Opening Speech by Dr. Dariga Nazarbayeva, Chair of the Eurasian Media Forum Organising Committee 21st April 2005

Distinguished President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev,

Distinguished chairman of the opening ceremony Mr. Riz Khan,

Ladies and gentlemen,

Dear friends and attendees of the Eurasian Media Forum, and dear colleagues,

This is the fourth time I am addressing you on this occasion – the opening of the Eurasian Media Forum – but it feels as if it is the first time so it is difficult for me to cope with the emotion. And it seems incredible that I can again see your dear faces and eyes. Dear friends, I am grateful to you primarily for coming here. At the end of the day, what can we offer to counter the chaos which keeps creeping into our lives? The only option is the virtue of tradition. I dare to believe that due to our efforts a certain degree of progress has been achieved and that the annual April meetings of representatives of the world’s leading mass media at the Almaty Media Forum have become a tradition. This is what can be regarded as a victory, for which we can congratulate each other. Welcome to Kazakhstan!

One may ask a question: what are the results of these annual meetings and discussions? It would be too self-assertive to believe that due to our efforts the world is rapidly improving, or that the Eurasian Media Forum is the event that managed to suspend dangerous trends or make up recipes capable of curing the society of dangerous temptations and illusions. We should not deceive ourselves: this is not the case. However let’s be frank about everything: is it possible to imagine that there is now a powerful public, political or interstate force able to accomplish a goal of this kind? Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, there is no force as such. This goal might be only accomplished through joint efforts and our Media Forum is one of the sites where these efforts are being made.

Taking a traditional retrospective look at the year that followed the 3rd Forum, we can see that it was not an easy one. It was a year during which such events as military collisions, coups d’etat, and terrorist attacks occurred. But all that was overwhelmed by the tragedy in South-east Asia. A destructive geoclimatic disaster took the lives of tens of thousands of people, leaving survivors in ruin and poverty. We deliberately devoted the first session of the Forum to this disaster, which formidably reminds us of the fragility and vulnerability of our civilisation…

The event which will be soon celebrated - the 60th anniversary of the victory in the Second World War - may be regarded as a similar warning. It remains the Great Patriotic War for us, those who came from the former Soviet Union, and 9th May will always be a sacred holiday – Victory Day!

It is absolutely evident that the time of relative global stability that began after World War Two is over now. Many people believe that it happened on that particular day - September 11. The world is again going through times of political turbulence which sometimes take quite dangerous forms. The impression is that the article titled Collision of Civilisations written by Samuel Huntington twelve years ago turned out to be prophetical. But is it the case? Why, it is quite probable that this particular widely popular concept gave rise to a chain of recent political developments. It is important to understand whether we are captive to circumstances arising from hardly understandable historical rationale, or whether we are captured by words and ideas which impose or even provoke such circumstances.

The answer to this question is being looked for by philosophers and they will probably find it in the future. However the media professionals should already well understand at what point one should stop covering terror attacks and whether it is moral to give criminals holding hostages the opportunity to speak on television?

One of the Gospels claims that “first there was the word” and it is becoming increasingly difficult to question this statement. Reality-depicting words, multiplied and amplified by technical capabilities attributed to electronic communications, are much more expressive than reality alone. In such circumstances specific producing organisations, i.e. the media, called upon primarily to inform people, might easily become part of a monstrous mechanism to manipulate our consciousness. It is not only a case of primitive propaganda or government censorship, which are inevitable parts of a totalitarian system. The point is that even liberal democratic economies with long-standing traditions of freedom of speech are increasingly making a systemic ideological impact on public opinion. There are so many instances of this kind and they relate primarily to extreme events such as terrorism, or a need for military action to eradicate the latter, but the question is whether this means that a compromise between the authorities and the media in such instances is justified and required. These are tough questions; they relate directly to professional ethics and sometimes to fundamental human values. We as representatives of the media are supposed to answer these questions by ourselves.

For these particular reasons our Forum continues to consider the media legislation issues as relevant and vital.

It is increasingly evident that such a recent phenomenon as the so-called “exports of democracy”, when traditionally developing countries are almost forced to accept liberal public models and values, is now becoming virtually the core of the global political process. Let’s refrain from discussing and assessing that, but why don’t we speculate on the role of the media in such political circumstances? Should they take the doubtful thesis of the “immaturity” of political systems in a number of countries for granted? Should those countries be “artificially reared” with the help of powers declaring themselves “political donors”? It is all about the priority given by the media to these and similar questions.

Distinguished guests, colleagues, and dear friends,

Welcoming you at the fourth Eurasian Media Forum I once again firmly claim that it is becoming increasingly important to comprehend developments ongoing in the global media. Intellectual efforts made by philosophers and cultural thinkers alone are definitely insufficient. We can witness the media becoming more significant and transforming into a phenomenon requiring a different understanding. Who knows, maybe this is the time when the global media is mysteriously transforming into the prototype of the global mind. However, without coming out of the reality zone one may firmly claim that our civilisation is now apt to understand and realise itself primarily with the help of the media. And this makes us, professional journalists, especially liable; this defines our new mission and fate.

Let’s try our best to accomplish this mission.

Welcome to the Eurasian Media Forum.