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COVER STORY
Advocating freedom,
justice and accountability The problem of Aliran's financial sustainability has become more acute in the past few years
by Subramaniam Pillay
Why Aliran? The political atmosphere in the 1970s was heavily influenced by the May 13th 1969 inter-ethnic riot. A few years after that, the ruling Alliance Party absorbed most of the opposition parties to become the Barisan Nasional. This diminished the opportunity for the emergence of a multi-ethnic opposition and a more healthy two-party electoral competition. This meant that route for change through partisan politics became very much more limited. At that point, a few of us felt that there has to be another way to articulate political issues and work towards change for a better Malaysia. In fact, we felt strongly that issues such as justice, freedom, inter-ethnic unity and public accountability can be discussed more freely and frankly if one does not have to worry about winning seats in the next general elections. So we formed Aliran in 1977. During the past 28 years, Aliran has faced many challenges. The main challenge is to continue publishing the Aliran Monthly on a regular basis. Our president, Saudara Ramakrishnan will talk about this in detail later. I will touch on two other important challenges: leadership transition and financial sustainability. As I mentioned in our anniversary dinner held in Penang two years ago, the issue of leadership transition is important for any public interest groups or NGOs. It is understandable if in its early years, an NGO is identified closely with the founding group. However, for an NGO to be successful in attaining its objectives and struggles in the long run, it must continue to have effective leadership when the founding group recedes from the scene. When Chandra Muzaffar, the founding president decided to step down in 1991 to concentrate on issues concerning global injustice, Ariffin Omar took over. Two years later, Rama succeeded him. More importantly, in the current Aliran executive committee of 15 members, there is only one founding member left. A majority of the current exco are made up of members who joined Aliran much later. What is even more crucial is that Aliran has continued publishing the Aliran Monthly on a regular basis despite the many hurdles that we have faced. We continue to voice our opinions on issues of justice, freedom, national unity and accountability. We also continue to work with many other NGOs on contemporary issues faced by Malaysian society. Thus, I think that Aliran has become a movement of ideas and an institution that advocates freedom, justice and accountability. Of course, we must continue in the path of transition by continuously having new people in the active core of Aliran; otherwise, we will become stale and irrelevant to the next generation of Malaysians. Another important challenge that Aliran has been facing since its inception is financial sustainability. But the problem has become more acute in the past few years. Until about five years ago, Aliran was able to finance its activities through donations and the sale of the Aliran Monthly. The sale of the Monthly has declined and at the same time, the cost of production has gone up. We are currently facing an operating deficit of about RM6,000 per month. At this rate, we will run out of cash by the end of next year. (This is in spite of operating on a real tight budget; we have only four staff members: one full time paid staff and three Aliran members working at a small honorarium.) We hope to change this situation through a mixture of initiatives. Firstly, we will try to increase the sales of the Aliran Monthly. Secondly, we are planning to go on a big donation drive next year. Thirdly, and very reluctantly, I must say, we may have to look at funding from outside sources. We are not very keen on this because not only do we want to remain independent but also we would like to be seen to be independent. So let me end my talk by asking all of you to help us
Now tell us what you think in fewer than 250 words. Your comments may be published in the Letters section of our print magazine, Aliran Monthly. | |||||||||||||||
...for an NGO to be successful in attaining its objectives and struggles in the long run, it must continue to have effective leadership when the founding group recedes from the scene.
