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Vox populi, vox Dei!
by MA Natasha Kotlar - Trajkova
The popularity of this phrase is evident even today. All of us as individuals are actors in the wider community we call society. And, of course, regardless of our background, education, actions or beliefs, we share the same ideal – building a healthy society. More precisely, a society based upon the everyday dialectics between the ideas and actions, emitted by all of us, for the sole purpose of making things BETTER.
The road to THE BETTER is the longest; it is endless. What is constant on that road is the insisting on changes: from bad to good, from good to better, from better to the best…! Therefore, the people’s voice is a request to change the existing, the current.
However, what we need to change first is us, either as actors organized in the civil, the state or the private sector. Herman Hesse says we should change our impatience, our sensitivity, the lack of love and tolerance. And, as far as our reality is concerned, I would add that we should change the culture of our behavior, the way we perceive, accept and value things.
The fact that one in every three citizens in Macedonia is socially active in any kind of civic association, only confirms that we have a powerful basis to encourage and ask for changes of that kind. The success will be complete if these demands for BETTER are simultaneously and unselfishly accepted by both, the actors in the state and the private sector. Therefore, the process of creating networks and communication between these three social factors is a necessity.
In this respect, I would remind of something else – that is the accountability – the personal and the collective. That is, the measures, the will and the criteria as strict controllers of our behavior, perception and valuing the things in front of ourselves (the civil sector), and then in front of the others (the state and the private sector). The success here depends on the mutual respect and the way we practice that accountability.
Let me return to the history for a while! In the XIX century, the Ottoman Country was a country with most projects for reforms in order to turn into a quality and modern society. However, it lacked success because the government did not have enough will, measures and criteria (accountability) for implementing the demands for changes.
There is another situation dating from our contemporary world. The association “Peperutka”, whose goal is to improve the conditions and the way of treating children with malignant diseases, implemented a broad activity in 2005 for a concrete realization of the abovementioned goal. In cooperation with a number of private companies (and one national), media and individuals, it managed to raise money for buying apparatus, improving the diagnostics and the redesigning the Oncology ward at the Clinics for children diseases in Skopje, a project worth approximately 2.9 million denars (about 48 thousand euros). If there hadn’t been for the mutual dedication (of all the abovementioned actors) to the changes for BETTER, the success would have lacked. Anyway, now the time has come for the actors in the state sector to confirm the need for changes to BETTER. Everyone from the highest to the lowest instance (The Ministry of Health, The Social Security Fund, The Clinical Centre, the doctors’ team) must put their efforts together and use all available mechanisms and capacities in order to achieve organized work, new treating protocols, healthier generations. They can only achieve that with a responsible work for themselves for the benefit of the broader community, that is, the society.
The collective welfare is a personal welfare!
It takes simultaneous, mutual and conscious action in relation civic – state - private sector in a society. It is where power of the vox populi lies!
(the author of this text is a president of the Association “Peperutka”)
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