Oleksandr Sushko, Executive Director of the International Renaissance Foundation; and Sashko Kulchutsky, the Foundation’s Head of Communications, told ZN.UA about how financier and philanthropist George Soros celebrated his 90th birthday, how to understand Soros, what encourages him to give back for good governance and what he is doing in Ukraine.
In Spike Jones’ film “Being John Malkovich”, the protagonist finds a strange closet in his office, by entering which you can get into the head of actor John Malkovich for 15 minutes. The protagonist starts selling such a service for $200. Many people would pay more for the opportunity to try to get into the head of George Soros, even if for a brief moment. Most likely, they would be terribly disappointed not to see any plans to seize power in the world, secret conspiracies or an algorithm for establishing financial domination by “imitating” charity.
Due to a range of circumstances, Soros became an ideal character for all conspiracy theories in the post-truth world with its need for a personalized image of an enemy who, depending on the local context, could be held accountable for anything.
Of course that did happen! He has been held accountable! Opponents have blamed Soros for supporting black radicals and trade union leftists. In Europe he was accused of promoting illegal migration. Pro-Kremlin TV channels in Ukraine were and are advancing the idea through telethons about Soros’s responsibility for almost all real and imaginary failures of Ukrainian governance.
Today, mention of Soros and Soros’s “offsprings” in a negative context is a marker of all anti-Maidan and post-Soviet corruption-oriented figures, political forces and media in Ukraine. The stigmatizing aggressive narrative about Soros and Soros’s “offsprings” is now a kind of pass to the club of “talking heads” or a pass into the bizarre information space of the “NewsOne – Zik-112-Our” propaganda machine. You should be proficient in this “language” if you want to become a regular viewer. This narrative masks the core thought virus which is instilled daily in the minds of viewers: “The West is evil.”
George Soros became one of the symbols of the “Western vector” of Ukraine, absorbing its successes and failures. Needless to say, failures are always “sold” better than victories. Against the background of difficult processes taking place in the Western world, Ukraine is again at a crossroads and there are new reasons to infuse media and political strikes against its Western vector of development.
The choice for an open democratic society in Ukraine, defended by the Revolution of Dignity, brought half-hearted reforms, political scandals and public frustration. And how can you do without Soros in that situation?
The “old” political elites are increasingly aware of the high cost of Ukraine’s European vector in their usual way of ruling and getting rich while the “new” elites seem unable to implement the promised clear and high-quality alternative that would be recognized and accepted by the majority. For a large part of society, the history of Poroshenko’s presidency and “early Zelensky” is increasingly merging into a chain of betrayals and failures. Illusions of rapid change are melting away, but skepticism is growing which feeds, with the help of propaganda, myths about “Soros’s offsprings” as advocates of “foreign interests.”
As the local election campaign in Ukraine is progressing, this trend will advance with the help of artificial methods. Soros’s face on the enemy’s flag is a rock-solid argument for those who feed on fake news. The demand for a “convenient target” through which Ukraine’s European direction can be injured will continue to be relevant.
Public opinion is divided about Ukraine’s alternative paths of development. Against a background of war and incompetence of the authorities this can represent a risky story.
Soros celebrates his 90th anniversary by keeping his energy up, both in the world and in Ukraine. But, how possible is it to understand Soros as a person? Where does he go for “light and shade”? What does he do in Ukraine and what programs does he finance? What prompted him to donate 80 percent of the money he has earned because of his financial talents. And, what continues to drive this 90-year-old being as the primary enemy of the world’s authoritarian leaders?
You Become a Philanthropist – You Are Not Born One
In 1939, a nine-year-old boy came to the editorial office of a Budapest newspaper. “I brought this to the Finns,” he said, holding out a handful of banknotes. Answering the questions of surprised journalists, the young man explained that, during a year, he produced and sold on the streets his own newspaper and, having learned about the struggle of the Finnish people against the Soviet invasion, decided to donate all the money earned to the heroic Finns. This story, including the name of the young man, got into the newspaper, so it was not forgotten. So began the story of George Soros’s “political philanthropy”, which led to 41 years of philanthropic activity, $33 billion donated to charity and 120 countries covered by his Open Society Foundations.
Article about the publication in the newspaper (in Hungarian)
George Soros was born in 1930 in Budapest to a Jewish family of lawyer, intellectual and famous Esperantist. His early years were spent during the world war, under condition of growing anti-Semitism, but the worst thing happened when George was 13. In 1943, Germany occupied a recent ally, Hungary, and all the country’s Jews were threatened with death. For more than a year, the family had to hide under false documents. Soros’s father actively helped other Jews survive by finding hiding places and forging documents. It was this period that Soros would later call both the worst and the most beautiful in his life: despite all the myths about his father’s virtues now circulating online, he fought on the side of good against evil, and that inspired the teenager Soros.
