THE TWO SOULS OF CIVIL SOCIETY

By Roberto Savio and - - Reprint | | Print |

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ROME, Jul 1 2003 (IPS) - In just a few years civil society has transformed itself from a disparate galaxy of NGOs into a global network that plays an important role in the World Social Forum, writes Roberto Savio, president emeritus of IPS and a member of the International Council of the World Social Forum (WSF). In this article for IPS, Savio writes that the political system has reacted by calling into question the legitimacy of civil society, dismissing it as anti-global, or anti-historical and romanticist. Civil society is made up of two distinct generations. The first, born in the 1970s, identified with the paradigm of development. It was surpassed in force and participation by the second, forged in opposition to globalisation in the late 1990s. It considers the march of neo-liberal globalisation so powerful and dominating that nothing is more important than denouncing and blocking it. Thus we now have Global Civil Society. Its growth will probably continue to intensify, primarily because of the use of new technologies and mutual understanding. The organisers of the WSF expected about 5000 people in Porto Alegre in 2001; 30,000 showed up. In 2003 the number reached about 100,000.

In just a few years civil society has transformed itself from a disparate galaxy of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) into a global network that plays an important role in the World Social Forum. The political system has reacted by calling into question the legitimacy and representational power of civil society, labelling it radical and non-constructive and dismissing it as anti-global, or anti-historical and romanticist.

The demonstrations against the meetings of the G-7, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) have become the symbol of this relationship. But this is only the visible part of a far more profound and transcendent phenomenon: a large and growing gap between civil society and political institutions which can be found at different levels in all countries. Analysis of this phenomenon is essential to understanding the expansion of the World Social Forum.

It should be remembered that civil society is made up of two distinct generations. The first, born in the 1970s, identified with the paradigm of development, an area of consensus and commitment for the international community to be worked out together, between the North and the South, to improve the conditions of the dispossessed, providing them with economic, social, and cultural instruments to build a more just and viable world.

This was the context that gave rise to the NGOs for human rights, the environment, women’s rights, education and health care, and other global issues that constitute the UN’s reason for being. The major UN conferences of the 1990s –on the environment in Rio, on population in Cairo, and on women in Beijing– conferred legitimacy on this first generation of civil society.

Before this evolution, the NGOs that defended human rights were considered illegitimate by authoritarian governments. Later they became part of an agenda endorsed by the international community and as such they won recognition and acceptance. Thanks to the Internet, the NGOs organised into networks whose function was not only the interchange of experience but often mutual protection and assistance.

The NGOs transformed themselves into pressure groups in the parliaments of the industrialised countries, seeking to broaden and strengthen aid and development policies. And in the recipient nations, governments looked on powerless at the growing importance of the NGOs in the execution of programmes and projects, as donor countries increased the amount of their development aid budgets that went to NGOs from 5 percent in 1985 to 25 percent in 1995.

The first generation of civil society was surpassed in force and participation by the second, which was forged in opposition to globalisation in the late 1990s. It is a generation that considers the march of neo-liberal globalisation so powerful and dominating that nothing is more important than denouncing and blocking it. The major mobilisation in Seattle 1999 can be seen as its date of birth.

This second generation draws its legitimacy from the rejection of the international institutions which, in contrast to the first generation, it considers actors in the process of globalisation. It rejects with even greater conviction political parties and other political institutions, which it sees as part of the problem and not allies for a solution.

Initially relations between these two generations were not good. NGOs were considered bureaucratic or obsolete by the new groups, which the former considered too radical. The World Social Forum at Porto Alegre, which met for the first time in January 2001, allowed both generations to meet and understand each other.

The integration process grew more evident with subsequent WSFs, dedicated increasingly to proposing alternatives and not simply denouncing neo-liberal globalisation. The movement also incorporated two others, the feminist and the indigenous movements, which had travelled separate roads but soon became powerful engines for the WSF.

Thus we now have Global Civil Society, within which each component large and small has it function. Its growth will probably continue to intensify, primarily because of the use of new technologies and mutual understanding. In effect, the WSF would not have been possible without the Internet. The organisers of the WSF expected about 5000 people in Porto Alegre in 2001; 30,000 showed up. In 2003 the number reached about 100,000. (END/COPYRIGHT IPS)