This is a story of a clash of three civilizations (at least) — and no, it's not about my vexations with Windows Vista.

It's about the big issues of how business in the U.S. and Russia can support civic causes, and what the gulf between NGOs and business in Russia is all about.

It's about a Twitfight that took place between my alter ego, Prokofy Neva (my Second Life tech blogging name) and Vladimir Gabriel (vgabriel) about #rustechdel (use that hashmark term to look up all the tweets on that topic) — a delegation of American social media moguls including Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter and Robert Donahue, CEO of ebay, who travelled to Russia to see the prospects for a new Russian Silicon Valley (dissected in what has been described as 'colourful but LOONNNG" prose here).

This post is to try to focus the debate more on the "milk or meat" question and to explain some more of what I mean by this.

When the Americans, which included the movie star hottie Ashton Kutcher (who has more than a million followers on Twitter, so that qualifies him for citizen's diplomacy status) met with their rough counterparts in Russia, they were dismayed to see that NGOs and business people were in completely different worlds, and business didn't embrace or support civic causes. They assumed that the groovy start-up peeps that they'd meet on what their State Department handler Jared Cohen called a "peeps to peeps" trip would be like them — world-conscious, advocates of causes like fighting world hunger, malaria, AIDS etc.

Instead, they found as CNN explained very well in a piece called "Getting "Punk'd in Russia" that the business people were even fearful of the NGOS because they didn't want to sully their "brand," so to speak — their neutrality (as they perceive it). And the NGOs even said they were at sea, and didn't know how to put up a website, and suffered from lack of significant support (and I could add, this has grown worse, with the departure of Ford Foundation and other funds from Russia.)

(I don't believe lack of technical capacity to make websites is widespread in *Moscow*, I think the Americans just happened to hit on one person who wasn't aware of how many resources are right there in Moscow among the NGO community in this regard — but let it stand as an indicator that in Russia, despite the statistics that #rustechdel was blathering about Russians spending "six hours a month on social media" [misreported in many retweets as "six hours a day"] only 36 percent of the adult population even accesses the Internet although this figure is growing. Even so, in Moscow, only 60  percent of the population use the Internet — and this is in a highly centralized state where all the resources are concentrated.)

So #aplusk and the other American do-gooders (who were rather insufferable in their preaching on this score) decided to make it their mission to chastise Russkiy biznes for not doing enough for the third sector (non-profits) and tried to make connections between their new NGO and business start-up friends to "help". All good, and maybe some help could come out of it, but there were several looming contexts here that went undiscussed, even by the State Department which should know better.

First, a key reason why business and NGOs don't mix is because when they do, several bad things happen. First, those oligarchs who funded the most cutting-edge civic nonprofit sector wound up in jail essentially on politically-motivated charges. The chief vivid example is Mikhail Khodorkovsky, whose foundation still goes on funding human rights groups today, although at a lower level than when he was free and able to make money. This isn't to bless Khodorkovsky as either a sterling democrat or a blemish-free businessman, but it is to make the very valid point that his case is riddled with due process errors and awful things like thuggish intimidation of his lawyers, and basically underlying the entire case is this: Khodorkovsky broke the unspoken gentleman's agreement that Putin established with the oligarchs — make money, but don't stick your nose in politics. 

"Help, My Office is On Fire"

There are a few oligarchs who nevertheless do fund NGOs — but then other things happen — for one, they want to be on the boards of the groups, and some groups just don't want them there — not only for reputation's sake, but for governance's sake. But a really important reason why you don't see business and NGOs mix in Russia is because there is no robust practice or legislation to really encourage donating to get tax-exemption and tax-write-offs. While the charity laws have improved in the last decade, they've taken a step back recently, and businesses can find they create more trouble for an NGO by donating, say, a Xerox machine, than they help. And to get an exemption, a company would have to first report its revenue — and that can be problematic. Business in Russia so often means crime — an NGO that hooks up with a business — and some do — may find itself sooner or later dealing with creepy people asking for protection money or finding their offices on fire. To have real estate in Russia is to court the attention of criminals. A number of major civic groups have suffered suspicious arson, death threats, and endless government inspections — these are not software bug problems. The government is working overtime now to coopt such groups as are not already intimidated by displacing them with fake government-organized NGOs called GONGOs.

