FOR almost a month now, the citizens of Washington DC have been terrorized by a sniper, apparently a lone gunman who picks his victims at random. He deviates from the classic serial-killer profile in that he has shown no interest in the corpses or possessions of his victims. Or, for that matter, even in their identity.

A tarot card left at one of the scenes of crime suggests that he is some sort of psychopath with a serious crisis of identity. It bore the message: “Dear policeman, I am God.”

There is nothing particularly remarkable about the shootings. Washington has more than its fair share of trigger-happy characters with personality defects or disorders — and several of them can be found in or around the White House. Besides, thanks in part to Hollywood, serial killers are a part of American lore; they inspire fear, but also an entirely misplaced sense of awe.

What is remarkable is that the killings — the sniper had shot 11 people by the end of last week, and only two of them lived to tell the tale (which means he has more American blood on his hands than Saddam Hussein) — have failed to spark a debate about the laxity of US gun laws, which enable virtually every Tom, Dick and Harry to saunter into a gun store and walk out with his weapon of choice. In some states, even background checks on potential buyers are not deemed necessary.

The official excuse for this laxity is that the right to bear arms is enshrined in the United States constitution (a document that was drafted more that 200 years ago, when circumstances might have been slightly different). The truth is that the National Rifle Association is one of the most powerful and most effective lobbying groups in the country, and it is far too busy protecting the profits of gun manufacturers to worry about the victims of violence. The association ensures that any suggestion of a possible link between the ready availability of guns and the high rate of gun-related crimes is immediately shot down. And not many legislators have the courage to defy the NRA.

It is not difficult to discern a parallel here with the dogged American refusal to recognize some of the main causes of the terrorism it is purportedly combating worldwide.

Another remarkable feature of the sniper phenomenon has been the inability thus far of US law enforcers to track down the culprit. The army has been drafted into the police campaign — although there are no plans to reduce any parts of Washington to rubble; that method of striking back at gunmen is only employed (cf Afghanistan) or endorsed (Ariel Sharon’s war against Palestinians) at the international level. Driven to desperation, the FBI is even investigating what it admits is the fairly outlandish possibility that the killer may be an Al Qaeda operative.

The CIA’s assessment that Al Qaeda has now returned to its pre-September 11, 2001, level of operational readiness may be a bit of an exaggeration, intended both as scare-mongering and as an attempt to compensate for the agency’s earlier complacency and incompetence. But even if it comes anywhere close to the truth, it clearly serves as a coruscating indictment of the first phase of the so-called war on terror. A well-planned police operation in Afghanistan could, surely, have yielded far better results than an all-out military assault notable chiefly for the degree of “collateral damage” it managed to inflict.

Whether greater effectiveness at Tora Bora and other supposed Al Qaeda strongholds would have prevented the Bali outrage of October 12 is a moot point, not least because the assumption of an Al Qaeda connection — voiced by western leaders and dutifully echoed by Jakarta — is at this stage based more on conjecture than on substantive evidence.

It is, on the face of it, a fairly logical conclusion to jump to, given that some of Osama bin Laden’s lieutenants have in the past considered Southeast Asia as a theatre of operations, and that some sort of links between Al Qaeda and violence-prone Islamists in the region can be taken for granted. Earlier this year, the authorities in Singapore discovered plots to target certain embassies and other western interests, and suspicion has centred on a nebulous organization known as Jemaah Islamiyah.

Abu Bakar Bashir, who was taken into custody by the Indonesian authorities at the weekend after enormous western pressure, is allegedly the leader of the JI, but denies all knowledge of the organization — and even questions the existence of Al Qaeda. Resembling an emaciated version of Maulana Bhashani, the sexagenarian Bashir defies the terrorist kingpin stereotype. He does, however, advocate a Muslim caliphate in Southeast Asia, and theorizes that the blasts in Bali could only have been perpetrated by the US.

Although he is by no means the only person in Indonesia to hold the latter view, the theory is as ridiculous as the assumption that last year’s attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were orchestrated by the US itself in order to create an opportunity for extending its direct control over the world’s resources. Even for those of us who entertain no illusions about the duplicity and amorality of successive US governments, least of all the present administration, this is too hard to swallow. It’s too far-fetched, it doesn’t stand to reason. However, on a somewhat longer time scale, it is certainly worth remembering — as American politicians and officials tend not to do — that not all that long ago the US provided an ideal breeding ground for militant Islam. From Algeria to Indonesia, many of its least attractive adherents cut their teeth in Afghanistan during the 1980s. Their jihadi fervour was encouraged, and their training as efficient killers generously funded, by none other than Uncle Sam, delighted to have discovered such zealous devotees of its crusade against communism.

