Quaking

Editorial | From Issue #545 (March 18-24, 2011)

Of late, global events have resonated strongly in Nepal. The uprisings in the Middle East reminded some of our recent past; the earthquake in Japan would have reminded others of a possible future. Both kinds of upheavals, human and natural, also had a more direct bearing on members of the Nepali diaspora who live and work in these places, and their worried families.

There are plenty of Nepalis still stranded in Libya and Japan, but our government has done little to assuage their anxiety. Granted, Japan's Nepalis may still be better off where they are. But hundreds live in fear of their lives in Libya. Despite a cabinet decision to repatriate them at the earliest, Libya's Nepalis are largely dependent on the goodwill of other states to get home before they are caught in the crossfire.

Instead, the government appears to be focused on implementing measures that attract a lot of attention but mostly inconvenience the public that does live here. The decisions to outlaw digitally printed number plates and banknotes with likenesses of the Shah kings were both necessary, perhaps, but the hasty implementation betrayed the fact that this state is an adhocracy. The tragedy is that even when the correct decisions are taken, their implementation is bungled. Allowing both digital plates and kingly notes to be printed upto this point, then suddenly demanding they be withdrawn from circulation immediately only invites more problems. How will the majority of Nepalis, who can't just hop down to the neighbourhood bank to exchange what has been deemed illegal tender, conduct transactions in the meantime? The decision to revoke the withdrawal only confirms the muddled thinking of those expected to have the clearest vision for Nepal.

If the state does not take adequate measures to ensure its citizens are made aware in good time of changes that directly affect them – through the media – then the media must take the lead the best it can. Alas, the media itself, obsessed as it is with the twists and turns of Nepali politics, only rouses itself to indulge in sensationalism that sells. Reduced to covering Khagendra Thapa Magar's public appearances, the media hit the jackpot in its coverage of the events in Japan. And in this respect, it followed the lead of media outlets across the world.

Earthquakes are big. There's something fundamental about the earth shaking that grabs the attention of all, even when it happens regularly. Tsunamis are bigger. Complete with terrifying visuals of giant waves rushing through coastal cities, they remind us that this earth we live on is an island. But nuclear disasters are the biggest fish of all: going all the way back to the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they constitute the apogee of human technology gone wrong.

So you'd expect a lot of coverage when Japan was hit by all three. The problem lies in how the media covered the disaster. We don't yet know what the ultimate consequences of the nuclear accident at Fukushima will be. What we do know is that thousands of Japanese people have perished in the earthquake that triggered these events. Where is the concern for these victims when media outlets are busy fuelling panic about radiation clouds? Unless they are grounded in reliable sources, sensational coverage does not help; it stoops to the level of those who send out text messages warning people thousands of miles away from Japan to stay indoors. A word to the wise: don't believe everything you read.