Takeaways from the Athens Democracy Forum

Standing in front of the ancient columns of the Stoa of Attalos, Palestinian actress and poet Dana Dajani orated: “If I was president my role as conflict mediator would include therapy and hugs, my constitution would be universal love, my border policy would be open-door, I’d eliminate banks and instead free the poor from the shackles of debt,” she stated. Her green dress resembled an ancient chiton as it swayed in the breeze on the stage of the Athens Democracy Forum (ADF), which entered its second decade this year.

The theme at this year’s forum, which ran from Tuesday to Friday, was about hope. “Do we dare to hope?” was the question at the core of the conference, which addressed the issue of democracy from dozens of different angles, from teen movements and the pioneers of the 21st century to the impact of climate change and artificial intelligence.

Hope is not something that comes easily, according to Achilles Tsaltas, president of the ADF and The Democracy & Culture Foundation, “as we look out at a world in which authoritarian rulers no longer feel shame at trampling on elemental liberties, and actually dismiss the fundamental building blocks of democracy – elections, pluralism, political participation, transparency, civil liberties – as Western impositions.” Nevertheless, we do dare to hope, he added. “Hope is when those who believe in democracy learn from its failures – this is ultimately the purpose of these annual gatherings,” he added. “To explore what we can do to reduce discrimination, to heal the planet, to share its wealth and other ways to give all people a real stake in their governance,” he said.

“I think the ADF has made strong strides and that what I have seen of this year’s event has been terrific, especially in terms of youth presence and participation,” Stephen Dunbar-Johnson, the president international of The New York Times Company – co-organizer of the event – told Kathimerini. “Without the younger generation’s engagement and activism there is little point of convening discussions on democracy – they, after all, are the key stakeholders,” he added.

Lunchtime Symposium: Democracy in a Hotter Time

One of the main discussions that took place, on Thursday, was how democracy can survive climate change. “Are our democracies actually fit for purpose to address the urgency of climate change?” asked the symposium’s moderator, Liz Alderman, chief European business correspondent for the NYT.

“No institutions are exactly fit for purpose right now,” said Michael Oppenheimer, professor of geosciences and international affairs and director at the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment, at Princeton University. The biggest challenge as he sees it, Oppenheimer said, concerns the frequency of extreme weather events. He specifically mentioned floods, which this country has been struggling with in the past few weeks.

“The high watermark flooding that occurs once every 100 years at a typical coastal location around the world is converging at many locations to become an annual event by mid-century, and at almost every location around the world’s coast to become an annual event by 2100,” he added.

“There is no such thing as recovery in that situation and what we’re seeing is that instead of governments stepping up and getting better at responding to risk, they are not stepping up and are not being good at all about adapting to what we know is happening,” Oppenheimer said.

Ann Florini, a fellow in the Political Reform Program at New America and one of the three panelists, argued that societies need to stop looking to central governments alone for solutions.

“It is very much not going to be the sole source of action to deal with climate change in the future,” she said.

Keynote Conversation: Rethinking AI and Democracy

One of the headline speakers at this year’s ADF was Nick Clegg, president of global affairs at social media giant Meta, who had a lively discussion with Alderman, who moderated again.

“The public should continue to reserve judgment until we see how things play out,” said Clegg, noting that it is human instinct to fear the worst. Addressing the dystopian theories about AI taking over, he argued that “these are systems; they don’t know anything and do not have any real agency autonomy.” However, he did concede that the technology “will be abused by some people,” though he added that people tend to regard every advancement in technology with fear and skepticism.

Clegg added that we should be worried about the fact that the people who draft policy and legislation are usually several steps behind the technology, but that is only if we consider tech companies that bad: “They are not morally venal institutions,” he said. “Yes, they want to make a profit, but they also want to live in a sustainable, safe society.” 

Panel: Can’t We All Just Get Along?

This was the question put to the panel moderated on Thursday night by the NYT’s Paris bureau chief, Roger Cohen, and comprising Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai, Hungarian MP and political director for the prime minister Balazs Orban, and Cynthia Richie Terrell, founder and executive director of the RepresentWomen organization.

‘Without the younger generation’s engagement and activism there is little point of convening discussions on democracy’

Cohen began by asking Gitai why peace between Israel and Palestine has not been achieved. “I think it should be possible. Israel is occupying Palestine and we have to recognize it,” he said. “Hungary serves as a model of what we should not do – block immigrants, marginalize LGBT people, fetishizing old fascists as national heroes,” added the influential filmmaker to loud applause from the audience. 

Orban – who is no relation to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban – hastened to defend his country, saying that it is trying to protect its cultural identity.

“So you want to keep Hungarian blood pure?” asked Cohen. “Look at the US, culture can be enriched,” the moderator added. “It’s about preserving our cultural heritage,” Orban responded.

“Perhaps the real problem is that too many men are running the show,” commented Cohen. “For sure,” responded Terrell. “Women can, and should, do everything they can to leave the world a better place,” she said.

The Long View on Ukraine

One of the last panel discussions to take place in the conference – it was hosted at the Hotel Grande Bretagne – had to do with the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. Cohen, who moderated, asked writer Serge Schmemann, one of the four speakers, if it can be argued that the West provoked Russia with its expansion of NATO in a way that could not go unanswered by Moscow.

“There is no way to tell, we don’t know if it would have gone different if all these things hadn’t happened,” said Schmemann, who is a member of the NYT’s Editorial Board and program director of the Athens Democracy Forum. “Yes, Russia could be very angry, but to leap from this and say we had no choice but to invade Ukraine and do criminal acts, war crimes – I don’t accept the argument,” he added.

Responding to a question from the audience, Laura Thornton, the senior vice president of democracy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, stated that you can find democracy in autocratic states, and vice versa. There are people in Russia, she added, who are quietly fighting for democracy, and this is the only way to bring about change. “To break out of this dichotomy, we need to create coalitions of democrats, as we’re doing here,” she noted. 

Another interesting part of the conference was a panel discussion titled “Rethinking Security: When Threats are Invisible,” which was moderated by the NYT’s chief diplomatic correspondent for Europe, Steven Erlanger, and heard from Nanna-Louise Linde, the vice president for European government affairs at Microsoft, and Dr Benedikt Franke, vice chairman and CEO of the Munich Security Conference.

There was also a moving speech from the first recipient of the Kofi Annan NextGen Prize, Namatai Kwekweza, founder and director of the WELEAD Trust. “We need to be cognizant of the true cost of the struggle of democracy,” she said, going on to end her speech with 11 “honest-serving” words that have guided the activist’s way in promoting democracy in Zimbabwe, one of which is “hope.”

“Hope enables us to act. Those who act are driven by deep-seated hope and I believe that their action will lead to something better than the reality today,” said Kwekweza, answering the question at the heart of the 11th Athens Democracy Forum.