All Image
and No Substance Makes for a PR Disaster
The Pakistani preoccupation
with image and impressions has always
been somewhat mystifying to me. Even
as a child I remember concerns like
“what will the foreigners think?”
and greater dismay should a faux pas
occur in the presence of “foreigners”.
This disconnect with what is and what
should be portrayed, is manifested in
the pristine cloistered drawing rooms
of Pakistan in homes where the bathrooms
and kitchens would challenge the strongest
of noses. Possessing a sense of smell
akin to the canine species, I truly
adore my adoptive homeland where bathrooms,
even public ones are clean and kitchens
a joy to even hang out in.
Some of this image-preoccupied mindset
emanates from the servitude of colonialism,
which tried to ingrain the superiority
of white over brown skin. In some first
generation Pakistani-Americans it has
been known to violate even deeply held
religious beliefs. “In a company
dinner when you are served bacon strips
over steak, are you going to make a
fuss? Just remove the strips and eat
the steak is what you should do.”
So went the intimidating instructions
to me upon arrival to the land of the
free. And to his chagrin I made fuss
after fuss in front of American after
American. And of course the fact that
I am an American citizen and so an American
too does not count. One ought to know
that the word “American”
connotes a snow white one. All others
are blacks, Hispanics, Pakistanis or
Indians etc.
From an individual and social level
this preoccupation with image has rocketed
to national heights. At first Pakistani
government officials claimed that the
decision to put Mukhtaran Mai on the
Exit Control List was taken by a person
low in the totem pole of the Interior
Ministry - “more loyal to the
king than the king himself”. The
Prime Minister had intervened and gotten
her name removed from it. Funny that
the Pakistan embassy in Washington is
still claiming that it was doing all
in its power to help her travel to the
United States as a guest of the Asian-American
Network Against the Abuse of Women,
acronym ANAA.
ANAA was founded in 2002 after the rape
cases of Saima and Shama and had intended
for Mukhtaran Mai to address APPNA,
the Association of Pakistani Physicians
of North America at their annual convention
in Houston Texas in early July. The
sole idea was to focus attention on
the rights of women and illustrate how
one so dehumanized had soared on the
wings of courage. The first time that
Mukhtaran Mai’s rapists had walked
free Musharraf’s government had
initiated Supreme Court action and now
that it has happened for a second time,
the Supreme Court decided to “sift
the facts” on June 27th. There
was and is great intention here, one
sees no reason for fixing images and
engineering facts.
And if only the naiveté of the
low man on the totem pole had remained
fact. While responding to questions
at the Auckland Foreign Correspondents
Club, Musharraf was shocking when he
said that Mukhtaran Mai was being taken
to the United States by foreign non-government
organizations “to bad-mouth Pakistan”
over the “terrible state”
of the nation’s women. He said
NGOs were “Westernized fringe
elements” which “are as
bad as the Islamic extremists”.
He acknowledged that he placed the 36-year-old
on the list of people banned from leaving
Pakistan. “She was told not to
go,” he said and added, “I
don’t want to project the bad
image of Pakistan. I am a realist. Public
relations is the most important thing
in the world”. “Pakistan
is a victim of poor perceptions, the
reality is very different”.
As much as the right hand of the government
does not know what the left is doing,
it appears that the General is indulging
in the desire to have his cake and eat
it too.
ANAA had guaranteed that Mukhtaran Mai
would say nothing adverse about the
government; she herself was deeply indebted
to the government’s extremely
unusual Supreme Court intervention on
her behalf. On the one hand the General
talks about the “terrible state”
of the nation’s women and in the
same breath bemoans Pakistan just being
a victim of poor perceptions. (The physician
side of me is beginning to get concerned
with the rapid and frequent contradiction
in his statements as well as his very
clearly defective short-term memory.
Some pre-senile dementia in the works,
one wonders?)
And as far as public relations being
the most important thing in the world
is concerned, nothing could have borne
my premise about Pakistanis being concerned
with image, better. The statement gets
full marks for originality. One had
heard of honesty, faith, education,
money and power as being amongst some
of the most important things in the
world. But public relations?
With that mentality it is no wonder
that almost everything is mismanaged
in Pakistan. In February, Dawn reported,
“While inaugurating Pakistan’s
first National Academy of Performing
Arts Musharraf urged Pakistanis whether
in the public, private or corporate
sector to contribute towards building
Pakistan’s soft image at home
and abroad”. One hears of event
management, this is image management.
And consonant with Musharraf’s
preoccupation with Pakistan’s
soft image again in February 2005 according
to the Pak Tribune, Prime Minister Shaukat
Aziz announced the formation of an inter-ministerial
committee for the promotion of culture,
sports, tourism and trade with a special
focus on projecting Pakistan’s
soft image abroad. The Prime Minister
would head the committee, which would
be made up of various ministers and
ministers of state.
All in every sector are to portray and
project a good image and impression.
Pakistan’s is not a totally patriarchal
society with third-rate treatment of
women, it is just misperception. There
is no sexual harassment of women in
the shopping centers and schools and
workplaces in Pakistan; it is all propaganda.
There are no militarized madrassahs
in Pakistan and the Kalashnikov culture
is a totally Russian thing. The army
is not the richest group in Pakistan
with first dibs on all kinds of contracts;
it was the Bhuttos and Sharifs that
really plundered Pakistan. Women don’t
have only a 23% literacy rate; it was
probably an error in collection of statistics.
Pakistan does not have a huge opiate
addiction problem, it’s all happening
only in Afghanistan, after all Kabul
is the heroin capital of the world.
And don’t worry about obvious
and serious unemployment: we claim it
is 7.5% even though this number is lower
than that of France (10.2%), Germany
(11.8%) and Belgium (12.3%). That is
our number and we are sticking with
it.
There was no need to manipulate Mukhtaran
Mai. The facts and how much the government
had helped her and how much it is alleviating
the country’s downtrodden would
have come out, as truth and murder often
do. Image concerns and ill-advised actions
have caused the situation to spin out
of control and an unmitigated PR disaster
is at hand. Besides the New York Times
and American TV media, even Uncle Sam
is mad with Musharraf now.
If all the effort that is expended on
image management were spent on substantive
issues one would even be saved the effort
to propagandize. And again the dichotomy
that the General is engaging in has
me concerned. Public relations he says
is the most important thing in the world
and at the same time that he is a realist.
Why worry then about the fluff and the
hooey General, time for a reality check.
(Mahjabeen Islam is a physician practicing
in Toledo, Ohio. Her email is mahjabeenislam@hotmail.com)
