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Why Pakistan Is Losing War of Perception

May 23, 2019

JAVED RANA


Pakistan has been victim of stereotypes and clichés which over the course of decades built a negative perception internationally about this Islamic country, its citizens and their religion. Generally the foreign tourists visiting Pakistan return their homes with an altogether different perception contrary to the one the international media germinated in their minds. This indicates that the genesis of lingering negative perception about Pakistan lies beyond the spillover effects of country’s geo-strategic regional policy---something which many pro-western pundits erroneously believe , is the single biggest factor for painting Pakistan in a bad shade on the world stage.

Issues emanating misperception

Primarily there are four major issues linked with the negative perceptions which resultantly have been accumulating diplomatic pressure on Pakistan since long. The first being the lingering dispute over Kashmir with India, the second Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, the third propaganda regarding mistreatment of minorities and fourth issue is alleged human right abuses linked with enforced disappearances particularly in northwest of Pakistan.

On first two issues linked with the national security, Pakistan has been under fire from India, the US, NATO and the government in Kabul for supporting what they call--- insurgent groups from within and outside country’s territory to fan militancy in Afghanistan and Indian disputed Kashmir region. Both issues are inter-linked in terms of Indian role to use Afghanistan to sponsor terrorism in Pakistan in an effort to pressurize Islamabad into giving-in to the Kashmir cause.

Insurgency & media warfare patterns

The notorious principal of “ the might is right” still continues to be at play in the statecraft when it comes to international power politics. However, with the passage of time, the shape and mode of flexing military muscles have undergone extensive deceptive manipulations involving insurgent groups, soft and offensive diplomacy through mainstream and social media. Almost all major world powers and regional countries in this part of the world, have used modern mediums of communications to project their anti-terror policies while behind the scene, simultaneously they have not hesitated in running their foreign policies through proxy insurgent groups. Hence, they have used insurgents who carried out terror attacks which led to create favourable international and domestic public pressures to change the political landscape of a state or the direction of a foreign policy of a country on their target list.

 How India runs with hare and hunts with hounds

India established its foothold after 9/11 in Afghanistan and created adverse pollical conditions to build up diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to a tipping point to unsuccessfully force Islamabad to put the Kashmir dispute on back burner. Since then, there has been surge of violence in south and southwest of Pakistan especially in Baluchistan and Karachi where India used Baloch rebels and Altaf Hussain led MQM respectively to foment the unrest. Not long ago Indian sponsored over 100 buses crisscrossing on the streets of London with advertisements inscribing with  “Free Baluchistan, Save the Baloch People” and “Stop Enforced Disappearances” in Baluchistan. The terror attacks have significantly reduced In Karachi after targeted security operations. However, Indian game plans for Baluchistan are far from over. New Delhi is likely to grant citizenship to Brahumdagh Bugti and other terrorists from Baluchistan who are currently in self-exile in Switzerland. With the foreseeable grant of citizenship, India would further facilitate them to travel across the influential world capitals to internationalize “ human rights violations” in Baluchistan notwithstanding with the fact that unlike disputed Kashmir region,  Baluchistan has no locus standi at any international forum.   

In May 2015, the then BJB government’s sitting Defense Minister, late Manohar Parrikar had vowed to sponsor terrorism in Pakistan by saying We have to neutralize terrorists through terrorists only”. Despite an open confession of sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan, there was little hue and cry and it was largely ignored by the international media. Islamabad too, did little diplomatically to exploit his statement at all relevant international forums.

Since political, economic and geo-strategic interests of the US, other Western nations and India collaborate with one another, therefore, they instead effectively use diplomacy and international media to generate a  perception the world over that Pakistan uses insurgents groups as a tool of its foreign policy in the region.

