Pakistan’s Secular Media – Why Stop Them?

“In old days men had the rack. Now they have the press. That is an improvement certainly. But still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralizing.  Somebody – was it Burke? – called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at that time, no doubt. But at the present moment it really is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual have nothing to say, and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by journalism. In America … it has begun to create a spirit of revolt. People are amused by it, or dsigusted by it, according to their temperaments. But it is no longer the real force it was. It is not seriously treated.”                                                             ……………………Oscar Wilde

There seems to be no end to anti-Pakistan tirage in the secular press. Obviously intoxicated by power, “it has carried its authority to the grossest and most brutal extreme.” So senseless and irrespnsible is its conduct that it has lost the glaring distinction between freedom and betrayal.

This is destructive for the following reasons

• All foreign reports are more or less based on impressions gleaned from the secular press, which are used as levers of coercion and intimidation against Pakistan
• The secular press gives a picture of a nation split against itself: weak, unsure, and doubting its existence. This for sure invites aggressive policy posturing from unfriendly powers.
• The secular press has become a continuous taunt to the nation of being not good enough to deserve Kashmir, and that we are a dying nation – a cosmetic state

In psychology this is called auto-suggestion, which if not stopped may result in inducting a lower self-esteem eating at the nation’s very confidence.

On the other hand, the government and state administration is only concerned about its own self – how it looks in the eyes of the press. What treatment the state gets, how it is being undermined, what kind of messages it gives to the people do not appear to be its area of concern. In consquence, Pakistan – hates have a field day. They can say anything they want without any fear or reservation.

In today’s Pakistan, other than the state, everybody has its interests which he or she wants to safeguard. THanks to our collective smug attitudes the Pakistani state has become an orphan who can be abused, plundered and beaten with impunity. Worse, state instituions have been desensitized to the extent that no one seems to understand the press, exceptions allowed, is engaged in suberversion.  And that is pathetic!

May Allah Help Us!