Out of touch with reality
The government and its media advisers do not seem to understand that the old tricks of denying the people access to information do not work anymore. If anything, they make the outmoded chicanery the object of public ridicule and loathing.
Following Saturday’s proclamation of ’emergency,’ the government ordered the cable operators to block all private television channels’ broadcasts. But the measure could not suppress the common people’s interest in knowing the facts through independent sources – all true facts and not merely those presented by the government-controlled PTV.
So they turned to dish antennas and digital receivers to directly catch private televisions’ broadcasts. Some dusted off their old dishes and receivers; many others went to the market to buy new equipment. Considering that the two items are expensive by general standards, it is quite remarkable that their sale went up by 30 to 40 percent in the first two days of the declaration of ’emergency’.
Desperate to control the free flow of information, the government’s minions ordered shop owners to stop the sale of dish antennas and receivers, with the warning that those found violating the order would have to face a five-year jail term and Rs 10 million fine.
Which, of course, made a mockery of the government claim that even though the country’s Constitution had been held in abeyance – our military rulers’ favourite resort to take extra-constitutional measures – that it would try to remain as close to the Constitution as possible.
That required fundamental freedoms as enshrined in the Constitution to be respected. But then martial law – which the present emergency is commonly understood to be – and fundamental rights are like two opposites that repel one another.
A lot of water has flowed under the bridges since the last martial law. Pakistan may not have made spectacular economic progress like its neighbours, India or China, all these years, but it has surely embraced modern technology in a big way.
Internet and cell phones’ SMS and E-mail facilities have linked people to one another and to new sources of information at an unprecedented level. More people learned about the imposition of the current de facto martial law from these sources than from the PTV.
True, with the banning of broadcasts by private TV channels, public access to information has been restricted, but it is also true that the government does not have complete control over information.
In situations like this, when information is not openly available, rumour factories start working overtime, giving vent to lies, half-truths, and of course wishful thinking. Which is unhelpful to the government itself as well as public interest. A case in point is the rumour that circulated on the alternative circuit on Monday about the President allegedly having been placed under house arrest.
The government issued a denial, but by that time the stock market index had plunged 635.80 points – its deepest dive ever – while Rs 180 billion disappeared from the capital market. One of the reasons General Pervez Musharraf gave for the ’emergency’ was to prevent an economic downslide. The economy is now ironically facing a crisis situation due to the prevailing political uncertainty.
The ban on private TV broadcasts is not going to help the government suppress dissent, if that is what it hopes to achieve. People will find information from alternative sources as they have already started to do. There is no way the government can beat modern technology. It only lends itself to public derision by taking desperate measures like banning media broadcasts and having its known sycophants appear on the state-controlled PTV to sing praises of its policies and actions.
If the government is unhappy with the independent media, it needs to give the people reasons for the same by having its own representatives participate in the discussion programmes it says spread despondency. The media responsibility, it goes without saying, is to present the facts as they see or hear. If there is despondency all around, a sense of despondency is what the media audiences will get.
Our rulers must realise that in the present-day environment, they cannot keep the people from knowing the facts. The sooner they recognise this stark reality the better it would be for all concerned, ie, the government, the public and the media.
Source: Business Recorder
Date:11/9/2007
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