By Md Muddassir Quamar for TwoCircles.net,
Recently two important incidents in the Middle East got widespread media coverage throughout the world. It was interesting to observe the zestful coverage of the Urdu newspapers in India. India having a huge Urdu speaking population has a good number of Urdu newspapers at regional as well as national level. Almost all states of India with sizable Muslim population have one major Urdu daily with large circulation. Rashtriya Sahara is widely circulated in north and eastern part of the country, while Siasat and Munsif published from Hyderabad are popular down south. Urdu Times, Inquilab, Akhbar-e-Mashriq, Qaumi Tanzim, Roshni are other major regional Urdu dailies.
The two incidents were: Israel’s raid on Gaza bound aid flotilla and United Nations Security Council (UNSC) sanctions on Iran. On Monday, May 31, Israeli commandoes attacked the “Freedom Flotilla” in international waters 65 km from Gaza coast, killing 19 activists most of them belonging to Turkey. Many more were injured. All the six ships that was part of the convoy were seized and all the peace activists on board were taken into custody. It caused a huge uproar throughout the world and Israeli actions were unequivocally condemned as ‘illegal’ and ‘inhuman’. United Nations, European Union and even United States criticized Israel for the aggression. Israel faced criticism from all over the world. The mainstream media in India also reported the issue and echoed the sentiments of Indian authorities and public at large. The Urdu newspapers however, expectedly reported the news with zest and did not leave any stone unturned to criticize as well as ‘bad mouth’ Israel.
Columns and editorials were written for the whole week and Israel was termed as ‘unholy’, ‘inhuman’ etc. The incident was duly condemned as ‘unprovoked aggression’ and ‘barbaric’. But in this zest not to leave an opportunity to criticize Israel, Urdu journalists forgot to analyse the issue from an unbiased perspective. There is no doubt that Israel has been occupying Palestinian lands and trying to construct settlements in these territories. The whole issue including the incident and the larger Israel-Palestine conflict, in Urdu press, was made to be a conspiracy of the West against the Islamic world. The larger issue of humanitarian conditions inside Gaza was relegated. Predictions were made that Israel will be defeated and destroyed. This shows the lack of understanding of international politics on part of most of the columnists and editors of Urdu press. Most of the editorials were reactionary and none tried to analyse the ground realities in a well balanced manner.
Take for example the editorial in Munsif on Wednesday, 02 June 2010, published from Hyderabad that begins like this “The worst incident in history of the world was the creation of Zionist state of Israel, a slap on the face of Islamic world.” Another newspaper Sahafat, predicted that “There would be international movement against Jews”. Barbariat (barbarism), jarhiat (aggression) and other similar terms were abundantly used and abused. Now the point is, does one need to react to an obviously foolish action in such a way or one need to analyse and observe the whole issue in a judicious and unbiased manner.
The second incident was fourth round of UNSC resolutions against Iran, for its inflexible behavior in dealing with the nuclear issue. The sanctions were on the anvil for a while because of Iran’s defiant behavior. Although one can argue that it is just opposite and the US, EU and UN is defiant in dealing with Iran and somehow or the other do not want to deal with the ‘Mullahcracy’.
Here again the Urdu press failed to analyse the issue pragmatically and simply blamed ‘West’ of raging a war against Islam and Muslims. It seems our friends are extremely influenced by Samuel Huntington’s theory of clash of civilization. Even though he himself has revised and re-revised his thesis many a times as per the demand of situation. United Nations was very simply termed as US puppet. It is a well known fact that U.S. has huge influence on UN, but to term the international organization as ‘puppet’ is foolish and will not help an inch in serving any purpose. Ultimately it shows the immaturity on the part of editors and columnists who are reactionary and lack the ability to analyse matters related to international politics and international relations. This shows very poorly on part of Urdu media and makes it difficult for others to give them due importance.
However, as it is said that nothing could be just black or white, some good examples of reporting can be cited from Urdu newspapers as well. The editorial in Roznama Siasat published from Hyderabad, on June 2, itself, touched upon the problem of tyrannical monarchies and dictators in most of the Arab countries. Similarly Roznama Sahafat in its editorial on 11 June tried to analyse the impact of sanctions on Iran on India. The mouth piece of Jamat-e-Islami Hind, Sehroza Dawat also can be lauded for not resorting to bad mouthing anyone as well as trying to focus on the basic issues of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Middle East is obviously strategically very important and with its overwhelming Muslim population gets widespread coverage in Urdu press as Muslims in India wants to be aware of the happenings there. But to trivialize all important contemporary issues to just part of history and clash of religions is extremely uncalled for. This shows the kind of intellectual bankruptcy that prevails among our educated people. Everybody will agree to the fact that Israel used disproportionate force in dealing with the aid flotilla and this was criticized all around. But to make it just a God gifted opportunity for abusing Israel and its people in the name of religion cannot be justified.
Having said all this the intention is not to just criticize the Urdu press and justify Israeli behavior or UN sanctions on Iran but to make it a point that, it is extremely unadvisable to react in such childish manner to issues of international importance. The media shall not just be an expression of opinion of certain elements in society but shall also serve the purpose of educating the masses on important issues pertaining to them. The editors of Urdu press failed in this task and if one analyses further their reporting on the Middle East, it shows very poorly on them as they have completely stopped covering the issue once it stopped being a hot topic. Need of the hour is to understand any important international issue from international politics perspective rather than from just emotional and historical point of view.
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Md. Mudassir Quamar is a student in School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University