And it works the other way, too. Businesses have seen that human rights defenders who stand up to the government can be assassinated — like Natalya Estemirova of Memorial Society who monitored human right violations in Chechnya. Or they can face libel cases — like Oleg Orlov of Memorial Society who was charged with libel for raising questions about the responsibility of the local Chechen leader Kadyrov for her murder. So these businesses, too, keep their distances — they do not want association with controversy not only to harm their "brand" but they don't want to be de-legalized in the same way as a weaker NGO can be in Russia. The dynamic surge of young people's clubs and barcamps and blogs and meet-ups on tech can be mistaken for some kind of big, new free movement in Russia — but it is a movement taking place within the confines of very rigid self-censorship and top-down government ideological control — which corporations, many part state-owned, help enforce in Russia.

None of this was discussed because the group in the meeting (and I still am waiting an answer to my request for a list of them from the State Dept) involved issues like children's rights and the scourge of trafficking for child pornography and forced labor, a growing problem in Russia of course with implications of Western countries who are the receivers and consumers.

But despite the clear connection to organized crime and the clear need for safety of journalists to discuss a topic like child trafficking, this issue is still seen as "safer" than most because it involves children — and who can argue with that? Another "safe" issue is "transparency" because even Medvedev and Putin are interested in fighting the corruption of especially provincial officials — why not sic Moscow-based NGOs on them? (A regional specialist once explained at a conference that the reason Putin is not seen as corrupt is because in his past, he was corrupt only with the Germans, and they are cleaner about their corruption…). Now that I've seen how hysterical the officially-sanctioned anti-corruption NGO has attacked criticism of the Surkov commission, the picture of "safe topic" has come into more clear focus for me — especially as an ex-pat is trying to hijack the notion of "civility" to mean "only what Surkov and McFaul sanction" and pretending there's no criticism of this process.

Service or Struggle, and the Vegetarian Diet

NGOs have long used the term "vegetarian" to describe the "safer" issues of economic and social rights which can be worked on without significantly challenging the state. When you work on issues like children and trafficking and corruption, you can deal with endless cases, and set your targets on local officials that may be scared into better behaviour by either exposure or the "inspector general" concept from Moscow, but you  need not challenge the state.

But when you deal with more meaty issues like torture, violence in the Caucasus, the restrictive NGO law, political prisoners, suppression of the media, murder of journalists — you are challenging the state directly with civil and political rights issues that have been blocked at a federal level, and aren't about a recalcitrant bureaucrat failing to follow what might even be a good law on say, trafficking.

This debate has gone on for at least 15 years within Russia, and with Americans and Europeans, and used to be characterized by the catch-phrase of Charity Aid Foundation's Olga Alexeyeva's famous article "Service or Struggle" in the 1990s — in which she said that civil society should abandon what she saw as an outdated struggle of the Soviet-era dissidents in struggling against the government full-tilt, and move to service in fields such as social work helping the numerous victim of government policies directly, to build up credibility, and work to change the government more indirectly to avoid being politicized or shut down.

Olga now works in London. And many disagreed with her then as now that you have to chose, or that you have to drop civil and political rights concerns to such an extent, given that without a free press and freedom of association, you cannot even have an NGO movement and publicize your issues. But many opted for the "service" approach in a country where the elections are deemed not fair by the OSCE; where Freedom House has rated the political system "partly-free," and where the parliament no longer has liberal factions, which have been forced out.

Milk or Meat?

An answer to the current version of the "service or struggle" debate came during #rustechdel from Vladimir Gabriel, the evangelist of Microsoft Russia (i.e. promoter and liaision to users — yes, it's the actual technical term used by these Silicon Valley companies who make a religion of software). He said that MSFT RU was already helping NGOs by giving them free or discounted software and training, implying that the Americans were clueless busy-bodies.

