Topic: Panel 1: Freedom and Responsibility in Politics

Panel 1: Freedom and Responsibility in Politics

Kim Campbell
There is no freedom without responsibility. Unless people are prepared to take the responsibility of protecting freedom, it is a very ephemeral value. I think it was Edmund Burke who said that the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. This is a room full of people who have devoted their lives to taking that kind of responsibility and none more than our host President Havel, whose life is an inspiration. He is an icon because he reminds us that when we take that responsibility sometimes good things happen, that good triumphs.

Before I introduce our keynote speaker I want to draw your attention to the fact that there are three unoccupied chairs at our panel table: Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, dissident from Cuba, Aung Sun Suu Kyi, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, elected but never able to serve as prime minister of Burma/Myanmar, and Ghalymzhan Zhakiyanov, opposition leader of Kazakhastan. They were all invited and wished to attend; but are not able to be here. Later, we will hear a declaration from Oswaldo Payá.

There is probably no one who better represents the values we are speaking about today than our keynote speaker. She came to the United States with her family from this country, fleeing oppression. She has celebrated the freedom that she was able to attain as an American citizen by taking enormous responsibility to contribute to her new country, the country of her citizenship and the country of her career. She has done this not only as a scholar, but also in holding one of the most important positions in the American government, Secretary of State. It was of course a great joy in this country when Madeleine Albright was named Secretary of State of the United States. Although her term of office is finished, she continues to be an active and engaged participant in the international community, carrying the responsibility of protecting freedom, promoting freedom, in a world where the value is very much under duress. It is a great pleasure for me to introduce our keynote speaker, who will set the tone for our discussion this morning, Secretary Madeleine Albright.

Madeleine Albright
Good morning to you all. No matter how many times I return to Prague, it is always a thrill for me to be back in the city of my birth. I am also pleased to be a part of this conference, with its great list of international speakers. And I am delighted as always, to share the podium with President Havel.

My topic this morning, and that of the distinguished panel to follow, is freedom and responsibility in politics. This is a subject that can be approached from more than one direction. My focus will be on the responsible exercise of power in the arena of world affairs. This is an enduring topic because responsibility in international affairs is directly linked to the question of rights.

If power is to be used responsibly, it must respect the limits of constitutions and laws; it should abide by established global norms; and it should take into account the moral obligations we each have to one another. This is the basis for democracy’s reputation as the least imperfect system of government—for democracy is premised on a balance between freedom and responsibility, and on the conviction that both are universal.

From the time of Thomas Jefferson to the era of Václav Havel, democrats have argued that every person is endowed with certain basic rights; and that we are each accountable to society as a whole in exercising those rights. Freedom, in this sense, should not be confused with license, for it is the kind of freedom that has boundaries; there are lines that must not be crossed.

The question also arises in any democracy—as in any life—what will we use our freedom for? Will we pre-occupy ourselves with selfish interests—or dedicate a portion of our time and energy to helping others? Will we squander our liberty in pursuit of the frivolous, or engage in the kind of serious work that lives on in the hearts and minds of future generations? Some say it is a mistake to try to place public policy within the context of morality and values.

The argument is that values are always influenced by culture and therefore inherently biased. It is important to recognize this possibility, but it would be a mistake to become paralyzed by it. The idea that we should refrain from acting on our beliefs because others believe differently is to place the avoidance of conflict on a throne higher than it deserves. Peace in our time is not necessarily the highest responsible aspiration, nor is it always a recipe for peace in our time. When decent people either fear to defend their values or think it somehow impolite to do so, others may rush to impose theirs. In this way, the search for moral objectivity can lead to no morality at all.

None of us have a right to claim that we have a monopoly on truth. We each have an obligation to listen with an open mind to opposing views. But we need not be shy in expressing our beliefs about responsible leadership—and so I will now express mine.

I believe that today we are in urgent need of responsible leadership in four areas. The first is in the quest for inter-cultural understanding. None of us want to believe that the world is in the early stages of a clash of civilizations. But we can not deny that we are already engaged in a clash of ideas.

We are confronted by a mode of thinking that divides all the world into us and them, and by a mode of acting that prescribes killing all of “them” before they kill all of “us”. In this view, the dividing line between good and evil is starkly etched, and efforts at compromise are equated with heresy.

We may be tempted to dismiss such extremist thinking as unlikely to attract support, but we have learned that the combination of ambition and fear can poison the minds of millions of people for decades at a time. Our leaders have a responsibility to work with each other to stem these tides, which flow not only from the likes of Osama bin Laden, but also from petty tyrants and militia leaders in such places as Iraq and the Middle East, Northern Uganda and Darfur.

In so doing, we will find a basis for unity in our conviction that humans, when given the chance, will behave civilly toward one another. We will gain allies by making clear our understanding that good and evil are present in all of us, and that the common and constant struggle we must wage is to harness the best in each of us. And we will find inspiration in the belief that differences of ethnicity, race, gender, and creed are what give life its richness; they are not burdens that condemn us to fight seventh century battles with twenty-first century weapons.

The second area where we need responsible leadership is in support of democracy. The language of liberty has taken a beating in recent years. The war in Iraq has called into question the intentions and competence of those who claim most loudly to be champions of freedom. As a result, we are witnessing a revival of excuses for delaying or even reversing democratic reform. We are being told that certain categories of people are not ready for democracy. We are seeing governments manipulate language so that economic reformers are rewarded while advocates of political change are thrown into jail. And we are witnessing the rise of demagogues who will promise anything to obtain power and do anything to keep it. In response, we need leaders who will make democracy’s case in the right way, understanding that military action provides no shortcut to the creation of free institutions and the rule of law.

Democracy grows from within, gradually, and often slowly. It cannot take root until people acknowledge that their own rights depend on those of others. No country has a calling, sacred or otherwise, to try to impose democracy across the globe, but we each have an obligation to lend appropriate help to freedom’s cause.

Especially here, in this city, where the Velvet Revolution once lifted the world—let us be clear: When we raise our voices on behalf of the democratic opposition in such places as Cuba, Belarus, and Burma; we are not trying to impose our will on the people of those countries. In fact, we are doing the opposite by saying that true leaders such as Oswaldo Paya, Alyaksandar Milinkevich, and Aung San Suu Kyi should be free to express their will.

In every country and at any time; it is dictatorship that is an imposition; democracy is a choice. A third area where we need responsible leadership is in the fight against poverty and the widening split between rich and poor.

There are some among us who still romanticize poverty; others just try not to think about it. But make no mistake, extreme poverty is a jail in which all too many of our fellow human beings are sentenced for life. Helping them to escape is not simple, but we have learned that progress can be made through a combination of giving more, teaching more, expecting more, empowering women and developing more equitable rules for labor, investment and trade. During my years in office, I was often told that such issues were of concern only to do-gooders—and not relevant to the more important challenges of national security.

After all, most of the poor and sick are out of sight; they do not in any case buy our products, supply our oil, or threaten us with their weapons. But responsible leadership demands something more of us than narrow considerations of material self-interest.

As Václav Havel has observed, “If humanity has any hope of a decent future, it lies in the awakening of a universal sense of responsibility.” And one way to fulfill that responsibility is to wage an all out assault on the axis of evil-poverty, ignorance and disease. A fourth area where the right kind of leadership is essential is on the environment—particularly, global climate change. We all know that some people have been raising a flag for years about the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These people have a name—we call them “scientists”. But for too long, we have disregarded their warnings and tried to pretend that we could go on polluting the atmosphere without fouling our own nest. The truth is that we are in the process of destroying our habitat. This is the height of irresponsibility—and an act of treason against the future.

Today, there are still some leaders, including the president of the United States, who think the solution is for every country to agree to do whatever it wants. We have learned by experience, however, that without binding agreements, environmental problems simply do not get solved. Climate change is the epitome of a global problem. It demands a global solution, in which both the industrialized nations and the developing countries do their fair share.

As I said earlier, none of us can presume to have full knowledge of the truth. No country, creed, ideology, or hemisphere has sole title to wisdom or virtue. And if there is a perfect definition of responsible political leadership, it has not been revealed to me. It is useful, therefore, to approach questions of right and wrong with some humility.

I will tell you without qualification, however, that I am willing to defend the premises of my remarks today. I believe it is responsible for our leaders to seek the path to inter cultural understanding; responsible to promote democracy; responsible to help the disadvantaged; and essential to ensure the health and safety of our planet.

This is the kind of political leadership I hope to see in the United States following next year’s election. And the type of leader I would like to see steering ships of state in countries across the globe. Thank you very much.

Kim Campbell
Thank you very much, Secretary Albright, for a wonderfully thought-provoking and enlightening presentation. We have an embarrassment of riches on our panel so I am not going to pretend to follow any rules of protocol but will simply invite our speakers in the order in which they appear on my agenda. The first panelist whom I will ask to address this topic is Wolfgang Gerhardt, who is President of the Board of Directors of the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung in Germany.

Wolfgang Gerhardt
When speaking about freedom and responsibility in politics, we firstly have to face the fact that we are living in an era of continual changes. These changes are fundamental and at times uncontrollable. We have societies in virtual free fall, we have patterns of religious and tribal disputes in various countries, we have ethnic conflicts, we have failed states and states with weak or illegitimate governments. Many of these governments have done nothing, really nothing, to alleviate poverty. I know this because the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation for Liberty works in 62 countries with offices in 41 countries. And we follow very attentively what happens in these countries. Some conflicts emerge from major historical throwbacks as we experienced in the Balkans in recent European history. We see that national borders are eroding and that the nature of power has changed. It is not only a question of conflicts between states; it is more a question of inner state conflicts between state and non-state actors. Crises do not come in a neat succession as people might feel they should. They come creating the conditions for a highly explosive cocktail.

Let me start by first addressing ourselves. We speak about freedom and responsibility but we ourselves need credibility here. We should not start out by assuming that the Geneva Convention and human rights are incompatible with efficient action against terrorism and violence. I would like to affirm that no government has a right to ignore the constitution when it suits him. We are what we do, and more precisely, we are especially what we refrain from doing. Let me express this very clearly: nothing has inflicted more damage, not only to the reputation of the United States, but also to the reputation of the whole western world, than Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. If we speak about freedom and responsibility we must first ensure that our principles have credibility all over the world.

There is a widespread feeling in parts of the world that certain countries have fallen behind the West in economic and political terms. Some governments place the blame for this on colonialism; they are right in so far as we all know that colonialism has indeed harmed many countries. But many of those countries that blame colonialism for their fate have been independent for more than two generations now. There is a growing realization that the slow pace of economic, political and scientific development is really due to internal factors. Today we all have a broader knowledge of what drives development in terms of freedom, economic success and social security. Most importantly, we know that sustained growth is necessary. But many of the drivers of that growth are not measurable in numerical terms. They include factors such as leadership, civil society, independent institutions, and a balanced regulation framework that does not eliminate the culture of responsibility.

