Political Critique: From civil society to political society

Civil society is a great idea. In a perfectly liberal-democratic world, where parliament really represents society and its diversity, where politics (and the space between politics and business) is not always populated by the same people, and where political parties articulate interests and develop ideas (or at least take seriously what think tanks are telling them), instead of just serving citizens the daily pulp called ‘message of the day’ – that’s where civil society can do a lot. [...]

At the same time, in our world, we have been persuaded that politics is ugly (or maybe it has itself shown us its ugly face, so that no decent person ventures there?). Civil society was to be strictly non-political, and to keep politics at a healthy distance. This even makes sense, since back in the 90s in Poland we had an opportunity to have true politics, democratic elections and local authorities that were close to the people… And so we understood the division of labour. It was theoretically sound. [...]

I believe that, for years, the arrangement between politicians and civil society in Poland was clear. Politicians did not pick on the NGOs as long as NGOs did their work – work which the State did not want to do. And NGOs did not pick on the politicians too much, because it was clear that sooner or later, one would have to find ways to work together. This was convenient for politicians – the smaller organizations, which often financed their activities from money assigned by a given ministry or the local authority, could barely afford to wage a war with those in power. This characteristic division of labour has been in operation since the1990s, even though it finally turned out that the NGOs took upon themselves more than they should have.

Finally, the political situation that, as Romanians said, turned ‘toxic’, the disillusionment brought by lack of change, and the general dissatisfaction took over. How long can one ‘do’ debates, workshops, festivals, write reports? 25 years of work and very little to show for it. We in Poland have been given some little bits – participatory budgets, election lists quotas, Culture Pact. Some people amongst us got jobs in public institutions and in city halls. Great! Local authorities can learn a lot from activists, and vice versa. But this is all too little, considering the challenges. And when Law and Justice came to power even these little bits became unreliable, and the third sector – excluding the part deemed ‘proper’ – became no longer a nagging petitioner, but an open enemy of the authorities.

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