Kasparov: ICD are Our Antagonists
Solidarity co-leader Garry Kasparov discusses Russia’s European integration, privatization, democracy and oligarchy in an interview published by The Other Russia this week. Regarding the EU, Kasparov thinks that cooperation with Russia is an inevitable development, and is optimistic about the two entities putting their heads together on issues such as European overpopulation and Russia’s need for new technology.
Kasparov also offers his opinion on today’s report from the Institute for Contemporary Development (full Russian text here), which has received extensive press from most major news sources today for its seemingly revolutionary demands. Kasparov reminds us that, as with so many things in Russian politics, words should never be taken at face value without accompanying actions. Echoing the skeptical ‘Kremlin insider‘ quoted in the Moscow Times, who dismissed the report as having been ‘written to bolster Medvedev’s positive image in the West,‘ Kasparov says:
[The ICD] are our antagonists; our ideological opponents. And they are all the more dangerous – in contrast with open fans of authoritarian and totalitarian forms of governance, they put on a show of multi-layered, ostentatious rhetoric to hide their actual refusal to accept political liberalism. That the very meanings of “democracy” and “liberalism” have been cheapened in the eyes of Russian society has been their “contribution.”