 Iran, US & Russian’s pattern of supporting insurgencies

The so-called Islamic State or Daesh emerged in 2014 out of several splinter groups in Iraq following US military intervention against the then President Sadaam Hussain in 2003. Daesh, originally was a reactionary force against the Iranian sectarian agenda in Iraq but subsequently it sloganeered on Islam to attract wide support from Muslim countries.   The US, Israel and many other states in the Middle East allegedly supported and funded Daesh and weaponized it to meet their geo-strategic goals in different regions of the world. Subsequently it has been franchised and now regional countries use this terror outfit to meet their geo-strategic objectives.  With ruthless beheadings, the Daesh was used to tarnish the image of Islam on international media which led to target Muslim communities the world over in retaliatory violence. Russian and Iran blame the US of Daesh being its proxy in the Middle East and Afghanistan. The Donald Trump before being elected  the US President, blamed the then President Barack Obama to be commander -in-chief of Daesh. Iran spent over 30 billion US dollars to fund insurgency in Iraq, Syria, Yamen, Afghanistan and many other countries. General Mohammad Ali Jaffari who commanded elite Iranian revolutionary guards until mid April 2019, admitted in 2016 that Tehran militarily trained 200,000 youngsters from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yamen, Syria and Iraq to prepare the ideologically Shia state ahead of what he called challenges of end of times. A large numbers of Shia insurgent infiltrated to Middle East from Pakistan via Iran to fight in Iraq and Syria. But it has been a taboo to discuss Iran in Pakistan in negative shade by the top media managers of the private media. The debate on private media on this subject could have prompted across the board action against Shia terrorists like those of Daesh and other extremist groups in Pakistan.

Mullah Akthar Mansoor, the then Afghan Taliban head was killed in US drone attack in 2015 while he was traveling from Iran to Pakistan. Similarly Tehran hosted families of Alqeada leaders. There was little outcry in Pakistani and international media.

The US blames Pakistan, Russia and Iran for providing shelter and weapons to Afghan Taliban. The accusations may be exaggerated but they are not free of facts. Moscow and Tehran suspect that the US is using Daesh in Afghanistan to destabilize them while Islamabad has its own reasons to believe that India-US alliance in Afghanistan is designed at geo-strategic encirclement of Pakistan. However, unlike other states, over the years Pakistan has been singled out for supporting Taliban who according to BBC survey control or contest nearly 70 percent Afghan territory.

 

Policy Blunders in aggravating negative image of Pakistan

Pakistani and international media have invested far more amount of time in propagating western narrative against Pakistan army and its secret service ISI on supporting militant groups than those of other regional and international players whose role to promote various insurgent groups outmatch with that of Pakistan. This is partially because of the controversial tactical policies of the former military dictator General Pervez Musharraf.

He perpetuated his rule from October 1999 to August 2008 through policies which portrayed Islam and Madrassas as a greater threat to the Western interests in the region and beyond. Behind the scene, allegedly intelligence services under his command abetted clerics at Lal Masjid in Islamabad in July 2007 to challenge the writ of the government. It was designed at creating public panic through media carrying discreet sectarian agenda which was hyped up to the point of the frenzy to conduct operation against the clerics. Subsequently hundreds of students were burnt to death through use of phosphorus notwithstanding the fact that the negotiations with the clerics were successful and they were ready to vacate the Madrassah. Later on, weapons were smuggled into the Madrassah to make it look like a battleground as if there was a face to face gun-battle there. In fact, through this operation, Musharraf once again projected himself as the one who was fighting American war on terror at a time when the movement of lawyers was gaining ground to oust him from power.

His ill-advised action at Lal Masjid subsequently ensued retaliatory violence by the militant groups who unleased years long terror campaign which since then have led to the killing of 35,000 Pakistani citizens and security personnel and injuring of 48000 others.  

Musharraf invested a lot of political capital to project Madrassas as a horrible image of Islam despite the fact that there are not even one percent of religious schools involved in the extremism. Negative stories on Madrassas, ISI, Pakistan army, mistreatment of minorities are sellable like hotcakes in the international media. The military use its clout to win over defiant journalists in Pakistan. However, Madrassas which meet lodging and boarding needs of more than 2.6 million poor students remain on the negative list of local and international media for all wrong reasons.

Human Rights Abuses and mistreatment of minorities

In comparison with the West, Pakistani society is far more stronger given its inter-connected family structure, unifying bond of religion and a little reported system of discreet generosity with which people look after their dear and near ones. Th trouble starts when fault-lines of social fabrics are analyzed from Western perspective. That is why the Western media, many foreign, Pakistani journalists and NGOs have struggled hard to report and analyze isolated incidents of mistreatment with women and minorities in an exaggerated manner with lot of negative publicity which contributed to create an adverse international perception.

