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By Syed Irfan Ashraf
Friday, 04 Jun, 2010
OVER the years religiously motivated groups and parties have strived hard to radicalise Pakistani society by churning out proselytising material. However, it was only in the last few decades that such efforts started paying dividends. A leap forward in this respect was the birth of the alternative media whose goal is to institutionalise hate in the country.
Traditionally, mosque loudspeakers, wall-chalking, pamphlets and conduct manuals had long served the cause of radical elements in Pakistan. Friday congregations provided an ideal forum for delivering fiery speeches and distributing pamphlets among the faithful. While that traditional media network is still intact, an alternative communications system has evolved over the last 30 years. It includes jihadi cyber media, jihadi publications and jihadi electronic media.
One political analyst estimates that there are close to 100 such outlets, including websites and papers that change their names and shift locations from time to time. Included in this estimate are well-known papers such as Zarb-i-Momin, Ghazva, Islam, Al Qalm or Shamsher which are backed up by websites of their respective publishers. However, the 100-plus list does not include the strong jihadi media network which operates from across the border in Afghanistan and is easily accessible in Peshawar.
On the whole, the militant media serves two vital objectives: to propagate the ideology of individual outfits and promote a jihadi worldview. In both cases journalism is tailored to the needs of ideological interests and information is used to promote a reactionary culture of us versus them. This is activism, not journalism as we know it, because such publications preach a narrow school of thought within the larger world of Islam.Take the lethal trend of sectarian journalism which reinforces prejudices by demonising another sect. For this reason some analysts feel that the radical press enjoys no media status whatsoever, instead calling it a propaganda tool which carries no serious implications for mainstream sentiment. But heres the catch: such distinctions actually help the cause of jihadi publications. Since they are not taken seriously, they conveniently escape widespread censure.
There are many reasons why the alternative media must be taken seriously. Firstly, it provides views usually not expressed in the mass media. Secondly, the alternative media now includes more sophisticated forms of expression such as DVDs, CDs and websites in Urdu, Pushto, English, Arabic, Persian which are aimed at vast global audiences. Last but not least, the radical media is no longer part of a specific cause, restricted by time and space, but espouses the unending cause of global jihad.
The strength of the radical media lies in its purposeful evolution which was more the product of jingoistic circumstances and less the result of any public need for radical gratification. To understand this phenomenon we need to revisit the early 1980s when the US and some other countries threw their weight behind the seven Afghan jihadi parties. Jihad then was a project designed specifically to weaken the USSR, and songs were composed so that the message of the Mujahideen could reverberate across refugee camps.
To make its presence felt, each jihadi party launched its own publication and the vast network of local seminaries followed suit. Printing presses were set up to propagate the doctrine of Dr Abdullah Azzam, one of Al Qaedas founding fathers. His 20-plus books, training manuals and jihadi activities gave birth to a vast repository of hate literature. When such material hit the stalls and pavements of Peshawar, the radical press found a base in Pakistan.
The militant press ought to have folded with the end of the Afghan war in 1989 but the Kashmir cause gave it a new lifeline. Unlike the past, this time radical elements from Punjab were in the forefront. As they were more sectarian in outlook, militant publications increasingly took to promoting religious divisiveness. Later, after 2001, the radical media thrived on anti-Americanism. To instigate the local youth, jihadi CDs showing jubilant Iraqi youngsters chanting religious verses while driving explosives-laden trucks towards their targets were smuggled in from Iraq.
Videos promoting terror were freely available at shops in the Nasir Bagh, Board and Karkhano areas in and around Peshawar where children would watch these CDs with a rapture usually reserved for video games. Over the next couple of years, Ummat studio in South Waziristan and Alfatah studio in Swat started producing local jihadi videos aimed at a young audience. Over 80 CDs were released to expose prospective recruits to various forms of militancy and terrorism.
Side by side, a network of over 80 illegal FM channels cropped up in the tribal belt. Hardly anyone anywhere in the world has used the media as effectively for subversion as the semi-literate militants who have taken on the Pakistani state.
The militant media has also played a part in promoting radical trends in society at large. For instance, the ideas espoused in the opinion pages of some Urdu dailies are strikingly similar to the obscurantism championed by radical publications. In short, the opinion-making role of the mass media is being supplanted by a drive to indoctrinate. Several mainstream writers contribute to radical papers while some use pseudonyms. When asked about this double life, one such writer said that writing for the mainstream press is my profession but contributing to a radical paper is my mission.
Current conditions in the country are favourable for the further growth of the radical media. Pressure tactics or applicable laws can tame or regulate the mass media but the alternative media can say what it wants with little fear of retribution. There was a crackdown on jihadi publications in 2001 and then again in 2006. Since then, however, it has been more or less business as usual.
What is required for damage control is a mechanism that holds the radical media accountable for its content. At the same time, there must be regular crackdowns on organisations that produce hate material and the outlets that carry it. Otherwise the ideas and ideals of the extremist minority will continue to impede our progress and inflict untold harm on society.
The writer is a freelance journalist and teaches at the Department of Journalism, University of Peshawar.
