Adekan mural, 2015. All rights reserved.<\/i><\/p>\n
Thirteen human rights defenders were detained in
\nTurkey on November 16 and Yi\u011fit Aksako\u011flu, an activist working on children
\nrights, was imprisoned related to charges against Anadolu K\u00fclt\u00fcr, a cultural
\nassociation founded by philanthropist Osman Kavala. Kavala himself has been in prison
\nfor more than a year without an indictment. This is not the first time human
\nrights defenders and civil society representatives have been put behind bars in
\nTurkey. This time, however, political violence has reached new
\nheights; even peaceful resistance and civil disobedience are now
\ncriminalised by the security forces. <\/p>\n
Selective targeting of activists and pre-trial
\ndetentions are pernicious strategies to restrict civic space. Turkey is not
\nalone in this practice. In recent years, human rights defenders suffer from unprecedented
\npsychological, economic and social harm worldwide. If they refuse to back down,
\nthey also suffer physical harm. According to Frontline Defenders, 300 activists were murdered last
\nyear. Physical attacks, killings and forced
\ndisappearances mainly target rights-defenders demanding environmental protection and labour rights or activist journalists
\nrevealing corruption and abuse of power. <\/p>\n
Monitoring organisations are concerned
\nthat targeting human rights defenders reached \u2018crisis\u2019 levels in 2017. Around
\n3.2 billion people live in countries with repressed or totally closed civic
\nspace, due to a degrading political will to protect freedoms of expression,
\nassembly and association. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on Human
\nRights Defenders,<\/p>\n
This is not
\nrandom violence. I have become convinced that the incidents in question are not
\nisolated acts but concerted attacks against those who try to embody the ideal
\nof the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.<\/i><\/p>\n
While most of the political violence takes place in consolidated
\nlong-term authoritarian systems, it is a part of a global trend of the
\nworldwide rise of right-wing populism and democratic decline. The trend also
\naffects human rights defence and civil society in Europe. But researchers and
\nexperts who work on the rise of populism and democratic decline do not talk
\nabout it sufficiently.<\/p>\n
It might come as a surprise that civic space is not
\nimmune from direct and indirect political violence in Europe and the US. CIVICUS consider that civil
\nsociety in the United States, France, UK, Spain and Austria has \u2018narrowed\u2019 largely
\ndue to the rise in support for extremist and far-right political views and
\nextreme security measures and anti-terrorism laws. <\/p>\n
Several new European democracies often use legislative power, i.e. restrictions on
\nforeign funding or security and anti-terrorism laws, and politicised judiciary to discourage or even criminalise rights-based activism
\nconcerning issues directly related to political, social and economic rights of
\n\u2018out-groups\u2019 such as minorities, migrants and refugees. <\/p>\n
The gravity of the situation varies; restrictions are
\nqualitatively different in democracies of western Europe from those in the semi-authoritarian
\nregimes for example in Hungary, Turkey and Poland, and the intensity of
\npolitical violence is much less in a semi-authoritarian regime than a consolidated
\nautocracy like China. Yet, the global trend affects all types of governments,
\nand core treaties that burden states to protect fundamental political and civil
\nrights are being undermined by even the long-term advocates of these treaties.<\/p>\n
The assault against civic space and human rights
\ndefenders has been high on the agenda of human rights organisations for at
\nleast a decade. They have been seeking ways to adapt to political violence and
\nreopen the closed spaces in several countries. \u00a0<\/p>\n
However, academics and international donors have started
\nto consider targeted political violence as an integral part of the global
\ndemocratic decline and populist politics only lately. The institutional
\ndimensions of democratic decline and populist political discourse still receive
\ndisproportionate attention. <\/p>\n
Researchers have invested a great deal in agreeing on
\nwhat populism means and whether certain parties are populist or not, and analysing
\npopulists\u2019 electoral success, manifestoes and discourse. The scholarly interest
\nin populism and the authoritarian surge does not mean that the accumulated
\nknowledge is channelled properly towards debating its real-time effects on
\nsocieties and counter-strategies. Instead, researchers have been stuck with
\nanalysing populism and authoritarianism at the macro-level \u2013 election results,
\ninstitutions, high-level political discourse, societal discontent inferred from
\nsome aggregated data from polls and electoral surveys \u2013 \u00a0they miss how it affects the everyday life of
\nsocieties. The scholarly interest in populism and
\nthe authoritarian surge does not mean that the accumulated knowledge is
\nchannelled properly towards debating its real-time effects on societies and
\ncounter-strategies.<\/p>\n
In addition, the bulk of the international donor community\u2019s
\nefforts is focused on improving institutions through electoral monitoring, the rule
