Poverty, security and the environment are the three most pressing international problems that need to be addressed, according to former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev.
Gorbachev addressed members of the Seton Hall community about these and other challenges facing democracy in a lecture at 4 p.m. on Thursday in Walsh Gymnasium.
Poverty was a problem prevalent across the world, Gorbachev said.
He cited globalization as one of the major causes in the growing disparities between developed and developing countries.
“The developed countries had a tremendous advantage at the start,” he said through a translator. “The gap between the rich and the poor has grown as a result of globalization over the past 10 years.”
Gorbachev said he had visited Latin America a few years ago.
“I felt as though I was walking upon burnt soil,” he said. “There is no work there. Their percentage of unemployment is up to 30, 35 percent. The poverty rate is around 80 percent.”
Gorbachev said he questioned why there should be surprise over the amount of terrorism in the world. He cited children dying from hunger and lack of access to clean water as two driving forces behind terrorism.
“This is the soil from which terrorism and extremism can grow,” he said. “This is the soil from which they recruit followers.”
According to Gorbachev, violence is not the solution to terrorist problems.
“Whenever there is a problem, what we need is not missiles, cannons and guns, but diplomacy,” Gorbachev said.
The emphasis should be on addressing the problems that feed terrorism, he said.
Gorbachev spoke about the importance of democracy in the Soviet Union and across the world.
“Democracy is the theme that permeated perestroika,” he said.
Perestroika was the decentralizing of the Soviet Union’s economic and social structures that took place when Gorbachev was president from 1985 to 1991.
“Perestroika faced a task that was important for the country and for all the people,” Gorbachev said. “We needed to liberate our country.”
He also said perestroika was a winning plan.
“Today we can say that perestroika gave freedom to our people,” Gorbachev said.
Gorbachev said he acknowledged that democracy was not a perfect system.
“Let us not be discouraged by democracy, though,” he said. “As Winston Churchill said democracy, of course, is a bad system, but others are a lot worse.”
Gorbachev also spoke about his relationship with President Ronald Reagan. He said the two called each other names when they first met.
“I said to my colleagues, ‘Reagan is a real dinosaur,’” he said. “Reagan called me a diehard Bolshevik.”
Two days later, the pair had learned to work together and reached an agreement, he said.
“We agreed that nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” Gorbachev said.
He felt that a close relationship between the two countries should continue today.
“Americans and Russians should go together, should walk together,” he said. “That is my conviction.”
Gorbachev said he was optimistic for future relations between the United States and Russia.
“I believe that in relationships between our two nations, the best is not in the past,” he said. “The best is yet to come.”
Dean Clay Constantinou of the John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations and Seton Hall University President Msgr. Robert Sheeran welcomed Gorbachev to Seton Hall.
“President Gorbachev’s legacy reminds us that leaders in history who rule by conformity fade into oblivion,” Constantinou said.
Constantinou cited Gorbachev’s awards, including Time Magazine Man of the Year and Man of the Century and the Nobel Peace prize, as proof of his influence and legacy.
Sheeran said, “I reaffirm my belief that individuals, bold and farsighted men and women, do continue to write history for us.”
He spoke optimistically about the role of students as future leaders who have the ability to make a crucial difference in the world.
“Perhaps one of our students here today is such a leader in training,” Sheeran said.
Gorbachev’s visit coincided with the election of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to be the next pope.
“I knew that April 19th would be a significant day for Seton Hall,” Sheeran said. “I didn’t know that April 19th would be a significant day for the world.”
Gorbachev spoke about the importance of religion and the pope.
“The ideas of Jesus, which are basically socialist ideas, were buried many times, but they have never died,” Gorbachev said. “These are ideas of respect, of social justice.”
He said Pope John Paul II had an important role in shaping the world.
After the lecture, Gorbachev participated in a student discussion with members of the Diplomacy School. He met with New Jersey business leaders and members of the Board of Regents for a roundtable discussion in Presidents Hall, and he ate dinner in the Peterson Rotunda in Walsh Library with invited guests.
Gorbachev’s speech and visit were part of the John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations’ World Leaders Forum and the Philip and Mary Shannon Seton Hall Speakers Series.
The lecture was broadcast live on Seton Hall’s Web site and shown in the Pirate’s Cove.
Katie Clements can be reached at clemenka@shu.edu.
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