What’s your story, dear government?

Here’s a nice tale of two statements. While hearing a petition against the newly passed rules regarding removal of ‘unlawful’ social media content, the chief justice of the Islamabad Court underscored the importance of criticism as a fundamental right of the citizens of Pakistan and also as a means of ensuring accountability in society.

Interestingly, only days before this, Prime Minister Imran Khan explained to anchor Mansoor Ali Khan that for the evolution of human thought, criticism is important-- and that educated, hardworking and analytical journalists are opinion makers and major assets for society.

All well and good in theory.

In practice, however, the government’s communication strategy has been largely reactive, bringing on the proliferation of bad tempers, fake news and hostility. In this conversation, there is a shortage of decency and dignity-- and it is all made too easy by the digital era.

This approach, where the dominant thrust is on attacking a real or imagined adversary in the digital sphere, appears deceptively rewarding at first glance. Instant gratification accrues. Comments win instant likes and hence a sense of community, an illusion of expanding power.

But these are only illusions.

Governance stills begs its endless questions. The governed still want answers to the unanswered questions. With every decision to hit back hard, the government justifies the need to react to every criticism against it.

But this is reactive anger at what cost?

The cost is the destruction of multiple factors, not least of all, the opportunity that the government has to tell its own story-- to spread its vision and indeed the actions it takes to implement its vision for the good of its people.

Imagine the unending facts: there are myriads of steps and hundreds of policies that a government which is working for the people needs to convey to the public.

It needs to tell the story of the efforts it will make to reform institutions-- the police for example, the story of how incentives to the farmer will be given to ensure self-sufficiency in wheat, the story of tackling an impending water crisis, the story of tree plantation, of civil aviation reform, of new universities, of national parks. 

 

Obviously also on the broader issues of controlling the spread of disease, of ensuring effective and transparent accountability and indeed of how chronic problems of the deprivation of certain groups in society are being undertaken.

Then strategic communication, essentially dialogue with the electorate requires government’s explanations about the mistakes and blunders that it is called upon to explain. These mistakes require real answers.

To communicate this performance to the electorate, a government must deploy focused time and wise energy-- lots of it-- so it can tell its story.

Is this then, what the present government, its cabinet and spokespersons are doing? 

Yes, but only in a very limited way-- when the information minister reports on cabinet decisions, when the Prime Minister addresses conventions or when a minister inaugurates new projects or announces a new policy. Press releases and notifications are also released.

But the overwhelming thrust of most official communication is on countering and attacking any criticism, the opposition, sections of the media and so on. While any government’s measured rebuttal to criticism is inevitable, the question is how much response-- for how long and at what cost?

Again, in the digital era, these questions of how much is enough and where to stop responding to criticism, aren’t easy to answer.

Additionally the present government may convince itself of the need to adopt a primarily reactive policy towards those it concludes are ‘adversaries’ because of the pressures it lets itself feel over issues of the government’s performance, the controversy around the 2018 elections and the opposition’s politics. 

The two pillars of the government’s aggressive response to these issues is attacking the corruption of the opposition and the journalists it alleges are on the opposition’s payroll. 

In addition to this, the government’s communication managers seem to believe that anything less than scathing negativity against the opposition deserves a rebuttal as well. Just a small peek into social media platforms makes this amply evident.

This way-laying mode of communication appears to be scoring against oneself, and the reactivity will have its impact, and it will go on to influence minds.

But the million dollar question remains: doesn’t your own story, the story of governance, have more to tell? 

- Nasim Zehra is an author, analyst and national security expert.