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RECENTLY, on the eve of Nauroze, the Persian new year, a day opposed by many religious extremists as ‘heresy’, four Afghan Taliban militants entered through metal detectors installed to protect Kabul’s Serena Hotel. They sat down with the other diners in the hotel’s brightly lit dining room.
Around them were families and children, celebrating, eating and laughing. It was supposed to be a joyous occasion, until of course it wasn’t anymore. There are differing accounts of how events unfolded but at the end, many lay dead. They included Sardar Ahmed, a journalist for Agence France Presse, his wife and two daughters. His toddler son was left fighting for his life.
For Afghan journalists, the death of Sardar Ahmed was one of many cruel and abrupt endings brought on by the ire of a group that is known not to shy from killing its enemies and anyone else who may happen to be in the way.
A group of journalists gathered at a Kabul hospital, where the injured and dead from the Serena Hotel had been taken. In a statement issued from the hospital, the journalists declared that despite their assiduous efforts to remain neutral in the conflict between the Afghan Taliban and the government, the former had never shied away from killing them.
With yet another colleague gone, they announced that they had collectively decided to boycott “coverage of news related to the Taliban for a period of 15 days, refraining from broadcasting any information that could further the Taliban’s claimed purpose of terror”. They also asked that the Taliban provide an explanation of “how they justify the shooting of children at close range”.
The journalist boycott of the Taliban is, in the words of one media person supportive of it, “like spitting in the wind”. As journalists in both Pakistan and Afghanistan can testify, the bloody wrath of the militants in the region, the readiness with which they are willing to massacre at large, to intimidate and to target, appears boundless.
The casualty counts, the obituaries, the protests have all been unable to draw attention to the particular plight of those who cover militancy. This is not simply the condition of journalists. Aid workers, health workers, doctors, professors and students who have fallen to the militants have all found themselves helpless before those who use killing as their one and only tactic.
The Afghan news boycott of the Taliban can, however, be instructive for journalists on the Pakistani side of the border. Since the beginning of the ‘talks’ with the Pakistani Taliban, the public here has been subjected to the endless barrage of ‘breaking news’ related to the Taliban. Whether it is the formulations of committees, the statements of various constituents, or counter-statements of the Taliban themselves, every twist and turn is documented and broadcast lewd and loud into the ears of pliant Pakistanis.
Add to this the news of the attacks conducted by the Taliban, the murder of professors, doctors and intellectuals, the bomb blasts in old bazaars on street corners and major highways, and you have a 24-hour relentless news cycle dominated by the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
While many would argue that coverage of Taliban activities, especially at a time when negotiations are under way, is needed — both to keep the public in the loop, and in the name of transparency — what is not understandable is why their extremist supporters and the Taliban themselves should be given so much airtime to propound their ideology of intolerance and hate. This becomes doubly dangerous when there is no coherent counter-narrative. Then there is the issue of the Taliban’s particular manipulation of the media coverage. Often in broadcasting or printing their statements or viewpoints, there is a fine line between reportage and how a picture of the militants actually emerges. For instance, there is a difference between publishing a militant group’s claim or responsibility for an attack and presenting it in a way that may justify, even lionise, its actions.
In their latest incarnation as partners in negotiation, the TTP has become dependent on how news about it is spun on television and in newspapers. Evidence of this can be seen in the many statements (often disseminated via email) to television anchors and journalists. In some, they offer clarifications, in others divergences.
Journalists cannot stop the wild and unabashed killing spree of the Taliban (in Pakistan or Afghanistan). Indeed, the governments of both countries seem increasingly at a loss when it comes to preventing militant incursions into ever new areas.
A journalistic boycott such as the one going on in Afghanistan may not defeat the Taliban, it may not even prevent them from killing more people, journalists or anyone else. It may, however, deny them a way of getting their propaganda and perspective out there, to the ears and eyes of millions of people.
However, in both the case of Afghanistan and Pakistan, what would be a far better tool to counter the discourse presented by the militants is a powerful counter-narrative; one that does not succumb to the pressure exerted by the Taliban and their ilk and whose principles, rooted in democratic, liberal values, present a direct contrast to the obscurant ideology propounded by a manipulative enemy.
The writer is an attorney teaching constitutional law and political philosophy.
