We in Pakistan practice it to perfection! Take the question of obscenity in the media. We have embarked on an apparently unending exercise to define the term, when probably none was needed at least for a start in the right direction towards what needed to be done.
7 August 12 First a recap: The subject came into formal notice as a result a suo motu action by the Supreme Court following letters written to it by former Justice Wajihuddin Ahmed and former Ameer Jamaat-e-Islami Qazi Hussain Ahmed, drawing attention to rampant, unbridled obscenity on a number of TV Channels. The 3-member bench agreeing with their view, ordered Pemra (the relevant regulating body) "to take strict action against TV channels for airing 'obscene' programmes and advertisements and submit a report". That was on 7 August 2012.
August 25, 2012 Nothing substantive happened for 18 days till Pemra invited "experts" to define what constituted obscenity. Input was sought from "all stakeholders, including veteran religious leaders, PBA, Cable Association, writers, columnists, journalists, academicians, media experts, advertisers and contents producers in consultation process to deliberate upon description of the term - obscenity - along with parameters vis-à-vis our socio-cultural and religious values". The revised draft of an existing Draft of February 2012, which had inscribed some definitions of obscene contents, which were derived from international metaphors, was put on Pemra website "for comments of public and stakeholders".
28 August, 2012 Come 28 August, we learnt that a consensus on the definition of obscenity was still elusive.
15 September 12 Participants of the previous meetings under Pemra's aegis decided to present a "comprehensive report" of the two meetings to the Supreme Court on 17 September 12.
17 September 12 The court directed Pemra to lay down the "Commonly Accepted Standard of Decency" (whatever that means) keeping in view Article 37(g) of the Constitution and other relevant laws and take short term and long term measures to control obscenity, indecency etc and gave Pemra 2 weeks in which to accomplish this. Article 37 (G) lays down: prevent prostitution, gambling and taking of injurious drugs, printing, publication, circulation and display of obscene literature and advertisements;
11 October 12 Now the National Assembly entered the crowded scene and unanimously passed a resolution, to quote a report "expressing serious concern over the broadcasting of illegal foreign channels through cable network, the growing trends of obscenity and indecency through local channels and the unchecked flow of blasphemous and vulgar material through the internet into Pakistan in violation of the Constitution and the relevant laws. The House also decided to constitute a parliamentary committee with the mandate to formulate a comprehensive policy in this regard with inputs from all the stakeholders including the media, to ensure that Pakistani society remains secure from the menace of obscenity and vulgarity".
Committee definition? My purpose in giving a date-wise account of developments about an urgent matter is to show how responsible people put issues on the back burner while giving the impression of serious progress in tackling them. I am reminded of a tongue-in-cheek definition of "committee" from my high school days which to the best of my recollection ran as follows: A Committee is a group of people who, being incapable of doing anything worthwhile individually, form a committee which decides that nothing can or need be done!
Waiting to begin to start to commence!Thus even after some three months have elapsed since the date of the original move in the SC all that has happened to date is that the Supreme Court, two consultative bodies of Pemra, the (yet to be constituted) National Assemblies Committee are all tying themselves into knots trying to determine what constitutes Obscenity.
What David Ogilvy said The fact of the matter is, over the last two or three years the electronic media in Pakistan has gone on a wild spree with explicit coverage and presentation of crime and sex in both fiction and reporting formats including graphic, even suggestive enactments. The media thus expected viewership to suddenly increase when such programmes were aired. Their expectations were justified as advertisers began to time their spots for airing during these programmes and big money began to be raked in. With no one to rein in the obnoxious spree, ads and programmes (reports or fiction) became more and more explicit. This had consequences. Advertisers appeared to forget that David Mackenzie Ogilvy (often called "The Father of Advertising" and considered by Time Magazine in 1962 to be "the most sought-after wizard in today's advertising industry) had warned against advertisements which drew attention to ads themselves (a scantily clad young lady or actress for example) rather than to the product the ads were trying to sell. However, that is for the advertisers to think about from purely business considerations since moral scruples do not bother most of them or most of our TV Channels for that matter.
Obscenity in the home sanctum! People are finding it difficult to watch TV at home with their families with promiscuous (sexually explicit) scenes in ads, films and reports, coming on view with increasing frequency. Scenes showing in graphic detail how crimes are committed showed the way to impressionable minds how it was possible for such things to happen. Scenes of seduction whether in fiction or re-enactment of happenings, set imagination (especially in young impressionable minds) soaring with "possibilities" and lead to increase in related crimes. This is a well-established social phenomenon and no discovery or revelation.
When your house is on fire.......The point of all this is that we don't need to wait for the weighty deliberations on obscenity to come to some conclusion before starting action on setting things right. Even a cursory glance at what is being shown on many TV channels is enough to show that a great deal of it oversteps the lines of not only of our social norms of long standing but also of our own media and entertainment (cinema, theater and TV included) of the recent past. Watch any film or TV play of just 6 or 7 years ago and the difference should startle you if you are not conscious already of the deterioration that has taken place. A consensus on what Obscenity is or on what guidelines should be enforced on the media is unlikely to be reached anytime soon. Our elite who call all the shots are simply not mentally ready to apply Islamic values to their lives. But surely some simple rules and guidelines can be arrived at in a single sitting if we keep in mind what an average educated Pakistani would think as an appropriate programme or advertisement to be aired in the privacy of his home and if we keep in view the red lines that were never crossed on the national media just a decade back. That should do as an interim, pragmatic arrangement. The alternative is a perpetual wait while our values continue to erode and our society continues its headlong fall into immorality and dissipation. (owajid@yahoo.com)