In the mirror of reality

When advised to paint a positive image of Pakistan, what does one do? This is something that I have constantly struggled with as a journalist and a columnist. On the one hand, the profession devolves on a journalist the responsibility of telling truth to power and on the other, any isolated evidence of glory or joy gets tainted with the harsh realities of our existence when put in context.

This, to be sure, is not to say that we don’t have nice things to say about some aspects of what we encounter in our daily lives. All of us have known individuals who have committed themselves to serving specific causes. We have high achievers in our midst and very smart people who make you feel proud of your society and country. We usually find spaces in our private sphere where we feel contented.

In a collective sense, too, there are social organisations that do such good work to reduce the sufferings of the underprivileged sections of our society. A number of institutions have truly made a difference in such areas as health and education. And we know about them because the media has occasionally been covering and applauding their activities.

We also have show business, fashion and sports that can brighten the lives of so many citizens of all ages. This week, for instance, we were happy to see cricketer Yasir Shah breaking a major Test record. Particularly in this season, there is a spurt of cultural activity in the major cities and local festivals in many places across the country. The media dutifully takes notice of these events.

Ah, but when it comes to celebrating the most distinguished Pakistanis on the global stage, what do we do, say, with Dr Abdus Salam and Malala Yousafzai – the only two Nobel laureates that this country has produced? Sadly, both of them are not admired at the popular level, though for different reasons. This would be difficult to explain before a foreign audience.

I occasionally get the opportunity to speak to groups of college students and young professionals at educational institutions and civil society seminars. Almost invariably, it is a heartbreaking experience and I don’t know why I continue to accept these invitations. It is perhaps because in every group there are always a few individuals who inspire my hope in the future of this country – a faint hope, at best. We boast about our youth bulge, but the quality of our human resources is unacceptably poor.

A reference to Malala is my measure to gauge the leanings of a group because I feel that hints of animosity towards Malala are an expression of dormant germs of extremism and intolerance. If you remember, it was a stark contradiction between Malala and the Taliban – both sides representing a particular mindset. Now, if I were to report the results of these exercises, conducted also in apparently enlightened groups, I would stand guilty of projecting a very dark image of Pakistan.

There is another exercise that I prescribe for graduate students. I ask them to make their own portrait of Pakistan by making a file or a scrapbook of facts, figures and images of their choice. It becomes an excuse for compiling the country’s vital statistics. Enticing vistas of the mountainous north generally provide the silver lining in the picture that is painted. It is my experience that most young people don’t know much about the grim realities of Pakistan, such as where the sixth most populous country in the world stands in UNDP’s Human Development Index.

When it comes to social or economic indicators, Pakistan is unfortunately located at the bottom of South Asia in many authentic surveys. This is something that we will need to banish from our minds if we wish to retain our emotional peace and serenity. A comparison with Bangladesh, considered a ‘basket case’ when it was born in 1971 in this month of December, has to be conscientiously avoided.

Population growth, one of our most pressing national problems, was highlighted this week when a symposium was held at the Supreme Court, attended by Prime Minister Imran Khan and Chief Justice Saqib Nisar. But the lead story on the symposium in this newspaper was headlined: ‘Panama laid basis for Naya Pakistan: PM’.

One impediment to improving Pakistan’s image in the media is that it remains dominated by politics. And that is forever a source of depression. A mere depiction of the statements politicians make, laced with unsightly visuals, is sure to dampen one’s spirit. Think of a clip, for instance, of the Punjab information minister holding forth in a function and you will see what I mean.

There is a dreadful irony here. We are talking about the power of the media in defining the image of Pakistan. But the media has itself been the cause of a negative image of the country. That is because international media organisations have expressed their concern about pressures on our media. They have noted that the overall environment of fear and intimidation has made media professionals exercise a high degree of self-censorship.

At another level, there has been a steady decline in professional standards. Catering to the lowest common denominator, the news channels in particular resort to sensationalism and biased reporting. In addition, most of media houses have suffered financially in the present environment and are forced to curtail their staff. Against this backdrop, the morale of the media is quite low.

There is no doubt that Pakistan is a major South Asian country in a strategically important region. It stands out as a nation that has fought a long war against terrorism, with commendable success. The world cannot ignore a nuclear state of such great potential because of its natural and human resources. In that sense, it shouldn’t be difficult for it to stay in global headlines for the right reasons.

There is another thought. If the Pakistani media is professionally adept and objective in portraying the reality of Pakistan, warts and all, the image it conveys should not be negative. The message should be that we have big problems, but we are sincerely struggling to set things right. An impression that the media is being constrained from telling the truth about the national state of affairs is bound to be counterproductive.

Finally, it is not solely the media that portrays the image of a country. Pakistan needs to improve its status in crucial assessments of progress and national achievements. That would be a more credible representation of who we are.

The writer is a senior journalist.

Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com