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Paradoxes of Power From the Community Development Resource Association's
Annual Report 1996/1997 |
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Introduction A question of choice Countervailing power Power at the periphery
Darkness at the break of noon A brief epilogue
" ... all entities possess an inherent tendency
to turn into their opposite."
- Anthony Stephens -The dynamics of development, particularly, are both contentious and complex; social dynamics are both more free and more fraught; advances and retreats appear to occur simultaneously. Embedded deep within the fabric of our collective destiny, the question of power forms a central axis around which our future revolves.
The progress of our organisation over the last ten years has brought us to the point where the future evolution of our strategies and interventions is dependent on our understanding and use of the paradoxes of power. In other words, organisational introspection forms one strand in our recognition of the timeousness, relevance and urgent necessity for reflecting on the centrality of power in the dynamics of development.
The other strand is formed through our recognition of the contradictions which manifest in the local and global society which surrounds us, with and within which we participate, for the sake of which we attempt to intervene, and with which our destiny is so intricately involved. Ten years ago the world was characterised by inertia and separation; South Africa was isolated within the grip of apartheid, the world was divided between east and west, north and south, between opposing ideologies. Great upheavals have heralded major changes: movement and mobility are hallmarks of the new process of globalisation, and capitalism has emerged triumphant, drawing the twin concepts of democracy and freedom - seemingly with nowhere else to go - into its ever-lengthening caravan. In terms of development, and the overburdening reality with which most people have to cope, however, it is fair to raise questions as to whether these changes have any fundamental and significant meaning.
Or, to put it differently (and to refer back to our Annual Report of last year on the concept of the shadow), is it possible that the very radical nature of our new-found freedoms releases shadow aspects which, unchecked and largely dismissed by those who gain most from the new world order, begin to run rampant and roughshod over the lives of many masses struggling for their fair share of resources and dignity? Is it even possible that for these masses life is more difficult than before, with the added burden that legitimate struggle and alternative ideology have been usurped and emasculated by the twin triumphalisms of globalisation and capitalism?
Certainly, for those of us working in the development sector, it is clear that the marginalisation of the poor (and, indeed, of the ecological sustainability of the planet) is increasing at a phenomenal rate. The instruments of capitalism reign supreme, and justify themselves both ideologically and in terms of material progress. It has become unfashionable to question the onward march of globalisation. Yet human suffering increases, and in the name of freedom, mobility, and democracy the developmental needs of many millions of people are reduced from legitimate quest to irreverent complaint.
Money rules. Those who have money rule. Technology rules. Those who control that technology rule. The development agenda itself, supposedly aimed at those who lack, is largely set by those who have, in their own interests. Aid money is no longer a means of amelioration; rather, the very "poverty of aid" itself has become manifest; both aid, and development itself, are increasingly at odds with alternative political striving; they emasculate rather than embolden, and by design rather than by default.(1)
"Development is the more equal distribution of power amongst people"(2). If this is true, then the shadow of our new-found freedoms can be witnessed in operation in the field of development. In the wake of the radical changes which have taken place over the last decade, power has accrued to too few, and far too powerfully. In the face of all the good that has been achieved, the very possibility of raising such a perspective has lost much of its legitimacy. This leaves the marginalised, and those of us who work with them, seemingly powerless. Thus many of us have lost our way, have lost our will, and have begun to cast about inconsequentially. If ideological and cultural legitimacy has been usurped by those in power, what possible direction, what possible alternative, is left for the powerless? As we approach the 21st Century, our dreams seem to turn to ashes even as they are realised, and there is little place left to turn.
It is high time then, in an attempt to find a way through, to expose the workings of the phenomenon of power itself. For it does all hinge on power, and our work with individuals and organisations, and within the sphere of social development itself, indicates that it is often too simplistic an understanding of the dynamics of power which increases powerlessness. In the following articles we attempt to expose some of the paradoxes of power, not with any thought of resolving the impasse but in order to unravel some knots, in the hope that readers might then be able to find some new paths and possibilities for themselves in our ongoing journey into the future.
NOTES:
New Internationalist, No. 285, November 1996, New Internationalist Publications Ltd. U.K.
Roberts G. "Questioning Development", 2nd Edition (revised) 1984. Returned Volunteer Action, London.
" ... it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing
without a demand. It never did and it never will"
- Frederick Douglas -During the last year we consulted to a network of NGOs involved in a particular sector of development. The network consisted of thirteen organisations spread over eight African countries. It was doing an organisational assessment of the strengths and needs of its members, and to this end had mandated two individuals to conduct in-depth interviews with each organisation. The results of this assessment, and particularly of a comparison between the various organisations, confused and intrigued the network, and we were asked to assist with an interpretive perspective.
On a simple, material level the results of the survey were clear. Some organisations were more effective than others, some were strategically more coherent, some were better staffed, some were better funded, some worked within more enabling environments than others, some had greater strengths, others were more needy. However, it proved difficult to correlate the strengths or weaknesses of particular organisations with their outer circumstances. Certainly, some organisations suffered because donors did not focus on their specific country, or because competent professional staff in their country were hard to find, or because they were harassed by the state, and so on. But these factors did not explain the large degree of divergence between outer conditions and organisational capacity. Simply stated, lack of organisational capacity did not seem to correlate easily with debilitating outer circumstances; consequently, the provision of material resources, either in the form of money or skills or staff or even a more enabling environment, did not seem to be the answer to these organisations’ problems, as they were not a cause of problem nor had they been a solution for the more capacitated organisations.
