Interview with Henri Valot, CIVICUS' new Director of Outreach

Interview by: Elizabeth Hira, Human Rights Activist and  Policy Unit Intern for CIVICUS

Q. You were at Accra in 2008 when CSOs formally claimed their stake in the development conversation. In turn, governments demanded that CSOs show they could actually reach people that governments could not reach, and represent the needs of those people. Arab Spring and the citizen uprisings in Spain and Greece raise similar questions about the "representativeness" of CSOs, as these movements were decentralised actions entirely outside the formal CSO space. What do you think about the uprisings in Greece and Spain?

A. It is difficult to read at present. These citizen uprisings are happening everywhere, but of course for different reasons. It is first important to distinguish the movements in Greece and Spain—they are very different from the Arab actions. In Europe especially, there is a tradition of revolution that goes beyond actions spurred by formal organisations. Think of the fall of the Berlin Wall. That's a powerful act that's entirely a popular act—it fully exceeded the control of political parties. What strikes me about what's happening in Europe is that these movements are largely the kind of thing that happens in countries with strong traditions of citizen participation. I would love to see the same kind of uprising in African countries especially, where you have the same people in power for 30 years. But here we're often faced with a silent population. Why that is so is obvious. In Least Developed Countries (LDCs) people are struggling for basic survival, and they lack information about the governance system which needs to percolate through the education system. It's a bit cynical, but this kind of "revolutionary" movement is led by the young educated middle class, and if you lack that you likely lack a movement. It's what makes the events in Egypt and Tunisia even more remarkable. They heralded a major change for everyone: they changed governance for the Arab states of course, but also transformed external perceptions about these countries, showing them to be not a group of anonymously oppressed peoples, but strong individuals. With their movement, pro-democracy activists have revealed the promise of political alternatives to the status quo. With the organisation of this kind of political will we could imagine new political parties or forces that could finally seize power and replace militaristic and autocratic rule. Europe is a different case, obviously. Clearly the Euro Zone is in deep economic crisis; the promises made by the Baby Boomers are now fading and a new generation is discovering that their future and opportunities are entirely limited. The fact that Europe cannot compete with emerging markets is increasingly clear, which has strong implications for the future of European society.

Q. So do you think that bare economic realisation is all that is really at the centre of these protests? Is this picture of citizen mobilisation a rosier one than is warranted?

A. Well, all citizen movements are good for sure, but I would question the progressiveness of some of these movements, and I want to be careful not to romanticise all popular social movements as progressive. I cannot speak first-hand to the action in Spain and Greece, and my view may be coloured because I've just come back from working in Angola and Burundi, in a very different context, but as I am French I have a particular perception of the movements in Europe. I was in France during the strikes over the new law decreasing welfare to pensioners. The state was responding to the economic reality of simply not having the billions of dollars it needed each year to pay for pensions, and Sarkozy and the right took this as an opportunity for rhetoric about stopping the "welfare state." In response to this law about pensioners, it was also young people who were in the streets, protesting. But they were saying, "I want a job, and a secure job, and a pension." Other activists and I found it funny in light of our protests in 1968—these kids demanding stability and the same job for years and years—it was far from revolutionary. And frankly, protest is the national gymnastics of France; every generation must pass through their protest phase as almost a rite of passage. But, to me, this set of protests had a strong sense of conservatism. When we say, "I have my benefits and I want to keep them," we are implicitly admitting we need to maintain this lifestyle of living on credit at the cost of the rest of the world. On the other hand, there is significance to what is happening in all of these protests: ultimately, these citizen movements are questioning the key political and economic orientation of these countries. For example, there was a real backlash when the Greek government started investing in the market, and losing. In one sense, people were calling for more active citizen participation, but in Europe there are plenty of mechanisms for participation at all levels. These movements are saying, clearly, that this is not enough.

Q. Is there a change that civil society and CSOs can lead or encourage that would be enough?

A. It is important to remember that civil society means not just formal CSOs or professionalised groups. Civic participation also includes the chaotic, disorganised and organic. Civil society is in the streets in Europe. There is a lot of despair in these protests. Essential questions are being posed to European governments about the way they actually run their countries. Of course, the protestors can go and vote, but I think what they are doing by taking to the streets is responding to their discontent with the system itself. With the recession comes a resurgence of the right wing—they blame the progressives in power for the economic circumstances. Taking to the streets is a way to express that the traditional means such as political parties and trade unions are irrelevant. It does not matter what party is in power if the system itself is broken. No political party will ever represent the indignados. CSOs can't do that fully either, but it does show that we must be better at listening. We've been so focused on advocating around global public good—for the environment, for increased cooperation, for financial transactions—that we look to the international at the exclusion of the local. But the more the world is globalised the more acute the local issues become. The people are clamouring for attention to their issues. The indignation spurring these protests is fundamentally about the emergence of extreme poverty and general economic insecurity in Europe's wealthiest countries. This is unfathomable to many people. The Greek and Spanish movements express suffering, questions, risks, fears—and the fact is that the world has changed. For Europe, joining an NGO used to mean dealing with problems that belonged to Africa, Asia, to elsewhere. No longer. We now need global organisations based in Europe to carry out the same kind of advocacy they do against global poverty to combat local poverty emerging now in Europe. These movements should indicate to CSOs that we must expand our idea of who needs support and we must better support those CSOs working on local issues. From the movements themselves will emerge new forms of organisation, new forms of action, from which we need to learn. What we're seeing now is the rise of self-help driven organisations, efforts that do not come from formal CSOs, but from neighbours in New Orleans or Detroit getting together to build community gardens so they have tomatoes on their tables, or from one guy in Spain being the first to get wi-fi in his building and sharing his password with all of his neighbours. It becomes a collective thing. Traditional organised civil society is not so involved in that.

Q. Can it be? Can civil society support what you see to be the emerging trend here?

A. First, our duty is to understand and analyse the discourse, to read carefully the manifestos that have been written. CSOs must come back to the issues the people themselves are raising. Often with spontaneous civic mobilisation, the objectives are unclear, the media has difficulty reporting on it and there are no designated leaders. We must help to make their discourse public; we must help people to understand what is happening. Second, we must see if new forms of organisation arise from the movements, and be responsive to support them. Third, we must adapt. The mandate of CIVICUS was mainly to help give shape to the sector, largely made up of organisations and platforms that convey information outwards, eventually to individuals. What these movements tell CIVICUS is that we can talk directly to individuals, and individuals can talk directly to us. This would change the nature of the network, and how CIVICUS communicates.

No campaign is ever going to start from a think tank. To sell products, fine, but a social and economic campaign always begins in the street, and always by the people. And we've learned by experience that if a well established organisation tries to control, or even to organise it, it usually kills the campaign.

Q. Is there reason to be hopeful that CIVICUS can contribute in this changed landscape?

A. All of this is what CIVICUS is about—about citizen participation—about citizens claiming their rights, even if it can appear messy or disorganised. In every country you can find spontaneous civil mobilisation. For instance, Naomi Klein writes in No Logo about people in London who simply began blocking the traffic on some roads, setting up pedestrian festivals instead. Someone named it "Reclaim the Streets," and it just spread. People were taking back their space. CIVICUS should be the first to know about these events, about this spontaneous mobilisation. Everything that is collective, that happens in solidarity, that activates citizens, that is self-help, is relevant to CIVICUS. Governments, the private sector, even CSOs, political parties and trade unions – we have everything to learn from these movements. But we have much to contribute too. I am reminded of Stéphane Hessel, one of the architects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, now 94 years old or so, who recently wrote a book called Indignez-vous! [Time for Outrage! in English] which translates roughly as a sentiment like "Outrage yourself!" He reflected later and was critical of his own title – he said it is not just about becoming indignant, it is about acting too. That is why we must reflect on the indignados: it is important to be outraged, but we must ask how this leads to action. The challenge of my time here is to help CIVICUS become local, to support local action. A global brand can become local. If we adapt, there is reason to be hopeful that there is a place for organisations like CIVICUS. Our contribution is to use our global network to help tell the story, so that it can inspire others to take local action—to make action from their movement for themselves.