Media Violence and Xenophobic Distortion

The violence they are generating will have a boom rang impact on their own children and it is most likely that their own progeny will tumble into the trenches of immorality they are digging out for others.

In this age of cheap ink and oratory the print and electronic media are the eyes and ears of the world. The world has become a global village due to innovations in information technology and transportation. Paradoxically, they have shortened the physical distances but equally widened the mental distances among the people. Advancement in scientific technology is impinging on the moral principles, ethical values, decent traditions and civilized customs of the whole humanity. Encroachment of new inventions and discoveries are continuously demeaning social institutions all over the globe. Therefore, with each passing day, the green thumb smoothie modern chap is incessantly becoming more fuddy-duddy, child of nature, brown-nose, tight as Kelsey’s nuts and iceberg despite latest hi-tech break with the past. The integer of the angelic smut hound Mr. cools is perpetually dwindling. Therefore, all rose-colored progress of man is counter progress. The contemporary pseudo smart guy is treading on an off beam course in the depths of despair due to his narrow-minded approach. William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English poet and playwright mentioned in his “A Midsummer Night”s Dream’ (1595-1596), Act 3, and Scene 2. “What fools these mortals be!”

Machines have been gradually taking over humankind. Now the morally sleaze people don’t share their glad tidings and sorrows as in the past. The fate of family, political, educational, religious and economical institutions is in the doldrums. Therefore, due to flood of information and dominancy of mechanics the sentiments of fraternity, sacrifice, philanthropy and altruism have been replaced by egotism, insatiability, materialism and individualism. This has given a crippling blow on the face of humanity and traumatized the very basic principles for founding of global peace. Man has become a machine, and a jailbird to his unfulfilled ambitions and a serf to skyrocketing price of living. Those who anticipate sympathy from a stumblebum senseless cog in the wheel are living in a cloud cuckoo land. The illustrious poet of the east, Allama Muhammad Iqbal rightly forecast:“Hay dil ke leay maot machinon ki hakoomat;Ehsase murawwat ko kuchal dete hain aalat (The government of the machines is a demise for the heart; the instruments crush the emotions of courtesy).

The western people have been austerely suffering due to cheapskate, cuss, and sticky beak media violence. Ishmael Reed (1938 -) U.S. writer said in his book “Reckless Eyeballing”, “If violence is as American as apple pie, then Europe provided the oven, because on the public buildings, in the churches, and in the painting there are scenes of violence.” The international head cooks and bottle washer ersatz moralists have been sponsoring this disgusting earthy and distorting material to the half-pint growing countries that can morally and mentally tear down their younger generations. Global counterfeit glib tongue hammer men are flaring the flames of ethnicity, political rivalry, religious extremism and sectarianism in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Pakistan, Lebanon, Sudan, Somalia, etc, through inclined, buttinski and wheeler-dealer media that can geographically fracture these backward countries into tiny-winy toothless divisions incapable of resisting. The global loaded mucky mucks are repeating the vindictive history of the dark chapters of colonialism to eviscerate the already stunted and behindhand countries so that no one can challenge their writ in the international affairs.

The live telecasting of the incident of hanging of Saddam Hussain in Iraq mortally troubled the people worldwide, especially the nippers and a score of kids committed suicide due to deep psychosomatic impact. The well-heeled counterfeit champions of human rights and phony custodians of democracy aired the horrific incident with male fide intentions that a Shia PM Nauri Al-Maliki finally signed the death sentence of a Sunni ex-President Saddam Hussain. The clandestine purpose was to flare the flames of sectarianism to fish in troubled waters. They stepped into the shoes of their forefathers i.e., the white colonial masters of the rearward countries by adopting the devilish policy of “Divide and Rule. The unbridled projection and propagation of such horrendous incidents with monstrous intention have been venomously upsetting the worldwide peaceful co-existence.

