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President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Respected participants!

Today, for the first time, we are holding a joint session of the State Council of our country and the Presidential Council for Cooperation with Religious Organisations. The topic of today’s meeting is the moral development and civic education of young people, our youth. I am really hoping that as a result of our work together, we will work out common approaches to resolving the most difficult and relevant challenges in this area. Present here today are the heads of Russia’s main denominations, people whose authority and pastoral message have a very serious influence on life in our country. We certainly appreciate the great work you are carrying out in spiritual education and charitable activities.

Now, a few words about the subject of our work. The youth in our country, citizens aged between 14 and 30 (this is, of course, a tentative definition, but for now, it is the one we are working with), make up just over one quarter of the nation’s population. And it is certainly true that young people require the closest attention from government institutions and the most influential social institutions. The role of religious organisations in preserving the spiritual health and moral values of our youth is, without a doubt, very important. The sources of morality in society lie in the religious traditions of our nation and their humanitarian trends. The ideals of civil peace, interaction between people from different cultures, cooperation on issues of defending the country, patriotism, the creation of a normal, full-fledged, strong family, honest work, compassion toward others – for centuries, these values have been upheld in our land by followers of all faiths.

Nevertheless, we know that the moral vacuum which formed during the Soviet period and in the 1990s has had a negative influence on younger generations. Young people were naturally more vulnerable in the face of various destructive ideological trends, including pseudo-religious ones. They fell under the influence of those who fuel national and religious intolerance in our country. At the same time, the loss of a moral compass has become one of the reasons for alcoholism and drug addiction among young people. The statistics are grim: over 17 thousand children and 122 thousand teenagers suffer from drug addiction in our country. And I think that this is an official figure, whereas the real scope of this problem is far greater.

The loss of a moral compass has led to a drop in the influence of family, which has also had a very negative effect on demographic growth in our country. In this regard, we need methods to adapt those young people to normal life, methods to fight with drug addiction and alcoholism. At the same time, the prevention of harmful habits and the popularisation of a healthy way of life is work that should be undertaken by all branches of society, and not only as a formality, but with real commitment. I hope that joint programs implemented through specialized government and regional structures will also help.

We would also like for young people to have successful families, full-fledged families, because a strong family is natural, and therefore the most beneficial, wholesome environment for raising children. And, of course, it is one of the main conditions for increasing the birth rate in our country which, for obvious reasons, is an issue of extreme importance for Russia.

You know that both Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States are recognizing this year as the Year of Youth. This gives us a unique opportunity to find and test new, more effective methods of working together to develop principles for youth politics in our country.

Today, we have all the conditions – regulatory, organisational, and political – for full cooperation between the government and religious groups. At a federal level and in most regions, the appropriate consultative organisations, community councils, are at work. Many programmes have been implemented last year within the framework of the Year of the Family that was held in our country. And those programmes were very closely connected to youth-related problems.

The events that will be held as part of the Year of Youth must attract the attention of all levels of government and, I hope, all non-governmental organisations, to several key problems. I will highlight three priorities in this area.

First, perhaps the most important challenge today is to create the conditions for young people’s self-realization, and for that self-realization to be based on creative, innovative activity. We must make all the necessary resolutions in order to stimulate young people’s desire to engage in education and science, so that they may become active participants in the modernisation of our nation. Only involvement in truly meaningful work on their part can help them gain moral fortitude and material well-being.

Second, the economic crisis has a bad influence on unemployment, as well as young specialists’ search for work, so it undermines their material prosperity and well-being; ultimately, it can lead to higher crime rates among youth.

Religious organisations in our country working together with the government can do a great deal to prevent spiritual decay and the spread of pessimism in society. Young people must believe in themselves and in their country’s opportunities. Their adaptation to the difficult conditions of life is one of our greatest priorities.

And finally, third: we must use joint efforts to suppress all manifestations of extremism. We must teach our youth to engage in intercultural dialogue, cooperation; raise them in the spirit of tolerance. But at the same time, we must not forget Russian patriotism, which is directed toward supporting multiethnic harmony and preserving unity in our multiconfessional society. Nearly all of this depends on our joint actions.

These are the remarks that I wanted to make at the beginning.

***

I would like to summarise our discussion today and to formulate concrete suggestions for developing the ideas that we heard here.

First, I would like to begin by saying that, in my view, the positions of everyone who spoke on nearly all the main elements of work in today’s situation, and the work done on youth-related problems and the reinforcement of moral foundations, are congruent. This is probably the most important observation we can make.

Nonetheless, there are many issues which concern each of us in a particular way, or concern us more than others. I will try to comment on some of those issues from my point of view – and, of course, my opinion is by no means unique.

Many respected religious leaders and other colleagues spoke about the destructive influence of media on morality. I can say that, of course, media influence plays a prominent role in the modern life of any society. We live in world that is very rich in information and we must understand one simple thing: information can be a blessing or a curse. And until we figure out these issues, we will create problems for ourselves.

Here is what I think we should consider on a practical level. We must think about the quality of the information flow, the quality of ‘content’ if we use media-speak, that is, the content of what we get in the media.

