Chris: Thanks for your reply and posting on Palestinian NGOs. My comments follow:
1. I do not believe in "grand strategy." I do not think the "West" has one toward the developing countries, nor do I think that such strategy is possible. A more plausible view is that international capital opportunistically uses whatever means are available to achieve specific objectives - but there is a great deal of contradictions, conflicting interests, unforeseen consequences etc. So the claim that NGOs are a tool of Western infiltration, while certainly true in specific circumstances, cannot be accepted as a general statement.
2. The greater the number of political players, th emore difficult it its id impose a hegemonic rule. It is no coincidence that the ruling elites tend to oppose the proliferation of political parties (cf. x-USSR or the US) - becayse it is easier to control one or two political parties representing generalized interests than several political parties representing specific interests. Following that logic, the greater the number of NGOs, the lesser the chance of hegemonic control, and the greater the chance of the Left to gain politicasl influence, even though many of those NGOs are hardly friends of the Left.
I think in the Arab world that gains special significance, because these copuntries face two perils, the lesser evil of capitalist domination, and the greater evil of Islamic state. IMHO, despite all their shortcomings, NGOs are probably the best, if not only, defence against both.
Besidees, to my knowledge, the influx of foreign institutions to the Arab world at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries was not all bad. It prompted the developmend of local associations - some of them Islamic in nature (generally a bad thing) but other secular and representing occupational interests of different groups (generally a good thing).
3. As to your question re. NGOs becoming the basis for the working class gaining its class consciousness and becoming a class for itself - my answer is tentative yes with several caveats. I think it is impossible to speak of working class in general - there are many working classes divided by gender, race, culture, national id etc. Some of their interests are common, while other are not. Therefore, thinking of one totalizing "one-size-fits-all" working class consciousness is either impossible to attain or smacks of totalitarianism.
In that context, civil society (whatever that is) organization can act as mediating force between general interest of the working class (stemming from its sale of labour power to capital) and specific interests of geographically and historically defined working classes. In other words, they can facilitate communication and mobilization of the working class to fight for its common interests without reducing specific interests and concerns stemming from working in a particular social environement to those generic class interest.
I think is a very practical solution to the old problem of "reductionism" of race, gender, nationality etc. to class - that has been plaguing the Left for some time.
Regards,
Wojtek
>http://www.fav.net/NGOAsExtensionsOfWesternGovernments.htm
>
>The Free Arab Voice
> (Your Voice in a World where Racism, Steel, and Fire have turned
> Justice Mute)
>
>The *FREE ARAB VOICE*
>July 16, 1998
>
>This issue of the Free Arab Voice is devoted to the issue of
>non-governmental organizations (NGO's) and how some of them end up
>becoming, in spite of their names, extensions of the policies of
>Western governments and tools to infiltrate our societies and grass-roots
>organizations.
>
>The first article in this issue looks at THE WESTERN FOUNDATIONS THAT
>FINANCE LOCAL RESEARCH AND NGO's IN ARAB STATES. It was submitted to
>the Free Arab Voice by Abdallah Hammoudeh, a Palestinian Arab from
>Jordan who is a writer, researcher, political activist, trade unionist,
>and a former member of the PFLP leadership in Jordan.
>
>A second article about NGO's IN THE WEST BANK AND GAZA is a summary
>outline quoted from Canaan (a cultural bimonthly that comes out of the
>West bank, issue no. 88, January 1998) with permission from the author
>Adel Samara, Canaan's editor. It delineates hard-hitting and specific
>points regarding Palestinian NGO's that receive Western funding in the
>West Bank and Gaza.
>
>Abdallah Hammoudeh presents his work on Western foundations in the form
>of research that he has expended a great of effort compiling and
>analyzing. Nonetheless, his approach is not to incriminate, but to
>illuminate. He does not issue sweeping generalizations indicting all
>non-governmental organizations and their members where ever, but rather
>tries to identify the strategy and methods of Western governments to
>achieve control through NGO's and "research funding".
