Civil society humanizes us, seeks to control our excesses

The last fifteen years have been characterised by a global assault on democratic and human rights values, unprecedented since the end of the Cold War.

This assault has seen the demonisation of democratic values, rise of autocrats, increase in racism, xenophobia, and misogyny, and re-emergence of intolerance against those different from “us”.

It has been accompanied by a dramatic increase in economic and social inequalities, within and between states.

Two years ago, Oxfam reported that eight men owned as much as half the world! This rise of unfettered and unregulated capitalism has meant business is no longer content to influence government.

Today, in many countries, business IS the government, taking actions that increase inequality, destroy the environment for quick profit, displace millions of people for selfish gain, and extinguish anyone challenging their dominance.

The poster child for this assault on values of tolerance, dissent, and accountability has been civil society.

This trend, called Closing Civic Space, is visible across the world: East, West, North and South. Only a few countries are exempted from this trend with Iceland, Finland, Norway, and Switzerland being noteworthy.

In Kenya, the attacks have been unrelenting with epithets like “Evil Society” to “wakora networks.”

Interestingly, these attacks increase when civil society is at its most effective and visible, and when those in power feel weakened.

But it goes beyond name-calling: It extends to efforts to silence civil society, often led by the illegal NGO Coordination Board, but now including the political misuse of the Kenya Revenue Agency, as we saw when there was an illegal attempted raid on the Africa Centre for Open Governance (AfriCOG).

Yet, even with these attacks on civil society, there are only a few—even in the most autocratic states--who do not accept that civil society is crucial for societal growth, bonding and achievements.

Humans have an inherent need to join together to achieve aims bigger than the individual, and sporting associations, for instance, are a form of civil society around which there is usually no controversy.

Civil society organisations become a problem when they are fiercely independent and refuse to obey dictates of the state.

Thus, those associations that promote dissent and accountability especially from those with power—whether state or non-state actors—are the one most often attacked and reviled.

And they need not be doing human rights and democracy work. There are cases where humanitarian organisations that warn about impending famine have been attacked by states that feel embarrassed because famine—not drought--is an indictment on the incompetence of the state.

The world would not be where it is without the courage, resilience and determination of civil society organisations.

Slavery and slave trade were banned globally because of the work of civil society organisations.

Women got the right to vote, and have made tremendous gains in many parts of the world because of civil societies’ work, at great peril, including jail-time for the early suffragettes.

Today the world is inching closer to respect and non-discrimination of all human beings because of the work of the LGBTIQ community over the years, in not only forcing governments to move toward respect of all rights, but in convincing millions that Queer people are human beings with same rights and entitlements.

And it is civil society that led the incredible—though unfinished—march for equality in the USA through the civil rights movement that has inspired millions across the world.

The freedom movements in Africa and Asia were civil society movements that ended formal political colonisation: We would not be free today without civil society.

The anti-apartheid movement was a civil society movement, ending formal apartheid in South Africa in 1994.

In Kenya, the Constitution we so proudly hold up is a product of civil society’s input and determination.

The 1995 draft produced by Kenya Human Rights Commission, the Law Society of Kenya, and the International Commission of Jurists-Kenya, sparked a national movement that took the country by storm through the National Convention Executive Committee and its weekly mass actions of 1997.

Today climate change and environmental degradation are existential threats. And again, it is civil society at the forefront, pointing out the imminent dangers, and pushing for immediate action, lest we destroy this one earth we inhabit.

This activism has deadly consequences, with thousands of environmental activists killed and jailed each year for resisting development that destroys.

The one major reason to celebrate civil society is that it humanises us, seeks to control our excesses and gives us vehicles for social, intellectual and human fulfillment.

It is the wise that we elevate and appreciate civil society, because ultimately, all of us are part of civil society one way or the other.

- The writer is former KNCHR chair. [email protected]