MEDIA MATTERS
Pakistan in fission
SEVANTI NINAN
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Will it acquire a nuclear outcaste status?
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AP
... the sentiment across the border.
DURING the breast beating over the nuclear outcaste status Pakistan is in danger of acquiring, Urdu columnist Abbas Athar said succinctly, "From an atomic power we have become an atomic problem." In the current crisis, the Pakistani media finds itself torn between the agony of being citizens of a berated nation and its own professional urge to ask the ruling establishment the same awkward questions the foreign press is asking. There is nationalism in the editorial stance of one newspaper after another which mourns that the world will now force it to give up its nuclear status, and anti-nationalism, as General Musharraf saw it, in the media's questioning insistence that the army must have involved along with Dr. A.Q. Khan, and that facts are being brushed under the carpet with the good scientist's apology and the subsequent pardon.
When the British Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) monitoring service served up excerpts from a range of newspapers, the recurring theme in the wake of Dr. Khan's confession was the misgiving that the country's nuclear status would now be endangered. The Ausaf said the United States wanted to end Pakistan's nuclear status and "we are making its job easier". The Express said that the "exaggerated" picture in the Western media "regarding our nuclear programme and nuclear proliferation has unveiled the fact that the U.S., Europe, Israel and India intend to do away with our nuclear status". The Jang expressed similar sentiments: "We should not ignore the threats and pressure to roll back our nuclear capabilities. We are passing through a very critical time. Our rulers should take careful steps to steer the country out of the crisis."
The Dawn noted with regret "that the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and sections of the western media have tended to ignore other links in the international black market in nuclear material." Many European firms and underworld elements are involved, it said, yet there was no U.N. or IAEA pressure on these countries which had not even been named. "Because of this selectivity, proliferation watch seems to have taken the form of Pakistan-bashing." The paper went on to say that it was reassuring to hear from the President that there would be no rollback of Pakistan's nuclear programme and that Islamabad needed to move ahead in a way that combined the dictates of security with credible guarantees against proliferation.
Another paper casually noted that India's proliferation activities, "most notably its assistance to the Iraqi nuclear programme, have not created so many waves. There may be exigencies behind this, but this requires Pakistan to tread the tightrope with even greater caution." Hullo, did we know that we were assisting Iraq's nuclear programme?
While the above has been one stream of outpouring in the country's press, the other has been to hammer away at what many columnists saw as a confession-and-pardon charade. In that sense the press here broke the unspoken rule that the American and Indian press have followed at times of war or crisis, that you criticise the government for its internal policies, but not when it is taking on the rest of the world. To the point that President Musharraf angrily told the media to keep national interest in mind and exercise restraint. He said accusations of the army being involved in proliferation did a disservice to Pakistan. "Stop writing this. You do not know what would be result of this reckless implication of every institution in the proliferation issue. The U.N. Security Council will immediately impose sanctions against us, next we will be asked to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and roll back, then we will be declared a rogue state and finally our vital interests would come under imminent physical danger," he warned last fortnight.
That is sort of on par with the Indian press being told it was anti-national for continuing to report on the Gujarat riots. It was also ironic because Musharraf's first statement on the issue was to a foreign network in an interview given on foreign soil — to Cable News Network (CNN) at Davos. He said there that a few scientists had violated the laws of the land for personal greed.
Between the nationalism and the anti-nationalism there has been some Indian Express style reporting over there: a journalist writing for both the Washington Post and the News (from the Jang and Geo stable) broke the story of how air force planes had been used to carry furniture from Pakistan for Dr. Khan's hotel in Timbuctu. Good masala that was immediately pounced upon by commentators to prove the point that the armed forces could hardly have been innocent of all that was going on if its planes were ferrying furniture.
Presidential pleas and warnings notwithstanding, there has been, overall, angry eloquence from the Pakistani press, and plenty of advice on what would really be in the national interest. Such as an end to secrecy and an enquiry by a joint committee of the Senate and National Assembly. Last week, even as an official spokesman was clarifying that the pardon was not unconditional, a journalist was angrily telling him that the way in which the issue had been handled was demolishing Pakistan's credibility in the eyes of the world.
Tariq Rahman, writing in the News on the perils of propaganda, made a more fundamental point about the centrality of the nuclear programme to the common Pakistani's psyche. "The Government indulged in such propaganda about the nuclear programme that it became more than a weapon. It became the central icon of the nation, the symbol of our identity, the fount of our deepest emotions. It almost took upon a religious significance. And, of course, the person credited with this achievement was Qadeer Khan, who thus became the idol of the people, the dearest of their heroes, the greatest of their redeemers. This propaganda created such a hero of Khan that all others working in the nuclear programme were overshadowed, much to their chagrin. It replaced institutions with individuals." He added that the people were never made conscious that nuclear programmes may have dangers and are not seen as positively in other countries as they are in Pakistan.
The media here now finds itself in an unaccustomed role-that of moderating the catharsis that a traumatised nation is undergoing.
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