Daily Times

The political discourse reveals a rich history of narrative-building, an obsession that has grown over the years. During the last US elections, the word “narrative” seemed to appear over and over again; to which Erik Wemple wrote an earnest article: “A Plea to Pundits: Stop Saying ‘Narrative.'” According to him and many other like-minded analysts, the word narrative has become “cesspools of predictable inanity.”

In a blogpost, Tom Ewing wrote, “Politicians control the narrative, they reinforce the narrative, they seize the narrative, they reshape the narrative, they build the narrative, and that’s before the voters get their say, at which point they might defy the narrative, overturn the narrative, confirm the narrative, or perhaps just get heartily sick of the narrative and stay home.”

Recently, in a documentary titled “The Great Hack,” Cambridge Analytica was brought under the spotlight again for running data-driven political campaigns that resulted in Trump trumping Hilary Clinton and taking the presidential seat. Yet another display of narrative-building or perceptional deceit through careful plugging pro-Trump content. Well, the Pakistani political arena may be far off from that, but we did experience an over-flooding of political content during the election season.

While the west may be too tangled in the overdose of narrative-building and usage, I believe that the art of narrative development is at its infancy in Pakistan’s case. With overused and overstretched political slogans, our politicians perhaps never understood the art of presenting facts in a manner that helps their case. In fact, as the political landscape changed in 2018, we see increasing usage of a blame game and drama but a complete lack of factual representation of economic and geopolitical scenarios.

However, the recent display of so-called reasoning presented by the incumbent government officials is nothing short of lacklustre, unrefined and underprepared official statements that neither helped their cause nor the PTI.

A country severely lacking in agriculture technologies and unable to meet the national food requirement stocking up for neighbours sounds like a bad joke.

Take the case of the latest uproar on climate change and the cause of going green. China announced an array of green steps, including eliminating international investment in coal-based projects. Days later, a senior CPEC official from Pakistan continued to show interest in the coal-based project. This is in clear disagreement with the new vision China has set out for itself and its partnered countries. The cherry on top was a statement by Muhammad Badarul Munir, the chief executive of the 100MW Quaid-e-Azam Solar Power Pvt Ltd (QASPL) plant, that the end of China’s attachment to overseas coal projects is a “great piece of news,” as it may force the Government of Pakistan to focus on the much-ignored area of solar power. I agree that going green is the need of the hour, but we have a stake in the nine 8.22GW coal projects in the CPEC. If this seems contradictory, consider that we are in an energy crisis with not a lot of backup plans. Our economic growth relies on the successful commissioning of CPEC projects and our alternative energy sector is not yet strong enough to meet national energy targets. Therefore, in a situation like this, all members of the energy sector must be in unison and understand the national agenda on Energy Crisis – which I will address in my coming piece.

The second statement comes in a time of peak inflation and economic distress in the country when a senior official while explaining the dollar hike against the rupee, regarded it as a good omen for overseas Pakistanis to send in greater remittances. Now, a person with slight political sensitivity would have avoided highlighting the good things about inflation! Factless insensitive statements like these hurt the sentiments of the masses and potentially become the grounds for political unrest. As explained in my previous article, the free-market mechanism is to credit the dollar and international pressure, and IMF conditions. We should praise the government initiative of organically controlling dollar-rupee relations; we should nonetheless remain sensitive to the challenges of the masses.

The third is the case of Mr Jamshed Iqbal Cheema, SAPM on Food Security. When asked about the increasing food inflation and the wheat import despite record yield, he responded, “Pakistan doesn’t need the wheat, and our yield will meet the national demand. The imported wheat is for our neighbouring countries.” Being an economist, I was a bit frazzled by the response. It should raise some eyebrows – a country severely lacking in agriculture technologies and unable to meet the national food requirement stocking up for neighbours sounds like a bad joke. The import of wheat and other food items is to build strategic food reserves or meet the national demand – there’s no third reason.

The fact that our political pandits are more into puns than an actual representation of facts and figures is beyond comprehension. When journalists, media personalities, and masses are presented with factless facts, they will naturally be appalled by government officials’ sheer lack of information. This is reflected in the results of a survey conducted by Herald in collaboration with the Sustainable Development Policy Institute. The survey concludes that more than three-quarters of the population (77 per cent) believes the federal government’s performance is average. In comparison, only a little lower proportion (68 per cent) thinks the same about their individual provincial governments’ performance.

Suppose political officials continue to lack technical grounds for argument. In that case, they might as well hire technocrats, analysts, and economists to justify their actions which may lead to a stronger election campaign. Hence, working on political story-telling and learning the science of narrative-building is an art that must be learned.

The writer is Special Advisor (Pakistan Institute of Management) and Foreign Research Associate (Centre of Excellence, China Pakistan Economic Corridor). He can be reached at hassnain.javedhotmail.com