He told the audience that before he became a candidate for the position of President, he "resigned from all political positions and so, since then and even at this moment", he did not hold any "political position and platform". However, being a senior citizen and a member of the "civil society" with a background in politics and in medical profession, he was "in a natural position to respond to the situations prevailing in the country." In particular he hoped that " a united platform of the civil society could start with members organising and functioning themselves. They could sit in roundtable conferences and discuss ways and means to come out" of the serious problems the nation faced at this juncture.

I assume from his address that the former President considered an appropriate role for the civil society to organise itself to get rid of what he described problems besieging a nation. It appears that his main focus was to urge the civil society not to sit on as "onlookers".

This raises questions such as: What is " civil society"? What is its role?

The term "civil society" has been loosely applied to moral force of the community. Each individual is a part of universal natural order that is endowed with discipline, control and reason. The conscience of community is therefore based on natural order and fairness.

The moral force is the bedrock of establishing a peaceful, secure, just and progressive society and the collective force in the society/community is often called the "civil society." Civil society has an ethical edifice. It aims at establishing decency, fairness and democratic rights in the society. Its activities are directed towards the establishment of scrupulous compliance of the provisions of the Constitution, both in letter and spirit, by the ruling power.

Civil society constitutes collective conscience that acts against injustice and unfairness against individuals in a nation-state. Many social thinkers believe that civil society exhibits three essential characteristics: (a) passion for individual liberty, (b) desire for good governance and (c) democratic pluralism. Civil society, being a moral force, stands between the state and the community and thereby protects the community from bad governance of country. It brings to mind what Lord Moulton (1844-1921) said about governance: " Tyranny is yielding to the lust of governing."

The origin of civil society appears to be rooted in altruistic sources of action of human beings. Altruistic attitude means spirit of compassion, benevolence, and empathy. Empathy connotes feeling consistent with perceived welfare of another person. The idea of civil society according to many thinkers owes its origin to French philosopher Rousseau's "Social Contract" (1762). Rousseau (1712-78) believed in the "natural goodness of human being" which he felt was warped by social environment. His famous quote was " Man is born free but everywhere he is in chains."

If individuals in a society have civic and political rights under the Constitution, there is an assumption that a civil society exists. A civil society is dedicated to ensure the existence of rule of law, the existence of organised non-state interest groups and the existence of a balanced pluralism in a country to achieve the optimum good for the community.

Civil society has deep interest in the state of economic and social development of a country. There comes a point where civil society may rise against the authority if ordinary people are being denied good governance. Furthermore personal insecurity, corruption, nepotism, poverty, illiteracy and growing inequality between rich and poor within the country are the primary elements that give rise to protests from civil society. In this connection the media plays a pivotal role in appraising the civil society with exposure of misuse or abuse of power.

Civil society is generally resurrected in national crisis. In some countries civil society expresses itself through what is vaguely called "people's power". In the 70s, the Polish Worker's Movement (Solidarity), although a Union movement from Gdansk dockyard under the leadership of Lech Walsea, was essentially a movement by civil society against communist dictatorship. In 1986 the Marcos government had to resign under pressure from "people's power" that included civil society and the Catholic Church. On last 23 November, Georgia's President Eduard Shevarnadze was compelled to resign because of organised peaceful protests that included civil society and opposition political parties.

In Bangladesh in 1971 March, we witnessed the collapse of authority of Pakistan military government at the hands of the combined civil power organised by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. In 1990 two major political parties got united and with the active support of the civil society removed the government of President Ershad.

Social thinkers do not consider civil society to include political parties. Political parties are separate with their ideologies and may influence civil society to take action against the authority or vice versa. That means when civil society organises itself to protest the style of governance, political parties may join civil society to make a combined show of civil power against the authority.

Civil society is a potent force, like "a sleeping lion". When it rises, it can transform the whole society. The underpinnings of civil society are based on equality, fairness, justice, rule of law and liberal democratic society. Some social thinkers consider that a narrow selfish coterie, beneficiary from authority, often attempts to substitute civil society. As Eric Bentley said : " Ours is an age of substitutes: instead of language, we have jargon; instead of principles, slogans; and instead of genuine ideas, Bright Ideas." The bottom line of good governance, what Wendell Phillips stated, is that " Governments exist to protect the rights of poor. The rich needs no protection -- they have many friends and few enemies."

Barrister Harun ur Rashid is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.