I  never would have noticed this article on the inside Pages of the New York Times “Before Macedonia”, meaning before my trip to Macedonia last month,

WASHINGTON — Egypt’s military rulers privately signaled a retreat on Friday in a crackdown on organizations that promote democracy and human rights, senior American officials said, even as the authorities in Cairo tried to discredit the organizations with accusations of suspicious activity.……….The groups raided Thursday include at least four American-financed organizations, among them the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, which have close ties to lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Actually, I had never given a single thought to a country called Macedonia, knew nothing of its long bloody fight for independence, and had never heard of a relatively obscure nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that receives funding from the US government as well as other sources called the National Democratic Institute and its national building in emerging democracies all around the world.

Until I got this in October

Dear Ms. Meredith,

Hope this e-mail finds you well. I am a Program Manager in the Macedonia field office of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) following up on the previous e-mail from our Program Director about the use of your book Lobbying on a Shoestring, I am contacting you to ask if you would be interested to come to Macedonia for a week of trainings and consultations as part of our civil society development program Strengthening Citizen Involvement in the Legislative Process.

 

After looking up Macedonia on Google to find out where the hell it was, I dug out an old email from the aforesaid Project Manager, for the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) who said

I am writing to request use of sections of your book Lobbying on a Shoestring, 2nd ed. for one of our democracy development programs in Macedonia. NDI’s program “Strengthening the Citizen Involvement in the Legislative Process,” aims to link lawmakers and civil society organizations in the debate on and development of specific legislative initiatives. . ..We find the advice you provide in your book quite relevant to our CSO client partners, and NDI is interested in translating selected excerpts of the book into the Macedonian and Albanian languages for the express use of our CSO partners.

Wow. Pretty cool, I thought.  Eight weeks later I found myself delivering a modified Real Clout presentation to 25 young people in a Casino on the Greek border (cheap rooms). Each participant was affiliated with a CSO focused on fixing specific “problem” for a particular group of people by correcting or creating a new law or regulation or administrative policy.

I’d already met with most of the folks in the room in a whirlwind of 1-1 visits and was already impressed with each groups   data based analysis of a current problem, the proposed solution as well as their list of community allies and l coalition members and finally the names of their existing supporters and potential champions in the Executive Department and Parliament.

So what did they need to hear from me that would help them build their power and increase their internal capacity to make the policy changes they wanted to make?

It was the same exact lesson that so many advocacy groups in the USA are learning — the real source of power and influence in a democracy is the capacity to  identify, educate and mobilize a district based network of community opinion makers to communicate with their own elected officials.

And the looks I got!!  At first I thought it was the usual “Well grassroots lobbying’s different here and I thought about the excuses I had heard in North Dakota (It’s too cold) or Florida (It’s too hot), or Maine (It’s Black Fly season) or even my own Dorchester neighborhood in Boston (I already have 5 meetings this week).

But it was different in Macedonia. There is no robust cultural tradition for lobbying that we call civic engagement there like accountability meetings with elected or appointed policy makers or letter writing campaigns, or mass actions in the Halls of Government.  (Never mind Occupy Wall Street).

Lobbying is a dirty word in Macedonia too, right up there with politics.

When I presented the standard Real clout definition of lobbying as “influencing people in authority (governments) who are deciding who gets what where and when without resorting to physical violence, I really got the skeptical looks.
After all, I was in a room full of people who had grown up on stories of family members who died fighting in the streets or in their mountains in the various wars, revolutions, and “internal ethnic conflicts” waged to mark their borders and decide who ruled their lovely country for the last 2000 years or so.   And if the story tellers had passed, there were huge heroic statutes all over the city to remind them.

 

My favorite honored the barefooted women soldiers of Macedonia and my next favorite was a 200 foot gold plated statue of Alexander the Great which was erected to solidify the historical continuation of the Macedonian people and their descent from the military leader.

 

And one leader who was actually a teacher was Dame (Damjan) Gruev, one of the founders of the Macedonian Revolutionay Organization.  Nevertheless he has his own statue on a horse (never sat on one my indignant guide reported) with this quote around the base.

“There is no freedom without revolutionary struggle” “Freedom is a great thing – its takes many victims””It is better to experience an horrible end, than an endless horror”

 

And if that wasn’t enough, I was reminded that only 10 years ago citizens who were distributing flyers advocating for civil rights of an ethnic minority had been sentenced to three years in prison.Woops—let’s think about how to plan and execute some direct communication between Macedonian citizens and their elected and appointed decision makers again.

NDI has already been working with the Parliament to establish, fund and staff out some 60 or so regional constituent offices all over the country where local citizens can meet with their own Members of Parliament every Friday.

NDI has already been working with Parliament to establish a legislative research bureau to aid Members of Parliament to develop data based policy.

A pretty good start, I think.

Establishing a working Democracy is more that managing a clean election process, I heard an Egyptian official explain to us on NPR “ It ‘s establishing the structures that make Democracy work—a judicial system that enforces the rule of laws,  a public education system, a public health system, a social service system and on and on. It will take years of hard work.”

And then I looked at the cover of the folder with all my power points and the Macedonian and Albanian language version of Lobbying on a Shoestring inside and there was the official NDI slogan.

Working for Democracy and making Democracy Work.

I think the foundation for an effective transparent Democracy is being built in Macedonia thanks in large part to NDI and their supporters in the State Department and Congress.   And I’m hoping to be invited to go back to help these wonderful young people build a district based network of civically engaged “concerned citizens” as we say in America.  Where we take our right to lobby under the 1st amendment, for granted.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

And that is the first lesson from Macedonia – more to come.

The lesson?  We must be vigilant in protecting the constitutional right of our people to assemble and petition government for a redress of grievances.    Even if and when the forces of darkness and evil, or even peace and light disagree with us.