Bloody agents!

I happen to be a founding and board member of a Pink rights organisation. I am therefore moderator of a Facebook fan page and several groups, inter alia.

Our organisation is structured like a federation, much like Cosatu, to use a local example, and we allow each his or her own opinion. You can say we are a broad church to go further down Alliance terminology. Sometimes we have radically diverging views and sometimes it clashes but we do not air dirty laundry – that is the preserve of the political parties, par example, or Desperate Housewives for that matter.

I monitor the main fan page on a daily basis and view it quite a couple of times a day (in excess of 16 times), if not from a computer, from my cellphone. Three years of Marketing Management has made me a nervous wreck when it comes to brand, image and reputation management as I know all too well that perception is reality to supporters no matter how skewed that perception is. I would wake up in the middle of the night in a puddle of sweat dreaming that something sordid happened to the organisation. So I am super careful.

I try keeping traffic to the page moving and posting links to stories of a very wide variety of subjects, but I review everything that I post on there with a fine-tooth comb. I have this uncanny propensity for Foot-In-Mouth Disease, so I am very careful with my commentary as well. I literally weigh everything up and consider implications and context ad nauseam. So much for toning down on OCD behaviour…

We allow our fans to posts links as well. As a rule I would only delete spam, Russian Mail Order Bride advertisements, and links by spam bots, ostentatiously offensive material and anything that would amount to hate speech or would otherwise be in breach of the platform’s terms and conditions. I am thus not in the habit of toying with censorship.

The Pink community itself is a very diverse group and a grouping of various groupings. Some use the alphabet soup acronym LGBTIQ. In Canada it has grown to LGBTTIQQ2SA. Brevity is obviously not a determinant. We chose to pick a short term intended to unify everyone in our diversity.

Tragically, the Pink community is also sometimes very fractured and divisive. It is impossible keeping such diverse people happy all the time. I have little time for pettifoggery so I do not wade into petty squabbles, but sometimes the most random people choose to have their squabbles play out on our territory. When people start to bring the name of the organisation in disrepute I am on the scene faster than a Heat journalist on a gossipy story.

I have contributed sans any compensation since 2008 as a founding member and member of the national board. For well-considered reasons the national body is unfunded. I have often seen that with funds come vested interests and compromised decisions. I have seen that money can demand agenda, strategy and tactics. Some funders even cause divisiveness if it suits the purpose.

Compromised agenda and integrity-for-sale are to me of the most obscene kind of organisational prostitution. At least real life prostitutes aren’t window-dressing and more than often admit to the oldest profession on earth. No shame there, at least they are being honest. The moment impartiality is breached all outwardly respect is lost.

I have listened to a government sycophant ranting on about the capitalist agenda of supposed independent civil society. An interesting acolyte coined the term astroturfing to describe civil society organisations that “pretend” to have popular “grassroots” support and have been properly, democratically constituted. The same lacquey waxed on poetically, and somewhat bitterly, and handed out quite a couple of stabs to well-known civil society organisations. Oh the joys of subscribing to a listserv, sometimes the conversation is utterly fascinating and sometimes it is exceptionally brain-dead. It mostly makes for good reading in any case and although I do not approve of said ideologue there is mostly always something to learn.

For example, the labels sycophant, acolyte, and lacquey should never be administered to an independent civil society organisation. Independent also implies freedom from outside influence, bias and manipulation. If a donor wishes to dictate what a non-profit should do with its money it is akin to the madam scolding the servant over her expenditure. It is paternalistic at the very least no matter how well-intentioned it may seem.

I have seen how vested interest has made puppets out of supposedly non-compromised individuals. I have seen how patrons dictate discourse and even attempt to drown out dissent and silence conversation. I have observed all of this and traced it all back to its roots but motive remains unclear.

A cynic like me will dispute the true independence of almost everyone. I venture to sniff out agenda with Spaniel-precision. I have slaved away too many hours to foster a sense of unity in such a volatile community to have years of work derailed. I consider assumptions; I even doubt the assumptions in this article. One thing I will not concede on is impartiality. Corporate weasels (or Spaniels in this case) are trained with a nose for distrust. To anyone thinking favour is for sale: don’t come here with those tendencies. This is a revolutionary house!

Of course my favourite novel inscription also applies to everything I write. Those who happen to read themselves into this are flattering themselves. Bloody agents!