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"Politicians alone cannot address all the challenges of today's
world. Politics must interact with civil society and the intellectual
community. Consequently, dialogue is absolutely indispensable, a high-spectrum
dialogue to help us develop bold and feasible approaches to be able to solve
the challenges of our globalised world. The world needs a vision oriented with
the will and perseverance to turn it into reality. We need to cultivate a new
culture and foster new approaches, because the world needs a culture of peace”.
With these words Mikhail Gorbachev opened the third meeting of the World
Political Forum, held in Bosco Marengo, Italy, on 8 July 2002. At that time,
the former President of the Soviet Union had already become one of the most
important figures in history. Once again, as I listened to him, I thought of
the mistake Western leaders were making in disregarding the words of someone
who had set an example, with extraordinary imagination and skill, of resolving
one of the most important challenges of the contemporary world without the use
of weapons, without a single drop of blood. Obsessed with their accounts and
dividends, they followed the guidelines of their specialisation: to look the
other way. This failure to look in the right direction has led humanity to the
current systemic crisis.
On 15 December 1984 Gorbachev arrived in London at the head of a
delegation from the Supreme Soviet. It was the first visit by a Soviet
delegation to Britain for some 15 years. His speech to the House of Commons was
extraordinarily bold: the nuclear age demanded new "political
thinking"; the danger of war was a reality; the cold war constituted
an abnormal state of relations conducive to the danger of warlike
confrontation; in a nuclear war there could be no victors; no state can build
its own security by threatening that of others; in the limitation and
elimination of armaments, and in particular of nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union
was prepared to go as far as its Western interlocutors wished... In his speech,
one phrase was particularly widely used: "Whatever else may separate
us, we live on the same planet. Europe is our common home; a home, not a
battlefield". It is clear that Mikhail Gorbachev was already speaking
a different language.
On that occasion he displayed a large map on which all the major nuclear
arsenals were marked. "Each one of these small squares is enough to wipe
out all life on earth... Thus, with the accumulated stockpile of nuclear
weapons, we could annihilate our civilisation a thousand times over. His address to the British Parliament on 18
December had a major impact in both the UK and the US.
In October 1986 the Issyk-Kul Forum met. Mikhail Gorbachev himself
described it as follows: "In October 1986 an event had taken place which
was to be of considerable importance in the years of perestroika. I am
referring to the meeting at the ISSYK-KUL lake, which brought together leading
artists from all over the world, including Arthur Miller, Alexander King, Alvin
Toffler, Peter Ustinov, Zulfu Livanelly, Federico Mayor and Afework Teklé...
Its initiator was the writer Chinguiz Aitmatov. They spoke of nuclear
dangers, ecological catastrophes, and the progressive lack of dignity,
including in politics. My meeting with the participants of that Forum took
place on 20 October, a week after Reykjavik...".
It was after the meeting by the Issyk-Kul lake that that distinguished
group of intellectuals and creators —to
which must be added James Baldwin, Augusto Forti, Rustem Khairov, Yaser Kemal,
Lisandro Otero and Claude Simon— had an extraordinarily interesting meeting
with the Secretary General. I was entrusted with the chairmanship and it was a
memorable occasion for me to hear the vision and approaches of people who spoke
not only of freedom but also of responsibility, and of how we could best advise
the General Secretary of the Soviet Union so that he could bring about the
necessary transformations. How could we help to implement perestroika?
In order to give a better understanding of the context in which the
first Issyk-Kul Forum meeting took place, I would like to highlight President
Gorbachev's statements at a press conference he gave on 14 October 1986
following the Reykjavik Summit. Gorbachev underlined all the proposals made to
President Reagan on the reduction and elimination of nuclear armaments, with
extensive verification facilities; total elimination by the Americans and the
Soviets of "medium-range" missiles; the situation in Asia and the
difficulty of establishing forecasts... Gorbachev openly described that, at one
point, a "real battle" of the two approaches to world politics —including
the termination of the arms race and nuclear warheads— had begun... "I
realised," Mikhail Gorbachev said, "that the American President is in
thrall to the US military-industrial complex”. This statement is particularly relevant and
had already been made by President Eisenhower at the end of his term in
office. "I believe that the
President of the United States and I must come to an agreement on my next visit
to Washington. Otherwise, a great
historic opportunity would have been lost".
In October 1989 Mikhail Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize. He was unable to attend the
ceremony in Oslo because he had urgent duties to attend to. For this reason, he delivered the "Nobel
Lecture" in Oslo on 5 June 1991 in which he spoke extensively and profoundly
about the need for peace to prevail over all other conditions. He expressed his confidence that solidarity
and change had been accepted by the "whole world to meet global
challenges".
How formidable! Who would have thought that a politician from the Soviet
Union would, with great imagination and skill, be able to end the "Cold
War" without a single victim, peacefully... when President Reagan was
talking about the "Star Wars"...?
Mikhail Gorbachev, very concerned about preserving the quality of human
life, created in Geneva, a "Green Cross International" which
has as its objectives the global challenges of security, eradication of poverty
and environmental degradation. Alongside the Green Cross, President Gorbachev
founded "The World Political Forum", accompanied by Andrei Grachev,
in this case, as well as Alexander Likhotal in the case of the "Green
Cross".
I would like to mention the emotion I felt at the event held in the
great Albert Hall in London —filled to
overflowing— on Gorbachev's 80th birthday in 2011. "The man who changed
the world", stood in the centre of a great arch in the huge Hall. The man
who redirected so many erroneous trends unfortunately found himself confronted
by impassive, short-sighted and irresponsible leaders and men, incapable of
benefiting from such unexpected historical inflections. And, amidst the
cheering, I thought of what I had written in 1991: "The Berlin Wall
crumbled because a system based on equality had forgotten about freedom. Now,
the alternative system will also crumble because, based on freedom, it has
forgotten about equality. And both of justice”.
On the first day of October 2016, Moscow joined the "Disarmament
for Development" campaign sponsored by the International Peace Bureau
in Geneva, led by Ingeborg Breines and Colin Archer, to achieve 10% of the
colossal daily investments in arms and military expenditure. In Berlin, the
symbolic city, we paraded in large numbers "unter den Linden". We
counted on the support of Gorbachev and that of Pope Francis. But, as it is now
the norm, in the media, "his master's voice" did not give it the
slightest importance. But there have been and will be many more who will be
inspired by Gorbachev's fabulous record. His imaginative and unexpected
proposals have been and will continue to be very relevant guidance in my daily
behaviour.
Gorbachev is a giant, shining star to guide the courses of tomorrow. His
legacy will remain, as glimmers of hope for a future that is yet-to-be-made.
