“When distant and unfamiliar and complex things are communicated to great masses of people, the truth suffers a considerable and often a radical distortion. The complex is made over into the simple, the hypothetical into the dogmatic, and the relative into an absolute,” Walter Lippmann
This naturally seems a familiar statement. In Pakistan we have places made distant and unfamiliar through the unwillingness of the mainstream to try to get familiar with. The mainstream means the socio-political elite, the predominant majority of masses, and also the media. Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Fata, is an example of this “radical distortion,” both nationally and globally.
The image of Fata is more or less mythical. It has the mercurial disadvantage of ranging from bravery to savagery. Changing times have changed the meanings and then the very words changed. Traditional hospitality, once the greatest virtue of being a Pakhtoon, is now translated into tendency of harboring terrorists, while bravery is easily translatable into violence that could easily be generalized into the term in vogue, terrorism.
Now the strength (and, at the same time, weakness) of human mind is that “we are all captives of the picture in our head - our belief that the world we have experienced is the world that really exists,” as Lippmann points out again. These pictures in our heads get transmitted through interaction with other human beings, communication, and also happenings in our individual and collective life. Our experience to distant lands was earlier restricted to verbal narratives that transformed into stories and then into books. The new world gets this through the power of the mass media.
The media is the storyteller of our times, the revealer and image-maker of distant and complex human denominations. It also decides what is far and what is near. A musical competition or comedy show in India is near, while a school in Khyber Agency is far and away. How could it happen? All the controversies involved in the former are brushed under the carpet, while all the familiarities and commonalities are taken as non-existent in case of the latter. This is distortion, plain and simple. But how does it happen? The answer is simple and complex at the same time. To keep it simple the bad sells best in the case of Fata, while the best sells the best in case of India. People are fed up with India bashing and the world also wants us to be friends. The package naturally includes a public image of steadily rising harmony through the mass media. But media is a theater of conflict; motley of changing patterns. There is an inbuilt need to strike a balance by transferring demons to another convenient location. Fata is convenient, it is globally accepted as the home to all bogeymen on the planet.
Now the challenge at hand is to sift the true from the false, the accident from the incident, and the human from the brutal. Pakistani media is unable to do this in case of Fata. Reasons are many. Being rural, which makes them a victim of urban bias of journalists, is one natural drawback Fata shares with the rest of the rural backwaters in Pakistan. Journalists are not able to overcome their urban/civilized bias, while talking about this region in Pakistan. There are also historical reasons that add preconceptions to misconceptions. Fata is seen till date through colonial glasses. This is true for all of Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa, but even more for the tribal areas. The Great Game between Tsarist Russia and the British Crown preconditioned a buffer zone. The British were not in a mood to venture into Afghanistan, but they were also not very enthusiastic about anything on the other side of the Indus. To cut the long story short this part of the empire was kept as the lawless frontier. But this lawlessness was not the people’s choice. It was thrust upon an innocent people under a system of governance that still exists. But the propaganda, the mainstream propaganda at that time, declared this place Yaghistan, the land of the unruly.
Now this is the image Pakistani media carries further till date. After 9/11 this has become a global nomenclature, never overtly uttered, but always implied. There are many slips of tongue that affirm the existence of this mindset. “Name them, kill them” has worked really well. All this is propped up on the idea of “distant and unfamiliar.” The third element is “complexity.” In case of Fata complexity stems from the preceding standpoints. Perceptions are kept and then further molded through keeping the image of far and away in tact. Why do the journalists and media organizations do this? Why don’t they strive to know the human reality of the people living in this part of the country? First, “blood sells best in the media.” The owners have vested interest in keeping the devil alive. Journalists covering Fata always complain that even if they try to give the human aspect of their hometowns, it is never entertained. This, despite the fact, that every news organization has a Fata desk. The editors’ answer to it is that such news either represents vested interests or are very poorly presented. This might be true, but it is a partial truth. There are many other areas where correspondents are not unto the mark, but since these sensations sell, nobody cares. These are accommodated.
The other more dangerous aspect of this commission and omission is being part of the global media. This is the very basic fact behind keeping the human face of Fata hidden. The veil is kept tight, both by local correspondents and their comrades in main offices for the sake of their own convenience. It is true that media men in Pakistan really need rigorous training to understand and interpret the present reality. But their deliberate attempt to keep the situation complex and murky is not simply unprofessional, but criminal. Media and media men must understand the fact that by neglecting the human dimension of Fata they are actively participating in the plight of innocent women, children, young and old, people who are victims of a vicious cobweb of crimes against humanity. The children of Fata need a better world than their fathers and forefathers. Media has the power to represent them as human beings. This responsibility should be met. The child singing in India is our own, no question about it. But the child reeling under misery in Fata is also no alien.