It is hard to believe that American strategists could have been myopic enough not to realize the sort of havoc these Afghan veterans would be capable of wreaking once they returned to their homelands. Now, as the West reaps the whirlwind, many of the same strategists look back on the verities of the cold war with misty-eyed nostalgia.

The context in which militant Islam acquired its claws and fangs is crucial, and the role of the US as a catalyst extends well beyond the provision of weapons, funds and training camps. Its entire Middle East policy has militated against moderation, and continues to follow the same old dangerous, discredited path. Yet none of that should detract from the responsibility Muslims ought to feel for the activities of their co-religionists.

It is often pointed out that the majority of Muslims are peace-loving and tolerant. That may be so, but in many quarters one can also discern an undercurrent of grudging admiration for the extremists. There is an apparent failure to explicitly recognize that the likes of Osama bin Laden are, fundamentally, the enemies of humanity. They seek their raison d’etre in hatred, they deal in murder and mayhem, and the Taliban experience in Afghanistan testifies to their incapacity for constructive deeds. The US sees them as a deadly virus, but within the context of Islam they are more akin to a brain tumour.

Just as the impetus for far-reaching changes in American policies — which are required to make Uncle Sam a less irresponsible and more considerate global citizen — must come from within the US, and just as coherent Palestinian statehood is unlikely until a lot more Israelis recognize and reject their nation’s occupation of Arab lands, the fascist fringe within Islam cannot decisively be defeated unless it is unequivocally repudiated by Muslim societies. This is something that needs to be understood not just by Muslims everywhere, but also by the policy-makers in Washington and London.

None of the foregoing is intend to pre-judge the results of investigations into the Bali bomb blasts, and it is important for Jakarta not to jump to conclusions on the basis of Western pressure. But let’s face it: whatever the precise identity of the perpetrators, there is only the slimmest of possibilities that they are not representatives of the aforementioned fascist fringe.

The beaches and bars of Bali are at any given time of the year populated in large proportion by Australians, so it is not surprising that the number of Australian casualties at the Sari Club was disproportionately high.

Australia has not experienced a bloodbath of this order since the Second World War; it has therefore taken the blow rather personally, with the nation’s media depicting it as virtually an attack on Australian soil. To their credit, most Australians have responded to the atrocity with tears rather than the sort of gormless flag-waving witnessed in the US in the wake of September 11.

There has so far been no conclusive evidence suggesting that Australians and Britons — rather than westerners in general — were specifically targeted at Bali. There are also several other possibilities worth exploring; the largely Hindu island is a stronghold of President Megawati Sukarnoputri, and the prospect of destabilizing her administration as well as ruining Bali’s tourism-based economy may have been motivating factors for the terrorists.

According to Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard, the attack has firmed his government’s resolve to pursue Saddam Hussein and his alleged weapons of mass destruction — a non sequitur borrowed from evidently irrational American hawks. In the short run, if anything can be more or less guaranteed to swell the ranks of militant Islam, it is a Western assault against Iraq.

But perhaps the hawks are not so irrational after all. The disappearance or diminution of militant Islam, let’s not forget, would rob the US and its devoted allies of an excuse for pursuing the goal of global domination, in the guise of — as Monty Python’s Terry Jones has aptly pointed out — war against an abstract noun.

Writer’s e-mail: mahirali@journalist.com

DESPITE allegations of pre-poll and polling day rigging from various political parties, individual contestants and election observers, the post-election political dynamics revolving round the issue of government formation has set in. By and large, the election results have been accepted in spite of some flaws. Various parliamentary parties and groups are now seeking to maximize their gains by transforming their numbers into levers of power.

A lot depends on what the meaning of joining the government or sitting in the opposition at the national or provincial level is. For example, if the PML(Q) is at the core of a coalition government at the centre, along with its pro-establishment credentials, will its coalition partners be obliged to concede to President Musharraf on the issues of the National Security Council, Article 58 (2) (b) and the recent constitutional amendments? Will the MMA compromise on Qazi Hussain Ahmed’s assertive demands in this regard if it joins the government in Islamabad?