Probing this conundrum meant searching for causes beyond the material. Here the story became interesting. It transpired that it was not so much conditions or circumstances which were a cause of organisational capacity or the lack of it, so much as the organisation’s attitude to these factors. Thus those organisations which complained about their material lacks, which attributed their problems to the world ‘out there’, lacked the ability to counter these problems; while those organisations which were more self-critical, which attributed their problems to their own lack of strategic coherence or management competence or focused vision or evaluative (self-reflective) stance, manifested greater organisational capacity as well as the ability to overcome or compensate for outer constraints. Here indeed was a valid correlation between organisational effectiveness and organisational condition - it lay in organisational culture, in the organisation’s prevailing attitude, rather than in circumstance, although of course circumstance remained an important constraining factor. But in any case, circumstance lay beyond the organisations’ control; when regarded as cause it led only to complaint and demand. The key to organisational power lay in attitude. And the key attitude was the acceptance of responsibility.
If attitude is both source and limitation of power, what are the sources of constraint or promotion which give rise to attitude? If these could be understood, organisations and individuals might be able to reach more fundamental levels in their search for power.
An Austrian colleague, consultant and writer who has spent years investigating the differentials of power in conflict situations, offers this illuminating perspective of power: "Power is the potential of Party A (‘the powerful’) in a given social structure/relationship to impose her expectations on Party B (‘the powerless’) in such a way, that Party B sees less chance not to comply with the expectation of Party A." (3). This definition is complex and bears re-reading. We note a number of aspects. Structure, the imposed situation, is a determining factor. This would seem to imply that the powerless are indeed such, with no possibility of alternative. However, the second part of the definition casts a somewhat different light. Here, the way in which Party B sees the situation becomes a determining factor. It operates much like a game of cards. The hand that you are dealt is given; your choice lies in the way in which you play the hand. The way in which you play it is largely influenced by your expectations of the situation, which, in the case of the powerless, is largely governed by the framework set by the powerful. But "the play" of Party B is not determined by Party A; it is determined by Party B’s expectations. The latter are largely governed by Party A, but the way through the impasse is not to expect any change in Party A’s behaviour, or even to demand such, but rather for Party B to change her expectation of the play.
In other words, it is the attitude of the powerless which largely maintains impotence, or which at least constrains alternative. This attitude is generated through past experience of what may happen. Note that the definition refers to power as "potential". There is a crucial angle here. The expectation of power is greatest just before it is actually exercised; it is much greater in potential. It assumes momentous proportions, warping the expectations of the powerless and devastating their will. But once the worst has happened, the tension has been drawn out. There is, then, a collusion between powerful and powerless; the powerful might not be able to control, were it not for the subservient and compliant attitude - towards themselves as much as to anyone else - of the powerless. Indeed, power ultimately is the use of such potential by the powerful, with its concomitant influence on the very will and attitude of the powerless. The powerful can have little fundamental control over those whose will has not been broken, or over those in whom the will to power has been woken.
This points to one of the essential paradoxes of power. The expectations of the powerless are determined both by circumstance and by the imposed expectations of the powerful, but any change will be effected by a shift in attitude on the part of the powerless, not by circumstance or by the powerful. Responsibility for the situation does not, perhaps, lie originally with the powerless, but any change in the situation does. Thus, to turn back to the story with which this article began, attitudes which constrain effective behaviour, attitudes which limit potential and capacity, may well be due to imbibed pictures and experiences from some place beyond ourselves, but any search for a shift in these attitudes will have to take place within ourselves. We can demand nothing if not our own resolution; we can assume nothing if not our own response.
Thus power is never simply ‘taken’ by the powerful, it is also ‘given’ by the powerless. We will see later ( "Darkness at the Break of Noon") that the abuse of power thrives where consciousness is lacking, that the powerful diminish their own possibilities through becoming trapped in a prevailing paradigm which is of their own making. Paradoxically this same lack of consciousness is the trap which holds the powerless in check. Continued abuse of power is a function of collusion by both sets of collaborators - the powerful and the powerless - and this collaboration is an unconscious one. The move towards a shift in attitude on the part of the powerless is both a move towards consciousness and a result of having broken through unconscious barriers. For the (embedded) expectations which prevent the powerless from exercising their power thrive only through lack of consciousness; indeed, they are a manifestation of it.
The way to move beyond received attitude, then, is through a form of honest self-reflection which alone can cut through the ‘victim mindset’ in a fashion which enables the powerless to recognise their own collusion in the expectations which hold them in check. A fresh perspective on self can then generate new possibilities for deadlock-breaking action. The paradox lies in the fact that the powerless desperately seek redress from the powerful and await shifts in outer circumstance as a prerequisite for change, whereas these shifts can only come about as a result of the prerequisite change in attitude and expectation on the part of the powerless. We may not be initially responsible for a situation of powerlessness, but the responsibility for transforming it lies squarely with ourselves. And the source of constraint which results in ineffectual attitude is clearly the lack of consciousness which accompanies received paradigms.
NOTES:
CDRA Annual Report, 1994/5. "Capacity Building: Myth or reality?"
Kaplan, Allan. "Capacity Building - Shifting the Paradigms of Practice " Mulberry Series No 1 (1997), Olive subscription service, Olive OD & T, Durban.
Glasl, Fritz. Communication delivered during a development workshop in Cape Town in 1993.
"If you are unwilling to know what you are, your style
will be a form of deceit. If anyone is unwilling to
descend into themselves because this is too painful,
they will remain superficial"
- Wittgenstein -
Clearly market forces, the lifeblood of capitalism, dominate both ideological and economic discourse. They will deliver - prosperity, democracy, even freedom and equity. Yet poverty, environmental degradation and injustice loom ever larger, twilight shadows of the coming night reaching back into the brightness of the day. Who points to the anomalies, who manages to breathe an alternative air, who hums ragged and discordant melodies while the band plays on? Itinerant bands of the marginalised, social movements, small groupings of intellectuals; the organs of civil society, flotsam and jetsam on the capitalist sea, those with nothing or little left to lose. What little alternative voice is left manifests its power from the periphery. The borderline is ever a place of last remaining freedoms, a wild place beyond the reach of the prevailing norm.
Yet such is the paradox that the very exercise of such power risks its demise. As the peripheral voices - free to speak because of their very marginality - gain credibility, they get drawn into the centre, where freedom of expression, even of thought, is usurped by the dominant paradigm. Such at least is the danger inherent in countervailing power. We present CDRA’s own dilemmas, and reflections on self, as a small but personally experienced instance of such paradox, in an attempt to make conscious the choices faced by the development sector, and civil society. (At the same time we reflect on a decade of service within the development sector).
The CDRA began ten years ago as an NGO dedicated to providing organisation development consultancy services to other NGOs, as well as CBOs, in a very localised area - the Western Cape - of South Africa. Having identified the lack of organisational capacity of many organisations either engaged in development work or in resistance to the apartheid regime, CDRA started out as an experimental idea, or pilot programme, providing facilitation services in organisation development, while at the same time building its own understanding of, and expertise in, organisation development consultancy. At that time, at least in Southern Africa, the concepts of capacity building and of organisation development were largely unknown and unused.
From the beginning, CDRA dedicated itself to providing an effective consultancy service and to developing its own expertise in a particular form of organisation development. This emphasizes the facilitation of participatory processes aimed at client self-development rather than the provision of expert or technical advice and solutions. We were determined to make no claims for what we had not proved, and we were determined to build credibility for the value of organisation development through practice rather than through rhetoric (or the building of false image). Thus CDRA maintained a very low profile, committing itself to its on-the-ground work, avoiding forums and networks and what it perceived to be the dangers of too much loose talk. We preferred to work in the background, assisting "front-line" organisations to build their capacity to take forward the fight from the margins. The small, struggling local NGO or CBO was our favoured client. Equally, we resisted the demand for provision of training for some years, until we had first hand knowledge of the real needs of organisations; and even then, we have consistently refused to employ "trainers", insisting that we will train only in areas where we have experience and have demonstrated competence - in other words, only consultants working directly in the field have been encouraged to train in the name of CDRA, and then only in what they themselves practise.
The last ten years have seen revolutionary changes take place in South Africa and in the world as a whole; we are all less isolated than we were before, the development sector is both more coherent and more contentious, social issues are more ambiguous and more articulate, the profile of NGOs and civil society both more pronounced and more embattled. Alongside these changes, CDRA has developed its own practice, the spread of its client base and the growth of its competence and understanding, the increasing recognition - within the development sector - of the need for organisational capacity and the increasing recognition of the role which can be played by organisation development consultancy. There are more consultants available now, more need of their services and more opportunity to use them. CDRA has optimised its privileged access to a huge spread of the development sector by reflecting deeply on the patterns and phenomena which it has experienced, in order to make sense of, and bring new insight to, the process of development itself.
Thus, ten years on, we find ourselves in a place vastly different from where we started, with consequent implications for decisions concerning future strategy. CDRA now works with a wide range of organisational types: from local to national CBOs, from local to national to regional NGOs, from CBOs to NGOs to donors to - in certain instances when we believe that the cause of development will be furthered - government departments, from South African organisations to organisations spread throughout sub-Saharan Africa, in Eastern Europe, and elsewhere. We run training programmes in development and organisational intervention with a range of different constituencies. We facilitate explorations into various aspects of development by a range of development practitioners. We actively stimulate and encourage the growth of the discipline of organisation development as applied to and within the development sector. We join with others in the propagation of a stronger civil society. And, perhaps the most significant change of all, we are attempting, through various forms of communication based on the insights gained through reflection on practice, to develop our own "voice", to comment on and to shift paradigms of development practice from the perspective of southern practitioners operating as an integral part of civil society. In other words, perspectives and critiques and propositions as expressed from the margins; a voice alternative to prevailing paradigms. From the beginning we have tried, as our mission statement states, to help individuals and organisations to "challenge our socially restricting paradigms"; we ourselves are now engaged directly in this continuing struggle.
We remain a very small and concise organisation, but our influence and impact have increased immeasurably since those early days. We are able now to command a certain respect. And this ability confers in turn a certain power. A power which emanates from out of, as a part of, and on behalf of, the margins. Yet even as we dare to own this power, we are seized with a foreboding sense of the dangers inherent in strategic decisions made in its recognition. We are aware that the paradox of such power is such that its use runs the risk of drawing us into the centre, and away from its source of legitimacy, value and relevance; even from the source of its truth. This is immediately apparent to us in two senses - which may be contained in the words ‘politics’ and ‘practice’.
