Adekan mural, 2015. All rights reserved.
Thirteen human rights defenders were detained in
Turkey on November 16 and Yiğit Aksakoğlu, an activist working on children
rights, was imprisoned related to charges against Anadolu Kültür, a cultural
association founded by philanthropist Osman Kavala. Kavala himself has been in prison
for more than a year without an indictment. This is not the first time human
rights defenders and civil society representatives have been put behind bars in
Turkey. This time, however, political violence has reached new
heights; even peaceful resistance and civil disobedience are now
criminalised by the security forces.
Selective targeting of activists and pre-trial
detentions are pernicious strategies to restrict civic space. Turkey is not
alone in this practice. In recent years, human rights defenders suffer from unprecedented
psychological, economic and social harm worldwide. If they refuse to back down,
they also suffer physical harm. According to Frontline Defenders, 300 activists were murdered last
year. Physical attacks, killings and forced
disappearances mainly target rights-defenders demanding environmental protection and labour rights or activist journalists
revealing corruption and abuse of power.
Monitoring organisations are concerned
that targeting human rights defenders reached ‘crisis’ levels in 2017. Around
3.2 billion people live in countries with repressed or totally closed civic
space, due to a degrading political will to protect freedoms of expression,
assembly and association. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on Human
Rights Defenders,
This is not
random violence. I have become convinced that the incidents in question are not
isolated acts but concerted attacks against those who try to embody the ideal
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
While most of the political violence takes place in consolidated
long-term authoritarian systems, it is a part of a global trend of the
worldwide rise of right-wing populism and democratic decline. The trend also
affects human rights defence and civil society in Europe. But researchers and
experts who work on the rise of populism and democratic decline do not talk
about it sufficiently.
Europe
is not immune
It might come as a surprise that civic space is not
immune from direct and indirect political violence in Europe and the US. CIVICUS consider that civil
society in the United States, France, UK, Spain and Austria has ‘narrowed’ largely
due to the rise in support for extremist and far-right political views and
extreme security measures and anti-terrorism laws.
Several new European democracies often use legislative power, i.e. restrictions on
foreign funding or security and anti-terrorism laws, and politicised judiciary to discourage or even criminalise rights-based activism
concerning issues directly related to political, social and economic rights of
‘out-groups’ such as minorities, migrants and refugees.
The gravity of the situation varies; restrictions are
qualitatively different in democracies of western Europe from those in the semi-authoritarian
regimes for example in Hungary, Turkey and Poland, and the intensity of
political violence is much less in a semi-authoritarian regime than a consolidated
autocracy like China. Yet, the global trend affects all types of governments,
and core treaties that burden states to protect fundamental political and civil
rights are being undermined by even the long-term advocates of these treaties.
Targeted
political violence
The assault against civic space and human rights
defenders has been high on the agenda of human rights organisations for at
least a decade. They have been seeking ways to adapt to political violence and
reopen the closed spaces in several countries.
However, academics and international donors have started
to consider targeted political violence as an integral part of the global
democratic decline and populist politics only lately. The institutional
dimensions of democratic decline and populist political discourse still receive
disproportionate attention.
Researchers have invested a great deal in agreeing on
what populism means and whether certain parties are populist or not, and analysing
populists’ electoral success, manifestoes and discourse. The scholarly interest
in populism and the authoritarian surge does not mean that the accumulated
knowledge is channelled properly towards debating its real-time effects on
societies and counter-strategies. Instead, researchers have been stuck with
analysing populism and authoritarianism at the macro-level – election results,
institutions, high-level political discourse, societal discontent inferred from
some aggregated data from polls and electoral surveys – they miss how it affects the everyday life of
societies. The scholarly interest in populism and
the authoritarian surge does not mean that the accumulated knowledge is
channelled properly towards debating its real-time effects on societies and
counter-strategies.
In addition, the bulk of the international donor community’s
efforts is focused on improving institutions through electoral monitoring, the rule
of law reform and fight against corruption. Despite extravagant resources spent
on these areas, improvements remain meagre because the recipient governments are
reluctant to carry out political reforms and also because the EU and the US, providers
of most of the aid in these areas, only half-heartedly pressured these governments
and have turned a blind eye when they used electoral majorities and captured parliaments,
constitutional courts and civil society as a smokescreen to entrench their
power.
Overall, the repercussions of democratic backsliding
and right-wing populist pressure on civic participation have long been underestimated
or treated as a side-product of political and institutional capture outside the
circle of human rights groups.
It is high time to appreciate that democracy is no
single uniform body. It has several political, civic, economic and cultural
dimensions and its decline should be studied by disaggregating it to its parts
and developing responses in each field.
What
we know about populism and authoritarianism should be reconsidered in relation
to human rights defence
Populist politics relies foremost on Manichean dichotomies and divisions
between the people and the elite, insiders and outsiders, friends and enemies. Populism
deepens existing polarisations and invents new ones in societies contaminated
by it.
The rhetoric of exclusion exhausts the listeners’ attention
so that complex socio-economic problems from healthcare and pensions to public
transportation can be reduced to a simple answer of ‘oust the outsider, and we will
restore the wonderful past and continue living like ‘before’’.
The success of slogans and simple answers for complex
problems lie deep in legitimate feelings of social and economic insecurity and
disenfranchisement, but also the pumped-up fear of ‘the foreigner’, which has
brought electoral success to right-wing populist parties in so many countries. The
politics of exclusion is inherently exclusionary, discriminatory and against
participatory democracy.
Research also shows that this is not the end of the
story. When mainstream parties adopt politics of fear and polarisation, they surrender
public opinion to be formed by populist discourse and the misdirection of those
widespread feelings of insecurity and disenfranchisement. Mondon and Winter argue right-wing populism is
normalised even where right-wing populists have been unable to attain
significant electoral success, by granting media platform to extremist ideas, making electoral alliances with
such parties and also irresponsibly framing questions on pressing issues through
the language of right-wing populism in academic or
public debates.
The story continues even further. Wherever right-wing
populist parties and semi-authoritarian regimes achieve political power through
elections, they are not satisfied with electoral wins and monopolisation of the
parliaments and the executive. They seek to shape and influence the civic space
where ideas flourish, where society debates and engages in intellectual and
cultural production, where majoritarian democracy and discriminatory
authoritarian practices are challenged.
Turkey and Hungary are both good examples. The moment
they turn to the civic space, they take the first step towards entrenching
themselves securely in power by manufacturing societal consent through both conviction
and fear. But just where the story gets interesting, researchers’ interest in
populism and authoritarianism pretty much stops.
Human
rights activism as a target
It should be more clearly emphasised that the climate
of outrage and politics of exclusion surrounding the language of the media and
the party system in many countries normalise and encourage political violence
targeting human rights activism.
Activists by dint of their work campaign for the
rights of disadvantaged groups, who populist discourse perceives as outsiders. In
many countries, while authoritarian values, Islamophobia, antisemitism, white
racism are creeping back into mainstream politics, human rights defenders are
the only remaining actors brave enough to speak the truth to the face of power
and campaign for the rights of refugees and migrants, ethnic and religious
minorities and other disadvantaged groups.
When the political discourse and the media directly or
indirectly present migrants or other outgroups as a burden on economies and
societies, they continuously produce consent for their social, economic and
political discrimination as ‘the new normal’.
In this political and social environment, working to
improve their rights becomes a nuisance and gets demonised. This is often a
starting strategy to prepare the ground for legal and legislative action that
directly or indirectly restricts the civic space, the fundamental freedoms of
assembling, associating and the expression of views. In turn, it gradually deprives societies at large of alternative channels of
participation and the right to information and erodes the participatory
quality of democracy.
The repression of civic spaces and human rights defenders
is a convenient strategy for right-wing populist and authoritarian rulers to ensure
that public spheres are flooded with the dominant narratives of crisis and
antagonism.
Moreover, pre-emptive measures, pre-trial detentions
and daily harrassment online intimidate not only activists but also millions in
Turkey and beyond. Such actions deter even critical citizens from making claims
outside the officially sanctioned venues. In the end, political violence targeting
civic space and human rights activism affects the everyday life of societies
more directly than the capture and control of formal institutions.
How
do we proceed from this impasse?
The response is not to shy away from human rights
activism. It is not demanding more of it from lawyers and NGOs either (the
latter have already been criticised for being
unaccountable and serving the neoliberal agenda). It is about directly
experiencing it as citizens and even more as humans.
In other words, human rights defence does not only
concern the lawyers and professional NGOs who engage in it; and it is not
limited to revolutionary public square protests. Today, human rights defenders
across the world should be ‘ordinary citizens’ acting within their personal and
professional domains.
In the short term in many countries, the winner in
this battle seems to be those conducting the populist and authoritarian assault.
Paradoxically, however, where political institutions have been historically monopolised
or captured, citizens have usually turned to activism to reclaim freedom of
expression and the right to information.
The paradox of political violence is that sooner or
later, it fuels popular movements, as long as citizens have preserved an
autonomous and diffused civic space outside the realm of contemporary power
relations and politics so that alternatives to current political discourse and
authority can emerge.
