Catch a tiger by its tail
In a few short hours, the country was dragged into the dark ages of the 1980s. The PTV khabarnama is back and so is rumour, misinformation, denial and all their attendant evils. On Friday, when Benazir Bhutto was under detention and violence was erupting on the streets from Rawalpindi to Karachi, the lead story of the PTV news was the situation in Georgia. While thousands of people were being wantonly arrested under an ethically-reprehensible set of laws, the televised news most Pakistanis were treated to concerned brick-laying ceremonies, platitudes to the president and assertions that the law and order situation remained admirably calm – by newscasters who themselves appeared to recognise the irony.
These recent decisions underline the fact that the person taking them is one professionally trained in violence and the use of brute force – and that too, as a first option. And while the curbs placed on the independent news media may have been felt at the time to be simple, effective measures for one man to get what he wants, they weren’t thought through to their logical conclusion. They carry within them the seeds of the decision-maker’s defeat.
In modern times, stifling information is like trying to stuff an eiderdown into a bag: get one side under control and the other will escape. Denied of the means to get timely information through television, people have come up with alternate avenues to exchange news and views: web-sites, blog spots and e-newsletters, internet news groups and social networking fora, text messages and MMS file shares, and most endearingly, the photocopied pamphlet whose time seems to have come again.
The hurried (and rather ludicrous) clampdown on the sale of dish antennas shows that this aspect was not factored in whilst twisting the arms of cable operators. The fact that London or Dubai, with which a large number of Pakistanis both urban and rural have links and where the world’s news networks are accessible, are a few rupees’ worth of phone calls away was not really factored in. On the face of it, it appears unlikely that the average citizen is getting his news from abroad. But of eight rickshaw drivers I asked, five said that relatives abroad, mainly in the Gulf, were calling them with news updates. They were, of course, all following the newspapers. Similarly, the majority of the shopkeepers and customers I spoke to in Boat Basin also referred to people abroad as one of their sources of information. The survey was very small indeed and by no means representative but it was, at the very least, indicative.
It was also not factored in that rumour, misinformation and conjecture ride out when credible reporting is reined in. That gossip and the grapevine can cause great harm in real terms was illustrated by the Nov 6 crash of the Karachi stock market. Because of panic-selling following the imposition of virtual martial law and widespread rumours about a counter-coup against General Musharraf, the overall market capitalisation declined by Rs186 billion. That this fall could have been averted by access to credible information is evidenced at least partly by the fact that the next day, the two television channels concerned with business news — CNBC Pakistan and Business Plus — were back on air. In the past week, the rumours have ranged from the imminent dissolution of local body institutions established under the Sindh Local Government Ordinance 2001 (denied by the Sindh Minister for Local Government, Katchi Abadis and Spatial Development, Mohammed Hussain Khan, on Friday, Nov 9) to the arrest of Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman, chief executive of the Jang group of newspapers (reported and then retracted by an international newspaper).
Stopping the news has also brought people out into the public arena. It has been credibly argued earlier that television news serves to dissipate public resentment by turning politics or violence into vicarious entertainment and distancing the viewer from reality. By the same token, the clampdown on independent channels has sent people scurrying to gatherings both public and private to find out what is actually going on. In these very gatherings are the seeds of protest politics and demonstrations. Just over a week ago, many of these people would have been glued to their armchairs, watching without participating.
The older amongst us have travelled back in time and recall with great clarity — and no little anger — the many gloss-overs, euphemisms and lies disseminated by news broadcasts during the Zia era. Meanwhile, the younger amongst us have been outraged by the loss of access to information, a move that has not only increased their political awareness but also brought the dawning realisation that they too have a stake. As a result, for the first time in decades, students and other young people have become involved.
The general chose to catch the tiger by its tail; can he maintain his grip for ever? –[email protected]
Source: Dawn
Date:11/11/2007
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