The success of the Movement Against Parking Meters (MAPM) to bring out a wide cross section of Georgetown to protest the imposition of the said meters by PNC elements in the City Council, has precipitated murmurs of approval about the possibility of “civil society” asserting itself. The notion of a “civil society” has an ancient lineage, going back to antiquity. But its present parameters were first outlined after the modern state system was launched in 1646.
Since then, “civil society” has been juxtaposed against the potentially predatory state and inevitably, its composition and functions changed in tandem with the latter from the absolute monarchy through democratic, socialist and communist states of various hues. Political parties arose in civil society as vehicles for mobilisation to capture the state. But by definition, they were “partisan” and soon were considered at best only liminally part of civil society, and at worse, part of the political order. “Civil Society” were those elements, in one formulation, mediating between the family and the political order.
During the periods of dictatorship in many countries in the modern period – such as occurred in Guyana during the 1970’s – political parties were rendered impotent and ineffectual even though they might not actually have been banned. With elections routinely rigged, political parties in Guyana basically served as fig leaves to “democratic” pretentions. In such a climate, civil society asserted itself against the oppressive Leviathan state.
The political parties made common cause with religious bodies, elements of the business community, trade unions, the bar association and other “civic “ institutions. As early as 1978, reacting to the PNC’s cynical referendum to end referenda, a wide swathe of civil society mobilised to appose the imposition and precipitated the lowest turnout in any official polling exercise in Guyana’s history. Many civic society groups were subsequently formed to demand “free and fair elections”.
Against a background of political impotence as late as 1990, with “free and fair elections” in the air, civil society became very active and effective in bringing citizens into the streets. One agglomeration became an organised group GUARD – Guyanese United for Action, Reform and Democracy – but soon fissioned with the entry of one of its leaders into the “Civic” component of the PPP administration, and another of its factions morphing into a political party.
We have sporadically had elements of civil society – such as the “Social Partners” comprised of the Private Sector Commission, the Guyana Bar Association and the Trades Union Congress (TUC) – becoming active during crises such as during the prelude to the onslaught against the state run by the PPP at the beginning of this millennium. They attempted to broker – ultimately unsuccessfully – dialogue between the leaders of the PPP and the PNC.
And now we have the MAPM. Harking to the lessons of our own history, we can already discern why it will not become a “civil society: force for fundamental change in Guyana. It was formed within a context of gross political intrusion of the state under the control of the PNC-led APNU/AFC coalition but which elicited very little citizen action. We had the government questioning the legitimacy of a co-equal member of the State – the judiciary – and attempting to subvert its role as the arbiter of our constitution and the rule of law without any civil society protest. Similarly, the song and dance over the Chairman of GECOM failed to elicit a reaction.
Coterminous with the Parking Meter contract unilaterally signed by the Mayor and her clique at City Hall, the Central Government had also closed Wales Sugar Estate, throwing 1700 workers onto the bread lines and affecting the livelihoods of tens of thousand of citizens on the West Bank of Demerara. This tragedy is still unfolding but none of the organisers of MAPM have even shown any solidarity with this demographic that they do not see as members of “Civil society”.
Unless “civil society” hangs together now its members will hang separately soon.
