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Participation as an Essential Element of an Active Civil Society
the name of participation the state cannot be emptied of the elemental
functions it needs to provide in the delivery of services and national
defense. Participation must be free, conscious, responsible, organized
and efficient.
Citizen participation must be extended to diverse arenas, geographically
and to different sectors of society. That is to say, participation can be
applied at the local, regional and national level as well as in different
thematic fields: labor, tourism, agricultural production, commerce,
housing, health, education, women, sports and ecology, among others.
Government and social-political actors, like political parties, must be
seen as promoters and motivators of a community’s social organizations,
without trying to take control of the process and impose political colors.
One must not seek to nationalize nor create partisanship within all
parts of society because it would put an end to its innate creativity and
autonomy, both of which are necessary conditions for the construction
of a more inclusive democracy.
Civil society’s commitment and the state’s role in the promotion,
strengthening and consolidation of a government of the people, by the
people and for the people, as Abraham Lincoln noted at Gettysburg,
will ensure that this system of government does not vanish from the
face of the earth.
