Today in one week, Wednesday 6 October, around 100 representatives from the media, politics and academia will discuss in three parallel digital strategic roundtables under the title “From Permanent Crisis to Democratic Resilience” how we can handle an era of seemingly “perpetual crises” and the responsibility of and current challenges facing the media in this situation.
The conference will be opened by the American sociologist, architecture and design theorist Benjamin H. Bratton, Professor of Fine Arts at the University of California, San Diego.
Participants include Alberto Alemanno, Brigitte Alfter, Angelos Athanasopoulos, Markus Beckedahl, Wolfgang Blau, Mathias Müller von Blumencron, Alexandra Borchardt, Can Dündar, Tobias Endler, Ali Fathollah-Nejad, Astrid Frohloff, Monika Garbaciauskaitė-Budriene, Diphayan Ghosh, Ulrik Haagerup, Wolfgang Ischinger, Matthew Kaminski, Caro Kriel, Mark Leonard, Staffan I. Lindberg, Hella Pick, Annalisa Piras, Christian Rainer, Elmar Theveßen, Christopher Walker, among others (time: 14 – 16.15h CET, online). A list of the participants can be found here.
Afterwards, a Special Talk on “The Totalitarian Temptation” will take place in the Palace Theatre of the Neues Palais. Saad Mohseni, Afghan-Australian media entrepreneur and co-founder and chairman of the MOBY Group, Dr Claudia Major, head of the International Security Department at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), and Dr Can Dündar, top Turkish journalist and editor-in-chief of Özgurüz, will discuss the state of democracy and reasons for the rising totalitarianism in the world, moderated by international TV presenter Ali Aslan.
The discussion will open with a keynote address by Prof. Dr. Andreas Reckwitz on “Resilience in late Modernity”. The event will be streamed live on the M100 website (time: 17.00 – 18.15h CET).
At 6.30 pm, the M100 Media Award will be presented to the Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny and his foundation FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation). The prize for Navalny, who has been imprisoned since January, will be accepted by his closest associate and confidant Leonid Volkov. The laudatory speech will be given by Christian Lindner, the Federal Chairman of the FDP, who has been campaigning for Nawalny’s release for months.
By choosing Nawalny, the advisory board of the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium, chaired by Potsdam Mayor Mike Schubert, is sending a clear signal about the importance of defending European values through an independent opposition and civil society, fair judicial procedures and the right to exercise basic human rights. The award also serves as a symbol for almost 400 political prisoners in Russia, for murdered politicians and journalists and for the fight against increasing autocracy in Europe.
We thank our supporters, sponsors and partners Landeshauptstadt Potsdam, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Auswärtiges Amt, National Endowment for Democracy, Friedrich Naumann Stiftung, Agentur Medienlabor, Bundesverband der Freien Berufe, Institut für Medien- und Kommunikationspolitik, AFP, Human Rights Watch, Reporters Without Borders, Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten, VDZ.
