POLITICS: Terrorism Divides Civil Society

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

GLASGOW, Scotland, Jun 22 2006 (IPS) - Deep divisions over terrorism opened up between civil society members at the start of their world assembly in Glasgow Thursday.

They had to – there is no one view on terrorism, just as there is no one thing called civil society.

Differences are opening up between secular and religious civil society organisations, between mainstream and many of the smaller groups, between North and South, between Arabs and others, said Yuri Dzhibladze, president of the Russia-based Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights.

“Differences are opening up also over the stress civil society organisations place on terrorism on the one hand and counter-terrorism on the other,” Dzhibladze told IPS. “Some of us who say that counter- terrorism measures are as dangerous as terrorism are told that we are not interested in fighting terrorism at all.”

The stress that many civil society groups are placing on the dangers of counter-terrorism steps is also losing them public support, he said.

“In many countries the general public is getting very concerned about terrorism,” Dzhibladze said. “And they tend to support government measures rather than listen to civil society organisations that suggest that the government is not doing its job properly. The governments are succeeding in convincing people that they are doing the right thing.”

In Russia, he said, several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) successfully resisted legislation that sought to limit the capacities of NGOs. “But then the government staged a spy scandal which suggested that many NGOs are being funded by intelligence agencies. The NGO work came to be seen as related directly to security issues. This was very damaging. Many people who knew nothing about NGOs now see them as a security threat.”

Civil society groups had set out to debate the question: ‘To what extent are counter-terrorism efforts and legislation impeding democracy’. Experts pointed to several forms of the growing divergence between civil society and governments over terrorism.

But the issue of “arriving at a judicious and socially acceptable balance between security and freedom is an extremely challenged and nuanced debate,” Geoff Prewitt, civil society advisor to the United Nations Development Programme told a meeting on the subject.

“Simple solutions are hardly forthcoming as responses are highly contextual and – more often than not – driven by emotion, history, culture, value systems and other complex human interactions.” Prewitt stressed to IPS that he was offering his personal views, not those of the United Nations.

Prewitt said that “bilateral aggressiveness” has shrunk the space for institutions such as the United Nations. “Any country or geographical territory harbouring a ‘suspected terrorist’ is subject to assault by the aggrieved,” he said. “UN backing is not considered necessary, but, even more astonishing, is that Western leaders are not taking into account their own electoral base.” The war on Iraq that ignored the public view was an example of this, he said.

Civil society is directly affected by the changed scenario, he said. “The once observable boundary between development efforts and geo- political concerns is becoming less recognisable. The International Red Cross, the UN and others have been victims of violent attacks, and the neutrality of CSOs (civil society organisations) in war-torn areas has been eroded.”

Further, he said, donors are not responding proportionally to the needs of populations in true need of assistance. “Our tax dollars are politicised and polarised.” Aid ministers from the countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, a group of 30 rich nations) “have expanded development assistance aid criteria in recent years to include activities related to security measures at the cost of poverty-focused efforts.”

Civil society organisations are being forced to make compromises over “their partnerships, activities and voice,” Prewitt said. “CSOs are more risk-averse in forming broad-based partnerships given anti-terror legislation that may lead to a freezing of finances of speaking out on human rights issues as this may lead to arrest.”

Under such pressures civil society organisations are responding in widely diverging ways.

A series of civil society group meetings around the world have over years failed to produce a consensus on an agreed view or course of action over terrorism. Some members held out the hope that this civil society assembly will lead to a defined course of action on what civil society should do. But no one will be surprised if it does not.