Post by Onyango Oloo on Oct 21, 2015 11:47:06 GMT 3
EXCERPT:
About 20 years ago, in a conversation with a Bangladeshi organizer, the topic of non-government organizations (NGOs), or non-profits as they’re often called, came up. He said bluntly: “I hate NGOs.” His vehemence was surprising. NGOs are far from revolutionary organizations, but their work still seemed more helpful than not. Political differences with them aside, it seemed dogmatic to denounce free health care and anti-poverty programs. Short of more radical measures, NGOs seemed to serve an important interim function.
Since that conversation, NGOs have proliferated across the globe. First deployed in dominated countries, they have now become a staple of the political landscape in the imperial core as well. Today, the reasons for the organizer’s hatred of NGOs is clear. NGOs are destructive, both in their current work and in their preclusion of an alternative future beyond the capitalist present.
Here are four reasons why:
1) NGOs undermine, divert, and replace autonomous mass organizing.
NGOs have come to occupy a central role in social movements and political activism in the US and elsewhere —what Arundhati Roy calls the “NGO-ization of resistance.”
Sincere people often believe that they will be able to “get paid to do good,” but this is a fantasy. Nina Power writes that “there is no longer any separation between the private realm and the working day,” contending that “the personal is no longer just political, it’s economic through and through.” While she does not explicitly make this connection herself, the mushrooming of “social justice” and political NGOs is a good example of the erosion of this separation.
For those of us involved in organizing, there is an eerily familiar pattern: Some atrocity happens, outraged people pour into the streets, and once together, someone announces a meeting to follow up and continue the struggle. At this meeting, several experienced organizers seem to be in charge. These activists open with radical language and offer to provide training and a regular meeting space. They seem to already have a plan figured out, whereas everyone else has barely had time to think about the next step. The activists exude competence, explaining—with diagrams—how to map out potential allies, as they craft a list of specific politicians to target with protests.
NOW READ ON:
www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/20/the-useful-altruists-how-ngos-serve-capitalism-and-imperialism/
About 20 years ago, in a conversation with a Bangladeshi organizer, the topic of non-government organizations (NGOs), or non-profits as they’re often called, came up. He said bluntly: “I hate NGOs.” His vehemence was surprising. NGOs are far from revolutionary organizations, but their work still seemed more helpful than not. Political differences with them aside, it seemed dogmatic to denounce free health care and anti-poverty programs. Short of more radical measures, NGOs seemed to serve an important interim function.
Since that conversation, NGOs have proliferated across the globe. First deployed in dominated countries, they have now become a staple of the political landscape in the imperial core as well. Today, the reasons for the organizer’s hatred of NGOs is clear. NGOs are destructive, both in their current work and in their preclusion of an alternative future beyond the capitalist present.
Here are four reasons why:
1) NGOs undermine, divert, and replace autonomous mass organizing.
NGOs have come to occupy a central role in social movements and political activism in the US and elsewhere —what Arundhati Roy calls the “NGO-ization of resistance.”
Sincere people often believe that they will be able to “get paid to do good,” but this is a fantasy. Nina Power writes that “there is no longer any separation between the private realm and the working day,” contending that “the personal is no longer just political, it’s economic through and through.” While she does not explicitly make this connection herself, the mushrooming of “social justice” and political NGOs is a good example of the erosion of this separation.
For those of us involved in organizing, there is an eerily familiar pattern: Some atrocity happens, outraged people pour into the streets, and once together, someone announces a meeting to follow up and continue the struggle. At this meeting, several experienced organizers seem to be in charge. These activists open with radical language and offer to provide training and a regular meeting space. They seem to already have a plan figured out, whereas everyone else has barely had time to think about the next step. The activists exude competence, explaining—with diagrams—how to map out potential allies, as they craft a list of specific politicians to target with protests.
NOW READ ON:
www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/20/the-useful-altruists-how-ngos-serve-capitalism-and-imperialism/