On 'Active Citizenship'

Below is a facebook comment I made on a friend's (AM) essay entitled 

"Active Citizenship as Remedy to National Crisis: Some Sketch Notes"

Some random (academic) notes here.

First, I take a cue from your title, which supposedly encapsulates your message, theme, or point. Two concepts should have been well-defined in your discussion: 'active citizenship' and 'national crisis'. I'm afraid that I have not fully grasped what you really mean by 'active citizenship' and what is the 'national crisis' being referred to.

Also, I have uneasiness with the term 'remedy', which to me has a 'palliative' connotation (as I understand it, progressives as much as possible must try to unpack, or to address, the root cause of a problem). 

Second, I think I cannot provide a conceptual framework for 'active citizenship' without linking it to 'democracy' (and thus its synonymous: 'socialism') and without critiquing 'capitalism' and 'elitism' (which replaced active to 'passive citizenship' in the political sphere, and which required active producers but excluded them from the fruits of their own labour in the economic sphere).

Third, since your text has not made explicit the linkage of the concept of 'active citizenship' with democracy, socialism, elitism, and capitalism, you have linked it with, or come up with, terms that do not seem 'progressive' to me (sorry, an unavoidable phrase) — 'empowerment', 'answer to old socialist thought', 'individual freedom', and 'empowered consumer'.

Fourth, to elaborate on this....

[a] Active citizenship is essential to — but not synonymous with — the struggle for democratization and the ideals of democracy (which is not simply empowerment).

[b] Active citizenship is encouraged and necessary for the realization of socialism (reclaim the original signification of socialism and democracy without anymore referring to that 'old socialist thought' of the NDs on democratic centralism).

Laging sabi ni Ka Dodong noon sa BISIG, ang tunay na pagbabago ay magmumula sa mulat na mamamayan.

[c] Active citizenship is the antidote to passive citizenship, which the system of elite rule has created. Elitism entails the depoliticization of the citizens by reducing substantive ideals of popular power into procedural/formal/electoral democracy. Walden Bello calls this 'elite democracy', a regime of elite rule that has been restored by the EDSA System. Walden refers to this as the 'permanent crisis' (which may be similar to your idea of 'national crisis') and he problematizes how and why every attempt at economic and social change failed under the EDSA System.

I think there are two recent books that can guide or help substantiate your discussion on active citizenship and social crisis — both written by Akbayan intellectuals: Walden and his Focus associates (2004 [2009]) - The Anti-Development State: The Political Economy of Permanent Crisis in the Philippines; and Nathan Quimpo (2008) - Contested Democracy and the Left in the Philippines After Marcos. 

Walden provides a very good discussion of the historical installation of institutions and system of 'passive citizenship'. He pretty much addresses your problematique, arguing that the political economy of permanent crisis in the Philippines delineates an EDSA System of 'elite democracy' (i.e., formal/procedural/electoral institutions for elite rule and elite legitimacy) coupled with an 'anti-development state' (i.e., weak state captured by the private sector). While Walden traces the institutionalization of 'passive citizenship' (under a pre-1930 American mode of governance for a colonial and postcolonial state), Nathan focuses on 'active citizenship', highlighting a 'democracy from below', with social movements and civil society intensifying the contested nature of democracy in the country.

You may also want to look at Joel's (Rocamora et al.) concept of 'low intensity democracy' in the early 1990s.

[d] Active citizens are not merely 'empowered consumers' in the marketplace of capitalism, but active in the sphere of production, as workers who are not simply 'empowered' but with 'active power' to govern and control the workplace and their own lives. Here, active citizenship is associated with particular 'class' power (not just 'identity') — that is, strength, power, or rule by 'the people'; particularly, for and from the point of view of the workers, the poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized.

Fifth, maybe we can also question the suitability of the concept of 'individual freedom' with that of progressive 'active citizenship'. In your text, you criticized neoliberalism, but the idea of individual freedom reminds us of the same language used by the most zealous proponents of (neo)liberalism, namely, F. Hayek and Milton Friedman.

Yes, we have to take seriously the gains of 'liberal democracy' on civil liberties, rights against state and non-state abuses, checks against arbitrary power. After all, socialists and progressives have been a crucial part of these major victories and struggles. But there have been mechanisms within the elitist and capitalist system that encourage passive citizenship — as Walden ('elite democracy'), Ka Dodong ('plutocracy') et al. have long been arguing. 

Imagine the contradiction: a provision for the protection of rights against the guaranteed powers of others (especially the propertied class and the political elites). For instance, the reason why the likes of the Marcoses, Estradas, Ampatuans, and soon the Arroyos remain powerful despite prosecution or conviction is because our justice system only deprives them of 'civil and political rights', but not their economic rights and wealth which, in turn, can easily regenerate political power.

Instead of 'individual freedom', my sense is that 'active citizenship' means self-government, or self-governance. That is to say, the power to govern ourselves has to do with our day-to-day lives. For example, the 'Right to the City' campaign that we are developing at IPD-AEPF is about people having power over the creation and management of the community or space we live in, reclaiming it from the control of market forces or real estate developers in cahoots with city officials, or at least making those who govern accountable to the governed. 

And finally, 'active citizenship' encompasses the entire society, from the workplace to the state, at both the polity and the economy. The enactment of the Freedom of Information bill must be a priority in the assertion of active citizenship and in democratizing the polity.

Under conditions of neoliberalism, the economy is being depoliticized and made immune from public scrutiny. From Marcos to PNoy, the technocrats have monopolized development plans and economic decision-making, while progressives have never been part of the government's economic team — progressives are always appointed to agencies (especially NAPC and at some point TESDA) with the mandate to face and deal with the 'poor' but without equipping them/us the institutions, power, resources, and positions to effectively address 'poverty'.