The World in Words
Civil Society and Its New Enemies
Vaclav Havel
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PRAGUE: Genuine civil society is the truest fundamental of democracy, a truth often forgotten in the heat of election campaigns. Although Communism could, every now and then, coexist with private ownership, sometimes with private enterprise, it could never coexist with civil society. So the most fateful attack that accompanied the installation of Communist power everywhere was an attack on civil society.
The freedom of speech that Communism suppressed overnight could, on its fall, be restored overnight. Restoration of civil society – the many parallel and mutually complementary ways in which citizens participate in public life – has been far more complicated. The reason is self-evident: civil society is an intricately structured, very fragile, sometimes even mysterious organism that grew over decades, if not centuries. After years of virtual non-existence, civil society, therefore cannot be restored from above, or by legal fiat. Its three pillars – private, voluntary associations, decentralization of the state, delegation political power to independent entities – can only be rebuilt patiently.
In the ten years of postcommunist transition our new political elites take either an apathetic stance towards rebuilding civil society or actively oppose it. As soon as these elites gained power, they became unwilling to surrender any of the state authority they inherited. Many democratic, even anti-Communist politicians are now, paradoxically, defending the overblown governmental powers that are relics of the Communist era.
This is why many schools, hospitals, cultural institutions and other establishments remain governed by centralized administrations, although they could have transformed themselves into organizations that the state would watch from a distance or support through transparent procedures. Debate on decentralization of the state has been dragging on for nine years without any government department displaying the willingness to transfer powers to regions or to municipalities without a fight. This is why taxation in our country remains excessive: the state has to pay for a thousand things which it would not have to pay if an advanced civil society existed, because citizens would pay for them directly.
This inertia has nothing to do with ideology. If some politicians seek ideological excuses for their unwillingness to reduce state power, they mostly argue the following: "People have chosen us in an election; it is their will that we rule. Change is an attack on representative democracy. Social redistribution of resources is a task for the state, and the central state's responsibility in this field must not be diffused. Attempts to build or to support any parallel structures not controlled from the center casts doubt on parliamentary democracy itself."
Faith in civil society, indeed, is still interpreted by many as leftism, anarchism or syndicalism; someone has even called it proto-fascism. At the root of the argument that civil society is an attack on the political system, we find the well known unwillingness to share power. It is as if the parties are saying: "Governing is our business, so choose between us, but nothing more."
Nonsense: political parties, democratic institutions, work well only when they draw strength and inspiration from a developed, pluralist civic environment and are exposed to criticism from that environment. It is not the intention of civil society to circumvent parliament or political parties: it aims to enable them to work to the best of their ability. Without a life-giving background in the form of a diversely structured civil society, political parties as well as political institutions wither, lose inventiveness, and are eventually reduced to dull, closed groups of political professionals.
Civil society generates genuine pluralism, and pluralism – leading to competition – produces quality. In this respect, there is a similarity between economics and politics. The more different initiatives are allowed to operate, the greater is the chance that the best and most inventive ones will triumph. To rely solely on the capacities of central state authorities or of central political bodies to always decide what needs to be done and how, equates power with truth, the most dangerous political conceit of this century.
Moreover, the more stratified civil society becomes, the more it thrives, the more stable is domestic politics. Civil society protects citizens from being excessively affected by changes at the center of political power. It absorbs, at lower levels, some of the effects of such change, even disposes of them. In this way, it actually facilitates political change so that a change of government does not seem a windstorm leaving nothing in its place.
Where civil society is not sufficiently developed every problem filters up to the center of power. But the more power is left at the center the more favorable are the conditions for such forces to gain control over the country. Communists knew this very well; it is why they even manipulated associations of bee-keepers.
You need not be an economist to discover that civil society also pays its way. When things are paid by the state budget, more money must be collected in taxes and substantial sums are consumed by such transfers. In a system that allows tax deductions for charitable giving, beneficial initiatives get more money than they would get if the same amounts were spent by the state. Even without deductions, civil society takes its own improving initiatives.
The most important aspects of civil society is yet another thing – it enables people to realize themselves. Human beings are not only manufacturers, profit makers or consumers. They are also – and this may be their innermost quality – creatures who want to be with others, who yearn for various forms of coexistence and cooperation, who want to influence what happens around them. People want to be appreciated for what they give to their environment around them. Civil society is one of the key ways in which our human nature can be exercised in its entirety. The enemies of civil society know this; it animates their opposition to it.
Vaclav Havel is the President of the Czech Republic.
Copyright Project Syndicate 2012
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