KARACHI, June 11: “Realities are often created,” stated Dr Tariq Rahman, quoting Noam Chomsky. “And the media often creates these realities.” These words were enough to capture the attention of the audience gathered at the Zamir Niazi Memorial Lecture Series on Monday.

Entitled “Press and Our Freedoms”, the lecture was held at the auditorium of the Fatima Jinnah Medical and Dental College to commemorate the journalist’s third death anniversary.

A distinguished HEC professor at the National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Dr Rahman pointed out that no body except the public can ensure the freedom of the press, and for that matter, academia. He said that the citizenry alone can put pressure on the government and induce it to uphold the rights of both institutions. In that sense, added Dr Rahman, journalistic and academic institutions are not too different since they have their integrity and independence to protect.

“The freedom of the press is a relatively new phenomenon, about a 100- to 150-year-old experiment,” he said, “but oppression by powerful forces is not.” According to Dr Rahman, we tend to take this freedom for granted and delude ourselves into thinking that the Pakistani media have acquired the required stability. However, it must not be forgotten that the situation remains precarious.

Dr Rahman quoted President General Musharraf’s recent comments at the inaugural ceremony of a private news channel: “I gave the media that freedom it has today.” He explained that the current government had, so to speak, “liberated” the media and the public tended to believe that once such freedom was granted, there could not be any further opposition. However, recent political developments and the subsequent restrictions placed on the media showed that such complacency was a mistake.

Reiterating that press freedom could only be maintained by public pressure, Dr Rahman pinpointed the difficulties Pakistan faced in this respect. First, he said, is the fact that Pakistan is a closed theocratic society and therefore, “going against religious and cultural norms is a Herculean task.” Secondly, political restrictions make it difficult to uphold press freedoms since the people in power try to maintain the status quo and the media try to alter it. “Because of these restrictions, society lives in terror when non-institutional elements are given the freedom to do as they please,” explained Dr Rahman, referring to occasions during the current and earlier regimes when journalists have been treatened and harassed. “It is because of this that liars are created in society – journalists refrain from telling the truth because the price for doing so is very high.”

In conclusion, Dr Rahman commented that, “we are living in dangerous times when liberal values are being threatened and the media are being oppressed all over the world. We must try to maintain these freedoms and for that reason, the academia and the media must work together and fight oppression.”

Subsequently, Ardeshir Cowasjee, senior journalist with Business Recorder Wahid Basheer, Dr Jaffer Ahmed of the Pakistan Studies Centre, Karachi University, and Lutfullah Khan related anecdotes about Mr Niazi.