>
>In the U.S. and the U.K., there are NGO's like the Peace Corps or
>Amnesty International that contain many people of good will, but these
>individuals are not the ones to draw the grand strategy of the Western
>governments towards the third world. Furthermore, whatever criticism
>we, Abdallah Hammoudeh, or Adel Samara may have against some NGO's or
>Western foundations, you can rest assured that it doesn't apply at all
>to groups or individuals anywhere who are working hard to publicize the
>Palestinian cause or lift the siege off Iraq.
>
>Moreover, we publish this critique of NGO's that receive Western
>funding knowing fully well that Arab regimes in general have always
>tried to crush the institutions of civil society. The solution though
>is not to be become a pawn of Western governments, or an extension of
>their post-colonial policies. An African proverb says that when two
>elephants struggle, it is the backs of the blades of grass beneath that
>break the most. The grass, being the Arab people, has to find a way not
>to be stomped upon by either of the elephants to survive and remain free.
>And eventually the grass is greater than the elephants for the grass will
>swallow them both up when they die and disintegrate.
>
>Hopefully you'll find the information and analysis below useful...
>
> The Free Arab Voice
>
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>= = = = =
>Subscribe to THE LINK, or give it to your English-speaking friends as a
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>THE LINK is a publication of Americans for Middle East Understanding
>(AMEU).. A detailed source of information about U.S. aid to "Israel",
>U.S. foreign policy in the Arab world, and the facts of the
>Arab-Zionist conflict.
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>#######################################################
>1)THE WESTERN FOUNDATIONS THAT FINANCE LOCAL RESEARCH AND NGO's IN
>ARAB STATES by Abdallah Hammoudeh
>
>It is obvious that societies, like people, can't live isolated. They
>need to cooperate to survive and thrive especially in the shadows of
>today's massive communications revolution. However, each society and
>individual stands unique in his or her own character. And it is
>concern for the independence of the character of our society and people
>that motivates this paper.
>
>Before proceeding nevertheless, two things need to be clarified at the
>outset:
>
>1) Western foundations on our soil are to be considered extensions of
>the policies of their governments and organizations in their mother
>countries, as they say in their own literature. Individuals on the
>other hand may have good intentions, and people should not be always
>held responsible for the policies of their governments.
>
>2) Western foundations on our soil are not all the same. They have
>different interests and agendas, and some are infinitely more dangerous
>than others. However, the fact that they operate publicly and overtly
>doesn't make the dangerous ones any less harmful. Rather, it is their
>role in our society that should determine where we stand towards them.
>The particular seminars they conduct and the information they collect
>are not at issue here, but their huge permeation of our social structure
>to obtain leverage. The issue is their attempt to know EVERYTHING
>about us and to incubate local models to inoculate us with their viewpoints.
>THAT IS THE HEAVY SOCIO-POLITICAL PENETRATION of Arab society which
>these foundations can undertake, but only because they have over us the
>advantage of lots of money to spend and plenty of media access.
>
>Who's Using Whom?
>- - - - - - - - -
>As many of our professors, research centers, and non-governmental
>organizations (NGO's) compete for funding from these Western
>foundations, the real question becomes who is using whom!! What are
>the conditions attached to the money spent locally? Who benefits more from
>the aid, us or them? As a consequence, is this relationship with these
>Western foundations going to carry our societies a step forward or a
>step backward? This is the real question that begs an answer.. So
>let's first look at the record.
>
>Looking at the Record
>- - - - - - - - - - -
>In the 1920's, there was in Palestine under the British mandate an
>association known as the Research Association which collected
>information about persons, families, and the country as a whole. Later
>on, this so-called association became known as the Shamllan Institute
>in Lebanon (closed down in January 1997). According to the former British
>Ambassador to Lebanon in a speech praising the accomplishments of the
>institute (Al-hayat, 11/1997), this center graduated all the British
>Ambassadors to the Arab world as well as the head of the British
>Council, the British Ambassador to the United States, and the present
>director of British intelligence!!!
>
>Nowadays, there are dozens of such institutes and Western foundations
>operating all over the Arab world. they are typically American,
>British, French, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Canadian, or Australian.
