Roberto Savio is a journalist, communication expert, political commentator, activist for social and climate justice and advocate of global governance. He is the founder and president emeritus of the Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency and publisher of Other News.
I had the luck of meeting Roberto through my activism, and when I started to be interested in global governance and the role of social movements, I asked him for a dialogue on the subject. His expertise and wisdom in the domain is extensive, and I am very grateful for his time and the following dialogue.
Part 1. How you organize governance in civil society.
Roberto Savio discusses his views on governance and the problems he perceives with the ineffectiveness of social movements to implement effective social change due to the lack of organizational structure and adequate interaction with actual government systems.
All these movements have been fading away and disappearing, because they do not structure themselves. In other words they do not take instrumental governability, because they think that governability comes from the political field and it's a trap.
So let me tell you that there is a very very important and crucial issue, which does not find a solution. “How you organize governance in civil society.”
That is a very central issue, and unfortunately, this is an issue where there is an ongoing debate, but practically I don’t see any solution in the short time. Civil society is the collection of people who joins together on different issues in which they share a vision or a concern. You have people who join together on the issue of climate, you have people joined together on the issue of human rights, you have people joined together on the issue of inequalities, you have people joined together on racial discrimination, on the issue of women’s rights, and so on.
All these organizations make together the civil society. These organizations, generally speaking, are not structured, are people who are put together and work together, but without a juridical structure or something of that way. Why, because of the culture after May 68. You know the French May 68th? Okay, after that French May 68th, a wave went through the young people, and people refused authority, norms, regulations. The result: let me give the example of the World Social Forum, which is one of the largest gathering of people.
We have at every meeting about 100 000 people, which is not a minor affair. But the statutes that we had to run the World Social Forum Were based on three ideas.
- One we don’t want to get into the trap of a political party, because a political party are a bureaucratic system of power. We are not going to fall into that. So there will not be political parties inside the World Social Forum, progressive or not, doesn’t matter. We don’t want any political party.
- Two, we are all equal. Nobody has to speak on behalf of the other. So we cannot elect a board, we cannot elect any structure.
- Three, therefore we must take our decision by consensus, it means by one hundred percent unanimity.
Now if you look at all the big movements in the past, of Occupy Wall Street, of any of these movements which came up until today, with the women, the movement of women, Me Too, or the movement on climate, they never structure themselves. They were just movements of people meeting together. The result is that all these movements never went into something durable, because they were made on the impetus of feelings, of action, but they never structured themselves. Occupy Wall Street, again everybody was equal, decisions were taken by unanimity and so on. The result is that Occupy Wall Street slowly faded away and disappeared.
All these movements have been fading away and disappearing, because they do not structure themselves. In other words they do not take instrumental governability, because they think that governability comes from the political field and it’s a trap. And everybody wants to be equal and so on.
The result is that, in my view, we have a problem which has no solution. That all that we do on global issues is because we want to change laws and this in practice about the issue we care about. On climate we want to fight for a different climate policy. Now who decides what change to make in the climate? The governments, or better, the parliaments, in other words, the political forces. As we do not want to have any relation with the political forces, all our fights, all our debates, all our ideas do not get into the system. And if it does not get into the system it does not change the system.
Greta Thunberg was a spokesman of the movement because she started the movement and she took that place, but she was never elected the spokeswoman of the climate movement. Nobody selects the spokeswomen of Me Too. Nobody will select the spock person of the Black Lives Matter. It was the people who had started to speak and they became spokespersons de facto.
But the problem is that these things are extremely fragile, and they do not get into the system because they have a different nature, language and formula. So all the effort that the civil society has done in the last… since it came up in the 80s, well basically didn’t bring much change, because the political parties ignore them, the parliament ignore them, and so we don’t get very far. If we structured ourselves in movements with resolutions with an action that went directly into the system, we could have influenced the system much, much more. But we do not want in civil society to be like the system.
So there is a problem which has no solution. If we don’t find a way to become able to communicate in the system, but we only speak in the streets, well the political forces have no problem to ignore us. And that is a general question.
