Timothy Garton Ash to speak at XIV Open Society Forum
This Friday, May 29, the Open Estonia Foundation will hold its XIV Open Society Forum in Tallinn, entitled „Rethinking Enemies of Open Society“. The keynote speech on the future of open society and liberalism will be delivered by the recognized British historian and political thinker Timothy Garton Ash.
Professor of European Studies at the University of Oxford, Garton Ash has in his essays and books thoroughly analyzed communism in Central Europe and mapped the history of Europe in the past decades. In 2005, he featured in the list of 100 top global public intellectuals chosen by the journals Prospect and Foreign Policy, and in Time magazine's list of the world's 100 most influential people.
“Timothy Garton Ash is one of the most frequently cited intellectuals at our times, whose writings have aptly analyzed the factors unifying and separating Europe,” OEF’s Executive Director Mall Hellam said, commenting on the choice of the keynote speaker. “At the time of the global economic crisis, Garton Ash has understood the importance of analyzing its impact on the values and future decisions of our society. Restoring economic growth is only one side of the problem, another is that disappointment in liberal market economy and individualist policies may easily lead us to believe in populist rhetoric and hard-line policies. In fact, now is the best time to search for new, sustainable models of market economy, embracing open society and human values,” Hellam added.
In 14 years the Open Society Forums have brought a number of world-famous thinkers and top politicians in Estonia. The list of speakers has featured Robert Putnam, researcher of social capital at the University of Harvard; US-Hungarian investor and philanthropist George Soros; former president of Finland and 2008 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari; Russian human rights activist Sergei Kovalev; Susan George, political scientist and author on global social justice, and many more.
At the XIV Open Society Forum on Friday, current challenges to open society will also be debated by the Estonian analyst and columnist Ahto Lobjakas, Estonian-Finnish political scientist and journalist Iivi Anna Masso, and Vita Anda Terauda, Head of Public Policy Center PROVIDUS in Latvia.
Additional information:
Mall Hellam
Executive Director
Open Estonia Foundation
Tel.: +372 6 313 791
E-mail: mall@oef.org.ee
Open Estonia Foundation: www.oef.org.ee/en
Timothy Garton Ash: http://www.timothygartonash.com/