Entrenched deep in the society
There is a very fine line between a lie and a hypocritical statement. A liar would blatantly tell events that never happened or state facts that are incorrect. A hypocrite on the other hand would ignore facts to project a realty that is not completely true despite having knowledge about it. In other words you can say that a hypocrite is a kosher form of a liar and that is probably the reason people can satisfy their conscience to engage in it. It seems our country has become self-sufficient in this kind of characters. It should not surprise any of us as decades of decadence in education, rule of law, etiquette, culture and social norms would ultimately result in this. To elaborate this point further, allow me to present some examples from our recent past.
During the proposed visit of Chinese President Xi Jingping it was expected that a number of memorandum of understandings (MOUs) will be signed to lay grounds for Chinese investment in the country to the tune of $35 billion. A campaign was initiated on the social media that these MOUs were loans carrying an interest of seven per cent and that it is equal to selling the country cheaply. If young activists on social media were engaged in this campaign, I would probably ignore it as this being their lack of knowledge. But this campaign was promoted by senior level ex-serviceman, civil bureaucrats and some educated politicians. That raised an alarm bell for me because it showed that either these educated people were not aware of how governments function or our society is now so ignorant that they dared to put their name behind this campaign without fear of a reprisal.
I am not suggesting that loans were not part of this package. An economic protocol between two governments does not involve transfer of money as such in whatever form it is. Once a protocol is signed the actual work is done by state and private institutions mandated for this purpose. For instance, China Development Bank would undertake most of the finance of the projects or the Export-Import Bank of China would provide supplier’s credit. So in realty it would be a combination of equity, supplier’s credit and project finance. Another way to explore it would be to see if terms of MOUs offered to Pakistan differed with the ones signed with India, Bangladesh or African countries. If there was a substantial difference then it would be justified to raise a hue and cry. No one bothered to conduct this due diligence and research to inform the nation about the realty. Rather everyone jumped on the hypocritical bandwagon which is damaging to the national interest.
Another fiction promoted was that foreign remittances have gone down substantially because of political instability in the country. There is no evidence that there is any such decline. Some also suggested that IMF loan tranche will be withheld because of slowdown in the economy. Actually a member of a think tank sent me an article with this perspective to comment on. The article was a total fabrication of facts and showed the lack of understanding of the author about how international finance organisations work. There is no denying the fact that IMF and World Bank are politically motivated institutions but they do not change direction because of one incident or few months of political activism. There has to be a material change in bilateral relations and prolonged unrest affecting economy before they become really concerned. I am not suggesting that IMF loans are good for the nation and we should not get rid of them as soon as possible.
There are also politicians that do not get tired appealing to undemocratic forces to intervene because they feel that the current Parliament is bogus and illegitimate. But at the same time they want to be considered diehard democrats and refuse to resign from these very same assemblies. It is height of political hypocrisy and they easily get away with it because there is no one to question them and take action to seek redress from their undemocratic behaviour.
An interesting phenomenon in Pakistan is sending defamation notices with extraordinary amounts demanded as damages. An interesting thing to note is that most of these notices never go beyond a letter from the lawyer of the petitioner and usually die at this stage. These notices practically have no legal value and are at best a private correspondence between two parties through their lawyers. But the media presents them as major news and provides free publicity to the petitioner. This drama of defamation notices without substantial legal action is one of the major causes that people are emboldened to say things without first checking facts thoroughly.
Media in search of headlines has unwittingly promoted this culture of hypocrisy. The reason is a lack of professional depth among some anchors as they lack sufficient academic qualifications and journalistic experience to have an influence on the editorial content. There is a rule in Western news outlets that a fact has to be verified by at least two independent and unconnected sources before it can be considered as a substantial fact to be released to the public. Another rule is to seek response from the concerned department before making the news public. These basic thresholds seem to be ignored by Pakistani media in their race to be the first to break any news. The inconsistency in their reporting has added to the confusion and insecurity of the society.
People associated with explaining religion, especially imams in the mosques, are not far behind in this attitude of promoting ideas that are not grounded in scripture. For instance, laying blame of blasphemy. We all have read news reports that an imam of a rural mosque alleged blasphemy of a mentally handicapped girl or used it as a pretext to kill a small factory owner. Quran is abundantly clear that there is complete freedom of religion to all and shirk is the domain of God to judge. Despite this the sectarian tensions and intolerance of non-Muslims is on the rise in our society. How could this happen if imams are informing people about it from the pulpit every Friday?
As a society we are declining in our moral, religious and ethical values. Our failure to take corrective measures soon will ultimately result in the anarchy and destruction of the society. It is a challenge for our academics, scholars and intellectuals to address. It is not a job of a politician, a general or a bureaucrat.