Young people, today, have very little importance in the system. Because they are fewer, in industrialized countries, than the old people. The old people have a number of facilities, for instance in Italy we go to the cinema with a discount, we go to museum, free. We have number of things, the third generation, the third age, a number of advantages that is not given to young people, and laws are more and more geared to old people because they vote, than young people, that don’t vote. That is something happening everywhere. There would not have been Brexit, if the young people did vote, because they were all against Brexit, but they didn’t vote, so Brexit came out. And then you had this manifestation in the streets of young people protesting.
So there is a problem here either we find a way of governance that is able to represent us, but it’s also able to have an impact in the system, or the system will completely ignore us and we continue.
There was a very famous declaration at the second World Social Forum by Soros. Soros said: “Boys, we are very happy that you engage yourselves in civil society, we are happy that you help all people in the hospital, keep local museums open with volunteers, do a lot of work, which in a sense makes the state system more able to function. Because you take things that the state should do, they let them down, and you intervene in a volunteer way to develop things so we are very happy. And you are very busy in what you are doing and we do what we do, so thank you very much. Because in fact you are helping us.” I found that declaration extremely cynical, but a very good declaration, because if you are a multi-millionaire, well the people who go to do volunteer job, fantastic! They reduce the inefficiency of the system and they don’t get anything changed. Thank you.
Sorin:
I’ve been involved in social movements for a while now, and there’s a new kind of social movement that’s emerging, maybe Extinction Rebellion, Animal Rebellion that I’m a part of, that might be aware of this issue. We are aware of the fact that a movement is like, say, a table that stands on four legs. One leg is strategy, one leg is it’s story, one leg is culture, and one leg is the structure emerging of governance.
For another analogy, we can compare a social movement to a living organism,
- It may need a direction and a way to get somewhere and move in the world, that could be the strategy.
- It might need a way to interact with the world, like we interact today to discuss, that’s the story it puts forth, or how it frames the narrative.
- It would need a way to communicate internally, which is its culture, which is how the chemical signal occurs locally between cells, how the nervous system transmits information, how the blood brings nutrients.
- Finally, it might need the part we are discussing here, which is structure. How is the organism structured into organs and what is the skeleton of the organism, and governance is related to all of this because it is the pillar on which the structure is decided.
Part 2. Is consensus undemocratic?
Roberto Savio expresses his view that governance by 100% consensus is not only inefficient, but perhaps undemocratic.
Now it is totally naive and absurd to think that the system is not based on power and groups of power. Very absurd to think that the political parties do not respond to lobbyists, to people with money, who finance the election. It's totally absurd to ignore that the inequality comes from people with money much beyond their needs, but who are not willing to give one cent of their money.
So you were talking before about the World Social Forum where you said that decisions are taken by consensus where everyone has to agree. Well I would argue that when we do things like that it can become ineffective, because it can take a long time for everyone to agree. versus.
Not, only, not solely, Sorin, but it’s anti-democratic. Because if you have a meeting of 100 people and one does not agree you cannot make an agreement democratic.
Exactly!
I say let us make a quorum of 80 percent, 85 percent 90, but you cannot have a quorum of 100 percent. If we are afraid that we will divide the movement, which was one of the concerns of Occupy Wall Street, they did not want to set up any spokesman, nothing, because they said they are different people, different priorities, different sensitivity, if we elect somebody we will divide the movement. Okay I say let us make a 90 percent quorum so that you are sure that these represent 90 percent of the people. But why should they represent 100 percent? Who said that the movement should represent 100 percent of the people? They must represent a very very large majority, but if have few people who disagree, who cares? I mean this is not democratic.
So you see this is what I see as a problem and then I give you another example. As nobody can speak on behalf of the Word Social Forum, because that means somebody is elected as a spokesperson, the World Social Forum has disappeared from the media. Because we’re never going to make any declaration on anything. Absurd because I don’t see who is going to make a declaration against the peace, I don’t see who is going to make a declaration against climate change.
I mean there are issues on which the movement is united and then you can have maybe in the Me Too movement some feminists to see things in a different way from some other feminists. But it does not make any sense that the Me Too movement does not have this organized structure on which they can go to speak to the congress of the United States and say: We want this, because we represent this issue. And Me Too, or Black Lives Matter, there is no structure to negotiate with power.
