‘Civil Society’ needs to be nationalized!

‘Civil Society’ is old and as is usually the case predates the term.  Scholars argue that it is drawn from the Aristotelian phrase ‘koinōnía politikḗ (κοινωνία πολιτική)’ which refers to a community of citizens subject to the rule of law.  Apparently it entered the Western political discourse only after Aristotle’s work was translated into Latin by late medieval and early Medieval writers such as William of Moerbeke and Leonardo Bruni. Its more recent meaning derives from the usage of dissidents such as Václav Havel who used it in contradistinction to intrusive holistic state-dominated regimes in the Soviet Bloc of nations.  

Another term that is often used as coterminous with ‘civil society’ is NGO, i.e. Non-Governmental Organizations. Like civil society, the term came late although the notion dates back to the late eighteenth century.  The term came into popular use only after 1945 when the UN discussed a consultative role for outfits that are not member states or governments. 

Technically even corporations are NGOs since they are not nations or governments. Technically, they can claim to be part of civil society too. If we delve into things and processes deep enough we can of course make the argument that even NGOs, like corporates are embedded in ‘government’. And, if we keep digging, we would have to ask whether NGOs are really part of civil society.

On the surface, however, the distinction is clear enough. There’s always been a fair amount of distrust between the NGO community and successive government, even though prominent NGOs in Sri Lanka (in particular those whose ‘civil society’ credentials are suspect) tend to be pally with UNP governments or leaders who have antipathies towards Sinhalese and Buddhists.  Outwardly NGOs and governments have shown suspicion about each other’s motives and see each other as spoilers.  

NGOs badmouth governments and governments return the favor. We’ve seen a lot of that. They both claim representative edge. Governments say ‘we were elected, therefore we have a right to represent’. NGOs say, as mentioned, that they are a part of civil society. They can and do point out that being elected is one thing but that does not necessarily mean the elected represent the electors. This we know. 

There’s a question that’s not been asked enough: ‘What right in terms of numbers, reach and acceptance do NGOs have to toss around the representational rights implied in the term ‘civil society’ which they use as though they own it?’ 

I wrote an article seven years ago titled ‘And civil society (real) floors civil society (imagined)’.  Fake would work better than ‘imagined’ I now feel. Anyway, the article contained the following observation:

“NGOs are made of workshops, seminars, project proposals, reports, double-billing and overheads that make up more than two thirds of annual budgets.  They are also made of claims, chief among which is that of representational lie.  ‘We are civil society,’ NGO personnel like to think and state.  They are an incestuous bunch, these NGOs.  They form consortia and forums which are made of the same groups and led by the same people.  They appoint each other to each others boards. They applaud one another and occasionally give each other awards for this and that. They quote one another. They scratch each other’s backs.”  

As for their use of the ‘civil society’ tag, this is what I wrote:

“They say they represent ‘civil society’, but don’t say ‘well, no one elected us, and to be honest, our views are marginal or less and more seriously are based on assumptions that reality rebel against’.  Ask them to organize a demonstration or announce a public seminar and less than a hundred turn up.  Indeed, most of their operations are of the behind-closed-doors kind.  And yet, they bat on.  Courtesy of friends in big-name diplomatic missions and big-name countries whose political agendas vis-à-vis Sri Lanka coincide with theirs.”

The article contrasted this patten of operation with a resolution passed at the Annual General Meeting of a bank that was built by the thrift and credit cooperative movement of this country, better known by its Sinhala acronym SANASA. The shareholders, many representing SANASA primary societies, unanimously resolved to reject the infamous ‘Darusman Report’.  To those who may have forgotten, this report was the one produced by a ‘panel of experts’ appointed by the UN Secretary General to investigate accountability issues related to Sri Lanka’s war on terrorism. The name refers to the Chairman of the panel, Indonesian politician Marzuki Darusman. 

The key issue here is representation. The SANASA movement counts over 8000 primary societies whose work covers thrift and credit primarily, but also embraces social, cultural and moral development. At the time, over 3800 such societies owned shares in the SANASA Development Bank.  Each society has between 100 and 2000 members with the average being over 400.  Even if we took the average as 200, this meant that over 740,000 people were represented at the AGM.  

