From the article of 'Petrel'
No.581 / May 19, 1996

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What is NGO and NPO?

 Supplementing the policy of the government
Smoothing over the contradiction of the capitalist society


The NGO and NPO activities as a citizens' movement are being extolled also in Japan recently.

Domestically one thousand and several hundred of people in total ran to at the Hanshin large earthquake, and the people of the NGO organization of the foreign country also rush to the rescue as an international cooperation, so last year was said to be the volunteer first year.

In the region the volunteer group to support the persons with an inconvenient body and the old persons and to help the people in the developing countries etc. increases.

It is said that the movement of such volunteer organizations is not the activities of mere social service but the activities producing the mutual help and the unity of people exceeding the border.

However, how is the realities, let's examine.

<> What is NGO?

NGO (the Non-Government Organization) is the international organization and the domestic organization of the citizens who do not aim at the profit-pursuing, which is active internationally and independently of the government in various fields as of international cooperation, human rights, welfare, environment, and peace problem, etc.

of NGO that is concerned in international cooperation of Japan is called about 400.

The number of organizations was only one digit in the beginning in 1960's.

However, the organizations increase to several tens taking advantage of the rescue activities of the Indochinese refugee that sprang in 1979, and afterwards through the supporting activities to the problem of the Palestine refugee and the Tibetan refugee.

The main activities of NGO of Japan in 70's were the supply of the food, the medical treatments, the medical treatment apparatus, and the medicines for the refugee rescue of the dispute region and the struck region.

However, the organization of NGO has increased rapidly through 80's.

Though the sphere of the concrete activities is wide, that is, "to plant with green at the place made into desert by drought" (Africa), "to send a hearing aid to the hard hearing person" (Russia), "to dig a well at the place of waterless" (Philippines), "to present a used car and make it a moving library" (Laos), "to open a literacy class and to teach non-school children and women for the coming out from poverty" (Nepal), and so on, it is said that especially the one concerned in the development aid is the most and occupys 70% of the whole.

The content of the activity of NGO has changed with an increase in the number of organizations, too.

The NGO that proposes the policy to the United Nations and the government has also increased, that is, they criticize that the "Aid" from the government and the private sector of the advanced country to the developing country stays in the government and the privileged class of the opponent country and not reachs to the poor people at the bottom of the social pyramid where help is actually needed, and that it is necessary to change into the aid sticking to the locale.

In the environmental problem, NGO becomes to have a certain right to speak in the international society as so that NGO participated in the Earth Sumitto Convention opened in Brazil in 92.

Such activities are beautified by the citizens ideologists as the activities "bringing up friendship, understanding, and unity of the earth scale" exceeding the border by overcoming the confrontation of the South and the North instead of the rule and the plundering by the advanced countries to the developping countries and as the activities for "creating the society aiming at symbiosis".

<> Comlpementing to the aid policy of bourgeois nations

 However, the activity of NGO is not the one basically conflicting with "the Aid" by the advanced capitalist countries for the securing and the expansion, etc. of the market as understood even if we saw the bourgeois international organizations and the nations to admit NGO and to help funds to it.

The word named NGO was originally a term expressed in the United Nations charter by which the United Nations provided for the cooperation with private groups other than the government and it was the one point to the private group with the conference qualification with the Economic Social Board of the United Nations. The World Bank had the combination committee about the aid policy with NGO and the UNHCR is calling NGO a partner.

The government helps funds to NGO and consigns a part of business of the development assistence in America and European countries excluding the international organization, too.

Especially, NGO is obligated to participate in the policy decision process in Sweden and Netherlands.

The cooperation with NGO came to be advocate also in Japan and the subsidy system to NGO by the government started from the year 89.

In addition, a part of the interest of the postal savings was distributed to NGO as the volunteer deposit in the year 91. (In the results of last year, 3.5 billion yen was payed in the total of both.)

It is said that about 15% of the "aid" to the developping countries are drifted through NGO.

The Official Development Assistance (ODA) is exposed to the criticism from the people in the developing countries as "the Aid" for the national profit in the advanced capitalist countries and the profit of the rule class of the developing countries that related to it.

The purpose of the bourgeois nation's and World Bank's offering the capital to NGO and conferring on "the Aid" policy is to avert dissatisfaction and distrust of people in the developing countries to "the Aid".

For the bourgeois nations, the support to the NGO activities that hoists "the Development Aid by the citizens, aimed at the opponent countries' citizens" for the independence of the local people is an indulgence of "the Aid" out of concessions.

Actually, it is clear that the activities such as the literacy education, the afforestation, the agricultural technological guidance, and the popularization of the family plan does not overcome the poverty fundamentally but partially smoothes over the life of people in the developing countries.

The poverty of the people in the developing countries cannot be solved without overcoming of the retarded production relation in the developing countries and without overthrowing the imperialism that plunders and exploits the deveroping countries.

For the workers in advanced countries, the aid to the people in the developing countries is above all to overthrow the rule of the home country's bourgeoisie and to eliminate the imperialism from the world.

The activities of NGO is ended objectively to complement "the Aid" policy of the bourgeios nations.

