What’s all this about, Axactly?

I don’t know what has been more nerve-numbing: the Axact expose published in the NYT last week; the priggish denials by the bigwigs of the Axact empire in the wake of the expose; the spate of sententious mea culpa like resignations circulated on social media by the almost-beneficiaries of the Bol hoax; or the show of comic-exasperation by the state – as if fake degrees are an incomprehensible sin for the God-fearing polity that we are – coupled with the masquerade of official investigations into Axact’s operations, all of which will most certainly shed no more light on the affair than has already been described by Declan Walsh in his report.
For the state, embarrassing though the whole affair is, this is a unique first opportunity to turn around and pinch the nose of the hitherto unrepentant, meddling and rowdy child that is the Pakistani electronic media; for the media, if Walsh’s expose wasn’t enough, that which followed it from one of their own ilk – a well-written unpublished statement of contrition, though equally infused with affected self-pity – and which sums up just about all the hanky-panky the media gets into and up to, is a damning indictment, catching the institution bewildered in the glare of its own headlights.
We knew that this was in the offing. With no checks, no balances, no ethical constraints, our electronic media, slowly but surely, has turned largely into a raucous, increasingly glitzy and absurdly profitable celebration of mediocrity. Many a voice rose to warn of the damaging social consequences of irresponsible, tabloid journalism. Many cautioned that the media’s marriage with political interests and money would compromise the achievement of that highest of ideals, the perhaps tenuous, yet extremely important prerequisite to unconditionally report the truth, which forms the bedrock of transparent and unbiased journalism.
Yet our anchors and talk-show hosts were already brand names, infant celebrities even, if one considers the length of experience of many among them in the field. And all around, as is customary in Pakistan, was the cacophony of undeserved applause that grew finally into a din, from which it became impossible, eventually, to distinguish the wailing of the misrepresented from the jeering of the triumphant. That the most eminent of that fraternity, together with the rookies, fell hook, line and sinker for Bol’s promised pot of gold and prestige, that they were seduced into suspending their common sense, much before their journalistic hunch could warn them of the dubious nature of that promise, comes as no real surprise.
Pakistan, till the 1980s, was a country where economic insecurity, tradition and social and political conservatism defined the mass social outlook. Together these elements informed personal and communal attitudes and understanding about what constituted morality, progress and ambition. The mass social perception of the dichotomy between right and wrong, though perhaps not always put into practice, was nevertheless clearer back then. This social perception crafted popular attitudes of caution, of an aversion to risk-taking and of constant introspection, in the middle classes of this writer’s generation, born in the 1970s. From there on a transformation occurred. Something changed by the end of the 1980s and it changed real fast.
The information explosion of the 1990s caused a social transformation. On the one hand was witnessed unfettered access to information, the impact of instant communication, the speed of global movement, the increased pleasure of consumption through access to foreign markets; while on the other, the gradual breakdown of law and order and security, the disintegration of the political order (Bhutto’s hanging being the watershed event in this regard), the deteriorating standards of public education, together with the proliferation of a reductive and backward looking religiosity. And from the ashes of the previous order emerged a new social outlook, a unique post-modern zeitgeist in a country that remained pre-industrial, agrarian, feudal and yet found itself suddenly placed as a nervous passenger, along with the rest of the world, on the bullet train of globalisation.
Economic insecurity leading to caution, which had been endemic to the middling condition, had inspired a defensive posture at the personal and social level in the face of the harsh realities of modern life. While we cannot regard that conservatism as entirely desirable, it was now replaced with its complete antithesis: unrelenting ambition, self-serving individualism, the ideals of consumerism, insatiable appetites for wealth, for constant over stimulation of the senses, and the desire to mimic the culture of the affluent west. Among the first casualties was the collapse of the older traditions and values one could have described as modern, replaced only with the empty posturing, the bogus piety and the unrelenting hypocrisy of our current religious ethos.
For the products of this social transformation, the army of go-getters, short-cut seekers and thrill chasers nurtured in the 90s, nothing is sacred or profane. For the sake of progress (read: the accumulation of wealth and material comfort), anything goes. Compromises of principles, of ethics, of morality are easily justified as long as they can serve a material purpose. The growing exploitation of the weak and disenfranchised is regarded only with a shrug as mere unavoidable collateral damage in the quest for material advancement. That is increasingly the character of our current social milieu, whether we like it or not. And together with Generation X, we the generations of the 70s and 80s and perhaps even earlier are all unwilling or willing participants in it.
The Bol/Axact scandal, a mere symptom of what I have described above, nevertheless gives us a chance to pause and reflect. We can be sure that no mass totalising change, no new grand narrative to give effect to yet another social transformation – a more positive one that may reverse the deleterious effects of the one that began in the 90s – is in the offing.
A change in attitudes will first have to take place at a personal level. We could do this by giving our children the right kind of education – one that is secular, involves an honest reckoning of our cultural, political and social history, decries hypocrisy and, finally, which does not unnecessarily sneer at the traditions and values of our ancestors. To re-educate the young in this manner would be a daunting task, no doubt, given the retrogressive atmosphere of our country. It would be rendered particularly challenging in the absence of real-life role models – education without example is mere exhortation after all. But it would be an important first step that may salvage the hope for a better, more dignified future.

Email: kmushir@hotmail.com
Twitter: @kmushir