Insofar as practice is concerned, every bit of organisational muscle which we have has been developed through a rigorous attention to the improvement of our consultancy practice, and through insisting on the primacy of consultancy practice within our range of strategies. Every other strategic intervention, every presumption to have something of relevance to say or teach, comes directly out of the experience gained through on-the-ground ‘fieldwork’, or practice. Yet the more we extrapolate from this practice in order to build our voice, or to help others develop their own practice, the more our strategies diversify into realms of talking, writing and teaching, and away from direct practice. Thus our consultancy practice, which once constituted all of our strategy, now accounts for a bare thirty-five percent of our activities. More and more we are being called on, and are ourselves strategically choosing, to intervene at different levels so that the benefits of such practice are spread wider than is possible when working only directly with a limited number of organisations.
Both strategically, and in terms of individual motivation, we are moving in a direction which is vital to our continuing impact - but we are conscious that in order to create more value out of a relevant practice we are moving inexorably away from the source of our power. The higher our profile, the less we practice; and the less we practice, the greater the danger that genuine power will drain out of our profile until we begin to caricature ourselves. The line between strategic balance and excess becomes more complex to hold than ever; consciousness, a staying awake in the face of external demand and internal seduction, is our only defense. Sticking only to practice, we remain on the margins; venturing more, we march towards the centre, and lose touch with our (cutting) edge.
So much for practice - but it leads us as well into the dilemmas of ‘political’ folly. As a southern NGO, we are a marginal, peripheral entity; an alternative at best, a chimera at worst. But then, to remain so, what is the point? It is the paradigms, the policies and the practices at the centre which dominate, and without change in this arena our work on the margins becomes ephemeral, an everlasting ‘attempting’, with little fundamental solace. So increasingly we take what we learn and attempt to influence donor policy and practice, governmental policy and practice, the discourse and assumptions of the global (non)development agenda. Increasingly, then, we have to think about writing for this audience, meeting with this audience, networking and communicating within an intensifying global clique of individuals and organisations who already have the means and the power. Less time is available for working directly with our primary constituency; in which case, whose agenda has hegemony? And inevitably one has to adapt one’s discourse to be heard, and who, ultimately, is adapting to whom? Yet clearly, once again, if new paradigms and alternative powers are to manifest from the powerless on the margins, then those on the edge have to march on the centre. The paradox of power lies in this: that for the powerless to gain power, non-engagement is not an option, while engagement risks reversing the very power gained.
There can be no certainty, no security, no one answer for the developing development organisation. But we can cultivate right attitude, consciousness, and respect. All of us need to be well aware of the shifts of power if we are to engage with the struggle and come out with our integrity and the value of our free choices intact. There is safety and mobility and a certain freedom in the hills of the border country, a power in the very marginality of the powerless. But retreat, or simple inaction, changes little, and the centre forever spreads and encroaches. There is no option but to come down from the hills; but can we then maintain the character of the mountains in the face of the moral inertia of the cities? Every individual, every organisation, every movement which attempts to wrest power for itself or for others runs the risk of being co-opted into the dominant paradigm. We cannot shirk the challenge, and we cannot afford to succumb.
"The wound and the eye are one and the same"
- James Hillman -
Although the term ‘development’ is used to describe a diverse range of activities, we have increasingly begun to view a shift in power relations as an essential criterion for determining whether development has in fact taken place. Developmental interventions aim to increase the power of those at the periphery of society in order to enable them to make and act on decisions that directly influence the quality of their lives, and increase their access to and power over essential societal resources. Or do they?
The resources that support the activities of development practitioners come from the powerful and are seldom, if ever, consciously given with the intention of setting processes in motion that will significantly redress the power differentials against the interests of the donor. And the development practitioner is often unaware that the tune is being called by those who put the money up. The actual benefits to those who provide the development resources are often not obvious to the development practitioner, not simply because they are well camouflaged but also because a certain naivete is a protection in a cynical world. Thus the New Internationalist concludes an exploration into what it calls ‘The Poverty of Aid’ by stating that "The fatal flaw in ODA (official development aid) is that ... it has become breathtakingly prescriptive and actively anti-democratic. Such evidence as we have suggests, on the other hand, that the greatest ‘impact’ on poverty is made by poor people themselves confronting the ‘deep structures’, the inequities of ownership, economic power and human rights, that lie behind it". (1)
But even if the development practitioner manages to avoid the trap of becoming an unwitting agent of the powerful, acting as the agent of the powerless, of the poor, can also be contradictory. Often the development practitioner accesses resources on behalf of the powerless in ways that foster dependence, rather than empower. There is danger in accessing the resources of the centre before learning to unravel the knots in the strings to which they are attached.
This is the conundrum of development practice: by attempting to assist those at the periphery of society to access initial resources in order to equip them to get closer to the centre and to control over those resources, they are often further trapped in powerlessness than they were when acting from the periphery. In the course of this year the CDRA was asked to evaluate the attempts of a donor to contribute effectively to the development of the fledgling community radio sector in South Africa. We present this story as a means of penetrating some of these issues.
In South Africa the "struggle to free the airwaves" has effectively been won. In the last few years the broadcasting sector as a whole has been fundamentally transformed, with the restructuring of the South African Broadcasting Corporation and the establishment of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA). In the (previously non-existent) community radio sector the number of licenses granted has already grown to 83, with at least 70 of them already "on air".
