Автор: Владимир Колев

Все по-големи и тревожни са мащабите на разпространение на новия вирус COVID-19, светът затъва във все по-голям страх, несигурност и смут, а „инфодемията“ около епидемията става все по-притеснителна. Но можем ли да обвиняваме хората за техните действия или бездействия? Властите, дори и „най-демократичните“, не успяват да реагират адекватно на това предизвикателство, понеже са успели да подкопаят доверието на гражданите в тях, в публичните институции, в медиите, дори и в науката. От друга страна световните сили не показаха готовност за взаимодействие и координация на глобално ниво за борба със разрастващата се заплаха. Затова сега им се налага да използват все по-авторитарни мерки за да компенсират липсата на международно сътрудничество, ефективна комуникация и обществена осведоменост и подготвеност. Но колкото по-силово и неаргументирано действат властите, толкова по-големи притеснения и недоверие това буди. Хората става по-склонни към изпадане в крайност, било то в неглижиране на опасността, дори възприемането на конспиративни теории и застрашаването по този начин на собствения и този на другите живот, било в прекалено безпокойство, а оттам и паника, безразсъдства, а може би и насилие.

Поради цялостната липса на доверие към правителствата, лидерите са готови да жертват благосъстоянието и основни права на гражданите за краткосрочно възвръщане на контрола над масите и укрепване на силата си – и в „западния свят“, и в по-самодържавни режими. Но когато ограниченията не са съобразени законово, добре обосновани и комуникирани към гражданите, те биха имали обратен ефект. Във времена на засилена еднолична власт либералните ценности са под въпрос. Изискванията на обществото в демократичните управления се очаква да са много по-високи и да не се задоволяват само с контрол, глоби и наказания. Също така би трябвало да се изискват пълна прозрачност, отчетност, обществено доверие и сътрудничество – неща, които се предполага да позволяват на свободните общества да реагират по-добре на подобни пандемии.

Извънредната обстановка и липсата на ясен отпор и контрол от гражданското общество са явна предпоставка за поява и активизиране на все повече еднолични лидери, особено крайнодесни популисти, които да се изкушат и опиянят от свръх власт. Това вече се вижда в много държави, в които се въвеждат непропорционални на обстоятелствата мерки, с които се потискат човешки права. Познати политически фигури не пропуснаха възможността да се противопоставят на имиграцията и глобализацията и на бежанците като източник на вируса в първите седмици на разрастване на опасността, където хиляди мигранти останаха блокирани на гръцко-турската граница, при огромна възможността за разпространение на вируса. Въпреки това Ердоган, ЕС, както и Борисов, продължиха да поддържат твърдите си позиции, гонейки политически интересите, за сметка на човечността и на други позабравени европейски ценности.

В България също се въвеждат най-строги мерки с бързи темпове – ограничения за пътуване между населени места, забрани за разходки, посещения на паркове и градини, забрана за пазаруване на хора под 60 год. в определени часови интервали, вечерни часове започващи посред бял ден, контрол върху интернет съдържание, дори се изиска дерогиране на Европейската конвенция за защита правата на човека, а списъкът расте всекидневно. Още преди да влязат в сила някои от новите мерки, управите в няколко града започнаха да слагат контролно-пропускателни пунктове в ромските квартали, макар да нямаше информация за заболели в тях. Възползвайки се от хаотичността, патриотите от управляващата коалиция опитват да прокарат подкопаващи устоите на демокрацията мерки като тази за доброволните отряди. Сигурността на едни от най-уязвимите хора, тези без дом, не е гарантирана – кризисни центрове преустановяват прием на нови хора, благотворителни кухни са затворили врати, а рискът от фатално заразяване при някои от тях е огромен. Вирусната епидемия показа зависимостта ни едни от други, без значение от етническа, религиозна, сексуална, социална или каквато и да е принадлежност – довежда до общото осъзнаване, че живеем във взаимосвързано „общество“.

Вирусът показа също, че за него не съществуват национални граници. Важно е световните правителства да се координират възможно най-бързо, иначе огромната епидемична криза ще доведе и до икономическа и финансова такава. Сегашната система ни навежда на мисълта, че не е подготвена за справяне с подобни глобални опасности, тъй както не реагира задоволително и на климатичната криза. Впрочем някои тези свързват двете кризи, тъй като топенето на ледници и повишаването на температурите правят планетата по-гостоприемна за вируси и бактерии, a заплахата от прихващане на вируса е много по-висока в замърсените градове. За жалост, някои членки на ЕС взеха отбранителни позиции, като не откликнаха на исканията на Италия за подпомагане с медицинско оборудване и материали. Така изолацията придобива и други измерения, освен чисто физическото. За щастие бяхме свидетели и на обнадеждаващи примери за международна солидарност – китайски и кубински медицински специалисти, апаратура и маски пристигнаха в Италия, за да помогнат в битката с вируса, а британски круизен кораб с потвърдени случаи на заразени с коронавирус беше приет да акостира в Куба преди дни.

