People Power or Political Puppetry?
January 16, 2008
In today’s guest editorial Michael Barker spars with Cynthia Boaz of the ICNC.
“To question the Burmese peoples’ authorship of their own struggle serves the interests of a brutal dictatorship, and risks undermining global support for what is, at its heart and its force, an indigenous people’s movement.” Cynthia Anne Marie Boaz, 2007.
On October 18, 2007 the Asia Times published an interesting article titled The Geopolitical Stakes of the ‘Saffron Revolution’. In this article the author, F William Engdahl, outlined what he described as the “tragedy of Myanmar” which he deemed is seeing “its population… being used as a human stage prop in a drama scripted in Washington by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the George Soros Open Society Institute, Freedom House and Gene Sharp’s Albert Einstein Institution” (click on links for critical information on these groups and individuals).
To summarise a complex argument, in brief, the groups Engdahl mentions in his article form the backbone of the US’s ‘democracy promoting’ (read: manipulating) apparatus, which in turn industriously works to channel/coopt progressive (and also some not so progressive) agents of social change into directions that serve to bolster imperialist pipedreams. In this regard, the seminal book outlining the mechanisms by which capitalists moderate civil society is Professor Joan Roelofs’ (2003) Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism, however, the key author outlining how groups like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) work to hijack popular revolutions is Professor William I. Robinson. His classic book on this subject, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, US Intervention, and Hegemony (1996), analysed the dynamics of a number of incidents of regime change – in Chile, Nicaragua, the Philippines, and Haiti – and demonstrated how democracy manipulating groups like the NED, acting as “skilful political surgeons”, have worked to promote the establishment of low-intensity neoliberal democracies – that is, polyarchic political systems – all over the world. By this, Robinson is referring to the promotion of an extremely limited form of democracy that “is aimed not only at mitigating the social and political tensions produced by elite-based and undemocratic status quos, but also at suppressing popular and mass aspirations for more thoroughgoing democratisation of social life”.
Returning to Engdahl’s article, which outlined some of the reasons why the US was supporting Burmese pro-democracy activists; shortly after its publication – on November 1, 2007 – Professor Cynthia Boaz published an article in truthout called Burma’s Uprising: People Power, Not Political Puppetry. The basic gist of her article was that she found it “absurdly cynical to the point of being delusional” that many commentators – Engdahl included – had the nerve to suggest that “various Washington DC-based agencies and a few key political actors are actually pulling the strings in the Burmese uprising.” To quote Boaz, she noted that Engdahl:
“…states that ‘Myanmar’s “Saffron Revolution”, like the various color revolutions instigated in recent years against strategic states surrounding Russia, is a well-orchestrated exercise in Washington-run regime change.’ The author [Engdahl] then goes on to cite the role of the NED, George Soros’s OSI [Open Society Institute], Freedom House, The Albert Einstein Institute’s Gene Sharp, retired Colonel Bob Helvey, the Serbs involved in the nonviolent overthrow of Milosevic, or some combination of the above, as the ‘puppet-masters’ in the series of events in Burma over the past two months.”
She then summarises the work of critical writers like Engdahl as “amount[ing] to nothing more than conspiracy theories supported by a cherry-picking of mostly unrelated factoids”: a process that Boaz considers to be “both irresponsible and potentially dangerous” to any genuinely progressive cause. The conspiracy charge is of course a tactic that is commonly used to deflect critical inquiry from the powers that be and in this instance there is more than enough reason to think that Boaz’s accusations (or flak) are unwarranted.
For instance, as her biographical note – which can be found at the bottom of her article – observes, Boaz currently serves on the “academic advisory committee of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict” (ICNC). For many people this detail might not mean too much, however, ironically, the work of the ICNC itself is intimately linked to that of US-based democracy manipulators that Engdahl was critiquing.[1]
Boaz’s article caught my attention because I have just published a series of articles in the Green Left Weekly that outlined the ICNC’s anti-democratic nature. It is particularly poignant to note that the chair of their academic advisory committee, Professor Stephen Zunes, replied to those criticisms with a defence of his involvement with anti-democratic institutions – in much the same way as Boaz defended the practices of the Burmese democracy manipulators. So it is fitting that Boaz should draw upon Zunes’ work to attack ‘conspiratorial’ writers like Engdahl: she observes that:
“As Stephen Zunes notes in an essay published on the Asia Times web site in early August (in response to similar claims made about Iran), many self-identified progressives who promote these conspiracy theories ironically ‘strengthen the argument of US neo-conservatives that only military force from the outside – and not non-violent struggle by the people themselves – is capable of freeing [Burma] from repressive rule.’”
