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Portraying terrorist as heroes

Parul

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For the last many years, the Pakistani media has followed a trend of glorifying militants’ death by presenting them as heroes. The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) deputy chief, Waliur Rehman, is the latest entry on the list. Rehman was killed last month in a drone strike in North Waziristan. The TTP commander was lionised by the media as someone who died a hero’s death after living a militant’s life. Some news cartographers sketched Rehman’s life as a teacher and preacher.

Others put together conspiracy theories to paint a softer image of him within the ranks of hardcore militants. The dreaded TTP commander was projected as a pro-Pakistan fighter, who picked confrontation within the TTP ranks for his focus on attacks across the border. This one-sided portrayal apart, Rehman’s death is the end of yet another militant commander. He remained a vital part of the terror enterprise that consumed thousands of innocent lives. In his dozens of video appearances, Rehman never backed off from his commitment to challenge the Pakistani state and society.

Why are different groups of networked gangsters treated as heroes? The political economy of mass communication can be held responsible for popularising this variant of gutter journalism. However, the buck does not stop here. This issue is ideologically structured in Pakistan, which makes it important that we understand it. We have to look further to trace the ideological factors responsible for creating conditions, which help militancy to grow materially. Such conditions provide reason for some to join militancy and allow others to go scot-free after committing violence.

The concept of the security state and its role in the formation of national identity are central to the issue of militancy in Pakistan. Throughout its formative phase, political manoeuvering of the civil-military leadership to evolve itself into a principally structured force has derailed the country. Any opposition from within was associated with the existential threat from outside — India. Its purpose was two-pronged. First, to pave way for a centralised state structure, where the military was the symbol of national unity. And second, to silence opposing social and political forces, making the people believe that dissenting forces are a threat to national solidarity.

Imbued with the spirit of religiosity, a web of mythical events was created to help the establishment continue its power game by relying on retrogressive means. To make this ideology part of the people’s collective consciousness, an abridged history was promoted. The school textbook system, institutional codes, madrassa education and political dogmas of religious parties were all considered vital parts of the history project, which mainly aimed to construct national identity on uncontested mythical lines. Had such measures intended to benefit the country and its people, the outcome would have been different than what it is today.

Instead, this reductionist approach enabled the civil-military establishment to create a paranoiac situation in which, pluralistic social and democratic forces suffered the most. That is why militant forces supportive of the state ideology are always considered an asset. Years of terrorism should have helped civilians differentiate between a criminal and a saviour. However, the lethal binary of the good and the bad Taliban has created widespread confusion. By personifying the saviour and the savage within the same metaphor, this deceptive binary is not letting civilians differentiate enemy from friend and, therefore, much confusion has ensued.

Alarmingly, the state apparatus is also the victim of this confusion, which is evident in the lack of a cohesive approach to deal with the threat of militancy. Some official sections are committed to fight against the Taliban. But others believe that Taliban militants are their undeclared partners to materialise offshore projects. There is no doubt that the Pakistani security forces have rendered great sacrifices in fighting militants. However, these sacrifices have still not led to the dismantling of the channels of militants’ support. Understanding the state’s ideological foundation is important before militancy can be dismantled. Without doing so, merely mobilising military logistics is not going to win us this war.

In the given situation, Pakistanis need to understand the motives behind decades of official investment in creating a false history of the country. The media has a major role to play here, but it can only make a difference if journalists stop playing the role of ideological recruits. The media must challenge the structured nature of militancy. Otherwise, blaming only politicians for not controlling violence is as detrimental to democracy as the media’s own role in glorifying militant commanders.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 28th, 2013.

Portraying terrorist as heroes – The Express Tribune
 
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Please don't blame the media only. PML-N, PTI, JUI & JI are equally guilty. Add to it Hamid Mir, Dr Anwar Maqsood and other fundo anchors. Lawyers who plead for terrorists & judges who free men like Malik Ishaq of LEJ, a self-confessed killer of Shias. A large section of Pakistan polity has lost the difference between right & wrong. They make cold blooded killer Mumtaz Qadri a hero and prosecute Musharraf for taking action on Lal Masjid. They conside Lal Masjid thugs who were fighting PA commandos with guns were acting as heroes of Islam, to hell with writ of the State.