Друг повод за притеснение е, че поради все по-заслабващите публични институции, социална система и зависимостта ни от частния сектор и услугите му, сме изправени пред ситуация на невъзможност на властите за справяне с наплива от заразени в държавните болници. Налага се да разчитаме на това частните болници да дадат приоритет на общественото благо пред интересите на бизнеса, но бихме ли могли да очакваме, че те ще осигурят здравни грижи, които да са достъпни за всички, без дискриминация, с добро качество и следвайки принципи за етично разпределение на здравните ресурси? Университетската Александровска болница реши да върне голямо дарение за покупка на респираторни апарати на собственика ѝ, по причина, че дарението е под условие, а това категорично би нарушило Хипократовата клетва, полагана от лекарите. Изникват съмнения и дали по-заможните граждани спазват установения ред, огласен от здравните власти, след като крупен бизнесмен беше хоспитализиран заедно с жена си в лечебно заведение, което не е предвидено за случаи на COVID-19. Администрацията на американския президент пък опита да купи разработка на ваксина от Германия за вируса и тя да бъде ексклузивно само за американци. Изглежда, че все повече ще се замисляме доколко е надеждно сегашното капиталистическо устройство и до какво води изоставянето на публични сектори като здравеопазването, както и какво може да се научи и заеме от други модели, оказващи се по-ефикасни при дадени обстоятелства.

Настоящата обстановка е истински тест за гражданството, хората навсякъде са раздвоени, поради заливащата ни (дез)информация, никой не иска да остане без мнение и безучастен към всеобщия дискурс, което води до заемане на крайни и радикални позиции и склонност към оправдаване на авторитарни похвати. Несъмнено, популистите ще се опитат да се възползват от това, но от гражданското общество и здравия ни разум зависи да не позволим крайни рестрикции. Когато те заставят да избираш между своето здраве и живот, и тези на близките ти хора, от една страна, и основните ти права, от друга, логично е да избереш живота и да защитиш всеки, който твърди, че прави всичко за да го опази. Но това е неморален и погрешен въпрос и избор, защото те са неотменно свързани. Както гласи една мисъл, който заменя свобода за сигурност, накрая губи и двете.

Информираното, солидарно и справедливо общество е далеч по-мощно и ефективно от репресираното, контролирано и невежо население. Примерите за събуждащата се солидарност и взаимопомощ и по света, и у нас, са все повече и по-обнадеждаващи. Ще се справим с това предизвикателство само заедно (макар и не чисто физически) и без да допускаме да се потискат нашите права и достойнства, а това ще е несъмнен урок за бъдещите изпитания пред света и истинската демокрация.

To protect our collective right to health in the current pandemic situation, we need to balance our individual rights with collective responsibilities.

By: Kathryn Sikkink

In order to fully implement human rights, we need to place more emphasis on the responsibility of all actors, and not just states, to take action together to make sure rights are enjoyed.

This argument from my newly published book: The Hidden Face of Rights: Toward a Politics of Responsibility, turns out to be particularly relevant to the coronavirus pandemic. Even if all governments were taking efficient action, but individuals didn’t also do their share by staying home and washing their hands, the crisis would not be averted. 

Building on the work of Iris Marion Young in her posthumous book, Responsibility for Justice, in The Hidden Face of Rights, I argue that all actors socially connected to structural injustice and able to act, need to take action to address the injustice. One problem with the word responsibility is that people often use it in the common legal meaning focused on who is to blame or liable. This is what Iris Young has called backward-looking responsibility or the “liability model.” She focused on political responsibility that is forward-looking. This kind of responsibility asks not “who is to blame,” but “what should we do?” Forward-looking responsibility is necessary to address the Coronavirus pandemic and to think about what we should do in the world after the pandemic. I also draw on Max Weber’s idea of an ethic of responsibility in Politics as a Vocation to stress that it is not enough to act with good intentions. We also need to have done our research about the most effective way to act so that our actions have the impact we seek.

Even if all governments were taking efficient action, but individuals didn’t also do their share by staying home and washing their hands, the crisis would not be averted. 

This framework is useful in the context of the Coronavirus crisis because it involves both a range of rights and responsibilities of many actors. Our right to health, but also rights to liberty, freedom of movement, to education, to information, to food and shelter are all at stake. As countries ramp up exclusionary travel and border policies, some of these rights may be imperiled, and governments need to strike a balance between protecting health and respecting human rights, as the WHO Secretary General recognized in his briefing on March 12. A quarantine is a legitimate state policy in times of health emergencies, but the state must attend to the rights of individuals caught in the quarantine to adequate health care, food, and shelter. 

