Caricaturing the

Military in PakistanSaadia Gardezi (saadia.gardezi@seh.ox.ac.uk)

• How certain texts and images are securitised i.e. how they

constitute the idea of “threat” to the state

The “Dawn Leaks”

• The “Dawn Leaks” story published on October 6, 2016,

reported a confidential meeting between senior civil and

military leadership and exposed the discord the

government had argued not to exist (Najam 2016;

Pakistan Today 2017). It drew out the military into open

confrontation with the government- the first clear

example of the military competing with the elected

government since 2008.

• Dawn was accused of showing the army in a bad light as

the story suggested that the military was reluctant to go

after terrorists within Pakistan (Ansari 2017). The issue

became one of national security, and the military

demanded an inquiry into which government official was

the source/leak (Geo News 2017).

• Public opinion and media backed the military, rather than

questioning its counter-terrorism effort (Ansari 2017).

• On April 29, 2017 the Inter-Services Public Relations

(ISPR) spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor, in a

tweet challenging the governments’ writ, rejected the

recommendation of the government to remove certain

diplomats from their positions after the inquiry.

• After rumours of a potential coup the tweet was withdrawn by the ISPR

• Speculation that this was due to internal negotiation with the government as well as public pressure to reconcile (Dawn 2017b).

Time frame of analysis

• The saga ended here, with no more editorials or cartoons

addressing the issue after 15 May 2017.

• Cartoons collected from October 6, 2016, to 15 May

2017.

Why study this case?

• This time frame provides a timeline where the start and

end of a story can be neatly tracked.

• The crisis is recent and can help draw conclusions about

contemporary Pakistan.

• The crisis pertains to important military actions that are

unprecedented in Pakistan’s history and deserve academic

engagement.

• Cartoons as texts on identity and ideology that make an

instant impact

Dawn and The Nation

• Political cartoons have been chosen from in Dawn where

the original story was published. This is an important

paper as it has the largest circulation (in English language

papers) in Pakistan and is known to be liberal and

progressive.

• The Nation has been used as a comparison as it has the

second highest circulation in Pakistan (Shah 2010; Shabir

& Hussain 2014). It provides an ideological comparison

to Dawn, being known to be centrist and centre-right

(Tabassum et al. 2013).

Data collection

• 520 cartoons published.

• 317 of these were cartoons from The Nation that publishes two

cartoons daily, and 203 from Dawn.

• The Nation had a visual response to the initial story where the

military was depicted positively, while Dawn did not have an

immediate response. Both had cartoons about the April 29

ISPR tweet and its withdrawal within the time frame of

analysis.

• Editorials in the respective papers were also gathered for

intertextual analysis. There were 2 editorials in The Nation

about the leaks, and 1 in Dawn. There were 3 editorials

relating to the military’s tweet in The Nation and 2 in Dawn.

Methods:

Visual semiotics and Visual securitisation

• Pierce’s classic triadic model (Thellefsen et al. 2014) to code the military’s portrayal in cartoons.

• This includes the Representamen, or the form that the sign takes (not necessarily material), i.e. the cartoon’s content. The Interpretant, or the sense made of the sign, i.e. how does it treat the object represented.

• I interpreted the signs in the cartoon as negative/positive depictions of the military, based on an intertextual reading of the cartoons. Since the cartoon/text can generate different meanings for different audiences, it cannot be analysed in isolation, but in relation to other texts (Hansen 2011).

• The third part of the sign system is the object to which the sign refers. These are classified as military, economy, current government etc.

• The 520 cartoons were coded according to the object/player they mainly depicted

Classification

of 520

cartoons

Coding of cartoons depicting

the military with a comparison

Objects

Interpretant TheNation

Dawn

TOTAL

TOTALbyobject

Military-DawnLeaks

Positive 2 0 2

12Negative 0 1 1Neutral 8 1 9

Military-Other Positive 1 0 1

15Negative 1 2 3

Neutral 6 6 12TOTALMilitary 18 10 28 FormerPMNawazSharifandrulinggovernment

Positive 2 1 3

60Negative 36 18 54Neutral 1 2 3

TOTALGovernment 39 21 60

• Securitisation theory examines “whether something can

be successfully constructed as a threat” (Buzan 2006:

1102). In the cartoons analysed there was a clear

acknowledgement that the Dawn Leaks story was a threat

to national security.

• For example, a political cartoon published in The Nation

on November 15, 2016…

• Hansen looks at four ideal-typical forms of visual depictions of threat (Hansen 2011: 59).

1. The first strategy of depiction is closest to traditional security discourse, of depicting the other as barbaric/evil.

2. Of belittling the other as weak or backward, someone to be laughed at, not feared (Coupe 1969: 91).

3. Familiarisation, where “a securitisation is made in reference to something that is held to be divine, sacred or superior” (Hansen 2011: 59).

4. A strategy to depict suffering from threat of starvation, poverty, etc.

The 12 cartoons on the Dawn Leaks were categorised according to this framework.

1. Who got

demonised?

2. Who was belittled?

3. Present but invisible

4. Who’s the victim?

• A low level of the military being depicted. There are only two references to the military being seen as weak (with a negative portrayal). When the military is demonised or shown as weak it shares the space with the government and is not wholly blamed.

• The military is a victim- see cartoon on popular former Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif being stabbed in the back.

• The military is not depicted, suggesting the military is not weak, but godlike.

Generally, there is a lack of explicit portrayal of the military. Only 3 out of the 12 cartoons show it physically present.

