Dariga Nazarbayeva, Chair of the Eurasian Media Forum Organizing Committee
I have a feeling that the time that has passed since the first Forum has included quite a number of significant events. Too many to believe that only a year has passed.
It has become popular to claim that the world has changed, and that these changes were not all positive. I tend to agree with the first part of that statement. As to the second …In manuscripts of the ancient Egyptian pyramids one can find statements about the aggressive nature of the world, and even predictions of the end of the world. However, more than five thousand years have passed since then. So, let's not be in a hurry to declare that the world is about to end. It's notorious that such sensational predictions do not come true.
Certainly, news about the SARS epidemic, the war in Iraq or the looting of Babylon museum, do not create optimism. It looks like Fukuyama's declaration of the end of history was too premature, for today we can witness if not a regression, then a certainly backward step of our civilization to the positions of, say, the first thirty years of the XX-th century. At least, that's the impression. A war, whatever rhetoric is used in its justification, should never be approved, and makes only a negative impression.
One can only wonder if human evolution moves in a vicious circle, or spiral, as Hegel suggested. Let philosophers contemplate and debate about it. Journalists do not tend to question that deeply. But they do need boundaries and criteria, and most clear ones. So if politicians all of a sudden start ignoring the values, which served yesterday as a basis for the fragile building of the world, what can be expected of journalists? Is it just informing their readers, listeners and TV audience about it with professional impartiality? I don't think that's the right position. But this is only one of the complex issues, we will have to discuss at the Forum.
A year ago we had long discussions about the mentality of East and West, and about similar and different cultural values and positions. And nobody was inclined to deny the legitimacy of every country's uniqueness, including its political system. That's the real meaning of sovereignty. Alas, the politics of today, seem to contradict the statement.
Even if we take the most cautious and balanced of approaches, we still see that globalization, so often discussed round the world of late, is developing into a new and unexpected phenomenon, which could be described as political globalization.
The world, often regarded as rational and flawless, will naturally strive towards unification of standards of production, consumption, training, education, entertainment, health care, and towards unification of public and state structure. And this is normal. But two questions arise. Firstly: will it not lead to total standardization of culture and mentality? Would we then not run the risk of finding ourselves in an Orwellian world? Secondly: what authority gives anyone the licence to transform this imperfect, yet inherently varied and potentially wonderful world into a collection of uniform states?
One may think that these are the questions for philosophers and political scientists and not for mass media. I do not think this is correct, because when reading a newspaper or turning on a TV-set or computer, a person is not only entitled to learn, but to understand what is going on in the world. Mass media today should be independent and able to provide a community a chance to understand itself, therefore nobody has the right to use it as an instrument of manipulation and propaganda. In fact, a balanced and thoughtful mass media is the only way to prevent such attempts.
Distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen!
At this opening of the Forum I would like to thank you for deciding to participate in its work. The Forum is not intended to develop into a politicized protest of any kind. We should be loyal to our mission: uniting instead of alienating, understanding instead of blaming. And if we fail to answer all the questions posed by this complex time, we need to learn how to ask them.
And we have the East and the West here. And we are again in the welcoming region of Eurasia.
Welcome to Kazakhstan, dear friends!
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