\nof law reform and fight against corruption. Despite extravagant resources spent
\non these areas, improvements remain meagre because the recipient governments are
\nreluctant to carry out political reforms and also because the EU and the US, providers
\nof most of the aid in these areas, only half-heartedly pressured these governments
\nand have turned a blind eye when they used electoral majorities and captured parliaments,
\nconstitutional courts and civil society as a smokescreen to entrench their
\npower. <\/p>\n
Overall, the repercussions of democratic backsliding
\nand right-wing populist pressure on civic participation have long been underestimated
\nor treated as a side-product of political and institutional capture outside the
\ncircle of human rights groups. <\/p>\n
It is high time to appreciate that democracy is no
\nsingle uniform body. It has several political, civic, economic and cultural
\ndimensions and its decline should be studied by disaggregating it to its parts
\nand developing responses in each field.<\/p>\n
Populist politics relies foremost on Manichean dichotomies and divisions
\nbetween the people and the elite, insiders and outsiders, friends and enemies. Populism
\ndeepens existing polarisations and invents new ones in societies contaminated
\nby it. <\/p>\n
The rhetoric of exclusion exhausts the listeners\u2019 attention
\nso that complex socio-economic problems from healthcare and pensions to public
\ntransportation can be reduced to a simple answer of \u2018oust the outsider, and we will
\nrestore the wonderful past and continue living like \u2018before\u2019\u2019. <\/p>\n
The success of slogans and simple answers for complex
\nproblems lie deep in legitimate feelings of social and economic insecurity and
\ndisenfranchisement, but also the pumped-up fear of \u2018the foreigner\u2019, which has
\nbrought electoral success to right-wing populist parties in so many countries. The
\npolitics of exclusion is inherently exclusionary, discriminatory and against
\nparticipatory democracy.<\/p>\n
Research also shows that this is not the end of the
\nstory. When mainstream parties adopt politics of fear and polarisation, they surrender
\npublic opinion to be formed by populist discourse and the misdirection of those
\nwidespread feelings of insecurity and disenfranchisement. Mondon and Winter argue right-wing populism is
\nnormalised even where right-wing populists have been unable to attain
\nsignificant electoral success, by granting media platform to extremist ideas, making electoral alliances with
\nsuch parties and also irresponsibly framing questions on pressing issues through
\nthe language of right-wing populism in academic or
\npublic debates.<\/p>\n
The story continues even further. Wherever right-wing
\npopulist parties and semi-authoritarian regimes achieve political power through
\nelections, they are not satisfied with electoral wins and monopolisation of the
\nparliaments and the executive. They seek to shape and influence the civic space
\nwhere ideas flourish, where society debates and engages in intellectual and
\ncultural production, where majoritarian democracy and discriminatory
\nauthoritarian practices are challenged. <\/p>\n
Turkey and Hungary are both good examples. The moment
\nthey turn to the civic space, they take the first step towards entrenching
\nthemselves securely in power by manufacturing societal consent through both conviction
\nand fear. But just where the story gets interesting, researchers\u2019 interest in
\npopulism and authoritarianism pretty much stops. <\/p>\n
It should be more clearly emphasised that the climate
\nof outrage and politics of exclusion surrounding the language of the media and
\nthe party system in many countries normalise and encourage political violence
\ntargeting human rights activism. <\/p>\n
Activists by dint of their work campaign for the
\nrights of disadvantaged groups, who populist discourse perceives as outsiders. In
\nmany countries, while authoritarian values, Islamophobia, antisemitism, white
\nracism are creeping back into mainstream politics, human rights defenders are
\nthe only remaining actors brave enough to speak the truth to the face of power
\nand campaign for the rights of refugees and migrants, ethnic and religious
\nminorities and other disadvantaged groups. <\/p>\n
When the political discourse and the media directly or
\nindirectly present migrants or other outgroups as a burden on economies and
\nsocieties, they continuously produce consent for their social, economic and
\npolitical discrimination as \u2018the new normal\u2019. <\/p>\n
In this political and social environment, working to
\nimprove their rights becomes a nuisance and gets demonised. This is often a
\nstarting strategy to prepare the ground for legal and legislative action that
\ndirectly or indirectly restricts the civic space, the fundamental freedoms of
\nassembling, associating and the expression of views. In turn, it gradually deprives societies at large of alternative channels of
\nparticipation and the right to information and erodes the participatory
\nquality of democracy. <\/p>\n
The repression of civic spaces and human rights defenders
\nis a convenient strategy for right-wing populist and authoritarian rulers to ensure
\nthat public spheres are flooded with the dominant narratives of crisis and
\nantagonism. <\/p>\n
