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Topic Discussion III
Participation in
Democratic Decision-Making:
The Vital Voices of Women, Civil Society and
Pluralism
Room 5
(7 of 22 pages)
Now, why I'm saying all this, because I wanted to say in summary, because I think
that the time is going to limit me, that when we come to reality of the experience, we do have in this country
and freedom of express. People do not have to go to bars or to cat sessions only to talk. They talk everywhere.
They publish this in newspapers and newspapers especially are free in this country somehow, but they are free for
one reason, only 20 percent of the population read them.
And radio and TV, who talk to the majority of people do not grant the freedom of grant to the majority of people,
because not only that they are to be punished for being illiterate and not given the service of education and the
rights of education, but they are also forbidden from getting the information and the knowledge of what's going
on in their country and the decision making process that could help them by the knowledge itself.
And the thing is, some NGOs have tried to work in this and get the information to the others. Politicals parties
who are nearly also just like the NGOs, who has been -- the political parties has been created also in 1990 and
NGOs also in '93 or 1990 and some of the NGOs in charity were working older than that, the political party, because
they get the power and they get the money, they thought that they are more knowledgeable than everybody else. So
NGOs, they are weak, they are not good, they don't know what's good for the country. But political parties who
have the same age, who have no capacity, who are not yet good, who doesn't know how to work, they're good, just
because they're in power.
And so all this kind of misunderstanding, making the civil society not working, the citizenship is granted only
for male, urban people who are living within the city, who have power of the family and who gain the money for
the government. And the people who are taxpayers, the people who are -- the women who are saving their kids and
their children and making all the caring services in the state of government who is not providing health services
or care for the people, this -- for their family, these people are prevented from the decision making process.
It doesn't mean that this is deliberately done by all political parties or by people in the power. It means only
that we are in a process of learning and we have not yet the traditions of how to do them good.
Now, we admitted, we, me, as a citizen of this country, I do practice some citizen rights, which is my right to
express myself and also to work and to say things and do initiatives and other people who are in power within the
government levels, et cetera, we all admit the fact that we're still learning and we are willing to learn from
you all here and that we called it emerging democracy country and we are not really having it all. I just illustrated
some of the experiences and the struggle and difficulties that we have and I am willing to answer any kind of questions
if a chance is going to be given to me again and I thank you for your listening.
Chair: Thank you, Dr. Hassan. Now, we've had three very interesting presentations to get our thought processes
going. I'd like to now throw the discussion open to the floor. I would like to ask people to try and keep their
comments brief, in the sense that I'd like to get some dialogue going and give people an opportunity to speak more
than once. So I mean, I'm not going to be vicious and cruel, but if people do go on for too long, I may exert my
right in a country that's perhaps not used to having women exert power. I'd just like to, you know, provide an
example of what it looks like in case you're curious. And I'm also a bit short sighted, so perhaps I'll just indicate
to you and if you would just give your name and country, then that would make it easier for everyone to understand
where you're coming from. This gentleman from Morocco and this gentleman here, I recognize you. You'll start and
then we'll go on to the next.
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