Andrei Yahorau: Civil society cannot but participate in political relations

Allegations that the adoption of the National Platform Development Concept has led to the politicization of this structure contain distorted notions of politics and political activity.

Particularly, commenting upon the story of the Internet paper “Belarusan news”, he noted that in lots of comments and quotes all political activity is reduced to the issue of struggle for power or struggle against power.

This opinion was shared in the talk with the EuroBelarus Information Service by the director of the Centre for European Transformation, political expert Andrei Yahorau.

“But the essence of the politics is not confined to that. The classical division between “policy” and “politics” is known since long ago. The nature of these terms in the English language differs in that the policy presupposes work with huge, large-scale spheres of activity. For instance, policy is possible in the sphere of the civil society or in the medical sphere. Politics is direct conflict of antagonistic interests in a concrete situation of struggle for power or struggle for state administration”, - explained Andrei Yahorau.

And when the International Consortium EuroBelarus or part of the National Platform organizations talk about the necessity to broaden the format of the platform activity, the matter is not about politicization derived from politics, but about politicization derived from policy, highlighted the political scientist.

“Civil society cannot escape the participation in political relations, as it is its natural state. Of course, this is not a struggle for power, but, for instance, policy in the sphere of the improvement of their own activity conditions, the need of the civil society to come close to a solution of broader objectives connected with the life of the country”, - said the expert.

The broadening of the National Platform activity format he sees as follows: “It means that we are occupied with not only some targeted questions connected with certain people, parks, work to educate elderly people and so on, but with the questions  connected with the issues of education in general or policies in the ecological sphere in general”.

Andrei Yahorau noted that a lot of questions that Belarusan public organizations face in their work do not have private solutions; they should be dissolved at the highest political level: “That is why National Platform, as certain consolidated area is naturally a place for discussion of exactly these nationally-sized questions”, - declared the political scientist. During these discussions the problems of democracy, democratization, necessity of the political regime change will be unavoidably touched upon.

“And it goes without saying that these questions have to be discussed at the National Platform; we have to do something about them and decide something about them. As without democratic conditions none of the public organizations can reach the solution of their minor private objectives. Just look, for instance, what happens now with the problems of deforestation, building compaction, human rights of persons with disabilities”, - specified the expert.

Situation with prisoners of conscience can represent even more vivid example: “That question requires settlement of basic questions of living conditions of the whole civil society in the country and conditions of the political regime. From where do prisoners of conscience appear? They appear not from the violations of law, but from the persecution because of their political activity. And when we protect them in some form, demand their liberation, then we already interfere in the political relations”.

Andrei Yahorau noted that policy appears also at semiotic and nomination level. “Pierre Bourdieu denoted policy inter alia as a power on nominations. For instance, our human rights organizations claim that this country has prisoners of conscience, and the authorities claim there are none. In this sense they enter into the political struggle per nomination one and the same people in detention by different names. It is not struggle for power, but this is a sphere of policy, political relations”, - assumes the political expert.

According to him, it is because of the insufficient notion about the boundaries of the political sphere that certain representatives of the civil society have that there appears the impression that the National Platform becomes a political party or unusual functions and goals are imposed on the civil society. “But it is far from true. Quite the contrary, it is rather that the National Platform tries to add functions necessary for the civil society, that are realized either poorly or accidentally, from time to time”, - highlighted the interlocutor.

He noted that in order to be engaged in private issues, there is no need to build National Platform: “If we are consolidating and building some area from which realization of certain actions towards the whole civil society is possible, we shouldn’t squeeze it in too narrow bounds. As then this activity loses sense, and all the work done during the 2,5 years goes to waste. But then, what all this consolidation and creation of such sort of communicative area was for?”

In this situation, Andrei Yahorau believes, “it is important to differentiate who is occupied with what, and do not claim your suspicions and fantasies to be really existing facts”.