Civil Society in Namibia: History, Context and Possibilities (Part 3)

ANDRÉ DU PISANI WRITES:From experience, we know that States are never "neutral" notwithstanding their public claims to be so. State elites and their networked economic partners/clients, both national and international, exploit the political space afforded to them in virtue of their control over the State and its resources, often to their own advantage.From the perspective of political practice and sociology, the Namibian State has elements of the politics of "corporatized liberation" or as Henning Melber prefers to call it "authoritarian liberalism", meaning that patron-client relations of a special kind, the politics of intimate liaison and the centrality of a hegemonic party characterize the way the State actually works. Within this, civil society has to find it's rather circumscribed space, notwithstanding that the country occupies the number one position in Africa in terms of the freedom of the media. The Namibian State, and international donor agencies, has one thing in common, which is their intentionality. They are deploying considerable economic and political resources to fashion change.PRAISE SINGERSBecause the notion of "civil society" is thus employed instrumentally, notwithstanding the political grammar of the Harambee Prosperity Plan (HPP), we are justified in seeking to determine whether the logic which underpins the particular conception the aid agencies and the State have developed is consistent with the achievement of their stated objectives, and whether it is compatible with other principles which they are ostensibly committed to. From the perspective of the Namibian State and Government (as the agent of the State), civil society is seen as "positive" if it sings from the same hymn sheet with the words Vision 2030, NDP 5 and Harambee Prosperity Plan written all over it. The political grammar that permeates the recent Harambee Prosperity Plan (HPP), too, works with an instrumental notion of civil society and uses (perhaps deliberately?) the concept of "Governance", interchangeably with the idea of "democratic politics"."Governance" is the product of democratic politics and should not be equated with it; it requires democratic politics to manifest. Foreign aid/donor/development partners in the advanced capitalist "northern" countries have identified civil societyas the key ingredient in promoting democratic development in Namibia and the developing world more generally. The logic runs roughly as follows. Development requires sound policies and impartial implementation. These can only be delivered by governments that are held accountable for their actions – I hope you hear the "music" of the HHP?TAINTED ACCOUNTABILITYAccountability in turn, depends on the existence of "autonomous centres of social and economic power" that can act as watchdogs over the activities of politicians and government officials.Civil society consists of both the associations that make up these "centres" and the "enabling environment" that permits them to operate freely; therefore, aid to the "democracy and governance sector" must go towards both individual civil society associations as well as the environment within which they carry out their functions.From the standpoint of the role into which civil society has been cast in promoting democracy and accountable government, responsive policy and economic performance, there are several problems with this model in Namibia.EXPECTING TOO MUCH?The most serious shortcoming is that of expecting too much of civil society, if one considers that an important part of it has been co-opted by the State, and has for all intent and purposes become an extension of the State, as in the case of organized labour, while some media agencies are politically aligned and partisan in their reporting and role definition. The different meanings and roles assigned to civil society are in effect, context-dependent. There is nothing inherently wrong in this. The problem arises when efforts are undertaken to operationalize these varying conceptions by building or energizing the Namibian civil society through foreign/external resources and support.In Namibia, the main difficulty is and has been that the understanding of civil society is not and has not been capable of producing, in a coherent and systemic way, the three main outcomes that foreign assistance to civil society is designed to produce: (1) a transition to meaningful competitive politics, (2) the ongoing consolidation of democracy, and (3) positive developmental performance.There is clearly a disjuncture between what civil society is widely expected to achieve, and what it actually is capable of achieving in the context of political practice.What for example, has been the role of local civil society actors in the formulation of the HPP? In which policy domains have such actors played more than a passing or legitimizing role? What role does the local civil society play in national planning and in the composition of the National Budget? How transparent is budget setting?RELEVANCYThe second problem with attempting to ignore the multifaceted nature of actors that operate within the local civil society is that it leads to a-historicity. Many of the Namibian civil society organizations were formed under different historical conditions, often prior to independence, to those that pertain today.This explains why most of the local churches have seemingly lost their moral voice in the post-apartheid era. Why the student and youth organizations have never regained their community activism and potential to mobilize compared to the mid-1980s. Why organized labour and its leadership have seemingly diluted their primary mandate of promoting and protecting the interests of workers, also against the State.A third problem is conceptual. How inclusive should one define the construct of civil society in this country? What is the difference between civil society and social movements? Is there a difference?Is virtual space, such as Facebook, You Tube, and Twitter part of civil society? Traditional healers, "the Struggle Kids", the National Youth Council of Namibia (NYCN), the National Youth Service (NYS), traditional leaders and the various Chiefs Councils, rural men and women of the peasantry, The Landless Peoples Movement (LPM)?Also, should there be a strict divide between political parties and other principled interest associations, such as environmental advocacy groups and women's organizations, the Lesbian Gay and Trans-Gender community; those who mobilize around rather exclusive social identities, formal and informal traders, all "intellectuals", "organic" and "meta"?

Civil Society in Namibia: History, Context and Possibilities (Part 3)

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Civil Society in Namibia: History, Context and Possibilities (Part 3)

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