I went home to my village. Not far from Peshawar. Homecoming is always sweet. Family, loved ones, known faces, with centuries of acquaintance in every eye. I am a kind of a celebrity over there. The guy from the city who made it without the help of his village roots, his family name and his father's pride. These are bad times for landowners. The money modern luxury, or even comfort, requires couldn't be found toiling the land. This is the Pashtoon heartland, inhabited by people who love family feuds and losing their sons in them. Loss is a cultural thing. Loss is a sense of pride.
But this time around I saw a woman working at home. I saw her earlier also. She had this calm and quiet demeanor, something that aspires respect and sorrow at the same time. She didn't have the tongue in cheek attitude of the housemaids. She had that deep sorrow in her eyes. Quietly doing all she was asked to do. I asked about what she earns a month. "500 Rupees and food," was the answer. "And she works all day long, till you ask her to leave," I asked. "Yes, she is a good woman," came the compliment. I was told the woman had a home and land of her own. The family had lost it. They had to come from nearby village to secure a few meals, and this is what she got.
Her eyes followed my kids, my wife, and myself with appreciation, sadness, and solemnity. "What is she thinking." Nobody need to be an Einstein to solve the riddle. Her own kids' hunger, her own haplessness, and uprooted life compared with the homecoming of the city guys. I can't enjoy anything. I just sat there. My wife came to me, whispering in my ear,"she looks different". "I know," I told her. She had never served as housemaid before. She had lost all she had and is new into servility. "We should help her," she said. "Sure", I told her, "This is the least we can do."
Individual philanthropy is good, but it is never an answer to such an enormous question of poverty. It never retrieves self respect. The begging bowl doesn't vanish with the magic wand of individual philanthropy. It satisfies the ego of the giver, while puts a loaf of bread into the mouth of the needy, without the guarantee of this arrangement being permanent. There is also a difference between philanthropy and generosity. Generosity fulfills the needs of the needy, or it doesn't but gives some support, without necessarily feeling empathy for the needy. It thus never rehabilitates. It never helps the needy regain her/his self respect. Philanthropy on the other hand is a helping hand with a heart. If one can't see the need of ones own little children in the eyes of those in need, there is little hope that the people in need would ever be able to rise above subhuman level.
Is our society ready to take this step towards humanity? This is the question all of us have to ask ourselves. This is nothing to be taught, but something to be felt. It is the process of sublimation among individuals as well as social units, the society as a whole. The excuse of being in trying times and under immense pressure from all sides is not a valid one. It is, in fact, during the worst times that the greatest achievements in humanity could be made. If this is true, our time is ripe.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
A Nation Losing Hope
Pakistan is one of the countries we euphemistically call “transitional societies”. The transition has gone rotten due to the apathy of the society and state to get out of the transition phase into a stable life cycle.
What are the people of this land thinking? They live in a constant fear of death, their own, that of their loved ones. Rising prices of the everyday subsistence commodities is spiralling everyone down into the pit of poverty. Joblessness and social inequality is pinching harder every passing day. The unholy silence of all political actors to bring any positive change in the country has become unbearable. The mainstream political parties are busy in personal vendetta, forgetting the mandate of the people altogether. This is the narrative of a situation, which the common man directly experiences in the shape of terrorism, corruption, social and political inequality, and the loss of faith in life and its humane cycle by the youth of the nation.
This is the present of Pakistan. The present has become too painful, because it has a sordid past. More than a decade of terror-ridden environment, endemic corruption from the very onset of the national existence, and the abysmal living conditions for many of the hapless for many decades has really taken its toll.
People don’t trust anybody. They are not even thinking about change. And this is dangerous. If a people lose all hope, they naturally decide to take desperate measures in desperate situations. Civil wars are an outcome of such anarchic life situation. If nobody helps, lets help ourselves. Take the control of things into our own hands. When small sections of a society are forced to think on these lines, they decide to go for and Armageddon, the final battle between good and evil; with the conviction that they are destined to win. They are convinced of the rightfulness of their action. This is a partial truth also. Their grievances are justified and their struggle is right. But the problem begins with the very modalities of the struggle for emancipation and the final victory of truth.
