It was a better bill of rights than the American bill of rights. But of course it was worthless, it was a piece of paper. And without citizens it had no meaning. Russia today and other members of the former Soviet Union have many of the formal institutions of democracy, but the struggle in those nations, as you know so well, is to give these institutions a foundation in civil society, in civil religion, in habits of the heart that foster tolerance and reciprocity. And that takes time.
Patience is democracy's greatest virtue, and always in short supply.
You are expected, those of you in new and transitional democratic nations, to do in six months or six years what we have not yet finished doing in sixty or six hundred in the extablished democracies. And yours of course is no easy task because there are rivals for your attention in the new and the old democracies. The real educator of the young in America, in Europe, in Africa in Asia alike is neither school nor church nor synogogue, nor mosque nor family but television and film. Mr. Cooke reminded us last night that for better or worse the film is the great tutor of our times. Unhappily, usually it's for worse.