Now it is totally naive and absurd to think that the system is not based on power and groups of power. Very absurd to think that the political parties do not respond to lobbyists, to people with money, who finance the election. It’s totally absurd to ignore that the inequality comes from people with money much beyond their needs, but who are not willing to give one cent of their money. Unless for philanthropy which is different, because then you don’t pay taxes, you put your money in a philanthropy, you don’t pay tax on that money and you get the status.
So I do not know, I find that you have reached a point where all we start to discuss, but then people accuse you of Leninism and I am accused of Leninism because I want to organize some structure. Now I would say that Lenin was not particularly important in structure. He was important in the goal of revolution and the organized dictatorship of the proletariat to reach its goal. But it was not somebody who organized a dictatorship of the proletariat for the dictatorship of the proletariat. In other words the organization was not his main goal. His main goal was a political action.
Sorin:
I would say that I am in some movements and I see some structure and there might be a difference between having no structure and having no hierarchical structure. Some movements have a self-managed, self-organized structure, with clear rules, clear structure, clear ways of making decisions.
And to comment on the problems without solution… I have a lot of hope and faith. There’s a little metaphor, an analogy I’ve heard many times. If you look at a caterpillar, it eats the leaf it’s on, and if you try to predict what’s going to happen to that caterpillar, it will eventually finish eating the leaf and it will die. But something happens, a crysalysis, and the caterpillar ends up becoming a butterfly. This butterfly will pollinate the flowers around it and become a force for goodness, kindness and caring.
However, this crystallization process is not easy. The caterpillar’s immune system attacks the butterfly and I’ve heard this is something that has been happening to humanity for some time. We could say that some of those first cells, attacked were Martin Luther King, Gandhi, JFK, his brother Robert, Abraham Lincoln. Even in our myths, Jesus, Socrates, Buddha were killed.
However, we are reaching a point, from my point of view, from my perspective, where I see some light.
Now, the problem I always have is that it’s difficult and it requires personal transformations for each of us and a broader culture of compassion, empathy and rationality.
Let’s say, we have managed to create strong social movements through self-organization. Who do we ask for change?
Nation-states may not have as much power as they appear to have, because behind them is a global elite of wealthier corporations interconnected around the world. There is no world government that has the capacity to decide these issues. There is the United Nations, but it has no power behind it. Even if we manage to amend the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, who is going to ensure that these universal rights are respected? Can you comment on this question?
Roberto:
I think there are two totally different issues. The butterfly question I use myself to be optimistic about the future because the history of humanity clearly shows that humanity is progressing. It is not a linear progress but basically it is progressing. I mean today we have things like a library and a sonar system, and in this society today a worker lives much better than the aristocrat of 1800. He is more secure in his future, the aristocrat depended a lot on war, on feudal struggles. Today, a worker is much more secure.
But my problem is different.
Part 3. The Crisis of International Law
Roberto expresses his views on the problem of the United Nations having no decision-making power over international relations and describes the crisis of international law.
We came out with the idea that international law was an instrument to regulate international relations. And we built the United Nations on that concept, and we created a number of instruments all based on international law. Today international law is not any longer an undisputed instrument of international relations. On the contrary.
So we have a clear crisis of international law and the concept, that countries have rights, that countries are part of a voting consensus. I think that's the real problem we have. And we cannot have global governance if we do not accept certain global values, certain common values, and we have lost those common values. Today, there is a fragmentation of values according to local interests, and the use of brilliant politicians to get into power and stay in power. And I think this is a very, very serious problem for democracy.And what worries me, I think, is that if young people mobilize against this, they will not structure a formula of confrontation that is of the same level of representativeness and strength (as their opposition).
My problem is that the world is organized by Nations.
Now let’s suppose that while we are talking, you and me, somebody lands from a planet, and says to us:
– “What are you doing?”
– “We are exchanging views.”
– “Views about what?
– “About governance.”
– “What is governance?”
– “Well, governance is the system through which you relate societies, possibly, for the better improvements of societies.”
