“Lithuania is in the most diverse moment in history, since the re-establishment of independence in the early 1990s, and this is a source of certain tensions. But at this moment, I believe that we have managed to overcome some of them. I want to say that no society and no country goes through ideal times and in all societies and countries there are some problems, there are some issues and they need to be resolved every day”, said Konstantinas Andrijauskas, a University Professor at Vilnius University, Lithuania, in an interview with CivilMedia, during Human Rights Week.
CivilMedia spoke with Professor Andrijauskas shortly before the Conference “Defending Democracy and Human Rights”, which was held on 12 December 2024, in Skopje, organized by CIVIL in cooperation with MEDIA DIALOGUE / Y4M ( North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany). In the interview, Andrijauskas spoke about the situation of human rights and freedoms, the future of democracy, and the problems in regards to the rise of authoritarianism. Andrijauskas stressed the need of defending democratic values, since Russia’s attack on Ukraine, but also on democracy, is motivated by them – their ultimate destruction.
“What you need to keep in mind, however, is that if one is seriously thinking about the prosperous and peaceful future of a country, one should emphasize social relations and social trust, that is what we are still lacking as post-socialist countries, including my country and yours, but we still need to build it day by day, constantly.
As for democratic and authoritarian countries, what I see in the current situation is that we are in a race of liberal democracies. Those countries that value human rights, that appreciate human dignity, which is an inseparable concept in this context, on the one hand, and countries that are violators of those rights, that do not have enough respect, and I am not even talking about the rest, but do not have enough respect towards their own citizens and their own people.
I argue that we are in a race even when we are defending from the impression that I got from the Vilnius Forum “The Future of Democracy”, there was a certain impression of parity, which is interesting if you consider the fact that we as democracies have a lot of problems right now. That is very obvious in every country, whether in Europe, whether across the Atlantic or in East Asia. What we need to remember is that authoritarian actors are also in that phase and have many problems, big problems, extremely large number of problems, which was very clearly shown.
We have to defend our principles, that is key, but at the same time we have to work with the respective societies in those (authoritarian) countries.
I strongly argue and this is a bit problematic as authoritarian regimes have no reservation about trying to influence us. Why would we have reservations about influencing their societies? This is something we should do as human rights defenders. We cannot be human rights defenders only in our society and ignore human rights abuses in Russia, for instance, in China and in many other countries. That would be inappropriate and ungrateful, and this is something that I strongly believe we must do if we want to influence the situation not only defensively, so to speak. It’s not about being offensive, but about being consistent in our principles.
Yes, this would be my wish to express this general thought that the game is not lost, that authoritarian systems have a huge number of problems, but at the same time they were good enough and effective enough at the time to hide their weaknesses. So, what we need to do in these circumstances is to focus ourselves to what has made us not only economically and politically, but also morally strong. The consistency of human rights is the key principle that supports all those principles. And finally, that is the foundation of our normative agenda not only in the world, but also in constant daily interactions with our societies and with their respective members.
I am certainly concerned about the development of things in this direction, but at the same time I remain optimistic. I understand that there needs to be pressure to create success stories that are necessary in our time, that there is a clear lack of leadership, including moral leadership among Western liberal democracies. I would consider the election of Donald Trump a manifestation of this tendency. I believe that the problem with Donald Trump, as far as I am concerned, is precisely that he questions objective truth and that should be the basis of how we, as social beings, should communicate with each other.
Not everything is socially constructed human rights, they are basic principles of respect for mutual relations between people, so it is not something we created because it was imposed on us, but something we created because it is the best possible manifestation of how people should interact peacefully without causing conflicts.
In this regard I am optimistic, but since we are in this competition and in many ways it is a battle, it also means that we must constantly nurture and affirm our moral principles.
At the same time, I completely agree that we must increase our defensive capacities to prevent actions that are trying to expose us to the violent impulses that we all have as humans. We are all susceptible to that. The fight against those impulses that are in relation to identity politics, in relation to the desire to join the side of the stronger, the desire to join the side of the one who has more money, those are impulses that are natural to humans, but again, this is something that we need to reject if we are seriously thinking about creating a better future for us and our children.
I believe that one of the main lessons from Russia’s descent towards hardcore authoritarianism and its full-scale genocidal invasion of Ukraine is precisely that. We have to pay attention to Russia and ask ourselves what is causing it the most, and you will find that human rights are at the center of it. In ethnic and linguistic terms, in regards to women’s rights, LGBTQ+ communities, all of that. Russia is fundamentally against that.
So this is the reason that I strongly hope that it will bring us together from the Baltics to the Western Balkans and everything in between, that it will mobilize us towards the understanding that those principles are important enough for another country to come and kill to destroy those principles. They have very large and consequential power, something we often miss or take for granted, but it can very easily be taken away from us by a hostile force that is sufficiently committed like the Russian regime, and this should give us food for thought that these principles are indeed of highest importance and that this is exactly what makes us so different from the other side that wants to destroy us”, says Andrijauskas.
The conversation was led by: Xhabir Deralla
Camera and editing: Arian Mehmeti
Translated by: N. Cvetkovska