This balancing of rights is foreseen in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which speaks of limiting rights to “respect the rights and freedoms of others” . The UDHR goes further, however, and recognizes that each of us has “duties to the community”, and its preamble calls on all of us to promote rights. The drafters were keen to highlight that realizing the full potential of the UDHR was a collective effort.

In order for everyone to enjoy these rights, all actors socially connected to this problem and able to act must practice responsibilities that are not always well defined. To protect our collective right to health, we may need to recognize that we have a right to freedom of movement, but also a responsibility not to travel in certain circumstances; a right to education, but a responsibility to accept that it may be suspended temporarily or delivered on-line. 

Global health governance institutions can provide a pathway to implement the human right to health.  International organizations, especially WHO, appear to have stepped up to this responsibility in impressive ways in recent weeks. I recommend anyone who wants to be well-informed in a way that both prevents panic and promotes action to spend time on the coronavirus part of the WHO website. 

In order for everyone to enjoy these rights, all actors socially connected to this problem and able to act must practice responsibilities that are not always well defined.

Some states are doing a far better job at exercising responsibility than others. The US case is especially worrisome, where CDC action has been hampered by the initial political instincts of the Trump administration to downplay the problem. In this context, one of the responsibilities I devote chapters to in my book—the responsibility to vote—becomes even more important. The dangers of this narcissistic nationalist leader hostile to science and facts could not be more apparent than in the case of a genuine international crisis when poor US leadership is literally a life and death issue.

But responsibilities do not stop with national governments—they also exist for state and municipal governments, health care institutions, the media, non-profits, universities, and down to the individual. At the individual level, our responsibilities in the face of the COVID-19 crisis include the responsibility to wash hands, to stay at home if we feel unwell, to cover mouths and noses when coughing or sneezing, but also to be informed and not to panic. Who would have thought that developing new norms about hand washing would become a global governance issue? Individual responsibilities may include such non-actions such as not hoarding basic goods. For example, most people don’t need face masks, and should leave them for those who are sick or are caring for sick people. But what is most important is that individuals don’t exercise their responsibilities in an isolated manner, but in coordination with institutions and social connection with others, even as we provide the “social distance” (1 meter) necessary to limit transmission of the disease.

It is a persistent but somewhat troubling finding of international relations theory that change in on ideas and institutions is more likely to occur in the wake of crisis. This crisis is already yielding a nationalist response, with the US suspending all travel from Europe to the United States for 30 days, a policy European officials said was taken unilaterally and without any consultation. But a forward-looking rights and responsibilities approach suggests we need more well-coordinated national and international responses. More and better global governance is necessary for solving the COVID-19 crisis and the economic recession that could grow out of it.   Our biggest responsibility may be to figure out how to convert this crisis into a step forward for global governance rather than a step away from it.

Photo: Nathan Dumlao/Unsplash

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED in OpenGlobalRights on March 16, 2020

Kathryn Sikkink is a Regents Professor Emerita at the University of Minnesota and the Ryan Family Professor of Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Feb 26, 2020 ANDRÉS VELASCO

LONDON – Democracy may be “the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time,” as Winston Churchill famously said, but that does not mean democracy is good enough. Voters know it, and they are as mad as hell about it.

According to the most recent Pew Global Attitudes Survey, an average of 51% of citizens in 27 countries surveyed report being dissatisfied with democracy, while 45% are satisfied. If that 51% does not seem high to you, note that the figure is 55% in Britain, 56% in Japan, 58% in the United States, 60% in Nigeria, 63% in Argentina, 64% in South Africa, 70% in Italy, 81% in Spain, 83% in Brazil, and 85% in Mexico. This sentiment is not unique to one social group. Men and women, young and old, rich and poor, highly educated and not, report being disappointed by democratic performance.

That should not come as a surprise. In the past 250 years, almost every human endeavor has changed beyond recognition – except democracy. We vote every four or so years for candidates about whom we know little (and we do so in person, often with paper and pencil!). This process is mediated by political parties, which are often less than fully democratic themselves. We elect large groups of peoples known as parliamentarians, who meet in ornate chambers and, following arcane rules, discuss at length and with great showmanship subjects they understand only superficially. Sparks fly, yet little illumination occurs. Many social and economic problems remain unaddressed. Four or five years later, the cycle starts again.

Since democracy began taking root in Western countries after the American and French revolutions, innovations have been few and far between. Direct citizen consultation or participation, as in ancient Athens? Not really. Systematic expert input into highly complex and technical discussions? Very seldom. Intensive use of technology to expedite the process? Thanks, but no thanks. No wonder today’s young people, weaned on the immediacy and the results-now culture of the digital era, are skeptical of representative democracy.

The list of imaginable reforms to democratic practice is as long as it is challenging. Some of the necessary changes, like reducing the role of money in campaigns, are obvious. Others veer toward the adventurous. Referenda are unsuited to complex issues that do not lend themselves to a yes-or-no answer (think Brexit), but could we not move toward more direct democracy at the local level, where voters are well informed about the issues – build a park here, re-route a highway there – at stake?

