Politics, with a side-dish of Human Rights
The question is this: is it ethical to support groups which support humanitarian causes even when they are affiliated to particular governments (therefore, as previously explained, biased in their point of view)? Are we ready to sacrifice a strict stance of neutrality if it means that we will achieve a bit of our pro-human rights agenda?
Non-governmental organizations (NGO’s), more often than not, abuse their NGO image. They have a (wrong) image of neutrality and absence of governmental affiliation. They make use of this image to sometimes fool their audience into supporting them. As Dr Lahidji named them, these GNGO’s (Governmental Non-Governmental Organizations) are truly supported by invisible hands of Government agencies, parties, movements and opinion.
So let’s use a hypothetical example: Human Rights Watch, is an organization which claims to support human rights causes around the globe and also monitors human rights violations occurring in our societies. However , unbeknownst to the common donor of HRW, HRW receives great amount of funding from organizations—which on the surface—seem to be humanitarian institutions with a focus on Islam. These Islamist groups are particularly good at taking the one, or next to none, notable humanitarian acts done in the Islamic Republic and blow it out of proportion to advertise to the public—and thereby, gain sympathy for Islamist movements. The Human Rights Watch administration is obviously keen on keeping the Islamist donors happy so that they continue to fund them. As such, (in)directly, the process of appeasement taints the HRW’s neutrality stance and skews it towards supporting the Islamic Republic (however indirectly, as mentioned before). (If not support of the IR, support of the slow change reforms, rather than the clear cut movements requesting a governmental change). The common private donor of HRW who has a particular aversion to supporting the IR has to choose whether to abandon all support of HRW because of its blemished and slightly skewed stance, or bite its tongue and allow minimal indirect IR support while hoping to maybe balance it out with the once in a while “real” changes HRW brings along.
What do you think?!
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Hmmmm….. Well, that’s either an easy question, or a very tough one.
It’s an easy one if you make it a moral absolute that you refuse to support any organization less than 100% pure.
It’s a very tough one if you live in the real world where every group is at least “slightly skewed” because then you must judge it on a case by case basis. You have to keep re-evaluating after every action: did they go too far this time? Has the total of all the little compromises along the way added up to too much?
Perhaps tougher still is for you — not them — to hold on to the standards you started with and not slowly become more and more accepting of compromise and trade-offs. The “slippery slope” argument.
I think so it’s very important to support humanitarian causes specially for a country like The Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) because The IRI regime just don’t care about people. Do you recall Bam earthquake? On December 26, 2003, earthquake killed over 43000 people, injured 20000 left 60000 homeless and destroyed almost whole Bam city. What happened later? Some countries and NGOs all helped but it didn’t do that much. Finally people themselves started to rebuild their homes. It’s still a ruined place. Just imagine there were no NGO to help people in Bam what would happen to them?
I am sure most of 20000 injured people and 60000 homeless would have been died!
This is how they govern this country! Careless!
On the other hand, supporting agencies should evaluate whole process themselves or by an intermediate independent organization. when it comes it IRI always there’s a fear of using the funds in terrorist cells or nuclear agenda which is right! If you do remember even they sold lots of medical supplies and tents (countries sent to IRI after Bam earthquake) which it supposed to be used in Bam.
What I want try to suggest is not only we should support NGOs but also we should evaluate every step of their work otherwise just people won’t benefit for the funds!
Fariborz Shamshiri
It is clearly very important for NGOs to be transparent about the sources of their funding and any political or other agendas they may have. Not all NGOs (even some of the really big and well-respected ones) are so transparent. NGOs are not exempt from any of the temptations that governments and other organizations experience: power, money, expanionism, etc. However, NGOs play a very important role in the health of civil society, in delivering humanitarian services, and in holding governments to account. So, we should apply a degree of caution in supporting NGOs.
The question of neutrality of NGOs is a critical one.
As the various movements, known as international civil society, gain more influence in the world, more attention will be focused on who they really represent, who funds them and how are they governed?
I work within the NGO sector myself and I can assure any readers of this excellent blog, that many NGOS across the world are self-appointed groups of people who have large influence with government and the media but often lack any real internal mechanisms for accountability and transparency.
I believe the NGO sector is long overdue for reform, and this is particularly true of human rights organisations.
Grumpy and Barney clarified the final say.
“a strict stance of neutrality”! where can you find it? the dream of Utopia maybe pleasant, but its just a dream.
This is exactly what turns us off from registering ourselves as an NGO … we lose our independence, credibility, and possibly security. We are trying to stay financially (and especially “ideologically!”) independent because as soon as we associate ourselves with any funders… that’s it.
