The Watchdogs of Society
The internet has become a busy hub of revelations, fact
challenges fact, locked chapters of history are re-opened, or scandals are
unearthed. With 5.3 billion internet users in a world population of 8 billion,
several hours are spent sharing and forwarding, (and challenging what is
shared), creating an unprecedented ‘people power’.
An important part of this people power is its watchdog role.
A watchdog is an individual or a group that monitors the activities of individuals,
organisations or governments on behalf of the public to ensure their actions do
not harm common people. They may become whistleblowers or try to prevent wrong
doing by lobbying or going to the courts.
From fact checking websites, and small local groups to
larger international organisations such as Greenpeace, Amnesty International,
Avaaz and Change.org, people have stood up to protect forests, animals,
children, women, the poor, small businesses and the consumer. On the 11th
of January this year, South Africa has taken the matter of the Palestinian
genocide, a country thousands of miles away and on another continent, to the
International Court of Justice.
Watchdog journalism was once a very powerful tool whose best
example is the 1972 Watergate Scandal that led to the resignation of the president
of the US government. However, as the power of the press became evident, a
countermovement came into being, and journalist Margaret Sullivan believes “the
press will never have another Watergate moment”.
This is the world we live in now – caught between those that
throw dust in our eyes and those who make themselves busy wiping it away. The
internet has created people power, but it has also generated mistrust, and a
growing despair as protest is not effective enough without institutional
support. The revelations of watchdogs have to be integrated into policy.
The 1915 Khadi movement of British India mobilised the
population of India to boycott British textiles by raising awareness of its
destruction of the local textile industry. It became a rallying point for
independence, however, it did not change the statistics where once India
produced 25% of the world’s textiles reduced to 2 % under British Rule.
Ansar Burney, that remarkable activist in 1980 took on the cause
of illegally imprisoned people, missing children, and prison reform and
established an international network. Yet without sincere policy change,
prisons still remain overcrowded, with many unjustly imprisoned, while ‘missing persons’ continue to be endemic in
Pakistan.
Despite many government regulatory bodies, illegal and
harmful activities continue unchallenged whether counterfeit medicines,
contaminated food supplies, inadequate health facilities, poor education, land
grabbing – an endless list of social injustices.
Fraud is a worldwide phenomenon from the lie about Iraq’s
Weapons of Mass Destruction, to identity theft. However, Pakistani institutions
are by and large indifferent to public opinion. As a result watchdogs in
Pakistan are often ineffective, and consequently public outrage becomes
restricted to drawing room conversation or social media.
In the 1980s, artist and human rights lawyer, Iqbal Jafree (Geoffrey),
enabled the establishment of the office of the Ombudsman or Mohtasib in
Pakistan. From the root word Hisbah, "enjoining good and forbidding
wrong", a Mohtasib was first appointed by the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) to
regulate the suq or markets of Makkah and Medina. By the 14 C the role evolved
into the regulation of weights, money, prices, public morals, cleanliness of
public places, supervision of schools, general public safety, the circulation
of traffic, standards of craftsmen and builders, safe food, clean eating
places, accurate measuring equipment, and a check on all doctors and medical
supplies.
There is only so much that can be regulated by an appointed
authority, who additionally could be susceptible to corruption. Right and wrong
has be internalized from childhood and with emphasis on character development
and social consciousness. There is a
need to be one’s own watchdog. A hadith says "Whosoever of you sees an
evil action, let him change it with his hand; and if he is not able to do so,
then with his tongue; and if he is not able to do so, then with his heart.”
Has the world really lost its moral compass or have we relinquished
this power to others? Rumi reminds us “Whatever you ask for, ask for it in
yourself, seek it in yourself."
Durriya Kazi
January 12, 2024
Karachi
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