Unlike commercial enterprises which have a simple bottom line related to profit or return on capital invested, the fundamental purpose of "developmental" community radio, in common with many other community development initiatives, is nowhere near as clearly definable or easily measurable. The purpose is contained in objectives such as: giving people a voice; empowering communities; creating an open society; giving people control; promoting and nurturing indigenous culture; helping communities identify and address common problems; health education; crime prevention; and many more which become increasingly detailed and specific to individual communities. In addition, the inclusion of all people and interests in a participatory framework is regarded as a central and fundamental principle.
The aims of any truly developmental intervention must include the ability to take on those forces of society which maintain fundamental inequalities.
The product that developmental community radio strives to deliver is complex in the extreme. It is well known and understood in the radio sector as a whole that the easiest way to fill air time is by playing music and accepting dedications. But in order to fulfill the fundamental purpose of community radio, programmes need to be carefully designed and produced through complex processes of community involvement and participation. Their success is judged by criteria very much more complex than the extent to which they entertain the audience. Good community radio programming needs to be entertaining in order to capture and retain the interest of the listener, but in most cases entertainment value is just the means to other, more developmental ends.
The knowledge, skills and resources required to produce good quality community radio programmes far exceed those of the average DJ. Knowledge of community development, adult education, socio-political and economic analysis, and of specific fields such as health, education, politics, gender and women’s issues, law and many others all become important additional requirements over and above the ability to plan, research, write, interview, record and edit, and manipulate the necessary machines to make the programme.
Despite all these challenges, and against all the odds faced by any service aimed at addressing the needs of those at the periphery of society, the community radio sector has grown dramatically since the granting of the first licenses in 1995. From within, and through, the NGO and CBO sector that nurtured and developed the idea in the days of "struggle", the community radio sector has managed to acquire sufficient human, financial and material resources to make it a force in the media and broadcasting sectors. In fact it has become so successful in "capturing" and serving a significant audience, that it is already threatened by those forces that draw all things of value towards the centre.
The strongest of these forces takes the form of commercialism. The airwaves have clearly been freed, but in so doing they have become highly contested. Development-orientated community radio is in direct competition for limited frequencies and financial resources with all other sectors of radio. The conditions and requirements set down by the IBA are already being experienced as favouring those with the greatest resources, as opposed to those that bring the most developmental message to communities.
But even when a frequency has been allocated and community radio "takes to the air" the battle has not been won. The forces luring community radio away from community towards commercialism continue. Firstly, the power and experience of the mainstream media and radio shape what radio is, and should be, in the minds of both presenters and listeners. It is difficult to build a new tradition of excellence in community radio when there are no role models or benchmarks readily available, when the strongest influence in community radio at present is a particular DJ who has nothing to do with community radio, and has in fact become a celebrity on commercial radio. It is difficult to counter these commercial forces when the antidote is producing and presenting good informative and educational programmes in order to meet needs, some of which the community may itself not be fully conscious of.
As if this were not enough, the vital issue of financial self sustainability further plays into the hands of commercial interests. Despite the incredible newness of the sector the donors that have supported its "birth process" are already raising issues of financial self sustainability - as is now common throughout the development sector. The difference with community radio is that it is tapping into a new, previously unreachable, potential market for the goods and services of advertisers whose interests obviously reflect commercial rather than developmental priorities. When targeting potential consumers, popularity of programmes takes precedence over educational and developmental considerations. As stations become increasingly commercial in order to sustain themselves financially (in the manner to which they are becoming accustomed), it is difficult to imagine how they will continue to justify the "expensive" participatory, community specific developmental programmes in terms of cost effectiveness.
Everyone in the sector senses these forces at work and is keenly aware that the death of developmental community radio lies in succumbing to the advertising of cigarettes and alcohol and in playing more and more popular music which is provided free of charge by the major record companies. Despite this consciousness everyone also knows that it is already happening, and no-one can seem to do much about it. There is too little understanding of the dominant forces at work, which conspire to deprive the interests of those at the margins of society of all that is of real value. To be drawn into direct competition for valued resources with the powerful, abiding by their terms and rules, will not necessarily result in any significant shifts in power relations. And when resources are philanthropically given and deferentially received they may further strengthen dependency rather than support the developmental shift towards increasing independence, and ultimately, inter-dependence.
The ultimate challenge is to penetrate and respond to the dynamic of power, to recognise and utilise the paradox at the heart of power - that there is a power which exists within all individuals, organisations or communities no matter how close to the margins of society they may be; and that there is a weakness that exists within the powerful who reside closer to the centre.
This weakness which lives within the core of power forms the subject of the article which follows. The power of the "powerless", however, inevitably lies in their ability to collectively survive and act free of the conditions considered indispensable by the powerful. Their power lies in those things over which they do have control, not in those things over which they have no control. The problem for the powerless was mentioned in the first article in this series - that the powerful impose expectations and perspectives which do more than anything else to sap the power of the margins and control their response. For it is not in the interests of the powerful that the powerless should tap into their sources of power; therefore the powerful will promote as essential those things over which the powerless have no control. Strategic thinking would reverse this dynamic.
