the verge of a scandal. At first, the refugee oligarch Boris Berezovsky announced of his ambitions for building a civil society in Russia. His obvious ideological rival Gleb Pavlovsky at once brought some very marginal public men to the Kremlin to meet the president. There was a feeling that the power had "ordered" him making a governable model of a civil society, a fake, a mirage. Even now, Pavlovsky does not hide that he had primarily political aims. This is how he explained the reasons that suddenly aroused civic feelings in him: "Today's peaceful situation is actually based on the president's personal resources alone, with a colossal bureaucratic community attached to it. This does not support Putin by itself and its contact to the real society is very weak. This whole construction is itself a danger. It is necessary to urgently bring the public out of the position of spectator into the position of participant and designer, or, at least, expert and controller."
However, the process, like it suits every public process, very quickly ruined accurate plans of political technologists. The forum tasks were in principle altered; real civil forces joined in its preparation. Why was it so? Explain Alexander Auzan from the International confederation of consumer societies: "We were not satisfied with the idea of a forum-congress at which the State will "built" public organizations. However, we managed to change the approach; the mater was now in the ways of interaction of the society and the State." Not every "conscious citizen" shares this position; some rights watchers have preferred the habitual opposition to an equal dialogue. In the words of Veronika Marchenko from A Mother's Right, "protecting the rights of a specific individual is only possible when one is not bound to agreements with authorities. One should not look for a nobleman to come and judge a dispute, and award somebody a fur coat. One should demand that the nobleman should abide by the law. And this is only possible when you have no relationship with that nobleman that involves him giving you a fur coat and you giving something in return." And still: the forum structure has changed beyond recognition. That is to the norm.
One should not please oneself with illusions; even if it does not go very smooth at first, we are just standing at the mouth of a movement that can lead us to the sought end. But far from soon.
Overall, the question is the same as it was in August 1991 and October 1993: who will win. Either them, or us. This opposition has only assumed different, more civilized forms; the past decade has produced a cultural layer. Without this, we couldn't even think of civil society.
(Translated by P. Pikhnovsky)
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