Yesterday’s Guardian contained an article that is an interesting sign of the times.
Says the subheading:
The ‘war on terror’ is being used as cover for a sustained assault on the independence and progressive agenda of NGOs, says Abigail Fielding-Smith
It may seem like a cheap joke to go on about what a perfect name that is for the piece: Abigail Fielding-Smith. Abigail. The hyphen. But I think this name is more than just a joke, because what is happening here is that an entire Ruling Class that was, which was quietly but firmly taking over the world, with no muss and no fuss, is being rudely challenged by a new Ruling Class that is: America!!!
The horror.
The so-called “war on terror” is radically reformulating many aspects of world politics, not least the international nongovernmental organisation (NGO) sector.
“War on terror”. So uncouth, unnuanced and confrontational.
Broadly defined as not-for-profit, autonomous organisations working in the global public interest, NGOs play a pivotal role in international society. They have a strong advocacy voice in intergovernmental politics and are viewed by some as the “third sector” (after intergovernmental bodies and corporations) of international society. Kofi Annan calls them “the conscience of the world”.
Northern governments respected the NGOs’ flexibility, commitment and capacity to respond to (and prevent) international crises in a way that the interstate system could not. Consequently, the proportion of aid budgets given to intergovernmental organisations such as the UN decreased during this period, while funding for NGOs rose steadily. International NGOs now receive one-quarter of the average northern government’s total aid budget; the French government gives them nearly half.
Abigail Hyphen Stroke Money was quietly taking over the world, in other words.
But now those infuriatingly heroic Arabs with their hijacked airplanes have really upset the apple cart, haven’t they? They’ve only gone and got the Americans seriously interested in the big wide world out there. And instead of just paying for them in the old style, the Americans have started trampling all over the shins of the NGOs. With the result that those ghastly Arab resistance heroes, never inclined to make very many fine distinctions, now make no distinction at all between the Great Satan and the Lesser Satans of Oxfam, the Red Cross, and the rest of them.
In Iraq, many NGOs have tried to distance themselves from coalition governments by refusing to accept their money. The attack on the neutral ICRC in Baghdad on October 27 demonstrated the futility of this attempt. As Alistair Dutton, emergencies officer for Cafod, explained: “If our government is the occupying power and we are distributing food, where is the distinction between those who wage war and those who distribute humanitarian goods? Politicians have chosen to coin the phrase ‘humanitarian war’ and they have therefore co-opted us, arguably.”
Distinctions are further blurred in Iraq by the unprecedented use of for-profit organisations in the reconstruction operation.
Those vulgar Americans. Not content with having a “war”, they also want to do trade everywhere.
It gets worse:
Another source of pressure on NGOs’ independence is the political environment of the “war on terror”. While the threat of terrorism is real and important, there is no international agreement on what it is. The concern in the NGO community, particularly in the US, is that the taint of terrorism may be used to discredit the work of politically dissenting international NGOs, or even to stop their funding.
The piece concludes:
Many of these trends existed before September 11. But the “war on terror” has created an acute need for NGOs’ international expertise while at the same time providing justification for glossing over or rooting out their progressive political agenda. At a time when it is needed most, “the conscience of the world” looks vulnerable.
The NGOs are still in business, but they’ve been demoted. They used to be in charge, but now they are only taking orders. It must be very galling.
This posting is about what is happening and about what Abigail Fielding-Smith thinks about it, and it may well be that the lady doth protest too much, and that actually the NGOs are not really being permanently stopped from becoming a new global Civil Service, and that they are merely having to duck and weave a little. But I must tell you that, insofar as what Fielding-Smith says is actually happening, Brian Hyphen Micklethwait (and I do have some hyphenage in my ancestry and quite a few people of the Fielding-Smith persuasion among my cousins) is cautiously optimistic about this trend.
