Switching Sides

It has dawned on me after each time jumping in joy, which in retrospection appears silly, at the regular offers of some cell phone companies, often past midnight by SMS, that if we actually responded to each of their channel-dazzling, street-blinding, albeit mind-boggling ads, we could change our lifestyle, and well, our economic condition too. One is curiously marvelled by their generosity.

Their TV ads are too long, sometimes as long as the drama serial, in the biggapon breaks of which they are shown, giving rise to the confusion as to which is the ad and which is the serial. If one or two actors in the respective productions are by any chance common, the 'hello' viewer can hardly be blamed for switching channels.

Switching to an adjacent channel you may come across a hybrid presenter saying more times' hello viewers' than anything related to the content of the programme. It is their way of assuring us that just because they are conducting a programme in Bangla does not mean they are from a Bengali-medium school.

Disgusted at the high-pitched incomprehensible monologue, when all that the poor compere (not money-wise) was trying to say was the name of the literally long-standing singer, who in fact was as usual overdressed and obviously sweating under the lights, making you wonder how deep the foundation was, and so you press lightly on the remote because the singer had just then begun to croon. You realise almost immediately that the songster's singing foundation is not even skin deep, and therefore proceed to press the forward button in twice the disgust.
After three to four switches, flashes of ads, movies and programmes that you may have seen a hundred times, and some you know by heart or think so, you arrive at a channel that is hosting several Bangladeshi people discussing some topic and sat side by side. There lies the basic problem with our talk shows. When you talk, you should face each other. I rest my case, unlike the never-surrendering talkers. And have you noticed how some of them are vociferous about multiple topics as varying as Putin and painting, regional films and state frugality; reminds me of Da Vinci of Leonardo fame.

There are paid viewer-watchers who keep a close eye on our channel-switching thumb. That is where you have to admire the technical dexterity of our media people. On some occasions it is possible to catch the same advertisement running simultaneously on two, even three channels; the commercial media pundits have timed it like that. Where will you go by switching? They shall follow you from channel after channel.

If you switch and switch you may at a point arrive at a Doha-based channel, speaking in only English; strange, but they have an agenda, and that is to propaganda their thoughts and beliefs across to the international community. Thank God for that, or else we would have never heard what they said about us, ever realise why they said it and always ponder what they are trying to achieve.

“Al Jazeera in 2008 made an extraordinary documentary on the 1971 genocide” (by Pakistan Army on the people of Bangladesh), said Shahriar Kabir, one of the principal figures behind the movement demanding the trial and punishment of war criminals and those who committed crimes against humanity. “But ever since the International Crimes Tribunal was formed (in Bangladesh) in 2009, they have been running reports, programmes based on what Jamaat-e-Islami has been alleging. They are working as Jamaat's spokesperson!” he observed. (bdnews24.com,6 Nov 2014)

Now one would believe the news channel for its objective reporting, but now you don't. The major corruption of which the channel Al Jazeera is guilty of is the lie that it propounds, and a news channel that shirks behind falsehood and fabrication ceases to be a respectable news channel.

Reporting on the Appellate Division's verdict in Dhaka that upheld death for war criminal Mohammad Kamaruzzaman on 3 November, Al Jazeera reporter in Dhaka, Maher Sattar, (he should know better) claimed that “historians estimate 300,000 to 500,000 were killed in the nine months by Pakistani military and local collaborators”, whereas the official government figure is that three million overwhelmingly unarmed Bangalees were martyred. Which historians? How did they estimate? Millions of living witnesses of the gruesome happenings of 1971 can recount as genuine first-hand historians the pain and sufferings of those tortured to death, those who survived, those maimed for life, physically and mentally.

“The 'historian' Al Jazeera is relying on is blogger David Bergman, the British national facing contempt for blogging 'adverse comments' about the war crimes tribunal.” What is the motive of a channel that also airs in Arabic? What is the link between the 1971 Bangladesh war crimes, the war crimes tribunal, and the channel? Did the reputed channel have to erase all its credibility at least to the living witnesses of 1971 for a narrow and unfounded view on crimes that rocked and shocked the conscience of the world then, and continues to do so today? The channel chose to pay a high price for the little they may have gained.

Just as we switch channels by pressing a remote control, Al Jazeera too has switched sides by some distant regulator. Remember their much-appreciated 2008 '1971' documentary? Because of the reputation it had earned as a reliable TV news channel, we regret to say that it is on the wrong side of the law, the wrong side of history and sadly on the wrong side of humanity.