The interview with Garry Kasparov, who is in the Netherlands to promote the
Dutch edition of his
new book, begins slightly beyond the halfway mark in the Nova broadcast.
You can see the position of the slider in the first screen capture below.
On the passing of Boris Yeltsin
Yeltsin was a man of great controversy, who loved power and loved freedom,
but he could not choose which way to go. He established democratic institutions
in Russia, but at the same time he did not touch the "nomenclatura",
the all-powerful bureaucracy.
Russia under Yelzin was a state under a dual system of ruling. On one side
we had faulted but at least democratic institutions, fair elections, free press.
On the other side we had a Byzantine type of beaucracy. Yeltsin's successor
had to choose one or the other. By picking Putin, a KGB officer, Yeltsin made
his choice. That is why today we have an undemocratic system, a police state.
On his current profession
I am witing books, and have contracts with 19 publishers in different countries,
whit 17 languages. I am also doing a lot of lectures.
On his political ambitions
In Russia being a politician is somewhat different than here in the West. Today
in Russia we are not fighting to win an election, we are fighting to have an
election. It requires different qualities. We have to act in a situation where
we do not have simple access to television, or to the mass media, and trying
to get around all the restrictions of a police state. That takes time and determination.
I am now playing the role of the coordinator of a very broad and fragile coalition
of very different groups from the right to the left. It is quite similar to
what happened to Chile twenty years ago, when all groups from Socialists to
Communists to Christian Democrats got together to defeat Pinochet in a national
referendum.
On learning from chess
Whether you do politics, business or anything else you are making decisions.
In chess, as I try to explain in my latest book, we do not just make decisions,
we have to analyse why certain decisions work and certain decisions fail. In
chess you have to go through this very rigorous process of self-examination.
I think I learnt enough from my chess career to apply this to any situation.
I know you have to be objective. Having no rules in Russian politics is also
a rule, and I have to understand that my opponents in this game do not respect
any rules. So I have to recognize today that the best strategy for the Russian
opposition is survival.
On his personal safety
Nobody is safe in Russia. We are facing a regime that is as brutal as Lukashenko
and Mugabe, so Russia belongs to the group of Zimbabwe or Byelorussia, not to
the European Union. I personally run less risks than thousands of political
activists who are fighting the regime in our provincial cities and towns. It
is because of my star status. If anything happens to me you will talk about
it, the same day, maybe the same hour. I can hire bodyguards to travel with
me in Moscow or in the Russian countryside. I can hire the best lawyers in the
country if something goes wrong with me.
What you saw on your TV screens on the 14th or 15th of April in Moscow and
Saint Petersburg is the tip of the iceberg, that is grim reality for the opposition
all over the country. The whole process, from my arrest to the mockery in the
courtroom was in violation of every letter in Russian law and the constitution.
I was arrested even before we reached the point of the demonstration, we were
not even shouting anything. We were arrested by the special police for "violating
public order." If you are arrested for administrative causes they cannot
detain you for more than three hours. In total I was detained for eleven hours.
I was made to pay a fine of a thousand rubles, on the basis of the testimony
of one police officer, without any chance of defence. A thousand rubles is not
a lot, but technically the next time they can put me in prison, for fifteen
days, or much worse.
