| Civil Society Organizations as Bridges between citizens and authorities |
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A look from Central and Eastern Europe Chuck Hirt - Director of Central and Eastern European Citizens Network Twentieth anniversary This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the change from socialism to a democratic system in Central and Eastern Europe. This change came with great hopes, enthusiasm and energy. Today the reality is marked more by words such as fatigue, frustration and lack of trust. Many find themselves disappointed by the changes and unsure how to maneuver in this new environment. There of course is a basic struggle to survive. There are some being left behind in all these changes. Citizens are certainly in this category. Much of the region has changed. There has been considerable building and re-building; both literally and figuratively. New countries have been formed. Significant goals have already been achieved like EU integration. It is quite remarkable to consider all the new construction - houses, businesses, banks, shopping centers, roads and other infrastructure. McDonalds and Coke Cola are everywhere. Color has returned. We can now buy strawberries in December. Completely new structures and systems have been needed for a functioning democratic and capitalist system to function. The changes that have taken place in this relatively short time frame are remarkable. It may be hard to appreciate the new opportunities that now exist. For active citizens under socialism it was very threatening. It is now possible to be active without having, what you thought was your best friend, reporting on your activities. And not only you but members of your family and close friends. The changes have been so vast that many looking from the outside may have the sense that there is almost no difference between Western and Central Europe. But if one were to look at the area of democracy, citizen participation or activism one would see a quite different picture. There is quite limited citizen activism and there still is almost no infrastructure like community centers or other public spaces to support this aspect. There are a number of reasons for this. First of all, citizens' input is not often wanted by local authorities. In the best case, this is because it makes their lives more complicated and they already have enough to worry about. But in a number of cases, the reasons are darker in that they do not want citizens messing around and holding them accountable for their business deals. But the truth is that even if citizens were invited, they often would not be able to meaningfully contribute. They simply are not prepared. There is also a legacy of socialism that citizens learned to be dependent on the government and not trust institutions. We cannot have a true democracy unless we have active citizens, unless what is now called "civil society". Without active citizens true democracy is not possible. Unique aspects and challenges The lack of meaningful citizen participation is a shared experience across all of Europe. But there are also many unique aspects and challenges in the Central and Eastern part. For adults, there is a heritage left over from days of socialism. One of these is that people do NOT want to be members of civil society organizations. There is a general mistrust of institutions. There is a real reluctance to be a leader. There was a learned dependence under Socialism that carries over today. This is further exasperated by the fact that there are very limited public spaces for citizens to meet. There are almost no community centers or places other than schools. I remember being introduced several years ago to a book entitled Including the Excluded. The author was describing the need to find was to ensure that the voices of minority groups who are often left out of the public arena are brought in. But as I thought about it in the context of the CEE region, I realized that virtually everyone was part of the excluded at this point. Positives from the region It is tempting to emphasize the negative aspects of the situation in the region. However there are a number of important pluses from the region that should also be emphasized:
Public Arena Before moving further into this topic however, I want to introduce the concept of the "public arena". In a simple context, there are three major components: government, business and citizen/civic.
In the context of the CEE region of Europe, government is in the process of a significant transition from authoritarian structures to more devolved and democratic ones. But there are still clear structures and leadership. The business sector is rapidly emerging and they too bring clear structures and resources to the public arena. What about the citizen/civic sector? NGOs usually have structures and leadership but do these represent citizens and how active are they in the public arena? And then citizens themselves... generally have no structures and leadership as well as skills to engage in this arena. There have been considerable changes in the governmental system with devolved governmental structures at both the regional and local levels and the rise of numerous political parties. The business sector has grown even more dramatically with considerable outside investment and other support. The citizen/civic sector too has grown considerably, also with significant outside investment. But this has not yet resulted in active citizenship. The emergence of NGO's has certainly played an important role with very clear examples of national voter turnout campaigns lead by NGO's in countries like Slovakia, Serbia and a number of others where authoritarian governments were toppled as a result of getting large numbers of people to go vote. And there are a number of other examples of NGOs that are working directly with citizens in a variety of ways including community based NGOs, community foundations and our CEE Citizens Network. But in fact, NGO's in the CEE region rarely represent "citizens" in the public arena. And even fewer are helping to build the citizens capacity to be effective in this arena. Civil Society Forum There have been a number of events connected to the 20th anniversary of the fall of communism. One of these was the Civil Society Forum which took place 16th -18th September in Bratislava, Slovakia. Much of the focus of the event was on a similar topic as is being discussed here. A few of the conclusions from the distinguished group of participants included:
There were many other comments reported as well. One that I did not see listed but which I believe is a very important one is the emergence of young people and the critical need to pay more attention to this group. They were not directly affected by the previous two generations of socialism and seem to be looking for meaningful involvement. Code of Civil Participation Another aspect to consider is connected to the newly approved Code of Civic Participation document prepared by the Council of Europe. Having been one who was invited to consult during the preparation of the document, I admit to being biased but I believe that it is very well done and will provide a useful document for our region. One of the main points that I wanted to make is that the document is clear throughout that it is talking about "Civil" participation. They define civil participation as NGOs and organized civil society. They were very clear to distinguish this from individual citizens' participation. This has considerable consequences because citizens (or in turn civil society) are generally not organized in the CEE region. This is a part of the building/re-building part that has not occurred. As was noted at the Civil Society Forum, there is little being done in the area of engaging and activating people. This is one of the critical roles for NGOs to play. There is an important task as intermediary. NGOs are needed to help ensure that organized citizens are able to enter the public arena and be a part of the negotiations. What about voting? One last area and one of the most obvious indicators of the democratic deficit in the CEE region is to consider participation in voting. Voting is the minimal act of citizenship in democracy. Participation in national elections remains reasonably high although declining. But there is much less interest in local, regional and EU related elections. While this is not unique to the CEE region, there is almost no mention of concern or effort to address the underlying reasons. And the related problem with this is that the choices of candidates for office are not representative. Without active citizens it is difficult to for political parties to nominate candidates that are representative of the population. What about the bridges? So let's return to the basic question posed in this session regarding civil society organizations as bridges between citizens and authorities. It is my belief that civil society organizations are critical bridges. There are a considerable number of civil society organizations. They cover a wide scope of interests from culture to environment. Many of these are focusing on service provision. This aspect is emerging reasonably well in our region. But those who are focusing on community and the capacity building/empowerment of citizens are few and far between. They are undervalued and underfunded. If we are to meaningfully have an impact on the lack of active citizens, then there is a need to significantly invest in this area of civil society. If I were to take the question figuratively about civil society organizations as bridges and project it as an image, this is that comes close to mind: First of all, it is a bridge that is solid. It is old but has been in considerable disrepair and not used for a number of years. It was re-opened several years ago but is in need of considerable repair. There was some outside funding to get this started but certainly not enough to make it functional. Is anyone willing to pay for the construction needed to have it there? There is hope that it can be improved but much uncertainty as well. There are several questions that go along with this image of civil society as a bridge such as... What does it look like on either side of the bridge? Who wants the bridge there? So what are some possible conclusions?
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