The people of Pakistan are truly the victims of atrocities by design. But the problem lies in the way they decide to tackle their misery. They don’t have a clear perception of the root causes of their problems and there is no intellectual leadership to spearhead this analytical-strategic movement for the ultimate victory of the right over the wrong. The superficial media analysis on TV talk shows is the only intellectual asset the poor people have right now. The political leadership has already been discredited and the number of sacred cows is on the rise everyday.
Where do we stand as a nation? In a void. The country is really divided into the haves and have-nots. The whole world is being run like this in one way or another. But across the globe either there is an institution called government that stands between the haves avarice for power and the larger populace yearning for justice. Or there is a relationship of benevolent autocracy ruling the interaction between both sides of the divide. Pakistan was an example of the latter until lately. This is no more. The haves are busy cobbling up newer alliances to retain as much power as possible, be it being in the government or the phony role of the opposition. They are but not mindful of one thing. The alliances and manoeuvrings are for the sake of ruling the masses, through carrot or stick, whichever works best at a given moment.
But the problem right now is that there is nobody to rule. People no more believe in the sham called democracy. They are on their own. They are living in an anarchy that is not yet declared as one. The dangerous side of the issue is that nobody accepts the abyss gazing back into our eyes. There is no more room for pretentions. This is the moment of truth. The governance structure’s failure is no allegation anymore. Trust deficit is not an issue anymore. Nobody cares or thinks about the trust issue. People are convinced that there is no government, despite the TV appearances and the money sucking buildings known as pillars of the state, home of the most corrupt in the land.
The loss of faith in everything civil in this country is the most dangerous turn in our national history. It is no more child play, as most of the self-beguiling spin-doctors still try to believe. I won’t like to end the whole discussion on a pessimistic note, but the reality facing us squarely allows no other way of defining the present. The present quiet among the masses in Pakistan is the immanent sign of an unprecedented upheaval to happen. Something that won’t be controllable through any means known to the national gurus and the international big brains. To avert all this needs honest action. There is no more time left for soul searching, the euphemism to buy time for doing nothing. The trillion-dollar question is “who will get into this action, who will make the move.” There is none to answer this question. The question confront us belligerently while the clock is ticking.
What are the people of this land thinking? They live in a constant fear of death, their own, that of their loved ones. Rising prices of the everyday subsistence commodities is spiralling everyone down into the pit of poverty. Joblessness and social inequality is pinching harder every passing day. The unholy silence of all political actors to bring any positive change in the country has become unbearable. The mainstream political parties are busy in personal vendetta, forgetting the mandate of the people altogether. This is the narrative of a situation, which the common man directly experiences in the shape of terrorism, corruption, social and political inequality, and the loss of faith in life and its humane cycle by the youth of the nation.
This is the present of Pakistan. The present has become too painful, because it has a sordid past. More than a decade of terror-ridden environment, endemic corruption from the very onset of the national existence, and the abysmal living conditions for many of the hapless for many decades has really taken its toll.
People don’t trust anybody. They are not even thinking about change. And this is dangerous. If a people lose all hope, they naturally decide to take desperate measures in desperate situations. Civil wars are an outcome of such anarchic life situation. If nobody helps, lets help ourselves. Take the control of things into our own hands. When small sections of a society are forced to think on these lines, they decide to go for and Armageddon, the final battle between good and evil; with the conviction that they are destined to win. They are convinced of the rightfulness of their action. This is a partial truth also. Their grievances are justified and their struggle is right. But the problem begins with the very modalities of the struggle for emancipation and the final victory of truth.
The people of Pakistan are truly the victims of atrocities by design. But the problem lies in the way they decide to tackle their misery. They don’t have a clear perception of the root causes of their problems and there is no intellectual leadership to spearhead this analytical-strategic movement for the ultimate victory of the right over the wrong. The superficial media analysis on TV talk shows is the only intellectual asset the poor people have right now. The political leadership has already been discredited and the number of sacred cows is on the rise everyday.
Where do we stand as a nation? In a void. The country is really divided into the haves and have-nots. The whole world is being run like this in one way or another. But across the globe either there is an institution called government that stands between the haves avarice for power and the larger populace yearning for justice. Or there is a relationship of benevolent autocracy ruling the interaction between both sides of the divide. Pakistan was an example of the latter until lately. This is no more. The haves are busy cobbling up newer alliances to retain as much power as possible, be it being in the government or the phony role of the opposition. They are but not mindful of one thing. The alliances and manoeuvrings are for the sake of ruling the masses, through carrot or stick, whichever works best at a given moment.