Perhaps we could use technology to move from voting every four years with little information to voting more often with better information. Or we could combat lack of interest and low citizen turnout by making votes tradable – not for money but for other votes, so that you can vote twice next month in that referendum you really care about. Alternatively, votes could be storable, allowing voters to cast more than one in elections they feel strongly about.

The rules of democracy matter, but elected politicians matter just as much – and they too are thoroughly discredited. In the same Pew report, an average of 54% of respondents said that politicians in their country are corrupt, and only 35% said that elected officials care what ordinary people think.

Some of those politicians are discredited because their sins are so glaring. As Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil put it in 2018, “Of the four presidents elected after the 1988 Constitution took effect, two were impeached, one is in jail for corruption and the other is me.” No wonder that some Brazilians report feeling nostalgic for their country’s repressive military dictatorship. Those same Brazilians voted to elect Jair Bolsonaro, a populist who has insulted women, black people, and gays.

But the problem is bigger than just a few bad apples. In his famous essay “Politics as a Vocation,” Max Weber warned that a key risk for modern democracy was that a political class would arise, disconnected from voters. Such a political class did indeed emerge, and now voters are revolting against it.

Political parties are a case in point. Once upon a time, they had roots in society. Conservative parties were linked to various churches, neighborhood clubs, and business associations. Socialist parties had their base in the trade unions and what was once called the industrial proletariat. Today, those institutions are fewer and weaker, and so are political parties. One political scientist has called today’s parties “hydroponic” – floating above society but with no roots in it.

That is why nowadays conventional political parties tend to have leaders who themselves hail from the well-heeled professions, the upper echelons of universities, or from successful businesses whose founders have acquired the financial stability needed to be able to devote themselves to politics. The potential for a fundamental disconnect with voters is huge.

And the arrogance of that political class has not helped: just think of Hillary Clinton describing Trump voters as a “basket of deplorables.” The standard refrain is that citizens vote for that politician with whom they would like to have a beer. But rather than sharing a drink with the average voter, leading politicians spend too much of their time with others like themselves —bankers, businesspeople, top civil servants, and high-flying academics. To ascertain which politicians can be successful today, Yascha Mounk calls for a “reverse beer test”: it is not that voters prefer the candidate they would rather have a beer with; they prefer the candidate who would rather have a beer with them. Too many democratic politicians fail this test.

Anti-establishment voting has the name of the game in many recent elections. Fury against traditional politicians caused the failure of Germán Vargas Lleras and Geraldo Alckmin, the “safe” establishment candidates in the 2018 Colombian and Brazilian elections. Each had the support of the local business community and the traditional media. Both went home after disastrous results in the first round of voting. Anti-establishment rage also doomed Hillary Clinton’s campaign and brought about the current populist government in Italy. And it could also be behind the dismal primary performance so far of Joseph Biden, the establishment candidate par excellence.

And of course, the hyper-charged environment of social media, with its echo chambers, makes the job of anti-establishment populists much easier. Want to discredit a candidate for office in five minutes? Post a picture of him or her riding in the first-class section of a plane or in the back of a shiny black car. The picture will be re-transmitted tens of thousands of times, collecting many comments along the way. Not one of the comments will be kind.

The message is clear: dissatisfaction with democracy is the perfect breeding ground for authoritarian populists. Strongmen, whether actual or potential, have little vested interest in democratic reform. Liberal democrats do. They should be the ones leading the charge.

Source: https://www.project-syndicate.org/

Интервю на Димитрина Петрова от БОЛД с Видка Атанасова от Дневник. Източник – Дневник

Стратегията за детето урежда защитата на децата в риск, но от около година настъпи масова психоза сред родители заради неверни твърдения, че тази стратегия цели обратното, и дори се е стигна до абсурдни тези, че има организиран трафик на български деца към Норвегия, за което се винят неправителствени организации, които на практика защитават децата от насилие вкъщи.

За разговор по темата „Дневник“ потърси д-р Димитрина Петрова, инициатор и представител на Българска общност за либерална демокрация (БОЛД) – една нова инициатива на Българския хелзинкски комитет, която си поставя за цел да увеличи обществената подкрепа за демокрацията, правата на човека и основните свободи.

Тя ще е един от участниците в предстоящата утре дискусия „Семейството в демократичното общество: Могат ли правата на детето да са в разрез с правата на неговото семейство?“, организирана от БОЛД, която е част от започващата кампания на организацията по темата за закрилата на детето и семейството. БОЛД кани граждани, представители на граждански организации, инициативи, движения и заинтересовани медии да присъстват на събитието, повече за него – тук.

Как си обяснявате тази истерия сред хората? Дали има организирана кампания за насаждане на тези страхове? Кой я организира и има интерес от това да липсват социални услуги, защитаващи детето?

