Andleeb Abbas
Social media has given digital life to users by making them empowered enough to raise issues, voices and exposés
The dinosaur effect. The Darwin principle. The system has hanged. These are some ways to describe the way things have been and the way things are being forced to be. In the corporate world, change is to be accepted, adapted and celebrated. Organisations strategise to remove resistance to change and develop business models that can ride on the wave of change than to be buried under them. They give the examples of Nokia and Blackberry which failed to change with the changing demands of the market and are history. It is exactly the opposite in state organisations and political parties. The older ways of doing things are reverred, thus, the sentence worshipping the status quo. Change is considered an enemy to be combated and crushed. In the process, they do become as ineffective as Nokia and Blackberry but they never become history. The difference is that in the private sector, the customer is the boss and in the government sector, despite being “public servants,” the boss and the bigger biggest boss is the boss.
The current political log jam is not just a struggle between political parties but between the public and the system. If it was just the usual political slandering between the government and the opposition, it would not lead to such economic, social and institutional paralysis. It is a fundamental struggle of power annexation, power accumulation and power distribution. Those who have enjoyed the maximum power are petrified at the prospect of reducing it and losing their strongest hold. Those who have always sought power support to come into powerful positions are also traumatised by the thought that left on their own, they have hardly any political stature. Those who are challenging them are now being tested for their endurance, their perseverance and their resistance. It may seem all dark and dingy and dreary, but the fact is that the taboo, the mask, the façade of nearly every power holder has cracked and slipped. This is very important for a society that has long lived in the shadows of the untouchables, the unspeakable and the invisible. Let us look at the real faces behind these silhouettes:
1. No market for politician’s loot sale – Politicians of all sorts have been sorted out in the last six months. It started with the loot sale of MNAs in the Sindh house in Islamabad in March of this year. That resulted in the famous vote of no-confidence through billion rupee MNA buyouts. This incident created huge public resentment and finally rejection at the polling booths when by-elections took place. PMLN who had started their campaign on anti-establishment rhetoric and were vocally against a no-confidence vote, which they had said was only possible if the establishment was in cahoots with politicians, did the same. Their narrative and pretence fell apart and thus, political abandonment by their voters. Also on the “Exposé Ramp” were the catwalk politicians who did not say they were shifting sides but were caught with their masks down. Faisal Vawda made that press conference after Arshad Sharif was murdered in Kenya, pretending to be a PTI guy who wanted to cleanse the party of snakes. Within minutes, he was rubbished into oblivion. The thirteen parties who banded together with the establishment and foreign forces are now voter-less, plan-less, and narrative-less. They have turned themselves into rambling nothings as the political thump and thunder are being shared elsewhere.
2. Broken Stars of the media- if ever, media in Pakistan was laid bare, it is now. Anchors who considered themselves narrative-makers or breakers are fighting for media survival. The so-called ” intellectuals” writing in big newspapers are all scrambling to prove their “independence” but have been badly exposed. A top-notch writer/editor/anchor/analyst of the biggest English daily wrote scathing articles on the PTI in the paper. Sadly, he ended up being an advisor/Federal Minister in the PDM government. The problem with these yesteryears stars is that they are following a staid and obsolete media model. The media is no longer controlled by the ruling government and the establishment. It is owned, created and channelled through the public on social media. The minute the anchors etc say something, the public digs into their past, does research and exposes them before politicians do. The model of TV ratings and anchors with high ratings controlling the narrative strings is outdated. Anchors banned from TV and now operating on Youtube have a phenomenal following. Another easy way of finding out which lobby the media person is supporting is through retweet lobbies. A tweet done on some agenda is retweeted by a set of media people. Within minutes, this trend is exposed. After the shootout in Wazirabad, the leaked video of the accused was tweeted and retweeted by a set of media people and it was the public that made a pattern out of it and made it viral on social media. Many such exposé then turn into hashtags and trends that are impossible to deny and outtweet.
A paid trend will not last beyond a few hours while an organic trend will last for hundreds of days. This is why the media from a retaliatory stage has now started becoming rambling or apologetic. They cannot compete with the millions on social media who are now more aware and equipped with messaging than the traditional media people.
3. The fading thump- The most organized institution that basically built its strategy on patriotism and nationalism is clueless about how to restore its fading brand. Their media handling has backfired. Their PR is a public relations disaster. In most professional organisations, the dips and the ups are part of a proactive Public Affairs plan. The key is a timely response to do damage control. In Pharmaceuticals, take the example of the Johnson and Johnson Tylenol disaster, where the brand was dipping precariously. A PR plan was put into operation, including an immediate apology by the Chairman, followed by the recall of the product and compensation to the affectees. This made the brand recover in a short period. In the case of the various institutions involved in the regime change, despite the realisation that their strategy has misfired, they keep repeating the same strategy damaging their brand further.
This inflexible, non-learning and non-apologetic attitude is damaging their brand. The tik tok world has been laid bare through awareness, understanding, and the working of the institution to a level where it may become very difficult to seek the kind of public support they are used to. The post-mortem report of Arshad Sharif, ostensibly leaked by the government themselves may be revving up another war that will prove disastrous.
Why has this wide and deep exposé happened? Firstly, PTI chairman Imran Khan has been addressing public rallies daily and putting up screen videos educating people on the true colours of these people. Secondly, social media has given digital life to users by making them empowered enough to raise issues, voices and exposés.
The old wine, old bottle ways of banning speeches, anchors, and channels has increased viewership of off-mainstream options. Thirdly, by becoming dealers of “secrets,” they have made it a free for all exposé market where everybody is out to strip everyone. These are sickening moments. But these are defining moments too. Let the masks slip. Let the ugliness seep through. Let the filth reach a level where the only option left will be a public resolve to clean, cleanse and clear away all those involved in this dark “power” overworld.
