MEETING VLADIMIR POZNER
Vladimir Vladimirovich Pozner is a French-born Russian-American journalist and broadcaster best known in the West for his television appearances representing and explaining the views of the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Vladimir Pozner is one of my favourite and respected figures on Russian television. He is one of the few in Russia who, as we say in English, makes sense (has a clear meaning based on his multinational background, knowledge and experience).
I almost dreamed to meet him or to attend his show. Luckily for me, in February 2018 he came to London. I must say the lecture was extremely interesting, educational and awareness raising. I accidentally found out about the lecture from my colleague at Bloomberg pantry while grabbing some breakfast on Wednesday morning and in the evening that day, after seeing a poster “SOLD OUT” i still managed to purchase my ticket.
The lecture took place in Logan Hall, London. To be completely honest I don’t follow Russian events much due to range of people that come to these events. Don’t get me wrong, i know what stereotype means, and i have only been to few Russian events and only read about few more, but so far this was the most sophisticated group of Russian speaking audience in one room. No special characters detected. I cannot even compare this event with fairly recently visited RUSSIAN FILM WEEK Opening Ceremony in terms of audience. It was a pleasure to be there, be a part of those people and to meet Mr Pozner. The only thing i can say a bit similar to other Russian events was a lack of organisation: — the lecture started half an hour later and in fact Mr Pozner voiced it letting us know he was not quite happy about it. The host didn’t seem to have any public speaking experience and the most ridiculous was the way she was giving instructions from the stage to her colleagues in the auditorium, who didn’t seem to know what they were doing and i guess she thought nobody was looking at her. Apart from that Mr Pozner mentioned few times that the sound was not good enough on the stage, he had to ask people to repeat their questions. Although some questions or preludes to actual questions were too long, so i think he was just losing track. Well i definitely was. It was great to see that there were so many hands raised up and obviously Mr Pozner couldn’t answer all of the questions, but he covered quite few in detail.
Before he finished he said how much he was impressed with the amount of people that came to his lecture, so was i. And eventually he said he hoped there were some Brits in the auditorium and not just Russians.Couple of guys with glasses of wine in hands raised their voices up. True Brits, they were in fact the ones with the wine at the time. This was hilarious and a good sign that booze was somewhere close. I straight away remembered a photo published in media during London Bridge attack.
The most interesting topics and take aways.
- Doomsday Clock – why we do nothing?
2018: The failure of world leaders to address the largest threats to humanity’s future is lamentable—but that failure can be reversed. It is two minutes to midnight, but the Doomsday Clock has ticked away from midnight in the past, and during the next year, the world can again move it further from apocalypse. The warning the Science and Security Board now sends is clear, the danger obvious and imminent. The opportunity to reduce the danger is equally clear. The world has seen the threat posed by the misuse of information technology and witnessed the vulnerability of democracies to disinformation. But there is a flip side to the abuse of social media. Leaders react when citizens insist they do so, and citizens around the world can use the power of the internet to improve the long-term prospects of their children and grandchildren. They can insist on facts, and discount nonsense. They can demand action to reduce the existential threat of nuclear war and unchecked climate change. They can seize the opportunity to make a safer and saner world. See the full statement from the Science and Security Board on the 2018 time of the Doomsday Clock.
“The United States has two main political parties — the Democratic Party and the Republican Party — which nominate their candidates after a series of popular votes, called primaries or caucuses.
Once a winner in each party has emerged, that candidate is officially nominated at national party conventions in the summer — just a few months before Election Day.
The election of the President of the United States is not a direct, national election, but an indirect vote in which citizens cast ballots for a slate of members of the Electoral College in each of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, the capital Washington, D.C. These electors then elect the occupant of the White House.
Each state is allocated a number of Electoral College electors equal to the number of its senators and representatives in Congress, based on the state’s population.
The biggest state, California, has 55 electoral votes, and the smallest states like Delaware and Alaska have three electoral votes.
Most states have a ‘winner-take-all’ system. That means that on Election Day, the candidate who comes in first gets all electoral votes in one state — a simple majority is enough. The candidate who gets at least 270 electoral votes is elected president.” – Stefan Grobe
3. What is true democracy? Would you really prefer living in any other system of government?
This part was quite an interesting one. I won’t recall the actual question from the audience, again the pre-question was too long, so that I lost track, but it was referring to #MeToo , same sex marriage and legalisation of marijuana in States in terms whether it’s a right democracy or it’s overused. I agree with Mr Pozner on his statement that democracy as a system is not ideal, but it is still better than any other government system. If not democracy than what?
He also reminded that democracy was launched in America. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776 when in Russia it was still era of Tsars and Emperors.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Mr Pozner touched upon a fact that women are still treated as a sexual object by a lot of men in different countries, but only in America they went vocal about it. As a result now women and men in different countries joined to support the campaign.
This could be an interesting one to read >> All religions treat women as lesser beings as compared to men.
Generally I was really happy I attended the session. It made me think, write and action ..
