Dear All,
Something happened last month that got me thinking about the question of handling the media narrative in Pakistan. The columnist ‘Mazdaki’ (Dr M. Taqi) was told by the newspaper he had written for over the last six years (Daily Times, owned by Salman Taseer’s family) that his services would no longer be required. A fellow columnist Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur, who is a Baloch, writing on Balochistan issues was told the same thing. Their editor (Rashed Rahman) in an email to Dr Taqi wrote he had tried his best to block the decision but then had eventually resigned.
Rahman is now serving out his notice period and has chosen not to comment publicly on the matter.
The Mazdaki column has been one of the few pieces in the Pakistani media which has been very critical of the security forces’ alleged links with Taliban groups as well as of Pakistan’s so-called Afghan policy. Although Dr Taqi is a US-based physician, his hometown is Peshawar. He has been politically active through his student days and he has lived through the Zia and post-Zia eras in Pakistan. His most recent columns were particularly critical of the military’s fight against militants, and also many patriotic people were outraged by his remarks on Army Chief General Raheel Sharif’s recent visit to the US.
But the columnist was particularly indignant about reports that Taliban militants killed in a US and/or Afghan forces strike in Afghanistan last month were buried in well attended funerals in Pakistan where mourners even raised jihadi slogans with seeming impunity: "the corpses were …brought into the lower Dir region of KP from Afghanistan. At least 22 bodies were buried in Timargah in a funeral attended by hundreds if not thousands, including some elected officials from Dir".
Taqi was unforgiving in his criticism that the idea of the state using jihad could only explode into chaos. He ended his column saying, "It is fine to talk about helping Afghanistan negotiate with the Taliban but unless there is a crackdown on the influx of the slew of jihadists making their way into that hapless country, it is all just pie in the sky." And so that was the end of the Mazdaki column.
But the decision by the newspaper management in this matter is not unusual or unique. Most media outlets deal with similar pressures on a day-to-day basis. The screws are turned on them through the withdrawal of advertising revenue or publishing or broadcast licenses -- or just in the form of clear threats. Most choose to steer a middle course by accepting and repeating the narratives dictated to them, with some also cleverly slipping in the occasional bold or independent report or analysis. It is a simple balancing act because obviously the country’s national security apparatus, on its part, needs to look out for dangers and threats to the existence of the state. Well-meaning journalists or analysts spewing undesirable revelations or criticisms can weaken the state and so they do need to be advised or censured. It’s a balancing act -- it always has been.
Of course the major challenge is to not blindly label anybody who questions the security narrative (for example Edward Snowden) as a traitor.
December 16 marks one year since the terrorist attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar in which 141 people (including 132 young students) were massacred. Reportedly some teachers were decapitated, some were burned alive. This is what happens when we turn a blind eye to the rise of militant networks and their systems of patronage.
We should never forget.
Best wishes