The bewildered herd

There is a video on YouTube that would perhaps never fail to mesmerize me. A bunch of TV reporters in Islamabad have surrounded a German consular officer who was in a car accident that night. The German explains how it was not his fault, but the reporters take turns repeating the same question over and over again about the identity of the German and whether or not he was drunk. He pleads with them that while he was a Christian, it didn’t mean that he consumed alcohol. At one point, he does ask them why he should speak to the media just because he was in a car accident. That is when the reporters stop talking, not out of decency, but out of sheer ignorance.

And that right there is the problem. Believing and accepting things to be a certain way and not another without questioning the status quo is fast becoming the ultimate test of Pakistani citizenship. When there was no democracy in Pakistan, there was, to a significant extent, an informed citizenry. Today, there is democracy in Pakistan but it is hard to detect an informed citizenry. A nation that thinks that the broadcast of ‘Breaking News’ everyday creates informed people needs to look into the mirror because sensationalism has never been associated with the spread of truth. Noise about certain issues and silence over others is a perfect strategy to throttle journalism. The gatekeepers of information exist to serve that purpose exactly. Pakistanis need a realization that omission is more lethal than outright lies. A simple question to always keep in mind while consuming news should be: what is it that they don’t say? Apparently, some cancers are cured by detecting their absence.

The media creates noise, but it also loses the ability to think freely. The media is not creating an informed citizenry, which is an essential requirement for a healthy democracy. It is merely giving information. Once the independent thinking is lost, everything is lost. A decent survival becomes questionable in the absence of a mind that is capable of forming its own opinion. A nation with a weird viewpoint doesn’t matter. What matters is whether or not the opinion is organic.

Many might expect that more sources of news would create more informed people. The truth, however, is that more news sources have created more bewildered people. Their opinions were not synthesized within their brain, but rather without. Ask a commoner on the streets what he feels about Australia playing cricket in Pakistan and he would repeat that well known and oft-repeated thoughtless narration, which celebrates the return of international cricket to Pakistan.

Some of the least noticed things can be the most problematic. Any building with some stores in it is now called a mall. If you recall, these buildings used to be called plazas before. In cricket, the Pakistan team is now called Team Pakistan. These may sound as benign issues or even non-issues, but it highlights a disturbing undercurrent: the inability to detect propaganda and the sheer capability to deeply internalize concepts, ideas, and new-fangled arguments as if they had been there for ages.

Let us ask some harder questions: why should I celebrate the arrival of international cricketers to Pakistan who are provided the kind of security unheard of in any other place? Why should it mean the success of Pakistan? The most disturbing question is if anyone is even asking these questions. The manufactured pride associated with it doesn’t pay the bills of the average Pakistani; manufactured because we are taught and regularly bombarded with media punditry to feel a certain way about cricket. The noise doesn’t stop long enough for the average masses to let their own free thoughts flow and reach a conclusion on their own. The artificially built yardsticks used to measure success and happiness should at least be seen as such even if we are too addicted to abandon them.

Similarly, Pakistani media is all gung-ho about female power and the rights of women. I am in no way advocating for violence against women and I strongly believe in the equal rights of women in Pakistani society. But does it really get worse for women in Pakistan, which has resulted in the creation of feminist thought? Or is it just another example of taught and allowed urge? Somehow anything that sanitizes the image of the West as this saviour of humanity would always receive funding and a lot of noise. Try getting funding and support for narratives such as giving voice to the victims of drone strikes or ensuring the education of Palestinian girls and you’ll understand the meaning behind funded ideas.

When Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein met, the two had nothing, but admiration for each other. Einstein is said to have commented that people loved Charlie because they understood everything Charlie did not say. Charlie is said to have replied that people loved Einstein despite not understanding what the latter said. Little did Einstein or Charlie know that one day that phrase would fit the people of Pakistan.

Pakistani media can serve the citizens by exiting the comfort zone they dwell in. Verifying the sources of news is just elementary, but what is equally, if not more, important is not to cherry-pick what news should be. This can all be done by abandoning a bad habit: omission.

The writer is a commentator on climate change and international politics