Which is just one more irony. When it comes to her final intentions for the world, Fielding-Smith is a rabid statist, with her as the state. Yet meanwhile, she regrets the decline of “Non-Governmental” organisations. I’m leary of the state, usually, but when the US State barges in on the NGOs, I am, for the time being, delighted. My only worry is: is it really happening? Here’s hoping.
Yes, Abigail does appear to have her panties in a wad.
Also, this yank doesn’t know what she means by “northern governments”. Is that northern European, North Vietnam,…..what?
John,
I think she means the “Ice People”. As opposed to those noble savages, the “Sun People”.
Non-elected, non-accountable non-governmental organizations can suck it as far I’m concerned. I barely trust the people I do get to elect. Let alone the self-appointed, self-important harpies of the perpetually indignant over-class.
It takes the kind of arrogance worthy of the Guardian to consider NGOs “working in the global public interest.”
Nothing can be further from the truth. They only work on behalf of their membership base (if that), their leaders, and their donors (occasionally).
These are the kind of rent-a-mobs that stage protests against WTO meetings when Third World countries, many of whom represented by leaders who are elected by far more people than all the NGOs in the world combined are clamoring to join.
It’s not difficult to maintain neutrality. It’s just that they hate the Western civilization too much to do so. They could have gone on passing food to refugees. But instead, they decided that allowing the Coalition to succeed in Iraq will hurt their “leetle feelings” and their supposed principled stand. So, instead of violating their personal “principles” (I use the word loosely, for people who believe Bush is a greater threat than bin Laden.) they decide to ignore the founding principles of their organizations instead.
Appalled by the OECD report? It’s just another sign of their moral equivalence. Are they so dense that they can’t see the rogue states generally are the ones with the worst human rights records? Instead of spending time dealing with the Falun Gon issue in China or Russia war on Chechnya, Amnesty International decides to condemn death penalty in the US and Red Cross decides to condemn the Guantanamo situation.
The reality is this: These NGOs know that China and Russia will not give a fig what they think about their human rights records. So they choose the path of least resistance and try to apply pressure on the most democratic states, meaning US and Israel.
As strategy goes, that’s clever. As principles go, that’s perverse.
The best way these NGOs can serve the “global public interest” s to dissolve themselves. They’re beyond reform and beyond hope.
Northern is leftyspeak for evil, white, western, oppressor nations; the noble, brown, oppressed ones are southern.
Ah…this was one of those pleasurable articles to read. I could almost hear the tranzi author gnashing his teeth in impotence.
international law has been dealt a calamitous blow. the emperor never had any clothes: a law means nothing without force to back it, and that force was always tacitly american. hahahaha! I love it. score one for simplistic sovereignty 🙂
NGO’s routinely belie their alleged purpose; they are nothing but ill-disguised political factions wrapped in the clothes of “righteousness”, the better to fleece the unsuspecting sheeples of the world. They also enjoy tax advantages that are used in dubious fashion to further their ambitions.
“When it comes to her final intentions for the world, Fielding-Smith is a rabid statist, with her as the state. Yet meanwhile, she regrets the decline of “Non-Governmental” organisations. I’m leary of the state, usually, but when the US State barges in on the NGOs, I am, for the time being, delighted.”
That’s not the only irony here. There’s also the being-a-transnationalist-and-an-ardent-democrat-at-the-same-time-even-though-they-are-contradictory-things irony. You missed that one. Can’t have laxness.
There’s also the pay-taxes-so-the-state-can-bomb-Iraq-then-pay-taxes-so-they-can-pay-contractors-to-rebuild-it irony. You missed that one too.
Based on a libertarian position what needs to happens to NGOs is that they need to be removed from the influence and pay of the state. What is in fact happen is that the US state is using its control of their money to control everything that they do. This, in other words, is a change for the worse from the libertatian perspective.
You may argue that since the state paid them then that’s fair enough, but using the same argument you could also suggest that the state should be able to use the argument that since it pays welfare recipents money that implies it should also be able to direct who they can and can’t vote for, precisely how they should live their lives, and direct all efforts of welfare recipients to supporting the state.
