3 REVIEWS(URDU & REGIONAL)
BOOKS & AUTHORS, DAWN, January 16, 2001
Our right to speak
By Abul Fazal
T he important point in Voltaire’s famous statement “…but will defend till death your right to say it”, is that the individual’s right to speak freely is meaningless unless the rest of the society is prepared to protect it and make sacrifices for it, recog nizing that if one individual is silenced everyone else will be too. Our going about our ways non-chalantly, expect-ing a dozen or so judges to protect our Constitution and constitutional rights or being sanguine that professional journalists would protect and promote the fourth pillar of the state without the help of the entire society, has made the assault upon these insti-tutions very easy. That there are heroes on the bench and in journalism we all recog. nize. But a hero in isolation can only make a gesture, take a heroic stand or pay with his life for it. He cannot successfully defend an insti-tution that the society does
not care to protect. The journalists or those connected with the press were the forerunners of our independence movement. For example one third of del egates to the founding ses-sion of the Indian Congress in 1885 were journalists and Mr Niazi says that the jour nalists’ commitment to their profession and to their ideals was generally greater before independence than it is now.
Actually, the objective was simpler then indepen dence. It was thought that once independence came other questions would fall in place and be tackled in an atmosphere of general con-sensus. After all, no one was expected to disagree with the desirability of freedom of expression, of economic inde pendence and of a massive effort to develop education. However, it was discovered that these subjects, though
desirable in abstract, could be controversial in practice.
Secondly, our journalism of the 19th century, its stan dards, its ethics, the theory of its very existence, had been imported from the world’s most advanced country of the period and taken up here by an elite, which had set out consciously to adopt the European institutions and standards. Even then, most of the vernacular press was of a lower standard than the English one. Our heritage of arbitrariness, carelessness
about the exact truth etc, re asserted itself after indepen dence.
The idea of freedom, as it is known today, is the gift of the bourgeoisie, because the functioning of capitalism requires freedom of expres sion, together with a certain anarchy of the market. In our pre-colonial society, there were money-lenders and pau pers but there were no capi talists, because there was no proletariat. There was no bourgeoisie ready to fight, to sacrifice for overthrowing the feudal-like tyranny. So the concept of freedom did not arise. The capitalist sys-tem was implanted here by the colonial regime, as was the idea of freedom. Its inter-nalization did not take place, because we had not struggled for it historically as a society. The present day struggle for freedom, described by Mr Niazi, is the process by which we are not only attaining it but also consolidating it.
Another obstacle in the way of the flowering of mod ern culture here, including the culture of freedom, is the schism in the society, arising from the use of English by the ruling class and an impor-tant part of the intelligentsia as their mode of self-expres sion. Actually, the linguistic schism has always existed in South Asia. In ancient times, the economy was not devel oped enough to enable the rulers to distinguish them selves from the populace by their pattern of consumption alone. They needed a verbal
distinction too. Sanskrit was created de toute piece for the purpose. The distinction has persisted until now, with first the Persian and then English as the language of the rulers. The linguistic demarcation may make the job of ruling easier. But it also isolates the upper strata from the masses, who conse-quently have no sym-pathy for any section of the elite being per-secuted by another. This makes the social and political institu-tions more vulnera-ble to the predators and renders the intel-ligentsia “naked unto its enemies”. The most pathetic exam-ple of the latter’s helplessness is the success of some mili-tary regimes of the past in imposing self-censorship upon the journalists, as described so passion-ately by Mr Niazi. That some journalists collab orate with the apparatus of coercion in such an atmos phere is not surprising.
Mr Niazi says that the Quaid had refused to sign an ordinance restricting the freedom of the press. His suc-cessors, driven, no doubt, by a sense of insecurity, enacted successive laws to protect themselves from public criti cism. This did not prevent the assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan but the increasing government pressure upon
the press inhibited it from pursuing its demand for a proper enquiry into the mur der. However, in spite of the increasingly repressive mea-sures, there was hope in the country up to the putsch of
by resistare 10 obennus
1958 that the clouds would disperse. It was Ayub’s com prehensive repression, including the destruction of the liberal and leftist press, which took the hope away.
Ungllan figar apni
Bhutto was equally repres-sive but the Nadir was Zia’s period, when some journal-ists were whipped and jailed, two were murdered. Others were bribed. By now the journalist community was atomized and had ceased to offer any opposition to the dictatorship. The various political parties specially the ethnic ones, added their bit to hooliganism against the newspapers.
Nevertheless, the dialecti cal process of history unfolds before our eyes. The path of oppression, that our ruling group chose in the fifties, stands exposed as a mistake. And the resistance to repres-sion refuses to go away.
Our battered press shows new signs of life and of com-mitment. All journalist, old and young, are not cynical. Zamir Niazi, who joined the profession in the days of its high standards, and others like him have inspired many young journalists to set those high standards before them. If today our press is lively to a large extent and free, it is due to its own struggle dur-ing its darkest days and to the standards passed on to it by those who refused to sur-render.
By Zamir Niazi Published by Aaj Ki Kitabain, 316-Madina City Mall, Abdullah Haroon Road, Sadar, Karachi-74400. Tel: 021-5650623, 5213916 E-mail: aaj@digicom.net.pk Website: www.PakistaniBooks.com 132pp. Rs80
