Balancing on a tightrope

Since the camera was invented, people have joked about how the blank gaze of the lens appears to cast a spell upon those it turns to face. Perfectly normal people are compelled – often against their will – to do things they would ordinarily not dream of doing at anyone’s behest. The shadowy figure wielding the magic box can instruct them to gaze fixedly into space, smile until their jaws ache, fake spontaneity, squeeze together, spread out, sit down, stand on one leg or kneel cross-eyed — they are powerless to resist.

I suspect that this is because what the camera does is capture a moment in, well, its momentariness: a picture frozen out of time, its details perfect for ever and with the potential of lasting much longer than the subject. A photograph does not in itself carry context — that exists in human minds, fallible and temporary as they are. The group photo on your side-table captures the essence of a happy family; it does not tell you that just a few minutes earlier, the people who have their arms wrapped around each other in the picture were threatening one another with forks over Eid lunch. When the memory of what Aunty Teeny said to Uncle Jojo has long since faded, the picture will remain.

In terms of the news media, the power of the camera holds some disturbing implications. It means, for example, that the press has the ability to create news as much as report it. I don’t mean dishonest methods such as faked stories, although that has been done. I refer to the possibility that the awareness of being watched and recorded may instigate perfectly ordinary people to do things extraordinary, both negative and positive. Written reports may arguably have a similar effect but a picture is worth a thousand words.

This possibility is particularly dangerous while covering scenes of violent protest or impassioned demonstrations, grist as these are to the media mill. What if the presence of photographers and cameramen had the unacknowledged – even unnoticed – effect of escalating the chaos? Everybody wants to be in the news and on the television screens, as is evidenced by the fact that as soon a camera appears, a crowd gathers as though conjured up out of nowhere (invariably containing someone either waving to his mother or gazing vacantly into the lens). And, no news editor is a stranger to calls asking for coverage of this protest, a published photograph of that demonstration, or being asked why a picture of X rally was printed when Y’s was not.

Given human nature, i.e. our tendency to show off, it is entirely possible that the very reality of being photographed or filmed creates the need to do something worthy of being recorded in the first place.

Turn the page and look at the photograph accompanying this article. This APP photograph was taken near Karachi’s Empress Market on September 11, during an APDM protest against Nawaz Sharif’s deportation. Plenty of violence was witnessed that day, although one must confess that subsequent events have, in terms of sheer viciousness, eclipsed this particular demonstration. At any rate, the policeman is making an arrest and quite clearly holding his catch up for the eager cameras. Had the cameras not been there, would he have been less brutal? There’s no way of knowing but the point is worth pondering.

The trickiness of working in the news media lies in performing a tightrope balancing act between reporting and creating the need for certain events to be played out in certain ways.

The point of public demonstrations – or the theatre of protest – is to gain the attention of as many people – or audience members – as possible. Given Pakistan’s peculiar circumstances, on any given day there are a score of protest rallies to choose from. So the demonstration that gets pictorial representation may arguably be the one that commands the superlatives: most participants, most violent, most visually arresting, etc. The Al Quds demonstration staged in Karachi on Friday by the Imamia Students Organisation, for example, was shocking in that the participants – including young children – were carrying plastic rifles and handguns. Thankfully, it did not get a disproportionate amount of press coverage which must indicate that as compared to me, experienced editors are far more aware of the point being raised in this column. Nevertheless, the motive behind the elaborate costumes and props must have been, in some measure, to capture media attention and thereby a wider audience. Dressing ten-year-olds up in combat fatigues and having them photographed with toy Kalashnikovs, however, does not by any means contribute towards peace and constitutes, in fact, another step towards radicalisation.

The media cannot, of course, ignore events or put a blanket ban on certain sorts of images — that would be quite ludicrous since needs must when the devil drives. Yet awareness of these issues is essential. It may be worth considering that in creating space for pictures of violence and brutality, the media unintentionally condone and promote violent behaviour, to say nothing of desensitising the audience.

Post-script: Under ordinary circumstances, media presence can lead to responsible behaviour — dirty work is rarely done on camera. However, reason is the first to fall by the wayside when passions run high.

— hmumtaz@dawn.com

COMMENT: It’s time for Malik’s men to snap out of Twenty20 dream

The crash, bang and wallop form of cricket is now behind us and what the team was able to achieve in South Africa has got to be commended because in no one’s wildest dream was this on the card that they would end up as one of the finalists.

That they lost was another matter, a victory was within their grasp but they let it slip and that was no disgrace. Where the great ones failed, they succeeded.

What we now have on the menu is what we call the real form of the game which is not only the acid test of a player’s skill but that of his power of concentration to perform at equal level.

The first of a brief two-Test series which Pakistan lost to South Africa by 160 runs was not a surprise at all, but what amazed us all was that a team with not much muscle in their batting arsenal did manage to save the follow and then chasing an indomitable target of 424 to win were able to last till the second session of the final day.

For a captain leading his team for the first time in a Test and for a new coach, the Karachi match may have been a rather disappointing experience but this surely is not the end of the world.

Frustration and perhaps embarrassment may have been the cause for the new Pakistan captain to avoid the media for the post match press conference which certainly was not a sensible decision. His contribution not only with the bat and ball will always be watched but also his handling of the media if he has to remain a popular figure.

He was not bad as a leader in the short form of cricket but his handling of the bowlers in the Test was on the mark. He needs to come out of that fast food form of cricket to be a proper leader of men in the field and out of it. Having said that, I feel it surely is too early to say if he could last as captain of this country.

A captain is as good as his team at his disposal and Shoaib Malik, unfortunately, has inherited one which would need a lot of revamping in absence of experienced men around him.

Mohammad Yousuf’s last minute withdrawl from the first Test and absence of a man of Inzamam-ul-Haq’s stature as a batsman was a big setback. Their presence and their fascinating selection according to their coach Geoff Lawson may give the skipper some heart and a bit of strength in a batting line-up which in no way could be termed as unpredictable.

The opening batsmen, the frontline batsmen — with the exception of Younis Khan, the century maker of the first Test — and even the late middle-order hardly deserve to be playing at Test level. Their technique and with that even their form is so poor that they need to be looked at by the coach if they are to be considered for the important tour of India next month.

For Geoff Lawson there is now plenty to do both in the nets and during the match itself. And if the selectors are dedicated enough - which I hope they are - they must counsel with the coach for honest selection or else it does not take long for their critics and also those who support this game to pounce on them and make them answerable.

We have experienced some ugly moments in this regard in the cricket set up of this country, where chopping and changing at all level has become a norm.

A brief series of Test is not really the litmus Test of the team’s ability. What people really be focused on now at Lahore will be the last appearance of the legendary Inzamam-ul-haq whose glittering career will come to a halt whether he makes a hundred in his last Test or a blob. According to him he could still play at least for a year and a half and no one doubt his ability to perform at the highest level, even at 37.

For many the timing is right for the doubters that his farewell match may be a deal. Whatever the reason, Inzamam must take satisfaction in the fact that at least he has been given the opportunity to say farewell with respect which his predecessors were deprived of. And for whatever criticism one may heap over the working of the cricket board, the decision to say goodbye to Inzamam in style is one big plus.

The South Africans have showed that they are no easy opponents, with the bat or in their all-round ability. They hold Inzamam in great respect but when it will come to tackle him in his last hurrah they will not leave any soft option to let the great man go in glory.