Democracy today
In cooperation with the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Vilnius, we organised a series of discussion events – “Democracy Today” (lt. “Demokratija šiandien”) – from July to August 2021. The initiative aimed to stimulate open and in-depth discussions on fundamental questions for Lithuanian society: “Is it bad to be disillusioned with democracy?”, “Does a citizen have to be politically and socially engaged?” and “Should we tolerate intolerance?” The series of events consisted of three debates in the three biggest Lithuanian cities on key issues for democracy (knowledge of democracy, civic engagement and tolerance), each involving two experts – politicians, journalists, academics, etc. – and two young people who represented the views of the younger generation in a “hear-understand-respond” debate.
The question “Is it bad to be disillusioned with democracy?” was debated on the 1st of July at the Adam Mickiewicz Library in Vilnius, with the participation of Matas Maldeikis, Member of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, Dr Simas Čelutka, lecturer at the University of Vilnius, and the members of our association Viltė Sinkevičiūtė and Robertas Remeika. The second topic – “Does a citizen have to be politically and socially engaged?” – was debated on the 15th of July at the Ieva Simonaitytė Library in Klaipėda, with the participation of Roberta Žižienė, an alumna of the “Renkuosi mokyti!” programme, the philosopher Dr Nida Vasiliauskaitė, and Mantas Vičis and Dominykas Ragelius, members of the association. The third debate of the project – on the topic “Should intolerance be tolerated?” – took place on the 28th of July in Kaunas’ “Tempo Erdvė”, with the participation of Seimas-member Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius, philosopher Prof. Dr Gintautas Mažeikis and association members Kęstutis Grumodis and Vilija Stanislovaitytė
We are also pleased with the success of the panel discussion – “The future of democracy is in our hands. How should we build it?” – which took place on the 18th of August and concluded this month-long series of debates. We are grateful to the three panelists – Birutė Davidonytė, author and journalist at “Laisvės TV”, Dainius Žalimas, former President of the Constitutional Court, philosopher Dr Vilius Bartninkas – and to Sergej Stoma, member of our association’s board, for agreeing to come and share their insights on the topic. This last event of our discussion series was also welcomed by Dr Peter Buschmann, Chargé d'Affaires of the German Embassy in Lithuania, who invited the audience to visit an exhibition about the energy transition in Germany in the lobby of the “k29” business centre.
