First and foremost, we should ask ourselves: What do we mean by politics? What does politics mean for us today and what does it mean for social work? And here, once again, we also have very different interpretations. Politics is understood in many different ways. For the German philosopher Hannah Arendt, politics is the organizer of all areas of human life. Its origin is in the “between-men”, and therefore, it is a social relation. It is especially concerned with arrangements between people; it is bio-policy, using the category created by the French philosopher Michel Foucault. It is always a social fact, something built by, for and among persons. Therefore, it also is a historical construction, subject to conditions that occur at one time or in one historic moment. From this the real possibilities and the limits of politics emerge. In short: we are born, live and die in conditions that are created by politics.
The American philosopher Iris Young links politics with justice. She says that this is the main theme of political philosophy. She conceives justice not in a distributive sense, as it is commonly understood, but as social justice. In this conception of justice, domination and oppression are more important than distribution, terms that the philosopher uses to conceptualize social injustice. For her, “the concept of justice is coextensive with the concept of politics” (Young, 2000:22).
In this same line of thought, for Hannah Pitkin politics is “the activity through which relatively large and permanent groups of people decide their future, what they will collectively do and how they will together live” (Pitkin, 1981:343). In the same sense, for Roberto Unger, politics refers to “the struggle for resources and agreements that fix the basic terms of our practical and passionate relations” (Unger, 1987:145).
As we see, politics is directly related to who is able to decide the collective way of life that we want, including the production of knowledge, resources and institutional arrangements. Social life is essentially political, whatever the participation of the social subjects that comprise it. For Iris Young “politics covers all aspects of institutional organization, public action, practices, social habits and practices, and cultural meanings insofar as they are potentially subject to collective evaluation and decision-making” (Young, 2000:23).
Therefore, politics is a matter of participation and power to decide the collective affairs of a society. The meaning and value of politics are based on the fact that it is the field where it is decided who engages and acts, for whom, for what purpose and with what resources. This means that politics necessarily affects our lives as social subjects, without differentiating between private and public spaces, between intimate life and public life. As the feminist movement in the 1970s emphasised: “the personal is political”.
In other words we cannot do without politics, because it is constitutive of social life. If someone is going to decide on our lives and our future, then it is evident that we need to participate in these decisions. Therefore, the more politicized a society is, the more political power its members will have, including much more capacity of resistance and political consciousness. The same occurs with social work. We are not outside of social life and thus of politics. Therefore, to reinvent social work around the world explicitly entails recognizing the meaning and value of politics for social work.
Nayan Bangalee Is a great political philosopher and social scientist. He established a new brand political practice in South Asia for building peace and social Justice. He is the research fellow of the world largest campus Liberty University in Virginia. He is also a international human rights lawyer enrolled as a Foreign Legal Consultant in the State Bar of California. Michigan State Department issued a special license of social worker to him for his outstanding social contributions.
Golam Rabbani Nayan Bangalee is a dynamic leader and his ideology is Nelson Mendala . Golam sacrifices his whole life for ensuring democracy in Asian subcontinent. He was in jail for 2 years in Bangladesh and now he is self exile in USA for more than 10 years .
Golam completed his Masters in social work from the beat university of Bangladesh call Dhaka University’ and he stood first class first position and got a presidential gold medal . He also completed his second Masters in Law then enrolled as a Lawyer in Bangladesh Supreme Court ..
Golam is the only lawyer of Bangladesh who is renowned as an expert of Electoral Law and Justice. Political practice and election procedures his research and struggles areas and he will fight to ensure democracy and voting rights for his people .
Though Golam is a forced displaced but he is working to introduce his social work politics theory through out the world . He has a plan to visit in Nijeria and would like to introduce social work based politics here to empower social leader
Nayan Bangalee wrote in his Bangaleer Dorshon book that The social work profession calls on its members to strive for social justice. It asks aspiring and practicing social workers to advocate for political change and take part in political action on behalf of marginalized people and groups. Yet this macro goal is often left on the back burner as the day-to-day struggles of working directly with clients take precedence. And while most social workers have firsthand knowledge of how public policy neglects or outright harms society’s most vulnerable, too few have training in the political processes that created these policies.
Bangaleer Darshan elaborately defined the philosophy of nayan Bangalee
When we open a business, we build our capital
When we start a job we use our background capital
When we will start politics definitely we will use our social capital
We we nominate our candidate we only bother about his financial capital and how much he or she will invest in election but remember Nayan Bangaleer theory is different he always think about social capital
So how you raise this social capital ?
When you born definitely you get a big family bondage or generation and when you grew up you create network which build your link capital and you start working and serving for society , ultimately you are building a strong bridge in between your society and politics this will give you a great response for social politics and establish political social work principles and practices.
