This is a tough brief. Perhaps I would have better luck writing in defence of serial killers or kidnappers or puppy-punters. Even writing in defence of lawyers, it seems to me, would be a safer undertaking that would garner me fewer brickbats. But if a columnist cannot take an unpopular position every now and again, then what use are we (don’t answer that question).

Sometimes we have to stick our necks out and defend the very people who are being pilloried, the lowest of the low, the scorned of society, the outcasts, the pariahs, those who are utterly beyond the pale.

In post-1/11 Bangladesh, or at least in the eyes of a considerable segment of the chattering classes, the bien pensants, the intelligentsia, there is no doubt as to the identity of the primary villains of the day. It is not corrupt politicians or crooked businessmen. To the contrary, the lion’s share of anger and contempt is reserved for that ill-defined yet curiously satisfying punching-bag, civil society.

If you read newspapers or watch talk shows on television or go on-line, you will have observed long ago that “civil society” or “sushil” (used as a noun) has become a dirty word. No one, it seems, has a good word to say about civil society. Civil society is the cause of all our ills. There is no more villainous and infamous group of people to be found from Teknaf to Tetulia.

But in actuality, the ranting and raving one hears against “civil society” demonstrates little more than our unfortunate propensity for handy but not necessarily accurate intellectual short-cuts and simplified, conspiratorial thinking. Neither serves us well, not in this instance, or in general.

Let us start by trying to define “civil society.” Wikipedia defines it thus: “Civil society is composed of the totality of voluntary civic and social organisations and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society as opposed to the force-backed structures of a state (regardless of that state’s political system) and commercial institutions” — which would seem to cover it nicely.

Prior to 1/11 there were two tropes in currency with respect to civil society. One was that civil society had failed in that it had not been a moderating force in our politics and had indeed become just as polarised and partisan as the political sphere, with professional associations and the like being divided along political lines. The second trope was that civil society had been, by and large, a positive element in the country, with many civil society organisations doing exemplary work and serving the nation well.

Note that, according to whichever trope is being put forward, civil society means two somewhat different things, and that the term is so broad and all-encompassing that any notion of it as either a unitary force or discrete entity is, not to put to fine a point on it, completely absurd.

Fast forward to 1/1. In the eyes of a not-inconsiderable segment of the population, apparently brought to us by civil society and its backers in the cantonment. Now, the dubbing of 1/11 as a “civil society revolution” or a “sushil revolution” was always lazy, conspiratorial thinking. The notion that there is some cabal of eminent civil society personages sitting around a table somewhere, plotting the future of the republic, is pretty silly. Similarly, the extent of collusion between the caretaker government and its backers in the cantonment and various organs of civil society is little more than idle speculation and conspiracy mongering.

Certainly, there have been elements within civil society who have been supportive of the current dispensation (no names mentioned). But how supportive and how critical and what kind of support has been tendered is something that has been, almost without exception, either misunderstood or misrepresented.

But the main point I am trying to make is that there is no such thing as a unitary civil society. So when we rhetorically rain down fire and brimstone on “civil society” and condemn all “sushils” (whoever they are) as apologists for the current dispensation, this is as lazy and as unhelpful as painting all politicians or all businessmen with the same brush. Saying that “civil society” supports this government is more or less meaningless.

Never has this become so apparent as it is today, in the wake of a pretty devastating report issued by Transparency International Bangladesh earlier this week, which indicated that corruption continued to rise the first half of 2007, despite the on-going anti-corruption measures.

If ever an institution was a card-carrying member of “civil society,” it is TIB. So what are we to make of the fact that one of the most compelling and damaging critiques of this current government has come from TIB?

Since 1/11, I have lost count of the times I have seen TIB castigated as one of the civil society organisations apparently hand-in-glove with the caretaker government. No list of “collaborators” of the current government is complete without mention of TIB’s executive director and chairman. Perhaps an apology is in order?

Perhaps, just perhaps, TIB is not part of some grand conspiracy to rob us of our democracy. Perhaps, heaven forfend, there is no grand “civil society” conspiracy to begin with.

Perhaps, indeed, the time has come to quit bashing “civil society,” whatever civil society might mean, and to understand that, in the first place, civil society includes many people and organisations who have been front and centre in holding the current government accountable, and, in the second, that, while satisfying and comforting, it is never particularly helpful to one’s analysis to make such sweeping and simplistic generalisations or categorisations.

-Zafar Sobhan