But the problem right now is that there is nobody to rule. People no more believe in the sham called democracy. They are on their own. They are living in an anarchy that is not yet declared as one. The dangerous side of the issue is that nobody accepts the abyss gazing back into our eyes. There is no more room for pretentions. This is the moment of truth. The governance structure’s failure is no allegation anymore. Trust deficit is not an issue anymore. Nobody cares or thinks about the trust issue. People are convinced that there is no government, despite the TV appearances and the money sucking buildings known as pillars of the state, home of the most corrupt in the land.
The loss of faith in everything civil in this country is the most dangerous turn in our national history. It is no more child play, as most of the self-beguiling spin-doctors still try to believe. I won’t like to end the whole discussion on a pessimistic note, but the reality facing us squarely allows no other way of defining the present. The present quiet among the masses in Pakistan is the immanent sign of an unprecedented upheaval to happen. Something that won’t be controllable through any means known to the national gurus and the international big brains. To avert all this needs honest action. There is no more time left for soul searching, the euphemism to buy time for doing nothing. The trillion-dollar question is “who will get into this action, who will make the move.” There is none to answer this question. The question confront us belligerently while the clock is ticking.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Selling Dreams of the Wretched
"Today I believe in the possibility of love; that is why I endeavor to trace its imperfections, its perversions", Frantz Fanon in Black Skin, White Masks.
As for love, we are seeing signs of fatigue in hatred towards Fata in the international community. Accompanying it is the yearning to see the human face of Fata. People want to know whether beneath the gun running image there lies a human face, smiling faces of little kids, school going (longing to have a school at all), men and women living in human relations (like any part of the world), parents wanting to get food for their sons and daughters, women looking forward to see their men alive and stressless, men making it possible to see their families without fear of losing them or themselves. This all is not yet consciously brought to the table by the world around Fata, including the ignocent Pakistanis living out of the troubled region, sharing the national existence, but not feeling the pain of the wretched of this part of the earth as part of the national organism.
This makes the world of non-pashtoons a human denomination ready to know about Fata soon, if not already keen enough to be conscious of this yearning. But here we are faced with another very basic question. What if the world asks to give the real picture of these people? Are we ready, do we have the skills to do it? If yes, how? Who will do it?
We need a story, a truth going out. Who will write the story? It is already there, myriads of them. Who will narrate it and how? This is the question. Everybody could narrate it. But the problem with a story is that it needs to fit the flavor of the audience. The world is literally a stage to put this tiny little place and this small number of people on it. Most of the audience will reject it on the very basis of being too negligible a part of the world, a spot whose existence is not even recognized as a human denomination by the people living within the geographical boundaries of the state, Pakistan. Why should we listen to it? Believe me I have been thorough this in the West, especially Europe. "Why to work on this tiny little spot. The whole country is a mess. Whats special about this part?" I won't go into the answer scheme, because it is a topic within itself.
What it tells it is that the story is not easy to tell. It is difficult. It needs a strategic narration. bringing the human face of Fata to the fore is against the vested interests of the best story telling apparatus at hand, the mass media. What other options do we have to give the right forum to the human story of Fata. There are not many, if we are talking about the world as an audience. We do talk about community media a lot, but if the world is the stage and the whole of it is watching, we need something bigger to tell the story. But it is easier said than done. The mainstream doesn't sell humanity, it sells sensation. But it never admits doing it. It needs a human face. The arguments the mainstream has against the human story of Fata is threefold. One, there is no access to the real story (they can't afford saying there is no story,) secondly, there is no good narration; and thirdly, they are afraid of experiments. They have businesses to run and appetites to feed. In the age of breakneck competition, one can't afford novelties. This is the meekest and most low tuned of all three arguments, never heard so obviously, but it is there.
Now teachnically, all these three arguments could be summarized into three main themes: access to real life situation in Fata, capacity of local journalists (the ones with access), and the editorial policy (financial interest, to be honest.)
