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Is civil society that evil?
Kamurai Mudzingwa
February 26, 2010

Civil society throughout the world has been called all sorts of names particularly from Government quarters and the State controlled media under undemocratic governance. The article by Reason Wafawarova—Civil Society: Stooges of imperialism (The Herald 11 February 2010) microcosmically depicts some sections of the government-s negative attitude towards the watchdog role played by civil society.

In light of such attitudes, the following questions become relevant: Why is it governments that suffer from democratic deficiencies hate civil society and label them as the agents of evil? What is civil society? Is it an animal that is separate from a country-s citizens embodying aspirations alien to these citizens? The answer to these questions is deeply embedded in the proper understanding of what civil society is—the collective humanity of a country-s citizens that comes together in some organised way to debate and advocate for issues of common interest. This collective humanity is manifest through various organisations that are non-governmental but civic in nature.

Naturally in an undemocratic society, what is of common interest to these people is at loggerheads with the interests of undemocratic rulers. This collective humanity called civil society always demands good governance, the upholding of human rights, freedom of expression, freedom of choice and accountability from the rulers among other things. These tenets are the real antithesis of undemocratic rule and demand for these lead to the tension between undemocratic governments and civil society.

Civil society is then labelled as central to the challenges facing any country whose real challenge is autocratic rule or the desire to perpetuate that kind of governance. Leaders and their praise singers in an autocratic or in an oligarchy deliberately pretend that they are not the problem, claiming that the problem is civil society and foreign intervention. This trick has been used by despots throughout history—Hitler used it and killed six million Jews. In our modern contexts how many Hitlers have we witnessed using the same trick to slaughter the innocent for the preservation of power?

The centre of the challenges is not civil society but the moral deficiencies in leaders who lack clarity of purpose and are unfathomably selfish, cruel, unethical and unaccountable and whose general behaviour borders on inhumanity. If civil society—the collective humanity manifest in ordinary citizens not politicians—does not organise to engage government in a constructive manner, then we will experience an avalanche of disintegration and decline.

Undemocratic governments do not want their citizens to watch their misdeeds and highlight them. They want a docile bunch of citizens, and by implication a passive civil society that is like a watchdog that does not bark. Despotic governments do not want meaningful participation by citizens in national processes. They do not want civil society organisations because these are citizens coming together for the common good of the common man, an insult to undemocratic governance.

As a result, there is a sustained attempt to dismember civil society from what should be perceived as the "citizens". This attempt is done physically through unwarranted arrests, beatings, incarcerations and general harassment among other evil deeds. But the warfare against civil society is also fought psychologically through name calling, the media, political rallies, blame games and other dirty tricks that are not physical.

Hypocrisy is also a sickness that manifests itself in undemocratic governments in their relationship with civil society. When the going gets tough for them they will allow civil society to help them and ensure that they do not acknowledge. They "love" civil society during droughts, famine and disease outbreaks, for they know the capacity of civil society in bailing them out of these situations. But they hate civil society for pointing out their weaknesses and unethical behaviour.

Therefore the notion of civil society being evil is a political construction of despots and their praise singers throughout the world.

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