He published a list on Twitter, which I perused. I promptly responded, "They seem rather vegetarian."

You take a look, too, and tell me what you think, on this blog or at [email protected]

I'm all for saving children, obviously. I'm all for harm reduction, saying "no" to alcoholism and taking care of various social ills. And I'm all for puppets in Penza — the program supports NGOs and non-profits like theaters as well.

But my objections to the list as just too soft were not only incomprehensible to Mr. Evangelist — they were rejected with fierce fury over days of frenetic tweets.

Twitfight!

I'm all for having Twitfights, BTW. I think in these new media times with our fabulous new media, that not only tech evangelists get to shape the discourse and use these tools as broadcasting devices of their own techno-utopian or, in Russia's case, state-tropic ideology, which they've also attempted to bake into the tools.I'm not interested in being corralled into a sort of Surkovian "civility" by cautious
ex-pats.

This debate, as you can see if you go back on the pages, get very, very heated, and names are called. I'm also all for calling names — it's allowed under the U.S. Constitution, and I think that these debates have to be held forcefully, vernacularly, and freely — and that often the techs attempting to control this discourse need a forceful push-back precisely in this matter. I'm dedicated to doing this on my blog and Second Life as Prokofy Neva, and I stand by the very deep need for this kind of robust, frank debate.

In fact, there isn't any obscenity or insult — and vgabriel calls me a "sovok" (!) before I finally called him "a thin-skinned provincial" and "a furious Surkovian on steroids" (in fact, not surprisingly he's from Tomsk — and I speak as a rather thicker-skinned provincial myself.)

The New Technocracy: Civil Society, Russian Silicon Valley Style

Vladimir's main theses work like this:

1. This list is exemplary, and no one can find fault with it. Those finding fault with it must have a political agenda or be stuck in outdated, stereotypical patterns of thinking.

2. If some group isn't on this list, well, that's their fault. They could ask. They could show initiative. And you can learn something about these groups who *are* on this list — they showed initiative!

3. If there is a list of groups that you think should be on this list, please publish it for me. Or tell group to apply. Oh, I didn't get a rush of emails just now, so I guess you're wrong and my list is fine.

4. I only care about software, not other issues, and have no comment on them. Puppets of Vladimir Putin are neither good nor bad.

5. Say, you're so big on NGOs, would you want Limonov to be on the list? Oh, you find Limonov poison, you want to kill him?

6. You are filled with stereotypes, patterns, cliches, and you cannot understand Russia.

And so on — you get the idea. It's a great read, so I'd highly recommend using summation.com or just reading my back pages and vgabriel back pages for the last week.

Job Profile of Evangelist

I don't believe vgabriel is really in the right line of work. Evangelists should be sunny and cheerful an tolerant like Robert Scoble, the evangelist for Microsoft in the U.S. for some years now at Rackspace. @scobleizer has so many tens of thousands of followers because he's chatty and good natured even when arguing.

V. Gabriel could have stopped at the first tweet from me about "vegetarianism" and said "If you think our list could use beefing up, please tell people to get in touch" and leave it at that — but instead, he decided to take up arms  and fight — because he seems himself as a kind of lieutenant in this tech army called upon by Vladislav Surkov to build the new Russian Silicon Valley — but without freedom of intellectual inquiry or speech. 

"What Do You Produce?!"

In fact, we're supposed to accept that everything is fine, the list is perfect, and if someone isn't on it, it's their fault (the usual "patch or GTFO mentality that lovely software making culture has given us). "What have you produced?!" sneered vgabriel at once juncture in our debate — the eternal snotty repartee of the tekkie to the person in the humanities. I sent links of books I'd translated and articles written — but of course, that's not "production" like software "engineering". This is the eternal "Two Cultures" debate of C.P. Snow, but with a particular Soviet cultural edge.

It gets worse. I also know nothing about Russia (we can never know *enough* about Russia, we Russia-watchers, you know? Learning the language, studying and working in Russia, traveling there, reading the press every day, meeting Russians here constantly — it's never enough, you know?)

