Myanmar's Long Road to National Reconciliation (32 page)

Why specifically might one be interested in civil society, however defined, and why in Myanmar?
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The social science literature is replete with illustrations of its importance, at least in the American context, and now more broadly. De Tocqueville, writing over one hundred and fifty years ago, pointed out that the interest and phenomenon of private Americans coming together to pursue some common purpose at the local level were singular enough to warrant comment, as this was rare in the Europe of his time. More modern literature stresses four aspects of civil society that have substantial impact on governance.

The first is that when people group together to resolve problems or promote common interests, a degree of limited trust, also called
social capital,
is created that is related to the purposes of the group — that is, to goals characteristic of and generated by such association.
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This trust, so goes the theory, may then be translated over time into political trust, and thus societies that have such organizations are likely to have more representative and stable governments, while societies that lack a vigorous civil society sector usually have political problems, often in relation to the legitimacy of their governments. This proposition may appear overly simplistic, but there seems to be some anecdotal evidence in its favour, although it would be difficult to quantify in any meaningful sense temporally and across cultures.

The second aspect of civil society relates to pluralism. It is obvious that where civil society is active, pluralism is more prevalent, and pluralism is one essential ingredient of the democratic process. Even if such organizations have been proscribed at a level of national influence or are in part controlled nationally by the state, at a local level they can affect how power is distributed there and mitigate the excesses of over-centralized administrations, making them more responsive to local needs. In other words, civil society organizations can encourage elements of good local governance by insisting on appropriate state performance levels and even encouraging the state to adhere to its own pronounced regulations, such as on the environment or social issues. Although in highly authoritarian or centralized states civil society organizations, even at local levels, may be viewed by governments with a degree of anxiety or suspicion, in fact they may be supportive of some of the state’s goals and strategies, if not its tactics.

The third positive aspect of civil society is that a medley of such organizations, each concentrating on a common problem, indirectly encourages broad diversity of interests and discourages orthodoxy — the bane of democracy. The question of orthodoxy (see below) is related to the concept that power is personalized, as is loyalty, and that information is power, and so the media and communications should be under state control or censorship.

The fourth is that civil society groups, especially at the local level, can help supply needed goods and services that the state either cannot or will not provide, or that the state intentionally ignores or considers outside of its purview.

We will explore below how civil society, through support of good governance, may assist in the process of legitimation of any regime, either by helping to make up for deficiencies in the supply of basic goods and services (for example, health, education, micro-credit, and so on), or because the very existence of such non-governmental groups imparts either internal or external legitimacy to a government. Civil society organizations may also help provide an expression of identity, and thus at least localized legitimacy, to various ethnic minorities.
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Civil society organizations could also help the reconciliation process by highlighting issues that need to be addressed in the negotiations necessary for reaching compromise or concluding peace, and by facilitating understanding of majority-minority relations among the minorities themselves.

It is important to note here that the term “civil society” has no indigenous equivalent in Burmese, indicating that as a concept it is relatively new and probably not well understood.
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The Myanmar government does not use the term; only Aung San Suu Kyi has mentioned it, and that rarely. But if — or better, because — there is no specific Burmese term for the concept, in the Confucian tradition of the rectification of names we need to define our terms before we can apply the concept of civil society in some meaningful way to the Burma/Myanmar context.

No account of civil society should regard its development as a panacea for the ills either of society or of the political process. The very concepts of “power”, “authority”, “hierarchy”, and “orthodoxy”, which we will discuss at the close of this essay, that affect the formal institutions of governance, also affect civil society organizations institutionally and through their personnel, since such concepts are essentially primordial values. Although it is likely that these forces can be at least somewhat mitigated by the
private nature of the organizations, civil society groups cannot be considered as the
deus ex machina
that will alone transform society into a democracy, however necessary they may be to the democratic process.

Civil society is basically defined as those organizations — local, national, or international — that are autonomous and/or independent of government and the state. They transcend the individual and the family, and are collective, organized, and have some continuity. They operate in the space, often constricted, between the state and the individual.

This is, however, obviously too sweeping a definition, as no organization in any modern state is completely devoid of links to the government at some level or other. Minimally, organizations may have to be registered or incorporated (in Myanmar under the
Companies Act
or under other legislation),
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or taxed or not taxed, but at some level most organizations are accountable to the state in some manner, or are subject to local or national legal strictures, provisions, or scrutiny, or even intentional indifference. In each society, the classification of civil society will have to take into account the particularities of the power structure, the political system, traditional patterns of control and authority, economics, and the cultural environment. Most broadly, the term “civil society” might encompass businesses, non-profit firms, international private organizations, political parties, the media, and other groups.

