Karachi:Foreign economic interests are impacting on Pakistan’s media which affects Pakistan’s strategic, economic and politico-social interests, says noted economist and chairperson of economic affairs division of Pasban Democratic Party (PDP) Professor Dr Shahida Wizarat.
In a paper read at an economic forum, she said foreign economic interests can be classified into three broad categories, she said, the influence emanating from foreign governments, the influence emanating from the corporate sector abroad and the influence from international financial institutions. She said although these are three different sources, their origin is the same: they all represent foreign imperial interests.
She said the impact of these foreign economic interests on Pakistan can also be divided into three broad categories, i.e. strategic interests, economic interests and socio-political and cultural interests. Answering the question that what role the media is playing in promoting foreign imperial interests which are impacting on our strategic, economic, politico-social and cultural interests, she opined that the media promotes its role first through disseminating news that promotes foreign imperial interests. Second, the media achieves its objectives through suppressing news that will have an adverse impact on foreign imperial interests. Third, local agents appointed by foreign imperial powers are portrayed as heroes and fourth, those standing up against such foreign imperial interests and domination are marginalized and their message is suppressed.
Dr Wizarat said Pakistan’s media was more open and objective till the 1990s. The 1990s was the first decade of the liberalisation and privatization era and heavy borrowings from the IFIs. The resulting decline in the growth rate had a decelerating effect on personal incomes, business profits and government revenues. De-industrialization manifested itself in the closure of 5000 industrial units, downsizing and restructuring of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), decline in investments, migration of industrial units that became non-viable due to escalation in their cost of production rendering millions unemployed.
She said the per capita income which was more or less stagnant during the first few years of the 1990s decade declined in 1994, 1997, 1998 and 1999. As a result of decline in the growth rate, employment rate and per capita income overall poverty increased to 50% and in rural Sindh to 85% according to the Asian Development Bank estimates.
She said the “Durkheimian Modernization” perspective linking economic structure to social variables was substantiated by increase in larceny, robberies, murders and suicides. These ugly manifestations were reflected in manifold increase in cases of car snatchings, robberies, murders and three or more suicides reported daily in the newspapers during the 1990s. The country was engulfed in a socio-economic-political turmoil.
She said this was a horrendous time for the people of Pakistan, but it was possible to publish articles in leading Pakistani newspapers highlighting the predicament in which we found ourselves. she recalled that she herself was writing in almost all the leading English and Urdu newspapers on these issues. But come the decade of 2000 things suddenly changed. She said newspapers’ policy became more restrictive, especially after the ‘editors conference’ in California in November 2011, which was fully funded by the US government.
Dr Wizarat said the mainstream western media also does not reveal the reasons why the US and Europe have been waging wars for the last several hundred years. She said the media does not tell that behind the smoke screens of altruistic objectives, like women’s rights, getting rid of weapons of mass destruction, or the presence of terrorists posing a threat to the world, are hidden agendas. These include acquiring the resources of resource rich countries that do not have brute force to defend themselves, destroying established order which would facilitate the loot and plunder of these countries, establishing an unjust world order, etc.
She said Federico Pieraccini has summed it very well when he says: “The mainstream media will never tell us that the reason why Washington has been at war for half of the last two centuries is because of US imperialism. They will never tell us that the ceaseless interventions are driven by an insatiable greed for resources, or often enough by the simple desire to plunge a country into chaos if its recalcitrant leaders refuse to genuflect appropriately and show due respect.”
And he goes on to state: “The mainstream media are tasked by the powers that be with marketing war in order to advance US foreign-policy objectives. Without the moral justification for war, it becomes more difficult to convince Americans and Europeans to send their sons to die thousands of miles away from home. It is straightforward Brainwashing: repeat a lie long enough, and people will start to believe it.”
Dr Wizarat said Pakistani media with its professional and personal links with the western media has been disseminating news that promotes foreign economic interests and suppressing news that adversely impacts on these economic interests. Try writing a paper on the hidden agenda behind the “war against terror”, plight of countries that have borrowed from the IMF, the adverse impact of trade and financial liberalisation on third world economies and see how many mainstream newspapers or electronic media will air your views or publish your articles, she challenged.
And this is not restricted to protecting the interests of imperial powers and IFIs, but also to corporate sector interests as well. The Pakistani market was flooded with GMOs even before the Seed Act 1976 was amended in 2015. We have been consuming Bt wheat, fruits, vegetables and lentils by importing these from Canada, Australia and India, without knowing what we were eating, she said. The media remained silent on this issue. Our cotton seeds were replaced by GM seeds during the course of the Cotton Productivity Enhancement Project initiated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture when 88 percent of Pakistan’s cotton acreage was clandestinely planted with GM cotton seeds instead of the existing natural seeds. Cotton production declined from 14.1 mn bales in 2004 to 10.5 mn bales after the introduction of GM cotton. But none of these facts have appeared in the mainstream Pakistani media.
She said moreover, Agriculture and Cold Chain Development (PACCD), a subsidiary of Winrock International, a US NGO working under the patronage of USAID distributed apple samplings in Balochistan whose description resembles GMOs, without informing the farmers that they are GMOs. This was not reported in any newspaper. And more recently, US AID was trying to promote Syngenta’s GM paddy seeds, but because of the price differential the farmers were reluctant. U.S. AID, therefore, leased land from a farmer in Shikarpur and started cultivation of Bt rice. Since the yield was high a lot of rice farmers in Shikarpur are now growing Bt rice which entered the market in December 2015 and people are eating Bt crops without any impact risk assessment done on health and the environment. None of this has been reported in the media, she said.
Dr Wizarat said Pakistanis who are promoting such foreign economic interests are rewarded financially, projected as heroes and people of great intellect and elevated to leadership positions in government, public and private sector institutions, banks and financial institutions and universities. While those who are raising their voice trying to expose such economic exploitation and the inherent dangers are marginalised and deprived of positions and status which they deserve. The impact of releasing dis-information and suppressing information is having a horrendous impact on Pakistan’s economy, socio-political structure and environment, she concluded.