Turkey’s
diffuse horizontal networks offer clues
In Turkey
and many other countries where human rights defence has become a perilous
struggle, the trend has been evolving in this direction. Revolutionary protests
might have been forcefully oppressed in its public squares and might not be
feasible given the repression in many countries. However, despite widespread
political violence, activism and civic space is alive and kicking, and its
nature is changing in promising ways in semi-authoritarian and democratic
systems alike. Given the lack of effective
access to the political field or means to change high-level political
discourse, civic space becomes an arena for concerned individuals to carve out pockets
of participation locally or initiate change on specific issues. Despite the
risk of political violence and physical harm, when the political system is
captured or unresponsive, people turn to grassroots contention.
What we
witness is an apparent shift in the nature of civic activism with the emergence
of local, issue-based and peaceful social movements and loose networks. My field
research on the shrinking space under political violence focuses on Turkey, but
I believe it offers clues for other contexts where a polarising populist
discourse dominates the political agenda.
Since the 2013
Gezi demonstrations, Turkey has witnessed a multiplication of unregistered,
movement-type diffuse activist networks. A younger generation seeking
horizontal and direct participation has brought new vibrancy to the gendered
and professionalised NGO-driven civic space. The new activists are what Pippa Norris
calls ‘critical citizens’ or ‘dissatisfied democrats’ who cling to
democratic values but remain dissatisfied with democracy since it has been
reduced to voting and therefore, produces majoritarian and discriminatory
outcomes.
Readers familiar
with the Turkish context might raise eyebrows, and they are right to think activists
are unable to engage in open dissent and must keep a low profile at the verge
of invisibility to circumvent political violence. The statement by one activist
I interviewed a few months ago captures the feeling of these groups well:
Street activism
is not an option. Public squares are closed these days. Are we wary about the
situation? Yes, for a long time. I had to relocate consecutively for several
nights during the recent arrests with a group of fellow activists. It is not to
escape from detention. They find you if they want to get you. We at least wished
that the police would not detain us at home [in front of our families]. We live
with this yes. Organising protests is an action that we abstain from, but we
try not to lose our grassroots links.
However, under the current circumstances in Turkey, activists
are interested in ‘the long-term fight’. They challenge patriarchal and
authoritarian social values in available public spheres. They do not shy
away from asserting their identities, secular or Islamic. They seek to
establish democratic forums inside their networks and reject hierarchical
structures and leadership that dominates even the traditional civil society
sector and replace them with horizontal deliberation and consensual
decision-making.
They are open to cooperation and inclusion of various
groups, but selective in participating in protests and appearing in the media. Yet,
contentious action in the form of peaceful demonstrations, neighbourhood
assemblies, public information campaigns and press statements is widely practised.
But, the focus of their contentious action is not disrupting the government or
everyday life or necessarily achieving quantifiable goals, but raising
awareness on issues such as women, environment, construction and resource
extraction projects, urban infrastructure, animal rights and labour rights.
These issues are often considered secondary to high politics or extremely
local.
They also actively search for ways to establish
solidarity. To give one example, one pro-labour activist group told me they do
not only demonstrate when hundreds of workers are laid off or forced to work
under harsh conditions, but they also seek to organise events to raise additional
subsistence for them. Last but not least, they do not believe they need formal institutions
to succeed and are keen to keep their independence from political parties and
often from international donors.
Challenging
‘audience democracy’ worldwide
Similar trends are observed around the world since the
2008 financial crisis. People who were not a part of a movement or organisation
before come together to raise their voice against extremism, denial of social and economic rights, gender-based
violence and destruction of
their livelihoods. The shift from professional NGOs to citizen-oriented
activism challenges the populist and (semi)authoritarian regimes. Their power
lies in the fact that they challenge ‘audience democracy’ driven by the manipulated
public opinion and personalised politics that populism has generated. In its
place, they promote ‘advocacy democracy’ informed by local and issue-based
deliberation to shape preferences in the long-term and foster civic
participation.
While
engaging in human rights activism with various social and economic focal points,
citizen activists experiment with a different form of democracy and discover
ways to make use of these beyond voting. If researchers are concerned about the
global trend of the authoritarian backlash, the lack of trust in democracy and
extreme social polarisation as causes and consequences of right-wing populism,
these loose networks of citizen participation could spark the process of
re-legitimising and re-inventing democracy.
There is
room for hope, history tells. Democratic social
and political change has always originated from these peaceful, localised and issue-based
community organisations and networks of long-term resistance, not from NGOs
with managerial boards and lucrative grants from international donors.
What
can the international community do?
