Readers' letters
 

Non-governmental or civic organizations?
 

As one of the supporters and consumers of the civil society culture, recently, I've had to opportunity to go through the MCIC brochure "NGO Fair - Forum of the civil society in Macedonia" and remember that wonderful manifestation of the civic initiative in our country - but it was also a situation when the very title of the brochure reminded me of a STRANGE AND INCOMPREHENSIBLE PHENOMENON in the civil society culture. I know many people who are more competent than me to face that phenomenon and say something about it, and I have been waiting for a long time for that - but it seems that the silence of the these people is part of the bizarreness of the phenomenon. Therefore, I decided to wait no more and finally raise that question myself, the price being that I might be making fuss for nothing, that is, what I find strange might not be a problem at all. Forgive me if I misunderstood things.

What I call strange and non-understandable phenomenon is the use of the term NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION.

What I could understand is to give additional explanation of the term CIVIC organization with words as "non-partisan", "non-profitable" plus the main term "civic organization." So without any need or excuse, we are forcing a grotesque situation where the subject, the civic association is NOT identified by WHAT IT IS, that is, a civic organization, but by WHAT IT IS NOT, that is, a NON-governmental organization. It is as illogical as, if instead of saying that I am Macedonian, I would say that I am NOT Bulgarian, or that I am NOT Serbian- and consider myself identified in relation to my ethnic origin. I feel sorry for the subjects who having not their authentic identity, can only identify themselves as a "negative" of another subject! However, the civic organization (as a social phenomenon) is an entity with authentic identity that should proudly bear its real name (civic organization) and that therefore, its renaming into a "non-governmental organization" should be considered an underestimation and INSULT.

What confuses even more with this phenomenon of negative identification is that the term "non-governmental organization" (and its abbreviation NGO) is widespread not only among the common citizens but also in journalist texts, and not only as a jargon that "freely appears" in the official texts of the state institutions, but that this term is without any doubt used in the EXPERT LITERATURE and by the SCIENTISTS - so we get the impression that it is a completely "normal" term and we give it legitimacy for a further "false presentation."

Anyway, I am convinced that it is completely wrong when the members of the civic associations identify themselves as members of some "non-governmental organizations", so I send my APPEAL to all representatives of the civic sector, especially to the representatives of the science and the bearers of the culture in this field to DISCARD this stupid term (non-critically taken over from the "advanced West" and repeated thousands of times, so that now we have the impression that "we cannot do without it") and instead, use the simple term CIVIC ORGANIZATION - the only term that expresses the thing it refers to.

With bright look to the future without NGO, and many CO,

Sincerely yours, 

Petar Bosevski

(Personal stance of a member of the EA "Eko-misija", Skopje)