– Противниците на Националната стратегия за детето са облагодетелствани от няколко паралелни процеса и обстоятелства, които взаимно се усилват поради своята едновременност. Първо, тяхната кауза е вписана в течаща в момента глобална кампания на културния консерватизъм, която на свой ред е един от аспектите на започналото преди десетина години глобално настъпление срещу либерално-демократичните ценности, включително правата на човека и равнопоставеността на половете. В много страни, подобно на България, в момента тази кампания се провежда от силни граждански движения, излизащи под знамето на защита на „семейните ценности“.

Второ, самата тема за детето и семейството е извънредно удобен вход за разпространение и утвърждаване на традиционалистки нагласи, защото е лесно комуникируема под формата на емоционални разкази, чиито послания са по-лесни за възприемане в сравнение с малко по-абстрактните послания на правозащитниците. Какво по-тревожно послание от заплахата да изгубиш детето си? То възбужда първосигнални рефлекси и хората се хвърлят с главата напред в такава кауза, без много да се замислят.

Трето, глобалните идеологически процеси по такава чувствителна тема попадат върху благодатната историческа почва на дълбок патриархален манталитет, характерен за балканите, който само повърхностно е засегнат от комунистически и либерални набраздявания.

Най-сетне, четвърто, но най-важно – в случая с протестите против Националната стратегия за детето главен фактор е тяхната добра комуникационна стратегия, грамотна организация и успешно насочване на гражданска енергия. Въпросът кой стои зад всичко това няма прост отговор. Но аз си направих труда да проследя някои от директните заемки на идеи и дори текстове и стигнах до определени източници, например глобалната мрежа от организации за защита на семейството и семейните ценности, в която едни от най-силните идеологически участници са от Русия и САЩ.

Има ли връзка с кампанията срещу Истанбулската конвенция, която се опитваше да въведе мерки срещу домашното насилие срещу жени?

– Да, има. И двете кампании, а към тях сега трябва да добавим и кампанията за отмяна на приетия, но още не влязъл в сила Закон за социалните услуги, са проявления на културен консерватизъм и засягат типични теми от съвременната глобална война на култури. В България спектърът на участниците в тези движения е сложен. В единия му край са съзнателни привърженици на антилиберални идеологии от рода на руския православно-евразийски консерватизъм на Изборския клуб (представен и под името „Институт за динамичен консерватизъм“, създаден от руски консервативни политици, учени, публицисти и духовници – бел. ред.) и някои западни религиозно-консервативни движения, а в другия – обикновени хора, особено родители, които са били манипулирани да повярват, че правата на децата и правата на жените противоречат на семейните ценности.

Трябва ли държавата да заеме по-категорична роля в успокояване на населението, с разяснителна информационна кампания например?

– Да, трябва. Във всички случаи на остра атака срещу правата на жената и детето и срещу демократични граждански организации през последните десетина години правителството на ГЕРБ и неговите партньори уж пазеше мълчание, но същевременно предприемаше регресивни действия по посока на задоволяване исканията на ултраконсервативните движения. Така стана и с Истанбулската конвенция, и с Националната стратегия за детето, и със Закона за социалните услуги.

Държавата има задължението да уважава, защитава и реализира правата на човека, включително на детето. Като основен носител на задължения за реализиране на правата на детето държавата трябва и да се грижи за това образованието по тези правата на детето и правата на човека изобщо да са на съвременно равнище. Като човек, който се връща в България след повече от 20 години, мен ме шокира невероятно силното масово невежество по правата на човека и бездействието на държавата в тази област. Работила съм в много страни по света, но рядко съм срещала такава степен на непознаване на основни правозащитни принципи. Ето например твърдението, че детето не трябвало да бъде субект на права. Потресаващо!

Важни ли са социалните услуги, които в момента следят за правата на детето в семейството? Вършат ли си работата? Има ли нужда от неправителствени организации в сектора?

– Разбира се, се социалните услуги са важни. Вършат си работата, колкото могат, понякога не много добре, но вината не е в самите тях, а в отчайващата липса на политическо внимание към тях. Социалните работници са почти на дъното на социалната пирамида и текучеството сред тях е много голямо. Да, има нужда от неправителствени организации в сектора. Без тях бихме се върнали към безумията на комунистическото централно планиране без никакви корективи от гражданското общество, основани на инициатива, иновативност и гъвкавост в посрещането на потребности.

Хората, които искат да изтикат неправителствените организации от сектора на социални услуги, не забелязват, че хем ги е страх от държавата (защото единствено държавни органи по закрила могат да извеждат деца от семействата им, никога неправителствените организации), хем искат всички услуги да са в ръцете на държавата. Пак ли трябва да започваме да разясняваме ролята на гражданското общество като гарант срещу държавни злоупотреби? В коя година живеем?

