Statement by His Excellency
Academician, Professor E.M.Malitikov,
Chairman of the Interstate Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States
Chairman of the Interstate Committee for Knowledge Dissemination and Adult Education, President of the International Association «Znanie»
at the Global Mountain Summit, Bishkek, 2002.
Your Excellency, President of the Kyrgyz Republic
Askar Akayev Akayev, President of the Kyrgyz Republic!
Excellency, H.E. Nursultan Abishev, President of the Republic of Kazakhstan
Your Highness Prince Aga Khan!
Your Highnesses!
Your Excellencies!
Ladies and gentlemen!
It is an honor to address the Council of Patrons of the Global Mountain Summit.
Mountains are like people. They feel, they see, they hear and they react. They respond appropriately and powerfully.
In the history of the peoples of the planet, thanks to your patronage that crowned the Global Summit International Year of the Mountains, an unprecedented step towards new resources of life on Earth has been taken.
The mountains will not forget this…
It is very symbolic that it was the Kyrgyz Republic that took this initiative, responsibility and honor, not conceding it even to the rich mountain Switzerland.
Unfortunately, humanity has not preserved the Knowledge, Abilities and Might of the Aztec and Mayan mountain empires, leaving the unraveling of their secrets to researchers.
However, the qualitative and numerical gap in the living standards of highlanders and plainsmen only confirms the need to reverse the restructuring of human debt to Nature.
It is a tragic list of catastrophes that reminds us of unreasonable human activities.
Water, the main resource of human life on Earth, which makes up 80% of our bodies, for half of humanity is protected by the giants of the mountain silence.
The storerooms of the subsoil for the Future are also placed there, where only their true custodians, the faithful inhabitants of the mountains, can live.
Courageous loyalty to the mountains is kept by a fifth of humanity, paying for it unsettled life and poverty.
We need new knowledge about the Earth that mountains and their ecosystems hold in their arms. The best representatives of more than 100 countries have contributed new visions, approaches and tools to the summit.
To disseminate this knowledge to those who live their lives together with the mountains, bearing all the hardships and deprivations, is a task of global scale. Solving it for the mountaineers, we will get an increase in their courage and natural ingenuity. This increase is an army of literate, well-educated people who are the custodians of the resources of life for the future of the inhabitants of the resources of the plains which are being devastated.
The Highlanders and the countries where they live will once again become an empire.
Talking about economics, ecology, social sphere and writing about them in declarations and communiqués, we are just making air.
For Highlanders it is an empty sound, while for education they have to go down to the valleys, capitals, university centers, and for culture — to Louvres, Tretyakovks and other museums in unknown megalopolises.
Education, and the highest quality, the most exclusive, the newest knowledge should come directly to them in a yurt on an eternally snow-white hillside, in a pasture. Then the shepherd and his children will agree with the mountains about peace, cooperation and sponsorship from the mountains. That’s when the economy, ecology and social sphere will be in proper hands.
Thousands of documents in the last decade have cribbed the Internet as a general-purpose formula for happiness among the panaceas.
The Internet is great, but it’s not a cure-all for every symptom. Mountains don’t take this potion.
It is expensive, unprofitable, ineffective.
In addition, modern education by E-mail (e-mail) can not be delivered.
Life is changing rapidly…
Just five years ago there was no e-mail address on the business card of the President of the German Telecom.
And today the basic structure of the CIS Interstate Committee for Dissemination of Knowledge and Adult Education and the International Association «Knowledge» — Modern Humanities University from Moscow satellite teleport teaches Kazakh students at their place of residence the international law in Cambridge without the cost of travel and accommodation in England. It teaches even those who do not know English, modern technology makes it possible.
There are 17 training centers of this type in Kazakhstan, one of them for 8 thousand students. On your order Nursultan Abishevich — a new building of our educational center is being built in Astana.
Today we have 150,000 students in 368 cities in Russia, CIS countries and so far eight other countries, which is 7.5 times more than the Lomonosov Moscow State University. They study 68 specialties. This required the creation of 400 extraterritorial centers and departments with 2,500 professors.
Our signal will come in the form of a picture, a cartoon image, a charming gesture by a unique lecturer or a distinguished scholar from any country. You can’t gather such teachers within the walls of one traditional university.
Our signal will come to a place where no transport but a donkey is acceptable, where there is not even electricity.
Our signal will come to places where no transport but a donkey is acceptable — where there is not even electricity.
I pronounce with confidence the digital ratio of the cost of satellite broadcasting to Internet per student at our numbers. The difference is 100 times: $5 a year with us and $500 with the Internet.
In the mountains and African jungle, it’s even more expensive — almost 20 times that.
Today there is already such an institute — branch — center and six more are being supplied and installed in the Kyrgyz Republic. They are being developed under the auspices of Academician Aidaraliev A.A. — your, Askar Akayevich, advisor, member of the CIS Interstate Committee on Knowledge Dissemination and Adult Education.
I am making a proposal to create an International Information and Education Center in Bishkek based on the latest satellite telecommunication technologies.
Without satellite education, penetrating into the places where it is impossible to reach otherwise, we will not be able to solve the global problem of humanity on the Earth — eradication of illiteracy.
880 million people on the planet cannot read or write at all. That is why more than half of the world’s people, more than 3 billion, live on less than $2 a day. At the same time, there is a worldwide shortage of 15 million teachers.
We invite the Council of Patrons and you, Askar Akayevich, personally, and you, Nursultan Abishevich, personally, to visit our base complex in Moscow.
Visiting universities has long been a good tradition for Presidents of the world.
You will be pleasantly surprised, and your impressions are a moment of truth for the entire country.
Thank you for your attention.