‘There is no reason to believe that political institutions and power structures will change spontaneously. There will be no human development if people fail to organise, to become empowered, to mobilise and to restructure power relationships because human development is a matter of power.’
Thus concluded the 2008 United Nations Development Report on the Dominican Republic entitled Human Development: A Matter of Power. It almost sounds like a call to man the barricades and in truth it is; not the violent barricades of revolution but the peaceful barricades of determined power sharing and human empowerment. Citizen Smith’s rallying cry of Power To The People writ large and far away from Tooting in the London Borough of Wandsworth!
The social and political ills and the inequity of economic distribution in the DR produce daily challenges for most of its inhabitants. It is significant that the Human Development Report was completed ahead of the May 2008 Presidential election but its release was held until after the post-election dust had settled. Ironic when part of the report itself focuses on freedom of information! The blatantly inequitable access to resources and opportunities has historic roots in the DR and can indeed be traced to colonial times but 500 plus years have seen little in the way of change. In the absence of inhabitants’ rights to at least a minimum of State services and infrastructure and the institutional protection which should be afforded by the justice system what prevails is a system of corruption, macuteo (extortion) and clientelism whereby benefits accrue to the ‘serf’ in a feudal master/servant relationship.
Kermath (2005) defined clientelism as a ‘form of social organization common in many developing regions characterized by “patron-client” relationships. In such places, relatively powerful and rich “patrons” promise to provide relatively powerless and poor “clients” with jobs, protection, infrastructure, and other benefits in exchange for votes and other forms of loyalty including labour. While this definition suggests a kind of “socioeconomic mutualism,” these relationships are typically exploitative, often resulting in the perpetual indebtedness of the clients in what is described as a “debt-peonage” relationship. In some instances, patrons employ coercion, intimidation, sabotage, and even violence to maintain control, and some fail to deliver on their promises. Moreover, patrons are oftentimes unaccountable for their actions. Thus, clientelistic relationships are often corrupt and unfair, thereby obstructing the processes of implementing true sustainability.’
Anyone wanting visible proof had only to watch one of the Presidential candidates at the last election as he ramped up his campaign by arriving in his bright red helicopter and hurling frozen chickens, salami and twenty pesos notes to the mob below. Degrading and dangerous as recipients fought for the spoils. Or the hordes visiting City Halls or the National Palace the day after an election to receive their ‘payout’ or job offer. It goes without saying that often such ‘jobs’ bear little relevance to the talents of the appointee……….Or the inhabitants who greet a visiting dignitary from the capital with hand written signs pathetically scrawled on a piece of cardboard ‘Please finish building our school’. They should not have to beg for a public school in 2008!
The power elites which function in the Dominican Republic are not only political entities – business interests and the Church are equally complicit. And those who have power are hanging on to it. The 2008 Human Development Report identified that lack of resources per se was not the problem: the problem is the poor choices made by those who have the power to make decisions. The current model for economic growth in the DR simultaneously creates wealth AND generates poverty. Nowhere is this demonstrated more starkly than in the Report’s findings about the two main tourist provinces of Puerto Plata on the North Coast and La Altagracia on the East Coast: ‘living conditions in tourist provinces are below the national average’ and the province of La Altagracia with its touted developments in Punta Cana measures lower than Puerto Plata!
(Photo opposite: Punta Cana: From UN report: Punta Cana ‘below national average living conditions’) Do those investors attracted to the pristine beaches of Punta Cana such as Donald Trump, Westin Roco Ki, Cap Cana, Excellence Hotels, Iberostar, Sol Melia et al. and a whole gaggle of expat baby boomers ever stop and think about the low levels of human development of the indigenous population in their piece of paradise? Or do they delude themselves that they are providing opportunities through employment? More construction jobs, hotel jobs: bartending, cleaning, maintenance and the like. Expats employing more maids and gardeners. All WONDERFUL opportunities, yes?
Actually, NO. Without doubt there will be some immediate gains in income but without the paradigm shift which the 2008 Report opens up these ‘opportunities’ will forever lock the worker into the ‘servant’ position. He or she may experience less hunger but he or she will remain powerless. And so the Report advocates a ground up approach and it identifies strategies and mechanisms for achieving the change from the base of the social pyramid. Central is the notion that if the elites have not relinquished power by now there is no reason to suppose they will change and that ‘social mobilisation must be accompanied by a process of democratisation through real decentralisation processes. Decentralisation and empowerment are part of a dual strategy of democratisation’.
