Pakistan’s Minister for Information Ms Firdous Ashiq Awan, while addressing a seminar in Lahore last week, was reported as saying that the media ought to project a positive image of the country. “Media persons and politicians are role models for the people,” she pronounced weightily, “and they should promote positive tendencies in society.”
Ms Awan, you go where you ought never to tread. If we, the people, were to take politicians, yourself for example, as role models, most of what we did and said would be expunged with a thick red pencil for the sake of decency. However, let no one say that the media does not listen. I shall search for something to write about positively right away.
There hasn’t been much light to aid my search though. Lahore, the past week has been victim to dreadful loadshedding you see, so …no, let’s make that more positive: Lahore has of late been subject to an admirable degree of power conservation, six to eight hours more than before.
Those lines effectively mask the despair of business owners as customers walk past their dark premises to larger ones equipped with electricity generators. No one could detect in those lines the despondency of the old and sick when they have no light to see by, and no fans to dispel the heat. Is that positive enough for you Ms Awan? That is, what you wanted isn’t some censorship?
Moving on.
Salmaan Taseer’s bodyguard Mumtaz Qadri was awarded the death sentence on Saturday by the Rawalpindi Anti-Terrorism court. Emotional, bigoted and dangerously misinformed, Qadri may or may not end his days on the gallows depending on how the situation is used – as it will be. Mr Zardari, an opportunistic genius in his own devious way, may well exercise his power under Article 45 of the Pakistan Constitution to commute the sentence, but he will wait and see which way the wind blows first.
Urdu channels imposed a black out of news about the sentence and people have been debating whether this was valid. Apparently, most people in Pakistan support the death sentence pronounced on Qadri. Whether or not this assessment is based on fact, it does appear that the ‘visible’ population which has violently decried the verdict happens to be mainly non-English speaking. They have threatened to produce more assassins like Qadri if he is executed.
A death sentence is not the most convivial option available to a court of law, particularly in a place like Pakistan where miscarriage of justice is the norm. However, Qadri as we know, was witnessed committing this act, and has accepted, even proudly, ownership of his actions and courted arrest. There is little chance of miscarriage of justice in apportioning responsibility here.
Qadri assassinated Taseer because in Qadri’s own words, he, Salmaan Taseer blasphemed against the Prophet Mohammad when he condemned the blasphemy laws of Pakistan, and their specific application against a hapless Christian woman. For those who oppose Qadri’s actions, Qadri’s support of this law and his actions are the actual blasphemy. Should we all kill each other, if we use Qadri’s logic?
The judge who pronounced the verdict has people’s fervent prayers for his safety, and their admiration for his bravery. Dealing with Qadri is the easier task. It is much the overarching problem that people hold views such as Qadri’s, and have the support of so many people, including, in Qadri’s case, a large body of supposedly educated lawyers. Following the court’s verdict on Saturday roads were blocked and businesses closed in Lahore. Protestors took to the streets, and vehicles, including ambulances were stuck in traffic for hours.
This is not a story of the assassination of just one man, and the matter will not end with his assassin’s execution or imprisonment. Such incidents will recur. A whole segment of society must be educated in the danger of taking the law into individual hands, committing violence, and in the principles underlying their beliefs. If this ignorant segment of society happens to prefer a certain language, it was the responsibility of the media employing that language to use the opportunity to speak and initiate debate, rather than censor it.
Censorship is never the solution since information has a way of surviving like nothing else in today’s world. When suppressed, news is the more dangerous, since it will always out, along with a great deal of misinformation which eventually makes matters worse.
Bernard Shaw called assassination itself an extreme form of censorship. I myself never held an opinion either way about Salmaan Taseer until Qadri assassinated him for his condemnation of the blasphemy law and its particular application.
Taseer’s death for such a reason makes a martyr of the man, which means Qadri’s brand of censorship failed, as has the news black-out of Qadri’s sentence. We’re all talking about it, in several languages.