Our side of the terror story

Media, without perhaps knowing what it is doing, has been playing a significantly more lethal role than guns

The main objective of the kind of terrorism that Pakistan has been facing over the last several years is to capture the hearts and minds of as many Pakistanis as possible, and not the territory. The thinking behind this approach is that territory would automatically fall into the hands of these ideologically driven terrorists once they have succeeded in achieving their key objective.

And for achieving this key objective of theirs, the terrorists depend more on the media rather than on the far and few terror attacks that they execute. That is why they try to make each one of their attacks as dramatically bloody as they can, knowing very well that it would be impossible for the media to ignore the ‘thrillers’. And they add to the drama by calling up media organisations to own up to the attacks. All this makes sensationally saleable copy for the ratings-driven media houses. In the process, they help, without perhaps knowing it, the terrorists to win more recruits among the mentally feeble sections of our youth who have been raised on some mythical versions of so-called Islamic history and at the same time terrorise the whole nation into a state of pathetic pulp.

The media houses that have tried to cover these attacks as professionally as possible so as to defuse their impact on the hearts and minds of the gullible citizens are known to have been taught new lessons on what is professional and what is not. The media, therefore, has remained under severe pressure from these terror outfits and in recent years, the country has won the dubious distinction of being one of world’s most dangerous countries for media practitioners.

Working under all kinds of pressures, mostly from terrorist organisations and not the least from even those who have been promoting and supporting the falsehood of the ‘good’ Taliban and the ‘bad’ Taliban, and those who have been looking the other way as the so-called non-state actors carried out ‘jihad’ in Indian Kashmir, the Pakistani media seemed to have become an unwilling partner in the heinous game of the terrorists. Most media narratives of these terror incidents, like the ones carried out against our security forces and their installations including the GHQ itself as well as air force and navy installations, ISI offices and police training camps, have remained slanted in ways as to inspire the religiously half-baked young minds. At times, the murderous incidents have been presented by our media as if the terrorists are playing the role of the Jack who killed the giant in the famous fable. In our case, unfortunately, the state itself, as well as its agencies, is viewed by these misled youth as the giant.

Over the period in question, the media, under pressure from terror quarters, had started referring to the terrorists not as terrorists but as ‘militants’ or ‘extremists’. And in order to be seen to be presenting both sides of the story, it went to the extent of offering space and time to the attackers of Malala Yousufzai to justify their heinous act which they did by quoting out-of-context religious injunctions. Just imagine how this ‘balanced’ story must have seemed to the credulous sections of our populace in whose eyes the so-called ‘secular’ government enjoyed no moral ascendency compared with the reverential-looking bearded terrorists, justifying their act quoting injunctions from the Holy Book. Recently, even after the 20-point National Action Plan was announced, and the distinction between the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban was removed, some media houses showed scenes in which a hero-like welcome was being accorded to Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, a senior commander of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, as he was being brought to the courts from his place of detention. Thus, the media, without perhaps knowing what it is doing, has been playing a significantly more lethal role than the automatic weapons in the hands of these terrorists or their suicide jackets, in winning the hearts and minds of our misguided youth. It is now time to stop using this slant and treat each terror story on merit. In this war on terror, there is no other side. There is only one side and that is our side.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 21^st, 2015.

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