Hairs raising gory events anywhere in the world are displayed on the television screen in no time by the grunge live wire barrack-room lawyer media. Various news channels are quick to telecast acts of terrorism worldwide, which form superb copies for journalists. Horrible and spine-tingling news generate fear and panic in the society. Due to frequent projection of dead mutilated bodies, and live broadcast images of effusing human blood and stab have benumbed and brutalized the viewers by indoctrinating callous and violent attitude in them. These terrible print and live pictures have resulted in the development of senselessness in the individuals by eroding the feelings for the betterment of humanity and international serenity.

The doctors become indifferent towards the injuries of the patients due to frequent exposure to deceased and disfigured bodies. Therefore, daily deaths and gravely injured patients in hospitals cannot stir their sensations, which may also be a professional requirement because only an emotionally detached surgeon can operate a patient in a finer way. Similarly, due to time and again publishing and putting on air of deceased and maimed bodies result in imbibing of unkind manners in the public. Due to this compassionless mind-set infused by the media, people having capabilities turn a blind eye towards the miseries of the unfortunate. They do not even bother to rescue and transport a badly damaged victim of a roadside accident. The sufferers wounded by the bullets or daggers of street criminals are also not helped out due to heartless behavior of the sleazy viewers, fear of the nosy parker police and the Black Power dancing muggers. This has given a jolting and crippling blow on the face of the basic concept of society and humankind.

Media violence gravely affects moppets and bubs because they have unripe mentality. Due to fragmentation of the consanguine families into diminutive nuclear families, the members of the kinship do not share their feelings due to social isolation of the individual by the media. Due to dilapidation of the family institution parents do not give sufficient time to their kiddiewinks. The dustbin lids with half-baked minds spend most of their time in watching violent and impure movies and playing sadistic and offensive video games. Internet and television cable network have inundated the rooms with sadism and immorality. Due to torrent of aggressive and sordid movies the contemporary puppies and bubble-gummers are at the brink of disaster. Dr Eugene V. Beresin, an expert in teenager and adolescent psychiatry says: “Some researchers have demonstrated that very young children will imitate aggressive acts on TV in their play with peers. Before age four, children are unable to distinguish between fact and fantasy and may view violence as an ordinary occurrence. When they see their heroes even in cartoons using violence to achieve victories, it becomes acceptable to them”.

The unbridled fierce and inelegant media has converted many geepies and teenyboppers of the society into worthless cheap Charlie misery-guts and freeloaders instead of bluenose nation builders and Comstock peace loving dwellers of the globe. The western people have been reaping the astringent crop of this manifest family ruin in the form of gradually mounting tempo of wild extramarital relations, constantly on the rise numeral of androgynous adventures, steadily increasing number of rapes, endlessly rising figure of illegitimate children, swiftly swelling divorce rate, rapidly growing suicide rate, quickly escalating sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS, Hepatitis B and syphilis, etc., and hastily upward cipher of deeply affecting psychological illnesses like schizophrenia ,delusion, depression ,mania etc. To telescope a cherry in the unchecked sexually sumptuous west is becoming knotty. Wilson Harris (1921 -) a Guyanese-born writer said in his “Carnival’, “In an accident-prone, suicidal and conflict-ridden age, violence is a savage masquerade, is it not? It feeds on a void of sacrament and on the infliction of humiliation and shadow. It not only feeds on these but also remains blind to the pressures to which it is addicted.”

The western pooh-bah have been misguiding the people of the developing countries and impregnating their minds by using their negatively labeled nexus with a fat throng of stooges and biased media that wearing jazzy western dress is civilization, drinking alcohol is modernism, sending children in the English medium institutions is advancement, drinking mineral water is progress, sleeping on waterbeds is topicality, using tooth paste is innovation, shaving is sophistication, traveling in luxurious vehicles is development, flashing one’s dough for lavish activities is style and dating with the opposite sex is culture. The giant arms of the developing countries view through rose-tinted glasses these superficial things and use their limited resources to trickle down this deceptive novelty to the grass root level to make their public counterfeit enlightened and sham moderate.