From a movement which counts over 8000 primary societies or groups devoted to the subject of thrift and credit, with social, cultural and moral upliftment embedded into agenda, SANASA counts more than 5000 entities that are active and hundreds with assets and business that easily best branches of well-established commercial banks.   A total exceeding 3800 own shares in the SANASA Development Bank. 

Now that is ‘representation’ and that’s what is important, not whether they approved or rejected some flawed report put together by the ignorant or misled. 

Now these people don’t use the term ‘civil society’.  The question is, do those who actually use the term have anything like the representational cloud that the SANASA movement has?

A highly celebrated NGO personality (decorated by fellow travelers and given to decorating fellow travelers) was once asked how many people he could get to a demonstration if his funding dried up. His answer says a lot: ‘to be honest, none’.  

So where’s the accountability? To whom are they answerable? To ‘the people’ implied in the usage of the term ‘civil society’ or to donor agencies (International NGOs and foreign countries)? When the Right to Information Act was being drafted, I know for a fact that ‘NGO representatives’ involved in the process did their best to limit the legislation to state agencies. It was no small victory that the Act included provisions for binding NGOs to respond to queries, even though we have heard noises about NGOs refusing to cooperate.  

The problem is that the term ‘civil society’ is loosely used and in practice has little to do with ‘all of society’. Rather, the work is mostly about furthering the ideological projects of the minuscule numbers that make up these outfits. Just to illustrate the point, during the conflict, a demonstration was organized at Lipton’s Circus by a group calling itself ‘100 Peace Organizations’. There were less than 100 people attending that protest. 

This is why it is argued by some that ‘civil society’ is just another name for name-board outfits made of people who are members of multiple NGOs whose ‘work’ can be described as agitation and whose innovation and creativity is framed by narrow political agenda at best and by monetary needs in the main.

Sometime in the early years of this decade, Indika Jayaratne, an announcer at the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation, made a pertinent comment on NGOs and civil society. He said, in Sinhala, ‘sivil samaajaya janasathu kala yuthui’ (civil society should be nationalized).  The word ‘nationalization’ was turned into cuss-word by the UNP and the political right. That’s another discussion of course. The reversal, interestingly, was called ‘janathaakaranaya’  (‘peoplization’) in the Premadasa years.  It was in essence, at best, a ‘some peoplization’ in that it allowed the wealthy to take over state-owned enterprises. 

The word however has some uses. If you want to call it janathaakaranaya then a ‘peoplization’ of NGOs would give more credibility to the ‘civil society’ label. ‘Nationalization’ or ‘janasathukaranaya’ would be even better for multiple reasons. First it implies ownership by the people and not a few individuals who rake in the bucks under cover of a rubber-stamping set of overseers on a ‘Board’.  Secondly, it would necessitate a solid and comprehensive understanding of the entire nation and not just some constituent part, typically a Colombo-based, insular community who uses as alibi some collective that suffered some injustice, perceived or real.  It all boils down to bucks, social standing and the furthering of narrow political projects, as mentioned.  

The issue is, we don’t know if NGOs are really interested in being honorable about using tags such as ‘civil society’.  Typically, those who have the edge do not concede it without a fight. Lump all NGOs who use that term and ask them to come up with numbers and representational spread and the response would be silence or contentious.  The problem is that they’ve given civil society a bad name and thereby robbed the empowering potential of the idea, just like how this government has made it next to impossible to use the term ‘yahapalanaya’ (good governance). 

The reality check arrives unexpectedly, though. It happened when the entire federalist tribe was stumped despite the bucks, access to resources and close connections with the dominant political leadership of the time. They, then, typically talk about masses being asses. The fact of the matter is that the ass-masses, so-called, are not stupid. They know who represents them and who cannot. They know how to pick the lesser evil of the moment. 

It is better for NGOs to explore ‘civil society (real)’ and find out the degree of mismatch between aspirations and indeed overall understanding of social, economic, cultural and political realities. They can back off from the practice of prescription and lip-servicing notions such as ‘participation’ (typically purchased by ‘attendance fees’). They can discover ‘nation’ in its entirety including its history and heritage in all its rich detail including of course error and horror. 