It is interesting to speculate what will happen in the post-election scenario. If the MMA joins the PML(Q) in Islamabad and forms the government in Peshawar, this will lead to a comfortable MMA-PML(Q) coalition government in Quetta, and to the MMA becoming a junior partner in Karachi. In this scenario, the MMA’s impressive electoral performance in the NWFP at around 50 per cent, and in Balochistan at around 25 per cent, mainly in the Pakhtun belt, will have a disproportionately high impact on Punjab and Sindh, where it performed poorly. Thus, with a mere 11 per cent of the national vote, largely confined to the NWFP, the MMA will be able to expand its share in control over patronage and policy to all provinces and communities, riding on the shoulders of the PML(Q). Thus, joining the coalition government in the centre will help the MMA spread its tentacles all around and prepare the ground for bigger victories in future in the areas other than the NWFP. In this way, it can shape the contours of cultural, educational and even foreign policies.

What happens if the PML(Q) opts for a coalition with the PPP? First, a lot of mistrust exists between the two parties. The PPP moved closer to the PML(N) during the election campaign at the cost of the PML(Q). Also, Shujaat Hussain and Pervaiz Ellahi were identified with a hawkish anti-Bhutto line within the erstwhile PML(N). Similarly, while both the PPPP and the PML(Q) have performed well in Punjab, they would prefer to align themselves with smaller parties at the national and provincial levels in order to cut the other to size.

Still, the two parties might join hands. Both belong to the mainstream cultural, educational, political and economic currents of policy and practice. Both have the requisite experience of serving under Presidents Ishaq and Leghari and working with the military establishment. Both parties generally share the same perspective on foreign policy commitments, including the partnership of Islamabad in the global coalition against terrorism. However, both of them, as well as President Musharraf, would now like to minimize the nation’s involvement in the strategic operation being carried out close to the Afghan frontier in the light of the election results.

While the number of seats held by the PML(Q) and the PPP in elected assemblies together act as the chessboard for the power game, President Musharraf would try to tilt the balance in favour of one or the other party in terms of government formation. He turned against the army’s old buddies, the Islamist groups, in his eagerness to join the US-led coalition against terrorism. Will he turn again in the light of the enlarged mandate of Islamic parties and thus help the MMA join a coalition government at the centre?

One can outline three notable reservations within the military establishment regarding the induction of the MMA in the federal government. One, it is tantamount to surrendering the political initiative to those elements which are opposed to the state’s broad ideological objectives. These objectives include building a diplomatic profile of Pakistan as a moderate, liberal, pro-western, pluralist and modern state. Various controversies relating to payment of interest, Hudood ordinances, blasphemy laws and the prevalent madressah system have grossly alienated the legal and judicial community and human rights and women’s rights activists as well as the liberal intelligentsia, both at home and abroad. The establishment may not like to alarm the world community about the emergence of a fundamentalist state with a nuclear capability.

Secondly, Islamabad would like to keep the US engaged in the region as an external equalizer to the preponderant military might of India. It has traditionally relied on the US strategic and diplomatic role in the backdrop of the Kashmir conflict. From this perspective, Islamabad attaches considerable importance to the need for the continuation of at least minimal cooperation with the US in the region. The MMA’s political ascendancy seems to run counter to the spirit of the US-Pakistan cooperation. It is in this sense that the MMA’s coalition-building effort in Islamabad, Peshawar and Quetta can run into difficulties, despite the conciliatory gestures of Qazi Hussain Ahmad and Maulana Fazlur Rahman.

Thirdly, apart from controversies about Islamic laws and the US role in the region, the financial factor can play a crucial role in determining the prospects of the MMA. The stock exchange has already shown negative indicators. The global financial markets may dry up for Pakistan, given the uncertain direction of future legislation and court decisions relating to banking operations. Under these circumstances, Islamabad can be expected to be averse to allowing criticism to pile up on account of moving towards an exit from the world financial system, on top of misgivings about blasphemy laws and the increasing violence against religious minorities in Pakistan.

Some elements from the military establishment would argue otherwise. Isn’t it better to co-opt the Islamic groups and make them part of the system rather than let them loose for street agitation? The experience of working under the guidance of the westernized military and bureaucratic elite would tame their raw instinct for revolt against modernity. A strong counter-argument points to the gruesome results of Zia’s policy of accommodation of Islamist groups in the government — in terms of sectarian terrorism and the serious decline of liberal and progressive forces in the country.