Има ли нужда от законодателни промени и в каква насока?

– Да, има. Те са в Закона за социалните услуги. Надявам се разумът да победи и законът да влезе в сила.

Източник – https://www.dnevnik.bg/intervju/2020/01/30/4022993_dimitrina_petrova_shokirashto_e_nevejestvoto_po/?ref=home_layer2&fbclid=IwAR1EoV6tOJ5H1WjmPt0Gs48UIbDTlrfDnvkdOEtQHEw8MRSDKQFczxAfsZ8

The deep unfairness of the transition from communism in Central and Eastern Europe fed the illiberal populist rebellion across the region today.

The ideological victory of liberal democracy over communism shaped the way in which historians, politicians, and social scientists made sense of the events of 1989. But there is a strong case today for a revised look at the revolutions of 1989—a critique of the way the prevailing narratives and theories have presented these revolutions as essentially a transition from the tyranny of the party-state to a free and democratic society. A more complex picture of that momentous year reveals not only the eclipse of different possibilities, but how frustrated expectations have shaped post-communist societies in subsequent decades, contributing to the upsurge of illiberal populism in the region over the last decade.

Today’s dominant narrative of 1989 gets one important thing right: liberty was the lodestar for many revolutionaries, in particular the intellectual elite. But the majority of the people were more annoyed by the betrayal of the communist promise of equality than by the lack of civil liberties. They came out in the streets and squares of Central and Eastern Europe in the hundreds of thousands because elites that had promised equality had instead built a world of privilege for themselves. The paradox of 1989 is that communism was stormed and brought down from the left, by people with unfulfilled egalitarian aspirations, but the revolutionary road led to a new society that has been experienced as more unfair than communism.

This paradox is rooted in a historical shift that occurred below the revolutionary surface: the liberation of the elite from the economic, political, and ideological restrictions of communism. Studies in European post-communist countries in the early 1990s led by Iván Szelényi showed that a very significant part of the post-1989 elite was made of former nomenklatura families who converted their political assets into economic wealth, which developed alongside the new spoils of cultural and ideological freedom and membership in a borderless global elite.

In October 1989, Bulgaria’s most popular dissident group, Ecoglasnost, was campaigning in the streets of Sofia. Among its many posters about the environment, civil liberties, and human rights was one that demanded, “Bulgarian millionaires! Donate to Ecoglasnost!” This doesn’t sound like much today, but at the time it was the most daring and thrilling slogan—the one that best captured the spirit of popular discontent and to which passersby responded most vibrantly, with laughter and tears. The very mention of communist millionaires in public disrupted the status quo and signaled a new era. The “people” genuinely wanted freedom, too, but for most this meant most immediately a society freed from nomenklatura privilege.

The Betrayal of the Communist Promise of Equality

During the first three decades of Central and Eastern European communism, postwar majorities benefited from rising living standards and greater socioeconomic mobility (with the exception of Czechoslovakia, which was more advanced economically to begin with). A large part of the predominantly poor agrarian population of the prewar period, further impoverished by the war, enjoyed upward mobility. Most people experienced the industrialization, urbanization, mass education, housing, and other elements of a modernization project as positive achievements of the communist system. Economic growth during these first decades helped produce rising living standards for almost all social groups. On September, 15, 1964, UK Ambassador to Bulgaria William Harpham reported to Foreign Office, “Whatever the mistakes of the regime in this country (which are plentiful), the average Bulgarian who has never been governed well and is not used to live in comfort is better off today than at any point in the past.” A similar observation could be made about the average Hungarian, Pole, and even Romanian, before Nicolae Ceauşescu’s bizarre economic decisions tanked the Romanian economy. As a result, until the mid-1970s, socioeconomic dissatisfaction in communist Europe was low.

In the realm of communist ideology, equality reigned supreme. But the social structure of Central and Eastern European societies during the communist period was shaped by two forces running in opposite directions—egalitarian social policy on one hand and a new kind of class formation on the other.

Communist social policy led to gains related to income, access to goods and services, housing, healthcare, social welfare, pensions, and—crucially—education, which stood above all else in terms of its social significance. No event was more important in a family than the summer months when children applied for high school and university admission. Beyond and above special privileges that affected very few young people, the communist regimes established a rather stable educational meritocracy dependent on exam results.

Elsewhere, egalitarian social policy imposed limits. There were restrictions on private ownership expressed in the number of square meters a household could legally own. Salary scales were rather flat, and economic incentives in the workplace were relatively weak. Living standards were low compared to those in the West, but the ordinary person felt a degree of security, and welfare benefits were not dependent on individual economic performance. There was no unemployment, and, as a rule, both spouses worked.

