Baloch politics and the social media
Author: Shaad Baloch
As it is a clear fact that the modern world has been globalized just due to advancement of the technologies. The field of technology has surely progressed in all its spectrums, there was a time people lived a life of exhaustion and complexity when abrupt communication was a mere dream, people very hardly got to know about the world affairs, events and incidents. The means of transportation and sending of messages via post offices and other means took the people a long time. This period of undeveloped age in sense of the human rights was considered the most disturbing because emergence of a revolution, bringing a modification, assembling the suppressed people on a single platform to struggle for their fundamental rights was one of the toughest and impossible tasks.
But World proceeded ahead, various wars, the imperialistic exploitation, the curse of capitalism, slavery, the new world order, the oppressive states and their harsh behaviour of inflicting the most painful anguishes on people but still declining to hear the grievances of the victims turned into a creation of a cognition to demand the privileged rights.
However, despite of negating the existence of oppression and subjugation, still it spins in the mind of many people why do some nations in the world are being ruled, exploited and deprived of the freedom of expression?
In this era of modern technology, where people should have openly expressed and were given a space of freedom are instead frightened of speaking about their rights. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and many more gulf states in terms of giving the citizens right to speak and practice the freedom of expression have failed to satisfy the accepted standards globally.
If we take example of Balochistan, which was forcefully annexed on 27 March 1948 by Pakistani state then we can see that though Baloch resisted but it has been subjugated and people are generally frightened to speak. If someone does, they almost certainly face enforced disappearance, psychological tactic of harassment of family, kill and dump and similar other oppressive treatments.
In order to be united and struggle against Pakistan’s oppressions Baloch has failed to work in an organized manner. The need of mass party has remained just a dream. Though Baloch National Front was formed but the question arises whether there was a possibility of sustaining it as a functional front or not?
But neither the parties nor the organizations, which were the components of it thought upon this. Unfortunately the front has now disintegrated as some of the parties left to work on their own. This extensively contributed in creating a sense of misconception and complicated the relations between pro freedom activists and neutral Baloch. At the time of BNF’s formation, Baloch struggle was considered moving towards unity but this did not last long.
Baloch faces the most barbaric response of Pakistan today, the houses of poor are being burnt, students are being picked up routinely, grave masses are being recovered, dead bodies are being thrown in barren areas, women from war-torn areas are being subjugated, abducted and sexually harassed, families of the political activists are being psychologically dealt with grave responses and human rights violation has almost crossed all its levels. But regrettably Baloch political diaspora has yet not agreed upon the terms of having a dialogue within and moving towards a single unit formation. However the culture of disintegration has always been the prime factor of creating misunderstandings, misconceptions and misperceptions regarding Baloch movement among the masses.
To mention and highlight the oppressive behaviours and the grim condition of nation, a strong unit is much needed, a strong mass party is the need of time and learning from the past experience is the most encouraging point to move ahead.
On this pretext, where Baloch requires a strong medium of conveying the news of brutalities has been still living with a curse of disintegration and division. Every party and organization who had chanted the slogan to struggle for a better future of Baloch has not shown much sincerity in merging all the pro independent groups. However political activism in social media is being utilized to counter one another rather than having a medium with a single voice that could convey the pains of victimized Baloch.
Baloch politics have the satisfaction that existence of struggle in such difficult in itself is enough, but in reality it is living in fool’s paradise. Does BSO-Azad today exists in the educational institutions of Balochistan? Whatever the conditions, but good politics is that which enables you to search out the alternatives and way out to prove your presence where your need to be. In my opinions BSO-Azad failed to remain among the common students to lead them in accordance with the environment and conditions.
When state mechanisms proscribed BSO-Azad it has remained limited to the activists who already had affiliations with the organisation. In very rare cases, students whose family had affiliation of some sort with BSO could only join BSO-A. The leadership of BSO-Azad and its responsible members from Zones and Units denied the facts and assisted narrowing the circles and platforms within, this resulted into a generation of refusing the presence of BSO in educational institutions to a great extent.
It is not wrong to say that BSO-Azad instead of highlighting the educational issues concentrated more on human rights violations, entrenched Baloch genocide, and cases of missing persons and social issues and burdens of masses, which preferably suit a political party. Such trends that today exist on social media prove my case.
Moreover, social media can be one of the best places for conveying the Baloch issue and highlighting the most disturbing agendas and plots of enemy. Every social media platform is being utilized exceedingly and aimlessly whether that is Twitter, Facebook, BBM, Telegram, Instagram, WhatsApp, IMO etc. Political groups should concentrate on building a single show up platform, conveying the awareness regarding Baloch’s political scenario and student’s anguishes,
All such mediums have uselessly consumed our energies and enthusiasm. The party and organizational activities in such a watchful time are being done on each such medium, which is an irreparable loss to the nation. Instead of this if we promote education amongst the activists we might pave way for new generation to an advancement and understanding but the leaders of pro independent parties first oblige the workers to use the social media, how and what are the questions yet not comprehended b anyone. Is this going to lead us towards understanding or further misconceptions?
None of the Baloch parties and organizations from the political spectrum has yet taken a step towards it. The political workers of any party are divided into groups, who use Twitter but follow and retweet the tweets only if someone belongs to the same party or organization, if a common and unknown worker tweets no matter how much that could be attractive and attractive gets no response but a leader’s and known person’s tweets get much responses and appreciations. This is how social media is being used. Take the examples of Hashtags campaign, which are being separately run, each party has its own and interestingly the pro freedom activists still request and hope, the world will respond towards them.
My suggestion to them is to look at Arab Spring, it was an immediate cause started with one man named Mohammed Bouazizi who was a young merchant in Tunisia. He was told by police that he was not allowed to sell his merchandise without paying a bribe that he could not afford. After the governor declined to hear his grievance, he lit himself on fire in protest. People abruptly began to lash out against their corrupt and oppressive governments that had made living in countries like Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria almost impossible. This movement was initiated by the youth, they did this by utilizing social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in order to organize themselves so that everyone was on the same page, working together towards a common gaol. They were able to spread their message not only amongst themselves but to people all over the world which helped them gain support for their mission.
Where Baloch stand today, do the political activists, more especially the parties and organizations of Baloch want to be on a same page? No signs yet appear because we have narrowed our gaps and no party intends to step ahead. If Baloch remain confined to same social media tactics then neither the world will pay heed nor the human rights organisations will listen to them. Every party and organization should look at their policies and redesign them for the collective good as soon as possible.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Balochistan Post or any of its editors.