The international donor community is not unaware of
the changing terrain of activism or political violence, as a recent report by Eldén and Levin argues. ‘Flexible aid’ to activist
networks and organisations working in populist and (semi)authoritarian regimes
has become the new buzzword of the donor community. However, frank
conversations with donors start and end with the same question these days: what
do you think you should be doing to counter political violence targeting civic
space and human rights defenders in country X? When asked about concrete
strategies, they still falter.
Many countries have been the test beds for ‘democracy
aid’ and ‘civil society support programmes’ in the past. What we know is that
international support is crucial for ensuring the resilience of the civic space
and activism under extreme pressure. Support to find and finance legal aid and
ability to survive financially are the two most important areas in which international
donors make a real contribution. But, they have also failed in the past because
international donors expected too much ‘professionalism’ from beneficiaries and
ignore the idiosyncrasies of each case by implementing ‘one size fits all’
models.
First, on the side of the international community, it
is time for realism. It takes both contextual knowledge and courage. Donors
should be realistic about what to expect in the short-term in each case. It is
likely that miracles will not happen anywhere. It is also wrong to assume all
movements, and citizen groups will eventually institutionalise themselves as a
political alternative (by forming a party or a formal advocacy NGO). Professionalisation
also risks turning citizens movements into career movements for a few people.
Second, international donors should be selective about
their most likely ‘audience’ and start focusing on such groups first, instead
of trying to address the entire public blindly. In dozens of countries where
authoritarianism and right-wing populism are on the rise, a person in their mid-30s
has only witnessed single-party rule or one dominant party as a voter.
Even millennials in Europe have grown up without
knowing an alternative to the senior male-dominated political party system. Today’s
youth is already much more vocal compared to their parents in terms of demanding
agency, fighting patriarchy and questioning blind nationalism and patriotism imposed
by our current party systems.
To maintain this critical corpus in societies, international
donors can prioritise activist groups working with youth and on youth issues.
They should not only fund one-off activities at seminar halls; but music, arts,
film and sports through which young people choose to express themselves. If the
fight is staged on many fronts, then the effects of repression and censorship
will be alleviated as well.
Unfortunately, these are still very rarely tried
methods by the international donor community. Funding cultural production as a
way of challenging undemocratic practices does not rank among the top foreign
policy priorities, compared to massive official development assistance channelled
through governments and large project contracts granted to NGOs that are not
connected to the grassroots. Funding cultural
production as a way of challenging undemocratic practices does not rank among
the top foreign policy priorities.
Third, another lesson that donors should have learned
by now is that flexible and core support is crucial. The bulk of the aid is still
tied to professional monitoring and specific outcomes. The donor community
forces partners on the ground to push for unattainable goals and tick boxes on the
paper for reporting purposes.
Several activist groups and small organisations I have
interviewed in Turkey mentioned that they do not need massive financial
resources, but seed support to be able to rent decent premises for organisational
meetings and planning of activities, and to be able to establish alliances with
similar networks and movements abroad to learn from each other. Without
improving donor support in these two areas, their impact will remain local and
issue-based.
It is also essential to avoid funding
government-controlled civil society – surprisingly, it happens more often than
you might think due to the incapacity of the donor to assess whether funded
groups work towards participation and democracy or entrench repressive
government rule, Instead, work with trustworthy local partners and let them
decide the priorities that arise in the current context in each case. Loose
activist networks are the ones that often have an influence on the ground in
the shortest term possible. Donors should seek ways to get to know groups ‘at
the frontline’ and accept that what is possible this year in one country, might
not be achievable next year given the very unpredictable and discretionary nature
of political violence targeting human rights defence.
Finally, while the US and the EU champion the majority
of civil society support programs, they also undermine their effects. EU member
states or American and European companies keep striking political deals on arms
sales and trade agreements with repressive governments. Most of the time, the information
technologies that provide the surveillance apparatus to track activists online
are copyrighted in the US and Europe. The international community – governments,
private donors and business – should be honest about the extent to which they
are complicit in tolerating political violence out of political and economic interests.
International support has no chance of success or gaining credibility without a
political commitment.
Political violence continues targeting human rights defenders
and civic spaces. But it is not the time for weakness and desperation because
what has been achieved so far was not given for free, and it is currently slipping
away. Civic space has not given up and is filled with voices of ordinary
citizens. It will become eventually more resilient as citizens take up human
rights defence in larger numbers. Researchers and experts who focus on
examining and reporting the negative consequences of populist appeal and
semi-authoritarian regimes at the formal institutional level should scale-up their
efforts to investigate the societal repercussions and connect more with promising
social movements and the cause of human rights defenders.