Democracies are becoming cynical, while the terrorist threat “offers boulevards to demagogues of all kinds,” writes Bernard Henri-Levy.
“With youth no longer possessing a memory of the great struggles against totalitarianism, confidence in democratic institutions eroding, bureaucracy distant from citizens, growing hostility to elites, and authoritarian disinformation ravaging our democratic media spaces,” it is imperative to restore the purpose and unity of the democratic West, he writes.
Hence, this week’s “vibrant call for democratic renewal and for safeguarding liberal ideals,” launched at the Forum 2000 Foundation in Prague, signed by prominent intellectuals and democracy advocates, such as Anne Applebaum, Francis Fukuyama, Gary Kasparov, Adam Michnik, Shlomo Avineri, [the National Endowment for Democracy’s] Carl Gershman, Jacques Rupnik, Xiao Qiang, and Andrei Piontkovsky (and of course Bernard-Henri Levy).
