Where Pakistani media stand between religious minority and majority?

By Abdullah Khoso
In Pakistan, on 6th October 2005, during morning prayers, two motorcyclists attacked on Ahmadi’s place of worship in which eight were killed and fourteen injured. This October incident was reported in local, national and international media. For the analysis I choose three news articles published with two Pakistani newspaper and one in Britain, the BBC.

In the late nineteenth century, Mirza Ahmad declared himself the Imam Mahdi, the promised Messiah and the prophet. Some people followed him and started to be known as Ahmadis or Qadianis in Muslim world. The majority of Muslim groups did not (still does not) accept these claims. In 1974, the Government of Pakistan declared the Ahmadis non-Muslims and heretical by amending the constitution of the country. In 1984, the Tuheen-e-Risalat (blasphemy) law was introduced against the Ahmadis. These laws are an outcome of the influence of the majority ruling Sunni-Muslim groups. According to the law in Pakistan, it is blasphemy if an Ahmadi calls him/herself a Muslim and terms his/her place of worship a mosque.

There is great variation between the Pakistani news reports and the BBC in using the identity of participants in their reports. The BBC, an outsider, (unlike the case BBC in Urdu which has a target audience in Pakistan), does not use the same terminology in referring to the victims (Ahmadis). That is an obvious mark of the ideological position of these outlets. The BBC has used each term five times: ‘sect’ and ‘mosque’. It overtly calls them a ‘sect’, not a separate entity from Islam but an offshoot of Islam, but with a minor difference; that is, Ahmadis believe in Murza Ghulam Ahmad as the Promised Messiah or the Imam. While the Pakistan newspapers published in Pakistan avoided using language, which could represent Ahmadis as Muslims and their places of worship as mosques. These newspapers see the Ahmadis in a similar way to the majority Sunni Muslim groups. The Pakistan reporters are very reluctant to call them a sect of Islam. These call them as Ahmadi Community and ‘Qadiani’.

The BBC represents both as two binary religious groups in Pakistan. Its language of representation is mild for the victims and hard for the attackers and their religion. Sunni Muslims are represented as the terrorists and so their religion, while the Ahmadis are placed in the position of victims. The BBC shows that the Ahmadis are a peaceful community and have not crossed the boundaries of society demarcated by society. Moreover, it portrays that Ahmadis are Muslims, and their place of worship is a mosque. It is apparent that the BBC is not bound by any Pakistani legal and socio-cultural restrictions therefore it portrays as per nature of the society where from it is regulated.

The intrinsic importance of the reports on the October 6, 2005 incident lies in the system of using fixed terminologies to set apart one entity (us) from another (others). The news reports in Pakistani media are formatted through specific sets of social and legal rules. In an anthropological sense, the response to risk is not atomized and individual, but rather a collective cultural issue. The news reports in Pakistan newspapers are a reflection of a social and ideological practice, or in other words a discourse that represents social facts within the frameworks of society. The formation of the language, according to given conditions and frameworks, supports the idea that the news reporting or formatting is greatly under the influence of current social and ideological processes. The neutrality of language use is at stake.

According to anthropological ‘bardic theory’, proposed by two renowned anthropological and media scholars, John Fiske and John Hartley’s (1978), the media represent the issues in line with a mutual understanding between the media and citizens. They share the same understanding and collectively construct the universe of discourse. Therefore it seems that the majority and the media are playing the similar roles in news reports they represent the minority, Ahmadis.

Obviously, the Pakistani media work like a ‘bard’ of the majority. In reality, the media do not perform the bardic role for whole society; in this bardic role there should be consensus on all sides, while here only the majority influences the contents of the news reports. Since the media show the same position which the majority projects. They work under the dominant social, cultural, religious and legal forces, so that the media cannot project their own views and position at a great length. What about the BBC, does it perform as bard of Pakistani society? The answer to it is, no.

