Conservative thinkers in
Russia are not celebrating the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Instead, they are denouncing it as
aggressive colonialism, yet another attempt to impose "Western"
values on other cultures.
As the newly resurgent
Russian state has asserted itself increasingly on the international stage, the
conservative political elite has sought to flesh out something of an ideology
that justifies the rejection of international institutions and Western
criticism of political developments in Russia. In doing so, it has revived the
19th-century tsarist mantra of "Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality."
"I am deeply convinced
that the conception of human rights varies from one culture to another, from
one society to another, inasmuch as the very concept of the person
varies," says political scientist Aleksandr Dugin(former member of the extreme right group 'Pamyat'), who heads the Center
for Conservative Studies at Moscow State University and is a leading public
proponent of the new Russian conservatism.
In Russian culture, Dugin
says, a "collective anthropology" has predominated, meaning that the
individual can only fully realize his or her potential when functioning as part
of the entire society. The Russian conception of human rights does not include
"the right to sin," meaning that society, especially in the form of
the Russian Orthodox Church and the central state, has an obligation to protect
itself as a means of protecting the rights of its citizens.
Dugin says the Russian
cultural tradition on rights and values has more in common with the Islamic
tradition than with Western liberalism. "In the Islamic and Orthodox
traditions, almost everything corresponds," he says. "We both reject
specific aspects of secular, Western, European, individualistic conception of
human rights."
In April 2006, the Russian
Orthodox Church sponsored the 10th annual Council of Russian People, which
adopted a "Declaration of Human Rights and Dignity" that directly
challenges the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Dugin was an important
contributing author of that doctrine, as was Metropolitan of Smolensk and
Kaliningrad Kirill, who is a leading candidate to succeed the recently deceased
Aleksy II as patriarch. "There are values that are no less important than
[individual] human rights," the Orthodox declaration asserts. "These
are faith, ethics, sacraments, Fatherland."
Earlier this year, a group
of influential thinkers who label themselves "dynamic conservatives"
published a monograph titled "The Russian Doctrine," which in many
ways articulates the domestic and political program of the current Russian
government. Like other conservative trends, the book emphasizes that "the
individual recognizes himself as an organic part of the social environment
(neighbors, co-workers), family (relations), and nation (state and major social
institutions); there is mutual nourishment, mutual support between the
individual and society."
Preeminence Of The State
It remains unclear how
influential the new conservatism is inside Putin's ruling elite. Certainly many
prominent figures within Putin's inner circle, as well as Putin himself, are
sympathetic to the views of the Orthodox Church.
Vladislav Surkov has been
the main government architect of statist doctrine.Also, chief Kremlin
ideologist Vladislav Surkov, who coined the term "sovereign
democracy" to describe Russia's political system, has borrowed elements of
conservative thinking to argue for restricting the influence of international
law, global economic bodies, and Western opinion on Russia's development. In an
article published last year, Dugin lauded Surkov's "evolution" from
liberalism toward the conservative, state-centered point of view. "For me,
the value of statism is absolute," Dugin wrote. "And values like
liberalism, democracy, civil society, liberty, the market, and social justice
are secondary compared to statism. I am observing Surkov's evolution precisely
in this direction."
In practical terms, the
ascendant conservatism has meant that Russia has challenged the system of
international election monitoring developed by the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe as hopelessly biased. In July, the Russians argued
that election monitors must "show respect for the national organs of
power, including the electoral organs" of host countries and defer to host
governments "in all other questions touching on the sovereignty of the
country."
Likewise, the Kremlin has
criticized the European Court of Human Rights and has taken steps to make it
more difficult for Russian citizens to take complaints to Strasbourg. Last
year, then-President Vladimir Putin signed a decree designed to "enhance
the protection of Russia's rights" at the court.
On the other hand, the
values of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights continue to hold some sway
in Russia. For one thing, the country's 1993 constitution -- particular the
enumeration of the rights of citizens -- was clearly drafted in the spirit of
the declaration. Constitutional Court Chairman Valery Zorkin stated this
directly in an interview with "Rossiiskaya gazeta" just last month.
"According to the constitution," Zorkin said, "the individual,
his rights and freedoms, are the highest value."
What Is Traditional?
Much of the political
awkwardness of Putinism over the last eight years has arisen from efforts to
superimpose the new conservatism on a more liberal framework that the Kremlin
seems unwilling to jettison entirely.
Although the Putin
government has consistently followed the line of strengthening the state, one
occasionally comes across nods to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
similar to Zorkin's comments. Just this month, the ruling Unified Russia party
submitted a draft ethical code of conduct for state officials that says
explicitly that officials are not required to obey orders that "are in
serious contradiction to the basic human rights laid out in the Constitution of
the Russian Federation and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights."
Conservatives also have
trouble demonstrating that average Russians share their notions of the
"national values" of Russian-Orthodox culture. A national poll by the
All-Russia Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM) this month found
that 33 percent of Russians support "the defense of traditional Russian
values, national independence, the strengthening of power, and the defense of
the interests of Russians," views that VTsIOM researchers summarized as
"national conservatism." The study came under sharp criticism for the
way the questions were formulated and, in general, VTsIOM has been lambasted
for conducting research that confirms the views of its "partner
organization," Unified Russia.
Sociologist Boris Chernyakhovsky
criticized the study. "The authors of the poll consciously ignored the
fact that Russian values, like traditional values, come in various types. There
is the tradition of serfdom and the tradition of peasant uprisings," he
wrote. "There is the tradition of Russian tsarism and the Soviet
tradition.... And there is, incidentally, the tradition of Russian
liberalism."
Other polls, including one
released in September by the Liberal Mission Foundation, have found that a
majority of respondents believe "measures to strengthen the vertical of
power...have led to an excessive concentration of power and the
bureaucratization of the whole system of governance."
However, Russian
conservatives such as Dugin and Metropolitan Kirill insist on the need to respect
a culture's historic and moral traditions when forming its laws and state
institutions and on the right of each world culture to pursue its own path of
development. Otherwise, the potential for clash of cultures always looms, Dugin
says.
"If one of us -- either
Europe or the West as a whole or Russia -- starts trying to force its
conception of human rights on the other, there will be problems," Dugin
says.
"Because from our point
of view, our conception of human rights is optimal, even universal, unlike the
European one. And Europeans think just the opposite," he continues.
"As soon as we begin to seriously accent our pretensions to universalism,
a conflict immediately arises."
