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Any changes are effective if they serve to three factors - preservation of stability, strengthening of statehood, and common welfare, says Azerbaijani presidential administration’s head-of-staff

Politics Materials 26 December 2008 16:28 (UTC +04:00)
Any changes are effective if they serve to three factors - preservation of stability, strengthening of statehood, and common welfare, says Azerbaijani presidential administration’s head-of-staff

Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 26 / Trend / On Dec. 26, the Bakinski Rabochi newspaper published an article by Ramiz Mehdiyev, academician, head-of-staff of the Azerbaijani President's Administration, "Thinking of Time and Transforming the Elite: Succession and Innovativeness". Given the large volume of the article, we offer readers extracts which may be interesting to the public.

Ramiz Mehdiyev: "Any transformations are efficient if they serve to three factors - preservation of stability, strengthening of statehood, and common welfare".

Changing attitudes, new values are conducive to what we call "westernization" and others call "penetration of universal values into traditional society". Some believe that influence of Western values is a destructive factor, and others believe it is a positive one. Although, as I have recently read in a book [it is difficult not to agree] that it is the East who proposed a moral beginning to the world of religion, and it is the West who proposed such theories as Machiavellism and ideological views of fascism, which is probably due to the fact that the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. I already foresee how some want to argue that the Western world presented to mankind a notion which presently we actively and zealously promote, that is democracy. But is not democracy a thing for which all people living on the Earth are striving? And is not democracy, or rather its modified form - geodemocracy, a factor destabilizing the world order presently? Quite reasonable questions arise - how do we see and accept democracy? Has not democracy become a mere set of stereotypes based on the one-sided vision to deal with certain tasks?

In this connection I would like to touch upon an issue that is likely to be the most debated in coming months in the national political space, and of course, will cause a certain reaction among the counter elite and some international organizations. Let's not palter, because each of us does understand how the changes are usually perceived by certain parties of the international order. By the way, the changes deal with internal and sovereign development of a space.

The contemporary development of Azerbaijan requires determining the dynamics of symmetric reformation. In other words, this is exactly what President Ilham Aliyev has said many times, stressing the importance of implementation of parallel political and economic transformations. Respectively, reforms in each area should complement each other and contribute to the further development of the state and society, give the process a new impetus. They should serve as incentive for the overall transformation of Azerbaijani society. This becomes even more pressing amid global processes entailing general change of attitudes towards the state, society and individuals.

Today, when we are facing an erosion of borders and national sovereignty, when national identity is modified by an intense onslaught of ICT, when an individual is increasingly becoming cosmopolite

amid ongoing conflict of socio-cultural factors and the loss of aspects of national identity, and when security issues and religious fundamentalist form a new architecture of world order, we should again glance back at the way we passed and should think of enabling our political and social reality to meet all the challenges and threats of the 21st century, that we are facing. It is also important to understand that decisions taken from now on should promote our further dynamic economic and democratic development. Because our key milestones are free citizen, safe and secure space, intensively developing economic and political institutions. This is our desire to make the independent Azerbaijan a modern, open and democratic space, where every individual is aware of his/her rights and freedoms, and is also realizes the responsibility imposed on him by the state and society.

Each stage of socio-political transformation, either changes in the Constitution or changes in the system of parliamentary elections, or anything else ripe in the minds of the public, should always reflect the pace of development of the society, represent the rate at enhancing the effectiveness of the public system, and also determine the development strategy for the years to come. In other words, any transformations are effective if they serve to three factors - preservation of stability, strengthening of statehood, and common welfare. Implementation of all this must be based on a common understanding of sovereignty of the people of Azerbaijan, who are free and can make decisions that meet their interests exclusively. This approach will enable us to become not only the regional leader, but will also provide our stable endogenous and exogenous development. During formation of a new world order, this once again demonstrates the country's reliability as a partner. Global changes in the financial and political spheres force us to re-think the essence of democracy as part of reforms on a global scale. Assessing my own capabilities and analyzing the realities, I am sure everyone understands that to be a bridge between continents and cultures is a very complicated mission.

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