>They study and work with everything from women's issues to rural
>development, clinics, social research, the environment, political
>parties, democracy, population growth, family structure, the
>constitution (or lack of), and ways of encouraging small businesses,
>but very rarely the transfer of technology for example.
>
>Yet all their activities in these areas are usually subsumed under the
>broad title of WESTERN FOUNDATIONS WORKING WITH LOCAL NON-GOVERNMENTAL
>ORGANIZATIONS (NGO'S). The sheer breadth of their areas of interest
>thus gives them unprecedented access to local writers, professors,
>journalists, women activists, parliamentarians, political parties,
>opposition leaders, and the most distant of Arab regions.
>
>For example, in Jordan, the American Near East Foundation (NEF), which
>has been in the country since 1937, cooperated with USAID and others to
>reach and thoroughly research distant villages like Azznaibah, Alghal,
>Alhamayydeh, and the Wadi Arabah Region.
>
>Another example is found upon reading the publication of AMIDEAST in
>Jordan where we are told that in 1994 alone, over 12,000 people were
>received who were interested in studying in the U.S. We're also told
>in the same publication that AMIDEAST sometimes contacts the parents
>offering advice, and that it has sponsored other programs like an
>information network for Arab women.
>
>But this is really the less interesting part of the picture. American
>institutions like NEF, Fulbright, the Ford Foundation, Rand, Brookings,
>and the research centers of Georgetown and Harvard University include
>think-tanks that influence U.S. foreign, presidential, congressional,
>and defense policy, i.e., they are very governmentally connected. Yet
>they have been given free reign by some of our Arab regimes to operate
>on our soil as they please [at a time when opposition group activity is
>highly restricted - FAV].
>
>For example, the Washington Institute in particular has been very
>active in trying to get the Arab mind to accept "Israel". It prepared
>the main papers of the Madrid Conference and held meetings with dozens
>of Palestinian and Arab writers and opinion leaders to market the policies
>of the U.S. government. In fact, Martin Indyck and Dennis Ross themselves,
>two Zionist Jews who are influential Middle East policy makers, are counted
>among the pillars of the Washington Institute (The Egyptian weekly, Al
Yassar,
>no. 94, January 1997, pp. 11-16).
>
>The Fulbright Foundation offers scholarships by the hundreds and has
>dozens of agreements with Arab universities and ministries of
>education. It has worked hard to build goodwill with the Arab people,
>then it announced the establishment of the Annual Isaac Rabin Award!!
>
>Throw Cash like Trash
>- - - - - - - - - - -
>Muhammad Hassanain Heikal, the Egyptian writer and journalist said in
>the Lebanese daily Assafir (January 7, 1997): "My opposition to foreign
>finance of local research is that it is totally out of control. It
>reminds me of the English proverb about how whoever pays the piper gets
>to pick the tune. We have no say whatsoever in the direction of this
>research financing. We don't know to whom the results of all this
>research are eventually presented! In the absence of any supervision
>of any kind, this undirected financing of research enters perhaps to
>control the mind and behavior of our society...What's happening in
>Egypt now is like nothing happening anywhere else. I mean when research
>is openly financed by the CIA or the Israeli Academic Center, HOW COULD
>THAT BE NORMAL?! Can we really separate academic research from those
>who are going to benefit from it?!!"
>
>Moreover, the Egyptian weekly Roselyousif (July 11, 1994) said that the
>Ford Foundation alone spent about $800,000 in Egypt in 1993 on
>research, out of which about one-fourth was used to research matters
>related to "peace and security". The overall reciepients of Ford's money
>were 4 governmental organizations, two private groups, a studies center,
>the American University in Cairo, the Police Academy, and 25 non-governmental
>organizations (NGO's).
>
>The French Connection
>- - - - - - - - - - -
>The French in turn have the Center of Research and Studies on the
>Modern Middle East which is financed by the French Foreign Ministry.
>There's also the French National Scientific Center which studies Hamas
>and the Muslim Brotherhood. But perhaps one of the strangest kinds of
>research that the French are doing is a more comprehensive survey of the
>Christians of Palestine and Jordan on the individual and family level
>and the kinds of churches that they are affiliated with.