It is a bald fact that up in the dough big beef having malicious nature always provide umbrella to those indulged in spiteful activities. Use of alcohol and drugs of addiction, arranging of dancing bashes and firings have become fashions on ceremonial gatherings. Use of these items as entertainment is very common on the Basant fairs, anniversary fairs of saints, marriage formal wing dings, government officials’ bean feasts, and political gang-shags especially after victory in the polls to appease their own sensual emotions and their chief supporters. The victims of poverty sell the amusement commodities while sufferers of vulgarity extremism purchase them. The people who cannot afford or hate this noxious commerce are called old-fashioned in our west inspired deceptive society. Some of these conventional people take refuge in religious fanatic camp.

Press and electronic media earn through advertisements. Therefore, vested interest groups have their own axe to grind. The commercials of movies and various products are the main source of income of the media. In yellow-paged subliminal advertising of movies the gross-out artist newspapers publish semi-nude pictures of the screamer and creamer heroines, which are the most pornographic and sensual in the whole movies. The saloon bar cowboy hero is shown with a gun, rocket launcher, bazooka or “gandasa” swishing dashingly in his hand. Similarly, in trailers of movies on TV cable network and cinemas only erotic and fighting scenes are telecasted. The ulterior motive of these promiscuous and awful hotchpotch advertisements is to entice maximum customers to flood the coffers of skinflint moviemakers by making utmost profit. This unbridled media violence and indecency is only sullying queer baits and bobby-soxers by infusing immoderate sentiments in their minds. The candy-buts start idealizing, imitating and following the illusory examples of the doll face Little Miss Round heels and swordsman beefcake hero. The ideal film stars tuck into the limbo of consciousness of the poopbutt viewers. Therefore, they never come out of the conundrum of rosy dream world throughout their life.

Nothing is good or bad, only its use makes it so. Net cafes, parks, educational institutions, hotels, cinemas, stage drama theatres, and houses of ill repute are becoming the procreating spots of innumerable social evils. Dish antennas, cable TV networks and Internet have shifted the savagery and crassness into the rooms of the people. Mobiles, telephones and Internet have eased the communication between the couples that has unwrapped the ways for myriad of vices. These noxious airwaves have been attacking at the roots of moral values and international peace by promoting twofold immoderations. Previously, shit-presentation was restricted to particular areas but now it has trickled out in thick regions of the globe. In the past improper dress was considered debauched. Now it has become a symbol of modernism.

One can find difficulty in getting a audio-video CD or cassette of the Holy Quran or any other religious scripture from many big audio-video shops over flooded with every type of latest thick and fast violent and unsophisticated movies, fierce and obscene video games, shameful promiscuous molly-dooker’s dances and butterfly unbounded immoral songs. All religions preach peace but due to degradation of religious institutions the global peace is at stake. This tear-reducing situation speaks volumes the negligent attitude on the part of long nose moralists of every state toward this sadistic assail of obscenity on the contemporary generation that has humiliated them and besmirched their character. This extraordinary assault of ostentatious, earthy, blushing and tainted western civilization on human morality, culture and civilizations is deteriorating youth all over the world. The filthy tentacles of depravity have ensnared most of the people while those who detest bad manners move to the opposite camp of religious extremism by overreacting. The digit of cool cats sandwiched between the two extremes is perpetually shrinking.

The people in the developing countries idealize the morally deteriorated western civilization, the topnotch of which were their colonial lords. Use of plain water, wearing sober dress, having beard, utilization of “miswak”, and education in the public and religious institutions is considered conservatism. Those who think that western nations made economic progress at a swift pace due to the shallow earthy things are living in a fool’s paradise. The in clover western countries made rapid steps forward by leaps and bounds because their people have patriotism and pride of performance. In the private sector they work dedicatedly on the principle of capitalism, i.e., spend more and earn more. In addition to this, these potent fake egalitarian countries have plundered the natural resources and treasures of the developing nations in the past through ruffian colonialism. Now they have structured worthless WTO to loot the growing countries in a debonair way.

Millions of the hoi polloi in the west lead an individual life. They are more exposed to belligerent and sickening TV programs and Internet sites owing to individualism. This twin dilemma of bloodshed and immodesty spread by the unrestricted mass media fatally involve the viewers. According to studies, by the age of 18 an average American child will have viewed 200,000 acts of violence and countless scenes of earthiness on TV. Retorting to criticism, some carrot-cruncher members of the TV industry in the US argued that they’re plainly giving the people what they want to glimpse, and the violent and crude programs are most appreciated. Irresponsible selfishness and thoughtlessness of the penny-pinching media breed countless social evils like violent behavior, intolerance, pathological gambling, suicide, corruption, rape, vulgarity, individualism, immorality, materialism, cutthroat competition and psychological illnesses etc., which have disseminated and contaminated the society by undermining social institutions. They have been giving crippling blows on the face of the basic concept of society and humanity.

“The Land of Opportunities” harvested the bitter fruits of this unbridled dreadful conditions of society created by the vicious unrestrained media and senseless machines on April 16,2007,on the Virginia Teck Campus in Blacksburg, Viginia (U.S) when Seung-Hui Cho of South Korea murdered 32 people and injured 25 before putting an end to his own life, making it the deadliest shooting in the avant-garde U.S. history. Mr.Seung-Hui Cho was suffering from psychological infirmity because he living an individual life due to humiliation of family institution in the west, exposed to vulgar and violent movies and internet sites akin to other secluded individuals, received discriminatory treatment by the Americans similar to other immigrants of the developing countries and his girl friend replaced him with another boyfriend that frustrated him. Those who expect any constructive work from a mentally strained, frustrated and sidelined, discriminately treated psychotic patient any constructive works are pulling the wool over their own eyes.

Sulman Rushdie was born in Bombay two months prior to that date of partition of the Sub-continent. Grass fighter and love sprog Rushdie says he grew up without religion and raised in Bombay – until he was 13, when he was sent to England to attend the private Rugby School . Therefore, the apple-polisher novelist has no proper family grooming. In school he was pestered, out of favor and ostracized as a woolly-back foreigner. Poppa-lopper writer spent most of his time in watching movies when he got to Cambridge in the mid-’60s to study at King’s College. Majoring in history, he also began performing in the theater and spent a prodigious sum of time at the movies – so much that when he refused to cut back to concentrate on his studies, the school took away his scholarship. “I always say I got my education in the cinema,” bilge artist Rushdie said.

Droob windbag wordsmith had grown up with Indian popular movies (Bombay later became known as Bollywood), and his collegiate days coincided with a mushrooming age of worldwide cinema, with films from French New Wave directors and from Federico Fellini, Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray and other big guns. Due to yawning influence of the western media and society all his marriages wrecked in divorce, which is considered a panacea to terminate a bad marriage in the west instead of developing tolerance. Now his fourth wife Indian crackpot model, Top Chef host, the author of the Easy Exotic cookbook and host of the hit Bravo reality-cooking show, Padma Lakshmi is also divorcing this head-banger pooped out old buzzard. Those who expect from this grouch hideous atheist and spin-off of family dilapidation, who preferred cinema to western educational institutions, any constructive work are living in an illusory dreamland of dupes. He is the echo of the western society and a byproduct of the vicious and impish media.

The pompous western society is treading on the course of self-immolation. Eat, drink and be merry has become the sole aim of life in these living off the tit developed countries. Now the effects of this inhuman degeneration have permeated in the toffee-nosed areas of the developing countries that idealize flamboyance western civilization. There is something beyond luxurious life that distinguishes man from animals. Incongruously, the on velvet conquerors and explorers of the world have shoddily botched to surmount themselves. They have gotten bogged down to comprehend the purpose of life and the aim of the creation of this universe. The eminent poet of the east Allama Muhammad Iqbal rightly said:

“Dhondane wala sitaron ki guzar gahon ka;apne afkar ki dunia mein safar kar na saka.