I repeat Hafiz Shirazi who after seeing the mass slaughter by Ameer Taimur forces in Iran, lamented.

“Sharaab haraam shumaarand wa khoone khalq halal. Zehey Tariq at wa millat zehey shariat wa deen.”(They forbid drinking of wine but consider shedding of human blood as permissible. Praise be the nationhood, sharia & religion.)


Article by Ayaz Amir describing the hypocritical standards of Pakistan's polity is noted below:




To the Amir Hakimullah Mehsud


Ayaz Amir
Friday, June 28, 2013
From Print Edition


Islamabad diary

Respected Amir Sahib, we have no quarrel with you. The areas under your command, where the righteous flag of the Taliban flies, we ceded control of a long time ago, and we have learned to live with the outcome. Our watchword, as you would not have failed to notice, is peaceful coexistence...live and let live. So why should we be targeted? We don’t want war – we have made that amply clear – we only want to be left alone.

Consider the following: even though American drones hit targets in the areas under your control, where our sovereignty is little more than a thing of fiction, our molten anger is still directed at the hated Americans.

The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (your partners in strategy) may carry out a daring strike in Quetta and claim responsibility for the same, foreign trekkers may be gunned down in the shadow of the Nanga Parbat in remote Gilgit-Baltistan (putting paid to the notion of tourism in those parts), terror strikes may take place almost every day in KPK, a justice of the high court may be targeted in Karachi as he was two days ago, but do we ever, God forbid, take your name or (blasphemous thought) criticise the forces under your command fighting for the greater glory of Islam?

We continue to insist that drone strikes are the root cause of the problem. What further proof is needed of our friendly neutrality? Yet your anger is directed at us. Do you have a greater sympathiser than Imran Khan? Yet two of his MPAs in KPK were killed in recent days. This approach, Amir Sahib, needs to be reconsidered.

There can be no two opinions of your superior strategy, sparing Punjab while turning much of your wrath at the other provinces. This is the indirect approach at its best, hacking away at the limbs which are an easier target, and lulling Punjab, the country’s heartland, into a false sense of security. Your reach now extends up to Karachi where in Sohrab Goth and other localities on the northern fringes of the city your presence is by now formidable.

So things are moving your way as it is. And the Americans will have moved out of Afghanistan, bag and baggage, by next year except for a token presence for face-saving purposes. And look at the positive changes wrought in Pakistan, a Taliban-friendly government in Peshawar, and a Taliban-sympathetic government in Islamabad which may blow hot and cold on terrorism but you know, as much as we do, that it will keep speaking in a roundabout manner, a skill it has honed to perfection, without ever coming to the point.

After every hit from your side, Imran Khan will stay say that it is all the fault of the drones and Nawaz Sharif will say we must talk to the Taliban. A situation more favourable to your cause would be hard to imagine. Doesn’t this call for some reciprocity, a let-up in the attacks which have rocked the rest of the country, apart of course from the sacred land of the five rivers?

We are not asking for the moon, just for equal treatment. Shahbaz Sharif entered the storybooks with his celebrated remarks that since the PML-N and the Taliban shared the same philosophy – reverence for Islam – Punjab should not be targeted. And for the last three years or more Punjab was spared, a factor that played no small part in the PML-N’s sweeping Punjab victory in the recent polls. What if Lahore had been racked by violence the way, say, Peshawar was? The polls then might have had a different tale to tell. Be that as it may, with the strategic winds blowing in your favour, and the Pakistani state having lost whatever appetite it may have had for hard decisions, all we ask for is a respite.

In this respite, trust us, we’ll call an all-parties conference, something at which we’ve become rather good over the years. When in doubt or beset by nameless fears, summon all the usual suspects, bearded and non-bearded, ghazis of the spoken word...for some of the most energy-sapping exercises in rhetoric known to the planet.

