Censorship and fear

Today there exists voluntary self-censorship, inspired by persecution, prosecution, public opinion, intolerance fears.

With the state busily disintegrating on various fronts, we were promised — by this third time try of Nawaz Sharif to govern as an effective and wisdom-endowed prime minister — that there would be an allout assault on terrorism, an activity that has somewhat grudgingly been acknowledged, by the so-called pillars of state, as the foremost barrier to normal progress on any front of governance. The assault could be passive, futile talks with the enemy or some concrete action.

In his address to the nation — rather a non-event when compared with other addresses in his previous existences as PM — Nawaz Sharif enlarged on the terrorism factor and the fear it spreads. Law-enforcement agencies, out of fear, do not make arrests. If arrests are made, the courts are fearful when hearing cases and witnesses are too terrified to come forward, and so on and so forth.



An assault upon and the acknowledgment of the state of the national mindset, which goes a goodly way towards furthering the aims of the militant bigoted brigades, is also something direly needed. The state, under various governments besieged by terrorism, in keeping with the national mindset, is itself imbued with fear, which further breeds bigotry fed by the fear of violence.

To take just one fairly mild instance, the prolonged ban of YouTube. According to an editorial in this publication on July 6, “Ban-istan”, a growing number of websites “are being blocked by an over-zealous government”.

Now, there is usually some way of getting around state censorship as we well know. Blocking YouTube and other websites is a futile approach as there are ways and means of getting to blocked sites.

Self-censorship is quite different. It ties things up. Recommended reading is George Orwell’s essay on “The Freedom of the Press”, originally intended as a preface to Animal Farm. Orwell saw the chief danger to freedom of thought and speech, as far as the written word is concerned, in that distant past, as being not so much the direct interference of official bodies but rather the exertion of publishers and editors to keep certain topics out of print — today there exists a voluntary self-censorship, inspired by fear of persecution, prosecution, public opinion and the many preachers of intolerance who use violence as a means to propagate their obscurantist thinking. (Things are quite different on the electronic media, which by state and by the preachers, is allowed to scrape the gutter.)

Unpopular ideas can be silenced and inconvenient facts kept in the dark without the need for an official ban. The press, most of it, is owned by wealthy men who have every motive — supposedly justifiable — to prevaricate on various topics. As it is, Article 19 of the Constitution puts paid to much comment, so the need for further restrictions is purely a fear factor. Freedom of expression is the right of every citizen as is freedom of the press “subject to any reasonable restrictions imposed by law in the interest of the glory of Islam or the integrity, security or defence of Pakistan or any part thereof, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency or morality, or in relation to contempt of court, commission of or incitement to an offence”.

A formidable array and sufficient unto itself.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 24^th, 2013.

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