Wolfgang Ressmann, President of Media Dialogue/Y4M, Germany on the Panel “Democracy under Siege”, at the Conference “Defending Democracy and Human Rights”, December 12, 2024 Skopje.
So, thank you very much, Xhabir Deralla and CIVIL, for this great event today. I was very happy, and I am very happy, to be a part of this development. We are for the second time here, with the support of North Rhine-Westphalia.
I am coming here from public access media, participation of people, participation of young people, education of young people making media, teaching about responsibility of media, and using them, naturally, based on democratic values. I am the chairperson of the national organization of 150 public media, from university radio to free radio in Germany. Based on this, we started the Media Dialogue project with the idea to support, when we started in 2015, the Ukrainian society.
We started in Kyiv, one year after Maidan, in their development and their process for self-finding, and to discuss, and that was one important thing. I think this is also very important for democracy development, to do it at an eye level, not to come and say – you have to do this – but to take the people with you, and to show young people and lecturers from the universities. Democracy means to work together and to find common solutions in discussion.
This is one of the main points. Afterwards, Media Dialogue project got involved in Belarus in 2016.
We didn’t know what’s happening there, but we will hear about it from Xenia in the next panel. Georgia and Armenia got involved, and Moldova too. We bring the students and the lecturers to produce their own media content, which are shown also on German public screens.
Not that I think of the big audience, but to bring to mind that democracy means that you can work without censorship; democracy means that your own engagement is needed.
And one point that is also, I think, very important for all countries, including North
Macedonia – democracy also means trust, trust in the political system, trust in justice, and trust in politicians. Further, it means trust in the process of elections. Therefore, it’s necessary, I think, to have in mind what’s going on in the internet and the other media, but also what’s going on in the justice system, what’s going on in the political system, in the political parties.
There is a crisis, a big crisis now in Europe, North Macedonia, I think you are well informed. So this trust-building process, trust rebuilding, let’s say, is for me the most important thing, and to rebuild trust means also international work. That also means to bring people from different countries, democratic countries, or countries which are developing democracy – together with young people, with older people, with lecturers, universities… Also working with journalists like Mika, the chairman of the German Journalist Federation, who is here as a guest – to bring them together and to discuss our issues, bring it to the society and to show failures in society and the whole democratic system that are existing in the justice, and in the politics.
Corruption is one of the words, everyone knows what that could mean, and to explain how parliamentarian democracy is working. It’s also an educational process, but it’s also an invitation like today to work together in a world without war. When we don’t do it, we see what’s happening.
We see what’s happening in Belarus, in hands of dictatorship, and even in Ukraine. When democracy is abolished, the danger of war is rising. This is the thing we have to think about.
Realistic optimism is my expression – to fight for democracy, to fight for our rights, but also to fight for the rights of others, in a democratic way, to find solutions and not polarization, to overcome this polarization. Media are a very important instrument to overcome polarization in a society, based on international work, cooperation, learning from each other. We have the same problems, with some differences naturally, in the Western world, or in Uganda. When you look to the Eastern world, to Russia and its propaganda machine, and the results of this machinery, these bloody results of this machinery, I think there is no alternative but fighting for democracy. This is the point, the main idea of media dialogue.
Camera: Atanas Petrovski/ Igor Chadinovski
Editing: Arian Mehmeti
Photo: Robert Atanasovski
CONFERENCE, FULL VIDEO, Streamed live on December 12, 2024:
https://youtube.com/live/1f2Eo1ZXEQ0
PHOTO ARCHIVES: #DefendingDemocracy, Panel 1: Democracy under Siege
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.994398716055531&type=3
#DefendingDemocracy, Panel 2: The Rise of Far-Right Nationalism
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.995019619326774&type=3
#DefendingDemocrcy Panel 3: Countering Authoritarianism
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.995771969251539&type=3
#DefendingDemocracy conference, Panel 4: Commitment to democracy
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.996548069173929&type=3
#DefendingDemocracy Conference (overall)
https://www.facebook.com/media/set?set=a.993726732789396&type=3
#DefendingDemocracy – workshop and meeting with the press
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.992924672869602&type=3
#DefendingDemocracy PRESS CONFERENCE
For more information on the Conference, please visit the special website DefendingDemocracy