We have learned some funny phrases along the way: ‘we must all be on the same page’; ‘all stakeholders must be taken into confidence’. The comedy goes on and the ‘stakeholders’, God bless them, also go on and on, spinning more and more generalities, empty phrase-mongering with not much in it – if the Americans can talk to the Taliban, why not us?...and more on the same lines.

The Americans are negotiating a withdrawal. Do we also want to negotiate a withdrawal? Or does the difference between the two situations escape our nimble Pakistani minds?

So, mighty Amir, have no fear that we should be asking you to surrender or that before entering into talks you should be put to the necessity of laying down your arms. We are not foolhardy enough to insist on conditions we have no means of enforcing and you, as the entire history of your movement testifies, are not ones to fall for pious declarations. So what on earth will our talks be about?

Your aims are clear: the acceptance of your sovereignty over the areas under your control. And we would probably end up asking for – here it comes again – a respite: let us be...even as Pakistan’s elite classes transfer their assets abroad, most of our leading politicians and businessmen having done so already, and the chattering classes go on doing what comes best to them, pulling long faces and dissecting the country’s woes over their well-watered glasses.

We should be taking a closer look at history: Russia on the eve of revolution in 1917; Weimar Germany before Hitler’s rise to power; the defeatist mood in France on the eve of the Second World War. Why go so far? Why not recall Dhaka prior to the army crackdown in March 1971? What was plain to others seemed not so plain to us.

Countries in adversity, countries caught up in war...there’s nothing strange about that. But countries where spirit and resolve dissipate...that’s a different thing. In which category does the Pakistani malaise fall? Danger written on the wall, etched across the skies, probably branded on our souls, but we refuse to see or acknowledge it. No matter how the Taliban problem arose, no matter to what extent the Americans are responsible for aggravating it, these abstractions no longer matter. The challenge is ours to face, the United Nations or the Salvation Army not coming to our assistance. But we are lost in other things, our pursuit of the secondary to the exclusion of the primary second to none.

Respected Amir, be happy therefore at our sense of priorities. Even as you are clear about your aims, don’t you marvel at the way we run about in different directions, sometimes after Musharraf and Article 6(why can’t we let the wretched man be?), sometimes after skeletons rattling in our ancient closets?

But then it is unreasonable to assume that you will help us attain clarity. The more confused we are the easier your task. But to ask a last favour, could you shed some light on the mixture of hope and fear lurking in our hearts? Your sympathisers amongst us – Imran Khan, Chaudhry Nisar, maulanas of various ilks and brands – tell us that once the Americans are gone the threat you pose (forgive the plain speaking) will automatically disappear. Far-seeing Amir, on this crucial point will you enlighten a troubled nation?

Email: winlust@yahoo.com
To the Amir Hakimullah Mehsud - Ayaz Amir
 
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Please do read critically -- note what the author holds responsible:
Why are different groups of networked gangsters treated as heroes? The political economy of mass communication can be held responsible for popularising this variant of gutter journalism. However, the buck does not stop here. This issue is ideologically structured in Pakistan, which makes it important that we understand it. We have to look further to trace the ideological factors responsible for creating conditions, which help militancy to grow materially. Such conditions provide reason for some to join militancy and allow others to go scot-free after committing violence.

The concept of the security state and its role in the formation of national identity are central to the issue of militancy in Pakistan. Throughout its formative phase, political manoeuvering of the civil-military leadership to evolve itself into a principally structured force has derailed the country. Any opposition from within was associated with the existential threat from outside — India. Its purpose was two-pronged. First, to pave way for a centralised state structure, where the military was the symbol of national unity. And second, to silence opposing social and political forces, making the people believe that dissenting forces are a threat to national solidarity.

