Wednesday, September 26, 2007

I am civil society

‘Civil society’ as a phrase has an honourable ancestry in politics. One phase of the evolution of countries post-independence and of the evolution-in-parallel of NGOS and UN bodies has been the gradual emergence of the idea of ‘Civil Society’ ... as opposed to uncivil society? To military society? To ecclesiastical society? …. Well, that is another question.

This is just to celebrate the enterprising man who not only declared in a coordination meeting in Goma that he represented ALL of civil society, but that his NGO was called Civil Society. Like the Church of God which appears in its name to have monopolised all religious possibilities at least for monotheists, Mr Civil Society presented himself as the unique interlocutor. His only reward though, was to be ignored by everyone.

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