Particularly on the electronic media, too many have, for too long, got away unchallenged spreading what, on the face of it, is little more than blatant disinformation
For the past few weeks I have, using specific examples, focused on the irrational streak that pervades much of our media. Warming to my theme, I see no reason not to continue with that effort this week also.
Some might consider such an exercise as being unnecessarily judgemental. After all, might not what I consider as ‘biased’ or ‘irrational’ be considered as very proper and perfectly rational by others? Also, when the ‘facts’ of a particular situation are not wholly clear or fully known, is it not normal that different people will often, with complete honesty, draw radically different conclusions?
That is true, of course. But it is also true that propagandists, and those seeking to promote a specific agenda come what may (not to mention outright charlatans), are the first to take ruthless and unreasonable advantage of a basic principle of an open and civilised society: the principle that calls upon reasonable people to extend others the benefit of doubt.
But what if the ‘facts’ are clear enough, and the distortions blatantly obvious? What if the conclusions are so outlandish they defy commonsense and reason? Should we still apply the benefit of doubt principle?
No. Discriminate we do, and discriminate we must. And I think we should call rubbish, rubbish, though always being ultra careful when it comes to imputing dishonest motives.
So I box on, undaunted. Sure, such a miniscule individual effort as mine is not about to usher in a revolution in the thinking of our people. But there are a goodly number of journalists out there who are honourable exceptions to that general observation about the media I made above. In the battle against obscurantism these few professionals are doing their little bit to promote sanity in our midst. Remembering some Shakespearean advice — “Therefore ‘tis meet that noble minds keep ever with their likes; for who is so firm that cannot be seduced?” — such worthy souls deserve every little fraternal support possible to build much needed momentum for a worthwhile cause.
And who is to say such collective efforts are in vain? Looking back over the few years I have been writing, I think we have, as a nation, made much progress in the right direction albeit the pace, and the results, have not exactly been what one might have hoped for.
There was a time, not so long ago, when our ex-president could publicly say, “Who is Al Qaeda? We don’t know of any such thing as Al Qaeda”. Are matters not a little different today? There was a time when every sectarian killing and every suicide bombing was the result of a ‘hidden hand’, or a ‘Zionist/Hindu conspiracy’. Most of the public no longer buys that blatant lie. Not so long ago India was the real enemy rather than the threat from within. That perception too is slowly undergoing a change.
There was a time when stubborn and intransigent adventurism (Kargil, Afghan policy, international jihad and nuclear proliferation) had made us a pariah in the world. Today we are on the path of slowly re-integrating with the international community.
Welcome to a Pakistan that is slowly coming to its senses. And, obviously, our media has a critical role in giving this process much needed impetus.
But there is one area where we could be ‘doing more’: not on the ‘war on terror’ front but on ‘the war on error’ front. We can confront those who propound fanciful and irrational theories to befuddle our public a little more forcefully and directly. Particularly on the electronic media, too many have, for too long, got away unchallenged spreading what, on the face of it, is little more than blatant disinformation.
I am not suggesting that they be shouted down in classic Pakistani fashion. But an excessively deferential manner of interviewing is no help either, and gives such people more credibility than they deserve. The message needs to be got across to the viewing public that such views utterly fail to satisfy two basic requirements: they violate the principle of Occam’s Razor; and they seek to turn upside down the fundamental principle of where the onus of proof should lie in assessing competing viewpoints.
Take, for example, a recent interview I saw wherein General Hamid Gul was touting again that theory (believed by many others too) that 9/11 was an inside job intended to provide a justification for launching a war against the Muslim world. Would a president really take the wild and utterly unnecessary political risk of ordering the wanton killing of 3,000 Americans in New York and hope his plan would go undiscovered? Covert operations, especially on such a scale, spring a leak, sooner or later.
The General’s theory depends on erecting a flimsy superstructure on a series of alleged suspicious ‘facts’ and ‘circumstantial evidence’, all pointing to a conspiracy. Well, if he knows those ‘facts’ (because they are public knowledge) then presumably the rest of the world does too. Why have reputable international media organisations not relied on these ‘facts’ to dig deeper? Are we then to believe the whole world (including Europe, South America, China, Japan and Russia) is part of the conspiracy? Why is an international media, ready to expose the Americans on Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, meekly accepting the official version instead of coming up with the scoop of the century?
But the specific target of my ire in today’s context is that ‘expert’ on everything, the gentleman who has a programme called “Brasstacks”. Told by many people that his mesmerising expository monologues have won him a large cult following, I watched some of his programmes and did some research on Google on his background.
The less said about the results of my research (readers can — and should — do their own) the better. All I will say here is, given the content of his programmes, I was utterly unsurprised.
And what wondrous content!
Here, for example, is a small sample of his magnificent political insight. It is Pakistan and not the Arabs (or even Iran) Israel fears most because of our bomb and our missiles that are capable of striking it. (Do we really have such long range missiles?) War with the Jews is inevitable and we must prepare for it. There can be no peace with India, because Hindus have an inferiority complex of us, and therefore have made common cause with Israel and America (whose foreign policy is decided by Israel) to conspire against us. Of course there was no such thing as a ‘holocaust’. Only 15,000 at most were killed and that too probably by other Jews.
His economic theories are even more bizarre. We need, apparently, ‘a moral and spiritual economic order’. This means repudiating the ‘Zionist’ economic system based on paper currency and adopting an ‘Islamic’ system, based essentially on a mixture of barter and ‘real wealth’ (gold and silver coinage). Buy his dozen or more DVDs if you are — as I certainly am not — consumed by morbid curiosity as to wherein truly lies our salvation.
One obvious question arises. Who is funding the “Brasstacks” series? Is it the TV channel? If so, how much responsibility do the owners and management of the channel take for the content of the programmes? Or does the Brasstacks organisation pay the channel for the airtime? If the latter, where does a small time security company (check the website) find such sums of money?
The writer is a businessman. A selection of his columns is now available in book form. Visit munirattaullah.com
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