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| Sunday, 24 February 2002 |
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Observations: Will the media continue the war ? by Lakshman Gunasekara 'Samdhi' is the word used by Kautilya for 'making peace' and implies entering into a treaty with specific conditions. According to the sage: "The four aspects of making peace are: wanting to make peace where none exists, respecting the provisions of a treaty already concluded, violating a treaty and, re-negotiating a broken treaty..." (Arthashaastra 7.6.16). Since yesterday ("D-Day" in the Agreement) the initial formal process of samdhi got under way with the coming-into-force of the Cease-fire Agreement between the Government and LTTE. Kautilya is clear in his priorities: "wanting to make peace", that is, the political will to peace, is essential. And once a treaty is concluded, "respecting the provisions of a treaty" then becomes the desired political behaviour. Kautilya's assessment of advantage and disadvantage is largely based on his conception of power (although he often does include moral arguments base on dharma). Hence, for him, "an equal treaty is one in which the stronger king gets a greater share, an equally powerful king an equal share, and a weaker king, a smaller share..." (Artha... 7.7). By this logic, "an unequal treaty is one in which a strong, equal or weak king does not get a share according to his power" (Artha... 7.7). Nevertheless, "when the benefit accruing to kings (read polities, states) under a treaty, irrespective of their status as the weaker, equal or stronger party, is fair to each one, peace by agreement shall be the preferred course of action; if the benefits are to be distributed unfairly, war is preferable..." (Artha... 7.8.34). Is the Cease-fire Agreement an 'equal' treaty? Are the benefits accruing fair to each side? Already the modern pundits must be debating. And the 'public' debate will be done in the mass media, by the mass media. A public discussion of the treaty, especially through the mass media, is fraught with the dangers inherent in a means of communication in which one side of the communication is always more powerful than the other. The reality of mass media is that what is put out by the media, immediately influences millions, whole societies, communities, groups, while the views and responses of the audience does not immediately have the same scale of ramifications. 'Mass media', unfortunately, does not imply a mass discussion (whatever those champions of the media industry might say about the media being a prop of democracy). Rather, 'mass media' implies, predicates, a largely one-sided influencing of whole sections of the people by a small segment comprising writers and speakers (in the press, on radio/TV), editors, producer/directors, and media proprietors (who make the policy that guides selection of writers/speakers). There are two ways, however, that the audience, directly - although not immediately - influences the media. This is the market factor and what I call the 'constituency' factor. And they are organically inter-connected as well. Media organisations are business enterprises. The market of the media comprises its audience. If the audience does not buy a newspaper or watch a TV channel or programme or listen to a radio channel, then the advertisers, who provide the principal revenue of media enterprises, will no longer invest in that newspaper or radio/TV channel or programme. However, loss of revenue, even overall loss, is not necessarily decisive. In Sri Lanka, there are many instances of business groups maintaining loss-making media enterprises by subsidy from other business incomes. The political interests of media proprietors (who are, of course, making ends meet through other ventures) may override their immediate economic concerns. They may wish to maintain a media organ (newspaper, radio, TV) in order to communicate certain views and information and thereby influence public opinion and the opinion of various actors in society such as the government, bureaucracy, business community, religious hierarchy etc. Even if they make economic losses, the media proprietors, therefore, cannot afford to completely lose their audiences. Hence, audience preferences do influence the media. The 'constituency' refers to the social group (ethnic, linguistic, religious, class, caste gender, or a mix of these) to which the media producers and proprietors belong. In Sri Lanka, in ethnic and socio-cultural terms, there is a 'constituency factor' clearly to be seen in operation, especially in the highly language restricted print media. The print media producers belong to their respective ethnic communities, which in turn are their audience. Hence, the explicit link between newspaper and ethno-linguistic community that has been noted by researchers (the very few who have even cursorily examined the nexus). The most succinct description is in the 'Media Monitor' report by the Centre for Policy Analysis which observed that the different language-based media audiences "lived in different worlds" (or something to that effect I can't recall the exact words). That is why researchers have noted that different language based media tended to cater to the social, cultural, political, and other interests of specific linguistic communities. Simply put, Tamil media, especially the press, represented Tamil community interests, and Sinhala media, Sinhala community interests, generally speaking. What the English language-based media 'represents' is something quite esoteric, in a sense, but the nature of its influence is not relevant to this discussion. Inevitably, we will find that the Sri Lankan media will begin to discuss the Cease-fire treaty largely in terms of what the various media organs perceive as the interests of their audiences. However, depending on the