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[quote author=NY Times]Clinton Urges Russia to Open Political System
By MARK LANDLER
Published: October 14, 2009
KAZAN, Russia — On a day that took her from an elite Moscow university to this bustling city in Russia’s Muslim hinterland, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton paid tribute on Wednesday to religious tolerance, while also challenging Russia’s leaders to open their political system and allow more dissent.
In a speech to nearly 1,000 students at Moscow State University, Mrs. Clinton spoke far more forcefully about human rights and the rule of law than she did on a trip to China earlier this year. Russia, she said, could best fulfill its potential by protecting basic freedoms.
“That’s why attacks on journalists and human rights activists are such a great concern, because it is a threat to progress,” she said. “The more open Russia will become, the more Russia will contribute.”
As if to illustrate that point, Mrs. Clinton then traveled from Moscow to Kazan, the 1,000-year-old capital of Tatarstan, a Russian republic where Muslims, Orthodox Christians, and Catholics live together peacefully, with none of the violent separatism that afflicts places like Chechnya.
Mrs. Clinton was met by Tatarstan’s longtime president, Mintimer Shaimayev, who showed her around a mosque and an orthodox cathedral, both of which lie within the walls of Kazan’s version of the Kremlin. Mr. Shaimayev is no democrat, but he played up his ecumenical credentials.
“This is a multiethnic place,” he told her as she gazed at a shimmering chandelier in the mosque. “There are plenty of mixed marriages.”
Mrs. Clinton praised Mr. Shaimayev for being “someone who is well known for fostering religious tolerance.”
The three-hour side-trip to Tatarstan captured the ambitions and limitations of Mrs. Clinton’s approach to being secretary of state, nine months into her tenure. It was driven, her aides say, by her desire to get out of capital cities, to places where she can mingle with ordinary people.
But the stop in Kazan had a rushed feel to it, and Mrs. Clinton has little time these days for even brief forays. Minutes after her plane took off from Kazan, she holed up in her cabin to take part, by secure telephone link, in the White House’s latest meeting on Afghanistan.
Mrs. Clinton has managed to keep encounters with students on her schedule. Her talk in Moscow drew noisy applause, and she was asked questions on issues ranging from the American role in the global economic crisis to the dispute between the United States and Russia over Georgia.
Asked to name the book that had made the biggest impact on her, she singled out “The Brothers Karamazov.” The parable of the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky’s novel, she said, speaks to the dangers of certitude, a lesson she has carried with her since she read it as a young woman.
“For a lot of reasons, that was an important part of my thinking,” Mrs. Clinton said. “One of the greatest threats we face is from people who believe they are absolutely, certainly right about everything.”
From there, it was a short rhetorical leap for Mrs. Clinton to encourage Russia to open its political system.
She even struck an implicit blow for diversity when she cut the ribbon on a statue of the poet Walt Whitman at the university. Local gay activists protested because one of the Russian officials on hand to honor Whitman, a gay icon, was Moscow’s mayor, Yury Luzhkov, who has made hostile statements about gay people and banned gay pride parades in the city.
For her part, Mrs. Clinton noted that in his writing Whitman celebrated the similarities between Russians and Americans.
Yet Mrs. Clinton’s emphasis was on the new rather than the old. She told the students they symbolized a new Russia, one that produces innovators like Sergey Brin, a Muscovite who helped start the Internet search giant, Google. And she praised President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia for charting a vision of the country’s future based on technological innovation rather than mineral wealth.
Mrs. Clinton’s visit underscores the Obama administration’s growing attachment to the 44-year-old Mr. Medvedev, Vladimir V. Putin’s hand-picked choice to succeed him as president. Last month, the White House made much of Mr. Medvedev’s support for its tough stance toward Iran.
After Mrs. Clinton’s meeting on Tuesday with the foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, in which he ruled out threatening Iran with sanctions, she went to see Mr. Medvedev at his dacha outside Moscow. American officials said that Mr. Medvedev was unstinting in his support for the administration.
On Wednesday, when Mrs. Clinton was asked during a Moscow radio interview why she had gone to see the president, she pointedly reminded listeners that he directs Russia’s foreign policy.
“At the end, the president sets the policy,” she said. “I carry out President Obama’s policy; Minister Lavrov carries his president’s policy. So making sure that we’re all communicating is very important.”[/quote]
Open their politcal system? The pot calling the kettle black, imo.
Most likely a spin to cover pressure on Russia to play ball re Iran.
