Is Media spreading hopelessness?

Media can play havoc with the mind of a naïve user! The curious case of Syed Hassan Rizvi’s suicide strengthens this assumption more than any other thing! YouTube page of this young man of 24, who committed suicide together with his nephew and sister-in-law two days ago in Gujranwala, reveals his obsession with death and horrible impact of media on his credulous mind. On the night before the fateful day he uploaded his confession in a 12 minute self recorded video titled “Gunahon se nijat” (salvation from sins). He counts disrespectful way of addressing Allah’s name and cruel treatment towards animals and birds as the major sins that are pushing him and his family towards this extreme step! He reverently recalls his brother who showed him this ‘enlightened’ path of salvation. His brother was found dead a month ago in mysterious circumstances. Probably he had also committed suicide to get rid of his sins!

  

Two weeks before committing this weird salvation ritual Hassan Rizvi uploaded a clip from Shoaib Mansoor’s famous film ‘Bol’ in which a hysterical Zainab (Humaima Malik) asks some harsh questions before being hanged. “I sought revenge from my father for giving birth to me. My father didn't produce eight children rather he killed eight children. I want to leave a question behind me and I want all of you to ask this question to this society. The question is why is it only a crime to kill and not to give birth? Think about it. Why isn't it a crime to give birth? Ask, why it is only a crime to give birth to an illegitimate child? Why isn't it a crime to produce legitimate children and ruin their lives?  Make people understand they should not produce more beggars. There are already a lot of crying faces and aging lives. Why do you give birth to them when you can't feed them?” A frantic protagonist of the film Zainab asks in a chilling voice!

The choice of this particular movie clip shows that Hassan might have been on path of suicidal thoughts since long and the movies like ‘Bol’ not only geared his pessimism towards life but also gave him enough justification for committing this horrible act. This impression intensifies when the theme of Bol echoes in his confession although it is shrouded in his own misplaced logic. “We should not produce children because by producing children we are committing more sins! Man is pushed towards doing many wrong things in order to feed his children. Our child is the beginning of such sins the limits of which we can not fathom. Parents who ‘force’ a child to come into this world are responsible for not only every pain that the kid suffers from but also for the sins of the child and his coming generations too” says a visibly bewildered Hassan.  The reasoning may look absurd but it is no more absurd than Bol’s much trumpeted ‘bold message’!

Certainly, a vicious media propaganda can not be the sole reason behind suicide of a whole family as media’s imprint on minds of viewers has its own limitations. Financial hardships, half-baked religiosity, sense of self-righteousness, narrow vision of the outside world and a genetic tendency towards suicide might have been some of the key factors pushing the unfortunate boy towards an unceremonious ending. But the role of media providing impetus to the vulnerable minds to do unthinkable acts can not be ignored at all. Through his avant-garde idea Shoaib Mansoor tried to shake the conventional mindsets of ‘ignorant’ Pakistanis in his film but he miserably failed to realize that some of his viewers like Hassan would entirely misinterpret his message and this film would intensify their sense of helplessness and hopelessness in a frenzied society lurking at the brink of chaos!

Last year America went into deep shock when a young man James Holmes, 24, killed more than dozen and injured many in a Colorado theater shooting at the screening of new batman film ‘The Dark Knight Rises”. The deranged suspect was wearing a head to toe gear resembling villain of the film and had his hair dyed in red. He called him ‘Joker’ of the film at the time of his arrest outside the theater! It would be entirely unwise to blame Warner Brothers for making such a violent film that motivated a mentally ill person to copycat the villain of the film in such a horrific way but the role of the media in such unfortunate incidents can not be denied entirely. In most of the cases messages emanating from media productions are so poorly encoded that they are misperceived or misinterpreted by deranged people like Hassan and James! Shoaib Hasmi might have wished to stir stagnant thinking of a conventional Pakistani society through Bol (Speak up) but what Hassan has spoken is very disturbing and horrible! Warner Brothers might have tried to give the message of fighting against evil in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ but what James had learned from the film is very deplorable!

It is a big question whether our media is spreading despair and desolation in our society by painting everything in bleak colors or not but it is obvious that with the increasing access of media to more and more people owing to revolution in technology, ratio of general happiness amongst our people is declining rapidly. It seems that our society is in grip of a never ending gloom. Clouds of hopelessness are becoming darker with every passing day and our media is continuously watering the desperation in society in order to enjoy a better rating! Life surely is a beautiful amalgamation of white and black, roses and thorns, evils and angels but our media is relentlessly painting our world as a cauldron of evil. We have already started reaping the bitter fruits of this mindless media onslaught! Aren’t increasing rates of suicides, rapes and murders enough reminders for us to speak up against the reckless media? Bol lures us to speak up against our centuries old religio-cultural traditions that have saved us from falling into despair! We certainly should speak up but not against producing children rather against those who are spreading hopelessness in society, shouldn’t we?