Suspended animation

When the state is unable to even protect itself, then the media and the rest have no option but to knuckle under.

As reported, the media boycotted the January 27 session of the honourable National Assembly — no great loss to anyone as the National Assembly in the Sharif days matters not a whit in the scheme of things. It makes no contribution to the dangerous mess that is now the tottering Islamic Republic. Problem: the real and present danger faced by journalists and reporters, fair game for the forces of militancy.

The information minister (a portfolio which should not exist, a money drain serving no purpose other than to distribute handouts), Pervaiz Rashid, was at least honest, shamefully so, when speaking to the press after the boycott. There is no ‘quick fix’ to the problem — the press will remain open to attack. ‘Pakistan is being attacked from within,’ so everyone, ‘politicians, army and law enforcement agencies’ are ‘unsafe’ (so much for ‘information’). If it were not so true, this would be a hilarious admission coming from a cabinet minister, an admission that the civilian government, the military, the LEAs, the whole jing-bang lot that comprise the institutions of governance are jellified by fear, in a blue funk, bereft of leadership, nous, ability or the will to try and extricate the state, its institutions and citizens from the precarious position in which they all find themselves.

The year 2014 has literally started off with a bang — or rather a series of bangs — and what passes for government is held hostage by fear. That a minister includes the army in the ‘unsafe’ lot is not so fanciful, as armies are paid to wage war against enemies of the state, thus to face danger. But to admit that the state is spastic is quite something else.

Editor Kamal Siddiqui did well on these pages this past week in frankly admitting that: “Now instead of government censorship, we have self-censorship in place. We have to decide what goes and, more important, we are responsible for the repercussions of what we do.”

As was once written a long time ago in our press, a press, which for reasons various has always, even in its heydays of freedom, been subjected to certain censorship flowing from the Constitution and the law and to self-censorship due to threats emanating from militant political parties, religious fanaticism and intolerance, a lack of a sense of humour, or, as now, downright terrorism: “One good thing about censorship is that there is usually some way of getting round it. This is not always true about self-censorship.”

The media, all its faults notwithstanding, must, as in the case of all citizens, be protected by the state. But when, as in our case, the state is unable to even protect itself, then the media and the rest have no option but to knuckle under. The dinosaur that stalks the land — terrorism — is relegated to one of Donald Rumsfeld’s ‘known unknowns’ or ‘unknown knowns’.

There are still some amongst us who say — as did a commentator recently — that more was expected of Nawaz Sharif. It is difficult to figure out why. He is not exactly one of the great ‘unknowns’. He has been around for decades, firmly planted in the public eye and we know what he is not capable of. But unlike Cleopatra, age and time seem to have withered him — mentally, but certainly not physically. He now finds himself clueless, lost, in a trance. He is no longer the man who took one minute on television to declare that Sundays are back, Fridays are gone (it was, of course, in his own, as well as in the country’s interest).

So everyone — politicos, generals, sepoys, administrators, law enforcers, et alia — will remain in a state of inactivity, suspended in air, lingering over the question of talking or not, whilst the state shrivels, economically and all-wise.

A former editor of Dawn writing on January 25 put it well: “Everyone hoping for peace and sanity will have to keep their nerve.”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 1^st,  2014.

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