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THERE is a famous spoof of a North Korean news broadcast in which the announcer gleefully tells the viewers that the great country is about to win the football World Cup. The news report flashes a picture of a scoreboard showing North Korea beating Japan 7-0, the United States 4-0 and China 2-0. It appeared on YouTube in 2014 billed as a genuine news broadcast, and for a brief moment everyone believed that the bizarre country had actually lied to its own citizens that their team was demolishing everybody else, even though in reality they had not even made it past the qualifying rounds.
The video was revealed to be a hoax, but it took some careful examination to make that clear. After all, this was the same country that claimed — and genuinely so — that in 1994 their great leader, Kim Yong Il, had actually shot 11 holes in one playing a round of golf in the country’s only 18-hole course. What’s more, this was the first time he had ever picked up a golf club!
The litany of absurdities that regularly pour forth from that country make spoofs like the fake news broadcast believable. But the absurdities make the task of ruling that much easier. For a populace raised on nothing but state-sponsored propaganda, you need produce no results worthy of the name. All you have to do is declare that you won the war, or that the enemy has been served a “befitting reply”, when in reality it was you who was suing for peace. Remember how Saddam Hussein declared at the end of the first Gulf War that the Iraqi people had won a glorious victory? His reasoning was simple: the Americans failed to get him, and that meant he won.
Let the courts and history decide who is the traitor and who the patriot. Let’s agree that there are heroes of many stripes amongst us.
What do you call a war in which both sides claim they won, but none have anything to show for the ‘victory’? History is replete with examples of conflicts of this sort, in which the only victory was the one of rhetoric over reality, made easy by an atmosphere that has reduced people to the level of geese, merrily honking and marching their way to the abattoir.
There is a growing tendency, not just in Pakistan but around the world, to concoct reality and fool oneself into thinking that something happened when in fact it didn’t. Fake universities selling bogus credentials or fake surveying agencies that sell survey reports which say whatever you want them to say are some examples. Fake human rights organisations that are nothing more than a website that can give you a clean chit for your deeds on demand. None of it is real, but what difference does that make? Given enough vilification of anyone who dares point that out, it soon won’t matter what is real and what is not.
Too much consumption of such manufactured reality has a bad effect on the mind: it makes it increasingly difficult to distinguish fact from fiction. But who cares? If you have a captive audience that is allowed to hear nothing but the manufactured version of events, with nobody around to do even basic fact-checking, what difference does it make if fact and fiction become indistinguishable?
Wars that are lost on the battlefield can be won on the TV screen. Credentials that are acquired after years of serious investment can be purchased for a pittance with no investment of time or mind. Track records that take sustained policy work to build can be had with a single fake survey that says the majority supports your view.
Of course it does matter eventually, because as the old adage that is repeated endlessly, those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Rewrite your own past, and you lose the lessons it has to teach you. Win enough fake wars and you’ll find yourself fighting more real ones. Earn enough fake credentials, and you’ll find yourself struggling even harder to advance your career. Bask in the light of enough fake surveys and you’ll find yourself further adrift from the pulse of the public that put you where you are.
Pakistan and India are awash with propaganda these days. The airwaves are full of anchors screeching on about the nefarious designs of the enemy and the stupendous achievements of our brave patriots. Those calling out the propaganda are targeted as enemy agents. An example is in the treatment meted out to the venerable Mahmood Khan Achakzai, who simply stated the truth about the Quetta terrorist strike. It is there in the absurdity of a blaring triumphalism even as the wounds from the last terror attack still bleed. It is captured beautifully in the words of the legislator from the PkMAP, who said in parliament that “those who have abrogated the Constitution are being hailed as heroes while those who have struggled for it are being called traitors.” Let the courts and history decide who is the traitor and who the patriot. Let’s agree that there are heroes of many stripes amongst us, and heroic deeds are not always acknowledged by contemporaries.
There is no need to label all those who dare to hold a different point of view as ‘traitors’ and agents of the enemy. Sometimes different points of view should be engaged with rather than simply silenced or suffocated. Not all those who agree with everything you say are your friends. Nor are true friends obligated to applaud your every utterance. Sycophants too can sound like patriots when fact blends with fiction and life imitates satire. A country without dissent takes you to North Korea, where leaders score 11 holes in one the first time they ever hold a golf club, and where it is hard to distinguish satire from reality. Ruling a population of sheep is easy, but it’s hard to take a shepherd seriously as a head of state.
The writer is a member of staff.
Twitter: @khurramhusain
Published in Dawn, September 8th, 2016
