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The University of Democracy
In the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Communist regimes in Europe, a unique university was created. It was going to be a laboratory for democracy. George Soros, the Hungarian-born investor and philanthropist, funded the creation of the Central European University, with the specific aim of promoting the values of an open society and democracy. The university in Budapest in Hungary is still going strong, with graduate students from more than 100 countries studying courses taught in English.
But the challenges have changed. If the university was created on a rising tide of democracy, it now has to examine liberal values under pressure. In parts of Eastern Europe, the voices of authoritarianism and nationalism are getting louder. The president of the Central European University is John Shattuck, an American human rights lawyer, law professor, diplomat and former assistant secretary of state in the Clinton administration.
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But if Budapest is a crossroads between Eastern and Western Europe, he says that we're now living in an era approaching its own crossroads. "We're in another period of time, which is as disruptive and complicated as it was in 1991 when the university was founded." The financial crash, the loss of confidence in party politics in the West, the rise of the "Putin model" of government, the weakness of international institutions are all raising "a set of questions that haven't been asked for 25 years". "We see very dangerous trends at work," he says, such as the rise of "xenophobia" and antagonism towards immigrants.
The full story is worth a read. It outlines several of the problems that we face today and describes several traits that appear to be more prevalent now than they were a few years ago; intolerance and racism, for example. It also prompts us to consider how modern technology and communications shape an individual's view of democracy.