[quote author=NY Times]Clinton Urges Russia to Open Political System
By MARK LANDLER
Published: October 14, 2009
KAZAN, Russia — On a day that took her from an elite Moscow university to this bustling city in Russia’s Muslim hinterland, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton paid tribute on Wednesday to religious tolerance, while also challenging Russia’s leaders to open their political system and allow more dissent.
In a speech to nearly 1,000 students at Moscow State University, Mrs. Clinton spoke far more forcefully about human rights and the rule of law than she did on a trip to China earlier this year. Russia, she said, could best fulfill its potential by protecting basic freedoms.
“That’s why attacks on journalists and human rights activists are such a great concern, because it is a threat to progress,” she said. “The more open Russia will become, the more Russia will contribute.”
As if to illustrate that point, Mrs. Clinton then traveled from Moscow to Kazan, the 1,000-year-old capital of Tatarstan, a Russian republic where Muslims, Orthodox Christians, and Catholics live together peacefully, with none of the violent separatism that afflicts places like Chechnya.
Mrs. Clinton was met by Tatarstan’s longtime president, Mintimer Shaimayev, who showed her around a mosque and an orthodox cathedral, both of which lie within the walls of Kazan’s version of the Kremlin. Mr. Shaimayev is no democrat, but he played up his ecumenical credentials.
“This is a multiethnic place,” he told her as she gazed at a shimmering chandelier in the mosque. “There are plenty of mixed marriages.”
Mrs. Clinton praised Mr. Shaimayev for being “someone who is well known for fostering religious tolerance.”
The three-hour side-trip to Tatarstan captured the ambitions and limitations of Mrs. Clinton’s approach to being secretary of state, nine months into her tenure. It was driven, her aides say, by her desire to get out of capital cities, to places where she can mingle with ordinary people.
But the stop in Kazan had a rushed feel to it, and Mrs. Clinton has little time these days for even brief forays. Minutes after her plane took off from Kazan, she holed up in her cabin to take part, by secure telephone link, in the White House’s latest meeting on Afghanistan.
Mrs. Clinton has managed to keep encounters with students on her schedule. Her talk in Moscow drew noisy applause, and she was asked questions on issues ranging from the American role in the global economic crisis to the dispute between the United States and Russia over Georgia.
Asked to name the book that had made the biggest impact on her, she singled out “The Brothers Karamazov.” The parable of the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky’s novel, she said, speaks to the dangers of certitude, a lesson she has carried with her since she read it as a young woman.
“For a lot of reasons, that was an important part of my thinking,” Mrs. Clinton said. “One of the greatest threats we face is from people who believe they are absolutely, certainly right about everything.”
From there, it was a short rhetorical leap for Mrs. Clinton to encourage Russia to open its political system.
She even struck an implicit blow for diversity when she cut the ribbon on a statue of the poet Walt Whitman at the university. Local gay activists protested because one of the Russian officials on hand to honor Whitman, a gay icon, was Moscow’s mayor, Yury Luzhkov, who has made hostile statements about gay people and banned gay pride parades in the city.
For her part, Mrs. Clinton noted that in his writing Whitman celebrated the similarities between Russians and Americans.
Yet Mrs. Clinton’s emphasis was on the new rather than the old. She told the students they symbolized a new Russia, one that produces innovators like Sergey Brin, a Muscovite who helped start the Internet search giant, Google. And she praised President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia for charting a vision of the country’s future based on technological innovation rather than mineral wealth.
Mrs. Clinton’s visit underscores the Obama administration’s growing attachment to the 44-year-old Mr. Medvedev, Vladimir V. Putin’s hand-picked choice to succeed him as president. Last month, the White House made much of Mr. Medvedev’s support for its tough stance toward Iran.
After Mrs. Clinton’s meeting on Tuesday with the foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, in which he ruled out threatening Iran with sanctions, she went to see Mr. Medvedev at his dacha outside Moscow. American officials said that Mr. Medvedev was unstinting in his support for the administration.
On Wednesday, when Mrs. Clinton was asked during a Moscow radio interview why she had gone to see the president, she pointedly reminded listeners that he directs Russia’s foreign policy.
“At the end, the president sets the policy,” she said. “I carry out President Obama’s policy; Minister Lavrov carries his president’s policy. So making sure that we’re all communicating is very important.”[/quote]
Open their politcal system? The pot calling the kettle black, imo.
Most likely a spin to cover pressure on Russia to play ball re Iran.
