I'm my own prisoner
There is a lot more to the words "brain" and "muscle" than you think. Standard usages aside, just imagine how easily these seemingly innocuous words can turn into a potent force if you know how to combine them.
Recently, a colleague reminded me of this when he described his experience of dealing with someone in charge of an important statutory institution. He had been assigned to do an interview of the man and so he approached him, through regular channels, hoping to get done with it as quickly as possible. But as luck would have it, he would neither get a text nor a call nor anything in the way of a reply over the next five days.
The official, whose job involves both brain and muscle, found an ingenious way to avoid him without being rude: silence.
This should come as no surprise to the journalists in Bangladesh who have to face the triple whammy of silence, elusive response and self-censorship almost on a daily basis. The first two conditions involve authority figures, who often use their intellect and superior position to deflect nosy questions and are shielded from accountability through a shoddy system of governance.
So, if they are not putting up a wall of silence, they are using vaguely-worded statements that no one can make head or tail of. The so-called media briefings, often manipulated to support the official narrative, give them the appearance of being responsible and forthcoming with information—however absurd that may sound. Take, for example, the reason religiously cited by the police to justify arresting opposition leaders and activists: "subversive activities."
To anyone knowledgeable enough about Bangladesh's current state of affairs, this justification for political arrests has no difference from the oft-parroted official theory for the victims of extrajudicial murders caught in "cross-fire"—both used so often and so randomly that they ceased to carry any meaning. Such reasons, without being substantiated by a plausible explanation of the whys and hows, amount to nothing and are rather symptomatic of the lack of accountability of the public officials.
It is only under such a circumstance that a "No comment" reply makes sense to me. At least, you're being honest through your silence if you're incapable of speaking honestly.
In any case, the public have a right to know about events that matter to them. Official statements, remarks and interviews are an important way to share details related to them. If the details of a certain event need to be kept under wraps, for security reasons, it stands to reason that there will be no elaborate answer and, in that case, the authorities should have the honesty to admit it. But using the same old nonsense over and over again only contributes to the deepening of distrust in the public minds.
Why are our public officials so secretive anyway? What are they afraid of? The media, as the word implies, primarily works as a medium of communication between the public and those in power. When government officials refuse to face the journalists, it actually means they're refusing to face the public. And the failure to come up with honest, straightforward answers amounts to severing that much-needed connection, something that has been happening a bit too often in Bangladesh.
In July 2017, the Home Office of the United Kingdom released a report titled "Country Policy and Information Note Bangladesh: Journalists, Publishers and Internet Bloggers," in which it said: "Some critics of the government… including journalists, publishers, social media users and bloggers, have been subjected by the authorities to surveillance, harassment and intimidation…"
It concluded that freedom of speech and the press is under threat in Bangladesh. The government, apart from the official roadblocks set up to prevent the journalists from digging out unpleasant truths, has a whole arsenal of laws to its disposal, allegedly designed to force the media institutions into submission. But no one will go on record to name names. That's the price you pay to survive.
Under these circumstances, the challenge for the journalists is to find a way around those roadblocks and do their jobs smartly. Recently, a well-known Indian journalist, while attending a conference in Dhaka, described how he found his way around roadblocks to expose anomalies surrounding the Indian government's highly controversial demonetisation policy.
He said he had approached three different departments, including the PMO and the finance ministry, seeking information under the RTI act about the model based on what the policy was designed. He was denied information each time. Interestingly, the reasons offered to reject his applications differed from one another. It became clear that the government was trying to cover up something.
Subsequently, he wrote a story on his failed attempts, which was widely circulated. People started to talk about the contradictions in the replies given by three departments in response to a single query, wondering what could possibly be so confidential about a financial policy that the government wouldn't divulge even the basic details of its formation. Those replies spoke for themselves.
So if there are barriers to seeking and unearthing truths, there are also ways to turn them to your advantage. That said, the threats of retribution, which the UK home office report has so elaborately talked about, are bound to have an impact on the work of the journalists and may even lead to self-censorship.
To be honest, right now, as I am writing this column, I am also self-censoring. Checking every word and phrase and insinuation before they slip through my fingers and cause embarrassment for my editor, even though he didn't tell me to, and the government, even though they didn't ask me to self-censor. I am doing this of my own volition. I am my own prisoner.
Self-censorship is like self-confinement—you confine yourself only when you feel vulnerable. It's not a product of its own. It's an effect, not a cause.
I think those see-no-evil, hear-no-evil public intellectuals who still believe the media is enjoying broad freedom in Bangladesh should try to explore the causes that are leading to self-censorship. A restrictive situation for the journalists, publishers and bloggers—and anyone who cares to speak—eventually plays out in favour of those who do not want them to "know/speak too much." They might as well start by asking about who those could be.
Badiuzzaman Bay is a member of the editorial team at The Daily Star.
Email: badiuzzaman.bd@gmail.com