Marxism and Civil Society: The Uneasy Encounter (Daniel Boone Schirmer Memorial Lectures on Marxism in the Philippines)

11 September 2006 (Monday)
2:30-4:00 p.m.
Pulungang Claro M. Recto
Bulwagang Rizal (Faculty Center)
University of the Philippines-Diliman

Speaker:
Armando Malay Jr.
Professor
Asian Center
University of the Philippines-Diliman


Reactor:
Maureen Pagaduan
Professor
College of Social Work and Community Development
University of the Philippines-Diliman

Moderator:
Eduardo Tadem
Associate Professor
Asian Center
University of the Philippines-Diliman


ABSTRACT

The motivations of civil society are suspect to Marxist-Leninists, and Marx himself manifested hostility toward its bourgeois character. Is it really against the State, as some like to think, or is it on the contrary protective of the State? Why is it demonized today in Cuba, for example, or Venezuela, and suppressed in China or Vietnam?

The civil society project in the Philippines is older than the radical Left’s; the two uneasily acknowledge each other’s presence. Yet the Left at present has no choice but to engage with the institutions of civil society (engagement with the State seems out of the question however). A paradox thus emerges: even as they denigrate it, the Marxist-Leninists are part of civil society insofar as they participate—even in their capacity as dissenters—in the national discourse.