<> The limit of the civicism movement

Not only NGO but also the citizens' movement = NPO (the Non-Profit-pursuing Organization) that acts in a wide field like welfare and environmental protection, etc. domestically is evaluated as the movement with a new possibility. For instance, 'The Asahi News paper'(dated May 5) describes NGO and NPO as follows.

"The citizens' group can do the work that the administration and the enterprise cannot do.

The role of the plural and mobile citizen's activities increases in the 21st century where the value diversification, the aged society, and the internationalization advanced further.

They have the function to check the act of the government and the enterprise.

It were the citizens' groups that pursue the AIDS by chemicals and the entertainment of bureaucrat by bureaucrat. It is the citizen's turn just now when the bureaucratic system comes apart at the seams remarkably."

The civicists emphasize the movements from various values not the movements based on the specific principles and insistences. Nevertheless the movements from various values

inevitably arrive at the movements on the assumption of the class society itself.

A variety of classes that differ in interests from each other, that is the capitarists, the workers, the farmers, and so on, exist in the modern society being ruled by the capital.

The movements from a variety of values mean to pursue the interests of each class or social level.

Had not we already seen the powerlessness of the movement of such "Civicism" many times?

For instance, concerning in the garbage incineration plant installation, the interests of the side that requests the garbage processing and the inhabitant in the region where the incineration plant are constructed conflict and it come to a deadlock, etc.

The people who repulses the worker's movement and the movement of worker's political party as being based on a specific ideology, and is advocating the citizens' movement that stands on various values, has forced the improvementalism of the improvement in the frame of this class society after all.

The citizens' movement is said to have played a big role domestically in the AIDS problem indictment and the Hanshin large earthquake, etc.

However, the criminal act of the profit purpose enterprise and the administration related to it was exposed in the AIDS problem and in the Hanshin large earthquake.

The AIDS problem was a crimimal act of conspiracy of the enterprise, the administration, and the doctor, which had kept administering the non-heating-medicine knowing that there was the danger of the AIDS infection for the profit of the domestic medicine company that lagged behind the safe heating-medicine development.

The realities of the city planning to disregard disaster prevention because of the sightseeing priority and the negligent construction with some corner-cutting for the profit of the construction enterprises was exposed in Hanshin large earthquake by which the life exceeding 5,000 persons was lost.

Also about the problem of the damage by chemicals and the calamity measures, if the society being based on the production for the profit is not overcome, the prospect of the fundamental solution cannot be found.

The limit of the civicism of improvement in the frame of the capital ruling is clear.

Hiroshi Koro who is the secretary-general of the Japan service society says, too.

"The significance should not be overlooked to give the road of self achievement to the people who has lost the meaning of its existence in the society of advancing mechanization

and administrazation." (the same)

The motive which starts the NPO volunteer activities might be various, such as "To wish to be useful for the rescue of the people being poor and oppressed" and "To wish to be useful for the society and to find the worth living", etc.

However, even if it is from the "good" intention, if it does not actually connect to the solution of the problem, it will come to an end of the mere activities of benefit, the self- satisfacton.

Actually, the bourgeois nations try to put in the volunteer activities to the administration.

For instance, in the report of the general policy sectional meeting of the 14th Economic Welfare Council (the year 95), NPO is caught as "to bear the activities with becoming subject itself, and along with it, the function to lay the chance of social participation activities between the reciever and supporter citizens and to coordinate it",

and is located as the role to change "the social structure of the government initiation, of the power concentration type, of the enterprise leading" to "the civil society based on self-consciousness and responsibility".

Such ideas are reflected in "the Basic Indicator of the Welfare Activity Participation" that the Ministry of Health and Welfare put out in 93.

"The Indicator" institutes the vision of "the Participation-type Welfare Society", and says as "the esteem of independency""the role allotment of the public service", "about the basic demand of the social welfare, --- the administration should supply mainly, the welfare activities such as the volunteer activities and so on are expected to offer the flexible and various services about the welfare demand that is dificalt to be dealt with by these public services", that is, it advocates the activate of the volunteer activities.

Moreover, in "the New Gold Plan" that was made under "the Welfare Vision to the 21st Century" report of 94 years also the authorities advocate the importance of the volunteer activity of non-profit-pursuing that centers the housework help and the help service to aim at the home welfare of the inhabitant-participation-type as one of the strategies of the diversification and making flexible the service supply.

These are the trials to build in the activity of NPO as "the partner of the administration" in the name of "the civil society based on consciousness and responsibility".

The NPO activities have extended on the background, that is, the armament reinforcement, bullying, and the examination war, the aged problem, and the environmental destruction by pollution etc. that various contradictions of the society ruled by the capitals have spouted, and the workers are also bound hand and foot and their human life is lost by the enterprise aimed at the profit-pursuing.

In such averages, the bourgeois nations have tried to take the desire of the people named "I wants to be useful for the society" and "Life with the living effects" in the system by a plausible pretext such as "Mutual help and unity" and "the Civil societies of consciousness and responsibility".

The citizen movement also has played some role in the meaning of the indictment of the contradictions of the society.

However, it might be clear if such movements are not related to the class exercise of the workers who aims at overcoming the system of capital itself that is roots of poverty and the war, and so on, they can do nothing but retreating and corrupted.

The class struggle of the workers for overcoming the system of the capitals, the development of the socialist party movement is just important.

(Ichiro Taguchi)