Discussing religion and politics has become a part of our culture whenever Pakistanis find an opportunity. Ironically, most of the participants either lack an academic understating of the subject or possess ad hoc information coming from multiple sources such as tradition, social norms, and nowadays, (social) media. The majority believes whatever they know about. For example, politics is correct, and all other opinions are rubbish. Tall claims and juicy predictions are made which often are proven wrong by impending realities. I am not going to explain causes and consequences of such a mindset. Rather, the aim of this article is to highlight a similar story which is being debated in our media every night at length and the public follow it in good numbers.
Since the leakage of financial details of offshore companies of certain individuals around the world that includePakistan, the mass media, especially in Pakistan, has marked deep interest into what is dubbed as Panama leaks (and now a sub judice case in the court). Collectively, our media did an excellent job by listing the companies and their financial profiles. However, during the process of Panama news and its excessive circulation, certainindividuals were selected as atop priority for popular feed while others were relegated to the extent that no TV channel in Pakistan talks about it in details. Consequently, the focus of the entire Panama project is the ruling political party, PML-N, and Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif and certain members of his family. There is no harm to discuss it as that is an established norm in parliamentary democracy.
Indeed, David Cameron, the ex-premier of England, was too involved in offshore companies and the English media did point fingers at him. Cameron had to clarify and clear himself, though the English model was not followed in the Pakistan’scase. Nevertheless, the private media never got satisfied and gradually started a campaign against the Sharifs for being financially corrupt with billions of dollars in offshore companies. Not only this, repeated references were made to the Sharifs’ “flats” in London whose number kept oscillating from four to five to, now, six. Subjective data in this respect may keep going on until the courts decide.
However, with the matter still in court, our TV channels, almost all, are not only keeping the public interest alive but also registering their judgment before the court’s judgment during the prime time talk shows. I heard one anchor on TV X passionately claiming, “I know what the [Supreme] Court is going to decide… Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is corrupt. The entire family is corrupt. They are even today making money in different projects such as Metro Bus, Islamabad airport construction project, etc. They shifted their sugar mills to South Punjab. I know they are going to be thrown out of power. Pakistan will be saved from these corrupt people.” Another on TV-Y said quite confidently, “our courts are independent.
We should be proud of our judges. They know how to save the country from the corrupt politicians and their future [corrupt] generations who will be ruling over our grandchildren. I can judge what is in the mind of the superior courts. Nawaz Sharif will learn the lesson of his life. His politics is [God willing] over, and the Sharifs’ wealth is going to be confiscated. No Qatari letter will save them this time…Pakistani courts are there to save the country.” Allow me to add one more judgmental example from TV Z. “Faisalamehfooz ho chukahai [the judgment is reserved.]…Nawaz Sharif: you are out! No politician would ever dare to plunder the nation’s wealth. All the wealth will be brought back from Panama to Pakistan, and we will be rich…we would no longer beg from the IMF and World Bank… Zardari’s wealth will soon be in Pakistan from the Swiss banks. A strategic repetition of the foregoing can be seen on the social media too.
It is though understandable that most of the Pakistani TV channels are run on a corporate basis, and each media house and their managers are after a juicy story that can stay in public for a longer period of time. This flourishes the ad industry that adds to the respective wealth of not only the media house and its channel but also the concerned anchorperson, the majority of whose is either ill-trained in the discipline and practice of journalism or they did not get trained at all and are into this business due to connections of sorts.
What is not understood, and perhaps consciously, by televangelists and their followers is that TV talk shows are not the courts. It is nowhere the job of anchorperson, journalist or a political scientist to advise, instruct, guide and judge the judges of Pakistan’s judiciary on, for instance, the Panama case. It is equally unethical to try to politicise the judiciary in terms of (pre)judging a verdict and that too illogically.
In developedcountries, the citizenry is educated enough to differentiate among different branches of the government. The judiciary is one organ of the latter, and its primary task is to interpret the constitution and judge a matter under the law, not beyond and above the law. The judiciary decides evidentially, not wishfully. Thus, we should wait and see when and how Panama case is judged. Let the courts decide!
The writer is a political scientist by training and professor by profession. He is DAAD, FDDI and Fulbright Fellow. Currently, he is a visiting scholar at Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley. He tweets @ejazbhatty