Microsoft: Don't Forget the Milk

There's of course a larger context to this squabble — East and West.

It's not thanks to vgabriel that we have this list of at least the puppeteers of Penza and the harm-reducers of Moscow. It's thanks to Bill Gates and Microsoft in this country, which mandated the NGO Connection program with 10 localizations. We can't see who the U.S. recipients are, only the "partners" like the ubiquitous TechSoup (apparently Russians are more transparent than their U.S. counterparts here) but we can see also the thematic steerage:

Eligible Organizations

That doesn't mean that U.S. human rights groups — like the ACLU or Human Rights Watch — can't apply, but they aren't mentioned as a generic. They aren't in the list of ineligible groups, however, which includes political and labour organizations, but they aren't mentioned.

There's a reason why Microsoft has a program like this. They want to discourage piracy. What better place to discourage it than in poor civic groups where the temptation is great to copy? And they want to burnish their reputation as a corporate citizen, doing good. And that's a good thing, and a keen motivator than Russian business could learn from.

And there's a reason why even Microsoft USA leaves out "civil rights" — they don't likely fancy seeing themselves leading the charge on topics like privacy or closing Guantanamo.

Where's the Beef and What's Yours?

There are many large well-known civic groups missing from the Russian list. I am not interested in making a hit-list to be shot down by technocrats at MSFT RU — or worse, creepy Surkov. But anyone looking at the list with an impartial eye, cogniscent of Russian civic struggles, can see that groups like Memorial Society Human Rights Center (which works on conflict zones like Chechnya), Glasnost Defense Foundation (which works on freedom of the media), Soldiers' Mothers and Mother's Right (which work on abuses in the army),  Civic Action (which works on migrant laborers), SOVA Center (which works on extremism) — these are not present in the list. The Ryazan chapter of Memorial happens to have an education program, so that's why they are on the list.

Curiously, even groups are missing that seem like they may have more of the softer option of education and environment that such business/civic programs would be comfortable with — World Wildlife Fund of Russia, Sakharov Museum and Civic Center and many similar provincial groups.

There are reasons why these large Western-funded groups at the forefront of the civil rights struggle in Russia are not on the list. No one made any outreach to them because they don't look for trouble — easier to say these groups "lack capacity" and are themselves to blame for not applying for free software. I'm not aware that any have been turned away — but let's say the boat has not been rocked.

Three Civilizations

There's also the larger climate of the gap in civilizations — called rather snarkily by a Moscow PR exec following #rustechdel as "three civilizations" — Russian NGOs, Russian business — and I gather she meant "and Americans". 

There's an enormous desire on the part of the U.S. government, the Kremlin, and some Western foundations to skip over the Soviet dissident movement, the new versions of their old civil rights causes that are still going very strong with new people, and describe the future as being in "social media" and "sharing" and "connections" on 'social causes" like children. That makes it easier for everyone. No need to look at nasty, hard issues like torture in prison — what @aplusk called a "brutal meeting" featured a Russian businesswoman describing her time in jail for 9 month for *not* paying a bribe and an elderly Russian man hollering that Russian corruption should be acknowledged as a U.S. problem, too, as the corrupt dealers fled to the U.S. with the Russian teachers' pension funds.

Anyway, if you are reading this piece, and you need free software, here's where you go.

I don't suggest it's the only place to get free software but I might be an education for you — and Vladimir Gabriel.

And no, I'm pretty confident I'm not the one who needs the education here, as I understand perfectly well that likely few if any people will apply — for all kinds of reasons. I'm also not interested, despite repeated goaded by @vgabriel on Twitter to produce a "hit list," in painting a target on the backs of groups working on the harder human rights issues *not* on the Microsoft Ru list.

I'm merely saying what a lot of people are thinking but not saying so they can keep what grants they have. These civilizations are separate for many deep reasons, and you cannot paper over it with a tweet. @aplusk and @edyson might take the various NGO business cards and tell them to contact @vgabriel — that might help their application.