Wanted: a South Asian perspective on Iraq
The story in its neighbourhood, literally a short/medium range missile away, will be told by the foreign media.
B. Muralidhar Reddy
Another war, and another country. The `aggressor` remains the same, USA. Universal States of America with the new philosophy of pre-emptive action and regime change propounded by George W. Bush! As Iraq is going to be `liberated` from the clutches of a `ruthless dictator` aided and abetted by the very powers that seek to annihilate him now, much of the third world will watch from the sidelines as silent spectator. A little noise here and chatter there would be drowned in the `spectacular` images and words relayed by the all-powerful news corporations of the West.
It is a double tragedy particularly for the news media in South Asia. The story in its neighbourhood, literally at short/medium range missile away, to use a military phrase, will be told by the foreign media, for most of South Asia. Indians may get some indigenous coverage on Doordarshan, and from correspondents sent by Star News and the Hindi news channels, but other countries in the region will not have access to these.
There is no harm in hearing and reading the story from any media as long as it comes with minimum bias and spin. But with the new doctrine of `embedded` journalists, a cloak for scribes who would operate under the command of the invading forces, the game is out even before the first shot has been fired. Fifteen Iraqi soldiers surrender on the Kuwaiti border is the first scoop fed to the embedded. Take out the em it sounds funny if not obscene. Another came about defection/death of Tariq Aziz, the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq and second in command in the Saddam regime. Poor Aziz had to parade himself before the tribe of international journalists to prove that he is alive and kicking.
One has witnessed this drama in the case of the so-called `operation enduring freedom`, a euphemism for the invasion of Afghanistan by the Bush Administration in October 2001. The `medieval mullahs` represented in the form of the Taliban and the Al-Queda posed a threat to the humanity and hence had no place on the earth. Some of the Western journalists had a field day filing all sorts of reports till the Taliban and Al-Queda chose to desert Kabul and live to fight for another day.
Much of the reporting was totally one-sided. The media with multinational reach did not raise with force fundamental questions. Who are the Taliban and the Al-Queda? The chief of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) in Pakistan, Qazi Hussain Ahmed recently wondered whether the existence of Al-Queda is real or it was there only in the cookbooks of the intelligence agencies! Of course he was deflecting attention from the alleged sheltering of Al-Queda operatives by his party personnel.
The short point is the story or to put it more appropriately tragedy of Afghanistan did not begin with September 11, 2001 or even for that matter with the ascendance of Taliban in 1995/96. It is a saga of over two decades that started during the cold war era as a battle of wits between the erstwhile Soviet Union and the United States. People of Afghanistan were the cat’s paws and so were of several other countries such as Pakistan.
One does concede there are limitations to backgrounding or fact fitting to a `dramatic` story of military success. And when it goes on for weeks and months, the constraint is even more severe. But when the roots and genesis of a conflict are relegated into background, a viewer/reader does not get the real story. It becomes a dis-story.
History and perspective on reporting conflicts like Afghanistan or even for that matter Iraq become all the more vital as these battles are waged in the name of `good and evil`. Here the international media failed miserably in Afghanistan and there is no reason for optimism on Iraq.
An example of the prejudice of the world media was the famous Simpson episode of the BBC. He along with his crew members had the audacity to go on air announcing `liberation` of Kabul as they marched into the town deserted hours before by the Taliban in December 2001! Liberation from whom? What has meant for the 25 million Afghans? Sixteen months after why is the US-led coalition still engaged in combat operations? As of December last year 3,500 civilians have been killed in the `cross fire` in what is dressed up as collateral damage. Why does not the coalition agree to expand its operations to rest of Afghanistan? (It is accepted by all that the Karzai writ does not run beyond Kabul.)
There are questions galore. But alas for the big media as well as the world Afghanistan has ceased to be news. It hits the screens and gets into the newspapers when the Al-Queda remnants succeed in targeting the American base at Bagran, or when the security provided to Karzai by US guards is breached!
The carping can go on, as can the blame game. The question is, why can`t the media of the `third world` or developing countries step in. Afghanistan and Iraq are perfect examples of stories where the media in South Asia could play a meaningful role.
There is something strange about the South Asian media when it comes covering international news even when it is happening in the neighbourhood. India with a billion plus people, ever-multiplying television channels and some of the biggest newspapers in the world, ideally should take the lead.
There has been definitely been some change in recent years but it is too little. Most of the media groups just don`t want to spend on newsgathering. The result is Indians read about the joys and sorrows of neighbours like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bhutan through the lens and pens of the western media. The same is the case with people of Bangladesh and Pakistan. Just imagine people of Pakistan and Bangladesh learning about developments in India via Washington, London and Paris!
The cussedness and small mindedness of the political leadership and bureaucracy in the subcontinent compounds the problem. The case of India and Pakistan best illustrate the point. They are not even prepared to grant visas to journalists of each other. In October Pakistan refused visas to Indian reporters to cover the general (referred to more as the General`s) election. The reason cited was New Delhi`s refusal to allow Pakistani journalists to cover the Jammu and Kashmir election. Ironically both governments had extended a blanket invitation to the entire world media to come and see for themselves the transparency of the process.
In the days of the cold war there was a passionate debate about the `new information order` and grand ideas about a`non-aligned news pool`. One vividly remembers a heated debate between Nikhil Chakravarty, then Mainstream Editor and Inderjit, Editor of INFA and former Member of Parliament at a seminar in the run up to the NAM Summit in Delhi. Naughty Inderjit provoked Nikhilda by repeating getting up to raise the issue of government monopoly over electronic media and the need to open it up for greater freedoms. The Communist in Nikhil da snapped back "if you persist, I would be compelled to talk about jute press and nexus between industry and the media". That was the end of the tiff. And that great national, indeed passionate, debate in 1982 just before the Asian games on whether or not a poor country like India should go colour!
No doubt India and the Indian media have travelled a long, long way since then. The latter has witnessed tremendous growth. But it is more horizontal than vertical. It is so inward-looking that twenty minutes in thirty-minute news bulletins are devoted to politics and politicians. It is same with much of the mainstream media. There is not much enthusiasm for developments in the world outside, the neighbourhood not excluded.
Muralidhar Reddy is the correspondent of the Hindu in Islamabad.
Contact: hindibd@comsats.net.pk