Jis ne sooraj ki shoaon ko girftar kia;zindgi ki shabe tarek sahar kar na saka.”

(The huntsman of the tracks of the stars; failed to travel in the world of his thought.

Who imprisoned the beams of the sun; flopped to enlighten the dark night of his life.)

Now the command and punch of report rules the world and holds the destiny of man on the sayings of its scores of tongues. Public opinions are formed through information aired and stamped by the media. Therefore, a high monkey-monk baggage-smasher with a bee in his bonnet can distort the views of thousands and sometimes of millions through misinformation and disinformation. A nebulous and prejudiced public outlook hammered through violent and biased media can wreak havoc. Hardheaded galoot Adolf Hitler used his powerful press to indoctrinate blind German nationalism. This canopy of xenophobia resulted in the triggering of World War II. Millions of people breath their last due to the cruelties and bungles of a brute, obstinate, and fascist ball of fire having erroneous personal ends. The western media and the Jewry claim that 6 million Jews lost their lives due to mass killings by the German army by using gas chambers and other vile methods.

The predisposed western media controlled by the strong yellow-eyed Jewish and Christian lobby have been infusing hatred against Islam by projecting this religion of peace in unsavory light. Those begrimed people who talk against Islam are hailed heroes. Danish newspaper “Jaylland-Posten” published 12 desecrating caricatures depicting Holy Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H), which sent a message of curl of the lip towards the Muslims. Despite being the most responsible person of the Christian world, the Pope Benedict Ratzinger XVI Islam controversy arose when in a lecture delivered on 12 September 2006 by him at the University of Regensburg in Germany on the subject entitled “Faith, Reason and the University – Memories and Reflections”,he made allusion to the calumnious views written in 1391 of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus , one of the last Christian rulers before the Fall of Constantinople to the Muslim Ottoman Empire.

Pencil pusher Sulman Rushdie has no literary worth because literature must be aesthetic and constructive. Contrarily, every part of his writings is deprived of both these elements. His disreputable novel “The Satanic Verses” is not only insulting but also disparaging. But as he attacked on the sentiments of the 1.4 billion Muslims, therefore, the prejudiced western top cats knighted this skull-and-cross bones self-deluded weirdo. The western media have been defending this gruesome atheist and his deleterious actions under the pretext of freedom of expression. Freedom of expression does not mean a license to abuse the sentiments of others. Freedom entails responsibility and reckless use of liberty leads to chaos and commotion. It is rightly said that you are free to move your stick before chipping the nose of others. Sulman Rushdie followed unbridled self-determination of turn of phrases in his life and longhand reporting as a self-punctured balloon or an accidentally fired pistol, the bullet of which can move in any direction and can damage without distinction. His following quotation reflects his sullied disruptive disposition, “What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.”

It is rightly said that the future wars would not be fought in the battlefield but on the airwaves. The blabbermouth mass media controlled by the west portrays freedom fighters as terrorists, while atrocities of the hegemonic powers are deliberately concealed. It was the powerful earbasher and eager beaver media of the west, which portrayed the people transported from all over the Muslim world in Afghanistan as freedom fighters, and Mujahidin because they had to fight the proxy-war of Uncle Sam, after the invasion of USSR on December 24,1979. Now after 9/11 they labeled the same holy warriors, whom they themselves spoon-fed and outfitted, terrorists and a peril to global peace. The tightwad flushed international tough customers have adopted the policy of “giving dog a bad name to kill it”. In the same way, in Palestine , Kashmir , Iraq , Bosnia and Chechnya the commanding media of the dinosaur countries having military muscle have been branding the genuine freedom fighters as vandals to justify their own unjust actions

A handful of religious extremists, insatiable bigwigs and vulgar immoderate start the publication of a newspaper, magazine and launch a private radio or TV channel according to the availability of resources. They use mass media as potent tools to protect their illegal business, intimidate their rivals, arm-twisting and ensnaring the ignorant civilians, propagate a particular fanatic point of view and to make links with leading hotshots to expand their business, disseminate their obstinate visions and spread further the tentacles of their scandalous nexus. It happens once in a blue moon that media personnel criticize each other. There is also a strong media lobby, which protect each other. Therefore, media personnel can easily protect their unlawful activities and escape from the clutches of police by using their outrageous connections and threat of scandals if anyone raises voice against them. The headstrong and self-seeking approach of some irresponsible media employees has been seriously affecting global peace and harmony.

