Submitted manuscript.
Figure 1: The four
roles of social activism
The need to maintain an
independent and principled civil society movement
9th May is supposed to be a day for the Pakatan Harapan
members of parliament, party workers and supporters to celebrate their
anniversary of success, but this year is different. The dramatic political
conspiracy and betrayal scheme were timely and swiftly played out by the end of
February (famously known as the ‘Sheraton Move’ today) as the naked power
struggle and horse-trading exercise bewildered and disgusted the whole nation.
While the drama was exclusively played by the political elites, have the civil
society organisations and individuals reflected and reviewed their strategies
and approaches with what they had achieved (or not) during the PH government
rule? It is an understatement to say the least that the PH government has
disappointed many reform-minded supporters because of the little achievements to
show in nearly 2 years of rule. There have been too little reform, let alone a
paradigm shift in policies and institutional reform which the PH has promised.
Even the ‘good and widely praised’ persons appointed to certain public offices,
would face the consequence of removal given the change of government.
Institutional reform should be more entrenched and permanent than just some
mortals in the hot seats.
What lessons can be learned? Before GE14 there were some CSO leaders
who tactically threw in vehement support for the PH coalition and rallied
behind their prime minister candidate whose past records had been tainted with
autocracy, cronyism, racism, abusing state institutions and cracking down on democratic
demands for reform. Yet some still harboured the hope that the candidate would
change his spots under the PH banner. Overthrowing the longstanding BN
government and especially Najib Razak as the sitting prime minister had become
their primary objective, if not the only agenda.
For the organizations or movements who had been working so hard to
realize their causes in the past 20 years, that was a great temptation –
whether one calls it a desperate or opportunistic move, to see their reform
efforts finally bear fruits in the end. However, instead of maintaining their
independent and principled stance, some organisations and individuals decided
to take the partisan line, and heavily campaigned for the candidates from one
side. The campaign sloganeering reached a nauseating level, flashing out the
patriotic card such as claiming to ‘Save Malaysia’ or ‘prevent the country from
going bankrupt’. Some would even go as
far as ‘reassuring’’ the people that the
PH coalition is ‘not the same’ (as BN), as they would ‘share power equally’,
and most of all they could ‘keep in check’ the person at helm.
Some members from the CSO joined PH, contested and won in the last GE (eg. Bersih 2.0 ex-chairperson
Maria Chin Abdullah), and some others from CSO within were
happily being ‘co-opted’ into the system later. Hopes and expectations were
indeed high at that moment. We know how the story went about 2 years later, yet
those who may have misled the people during the GE14 campaign, now seem to have
other words of excuse, anything but apology. No promises or manifesto have been
outlined by the current Perikatan Nasional (PN) government who claim their
focus now is on fighting over the COVID-19, the hope of reform seems diminished
and back to square one.
Where should the progressive and reform-minded CSOs and individuals go
next? Should they still hinge their hope on one political coalition, rising and
falling with the latter? Here I would argue that such model of activism or
social movement has gone wrong, due to the CSOs’ personnel identifying
themselves more with the powerholders than the movement grassroots which the
social activists should have derived their legitimacy from. This may happen
when the social movement leaders see themselves as the elites and believe that
societal change could happen due to power brokerage in the backroom – the more
friendly the party they get accustomed with, the higher the chance of success,
or so they think. I hope the bitter experience of the past two years would
change their perspective, and the social movement needs to go back to the
basic: alerting, educating, inspiring and empowering the general public, as
part of participatory democracy, and must be built on universal values and
principles.
Perhaps there is no better time than now to devote some time to the
social activism theorist Bill Moyer’s work (2001)
on Movement Action Plan (MAP) which clarifies the nature and dynamics of social
movements and provides a framework for organising and building them. Bill
reminds us that a social activist has four roles to play: citizen, rebel,
change agent and reformer
(see Figure 1 below), varies according to the stages of
social movement. However, there are effective and ineffective ways (or
pitfalls) to carry each role. For example, the ineffective role of citizen
would be ‘naïve citizen’ who tend to have too much faith in the powerholders
(ie. right people in the hot seat) and institutions to serve their interest
instead of special elite interests; or ‘super-patriot’ who gives automatic obedience
to powerholders in the name of country. ‘Any means necessary’ is a grave
tactical mistake with a heavy price to pay later (as opposed to ‘means equal
ends’)-- giving tacit support for a highly suspicious political leader the rein
in governance is indeed a big gamble and one good example of ‘any means
necessary’. Those self-identified leaders of certain issues/agendas could be
too elitist, impeding the growth of movement (certain environmental movement in
Kuantan was once plagued with the issue); those who promote minor reform as
compromise or allow ‘co-optation’, these are identified as ineffective way of
playing the role of change agent or reformer.
Source: Bill Moyer (1990).
Adapted from URL: https://commonslibrary.org/the-four-roles-of-social-activism/
Maintaining the independence and integrity of a CSO or movement is as
crucial as keeping the core principles. Being in the social movement does not
mean that one must always rebel. Equally, effective advocacy and lobbying do
not suggest that there is a need to lean over to take a partisan line or to be
co-opted. Regardless of how desperate or hopeless the situation seems, the social
movement should take no shortcut but have its foundation built from the ground
up.
I believe a vibrant and healthy participatory democracy should reflect
the ‘People Power’ structure: a strong, independent and principled civil
society with active citizenry embracing universal values. This should serve the
backbone of our democracy. Powerholders, even if derived from electorate
democracy, do not own absolute truth and they are not our boss, a reason why civil
society does not need to bow to them.
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