Civil society influences society’s state of spirit, debates

The representatives of the civil society are those who create the country’s state of spirit, including through pointing out government mistakes. The task, however, becomes harder to accomplish in the context of poorly developed anticorruption policies. The statement belongs to Transparency International manager Lilia Carasciuc, and was made during the public debate “Political culture and the civil society”, organized by the Info-Prim Neo news agency. “We reckon that the civil society has issues in creating the state of spirit, but you dear leaders, please be responsible. We have issues, but you, the mass media, stay unbiased. We have problems, but you, colleagues from the civil society, please collaborate, because if you don’t collaborate and there will be no concrete cases of corruption denounced, we will have nothing to investigate. Unfortunately, the civil society lets itself be engulfed by the infancy of democracy; we like to be shown in the mass media, but we have to assume some level of responsibility”, said Lilia Carasciuc. In the same context, the Transparency International expert mentioned that the Moldovan society is characterized by poor civil cohesion, and brought examples of people from other states, including Latvia and our neighbor Ukraine. “I stepped into a taxicab and asked the driver if there is a difference between Moldovan passengers and those from other countries where he said he’d worked. He told me that the difference is made by people’s solidarity. Thus, if it is bad weather, Ukrainians chip in and take a taxi, which takes them home cheaper, whereas in Moldova, 4-5 people wait at the bus station, they don’t have enough, but will also not approach the others to solve their problems together. And the taxi drivers stay jobless. Also, in Moldova there is envy, which can be called a national sport.”, said Lilia Carasciuc. The public debate “Political culture and the civil society” is the ninth of such events, part of the “Developing political culture in public debates” project, supported by the German Foundation Hanns Seidel.