If the MMA does not become part of coalition governments at the centre and in some provinces, can the PPP play its liberal counterpart in Islamabad and Karachi? Curiously, both the PPP and the MQM have been talking to ‘others’ in each other’s traditional constituencies, Mohajirs and Sindhis, respectively. A direct contact between the two has been to date too late and too little. Both have bitter memories of the past. Both are vulnerable in the present situation, with the PPP having less than half and the MQM less than a quarter of seats in the Sindh assembly.

Leaving the PPP out of the government in Karachi will destabilize politics in Sindh, just as leaving the MQM out in the opposition will keep Karachi unstable. The twain must meet and address each other’s grievances. The numerical preponderance of the MMA in the NWFP and of the PML(Q) in Punjab has ensured that the two parties would not sit in opposition there. However, a Pakhtun-dominated and MMA-led coalition in Balochistan can grossly alienate important Baloch groups by leaving them unrepresented in the government at Quetta. This will be against the interest of both the Baloch community and the federation.

The process of formation of government in Islamabad will be influenced by the way President Musharraf’s role in the future set-up is perceived. Nawabzada Nasrullah has refused to join hands with pro-Musharraf parties. In his view, this would mean an endorsement of the president’s arbitrary constitutional amendments, his election as president through unconstitutional means and his assumption of powers to dissolve the National Assembly. Others, especially the PPP, would follow a somewhat pragmatic approach and may not rule out the possibility of joining governments in Islamabad and Karachi.

Contrary to public apprehensions, the PML(Q) MNAs may not necessarily act as a rubber-stamp for President Musharraf. Once elected, they might feel obliged to struggle to bring all meaningful power back to the parliament and the government. If they sign on the dotted line pertaining to the two tricky issues of the NSC and 58 (2) (b), they run the risk of being isolated from a sizable section of their parliamentary colleagues.

At the centre of the process of government formation lies the question whether or not the military elite will acknowledge the higher source of legitimacy enjoyed by the emergent parliament in the form of a popular mandate and thus avoid putting the nation in a constitutional straitjacket.

WHAT a delightful treasure old photographs can be! If you have a collection somewhere, and come across it while sifting through hoarded things or shifting your residence, you want to leave everything else and go on poring over them, reviving old memories, savouring old pleasures and remembering those who are no longer with you.

Not so long ago I have had two occasions to do this. Once with family photographs and the second time with pictures of the larger family we all belong to — Pakistan, and its story. The first was soon over, apart from the feeling that remained of everyone looking so young in the black-and-white photographs. There was the usual resolve to buy an album, a resolve as old as the pictures themselves, knowing all the time that even if that happened none of us would find the time to stick the pictures in.

The second occasion was in the office of the Director-General, Films & Publications (DFP) of the federal government. Saeeda Tahirkheli, now transferred as the director-general of the Information Services Academy, is an old friend and was my wife’s student in Lahore’s Kinnaird College, and is suitably respectful. I had a rendezvous there with retired Brigadier Noor Hussain who was looking for some rare old photographs for a book on the history of the Pakistan Army that he was writing.

The brigadier had been sceptical about getting anything from the DFP, having a sad experience of government offices, but I had assured him that if there was anyone who could find the required photographs for him it was Saeeda. She is a real go-getter, and when I called her “our Margaret Thatcher” in front of him, she only laughed. I think she agreed with me.

As Brigadier Noor Husain was looking at some of the old pictures that the DFP was able to fish out, the inevitable questions arose: “Who’s that on the Quaid’s right?” or “Who is Liaquat Ali Khan talking to?”. Nobody knew, and nobody remembered, because anyone who could have answered the questions had probably died long ago, and no one had bothered to write detailed captions for the benefit of coming generations. And this is where I come to my actual topic of today.

I told those present in Saeeda Tahirkheli’s office that on two occasions I had written to editors of the country’s prominent dailies which publish supplements on national days to pay special attention to a related matter. These supplements invariably carry group photographs of people involved in the Pakistan movement before August 1947, but, as the position is today, hardly anyone can tell who all feature in these photographs except the Quaid and a few of his companions who can still be recognized by some old-timers like me. The result is that the captions just say, “A group photo taken during the Quaid’s visit to Murshidabad” (or some such place) and that’s all.