specific political and ideological interests of the media proprietors and the media producers (writers, director/producers, editors etc.), only particular aspects of the interests of an audience may be emphasised more than other aspects. It is possible to predict that Tamil language media, especially the Tamil media organs owned by Tamil business groups, will examine the Cease-fire agreement and report on and discuss the events and development following the Agreement in terms of the general Tamil audience perceptions but also with a specific emphasis according to the policy of the media proprietors and media producers. And it will be the same with the Sinhala media. In this light, it is likely that the Tamil media, the mainstream press in particular, will emphasise the immediate positive aspects of the cease-fire for the Tamil community. This because the Tamils have suffered much as a result of the hostilities both in their areas of traditional principal habitation (homeland?) as well as in other parts of the country (due to security restrictions etc.). However, at least some commentary in the Tamil media is likely to warn that a ceasefire alone may not ensure a lasting peace. More pro-LTTE elements may even argue that too long a cease-fire, without the conclusion of an overall political settlement, would be detrimental to the secessionist movement which could lose whatever military momentum it currently has. The Sinhala media is likely to be considerably divided with substantial sections of the Sinhala press, in particular, examining (nervously) both what they see as positive aspects as well as negative aspects of the Cease-fire Agreement. Some sections are likely to warn that a cease-fire will only weaken the Sri Lankan State's general military posture and capacity to deal with the LTTE's secessionist insurgency. Other sections of the Sinhala media are likely to extol the benefits of an immediate cease-fire and look ahead towards the prospects of substantive political negotiations. Which of these two perspective will dominate remains to be seen. In my view, if the Sinhala media is to truly respond to its audience interests, the second perspective should dominate. However, a substantial minority within the Sinhala audience, which is alarmed by the Eelamist insurgency and fears ethnic power-sharing, will prompt at least some sections of the Sinhala media to propound the first perspective. However, 'media audience' does not necessarily imply the whole of a particular linguistic community. Substantial sections of both the Sinhala and Tamil communities are too impoverished to be regular consumers of media content and, being in rural locations are largely out of reach of much of the mass media (except State radio). Since they are not part of the market and since neither media proprietors nor media producers come from the rural poor peasantry (generally speaking), there is no compulsion to represent the interests of considerable sections of the Sinhala population. Significantly, considerable numbers of the Sinhala community who are not regular media consumers nor influence media enterprises live in remote rural areas close to or in the war zone and, having suffered heavily, have a critical interest in the progress of the cease-fire. While the military hostilities have ended, it is to be hoped that the mass media does not carry on the war at an ideological level - at least not to the degree that military hostilities cannot be prevented from resuming. The very nature of a cease-fire implies considerable uncertainties about its success. On the one hand there are ground realities that cannot conform exactly with politico-legal provisions laid down in a treaty. That is why Kautilya, writing over two thousands years ago, had already acknowledged the need for political will and also moral obligation or, the power of dharma. The Cease-fire agreement has some provisions that are open to interpretation either way resulting in situations arising that could provoke tensions if not actual armed hostilities. Minister G. L. Peiris has already warned repeatedly that lapses could occur in any cease-fire but that this need not undermine the cease-fire itself. The first major violation last Thursday, ironically on the eve the signing of the Agreement, was to do with the most contentious aspect of the Cease-fire: the problem of the use of the sea by the LTTE for its (clandestine, no doubt) movement of troops and equipment and also for re-supply from overseas. Article 1, Section 1.3 of the Cease-fire Agreement recognises as "legitimate" the Sri Lankan forces' task of "safeguarding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka without engaging in offensive operations against the LTTE". It is unclear as to how the Sri Lankan forces should respond to an LTTE arms re-supply effort at sea or a troop and weapons deployment by boat along the coast. If at some point, there is a blatant violation of the integrity of Sri Lanka, such as the clandestine landing of weapons, would an attempt to interdict such an operation be regarded as an "offensive operation against the LTTE"? These are things that cannot be decided theoretically, and ahead of such possible incidents. That is why the Monitoring Mission has been set up and such incidents are likely to demand much of their attention. Even if the real land mines have been cleared (at least from some major roads) and hostilities suspended, the way of the Cease-fire is through a veritable minefield of suspicion, uncertainties and hostile perceptions. In our amoral, fashionably cynical world, would the fact that even Kautilya acknowledged the importance of trust be of any relevance? The sage points out that unlike a treaty based on hostages, "an agreement based on oath or on word of honour is stable in this world and the next..." |
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