Promoting Democracy. Manal A. Jamal

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СКАЧАТЬ but also over who would distribute the funds received from various Arab states.53 Recruitment to the mass-based organizations often started in high schools, and initiated activists into joining one of the different political organizations. Marwan Barghouti, a founding member of Fatah’s youth wing, Al-Shabῑbeh, and later student body president at Birzeit University, and one of the leaders of the first and second Intifadas, explained:

      The late 1970s through the 1980s was the golden age of Palestinian popular, mass mobilization. The reception was amazing. In addition to our nationalist activities, we led critically important social initiatives. Al-Shabῑbeh (the Fatah youth branch), which recruited members from high schools, colleges and universities, for example, organized numerous volunteer campaigns, including anti-drug campaigns in the refugee camps. Our volunteer work involved cleaning and repairing streets, cleaning and restoring grave yards, painting schools, helping in the villages with the harvest of olives and other crops, and restoring and cultivating lands that are in threat of being confiscated by the Israeli military occupation authorities for lack of use.

      Our structures were so extensive that the arrest of numerous Al-Shabῑbeh leaders could not undermine the movement. Leading up to the first Intifada, we had 8000 elected youth leaders representing Al-Shabῑbeh throughout the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. An individual who was a formal member of Fatah or of Al-Shabῑbeh could organize a group if s/he had a minimum of fifteen members in the particular town or village.54

      Indeed, the social dimensions of this work paved the way for the hundreds of thousands of recruits who would carry out the first Intifada.

      As a result of the Iranian Revolution, Islamist associations, unions, and organizations also became more prevalent in the Palestinian territories, especially in the Gaza Strip, in the early 1980s. Much of the activity of Islamist organizations focused on social and cultural issues and community development. Islamist institutions play an important and very visible role in the provision of services in areas related to relief and charity work, preschool and primary education, rehabilitation of physically and mentally challenged persons, primary and tertiary health care, women’s income-generating activities, literacy training, the care of orphans, and youth and sports activities.55 It is important to note that these organizations differ vastly in the extent to which they are linked to one of the Islamist political organizations.

      Though these organizations were affiliated with the political factions, for the most part they maintained varying degrees of autonomy. The organizations affiliated with the PCP, the DFLP, and the PFLP had Marxist-Leninist structures organized on the basis of democratic-centralism. Although these organizations were autonomous from the “outside” political organizations, they were often much closer to the respective political organization in the occupied territories. Often, these organizations maintained close contact with the grassroots, which allowed for input from these constituencies. Because of the sheer distance between the members and supporters of the political organizations in the occupied territories and their leadership in exile, most Palestinian factions accorded a flexible degree of autonomy to their associations, unions, and affiliated committees in the WBGS. Despite the overlap in membership of factions and grassroots organizations, there tended to be a lot of disagreement between the two. Leaders in the grassroots organizations, especially in the labor unions, played key roles and maintained that “they were the ones who really knew what was happening or were truly in touch.”56 Even more so was the degree of autonomy of the popular committees established during the first Intifada. As Ali Jaradat explained, “The decision to create the popular committees came from the grassroots committees themselves, and not from the political organizations. The grassroots committees had more democratic organizational structures than the political organizations themselves, and the more sophisticated members wanted to increase their autonomy.”57 The leadership of the political organizations in exile did not control these associations, unions, and other mass-based organizations, though there was more interaction with the respective leaderships in the occupied territories.

      Civic Traditions and Associational Life in El Salvador: From Charity to Revolution, and New Forms of Organizing

      The transformation of associational life in El Salvador reflected political developments and attempts to cope with these changes.58 Following the establishment of charities and unions in the 1930s, there was a dramatic increase in the grassroots organizing by the Salvadoran Catholic Church. By the late 1960s, and throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, these organizations were predominately affiliated with the broader opposition movement, either with the PCS, the Christian communities, or later with one of the parties of the FMLN.59 Then, from the mid-1980s to the present, many of these organizations began to professionalize and rely on foreign donor assistance, but this would not undermine mass mobilization to the same extent as in the Palestinian case.

      In the late 1960s, the Salvadoran Catholic Church, influenced by liberation theology,60 underwent a massive transformation, emerging as a radicalized force in Salvadoran politics; this transformation would have momentous consequences for Salvadoran political life in the 1970s. The Catholic Church in El Salvador came to be known as the Iglesia popular (Popular Church). At the parish level, priests initiated the mass popular organizations, or Comunidades Cristianas de Base (Christian base communities). The Christian base communities initially consisted of small groups organized by the parishes that would meet to discuss social issues and possible community strategies to address some of these daily challenges.61 The result was an explosion of community activity in rural areas, leading to the establishment of hundreds of Christian base communities. Although priests or nuns led the initial courses and sessions, the groups were encouraged to develop their own leadership. According to some estimates, the Church trained over 15,000 leaders during the 1970s.62

      The Catholic Church also played an important role in forging alliances with other opposition movements. Most notably, along with other organizations, the Catholic Church in El Salvador played a critical role in the founding of the first mass-based organization, FAPU, in Suchitoto in 1974. By 1977, campesinos constituted most of the rank-and-file and much of the leadership of the mass movements, including the Christian base communities. FAPU had two factions, one oriented toward the RN and the other toward the FPL. The organization split in 1975, and activists founded a new organization oriented toward the FPL called the Bloque Popular Revolucionario (Popular Revolutionary Bloc). In 1978, ERP sympathizers founded the third of the popular organizations, Ligas Populares 28 de Febrero (28 February Popular Leagues, LP–28 1978). Finally, in 1979, the PRTC spawned the Movimiento de Liberación Popular (Popular Liberation Movement). The PCS had created the Unión Democrática Nacionalista (Nationalist Democratic Union, UDN) in 1967. The PCS also historically played a leading role in the teacher, student, and labor organizations. Although the UDN was not a formal mass organization, it played a comparable role in Salvadoran society.

      The sectors affiliated with these mass-based movements included rural workers, teachers, students, women, and repopulated and war displaced persons.63 Despite the shared goals among the mass-based organizations and the level of coordination between these groups, important differences and disagreements existed. In particular, FAPU and the Bloque Popular Revolucionario differed regarding strategies, tactics, and the constituencies on which to focus.64

      Similar to the Palestinian case, the degree to which the mass movements were autonomous is unsettled. Michael Foley, for example, argued that although there was considerable variation among the mass movements, “The logic of organization, especially once communities were reestablished in what were still combat zones, was ‘vertical,’ approximating a ‘war communism’ in which community decision-making, though founded on participatory principles, was subordinated to the exigencies of the war effort.”65 Mario Lungo Uclés, on the other hand, argued that an autonomous relationship does not mean complete separation, and that there was a mutually influencing relationship. Problems associated with vertical decision-making had more to do with individual leadership styles, according to him.66 In the latter part of the 1980s, there was growing autonomy of the mass movements from the FMLN because as the FMLN expanded its military influence from the “controlled zones” to the “expansion zones,” it СКАЧАТЬ