We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

The NGO-ization of Resistance

Click here to access article by Arundhati Roy from Libya 360°.
A hazard facing mass movements is the NGO-ization of resistance.
Roy draws on her experience watching NGOs function in India to explain how some NGOs function in support of neoliberal "structural adjustment" programs by pacifying populations and containing dissent. 

For a lengthy description of how such NGOs function in another country, Eritrea, read this article.
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