Countervailing these egalitarian policies was the consolidation of a new politically dominant class that, as time passed, became increasingly wealthy. Class difference was generated by the inheritance of formal and informal privileges and a system of “connections”—mutual favors between members of the elite. By the late 1970s, there existed a stable socioeconomic class division in European Communist societies. Individuals who had enjoyed privileges because of their place in the party-state had now passed down their wealth and elevated class position to their descendants. In the 1980s, the prominence of nomenklatura wealth and privilege became as undeniable as it was unacceptable. Popular resentment was directed particularly at the patrimonial element of nomenklatura privilege: “The Politburo are sending their children to Cambridge!” was the ultimate lament of the traditionally egalitarian, education-obsessed average citizen.

The growing gap between poor and rich began to show in art and literature, both in the alternative culture and to some degree in officially sanctioned works of art. The 1983 film Adj király katonát(The Princess) by Hungarian director Pál Erdöss dramatized the clash between these different classes through the heart-wrenching love story of a youth from the new wealthy class and a girl from the bottom. The best artists managed to convey how some people were condemned to a life in which only the most basic necessities were met, no matter how hard they worked, while others enjoyed a life of wealth and unlimited privilege on account of their parents’ positions.

In the 1980s, these trends led to a rather quick loss of popular legitimacy of the communist regimes on a scale unmatched by earlier periods of resistance. They had not done enough to either meet or weaken egalitarian expectations; indeed, in 1989 the shared feeling was that communists had broken the egalitarian promise, which had been the whole point of communism as far as most people were concerned.

In addition to socioeconomic equality, communism promised equality of status based on gender, ethnicity, geographic residence, and disability. Status inequalities followed their own complex trajectories during the communist period. But, in broad terms, these inequalities tracked with increasing socioeconomic inequality. Policies to increase gender equality and in support of the rights of ethnic minorities were undermined by a gradual rise of new types of inequality during the final decades of Central and Eastern European communism.

The Egalitarianism of the Streets

The people who signed up for the emerging oppositional political organizations in Central and Eastern European countries in the 1980s came from all walks of life; a sizeable segment were still members of Communist parties. In Poland, the membership of Solidarity reflected the composition of the general population. In Bulgaria, Ecoglasnost, which numbered around 100 individual members before November 1989 but delivered the fatal blow to the party-state through the first mass demonstration for democracy on November 3, grew to over 200,000 people in 1990, also reflecting Bulgarian demographics overall. Indignation over the privileges of the nomenklatura was the predominant sentiment animating direct action. In the days after the series of major breakthrough events in each country in the region, millions of people were frenetically engaging in the day-to-day business of revolutionary politics. Very few of them had a stable liberal outlook, but all shared the feeling that communist elites had perverted the ideal of equality.

The egalitarian ideal was rarely attacked before and immediately after regime change. When it was, the critique was addressed at its perceived utopianism and incompatibility with freedom, rather than at its inherent value. In November 1989, only 3 percent of respondents in Czechoslovakia preferred capitalism over socialism, and in December 1989 an overwhelming majority opposed privatization. There was strong support for the vision of worker self-management of the sort explored by Václav Havel in The Power of the Powerless—genuine worker participation in economic decision-making that could produce a genuine feeling of responsibility for their collective work. In Poland, self-management (samorząd) had been the main demand of Solidarity since 1981. By 1990, it had already disappeared from the agenda of the new elite, but it was still upheld by the majority of the people. According to a general survey in 1990, 61.8 percent of respondents favored worker self-management, 66.9 percent backed a full-employment policy, and 65.9 percent wanted to retain state control of prices. In Romania, too, the build-up of popular fury against the ruling elite had a long socioeconomic pedigree, going back to the 1977 Jiu Valley miners’ strike, which ushered in a period of intermittent labor unrest.

Perhaps the best-known participants in the popular uprisings of 1989 were dissident intellectuals who for decades had expressed a moral and social critique of communist governments. Most dissidents did not express, at least before the middle of 1989, any expectation that profound systemic transformation could occur in the near future. The prevailing vision among intellectuals was of a more or less gradual internal liberalization of one-party state socialism, with the goal of a more democratic but still socialist political system. Multi-party pluralist democracy combined with a capitalist market economy did not become a proclaimed objective until the second half of 1989. The programmatic documents of practically all dissident organizations in 1988 and 1989 articulated a liberal platform of democracy, human rights, and civil liberties. Freedom of speech, religious freedom, minority rights, and the right to access information were at the center of dissident demands. Equality was not.

Still, concerns about growing socioeconomic inequality were present in many dissident organizations’ platforms in the late 1980s, even though these platforms were crafted by members of an alternative elite whose passion was liberty rather than equality. In Bulgaria, the Club for Glasnost and Perestroika, the Social Democratic Party, and the Agrarian Party were critical of the system of “lawful” privilege and the various forms of unlawful corruption that resulted in the enrichment of the top nomenklatura and the impoverishment of large sections of society. In Czechoslovakia, Civic Forum’s platform issued on November 26, 1989, bore clear evidence of a lingering adherence to egalitarianism; it condemned the inequality of power and wealth and expressed commitment to equal economic opportunity even while formulating the principles of a capitalist market economy. Polish intellectuals expressed similar sentiments; but their takeover of the major challenge to the regime (which began with a workers’ movement) signaled the eclipse of the pro-egalitarian agenda of the revolution. By the time of the 1989 roundtable negotiations, 195 of the 232 participants were intellectuals from both sides.