However, as I have previously suggested, Zunes was wrong to suggest that US neo-conservatives argue this point, because as demonstrated in my article on this subject Catalyst for Iranian Resistance: US ‘Democracy Promoters’ and Regime Change in Iran (2006), some of the Iranian groups supported by the NED are closely tied to US neoconservatives.
To state the obvious, by observing that international democracy manipulating organisations are busily intervening in Burmese affairs does not, as Boaz states, mean that such writers suggest that this information “constitute[s] proof the Bush administration is behind the uprising”. Such observations simply highlight the importance of fully comprehending the nature of foreign interference in the Burmese pro-democracy movement if one hopes to promote a form of democracy in Burma that moves beyond some form of imperialist domination.
To consolidate her simplistic conception of the history of social change Boaz continues by adding that:
“[I]f the thesis that nonviolent struggle was simply another method for the projection of US power, how do these conspiracy theorists explain the successes of broad-based civilian movements in places like Chile (where the US had supported Pinochet) and the Philippines (whose ousted dictator Marcos had been a close friend of Ronald Reagan)? Are these cases simply anomalies?”
In reply to this I would direct Boaz to Robinson’s aforementioned book, Promoting Polyarchy, which provides a comprehensive blow-by-blow description of how the US successfully interfered with the revolutionary processes that ousted both Pinochet and Marcos. There is of course, no guarantee that Boaz take Robinson’s work seriously. Certainly her ICNC colleague, Professor Zunes, acknowledged the existence of Robinson’s work in the introduction to a book he co-edited titled, Nonviolent Social Movements: A Geographical Perspective (1999), where he noted that the “process of democratization is often coopted into programs of polyarchy”, the rest of his book failed to make any reference to Robinson’s work or the ideas promoted therein.
If it is accepted that the NED’s work in Burma is not supportive of truly democratic political gains, it is then vitally important to attempt to understand the extent of the NED’s involvement in Burma. Engdahl provides some useful information on this score, observing that the US State Department “has poured the relatively huge sum (for Myanmar) of more than $2.5 million annually into NED activities in promoting regime change in Myanmar since at least 2003” (for further details see the NED’s international grant making Democracy Projects Database). Proportionally speaking this is a massive sum of money given that the NED had a relatively modest annual budget of $30 million per year during the 1990s (this recently increased to $80 million in 2005). Moreover, the actual amount of NED money flowing into Burma appears to be increasing all the time; just after Engdahl wrote his article the NED released the details of their 2006 grants, which demonstrates that the NED pumped an astounding $3.2 million in Burma in that year alone.[2] To get an idea of the work these grants support it is useful to examine some of their stated objectives, which include:
(1) “[M]onitor[ing] the human rights situation in Burma and educat[ing] monks and Buddhist lay people about the nonviolent struggle for democracy in Burma. The organization will produce and distribute material, including pamphlets, stickers, and calendars, on human rights and democracy and support efforts to organize the Buddhist community inside Burma.”
(2) “To strengthen civil society in Burma by supporting former political prisoners and activists.”
(3) “To improve the professional capacity of Burmese journalists and to facilitate cooperation among Burma-related media groups. The group will organize and convene the fourth Burma Media Conference in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The conference will bring together more than 120 journalists who cover Burma to discuss issues, exchange ideas, and coordinate activities related to freedom of information and expression in Burma.”
(4) “To promote access to independent media in Burma. The organization will produce and broadcast a Burmese-language satellite television program to complement its long-running daily shortwave radio program.”
(5) “To strengthen support for democracy in Burma throughout Asia. The organization will engage and encourage governments, organizations, and individuals to take a supportive role in the effort to promote freedom in Burma, to secure the release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and to ensure that any national reconciliation process includes the National League for Democracy and leading ethnic-nationality prodemocracy parties.”
