Ramming civil society

I attended my first NGO demonstration in the mid-1980s. A few hundred people converged on Republic Street to voice opposition against Lorry Sant’s BDA Act. In that crowd I became acquainted with environmentalists and women’s emancipation groups; as a teenager they were a source of inspiration. Until that time civil society was overcrowded by the old troika: the two parties and the Church. It was not easy for NGOs to spread their wings as the main battle cry of that highly polarized context was min mhux maghna, kontra taghna. Later, in my early experiences in journalism,some colleagues often ridiculed NGOs as “erbat iqtates li jaghmlu hafna hoss” to justify their perceived lack of newsworthiness.

Civil society slowly gained momentum. Environmental NGOs particularly impacted the political agendas. With the arrival of pluralism in broadcasting in 1991, the media became hungrier for sources and NGOs provided them with perspectives that went beyond the main institutions. Civil society became further empowered with EU membership because Brussels, like the UN and its agencies, value their expertise and insights. In 2006 this newspaper celebrated the Year of Civil Society. Then we witnessed some attempts to co-opt activists into state structures although this could have been in part an attempt to tame them.

We are now seeing the ramming of civil society. In many parts of the world, the legitimacy of NGOs is sometimes questioned in relation to their representativeness and transparency; currently in Malta we can hear several choirboys singing from this hymn sheet. Let me examine some arrows that were shot to inject negative perceptions of NGOs and their leaders:

1. The insignificant trouble makers: In the beginning of this academic year, the student’s group Moviment Graffiti received an eviction order from Students’ Council, even when it is the most active group that exists on the University Campus. Only yesterday, one Graffiti activist was arrested when they showed up at Castille to object to the official visit of the Israeli Foreign Minister. They are lone critical voices and yet some high profile opinion-leaders asserted that Graffiti actions have no newsworthiness whatsoever because they are few in number and do not have professional setups.

2. Naive and malliable: Bianca Zammit, the 28-year-old woman, who forms part of the organisation ISM was shot in Gaza last April.She was described as a naive girl who played in the hands of terrorists. The organisation she chose to work for, was portrayed as “willingly giving itself to Hamas”. Ambassador Gideon Meirwas reported as saying“I am telling every Maltese mother and father - don't let your children go to combat zones.”The message quickly stuck among patriarchal segments of society; it was echoed in blogs and radio programmes by people who dismissed that Ms Zammit is in fact an intelligent independent adult.

3. Mob rule: Just before Christmas, environmentalists lambasted the construction of a farmhouse in the ecologically sensitive area of Wied tal-Marga. They were described as “mob rule” and later Exocet missiles were fired against the credibility of Astrid Vella and Lino Bugeja.These individuals are criticized both when they act and also when they do not act.

4. Myth-makers: BirdLife is now pressing for the demolition of thousands of illegal hunting hides (duri) in our countryside. Thepublic responses on the media varied. Some did not believe we have 7,000 hunting hides; in the same way they cannot believe that hunters breached the law last Autumn. Some went as far as to allege that the dead birds in the Mizieb woodland where placed by the environmentalists themselves. Moreover, BirdLife activists are often portrayed as ‘foreigners’ who like to meddlewith our dirty laundry.

5. Foreign interference: Environmental problems are hardly ever limited to nations or regions. Yet the action of Greenpeace and of Sea Shepherd were interpreted from a very local perspective. Some compared their action as an act of piracy. Malta soon ruffled its diplomatic feathers. Sea Shepherd is a radical organisation and is in fact in trouble with a number of states. But in my view it was unfair to spread the association between Sea Shepherd and Al Qaeda! Captain Paul Watson justified his intervention by saying that Bluefin tuna,which is on the brink of extinction, would have been categorized as an endangered species by CITES “if not for the economic and political intervention by Japan, China and Malta”.  Frequently international NGOs end up punching above their weight against political and economic pressures exerted by states and influential business interests.

My colleague Dr Adrian Grima aptly observed how civil society changed from hero into villain: “After [EU] accession, non-governmental, mainly voluntary organizations working in the fields of environmental protection and social justice started to demand that state institutions respect the more positive (and often demanding) rules agreed by EU member states, like environmental standards and access to information, civil society organizations became small, irrelevant, uniformed, immature, and arrogant all over again. It sounded all so familiar in a country with patriarchal institutions pitting themselves against a thriving non-governmental sector and growing concern among common people about their rights and the rights of future generations.”

Indeed the backlash is evident. We have to acknowledge that civil society is inhabited by various species: some are huge but tame; others tiny but loud; some seem stuck in their infancy whereas others have reached full maturity. Our civil society has its owls, its peacocks, and its foxes too.... and maybe some creatures tend to go into hibernation out of season. However, a pluralistic society needs a spectrum of opinions. Critical voices are not an unnecessary nuisance; they may contribute to enrich our democratic life.