After liberation from the Nazis, Hungary came under the influence of the Soviet Union, which replaced Nazi totalitarianism with communism. In 1947, due to great efforts undertaken, Soros managed to leave for Great Britain.
In London, he entered the London School of Economics. To pay for his tuition, he worked as security guard in restaurants and porter on the railway. In London, Soros met Karl Popper, a philosopher and ideologue of an open society who determined all the threats posed by fascism and communism, as well as the opportunities offered by a developed democracy. Those ideas made a huge impact on Soros, who survived existential threats from both totalitarian ideologies. It was then, apparently, that he decided to make every effort to help societies become more open, to prevent the horrors of fascism and the expansion of communism from happening again.
Mission Impossible?
After his graduation from the London School of Economics with a diploma in philosophy, Soros began his career in finance – first in Britain and then in the United States. According to Soros, he wanted to earn $500,000 and return to Britain to study philosophy. That plan failed, but another one came true: A few decades later, he became one of the richest people on the globe and began putting the philosophy of an open society into practice.
Over time, some have seen the path of a “financial speculator who profits from financial and economic crises and developing countries by imposing his picture of the world on them.” Others witnessed a philanthropic project of an unprecedented scale, which provides opportunity to help systemic change, opening the door to countries in transition to the civilized world. Yes, that world isn’t perfect, but perhaps it is still closer to the ideal of justice desired by most people. e-libra.me
In this way, in 1979, when his Quantum became one of the most successful hedge funds in history, Soros began issuing the first scholarships to youth from South Africa, where they suffered from the apartheid regime. Later, in 1984, he founded the first national fund in his native Budapest. The same year, the history of the second largest and most influential private charitable organization in the world, the Open Society Foundations began.
It would be an exaggeration to say that Soros played a key role in the fall of the Iron Curtain in the late 1980s. Conspiracy theorists can discuss and debate this. However, his contribution to helping the countries of Central and Eastern Europe break with communism has been significant and by the standards of an individual not backed by the state – enormous.
This path turned out to be nonlinear. After quick and seemingly encouraging results, democratic processes began to fail in Belarus, Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkey, forcing them to reconsider the Open Society Foundations to and close local chapters. Countries that became members of the European Union in the early 2000s saw their Soros national funds closed as they achieved irreversible democratic change. The mission was accomplished.
However, in several cases the “irreversibility” of change was illusory, including in his native Hungary due to ideological and political conflict with Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a former Soros scholarship holder. The Soros-established Central European University in Budapest was subsequently moved to Vienna.
Why Does Soros not Leave Ukraine?
Realizing the nonlinear nature of democratic processes and their tendency to move as a pendulum, Soros was eventually encouraged to go away from finding quick solutions to structural, systemic work with institutions and education; to promote long-term strategies in support of democracy and human rights and help involve in democratic development and human rights.
Assisting people participate in their government through civic engagement: This is the evolution of George Soros’s priorities over the last decade.
Ukraine has played an important role in this paradigm shift. In an interview with The Guardian’s Sean Walker in 2019, Soros was asked what he was particularly proud of. Soros answered, “I have always wanted success in the near future, but with experience, I have come to the conclusion that you would need 25 years to achieve real success. Look at a country like Ukraine: it had several revolutions, and they all failed, but there (again) a free and fair election was held.”
Soros calls Ukraine’s “unfinished but promising political progress” one of the democratic development projects he can be proud of.
Many interpretations of Soros’s goals and motivations often result in basic contradictions. Even rejecting absurd conspiracy theories about the “wicked Soros”, who has been involved in charity for 40 years for allegedly purchasing Ukrainian black soil, many researchers do not report their blunders and contradictions in their versions of Soros history.
If his goal was to overthrow totalitarian communist regimes, why has the activity of his Foundations expanded compared to 30 years ago? If he seeks global influence why does he spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually on humanitarian aid and support activists in weak developing countries? If he wants to restrict Trump and bring Democrats to power, why does he work in 120 countries instead of focusing on the United States?
Soros’s activities, around the world and in Ukraine in particular, should be viewed through the prism of his experience. For him, 20th Century philosopher Karl Popper’s concept of an “Open Society” was not theoretical; but, practical action to be implemented. His philanthropy is an exceptional case in history when an individual spends the lion’s share of his wealth to prove the viability of a philosophy. And, he mostly succeeds.
