The
Perils of Propaganda
The
author is a historian of language policy in South Asia
The first danger of propaganda is that it creates an unreal image of the world. All other dangers flow from this basic lie. All the wrong policies, the wrong decisions and then the inability to change policies come from this initial mistake. The major problem is that the emotional investment of the common people in the wrong policies based upon propaganda is so great that they stand in the way of any decision-makers who want to undo the damage created by the policies.
Take the case of the nuclear scientists who are alleged to have sold secrets in order to enrich themselves. This allegation of the present government, if true, contradicts the propaganda of the all the previous governments. This means that the army spokesmen and the official media were wrong when they kept assuring us that the nuclear programme was always in such good control that proliferation was not possible. The common people are either confused or clearly incredulous and suspicious. They think that the army authorities should have known especially if air force aircrafts were used to carry Dr Qadeer Khan’s private property to one of his hotels as now revealed in the media. The common people also believe that the United states is pressurizing General Musharraf to abandon the nuclear programme. Some have even suggested that either there was a policy of proliferation to the Muslim world or the intelligence agencies, the army high command, the civil bureaucracy and the highest functionaries of the state were so incompetent or corrupt that they did not know what was going on. If the latter is true i.e. there was no government policy to proliferate nuclear technology but individuals were corrupt then this is a massive failure of the whole system of governance in the country. If everybody was out to mint money why are the scientists in the dock while others are not? These are questions which many people are asking and the media is full of them as are the drawing rooms and the tea houses.
This, however, is not the point which I intended to make. It has been made by many people and I do not want to dwell upon it any further. The reason I mentioned the perceptions of the common man is that the government indulged in such propaganda about the nuclear programme that it became more than a weapon. It became the central icon of the nation; the symbol of identity; the fount of the deepest emotions. It almost took upon a religious significance. And, of course, the person credited with this achievement was Dr Qadeer Khan who thus became the idol of the people; the dearest of their heroes; the greatest of their redeemers. For a nation which lives in penury and has been made to feel humiliated in most respects on the world stage any accusation of Qadeer Khan this is a new humiliation and one for which they were not prepared. This is where propaganda comes in. This propaganda created such a hero of Qadeer Khan that all other names in the programme were shadowed over much to their chagrin. It replaced institutions with individuals. It made Qadeer Khan a giant among his colleagues and created personality worship and a cult which, in reality, both Islam and democratic egalitarian norms forbid. If dissidents had been allowed to express their point of view the people would not have seen only one side of nuclear weapons nor would they have invested so much emotion in certain individuals . The people were never made conscious that nuclear programmes may have dangers and are not considered as positively in other countries as they are in Pakistan. Here a veritable personality cult was constructed by propaganda. It was probably this personality cult which made successive governments and bodies for accountability shy off from Qadeer Khan earlier. If what is being revealed in the press today is true it is impossible to believe that nobody knew which nuclear scientist was amassing wealth earlier. Corruption on such a large scale had to be known otherwise the intelligence agencies were completely inefficient, the police was incredibly incompetent and the accountability offices (including the NAB) absolutely impotent. Is this credible? Personally I find it hard to believe. What appears likely is that they knew but propaganda had placed Qadeer Khan and his colleagues on such a pedestal that they were sacrosanct; they were above the law; they were untouchable. Either this or that the highest decision-makers wanted them to remain corrupt as long as they did the job. Or, even worse, all highly placed people themselves took a share in the loot. Whatever the truth, it does condemn the law and mocks institutions while deifying individuals through wrongful propaganda.
In short, the rule of the law; the equality of all citizens under law; the primacy of institutions over individuals in national projects such as new weapon systems; the necessity of not allowing individuals, however great, to deviate from the norms of honesty--- all these things became casualties of propaganda and hero worship.
In a country where truth, the rule of law and humanitarian values rather individuals are held in esteem, people do not deviate so much from the norms of citizenship as members of the powerful elite of Pakistan do so. Why is it that the scientists, assuming that all that is alleged against them is true, were not questioned (politely of course and not in the manner they were a few days back) when it was first discovered that they were living beyond their known means? Presumably because the pursuit of weapons was then considered more important than the rule of law, truth and such other values. These values are more important than anything else because, without strong moral values, societies decay from the inside and are as insecure as they are from outside enemies. Without these internal values and the discipline to safeguard them societies degenerate into anarchies where nobody is safe—not even the decision-makers themselves; not even the seemingly powerful; not even the heroes of the hour.
What else does propaganda do? It creates rigidities; it makes policies inflexible; it destroys trust; it makes governments helpless before their own people. Once people start believing in the wrong picture of society they become inflexible and prevent their governments from adopting more constructive policies. The Nazi propaganda against the Jews made ordinary decent Germans hard and pitiless towards them resulting in such atrocities that the German spirit has yet to recover from it. The Israeli propaganda that Palestine was mostly uninhabited land and therefore there was nothing wrong with Jewish settlements there made young Israelis unaware of the callousness of their predecessors. Reversing this propaganda would be the step towards peace in the middle East but that is not easy. The Israelis are not in a mood to believe recent research which suggests that the Palestinians were pushed out of the occupied lands. Pakistan and India have hardened the position of their people on Kashmir so much by propaganda that now when they both want to bring about peace they find themselves opposed by their own people. The American neo-Conservatives have fooled the Americans by their propaganda but this has put them in the dilemma of keeping militancy intact otherwise it is hard to explain to their people why their boys died in the first place. In short they will find it as hard to pull out of Iraq as they did out of Vietnam. The truth is that, while propaganda might serve short-term interests it does not serve long-term interests if these interests are defined as peace in the world, the preservation of humanitarian values and trust in the government. In the case of the scientists too the official image building of the nuclear scientists, especially Qadeer Khan, has now made it difficult for the government to change its policies.
Pakistan is now passing through a perilous state. General Musharraf’s policies of creating peace with India and moving away from the Taliban, even if they are outcomes of external pressure, are welcomed by those who advocate peace and liberal values. The episode of the scientists threatens to undo these policies because those who oppose peace will be strengthened by the present case. As it happens the nuclear programme and Qadeer Khan are held in especial reverence, bordering on worship, by those who support militant Islam and an aggressive posture in Kashmir. The greatest adverse effect of the propaganda, then, is to put wrongful pressure on the government to reverse what it has gained in the SAARC summit. If the government succumbs to this pressure we will be in danger of a war and nuclear holocaust. If it does not it will have to provide very honest answers not allowing anyone to be shielded and confessing that the system has been wrong and needs to be changed. And whatever the new system is, it should ensure that it does not indulge in wrongful propaganda. This propaganda, this hero-worship, is against both democracy and egalitarianism. It makes governments captives of public opinion; public opinion which they have created themselves like a scientist long time ago created a monster called Frankenstein. He could not control the monster just as we cannot control the public emotion created by our own propaganda.