Voices must be heard, words must be written

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THERE is a desperation which comes into the business of shutting down a newspaper. It is desperation which brings with it clear brush strokes of huge anger and inexplicable arrogance. When a government decides, in its questionable wisdom, that it is all right to dispense with a newspaper, that there are ways of forcing it off the stands, it does not quite convince people that it has learnt from history. In the post-modern society we are part, it is not expected that all of us will subscribe to the views of a newspaper or of a television channel. But all of us agree that there must be a diversity of views for the fundamental reason that we have little wish to see our democracy, or what passes for it, dwindle into illiberality bordering on the authoritarian. Democracies do not close doors. They open new windows and newer vistas. Elected governments do not suffer from a persecution complex. If they do, it is a social order that is threatened with chaos . . . because governments in such a state of mind go into doing all those things that take them farther and farther away from those they purport to govern.
Which is why we think it was a bad move closing down Amar Desh. Which is why we do not agree that it was all right to shut down Channel 1. Which is also why we believe it is folly to suggest that television channels not have live talk shows. Which, again, is why we are convinced that putting Facebook out of action was as injudicious as it was precipitate. Yes, there are the many legalities that will be put on a platter by way of an explanation for the shutting down of newspapers and television channels. There will be all the inane points made about who has been a publisher and yet has not wanted to be. The more important point is that citizens do not buy these explanations. Worse is that other reality before us --- that when vindictiveness gets the better of good counsel in a government's handling of a media organization that rattles it night and day, all of us pay a price. What is a newspaper if it does not berate a government over its perceived flaws? A newspaper may not always be right. It may be prejudiced. It may be peddling monumental untruths. But all of that is for citizens to judge. Why must a newspaper get under the skin of a government? A government elected through the unprecedented support of a nation ought to be an entity superior to anything else we might have observed in this country. It must be above the fray. It must reach out to everyone, the objective being the creation of an inclusive society.
Banning Amar Desh and proscribing Channel 1 (or outlawing Ekushey Television in BNP times) will not lead to the building of that inclusive society. It can only polarize people and fracture society. Worse, it will likely make a huge dent in the armour of the government. There is the past to fall back on. In the early 1950s, the Pakistani establishment clamped a ban on the Pakistan Observer. In the 1960s, Ayub Khan decreed a ban on the Ittefaque. Those moves did not work. Banning does not work, especially when a nation remains aware of the responsibilities it must perform. In the 1980s, the Ershad regime proffered 'advice' day after day to newspapers because it had little wish to have journalists get the upper hand in the struggle against autocracy. The 'advice' came to naught. In the old Pakistan days, the likes of Ayub Khan were left biting the dust. It was the Observer and Ittefaque that lived to tell the tale.
Much haemorrhaging comes into a society when newspapers are put out of circulation. It is a truth the Awami League must know, through remembering the condemnation it earmed in early 1975 when the government it presided over shut down all newspapers save four. Thought cannot be muzzled. Speech is never to be threatened with censorship. The principle of diversity of opinion (and there will be opinion that will rile many of us), when it is cast to the winds, can only lead to a stagnation of the imagination. And then things could take on a more sinister hue: they might push a government into the defensive and eventually into a corner.
Which is why we are with those who believe in democratic liberalism. We believe, somewhere deep in our souls, that voices must be heard, words must be written and arguments must be shaped if pluralism is to survive and thrive. Let Amar Desh and Channel 1 re-emerge in all their vigour, the better to strengthen our hold on our right to be ourselves.

Syed Badrul Ahsan is Editor, Current Affairs, The Daily Star.
E-mail: [email protected].