How to deal with the issue? How to make the story public? The workable scheme in this regard is to build the capacity of journalists with access to look for the human aspect of the story, their own story, and then narrate it in a manner that could have the possible positive impact on the global audience. Now this issue is directly related to another very important aspect, the market. Being acceptable to the market is one big challenge. Rest assure that even if the former two hurdles are overcome, the mainstream will still not budge an inch. It will still remain apathetic to the humane aspects of life in this region. It needs proof that something could sell. Yes, the mainstream might buy the so called success stories, the profiles of the exception that prove the very opposite in real life. There is need to prove the market value of the stories from Fata. This is more of a public relations job than that of reporting, story telling. It is a strategic component of the whole issue.
Creating a market, proving that the human story could be sold, without losing the financial package, is the job. We need community media to make this happen. Journalists, amateur story tellers (students, anybody with something to tell,) should use the venues of proliferation, community media, to get help in getting their stories to the next level, to the audience that matter; not yet the real audience.
Media follow the news elite. They also have to do a lot of PR, cover whatever an elite says. The elite also has to keep their public face alive, no matter what their personal opinions are. They will always put a nice word for the humane image of Fata. They might not simply do it out of pretension. This might be their first exposure to such stories. If this is well done, more than half the battle is won. The mainstream gets a taste of the human side of the wretched of the earth. Once this image reaches the public through an elitist corridor, the bandwagon starts rolling. People will ask for it. Media will be forced to allocate resources, appoint professionals, change the editorial design, and all that it takes. They smell blood, they go for it. They went for human rights, lawyers' movement, and so many other things; not out of their love for it, but because they smelled profit, they smelled getting an edge over the over.
The children of Fata do have a chance to be heard. It needs a strategy to make their voice heard, their faces seen, their impressions recognized as a testament to being human. Even a humane cause needs a crafty strategist with a soul to make it happen. Humanity is not easy to serve, but it is doable for sure.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
THE HUMAN FACE OF FATA
“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.
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.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Turning the Idiot Box into a Useful Audiovisual Experience
"Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads," George Bernard Shaw.
These words seem familiar. Aren't we living in a society where every word we read has a background? It is always essential reading, the most important thing. The audacity of expression is long lost, but we have also lost the courage to read what we wish, what is not essential reading, not a ‘must read’ in order to float easily in the sea of absurdity. Do we need to change? Yes we do. Reading the book nobody reads leads to indulgence in discourse nobody understands, though everybody approves. This brings the society at large into a circular discourse. The argument revolving around the news of the day. Thus, terrorism, power-tariff, corrupt politicians, and so on. This is the taste of our times. We have become men "of great common sense and good taste", social robots. We talk the talk most of the time. This makes us socially acceptable, but the cost is "originality and moral courage", as Shaw puts it.
Who leads this circle of anomalies? The media. The media is the book of our times. Every anchor is running a chapter.
We have become spectators of our own happenings. The lead role of the media is nothing new in sub-continent. This country has emerged and lived through confusing times. From the very onset there was a lot of external and unknown elements in the national discourse. The division of India, which became the Independence of India and Pakistan, entailed one of the biggest migrations in human history. Both of the new nations, Pakistan being newer than the counterpart, needed information about these deadly travels. The need was satisfied through the media and also literature, which until recently had the tragedy of the Partition as its most dominant theme. Even earlier the unification of Muslims across the globe remained one important theme for major Muslim thinkers/politicians, whose one important vehicle was the newspaper.
This defined the taste of the new nation as well as the role of its media. Current columns in Urdu newspapers are a continuation of this lead role. These roles are in dire need of change with the growth of private television, armed with live talk shows. The dominant discourse has also changed a lot. We are living in a state of war, with no definite enemy in sight. The common man doesn’t really know why his child can’t play around the way he did? What has changed? The structure of television gives us a great advantage to answer this and similar vital questions posed by the traumatised audience looking for guidance and fellow feeling.
The limitations of private TV are not difficult to understand. Private TV does know that it is the new book we all are supposed to read. What it doesn’t understand though is that due to a decade of training in self-censorship the very fabric of our self-proclaimed independent media is not fit to become the book we need to read. Private TV is new. It is not a time factor, but rather one of capacity. The workforce this medium is getting is mainly from print. Current lead TV anchors are people from print. They deal with audiovisual as they used to deal with print in the good old days. But their problem gets deeper when they are asked to do what they have never done in print, in their self-designed columns. It is live interviewing. Interview is the most difficult art for a media professional. Its scale gets even higher when it is audiovisual, reaching the highest when it comes to live interviews, and especially group interviews. This is what talk shows affecting many lives are all about. A fashion talk show is different from the ones that are based upon the day’s happenings and these are also being tragic, frustrating most of the time.