Unlike the documentation of the NED’s work in most other countries, in Burma the organisations receiving NED aid are not identified. In fact, the only group to receive NED aid in 2006 that was named in their public records was the International Republican Institute, which received $627,000 and is itself one of the NED’s four core grantees (the other core grantees are the AFL-CIO, the National Democratic Institute, and the Center for International Private Enterprise). That said, as noted above, the NED did refer to the need to support Burma’s imprisoned opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy, so to learn a little more about their democracy manipulating links I refer the reader to an article I have just published:
“Although the imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi is clearly unjust, to date, few people have commented on her links to the broader ‘democracy promoting’ community. These links include her serving on the international advisory board of the Democracy Coalition Project, and as an honorary director of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance. In addition, Tom Andrews, who serves as a senior advisor to the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (a core NED grantee) – and is also the national director of the MoveOn-linked group Win Without War – also “works on behalf” of Aung San Suu Kyi. Likewise, Aung San Suu Kyi’s representative on the Peacejam Board (an educational organization comprised of Nobel Peace Laureates), Michele Bohana, is a founding director of the NED-funded International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), and is the director of the Institute for Asian Democracy. ‘Democratic’ trustees of the latter group include Gare A. Smith (who formerly served ‘as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor’, is a director of the ICT, and is a member of the Fund for Peace’s Human Rights and Business Roundtable), and Chris Beyrer (who ‘serves as a member of the Global Health Advisory Council of the Open Society Institute… and [as an] advisor to the Asia Society’s Social Issues Program’).”
Other Burma-NED links are provided through Moethee Zun, who from April to August 2002, was a research fellow at the NED’s International Forum for Democratic Studies. This link is important because as his NED biography points out, Zun “has played a central role in Burma’s struggle for democracy, first as organizer of the Burmese underground student movement and later as co-founder of Burma’s second-largest political party, the Democratic Party for a New Society” (DPNS). Crucially the DPNS’s website notes, that it “was the second largest party next to the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, though it allies with the NLD, and is closely working for its political campaigns.” So it is, perhaps, not surprising to observe that the DPNS’s research and study centre publishes the Journal of Democracy Exploration with financial support provided by the NED.
Finally, given Boaz’s links to the democracy manipulating community via the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict it is ironic that between 2005 and 2007 she served as the project coordinator for the American Democracy Project at the State University of New York. This Project’s mission statement notes that:
“The American Democracy Project (ADP) is a multi-campus initiative that seeks to create an intellectual and experiential understanding of civic engagement for undergraduates enrolled at institutions that are members of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU). The goal of the project is to produce graduates who understand and are committed to engaging in meaningful actions as citizens in a democracy.”
Moreover, even this Democracy Project has ‘democratic’ connections, and one particularly ‘democratic’ member of their advisory committee is Harry C. Boyte. Boyte’s biography notes that he has worked with the Institute for Democracy in South Africa – an important democracy manipulating organisation that obtains funding from the British version of the NED, the Westminster Foundation. He is also the founder and co-director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship, which receives funding from conservative funders like the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, and key democracy manipulating liberal foundations like the Carnegie Corporation of New York.[4] In addition, Boyte has previously served as a national associate of the Kettering Foundation, a foundation that along with the NED currently supports the work of the key democracy manipulator organisation, Partners for Democratic Change.
It is fitting to conclude this article with a quote from Boaz’s, as she correctly notes about the Burmese people that: “This is their struggle, and they deserve, like all people who are struggling for justice, respect for having sovereignty over their own lives and credit for their courage and sacrifice in the face of oppression.”[5] I for one, like Boaz and many critics of the ‘democracy promoting’ community, would never deliberately belittle the bravery of pro-democracy activists in Australia or in America, let alone in Burma. Yet, in contrast to Boaz’s feeling on this matter, I believe that if we (as concerned individuals) really want to show our respect for Burma’s population, then we – as privileged Westerners with ample respite from violent state repression – owe it to the people of Burma to try to understand the full extent of our own countries’ interference in their (supposedly) sovereign nation. Boaz suggests that she is “among the first to question the motives of the American administration when it comes to foreign policy”, so I would like to conclude this article by kindly asking her to begin thinking about the antidemocratic company she is keeping, and to consider the more subtle, but similarly brutal, aspects of US foreign policy that have been fittingly described as humanitarian imperialism.
Michael Barker is a doctoral candidate at Griffith University, Australia. He can be reached at Michael.J.Barker [at] griffith.edu.au, and some of his other articles can be found here.
– Notes –
- Jack Duvall is the president of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict; for a useful critique of the book he co-authored with Peter Ackerman titled A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict (2000) see Jonathan Strauss’s review By Any Means Necessary (2001). In addition, earlier this year I examined the links between the NED and both Peter Ackerman and Jack Duvall.
- The NED’s 2006 project grants for Burma are separated into six categories, Internal Organizing and Coalition-Building (which received just under $1 million), Independent Media ($0.8 million), Human Rights Education, Documentation, and Advocacy ($0.5 million), International Advocacy and Organizing ($0.5 million), Women’s Participation and Empowerment ($0.2 million), and Ethnic Nationalities ($0.1 million).