And therefore "Ideology, Media & Militancy"
 
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Media's role in this situation is only higlighting and sensulizing the issue. This what they get paid far, on the other hand there are people in the country who like to hear such news. Not everyone in the country considers them a terrorist.
As muse said it has something to do ideology of the people.
I do not know much about Rehman but my general perception is just as not every solider in US army is a lunitic who likes to go on a killing spree just because hes depress in the same way we might have some terrorists in the ranks of ttp who might not like to take an innicent life.
 
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If we finish this India Pakistan war whether on threads on any thing then we both can stand against America. Pakistan do not need to attack India. Attacking a nation is of no use. Both cannot save their own resources. One is supported by Russia and the other is by America. Acting like thread dolls. Both should unite together. The main enemy is not Pakistan. British ruled the sub continent. Both nation people are killed in it. We have created our own fights and they take the use of it.
 
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No but I sure am. And we forget 1999 in our own textbooks, mujahideen key Khoon set Karen gain Kashmir ko Pak?


Media are only following ideology that the state propagates - and therefore the confusion, one set of Jihad mongers against another, after all Talib, LeJ, LeT SSP and others, they are/were, all creatures of the state
 
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HEROES??? its a big word. i wonder the ET/dawn bloggers act so immature to use wrong words violating own journalistic principles.

Anyway talking about role of waliur rehman in talks at the last leg of US-Taliban wrangling does not mean that he is portrayed as hero.

Its merely pointing out to psyops by the bigger power and implication of this psyops in form of untimely killing of waliur rehman.

Above all whats wrong in it when US itself is portrying Al-Qaeda terrorists fighting against Syria as heroes.

Sorry writers the real world is about fact of this power game not your paid onesided write ups that ignors the same attitude by your mentors and blaming us.
 
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Pakistani media is not free, not at least free from the blowback.

Any type of terrorism is not condemned and the nation is not ofucsed as there is no leadership.

Look at Karachi. Aren't the parties that rule the city involved in killing? Try blaming one and they will send their thugs to bomb or fire at their station. Dont you also see it in south Punjab where PML-N is in league with the sectarian terrorists.

When terrorists are part of govt. and there is no merit in the society, you will get what you have. Its not Pakistanis are terror sympathizers, its just that everyone is afraid and there is no leadership to confront this terror.

We honestly put a very low premium on human life too. While we fully understand that pork and alcohol are forbidden, what is even more forbidden is spilling human blood. Spilling human blood for most of these parties is jihad as they call all their terrorists killed in encounters as 'shaheeds'? Can you imagine this stupidity??!!
 
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This is absolutely true. The media has continually been treating the militants as friendly little teddy bears when they are blood thirsty monsters in reality. The issue is fear. Everyone is afraid of the terrorists. Militants are continually sending threats to the offices of major news channels such as GEO and ARYnews. They are afraid to report against the terrorists when they should be involved in creating a hype against militants so that all of Pakistan rises to the occasion to defeat them.

We need to develop a grand strategy to beat back the Taliban to the hell they came from. Taliban must be destroyed.
 
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The fact is that recent polls clearly indicate that Pakistanis overwhelmingly have rejected terrorism and they view it as the biggest threat to the nation. With their blatant and relentless attacks and then by boldly claiming responsibilities, the terrorists validate the poll results. Killers of innocent can never be heroes. A hero is the Judge who fearlessly and honestly passes judgments against these terrorists and then gets injured in an attack by these criminals. A hero is the SHO who loses his life in a suicide attack while protecting innocent citizens. Heroes are tourists who come to Pakistan for their passion of climbing the most difficult mountains and get murdered in cold blood by these cowards.

Pakistan has many heroes, but rest assured, these coward criminals who kill without remorse are not among them. They have proven over and over again that they are nothing but the enemy of peace loving Pakistanis and their country. Together we will overcome these enemies so real heroes can take over and the region can progress in peace and prosperity.


Abdul Quddus
DET-United States Central Command
U.S. Central Command
 
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Any culprit killed by drone, next day it become hero...even that hero responsible for the death of hundreds of Pakistanis. As far as urdu print media concern , most columnist of urdu daily has some strong affiliations with religious groups or under threat and those element forced them to write something positive .
 
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