Currently we have about 5–7 active [television] channels. And even their work brings up major questions and admonition regarding the quality of the material and information they present. This is probably natural, because we have an open society and the ideological division of the Central Committee of the Communist Party no longer exists – it used to monitor the unity of this type of information. However, the current approach has its own set of dangers. Still, let’s think, if every household has 20–30 or even 100 channels, plus the chance to access the World Wide Web (and here, I am not talking about possibilities that will become available a decade from now, but rather, something that will be possible in the next few years), then of course, this is a reason to look more carefully at laws in this sphere and the spiritual sources that exist in the modern world; it is a reason to look at our culture – both spiritual culture and classical culture – which, in the conditions of such rapid media development, is, to a certain extent, in a battered state.

I do not ask you to come to any specific conclusions, but I am simply talking about the fact that these processes demand the most careful, thoughtful attention from the government, civil society, and religious organisations.

There is another topic that was raised today: the effects of the crisis. It was correctly stated that the crisis creates the greatest problems for young people, for the very reason that they do not have experience counteracting the crisis. More mature people have personal experience, they have already had their own bumps in the road, they know how to withstand every-day problems; they have integrity and additional motivation; usually, this comes from family values or religious guidance. But for young people, everything is much shakier and much more complicated.

And that is precisely why we must think about the necessity of social adaptation in these conditions, including adaptation to standards of living. It is clear that the crisis immediately breeds new problems – it creates the problem of increased rates in all forms of crime, it leads to inner conflict, it sometimes generates political tensions, and unfortunately, provokes xenophobia. We must remember this – and not just remember, but take decisive action.

Our colleagues, ministers of the Government, are present here today (the Minister of Education and, of course, the Minister of Internal Affairs). I would like to turn their attention to these problems. We discuss them on a regular basis, but nonetheless, the problems are very complicated, and unfortunately, have a tendency to flare up. I think that in this situation, we must harshly prosecute insipient extremism and fight this evil.

There are many issues that were raised by our respected religious leaders. I think that we will analyse each of them, particularly issues of religious literature. Naturally, this is a very touchy subject. I will just say that the level of expertise on these kinds of problems must be exceptionally high, and the level of decision-making on these issues must be absolutely justifiable and sufficient on a legal level. This means that it should not raise additional doubts as to whether these decisions may have been made on the basis of some kind of murky reasoning, or that these decisions were created or reflect the position of one bureaucrat, rather than the government’s position. That is why we should think about an expert council; that is an instruction that I will give to the Presidential Executive Office.

In regard to the State Council on Youth Policy: this was addressed in the speech by Vitaly Leontievich Mutko [Minister of Sport, Tourism, and Youth Policy]. I support this idea; let us hold a State Council meeting on this topic. I would like for the Government of Russia and the Presidential Executive Office, with the help of the religious leaders present here today, as well as the heads of other non-governmental organisations, to prepare very thoroughly for this event. I do not want for this State Council to turn into a meeting following the Soviet tradition, the tradition of the past, where we will simply talk about the hard time that young people are facing in this crisis. Here, we are discussing moral causes, but at the State Council meeting, that will be insufficient.

I have a range of decrees that have been suggested to me for signing based on the outcomes of today’s work. I would like for part of them to already be carried out, because if we enter the State Council, especially during the Year of Youth, we should perhaps suggest some legislative changes as well; then it will have meaning.

I will, of course, make instructions on issues that are tied to the arrival of foreign members of the clergy, as was discussed by Mr Rabbi.

I can only say that bureaucrats should not meddle with religious life at all, and resolutions on these issues should not be made on the basis of their discretion, but instead, only on the basis of state security. If these kinds of resolutions are made, then they must be motivated. I am not talking about a specific situation, but in general terms, about the method of making decisions of this nature. I will also give a relevant instruction to my colleagues in the Presidential Executive Office and to the heads of law enforcement agencies, who are responsible for these issues.

And there is another topic that was mentioned here: the issue of protecting children and responsibility for child abuse; the topic of future generations was, in one form or another, present in every speech. Our colleagues representing the State Council and the Presidential Council for Cooperation with Religious Organisations also spoke about it. I would just like to let you know that very soon, I will be holding a special meeting with law enforcement agencies in order to make a number of decisions on this topic, including regulatory ones, because, unfortunately, the current situation is absolutely disastrous and we must act.

I also welcome the statement that was prepared by Russia’s religious leaders, the statement that His Holiness Patriarch Kirill spoke about. I think that this is a very good basis for future work. And this statement, in essence, reflects all the concerns that were voiced today. Most importantly, this statement is supported by all participants, and as I see it, it can and should play a consolidating role in this fairly difficult period of our lives.

I think that today’s joint session was useful. It is the first experience of its kind. And it has truly been conducted at an important moment in the life of our nation. I hope that the high level of consolidation that we demonstrated today will serve as a good foundation for reinforcing morality in our country and resolving a variety of challenges that stand today before our nation and our people, regardless of their religious beliefs.

I think that based on the results of his joint session, we will be able to reach some fairly important resolutions; in any case, I am very much counting on it.

I would like to sincerely thank all the participants of the joint session for this cooperative work.