Truth will bring trust

Someone once said: "All unuttered truths become poisonous." This is what we see happening in our land of the pure. The atmosphere is heavy with poison, venom, bitterness, spitefulness, malice and outright hatred.
For anyone who sees, thinks and expresses herself or himself differently, for anyone whose face you do not like, for anyone whose ideas bother you, for anyone who is just different, you would want the person to shut up, be silenced, exiled or annihilated.
It is also said that in times of war truth is the first casualty. It seems that since we have been at war – both of a psychological and physical nature – since our inception, within ourselves perpetually and with forces outside intermittently, truth continues to remain a casualty.
Before I move further, let me say categorically that the most recent attack on senior journalist and television anchorperson Hamid Mir in Karachi preceded by two attacks in the last few weeks on journalist and author Raza Rumi and playwright and writer Asghar Nadeem Syed in Lahore have to be condemned. I mention these three together because they were all lucky to survive. Mir and Syed had to be operated upon though to remove the bullets from their bodies. But there are so many others in the past few years, from Wali Babar to Saleem Shahzad, who did not survive.
There has been a series of fatal attacks on journalists across Pakistan, from Fataand Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to Karachi. The motivation and attackers may well be different in each case. But something that needs to be established at the outset of any argument is that violence – physical or psychological – to stop anyone, be that person a journalist, artist, politician or an ordinary citizen, is totally unacceptable.
Even if you completely disagree with the person, no one has the right to threaten anyone, leave alone taking, or trying to, the person’s life. A civilised human society is impossible without respect for the life and dignity of your worst adversaries. A city turns into a jungle if life, livelihoods and liberties of every individual are not safeguarded.
Who is primarily responsible to safeguard life and liberty? No one else but the state; the state is responsible for protecting the lives, livelihoods and liberties of people under a contract that it has with all its citizens, the constitution and the laws that it has to promulgate in the interest of its citizens. Subsequently, only the state has the authority to incarcerate or penalise lawbreakers – but that too after invoking a due process of law. Besides, whoever is responsible for committing an illegal act of violence, the state must ensure that the offender is brought to the book.
From the beginning in our case as a nation, it is hard to hold an objective assessment of any situation. It is hard to find credible evidence. It is hard to establish truth. It is hard to pose responsibility. It is hard to frame charges. Finally, it is impossible to seek retribution from perpetrators. Therefore, the distressed will continue to lay blame according to their understanding and experience and those rightly or wrongly blamed will continue to defend themselves by either denying their role or justifying their action.
In case of the attack on Hamid Mir, this is not the first instance in our country that we see this issue coming up. There has remained a friction between the establishment and the security agencies and different political parties and groups.
After this particular incident, his aggrieved journalist brother, in a voice soaked in anger and hurt, informed the channel Mir works for that Mir had mentioned his differences with some officials of the premier security and intelligence agency of the country resulting in a life-threatening situation for him.
The channel acted in the way all our private television channels somehow conduct themselves in such situations. It seemed to have stretched the issue by repeating the statement made by Mir’s brother for hours and emphasised more on the allegation and less on asking for an immediate impartial enquiry into the incident (while also considering the statement made to this effect by Mir in the inquiry which he apparently made some days before being attacked). Sanity prevailed soon and more balance was introduced into their coverage the next day.
One could also understand the sentiment of military servicemen reacting to the allegations with sheer unhappiness. It was the credibility of their institution at stake – an institution that finds itself beleaguered primarily due to the hangover of martial rules and its involvement in local politics. But they have to defend it as the allegations are direct and grave. Ironically, the military spokesperson showed more restraint than Mir’s rival news channels. The spokesperson did three things. First, he condemned the attack. Second, he rejected the allegations. Third, he supported a thorough investigation.
However, as I mentioned above, what one finds mindboggling is the way the issue is being handled and incident analysed by some leading newspapers and news channels. It seems the turf war between media houses took another sharp, ugly turn with the attack on Hamid Mir. Objectivity, balance, professional restraint, all got lost in the process. They refused to wait for the surviving victim to recover and make a statement on the issue. They couldn’t be sympathetic to the grief felt by his close family and work colleagues. They decided to settle scores with the media house Mir works with.
As I quote often from Michael Ignatieff, “Television is the church of modern authority.” This may not be entirely true but to a large part it is, particularly in a country with limited literacy and even more limited penchant for the written word. While our electronic media needs to be far more responsible than it presently is, the onus of establishing the truth does not rest on the media; it rests on the state and its institutions.
In some other country, such an incident would have had the police investigating and facts being ascertained. In Pakistan, we have to create a judicial commission on everything that catches the public eye. That means the basic structures of the state are not functioning – the police, law enforcement machinery, the lower courts, etc. Moreover, even after judicial commissions are formed, how many have come up with a decisive report? If they have, we don’t know as they are seldom shared with public.
As far as establishing the truth is concerned, do we know why the ambulance ran out of fuel while bringing the ailing father of the nation from Mauripur airbase to his official residence in Karachi? Who got the first prime minister of Pakistan assassinated? Who did the Hamoodur Rehman Commission officially hold responsible for the East Pakistan debacle? Why was ZA Bhutto hanged after a split decision and after retiring certain judges? Who killed Gen Ziaul Haq and his accompanying army officers and the then American ambassador?
Who killed Benazir Bhutto and before that who had orchestrated the attack on her in Karachi where hundreds were killed? What were the findings of the Abbottabad Commission? What happened to the findings and recommendations of the Saleem Shahzad Commission when it comes to saving the lives of working journalists? And who killed not just Wali Babar but also witnesses in his case?
In the wake of grave internal and external pressures, never before the state institutions, civil society, media and ordinary women and men of Pakistan needed to stand together, needed a consensus on fighting the scourge of extremism and terrorism, the threat to the very existence of this state and society. But the only precondition of us coming together is our trust upon each other. And we will only trust each other when we all speak the truth.
The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad.
Email: harris.khalique@gmail.com