Moreover, pre-emptive measures, pre-trial detentions
\nand daily harrassment online intimidate not only activists but also millions in
\nTurkey and beyond. Such actions deter even critical citizens from making claims
\noutside the officially sanctioned venues. In the end, political violence targeting
\ncivic space and human rights activism affects the everyday life of societies
\nmore directly than the capture and control of formal institutions. <\/p>\n
The response is not to shy away from human rights
\nactivism. It is not demanding more of it from lawyers and NGOs either (the
\nlatter have already been criticised for being
\nunaccountable and serving the neoliberal agenda). It is about directly
\nexperiencing it as citizens and even more as humans. <\/p>\n
In other words, human rights defence does not only
\nconcern the lawyers and professional NGOs who engage in it; and it is not
\nlimited to revolutionary public square protests. Today, human rights defenders
\nacross the world should be \u2018ordinary citizens\u2019 acting within their personal and
\nprofessional domains. <\/p>\n
In the short term in many countries, the winner in
\nthis battle seems to be those conducting the populist and authoritarian assault.
\nParadoxically, however, where political institutions have been historically monopolised
\nor captured, citizens have usually turned to activism to reclaim freedom of
\nexpression and the right to information. <\/p>\n
The paradox of political violence is that sooner or
\nlater, it fuels popular movements, as long as citizens have preserved an
\nautonomous and diffused civic space outside the realm of contemporary power
\nrelations and politics so that alternatives to current political discourse and
\nauthority can emerge. <\/p>\n
In Turkey
\nand many other countries where human rights defence has become a perilous
\nstruggle, the trend has been evolving in this direction. Revolutionary protests
\nmight have been forcefully oppressed in its public squares and might not be
\nfeasible given the repression in many countries. However, despite widespread
\npolitical violence, activism and civic space is alive and kicking, and its
\nnature is changing in promising ways in semi-authoritarian and democratic
\nsystems alike. Given the lack of effective
\naccess to the political field or means to change high-level political
\ndiscourse, civic space becomes an arena for concerned individuals to carve out pockets
\nof participation locally or initiate change on specific issues. Despite the
\nrisk of political violence and physical harm, when the political system is
\ncaptured or unresponsive, people turn to grassroots contention.<\/p>\n
What we
\nwitness is an apparent shift in the nature of civic activism with the emergence
\nof local, issue-based and peaceful social movements and loose networks. My field
\nresearch on the shrinking space under political violence focuses on Turkey, but
\nI believe it offers clues for other contexts where a polarising populist
\ndiscourse dominates the political agenda. <\/p>\n
Since the 2013
\nGezi demonstrations, Turkey has witnessed a multiplication of unregistered,
\nmovement-type diffuse activist networks. A younger generation seeking
\nhorizontal and direct participation has brought new vibrancy to the gendered
\nand professionalised NGO-driven civic space. The new activists are what Pippa Norris
\ncalls \u2018critical citizens\u2019 or \u2018dissatisfied democrats\u2019 who cling to
\ndemocratic values but remain dissatisfied with democracy since it has been
\nreduced to voting and therefore, produces majoritarian and discriminatory
\noutcomes. <\/p>\n
Readers familiar
\nwith the Turkish context might raise eyebrows, and they are right to think activists
\nare unable to engage in open dissent and must keep a low profile at the verge
\nof invisibility to circumvent political violence. The statement by one activist
\nI interviewed a few months ago captures the feeling of these groups well:<\/p>\n
Street activism
\nis not an option. Public squares are closed these days. Are we wary about the
\nsituation? Yes, for a long time. I had to relocate consecutively for several
\nnights during the recent arrests with a group of fellow activists. It is not to
\nescape from detention. They find you if they want to get you. We at least wished
\nthat the police would not detain us at home [in front of our families]. We live
\nwith this yes. Organising protests is an action that we abstain from, but we
\ntry not to lose our grassroots links. <\/i><\/p>\n
However, under the current circumstances in Turkey, activists
\nare interested in \u2018the long-term fight\u2019. They challenge patriarchal and
\nauthoritarian social values in available public spheres. They do not shy
\naway from asserting their identities, secular or Islamic. They seek to
\nestablish democratic forums inside their networks and reject hierarchical
\nstructures and leadership that dominates even the traditional civil society
\nsector and replace them with horizontal deliberation and consensual
\ndecision-making. <\/p>\n
They are open to cooperation and inclusion of various
\ngroups, but selective in participating in protests and appearing in the media. Yet,
\ncontentious action in the form of peaceful demonstrations, neighbourhood
\nassemblies, public information campaigns and press statements is widely practised.
