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Review by Aditha Dissanayake

The cover has a picture of coconuts, neatly shelved in half. The title is Civil Society in Sri Lanka. What is the connection between coconuts and the Sri Lankan society? Ask Nira Wickramasinghe, or read the sub-title of her book "Civil Society in Sri Lanka".

The volume has four essays written in the mid and late 1990s, by Wickramasinghe, who is a senior lecturer in the Department of History and Political Science at the University of Colombo and a Senior Fellow at the International Centre for Ethnic Studies. It describes the forces that are shaping the Sri Lankan civil society.

The first essay analyses the local NGO network and human rights organizations, and shows how these organisations have formed a new circle of power that challenges and contests the State conception of security in present day Sri Lanka.

"These forces" says Wickramasinghe, " emphasize people's security and the security from the community from threats that often come from the state apparatus - armed forces, political parties or from "globalization".

In the second chapter she talks about human rights and about the recent emergence of "good governance" which has become a decisive factor when seeking aid and development assistance.

The third chapter explains what "partnership in development" means for this concept has to a large extent replaced aid in the development discourse of Sri Lanka".

The final chapter gives the autobiographies of three relief organizations International Committee of the Red Cross, United Nations High Commission of Refugees (UNHCR) and Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF). It is here that Wickramasinghe focuses on the confusion surrounding the term NGO.

According to an anthropologist researching among refugees, (writes Wickramasinghe) to the average Sri Lankan in Trincomalee NGOs means "foreigners in four-wheel drives".

A fuzzy definition for this could include private organizations and any individual who happened to possess a four-wheel drive vehicle. But, even the definition given by Gordenker and Weiss - "A private citizens organization, separate from government but active on social issues, not profit making, and with transnational scope"- is not adequate as it does not cover the ICRC or the UNHCR.

Wickramasinghe believes NGO is no longer a suitable word to use, to describe these complex and varied organizations.

"Civil Society in Sri Lanka", therefore, is a book which would interest international aid agencies, NGOs, human rights activists and multilateral funding bodies. It would also be of interest to those in the fields of political science, international relations, public administration and development studies.

As to the connection between the nuts and Civil Society - Wickramasinghe seemingly intends to show the coconuts as the symbol of the "new circles of power".

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