Daily Times

“Politics”, a derivative of the Greek word politikos, meaning “of, for, or relating to citizens”, is the practice and theory of influencing other people on a global, civic or individual level. Dog whistle politics is a term used for sending political messages in a coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more specific meaning for a targeted subgroup. It originated from the dog whistle used by dog trainers to send messages to canines that have the capability of receiving high frequency signals, inaudible to human ears.

Dog whistle politics, a derogatory term, entails communication by politicians to the masses during election campaigns or in parliament but may have a racist, revolutionary or other distasteful connotation, only comprehended by the intended target. International and domestic politics is replete with examples of this deplorable practice. Ian Hanley-Lopez, the renowned US law professor, in his book Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class, presents the case of Ronald Reagan as “blowing a dog whistle” when Reagan, while campaigning for the presidency, told stories about “Cadillac-driving welfare queens and strapping young bucks buying T-bone steaks with food stamps”.

In his book The Fall of the House of Bush: The Untold Story of How a Band of True Believers Seized the Executive Branch, Started the Iraq War, and Still Imperils America’s Future, where the title itself is self-explanatory, distinguished journalist Craig Unger reveals that President George W Bush and his senior political adviser and deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, used coded dog-whistle language in political campaigning, delivering one message to the overall electorate while, at the same time, transmitting quite a different message to a targeted evangelical Christian political base to win the vote from the US ‘Bible belt’.

Another illustration from more recent times from the above quoted book by Professor Lopez is that, during the 2008 democratic primaries, several political pundits found fault with Hillary Clinton’s campaign’s reliance on code words and innuendo seemingly designed to frame Barack Obama’s race as problematic, saying Obama was characterised by the Clinton campaign and its prominent supporters as anti-white due to his association with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, as only able to get black votes, as anti-patriotic, a drug user, possibly a drug seller, and married to an angry, ungrateful black woman. Obama himself was accused of dog whistling to African-American voters by using a blend of gestures, style and rhetoric such as fist-bumps and walking with a “street lope” that carefully affirmed and underscored his black identity.

Closer to home, in our domestic politics, we find our own parliamentarians indulging in dog whistling. On the floor of the house, they fight, joust and attack each other tooth and nail, hampering legislation aimed at bringing relief to the masses. Contrarily, whenever a bill favouring the parliamentarians’ personal perks and allowances comes up for approval, dog whistling to set aside antagonism can be seen and the entire house unanimously approves it in the twinkling of an eye.

During the ongoing political tussle between the ruling PML-N and the protesting Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT)/Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) duo, numerous instances of dog whistling come to light. Despite the fact that the opposition and the ruling dispensation do not see eye to eye on numerous issues and would have liked to see the government fail yet again, they still chose to tether together. This was not because they wanted to rescue the apple cart of democracy from being toppled over but, apparently, they considered an alliance with the ruling junta to be the lesser of the two evils. The protesting duo is breathing fire and brimstone, threatening punitive action against corruption in a milieu where everyone has skeletons in their cupboards that best remain under wraps. Thus their closing ranks!

More dog whistling became apparent after the verbal duel between Chaudhry Nisar and Aitzaz Ahsan, when both exploded on the parliament floor levelling serious charges against each other of corruption as well as treason against the party leader. In any other democratic institution, the grave allegations by both protagonists would have merited a judicial inquiry but the prime minister swallowed a bitter pill and apologised on behalf of his estranged senior minister and everything became hunky dory because a clash of interests was neither on the cards, nor chinks in the armour permissible in the face of the protesters’ onslaught on parliament.

Similarly, Mr Javed Hashmi exposed murky goings on by pointing fingers at the armed forces being behind the political impasse. All politicians jumped at the opportunity to unite in the whispering campaign against the military, in another bout of dog whistling. The military spokesperson has categorically denied any role by the khakis but the dog whistling persists.

The writer is a former group captain of PAF, who also served as air and naval attaché at Riyadh. Currently, he is a columnist, analyst and a television show host