- In 2007, Barry F. Lowenkron became the vice president of the Program on Global Security and Sustainability with the MacArthur Foundation, a major US-based liberal foundation. The Foundation’s website notes that: “With assets of more than $6.4 billion and grants and program-related investments totalling approximately $260 million annually, MacArthur is one of the nation’s largest private philanthropic foundations.”
- It is also worth pointing out that another financial supporter of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship’s work, the Carl M. Freeman Foundation, also funds the work of the ‘democratic’ Institute of International Education, and along with the NED supports the work of the Independent Journalism Foundation.
- It is worth pointing out that Boaz is a faculty advisor for a local chapter of the US Campaign for Burma, based at the State University of New York (at Brockport).
January 16, 2008 at 11:52 pm
[...] People Power or Political Puppetry?, The Fanonite, January 16, 2008. [...]
January 17, 2008 at 4:00 am
William Robison’s excellent Promoting Polyarchy needs to be near the top of anyone’s reading list who is interested in what goes on under the rubric of “Democracy Promotion”–in fact, what’s meant by the glittering generality of “Democracy” itself. Thankfully, more are latching on to this ideological shell game, even in Pakistan and Kenya. Here’s a link to audio of Robinson talk in which he summarizes his findings.
January 17, 2008 at 12:29 pm
This appears to identify the prism into which the so-called vanguard of the left and neo-liberalism fuse together with the Right to make an undazzling spectical.
The argument goes , that to help the little guy we , in the west, must interfere.This then starts a snowball process in which the neo-cons (if it suits their agenda)join in and then we get the irreligious hymn singing from the same sheet by left/right together to force a “positive” change in another countries domestic agenda.
The most pathetic case was when the progressive left were standing shoulder to shoulder with Rumsfeld and Powell in supporting the Iranian student demonstrations.(AS if Powell and Rumsfeld get up first thing in the morning worrying about the plight of an Iranian student).
What everyone failed to realise was the protests in Iran were about the pace of change and not the first rumblings of Regime Change.
A lot of the fault for this lies also with Exiles that ally with the “policy” of these regime-change agenda whether it be a Bhutto for the rightists or the raft of Iranian leftists that seem to give the armageddonists a run for their money by wanting a final battle between the Mullahs and the neo-cons in which they wipe each other out leaving a few People left who then embrace atheism and live happily ever under the guardianship of a few western educated exiles.
The unedifying laocoan of mixed-metaphor ideologies that both left and right ( the left because they have not thought it out , the right because it suits them) fell most be imposed on the non-european experience world in a we-know-best paternalistic manner is what is causing the most damage to bona-fide indeginious social justice movements in the world whether they are in South America;Africa;Mid-East or in this case Burma.
Where the left can really make a clean-break from being the Human Face of the right agenda is to offer genuine SOLIDARITY with the local social justice movements whether we agree with them 100% or not , rather than find spurious reasons not to back them because they do not tally with the european template of nation-statehood or templates that simply do not replicate in the non-european world because the History has moved at a different pace.
It is time for the Left to get themselves a true Justice based agenda rather than be imperialists with less money than their corporate cousins.
March 4, 2008 at 3:16 am
Mr. Barker,
I have only recently been made aware of your obsession with the work of ICNC and its principals and advisors. I have to admit that I was both surprised and a bit flattered at the amount of time you obviously put into this deconstruction of me, my motivations, and my connections. However, you have it all wrong. I am not part of any shady neo-con (or other) attempt to pull states and people under the influence of U.S. imperialism under the guise of “democracy promotion.” I do the work I do because I believe in empowerment and genuine democracy (not “exported”, “transposed”, or “created” democracy, or some other oxymoronic version of the concept that you would ascribe to me.) I would ask you to look into my progressive credentials on this, but it seems that you would ignore what was inconvenient and highlight what could possibly be suspect (e.g. I was asked by the provost at the beginning of my 2nd year at SUNY Brockport to serve as coordinator for the American Democracy Project, which as I soon learned, is a multicampus initiative intended to promote civic engagement amongst undergraduates in American universities. That sounded good to me. Never once did I consult the organization’s board of advisors list to explore those peoples’ real or possible links to neoconservative policy or think tanks. I had never even heard of Harry C. Boyte until I read this essay.)
