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The following email was delivered to my inbox from centralinformationbureau1985@gmail.com. I share it here to open it for a discussion.
Does the media expect the PPP to remain under influence of anesthesia? – By Ahmed Iqbalabadi
Every action has a reaction. The reaction can differ from person to person and party to party. The media especially some elements in it, like the Jang Group and now ARY, with its change of guard, have been targeting the PPP and its leadership without fail. Be it the restoration of judges, carbon tax, NRO, Kerry Lugar Bill, 18thAmendment, and now the visit of the President to France and UK, floods in the country and “shoe-attack” by a “patriotic” Pakistani, the target has always been the person of President Asif Ali Zardari. Whether one as a party supporter likes the person of Mr. Zardari or not, but one thing is for sure: the PPP continues to remain united under the banner of PPP led by the President. Detractors can claim that the party has been divided ever since Mr. Zardari took over, however, I fail to notice one instance where those not agreeing with his policies have resigned from the party given seat as a Senator, MNA or MPA or for that matter left the PPP as member. Dissent is one thing, which is the democratic right of every party member while division is totally different.
Having been unable to dent the party like they were able to in 1990’s when we saw at least three splinter groups (Murtaza Bhutto’s group, Shaheed Bhutto group under Dr. Mubashir Hassan and then Sherpao Group) emerge, the media follows both intense and subliminal attacks on the leadership of the PPP to make the party workers and supporters disgruntled. When the news of “shoe-attack” on the President was aired, my little brother and some other friends who are known supporters of the party were thoroughly disappointed. In one way or the other their suggestion was “President should resign and leave the party” after this ignominious incident. My response to them was by making you disappointed and disgruntled, the media is making inroads into the party. When the party cannot be defeated in elections, the party needs to be divided to be made ineffective.
On one hand, we have been seeing scathing attacks on the party and its leadership from the media while on the other, the media expects there to be no reaction. Does the media expect PPP and its workers to remain under the influence of general anesthesia that you pin and poke us the wrong and hard way but expect the party and workers not to respond? I have tried to find out from my friends in Karachi if GEO and ARY News were not being seen on their cable network? The answer was in the negative. I asked them whether they received Jang or The News (if they are subscribers), the answer was “yes, we did”. So where is the attack on media when the media keeps on plying its trade of criticism?
If elements of Jang/Geo/The News, ARY and others claim attacks on media, then why are they able to disseminate anything and everything that comes to their mind?
Let me remind all our readers of effective media gagging in Pakistan’s history. I hope these three instances should be enough for people differentiate between gagging and freedom of press:
- During General Zia’s martial law, news that didn’t use to comply with their standards used to be deleted. The result was parts of the newspapers used to be blank. Hundreds of journalists were arrested while reporting.
- MQM effectively boycotted Jang on 10th March 1989. The MQM announced boycott of the newspaper by not only not buying the newspaper but also ensuring that its delivery was blocked. Thousands of copies of Jang were burnt. Result has been that during the last 21 years, Jang publishes the press releases of MQM verbatim. Also negative reporting of MQM has been shunned. Now that is what is called an effective boycott.
- In 1998, Jang Group and PML-N led government were in tussle for newsprint quotas and taxation demands.
lt was an acrimonious relationship between Mir Shakil ur Rehman and Senator Saif ur Rehman. MSR was forced to come out in public with tapes of threats by Saif. At the same time, Jang had thinned to become a 6 page newspaper on very poor quality newsprint. And off course, government advertisements were stopped to the group. For all details of the “War on Jang” please see this link: http://www.jang.com.pk/
thenews/spedition/waronjang/ index.html My question to the media is: are you seeing any of the above three actions against you? Moreover, can’t I as a PPP worker say enough is enough? Am I not permitted to react?
It is high time, the PPP rethought its media strategy and come up with out of the box thinking to counter this unleashed media.
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i really dont get the fuss about it..the international media talks about president zardari being thrown a shoe n then geo talks about it..what does the government want; us to sit as fools who do not even know what the international media is talking about our president? we have every right to know and i'd say it was a responsibility ov media to tell us about it. it has been made such an issue cuz it goes against president zardari ;maybe they should focus more on why it is so rather than flaming on media. if zardari was well respected by all us pakistani public then listening to geo news n ary news abt it, we instead would have flared up at that man who threw the shoes that how dare he behave like this with our president and why such an incident was given hype by international media but instead the majority ov the people felt happy about it; they enjoyed the news. it's high time that president zardari tries to understand why the people do not respect him and what he can do to get their respect and support
hmm I Think what Geo and other channel doing with this Culprit Goverment is very right behaviour , cause I m pakistani and You can take survery from all over Pakistan how many Pakistani would give vote to MR.Zardari “President ” by default , Leader always by born and President is Zardari accidently …He must need to focus on Governence so hhe can be get some support from people .. if he 5% Money transfer in Pakistan so People start might be loving him. PML (n) and PPP are most dictator style parties..
can u write any positive think about Habbitual Crimnal ?? so Geo is Wrong and Ary ..
First we need to get out of this paradox we are stuck into. We should better get rid of this 'west-ward syndrome' that keeps us looking for their word for the sake of strengthening our arguments. We have to look after our own self instead of making the western media as a standard to judge us. Why do we have to cite the examples from Washington posts, New york, the Guardians or the Mirrors and say 'look what they are saying'? For us our own media should be enough who are well-grounded to judge its people better than anyone else in the world.
Throwing a shoe is not an honorable thing to do, be it for Zardaris or Sharifs or anyone. Blair was as much despised in Britain as Bush was in US but neither in US nor in UK did we see any shoe-throwers, it was always in the third world countries or the immigrants abroad who does that in order to vent their anger. While their anger is not misplaced, its the attitude that needs to be changed, our leaders are our own reflection. The current state of affairs in Pakistan is the culmination of our failed character as a nation.
On the other hand, the ostriches in PPP are leading the party into a certain oblivion. This ostrich-mentality they are flaunting so shamelessly is going to cost them really bad. Its not the 90's where everything was done behind the editors of PTV News, for the first time in their history Pakistanis are watching with their own eyes all what they have only heard and read before. The political shenanigans of the leaders and the hypocrisy of OUR democracy is pushing them over the edge. No PPP worker or leader if he really considers himself to be a Pakistani first, can in any possible way defend this mindless visit of the President. The government has hired acrobats as their advisers, they better get rid of them first if they really want to set their own home in order before blaming the media.
The media needs to follow certain rules and ethics too. Its such an irony in our country that we all take freedom for granted, judiciary got free and you saw the lawyers becoming the gangsters on roads and in courts hitting people, press, police and even their own judges. Same is the case with media to some extent though, a bit subtle in nature, the media is a monitor and should first monitor its own self. Media too should stop creating monsters out of unknown-underachieving-journalists and making them black-mailing goons to serve vested interests.
The bottom-line is we all need to be responsible individuals and Pakistanis before pointing fingers at the Government, media or the shoe-throwers.
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