There are no more fixed positions in the world; these are all upwardly and downwardly mobile within global competition. In my opinion, societies, which display flexibility and an ability to adjust quickly to structural change, will prevail. Competence and change are the hallmarks of mature societies. To capture efficiency means to take openness on board as well as human capital, technological knowledge and managerial skill. The quality of education is the key tool for social mobility and the sine qua non for freedom and scientific and technological advancement. In certain countries education threatens the monopoly over information and interpretation held by powerful regimes—that is probably the main reason for underinvestment in education. Governments are often strong in rhetoric: the actual pace of implementation of education programs is disappointingly slow in some countries.

It cannot be that some countries sell their natural resources and do not simultaneously develop their human resources. Today many people in Africa say—and I agree with them—that after the ore has been mined, the trees cut and the oil pumped, people in some countries are often actually more behind. Donor countries have to abide by their commitments but respective governments have to do the work on the ground to alleviate poverty and give their respective societies a chance. None of our attempts in development co-operation like funding AIDS treatments and school education will become effective unless governments succeed in strengthening state capacity and civil society institutions.

Credibility requires us to address the inequalities of global wealth. But globalization is not a misfortune. It is an opportunity. It has been created by people and people can shape it in such a way that everyone plays an active part in it. Those who reject it generally abuse human rights and make no provision for social welfare. The greatest violators of human rights are to be found among countries with the least open economies. More individual responsibility and less collective recommendations are the prerequisite for both social and economic success. No state is able to do more for the citizens, as former US president Lincoln expressed it, than the people should do for themselves. The state’s responsibility is to guarantee a solid framework for chances and individual responsibility, and to play by the rules of the international community, which is why democracies, as expressed in the introduction remarks, are far from perfect. They play most cases by the rules.

Undemocratic regimes often follow risky aggressive politics. Years ago, Time magazine published a cover story with the title ‘Is God Dead?’. Religion was supposed to fade away. Yet now the world is characterised by conflicts between states with high commitment to religions and others with a pronounced level of secularization. The freedom of conscience and religion is out of question for us. Every human being has a right to opt for or against the religion he prefers without being subject to any discrimination. A state does not have the right to judge the authenticity of a religion. A religion should not abuse state authority and reject human rights by claiming authenticity. We do recognize the specific traditions of other religions, their values, their norms, and their cultural ethos. However, freedom of religion is not contrary to liberal principles, it is a liberal principle. We should not allow the expounding of a confrontational worldview to dominate the political discourse. Therefore: Religion should mean honouring God, not playing God.

Kim Campbell
I am delighted to present to you a woman whom I have had the great pleasure of observing on television in France. I live in Paris part of the time and I have been most impressed by the extraordinary career of our next speaker, Ségolène Royal, the presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of France.

Ségolène Royal
Good morning to everybody and I would like to thank President Havel for having invited me, and if I may, I will speak in French. I am very sad that Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi is not with us today and of course I would like to express support for her fight at least from this place. I also would like to speak about what we have managed to do for women in the world so far and I would also like to speak about issues of freedom as much as I can in the ten minutes given to me. Freedom and responsibility: freedom, of course, requires rules. We live in a historical context of freedom which is bound to responsibility and Europe has to play a very specific role in this regard in the globalization of the world. If freedom means freedom of the market and the creation of wealth then responsibility means social and economic development for everybody. Freedom is not absence of rules; it does not mean absence of all limits, of all borders. On the contrary, freedom means freely adopted rules in the interest of freedom. I think there is no freedom without justice and equality and even when freedom is the condition for performance, for efficiency, we must not forget justice in regard to housing, to health care, to employment, in the fight against racism, xenophobia and so on.

And the second idea—there is no freedom without memory. In 1968 you were our teachers. That was forty years ago but it seems like yesterday. You therefore have the duty to instruct your new generation about freedom, to explain what freedom means. We must not become human beings without a memory; we must not become consumers of standards. We know that we meet people who remember very well the fight for freedom. And yet today we have Burma and other countries. We see examples where the government in power is not behaving responsibly. All of these are things which we have to think about. We must support the poorest countries of the world, the southern part of Earth. Europe has not only expanded but it also has to develop. Often we heard in the past from dissidents that Europe must have a soul, that Europe should not develop without supporting freedom both in the east and west. And the third idea, freedom and responsibility: We have the duty to define common values. That is why I think that European action is a very efficient mechanism. It is the European spirit which helps us in defining values. I believe that Europe is the cradle of common values anchored in the Charter. These are values which should not stay on paper but have to be implemented in all the countries that form our Europe. Europe must face totalitarian regimes, bureaucracy, and wild capitalism which destroys the values.

And the last idea: we must create a just order which will implement in practice the two concepts of freedom and responsibility. We need an international, just order resting on several pillars when we are responsible for creating the rules but at the same time when we must support a unified Europe that is itself threatened by some of the trends of globalization. We need to transform Europe into a place that will actively fight against global warming, against terrorism. We must develop actively our joint foreign policy, we need to develop the security of Europe and we must never forget the capitulations in our history. We have learned much from your own struggle for freedom, and believe me, we will continue in this spirit in the future, too.

Kim Campbell
Thank you, Madam Royal. The Czech Foreign Ministry has always been welcoming to these conferences, and we are delighted to have joining us on this panel this morning Karel Schwarzenberg, who is the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and it is a great pleasure to give you the floor, Mr. Minister.