Intertextuality

• The original story from Dawn was titled, ‘Exclusive: Act

against militants or face international isolation, civilians

tell military’, but was consistently referred to as the

“Dawn Leaks” in mainstream media

• The same term was used in 5 out of 12 cartoons, while 3

used the term “breach”. The term “leaks” is a secuirtised

term, as every time there has been a “leak”, it has

required the state launch an official inquiry. The implicit

suggestion is that the leak is a threat to the state of

Pakistan.

• The editorials at the time of the original leak view the military negatively with The Nation showing solidarity with Dawn in an editorial titled ‘How to lose friends and alienate people’ (The Nation 2016).

• There were three other editorials that can be classified as being negative towards the military (2016a; 2017; 2017a). One other editorial was neutral (The Nation 2017b).

• The Nation uses strong language in ‘Rejected’: “There is absolutely no justification — none — for such public defiance by a spokesperson of the Pakistan Army” (The Nation 2017). In comparison, its cartoons do not display the same resolve in reprimanding the military.

• Dawn in its 3 editorials viewed the military negatively but its words seem cautious (2017; 2017a; 2017b) and there are no explicit references to the military in its editorial about the public reaction to the Leaks story: “Decades of a militarised security environment have undermined the importance of holding the state to account.” (Dawn 2017).

Conclusion

• The findings suggest that firstly, the military is seldom depicted in political cartoons in Pakistan, even when there is a clear culture of depicting other authority figures. Secondly, when the military is depicted its depiction is predominantly positive, and in the case of the Dawn Leaks scandal, it was shown as a victim, while the sitting government of the time is show as the wrongdoer.

• The methods of visual semiotics attached to the theory of visual secuirtisation can help us understand meaning in text, even when these texts are silent on certain issues. However, because of its flexibility, it can lead to subjective interpretations.

Future research

• Why do cartoonists not critique the military as often as

other authority figures? Is it because the cartoonist is self-

censoring, following his personal ideology, or following

editorial policy? Is the military directly or indirectly

influencing editorial policy? Why is the media is scared

of or in love with the military?

References cited

• Almeida, C. (2016) ‘Exclusive: Act against militants or face international isolation, civilians tell military’, Dawn, October 6.

• Ansari, R. (2017) ‘Dawn Leaks: We Do Not Need To Know Everything’, Geo news, May 13. https://www.geo.tv/latest/141648-Dawn-Leaks-We-Do-Not-Need-To-Know-Everything

• Buzan, B. (2006) ‘Will the “Global War on Terrorism” Be the New Cold War?’, International Affairs 82(6), pp. 1101–1118.

• Coupe, W.A. (1969) ‘Observations on a theory of political caricature’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 11, No 1, pp. 79–95.

• Dawn (2016) ‘Reaction to the Dawn story’, October 12. https://www.dawn.com/news/1289527/reaction-to-dawn-story, accessed 18 November, 2017.

• ____ (2017) ‘Civil-Military tensions’, May 1. https://www.dawn.com/news/1330290/civil-military-tensions, accessed 18 November, 2017.

• ____ (2017a) ‘A rift ends’, May 12. https://www.dawn.com/news/1332545/a-rift-ends, accessed 18 November, 2017.

• ____ (2017b) ‘Army withdraws tweet 'rejecting' PM Office's directives on Dawn story probe’, May 10, https://www.dawn.com/news/1332244, accessed 18 November, 2017.

• Geo News (2017) ‘Dawn Leaks: Publishing of story govt’s failure, says inquiry report’, April 25. Geo.Tv. https://www.geo.tv/latest/139387-Dawn-Leaks-Inquiry-report-blames-Fatemi-Tehseen-no-evidence-against-Rashid

• Hansen, L. (2008) ‘Images, identity and security. Bringing together international politics and media research’, Nordicom Review, 29(2), pp. 53-56.

• ____ (2011) ‘Theorizing the image for Security Studies: Visual securitization and the Muhammad Cartoon Crisis’, European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 17(1), pp. 51–74.

• Najam, D. (2016) ‘Civil-military relations: Getting over the one-page syndrome’, The Nation, (OpEd) May 8. http://nation.com.pk/08-May-2016/civil-military-relations-overcoming-the-one-page-syndrome

• Shabir, G., & Hussain, S. (2014) ‘Portrayal of Punjab Emergency Service (Rescue 1122) in Leading English Media of Pakistan: A Content Analysis of the Coverage in Daily Dawn & Daily The News International’, Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences (PJSS), 34(1).

• Shah, H. (2010) ‘The Inside Pages: An Analysis of the Pakistani Press’, Center for Strategic and International Studies. Washington.

• Tabassum, M., Shah, S. K., & Bilal, M. (2013) ‘A critical discourse analysis of the left and right wing ideologies in Pakistani English newspaper editorials’, Journal of Education and Practice, 4(13), pp. 72-78.

• The Nation (2016) ‘How to lose friends and alienate people’, October 12. http://nation.com.pk/12-Oct-2016/how-to-lose-friends-and-alienate-people, accessed 18 November, 2017.

• ____ (2016a) ‘Verbal gymnastics, October 15. http://nation.com.pk/15-Oct-2016/verbal-gymnastics, accessed 18 November, 2017.

• ____ (2017) ‘Rejected’, April 30. http://nation.com.pk/30-Apr-2017/rejected, accessed 18 November, 2017.

• ____ (2017a) ‘Pistol Whipped’, May 7. http://nation.com.pk/07-May-2017/pistol-whipped, accessed 18 November, 2017.

• ____ (2017b) ‘Rejection withdrawn’, May 11. http://nation.com.pk/11-May-2017/rejection-withdrawn, accessed 18 November, 2017.

• Thellefsen, T., Sørensen, B., & De Waal, C. (2014) ‘Charles Sanders Peirce in his own words: 100 years of semiotics, communication and cognition,’ Semiotics, communication and cognition, Boston.