DAWN.COM | Editorial | The radical media
Friday, 04 Jun, 2010
OVER the years religiously motivated groups and parties have strived hard to radicalise Pakistani society by churning out proselytising material. However, it was only in the last few decades that such efforts started paying dividends. A leap forward in this respect was the birth of the alternative media whose goal is to institutionalise hate in the country.
Traditionally, mosque loudspeakers, wall-chalking, pamphlets and conduct manuals had long served the cause of radical elements in Pakistan. Friday congregations provided an ideal forum for delivering fiery speeches and distributing pamphlets among the faithful. While that traditional media network is still intact, an alternative communications system has evolved over the last 30 years. It includes jihadi cyber media, jihadi publications and jihadi electronic media.
One political analyst estimates that there are close to 100 such outlets, including websites and papers that change their names and shift locations from time to time. Included in this estimate are well-known papers such as Zarb-i-Momin, Ghazva, Islam, Al Qalm or Shamsher which are backed up by websites of their respective publishers. However, the 100-plus list does not include the strong jihadi media network which operates from across the border in Afghanistan and is easily accessible in Peshawar.
On the whole, the militant media serves two vital objectives: to propagate the ideology of individual outfits and promote a jihadi worldview. In both cases journalism is tailored to the needs of ideological interests and information is used to promote a reactionary culture of us versus them. This is activism, not journalism as we know it, because such publications preach a narrow school of thought within the larger world of Islam.Take the lethal trend of sectarian journalism which reinforces prejudices by demonising another sect. For this reason some analysts feel that the radical press enjoys no media status whatsoever, instead calling it a propaganda tool which carries no serious implications for mainstream sentiment. But heres the catch: such distinctions actually help the cause of jihadi publications. Since they are not taken seriously, they conveniently escape widespread censure.
There are many reasons why the alternative media must be taken seriously. Firstly, it provides views usually not expressed in the mass media. Secondly, the alternative media now includes more sophisticated forms of expression such as DVDs, CDs and websites in Urdu, Pushto, English, Arabic, Persian which are aimed at vast global audiences. Last but not least, the radical media is no longer part of a specific cause, restricted by time and space, but espouses the unending cause of global jihad.
The strength of the radical media lies in its purposeful evolution which was more the product of jingoistic circumstances and less the result of any public need for radical gratification. To understand this phenomenon we need to revisit the early 1980s when the US and some other countries threw their weight behind the seven Afghan jihadi parties. Jihad then was a project designed specifically to weaken the USSR, and songs were composed so that the message of the Mujahideen could reverberate across refugee camps.
To make its presence felt, each jihadi party launched its own publication and the vast network of local seminaries followed suit. Printing presses were set up to propagate the doctrine of Dr Abdullah Azzam, one of Al Qaedas founding fathers. His 20-plus books, training manuals and jihadi activities gave birth to a vast repository of hate literature. When such material hit the stalls and pavements of Peshawar, the radical press found a base in Pakistan.
The militant press ought to have folded with the end of the Afghan war in 1989 but the Kashmir cause gave it a new lifeline. Unlike the past, this time radical elements from Punjab were in the forefront. As they were more sectarian in outlook, militant publications increasingly took to promoting religious divisiveness. Later, after 2001, the radical media thrived on anti-Americanism. To instigate the local youth, jihadi CDs showing jubilant Iraqi youngsters chanting religious verses while driving explosives-laden trucks towards their targets were smuggled in from Iraq.
Videos promoting terror were freely available at shops in the Nasir Bagh, Board and Karkhano areas in and around Peshawar where children would watch these CDs with a rapture usually reserved for video games. Over the next couple of years, Ummat studio in South Waziristan and Alfatah studio in Swat started producing local jihadi videos aimed at a young audience. Over 80 CDs were released to expose prospective recruits to various forms of militancy and terrorism.
Side by side, a network of over 80 illegal FM channels cropped up in the tribal belt. Hardly anyone anywhere in the world has used the media as effectively for subversion as the semi-literate militants who have taken on the Pakistani state.
The militant media has also played a part in promoting radical trends in society at large. For instance, the ideas espoused in the opinion pages of some Urdu dailies are strikingly similar to the obscurantism championed by radical publications. In short, the opinion-making role of the mass media is being supplanted by a drive to indoctrinate. Several mainstream writers contribute to radical papers while some use pseudonyms. When asked about this double life, one such writer said that writing for the mainstream press is my profession but contributing to a radical paper is my mission.
Current conditions in the country are favourable for the further growth of the radical media. Pressure tactics or applicable laws can tame or regulate the mass media but the alternative media can say what it wants with little fear of retribution. There was a crackdown on jihadi publications in 2001 and then again in 2006. Since then, however, it has been more or less business as usual.
What is required for damage control is a mechanism that holds the radical media accountable for its content. At the same time, there must be regular crackdowns on organisations that produce hate material and the outlets that carry it. Otherwise the ideas and ideals of the extremist minority will continue to impede our progress and inflict untold harm on society.
The writer is a freelance journalist and teaches at the Department of Journalism, University of Peshawar.
DAWN.COM | Editorial | The radical media