Karel Schwarzenberg
Today everything is exposed to the media and confronted by the media and we always try to uphold our reputation and also the sympathy of the citizens and voters. And therefore we very often do not speak the truth, the truth that may be very unpleasant.

We hear less and less those voices that do speak the unpleasant truth to their friends, to their parties and to their voters. I myself would like to see this as the primary responsibility of everybody who leads any institution, who has been entrusted by the voters to represent them, to understand and recognize that responsibility lies also in telling the truth. At conferences like this one we hear wishful thinking expressed by many. We often know that these wishful thoughts will never come true, but still I, too, would like to give you some examples of these. I was very pleased to see that the ASEAN countries that are bound together thanks to neighborhood alliances with Burma/Myanmar, that these countries for the very first time quite clearly spoke of the violation of human rights and criticized the steps by the Burmese government. I wish that those who fought against colonialism in Africa, those who fought for equality of all races in the world, that these people would also express their ideas quite clearly about what they think about the regime of President Mugabe. Very often we hear people fighting for a better environment or for human rights criticizing the behavior of some large companies in the third world, their exploitation and also their alliance with despicable regimes. That is very important and we should admire their courage. Nevertheless, we should as well hear about human rights from those who understand how important it is to have market economies and free trade. We should hear the voices of bankers, of industrialists, of economists, people speaking on behalf of shareholders because only then can we expect some kind of effect. (Applause) I would like to thank you very much for this applause. I am pleased to hear the applause but at the same time I do realize that if all that is said never leaves this room we cannot expect much in the future. Let us think about what we are talking about; let us not speak openly only when criticising opponents; let us speak the truth also to our friends, to our parties and also to our voters, which is sometimes the most difficult. Thank you for your attention.

Kim Campbell
Thank you very much, Mr. Minister. I would now like to turn to His Highness Prince Turki Al-Faisal, Chairman of the Board of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Saudi Arabia.

Prince Turki Al-Faisal
Thank you, Mrs. Campbell. Mrs. Campbell started in her opening remarks by saying that there is no freedom without responsibility, and I would like to add to that by saying that there is no responsibility without freedom. And hence, as I speak today during this holy month of Ramadan for us Muslims, I have to look at this topic through Muslim eyes and through the experience of Saudi Arabia. It is our laws and rules that govern our society and politics. And throughout the world, alas, there has been a great deal of misperception about Islam. There have been myths that have become convenient and conventional wisdom. And there has been a distortion of the issues, made more complicated by emotion. Muslims are in every nation, they speak every language, they go and find jobs for themselves and they seek better education and lives for their children. And at one time I remind myself that Islam was at the forefront of global civilization, providing leadership for a large portion of the world. How can we forget that it was Muslim scholars like Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, and Al-Razi without whom there would not have been Francis Bacon or Galileo or Thomas Aquinas. And much of this, alas, is overlooked today even in our own countries.

But let me go more directly to how a Muslim views his and others’ freedoms in Muslim thinking. We view those freedoms and those rights as being sacrosanct. And within that sacrosanctity, if that is the right word, for a Muslim there are boundaries as well to that freedom. A Muslim’s speech is bound by his veneration of God and all the prophets and all the books. As such we are prohibited, us Muslims, from insulting the gods and religions of others, not to say our own. And as the Koran asks us to do and I quote: “Believers, do not revile those they call on beside God in case they in their hostility and ignorance revile God.” And Muslims are also enjoined by God to leave the company of others when they start insulting or denigrating Islam. Again, the Koran tells us: when you come across people who speak with scorn about our revelations, turn away from them until they move on to another topic. There is another injunction in the Koran which says: “You have your religion and I have mine”. And when we couple this injunction with the verse that says “there is no compulsion in religion” then we can all see from this that the Muslims’ tolerance towards the faith of others is complete. We are intended to be compassionate towards others’ beliefs. Unfortunately, the practice of these beliefs is curved by human frailty, social custom and political expedience. Because, frankly, none of us can claim to be perfect. And this is especially true in the realm of politics. In modern day political life and practice, we will see infringements on freedom in the countries that pride themselves as the guardians of liberty and freedom. Such things as secret jails and the abrogation of habeus corpus and due process and physical and psychological torture are practiced under the headline of protecting our freedom. This is a slippery slope. David Hume once said: “It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. Rather it is lost gradually by relinquishing individual freedoms to political authority when it seems righteous or practical.”

And this is when responsibility comes to the fore. We must ask ourselves: Are we responsible enough to protect, adhere to and promote freedom? The easy answer is—yes. But the reality shows otherwise. In all countries, whether in domestic or international affairs, freedom is impinged upon by the same weaknesses: human frailty, social custom, and political expedience. It is then up to the individual to be disciplined and adherent to his beliefs and faith which guide him to maintain his and others’ freedoms. When I view this as a Muslim and as an individual, I recognize that my responsibility is twofold. My actions are judged by my fellow human peers who will embrace me or shun me for what I do. But I am also judged by my God, who tells me that there are two angels by my side, one is recording my good deeds and the other my bad deeds. And on Judgement Day, ladies and gentlemen, the two ledgers will be weighed. The heavier ledger will decide where I will go at the end of my life. Thus I am careful not only about what my peers think, but I keep in mind what is being recorded in those two ledgers. This, however, is very spiritual and theoretical. So let us look at the practical application.