Nationalization of Civil Society (fake). Now that’s a project, but one which they might not get any funds to implement, but that’s the only way to get a hang of Civil Society (real) and win the usage-rights. This side of nationalization (in the most comprehensive meaning of that term) one can only expect error, abuse, further corruption of the term and eventually the subversion of civil society (in the broadest and most accurate meaning of the term).

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer.  malindasenevi@gmail.com. 

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That curious creature called ‘civil society’

Words are easy for politicians and in politics.  Take ‘the people’ for example.  It’s hard to think of a term that has been as abused.  It’s all ‘in the name of the people’ isn’t it?  There are of course other useful (and cheap) words in the lexicon of politics.  ‘The nation’ has a lot of utility value, for example and has been used and abused all over the world and across history.  And then, there is ‘civil society’.  

Civil society is defined as “the aggregate of non-governmental organizations and institutions that manifest interests and will of citizens" and includes the family and the private sphere, referred to as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business.”  It is supposed to refer to “a community of citizens linked by common interests and collective activity” and as such implies all manner of collectives, regardless of size.  However in usage it is the exaggeration of this definition that dominates.  It’s useful, this exaggeration, for political purposes.  In usage, it would (like to) count every single citizen who is not a politician or a business owner.  Perhaps this is why those who call themselves representatives of civil society see ‘civil society’ as an alternative to states and governments.

What really is civil society in Sri Lanka?  How representative are those who claim to speak on behalf of those whose memberships are assumed but not necessarily ‘membered’ in the term?  

These are not questions that the self-appointed ‘reps of civil-soc’ (RCS) will like to answer.  

Let’s consider a few examples.  In the early years of the new millennium there was a protest at Lipton’s Circus.  It was a ‘peace demonstration’ or rather a demonstration for peace, meaning agitation to put a stop to military activity.  Most of the key voices in that collective were and still are ardent advocates of federalism, some on occasion endorsing moves to confer parity of status to the LTTE vis-a-vis the Government of Sri Lanka.  That’s not what is important here. What’s interesting is that it was a demonstration by ‘100 women’s organizations’.  What’s telling is that less than 100 turned up!  

In 2006 February, another captain of this interesting industry was asked on the sidelines of talks between the then government and the LTTE in Celigny, Switzerland, how many people he could bring to a demonstration if he didn’t receive funds from donor agencies.  He was honest.  None, he said. Membership, even temporary membership, has a price tag then  Not too different to the rice packet, alcohol and a few hundred bucks plus transport that are spent to purchase support for the two major parties in the country, one observes.  

Civil society, however, assumes the kind of purity (of purpose and practice) that politicians dare not demand or, as of late, would not bother claiming.  On the one hand, politicians seek and obtain votes.  They are up for election.  They are up for rejection.  Even if one considers the fact that only those with money or are supported by the moneyed can reasonably expect to win, there is some rudimentary representational claim that they can make.  The lords and ladies of civil society don’t have even that!

What’s civil society?  Ask those who are counted in as members but have never met the lords and ladies who claim to represent them.  Ask them their names.  They wouldn’t have a clue.  ‘Civil society’ is the ‘other’ of what they are not.  

Some are lords, some ladies and some are wannabe lords and wannabe ladies.  Some genuinely think they are the subaltern they like to believe the entire enterprise is, but even among them only a handful would not be getting paid at the end of the day.  

The lords and ladies, then, make pronouncements on behalf of a largely non-existent membership.  They attach themselves (typically) to political formations that are for the most part admiring of the West, it’s dominant paradigms of development, it’s preferred economic policy regimes and the narratives of history and progress it prefers.  In the name of the people, mind you.  In the best interest of the nation, remember. Don’t be fooled, tell yourself.  

People talk of majorities as though they are pickpockets or worse.  People talk of majoritarianism as though it is a cuss word.  Haven’t heard of minoritarianism being used anywhere, even though minorities of the ethnic kind have unleashed violence and caused destruction throughout history.  No?  Well, research ‘English’, ‘Portuguese’ and ‘Dutch’ histories in Sri Lanka, not to mention Dravidian hordes, Tamil-speaking and otherwise, who’ve adventured here.  Well, forget all that — think of the Europeans who ‘discovered’ a new (sic) world across the Atlantic.  

