THERE was a time when means of information were few and far between. Specifically, more or less sanitised newspapers in the morning and then the evening/dawn BBC Urdu broadcasts, bringing some real news on what was really happening in our own backyard.

And, of course, a little later, a couple of top class monthly news magazines that explained and analysed the news and provided context and background to facilitate the readers’ understanding of events and obviated the possibility of not being able see the forest for the trees.

Today, we have 24x7 TV channels and their ‘news’ bulletins, and then, of course, breaking news via YouTube vlogs and Facebook and Twitter posts. Then we have ‘current affairs’ programmes which, by way of discussion, aim to help understanding. But do they?

A handful of honourable exceptions aside, so many of the TV discussion programmes, or ‘talk shows’ given the Americanism they choose to describe themselves, are no more than reflecting the ‘silo’ mentality they are identifying with at that point in time and no more.

What we have is extreme anxiety fuelled by daylong consumption of highly partisan ‘analysis’.

Tragically, the explosion of such ‘news and analysis shows’ meant the market for informed analysis by news magazines such as Herald and Newsline died and with that the publications. We are so much the poorer for their loss.

What we have as a result is extreme anxiety fuelled by daylong consumption of highly partisan ‘analysis’ and things are not helped at all by the fact that some of the purveyors of such content are so economical with the truth that they leave behind politicians with ‘alternative facts’ and Fifth Generation Warriors.

As speculation is rife about who will be crowned king at the coronation due at the end of the month, there is no clarity in anybody’s mind which heir to the throne, if any, will get the nod; and whether what was supposed to be a long march but is turning out to be a slow march will have an impact on the process.

Read: Mum’s the word as ‘N’ bigwigs ponder new army chief

Here’s my two bits — a very humble, and in all probability, failed, attempt to sift through the maze of words and terminology to come up with a matrix in the current context which may help you decipher it all. If you are still unable to make sense of the situation, please give this columnist credit for at least trying to help, for wanting to die on that hill.

Make an appointment to key office: Basically means you can feel good about what the Constitution empowers you to do. For about a day. Once you have made the choice and picked one name out of a hat with three to six, depending on who you believe, for the big job and another for the consolation prize, the game is out of your hands.

Need I remind you of the many, many instances from our history of just the past 50 years? No point going further back. Cases in point being in the 1970s; 1990s; and then more recently 2016. Yes, the high of being able to name one of the most potent office-holders in the country has often ended with a rude thud as you have landed back where you belong.

Extension: Who would disagree that that word is almost never a standalone? It always comes into play in conjunction with the national interest. Would you disagree that extensions in the national interest are desirable? In fact, these are vital as they enable the survival and longevity of not just the apparent beneficiary. These contribute to stability, we are told.

Corruption: I thought long and hard whether ‘sadiq aur ameen’ or ‘chor’, for that matter, should figure in our matrix but decided against it. You’d be well within your rights to ask why. Well, in my defence, I have chosen the English word ‘corruption’ which has now been wholly assimilated in Urdu and you will recognise it as ‘kruppshunn’ right away. This one word is enough to bulldoze ‘sadiq’, ‘ameen’, ‘chor’ and what not.

To varying degrees, each member of what former finance minister Miftah Ismail calls ‘one per cent’, that is the elite, indulges in it. But the only time you are caught or punished for it, or at least tarnished with its brush, is when you let the power to make key appointments go to your head. It can take many forms from Panama to toshakhana.

Frankly, you don’t need to even be convicted of a major financial crime. All you need is to have an undeclared accruable, though never received, income and the ax of Black’s Law comes and decapitates your political career and ends your popularly elected stint in public office.

Vote of no-confidence: A tool to dislodge a power-intoxicated politician who remembers, but a tad too late, how he used to pass the budget and maintain his numbers on the floor of parliament, if his public pronouncements are to be believed. The vote of no-confidence is also the means for a popular political party with quarters in Pakistan and the head in UK to all but commit hara-kiri.

Foreign conspiracy: A favourite whipping boy when you have pretty much alienated all the country’s friends, built on the ‘Dar’isaster of your predecessors and taken the country to economic ruin and have not just hunted and hounded your elected opposition but also gone after the media which did not toe the line. And then compounded it all by the cardinal sin.

This of course is not an exhaustive list. There are nuclear options such as ‘ghaddari’ and ‘leaks’ which are to meant to signal not only the dusk or twilight of a popular leader’s career but are also a reminder to the media of the reality of their pretensions of independence. But all that is for some other time.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, November 13th, 2022