VIEWS: Dr Biljana Vankovska

(Ir)responsibility of the civic sector

Not so long ago, it seemed that we were witnesses of regeneration of the civic sector: the post-conflict period and especially the one in the eve of the parliamentary elections from 2002 created an illusion that finally we would release ourselves from a fragmented, impotent and sterile civil society. Under the motto “Power is in people”, the non-governmental sector rushed into the actual processes, and of vital importance for the country.

The result was visible, and after the constitution of the new Government there seemed to start a period of constructive cooperation between the politics and the civil sector. Unfortunately, the “honey moon” ended and the civic sector is again pushing itself (or locating itself) on the margins of the social processes.

Rarely someone openly contests the premise that a democratic country relies on the potential (certainly including the one about critical thinking) of the civil society and the civil society can only flourish in conditions of real (positive) peace and democracy. However, what has been happening lately shows a sad picture. In the agony of the deep crisis of legitimacy, the power and the ones around it, start looking for enemies in their own critical elite. Today it becomes shameful to be an expert, because the criteria for respecting someone’s expertise become tensile categories, depending on whether they are in a function of supporting some government’s proposal or not; and vice versa, those who are not in power use the “negative” of the same criterion. Professors of the highest rang unscrupulously devalue themselves (probably as a moral to other mortals), and the expert’s advice is defined as “pushing something down somebody’s throat“. For months, a part of the non-governmental sector and the intellectual elite have been trying to point to the importance and dangers related to the process of territorial organization of the country, but the government stayed closed in its own world of self-absorption, where there is a belief that they know what is the best for the citizens, but they are trapped in the illusion that citizens will believe them. The Government has stayed faithful to its strategy that it does not go to a knowledge quiz (so what for intellectuals and experts), but to elections – that are won by promises. In the end, it turned out that the Government has underestimated not only the knowledge, but its own citizens, too. Thus, one more chance has been missed, through a constructive dialogue to come to the best and generally accepted solutions.

Nowadays the civic sector is in crisis, just as the political system is. The division of ours and yours starts, of constructive and destructive critics, sub-sectors of the civic sector, that are again labeled depending on the ethnic and political relationship and closeness with the ones in power.

Therefore, it is worth bringing to mind the characteristics of a vital and healthy civil society. The promotion of “general good”, essential values, as democratic ruling, human freedoms, non-violence, social justice etc. are deeply political contents. No one can stay indifferent and neutral when such essential issues are considered. The thing is clear: as Confucius says, there is no bigger cowardliness than to know what is right, and not doing it. The fact that we are out of politics, and we are passive observers of the dangerous flows towards which the society moves, does not release us from the responsibility, on the contrary – it makes us accomplices. And the end of our life starts when we become mute for things that are of essential importance, said the wise Martin Luther King.

 

(The author is a director of the Center for Democracy and Security at the Euro-Balkans Institute and a regular professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje)