Something happened to Pakistan society during the reign of the bigot Zia & the Afghan Jihad. Regret to admit that war against terrorism in Pakistan & Operation Zarbe Azb would not & cannot succeed in the complete eradication of extremism unless there is a change in the mind-set of the section of the society who actually approve what the Al-quaeda, Taliban & the Dae’sh are doing.
For example I had never heard of the name Osama in Pakistan before OBL came on the scene. Now I personally know of at least two young men (both from Central Punjab) who are called Osama. You also have political leaders of religious parties; who while saying that they disagreed with Taliban’s methods; openly admitted their admiration for the extremists. Imran Khan was nicknamed Taliban Khan for good reason. PML-N also has many leaders with extremist links.
Additionally there are senior columnists such as Ansar Abbasi who devotes his columns to praising things like Sargodha University banning sitting together of boys & girls on the Unversity lawns etc rather than condemning Taliban playing football with beheaded Pak Army soldiers. I am not totally against the segregation of young men & women but does this need column space of the Daily Jang?
By the way Sargodha happens to be my home town, but apparently it is now being turned into a district of Saudi Arabia. Who cares that men & women must work to-gather gathering Phutti (raw cotton) and during the wheat harvest?
The following passage by Qatrina Hussein of Express News describes the realities of Pakistan society.
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The Pakistani print and television industry has singularly failed in crafting a professional approach to covering terrorist events. The sensationalist reportage is often exacerbated by a limited understanding of the nuanced discourse of extremism. News cannot and must not be censored. But the television reportage frequently degenerates into a litany of the state’s failures and the terrorists’ successes, implicit in the first question: was this a security lapse?
But the media needs to start giving equal attention to excellent successes in the field. How many are aware that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Bomb Disposal squads, working under extremely hazardous conditions, have defused almost 6,000 bombs from 2009 to 2014?
Clearly, the state and some political and religious parties have clouded the issue, resulting in a confused and frequently self-contradictory narrative. But the media itself seems to be divided. Everyone offers lip service to rejecting terrorism, but right-wing commentators and columnists freely function as apologists, subtly justifying domestic terrorism by linking it to international events and Western policies. In some cases, the right-wing Urdu print and electronic media have even sympathised with terrorists.
Perhaps the area where we have critically failed is in recognising extremism in all its manifestations. Growing extremism in society is directly linked to extremist sympathisers who function as facilitators and financiers of domestic terrorism. Terrorist organisations recruit followers from people who are confused by conflicting narratives presented by the state and the media.
By Quatrina Hosain
The writer is a veteran journalist of 28 years in print and electronic media.
Unquote.
