Dy­lan Ker­ri­g­an

Last week's col­umn stressed that pol­i­cy de­ci­sions whether by Gov­ern­ment or the pri­vate sec­tor are al­ways shaped by key in­di­vid­u­als with par­tic­u­lar in­ter­ests. That what dri­ves po­lit­i­cal de­ci­sion-mak­ing and po­lit­i­cal pow­er isn't high-mind­ed ideals or the com­mon good but par­tic­u­lar in­ter­est groups.For ex­am­ple, when the Gov­ern­ment closed down Ca­roni (1975) Ltd the State ig­nored the pub­lic good in or­der to sup­port pri­vate in­ter­ests.

With in­put and pres­sure from the World Bank, the Gov­ern­ment iden­ti­fied a fis­cal prob­lem yet dis­re­gard­ed the lo­cal so­cial con­se­quences. That was an ex­am­ple of not de­fend­ing the pub­lic good–some­thing some sug­gest is al­so go­ing on with the Debe to Mon De­sir seg­ment of the ex­ten­sion to the Sir Solomon Ho­choy High­way.If we glimpse in­to pol­i­tics and par­tic­i­pa­to­ry democ­ra­cy, we see cer­tain in­ter­est groups dri­ve po­lit­i­cal de­ci­sion-mak­ing. Such in­ter­est groups re­de­fine cit­i­zen­ship.

Be­cause when some are more equal than oth­ers in get­ting their in­ter­ests pro­tect­ed and act­ed up­on, those groups whose in­ter­ests aren't treat­ed equal­ly suf­fer a di­min­ished from of cit­i­zen­ship where their life chances are in­hib­it­ed.Ex­am­ples of groups who suf­fer a di­min­ished form of cit­i­zen­ship ex­tend from the work­ing class and the LGBT com­mu­ni­ty to lo­cal arts prac­ti­tion­ers and those with dis­abil­i­ties. And, of course, there are many oth­ers too. One way to counter this in­equal­i­ty is to re­de­fine what cit­i­zen­ship means.

The tra­di­tion­al lib­er­al sense of cit­i­zen­ship sup­pos­ed­ly pro­duces each of us as free to pur­sue our own ends, as long as we re­spect the rights of the in­di­vid­ual to prop­er­ty own­er­ship, equal treat­ment un­der the law, and free speech.These civic rights are the ex­tent of our oblig­a­tions to the state and each oth­er. There are no oblig­a­tions for any cit­i­zen to con­tribute fur­ther to pub­lic life.

One re­de­f­i­n­i­tion of this idea of cit­i­zen­ship is "ac­tive cit­i­zen­ship." Ad­vo­cates of ac­tive cit­i­zen­ship stress that with civic rights come re­spon­si­bil­i­ties for civic en­gage­ment.This means there is a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to be in­volved in pub­lic life and af­fairs by or­gan­is­ing to tack­le prob­lems in our com­mu­ni­ties, work­places and democ­ra­cy to im­prove the qual­i­ty of life for all.

An ac­tive cit­i­zen isn't al­ways a "good" cit­i­zen who fol­lows the rules though. Of­ten they might chal­lenge the ex­ist­ing struc­tures and rules of so­ci­ety. Not nec­es­sar­i­ly in vi­o­lent ways, but ways that con­front those in­ter­ests not in the com­mon good.

Ac­tive cit­i­zen­ship and ac­tive cit­i­zen­ship or­gan­i­sa­tions in T&T in­clude the High­way Re-Route Move­ment, Fix­in T&T, the Artists Coali­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil for the Con­struc­tion In­dus­try, CAISO, the To­co Foun­da­tion and oth­er as­so­ci­a­tions–some tran­sient, and oth­ers more per­ma­nent.

There is no uni­ver­sal­ly ac­cept­ed de­f­i­n­i­tion of ac­tive cit­i­zen­ship or what an ac­tive cit­i­zen is. It isn't a top down, pa­ter­nal­is­tic, "I tell you how to be a good cit­i­zen" mod­el. Rather it is a bot­tom-up, is­sues-based, or­gan­ic type of cit­i­zen­ship.Lis­ten­ing to ac­tivists speak at UWI last week about their ex­pe­ri­ences of be­com­ing in­volved in so­cial move­ments and con­fronting pow­er, there was a wealth of sug­ges­tions on how to be­come a more ac­tive cit­i­zen.

In what sounds ob­vi­ous, they sug­gest­ed that the most im­por­tant thing in ac­tive cit­i­zen­ship is to act, to com­mit your­self to ac­tion on a spe­cif­ic project. This gives you the chance to pur­sue change–whether it's on the fac­to­ry floor, in the civ­il ser­vice, your com­mu­ni­ty or else­where. It was al­so sug­gest­ed to not try and change the big things first. As the LIV Move­ment is re­al­is­ing, or­gan­is­ing is pow­er­ful in it­self. An ear­ly suc­cess helps too; it pro­vides a catalysing mo­ment that can mo­bilise oth­ers.

It is im­por­tant to be re­source­ful. Mo­bilise your net­works and make new ones. Make bridges be­tween peo­ple, groups, and in­ter­ests. Learn from oth­er gen­er­a­tions. Lis­ten to peo­ple–go through their pain and the anec­dotes they tell to get to the re­al sto­ry.Clar­i­fy the is­sue. Know what hap­pened be­fore. Make your own in­ter­est group to counter the dom­i­nant in­ter­est group.

In our so­ci­ety, as else­where, there can be costs to be­ing an ac­tive cit­i­zen. There's the gen­er­al cul­ture of cyn­i­cism that per­vades so­ci­ety. There can be mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion and slan­der by those who are more pow­er­ful and do not share your in­ter­ests. Politi­cians and elites might ver­bal­ly state they wish you would die al­ready. Wor­ry­ing­ly, ac­tive cit­i­zens who most wor­ry pow­er can find their well be­ing pro­fes­sion­al­ly, eco­nom­i­cal­ly, so­cial­ly, and phys­i­cal­ly un­der at­tack.

All things con­sid­ered, a re­de­f­i­n­i­tion of cit­i­zen­ship to make its hold­ers more en­gaged and ac­tive seems need­ed and de­sired by many cit­i­zens in face of a bro­ken po­lit­i­cal sys­tem dri­ven by hid­den and vest­ed in­ter­ests.

�2Dr Dy­lan Ker­ri­g­an is an an­thro­pol­o­gist at UWI, St Au­gus­tine