If you recall, more than a year ago, there were published several cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. This caused an uproar in the Muslim world. Personally, I found these cartoons to be vile and incomprehensible. The publication of those cartoons may not have broken any laws but they definitely shattered any reasonable moral code of conduct. Like many in Saudi Arabia, I was saddened and internally anguished and we all turned to our religion for answers. But not all Muslims reacted with civility. Distress of the world seemingly at odds with our religion, because of the acts of terrorists and deviants, was overwhelming for some. Instead of raising their faith and calmly appealing for greater cultural understanding and respect for what is sacred, they were overcome with emotion. Some even reacted violently. But no matter the level of profanity of what those cartoons depicted, those in the Muslim community who reacted with violence were totally unjustified and irresponsible. While they should ask forgiveness for their actions, we all need to work harder to be sensitive to our human limitations.

We, as Muslims, look upon those who drew the vile cartoons to ask forgiveness for their obscene and immoral depictions. This, ladies and gentlemen, is where responsibility shows itself. All rights, including free speech, come with responsibility and an obligation to respect our fellow human beings. While we have freedoms we must not abuse them, whether in political or social context. George Orwell once said: “In our age there is no such thing as keeping out of politics.” All issues are political issues. And John Dunne said: “No man is an island.” Yesterday, at the initiation of this forum, the distinguished Governor General of Canada, Mrs. Michaëlle Jean, asked us to seek wisdom from the native inhabitants of the American continent, and be responsible for our natural habitat, our lives and how to husband our scarce natural resources. Freedom, my friends, does not absolve us of our responsibilities toward each other and toward our world. The Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said, and I quote: “All of you are shepherds and all shepherds are responsible for their flock.” The leaders of our world are responsible for the protection of our freedoms. And by doing so all of us are accountable for taking on the responsibilities of freedom. Our respect for our religious beliefs, which tell us to respect each other, is important above all else. In a discussion such as this we can attempt to differentiate between politics and life. But whether it is a drawing of a cartoon or the drafting of legislation to combat extremism we need to respect the boundaries we are given which make us civilized.

Kim Campbell
I would now like to call upon Alyaksandar Milinkevich, the opposition leader from Belarus.

Alyaksandar Milinkevich
Mr. President, Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank you for giving me the honour of addressing this wonderful forum. The theme of this forum is extremely important. It is important for individuals but it is also important for human communities and for human society because freedom and responsibility will always go hand in hand.

Unfortunately, in my own country, freedom is extremely difficult to pursue. People in Belarus are submitted to the state’s fear and propaganda machine. We know that our government is very authoritarian and it is up to us to make sure that we defend high moral values. Of course, there is a burden of history that makes our situation very difficult because the tragic legacy of the Soviet Union contributed to atomization and passivity on the part of our citizens. At the same time, freedom has become an important value for many of them. This is the word that drove our citizens to stand up to the authoritarian regime in Belarus. It is freedom that brought our citizens to the streets of our capital city last year.

It is extremely important to understand that Belarus is not only a dictatorship; it is not only an authoritarian government. We must understand that there are in Belarus people who have not fled the country, who wish to stay at home, who wish to be free. Our struggle continues; we would like to see our country become part of the European family of free nations. Since 2006, the situation has changed. Many people have overcome their fear. We have seen new initiatives, new brave people to join us, and among these, particularly young people are extremely visible. We have seen these people being able to organize themselves.

At the same time we are seeing another phenomenon, namely that people do not see themselves only as victims. They realize that if one wants to be free and independent he/she needs to fight for it. This is a very ambitious but a realistic goal. We need to develop a core of responsible people, people who would be able to show solidarity not only towards their own citizens but also towards people in other countries. We as citizens recognize more and more that freedom has to be fought for, that we really need to fight for our freedom and this is of course the path that has been persuaded by other European nations.

On our websites we have had a competition to complete the beginning of a sentence “Freedom is—“. And I would like to quote some of the definitions, some of the endings that we have received. I would like to remind you that the people who have sent in these answers have never lived in a free society. These people say:

Freedom is when you can look somebody in his or her eyes.
Freedom is when you can debate your own fate.
Freedom is what you get by birth.
Freedom is responsibility for your deeds.
Freedom is the enemy of idiocy.
Freedom is a spiritual quality that is difficult to win over but very easy to lose.
Freedom means that you are not afraid anymore.
Freedom is your honour, freedom is your pride, freedom is your own responsibility.
Freedom is an absence of fear multiplied by responsibility.
Freedom is responsibility before God and before the community. It is responsibility for your own words.

Ladies and gentlemen, these people who have sent in these answers need your solidarity. These people need your commitment, need your engagement. In other words, we need your help; we need your help to change the situation in my country. You know that a lot of students have been dismissed from universities simply for their political convictions. We do not call to impose freedom by force on other countries but without your solidarity there will be no freedom. There is no fast track to freedom in my country. I would like to say that the situation in Belarus has changed thanks to our activities and today Belarus is no longer a black spot on the map of Europe and hopefully it will soon become one of the free European nations.

Kim Campbell
Thank you very much. And now I would like to turn to Jayantha Dhanapala, who is a diplomat, former candidate for UN Secretary General and very much a leader in that community in the area of nuclear disarmament and nuclear issues.

Jayantha Dhanapala
I would like to thank President Havel for having inaugurated this series of Forum 2000 conferences which has become a very prestigious and influential forum. May I also pay a special tribute to Aung San Suu Kyi who is not with us this morning. I come from Sri Lanka, a predominantly Buddhist country, which has from ancient times shared political, religious and cultural links with the people of Myanmar or Burma. I grieve for their plight today. I would like to propose that this Forum, in addition to its declaration, issue a special appeal for the freedom, democracy and exercise of human rights by Aung San Suu Kyi and the people of Myanmar before we disperse from Prague.