The first and foremost requirement for a TV show that provides its audience with content worth watching, is orientation training for the hot shots, known as prime time TV anchors. The men and women who have either a useless narrative, sarcastic style, or who imitate US talk shows. The aggressive style of many female anchors is nothing but an imitation of other countries. This is an ethical issue. These guys need to know the ethics of their job. This ethics is based upon social responsibility towards the audience; of not taking the audience as wet clay waiting to be moulded by the magic wands they carry in their words. They must understand the reason behind the whole media structure and specifically the needs of the Pakistani audience.
No matter how big the egos of the famous anchors, they still need training. They need an introduction to TV journalism, to the art of concept building for programs and then the selection of topics. This effort should be supported by intense audience research. This is something the whole world is doing except Pakistan. Audience research is an integral element of modern TV. It becomes an imperative when live talk shows aiming at day-to-day life affecting issues are aired.
Once they get this conceptual training they need to learn how to behave on this cool medium as Marshal McLuhan defined it quite early. It is harmful to shout on TV. It is counter productive for the participants, but fatal for the host. If the host remains aggressive all the time or tries to be sly, it won’t bring any good. There is one last genre that needs to be simply supplanted on the TV screen, no matter how useful he seems to be. This is the insipid narrator who poses as a historian, politician, philosopher, academician, reporter, philanthropist, human rights activist, and defender of national and religious ideology; the all in one package guy.
To cut the long story short it is high time to give the people their medium back. To make a serious effort in getting a TV for the audience. To give them a book to read that is everybody reads and understands.
These words seem familiar. Aren't we living in a society where every word we read has a background? It is always essential reading, the most important thing. The audacity of expression is long lost, but we have also lost the courage to read what we wish, what is not essential reading, not a ‘must read’ in order to float easily in the sea of absurdity. Do we need to change? Yes we do. Reading the book nobody reads leads to indulgence in discourse nobody understands, though everybody approves. This brings the society at large into a circular discourse. The argument revolving around the news of the day. Thus, terrorism, power-tariff, corrupt politicians, and so on. This is the taste of our times. We have become men "of great common sense and good taste", social robots. We talk the talk most of the time. This makes us socially acceptable, but the cost is "originality and moral courage", as Shaw puts it.
Who leads this circle of anomalies? The media. The media is the book of our times. Every anchor is running a chapter.
We have become spectators of our own happenings. The lead role of the media is nothing new in sub-continent. This country has emerged and lived through confusing times. From the very onset there was a lot of external and unknown elements in the national discourse. The division of India, which became the Independence of India and Pakistan, entailed one of the biggest migrations in human history. Both of the new nations, Pakistan being newer than the counterpart, needed information about these deadly travels. The need was satisfied through the media and also literature, which until recently had the tragedy of the Partition as its most dominant theme. Even earlier the unification of Muslims across the globe remained one important theme for major Muslim thinkers/politicians, whose one important vehicle was the newspaper.
This defined the taste of the new nation as well as the role of its media. Current columns in Urdu newspapers are a continuation of this lead role. These roles are in dire need of change with the growth of private television, armed with live talk shows. The dominant discourse has also changed a lot. We are living in a state of war, with no definite enemy in sight. The common man doesn’t really know why his child can’t play around the way he did? What has changed? The structure of television gives us a great advantage to answer this and similar vital questions posed by the traumatised audience looking for guidance and fellow feeling.
The limitations of private TV are not difficult to understand. Private TV does know that it is the new book we all are supposed to read. What it doesn’t understand though is that due to a decade of training in self-censorship the very fabric of our self-proclaimed independent media is not fit to become the book we need to read. Private TV is new. It is not a time factor, but rather one of capacity. The workforce this medium is getting is mainly from print. Current lead TV anchors are people from print. They deal with audiovisual as they used to deal with print in the good old days. But their problem gets deeper when they are asked to do what they have never done in print, in their self-designed columns. It is live interviewing. Interview is the most difficult art for a media professional. Its scale gets even higher when it is audiovisual, reaching the highest when it comes to live interviews, and especially group interviews. This is what talk shows affecting many lives are all about. A fashion talk show is different from the ones that are based upon the day’s happenings and these are also being tragic, frustrating most of the time.