– “Why, you have societies?”
– “Yes of course, and now they’re organized in nations.”
– “And what is a nation?”
– “A nation is a space occupied by people with communal entities, or a commun history, things that make them distinct from other people, is the best information.”
– “Ah, and how are those nations organized?”
– “The United Nations were put together at the end of the Second World War to avoid the repetition of a World War, for which you have a security council, which is in charge of the security of the nations.”
– “Ahh, very interesting, how does it work?”
– “Well there are 15 countries, five are permanent, because they were the winner of the World War, and the other are elected every year.”
– “Ah, and why, what is peace?”
– “Peace is that we cannot make war among us.”
– “What is war?”
– “War is the use of force with adequate technology, besides human nature, to win over the diversity.”
– “Ah, so you make war with adequate technology, weapons?”
– “Yes and where these weapons come from?”
– “Well, 88 comes from the five permanent members of the security council.”
The guy coming from the planet would fly back saying this is a society which has no sense.
The United Nations have been slowly deprived from any instrument of power because the great powers have been doing so. The two instruments of global relational, finance and trade. Trade, they took out trade from the United Nations creating the Organization of World Trade, which is not part of the United Nations. Finance was never in the United Nations since the beginning was a different system, called Bretton Woods, and none of the institutions of that system have any power on globalization.
Finance is totally unregulated. It’s the only sector of human activity without any regulation. So this finance, globalized now, is not any longer the grease of the economic system. It went out, got its own life, there are no rules. It creates a casino, where now water is quoted in the stock exchange. I wonder when air will be quoted in the stock exchange.
The patents on life, like the vaccines, show you that we are giving to finance, and to profit even life, which is not a minor affair. It was not like that 40, 50 years ago.
And, in all this unregulated casino finance is able to control countries. The budget of finance is several times superior to the budget of countries. Today for every dollar of trade, of things which have been made by men, both services and both goods there are 40 dollars of finance transactions. So the finance transaction is 40 dollars bigger than the real economy.
And it’s totally delicate by your economy. The stock exchange goes without any relation with economic reality. In the time of the big crisis of pandemia, the stock exchange went up. And we have so many examples of this.
So my point is that international law is what is in crisis. We came out with the idea that international law was an instrument to regulate international relations. And we built the United Nations on that concept, and we created a number of instruments all based on international law. Today international law is not any longer an undisputed instrument of international relations. On the contrary. You have countries who do not even accept international law. They say that this is a western instrument, beginning from Erdogan to Bolsonaro, or Orban. Orban in anger, he said that he believes in a liberal democracy. He was expelled by the People Party and is now setting up an extreme right-wing, which does not recognize international law.
There is an agreement on migration, “we don’t care”; there is an agreement of women rights “we don’t care”; there is an agreement on lgbtq “we don’t care”. And so it is the idea of international law which is in crisis. The Declaration of Human Rights could be signed today? Could be the United Nations created today? No way. With Trump there is absolutely no way. Now Putin wouldn’t set up a United Nation. XI would set up a United Nation? I doubt it. It would be a different United Nations, would be a kind of, of…
Don’t forget that G6, G7, G20 have all been created to take out from the United Nations the place of debate and decision. So we have a clear crisis of international law and the concept, that countries have rights, that countries form a part of a voting consensus, and so on. And I think this is the real problem we have. And we cannot have global governance if we do not accept some global values, some common values, and we have lost these common values.
These common values are gone. Today there is fragmentation of values according to local interests, and the use of brilliant politicians to use the people to get to power and stay in power. And I think this is a very, very serious problem for democracy. And what worries me, I think, while the young people mobilize against this, they do not structure a formula of confrontation which is of the same level of representativity and force.
This is my problem. I hope we can, I hope it will come, but unfortunately this is not the case. Look at the big movement of Black Lives Matter, it moved millions of people, Me Too it moved million millions of people, but they have to look for some representative in the parliaments, in the congress, who listen to them and become their spokesmen, but they have never been elected spokesmen. They did it because either a few believed in the issue, or the majority, so that there’s a way to get more votes.