Krisantha Sri Bhaggiyadatta wrote a book titled ‘The only minority is the bourgeoisie’ way back in 1985.  I can’t remember if it was in this collection but he had a pithy line in one of his books, perhaps, ‘The 52nd state of amnesia’: ‘when they say you are a visible minority, it means you’re a sitting duck!’  Well, the bourgeoisie is not the only minority.  It is a minority that is visible and perhaps so powerful that its minority status misses the eye.   

The bourgeoisie is a silent, pernicious and destructive minority.  ‘Civil society’ can’t hold a candle to the bourgeoisie of course but it is still pernicious.  Not invisible in the bandying of terms, but made visible by the fact of that which it invisibles, if one were to use the term, namely the non-existent membership in whose name it operates.  Pernicious is an apt descriptive.

Consider who civil society backed to the hilt over the past 30 years.  Among politicians, they were behind Chandrika Kumaratunga.  They were, rather reluctantly forced to back Sarath Fonseka in 2010, a man they had previously vilified since he was on the ‘other side’ of their preferred victor in the war, namely the LTTE.  They were less reluctant in their support of Maithripala Sirisena of course, but today while some of them mutter dismay over pronouncements made by the President, they treat the Prime Minister as a holy cow.  If the election of Kumaratunga was a victory for the progressives, then yes they played a role, albeit a role smaller than claims.  So too with the victory of January 8, 2015.  Both Kumaratunga and Sirisena have proven that celebration was early and unwarranted.  Civil society, anyway, is supposed to go beyond personalities and parties.  

Let’s conclude. If we talk of minorities or sections of minorities that are as bad or worse as chauvinistic majorities, ethnically speaking Sri Lanka has wholesome minorities.  Compared to that peculiar minority called ‘civil society’.  The kind we’ve discussed above.  Just to clear confusion, if you talk of the collective of maranaadhaara samithi (death-donation societies) or thrift and credit cooperatives or Sarvodaya societies, they are far more numerous, do much more in real terms to uplift communities and get a lot more done.  They too are legitimately part of ‘civil society’.  And, if we talk membership that is known, understood, acknowledged and evident in practice, they are a majority that outnumbers many times over the collective assumed to be represented by the lords and ladies of civil society.    

Civil society.  It needs to be unpacked, clearly.  If done comprehensively perhaps a true civil society might emerge and a far more useful one too. 

Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer.  Email: malindasene@gmail.com.   Twitter: malindasene.

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It is time for civil society to recover its lost/robbed identity card

Not too long ago,while interviewing Rajpal Abeynayaka and me on City FM, the presenter, Indika Jayaratne came up with a splendid proposal.  ‘Sivil samaajaya jana sathu kala yuthuda?’ he asked.  Should ‘civil society’ be nationalized or vested with the people was his question.  On the face of it this seems a meaningless idea.  It’s like asking ‘should cricket be cricket?’  Well, it is not football and it cannot be rugger, except of course in a metaphorical sense.  The validity of the question arises from the ground reality of the broad category ‘civil society’ and the identity, politics and other operations of those who consider themselves as representatives of ‘civil society’. 

First let’s get the definitions out of the way.  ‘Civil society’ is a catch-all term taken to refer to all organizations which are not public or for-profit institutions.  Thus any voluntary civic or social organization or institution outside of the structures of the state and commercial entities can be called a ‘civil society organization’.  A Dayaka Sabhava associated with a Buddhist temple, a maranaadhara samithiya (funeral donation society), or a community based organization such as the hundreds set up by Sarvodaya or the thousands by SANASA could be contained within the parameters of this definition. 

Broadly, however, the term is used by way of self-definition by a prominent set of NGOs principally operating in political spheres, self-mandated in particular to advocate transparency, accountability, good governance, democratic practices and so on.  Not only have these organizations assumed the mantle of ‘Spokespersons for civil society’, they carefully exclude around over 95% of all organizations that fulfill criteria pertaining to the definition.   It could be said, safely, that for all the democratic strutting around that the we-war-civil-society screamers engage in, they are at best a cartel, arrogant and presumptuous to the extreme and considering the fact that the clubs they form are limited to the near and dear (politically and otherwise), hardly possess the moral authority to talk about things democratic. 