Let me now turn to the substance of our discussion this morning. And here I would like to emphasize that my perspective is that of a civil society member in a developing country who values democracy, human rights, collective security based on disarmament and multi-lateralism. We have had an extensive discussion this morning. I think there are two myths that must be destroyed. One is the myth that says that people deserve the governments they elect. There was never any truth in this because governments change during their lifetime. And very often people have no power to do anything about governments until the next election. The second myth is in the lines of Alexander Pope, the Augustan poet who said: “For forms of government let fools contest; whate’er is best administer’d is best.” There, again, the emphasis is on efficiency, on trains running on time and on lights coming on when you put on the switch. It is not about human security, it is not about human rights. And so we need to ensure that politicians respond to people because it is in the people that sovereignty lives. And it is really power that is divined from the people that is exercised by the representatives even in democracies. Now, there are many factors that distort the exercise of people’s power by the representatives. One is the way in which political campaigns are conducted today in democracies. They cost an enormous amount. We all know what the presidential campaign in the US costs with all the hoopla and the advertising and the television that goes into it. Many people cannot afford this and getting campaign commissions, campaign financing very often distorts democracy. And so we need to have some system where, even in developing countries, campaign finance reform is made a reality.

The second is the way in which electoral systems function. We have proportional representation in some countries; we have a direct first-past-the-post in other countries. And in many cases the result is not always reflective of the popular verdict of the people. So we need to have more research done, more work done by political scientists and others in order to ensure that we have better electoral systems that accurately reflect what vox populi in fact is. We have, of course, the dominance of political parties. And particularly, in proportional representation systems, where you have a party list, very often individual politicians have got to submerge their personalities in deference to the larger manifesto of a party. And here you get the responsibility of individual politicians being greatly diminished because of the collective responsibility to the party itself. And that also brings up the question of collective responsibility, whether it is collective responsibility in a cabinet or whether it is collective responsibility to a party. Because the individual responsibility of the politician, his exercise of his moral conscience is sometimes seriously adversely affected by this collective responsibility. Clearly, we need better training and better education for politicians to enjoy the benefits of responsibility and understanding. The Inter-Parliamentary Union, one of the oldest international organizations in the world, and the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association help to ensure that there is some kind of training for young parliamentarians, for young politicians so that they understand the balance between the exercise of power and responsibility. I am glad that our keynote speaker today referred to poverty—poverty as a jail.

Because poverty itself can affect the way in which poor people are able to exercise power in democracies and in other parts of the world. We have over one billion people in the world today who are in extreme poverty and the Millennium Development goals have as one of their aims the halving of that extreme poverty by the year 2015. And unless we all share in that hope we are not really recognizing the power of these one billion extremely poor people.

Let me move on to the area of power and responsibility in foreign affairs. Since the end of the Cold War, I believe there have been three ‘–isms’ that continue to dominate our world despite the happy demise of communism. One is nationalism. Nationalism is no longer a spent force. It has re-emerged in the form of ethno-nationalism, which can be very aggressive; it has re-emerged very often in situations where leaders appeal to the nationalist sentiments of their people in order to avoid international scrutiny of their human rights. And so we need to recognize that nationalism must be balanced with the importance of global interdependence and the fact that we have universalized human rights. Secondly, there is terrorism. Terrorism today is global in scope. It affects almost every country in the world and it affected my country even before 9/11. And I think that what we need to do is to ensure that there is strong cooperation on the part of the international community in combating terrorism. Because terrorism connotes nihilism, it connotes the rejection of all values of civilized humanity. But in combating terrorism we must not forget that we have to do so within the framework of human rights and between the code of the civilized values that we have all enjoyed for many, many centuries. Finally, there is consumerism. And while every human being has a right to buy what he or she wants we find that with globalization there has been an increase in consumerism, sometimes with serious effects of splitting inequality, inequality which is made more dramatic because of the revolution of the information and communications technology revolution. It makes it much more apparent to the poor people of Darfur or the poor people in some other countries of the world to see the conspicuous consumption that goes on in other parts of the world. And this can lead to very serious tensions. It can also lead, of course, to an increase in the problems that are causing climate change. And so we need to have some kind of ethics governing the private sector and the manufacturers of products to ensure that we do not any longer have the kind of carbon emissions that have taken place in the last few centuries.

Let me propose as a solution to these problems—multi-lateralism which must replace unilateralism. We cannot have dominance of any one country or group of countries. We must have leadership but we must all work together and at the apex of multilateral system is the United Nations with its legitimacy and its universality. Secondly, we need to have shared values. And here again, the Millennium Declaration of the year 2000, which was subscribed to by all the leaders of the world, said that those shared values are freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, responsibility for nature and a shared responsibility. I believe to these must be added those two new values that were added in the outcome document of the 60th anniversary of the UN General Assembly, and that is the responsibility to protect the ordinary human being in all countries if their countries are unable or unwilling to protect them themselves. And secondly, the importance of democracy which was also added.

May I finally, as somebody who has spent a lifetime working on peace and disarmament, appeal for a reliance to be placed on human security rather than on weapon-based security.

Kim Campbell
Before I open up for some exchange with the other delegates, I would like to ask Madeleine Albright if she would read a declaration by one of our panelists who was not able to be here, Oswaldo Payá of Cuba.

