Virtual protest with tangible effects? Some observations on the media strategies of the 2007 Pakistani anti-Emergency movement

Abstract

On 3rd November 2007 General Parvez Musharraf imposed a State of Emergency on Pakistan. During the State of Emergency the judiciary was turned upside down, the media selectively censored and many lawyers and human rights activists were arrested. While the lower classes remained relatively silent and carried on with their daily routines, an unprecedented movement against Musharraf, but more so pro-democracy and pro-judiciary, swept the country. This paper analyses the interrelation between the political concerns of a specific (upper-middle class) class subculture, the extraordinary means of communication available to them and the development of the protest. The paper argues that the way in which the protest was organised and negotiated was profoundly rooted in class divisions affecting consumption and production in the field of new media, and that where convergence between new and old media occurred, this was not enough to significantly involve other classes. The paper concludes by highlighting how meta-mediatic outputs and productions aimed primarily at a foreign audience nevertheless had an important role in changing the nature of the Pakistani public sphere, although it confutes theories that new media can produce social change at a great speed. The data was collected through participant observation, monitoring of internet blogs and videos, collection of articles in the English press, and interviews with prominent figures in the protest.

Keywords:

• Pakistan
• Musharraf years
• internet
• social movements
• rule of law

Notes

 1.  http://jezebel.com/gossip/polls/are-pakistans-lawyers-as-hot-as-burmas-monks-319491.php. At the time of writing, the poll registered a slight victory for the Pakistani lawyers (52%).

 2. Some, for example, have nicknamed the downfall of Philippine President Joseph Estrada in 2001 as ‘a coup de text’ (Pertierra 2009) and the 1997 electoral victory by Khatami in Iran is by many considered synonymous with student support conducted electronically (Rahimi 2008).

 3. Discussions about the development of civil society and its self-consciousness in the Musharraf years and in relation to the domestic consequences of the so-called ‘war on terror’ have occupied significant space in the English press in Pakistan, but a systematic scholarly analysis is still to come. The concept of ‘civil society’ is loaded with intellectual history (see Kumar 1993) that resonates differently in different historical and geographical contexts; further than this, even in the most basic sense of ‘associational life’, this vague social descriptor is in Pakistan a subject that has only gained in complexity during the Musharraf years. Characterised by multiple meaningful fragmentations such as class (see Alavi 1983) and ethnicity (Wright 1991), heavily influenced by domestic economic structures that have had to confront ‘savage capitalism’ (Pasha 2001), and being mostly occupied (and constrained) by different military rules, Pakistani civil society is now profoundly influenced by the long-reaching consequences of international politics (see, for example, Ali 2008) and the diversification in public engagement of religious groups that go beyond the long tradition of religious parties such as Jamaat-i-Islami (see Blom 2011). The new media opportunities of the Musharraf years are one of the aspects that shall heavily figure in future analysis of the transformation of civil society in Pakistan. This article is a modest endeavour in trying to pose some questions about this very particular segment of the study of civil society in Pakistan.

 4. A few of the organisms of the protest are still sporadically active. The Emergency Times stopped its circulation in June 2008, and at the time of writing the Facebook group ‘Concerned Citizens of Pakistan’, administrated by Pakistanis resident in Britain, is still active, but with a mean of one activity per month, but the related website is no longer accessible. Many of the members have joined more recent groups such as ‘Pakistan Rising’ and ‘No Place in Pakistan for the Taliban – Let's Get Them Out’, that focus on security issues and broader peace intents.

 5. Allegedly the Supreme Court Chief was removed as rumours had spread over an approaching negative ruling about Musharraf's election as president while he was still holding the position of Army chief.

 6. Though the Emergency Times was primarily an online publication, it was, for the month of November 2007 at least, extensively distributed physically through student networks in campuses across Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad.

 7. When the TV channels were taken off-air, a friend of mine rang me to say that either a coup had happened or a State of Emergency had been declared, although no official announcement had reached him. This action was a clear sign for the majority of the population that sees TV as an indicator of what happens in a country where coups seem to be much less bloody than day-to-day security threats.

 8. It was rumoured that Pakistani internet connections could not be cut because they were vital to the Karachi stock exchange, already one of the most volatile in the world.

 9. Samad Khurram, the Harvard-based moderator of the Emergency mailing list, in a personal communication, said that no special precautions were taken to keep security agents off the list as he knew that it would have been impossible, so the anonymity of the contributors to the discussion was the only strategy adopted. It goes without saying then, that the messages were written bearing in mind that State intelligence services would be reading them.

10. Bolognani (2011) has argued that the very diverse basin of support against the Emergency found common ground not in a pro-democracy stand (which was not welcomed, for example, by those who supported the regime's crack-down on violence among certain political factions such as Urdu speakers and Sindhis in Karachi, and Shias and Sunnis in Southern Punjab) but rather in a more universal articulation of the principle of the ‘rule of law’. See also a student interview on CNN on 7th November 2007, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zobFeyJ2Uc

11. There have been a number of ‘long marches’ in recent Pakistani history. Rhetorically referencing Mao's communist march, long marches enable important political personalities to drive across cities and collect party sympathisers, NGO members, human rights’ activists; they invariably reach a climax in the capital and bring attention to a particular issue.

12. Anecdotally, there were cases of slogans ‘lost in translation’, so the Urdu ‘Musharraf jao’ (Musharraf go away) was literally translated as ‘Musharraf go’, which could be interpreted as a form of encouragement rather than an attack.

13. Aitzaz Hasan is a Pakistani barrister and founder of the Pakistani Human Rights Commission, who has served in Parliament on a number of legislatures on a PPP ticket.

14. Jenkins describes ‘convergence culture’ as ‘where the old and new media collide, where the grassroots and corporate media intersect, where the power of the media producer and the media consumer interact in unpredictable ways’ (2006, 2).