The first and foremost requirement for a TV show that provides its audience with content worth watching, is orientation training for the hot shots, known as prime time TV anchors. The men and women who have either a useless narrative, sarcastic style, or who imitate US talk shows. The aggressive style of many female anchors is nothing but an imitation of other countries. This is an ethical issue. These guys need to know the ethics of their job. This ethics is based upon social responsibility towards the audience; of not taking the audience as wet clay waiting to be moulded by the magic wands they carry in their words. They must understand the reason behind the whole media structure and specifically the needs of the Pakistani audience.
No matter how big the egos of the famous anchors, they still need training. They need an introduction to TV journalism, to the art of concept building for programs and then the selection of topics. This effort should be supported by intense audience research. This is something the whole world is doing except Pakistan. Audience research is an integral element of modern TV. It becomes an imperative when live talk shows aiming at day-to-day life affecting issues are aired.
Once they get this conceptual training they need to learn how to behave on this cool medium as Marshal McLuhan defined it quite early. It is harmful to shout on TV. It is counter productive for the participants, but fatal for the host. If the host remains aggressive all the time or tries to be sly, it won’t bring any good. There is one last genre that needs to be simply supplanted on the TV screen, no matter how useful he seems to be. This is the insipid narrator who poses as a historian, politician, philosopher, academician, reporter, philanthropist, human rights activist, and defender of national and religious ideology; the all in one package guy.
To cut the long story short it is high time to give the people their medium back. To make a serious effort in getting a TV for the audience. To give them a book to read that is everybody reads and understands.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
The Media We Live In
"Exaggeration is truth that has lost its temper," Khalil Gibran. We live in a world of exaggeration. A world blinded by megalomania. We are getting blind every passing day. Collective schizophrenia. It is one of the most dangerous ailments of all. But are we the only ones that are blind. We are surely the damned ones. Whatever goes wrong in the world we become the scapegoats. The world media paints a picture of Pakistanis like a people devoid of any moral obligations. Pakistani media borrows the pictures to strengthen the bias, giving a testimony against their own very people. It is true that "a good government with an adversary press becomes a great government." But the adversarial role doesn't mean borrowed spectacles. Adversary press is a press that confronts the powerful for the sake of the downtrodden; the wretched of the earth. Does Pakistani media play this role? Nowhere in sight. It doesn't own the audience, the very basic rule for mass communication.
Mass media in Pakistan mushroomed at the turn of the millennium. Idiot boxes multiplied through proliferation of private TV channels. 24/7 television is a beast that devours the existing and creates anew. Roots of Pakistani media are in the printed word, the newspaper. Newspaper industry got its vigor from anti-colonial movement, the struggle for Independence. Whenever we look back into history the stalwarts of solo journalism were all political activists. They were all using the only available media, newspaper, to further their political agenda, ideology. This made them watchdogs of political ideology, a befitting role for the times they were in.
It is also very natural to carry on this role after the establishment of the new democracy. Pakistani media remained political in nature after Independence from the British. It had to face the wrath of its new rulers, the custodians of faith and sovereignty. Muzzling the media remained the first priority of every government till date. Post-colonial Pakistan remained a pseudo democratic structure where the rich and the mighty entered the echelons of power through their might over the common man, though the facade of infrastructure conveyed government by the people image to the outside world. Media had to toe the line or perish. This lesson was repeatedly inculcated into the minds of the media by democrats and dictators alike. From beaming noise into radio speeches of the founders of the nation to nationalizing the vocal newspapers under the National Press Trust to the Printing and Publication Ordinance happened within less than 15 years of this nascent country.
Most of the mainstream got the message. The few defiant loners never mattered. State controlled electronic media, a very cautious press, and a lot of journalists forced to self-censorship are the products of the system.
