For the
better understanding of this situation, after a brief review, passing from a time
where the struggle for dominance of the Superpowers, to “attract” as many African,
Asian and other countries as possible into their camps, we would come to the
collapse of the old order of the world, which coincided with the appearance of
Kirsan Llyumzhinov, symbolizing the era of the “liquidation” of the ideologies.
The decline of moral values and the financial crisis, as a result of frantic
lending, false prosperity and squandering of huge money, on the other hand,
coincided with the throwing of G. Makropoulos on the spotlight of the
international chess stage.
After all
this, the main feature of nowadays is the widespread crisis that touches every
human aspect and activity and the chess world, alike.
Being a small
part of this world, we decided to contribute to the necessary public
discussions and share some of our thoughts and experience, regarding these
elections, worrying for the future of chess and the dominant tendencies.
Because, although the main aim is the management of a collective body, one
notices the tendency of focusing on individualistic abilities, in a search for
a superman-like model, as if it were a question of “a one-man show” in a place
with so many sharp minds and brilliant people.
At this point, let us say that, the opposition
has to coincide with the fact that the cause of the FIDE deadlock and the
issues of good management and transparency, or, better to say corruption, are
products of a regime; which does not allow innovative ideas to grow beyond
repetitive and well-known patterns, that enable them to preserve, by any means,
their leadership, though its circle has closed. And to finally close the
Campomanes cycle, as Leontxo Garcia ( EL Pais ) says, the change of mentality
of the FIDE agents is very important. Having a different president in October
will be good for chess if only the new team is not corrupt and if they have a
professional approach on how to promote chess worldwide. He continues saying
that, the new members of the Board need to understand how much can chess
contribute to a better world (especially as an educational, social and
therapeutic tool), if they do their work honestly and correctly.
Therefore, we
can only but agree with the text of the Association of Chess Professionals (ACP)
in which, concerning the forthcoming elections, they say that, “we need a new group with different visions”.
Regarding our
country, we would say in short that it is a miniature of the big picture. In
Greece, chess has been “a one-man show” the last forty years, along with all
the local issues that followed, which can equally be observed on the global
chessboard. No transparency, corruption, abuse of power.
After all, we
are surprised to read about the “anti-corruption policy” and the creation of a
“transparency committee” by the outgoing FIDE administration. It must be clear
to those who know about G. Makropoulos’ ways of managing, what are going to be
the criteria for selecting the members to serve the Transparency Committee. To
approve, among others, the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on
pre-election travel expenses and development-type federal subsidies, while we
sadly see the outdated practices of “approaching” African, Asian and other
federations, again. Methods and tactics that impede the movement towards a new
and better world.
We hope that
the world chess community and the federal representatives will look back over
the last thirty years of the outgoing FIDE administration and decide to turn
the page, trusting their chess culture and instinct for a better future for
chess.
A group of chess players
Central Greece