Committee for Conflict Transformation Support |
CCTS
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The Ethics of Post War Intervention - dilemmas of conflict transformation practice: Discussion NotesA public voice at homeMany participants felt that the NGO community had a duty to make more effort to mobilise public opinion and change government attitudes at home, hard though this may be. Properly speaking the citizen is the owner of public international affairs but increasingly, as one participant pointed out, Western governments determine policy unilaterally, allowing their citizens little voice other than as voters in a General Election. The language governments use is part of this co-option process. By describing NGOs as 'PVOs' they deny their independent status. Similarly, talk of 'the human rights lobby' reduces a public concern to a private enthusiasm. Yet NGOs that work for awareness-raising and capacity-building abroad typically do little or nothing about the lack of public involvement at home. A more even-handed approach would not only be more honest, it might also reduce NGOs' dependency on government funding by generating more public financial support, as well as providing local legitimacy for their ethical stance. Part of the problem may be that, while people are comfortable with the idea of working for change in other countries with small groups, at home they despair of the possibility of mobilising 'the public' at large. The fact that NGOs are constantly competing for funding may also make it harder for them to collaborate in developing public awareness. NGOs with a strong 'home base' do better here because they are more likely to have an independent doctrinal framework debated and determined by home workers, as well as to have structures at home that can work for local awareness raising. They are also more likely to receive independent funding (for example from bequests). It is often argued that the attention span of the public is very short, and that any public funding will therefore be as short-term as government money. The continued success of Comic Relief argues against this. For example, Comic Relief funding enabled IA to carry on working in Liberia after sanctions were imposed in 2001 and government support was cut off. This continued involvement is important (no matter how justified the sanctions) if the Liberian people are to be assisted in working for change. If the NGO community made more effort to work with the media at home, they might be able to produce a greater public interest in international affairs. One person reminded the meeting that however distrustful one is of governments, there could be occasions on which their aims on a particular issue coincide with those of people engaged in conflict transformation work. Furthermore, notwithstanding the general truth that governments always pursue their own interests, those interests are, at least in part, determined by public pressures and demands. Though one may consider that it is inconsistent for the UK government to fund conflict prevention at the same time as invading Iraq, it is arguable that their current level of interest in conflict prevention is related to the degree of public opposition to that invasion.
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