Perhaps that day will not come (thank God) when even the Quaid may not be recognized by young people. But how many are left, especially in newspaper offices, who can be relied upon to say with authority that this is Sardar Aurangzeb Khan of the Frontier, this is Mohammad Saadullah of Assam, this is Husain Imam of Bihar or Nawab Ismail Khan of UP, this is Abdur Rauf of CP, this is Malik Barkat Ali of Punjab, and so on? Even I.I. Chundrigar, whose name is mentioned in Karachi thousands of times every day because of the road named after him, will be a stranger by face.

That there was no response to my request to newspaper editors is evident from the fact that such group photographs continue to appear in supplements on Pakistan Day and Independence Day, and also on the birthdays of the Quaid and Allama Iqbal and the death anniversary of Liaquat Ali Khan. Some of them also show these gentlemen “talking to a worker”, whereas that worker may have been a provincial chief minister in later days. No, there was no effort to impart authenticity to this record and make it interesting.

All these pictures are a national treasure, a valuable part of the heritage bequeathed to us by the Pakistan movement. A few years ago we woke up to the fact that they should be collected and preserved and published. The DFP did a god job in that regard. An even better endeavour was that of the Punjab Information Department which converted its collection into a travelling exhibition. In Sindh, too, some official agency has performed a similar feat.

But a failing common to all these praiseworthy achievements is my complaint — that none of the group photos, not even those taken when the Quaid addressed that historic gathering in Lahore’s Minto Park in March 1940, are able to enlighten us about the personalities who feature in them.

We have taken care to pay due tribute in school and college textbooks to Muslim leaders from all parts of India who were active participants in the Pakistan movement or played a role in the Muslim League. We have also shown them on special postage stamps issued for the country’s golden jubilee. But we have never thought of assigning someone the task of identifying in old group photographs these leaders and others who were junior to them and less prominent in the hierarchy of the Muslim League.

Maybe this is not a very important matter, and maybe my advocacy of it will be described by some readers as much ado about nothing, but somehow it has always engaged my attention which is why I wrote to newspaper editors twice within ten years (I don’t even remember now when I did that). Somehow I could not reconcile myself to looking at a group in a picture with the Quaid-i-Azam seated in the centre and not knowing who the persons were with whom he allowed himself to be photographed.

It is already late; in fact it may be too late in many cases. And it is certainly not the job of one man. Even with a background in journalism and politics he may be able to identify only those persons who belonged to his area. But there’s no harm in trying.

While it won’t be difficult for the government to appoint a small group to undertake the task — although I’m sure it will not bother — it may not be easy for newspaper editors to do today what they have failed to do for more than fifty years. Anyway, its up to them to make an effort if they think it is worthwhile.

LET us first define our terms. The ‘media’ is now the term that stands for the press, radio and television together as instruments and vehicles for mass communication. Among these the first to arrive on the scene was the newspaper. It is necessary to be clear about the impulse that materialized in the shape of a newspaper, whether a daily or a periodical.

In the first place, the newspaper represented the urge to say something to an audience — the public or society — with a view to serve a purpose worth pursuing. This objective could be to put across an idea or to entertain but the paramount purpose was to serve some public interest. That is why today we say that the newspaper, and also radio and television, should inform and entertain.

Those who belong to the media insist that the media must be free. Social thinkers support them. This freedom for the media is to be without any condition, reservation or qualification. Such freedom cannot be claimed by, say, the textile manufacturer. Nor would civilized society give total and unbridled freedom to even such noble workers as the medical doctors who serve humanity in ill health and pain.

Naturally, the question arises: why must society accept and concede the mass communication media’s claim to freedom in the absolute? The answer is quite simple: Because the press (and the others among the media) is an institution of, and for, the public interest in its widest sense. And public interest comes first, regardless. It is the paramount value. Hence the freedom to serve the public interest.

For the moment, let us stay with the newspaper as the original institution of the public interest. Thus, if it is not selflessly, uncompromisingly and transparently dedicated first, and last, to serve the public interest, it is anything but a genuine newspaper. It is the newspaper’s uncompromising commitment to serve public interest that entitles it to the unqualified freedom that is claimed and demanded for it. The same applies to the others in the mass communication media family.

There was a time when newspapers were ardently missionary in their spirit and pursuit. They sought and strove to serve well-defined public interests and causes. In our context, newspapers fought for independence from colonial or arbitrary rulers. Or they campaigned to trounce unfair and exploitative institutions or practices or traditions. Every ounce of available resource of thinking and expression was dedicated to serve the cause espoused. This commitment brought newspapers loyal readers.

