How to aid a terrorist

When we think of terrorism, we imagine bomb blasts: suicide bombers wearing vests with explosives and ‘handlers’ leading these killers to their targets. Sometimes we may think about training camps, or parcels left at busy places or perhaps gun attacks. To us, terrorists are those unknown figures who creep into our lives and create mayhem and panic within them. Most of us are now familiar with the sense of dread terrorism brings: the drills involving the collection of children from schools, the questions asked by the children, the checks to ensure relatives and friends are safe and then those long spells in front of televisions to keep track of the ‘news’ – or what passes for it.

The content of this news needs to be reviewed. The time has come when it has become quite obvious that we need a greater degree of maturity, responsibility and professionalism in our newsrooms and in the presentation of news. The conflicting reports that dominated the airways all through the day after the ‘blast’ in Lahore, simply contributed to panic and difficulty in obtaining anything resembling an answer. People were driven into a near chaotic situation in Gulberg because of misreporting regarding a bomb found there.

Surely, the first thing TV channels need to learn is their responsibility to the public and the need to ensure the accuracy of a news item before it goes on air. Yes, this can be difficult in a situation where news is coming in fast and where even official spokespersons seem to be creating confusion about the sequences of events. But nevertheless, the primary role of those handling news is to provide information that can be relied upon rather than to terrorise people.

When they fail to provide accurate information, they are in fact aiding the terrorists directly. The purpose or motive behind the actions of terrorist groups is, after all, to create terror in society. They do so through their bombs and through laying sieges on important offices; they do this by gunning down key figures or those who represent the law-enforcement agencies. The media performs the same task in a much easier and even more efficient manner by simply putting out reports which lead to all kinds of conjecture, uncertainties and general chaos. This after all is what the terrorists strive for. If someone else can do it for them, they would naturally rejoice.

The TV channels are not alone in their game. Tens of thousands of people using their social media accounts or WhatsApp send out messages with information that is completely untrue and highly misleading. In many cases, these messages also contain a request to forward them to as many people as possible, making sure the false news is disseminated widely and swiftly. Often, a high-level official is cited as having been the source of the news, and in some particularly curious cases, it has been claimed that even the ISPR has put out warnings, strangely enough through WhatsApp, telling citizens not to visit specific malls or parks.

We would assume that our armed forces which are already fighting very real battles on both our eastern and western fronts as well as within the country would have other things to do than sending out messages stating a particular shopping centre may be under threat. There has been some evidence to suggest such messages are sometimes put out by business rivals or simply as some kind of perceived prank intended perhaps to frighten others. The motives and logic are not easy to understand.

But in a nation that has developed a distinctly voyeuristic temperament, where people stand and record footage of children writhing in pain after a terrorist attack rather than rushing to help them, these actions are perhaps not particularly surprising. They are, however, certainly disturbing and indicate the need to create far greater responsibility among ordinary citizens as well as a general sense of empathy which can help them realise that fanning terror and pushing the force forward will in no way help our nation or its people.

It is important that this quest begin with the television channels. While social media, globally, is almost impossible to control given its very nature, the mainstream media can be made to follow particular codes of conduct and should be subject to legal action when it violates these. This is the norm globally, and should be the norm in our own country as well. The hype and hysteria created by TV channels and anchors has led to an extreme mistrust of news and therefore greater difficulty in controlling the perceptions and sentiments of people.

Of course, we do not want to use mind-control tactics. We do not want to control the free flow of information. We saw the disastrous impact of these during past decades when only one official channel put out the news to the public, and every viewer was left to make up his or her own mind about its authenticity. In many cases, they knew what was being said was blatantly false. But we should consider if this was in some ways a better situation than the one in which thousands rush to text friends and relatives about their latest update from a television channel, unaware that this piece of information has been neither verified nor corroborated. In the haste to obtain what we call breaking news, all rules of ethical journalism have long ago been abandoned and two-and-a-half decades after private television channels took to the air in what we had all seen as a hugely positive step, there appears to be no change in this.

Certainly, the step is a positive one. Access to more information, a wider variety of views, can never be a bad thing. But there is a desperate need for responsibility, for ethics, for good judgement. In one way or the other, our mainstream media at least has to find it within itself to put up the internal safeguards that can ensure this. If it fails to do so, much like the less formal social media which by its very nature operates outside the boundaries of control, it is acting as a mechanism to spread false news and terror widely and quickly, thereby creating greater panic in society.

The lack of credibility enjoyed by the government or the police does not help matters. But the role played by those who have no direct affiliation with the militant or extremist groups in spreading the haunting shadow of terror and mayhem needs to be brought under check. This may not be a completely easy task.

As we saw during the Lahore gas cylinder blast, which even after the truth was known, led to people continuing their attempts to portray as a terrorist operation followed by a massive cover-up. The manner, in which terror was depicted in society, during and after this episode, makes the situation all the more alarming.

Yes, Pakistan as a country has been the worst victim in the world of terror. Yes, few mourn its very real losses. But we inflict further damage on ourselves by failing to stick to rationale, blindly believing all kinds of obviously deranged conspiracy theories and acting with shocking haste to send these further with one quick click of the button on our cell phones. This pattern of behaviour has to stop.

The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor.

Email: kamilahyat@hotmail.com