Madeleine Albright
Thank you very much. Oswaldo Payá has asked me to read the following message:

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas
I would like to thank my friend who always stands in solidarity with me, President Václav Havel, for his invitation to this important meeting. As you know, in Cuba to travel is not a right. For this reason I am not with you physically but my heart is. I am also grateful to all Czechs who have not lost their memory and who along with him have maintained their hands and hearts united with the Cuban people all these years. I would also like to thank all of you and everyone in the world who support the aspirations of freedom and peace for my people.

Dear participants in this conference in Prague, we Cubans want freedom. We Cubans want all rights simply because we have the right to these rights because we are human beings. We Cubans want freedom for those who are incarcerated for defending, promoting and exercising human rights. We Cubans want reconciliation and to live in union and in peace among ourselves and all peoples because we are all brothers. We Cubans want to be able to determine for ourselves our future freely and democratically and the social, political and economic system for our society without interferences or interventions as an independent and sovereign country and as free men and women. We Cubans want and know that with freedom to work, to own private businesses, to trade, travel and create we can overcome poverty and maintain and improve free social services as rights and move toward the path of development. All of us Cubans who live in Cuba love all of our brothers who have emigrated for whatever reason and suffer from exile and we say to them: Cuba is your homeland and the home of all and you as Cubans should have all rights as children of this nation otherwise we will not be truly free. We Cubans want a new and better life. A life that is free, more just and more humane.

This is the essence of the declaration of freedom for Cubans. Those who love freedom and respect our people, those who want to be in solidarity should support these legitimate aspirations because never before has oppression been justified as it has been done against the Cuban people. Never before have lies usurped the face of truth in order to kill the real truth as it has been done against my nation that does not have a voice and where the poor cannot even say they are poor. Some speak about measures and about changes and put all their expectations in the group that holds power. We ask, and answer with determination, why not rights. We want rights, all rights. Others speak about transition. If this means peaceful change by means of dialogue and participation to achieve the objectives we mention then that is transition. But sometimes what they call a transition toward a formal democracy is a situation in which the people do not decide anything and where the citizens can neither exercise their rights nor overcome poverty. We do not want that kind of democracy. Or they speak about a transition towards a market economy as if it were the ultimate goal. We remember from the past and witness in the present how some countries can have market economies and political dictatorships of various types. We denounce neo-communism where the leaders go from being the only party to being the only capitalists and keep the people without any rights while they turn into the most powerful oligarchies before the complacency of those who are content with doing good business.

This is what some refer to as transition. We do not want recommendations for indirect paths nor pseudo slave—like formulas with or without a free market. The people are the first who have to be free. A component of this freedom is economic freedom but inseparable from all freedoms, from all rights, from opportunities for those who have never had opportunities. The Cuban people do not believe in false democracies that are not capable of constructing social justice nor do they want to continue with totalitarianism which they never chose. Because communism is not a democracy; there is neither equality, nor true social justice. To support the Cuban people it is necessary to place oneself in the real Cuba and not in a virtual scenario. In Cuba there is a culture of fear and a threat of death that dominates as an alternative to freedom as expressed in the official slogan of “Socialism or death”. Cubans suffer from disinformation and are buried in propaganda that presents a false dilemma between the current order and total calamity. Our people are impacted by images, sometimes exaggerated, but other times real, of a calamity that is truly present for many nations. In Cuba, there is oppression but also uncertainty and doubt about the future. Many Cubans feel that their life is threatened by a possible catastrophic end announced by some and reinforced by others who are equally irresponsible. They feel in danger of losing their homes or of being marginalized again in a new way. Cubans want a new life but they want to preserve what is good and the best thing that they want to preserve are their own lives, dignity and safety and that of their loved ones. And also what has been constructed with love which should prevail over ideologies and models.

The Cuban Forum, the civic campaign which we have just begun, will not remain only an expression of good desires and concepts. The Cuban Forum is the definition of immediate and future objectives as well as the path that we must follow. We want to follow the peaceful path and we will not follow any other. We want to follow the peaceful path towards freedom and we will not follow any other because otherwise there would not truly be peace and freedom. The Cuban Forum is the civic campaign to continue the Varela project and the demand for changes in the law so that fundamental rights are respected. Only by achieving the exercise of freedom of expression, of movement and affiliation, of forming organizations and political parties will Cubans be able to take part freely and democratically in the project and the construction of a free, more just and more humane society that we all want without excluding anyone, without vengeance, with all and for the good of all. This is our determination and our hope. For those who want to stand in solidarity with Cuba please support our right to have rights and our path to peace.

Signed Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas in the name of the Christian Liberation Movement.

Madeleine Albright
It is my honour to have read this for my good friend, Oswaldo Payá.

Kim Campbell
Thank you very much, Secretary Albright. What I would now like to do is ask our panelists if in the last six minutes they could each make a comment of one minute on one particular concrete value or action to come out of this meeting. I think what we have heard is both very deep and stimulating but the question of balancing freedom and responsibility in politics is not an easy one. If we are to have a balance of freedom and economic activity on the one hand with the important responsibility to care for those who are left behind, as Sègolène Royal has so clearly articulated, that presents a challenge for those in politics of balancing between freedom and the kinds of infringements on freedom that will create the resources that make it possible to meet our responsibility to care. Similarly, we may talk about the importance of respecting one another’s religion and yet freedom of speech can sometimes seem to violate the principle of respect. I think of a situation in Illinois a number of years ago when a march by neo-Nazis through a largely Jewish area was challenged in the courts. The courts upheld the right of freedom of speech notwithstanding the deep insult felt by the religious community who felt targeted by the marchers. Some time later, that legal precedent supported the legal basis for the publication of The Pentagon Papers, which was a very important revelation of information for Americans. The right of freedom of speech as overriding other concerns established in that earlier case provided that basis. These balances between the public and private sphere, between freedom and responsibility are a day-to-day challenge in any civilized society.

Now, to close this panel I would like to ask our panelists, if they could, to simply give a pithy bit of advice or recommendation that we can take with us and I will start with Mr. Dhanapala.

Jayantha Dhanapala
Well, first of all I go back to my proposal that we issue a special appeal for Aung San Suu Kyi and the people in Myanmar. Secondly, I would endorse the appeal made by four very distinguished US citizens: Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, George Schultz and William Perry, who asked that nuclear disarmament should be achieved now, particularly in the context of the post-Cold War situation.

Alyaksandar Milinkevich
Today we are having a debate in democratic countries about the following: What should be the approach of democratic countries to dictatorships? Should it be a pragmatic approach, ‘realpolitik’ as it is called, or should we practice a moral policy? I believe that our attitude to dictatorships should be based on moral policy precepts. If we start discussing with dictators without laying down the conditions, then we might betray the people living in those dictatorships, people being imprisoned in those dictatorships for political reasons. We might betray people fighting for freedom, people who might be unemployed. We might betray students who have been kicked out of universities. I think that in our approach to countries without democracy we should practice a moral-based policy.

Karel Schwarzenberg
We spoke a lot today about values and about democracy but we should keep in mind one thing. Every value is devalued if we do not keep, painstakingly, to the rules. If we do not respect the rules, the values are not valuable. Second, we are speaking about American values, European values and so on. I have the impression that all of us in this room have common values and we should not appropriate them to Europe or America or another part of the world. Third, we spoke about democracy. Democracy is something that many friends of mine and I, too, fought for for many years. But we should not forget that it is a rather sensitive plant. And, if again we do not prepare democracy as a rule of law, this plant of democracy will be overgrown by a jungle of authoritarian will of people who are able to overcome the rules. Therefore, first please, the rule of law, institutions and then democracy. If we do it the other way, the historical experience is that democracy ends in anarchy and then in dictatorship. We should take this well into account when fighting for democracy all over the world.

Wolfgang Gerhardt
Only one brief remark to the current situation in the Middle East: We can address all questions; we can advocate the Charter of the United Nations; we can describe the term constitution, or other such things. But in some hotspots we actually have to deliver at the end of the day. In order to achieve peace, to secure democracy, and to guarantee agreements and settlement of questions we have to arrive at a conclusion. All our thinking concentrates on the settlement of the peace process in the Middle East. Now, it is one of the major tasks of the European Union, of the United States, of the United Nations and of the Arab states to bring peace into this region. I would like to add one remark: Peace will not come merely with the settlement of the Israel-Palestinian question. It will only come when this question is integrated into the whole peace process in the region and therefore I believe we need something as we had in Europe, a Helsinki process. A conference on the whole question of this region. This is my remark about freedom and responsibility in one of the trouble spots of our time.

Sègolène Royal
Very short remarks to wind up: I think that we should show more solidarity to our friend from Belarus, we should know more about public opinion in Belarus, here, in our part of Europe. That is one thing I wanted to say. Also, what my neighbour said is correct when he was speaking about the relationship between freedom and poverty. I remember the meeting of the poorest countries where one of the topics was also the protection of the environment. Very often the answers were awful. These countries would say: How can we, the poorest countries in the world, be concerned about a bird flying over our heads? How can you expect us to protect biodiversity when we all live on waste dumped in our backyard? So speaking about freedom we must remember all these things. We should make sure that these very poor countries are helped. This is a very principled question in my opinion. Speaking about the question of education, I remember when I was a child at school we used to hear that our freedom ends where the freedom of other people starts. And I think that we should start at school; we should teach our young people how important freedom and responsibility are. At the international level all educational systems should make sure that these ideas are promoted from a very early age. This is something that we should instill in our children, these questions of freedom, freedom and responsibility as two compulsory subjects for all of us.

Kim Campbell
I would now like to ask Madeleine Albright to give the final word of this very important session.

Madeleine Albright
I have so enjoyed the contributions of all the panelists and the pithy comments at the end. I find very interesting as a representative of the world’s oldest democracy that in fact there are questions about how democracy works. I am a passionate believer in democratization but what I have learned is that it very much is not an event; it is a process. And the United States is the best example of the fact that we are still learning. And also the issue of responsibility and freedom is a process. I think that is the part that we also learn. It is never achieved; it is the process. I would like to say, in writing my book about the role of God and religion in foreign policy, many people were surprised that I would even take up such a subject, but what was evident was that while one can find in all the holy books some pretty awful blood-curling parts, one can also find common language in terms of peace, love and justice. And I think we should look for those common parts. The other thing that people say is that the role of the individual is something that is very Western. I disagree with that. If you look at all other religions and philosophies, the role of the individual continues to be central. But what is interesting and important about it is that it requires us to have responsibility for our fellow human beings. So we respect each other as individuals but at the same time we have a responsibility for each other. And I think that is the essence of this discussion. And while Americans like to have lists and check off things that they have done, democracy is never done. And I think the messages that we have heard today mean that responsibility and freedom are never done either. Thank you.