Some of this has already started. The Report identifies the small steps: for example, the new Municipalities Law of 2007 [Ley de Municipios (176-07)] ‘aims at creating new mechanisms for participation such as the right to petition, municipal referendums, open council sessions, and participatory budgeting.’ It also acknowledges that people will need training in how to use these mechanisms. It should not be forgotten that the population goes along with the status quo because they cannot, at present, see any alternative. This pattern is entirely consistent with the
predictions of Keefer and Vlaicu (2005), who argue that ‘the inability of political competitors to make credible promises to citizens leads them to prefer clientelist policies: to under provide non-targeted goods, over provide targeted transfers to narrow groups of voters, and to engage in excessive rent-seeking.’
The National Competitiveness Council, with its external funding, was established in 2002 by Presidential Decree to ‘define competitive strategies and priorities together with a strategic competitive vision for developing the country’s economic potential. The decision was taken in response to the need for a consensus regarding new policies on competitiveness. The CNC is the institutional mechanism for pooling the efforts of the government and the private sector to formulate and implement specific action-oriented measures.’ The National Competitiveness Council (CNC) has facilitated the creation of more than 20 clusters or concentrations of business which allow small and medium sized business owners to better compete in the markets. The clusters include the agro-industrial (coffee, mango, pineapple, avocado, and banana), industrial (footwear and clothing), construction, tourism and eco-tourism sectors, as well as a large technological project. All of the cluster groups work from the base upwards, identifying problems, seeking solutions and pressurising against being ignored!
At the grassroots community level there are organisations like the Junta de Vecinos - residents associations which frequently take their neighbourhood issues to City Hall; and there are trade union or worker movements like the Alternative Social Forum’ which is an aggregate of over 60 smaller organisations, as well as FALPO, the Frente Amplio de Luchas Populares (literally the Broad Front for Popular Struggle). The latter is more associated with protests in the barrios than peaceful mechanisms of empowerment.
(Photo opposite: Playa Dorada, Puerto Plata province) Currently the Dominican Republic is touting the benefits of all which it offers to the retirement baby-boomer generation from the North Americas and Europe and an incentive programme was recently introduced to entice foreign pensions. Certainly more and more foreigners are moving to take up residence in the DR, which means, if we are not very careful, more fodder for the elitism pool! Not necessarily because of class but usually because of cash. So how can we guard against that? And do expats have any sort of role to play in facilitating the empowerment of exploited Dominicans?
It is true that foreigners talking down from the lofty preserve of more educational advantages and colonial imperialism (‘we know best’) will have as much resonance as the oft quoted fish at the bicycle repair shop. All this does is to reinforce the prevailing stereotypes: the elites and the ‘others’, those who ‘know their place’. The DR is one of the most classist societies in which I have ever lived and it is very easy for foreigners to internalise those values almost unconsciously or, if consciously, to offer the ‘when in Rome’ panacea. But if you weren’t classist before you moved here, why start now?
There is, however, a huge difference from adopting the ‘red helicopter’ approach (see above) to passing on one’s wisdom to working alongside people in a collaborative, egalitarian effort. There are plenty of opportunities for expats to do the latter: volunteer teaching, community work, consciousness raising for example.
Perhaps the biggest contribution we can make is our optimism that change is possible? Those of us old enough to have participated in the modern day Women’s Movement some 50 years ago in UK have been down this road before! Likewise our brother and sisters who struggled for racial equality in the US. We all know full well the unrelenting struggle necessitates mobilising for action, not waiting for someone else to have a change of heart. And it is these groups who now have reached retirement age and are seeking their haven in the sun of the Dominican Republic. Not forgetting the small but growing numbers of expats from Eastern Europe who have their own different but equally valid experiences of the emergence of democracy in their countries of origin.
There are, of course, expats who say ‘the DR won’t ever change’ ‘what can I do, I’m only a foreigner’ ‘well, it isn’t really my problem, is it?’. Yes it is, if you live here and yes the change has already started. Beginning steps, maybe, two forward three back, without doubt. But this is an enormously exciting time to live and participate with other citizens, as an equal, in a process of fundamental social change as the DR moves from a feudal society to a twenty-first century democracy. What better way to make a contribution to one’s new homeland? What better way to make a difference? To have witnessed the same process in my country of origin I would have needed to be 300 years old………………!
Human Development: A Matter Of Power Report Summary in English
http://www.pnud.org.do/sites/pnud.onu.org.do/files/Resumen_Ingles.pdf
The complete report in Spanish can be downloaded here:
Últimas noticias | PNUD en República Dominicana
Clientelism, credibility and the policy choices of young democracies by Philip Keefer. Development Research Group, the World Bank, September 2005
http://www.qog.pol.gu.se/conferences/november2005/papers/Keefer.pdf
Ginnie Bedggood’s story of relocating to the Dominican Republic in 1992 Quisqueya: Mad Dogs and English Couple is published as an ebook on Offshore Wave. To buy the ebook click here:
For more information visit her website at Ginnie Bedggood - book author, writer, expat Dominican Republic
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