“Mirror Mirror on the wall”, the queen inquired, “who is the fairest of them all?”

“Certainly not you, O dear Queen, though thou may seek endorsement”, came the answer.

Riled, the queen shouted: “You lifafa mirror! You have dirt stains on you.”

Unfortunately, the poor queen was too daft to realise that this was not enough to change the facts eliciting the mirror’s opinion. But, of course you, my fair countrymen, realise that.

For otherwise, we would have a plethora of people calling every journalist who disagrees with them a greedy sellout of a media man.

Thank God we are not like that.

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There was another fool too who thought targeting the messenger would get him the desired ends:

When an emissary forewarned Tigranes of the impending arrival of Lucullus’s Army, Tigranes had him executed. This led to all couriers, fearing for their life, refusing to bring any news at all to the Monarch. Half the city was already in shambles when Tigranes was finally apprised of the attack by Lucullus in his governed areas.

But, of course we – the erudite inheritors of the land of four seasons and seas and mountains and deserts and plateaus and god knows what – are above this inanity.

Or, are we?

It is fast becoming a norm in the country to label every messenger of failing tides, to shoot all couriers of shortcomings, and to insult any bearers of bad news. And yet, bad news, we have aplenty.

When one puts the pen to paper, the mind does go to those stories of success emanating from within the borders. Without doubt, one considers writing praises for those few children of the nation who are going above and beyond the call of duty to serve the cause of many. But what good would that bring?

The purpose and the intent behind every word inked is to remind the public that there stays the need to work harder; the need to not fall into complacency; the need to stay perseverant. As Faiz Ahmed Faiz puts it:

Abhi girani-e-shab main kami nahi aai
Nijat-e-dida-o-dil ki ghari nahi aai
Chalay chalo k woh manzil abhi nahi aai

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So, most foolhardy journalists conscientiously take upon themselves the duty to make those reminders, even exaggerating the immediacy of it sometimes, but never the need.

Precisely because of this – showing us the clear unadulterated picture; talking of the slums in the midst of the towering heights; challenging political polarisations – these journalists are dubbed 'corrupt', 'myopic' and even 'traitors'.

This malaise is not restricted to journalists alone either.

One look at the discussions happening on social media, and two conclusions can be comprehensively drawn:

• That the intellectual faculties of Pakistanis are limited only to politics and religion;
  
• And that, Pakistanis never find reasonability a big enough attribute when defending a viewpoint.

One would quote Socrates, Plato, Ibn-e-Khuldune, Twain and Iqbal to articulate an opinion. The other would employ that singular dreaded term, ‘Lota’, and just like that, beat the first person hands down.

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Rest assured, there is no monopoly on terms of the sort. We do not discriminate upon the matter. All it requires is an adverse opinion – so be you from the far right, right, centre, left or far left, you would get to hear it all the same.

It is said that violence is the resort of the weak. If that were true then ad hominem, the fallacy of the argument wherein the messenger is targeted instead of the logic of the argument itself, must be the resort of the irrational. And irrational compatriots, we have aplenty.

This makes the task of a naysayer twice as hard.

Thankless as the job may be, when even constructive criticism is abhorred for its stinginess, the jihad becomes not against evil itself but against the paradigm. In this quest many a soul are martyred, guiding towards the change that every society hankering after utopia yearns for.

Ignorance is not bliss, but rather the most hardened enemy.

When one is unaware of the facts, refuses to indulge in a debate of ideas, and is ready, nay willing, to lash out at any one pointing the weaknesses, bigotry breeds. Could there be worse a flaw than that?

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If the cruel king greets every news of infirmity within the fortification with lapidation, the walls would surely corrode away.

This is the truth of the times. Consolidation comes not from self-praise, but from self-assessment and improvement. Where one languishes, the other assumes the ambit. This is the lesson of history.

The fact is, one man’s upright commentator is another man’s lifafa journalist.

Where the debate becomes too hard to bear, and the discussion too difficult to counter, one should ask oneself if it is the fault of the news bearer for being so incontrovertible; or if there are flaws in one's own logic which make him falter?

Also, reminisce the Shakespearean assertion in Antony and Cleopatra the next time the desire to deride a person for his opinion becomes overbearing. Threatened by death on telling Cleopatra of Antony’s marriage to Octavia, the messenger remarks:

“Gracious madam, I that do bring the news made not the match.”

Ad hominem arguments, without doubt, are utilised the world over, but that should not bar us from taking the first step in becoming more reasonable in our own outlook.