For a long time it has been common knowledge that such organizations and in particular their key personnel have a) received enormous amounts of money from foreign sources with questionable standing and dubious agenda, b) operated as fronts for the LTTE, c) shown suspicious reluctance to disclose who have them money, for what and why and of course who benefited and in what ways, and d) advocated policies that are divisive and compromising of the nation’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. 

For decades, these organizations had a free hand. They made use of systemic loopholes to operate freely to the detriment of the national interest and this is an indictment of system, controlling mechanism and relevant authorities and personalities.  It looks like someone is trying to set things right and this has alarmed these individuals to the point of tears.

Feizal Samath, reports for the IPS that NGOs are facing funding gap and government scrutiny.   The body of the story focuses on the plight of the NGO cartel referred to above and not ‘civil society’ as a whole.  The quotes included in the story are from such persons.  

A ‘veteran aid worker’ is reported to have stated that ‘any NGO involved in governance, post-conflict peace or post-war trauma related work will have a problem with the authorities’.  This person laments that authorities not only track the work of such NGOs but also visit their offices.  What’s wrong with this, though?  Is he/she saying that NGOs should not be monitored?  What he/she leaves out of the story is the well-known complicity of these organizations in operations that have had serious consequences for national security.  The authorities are not tracking the other 95% of ‘civil society organizations’, are they?  While I believe that no organization, big or small, should operate with blanket impunity from scrutiny, there has to be a reason why these particular NGOs have come under investigation. 

They offer that organizations involved in governance, peace building, conflict-resolution and post-war trauma counseling are targeted because ‘anything that is considered political or empowering people to establish their rights is anathema to the establishment’.  That’s opinion and nothing more. Good for project proposals and what not.  What is left unsaid is what these organizations have done so far.  Under cover of these sweet-sounding democracy-buzzwords, they have worked closely with terrorist organizations and engaged in activities that are not necessarily of a nature congruent with the civil-society definition above. 

The National Peace Council and the Centre for Policy Alternatives are made of mutual-backscratchers who occasionally reward each other and frequently sing each other’s praises. These two organizations and Transparency International have received over Rs. 600 million from foreign sources over the past 3 years.  They are the king-pins among those who wave the civil-society flag.  They are hardly representative of anyone except the rabidly anti-Sinhala, anti-Buddhist, Colombo-based, English-educated sections of the population which constitute less than 0.0001 per cent of the citizenry. 

The claim to be ‘empowering people’ is laughable for many of these organizations were virtually operating as the mouth-pieces and brand-managers of the LTTE, an organization that not only disempowered people, but actually butchered them in the thousands.  

If the government is cagey about such NGOs, as claimed in the news report, it is something that I would welcome and applaud, not because issues of governance, transparency and accountability are of no relevance (they certainly are) but that these operators need to be investigated thoroughly.  It is something that is demanded by their long and dubious history of operating as agents of destabilization.  

J. Weliamuna, the former director of Transparency International’s Colombo office, has said ‘The government sees everybody as a challenge and has a phobia against NGOs’.  This is rubbish, unless he believes that the CPA, NPC and TI have the authority to speak for the entirety that is called ‘civil society’.  Certain outfits are being scrutinized, yes.  It is something that should have been done a long time ago.  Weliamuna says, ‘the government views civil society (again that catch-all term!) its only challenge since the opposition is weak’.  That’s self-image.  The truth is that Weliamuna and his friends cannot get 100 people for a demonstration on any issue.  

It is high time that ‘civil society’ stepped forward and demand that the likes of Weliamuna hand back the term.  They do not have the right to use it. They’ve abused it and this is because ‘civil society’ in the main had not known it could be called ‘civil society’ and for this reasons a bunch of self-seeking rogues grabbed it and along with it the ‘rights’ to represent.  

Yes, I am all for ‘peoplizing’ the term ‘civil society’.  In the interest of democracy and true representation.

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