Title: The Clinton visit
Author: M. Ziauddin
Publication: Dawn, Karachi
Date: March 27, 2000
THE chill was unbearable.
From the moment the US President landed at the Chaklala airbase to the
time his plane took off for the return journey, one felt as if the headmaster
had got the class lined up for a real dressing down for breaking some highly
revered school code. His face told it all. It was sombre. Even when he
waved at the cameras just before entering the waiting limousine to be driven
off to the Presidency, it appeared as if he was making an effort. There
was no spontaneity, no warmth. Perhaps he was working himself up in the
mood for the task ahead. And as if to go with the sombre scene an almost
deserted Islamabad greeted his arrival. His stay of about five hours in
the capital was tense and the departure equally cold. When he arrived at
the Presidency, he had to wait for a couple of minutes at the entrance
for President Tarar to come and receive him. A pathetic display of a lack
of sense of timing and protocol on the part of those who were conducting
our President or was he waiting at the wrong entrance, just to help out
the Americans in another of their decoys? There were no photographs of
TV footage of Chief Executive Gen Pervez Musharraf receiving the US President
in his office or shaking hands with him. The only photograph or footage
released showed the two at a distance of about 12 feet away from each other
at the conference table in the company of each other's aides.
One did not know whether
to feel insulted or apprehensive or both by all this. And when the US President
delivered his speech over the TV making it clear that if Pakistan refused
to heed his warnings, its fate would be sealed, one felt the chill biting
one's very bones. Sandy Berger and Mike Hammer had already said the same
thing in a cruder language a day earlier and that too when they were still
in India. The US President, however, used very decorous language, in part
polite and in part diplomatic he tried also to make what he said more palatable
by quoting in proper context the Quaid and Iqbal, beginning his address
with Assalamailakum and ending it with Pakistan Zindabad. Full marks to
Bill Clinton for being so thoughtful of our sensibilities. And if circumstances
under which the sermon was delivered, its timing and the place were ignored,
one perhaps would find oneself in complete agreement with almost the entire
text of his speech. But then why did we have to go to such lengths to listen
to the obvious, in such humiliating circumstances? And the tragedy is,
many in this country have been saying exactly the same for decades now,
but without the ruling elite paying any heed.
And even after what the
US President said in his address if our ruling elite continued to live
in the age of Cold War and kept trying to look for reference points in
the pre-1990 world to hang on their policies for today's Pakistan, then
perhaps even God would finally find it difficult to help us. There are
many in the country who were not in favour of a visit by the US President
to Pakistan immediately before or after his tour of India. They had felt
that the groundwork that was needed to be done before hosting such a visit
had not been done and the enabling circumstances for achieving our objectives
were not present. And looking at the mind-set of the present rulers in
the country, they had concluded that if undertaken at this juncture and
in such conditions, such an event would only end in a diplomatic disaster
and even prove to be highly counter- productive to our national interests.
Both the governments, for their own respective reasons would certainly
put a positive spin to the visit. But the bottom line appears to be too
perilous.
During the day's work
on Saturday I also happened to attend a briefing by the White House spokesman
Joe Lockhart. There were about 100 odd media persons at the briefing, mostly
belonging to the US and international media. I was impressed by the orderly
manner in which the briefing was conducted because only a couple of days
back I had come back from a press conference addressed by the Chief Executive
totally shaken. Those who attended this press conference would know what
I mean. When asking questions at the White House briefing media persons
would raise their hands, the spokesman would identify one of them and he
or she would ask the question without any hassle. In contrast to this a
pandemonium breaks out every time there is a press conference in Islamabad,
especially those which are expected to be televised live or later (one
held on Saturday by the CE and conducted by foreign minister Sattar was
an exception).
Over the years, perhaps
to oblige "influential" press reporters the PTV has developed a unique
way of shooting important press conferences. The cameras would show close
up of every questioner and also keep showing from time to time medium and
close-up shots of smaller segments of the press corps attending the press
conference. No news conference is presented in such a way by any other
TV channel in the world. These other channels would keep the focus firmly
on the person holding the press conference. And only rarely would they
show a reporter asking a question and that too from side ways, very rarely
a close-up. The practice adopted by the PTV attracts every member of the
press community to important press conferences. You will even find cultural
reporters covering press conferences held by the finance ministers just
to have a chance to be shown nationwide on the TV asking questions to the
high and the mighty. The PID, which is supposed to invite the press through
the editors and thebureau chiefs, commits the original sin by issuing invitation
to all, perhaps to avoid being bullying by the 'influential' or to oblige
its favourites.
In the early 1980s, the
late Gen Zia-ul-Haq had introduced a unique tradition at the press conferences
he used to hold. He would invite one particular journalist from a powerful
vernacular newspaper to ask the first question. With the passage of time
this gentleman began to accept it as his right to ask the first question
at every press conference. He would stand up even before the person addressing
the press conference had ended his opening remarks and shout his question
at the top of his voice. After a couple of years another gentleman who
had equally strong vocal chords joined him in this shouting match. At times
they would even entangle with each other physically to be heard first.
And in the 1990s when a new crop of young journalists entered the profession,
they thought that this was the only way to behave at press conferences
- stand up, shout and get recognized - and the attraction of being shown
on TV nationwide added fuel to the fire. At the March 23 press conference
of the CE one of these young journalists even brought with him his four-year-old
son to the press conference and occupied the front row and kept jumping
on his seat throughout to be recognized (and succeeded twice) perhaps in
the hope that his son's picture would also get telecast nationwide. Just
to explain to what length this gentleman must have gone to bring in his
son to the restricted venue let me state that even I was not allowed in
until I had proven my identity at the gate and shown my press accreditation
pass to a representative of the armed forces standing at the doors along
with a couple of tough looking uniformed personnel!