For the first time last week I got a request for a member to join Euclid Network despite it being against the law. Dr Shareef, a prominent civil society leader in Egypt wants to join but national law forbids him to join an international network (paying a fee for membership) in his country. As Nilda Bullain from European Center of Nonprofit Law confirmed he couldn’t join at all without the permission of the Social Solidarity. ICNL, the headquarters, runs an NGO Law Monitor on Egypt but the situation is more or less the same across the Middle East.
My first reaction was to start a campaign to give the opportunity for any civil society leader in Egypt to join Euclid… and pay the fee. There is of course a financial argument to be made. However, the situation inspired a broader reflection on the priorities of the European Union as an international agent of change.
Arab countries want more economic integration but not the social one at all. The chapter on civil society I found in the first draft of the Union for the Mediterranean – recently established multilateral institutions gathering EU member states and Arab countries – disappeared in the final version.
Baroness Ashton is in charge of designing the new diplomatic service of the EU. What would you suggest her to do? Bullying countries who put extreme pressure on other countries’ human rights (as the US tried in the ’90’s) does bear results. Even less impact is made when the bully is the EU which ends up normally splitting into factions sending contradictory messages. In any case moral blackmailing is not a dish that my stomach can digest easily. Reason and persuasion are the only weapons left for liberals.
It’s a long and painful process but civil society is patient. You can look at it in a different way. As my friend Johan Schotte, a Swiss philanthropist, came back from training in Ukraine his main remark was enlightening: “Ukrainians haven’t realized yet that democracy is a working in progress which rests in their hand, not replacing the old regime with a new one”.
Democracy doesn’t really need political change if you don’t change hearts and minds. Civil society is good at that. Even the editorial of the Economist this week calls for more civil society in the Arab countries rather than elections. They must have learnt the lesson in Iraq.
My friends in Eastern Europe call it Transition. It’s a sort of the time in between. If you were born in a non-democratic country it seems it’s clear to you. Definitively the EU hasn’t learnt the lesson and still pushes enlargement further without taking citizens along with it – on both sides of the border.
At this point I made a pretty peculiar association. Do you remember the story of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov? It might be useful to recall it.
It was staged in the Spain when the Inquisition ruled. Jesus came back to liberate people again but is put in prison and sentenced to death. The Grand Inquisitor visits him the day before his sentence. He rebukes Jesus because he came back. People have been already saved once. They don’t need him again. Now they need order and command to be happy. His freedom would bring confusion and chaos. Therefore he has to die.
Dostoevsky used a religious story to remind us that happiness is often just oblivion of our freedom and salvation is a daily act that we renew through living our values. He called it faith but in secular language this is morality.
My father expresses it in different words: “When I shave every morning I want to mirror my face and not be ashamed!”
Is there a lesson for the EU here or do I just have crazy thoughts?
Perhaps Democracy is not just a formal process but a way of living performed by citizens everyday. You don’t need to impose it and even when you do it it’s not enough. Actually, when you can’t and don’t force it, civil society might be the alternative. By empowering and connecting civil society across borders you can grow democracy without realizing it. It will blossom with no effort.
From Tocqueville up to Putman intellectuals have argued in favour of civil society as the glue of society. Will we find it in the soon-to-come Ashton Doctrine?