Mushrooming of private electronic media brought a new power player into the game, namely PEMRA. Mainstream television has been seen as a larger than life phenomenon, capable of doing miracles to restore the democratic pride of not only the media but also the people. This is not going to happen. Big media is big business and big business is big money, needing more and more attention span of a viewer, baffled by the variety of audio-visual messages beamed into the bed rooms. Attention seeking turned the much lauded talk-shows into cockfights, sooner to become voices of the unknown by choosing trivia as topics of the day. Every TV channel set a stage for one or more cockfights, marketing the hosts and their discourse in a larger than life manner to overawe the idle recipients of the new audible-color.
Exaggerated accounts of distant happenings are systematically being beamed to people, packaged as idea of the day. As Nietzsche prophetically said more than a century earlier "Big lies are hung to small truths." This is very true for Pakistani TV. Though every debate begins with the people, it progresses and ends in abstraction. The anchor-host has the last word. And more than often this opportunity is used to give a personal message, which is either a sum total of the hour long cockfight, or something altogether out of tune with the debate. No matter which way it goes, it is never the people's way. True, it is packaged into a people's parlance, but the viewer always tries to find her/himself after the awe-inspiring demagogy.
The argument of "a new media learning the art of the possible" is no more valid. I think it is high time for soul searching, if there is any left in the so-called marketplace of ideas. Like the Pakistani nation, its TV audience is the source of all money getting into the journalist-businessmen-owner coffers. The audience should have their day. Media and media-men should learn to respect this truth. The only way to know the needs of the audience is to go through rigorous audience research, knowing what the people want to know. This is the first and most important step to avoid exaggeration that leads to loss of temper. There is a long way ahead to reach the point of knowing the art of doing a democratic, representative media. Playing the adversary to serve vested interests won't last long. It might, but it is not worth. Doing the right thing is nothing patriotic; it is professional. Experiments with exaggerations should give way to practicing the truth. This is the eternal norm of credible communication.
Mass media in Pakistan mushroomed at the turn of the millennium. Idiot boxes multiplied through proliferation of private TV channels. 24/7 television is a beast that devours the existing and creates anew. Roots of Pakistani media are in the printed word, the newspaper. Newspaper industry got its vigor from anti-colonial movement, the struggle for Independence. Whenever we look back into history the stalwarts of solo journalism were all political activists. They were all using the only available media, newspaper, to further their political agenda, ideology. This made them watchdogs of political ideology, a befitting role for the times they were in.
It is also very natural to carry on this role after the establishment of the new democracy. Pakistani media remained political in nature after Independence from the British. It had to face the wrath of its new rulers, the custodians of faith and sovereignty. Muzzling the media remained the first priority of every government till date. Post-colonial Pakistan remained a pseudo democratic structure where the rich and the mighty entered the echelons of power through their might over the common man, though the facade of infrastructure conveyed government by the people image to the outside world. Media had to toe the line or perish. This lesson was repeatedly inculcated into the minds of the media by democrats and dictators alike. From beaming noise into radio speeches of the founders of the nation to nationalizing the vocal newspapers under the National Press Trust to the Printing and Publication Ordinance happened within less than 15 years of this nascent country.
Most of the mainstream got the message. The few defiant loners never mattered. State controlled electronic media, a very cautious press, and a lot of journalists forced to self-censorship are the products of the system.
Mushrooming of private electronic media brought a new power player into the game, namely PEMRA. Mainstream television has been seen as a larger than life phenomenon, capable of doing miracles to restore the democratic pride of not only the media but also the people. This is not going to happen. Big media is big business and big business is big money, needing more and more attention span of a viewer, baffled by the variety of audio-visual messages beamed into the bed rooms. Attention seeking turned the much lauded talk-shows into cockfights, sooner to become voices of the unknown by choosing trivia as topics of the day. Every TV channel set a stage for one or more cockfights, marketing the hosts and their discourse in a larger than life manner to overawe the idle recipients of the new audible-color.
Exaggerated accounts of distant happenings are systematically being beamed to people, packaged as idea of the day. As Nietzsche prophetically said more than a century earlier "Big lies are hung to small truths." This is very true for Pakistani TV. Though every debate begins with the people, it progresses and ends in abstraction. The anchor-host has the last word. And more than often this opportunity is used to give a personal message, which is either a sum total of the hour long cockfight, or something altogether out of tune with the debate. No matter which way it goes, it is never the people's way. True, it is packaged into a people's parlance, but the viewer always tries to find her/himself after the awe-inspiring demagogy.
