«We do not want to teach, but we want Russia to be the strong partner»

On October, 14th Michael Posner, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor met with Alumni of different American exchange programs Fulbright, The Open world, Cooperation of professional associations, LFP, UGRAD, Muskie.

The meeting with Michael Posner took place in the American Center of the program "The American centers and Corners in Russia" in the National library of the Republic of Tatarstan.
In particular the Open world program alumni - Irhin Igor, the chief executive of Committee on protection of human rights TR; Gilmanov Radik, the federal judge; Hodzhiev Maruf, the director of Republican agency of employment and legal aid to immigrants; the the alumna of LFP - Gilmitdinova Marjam, the lawyer of Lawyer chamber TR; Sjujumbika Ziganshina, the coordinator of the American Center, the alumna of Muskie program and others took part in it.

Mister Posner expressed interest to the future of democracy in Russia in connection with forthcoming elections in the State Duma of the Russian Federation, and underlined that Americans did not try to teach Russians to democracy, but wanted Russia was the prospering country, the strong partner where human rights were respected.

The participants tried to define the standard of democracy, referring to so-called samples of length, time, a measure etc.

«People and only people make the decision, whether they live in democratic conditions. Democratic principles are obvious where they are not present, and are less obvious, where they are. It is when people can freely express their opinions, choose the government in competitive process and have possibility to hear various opinions in mass-media. The USA can only express the fears concerning default of the Declaration on human rights, but it is very difficult to make any changes from outside, they should occur from within. For example, in Egypt, Tunis, in other parts of the world people not only speak about an arbitrariness of the authorities, corruption, about impossibility to change the political system, but also try to make changes»- Michael Posner answered.

Also such questions, as the political problem doctrine according to which the court should be out of a policy and over a policy which both American, and Russian participants were agreed with, a problem of immigrants, library users access to social networks, a situation of human rights were discussed at a meeting. The question about when politicians and the people would start to understand each other was taken up. Michael Posner answered that sometimes even politicians did not understand each other in the USA. He noticed that politicians should react to needs of people which they serve, should be out of corruption, hear people, and the population in turn should be active and exacting.