Surely I cannot be the only community activist to see what’s happening? In fact I know I’m not. So why, oh why, is there so little fuss about it?
Today, I logged on, and there it was as usual. Invitations to participate in this and that forum pedantically plodding their way through the verbiage of yet another planning, policy, review, working, monitoring, compact or suchlike remit. Where are under-resourced and overworked hands on doers supposed to find the time and justify it? Then, further announcements of new project or policy staff appointed to burgeoning umbrella organisations (that seem to be the publicly funded products of governmental pre-occupations of appearing to consult), and lists of often expensive courses created in order that community organisations can comply with central edicts and aspire to compete in ridiculous procurement policies. I won’t go on!
While community groups spend more and more of their lives wasting precious hours and passions on applications for more and more centralised and sophisticated (which in its true sense, means corrupt) sources of essential funding, because people give more easily to Children in Need or the presumed telephone beneficiaries of reality TV shows or are straightforwardly taxed through the Lottery and insidiously dissociated from their own neighbourhoods and mutual possibilities as a consequence.
Meanwhile politicians of all hues spew out platitudes about their commitment to strong family life and resourceful and resilient communities but have not the wit to see that the relentless encroachment of government into the real third estate (not sector!) – civil society, families and reciprocating and voluntary communities – continues to attenuate, disempower, and discourage both.
We have lazily permitted government to get involved in areas where it is frankly incompetent and very damaging and we have allowed the main beneficiaries of this, the machinery or bureaucracy of government (nationally and locally), to live by Parkinson’s Law, serve its own agenda, and, increasingly oppress the populace. For some reason, we have been conned into valuing plans more than practice; words more than actions; wallpaper controls rather than social cohesion; and experts above self-reliance and solidarity. It’s the Emperor’s new clothes over and over again!
It seems to me that the evidence is stark but generally unappreciated because it is a creeping menace that can only be appreciated in longish retrospect. As I say, the system serves itself. There’s always money for a re-organisation, re-branding, or superficially innovative initiative involving professionals but precious little for the Time Bank that is proven to be 30 times more productive. This local community group, and many others, ensure elderly people see someone, get help with the official forms, or get out once a week, and live off kitchen tables and late night applications to the Co-op, written on top of the jumble collected for next week’s sale. The people who decide that the same old people are not eligible, derive professional salaries and generate administrative nightmares for the volunteers who are driven to tender for miniscule ‘preventative service’ contracts. And the potential resources and resourcefulness of ordinary folk and everyday communities that are squandered – at everyone’s loss and cost – due to the institutionalised blindness of the bureaucracies is just indefensible.
But let’s be clear. We’re not talking about evil, nor bad people. This, I believe, is happening because those of us who can see it don’t want to be seen to be out-of-step; to stand outside the throng, to rock the gravy boat. Only we can choose….
Bob Rhodes