Civil Society Leading

“PIAZZA GRANDE”

“PIAZZA GRANDE”

Many authoritative  people have more and more suggested the need for civil society to mobilize and organize itself in order to influence politics to remove the stagnation and the increasing environmental degradation and the social exclusion.

The article “Scandalous injustice” (published on “Il Sole 24 Ore  September 5)refers the essential content of a recent book by prof. Tomas Pogge, a philosopher at the highest political  level in the world regarding the theme of “global justice”. According to the author of the book, a serious injustice, ethically scandalous, is reached in relation  to reach and poor countries of the planet. The cause of the persistence of this situation is attributable to the political will of reach countries. In fact, says the philosopher, these are the controllers of the powerful international institutions like WTO, the IMF  and the World Bank, while today there are, among other things, enough resources  to intervene and remove the most severe poverty.

On “la Repubblica”, September 6, it reported the thought of Ulrich Beck, sociologist of international value, expressed in a recent book on the theme of power in the global age.

 The globalization in act, according to the sociologist, has removed substantial meaning  and significance  to the distinction between national and international ambits. The political world , still organized by countries, is unable to give answers and  to express political leadership on the economy which, with the globalization, has reached a worldwide level. It follows that the politics may induce the capital to a system that includes freedom, global justice, security and environmental conservation only when it will mature, in each one and in the worldwide contest, a political and intellectual opening which will allow awareness of the current modernity and of the need  to take into account  the point of view, of the others.

The same newspaper  “la Repubblica” in an article of September 13, publishes excerpts of  the “lesson on democracy” held by Gustavo Zagrebelsky, former president of the Constitutional Court, a lawyer  president of “Freedom and Justice”. It is highlighted  as it is not sufficient to merely adopt formal democratic structures whereas substantially the power of the numbers is used to create a society essentially undemocratic. Despite the existence of democratic structures, it is certainly not a democratic society the one in which discrimination and inequality encourage citizens “that can” to the detriment of the poorest in areas that qualify the social condition such as the distribution of wealth, occupation, education, health care. These realities in turn generate disaffection of the people toward participation, anti-political feelings, and even resentment against democracy and a dangerous openness to populism. It is so that the enormous potential that lies in civil society in terms of interest in political participation and free and spontaneous offer of expertise and resources, is rejected by the constituted powers in defence of the acquired  positions and  for the fear that an opening to civil society can undermine these positions. The author concludes that the civil society should become “something” in the political order.

In the newspaper “Il fatto quotidiano” on November 4, Paolo Flores d-Arcais, philosopher, journalist, director of the magazine Micro Mega, in an article entitled Piazza Grande notes that the substantial  inertia of politics and the prevailing party power create unconcern and anti politics in the citizens. He as well, as a solution, shows that, especially in Italy, the civil society is full of basic experiences on democracy with its  Target based movements,  every type of clubs, voluntary work, local association and various political initiatives. He says that these could be able to react against the constituted power conservative selfishness. Nevertheless it necessary that all these experiences connect themselves so to become operational. They should  connect into a  “permanent  forum”, achieve a common heritage of their experiences and identify priority  policy measures to support through a possible “common candidature of the civil society coalition for the primaries”.

So, from these reflections it comes, in short, that the established political power is not responding to the challenges posed by modernity. It appears that this is due, within the States, to the territorial limitation of the political powers, in comparison with the market and the economical power global mobility. Within  the institutions provided with international powers it exists  the possibility, at least in terms of resources, to work with innovative policies which  solve the most serious aspects of social injustice. Nevertheless this is not implemented for lack of political will and for selfish interest aimed at maintaining the privileges, and the existing powers, not only the economic ones. Once again the inability and inaction of the politics create increasing inequality, social injustice at all level, alienation of citizen from participation, anti politic feelings, populism, and depletion of the enormous potential of democratic participation, voluntarism and contribution from the civil society. The conclusion of the mentioned authors is that the way of salvation lies in giving confidence and active functions to this potential. But it is also pointed out that the civil society, in order to overcome the resistance and  to gain  importance, must coordinate all the actual different manifestations and potentialities into  a permanent laboratory, complex inside but unified in its external expressions, able to identify prior programmatic measures to be supported by common application also inside political coalitions and  elections.

These remarks and these reflections indicated by the over mentioned  writing and by other authoritative leaders, are the same reasons which prompted me to write the book “From crises to a better world, with the civil society”. In it, once outlined the “better world” (pag. 38/54), as suggested by the meditations on the needs and possibilities which today are posed to save  the ambient and the dignity of the social life (pages 19/26) it is indicated as inescapable need, the innovative intervention of the civil society. But the extension of this intervention is not limited within each State, as the interdependence, the globalization in act and the consequent global relevance of many problems, require the innovative intervention to be implemented  in a global frame. Furthermore it is indicated the necessity that the operational connection of all the potential forces of civil society takes shape in an organized structure which get to be recognized and institutionalized for its duties (“Civil Authority” pages 94/115). At the same time it is also pointed out that this “civil authority” should maintain itself  distinct and autonomous in relation to the political powers, in order not to be confused with  the institutions on which it must use a power of advice, conditioning and control. An independence necessary to avoid that the natural resistance of  political powers against the interference of civil society may succeed through the reception and metabolism of its most active subjects; furthermore, an independence aimed at keeping the integrity of the democratic system, in which the civil authority may carry out a dialectic contribution without pretension of replacing the political parties or imposing its priorities to the whole community.

The book, which can be downloaded  from this site, suggests the intervention of the civil society according to a path designed in conformity with the posed values and the evidenced goals. This site is offered as an instrument  to favour the connection, the identification , elaboration and actuation of concrete programs.