Takin' It To The Streets
When last we checked in on all the foment and discord in Pakistan – contrary to what Stephen King might think, Public Eye keeps up with global affairs – we saw that the Pakistan government had imposed something of a media blackout. It's been a troubling-yet-fascinating exercise in information control from the other side of the planet.
Then this morning, America got news that exiled former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had returned to the country:
Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who returned home Sunday night after seven years in exile, filed his candidacy for parliament here Monday but said he might boycott elections in January if the military government does not lift emergency rule and restore deposed senior judges.It's clear that the nation-wide boycott of broadcast media didn't settle things down. How, then, did the political conversation continue in the chaotic nation?
Pakistan went old school.
When faced with heavily-monitored TV networks, the opinion-leaders in the country went on the streets and held live versions of popular public affairs programs and relied on word of mouth to keep the pressure on the government. According to a fascinating piece in the Washington Post:
Pakistan's popular TV talk shows, once touted by the government as proof of democratic progress but now banned from broadcasting, took to the streets this week, drawing enthusiastic crowds around a sidewalk stage that replicates a studio set and engaging politicians and pundits in vigorous debates about the country's political crisis.Due to the fact that the government was monitoring all programming for anti-establishment rhetoric, the television journalists did what the current administration has attempted to do for years – eliminate the 'filter.'Most Pakistanis cannot see or hear the shows, but the phenomenon has quickly become a significant forum for opinion and grievances under emergency rule, imposed by President Pervez Musharraf on Nov. 3. It has also become a gleefully subversive form of political theater, circumventing official efforts to silence more sophisticated forms of critical communication.
On Friday, hundreds of spectators gathered for the open-air edition of "Capital Talk," a panel show on Geo television hosted by journalist Hamid Mir. His headline guest was Imran Khan, the former cricket champion and opposition leader fresh from a week in prison, who called on all political parties to boycott "illegitimate" national elections scheduled for January…
The only way for Pakistanis to tune in to "Capital Talk" is to physically follow its host, guests and studio set -- complete with a semicircle of chairs around a coffee table with a fake-flower arrangement -- to the national university campus, where it was held Thursday, or the sidewalk in front of the ramshackle offices of the Islamabad-Rawalpindi Press Club, where it was located Friday.
While the situation in Pakistan is tenuous and far from settled, the ability of the people to engage in political debate hasn't been fully cut off. And these small, imaginative methods of communication – even if archaic by 21st century standards – are reassuring anecdotes, possibly even for other areas of unrest in the world.