\nBut, the focus of their contentious action is not disrupting the government or
\neveryday life or necessarily achieving quantifiable goals, but raising
\nawareness on issues such as women, environment, construction and resource
\nextraction projects, urban infrastructure, animal rights and labour rights.
\nThese issues are often considered secondary to high politics or extremely
\nlocal. <\/p>\n
They also actively search for ways to establish
\nsolidarity. To give one example, one pro-labour activist group told me they do
\nnot only demonstrate when hundreds of workers are laid off or forced to work
\nunder harsh conditions, but they also seek to organise events to raise additional
\nsubsistence for them. Last but not least, they do not believe they need formal institutions
\nto succeed and are keen to keep their independence from political parties and
\noften from international donors. <\/p>\n
Similar trends are observed around the world since the
\n2008 financial crisis. People who were not a part of a movement or organisation
\nbefore come together to raise their voice against extremism, denial of social and economic rights, gender-based
\nviolence and destruction of
\ntheir livelihoods. The shift from professional NGOs to citizen-oriented
\nactivism challenges the populist and (semi)authoritarian regimes. Their power
\nlies in the fact that they challenge \u2018audience democracy\u2019 driven by the manipulated
\npublic opinion and personalised politics that populism has generated. In its
\nplace, they promote \u2018advocacy democracy\u2019 informed by local and issue-based
\ndeliberation to shape preferences in the long-term and foster civic
\nparticipation. <\/p>\n
While
\nengaging in human rights activism with various social and economic focal points,
\ncitizen activists experiment with a different form of democracy and discover
\nways to make use of these beyond voting. If researchers are concerned about the
\nglobal trend of the authoritarian backlash, the lack of trust in democracy and
\nextreme social polarisation as causes and consequences of right-wing populism,
\nthese loose networks of citizen participation could spark the process of
\nre-legitimising and re-inventing democracy. <\/p>\n
There is
\nroom for hope, history tells. Democratic social
\nand political change has always originated from these peaceful, localised and issue-based
\ncommunity organisations and networks of long-term resistance, not from NGOs
\nwith managerial boards and lucrative grants from international donors. <\/p>\n
The international donor community is not unaware of
\nthe changing terrain of activism or political violence, as a recent report by Eld\u00e9n and Levin argues. \u2018Flexible aid\u2019 to activist
\nnetworks and organisations working in populist and (semi)authoritarian regimes
\nhas become the new buzzword of the donor community. However, frank
\nconversations with donors start and end with the same question these days: what
\ndo you think you should be doing to counter political violence targeting civic
\nspace and human rights defenders in country X? When asked about concrete
\nstrategies, they still falter.<\/p>\n
Many countries have been the test beds for \u2018democracy
\naid\u2019 and \u2018civil society support programmes\u2019 in the past. What we know is that
\ninternational support is crucial for ensuring the resilience of the civic space
\nand activism under extreme pressure. Support to find and finance legal aid and
\nability to survive financially are the two most important areas in which international
\ndonors make a real contribution. But, they have also failed in the past because
\ninternational donors expected too much \u2018professionalism\u2019 from beneficiaries and
\nignore the idiosyncrasies of each case by implementing \u2018one size fits all\u2019
\nmodels. <\/p>\n
First, on the side of the international community, it
\nis time for realism. It takes both contextual knowledge and courage. Donors
\nshould be realistic about what to expect in the short-term in each case. It is
\nlikely that miracles will not happen anywhere. It is also wrong to assume all
\nmovements, and citizen groups will eventually institutionalise themselves as a
\npolitical alternative (by forming a party or a formal advocacy NGO). Professionalisation
\nalso risks turning citizens movements into career movements for a few people.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Second, international donors should be selective about
\ntheir most likely \u2018audience\u2019 and start focusing on such groups first, instead
\nof trying to address the entire public blindly. In dozens of countries where
\nauthoritarianism and right-wing populism are on the rise, a person in their mid-30s
\nhas only witnessed single-party rule or one dominant party as a voter. <\/p>\n
Even millennials in Europe have grown up without
\nknowing an alternative to the senior male-dominated political party system. Today\u2019s
\nyouth is already much more vocal compared to their parents in terms of demanding
\nagency, fighting patriarchy and questioning blind nationalism and patriotism imposed
\nby our current party systems. <\/p>\n
To maintain this critical corpus in societies, international
\ndonors can prioritise activist groups working with youth and on youth issues.
