Rules of debate
IN the slippery fish that is the politics of Pakistan, the one thing that is evident is that not enough of the players think before they speak, or bother to weigh the merits of the course of action they are considering. Several veneers have been stripped away over the past fortnight, and several half-hidden realities have become obvious — none of which are pleasant.
Over and above the very many distasteful spectacles that we’ve had to suffer over the past couple of weeks, since the marches of Imran Khan and Tahirul Qadri descended on Islamabad, consider just that of language.
Rhetoric for the sake of playing to the gallery is one thing, but there has been no shortage of occasions when these two men have descended into idioms of speech and behaviour that cannot be called anything other than downright crass. Where one gentleman spoke of losing his temper and threatened to start punching a police official, the other had children decked out in burial shrouds. And that is not even to bring in some of the worst transgressions against parliamentary debate.
Over this fortnight past, a great many very distasteful insults and accusations have been hurled about: A is corrupt, B is craven, C is a liar; X is a boot-licker, Y a traitor, Z a paid-for tout. And, shamefully, this sort of behaviour has been indulged in by members of several political parties. True, tensions have been extremely high. But is that any reason for people — leaders and would-be leaders, no less — in the public eye to so grossly forget the most basic norms of civilised behaviour?
With every clod of mud, the quality of discourse worsens.
Yet why should we single this fortnight out as the time when the rules of public debate were thrown to the winds? It’s true that the language and behaviour put on display recently has been quite shocking. But it cannot be denied that the game of politics in Pakistan has for a very long time, if not always, resembled more closely a bar-fight than a group of men and women working out the future course of a country.
Even so, there is reason to reflect that it is not just political figures that have been speaking irresponsibly. In the journalists’ community, for example, it is saddening to see professionals taking sides in the social media, which is a public sphere, and bad-mouthing (even name-calling) the men and women on whom they report as part of their jobs.
In terms of certain sections of the media, it was already suspected that the veneer of impartiality and objectivity was exactly that: a veneer. Now, it is so much more obvious that political influences and ideologies may well be compromising reportage and commentary.
This adds to the cloud that already hangs heavily over certain sections of the media. For many years now, it has become routine — particularly on television — to see shows allowing themselves to be used as platforms from which political personalities hurl allegations at each other, almost always unsubstantiated. Anchor-persons watch as mud is slung about, sometimes even participating, since the greater the drama, it is felt, the greater the viewership.
Such behaviour on part of people who shape public debate — the political classes and the media — is more than just distasteful or unprofessional: it is dangerous. With every clod of mud and with every instance of partisanship, the quality of discourse in the country about deeply crucial matters deteriorates and, worse, the citizenry at large becomes that much more used to not bothering to look beyond the smokescreen, to not making an assessment based on analysis and facts, and to taking an allegation as proven evidence.
These are just the most evident aspects of irresponsible discourse and behaviour that are generally an unsavoury and increasingly entrenched characteristic of society as a whole. For good reason are there laws and norms in much of the world, Pakistan included, pertaining to slander and defamation. Why aren’t these norms followed here?
To my mind, it is because politics in Pakistan — much like the traffic on the roads — has been allowed to become such a free-for-all that the most basic of regulations of civility and civilisation have been forgotten.
But in doing that, the risk of further freefall becomes greater. No society can flourish without agreed-upon parameters that must not be breached. The one on which everything else depends is responsible speech and action.
A righting of the course has to come from the same place as that where it is most evident: the top. Can those in positions of power, whether politically or because of their role in fuelling public debate, be induced to behave with more maturity? Unhappily, no one can achieve this other than the personalities themselves, driven by their own conscience.
The writer is a member of staff.
Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2014