NGOs: Friends or Foes?
Sergei DUVANOV
NGOs that receive grants from abroad have been increasingly accused of
the lack of patriotism lately.
What kind of non-patriotism do they mean? I understand that taking
capital from the state and making it work for someone there is not patriotic. But taking
money into the country and making it work for the benefit of Kazakhstan is, on the
contrary, highly patriotic.
What kind of non-patriotism do they mean, when foreign money brings
help to children and the disabled, assist our ecology and help in liquidating legal
illiteracy of the Kazakh citizens, assist our journalists and lawyers in improving their
qualification, defend rights and freedoms of the Kazakh citizens? If the ‘patriotic’
power does not do this, let's don't prevent others from doing this at least.
I would like to hear the reasons why should we deny the external
assistance, which helps us to become educated and democratic people.
I know one of them. Nobody just gives money and we will have to work it
back, they say. It is presumed that the West grinds its own axe in giving us grants.
Someone doubts that this help is sincere. It is not for nothing, they
say! Thus, various versions emerge from the primitive ‘they want to enslave us’ to the
one pretending to be a revelation and sounding like ‘they want to enthrall us
ideologically’. Their interest is to force on us their way of life, their values and
ideals, to make us loose our uniqueness and become … like them.
The feeling that we would loose our uniqueness and start living like
the Americans is to someone’s mind the worst thing of all that could happen to us.
It looks like fears of an innocent girl, who dreams to get married but
is afraid to loose her chastity at the same time.
However if you ask someone what this originality is about none could
say something definite. As best you could hear babble about our high spirituality and
adherence to traditions. Same thing occurs if you ask about ‘western values’ or the
‘American way of life’. No one knows that for sure. In a final version it looks like
there every ‘man is a wolf to each other’ and here we support each other, very
hospitable, we pay visits to each other. In one word, a kid’s babble.
In reality the most terrible thing in those grants is that we learn
democracy for that money. And our rulers fear most because they understand that we will
change as soon as we get educated. We will be not so apathetic, humble and lamblike. It is
clear that the authorities absolutely do not need that. It is much more convenient to rule
as they like with no consideration of own people, with no pain in neck about a chance of
loosing power in the next elections.
It is clear that if they hadn’t depended on the West this alien help
would have been forbidden and NGOs would have been disbanded. Let’s recall the anger of
deputy Abylkasymov, who urged to deal with NGOs. This is a real grin of power who fear
democracy providers (NGOs) and hates them for this reason. But they can’t deal with
NGOst because they fear to spoil relations with the strong.
Fighting alien democratic ideas is handled secretly. A negative image
of those who ‘work for Western money’ is formed via controlled media and in-staff and
out-of-staff ideologists. The NGO personnel is suggested to be considered as the betrayers
of Fatherland and renegades.
Simultaneously the authorities form the institute of homespun NGOs as
an ideological alternative, so to say, to the western NGOs. These organizations will exist
on budget money and fulfill the state’s request. If we have in mind the organizations
dealing with social issues – no problem.
But what would the state’s request for the NGOs, which deal with
policy and ideology to any extent, look like? If NGOs financed from abroad are primarily
oriented toward building civil society, governmental NGOs will be undoubtedly oriented
toward ideological and political support of the existing political regime. Requests
reflect the state.
Why should the autocratic power need civil society and democratic
institutes? They are its perdition. Consequently, the organizations supported by the
authorities will have a different orientation – toward conservation of the existing
relations in society and, first of all, in politics.
They will be loyal to Nazarbayev’s authoritarianism. As best they
will lull Kazakhs’ civil activity and as worst they will educate them in the sense of
non-accepting democratic values and militant patriotism.
The authorities’ fears of democratic ideas promoted by NGOs have
grown recently because of velvet revolutions in several CIS countries. They used to think
that all those conferences, round tables, workshops are nothing else but toys. The
authorities condoned and said ‘let them spend money’. But it appeared to be not so
simple. It was correctly said once: ‘Ideas become a force when they begin to dominate
masses’. Ukraine testifies to that very well.
No matter how loud they cry today that democracy is a specifically
western product and doesn't fit us as it is, this is not serious. This is a cheap excuse.
We are no different. Those in power impress that on us to protect their uncontrolled
power, deep-rooted corruption, violation of civil rights and freedoms, lack of real
democratic mechanisms of governance. There is no other way for us.
There is no alternative to democracy. Certainly, not monarchy! Or may
be someone likes a version of Saddam Hussein, Turkmenbashi, Kim Jong Il?
No, we just laugh at their regimes. But are Nazarbayev, Lukashenko,
Putin any better? Actually, they are the same, but more cunning and fastidious. Why do we
allow to deceive ourselves and do not see that it is funny as well? We live in the 21st
century. Civilized people already determined their relationships with the power long ago
while we still argue whether the power is authorized to deceive and rob its own people or
not. And we still look for enemies among those, who attempt to help us to make our lives
like a human life should be.
It is understandable that this help is not just altruism. They are just
afraid of living side by side with ‘political savages’ on the same planet. This is
dangerous. And from the point of view of humanism it is also problematic to feel
comfortable when yet another ruler pretends to be father of the nation and does what he
wants without thinking about consequences.
Certainly, economic interest is also present. But it is not to rob
someone - like those who see the enemy in the West think - but to have civilized and
predictable partners. The West does not need to conquer and enslave anyone, it has
everything. Its objective is different: to provide conditions under which no one would
impinge upon their well being.
So they attempt to speed up the processes of democratization in our
countries. They properly consider our democracy as a real mechanism of securing stability
in the region and their own security as well. This is their economic interest, but it does
not contradict our patriotism or sovereignty. Democracy they would like to see in our
countries is not their democracy. It is our own democracy with all local peculiarities, as
in Japan or South Korea, for instance.
Civil society development via NGOs activities is one of the major ways
of speeding up democratization in Kazakhstan. Does it pose a danger for our national
interests? No, it doesn't. But there is a danger for the authoritarianism, illegal
relations, corruption and permissiveness. Consequently, those, who enjoy these
‘achievements’ of the Nazarbayev rule cry about the danger that NGOs pose for their
privileges and lack of control. Educated people should not mix up this danger and the
danger for the Fatherland.
IAC Eurasia-Internet, September 1, 2005
http://www.eurasia.org.ru/ |