\nThey should not only fund one-off activities at seminar halls; but music, arts,
\nfilm and sports through which young people choose to express themselves. If the
\nfight is staged on many fronts, then the effects of repression and censorship
\nwill be alleviated as well. <\/p>\n
Unfortunately, these are still very rarely tried
\nmethods by the international donor community. Funding cultural production as a
\nway of challenging undemocratic practices does not rank among the top foreign
\npolicy priorities, compared to massive official development assistance channelled
\nthrough governments and large project contracts granted to NGOs that are not
\nconnected to the grassroots. Funding cultural
\nproduction as a way of challenging undemocratic practices does not rank among
\nthe top foreign policy priorities.<\/p>\n
Third, another lesson that donors should have learned
\nby now is that flexible and core support is crucial. The bulk of the aid is still
\ntied to professional monitoring and specific outcomes. The donor community
\nforces partners on the ground to push for unattainable goals and tick boxes on the
\npaper for reporting purposes. <\/p>\n
Several activist groups and small organisations I have
\ninterviewed in Turkey mentioned that they do not need massive financial
\nresources, but seed support to be able to rent decent premises for organisational
\nmeetings and planning of activities, and to be able to establish alliances with
\nsimilar networks and movements abroad to learn from each other. Without
\nimproving donor support in these two areas, their impact will remain local and
\nissue-based. <\/p>\n
It is also essential to avoid funding
\ngovernment-controlled civil society \u2013 surprisingly, it happens more often than
\nyou might think due to the incapacity of the donor to assess whether funded
\ngroups work towards participation and democracy or entrench repressive
\ngovernment rule, Instead, work with trustworthy local partners and let them
\ndecide the priorities that arise in the current context in each case. Loose
\nactivist networks are the ones that often have an influence on the ground in
\nthe shortest term possible. Donors should seek ways to get to know groups \u2018at
\nthe frontline\u2019 and accept that what is possible this year in one country, might
\nnot be achievable next year given the very unpredictable and discretionary nature
\nof political violence targeting human rights defence. <\/p>\n
Finally, while the US and the EU champion the majority
\nof civil society support programs, they also undermine their effects. EU member
\nstates or American and European companies keep striking political deals on arms
\nsales and trade agreements with repressive governments. Most of the time, the information
\ntechnologies that provide the surveillance apparatus to track activists online
\nare copyrighted in the US and Europe. The international community \u2013 governments,
\nprivate donors and business \u2013 should be honest about the extent to which they
\nare complicit in tolerating political violence out of political and economic interests.
\nInternational support has no chance of success or gaining credibility without a
\npolitical commitment.<\/p>\n
Political violence continues targeting human rights defenders
\nand civic spaces. But it is not the time for weakness and desperation because
\nwhat has been achieved so far was not given for free, and it is currently slipping
\naway. Civic space has not given up and is filled with voices of ordinary
\ncitizens. It will become eventually more resilient as citizens take up human
\nrights defence in larger numbers. Researchers and experts who focus on
\nexamining and reporting the negative consequences of populist appeal and
\nsemi-authoritarian regimes at the formal institutional level should scale-up their
\nefforts to investigate the societal repercussions and connect more with promising
\nsocial movements and the cause of human rights defenders. \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Adekan mural, 2015. All rights reserved. Thirteen human rights defenders were detained in Turkey on November 16 and Yi\u011fit Aksako\u011flu, an activist working on children rights, was imprisoned related to charges against Anadolu K\u00fclt\u00fcr, a cultural association founded by philanthropist Osman Kavala. Kavala himself has been in prison for more than a year without an…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}