Diverted by politics

What a spectacle this is. It holds the attention of the general public across the country. The action began on Thursday evening, when police in Islamabad lathi-charged the PTI’s youth convention and arrested many of them. This was seen as the launch of a crackdown on Imran Khan’s campaign to ‘lockdown’ the capital on November 2. The professed intention is to drive Nawaz Sharif out of the Prime Minister’s House.

Our people are addicted to politics and the news channels serve as their primary source of intoxication. It is incredible how the talk shows reverberate in the minds of the ordinary people. They get overly worried – or excited – about the prospect of an upheaval that seems forever imminent. The incendiary rhetoric of the leaders often sets the tone of popular discourse.

Friday saw a number of dramatic events. It is interesting that Imran Khan, cast as a hero in this blockbuster, did not venture out of his princely perch on the hill in Islamabad even though he had promised to somehow make it to the Lal Haveli in Rawalpindi and Shaikh Rashid, who is seen as his sidekick, became the star of the day.

But irrespective of what unfolded in the political arena on Thursday evening and during the day on Friday, there are many questions that did not evoke much serious deliberation in the media or, one suspects, in the minds of the living-room pundits. What does this confrontation mean in the context of the national sense of direction? How will it affect the lives of the people and the state of our society? What policies or ideological issues are at stake?

We do have the leaders holding forth on their achievements and promises, depending on whether they are in power or striving to get it. For many, Nawaz Sharif interrupted the show when he addressed a public meeting in Kohat on Friday, technically in Imran’s territory, and painted a rosy picture of what his government has achieved and what it is set to achieve until 2018 – the scheduled year of the next elections. Typically, he also announced projects worth four billion rupees for Kohat and the adjoining areas.

Elsewhere, for sure, the political panorama projected conflict and disorder. While the crackdown of the police against PTI activists was largely preventive in nature to stave off the threat of November 2, Imran and his associates insist that this will be an added impetus for the final showdown. The pledge to raise a tsunami is now beginning to have a comic edge to it.

So, almost the total attention of the nation is devoted to the contest for political power that is becoming violent. It has its significance. But the pity of it is that it becomes hard to remember that something had happened in Quetta just three days before the police confronted the young PTI activists in Islamabad. Count the hours between the two incidents and it would be less than 72 hours.

See for yourself the variance in how the media covered Quetta and how it is literally going berserk with excitement over the PTI agitation. As I have said, Quetta was quickly forgotten. Shaikh Rashid’s antics and fulminations of the political adversaries against each other seemingly deserve a more sustained and intensive coverage. It would be instructive to make a tally of the TV time that was devoted this week to the two separate developments.

In Quetta as many as 61 young lives were lost in the terror attack on the police training centre during the night between Monday and Tuesday. Those were undoubtedly very precious and indispensable lives, each one representing, in a sense, a human universe that was blown into pieces. If you divide the coverage of the Quetta carnage with 61, you will get the worth of one life lost in a terror attack.

There are certain aspects of this tragedy that needed to be explored and explained against the backdrop of the political situation in Balochistan. These young cadets, and more than 100 of them were injured in the attack, came from different far flung areas of the province and belonged largely to ordinary families. They represented longings for social change and mobility. Every young man who died was the repository of unspoken dreams of a family.

Yes, there have been a number of such attacks, mainly suicide bombings, in which scores of lives have been lost. Someone may also argue that after Operation Zarb-e-Azb against terror networks and the execution of the National Action Plan, the overall situation has improved. Be that as it may, this week’s atrocity in Quetta is the latest reminder of how our society has suffered in the wake, conceivably, of our national security policies.

I find it difficult to not be reminded of another terror attack in Quetta that took place less than three months ago. About 80 persons had died in the suicide bombing at the Civil Hospital on August 8. It stood out among all other terror attacks because o the fact that it wiped out almost an entire generation of the lawyers of the city. Again, it was a tragedy that left us in a daze. We were not able to comprehend it.

Without going into other soul-destroying instances of national adversity, the issue here is the comparative importance of the many stories and political or social developments that affect the destiny of the nation. We would expect the media to look at and investigate the reality of Pakistan and generate a debate that would facilitate the resolution of the crises we confront.

What has happened, really, is that the media has created anxiety and despondency among its consumers who are overwhelmingly unlettered or poorly educated. I have been saying for some time that the media, instead of being a part of the solution, has become a part of the problem. At one level, its preoccupation with partisan politics has also subverted the process by breeding apathy and inaction.

Irrespective of the enthusiastic mobilisation on the part of the parties for public action, there has not been any phenomenon of common citizens coming out of their homes to join a movement. They have all to be brought to the scene of action through various means. Only party workers are motivated to come out. Crowds may also be rented. However, the show they present diverts not just our but the media’s attention from more crucial developments.

The writer is a senior journalist.

Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com