KARACHI: Ways to deal with extremism and increase tolerance and harmony among the people of this country were two main things in focus at a seminar titled ‘Tolerant Pakistan’ organised by Positive Media Communications (PMC) at a hotel here on Saturday.

Dr Tabassum Khan, chairman of SG Group of Companies, the moderator for the evening, said that the problem starts with conflict in identities.

“That’s where vulnerabilities show, that’s where vested interests come up,” he said, adding that people often like to go to like-minded people, which then leads to marginalisation that leads to vulnerability. “And that’s how powers with vested interests start isolating communities. Next you find people becoming intolerant. “But tolerance is all about humanity and human values and peaceful co-existence. Not having tolerance also gives birth to phobias or Islamophobia,” he pointed out to set the ball rolling for the panel of esteemed guests before him comprising Italian Ambassador to Pakistan Stefano Pontecorvo, former foreign secretary Najmuddin Sheikh, broadcast journalist Najia Ashar and secretary general of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society Syed Sarmad Ali.

Italian Ambassador to Pakistan Stefano Pontecorvo said that Islamophobia was having your roots exploited economically and socially. “I feel that the Islamic world can do more to counter Islamophobia,” he said, adding that social media was also getting to be a problem in the matter as it was a place for clashing of personalities.

Former foreign secretary Najmuddin Sheikh said that there was the issue of refugees that was also bringing up so many examples of intolerance. “Pakistan, we are told theoretically, has 1.4 million Afghan refugees but if you ask me that number is more like 1.5 million. And I also believe that those are the registered refugees while another 1.7 million Afghan refugees here are without documents. And none of them are our citizens so we have a situation. The border that we share with Afghanistan also has some 40,000 people crossing over every day,” he pointed out, adding that Turkey was also facing a similar problem where such refugees entered Turkey to head to Europe.

“There are many Pakistanis settled in Europe. Unfortunately, Pakistanis are emotional people with inadequate understanding about discrimination. They see the discrimination against Muslims. It all comes down to perception,” he said.

Broadcast journalist Najia Ashar spoke about the media’s part in spreading intolerance.

She said that there used to be only one television channel in Pakistan, the state-owned PTV. “We used to watch cartoons, plays, news shortly after which the channel would shut down with the playing of the national anthem. It was a peaceful life,” she said. “Then in 2002, we saw the introduction of private media channels. In 2005 there was the devastating earthquake and then there were the 2010 floods and these channels showed the goodwill of people helping each other not caring what religion or sect they belonged to,” she reminded.

Coming to what happened after that, Ms Ashar said that the private news channels then became all about sensationalism. “The sensationalism has given birth to worry as the channels give so much time to terrorist actions. The programmes with content for children and youth are all gone. In their place we see political debates,” she said, coming to what is happening now. “Now we have the social media which gives news through citizen reporting. News itself does not become viral on social media, its impact does, the public reaction to a news does,” she said.

Published in Dawn, February 3rd, 2020