Large parts of the party elite also saw liberalization as something they could not just tolerate but benefit from. The freedom to make money, to travel, and even to think and speak were increasingly attractive to them, with one important condition: that they could remain part of the elite. In 1989, liberalization—rather than liberal democracy—was the elite common ground. Arguably, it is what made peaceful revolution through roundtable negotiations possible.

The New Inequality

Following the first free multi-party elections, post-communist elites managed the transition in their favor. The new governments accommodated the interests of both old and new elites. The liberation of the dominant class—an economic, political, and ideological emancipation that removed barriers to their further advancement and encouraged their global integration—created a deep sense of unfairness among ordinary people.

The egalitarian agenda was quickly marginalized, and no alternative political actor emerged to champion equality. “The original sin of the postcommunist democracies is that they came into being not as an outcome of the triumph of egalitarianism but as a victory of an antiegalitarian consensus uniting the communist elite and the anticommunist counterelite,” wrote Bulgarian scholar Ivan Krastev in 2007. “Ex-communists were anti-egalitarian because of their interests. Liberals were anti-egalitarian because of their ideology.”

But while elites and then nearly everyone gave up on the possibility of socioeconomic equality during the 1990s, and a sizable section of the people gave up on equality altogether, people still held to an ideal of fairness—about who gets ahead in life, who becomes a member of the elite. Everyone expected some form of fairness to replace the compromised ideal of communist equality. The battle cry of those years was “normality,” and a “normal” society had a market economy with democratic elections. But it also meant the sort of society one found in an average Western European country circa 1975—not just capitalist democracy, but one with the protections of a social welfare state.

Shortly after the revolutionary breakthrough, life in formerly communist Central and Eastern Europe couldn’t be more different from that disappearing Western European social welfare state. The strictures of neoliberal economics had settled in, justifying and guiding the Wild West brutality of accumulation in the first years after 1989, leading to the economic dislocation of millions. Shock therapy introduced unregulated prices and, for many, a loss of their lifetime savings. Meanwhile, former nomenklatura members hectically distributed state assets to their allies under shady privatization deals. Unemployment surged. In Poland, it rose from practically zero in 1989 to 16 percent in 1993. Poverty increased from 17.3 percent in 1989 to 31.5 percent in 1990. The Gini coefficient increased from 26.9 in 1989 to 32.7 in 1996 and 35.9 in 2006. A similarly drastic version of shock therapy took place in Bulgaria in 1991–92. Even in Hungary, where shock therapy was postponed until around 1995, the effect was disastrous.

Privatization in all its forms failed to demonstrate even a semblance of fairness. Voucher privatization (in which citizens were allowed to purchase shares in formerly state-owned enterprises) in the Czech Republic (1992–94) was chaotic and rife with illegal practices. Václav Klaus, who was in charge of the reform, delayed the creation of a legal framework for privatization because he was more interested in creating a loyal economic elite than in accommodating public expectations.

Shortages, queues, confusion, and despair became the defining aspects of daily life in the early 1990s. When the dust settled, the winners of the transition were mostly members of the former communist elite joined by newcomers who had managed to take advantage of the massive abuse of power, theft, fraud, fake bankruptcies, racketeering, and mafia account-settling that sprouted in the vacuum created by the absence of established legal rules and authority.

The implementation of capitalist reforms and the way in which new democratic institutions legitimized them generated a new, anti-meritocratic pattern of status mobility. The process was experienced by most people as profoundly unfair. As time passed, many came to blame the new class landscape on the elites who presided over the “transition to democracy.” The process of accession to the European Union in the first years of the twenty-first century only postponed the destruction of elite legitimacy.

In this sense, the formative experience of deep unfairness in the aftermath of 1989 created a dynamic that, a generation later, translated into a specific Central and Eastern European brand of illiberal populist rebellion. It took a generation to reach the point where it was too soon to forget but too late to undo the injustice at the foundation of the new social hierarchies. By around 2010, the redistribution of power was complete. There was no more fishing in muddy waters: stronger laws and regulations had reined in but also ratified the wealth and property accumulated during the “transition.”

It is therefore not correct to say that the root cause of the illiberal surge that started around 2006 and continues to this date is inequality itself; rather, it is the manifestly unfair way in which the new, post-1989 inequality was produced. Today, we face an irony that is the inverse of 1989: in order for equality to make its comeback, a popular mobilization for liberty must open the way.

Author: Dimitrina Petrova