Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> I'll try to answer numerous concerns raised in replies to the original
> posting in this thread.
>
> 1. Most people who responded agree that NGOs can be many diffrent things,
> some of them better than others. That is precisely the point I tried to
> get across. NGOs are not predestined to be a tool of foundation liberals.
> They can and have been representing interests of the poor/working class as
> well. Other can be pretty reactionary.
>
> But the fact that some NGOs are liberal or reactionary does not mean that
> the Left should write the whole spectrum off.
Agreed. In my limited experience, NGO's are something of a mixed bag. The biggest bunch of creeps I've come across in various places are the USAID people and the evangelical churches (David Stoll's favorite NGO's.)
> There is also evidence that international NGO networks can be very
> effective in addressing the human rights issues, especially women's rights.
>
> I can also add to it some anecdotal evidence that union organizing
> campaigns in this country tend to be much more successful if they form
> networks with local civic groups and organizations, even churches.
>
> 5. As to the point that NGOs diffused the already existing revolutionary
> potential - I do not think this argument has much merits. Virtually every
> study of social movement I know shows that social movements trabsform,
> diversify, split, disintegrate, becomo coopeted. NGOs are a manifestation
> of that process - not its cause.
The NGO's are a part of that process. At this point it might be useful to designate which NGO's and where we are talking about. James Petras,in various books and articles, has documented the way in which specific NGO's have co-opted radical popular movements in Latin America.
>
>
> Moreover, there is considerable evidence for the opposite argument (cf. the
> resource mobilisation school in social movements), namely that the more
> existing organizational form the gerater the potential for collective
> action, because of the greater availability of organizational resources
> necessary for such an action. Thinking that social movements can be
> sparked by the sheer will power alone, without material resources, sounds
> to me like culturalist-idealistic hogwash.
I was talking about actual social movements. The movement in Haiti that swept Aristide into power was one of the most dynamic, powerful, and radical movements that has existed in a long time. It organized its own relief associations, mobilization committees, medical, food coops, argiculture co-ops etc. It had virtually no material resources. It did not want or need help from NGO's.
>
>
> 6. In that light, the main point I argued was that this organizational
> form has a considerable organizing potential for the Left - a potential
> that so far is underutilized. That is also consistent with what I know of
> social movements - they need human networks for recruitment and
> organizational resource base to function. NGOs can provide both.
Don't you think the ideology of the NGO's comes to reflect their funding sources?
> 8. As to the yuppification of some NGOs. I do not put too much weight to
> cultural identities. Where some of you see a yuppie, I see a person who
> sells his/her labour for wages i.e. a worker. Moreover, workers selling
> their mental labour become an important segments of the working class.
> Dismissing this segment of the working class based on their cultural
> identity does not appear to me as a Marxist idea of social organizing.
>
> Again, I do not believe that all mental workers can be converted to develop
> a "true consciousness" - many will prefer their yuppie status and
> libertarian ideology. But that does not mean all. Unfortunately, the Left
> has not been very effective in developing a class consciousness for this
> type of workers. There is a pomo, lit-crit, text-worshiping crowd on the
> one hand, and the crowd romanticizing the blue-collar culture on the other.
> Neither seem particularly attractive, to say the least.
" A director of a research centre invited his motehr from the provinces to Santiago. He drove to the airport in his new Peugeot to pick her up. "Where did you get this beautiful car?" she exclaimed as she observed all the gadgets on the dashboard. "The institute financed it. I need it for my research to overthrow the dicatorship." he answered.
When they arrived at his suburban home. the mother gazed with wonder "Where did you get this beatuiful house?"
"The institute financed it. I need it for my research to overthrow the dictatorship"
They entered the dining room, where dinner was waiting: a table covered with shellfish, fowl, salda, fruit and fine wine. Eating heartily, She asked " Where did you get such a fine meal?"
"The institute finances it. I need it for my research to overthrow the dictatorship".
At which point, his mother plucked his ear and whispered " Be careful they do not overthrow the dictatorship and you lose everything"' ---US Hegemony Under Siege by James Petras and Morris Morley p 152.
Sam Pawlett