They built up a misleading narrative as if minorities are on the hitlist of extremists all the time. Many of incidents of personal disputes on properties within and outside the minority communities were reported as crimes on religious grounds against them. The cases of enforced disappearances are yet another source of information which has tarnished the image of Pakistan. This is where Pakistan needs to put its own house in order and release all those against whom there is no hard evidence and prosecute those against whom there is ample evidence of their involvement in terrorism. The highest number of cases of rape against women occur in the US, UK, France, other Western stations including India and yet Pakistan figures high on international media for abusing women rights. Qadiani community known to be backed by strong Western lobbies must be confronted with hitherto least known hate material, the clerics of this community has produced. The relevant parts of their hate material must be provided to diplomats and human rights groups to lay bare facts to end their propaganda against Pakistan.

 

Credible Tools to Reverse Negative Perception

The military by and large has now managed to control a national narrative on screens of Urdu language private news channels on issues concerning with country’s national security. However, in the absence of a vibrant private English news channels, Pakistan has been failing to portray the other side of the picture on critically important issues the country has been under fire from powerful world capitals and influential international media. For this to happen, Pakistan needs private news channels in English language like rival neighbouring India which has at least 10 to propagate issues connected with its foreign policy.

 Three Pakistani English channels launched in the past by Dawn, Express and Jang Groups failed to take off--- partially because they did not have financial back-up plan. Equally important factor was complete lack of policy directions and confusion prevailed in making professional choices on what issues they needed to highlight and how to make their professional presence felt to and reach to the right kind of audience understanding English language in Pakistan, the region and elsewhere in the world.  Unnecessarily local and national issues were given preference over those which were hurting country’s geo-strategic interests in the region. In fact they tried to duplicate policy of Urdu news channels for English audience, and highlighted unnecessarily local and national issues. Hence their failure was a foregone conclusion. So is the problem with country’s state owned English news channel PTV World which is financially surviving only at the cost of hard earned money of tax payers.

Most recently Indus News, latest English language private news channel has emerged on cable networks. It may be premature to judge its capacity and capability. Nonetheless, its trial-run indicates that channel’s professional judgement to pick up issues to highlight is better than previous three English channels which were copycat versions of Urdu news channels. However, it appears to be carrying somewhat unnecessary focus on farfetched international issues by perhaps broadcasting wire agencies without indigenized news input.

The government much restructure state owned English news channel PTV World by giving it a greater autonomy somewhat on the pattern of BBC World. Both State owned and private English news channels need to be run with the clear objective of developing its professional capacity so that they could unofficially become vibrant tools of country’s foreign policy.

The government of Pakistan must encourage more English news channels and finance them if necessary to project its foreign policy in an effort to offset an unending propaganda against the country.  The External Publicity Wing of Ministry of Information should be attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to better handle intricacies of propaganda warfare on foreign policy issues .

Packaging Issues on English channels

Television journalism is the name of creativity and it is an art of presentation of facts with which broad choices are made to contextualize issues to make distinction of one news channel over the other. The conventional lengthy talks shows are losing their relevance on television screens after the emergence of social media in high-tech modern world where people have little time to waste on watching long programs. Hence, the challenges are on how to fast transfer information in short news packages ranging from two to five minutes durations which after being aired on mainstream cable and satellite networks, can be quickly transmitted on social media. The short and medium range news packages and news programs must be shared on major social media platforms through paid advertisements to attract a greater viewership.

English news channels after being restructured on professional lines, must setup investigation cells to dig up facts on issues directly affecting country’s national security, economy and hurting Muslims all over the world with particular focus on India and Israel given the facts that both of them are pursuing similar brutal policies to suppress Muslims in their respective occupied territories.

In order to offset the propaganda on issues like forced conversion of members of the Hindu community, it is high time to bring up facts on English news channels on how the international media has been misreporting on Pakistan. And similarly how personal disputes within the minority communities make headlines as if they were attacks by extremists against minorities in Pakistan.

Pakistan needs English channels to report of what International media is either not reporting or misreporting on issues linked with Pakistan’s foreign policy. Most recent example is that there was no proof or claim by any of militant group in Pakistan to have undertaken the responsibility for a suicide attack in Pulwama in occupied Kashmir which led to killing of 44 Indian security personnel in February this year. However, the international media reported it repeatedly that the claim was made by Pakistan based militant group. Had there been a vibrant English news channels, such propaganda could have been countered right in the beginning, the failure of which led to built up an intensified diplomatic pressure on Pakistan.

 JAVED RANA

With over two decades of journalistic experience including a long stint with Al-Jazeera, Javed Rana is witness to countless monumental developments taking place in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Javed focuses on non-state armed actors, legal, political & geostrategic issues.

 

 

ENDS

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