In his latest letter Mikhail Khodorkovsky addresses Russian journalists with comments on his now famous article “Crisis of Russia’s Liberalism”.
Dear friends!
I welcome you at the regular session of the Club of Regional Journalists. I believe my article (The Crisis of Russian Liberalism) will be one of the items for discussion. I ask you not to make any allowances for the circumstances in which it was written.
Rather, prison has given me a moral right to frankly and publicly say things I earlier discussed in private with my colleagues. Just like any other person I find it most difficult to say unpleasant things to my friends, especially in public. Nonetheless, I considered it necessary to say what I said [in my letter], to say it now, now that there is still time left before 2007.
Today the words "liberalism", "democracy" have become almost obscene, not because people in Russia do not want freedom; it is just that those words for most of the population are closely associated with the shocks of 1991-1993 and the 1998 collapse, and we, the advocates of the liberal democratic development of the country, have only two options.
The first one is to say "we (I mean myself and the so-called old liberals) have done everything right" and to leave the political scene with our heads held high, taking the ideals of freedom and democracy away for another twenty years from the people who fail to understand, who for some reason still demand social guarantees, stability and wages.
The second option is to honesty admit: we have committed many mistakes out of folly, vanity, out of a failure to understand what is going on in the country in the complex entirety of all its social and regional peculiarities -- those are our mistakes, not the inevitable result of liberal reforms.
Forgive us if you can, let us make up for our mistakes, we know how. And if you cannot, it is us who must leave, the people, but not the ideals of freedom and democracy. And then the new liberals will have almost four years to start many things anew.
And there is one more thing I need to say, albeit unpleasant, but it is true. The only institute of power recognized by the people is the president. Today this is the case. In many aspects this is a result of our mistakes and we must learn to negotiate. This does not amount to abandoning criticism, or, even more so, giving up establishing the structures of a civic society.
This amounts to understanding one's responsibility for maintaining stability in the country, stability that was so hard to achieve and that is not at all guaranteed, neither historically or politically.
For the demand for liberal and democratic values to be restored nationwide one has to ensure a certain level of stability and safety, to lower the level of poverty, to offer equal education and employment opportunities to the young. Those are very practical and feasible tasks, feasible provided the general stability in the country is preserved, provided cooperation with the West is preserved and enhanced with our national peculiarities and interests being taken into consideration.
In other words, it is erroneous, in my opinion, to confront the goal of developing a civic society with the task of achieving and maintaining stability and accord. Those are two parallel, mutually supporting, albeit conflicting, processes. What is important is the balance.
Think about that.
Good luck!
>From MosNews.com
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