From
the Editor: Akhtar
Mahmud Faruqui
February 03, 2006
The Washington
Post Fulminations
“In promulgating your esoteric
cogitation are you aware of your platitudinous ponderosity?”
Youthful stirrings in the exciting transition from
school to college in Pakistan prompted us to pose
this question to classmates who were not so proficient
in English. In due course of time, we realized our
folly. The less-proficient in English burnt the
proverbial midnight oil to make their successful
pilgrimage to Cornell, Stanford, McGill and Loughborough.
They emerged as bright doctors, zestful engineers,
and innovative R&D professionals to make up
an enterprising lot - men of substance. High-sounding
verbosity or superficial affectations was not their
forte.
Recently, we were reminded of our
unbecoming youthful levity on perusing an editorial
in the Washington Post. Describing President Musharraf
as a “meretricious” military ruler,
the editorial smacked of arrogance and made quite
a few misleading observations in an imperial tone.
A few excerpts:
“Ever since the war on terrorism
began, this meretricious military ruler has tried
to be counted as a US ally while avoiding an all-out
campaign against the Islamic extremists in his country,
who almost surely include Osama bin Laden and his
top deputies. Despite mounting costs in American
lives and resources, he has gotten away with it…”
Quite to the contrary, as pointed out by the Pakistan
Embassy, on March 8, 2005 President Bush had told
a gathering at the National Defense University:
“We are more secure because Pakistani forces
captured more than 100 extremists across the country
last year, including operatives who were plotting
attacks against the United States.”
The lambaste continued: “Yet
Gen. Musharraf has never directed his forces against
the Pashtun Taliban militants who use Pakistan as
a base to wage war against American and Afghan forces
across the border. He has never dismantled the Islamic
extremist groups that carry out terrorist attacks
against India. He has never cleaned up the Islamic
madrassas that serve as a breeding ground for suicide
bombers. He has pardoned and protected the greatest
criminal proliferator of nuclear weapons technology
in history, A.Q. Khan, who aided Libya, North Korea
and Iran…” Misleading claims. The fact
of the matter is that President Musharraf has acted
with due expedition to counter the Taliban remnants
in the northern part of the country. The Pakistan
Army has suffered losses yet the pressure has been
maintained, nay, mounted. One is impelled to ask
the Post editors if the presence of coalition troops
in Iraq has prevented the acts of madness by suicide
bombers?
As for the terrorist camps against
India, there are none. The indigenous nature of
the uprising in Occupied Kashmir has been conclusively
proved - time and again. Indeed, Pakistan opened
up the whole Azad Jammu and Kashmir territory to
international relief agencies after the Oct 8 earthquake.
“Had there been any such group in Pakistan,
the government would have not allowed charity organizations
and UN agencies to function in Azad Jammu and Kashmir,”
the Pakistan Embassy protest note in Washington
rightly claimed
The madrassas have a new curriculum,
marking a wholesome change. The A. Q. Khan network
has been effectively dismantled while no such action
has been taken against nuclear proliferators of
European origin whose complicity in shady dealings
has been amply proved. Why such omission on the
part of European countries has gone unnoticed, one
may ask.
“If targets can be located,
they should be attacked -- with or without Gen.
Musharraf’s cooperation…” A preposterous
suggestion in total disregard of international norms!
It is a pity that the Washington Post, which claims
to be the bastion of liberal journalism, unabashedly
advocates bullyboy techniques.
One need hardly remind the Post editors
that the media has to be honest and objective if
it is to succeed in fulfilling its role of defining
a healthy set of values for society, to draw the
line between right and wrong, to be the upholder
of liberty and freedom. Tocqueville was wholly right
when he declared in 1835 that “a nation that
is determined to remain free is right in demanding
at any price the exercise of this independence”
(of the media). It was the recognition of this noble
role that led to the acceptance of the media as
the ‘fourth estate’ in the UK as early
as 1789. Three decades earlier, in 1753 to be precise,
seven million newspapers were sold in the UK annually;
20,000 a day, more than any other country at that
time.
Yet, truthfulness and objectivity
have been an elusive hallmark of the fourth estate
- today and earlier. About seventy years back, the
American media found itself precariously perched.
It was helplessly dependent for news flow on the
British press. Kent Cooper, a former Executive Manager
of the Associated Press (AP), complained about American
dependence thus: “Reuter decided what news
was to be sent from America. It told the world about
Indians on the warpath in the west, lynching in
the south, and bizarre crimes in the north. The
charge for decades was that nothing creditable to
America was sent…. Figuratively speaking,
in the United States, it wasn’t safe to travel
on account of the Indians.”
Stressing the same point more incisively
and in the context of the present times, William
James Stover (Information Technology in the Third
World, Colorado, US, 1984) observes: “The
concentration of telecommunication facilities, news
agencies, mass media outlets, data resources, and
manufacturers of communication equipment in a small
group of advanced countries precludes a full, two-way
flow of information among equals. As a result, the
flow of messages, data, media programs, culture
and other information is directed predominantly
from bigger to smaller countries, from those with
power and technology to those less advanced, from
the developed to the less developed world…”
Not surprisingly, UPS’ monthly output of 150
filmed stories from N. America and Europe sharply
contrasted with 20 from Asia!
Today, the media wields a formidable
clout. It can demolish states, institutions, and
even presidents of the most powerful country of
the world. Instructive excerpts from Modern Times
(Paul Johnson, HarperCollins Publishers, New York,
1992):
“The men and the movement that
broke Lyndon Johnson’s authority in 1968 are
out to break Richard Nixon in 1969 …breaking
presidentship is, like most feats, easier to accomplish
the second time round…” (p. 647)
“Remember”, he (Nixon)
told his staff, “the press is the enemy. When
news is concerned nobody in the press is a friend.
They are all enemies.” (p. 647)
“Nixon never put his side of
the case since, rather than risk the prolonged national
convulsion of an impeachment, which might have lasted
years, he resigned in August 1974. Thus, the electoral
verdict of 1972 was overturned by what might be
described as a media putsch. The ‘imperial
presidency’ was replaced by the ‘imperial
press.’ “ (p. 653)
If the powerful American president
was so helpless before the more powerful media,
what could be the lot of the have-nots, the developing
countries, or the Third World known for the ‘third-ness’
of its strivings? More Rosenblu, former editor of
the International Herald Tribune, furnishes an insightful
answer: “The Western monopoly on the distribution
of news, whereby even stories written about one
Third World country for distribution in another
are reported and transmitted by international agencies
based in New York, London, and Paris amounts to
neo-colonialism and cultural domination.”
The quotations from various sources
in this piece may sound excessive yet they have
been mentioned to lend credence to the argument.
It is in this context that a
Los Angeles Times editorial comment made sometime
back should be perused. It is a comment that could
serve as food for thought for many a newspaper editor:
“As a member of the industry we hesitate to
offer unsolicited advise to the ubiquitous media…
Each news outlet should reexamine its decisions.
Were they true to a mission of delivering news not
speculations of reporting facts, not hyped promotional
opportunities?”
- afaruqui@pakistanlink.com