Such thinking would resist the temptation to unconsciously adopt the expectations and dominant paradigms assumed by the powerful. For the community radio sector, it is important that the early history is not forgotten, and that it be used as a source of power rather than dismissed as an ignoble reminder of a time when power was lacking. The power of the sector does not lie in radio, and never has - it lies in community and in its ability to organise and mobilise. The true potential of the community radio sector does not lie in the slick, Americanised "hip-hop" patter of DJs spinning the latest CDs from around the world, but in the voice of the community and its need to build its strength within and communicate its message outwards. It does not lie in state-of-the-art studios, but rather in the early "illegal" transmitter cobbled together for R500, hidden under the examination table in the health clinic and listened to by the whole community. The power of community radio does not lie in the marketplace but in the ability of social movements to tap into resources that are generated through the collective action of marginalised people. Such resources will be harnessed and controlled and ultimately turned by the individualistic forces that operate at the centre of society, so long as community radio assesses itself through the paradigm of commercial radio. Strategic thinking would not allow the end to usurp the means - the assumed demands of radio to usurp the imperative of community. It would use the end to shape a different form of means; use the resource of community to establish a new form of radio.
Liberation involves fighting off the disempowered perception of self inflicted on the powerless by the powerful. And this includes the perception of self fostered by the unwitting development practitioner and donor. Community radio stations would like to maintain themselves in the manner to which they are becoming accustomed through inappropriate donor intervention. But the resources are unsustainable, and the stations risk losing their ‘edge’ through becoming a parody of commercial radio. The vision becomes tainted, and power is drained.
For the donor, and the development practitioner, the quest should be the facilitation of the innate power that resides within a sector, or within any marginalised grouping. The aim of any truly developmental intervention must include the ability to take on those forces of society which maintain fundamental inequalities.
NOTE:
The New Internationalist
"For them that defend what they cannot see,
with a killer’s pride - security,
it blows the mind most bitterly ..."
- Bob Dylan -
We have been looking at some paradoxes of power, concentrating largely on those people at the margins of society who seldom recognise and often do not strategise around those aspects of power which are inherent in their seeming powerlessness. For the sake of a fuller exploration of power, in the interests of revealing frailties which the powerless may exploit, and as a move towards exposing the corruption attendant on excessive power, we focus now on the centre, and on that peculiar dynamic of power which entails a turning in on itself, a turning of strength into weakness.
It is an old truism that power corrupts. One aspect of this corruption appears to be a lapsing into unconsciousness, a ‘falling asleep’ into a dominant paradigm which usurps all others and which gathers to itself a certain arrogance, not allowing the powerful to see beyond their own truths and their own victories. Excessive power leads to presumption, and a casting out of alternative perspectives. Whatever is done in the name of that power, and in its maintenance, is deemed correct. But what is not so obvious is that such corruption, the abuse of privilege, does not only work to the detriment of those over whom power is exercised. It works as much to undermine and to disable that power itself. And it is in this sense that a paradox of power is made manifest, and reveals possibilities for redress.
In the course of our work as development practitioners working specifically with organisational dynamics, we regularly encounter such paradox. Take the case, for example, of the pioneer leader who has built a development organisation around a particular strategy developed to address a specific need in society. The organisation was created some twelve years ago, and through the intervening years has built itself into a large institution employing various levels and grades of trainers, fieldworkers and specialists. A particular strategy and methodology is employed, all practitioners are schooled in that particular methodology, and the organisational systems, procedures and structures are geared to deliver it. This methodology was originally developed by the pioneer leader, who has built a national reputation around its efficacy and impact, and who continues to lead the organisation not so much from the field, as fieldworker, which is where she started out, but rather now as lobbyist, fundraiser and public face of the organisation.
Conflict arises in the organisation, focusing mainly on the tension between those at the periphery - the largely under-educated, under-skilled and under-trained fieldworkers - and those at the centre, the specialists and trainers and lobbyists, led by the pioneer leader. We are called in, as organisation development consultants, to assist in unpicking the knot which has developed at the heart of the organisation.
External evaluations of the organisation’s work have been performed in the past, and have generally delivered positive assessments. But external evaluations are fraught with the echoes of the organisation’s own rhetoric. An organisational survey requested by the organisation itself, and conducted in an atmosphere of dedicated confidentiality, reveals a different picture. In fact, throughout all these years, there has been very little impact with respect to the communities with which this organisation works. The fieldworkers, who interface daily with these communities, are well aware of this - they may be under-educated, they may lack articulateness and theoretical perspective, but they are there on the ground, they can see what is or is not happening. The methodology is wrong, they report; and interestingly, through their work on the ground, they are able to put forward alternative strategies.
But they are not heard at the centre of the organisation, and never have been. In spite of the organisation’s self-image concerning its own internal democratic practice, the views of those on the margins of the organisation have been actively, if covertly, suppressed. Leadership generally, and the pioneer leader particularly, have reputations to uphold, funding contracts to maintain, national positions to develop. It is years since those at the centre have actually been out working on the ground, amongst the communities themselves, yet they cannot hear, or they refuse to hear, the negative reports coming in from the field. Alternative viewpoints bring uncertainty, ambiguity, and often herald the need for change. The paradigm which led to original success has become indispensable to them; they are unable to see beyond it. When questioned deeply, brought eventually to a place of honesty, they know that they have nothing with which to verify that their methodology works, apart from the fact that they are convinced that it once did. But in reality it is the echo of their own organisational image, the momentum generated by the dominance of their own paradigm, which powers their inability to take note of the reality which is so palpably evident to the fieldworkers, those at the periphery of organisational life. In the centre of the organisation where the important decisions are made, and to which ordinary fieldworkers have little access, the powerful are trapped within the hegemony of their own discourse.