The Soros Renaissance Foundation in Ukraine does not support political forces, Instead, it promotes development of ideas that do not focus on political cycles and work for long-term progress.
Long-term ideas in Ukraine include involving citizens in policymaking, access to justice, community development, a safe environment, human rights, government accountability, affordable healthcare and education, free legal aid, Association Agreement reforms with the European Union and civic education. This commitment represents concepts underpinning the project of Ukraine as a European country based on the rule of law.
His Own Unique Philosophy; Or a Coincidence?
As already mentioned, the philosophical basis for Soros’s worldview was acquaintance with one of the most famous philosophers of the 20th Century, Karl Popper. He also was Jewish and had to flee his native Vienna in 1937. He then taught in New Zealand and shortly before the end of World War II in 1945, he published a two-volume work “Open Society and Its Enemies”.
In his work, Popper critically reviewed the ideas of Plato, Hegel and Marx, which formed the basis of Nazism and Communism, and found common problems in both of them. Imposing on them his own ideas in the field of philosophy science, he found that totalitarianism is put into action with the help of false, anti-scientific concepts.
In totalitarian ideologies, the individual is only a tool, a cog in the mechanism that should bring historical progress closer, a cog that can be sacrificed for this progress, if necessary. However, history, according to Popper, does not have its own logic or plan and it is only people who impart a meaning to it. It is the people who are responsible for the evolution of the society one way or another. And if there is no predetermined evolutionary scenario, then any sacrifices made in its defense are useless.
Popper contrasts the logic of historical progress with the progress of individuals. This is the area, in which democracy and liberalism have a preference, compared to totalitarian ideologies. People are no longer viewed as means and tools to achieve fictional historical goals. A human being as such, their freedom and development, become self-sufficient goals.
We ourselves are the creators of our own history. We need to develop a spirit of competition and cooperation, in which no one will have a monopoly on the truth, but everyone will feel dignified and protected.Tut.by
According to Popper, the only form of existence of an open society is a democracy that is open to change. Political freedoms and rights are the foundation of an open society. In an open society, any truth can be criticized and impartially sought, and the state recognizes that different people have different views and interests. The basic values of an open society are freedom, dignity, responsibility, tolerance, and equality. Such a society may have internal constraints and safeguards to ensure equal opportunities for all members of that society.
Closed Society and Metamorphoses of Democracy
A closed society, on the other hand, is based on prohibitions and strict rules that cannot be questioned. Any behavior can be interpreted as unequivocally correct or unequivocally incorrect. Agreements are reached not through dialogue; but, through the monopoly right of leaders or the majority to determine what is “natural” for a society and what is not. Individuals are not included in the creation of society and only support its function.
The terms “Open Society” and “Closed Society” can be found more often than others in George Soros’s own fourteen philosophical works which are actually the keys to understanding what Soros continues to do at the age of 90.
Observing what is happening in Western society today, Soros has repeatedly pointed to sources of disharmony. A recent letter from 150 American writers, journalists and public figures condemning the restriction of open debates and the boycott of public figures for expressing their own opinion was in line with his understanding of challenges. After all, even in democratic societies, the desire to appropriate the right to the truth has become a temptation for many bearers of “truths”.
In 2020, we are once again asking ourselves questions that seem to have been answered: Can closed societies be more effective than open ones? The COVID-19 pandemic urges countries to close their borders and entire sectors of the economy as a means of protection. Totalitarian countries seem better able to organize strict quarantine and overcome the pandemic faster than democracies. So, is there reason to discuss competitive advantages of closed social-political systems? The question of the balance between freedom and openness, on the one hand, and security and stability, on the other, rises again.
The paradox of the present day is the growing demand for sovereignty, together with the growing need for international cooperation and objective dependence of countries on the value choices made by societies. Yes, it is dependency; but, it is a plus because it testifies to the maturity of society and the clarity of its historical claims. The conscious choice made and defended in 2013-2014 in favor of the European direction of development no longer allows us to talk about external management relating to implementation of European norms and rules. Because it is our own choice. Moreover, the responsibility for this choice should not be shifted to any individuals, no matter how influential they may seem.
Soros is not a panacea, not an icon, not a bag of money and not universally good or evil. He represents an opportunity for those who know and understand their mission, direction and resources and share democratic values. And the question of how effectively we will use the support provided by international philanthropy, in particular the support provided in Ukraine by George Soros, and the International Renaissance Foundation, is a matter of our responsibility, competence and decency.
