“What can the West do to promote the democratic cause in the post-Soviet area?”: that’s the question posed in one of the editorials in the British weekly THE ECONOMIST ( 6-12/10 ). “The answer is: not a great deal in Russia. Putin is sensitive to foreign criticism, but not enough to become more democratic”. According to the editorialist, on the other hand, “the West could do more to promote and encourage the still fledgling democracies in nations like Ukraine and Georgia, through better trade access, accords on more favourable visa arrangements and greater support to help them withstand Russian domineering”. “The European Union, moreover, would do these countries a big favour if it was to offer them the prospect, even remote, of eventually becoming members. This has worked wonders in Central and Eastern Europe, and in the Baltic States; there’s no reason why it shouldn’t work in a similar way in other parts of the former Soviet Union. Above all – concludes the editorial – the establishment of an efficient democracy in nations like Ukraine would offer the best hope that one day Russia too would go down the same road”. On the liberation of the German hostage in Afghanistan, Rudolf Blechschmidt, Frank Jansen observes in the German daily TAGESZEITUNG (11/10) that “the last act of the drama is difficult to distinguish from trading in a bazaar”. “To the prolongation of the negotiations and the failure to hand over the hostage at the end of September the Afghan authorities reacted as usual, by arresting friends of the kidnappers. Rüdiger D., a businessman kidnapped together with Rudolf B., was killed by the kidnappers”. Writing in the FRANKFURTER RUNDSCHAU Thomas Kröter comments: “He’s free. That’s the most important thing. Public opinion will no doubt get to know the details. Some, not all. The true price of the liberation of Rudolf Blechschmidt will remain secret. And it’s right that should be so. Europe cannot prevent the birth of a ‘hostage-taking industry’ in Afghanistan, but nor should it encourage it by brandishing a ‘price list’… These kidnappings, besides, should not be a motive for interrupting our commitment” in Afghanistan. “On the contrary, they demonstrate how important it is to support Afghanistan in her long journey towards a society governed by the rule of law. This is no negligible reflection on the eve of the decision of the [German] Parliament on the mandate of the armed forces”. “The Church in the clutches of politics” is the title of an article that Tomasz Terlikowski has published in the Polish daily RZECZPOSPOLITA (9/10) just under two weeks from the parliamentary elections. In Poland, says Terlikowski “on the one hand we have Radio Maryja which supports the Law and Justice party (currently in government) and on the other Monsignor Tadeusz Pieronek who says that the power of the Kaczynski twins ‘constitutes a danger for democracy'”. “These declarations” help “to create the image of a Church actively involved in politics”, points out Terlikowski, though he adds that “the exploitation both by the government and by the opposition of differences of opinion within the Church regarding current policy prevents her from solving problems such as that of Radio Maryja, while the conflict regarding the limits of political involvement of priests becomes a conflict between Catholics pro or contra the 4th Republic”. According to Terlikowski “this especially regards the media, whereas most bishops and priests (such as Bishops Nycz, Gadecki or Goclowski) increasingly demonstrate that the Church’s political involvement can be realized outside the party-political sphere”. “Scientists, to be worthy of that name, and to be credible in the eyes of society, must continuously question themselves about the possible consequences of their discoveries; they must accept the fact that ethical decisions transcend scientific knowledge and that ethical choices different from their own co-exist in society, all of them to be respected”, says the physicist of international fame Ugo Amaldi, interviewed by the Italian Catholic daily AVVENIRE (11/10), with reference to the announcements and controversies of recent weeks on the latest scientific discoveries. Amaldi calls “a step forward, though hardly a revolutionary one” Craig Venter’s much-heralded realization of an artificial chromosome, but underlines people’s loss of trust in science: “In recent years the cases of ‘corrupt’ researchers have multiplied, while many have failed to clarify their relations with big business, relations that are, in Venter’s case, at least explicit”. In Amaldi’s view, we therefore need to create “places of trust in which scientists, chosen for competence and seriousness, can be considered credible witnesses of what they know”. We also need to “control the spiral motion of science and technology by which scientific knowledge continues to expand” so as to “use it correctly”. And this control “cannot be conducted by scientists themselves”.