A few months back the Pakistani cinema industry was conducting a seminar in the Quaid-I-Azam Library, Lahore on the topic “The Future of Cinema in Pakistan ”. In this cosmetic seminar all big guns of the industry were in attendance. They unanimously passed a resolution that the cinema industry should be institutionalized like educational institutions. During the question session I asked that the low standard vulgar and aggressive movies are ruining our present-day generation and the cinemas have become the breeding grounds of innumerable social evils. Do you want to institutionalize an organization that is promoting bad manners and frenzy in the society? My bald and bitter query ignited the wrinkly crown cats as I have shown red rag to wayward bulls. They lose temper and greatly annoyed after listening the astringent truth. They furiously gave a wooly, jumbled and lame duck justification that there is no earthiness and hurly-burly in our movies and they are the true pictures of “Enlightened Moderation”. Ironically, in most of the Pakistani movies there is neither enlightenment nor moderation. They are the factual depiction of indecency zeal and reflect the encrusted mentality of their propagators.

Vested interest and ruthless competition give birth to yellow journalism. Prejudiced media controlled by a particular group of people project specific views. Some media make it habit to defend government policies, while others swingeingly criticize them. Therefore, most of the real facts never come to surface. The biased media dangerously affects the formation of public opinion on sound basis. A well-built communal outlook based on real facts is the fundamental motivating force for bringing to power the genuine civic representatives to establish bona fide democracy. Both print and electronic media have never been independent since the birth of Pakistan . It is ironic that the fourth pillar of the state has always been under the thumb of the party in power. It is a plain reality that democracy and chained media are incompatible.

In Pakistan the media have snatched their freedom to a certain extent due to introduction of private TV channels. But the party in power always uses various backhanded pretexts to clamp down on both the print and electronic media when they criticize the government fiasco in handling national and international issues. On July 29,2007 Pemra issued notices to some private TV channels for telecasting gory scenes of violence. The act is right but the intention may be to intimidate and penalize the private channels like before to keep them shackled by the mallet men on a good wicket in news coverage to conceal certain facts revealing government’s Achilles’ heel in controlling volatile law and order situation. The media, which played a Herculean task in highlighting the judicial crisis, became the government’s spokesman by toeing its line in the case of the Lal Masjid operation due to the recurrent warnings and bullying by the authorities. Therefore, many details of the operation may never float up. A few months back the Pemra by issuing the harsh “Pemra Ordinace”, which was later on withdrawn due to international pressure, tried to play the role of flatfoot police instead of a watchdog organization. The suppression of public voice is not the magic potion for any problem. It just give birth to frustration.

Media violence and xenophobic distortion of facts is as unjustified as backbreaking poverty in the midst of spilling and oozing affluence or as a color spot on the forehead of a Hindu virgin. If one is prepared to clamp a charitable spin on this kind of violence, the only justification happens to be commercial. By flaunting mayhem, mutilation, brutalization and airing of deprecating scandals the media moghuls are raking up fat wads of bank notes. But they should slither out of the cocoon of their penny-scraping mentality and think of the moral grooming of the generations to come. The violence they are generating will have a boom rang impact on their own children and it is most likely that their own progeny will tumble into the trenches of immorality they are digging out for others.

Written By

Dr Tanvir Hussain Bhatti

Freelance International Columnist, Poet and Author of the Books “What Plagues Pakistan ?” and “Live Balls of Fire”