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NEWS YOU CAN USE Editor: N. P. Chekkutty Media Focus |
J. Geetha Where
words come out Into that heaven of freedom, certainly, our country has not woken. Today, we speak a veiled language, afraid that we would be shunned, worse ridiculed, if we dared to be honest. Dared to be. Dared. The lathi and the law, the ominous rulers, are there to discipline us if we go astray. But worse is the silken seam of common-sense notions or the well-wrought gauze of high theory that holds us down to the languid politics of conformism. And so the dissenters speak in whispers. Of course, the right to free expression exists as long as it does not get too uncomfortable for the political rulers of the land or the ideological rulers of our minds. But unlike the other wings of the governing class, the fourth estate, the press, has a reputation of defending freedom of expression. Have we? Have we exercised our freedom that exists in theory. Or does it somehow disintegrate when it comes to praxis. What do we find amongst us -- use or gross misuse of freedom ? Where honourable doubts and caution
rule us when we talk of disputed structures and
firm belief and conviction when we talk of birth-places
of ‘gods’; where we mull over the technicality
of a membership card and refuse to pin down those
responsible for their hate-messages and consequent brutal
acts of violence and with scanty facts boldly insist that
bombs aplenty are made in certain households; where
hysterical journalism goes in the name of political
analysis, be it Shourie’s clinical distortions of
minority-reality, Gurumurthy’s unabashed
vituperativeness in his attack of Sonia or
Prasannarajan’s post-modernist conundrums on
Arundhati; where narrow prejudices give expression to
self-righteous harangues, be it Kaveri’s on Diana or
Nina’s on Clinton; where Dilli drawing room chats
become topics of serious discussion; where gloss pics,
inane conversation and "high" life-style
stories go in the name of culture; where it is no longer
radical but fashionable to talk of "terrorists"
and "deviants"; where there exists a
thought-police, there certainly Not to speak of the market. Yes of course, the capitalists have "stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked upto with reverent awe." They have of course subsumed all freedom into one single unconscionable freedom -- Free Trade, and the only business of the mediaperson , that is to speak the truth, is now threatened by the free trade that heralds only unfreedom. All this has happened and is happening, but unfortunately, all that is solid is not melting. All around, we see the ossified antiquity, the venerable prejudices and fast-frozen relations being given a new lease of life by the fanatics. The mediaperson, the trader of free expression, is caught between the two -- the capitalist and the fascist. Or are they one? Yes, indeed these are dark times And in the dark times Will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing About the dark times. Instead of pining for what is not, let us use whatever little freedom we have now and talk boldly, frankly, honestly of the dark times while we can. And, continue to struggle for hope, for freedom. [GO TOP] |