I have read Stephen Zunes’ responses to you, and I think, given Steve’s usual comprehensive and contextualized approach to everything he says, he has covered it all. But I am curious, have you spent any time with any of us whose work you are so disdainful of? I wonder if you could spend a day in the company of Steve Zunes or Jack DuVall and continue to imagine that the conspiracies you’ve dreamed up still have a shred of merit.
With all due respect sir, this crusade that you have undertaken is not only a collosal misuse of time and energy, but it is totally misguided, libelous, and quite possibly, dangerous. Ironically, I sense that it comes out of an authentic commitment to the same principles that Steve Zunes, Jack DuVall, the rest of the ICNC staff, and I, would also consider ourselves adherents to- namely, human rights, self-determination, social and economic justice, solidarity with those struggling for their freedom and dignity, and a belief that all of those things can be best acquired by accessing the better angels of our natures.
If you wish to know more about me and/or my motivations for working with ICNC, please feel free to email me directly. I am fairly easy to track down.
Sincerely,
Cynthia Boaz
March 6, 2008 at 1:37 am
Dear Professor Boaz
On March 4, 2008, in response to my critique of your truthout article you wrote: “If you wish to know more about me and/or my motivations for working with ICNC [International Center on Nonviolent Conflict], please feel free to email me directly.”
I would like to take you up on this valuable offer. (I am also posting this online, as I feel it would be most appropriate to have such an exchange in public.)
Could I point out one more time that I do not question what personally motivates the work you do. My questions refer to why you are unwilling to look critically at the motives of the people you do that work for.
I would be grateful if you could please answer the following questions:
1. How did you first hear about the work of the ICNC, and what prompted you to join their academic advisory board?
2. Who are the other members of the ICNC’s advisory board?
3. Are you concerned about the funding issues that I raised for consideration in my previous articles? Why/Why not?
4. Would you consider writing about some of the problems I have raised in my articles in a public forum? Perhaps you might be able to persuade truthout to host such a discussion?
Yours sincerely
Michael Barker
March 8, 2008 at 10:28 pm
[...] board lends an air of legitimacy to their work (as does the presence of fellow progressive academic Cynthia Anne Marie Boaz on the same board). Zunes correctly observes that Gowans provides a “highly-selective summary” [...]
April 6, 2008 at 10:03 pm
Dear Mr. Barker,
My replies follow your questions, and should be in italics (if this blog accepts html.)
Cynthia
***
1. How did you first hear about the work of the ICNC, and what prompted you to join their academic advisory board?
I had heard about ICNC’s work through various venues – at conferences, through colleagues, and via my use of the “A Force More Powerful” documentary in the classroom. I gave a paper at a conference called “War, Peace, and Media” at Portland State University in the summer of 2005 and was introduced to Jack DuVall when I attended a dinner with some of the conference speakers afterwards. (Some other presenters and participants at this conference included Medea Benjamin, Michael Nagler, Stephen Zunes, Kathy Kelly, and Barry Gan, all of whom were appreciative and supportive of ICNC’s work. I am providing these names because the conference is a matter of public record. This was a conference comprised of some very prominent progressives working in the fields of nonviolence, nonviolent conflict, and development.)
I was very struck by the work of ICNC, and in particular, how their view of power—as a bottom-up, grassroots process – helps explain the entire phenomenon of nonviolent struggle. In my job over the years, I have made friends and colleagues on every continent who are involved in their own struggle against some type of oppression. My sense of solidarity with their struggles and my role as a teacher compelled me to learn more about how SNVC works, and at some point, in response to my earnestness and persistence, I was asked to join ICNC’s academic advisory board.
2. Who are the other members of the ICNC’s advisory board?
The answer to this question is not secret, but by the same token, I’m not comfortable disclosing it to you, given your track record with the two of us (Stephen Zunes and myself) who you already know. With all due respect, I’m not sure I want to subject my friends and colleagues to similar gratuitous personal attacks. Answering your charges— which are unfounded and even defamatory in part— takes time and energy from important work. I will say that the other members of the board come from a wide range of disciplines and countries of origin, and approached ICNC (as I did) because of the significance of the information about strategic nonviolent struggles that ICNC alone has harvested and disseminated.
3. Are you concerned about the funding issues that I raised for consideration in my previous articles? Why/Why not?
I made my position on this pretty clear in the piece you attempted to deconstruct. I understand your concern (and would share it, if I thought your claims were valid). The fact is that nonviolent struggles do not succeed if they are not indigenous.
4. Would you consider writing about some of the problems I have raised in my articles in a public forum? Perhaps you might be able to persuade Truthout to host such a discussion?
