"Amerika Hangja" - Voice of America - Soros Gyorgy, Soros
Alapitvanyok valamint a Kozep-Europai Egyetem
(Elnezest az esetleges kisbetukert, de az eredeti szoveg csupa
nagybetuvel volt irva, amit at kellett cserelnem.)
Buchwald Amy
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date=6/00/94
type=focus
number=4-07533
title=Soros & the new Marshall Plan [part #4]
byline=Francis Ronalds
telephone=619-3937
dateline=Washington
editor=Thomas Slinkard
content= Actualities in audio services
anncr: The Voice of America presents Focus!
Cart: Focus theme up, establish, under
Intro: The success of the Marshall Plan in reviving the
devastated countries of Western Europe after World War
two has not been replicated by efforts to succor the
lands which, before 1989, were parts of the Soviet
Empire. There is widespread agreement that a key to the
Marshall Plan's success was the fact that there was only
one aid donor -- the United States -- and the United
States required the recipient countries to cooperate in
dividing up the aid, in lowering tariffs and in
establishing convertible currencies. So far, the rich
G-7 countries of the west and institutions like the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have been
unable to work out a similar coordinated strategy. At
the same time, the nationalist feelings suppressed so
long under the communist yoke now often stand in the way
of effective cooperation among the nations of the former
Soviet bloc. But there is one aid organization that
has, on a relatively modest scale, followed the
principles of the Marshall Plan. The Soros Foundation,
with its remarkable network of 34 institutions in 25
nations, has just one donor -- the hungarian-born
american financier and philanthropist George Soros. Mr.
Soros has already earmarked over one billion dollars of
his own money for building what he calls "Open
Societies" in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. In this
final program in our series on the lessons of the
Marshall Plan, Frank Ronalds describes Mr. Soros'
achievements and his long-term goals.
Host: According to Lord Eric Roll, the americans showed vision
and foresight when, in 1947, they set the conditions for
Marshall Plan. During the four years the plan lasted,
Eric Roll was the British representative on the
Organization for European Economic Cooperation in Paris.
He is now president of S.G. Warburg, the London
investment banking firm:
Tape: Cut one -- roll
"The Americans said, right from the beginning, 'we will
ask congress for x-million dollars and you will divide
it among yourselves according to your program. We will
not interfere with the division of the aid.' That was
an extraordinary decision. It was absolutely
flabbergasting to us, I can assure you: when we were
told that the Americans expected us, sitting in Paris,
to divide the aid among ourselves. But we did. And it
was terribly important. They wanted not merely to be
free from the responsibility, and therefore from any
kind of backbiting that they favored 'x' [country]
rather than 'y' and so on. Not only for that reason,
which is a pretty obvious one. But because they were
convinced that if we were drawing up the recovery
program, we were the people who had to decide who was
going to get what. And that was a very far-sighted
thing. A very remarkable piece of statesmanship."
Host: George Soros, who has shown similar foresight, is
critical of current western aid efforts. Due to
political pressures at home, he says, the types of aid
offered often reflect the needs of the donors more than
the recipients. Furthermore, he says, the aid is all
too likely to disappear into the maw of a corrupt
government bureaucracy, the legacy of long years of
communist rule. His approach is similar to that of the
Marshall Planners, except that aid is not turned over to
central governments:
Tape: Cut two -- Soros
"The main difference is that we're genuinely concerned
about the needs of the people whom we are helping. We
listen to them. In each country, we have a foundation
with a board of local people, representative citizens,
and a local organization. And we don't dictate to them
how they spend the money. They decide how they spend
the money. We offer them a menu of opportunities and we
also define guidelines within which they can act. But
it's really their decision where their priorities lie
and how far they develop in certain areas. So each
foundation is very different. We build on the needs of
the country and on the abilities of the people who are
either involved in the foundation or are supported by
the foundation. We are guided by the demands and the
possibilities in the countries themselves. We don't
have a strategy that we impose."
Host: Most of the organizations set up by Mr. Soros in
formerly communist countries are called "Open Society
Foundations." All of them are inspired by the same
philosophy, based on his own personal experience as well
as studies, particularly with the philosopher, Karl
Popper, who coined the term "open society." Mr. Soros
explains:
Tape: Cut three -- Soros
"I grew up in Hungary, where I experienced persecution
from the nazis and then I had a taste of the communist
regime. So I learned very early in my life how
important it is what kind of a society you live in. And
this early experience led me to explore this conflict
between two kinds of social organization. On the one
hand, let's say, the nazi and the communist, which are
what I call 'closed societies,' and the other, which is
normally described as democracy, which I call 'open.' I
was very much influenced in studying Karl Popper. I
realized that the key issue is this: that in a closed
society, somebody stands up and says, 'I know the
ultimate truth, and there's only one way to do things,
and that's my way.' There's an ultimate truth, which
everybody has to live with. Whereas this other, open,
society recognizes that we don't really have the
ultimate answer, that we all operate as participants
with imperfect understanding. That leads you to
pluralism. Open society. And the other one, of course,
is the closed society and dogma."
