Nation and narrative

Published January 23, 2015
The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.
The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

IF a journalist gets a telephone call at around nine in the morning it has to be about some really urgent matter that cannot be put off until his standard expected time of awakening, which is usually quite late.

So what could it be about in this instance? Probably a news item or a headline in the day’s paper? Headlines and news have this habit of taking on ghoulish forms and meanings on their way from computer screens to the presses. That’s always a source of early morning nightmares especially in the presence of hawkers who are in a hurry to deliver the copy before — like so many in the industry — they get down to their real job.

Or maybe the call could be from a well-wisher asking you to get your tanks filled in anticipation of an imminent petrol shortage in the city, or from a pleading, beseeching novice salesman who has been given an hour to make his first million or be labelled as a failure forever.

In the event it was none of these urgent things. It so happened that some students were undergoing a refresher course somewhere which required them to have a simulation exercise. In this simulation exercise one participant was asked to act as a journalist. It was she who now wanted to confirm the need for a ‘national narrative’ and find out how would a journalist, and the media in general, like to contribute to this national narrative.


The general requirement is of a narrative that can counter the scary propaganda of the militants who are known to have routinely threatened media persons.


That urgent? It is in moments such as these that you wish that the call were about the blundering headline you let slip in every now and then or from a long-lost friend asking you for a reference to the local, soon to be the most sought-after Pakistan State Oil operative. Narrative, and of national proportions, was problematic. It could make you ooze out in large quantities something that is not in too great a demand these days.

The general requirement is of a narrative that can counter the scary propaganda of the militants who are known to have routinely threatened media persons to put their point of view across. The media, everyone believes, a bit unreasonably at times it must be said, has a pivotal role in building this narrative.

Others are a trying, too, the joint statements emanating from Islamabad seeking to set the tone. Closer to home, earlier this week the Punjab government came up with an ordinance that aims to prevent ‘glorification’ of terrorists, and statements calling for oneness of purpose from various groups and individuals are routine these days. The media is facilitating this process of consolidation but the call on the media to create consensus and narrative is much greater. The biggest issue is that speedy progress towards this end is deemed by some to further and severely hamper the media’s right to ask questions.

Questions abound, the most basic one being about allowing the media access to information on which a fair debate towards a fair consensus can be confidently moderated and opinions shaped. Much of the confusion and lack of agreement on ‘national’ issues is there because of a lack of free flow of information, because of taboos that have been created, many of them in the name of national interests.

This free debate will be elusive until the media in general is first able to gain the trust of the people by empathising with their genuine aspirations and struggles. This cannot happen until those the media reports on are able to and are enabled to play their due roles. Without this process the media will appear to Pakistanis — or at least to large groups within the country — as yet another tool of imposing an order. Indeed to some the media will only be persisting with its old widely perceived habit of pursuing a selective agenda. That would be counter-productive.

The other players must go beyond deeds such as the issuance of an anti-terrorism ordinance, like the one that Punjab has promulgated, to ensure that the resolve is effectively conveyed. The politicians and the think tanks, for instance, need to engage Pakistanis on a popular level to bridge various groups, regions and parties, before they or a large number amongst them can be expected to see common cause and reason.

One wonders what is stopping the political parties, both those with regional presence and those that are spread countrywide, to activate their cadres towards disseminating and finessing the message. At present they are not even feeling the need to pretend that the decisions they have arrived at are a result of some kind of consultations within the party. These parties have leaders acting on their behalf and their support is considered good enough to decide what constitutes a national cause and when.

There are of course some political leaders who must differ, and even in this hour of national emergency, the tendency is to shout them down rather than reason with them for as long as it is possible.

It should not take too much of thinking to realise that dismissing Maulana Fazlur Rehman’s objections to the 21st Amendment could lead to some turbulence instead of acting as a tool that quickly levels out the path forwards. It is the same approach that had earlier found some of those who professed rationality as being dubbed as foreign agents and traitors. Only the target has now changed. If the maulana is unreasonable here, a debate, rather than a snub, should and will expose him.

The problems remain. The need for cohesion and unity and a nation is strongly felt but the formula towards achieving this end is unchanged. Invariably it is the other countries’ example that is furnished to press Pakistanis to have a national narrative of their own. It will take more than a reprimand and advice to emulate others to get Pakistanis going in the intended direction over sustained periods of time, without doubts creeping into their minds more than occasionally. And it will take more than a wakeup call to the media.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, January 23rd, 2015

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