Later, newspapers added the dimension of professional excellence. This made them institutions of professional finesse and grace, giving an edge to their commitment to serve the public interest. As such, newspapers became institutions of immense honour and dignity. In return, they received from a grateful following staunch support that sustained them and enhanced their ability to serve the public interest.

Newspapers then came to be called watchdogs, monitors, and opinion-makers — all in the line of serving the public interest. It is also said that a newspaper is like a nation talking to itself. There is much reason to agree with those who call a newspaper a portrait of society — and also holding a mirror to society.

Having said all that, let us now invite the newspapers (and other mass communication media) to take a good look at themselves and do a bit of heart-searching. How well has this watchdog been watching and warning the public against the ravages of the poachers and plunderers? How is one to explain the plunder that has been the order of the day, leaving some banks bankrupt? Where was this watchdog of public interest and what was it doing, if not possibly wagging its tail to please the plunderers? Harsh words? Maybe. What other words would do in this soul-searching context?

The primary function of newspapers and the other media is to inform, to criticize and to correct. How well-informed is Pakistan society today? How persuasively and effectively has it been castigated for so many of its visible sins? How good has the process of correction been, and how correct is our society today?

Imagine the depressing paradox. Now we have more newspapers, more units in the electronic media — more watchdogs — than ever before. We have also arguably more corruption, more crime, and more violation of human rights than ever before. Had the watchdogs been vigilant, the public interest should have been a lot better than it appears to be, going by what is visible on the surface of society.

From institutions with a mission, to institutions committed to well-defined public causes and also, at the same time, striving for enhanced professional excellence, newspaper moved on to become an industry. No harm there. Indeed there should be no difficulty at all, if there is a moral force welding the three dimensions — the missionary aspect, the professional aspect and the commercial aspect — into a dignified unity.

However, what has been becoming more and more visible is that the commercial dimension of the mass communication media today has tended to overshadow (if not largely undermine) the urge to become institutions of public interest, while at the same time trying to ensure improved professional input.

There is no better standard to judge the performance of an institution of public interest, and the value of its service to society, than the shape of society itself. There is no room for quibbling. Look at the state of society. Note that we are (or were until a couple of years ago) the most corrupt country in the world. This leaves no room to condone the performance of those who were supposed to be its watchdogs and striving to serve the public interest.

This leaves us with two options. Either the institutions of public interest failed to keep society to the correct path or, possibly, they joined the wrongdoers and succumbed to the temptation of taking to the primrose path of dalliance. Going by the net result, the watchdogs do not emerge with flying colours, do they?

These days it is fashionable to talk of human rights. How do we fare on that account? Also fashionable it is to denounce in the strongest possible terms customs like ‘honour killing’ and karo kari. We have heard fuming tirades against the Hudood ordinance. But we have yet to see our institutions of public interest organize and implement systematic and sustained campaigns against these inhuman and savage evils in society. Merely reporting a killing here, another killing there and waiting for the next such killing is tantamount to accepting it and settling to live with what is a diabolical disease.

Much the same has to be said about institutionalized crime such as motivated killing in the name of religion by well-organized and established ‘Sipahs’ and ‘Lashkars’ under the command of recognizable and identifiable outfits. It may be noted that in recent months the government has acted. But its action has been casual, tentative, apologetic and hence ineffective. The danger remains. Even the bit done by the government cannot be credited to any campaigning by the mass media.

The country has been subjected to massive bank frauds over several years. Billions of rupees have been siphoned off to foreign banks. We have witnessed banks being looted and cooperatives collapsing. In the country’s largest city, car-snatching is now accepted as a perennial phenomenon. Day after day the media — the institutions of public interest — report incidents of organized crime. And then leave it at that.

Corruption in public services has drained out society’s resistance to social wrongs. It has come to be seen as a fact of life that has to be accepted as such. Our institutions of mass communication have yet to show either an awareness of these stark social evils or any indication that they have the desire and the courage to combat them.

What is being suggested is that the mass media appear to have abdicated their right and abandoned their obligation to be genuine and effective institutions of the public interest. They have left it to the police. They should know that the police itself needs to be treated with no less stern castigation and correction than the other corrupt and cruel forces.

For the old-fashioned and out-of-date, who refuse to compromise on their belief that the mass communication media together are an institution of public interest, this is not a very comforting scenario. It seems that commercialism has got the better of the media’s conscience. This does not auger well for the country — or for the media.

To be respectable, all human activity has to have an ethical dimension. None more than in the mass media.