Service Without Servility

Cezary Obracht-Prondzyński: In authoritarian populism, passivity is what people in power want. In Poland, this government expectation has triggered extraordinary social outrage. Thousands of protests in hundreds of cities have been held in the last eight years, lots of debates and discussions have taken place, people have been mobilised and prepared. This has culminated in high election turnout. Someone organised a rally, someone came, someone spoke up. Such events and experiences stay with you. This was the reason for the very strong mobilisation witnessed on 15 October.

Two weeks earlier, Robert Fico won the elections in Slovakia. He had been swept off the political stage by great public outrage in 2018. Little is left of those emotions. Will it be the same in Poland?

C. O-P.: This is a memento for us. The case of Slovakia shows that we need to consider how to use this accumulated energy to prevent the return of authoritarian populism. The most important goal is to institutionally strengthen the resilience of society.

What does this mean?

C. O-P We need to invest in democracy. People must understand that democracy is a value.

How can this be done?

C. A-P Through civic education. We have failed to lay its institutional foundations in the last 30 years. Such education must be aimed at all of society, not just young people.

Jerzy Hausner: Let me go back to Slovakia. This is a third face of its authoritarian populism: Mečiar in the 1990s, then the first Fico government, and now another. Likewise in Poland: we had United Right governments from 2005 to 2007. This suggests that societies lack a permanent immune mechanism. Experiencing authoritarian populism and overcoming it does not make us immune for long. Zbigniew Ziobro mockingly reminded us of this when he said: “Don’t be wimps”.

Like in 2007, when the Law and Justice (PiS) team were not held accountable?

J.H: Nothing was done that would have sent a moral signal. It’s not about retaliation or removing dangerous politicians. It’s about an awareness that you can’t get away with everything. Creating the conditions to support civic activity so that it is sustainable is another matter.

How can this be done?

J.H: What happened after the first PiS government? The Civic Platform (PO) promised to ensure hot water on tap. A philosophy of passivity. We need to encourage activity, strengthen the social base and the functioning of local government.

C. O-P: Through education, we should build the understanding that it makes sense to engage in public affairs. We have to show young people that their demands are being taken seriously. If we don’t, young people will say: You don’t want to talk to us, we’ll go and live our lives differently. Of course, this is also a challenge for the wider academic world, which should take responsibility for the public sphere.

In what role?

C. O-P: From the role of experts to providing proposals for solutions to the role of moral opposition, saying out loud that we disagree.

The problem with Polish elites is that they are often closely integrated across political divides. There is no mechanism for denouncing people who say or do bad things. It is the elites who are wimps.

C.O-P.: The question is not whether someone who has done bad things will remain in public life. They shouldn’t. The question is whether the new team can step out of the proverbial salons and talk to the people, engage in dialogue with them. People expect those who want to decide the future to participate in dialogue.

J. H: It’s not about staffing companies with our people. It’s about changing the principles of filling positions in public companies and institutions in order to appoint experts and professionals. Serving a political master can no longer be the route to promotion.

Another problem is the low social engagement of private firms, managers and business owners.

C.O-P.: Not necessarily. This community is increasingly active, although it is still not enough. This is one of the key elements in the formation of a society that will protect us against populism. It is not possible to build and institutionally strengthen civic society with public money alone. We have seen that it is very easy to turn off the tap. There must be other sources of support for social energy.

J. H.: Some major companies and business owners are in a position to launch a foundation and run a community activity. But it is equally important that they run their business while respecting values. If we want businesses to turn towards what we care about, the local community, then we need to convince them that their success depends on how that community functions.

What does this mean?

J. H.: For example, business success depends on the education system. However, businesses must be independent of the government. If their standing depends on access to state-owned companies or ministries, then the influence of such businesses on civil society will not extend beyond transmitting the influence of power. This also happens on the local level. Unfortunately, we see growing monopolisation and statism in the economy. As a result, business owners may not feel the impulse to take action aimed at long-term improvement of the quality of social life, because in the short term that could undermine their relations with the government.

Look at how social dialogue works. There are seven employers’ organisations that have been granted representative status. Obviously, those who allowed so many to be established wanted to create a mere fiction of social consultation. Some minor organisation that is dependent on the government will always accept their proposals.

C. O-P.: We have seen a similar trend in past years within the third sector. Organisations were established which, in theory, were meant to represent civil society but were founded at the express wish of the government.

How advanced is the process in Poland where the government pays money to get the expert opinions they expect?

J. H.: This process is well advanced, but it can be reversed. However, this should not be done simply by replacing certain people with others.

What system of incentives can ensure the development of NGOs? We need organisations acting as intermediaries between citizens, civic society and civic initiatives, and the government. For such organisations to fulfil this role, several conditions need to be met.

What conditions?

J. H.: They must have the resources to perform this role. The money must not come exclusively from the government. If this is the case, the NGOs will become dependent and will no longer represent civic initiatives, advocating instead for the government. This is unfortunately the case in Poland.

C. O-P.: Because the only money available is discretionary public money.

What should change institutionally?

C. O-P.: It is more and more difficult to carry out social activities year after year; the access barriers are growing higher every year. Going back to that big wave of protests, it’s been said that young people came and went, and nothing was left in the sense that it has not been institutionalised. The blame is often attributed to a psychological trait of the young. But this is not quite true. The mechanisms that create the context of institutionalisation are becoming more and more onerous, starting with legal procedures.

Which procedures?

C. O-P.: It is now easier to set up a company than an association. The very number of procedures and requirements is shocking. Court register, CIT, reporting. Even writing the application. The forms and requirements are different every year. On the one hand, the bureaucratic pressure is increasing, and on the other hand, access to independent funds is shrinking. Money is there but only for our people. Instead, NGOs should serve, not be servile. There is an important difference. They are supposed to serve their communities. But the government expects them to be servile to it.

What exactly needs to be done now?

C. O-P.: The process of forming and running organisations needs to be de-bureaucratised. The funding mechanism needs to be changed to make it clearer, more transparent, in a word: fairer.

And objective.

C. O-P.: Based on objective criteria. Money should be granted on the basis of clear rules that do not change again and again. And one more thing: the leaders of NGOs must not be afraid to be active. They cannot be dragged through the courts for protesting. That has a chilling effect.

J. H.: The local level is important. Our governments are focusing on executive and administrative action, not a sense of community. We should start treating local government as a community of residents. Fortunately, some towns and cities provide infrastructure to small organisations, which are unable to maintain premises on their own, or cannot pay a lawyer or accountant. It is a good idea to make available to NGOs the local press, which is at the disposal of the local government. A large part of local government property is under administrative management instead of being used for activism. Let’s take a different look at community centres, libraries, dozens of different things that can serve to stimulate grassroots activism.

Local governments have been trying to activate residents.

J.H.: A participatory budget or civic budget should be a tender of different initiatives. The problem is that civic activism is limited to voting for a selected project. It is as if democracy were reduced to elections alone. Our approach is different. If a citizens’ initiative emerges and needs to be funded, this must not be done for the people by an enlightened government. The government merely mobilises the resources that the people have to manage themselves. Otherwise, they will not feel that it is something they should care about, their common good.

Why?

J.H.: It’s not just about getting something done technically well. It requires citizen participation and engagement. It can’t just be the government that gives them something, not even a local government. There must be some public scrutiny and engagement in even the simplest projects. This way we can have the sense that it is our common project. The sense that we own it is how to maintain a high level of social participation. ©Ⓟ