DO YOU WANT DEMOCRACY? FIGHT FOR IT
Anna Israelian
Strasbourg

Aravot.am
11 July 06

The CE General Secretary Terry Davis said in the summer university
of Democracy of the schools of political courses yesterday.

11 schools of political courses under CE /the last one was formed in
Yerevan/ have gathered in Strasbourg for the first time this year to
discuss challenges addressed to democracy in the present Europe. The
importance of these schools for strengthening democracy in Europe
was underlined in the summit of the leaders of the CE 46 member
countries. And the CE standing representative of France, the Ambassador
Bruno Gain named this university on of the main events of this CE year.

The meetings of 500 delegates from 15 countries /delegations from
Albania, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina were also invited where such
schools must be formed/ are held in the big hall of the Europe Chamber
when the PACE usually holds its sittings. The CE General Secretary
Terry Davis made a speech yesterday who expressed his sympathy with the
jet crash in Irkutsk. Then he told some observations about democracy;
"If we want democracy, we must fight for it.

It isn’t only Electoral or another code but it is a rule of behavior,
way of thinking and moodÂ". And he considered important the role of
those schools, mentioning that those courses unified people since
the foundation of the first school in Moscow who think and act in
democratic way.

According to Terry Davis the main problem of the current development
of democracy is the necessary for the citizens to take part in the
political processes. Â"The polling mass of the CE member countries
has already lost the interest towards policy. But democracy can’t act
without voters. At the same time, a lot of people, being dissatisfied
with the current political parties, find such politicians who have
extreme positions in policy, populists, and more often extremists
who enjoy prejudice of the people. Those people aren’t interested
in at all in searching for real solutions. They manipulate people’s
misfortune". According to Mr. Davis this situation is connected with
a difficult circle of motives; "If people don’t believe in political
institutions, we must ask, why?Â" In his opinion they shouldn’t answer
the complaints with the argumentations as if the questions are wrong;
Â"There aren’t wrong questions. There are only wrong answers. And if
we can’t give right answers, populists and extremists will give wrong
answers instead of us. And if we want the democracy to act we need in
people whose personal qualities, moods and knowledge, respect towards
others, towards society in general will give us an opportunity to act
in democratic way.Â" We should mention that the first sitting of the
university became the area of clash between Russians and Georgians
where they discussed the question of Georgia to leave the CIC. But
we’ll introduce the details of the discussion tomorrow and now we’ll
finish by another quotation from Terry Davis’ speech; Â"Democracy is
a process and not an event. It isn’t expressed by holding elections
once in some years. The participation to the public life is the key
of democratic developmentÂ". According to the CE General Secretary
overcoming indifference of the society was just a fight for democracy.

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