Of course from the neo-con perspective where every word of the US goverment is akin to the word of God it’s a good thing.
Della,
I have a better idea. Why not tell these professional parasites that they are no longer allowed to suckle at the teat of producers and that if they want money in future they are going to have to find a way to earn it (which means they will be forced to provide services people actually want and are willing to pay for rather than wrapping themselves in the sackcloth of sanctimony and poncing around the world insisting they are “the conscience of humankind”)
David,
I said that they should be removed from the pay of the state. I feel they should still be free to work as a charity using donotions from oridnary people, other charities, or companies, the work they do is undoubtedly of some worth to the people they help.
Della,
I said that they should be removed from the pay of the state. I feel they should still be free to work as a charity using donotions from oridnary people, other charities, or companies, the work they do is undoubtedly of some worth to the people they help.”
Well, I would dispute whether anything they ever do is of any worth to a living soul. Having said that, I have no problem with them working for free or accepting voluntary donations. Although, I would greatly circumscribe the legal definition of the term ‘charity’.
The International Red Cross with its denial of the symbols of Christianity, i.e., the red cross on the flag of Switzerland, while milking Christian countries for tens of millions of pounds for its endless but seldom materialising “humanitarian disasters” needs to have its loony tranzi privileges revoked. Amnesty International, run by Ken Livingstone’s girlfriend, ditto.
Democratic governments can put enormous pressure on governments to straighten up and fly right. We already have such departments within governments of democratic countries. The tranzis are surplus to need.
NGOs are, in principle, a good thing so long as they don’t take tax money. Even if you disagree with some of them in particular. They add to the plurality of public life.
We do however need to increase the number of right-thinking NGOs.
Simply putting up our hands in horror and letting the leftist NGOs become “the conscience of the world” unchallenged is to cede a huge political and intellectual territory to the enemies of freedom and prosperity.
Have a look at http://www.policynetwork.net/ to see what is possible.
I have my doubts about whether NGO’s are, even in principle, a good thing. The reason is that, left or right, they tend to be run and influenced by people who do not otherwise have to support themselves, and are therefore increasingly cut off from the discipline of reality. This sort of thing is a problem, some of the time, for academics and for wealthy eccentrics. However in these other cases if they get too far from reality there are market forces, or at least eventually death, to get them to shut up.
The NGO’s can just go on and on.
The International Red Cross with its denial of the symbols of Christianity, i.e., the red cross on the flag of Switzerland, while milking Christian countries…
I’m not sure what the point is here, but while there’s certainly a Christian history in Switzerland, for the record, there’s no red cross on the Swiss flag…
According to that page, the red cross is actually intended to be the opposite of the Swiss flag and to represent the medical corps of armies…
for what it’s worth…
“Of course from the neo-con perspective where every word of the US goverment is akin to the word of God it’s a good thing.”
I seriously doubt that this represents the neo-con perspective.
Regardless of the desirability or otherwise of ngo’s in theory, in practice they are little more leftist anti-western and rabidly anti-Israeli political lobbies filled with the kind of people who think every word of John Pilger is the word of God. Good riddance to them. The world will be a better place with their demise.
Audit them until the cows come home. Bleed them white.
I don’t get it.
Organizations that by their very name are non-governmental have decided that in order not to be caught in the middle of political developments, they’re going to stop accepting money from the state. This transforms them into truly private organizations, and relieves the taxpayers form coercively funding organizations they may not support.
Who cares what the political views of the people running these organizations are? If they’re removing themselves from politics, isn’t this a good thing?
“Who cares what the political views of the people running these organizations are? If they’re removing themselves from politics, isn’t this a good thing?”
I agree that removing themselves from the tit of nanny state is a good thing. It is obscene that taxpayers have been forced to subsisize their activities. However, we still need to be concerned about their views because they carry a great deal of weight with large sections of the public, and with tranzi political organisations like the EU and UN.
The ICRC is anti-Christian? I thought they were most known for being anti-Jewish.
