MANY of you might want to intervene with your own darker, prolonged versions of it spread over all these years but back in our corner of the world, protest was once by and large a daylight affair. And it was a daily affair by the square where we lived. It was still a few years before the ‘activists’ had the option of joining the protest via the computer which, with all this booing around of the coward, is not a bad choice at all — cause- and effect-wise.

The simpler times were tougher also and came with a set of restrictions. One remembers how much physical organisation the staging of a protest required. Close to where we lived flags would routinely come up on the poles and on the trees lining the road; a stage would emerge in the middle and ultimately there would be a crowd of slogan-chanting people which would ‘bring life’ in the area to a ‘halt’. Occasionally, there would be some moderate to serious rioting that generated its little thrills and fears and sent everyone scurrying around in all directions.

There would, however, be a kind of understanding about the deadline when the episode had to be wrapped up. In that age of decency, the protest would invariably come to an end just as the muezzin called the faithful for the maghrib prayers. It was seldom that the running around and the chasing involving the more adventurous and the more impatient among the protesters would continue beyond the twilight period.

Sunset back then imposed a calm and truce on everyone around. After that, the policeman’s baton would be rested until the next time and the halted life allowed to make a return to what would be described in the following morning’s papers as ‘normality’. Those stuck at various ends of the venue because of the demonstration or rioting would now be free to go about their chores without hindrance and soon the place would lose all signs of it having hosted an angry demonstration only a few hours ago.

Social media could well be the next beyond-sunset phase that protesters have been groping for.

Those were the times when a picture in the newspaper showing an open manhole with a conscience-stirring caption about the dire possibilities would be rewarded with a visit by the ‘concerned authorities’. It was considered sufficient to hold a protest or a series of protests to make a point. Whenever such a need was felt, it was followed up with some other, sterner action, like courting arrest for example. The era of the long-drawn protest stretching over many days and many sunsets, the dharnas, the protest demonstrations by the heirs of people killed in a terror strike, et al, was yet to dawn.

These long-drawn protests are of more recent origins. Whereas they are often publicised as a sign of persistence, they are also, on a less optimistic note, a reflection of the frustration, the feeling of not being taken notice of and of the resignation of there being fewer other, more advanced, avenues of expression available to those who make up the demonstration. But while the street protesters may take time to acknowledge the fact, social media could well be the next possible, beyond-sunset phase that they have been groping for. The alternative does surely appear to have an impact, given the reactions generally.

It is apt that a group of regular protesters is today known, sarcastically it would appear, as the candle bearers: they have been in the vanguard of the push that has broken the sunset barrier that would previously contain a protest. These protesters, who are routinely spotted demonstrating for freedoms and more frequently, paying homage to the comrades who have fallen on the way, are quite often dubbed as the last flicker before the establishment of unquestioned calm in society. The feeling is that these campaigners might have faded away long ago but for the invention of a tool that ensures 24-hour protest. Without social media, these ‘maghrib-zada’ or ‘westward-wayward’ bearers would have been half as effective.

There is an argument, a valid one, that the social media campaigners may be driven by a false sense of numbers on their side. The discussion in a small group may create an illusion in the mind of a participant of being involved in some big, revolutionary push whereas in reality, that person may be a member of a tiny minority with little ‘real’ means at its disposal to force change. These wrong estimates about one’s strengths may lead to dangerous consequences and the ensuing system could contribute a few thousand more to the long and old global tradition of arm-chair reformists.

Yet again, there is this in-your-face quality about the ceaseless social media protest. It does irritate, it also conveys a message in the nagging manner of a drone, in its original, uncorrupted, less sinister sense. It projects the protesters, the estimates about one’s own size not always a negative in the case of marchers who are in need of all kinds of illusions to sustain their search. Likewise, it exposes without discrimination people on either side of a heated debate.

With due respect to the protesters in the street, the stand-off in a post-Sabeen Mahmud Pakistan is most crucially sustained by those connected and then engaged with each other on the social media. There have been both pro-Sabeen and anti-freedom of expression counterstatements thrown about with equal zeal and velocity. Personally most remarkable is the tribute paid to Sabeen by filmmaker Mehreen Jabbar that fondly recalls how Sabeen could win someone over to her side through her reliance on reason and debate. That’s one tough, must-cross barrier on the way.

The writer is Dawn’s resident editor in Lahore.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2015

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