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Round Table: Dialogue among Civilizations United Nations, New York, 5 September 2000 Provisional verbatim transcription

Address by Alexandre Yakovlev (Russian Federation)

Mr. Yakovlev (interpretation from Russian): We continue here from our point of view living in conditions of atavism. We have States, visas, customs, security, and in fact more than the things which are being guarded. The Internet and our new epoch will wipe away all these atavistic elements or customs, and it will open then the road to mankind. On the other hand I have apprehensions as to how in these conditions of the Internet or an information era we might not in fact take man's living soul out of him. We might forget what a book or the theatre is. We might forget what normal human contacts are. We might be transformed into individual entities, almost like biomachines, even before those things are invented. Those problems are now facing us as we are faced with the new information era.

Mr. Picco: Mr. Morin.

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