It was in January 2022 when I wrote an article titled “Who to Blame Now? Is Narrative a ‘Needs-Based’ Element?” I got heat from the redundant steam engine that Pakistan’s Communications and Media Management System runs on. At the time, former Prime Minister Imran Khan was inviting terrorists from Afghanistan to Pakistan and resettling them in the country. I had written that inviting terrorists would weaken the narrative that the nation had built since the Army Public School massacre and encourage terrorists to spread their “message” among the youth.
I had thought that terrorist attacks were on the rise and that the Afghan Taliban was responsible for the situation. Now, who can blame us for the US-backed presidency of Ashraf Ghani, which was fabricating a narrative that India was working behind the scenes and that President Ghani was supporting the TTP to exploit Afghanistan’s territory against Pakistan? Two and a half years after this article was published, the situation has worsened. Now, it is no longer a question of who to blame, as Defence Minister Khwaja Asif has told us that the Afghan Taliban are behind the terrorist acts against Pakistan. It has taken us two long years and the sacrifice of thousands of Pakistanis to come up with this answer. I hope this answer will reach everyone, but I am concerned that certain communication and narrative building elements within the state apparatus may not allow this clear message from the Defence Minister to get the attention it deserves, as the redundant steam engines that run Pakistan’s communication and media management system are driven by a majority of people who see the Taliban as their saviour and a better social system than democracy. The apparent failure of democratic government gives peat to Taliban enthusiasts as inequalities within social groups are widening, the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer. Put simply, the failure of political, administrative and judicial institutions feeds the narrative of a radical social system installed by the Afghan Taliban in Afghanistan.
Semioticians, political philosophers and sociologists believe that the state must not ignore the specific social and psychological conditions that the radicalized are using against the state. Also, while devising strategies to bring the radicalized elements on its side, the state must neutralize their motivations by presenting a stronger “narrative” than the radicalized militants (like the TTP) present to recruit the youth. Narrative construction has always been a serious issue in Pakistan because we have shifted priorities and considered narrative as a “needs-based” element. From the liberal Pakistan of the 60s to the jihadist Pakistan of the 80s, our journey has gone through a phase of moderate enlightenment in the first decade of the 21st century.st 21st century. Moreover, our communication apparatus lacks expertise and is run by general administration.st Our system is not equipped with 20th century techniques for narrative building and now uses cyclo-style press releases and media briefings. The country’s media managers have an old mindset that believes in “reactionary statements” instead of creating and selling statements (narratives) and we are just firefighters, nothing more and nothing less. I am worried that Pakistan still needs to know that narrative building is an intellectual task that cannot be established by statements or political moves alone. Canadian-American cognitive psychologist Steven Arthur Pinker has written that the mind makes best sense of facts when they are woven into a conceptual fabric like a narrative, mental map or intuitive theory and in the mind fragmented facts are like unlinked pages on the web.
Sadly, our media has no intention of living in the 21st century either.st The lack of training and a deep worldview will see us end the 21st century by treating terrorism as a “domestic” issue, forgetting that terrorism is linked to global networks and that any terrorist incident can reach the Middle East or North America.
We know and accept that Afghanistan has launched terrorist operations against Pakistan, but have the government media managers ever released any toolkit (confidential but reliable information about the operations launched by the Afghan interim government against Pakistan) to journalists? As a student of communication philosophy, I believe the government should put aside its embarrassment and share that the “heroes” of the past are the enemy and their target is now Pakistan after recapturing Afghanistan with the help of many of us. Moreover, the government needs to keep a close eye on the narrative builders in the media who were mouthpieces for the Afghan Taliban in the past because this cadre controls the Pakistani TV screens and past governments promoted them through “as needed” arrangements. Without a complete overhaul of media management, Pakistan may not win this narrative and communication battle. The Pakistani government has already seen the reaction of these pro-Afghan security experts when the authorities cracked down on smuggling at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
I believe the government should understand that we are going through a now or never situation and the time has come to decide whether our top priority is Afghanistan or Pakistan.
