Farrukh Khan Pitafi’s Official Website

In the last book of the Narnia series, there is a very instructive episode where everyone resisting the onslaught of an invading power is thrown to die in a small hut, which turns out to be the door to the paradise. But while everyone benign finds himself in paradise, an unruly group of dwarfs known for attacking both good and evil alike allow their disbelief to make them imagine that they are still trapped in the small cottage. When others try to rescue them, it is learnt that nothing would dissuade the dwarfs from their lack of faith and sheer blindness. We are later told that this happens because they do not have faith in the deep benign magic of ‘Narnia’. While Narnia is an imaginary world, every world imagined or real has its own deep magic or set of natural principles. When you go against these principles you are bound to lose, at the very least, in the end. Let us see what is the deep magic for our world? I think apart from the long known and well-established principles like the respect for human life, faith in virtue and humanism there is one that often gets ignored: that the millennia-long human evolution and its outcome cannot be simply rubbished.

Perhaps we, especially those among us who wield power, need to keep this principle in mind for it is being overlooked repeatedly. Musharraf and his allies have often claimed that the Western-style democracy and media freedom are not suited for Pakistan. I wonder if our nation has such a unique culture where civil liberties and democracy cannot function without a dictator in sight, then why the machines, technology and other cultural products invented in the West are readily accepted by the high and mighty? While our discussion on democracy can wait for another time, it is media freedom that I want to discuss here. There is no doubt that we in the media are enduring one of the darkest periods of our history. I say it because while the regime allowed media space to grow in the country during its tenure, it has invented uncountable ways to control it too. And apart from the intricate masonry of controls, the sheer volume of the media enterprise ensures that when overt censorship is imposed, as is the case these days, its impact and the pain inflicted is zonkingly intense compared to that experienced in the past. If you do not understand this point, just ask any employee of any media organisation under official censure how painful it is to see his organisation being stifled so ruthlessly.
The fact that the media organisations are still being suppressed or forced to undergo self-censorship so mercilessly and is functioning under a perpetual threat of closure leaves us with one question: what have we done so wrong that we have to face such dire consequences? The answer is simple, but not often understood fully. Our only crime is that we are doing honestly what we are supposed to do. The first responsibility of any independent media organisation is to report facts to its audience as quickly and in detail as is humanly possible. Its second responsibility is to help the audience make sense out of these facts. Since independent media is essentially private business, it is believed that every mistake will be quickly corrected through the ruthless market forces and the consumer input. And then almost every media organisation has a vigilant system of oversight that ensures that the end product is free of ethical lapses. Now this is exactly what we have been doing. No more, no less. Someone may then ask if everything was as perfect as I claim, why are we being punished? The answer lies more in the worldview of the rulers than our practices.
Dictators, it must be remembered, have a long history of obsession with image, not reality. They believe that if the opinion leaders are ready to lie through their teeth and project a make-believe rosy picture, everything will become peaceful. They do not show much interest in changing the ugly reality because subconsciously they know that even if everything else changes, the nature of their illegitimate stay in power cannot be altered.
Hence, they rely more on deception than reform. When we know that unfettered democracy is the only solution, how can the conscientious media practitioners bow to the pressures of dictators? And even if we want so, we cannot hide the fact that the country is enduring such humungous crises of energy, food items, law and order, legitimacy, supremacy of law and democracy. If we try to muzzle the truth, our audience will shift to other, maybe foreign, outlets for this is the world of cyber technology and dish antennas. After all, we are paid to tell the truth. Hence, the government evidently has a problem with both our responsibilities. We are told that we cannot report all the facts or show the footage and we are barred from interpreting the facts for our audience.
Unfortunately the state’s instinct to gag the media and dissent is not in its own interest. From the fall of East Pakistan to the aftermath of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, the media could have played a very constructive and pre-emptive role. Meanwhile, the capital investment in the media now ensures that not only will it survive but if the rightful space is denied to it, it may shift to safe havens. Today, the people of the country have more faith in the media than the entire state machinery and the officially endorsed political parties put together. If the media has to finally resort to open revolt, the state along with the ruling elite will suffer the most. Time has come for the rulers to realise that censorship is only weakening them and that the true solution lies in changing the reality and not imposing fake perceptions. Meanwhile, the independent media outlets need to stand together, for their unity and courage are the only things that can ameliorate the lot of the poor people of this country and their own.

Posted by farrukh at 14:28:18

Posted on March 3rd, 2008 under Old Posts •  Print This Post •  Email This Post • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback