Perilous narrative
Perilous narrativeFOR the last many years, political mood on the land of Pakistan has been resonating with one content, one theme & one idea. When you sign in to your social media, you are encountered with one predominant debate. When you switch on your TV Sets for some talk-shows, you find thoughtful analysts discussing only one theme. When you enter your office, all and sundry are confabulating over one issue. And that issue, talk or debate is about a thief or ‘chor’ in local parlance who they deem absconded abroad on false pretext of being seriously ill and never came back to-date. This is how many think, nay, the people have been made to think, rather the narrative has been shoved down their throats, or more vividly the description of ‘chor chor’ has been injected in their veins.
To implement the idea some years ago, around 20 anchors and analysts were hired. Politicians were trained. YouTubers were created out of ashes. Keyboard warriors were assigned the tasks. Intellectuals were fed with a particular narrative. All of them were to perform one job with different characters so as to penetrate single thought and content into the hearts of audience. At last, they were successful. The idea got clicked. Audience was mesmerised. They started dancing to the tunes of the accounts of ‘theft’ they were told. They believed each and every letter of the stories recounted to them by these media-men and intelligentsia. With the passage of time, the naive audience became diehard devotees, who never needed any proof to corroborate the yarns of theft.
With all this hard-work and well-crafted strategy in the backdrop, a nation was prepared. It was exactly like a potter who with his dexterous hands makes a beautiful pot out of shapeless clay. But this was a nation of flesh and blood, emotions and feelings. Yes, the emotions devoid of the capacity to brood over the things told. They were now ready – ready to get released in the market; just like a new and different brand, created through utmost care is presented in the market, expected to work as per the installed software. This new generation with frowns and growls on forehead started pouncing on anybody who thought differently. They stripped off the attire of courtesy and became loud-mouthed on streets, bazars, offices, nooks and crannies. People with different ideologies started flinching from expressing their different thoughts on any public platform for the fear of getting harshest vituperation. So the streets, nooks and social media became infested with abuses and innuendos. Insults and smears hurled at the enemy on public spots remind me of primitive tribes of Africa yelling and dancing just before the attack on their foe. Thus, voices of dissents got hushed, and the shouts of smear and slander got louder and louder. The devotees were given an idol in the form of a political leader. The image of the leader was presented as being away from the filthy world of corruption. Each aspect of his life was romanticised by the hired pack of analysts and YouTubers. The devotees started worshipping him. Any accusation against the beloved leader faced the harshest blow from the followers. After some while, the followers began denying the instructions. The software installed got corrupted by the inclusion of different bugs.
The directors soon realised that the train is moving wrong path. The leader lacked in the capacity to deliver. The things had gone disrupted. The populace had started suffering. The erstwhile beauteous picture started moving upside down making the whole scenario doleful. It was decided to dispense with the services of the leader and send him packing. He was removed by the people’s representatives. This infuriated the leader. He called his media team, devised strategies to humiliate the directors and all the other players who carried different narrative. New slogans were introduced to be relevant; different tunes were invented, novel strategies were adopted, but the theme and the content was the same. The followers were told that theirs is the struggle to break the shackles of slavery; theirs are not only the efforts, rather a jihad – which gives them the wisdom to discern between right and wrong, good and evil. So, no tolerance for those who support the corrupt of society. From here erupted the wanton whim to unleash the venom of hatred upon opponents.
The strongest tool of these devotees is the clever use of social media. They know how to invent theories and send down to the hearts of their followers. They are cognisant with the psychological techniques to influence the public. They are aware of the factor that the images imbued with the hues of emotions can soften the hearts. That’s why they cry like babies when they are freed from incarcerations. The crying images of these devotees always make me think why the prisoners, having gone through severest of maltreatments at Guantanamo Bay or the Kashmiris in Tihar prison, always made victory signs outside jails decorating their faces with smiles. Meanwhile, many important occurrences kept appearing on national and international fora; but this group, who had recently attained the spirit to gain freedom from the fetters of slavery, never deviated from their single objective. Since April 2022, these Pakistanis have not allowed any other theme to become a trend on social media and thereby sneak into the social fabric of Pakistan.
For example, this group of Pakistanis does not feel concerned with bullet-riddled chests of the praying Muslims in Al-Aqsa Masjid; it does not want to think about how Hindutva narrative has let loose the mountains of sufferings on Indian Muslims in the recent past. I remember whenever such oppression used to fall down on the defenseless Palestinians, the Pakistanis in Pakistan & abroad used to stage protest demonstrations outside UN offices. They used to write on the desecration of muslim holy places. The social media used to be abuzz with heart-touching content studded with poignant words stirring the Pakistanis to think and pray for their Qibla-e-Awal! In the 1930s, the Germans were also carried away by Nazism, a narrative that forced them to kill those who thought differently. The perilous narrative took the lives of millions in Europe. After the death of Hitler, the problem posed was how to get rid of the narrative. It took almost two decades to de-nazify the Germans, making them reconcilable with an alternative ideology – accommodating those who think differently.
——The writer is contributing columnist, based in Rawalpindi
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