Truth making itself felt

Public memory is said to be short and the politicians' even shorter, blemished too by a bias to top it up. But a journalist has to have an elephantine memory by the very nature of his or her functioning in a time continuum. And this may work both to the advantage and disadvantage of a journalist. He reports or comments on progression or digression of events from the past through to the present into the future.

The Editor of a newspaper more than anybody else in the profession is in an unenviable position to be making editorial judgments on critical issues of the day. If from his long memory something should prick his conscience over an act of misjudgment and he wants to salve himself of it then it is only natural for him to be admitting it. 

And, there is no shelf life to making such an admission on moral grounds that it is, with the good of the profession in mind. In Mahfuz Anam's case, its far-reaching value lies in setting the record straight with himself, then with the profession of journalism and finally, with a dark phase of our political history. 

But in judging a slippage of the past you do need a distance in time to be objectively putting it in perspective. The reason why I say this is because in Bangladesh, farcical, even devious processes, have led to regaining our foothold back on rails at important tipping points of our political history. The cases in point are the mockery of the February 15 1996 election that gave birth to a caretaker government to oversee a properly held election; and the prolonged, often gone-beyond-the-writ 2007-08 military-backed caretaker, that delivered a good election in the end. 

Now about the blameworthy editorial pitfall in publishing news reports dictated to and supplied by Taskforce Interrogation Cell in 2007, we have to recreate the situation to gauge the compulsions against independently verifying the interrogated versions of the stories. In an emergency the fetters on the press are a strangling reality journalists find difficult to cope with. When most newspapers and media houses carried the items, how some journalists could be taking a holier-than-thou-attitude, beggars belief. 

The opaque legacy of journalism during 1/11 emergency replicates itself in some form or the other even to this day when we get to see interrogation-based reports failing to ascertain the veracity of what was being published. 

At any rate, these highlight the lessons drawn from the unexpected controversy over Mahfuz Anam's straightforward observations at the TV interview. After being relentlessly pilloried for two weeks, the wheels of sanity are moving in favour of Mahfuz Anam since yesterday. 

Creditably, in a test case situation, the line between the government and the Awami League as a ruling party has been maintained and not allowed to be blurred. This is something to be lauded as well as sustained till the matter is closed. 

The Prime Minister herself has not spoken a word about the whipped up controversy maintaining a dignified silence over it. Seminally, reflecting government attitude, Information Minister Hasanul Haque Inu was the first to laud The Daily Star editor's courage of conviction in admitting a mistake. And when the situation became tense with the reported issuance of warrant of arrest from a Narayanganj court the Law Minister Anisul Huq acted promptly and 'took full responsibility' asserting that it was summons and not a warrant of arrest to follow. He has basically reiterated a 2011 amendment provision whereby summons replaced the arrest procedure in defense of dignity and freedom of the press.

Also we happily hear the conscionable voice of Dr. Shafiq Siddique, a professor of Dhaka University and husband of Bangabandhu's daughter Sheikh Rehana, describing the lawsuit spree against Mahfuz Anam as being "too much". Enough is enough, it must be called to a halt and rolled back full cycle.

Indeed, the figure has topped 73 sounding absurd vis-à-vis the total number of districts at 64, so aggressive was the politicalisation of the issue. The beehive mentality of surpassing each other in ingratiating themselves with the higher ups, if not checked, may hold the system to ransom. 

The fantastic demand for compensation money drives the episode into an abomination of dire proportions. 

Finally, we endorse the Editors' Council demand for withdrawal of all cases against Mahfuz Anam. When the country is firmly set on a growth trajectory we would do well to put our best face forward, one feature of which is independent journalism.

The writer is Associate Editor, The Daily Star.