In Myanmar, it may be appropriate to categorize a variety of organizations in order to clarify the distinction between civil society organizations and other groups. One might develop seven separate classifications for organizations outside nominal governmental institutions, only the last of which, in the contemporary Myanmar context, we will define as civil society. These seven categories are:

1.   State entities, including the state economic enterprises — the public sector, including state-owned or controlled industries, corporations, and businesses;
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2.   Publicly-supported and controlled, but ostensibly somewhat autonomous, citizens’ organizations, such as the Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) and a host of other groups that serve state needs and objectives. These are also sometimes
known as GONGOs — government organized (or owned) nongovernmental organizations. The leadership of these organizations is generally chosen by, or in some way responsible to, some government entity;

3.   The private for-profit sector — the business community;

4.   Recognized non-state-sponsored political parties;

5.   The media, which in Myanmar are completely under state censorship or authority;

6.   Organized groups that are, or have been, in rebellion against the authority of the state;

7.   Civil society organizations — those groups that have some reasonable autonomy of action, choose their own leadership, are not for profit, and are essentially privately funded.

Within this last category, civil society organizations can be distinguished according to other characteristics: first, whether an organization is a national, regional, or local body; second, whether an organization is based on membership, or whether it is a body such as a foundation, that has a board and staff, and provides assistance to other groups; or third, whether an organization operates its own programmes but does not seek popular participation in its governance.

Another relevant distinction should be made among three different types of programme that civil society groups pursue:

1.   Representational groups (such as non-profit chambers of commerce);

2.   Advocacy groups (for example, environmental organizations);

3.   Service or programme-oriented groups (focusing on, for example, health, education, training, poverty alleviation, or other activities).

When organizations of this third category are based at the local level, in villages or urban ward areas, and involve membership or popular participation, they are sometimes called “community based organizations” (CBO).
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Advocacy organizations at local levels may be termed “social movement organizations” (SMO), and because much of their advocacy has been outside the political pale, until recently they have been ignored.
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Excluded from this list are movements that have been, or may yet be, politically powerful, but that are at present ephemeral in structure or purpose. In the Myanmar context, these might include amorphous student
movements, since the state has outlawed student organizations, and demonstrations by members of the
sangha
(Buddhist clergy) against perceived inequities or insults. The authorities have strong fears concerning the potential for these groups to cause trouble for the state and to instigate pro-democracy activities.
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Excluded also from this organizational list are foreign organizations, although their influence may be profound. Foreign private business investment, religious organizations with international connections, groups run by resident aliens, and international NGOs, some of which can be exceedingly important in the development of civil society, should be separately considered (see below). So, too, civil society groups that operate across Myanmar’s frontiers, most often in Thailand, are a separate category, even though some perform cross-border services and activities.

In other countries, the business sector and political parties may be grouped as part of civil society, but in many states they operate under stringent regulation, so that their activities are not autonomous. Civil society organizations may also be temporally defined. In South Korea under dictatorial governments, the private sector was dependent on the state, and could not act autonomously; it should not have been considered as an element of civil society, although the situation changed after political liberalization. We have excluded the Myanmar business sector because it is weak in a country where credit is manipulated by the state and where such activities are carefully monitored and controlled by the government.
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In Myanmar, anomalies abound. How should one consider the Church of England — which has an official link with the state through a state-approved ideology but which operates with considerable local autonomy? What about the
sangha
in Myanmar, where the structure and hierarchy, as well as the registration of monks, are controlled, but where there is considerable latitude for local action at the village level, and where popular participation in religious rituals is a form of civil society activity? These issues indicate that civil society, even at the theoretical level, must be defined by each analyst according to the culture studied and the purposes of any particular scrutiny.

In 1999, this writer wrote, “Civil society died under the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP); perhaps more accurately, it was murdered”.
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Was this statement accurate, and is it true today? There is no doubt that a vigorous civil society had existed in the colonial period, even though certain political groups were proscribed.
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Under the civilian hegemony of the Anti-Fascist People’s Freedom League (AFPFL), considerable latitude existed for the formation of private organizations, which included institutions such as schools and nationally important groups. The AFPFL ran its own stable of mass organizations, to ensure support for the government, and although there were laws (some dating from the British period) that were restrictive of some political activity, and political arrests seemed sometimes arbitrary, there is no doubt that civil society flourished, as did a major political opposition, even under the unified period of the AFPFL (until 1958). It may be argued that the British ban on political activity, which was imposed for much of the colonial period, in fact encouraged the growth of civil society through ostensibly religious organizations that had a nationalistic agenda — such as, for example, the Young Men’s Buddhist Association. The media, although subject to considerable governmental influence, was relatively autonomous and vigorous in its independent judgment about state policies and activities, and some newspapers often expressed views that were in alignment with those of the opposition left-wing political party — the National Unity Front, the above-ground arm of the Burma Communist Party.