In such situations organisational change and development, organisational effectiveness itself, depend on the ability of those at the center to regain consciousness and develop awareness of what is really happening. And in many organisations with which we have worked, the powerful at the centre have had to break, before an organisational renewal has been able to occur. The centre’s weakness lies in this: that it becomes unable to see beyond itself, it is unable to adapt, and some form of (often very painful) death is required before change can take place. Either such breaking must occur, or the centre clings ever more strongly to its discourse and practice, and a souring takes place, a diminishing of potential. Instead of expanding, the organisation begins to contract, and wither.
Similar examples abound, and they are not confined to the particular type of circumstance raised above. The dynamics of power will manifest in many different guises. A comparable situation often confronts us, for example, when consulting to national organisations with local or regional branch offices, be they NGOs, governmental bureaucracies, or donor agencies - in the latter case, international organisations. A particularly expressive case in point relates to an organisation which was created to give effect to a particular developmental initiative, and which after some years had grown to the extent where it set up regional offices to increase the impact of its original intervention. The idea was to expand in such a way that the organisation might be able to interface more effectively with its constituent communities in the field.
The problem which this NGO was facing had mainly to do with the increasing gap between head office on the one hand and the regional offices on the other. Since the decision had been taken to decentralise, regional offices had been growing in both numbers and capacity. The problem was that apart from setting up regional offices, no other decentralisation activities had taken place, and the culture of the organisation remained profoundly centralised. Thus there was no devolution of power whatsoever; everything and everyone was controlled from head office. Rules, procedures and accountability structures all led directly to head office, which played havoc with attempts to establish organisational coherence at a regional level.
Perhaps all this would not have been such a problem had there not been two compounding factors. One was the simple inefficiency of head office. Its need to control had outstripped its ability to provide developmental leadership, and there was in consequence little actually being achieved on the ground. The second was regional outrage over what the regions considered an hypocrisy: that this NGO was playing a leading and major role in the struggle for democracy, in the face of a relentlessly oppressive regime, yet was unable to democratise its own structures.
Work with the regional offices involved a highly self-critical and reflective process which revealed the organisation with a kind of three-dimensional clarity. A report on this work, which was written by participants, intentionally did not come across as highly critical of head office, but it made numerous suggestions as to changes in the structure and function of head office as concerned its relationship to the regional offices. The report began and ended with a simple plea that it be used as a means of moving the discussions on possible futures forward. This report was forwarded to head office, and everyone’s worst expectations were more than confirmed when it was immediately proscribed. No printing was allowed, no photostatting, no distribution to regional offices or to head office for discussion. Put another way, no rational debate was permitted, and this in a so-called democratic organisation fighting for democracy. In an unconscious move to maintain control, the centre had reversed its most dearly held principles and beliefs. And the organisation, as a result, lost its way, atrophied, and gradually disintegrated into a parody of itself.
This example is extreme, but the dynamics it reveals are not rare; rather all too common. They can be picked up almost anywhere. For instance - and on a completely different tack - working with programme officers from donor organisations reveals the paradox in a particularly startling fashion. Here are people who often - at least collectively if not always individually - have the power of life or death over recipient organisations. Certainly NGOs and CBOs are largely dependent on their decisions, and see them as powerful forces, frequently to be appeased. Yet these same officers, when confronted with the need to make changes to their grant making ‘instruments’ and procedures through a heightened understanding of the development process, claim that their hands are tied because their own principals - either the larger bureaucracy of their own organisation or the bureaucracies from which their organisations draw funds - are incapable of, or unwilling to, adopt the more flexible approach which would be more strategically coherent with a real focus on developmental funding practice. The system, it seems, has rigidified at the centre, and those we think of as powerful claim to have almost no means of changing it, in spite of their own developing understanding of what constitutes developmental funding practice. When the centre becomes too powerful, it rigidifies, lapses into anonymity, and a faceless, intractable tyranny results which no longer has any power to rectify itself in the face of its own increasing awareness. The power at the centre loses control over its own development.
A major paradox of power, then, lies in this rigidity which rots the core, in the arrogance which comes to incapacitate the centre. The story of David and Goliath is instructive, and plain. Goliath’s armour offered no protection against David’s small stones. Instead, it acted as a straight-jacket, disabling the powerful figure who spent his time boasting about past victories and consequently lost his ability to respond to new circumstance. The power at the centre is disempowered through the rigidity to which it adheres. A closing off occurs, a cessation of movement. Regeneration takes place on the periphery, where the ragged and chaotic margins allow new elements to enter and combine with the old. The centre defends itself against such incursions.
Perhaps this unveils the essence of the paradox - an essence which reveals that power is fundamentally a developmental phenomenon. Could it be that prevailing power derives from past victory, and thereby risks becoming trapped in its own grandiosity, which will eventually cause it to wane through the weight of its own assumptions? While the periphery holds the potential of the future, could there be a waxing power to be attained through exercising the freedom to move, which is denied those at the centre? In which case, real power lies in the process of development, of becoming. Once power has been attained, though it may last for some time, there is always a danger of stasis, of paralysis. That power must be defended at all costs, and a protectionism, a reactivity sets in; a process of decay takes place, and energy is drained. On the other hand, the energy of the powerless lies in a relentless movement forward, in an openness to new possibility. There is constant movement implied in this perspective, a waxing and waning; it is precisely at that moment when you know that you have it, that you begin to lose it. The complexity and ambiguity which this process entails, demands a subtle approach to development dynamics, and encapsulates the potential of the so-called powerless on the margins of society.
