Mr. Bode, you are quoted as saying: “To me, power means being able to make decisions about people’s destinies and about things. Having power is good.” When is a non-governmental organization (NGO) powerful?
When it reaches the general public with the right topic. Then it acquires influence. An NGO has to trigger the right nerve, with an objective that makes people say: “That’s good. Established politics don’t represent my interests in this respect.” An NGO’s lever of power is the support of the people. Institutionalized politics will only take notice of an issue when there’s enough strong public backing.
Can you give an example?
Yes, environmental protection. It’s very easy to see how civil society brought ecological themes to the attention of politics. The initiative came from individual citizens, then the media focused on them until finally a whole movement developed. It led to the founding of a political party, The Greens, which then actually entered the Bundestag.
During your time with Greenpeace there were a number of spectacular campaigns, such as the occupation of the deserted Brent Spar oil platform. Now that climate protection is a worldwide issue, we hear relatively little about the environmental organization. Do established politics make NGOs of this kind superfluous by adopting such themes?
Climate policy has indeed become an integral part of international agreements and global conferences. Until this was the case, environmental organizations, such as Greenpeace, had a much broader spectrum of activity. But this shouldn’t lead to the false conclusion that everything has already been accomplished. NGOs definitely still have their tasks. It’s just that today the emphasis has shifted. In 2009 it’s no longer necessary to tell people throughout the world that the environment is being destroyed on a global basis, that species diversity is steadily declining and that the climate is heating up. Apart from a few crackpots, nobody disputes this anymore. We no longer have any difficulties with general perception. Implementation is the issue now. Today, the work of an environmental organization is far more involved with the struggle against established interests and lobbyists. This is far more difficult and detailed than raising awareness about global issues. Admittedly, there is still a need to increase basic awareness in some authoritarian states and newly industrialized countries.
But that can only succeed when a state guarantees freedom of expression. Do NGOs need a democratic environment to be effective?
No, not at all. Especially in authoritarian states, NGOs have the task, indeed the opportunity, to demand something that no government – not even an authoritarian one – can seriously refuse to do: protecting citizens through transparency, for instance about contaminated foodstuffs. However, transparency is poison for every authoritarian regime. As a result, non-governmental organizations make a major contribution towards the democratization of a society. The erosion of the GDR government was helped not only by the churches but especially also by environmental groups. By publicizing environmental scandals they documented the deficits of the ruling elite. Forming an NGO is nothing other than practising hands-on democracy in everyday life.
Does this imply that NGOs are not so important in an established democratic society?
Quite the contrary! They’re indispensable. They’re an essential part of a lively democracy. What would democracy be without civil society? A house without foundations. There are many areas which cannot be covered by the work of parliament, where citizen involvement is needed – this too is a part of democracy, of course. Such involvement includes social projects or environmental or consumer policy. Development cooperation provides a good illustration that small private projects are often more effective than big ones. They in turn have a positive influence on government development assistance. Parliament and civil society complement and stimulate each other.
You used to be an environmental activist with Greenpeace, now you are involved in promoting healthy food with your Foodwatch organization. What has food got to do with civil society?
To my mind, sufficient and healthy food is a civil right. It’s a question of human dignity that everyone has enough to eat. Previously food safety was mainly concerned with hygiene, nowadays it’s more a question of aromas, additives, insecticides, of poisonous substances which form during the food production process. And food can illustrate essential problems of our industrial societies: for example, hunger in the developing world and obesity in ours, globalized trading and dictating consumers’ choices, environmental destruction through agriculture, subsidies and fair or unfair trade. So our work entails more than simply the correct labelling of foods. But politics still isn’t taking the matter seriously enough. That’s something we want to change.
Wouldn’t NGOs be more effective if they worked together? Foodwatch could easily operate as a subsidiary of Greenpeace, couldn’t it?
Consumer rights can definitely collide with environmental protection and the spectrum of topics is quite different. We view organic products as suspiciously as conventional products. In the case of gene technology, Foodwatch demands the consumers’ freedom to choose whether they want genetically modified foodstuffs or not. In contrast, the environmental organizations fundamentally reject these technologies. There are many areas that have no direct environmental links: food labelling, rotten meat and food safety, for instance.
If you were to found a new NGO, which area would be most urgently needed?
I’d found Financewatch, no doubt about it. It’s a real tragedy to be without an NGO during the banking crisis, one that can go to the public with competent information and critically monitor how the financial sector pushes through its interests at the expense of the public’s welfare.
