VIEWS

Authority’s cruppers 

Oh, these non-governmental organizations! The money from foreign foundations was not enough for them, now they would like to take some from the state budget. Well, I think it’s great – they will really prove themselves as non-governmental – with governmental money, arm in arm with the government – yes, obviously that’s their “independence”! Foreigners have seen who we are, foreign money dries up and the non-governmentals have got used to a nice life, so now they are trying to suck from somewhere else. From “our money”. It’s no use. They have turned to be turncoats – as soon as they have smelt money, they have turned into governmental organizations, cruppers. Who knows how much money they get everywhere, who knows what lessons they receive from the foreigners and who knows what they are trying to install here.

And so on. There is always someone who wisely explains the sense of existence of non-governmental organizations and their relationship with the government. And that might be the moment we can see how low our political culture is, how shallowly and vulgarly we perceive things, not even trying to understand them at all.

Both the Government and non-governmentals, my dear (I tell such columnists and wise men talking to myself) share a common mission – citizens’ welfare. They both exist not to grab money, but to invest their capacities in improving citizens’ lives. So in the beginning, if it was natural for the Government to consider the strategy and non-governmental organizations to do the fieldwork, now more often governmental organizations consult not only about experiences from their practical activities, but also about the conclusions they have made out of it. These conclusions lead to a strategy, sometimes formulated, again by non-governmental organizations. Accepted and adopted by the Government, in whole, or at least as basis for further implementation.

So, we do not only have decentralization happening to us, within the requests made by IMF, the Ohrid Agreement or the Council of Europe – we also have a structural decentralization, redistribution of intellect, leadership and power – over the past years we have started to comprehend the power and the need for a non-governmental movement and in the new millennium we started to have smart power that does not want to miss these gains. In the beginning (the early ‘90s), we had a really big number of disoriented non-governmental organizations and members, happy for the opportunity to visit various seminars in Macedonia and abroad, (paid transport and hotel), to learn about strengthening capacities and human resources management, project and financial management etc., but without a clear idea what it serves for. In the course of time we have realized that civil organizing is not new for us, that we have always had non-governmental organizations, called The Scouts’ Organization “Galeb”, Association of Chemists and Technologists of Macedonia, The Red Cross Youth, Women’s Youth Choir 25 May...Even my beautician Spomenka, whom I have known for twenty years, has been collecting clothes and any kind of help for the families who take care of children without parents, but now she and her friends have a registered non-governmental organization. So we have always had objectives, we have always worked, voluntarily, most often not being paid, to realize them, but now we have learnt mechanisms to achieve them more easily, some additional funds have opened that can help us realize our objectives.

And the money from the state budget? My non-governmental organization has already had its experience (not just a theory heard at seminars) for the state to take part in our financing, not to bribe us to think as it thinks, on the contrary – it has realized that we think differently and that our opinion is correct – that it has precisely recognized a need which the state machinery itself, with its limited employment capacities cannot fulfill. So we have been financed to identify and for technical realization of a function of state’s interest. For the citizens. I have also taken part in the initiative where the state (our country, the Republic of Macedonia) has financed a group of non-governmental organizations in order to think differently, to be a critical eye that will follow the state/Government/power in its operating and will point out its omissions and propose solutions, if possible. We should not forget that family violence, as punishable behavior has been identified as a problem and recently it has finally been introduced in the legal regulations, on initiative of the non-governmental organizations, led by ESE – Macedonia. Ecology, culture, social sphere, education, recovery of the consequences of the conflict in 2001 and many other things naturally belong and are successfully considered in a great part of the non-governmental organizations. Throughout this process the country changes its relationship towards us, not as cruppers, but as different ones, and equal, since a part of the present functionaries and their close associate collaborators have grown up through the non-governmental sector, so now citizens understand the state more clearly and know how to cooperate. So one day, we might become a real country and real citizens, where cooperation will be carried out through a clearly defined system and will not depend on the good will or the level of awareness of individuals being in power at the moment. Where columnists will first think and check their data, and then sit and write. And citizens will also put politics in practice not through small talks in bars and reading columns, but through active, reasoned, civic acting and participation.
 

Jasna Shoptrajanova – Vrteva, president of the NGO “Junona – youth women power”