Host: Just as dictatorships are highly centralized, democracy
calls for a devolution of decision-making. With the
collapse of the highly centralized Soviet system, there
is a crying need for competent public administrators at
the local levels. To foster this process of
decentralization, Mr. Soros established the institute
for local government and public service, which is
headquartered in Budapest. Zoltan Szigethy, executive
director of the institute, works with Soros
Organizations throughout the area to help cities and
Universities train administrators to take on new tasks,
often bringing people together across national
boundaries to share their experiences:
Tape: Cut four -- Szigethy
"In many respects, these countries are struggling for
their own individual survival at this point, and they
find it difficult to cooperate as nations. As a
consequence, what we are doing, and what we are
promoting, is that individuals, smaller groups,
associations, who have common interests -- that they
come together. And in the process, hopefully and
eventually, the nation states will follow suit. But the
momentum for this kind of sharing is not coming from the
(top) government levels. It's coming from the grass
roots levels. And that is where we are putting our
chips (money) and providing our support."
Host: The Central European University, which has been given an
endowment of 100-million dollars and 30-million dollars
in construction funds by George Soros, has campuses in
Budapest and Prague. Its president and rector is
professor Al Stepan, former dean of the School of
International and Public Affairs at Columbia University
in New York:
Tape: Cut five -- Stepan
"We are very interested in strategies to transcend
nationalism and positive strategies to encourage
cooperation. There is no question that that's really
the core idea of the Central European University. In
that way, it's similar to the Marshall Plan.
Let me give you an example of a very specific area where
we are trying to help overcome a major problem by a form
of collective work. That's in the area of environment.
We have about 60 students in our environmental stream
(enrolled in environmental studies). They come from
about 25 different countries. At least 40 percent of
them, by the way, have a PhD [doctorate] in science.
Now what they're doing with us is taking a master's
degree in the policy analysis of pollution problems and
environmental policy. And they are working together on
projects that, if we were talking about, say, the world
bank doing them, it would be extremely difficult to get
PhDs from 15 countries in the field, living out in tents
overnight for a long period of time. But a University,
which doesn't represent governments as much as civil
society, can organize a project like this. (Begin opt)
As you know, much of Central and Eastern Europe is
intensely polluted, and there are more than 25 different
borders. Therefore, it's impossible to think of a
coherent policy to reverse this unless one thinks about
cooperative international action. (End opt)"
Host: The Soros initiatives do not entirely by-pass
governments. For example, George Soros has given 100
million dollars to provide research grants to many of
the outstanding scientists in Russia, Ukraine and other
states of the former Soviet Union, who previously were
employed by the Soviet military-industrial complex. The
International Science Foundation cooperates with the
Russian Ministry of what and also with Moscow State
University. But grants are awarded by an advisory
committee made up of scientists from many different
countries. No party functionaries appointed to
scientific organizations by former communist leaders
need apply.
Another major program is devoted to educational reform.
Over the long run, Mr. Soros believes, nothing could be
more important:
Tape: Cut six -- Soros
"We have a project in Russia, which started in Russia,
which is a transformation of humanities education in the
high schools (secondary schools) and Universities of
Russia. In conjunction with the minister of education
and the minister of higher education, we have a task
force, basically, to replace Marxism-Leninism in the
schools, and replace a dogmatic way of teaching with a
critical way of thinking. We started 18 months ago or
so. We advertised for projects. We had an
international jury. We had a couple of thousand
applications and we had several hundred projects we
authorized. The first textbooks have been written.
They are being distributed. There are workshops held,
teachers trained, principals trained. The impact, I
think, is tremendous, and the speed with which this
whole program has evolved is really impressive. The
first textbooks are in the classrooms. We expect to
spend 250-million dollars over the next five years."
Host: The Central European University is another example of
this emphasis on education. Anne Lonesdale, a former
professor of Chinese literature at Oxford University and
the current chairman of the association for university
administrators in Great Britain, is now C-E-U.
secretary general. She says that the C-E-U, which
offered its first classes in the fall of 1990, is the
first university in the world to begin operations in
close cooperation with many other institutions of higher
learning, making extensive use of computers for archival
retrieval and other communications:
Tape: Cut seven -- Lonesdale
"What excited me about the job of secretary general at
the C-E-U was that it's doing something which I think is
very important, in both Prague and Budapest; and we have
now opened a new department in Warsaw. That's keeping
the frontiers open for a university of an entirely new
type. A university which is a network, right from the
beginning. I think that in the United States, certainly
in Western Europe, you'll find that universities are
forming networks. But to start by being a network is
perhaps a revolutionary step. We will be looking hard
at the use of new technology to link our campuses and to
help the region by demonstrating new methods of
teaching, new methods of communicating, which may help
other institutions to follow suit."
Host: The Central European University has become a clearing
house for information on privatization efforts
throughout the former Soviet bloc. (Begin opt) The
first book published by the university press analyzed
the varying approaches to privatizing industry and
agriculture taken in Central Europe and the Baltic
states; the second dealt with privatization in the
nations of the former Soviet Union. (End opt) Several
Soros organizations, including the International
Management Institute in Kiev, provide both students and
public officials with instruction on the operation of
free markets. Among western governments involved in the
aid effort, there is a debate on the efficacy of sending
western experts to the East, as opposed to inviting
executives and middle level managers to visit or work in
American or Western European companies. Zoltan Szigethy
says that the Soros organizations have quite a different
emphasis:
Tape: Cut eight -- Szigethy
"It is far more useful for someone from the East to find
out how somebody else from the East is doing things, if
they have figured out a solution on how to do something.
I'll give you a case in point. The public
administration masters, graduates of schools of public
administration, have the opportunity for an internship,
for a post-graduation internship, somewhere else. Many
of them, of course, want to go to the West, and do. And
so you send a graduate student to New York, to London,
or whatever. What that student sees there, and learns
there, will indeed be useful for him or her. Frankly,
it would probably be more useful for the student to go
to Prague or Budapest or Warsaw, perhaps, and see how a
country that is much closer to their culture, their
experience, to the kind of place that they're going back
to, how they solved the problems, how they are dealing
with the problems."
Host: At the Central European University, about half of the
professors come from the West, and half from the East,
including the South Caucasus and Central Asia. The
student body of 480 has an equal number of students from
the 25 countries in the former communist bloc, with a
sprinkling of students from the West. All come on full
scholarships; at present, standards are so high that
only one out of ten applicants can be accepted. Masters
degrees are offered in political science, sociology,
economics, environmental studies history, and medieval
studies, with a journalism school planned for the next
academic year. President Al Stepan says that there is a
strong emphasis on respect for minority rights, which
are essential to any democracy:
Tape: Cut nine -- Stepan
"The whole idea of democracy is both a protection of
minority rights, and individual rights, but also
constitutionalism. By constitutionalism, I mean that
the new elected majorities themselves respect the larger
law of the land, which is enshrined in a constitution
which, of course, protects minorities against
majorities. That's a concept that is well understood in
the countries of Western Europe. It's increasingly
under discussion in Central Europe, but it doesn't have
much of a history of jurisprudence or legal culture
behind it, for example, in Russia at the moment. And
that's one of the most important things, intellectually,
as we hope there are many people from Russia who
participate in, say, our legal studies program, and
begin to develop their own distinctive tradition of
legal culture."
Host: Talking with the students at Central European University
is an education in the minority problems existing
throughout the area. For example, Andrey Urasov is an
ethnic Russian who comes from Kishinyev
(keesh-een-yov'), capital of the independent state of
Moldova:
Tape: Cut ten -- Urasov (in english but russian also available)
"There are a lot of students from the former Soviet
Union. For example, from such countries as Lithuania,
Ukraine, Georgia, Uzbekistan and Russia. And I am from
Moldova, as you know. One of my best friends here in
the
university is from Georgia. He is Armenian, but he is
from Georgia. And another friend of mine is from
Uzbekistan. There are some students from Rumania and I
have very good relations with them. I speak rumanian,
and I speak with them in this language, because you know
that Rumanian is the language of Moldovans. I have
friendly relations with other students and I haven't
found any anti-Russian feelings."
Host: Anne Lonesdale, C-E-U secretary general, recalls one
incident which, she says, characterizes the relations
between the students of various nationalities:
Tape: Cut eleven -- Lonesdale
"They do all seem to get on. We had a very good example
of that on our environmental summer program, when we
took them on a field trip and we found that the Bosnians
and the Macedonians, the Serbians and Croatians, all got
together and shared a hut, and put a big notice outside
saying 'the former Yugoslavia.'"
Host: The political and economic outlook in much of the region
is anything but reassuring. Nevertheless, George Soros
believes that his efforts will bear fruit over the long
run. He also believes that the ideas he has been
preaching for several years are beginning to have an
impact on the policies of Western governments, as well:
Tape: Cut twelve -- Soros
"I'm doing it because first of all, I believe deeply in
this concept of an open society, which is just a broader
vision of democracy, tolerance for minorities and so on.
And secondly, I have the means. And while I take a
pretty pessimistic view of the future for the region --
I mean, I see a vale of tears ahead -- at the same time,
I feel that we are doing something very important and
very positive. I seem to be getting closer and closer to
actually impacting [affecting] the course of events
because I have a sense that more and more people are
actually taking my ideas seriously. And at the same
time, in my own personal way, I've been going ahead and
I can claim some real successes."
Voice: This has been "focus" on the Voice of America. This
program, the last in a series on the lessons of the
Marshall Plan, has dealt with the remarkable network of
organizations set up by the billionaire George Soros to
help build democracy and free markets in East-Central
europe and the former soviet union. Written and
narrated by Frank Ronalds, the program was produced by
_______________ and the director was ______________ .
This series on the Marshall Plan was made possible by a
grant from the Rias Foundation.
Neb / fr / tls
01-Jul-94 5:08 pm edt (2108 utc)
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source: Voice of America
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