There comes a moment in the routine of any Lebanese activist to examine with a critical eye whether civil society is present on the national-policy map in any meaningful way. Do non-governmental organizations have a common agenda, without centralizing control, to influence policy-makers?
One such moment will come this Friday, July 31. In response to a recent invitation by Nahwa al-Muwatiniya, a non-governmental organization, Lebanese civil society groups will meet to begin developing a concise, high-priority agenda. There is more to the discussion than meets the eye.
Our survival as a pseudo-democratic nation has always been at risk. The culture of constructive practices in the public sphere has mostly involved attempts to reach an evasive goal. We let a majority of elected officials and self-appointed leaders off the hook. In the process we let ourselves off the hook as well. Are Lebanese officials any different from civil society activists? The former finance their agendas from Saudi, Iranian, American and European sources; the latter rely on every international donor or foreign embassy willing to give. Perhaps the difference is most apparent in the objectives, practices and transparency standards civil society sets for itself.
I join many in saluting the individual and collective initiatives of every civil society group, small or large, in Lebanon. Yet despite all the sincerely stated objectives, careful financial budgets, and ambitious action plans, so many things in our society continue to go wrong. One thing is clear: Our problems are much bigger than any donor budget could ever solve. For this reason we ought to look at Lebanon’s challenges with a different attitude. There is a fundamental underpinning that threads together all these challenges, extremely ironic in its simplicity: Perhaps our priorities are set in the wrong order, in the midst of an absent collective agenda.
It serves no purpose for the Lebanese to be consumed by the travails of Saad and Samir, Michel and Hassan, Walid and Suleiman, Amin and Nabih. These leaders are only a manifestation of what is wrong with our priorities as people bound, in theory at least, by a social contract. As this nation attempts to recover from its ills, a careful examination of our policy map would force us to look at his or her own reflection in a giant mirror.
Every market sector in Lebanon is in shambles, including the oft-lauded tourism sector. Our economy operates on monopolistic agency, in violation of anti-trust philosophies. As taxpayers we shoulder an excessive public debt due to government mismanagement and outright theft. We still accept daily electricity outages when countries worse-off don’t. Our telecom and utility bills are among the highest in the world, while the quality of services pale in comparison. Our environment is polluted. Our public education system is sub-standard. We have no right to civil marriage. The General Security directorate still censors intellectual expression. Women have no real constitutional rights. We exploit the kafeel system to hire migrant domestics. Our judicial system is defunct and our prison conditions are dehumanizing. Our safety can hinge on the actions of a kid on the street with a gun. No, this isn’t a banana republic. This is you and me.
These are plenty of reasons for individuals and civil society groups to take action on various policy issues. Lebanese NGOs have made considerable strides in civic action, from monitoring parliamentary elections and peace-building training to introducing new lobbying initiatives and capacity building. The field is busy with project implementations and breakthroughs in bringing a handful of draft laws to the government. However these strides in civic action are not generating enough influence or impact in proportion to the size of the issues themselves.
I propose that civil society groups create the beginning of a critical mass movement to bring about transformation and change. A qualitative leap is in order, and creating a permanent and effective pressure block revolving around top priority policy issues is a must. There is a need for coordinated if not cohesive approaches to professional activism in this present window of opportunity provided by relative peace. Civil society groups might find it beneficial to develop common positions, monitor developments, and coordinate interventions to push their demands onto the national policy agenda. A mechanism for information exchange and a sustained coordination framework could be extremely useful. Taking it a few steps further would mean joining hands in forming a national umbrella association for civil society groups, with unions, academic institutions and journalists, as well as development and human rights NGOs.
With the growing role of civil society, both policy-makers and the donor community might have to shift their modalities (the former’s consultative protocols and the latter’s aid conditions) with respect to civil society. Effective communication with media through a regular exchange of information would additionally pressure policy-makers.
Independent Lebanese NGOs may provide shining examples in the Arab world of how advocacy, issue-based activism and research may successfully influence the work of policy-makers. Collective success is not guaranteed as it depends on many factors, but one of those factors may be within grasp: the willingness of civil society groups to listen, talk and collaborate in more intelligent ways within a dot-nation network.
Imad Atalla, an advocate for good governance, is general secretary of Nahwa al-Muwatiniya, an independent NGO. He is also editor of Publio, an arts and literature print magazine about cultural identity. He wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR.