Safe civic spaces remain essential for the meaningful realisation of civil liberties including freedoms of expression, association and assembly. However, civic spaces face serious challenges across the world not only in developing countries but also in some of most advanced democracies and liberal and minimal states in Europe. According to a recent Freedom House Report on Freedom in the World 2019, freedom in the world recorded the 13th consecutive year of decline in global freedom in 2018. The reversal has spanned a variety of countries in every region, from long-standing democracies like the United States to consolidated authoritarian regimes like China and Russia.
According to a report of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance on Global State of Democracy released in October, 2018, from mid-2010, the status of the civil liberties has started falling in many countries. According to a CIVICUS report on People Power under Attack 2018, as many as 6 in 10 countries are now seriously repressing civic freedoms across the world.
Civil liberties and civic spaces face serious push-backs at the hands of states, because struggle between liberty and authority is the most conspicuous feature of the history, as writes John Stuart Mill in his famous work On Liberty. States always remain more inclined towards authoritarian tendencies. Further, States at global level seem to lose their resilience against the social and political streams arising out of peoples’ resentment, legitimate as well non-legitimate in some cases such as populism, against their political systems, leaders and policies of their respective governments.
Notwithstanding, these serious push backs civil liberties and civic spaces face across the world pose serious questions on the political and moral legitimacy of the States. This is on account of the fact that civil liberties limit the extent and nature of the power States can exercise over their citizens and accordingly they determine the political and moral legitimacy the States hold to function. By virtue of being a social construct, the prime responsibility of States is to protect civil liberties in addition to right to life of their citizens. In case of a failure to protect these rights, States fail to deliver their inherent political task and make their political mandate questionable.
We should shrug off our indifference and our political apathy and remain engaged in peaceful democratic actions directed against the shrinking civic spaces culminating into compromised civil liberties
Robert Nozick, in his book Anarchy, State and Utopia, writes that individuals have rights and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). Robert Nozick certainly refers these “things” to civil liberties in addition to right to life. Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his famous work The Social Contract writes that to renounce your liberty is to renounce your status as a man, your rights as a human being, and even your duties as a human being.
Given such conclusive role of civil liberties in man’s overall social and political life and his/her association with the State, the existence of the global States with existing political nomenclature compromising civil liberties is questionable.
Efforts are now made at the international level to counter the phenomenon of shrinking civic spaces. Only a few years ago, there was little literature available on civic spaces; however, a great deal is now available in cyber space. A wide range of reports and other forms of literature on civic spaces are now produced by many organizations and institutions including Oxfam, International Civil Society Centre, CIVICUS, Freedom House, International IDEA, Forum-Asia, and the Open Society Foundation. Importantly, efforts are now made by the intergovernmental organizations, such as the United Nations, European Union and International IDEA. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has developed Management Plan 2018-2021 on Enhancing Participation and Protecting Civic Space with an aim to promote and protect civic spaces and its actors and agencies. The European Union has developed various specific funding mechanisms, policy papers, and foreign policy tools on civic spaces. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, an intergovernmental organization, has mainstreamed civic spaces in its Strategy 2018-2022. An overview of global initiatives on countering civic spaces for civil society, a report produced by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in 2017, is a very useful resource.
Given the initiatives, the greatest need is to protect civic spaces and civic freedoms. Protection must be extended to peaceful and democratic resistance formed at local level by the civil society actors including grassroots communities. Efforts made at international level by civil society organizations and intergovernmental organizations can only bear fruit if they are strongly complemented and primarily supported by local voices and local actions framed within democratic parameters.
Walter Lippmann writes in his work A preface to Politics that no attack is so disastrous as silence. We must overcome the fear orchestrated by States, break our silence, and speak out. We must shrug off our indifference and our political apathy and remain engaged in democratic peaceful actions directed against the shrinking civic spaces culminating into compromised civil liberties. The more scared we are, the more we will compromise our civic spaces and civil liberties. Given the difficult times we must double our efforts to resists the shrinking spaces trend. The survival remains in resistance not in silence and inaction.
When injustice becomes a norm, resistance should be a value.
The writer can be reached at [email protected]