Your question assumes that you and I share the same perspective at to what constitute the major challenges to indigenous nonviolent struggles. While I share some of your concerns about U.S. “democracy promotion,” you are looking for (and finding) it in the wrong place when you sling charges at ICNC and those of us who work to actively promote knowledge about how SNVC works. If I undertook this endeavor, it would assume that I believe your charges have merit, which I do not. I hope you can understand why I don’t want to use a public forum like Truthout to give (borrowing from your own words) an air of legitimacy to what I believe are ridiculous conspiracy theories.
April 8, 2008 at 6:37 am
I have been following the Barker/Zunes/Boaz debate for some time now. I was excited to see Cynthia Boaz’s reply to Michael Barker’s direct questions posted here. I thought it might mark the beginning of a frank and open exchange. On reading it I am disappointed.
It is distressing that both Boaz and Zunes read into what Barker is saying a direct and vicious personal criticism. I have not been able to locate such a criticism in anything that Barker has written. In fact I see again and again an outright acknowledgement that both Zunes and Boaz are progressive activists doing valuable work.
Barker makes a blunt examination of the context in which Boaz and Zunes and other progressive activists conduct their work. His criticism is simplistic and yet fundamental to the operation of the progressive left. He calls on progressive activists to think about what it means to seek and accept funds from foundations and groups with anti democratic objectives and connections. Anyone who has ever written a strategic plan or compiled a report to their funding body understands that compromises are made in order to keep the funders on side. The substantive message in Barker’s work is that some voices are funded and others are not and those given a voice should look critically at why they have been given an ear, whose ear it is and how a desire for continued access to it motivates their actions.
Barker asks Zunes and Boaz and other progressive activists to ask themselves whether they would be in their positions if they did not speak to the agenda set by the elites. Instead of palming this off as mere conspiracy shouldn’t activists of their calibre be concerned about this? Yes, these are uncomfortable questions and they go to the very heart of the motivations of the left and that is understandably personally confronting to any progressive activist who feels they have spent their working lives in the pursuit of social justice, but what Zunes and Boaz seem to be missing is that, by asking the left to look critically at itself, Barker is encouraging it to recognise its strengths and weaken the hold the ruling class has over it.
It is a pity that Boaz has not taken this opportunity to engage in a critical reflection and has instead chosen to retreat using ‘ridiculous conspiracy theory’ as a patent excuse to avoid addressing something that makes her uncomfortable.
April 9, 2008 at 1:15 am
Mel-
Could you please clarify something? You say:
[Barker] calls on progressive activists to think about what it means to seek and accept funds from foundations and groups with anti democratic objectives and connections. Anyone who has ever written a strategic plan or compiled a report to their funding body understands that compromises are made in order to keep the funders on side. The substantive message in Barker’s work is that some voices are funded and others are not and those given a voice should look critically at why they have been given an ear, whose ear it is and how a desire for continued access to it motivates their actions.
It sounds as though you are speaking about me, Stephen Zunes, and “other progressive activists” here- is that correct?
I ask for two reasons. One, my original Truthout article and Barker’s subsequent critique addressed the issue of funding nonviolent movements (specifically in Burma), not financial support of my (or Stephen’s or any other academics’) work.
Secondly, I do not “seek funds” from foundations and groups with “anti-democratic objectives and connections.” To the contrary, I generally turn down stipend offers even from groups and foundations whose principles closely match my own (and possibly yours) because 1) especially when it comes to writing, I prefer that my motive be pure, and 2) I can’t in good conscience take funds from a non-profit that has a limited amount of resources and is doing good work.
If I accept your assumptions and leaps in logic, one can only conclude that I am either astonishingly naive or spectacularly stupid.
Cynthia
April 9, 2008 at 7:56 am
Hi Cynthia -
I join with Michael Barker in recognising your important contribution to social justice. I’m just asking if you would provide a more frank and academic response to some valid questions. I would very much like to hear your thoughtful opinion about Barker’s claims. Not so that it can be used in name calling exercises but rather so that my own developing attitude, towards what I see as a concern rather than a conspiracy, is fully informed. If you are not comfortable answering specifically would you outline more fully, in a general context, why you think there is no issue here of merit?
April 22, 2008 at 12:33 am
Hi Michael,
I find it ironic that upon coming to this page to read this discussion, I noticed that you are sponsored by Google. The ad that is running as I type is a “McCain for President” commerical.
Is it only others who should not accept support from power elite who would use their wealth to advance their agenda, or does that principle apply to you as well?
Eleanor