HomeOld_PostsCivil society and the failure of the regime change agenda

Civil society and the failure of the regime change agenda

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Maidei Jenny Magirosa

LAST week we focused on Baba Jairosi, a headman from Chivi who has been participating in donor funded NGO projects for many years.
At first, the NGOs worked on agriculture and food security by providing seeds and fertilisers.
Then that project finished and the donors came back with new ‘funding streams’ focusing on civil society engagement.
Baba Jairosi was no longer just a headman; he was part of the community that NGOs call civil society.
In order to understand the origin of civil society and its role in developmental politics, we need to go back to past history.
Civil society can be defined as a collection of local NGOs who are separate from the Government and business sector, working in ‘partnership’ with various Government and business sectors supporting common interests particularly those related to development, human rights, good governance and democracy. These terms to define civil society were developed by the Western think tanks to identify various communities in both rural and urban communities.
In 1970 donors worked closely with Government and the private sector. However, in the 1980s, the donors changed direction and gave money to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for education, health and small enterprise promotion.
This way, the donors were supporting national Government infrastructure. It will appear that donors had good intentions.
But let us not forget that the donors represented former colonial powers like America, England, Belgium, German and others.
We were still suffering from colonialism and exploitation dating back to the slavery days.
In this regard, the Western donors were simply trying to remedy what their colonial governments had done in under developing Africa.
Up to this day, no compensation has been paid for the looting of Africa’s resources during colonialism and slavery
At first, the NGOs focused on providing help in the social sector while the donor countries wanted to create an environment favourable to their business interests. In Zimbabwe, NGOs started to meddle in the sovereignty of the country because their hidden agenda was regime change.
As a result, civil society was working largely with donor funded international organisations.
They focused on civil society engagement in order to raise NGO political influence among the community.
Through civil society frameworks, NGOs moved beyond service provision and opposed Government power.
Civil society then behaved like separate parties challenging the Government. In this regard, NGOs became substitute providers of basic services and channels working closely with the opposition MDC party.
For example, from November 2006 to September 2010, the Zimbabwe Civil Society Fund (ZCSF) in its first stage worked through the Gender Equality and Rights, Democracy and Governance funding.
They had 59 projects whose main purpose was to improve the ‘capacity of Zimbabweans to exercise their civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights’. With support from the donors, ZCSF conducted countrywide human rights campaigns and voter education from January 2007 to March 2008.
Post 2013 elections, the question we should ask now is this: What happened to the people supported by ZCSF in 2008? Once Morgan became Prime Minister, this was seen as victory.
Their money achieved results. Then they made the assumption that the people who went through the ‘human rights’ workshops have been educated or converted to thinking along their good governance systems imported from the Western governments.
What the donors did not see is that the so-called civil society consists of real people, individuals with a history, aspirations, points of view and intellect. They know what they want.
They did not need someone from outside, funded by self interested donors to come here and tell them who to vote for.
They attended workshops, ate lunch, took seeds and fertilisers and spoke quite loudly about development.
But, come voting day, they did not change their views. Jairosi and his team supported President Mugabe because they know where they came from, what happened to them under Ian Smith and what would have happened to empowerment and indigenisation if Roy Bennett and Morgan Tsvangirayi had been allowed to take over power in Zimbabwe.
In an article written by David Kaulemu titled ‘Civil Society as a new paradigm for democratic politics in Zimbabwe’, Kaulemu argues, “The old sharp conflicts between the white world and the black world; between the colonisers and the colonised; men against women; the young and the old, are being transformed into collaborative global fights against racism, exploitation, oppression and poverty. More and more transformative efforts are being made across cultures, religions, economies, and ideologies to establish global standards for the respect of human rights and the environment.”
How wrong that is.
Kaulemu writes with tinted glasses because racism, oppression and poverty do not disappear because donors have created a framework called civil society.
The whole concept of ‘civil society’ as promoted by donors and heads of Western NGOS does not match our Zimbabwean social political situation.
If examined closely, it will become apparent that the civil society engagement approach ultimately weakened the power gained by MDC among the people in 2008 when NGOs like ZCSF’ invested a lot of money into civil society voter education.
This time round, NGOs and their political agenda hidden under civil society engagement, peace and conflict resolution did not make any difference to the minds and thinking of people in the country.
When the NGOs get back to the drawing board and the flip charts to brainstorm ‘Lessons Learnt’, they should recognise that rural Zimbabweans are resilient and more intelligent than the donors want to believe.
Their ‘grant opportunity windows’ or ‘streams’ for the promotion of democracy and good governance meant little to the majority of rural people.
Basically, the civil society organisation model did not correspond to Zimbabwean political history.
It did not help in providing a solid identity of the true Zimbabwean who is committed to his or her history.
As a nation, we are in the process of defining ourselves through indigenisation, development and empowerment.
We do not need Western NGOs with vested self interests to come here and teach us human rights, how to vote and who to vote for.
Real empowerment means equal collaboration and partnership.
NGOs should take note that an imposed agenda for regime change based on manipulation of the so-called civil society failed.
Baba Jairosi will never stop saying, Pamberi neZANU PF!

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