BORIS KAGARLITSKY, MOSCOW
THE ENIGMA OF G8
Russia is presiding G8 in the year 2006.
That’s what all the dreams and aspirations were about. Gerhard Schroeder even yielded in favor of his friend Vladimir Putin (in the Soviet era this would have been a particularly valued deed).
Well, we got what we wanted. The world leaders gave their word to meet this summer in St. Petersburg outskirts, in the Konstantinovsky Palace, in the town of Strelna.
At this point, however, the inconsistency of the Russian elite’s global pretensions reveals itself. We do finally have a status, it is out of the question. But what do we do next?
Discussions going on in the press demonstrate clear symptoms of political neurosis. It is not the objectives to be achieved during the year of presidency are being envisaged, but our right to actually preside the G8. “Are we truly capable of doing it?” the journalists keep anxiously questioning themselves. Or, are we just mercifully allowed to play with the wheel? Maybe Russia’s presidency and membership in the G8 is just a token measure, while we are missing all the serious stuff?
The answer that firstly pops in mind sounds exceedingly unpleasant. However, if Russia’s significance in the world had been bigger the answer would still have been the same. G8, as we have it, is a purely symbolic unofficial forum of the heads of the leading states. It never has been institutionalized as an international organization, it never has any written regulations or a set of fixed rules. Nor does it possess any permanently functioning bodies and clearly stated objectives. This is nothing but a club of powerful superiors, who are having the pleasure spending time together and trying to show they are kings of the world.
What it’s really been doing, does not equal the World Trade Organization and various specialized summits (concerning ecology or international affairs, for example); its activity yields even to the International Forum in Davos, which is not as well institutionalized, but has a “critical mass” of the influential representatives of business community and political circles, who schedule and further on hold numerous lobby interviews.
As G8 is originally unable to solve serious issues it is clear that Russia, too, cannot be of any significance in it. The thing however is not just about that. If our political elite had worked out a strategy of some sort, a list of objectives to achieve in the international scene, it could have been developed anywhere, including St. Petersburg. Then we would be discussing not whether Russia is G8’s chair for real, but what this presidency could give to accomplish the national goals. But no, there is not any strategy, not any objective. Nothing but one: to get the biggest propaganda effect possible. That’s what the press is chatting about…
Meanwhile, propaganda with no concrete political aim, becomes self-destroying. That’s where all the nervousness about the up-coming summit comes from. The journalists get contaminated by this nervousness from the authorities.
Besides, G8 summits are annually followed both by social criticisms and people protesting in the streets. To let it happen would mean to spoil the overall blissful image, but this is basically what St. Petersburg summit was designed for. Not to let it happen would mean to show Russia as an authoritarian-bureaucratic regime, where all free thinking is prohibited. Either way doesn’t work.
The authorities are deciding on this issue with naturally vivid imagination. They assigned a number of representatives of the society to pretend they are open to have a truly free discussion. Under the honored bureaucrat Ella Panfilova’s supervision, they had initiated “Civil G8”. Here comes another problem: the overwhelming majority of the Western civil society representatives will more than likely boycott this initiative. This boycott moods have already resulted in a specific resolution against “Panfilovtsy” (Ella Panfilova’s followers) signed at the preliminary assembly of the European Social Forum.
Then administrative resources had to be used. The NGOs, which address the authorities hoping to clarify St. Petersburg summit agenda, get an absolutely unambiguous answer: Have you any questions you are welcome to contact Ella Panfilova, she is responsible for the civil society. It means, “you’re trapped, you don’t want to taste a baton, you’ve got to talk to our people.”
The officials are totally clueless that it’s impossible to play civil initiative, at the same time openly acting on behalf of the government…
The outcome of that situation is clear. Ella Panfilova will be negotiated with, but with no cooperation to follow. That’s it. Bureaucrats will be bureaucrats. One thing they need to give is permission. The international civil community will have to swallow their pride and sit down at the negotiation table. The results of these negotiations however will either be a complete and shameful failure or the compromise giving way to the critics of the existing state of affairs carry out their measures independently. By no means would they succeed in putting all eggs in one basket as they had planned before.
In other words, St. Petersburg summit is nothing but trouble. But that’s the way it is. They wanted their PR, they’ve got it.
Boris Kagarlitsky is a Director of The Institute for Globalization Studies.
February 15, 2006
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