Ah yes, Liberal International. Seventy years of bringing together liberals from around the world, but for what? I had reached Andorra, and was thus able to consider the question in situ, so to speak.
And it is an interesting question. Our membership of the ALDE Party has some practical value, especially whilst we remain in the European Union, in terms of allowing input into policy making, and the pooling of knowledge and experience within political models similar to our own. On the other hand, the tangible benefits of being able to interact with liberals from West Africa, or of policy making when there is little means of delivering it internationally are harder to discern.
There isn't an awful lot of money available, so much outreach is directed through such organisations as the Westminster Foundation for Democracy and the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung, whose funding is provided by their respective states.
Yet, whilst the benefits to a party like the Liberal Democrats aren't immediately obvious, there is no doubt that providing a forum for emerging liberal parties in the developing nations is of tremendous value to them. Knowing that they have sister parties in the major democracies, and the platform that Liberal International offers, allows them to accrue credibility in the eyes of their local communities, and acts as a shield against the worst acts of sometimes corrupt, sometimes authoritarian ruling administrations.
Liberal International also offers a means to bring regional groups together, and this is particularly true in Africa, where the African Liberal Network is increasingly providing opportunities to exchange best practice, encourage solidarity and develop new activists, especially from under-represented groups.
If you believe that one of the moral obligations upon developed democracies is to provide a beacon to the emerging ones, then paying our annual subscription to Liberal International is one of the easiest, and most obvious means of doing our share. And, from a personal perspective, it reminds me that, no matter how disheartening our own politics can be, one cannot fail to be inspired by the struggles of some of our sister parties in places such as Cambodia and Nicaragua.
It is easy to dwell on the cost of our membership, and wonder if the money couldn't be better spent on more campaign tools at home. But it must be nobler to consider the value of our membership in terms of what it enables others to do towards building stronger democracies and creating stability in areas of volatility.
2 comments:
What does our membership cost amount to?
> It is easy to dwell on the cost of our membership, and wonder if the money
> couldn't be better spent on more campaign tools at home.
We are already too inward-looking. If we had put aside money for decent campaigns for the EP over the years (including some education of the electorate), we might not have been in this current dangerous position, half-in, half-out of the Union.
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