greenpolitics.ca

Country Report — Russia

The state of Russian NGOs is a mirror of the state of Russian society. This means considerable atomization of Green and other citizens movements, and an inadequate understanding of present-day reality by the Russian people as a whole, writes our Russian correspondent Dr. Vladimir F.Levchenko.

Something rotten is eating away at the heart of the Green Party of British Columbia. It’s called corporatism, and it functions through elitism, control of decision-making, and restriction of information. Right now, many Greens are wondering whether the Green Party of British Columbia can still claim to be Green.

Green politics is not just about the environment. It is far more holistic than that. Green political philosophy is based on an egalitarian, anti-authoritarian, eco-centric, environmentally concerned and decidedly democratic approach to governance. Green principles must not be forgotten by Greens everywhere.

There are basically two kinds of political and social leader — those who seek power over others, and those who lead by example and empowerment. Green politics was never supposed to imitate the ‘top-down’ authoritarianism of the mainstream political parties. Green politics rests on the belief that everyone in a free and democratic society has the right to voice and vote in decision-making.

There’s a growing gulf between those in our society that have — jobs, income, property, family — and those who have not. And that gulf is widening to include many more formerly middle-class people in the ‘have-not’ category.

We cannot continue to flounder around with the outmoded ideas of the past. Our very survival is at stake: the future of this planet and the vitality and well-being of the Green movement in Canada, is on the line. The goal of this discussion paper is to raise the prospect of achieving a regionalized structure for the Green movement, one that will allow it to evolve along fully democratic lines. A secondary aim to outline a new concept of federal organisation, one that can be applied to all national Canadian institutions.