Niazi Na Dittho, Niazi Jo Kitab Dittho
THEY say in Sindhi, Khuda na dittho, Rasul na dittho, Quran dittho, Syed dittho -I haven't seen God and I haven't seen the Holy Prophet, but I have seen the Holy Quran and the Syed (that's why I am a Muslim ).
About Zamir Niazi I can say. Niazi na dittho, Niazi jo kitab dittho which is to say my faith in mankind (I hate that other word, humankind, because it has been invented by the armchair liberty-equality-fraternity wallahs) is renewed.
In all my born days, I haven't known a braver; a more determined a more dedicated and a more intrepid journalist than Mr. Zamir Niazi . I know newsmen have died with their boots on; they have been injured, lashed, and arrested and they have been arbitrarily dismissed. But Niazi's suffering has been personal and private. He has suffered in silence and persevered.
A friend visited him in Karachi some time ago. He found that despite being visibly in great physical discomfort, he was uncomplaining. He did not say a single word about his health. On the contrary, He exhorted my friend not to waste time. "Do some serious work." You are letting time slip by. Why don't you write a book?" Niazi advised him.
So, since Zamir Niazi does not talk about himself, I wouldn't like to do that, either. That would be disrespectful. Let us, therefore, talk of the third book he has written on journalism in Pakistan . The Web of Censorship , published by the Oxford University Press , is part of the trilogy, which began with The Press in Chains and The Press Under Siege .
The Web is dedicated to a band of brave journalists who have been keeping Oslobodjenje (Liberation) alive in Sarajevo right from the beginning of the Bosnian war under extremely hazardous conditions. The offices of the paper having been destroyed, they are now living in a bunker, eating there, sleeping there, and working there.
The paper's edition on August 30, 1993, marked the fiftieth anniversary of the paper. It "was simultaneously published in 33 countries by leading newspapers as a show of fraternal solidarity" as Niazi tells us. One of these papers has been quoted in the dedication:
"As the killer's hand fondles the trigger elsewhere in Bosnia , some fingers are still working on a keyboard in a Sarajevo bunker. The Oslobodjenje man is the chronicler of truth, and he makes his colleagues worldwide proud. Long live the front page, even if it is drenched in blood."
How many of us know of this. And how many of us have cared?
The Web is the best of the trilogy. Not that those previous two books were bad. Taken together, the three books represent work of monumental proportions. They must be on the shelf of every journalist who takes his job seriously.
The book in hand is mainly devoted to the period of pre-censorship, which Gen . Zia imposed on all publications in October 1979. I have lived through those draconian days. How I tried my level best to give the slip to the censors is a separate story to be told later. But reading The Web was like living through those desperate days once again
The Press was gagged in the name of Islam , and Niazi gives chapter and verse of the Martial law regime's acts of repression. There is a story on every page, each more harrowing than the other. The tragedy is that the censorship scissors were put in the hands of senseless, semi-literate people. To give you but one example: Viewpoint (since deceased), writing editorially, used the phrase "the haloed memory" of the Quaid . The censor officer, in his idiocy or ignorance, or both, cut out the word "haloed"
Then as Mr. Niazi notes, there were no set standards of censorship. That which was censored in the Punjab was allowed in Sindh , and that which was cut out on Monday was allowed to appear on Wednesday. (I played on the censors' nerves by putting in censored matter repeatedly, and would often succeed in getting rejected matter through after a day or two).
Niazi quotes from Mushahid Husain to say that when Gen . Zia was to visit the United States , some senators asked President Reagan to put pressure on him for freedom in Pakistan ; since he (Gen. Zia) was a military dictator. After Gen. Zia's visit, the senators asked Mr. Reagan whether he had discussed with him the restoration of democracy in Pakistan.
Mr. Reagan 's reply, as reported by Mr. Mushahid Husain , was: "He's no dictator. He is a nice guy. He is the only foreign leader I have seen visiting the White House who even shook hands with the Marine Guard, with the waiters, and with practically everyone in sight. If he is so good to people, he can't be all that bad."
Yes, Gen . Zia was a nice guy, he was so nice, in fact, that he used to smile while asking people whether they would mind it very much if he knifed them.
Gen . Zia found willing collaborators from within the journalistic community itself; one of whom advised the government to purge the Press . This was the green signal for Raja Zafar-ul-Haq, then Information Minister, to blacklist over fifty poets, writers, and journalists who were banished from PTV and PBC. Niazi 's list includes such names as Josh Malihabadi, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Ustad Daman , Habib Jalib , Akhlaq Ahmad Dehlavi, Prof. Karrar Husain, Hajra Masroor, Shaukat Siddiqui, I.A. Rehman, Munnoo Bhai , Dr. Anwar Sajjad, and a host of others (The last two were off-listed after a while).
Ban or no ban, only the favourites have been favoured by the official media. And favourites are generally mediocrities. Hence the slide in standards. As Sardar Bahadur Khan used to say: Har Shaakh pe ulloo baitha heh, anjam-i-chaman kya hoga.
Mr. Niazi deals with the effects of prolonged repression on media men. It is simple: they get used to it. The end message is: "It is not power that corrupts, but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it, and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it." (Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize Winner).
I could do as many columns on The Web as there are chapters in it. But this much is certain: I will keep returning to Zamir Niazi from time to time. Thank you once again, as I said after I had read the Chains and the Siege and God bless.
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THE BBC -TV correspondent in Tokyo was saying the other day that Japanese premiers were by tradition long on promises and short on performance. The gentleman has obviously not been to Pakistan nor read its papers.
Friday, May 13, 1994