"Or had we, in our rush to divide the world, divided it the
wrong way, failing to notice that the real battle lay
between those who were still searching, and those who,
in order to prevail, had reduced their vulnerability
to the lowest common factor of indifference?"
- John le Carre -The foregoing discussions are not intended to naively suggest that understanding some of the paradoxes of power will result in mitigation of the forces which are ranged against the marginalised. But they may be regarded as, in some sense, a call to arms; and they may be used as indicators of possible strategies. We have arrived at an impasse, and the practice of development, if it is not to simply acquiesce in the face of dominant discourses, must construct new ways of approaching its task. Some lessons can be drawn.
The power of the centre, the lure of capitalism and the reductionism inherent in an uncritical globalisation agenda, all conspire and result in increasing the marginalisation of many of this planet’s peoples. They also seduce the unwary development practitioner. Wherever a development practitioner works, be it with development organisations, community organisations, social groupings or (inter)national groupings, be it as lobbyist, fieldworker, specialist or facilitator, if that practitioner is not working with the issues of the marginalised and developing consciousness by working through the unconscious hold of power which gravitates towards the centre, then he or she is not working developmentally. The essence of development facilitation must be helping to make conscious the unconscious dynamics which bind us.
As development practitioners, then, we need to remain skeptical of the so-called development solutions which emanate from the centres of power, be that centre the state, the north, the donor, capital, or transnational institutions. As often as not, the plight of the marginalised is increased, and consciousness remains dim. Observe, for example, the following comment on the state of affairs in South Africa only a couple of years after its transition to a democratic, people’s state: "The advent of democracy, and of laws founded in social justice - the outcome of decades of struggle - took place at a time when these achievements on a global scale were suffering serious erosion. For the era has seen the forceful ascendancy of institutions lacking democratic accountability, and governed not by a public legal order but by ‘laws’ of the market. The new South Africa was born in an historical moment in which private accumulation prevails over collective social protection. Globalising trends have put the sovereignty of nation-states at bay. That sovereignty is of little protection for any young state driven by a social justice agenda. ...The ANC came to power in 1994 under the banner of ... an election manifesto with a social democratic signature. ... (Currently, however, its strategy) demands further sacrifices by the poor today to allow private accumulation to deliver prosperity tomorrow. Market-based measures now crowd out rights-based policies; spending power rather than social justice is becoming the arbiter of life-chances. These terms are non-negotiable, as ‘There is no alternative.’ (1)
This comment appears in a review of a particular donor’s strategic history and future potential. It notes further that, given this (global) reality, a previous review of private donor agency work - Swedish NGOs, in this case - states the following: "This does not mean that nothing can be done. The case studies suggest (agency) work is most likely to have an impact when it directly addresses the social relationships that underlie poverty ... and which increases the capacity of the poor to tackle these relationships for themselves." (2). The first quoted review goes on to state that: only "a small ... number of private aid agencies today seem ready to incorporate such radical thinking into their approaches" (3). These points are well taken. They may apply to all development practitioners, not simply to aid agencies. Development work is not about projects, nor simply about combating deprivation; it is about addressing issues of relationship and power. It is about recognising, as well, that development is really about the capacity of civil society - that the future cannot rely on government or the market, working out of stale paradigms which not only marginalise increasing numbers of people but which wreak environmental havoc and which are ultimately not sustainable. There is a question which arises in the course of the review quoted above which may apply to all development initiatives: Do current programmes directly address the social relationships which underlie poverty - that is, do they increase the capacity of the poor to tackle these relationships themselves?
Understanding the paradoxes of power will help us, too, to avoid the excesses in ourselves, whether we be powerless or powerful; it will help us avoid the traps which are incumbent on each, thereby allowing us to grapple with innovative opportunities. For development itself is nothing other than a play upon the dynamic of power, a movement from unconscious to conscious, from dependence to independence and then interdependence, from the unempowered margins of ourselves to the self-confident centre; and back again, in a spiraling and recurring motion which turns around on itself in its unfolding journey.
The results of development may manifest in increased resources, in a more sustainable use of those resources, in structural change, in greater control or influence over policy, in organisational capacity, in greater prosperity; but underwriting it all is the ability to move, to shift, to innovate, to respond with consciousness, creativity and enthusiasm to the innumerable questions coming towards us from the future. We may measure development from its effects, but facilitation of development itself is intervention in a process, which waxes and wanes in intricate but comprehensible rhythm, and in which power can imperceptibly turn into its opposite, and back again.
NOTES:
Sogge, D., Cole, J. and Bentzen, N. "Funding for Transformation in Times of Transition - A report of a Midterm Review of the INTERFUND/Ibis Transitional Development Assistance Programme in S.A. 1994-1998, INTERFUND, Johannesburg.
Riddel, R.C., Bebbington, A., and Peck, L., 1995, p. 79, "Promoting Development by Proxy. The Development Impact of Government Support to Swedish NGOs", quoted in INTERFUND/Ibis report.
INTERFUND Ibis report.
About the Community Development Resource Association (CDRA)
The Community Development Resource Association (CDRA) was established in 1987 as a non-profit, non-governmental organisation (NGO) to build the capacity of organisations and individuals engaged in development and social transformation. We are based in Cape Town, South Africa and work mostly in Southern and East Africa.
Email: vernon@cdra.org.za
Webpage: http://www.cdra.org.za
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