>
>FAFO: The Norwegians Playing it Cool
>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>In August 1990, the Norwegian FAFO foundation began a comprehensive
>survey study of the West Bank and Gaza employing tens of Palestinian
>personnel in the process. The results of the study were announced
>after three years in August 1993, i.e., one month before the secret deal
>that was cooked in Oslo the capital of Norway went through.. Before that
>however, some of the Palestinians participating in the survey somehow
>became involved with the Madrid and the multiple peace talks.
>Strangely enough, the head of FAFO himself, Mr. Larsen, became the resident
>representative and coordinator of the United Nations Secretary General
>in Gaza!!
>
>In Jordan, FAFO finished about a year ago another survey about
>Palestinian refugees there. According to the Jordanian daily
>Addoustour (August 28, 1994), FAFO was commissioned by the Jordanian
>government to do another three-year survey of Jordanians in February 1994...
>
>The Germans Don't Beat Around the Bush!
>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>Fredrick Newmann is a German foundation concerned with the environment
>and population policy. This foundation advocates the official western
>line on these issues as can be gleaned from an article written by the
>Newmann's representative Mr. Rodahl in Rissalat al Bi'ah which is
>issued by the Jordanian Environmental Society.
>
>Nevertheless, in a meeting held in Amman, Jordan on December 11, 1994
>for non-governmental organizations (NGO's), Mr. Rodahl told everybody
>that what he really wants to do is common workshops with Israelis, and
>whoever wants to go to "Israel" should contact him personally!!
>
>A Matter of Cultural Indoctrination
>- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>In conclusion, the lack of local funds for local research and
>supporting NGO's is naturally one major loophole through which these
>foreign foundations can seep through into our social fabric. As Muhammad
>Hassanain Heikal pointed out in additions to his remarks in Assafir
>above, about one-third of Egyptian professors are now working directly
>or indirectly for these foundations. Yet when one watches so much
>western money being shed to "research" Arab states, contact Arab
>people, and financing local NGO's, one just has to wonder what the real
>purpose is.
>
>In the most innocuous of cases, the effect is cultural, where we give
>up our culture and adopt another. Then the more dependent our culture
>becomes on the culture of the West, the more it appears in a local and
>national custom, the more the "world" refers to the West, the more
>"human" becomes Western, and "money" becomes greenback Uncle Sam
>dollars.
>
>Therefore, we need to make others aware of this and to develop a
>coherent Arab grass-roots strategy for dealing with these foundations.
>
>#######################################################
>2) NGO's IN THE WEST BANK AND GAZA by Adel Samara
>
>* NGO's were first used by Western governments to break through the
>refusal of the peoples of the third world to deal directly with former
>colonial regimes.
>
>* NGO's are local, but their financing is not. This poses the question
>of where their true allegiance lies.
>
>* In the West Bank and Gaza, the source of the animosity between the
>PLO leadership and NGO's harks back to the time when Western governments
>were opening lines of communication with popular organizations trying
>to create an alternative Palestinian leadership to the PLO, before the
>latter itself capitulated.
>
>* Eventually, these Western governments succeeded in recruiting a group
>of intellectuals, technocrats, and former leftist activists, thus
>snatching them away from popular organizations to make NGO's out of
>them that are totally dependent on their financiers and which implement
>those financiers cultural and political agendas.
>
>* Proof of the above statement can be found in the fact that NGO's in
>the West Bank and Gaza that oppose the Oslo Agreement DON'T GET MUCH
>FINANCING OR MEDIA COVERAGE. The opposite is true. Those NGO's which
>support Oslo get more financing.
>
>* We have to draw a clear distinction between popular organizations
>like workers, students, or women's groups, and offices consisting of
>1-4 highly paid employees, financed by the U.S. administration, and
>claiming to be the local heroes of democracy.
>
>* The latter may call themselves NGO's and even demand to supervise the
>operation and financing of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA),
>but not vice versa. When in fact, both, the alleged NGO's and the PNA
>need to be somehow supervised by the people!!
>
>###################################################################
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