Whither CIVIL SOCIETY?

I think that the way we use the term of civil society in modern Sri Lankan context, has created a very much debatable and problematic meanings. This complex nature commences from the point of giving a meaning to this concept up to the practice of it under different contexts. In addition to the above, vagueness of the nature of using ‘civil society phenomenon’ in our time leads us to think that the practices of civil society mean either ‘everything under the sun & the moon’ or ‘it does not represent anything at all’. I have mentioned in my previous column that the ‘civil associational net works’ in Sri Lanka can be identified in a three-fold manner according to the historical times in the political evolution in the country. I would like to continue today’s column from that point onwards.

We could easily identify that the ‘later part of the colonial rule and the first 30 years of the independent Sri Lanka’ as the first phase where the ‘non state elite actor’ emerged as new outside partner to the governing mechanism. This trend was developed up to the new introduction of volunteer organizational network in the country.  If we barrow a word from Alexix de Tocqueville’s we could argue that the ‘idea of associationalism’ was mainly introduced to post-colonial Sri Lanka in the form of clubs and/or religious reformative initiatives in this time. These civil spaces were then identified as the gathering-grounds of elites under their respective engagements. Creation of cricket clubs such as the SSC or the NCC and the formation of religiously colored gatherings such as the YMBA or the YMCA are some of the examples for these civil networks.  Since the indirect colonial influences were still dominating then official Ceylonese government, the trend of civil associational engagements were spread into further divisions and categories of the society. 

 The left movement of the country which marked its inception in 1930’s, has advocated and organized trade unions in different sectors of the public and private enterprises as an ‘anti-state’ agency. This move can be considered as a different level of civil engagement. The trade union driven civil networking has been functioned until the introduction of open economy system in 1977. The UNP led government which was headed by JRJ has introduced the open economy with a political authority under the newly created powerful unit of executive presidency. The logical result of this process was revealed at the reaction of the government to the trade union action (1980 general strike) and all the civil engagement through trade unions were crashed out and were completely destroyed. 

The new form of the civil society, which we experience today, has emerged under the newly created socio-political and economic system. We have experienced this form of civil society in Sri Lanka mainly after the change of government in 1994. In my opinion, this was the notable conjuncture where the internationally funded NGO’s started to rejoin their activities directly as non-governmental partners. They placed themselves as international partners of local; THE CIVIL partner against the state! We should also note here that the overthrowing or the defeat of the LEFT politics globally and locally has also aggravated this situation.

Dr. Charitha Herath

 Senior Lecturer at the 

University of Peradeniya

Writer can be reached via 

charith9@yahoo.com

As Rob Jenkins argues in his paper on Mistaken the ‘governance for ‘politics’: Foreign Aid, Democracy and the Construction of Civil Society, with this internationalized founding arrangements “the idea of civil society has entrenched itself within a diverse array of cultural and intellectual settings” in the global south. This development mainly creates ‘logical space’ to have contradictory phenomenon such as  ‘internationalized-local civil society’ in post-colonial society like Sri Lanka. According to Jenkins, many professionals including scholars, policy makers, analysts have constructed “an elaborate discourse around the role played by civil society in the process of social economic and political changes in post-colonial societies”.

Though many civil society organizations in Sri Lanka have converted its role from ‘development’ engagements to ‘political affairs’ with the change of 1994, I don't think that their active participations have been completely shifted  into  the domain of power politics ( or ‘real politik’  in the ground)  like they have done in 2015 presidential election.  As indicated by many reports, INGO’s have become real ‘international partners in our progress’ by directly involving many political affairs in party political level of the country. It is important to note here that some of those activities varying from just training social media activists of parties to buying MP’s from one party to other for achieving the ‘project objectives’ of REGIME CHANGE. Most interesting feature of this exercises to me was the cross-checking and mutual power grabbing activities which have occurred after the regime was changed.  Some of the civil activists became candidates of main parties in the next election, some became advisors of the president and most importantly, some key members were included into the pay list of the government agencies.

Now I can go back to my main reading of KEY WORDS FOR TODAY book and could share a saying from that text with you. Sharing many different sides of using and meanings of the word ‘civil society, authors say that this new role of changing societies through international non governmental organizations have also been taken as an important use of the word. Key Words For Today further reveals that “It is thus a currently much contested term in globally, opposing those who see non- governmental organizations (NGOs) as crucial to developing strong democratic societies against those who argue that such NGOs simply reduplicate the rule of Western elite” (p45)