In general, the religious belief and popular discourses in Pakistani society are relatively the most assertive factors in exposing Ahmadis to risk (life threats) and giving them a different identity. Both groups, in the Pakistani media, are represented as in binary opposition to each other. In this, the constitution of the country and other blasphemy laws create taboos for each individual in Pakistan whether he or she works in the media or somewhere else. The day-to-day these practices against the Ahmadis are an open threat to all who take chance of representing Ahmadis as Muslims. Therefore, in representing the Ahmadis, cultural, religious and legal aspects are dominant over the Pakistani media’s own choice in representing ‘the others’.

The fear that Ahmadis are polluting Islam and the Islamic state (this is a threat to Islam) is maintained through common knowledge available at the societal and cultural level; religious leaders, the constitution of the country and the blasphemy law (Tuheen-e-Risalat Law 1984) provide justification from the Quran and Sunah.

Thus, from an anthropological perspective, the formation of the perception of risk posed by ‘the others’ is collective (by majority Sunni) rather individual (minority). It is neither an issue of a few groups nor the problem of representing Ahmadis as ‘the others’ in the media, rather it is an issue of the common discourse of hatred against 'the others'.

In the context of religious ideology, however, both groups (Sunni radicals and Ahmadis) pose threat to each other. The radical Muslims demonstrate threats to their culture and belief through attacking places of worship (or killing Ahmadis). Ahmadis have no way to compensate for the matter except waiting for justice and raise their voice at different levels because of their weaker position in society, since justice is relatively not organized for them in the legal and social institutions of society.

In Pakistan, it is presumed that almost everyone knows about the Ahmadis and the reasons for their killing. Likely, such knowledge is part of popular discourse, which the media do not discuss along with such incidents. It is the responsibility of schools (particularly non-registered informal schools) to inform children/people about the difference between Muslims and non-Muslims. Doing so, they also tell them reasons for calling Ahmadis non-Muslims. A child in his/her early age is sent to learn Islamic teachings (at least to learn how to read the Quran) this also include the difference between ‘us’ and ‘the others’ (difference between Muslims and non-Muslims). Therefore, the media perhaps do not mention such things, which already exist.

From the Sunni perspective (also, faith in the Quran and its teaching is one of the fundamental principles of Islam) the denial of Quran or its teaching means rejecting Islam. When the Quran says that Muhammad (PBUH) is the last in the line of prophets, this means Ahmadis are denying the Quran and the finality of prophethood. Therefore the killing of Ahmadis has been seen in a similar cultural and religious context to that in which the discourse of the 'others' or ‘heretical’ is framed. The militants, perhaps, killed them to purify the Islamic state; they are protecting the religious society from an imminent danger by killing them or stopping them from looking like Muslims or being called Muslims. Because they are ‘heretical’, they are wrecking Islamic society; they are disobedient to Islam (Allah). For radicals this calls for jihad against those disobedient.

Perhaps all Pakistani newspapers as part of Sunni Muslim society have also their interests in not blaming the religion of attackers. This does not mean that the religion tells them to do it, but it is their interpretation of Islam as doing Jihad; this has also moral support through discursive discourse practices in the society. It may be wrong to generalize; the text of Pakistan news articles do not blame the attackers' religion, but this process reveals the way society limits levels of expression and allows the media to represent others. The media write in the same style as the culture works (or the powers of its operations work). The Pakistan media do not write about ‘the others’ in the way that the outsider media outlets can represent ‘the others’ (Ahmadis). The restriction to reports on a limited scale means that the media work under certain dominant discourses of power in the society.

Thus the Pakistani media report the incident within social, cultural and the legal limitations and crossing these limitations is risky for these media outlets and people working with them. By terming them an Ahmadi community, media is isolating them from Islam or mainstream Muslims that makes them socially powerless and weaker. Their identity remains different then.

In the past, Pakistani media performed differently to represent majority and minority under the perception of risk, and remain ‘bard’ of the majority not of all sections, but will the Pakistan media in the future be bard of all sections of society?