Let them dream

They say cricket was a gentleman’s game until money came. With the splash of money came the evil of match-fixing and players selling games to make quick bucks. But cricket is not the only field where money seems to have changed norms. There are other fields that have begun to feel and taste different because people are too willing to use resources to manipulate results.



The media and the academia are two fields that have suffered on this account. Powerful stakeholders understand that information and knowledge bring power, so it is important to control both knowledge and narrative creation. So, when people say that the media is free or it has empowered people, they probably refer to the power of those who have greater ability to use resources to manipulate the media. Resources here do not just refer to money, but the ability to control sources of information. Thus, we can see renowned media organisations changing colours and compromising on quality because some have a greater ability to manipulate sources of information as compared with governments at their home base, which stopped investing or spending less in the name of cost-cutting. Since capturing information is critical for career advancement, media houses will hire or fire on the basis of your contacts. Surely, traditions are maintained but small changes eventually add up and bring about a huge incremental shift. So, if an international media organisation of repute begins to hire people with little sense of news, the quality will begin to change.

As mentioned earlier, the academia is another field where stakeholders are interested in manipulating the narrative. This was most obvious when the management of the Pakistani Society at Oxford was stopped from inviting a leading journalist to their annual event called the Pakistan Young Leadership Conference. The donors encouraged them to invite other journalists normally reputed as being close to the Pakistani establishment. Politicians like Mahmood Khan Achakzai and Yousuf Raza Gilani were invited to speak. But this doesn’t mean anything due to the fact that the popular narrative is poised against these political leaders. The anti-politician narrative mainly helps those forces, which are strategically placed during the event to create doubts in the minds of Pakistani youth regarding the efficacy of the democratic system. One has heard and seen, at least since this conference started in 2011, the efforts of the Hizbut Tahrir to become part of the conversation and distract the audience from the existing political system and towards the worth of establishing a khilafat. Interestingly, actors considered close to the establishment and its representatives in Pakistan’s High Commission in London constantly complain about it, but make no effort to shift the narrative. Interestingly, even the British government watches silently despite otherwise being upset about Muslim youth in Britain traveling to the Middle East for jihad.

One could make a case for complicity of the British, but the above case indicated the problems that are caused when trying to make ends meet by allowing others to invest in the university system while your own government undertakes cost-cutting measures. Perhaps, accountability would help in at least assessing the people who provide funding for events held on the premises of British universities. Inviting the aforementioned leading journalist was probably symbolically important to underscore the significance of freethinking. This is a time in life when the youth should be encouraged to imagine, idealise and challenge existing notions and myths. What is happening instead is an effort to give a lesson in realpolitik and pragmatism. Instead of learning the art of madness, the youth is being taught instead when not to cross a line for the fear of losing contacts and power that they may use back home at some future date.

Watching this tamasha, I was reminded of another story many years ago when certain quarters from Pakistan began to intervene in a process managed by the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Colombo, in which young academics and media personnel from various South Asian states would get together for a few days to discuss issues of significance. People would come together suspecting one another and end with tearful goodbyes. This began to change with the above-mentioned intervention when these young people were made conscious of the fact that they were being watched, or would be fed written questions to embarrass members of ‘enemy’ countries. The establishment of a state is a powerful stakeholder interested in controlling minds of the leadership of the future.

Some observers suspect that the mind manipulation game of students started during the last years of General (retd) Pervez Musharraf’s rule. Prior to that, students would get together to discuss Pakistan or use forums to familiarise many key people in British academia with Pakistan. More important was the fact that such activities were mainly voluntary and not funded. Then started the struggle to capture the attention of students, especially of Pakistani origin, by going as far as investing in student bodies in both cash and kind. People even talk about individuals in the Pakistani High Commission intervening in elections of some student bodies or forcing members to accept or reject certain results and not others. This is not to suggest that students did not defy the establishment. A prominent Baloch leader was also invited to speak (it is equally interesting to see student leaders hovering around the army attache). Nonetheless, establishing a system of donor-driven events is bound to have a long-term impact that at least students should avoid. The other method is offering help (financial, but mostly non-financial) in their research work, particularly when it pertains to Pakistan. Sadly, this process will create an elite no different from the one at present that we want to change.

The life between completing education and starting a career is a lovely time. These are the years when people can afford to dream and be sinful. Dreaming creates idealists but pragmatists, too, who will have chosen that option rather than be forced down the path. A state doesn’t progress if it stops creating idealist. So, please let them dream.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 13^th, 2014.

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