The argument of "a new media learning the art of the possible" is no more valid. I think it is high time for soul searching, if there is any left in the so-called marketplace of ideas. Like the Pakistani nation, its TV audience is the source of all money getting into the journalist-businessmen-owner coffers. The audience should have their day. Media and media-men should learn to respect this truth. The only way to know the needs of the audience is to go through rigorous audience research, knowing what the people want to know. This is the first and most important step to avoid exaggeration that leads to loss of temper. There is a long way ahead to reach the point of knowing the art of doing a democratic, representative media. Playing the adversary to serve vested interests won't last long. It might, but it is not worth. Doing the right thing is nothing patriotic; it is professional. Experiments with exaggerations should give way to practicing the truth. This is the eternal norm of credible communication.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Small Voices for a Great Future
“There is nothing like dream to create the future. Utopia today, flesh and blood tomorrow”, Victor Hugo
The definition of future in our land has always been enormous. Enormous in the sense of doing something big. Creating a future for a nation. A nation very abstractly defined. We have always remained a people who think big. Thinking big is good, but only if it serves higher interests and also remains beneficial to larger sections of humanity. Here thinking big never had this aim. This is the top to bottom, vertical thinking process that we persistently follow. We always wanted to build a Pakistani nation, the future of our dearly won freedom. This is a great thought. But how did we decide to realize it? We decided to follow dreams of rich and mindless who grafted ideas in isolation. Our education system, so vertically designed, indoctrinated generation after generation that we no more know how to think to get a future for a nation.
Lets think for a moment what a nation really means? It is made of individuals who could be best understood in their small interactive contexts. Contexts we know as communities. Now defining a community is another issue. If we try to get a perfect definition for every human denomination, we shall reach nowhere. Thus the famous saying: "definitions are abstractions and are never comprehensive." The easiest way to define a community is an interactive human entity that shares the joys and sorrows of everyday life in a very direct manner. There is nothing imaginary about knowing each other. If one doesn't have access to water the other doesn't have it either. Availability or non-availability of basic amenities (or luxuries) is a shared issue for a given community. Right now we are not talking about luxuries. We can't afford the luxury of thinking about a community sharing luxuries where basic amenities of life become luxuries.
What could be the definition of a future if we look at the world from the bottom upwards. It would simply be a sum total of most (preferably all) communities getting a better future. It is simple, the greatest good for the greatest number of people. How can we achieve it? Through allowing the greatest number of people get their voice to the greatest number of people. To give a platform to all and sundry (the not too positive term) say whatever the world is in their eyes. To respect this world view. To overcome the prejudice of prejudgement. To allow unsophisticated voices come to the fore. To let people evaluate their immediate environment and respect it with open hearts.
True, this is the death of the mainstream, but what is mainstream. If mainstream doesn't accept the parts that create the whole, it becomes an abstraction. And this is what is happening right now. Even when we send cub reporters to their own small villages, the very villages they left in the morning to come to the university, they get into their parent communities, their mothers and fathers, with a mainstream bias. The psychology of status at work. The "I am better than these simpletons, because I am going to give them a voice." And it is at this point that our community project fails. Our young men and women fail to recognize their own kith and kin.
Overcoming this natural bias is the art of community journalism. This is a typical outcome of backwardness, of predominant illiteracy, of education becoming a privilege. True, the few getting the chance to higher education are privileged, but this also posts a responsibility on the shoulders of the privileged. They are also ambassadors of the underdog. If they fail to recognize their responsibility and act as celebrities in the very courtyards they breathe in day and night, they are doomed. Their communities don't have a future. And if communities don't have a future, there is no nation to think about. We do need dreams to create our future, but we also need to know how to dream.
Community media is one such enterprise that needs technology and humanity at the same time. You can’t feel, you can’t film; you can’t make sense of the simple world around you. A world that is telling its story in thousands of different ways. One has to get rid of preconceptions to listen to the music of the heart. Getting into ones own parent community with a sense of superiority is the worst moral crime of all. It becomes even worse when the visit is meant to bring the reality about the life of a people. State of the art technology is excellent, trainings are a must, but a good heart is a precondition. Journalism for the voiceless is still a mission. It always will remain one. This is one reality never going to change until all ills of human survival on this planet are defeated. Until then we have to keep the torch burning high and bright.
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