I know the ICRC has STRENOUSLY (And for very sound, practical and intelligent reasons) objected to any symbol except the red cross for it’s emergency services, however I was under the impression that for historical reasons the Red Crescent was an exception to this rule, and was discouraged anyway.
I suppose Icould look up the grim details, but I’ve got other fish to fry today.
Fred
You don’t know the half of it – I’m a refugee from the NGO world (they call them “non-profits” in the U.S.). having left years ago to go into what I’ve found to be a much honest line of work.
I could tell stories all night, but in general, 1) many NGOs have made receiving more government money an implicit priority, and 2) the people working at NGOs are as smug and condescending towards the unenlightened as you would imagine.
I would be delighted to see the U.S. tear into them.
My irritation at the use of scare quotes around the “war on terror” is mollified by the quotations around “the conscious of the world”.
Brian – don’t you worry. The American people know a partisan politcal agenda when they see one (or, a lot of them do, anyway). The NGO’s are just another MoveOn.org or NRA. We tolerate ’em, but we don’t fund ’em or give ’em the time of day. The only reason the NGO’s have lasted this long is because we (the USA) didn’t have the interest to go out into the world and effect change.
Now we do. And we don’t tolerate self-righteous trust fund babies getting in our way (except the self-righeous trust-fund babies among us, of course. They feel a bit of solidarity).
Brock
I love the bit about [enlightened] governments giving money to NGOs instead of the UN or whatever. Just maybe, Abigail, its because NGOs can do some mutual backstratching. Give Greenpeace some money and get some political support, or at least a reduction in criticism.
The green movement in Australia play that card all the time. I doubt it’s any different in social-democratville.
But Abigail, the NRA is a NGO, are they working for the global public interest?
I’ve searched long and hard for a truly enlightened internet forum, and now I’ve found it. A place where someone’s argument is not refuted with logic and reason but with the general assertion that America is all-powerful and, more importantly, totally good and righteous. And as if that weren’t enough to convince people then why not have a go at her name. Congratulations one and all, you’ve really opened my eyes.
May I agree wholeheartedly with our man in Japan, Andy. If I were a close minded redneck from the deep south I should think that I had found herein my Shangri-La. The ‘North’ that Abi refers to is the developed world. But then, if one had no conception of the world beyond the the city limits of McAllen, TX, then the developed world would probably all appear to be McDonalds, KFC and Taco Bell, GM dealerships and Agways.
The reason we need NGOs is that we see governments acting not in the interests of the people that they are supposed to represent, but in the interests of their specific constituents (eg. Halliburton, KBR etc). NGOs are able, for better or for worse, to highlight these facts.
Anyway I really only wanted to express my disbelief (although, having lived in a small town in upstate ny for several years, not a justified disbelief), that there are people with as closed minded a view as this in what purports to be the ‘leader of the free world’.
A joke in itself.
May I agree wholeheartedly with our man in Japan, Andy. If I were a close minded redneck from the deep south I should think that I had found herein my Shangri-La. The ‘North’ that Abi refers to is the developed world. But then, if one had no conception of the world beyond the the city limits of McAllen, TX, then the developed world would probably all appear to be McDonalds, KFC and Taco Bell, GM dealerships and Agways.
The reason we need NGOs is that we see governments acting not in the interests of the people that they are supposed to represent, but in the interests of their specific constituents (eg. Halliburton, KBR etc). NGOs are able, for better or for worse, to highlight these facts. Let me make the point also that the US is presently treating human rights with as much disdain as China. Certainly worse that Iran, where even if the outcome is ridiculous, at least you can get a trial.
Anyway I really only wanted to express my disbelief (although, having lived in a small town in upstate ny for several years, not a justified disbelief), that there are people with as closed minded a view as this in what purports to be the ‘leader of the free world’. The problem is that people like you think that being politically responsible is partaking of a meaningless chatroom like this that comes up about 315th in a Google search of Abi Fielding Smith’s name.
A joke in itself.
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