Hang in there, E. There are at least three different ways MEY can go about becoming an NGO without losing our identity.
Although it would be a tough route to go … one method would be to form MEY into an NGO and then work to build a board of trustees — folks (e.g., young entrepreneurs) who will commit a certain level of funding each year as members of the board. This way, MEY’s independence would be secured while guaranteeing a certain amount of money each year, but without constantly having to chase funds by writing grants. MEY could be careful to form a board from people you trust will uphold its mission. You could ask for a three-year commitment, which would be renewable for an indefinite number of terms, so MEY isn’t trapped if someone changes his/her philosophical outlook.
Another route would be to form into an NGO and to raise money only through fundraising events that could take place at different venues. We’d need MEY folks in various locations willing to take on the role as event coordinator, or something like that, but it could work as long as you’re very careful about who you allow to act on behalf of the organization. The type of event that is held would determine how much money it brings in.
The third route would be to form an NGO and then use fundraising as an additional context to promote coexistence. The funding can come from a variety of businesses throughout the Middle East, and then we can promote ourselves as being “funded by businesses in Dubai, Israel, Kurdistan, Iran, Egypt, Turkey, Armenia, and Sudan” or … well, you get the point. This way, the focus would be less upon the individual businesses that are involved and more upon their cooperation and participation with each other through MEY. You can solicit funds from communications companies, for example. This method shows that businesses don’t have to associate with each other merely through trade, but also can do so through cooperative endeavors like this. As long as we steer clear of businesses with a really obvious political agenda, or bad record, I doubt anyone, except for people who will hate MEY no matter what, would cast aspersions upon us (just the opposite, it deepens the context of promoting coexistence given the level of diversity, not just amongst youth, but also amongst enterprise). Of course, the downside will be that governments may become suspicious of businesses are coexisting with “the other” through MEY … or perhaps they will give them the green light to engage “the other” through MEY, who knows.
Anyway, these are a few options to consider.
Great ideas PV! We are trying to organize a conference now and have considered regional media outlets like Al Jazeera to be possible funders, but that also comes with risks. The political and governmental affiliations might still be attached. We might not for example be able to say “Al Jazeera just reported this – and what a lie it is!” or if Jordanian Royal-led organizations fund us we can’t say “Queen Rania just did this, how misleading!”
Get it? And many non-governmental networks within the region certainly don’t have the money or skills to fund or sponsors us. This is why it’s supper difficult.
The fundraising idea is also a great one, but not many members of this network are entirely committed. Many of them just come here to share their writing and have a discussion. The actual long-term team consists of less than 6 individuals, all of whom have other commitments which they must balance out – especially work and college/grad school.
Right now we’re doing good. I say a year from now we’re going to be really low on funds to maintain everything we run.
We removed the donation option from this place because we didn’t want to give people the wrong impression, plus we find it more fascinating being cheap. We like to come up with new ideas that require more work than money. It’s stressful and it’s hard but we can pull it through, just like we did this past year.
I know what you are saying, Esra’a, but I think you are letting yourself over-worry to the point where you may let good chances slip by that you can actually harness to your benefit. Most likely, the folks here are not going to spend our time calling out corporations for the (little) things they do except in major circumstances, so you don’t have to worry too much about ruining these relationships. I mean, how many posts here, out of thousands, talk about bad corporate behavior? Maybe it’ll happen … maybe it won’t. But you can’t let opportunity pass by because of what may never come to pass.
Besides, and trust me on this, they need MEY too. They’ll see supporting these projects as a method of advertising and public relations — to say to the international community, “look how great we are, we support organizations like MEY. We aren’t biased, buy from us!” If anything, what you would have to worry about is whether a corporation might use and exploit its relationship with you to ward off negative PR they may otherwise deserve. But, don’t occupy yourself with either. As long as you steer clear of the notorious ones, this probably won’t come to pass either.
You can definitely do this if you want to. All you have to do is focus on corporations that aren’t really going to cause a conflict of interest with MEY’s mission to defend human rights and foster communication and understanding between Middle Easterners. And if they were to commit some gross human rights violation after having given MEY funds, then you could write a press release saying how devastated you are to have to sever your relationship with them because of what they did and then give them their money back. Thus, MEY maintains its integrity and gets its own good PR out of it too.
Don’t pick al-Jazeera as a funder if you feel uncomfortable about the overlap with the media component and your work. Besides, they have a negative perception swirling about them in some circles. But you can go for funding from companies like mortgage lenders, beverage companies, electronics stores, car insurance, toys & games, big accounting firms, etc. that we probably won’t be talking much about on the MEY blogs, so the conflict of interest between them and MEY very well may never happen. This way, you get your funding without selling out.